Menopause Hormone Therapy Basics

Hormone replacement therapy, often shortened to HRT, is a topic where the way a provider delivers care matters as much as the prescription. The checklists below cover that conversation: what should be explained, what should be monitored, and when someone should check in with you. They do not replace advice from your own clinician. Menopause: Medicines to Help You is a starting point for the names of the medicines you may be offered.

Questions by type of treatment

• Combined Estrogen and Progestin Treatment: questions to ask when a plan includes two hormones.
• Deciding How Long to Stay on HRT: how to ask for a review date and what to bring to it.
• Pills, Patches, Gels and Rings for HRT: how to ask why a provider chose one form over another.
• Breast Cancer Risk and Hormone Therapy: how to ask for a risk discussion that uses your own history.
• Estrogen Therapy for Menopause Symptoms: questions about estrogen on its own.

Other sources to check

Two other sources let you check our wording. The Endocrine Society's menopause library page comes from a medical society, and the FDA's menopause overview comes from a regulator.

You may also hear the term bioidentical hormones. The Cleveland Clinic's page on bioidentical hormones is one hospital's explanation of the term. Ask any provider who uses the term to say exactly what they mean by it and which product they are describing.

Preparing questions for a hormone therapy visit

Before your appointment, pick the page above that matches your question and write down two or three of its questions. At the visit, note whether the provider explains the choice in terms of your history, tells you what will be monitored, and sets a date to review the plan. If one of those is missing, ask for it.