For me....I feel better when I am taking them. The benefits far out weigh the risk. Quality of life is more important to me than longevity.

I have been investigating whether to consider HRT. I am tired of all the symptoms of Peri-menapause. working hard to work my butt off (literally), with very little result. Wanting to have my sex-drive back, memory back, and want to sleep through the night at once in awhile.
concerned about the side effects of HRT and trying to weigh out the pro's and con's
and yes I have tried the natural solutions and they have been no solution for me.

I take them but to be honest, they have not helped me keep my weight down/off, hence why I am here.

Since I expressed concerns to my OB about HRT because of my family's crazy bad cancer history, she suggested I try black cohosh for hot flashes, ginko biloba for memory loss, and melatonin for insomnia.

She warned me that these alternatives may or may not work, and may lose their effectiveness over time, but for the past 4 months I've been happy with the result.

I take the cohosh and ginko in the morning, and the melatonin at night.

I'm a "no" on HRT due to family history of cancer---so the risk for me outweighs the benefits. That said, I have muddled along fine without. I'm 57 and have been post menopausal for 10 years. My hot flashes are all but gone (exercise helps). I still have night sweats occasionally. All in all not so bad. But losing weight is hard. I seem to struggle over the same few pounds...

I am a yes on HRT-it has been a great help to me- but my doctor like to check and make sure I need to stay on every 6 months. I am slowly moving to lower doses- I have been using a patch and progesterin each night- TERRIBLE headaches and hotflashes without it- I couldn't sleep and was nearly non-functional. I think it just depends on your own body chemistry, the type of hormone, your family history and your doctors advice and willingness to be really well informed.

I am not sure what an SSRI is. Could you explain that in a little more detail, please? If it provides relief without being a hormone then I might consider taking it. I'm not comfortable with the risks of HRT and so have been "gutting it out" up until now. But if there
is something out there that helps without scary side effects it might be worth a try.

I am not sure what an SSRI is. Could you explain that in a little more detail, please? If it provides relief without being a hormone then I might consider taking it. I'm not comfortable with the risks of HRT and so have been "gutting it out" up until now. But if there
is something out there that helps without scary side effects it might be worth a try.

An SSRI can be prescribed for anxiety or depression. I originally started taking it for mitral valve prolapse, too. I've found that it helps with some of my hot flashes because those tend to bring me feelings of anxiety at the same time. The one I take is Celexa.

You might want to ask your gyne about taking Neurontin, its an antiseizure med, but has multiple other uses. There is a recent study done finding it did help women with menopausal symptoms.

http://www.webmd.com/menopause/gabapentin-for-hot-flashes

http://menopause.about.com/b/2008/04/04/cut-the-flashes-in-half-with-gabapentin.htm

I turned out to have osteoporosis when I my first DEXA scan at age 50. I didn't start gaining weight early enough, apparently. Drugs like Fosamax increase bone mass but decrease bone maintenance, so they're not a good long term option for treatment that might involve the next 40 years of my life

I really didn't mind my hot flashes -- I just dressed in layers and peeled them off without apology as soon as I felt one coming on. I found that if I cooled off quickly, the hot flashes didn't progress to the sweating phase. Or perhaps the fact that I got them so often kept each one from being that bad. Anyway, they were never enough of an issue to make me want a drug to stop them. Now I just get one when I first go to bed, which is nice because it warms up the covers, and one when I wake up, which is nice for getting out of bed on cold mornings.

I did find my ADHD had come back full blast at menopause. I realized it was puberty and not maturity that finally allowed me to relax my entire body at one time,and that ability had gone away again. I became physically jumpy. I couldn't sit in church pews with fidgety people, and my poor husband couldn't move a muscle in bed until I fell asleep, because the movement of the sheets jolted my nerves. And I was very inefficient at work due to distractability.

I ended up on Evista, which is a partial estrogen and partial estrogen blocker. It doesn't help hot flashes, but it does help strengthen bones. It reduces the risk of breast and uterine cancer instead of increasing it. (I have a very strong family history of breast cancer.) The package insert mentions increased risk of blood clots, but they may just be putting that warning on everything that's an estrogen; I have a bleeding tendency and started bleeding worse at menopause (things like bleeding and hour and a half from a paper cut) and that did not get any better on Evista. I don't know if taking it is what made my nerves calmer or whether that was just a phase that resolved itself, but that fortunately is mostly resolved. My hair did stop falling out so badly, so that's been a nice plus.

I'm a definite yes to HRT. I tried for a year to suck it up, but thought I was going to loose my mind completely with the lack of sleep and mood swings! Now I take low dose prempro and I'm SO much happier. I sleep better and my moods are stabilized, as far as weight don't think its helped or hindered loss, but I now have the energy to workout consistently