I stopped HRT for two weeks around surge

The restart question is your prescriber's to answer, not tonight's — and it already has a slot: your Thursday follow-up. So tonight's job is not to decide, it's to hand over two weeks of clean evidence.

One honest note first: I'm not a clinician and I don't diagnose, so I can't tell you why you felt better off it — and I can't tell you to restart, stop or change your HRT. That decision belongs to your prescriber. Post-surgery recovery, sleep, stress, the operation itself, and the hormone change are all tangled together in the same two weeks, and only your clinician can separate them. "I felt better" is a real and useful observation — it just isn't a diagnosis, and it isn't a plan.

1. What you already tried, and the better alternative

Tonight / today (about 15 minutes, phone notes are fine):

1. Write four lines in the diary you already keep: last HRT dose date, surgery date, what got better (sleep / mood / aches / headaches / bladder / something else), and what got worse.
2. Rate "better" out of ten, one number, same time of day.
3. Put every box, patch, gel, cream or packet in one bag — including anything you bought yourself or got left over. Prescribers need to see the whole list.
4. Write your three questions: Do I restart, at what strength and how often? Is there a non-hormone option for the symptom I care most about? What should make me call before Thursday instead of waiting?

2. Constraints and the avoid list

• Do not restart, halve, double, or switch form on your own. Starting, stopping or changing a hormone is a prescriber decision, not a home trial — and the effect is not something you can undo at the kitchen table.
• No "bioidentical", compounded, or online-bought hormone products. Stick to what was prescribed to you, or to nothing until Thursday.
• No new supplements for the same purpose without asking — several interact, and "natural" does not mean gentle here.
• Don't use a home blood-pressure, glucose or pulse number to justify a dose change. Record it, show it, let them interpret it.
• Keep the household routine steady while you wait: regular sleep and wake times, normal meals, usual movement as tolerated by your surgical recovery. That's the only lever worth pulling — it holds the household steady and costs you nothing.

What success looks like in 24 hours: the diary has four dated lines and one number, the bag is packed, the three questions are written down, and nothing has been started or stopped. That's a complete evening — it doesn't promise how you'll feel, only that Thursday goes better.

3. Red flags — when to stop the home experiment entirely

Call your local emergency number now for any of these:

• Sudden shortness of breath, chest pain that stabs when you breathe in, fainting, or coughing blood. Mention the recent surgery and say whether one calf is painful or swollen — the combination of recent surgery, a new one-sided swollen calf, and sudden breathlessness is exactly what a clot looks like, and it needs a dispatcher, not a diary entry.
• Sudden weakness or numbness on one side, or trouble speaking.
• Bleeding that will not stop, vomiting blood, or black tarry stools.
• A wound that is opening, or fever with shaking chills and feeling suddenly much worse.

Call the prescriber's office the same day — don't wait for Thursday:

• Any vaginal bleeding or spotting that is new or unexplained. This one matters twice over: unexplained bleeding is on the list of reasons not to be on hormone therapy at all, and a change in bleeding is exactly the kind of thing your prescriber needs to hear about in the same conversation as the restart decision.
• A hot, red, swollen, or painful area near the surgical wound, or any discharge from it.
• Symptoms getting steadily worse over a few days rather than settling.

Do not wait and see if bleeding is heavy, you feel faint or clammy, or the breathlessness comes and goes — go now.

The decision tree, screenshot-friendly

```
New bleeding / new hot flushes / symptoms returning?
├─ No → Keep the diary going. Nothing to decide before Thursday.
└─ Yes → Still nothing to decide before Thursday — but it IS
the first thing you say when you walk in.

New vaginal bleeding?
├─ Light spotting, no other symptom → Same-day call to the prescriber.
├─ Heavier, soaking, or with clots → Same-day call, say "how much"
│ and how many pads.
└─ Heaviest / faint / clammy / racing heart → Emergency number now.

Sudden breathlessness, chest pain on breathing in, or one
calf suddenly painful or swollen after surgery?
└─ Yes → Emergency number now. Do not walk it off to test it.

None of the above?
└─ Stay on the current state — don't restart, don't re-stop.
Pack the bag. Keep the routine. Thursday decides.
```

Reference read today, for the general facts only — this is not a diagnosis and not a plan (checked 8 October 2026): MedlinePlus, Hormone Therapy for Menopause. It notes that unexplained vaginal bleeding, a previous stroke or heart attack, and a history of blood clots are reasons hormone therapy is not suitable, that benefits and risks are weighed by the prescriber with you, and that many people are advised to check in every three to six months at first. Bring your own history to Thursday.

Source: medlineplus https://medlineplus.gov/hormonetherapyformenopause.html

One last thing: whatever you decide together on Thursday, ask them to write the plan down — what to take, how often, what to do if you miss a dose, and what should send you back to them instead of to the bottle. That's the single most useful sentence you can leave that room with.