Nausea and New Beginnings: My HRT Journey Finally Starts

Last week, I left you at the point where I had managed to bag a telephone appointment that very morning to talk to my doctor. She called me just after 10 a.m., apologising for the blood pressure machine not working properly. She said she didn’t want to put me on blood pressure medication yet but wanted to keep an eye on it. I could feel the lump in my throat growing as I told her I was confident it was caused by the constant stress of trying to get HRT.

She then said the magic words. Let’s get you started on HRT. She said she would send my prescription to the chemist immediately, but she would like me to call back with a BP reading in 4 weeks. She also wanted to run some blood tests and do an ECG, so I needed to book into that. I had stopped taking anything in at that point. I needed to get myself ready. I could not get to that chemist fast enough, and as soon as I was home, I was slathering on that oestrogen gel as instructed.

That night, I went to the besties for dinner and a few glasses of red. I felt like I had something to celebrate. The husband picked me up at about 10:30, and I took my two progesterone pills before bed.

I woke up the following morning after an amazing, uninterrupted sleep. I still felt groggy, but I put that down to the red wine from last night. I hadn’t drunk loads, but maybe it was that and the fact that my body had finally relaxed. As I lounged in the chair, I started to feel really sick. This is odd. I certainly didn’t drink enough to…