The answer to these questions is, ‘It depends on your symptoms’. If you are not bothered by menopausal symptoms, nor at risk of developing osteoporosis or arterial disease, then don’t feel pressured by your friends, family or the media to take it. You do not need it, and to take it would be an unnecessary medical intervention. Despite what the papers say, it will not keep you ‘young and sexy forever’, and if this is why you want to take it perhaps you should look carefully at yourself, your relationships and your underlying fears.

If, however, you are being bothered by hot flushes, night sweats, and the various early signs of the menopause, then you might want to start HRT as soon as these signs start having a negative effect on your life. This may well be while you are still having periods, but you can still start HRT, although it may be difficult to get the level of treatment exactly right.

Although you may accept all this, some women find the higher rate of side-effects and the irregular bleeds put them off HRT completely and they are then reluctant to consider it again in a few years’ time when different symptoms occur.

If you have been put off HRT for this reason, you may find that, in the meantime, new forms of HRT have become available that would reduce the problem. Again, talk to your doctor about this.

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