bio-identical hormones

I was wondering if anyone has gone from using HRT to BIH. After reading about BIH it seems like they are much better but would like to hear from anyone that has made the switch.

Caseymae,
What are you currently using for hrt? How are you feeling on your current hrt? If you're doing well, we have a saying here in the jungle, "if it isn't broke,don't fix it." Hormones are not one size fits all so just because I do well on one thing, doesn't mean that it will have the same effect for you.

That said, I've always used bio identicals, but didn't do very well on my first choice, which was the Climara patch. As it turns out I needed more than just the estradiol. I made several other changes until I finally found the right mix for me. So, even though I was using bio identicals, I still had to make changes and tweak and adjust the doseage.

HI there
First let me say that I had no idea that the Climara patch was bio-identical !
I don't even know if we have it here in Canada.
SEcond - I had to go to a naturopath to get anything like that - I was trying a natural progesterone cream even before my surgery, to try and get rid of hot flashes. The naturopath MD did hormone testing and I already knew that I was estrogen dominant, and any more of it just gave me migraines.
I'm not really sure if the cream helped or not - stopped using it just before the surgery as I wanted things to try and sort themselves out, and it seems that they have pretty much - hot flashes are now just tiny warm moments!
There's a really good book by Dr. Nisha Jackson called "The Hormone Survival Guide for Perimenopause". I had read a lot of them and its the best!

To be honest, I am just as miserable on the bioidenticals now as I was on the synthetics. I started out with Estratest HS right out of surgery. It seemed to help for the first four weeks, and then I was hit hard with surgical menopause. I believe this is when my natural store of estrogen leftover was depleted. I had constant hotflashes, crying jags and irritability, body aches, headaches, nightsweats, fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, etc...So after a total of 7 weeks on Estratest HS my doctor increased the dose to FS. Although I had more energy on the higher dose, I still had all the other symptoms and the headaches became unbearable. Another month of this and I convinced my doctor to let me try the Climara patch, which was at least bioidentical estradiol. He started me on the highest dose, and within 4 days I was so sick I could not get out of bed. I had horrible chest pain, severe headaches, abdominal cramps that doubled me over, extreme irritability, hot flashes, etc...So I called the doctors office. He didn't think the Climara was the culprit, but I knew it was and ripped the patch off. Within hours I felt better. For several weeks I went without hrt altogether, and I got to where I couldn't stand to be in my own skin.
Then I found a naturopathic doctor who said I needed to be on compounded bioidentical estrogen and progesterone. She started me on Triest sublingual drops (which contained 80% estriol, 10% estradiol, and 10% estrone) and progesterone troches (none were covered by my insurance and I had to pay for everything out of pocket...very expensive!). My moods improved considerably and the headaches finally subsided, but the hot flashes, sweats, insomnia, fatigue, body aches, etc. remained, even when I slowly increased the dose up over a period of months. The progesterone made me so nauseated I could not stand it any longer. We switched to cream and tried a lower dose, still no difference, so I went off that and stayed with the Triest for five months. At one point the hotflashes were getting so bad that we tried increasing the amount of estradiol in the Triest and lowering the ratio of estriol, and again I was sick with the abdominal cramps, headaches, irritability, etc..I stuck it out for over two weeks and continuously felt worse to where I couldn't stand upright, so back to the original ratio. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and suddenly the Triest I had been on for five months wasn't working anymore to even help my moods. I increased my dose and still no change over the past few weeks at all. Since then I have been extremely anxious, feels like bugs crawling under my skin, can't catch my breath, terrible insomnia, continuous hotflashes and sweating, depression and irritability, body aches, etc...Last week my psychiatrist put me on a very low dose of Elavil (I have trouble tolerating pills since my surgery and still dealing with the continuous nausea to an extent, but not as bad as with the progesterone) due to my worsening depression, and it has made no difference except to turn me into a zombie and increase the nausea. I did have some blood work done to decipher what my hormones are doing and to check my thyroid (I am on Levothyroxine for Hypothyroidism which I have had since 1989) and will find out the results tommorow with my gynecologist (different one now than the one that did the surgery). I just don't know what to do at this point. I keep feeling worse and worse, and can't even get the estrogen balanced so that I can start adding testosterone and other hormones. I can't seem to tolerate much estradiol at all for some reason, but obviously the larger amount of estriol in the Triest isn't helping either.

Sorry for rambling on so long. I think it is great that we have the option of bioidentical hormones now, and that more and more doctors are understanding the importance of progesterone even without a uterus. But I don't think bioidenticals are necessarily the answer for all of us. No matter how "natural" to our bodies they are, they still can't replace what our ovaries gave us and can't automatically adjust for us as we go through life changes. For some of us, it is a long road of trial and error to find the right combination of hormones that work for us to relieve symptoms, and that is the primary goal now in surgical menopause, as well as protecting our bones, etc... And there are so many other factors that add to the complicated matter of getting some balance, such as thyroid problems (your thyroid works closely with your other hormones and when out of whack can throw everything else out of balance also), stress levels, other vitamins and supplements, other health issues, etc... Some women are fortunately enough to find something that works for them right away, bioidentical or synthetic, but I am not one of them. When I first started the compounded bioidenticals 7 months ago, I really thought this was going to be the answer, only to be disappointed again. I don't know how safe any of these hormones are in the long run to be taking, but for now I would just love to feel human again and function above a suboptimal level. If it means keeping an open mind and trying the synthetics again, I may just go down that road. It is just a matter of starting somewhere, giving a particular hrt a chance to work (at least a month or more depending on how far post op you are), and then moving on to something else if you have tried every conceivable strategy with a particular hrt and still no progress. I wish there was a magic potion out there to straighten out my body, but so far I haven't found it!
I wish you the best in whatever path you decide to follow. Sorry I don't have any success story to share (yet) but then again we are all unique and what works for one may not work for another. Good luck!