Could there be a link between HRT & respiratory infections?
I started taking hrt 23 years ago now, at an unusually early age following tah & bso.
During the 9 years I took it I suffered, on average, 1 or 2 quite nasty chest or sinus infections each year, bad enough to send me to the surgery for an amoxyl prescription. I had never needed such help before
Since stopping the hrt I have had no such infections, apart from one a few weeks after my last patch went into the bin
It was only quite recently that it occurred to me to wonder if there could be any causal connection between this conjunction of events
Could it be because of an effect on mucus in the respiratory tract? More of it, or thicker, or just stickier than before?
We know that mucus quality varies with the hormonal cycle. With a constant daily dose of oestrogen (other things, such as the absorption rate, being equal) this cyclical variation presumably just disappears, leaving one perhaps a permanently welcoming host to the bacteria which cause these infections
