fluid retention

I had hyst 12/12/01. Started Climara .05mg at the end of Jan. of this year. I seemed to be doing alright however at the end of April I started having swelling in my toes, feet, anckles and fingers. My pcp placed me on a diuretic and also did thyroid blood work which seemed OK. He thought my estrogen levels may be too high since fluied retention was one of the side effects indicated. I called my gyn and the nurse said I for me to tell them what I want to be on. Well, I'm not a professional but I feel so frustrated. How should I know what I want to be on. Should I ask for hormone blood work. I do like the bio identical estrogen concept and the patch delivery but I wonder if we need to play with my dose to see if that helps with the swelling. Has anyone else had problems with fluid retention. ( I had to buy new shoes because my feet wouldn't fit into my old ones!)

I have suffered from swollen feet and legs since my first son was born in '81. Heat makes it worse and of course the end of the day. I thought the swelling would be better since my op as I do so much walking and resting with my feet, lots less standing like I do at work. However, my feet are still swelling, so i wonder if my ovaries are doing weird things or shut down.

I think you're doing the right things and definitely don't give up, I know that even small doses of wrong thing at wrong time can have big influence on bp, and blood chemistry. Hoping you soon find a solution, best wishes, Linda

Peggylynn: I am not a dr. BUT I was on Climara 0.025mg which is the lowest you can get on that I think and I BLEW up like a balloon. I gained like 10 lbs. of water overnight. I started on Progest (natural progesterone cream) and went TOTALLY off any estogen it'll be 4 weeks ago this Monday and I feel SO Much better. I just put a dab on in the am/pm of the Progest Cream. I am no longer starving all the time and bloated. Just thought I'd tell you what seems to be working for me right now. PS My dr. wouldn't take my hormone levels either so I went to my regular GP and guess what my estrogen was REALLY high. That's when I stopped it...They say fat cells make plenty for women .

i added progesterone cream to my estrogen and it did the trick for me as far as swelling goes...you should probably look into it, i think it's great!