Word: estrogen
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Besides, some women feel lousy on hormones. And many are distressed to find they gain weight (though it's unclear that estrogen is really to blame). When Lynn Schleeter, 44, of New Brighton, Minnesota, was taking estrogen and progesterone, "I was so lethargic, I couldn't walk around the block." She feels more energetic now that she has thrown away her estrogen patch and switched to a regimen of exercise, vitamins and calcium supplements (to fight osteoporosis...
Progesterone pills can be particularly hard to tolerate. Progestin is always prescribed along with estrogen for women with an intact uterus. While estrogen prompts the uterine lining to thicken, progestin signals it to stop growing and slough off; this artificial menstrual cycle seems to prevent endometrial cancer. But progestin often causes cramps, irritability and other PMS-like problems. In her 1991 book on menopause, The Silent Passage, Gail Sheehy tells how estrogen highs and progestin lows made her feel as though her body was "at war with itself for half of every month...
...ESTROGEN FOREVER...
Once the storms of perimenopause have cleared, many women see little reason to remain on estrogen. Some enter a period of well-being, famously dubbed "post-menopausal zest" by anthropologist Margaret Mead. In her latest book, New Passages, Sheehy calls this the "pits to peak phenomenon": Women emerge from the morass of menopause with "a greater sense of well-being than any other stage of their lives...
...matter how marvelous such women may feel, the prevailing medical view is that most should stay on estrogen for the long haul. Unnatural as that sounds, doctors argue that life after menopause is itself somewhat unnatural. "As women have lived increasingly longer lives, they are facing problems their grandmothers never faced," says Dr. Charles Hammond, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University Medical Center. "At the turn of the century, women died soon after their ovaries quit." Now they live to face heart disease, osteoporosis, increased fractures -- problems that may be prevented in part by taking estrogen...