Not sure about starting HRT
Hi everyone,
I recently (finally) got diagnosed with endo stage II after 6+ years of being passed from physician to physician, mostly telling me my pain was psychosomatic.
adolescent
I explained this to my doctor to see if there were other options, but he said no that Dienogest was the only medication he knew that would hopefully stop the endo from growing back. His response was essentially, just take the pill, that's the only option.
I'm hoping to learn if there are other women out there who have foregone HRT, and how that decision impacted them. Or whether HRT is truly the only option to "ensure" that my endo doesn't progress and impact my fertility and other organs.
Is there a way to stop endo from getting worse without hormone treatment? If so, what treatments do you use? From what I read, I assume not, but I'm just scratching the surface of understanding this disease...
Sorry for the long message, thanks for anyone who can respond <3
Hi, please don't apologise for the length of your message. You must use as many words as you need 😉 The answer to your question may be also lengthy. I will try my best though. I have been on hormonal medication for two years now. Before that, I had excision surgery, and all of my adhesions were removed. While this surgery helped with many of my symptoms, my periods remained horrendous, and simply didn’t allow me to have a “normal” life… So I went on hormonal therapy.
It gave me my life back, for sure. It meant no periods so I could function with the odd symptom or bad day here and there. Whether my disease has grown or not, the only to know is through a laparoscopy.
The latest research points at endometriosis being an autoimmune illness, and not one that is fully responsive to hormonal behaviour. But there are doctors that would debate this. My endometriosis specialist saw endometriosis as a bunch of different diseases. And he didn’t prescribe hormones to every patient.
As a patient, I see hormonal treatments as a way to manage symptoms. Obviously I hope that the medication I was on, stopped the growth of my disease, but I can’t know for sure. In fact, today is my first day without my hormones, since I’ve taken them for too long. The type I’m on, experts recommend you take for two years max.I hope this helps. Hopefully others chime in, and they can share their own experiences. Hugs - Jessie (team member)
