HRT Or Not

I'm not the best person or even close to give unbiased advice on this. I am very biased as my mother was one of those to get breast cancer, and also congestive heart failure after being on HRT. They will not say that the HRT caused the breast cancer (though there is NO family history of it) but they did say it was probably the cause of the CHF. They do admit though that it probably did cause the breast cancer to grow at such a fast rate.
My mother has now been cancer free for 4 years, but the heart problem has almost killed her. They had to use such strong doses of chemo because her cancer would not respond to the other. (the cancer advanced extremely quick) The strong doses of chemo damaged her heart even worse. She is not eligible for a heart transplant until she is cancer free for 5 years, then she goes on a waiting list.
I will never take the HRT. I think natural remedies are the safest way to go.

Goodluck!

WebMD with AOL Health - Good (Breast Cancer) News for HRT Users

This is a web site I've been using to write reports for a class that I'm taking. Hope it helps.

L.,
I don't know much about HRT but I do know I struggle with what is right to do morally when it comes to infertility treatments. It helped me a lot to talk with our priest. Don't know if you have someone like that who you can discuss the issue with. It must be confuseing with all the conflicting information out there. My heart goes out to you as you wait for your husband to come home. Thank him for serving for us. I thank you and your daughter for your sacrifice. God Bless you!

Ok go to your library and get the book "What your doctor may not tell you about menopause : the breakthrough book on natural hormone balance / John R. Lee, with Virginia Hopkins" It is the absolute best source of information about HRT. I wish I had read this before I had my total hysterectomy and put on estrogen right off the bat. Also you can go to his site: http://www.johnleemd.com/index.html
You need to find a doctor that does saliva testing. Otherwise you can order the tests directly from the web site which is what I ended up doing. My doctor and Endocronologist both were very surprised with the results vs the blood tests. As my blood tests said I was in normal range my saliva testing said where Estrogen should be 2.-10. mine was 36.32! Progesterone should be 0.1-0.5 and mine was 0.06. I was Estrogen Dominant. If you have some fat on you, you have estrogen stored in there. Plus you get estrogen from meat and lots of other places. But progesteron you only really get from your ovaries. Also you want to make sure it is a bio-identical hormone.
As for the breast cancer, the synthetic progesterone is what can cause breast cancer and also estrogen without progesterone. But it said that natural progesterone will help protect from breast and other cancers that normally occur.
Now I am only on progesteron since I have plenty of estrogen and am feeling much better. Before I was having hot flashes, night sweats, weight gain, migraines, tired and irritable. At first they said I needed more estrogen but since I was having migraines they didn't want to increase the dose. But being without progesteron will give the same symptoms. After dealing with this mess for 3 years and finally finding out what was wrong. I recommend this book to anyone and everyone.