While they will experience the same issues to do with choosing hrt as those in full surgical menopause, the need to keep their uterus healthy must also be taken into account and this will change their ultimate hrt options.
The crux of the issue is that exposing a uterus to estrogen stimulates the growth of the uterine lining or endometrium. In our fertile years, this stimulation is necessary to prepare the uterus to support a fertilized egg. When no pregnancy occurs, our hormone balance naturally cycles to cause our unused uterine lining to be shed in the form of menstrual flow, resulting in a period.
But when we no longer have ovaries to manage this cycling, uterine health becomes an issue. If we fail to shed that lining, it can build and build and over time, this unshed lining may turn to uterine cancer. Yeah, that's bad. It's so bad that it's a fundamental rule of hrt use that anyone with a uterus must include provisions in their hrt to prevent this from happening.
Like what? There are two basic strategies: we can artificially create a hormone cycle with our dosage pattern, thus causing the lining to shed regularly in a period OR we can balance our hormones in such a fashion as to suppress that lining buildup in the first place, eliminating periods. Let's look at both of these a little more closely.
Hormone cycling
This kind of cycling does carry a cost, however. If you suffered through PMS or your monthly cycle of ups and downs with mood swings and bloating, maybe going on doing that doesn't sound all that appealing. Maybe you would be just as happy to make fewer trips down the feminine products aisle at the store and wear more white underwear without fear. Maybe you'd like to balance uterine protection with a little more comfort and freedom from that cycling.
There is nothing magical about monthly cycles once our ovaries aren't controlling things. Research in recent years has found that we really only need to cycle a few times a year to preserve uterine health, either using oral contraceptives (while we are in our fertile years) or hrt (when we are post-fertile for whatever reason). A conservative schedule for this long-period cycling would be quarterly, although some individuals find that they can successfully go even longer without undue risk. So long as they are not having break-through bleeding (which indicates that their lining is building up beyond normal levels), they only take a progestogen every three or four months to produce a period. This requires keeping track of this schedule so we doesn't go too long without completing that cycle and it requires that we use separate estrogen and progestogen hrts—neither of which are necessarily difficult to achieve. There will still be the same ups and downs of cycling and anyone using this approach will still have periods, but they'll happen less often.
Is this strategy appropriate for all of us? Not necessarily. Those of us with endometriosis, for example, may find that this is still too much estrogen stimulation. Those with cancer risks or metabolic disease or risk factors for blood clots may not be best served by this sort of a dosing scheme. Maybe you don't consider having periods or hormonal cycling an important part of your identity at all. This is one situation in which each individual needs to sit down with their doctor and consider carefully all of the factors that are involved in their use of hrt.
Continuous combined HRT
But there's a cost, and that cost might not suit every one of us. In order to accomplish this, we must deliberately induce a hormone imbalance. We have to take more of that progestogen than we really have a need for otherwise to balance our hormones. Or, to put it another way, we need to have a deliberately progesterone-heavy balance.
For some, that's not a problem: they're perfectly comfortable with a standard dose of any of the retail progestogens made for this purpose.
Others, however, find this balance subjects them to an uncomfortable excess of progesterone effects. For them, then, the challenge is minimizing those effects while still providing the protection that their uterus needs.
And, finally, some are increasingly concerned about the risks of progestogen use that have been revealed in the past couple of decades of hormone research.
Luckily, there is more than one way to approach this problem. If we are going to use a progestogen in a continuous, imbalanced manner, it's worth trying different progestogens to see if one is less unpleasant in this regard than another. Amongst the progestins, each one is very different in structure and characteristics, and will act differently in the body. So if this is your choice, it may be worth auditioning a variety of them. Route may also make a difference, so even if your choice is progesterone itself, taking it via a different delivery route may also help you manipulate its effects.
But another way of dealing with this—and especially with the risks—is to maximize the impact of your progestogen on your uterus while minimizing it elsewhere. This is done by using a more local delivery, either via the vagina or the uterus itself. This way, the highest levels are experienced in the pelvic organs, where they're most needed, and less of that dose makes its way to systemic circulation, where it's not needed. In fact, one source suggests that this can represent a pretty significant difference:
Furthermore, vaginal administration of micronized progesterone has been shown to enhance progesterone delivery to the uterus by about 10-fold in comparison to im injection, despite the markedly higher (about 7-fold) circulating drug concentration achieved with im injection.Further, this technique is specifically cited by the International Menopause Society in their 2011 position statement as having particular merit.
Sound interesting? There are actually several different hrts that provide for local delivery. Prochieve is a progesterone gel specifically designed for vaginal use, but some individuals have reported successfully inserting a Prometrium gelcap vaginally and allowing it to be absorbed that way (typically, overnight). Vaginal suppositories such as Endometrin are also available, as are versions that can be custom-made by compounding pharmacists. And Mirena is a progestin-releasing IUD that works directly in the uterus and so can get by with an especially low level of dosing.
We also have come across some interesting information that indicates that at least some progestins may be capable of transdermal delivery--something we probably could have put together before given that contraceptive and combined-hormone hrt patches aren't exactly new. That raises the question of whether certain of the progestin hrts meant for oral delivery could be used vaginally (at a suitably lower dose). We don't know the answer but it seems to be something that might be worth looking into if using a local progestin by other than IUD would be your preference. More on that in this news discussion.
Will I have to do this the rest of my life?
Our hormone needs diminish with age. For that reason, it's a good practice when taking hrt in any form of menopause to challenge ourselves every few years to be sure that we're taking no more than we truly need to achieve the effects that we define as important. By trying out a slightly lower dose every 3-5 years, we can find out if our bodies have been slowly easing down in needs without us noticing.
In theory, we'll all, if we live long enough, reach a point where our hormone needs are low enough that we no longer need to supplement with hrts. What we produce ourselves plus what we take in from foods and environmental contaminants will fully meet our then-current needs. And when that happens, we're probably not stimulating our uterus enough to need to continue to provide progestogen protection for it. That's something to review with one's doctor, of course, but that's the expectation. Until that time, however, so long as we've got a uterus and are supplementing estrogen, we need that progestogen coverage as well.
How will I know I'm taking enough progestogen?
If, however, you have a high risk situation where you aren't comfortable waiting for this symptom to tip you off, there's another method for monitoring uterine lining response: ultrasound measurement of the thickness of the uterine wall. This can be ordered by your doctor, is a bit uncomfortable but generally not painful, and if properly coded should be covered by most health insurance.
There is not, regrettably, any magical formula for relative doses, such that if we take this amount of estrogen, we know we'll need that amount of progestogen and then we'll be sure we're safe. Or if we have this measured level of circulating estrogen, we need that level of circulating progesterone to cover it. Hormones don't behave in a simple relationship like that—there are many other factors that can affect our hormone supplies and relationships. We can't force our hormones to go where we want and do our bidding. What we can do is provide the supply and then watch carefully to see what happens. If what happens is no uterine lining shedding, no spotting, then we most likely have the situation covered. And if we don't, then a simple ultrasound will tell us how our uterus is doing and whether we just have a brief unusual situation or whether we need to tweak our doses.
Let's repeat that, because it's pretty important: the test of our hormones is not in what we want them to do, but in what they actually do. Results are the most reliable place to focus our vision.
So that's it?
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