For the "pushing 50 ladies"

[Marilyn]

My goodness ladies. You all sound like you are fallin' apart !

I'm 52. Won't admit it to most people. Never had many periods anyway. Infertility issues, but have two daughters, so things worked out.

Hysterectomy in '95 ended all of that anyway. I was on Climara patches (estrogen) until earlier this year. Just wanted to add a note of caution to those of you on hormone replacement. Please, please be diligent with you annual checkups, self breast exams, and mammograms. I had to stop hormone replacement due to a lump in my breast. It was not cancer, yet, but if it had been, it was large enough to be reason for concern. It was actually too small to feel, but I'd missed a couple of mammograms, and was kicking myself for skipping while we were waiting from biopsy results. I've now had two biopsies, neither showed actual cancer, but my oncologist at Baylor Medical Breast Cancer Center in Houston has be taking Evista for the next 5 years which has been found to prevent breast cancer, and I have mammograms every 6 months now.

The problem is Estrogen feeds cancer. Women on hormone replacement are at greater risk of developing breast cancer. There's lots of information on the web to support this. My mother took Premarin for 40 years without problems, so I thought I would be okay, but my doctors got me off the Climara very quickly when this all happened. They used to think that the estrogen protected your heart and bones, and helped prevent Alzheimers, but now they think it may actually cause these problems.

At first I was extremely moody, would cry for no reason at all, but I've gotten much better now. I really don't miss the hormones and I've lost weight and feel much healthier. I have been working out and trying to eat a healthier diet (no trans fat, more fish and chicken, whole grains, more vegetables, very limited sweets), so not sure what is causing me to feel better, but I know the hormones are not necessary for me to feel good.

Hope you all can get through the memopause thing, and stay healthy.