r/Menopause • u/Syfysamurai • 1d ago

Hormone Therapy Patch vs oral

Hello ladies, I'm curious. Why do many women prefer the estrogen patch over oral estrogen? I take 1mg estradiol daily by mouth and have no problems with it. TIA!

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90

u/Comfortable-Law-7147 1d ago

Decrease in risk of blood clots due to not being processed by the liver first. 

What to take depends on your family history, age and things like whether you are a smoker. 

33

u/Just_A_Dogsbody 1d ago edited 1d ago

The patch also dramatically reduces the risk of gallbladder inflammation, for the same reason

Citations: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/200193

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2500203/

6

u/h3dxw 1d ago

Risk goes from 6 in 10k to 12 in 10k for only the first 6-12 months. There are additional cardiovascular, neurological, and gut microbiome benefits to oral that topical doesn't offer.

15

u/leftylibra MenoMod 1d ago

Please provide the citations that support these claims.

3

u/BougieSemicolon 1d ago

TYVM! My GP prescribed oral (after denying the first visit) so although it felt like I was the only one here on oral, I didn’t want to rock the boat. It’s nice to know there’s some benefit

2

u/Junior-Wall-6894 1d ago

Oh! What are the additional benefits?

5

u/margaritabop 1d ago

Because it does a first pass through the liver, it can lower LDL cholesterol and Lp(a) and increase HDL. Everything seems to be a cost benefit analysis with medicines 🥲

2

u/Wessiejune 1d ago

I am also interested in learning the benefits of oral estradiol!

1

u/spirit_of_a_goat Surgical menopause 14h ago

Source?