snowmelts

I'll add my 2¢ worth.
I took estrogens 10 years.
YES you were supposed to take them forever. Except for birth control pills, No estrogen was ever intended as a temporary medication.

I stopped when the truth about them being very dangerous came out on TV a few years ago. Women by the thousands immediately stopped takeing it. They are currently saying these women miss their estrogen big time and want it back. They are reporting that the ones in the studies that showed the most risk to have dangerous problems from it are the ones that go off and then go back on. So I won't be going back on.

You need to discuss this with a knowledgable medical person.

2 years after I stopped estrogens my OsteoArthritis had excellerated big time and I developed Osteoporosis in my spine.

Sadly that is normal if you are genetically geared toward the bone problems.. It is NOT caused by the estrogen but rather the estrogen protected my body from it while I took it. When I stopped I immediatly lost that protection.

When a person does not take estrogen's the body chemistry changes at a slow gradual natural rate. That person get the "old age" problems at a slow natural rate. The body does change, of course, but it is not all at once.

By taking the estrogens we are tricking our body into thinking it is still manufactureing hormones. When we suddenly stop taking them our bodies decide we have stopped natural hormone production all at once and so it reacts all at once. All the "old age" problems estrogen protected us from catch up with us at an excellerated rate because there are none of the required hormones at all left to slow it down or prevent it.

In other words your bone problems today would be the same if you had never taken it..you just would have just reached this same point of bone deterioration gradually over the past years instead of all at once.

Sad but true.