wow, this is unbelievable! I was looking for help finding some form of natural or herbal HRT. I am 54, done with all the horrible symptoms that come with the end of periods. I have Crohn's disease and had surgery to remove the last of my colon last September. Since my surgery I dehydrate very easily, my skin is very dry and I drink mostly water and lots of it. I thought all of this was the cause of the dryness problem with my vaginal area internally and externally. I am married and sex has become so painful and sometimes not even possible. My GYN put me on Premarin creme and I do not always remember to use it right before bed, every other night. I know you would think I would remember THAT right? The problem is 1st I am kinda scared of the whole "hormone treatment" thing because of cancer. My immune system is practically non-exsistent. 2ndly my Crohn's keeps me busy with medicating myself to prevent constant diarrhea, bloating, etc. The wrong combination of prevention meds or the wrong diet choice and I am constipated and bloated or having to run to the bathroom constently. Talk about having too much on your plate...the LAST thing I want or need is for my sex life to be screwed up! My poor Husband has enought to deal with just being married to me all these years. He is Amazing, always supportive, loving, understanding and eqivalent to a private nurse when I am "sick" AGAIN. He deserves some serious consideration, lol. Anyway, I get in this site and see the "vaginal Atrophy" comment and think...could it be? I find out it is NOT just me or my dehydration issues, I am having the same problems you are all. The Premarin creme has softened things up some and sex is sometimes possible but I am going to call my GYN tomorrow and ask about the ESTRING. I have been using moisterizing lotions and cremes on the external vaginal area just to relieve the dry, itchy, painful skin so I can walk and not cry all the time from the misery of it. Seriously. Thank God I stumbled in here, Thank you all for opening up and discussing this issue so I could find out not only What is wrong but maybe What to do about it! And Thank God for the good things the internet makes possible.

Hi nannie! I don't usually look at this site but I just had a hysterectomy in July so I was wondering around looking for information. Before I had my hysterectomy I'd had a very heavy period for about 6 weeks. I was willing to put up with anything to not have surgery. That was a mistake. I lost so much blood that my hemoglobin dropped to 6, I beleve the low end of normal is 11. I was in a great deal of pain and couldn't really do anything. Too worn out, out of breath and in so much pain I couldn't move. I ended up in the hospital and got 2 units of blood and then surgery the next day. My uterus was big too but I've had kids so that helped and they where able to do it vaginally. You know you can't go on the way you are now, beleve me I tried hard to keep going thinking it would some how take care of itself. It didn't and it would of been a whole lot better if I had planned this thing out and schedaled things instead of ending up with an emergency situation. I'm 52 so I'm a bit older then you. They gave me a hormone patch which has helped me. I hadn't had any hot flashes or problems with memopause before my surgery but I had them take everything and I sure have had some problems after. I plan to cut the amount of hormone down in the future and eventually get off of the hormones completely. But not now I need to recover first before I can deal with anything more. Well thats my 2 cents!!

Hi purplesky i too have joint pain mostly in my legs like awful restlessness growing pains and i get pins and needles in my feet and hands and my shoulders ache , i have had blood tests done but they do not show up anything different with my hormones yet but my doc says im definatly peri , i have days when i feel totally weird and i feel like ive got some horrible disease even tho i probably havent its amazing what havoc hormones wreak on us ist it, i think its much more confusing to gauge where your at with the monthly cycle thing and symptoms when youve had a full hysterectomy like i have because of the absence of periods you know what im mean , the doctor reckons its difficult to get anything from the blood in peri that indicates a positive result because bloods nearly always show up normal LH and FSH even though most of the time its actually altered , the symtoms dont seem to have any fixed pattern really and are quite changable do you find that

I am old enough to remember that the "common theory" about 35 years ago, was to have the dog spayed at around 8-9 months, preferably before first heat. This for health reasons already stated. This theory has changed (for reasons good and bad, mostly bad as far as I'm concerned) to having the dog spayed at around 3-4 months. Vets have different opinions on all types of animal health issues. I have learned the hard way, to research everything and ask questions about medication. I specifically ask for a time limit on when I will start to see positive results. I make sort of a check list, and then compare that to what vet recommends. If research goes against what the vet wants to do, I ask her why she wants to do it. I think the subject in general is very complicated. After tons of research, I was really disturbed and worried about reconstructive surgery my vet recommended for one of my dogs that has a history of UTI and an inverted vulva. After I made this statement to her, I told her that I would never put my dog through the process. Mainly because there was no guarantee that the surgery would fix the problem. Further research and consulting with two other vets, put me on a path to where she has been fine for the past 7 months. BTW make sure one of the cleaningÂs you do is just before bed time. This is when the bacteria is most active, when the dog is asleep for the night. Good luck! SG