I've been on it [HRT] eight years now and I'm too scared to come off it now [laughs]. I must admit I am on the dual one as well which of course I get a bleed but the thing is I don't want to come off it because basically I'm quite healthy and I don't know what I'd be like off it. And because depression was one of the things I had during my menopause, very low, very weepy and I feel so, a lot better on it although I put weight on. But I am quite happy on it. I don't know how long I can stay on it. 

And I got to the stage where I was crying, you know. The children were at home then, the kids were at home and I must have been in my late forties when I started my change, under fifty. And I was getting to the stage where everything, if I dropped something I'd burst into tears and they all sat one Sunday lunch and said "what's wrong with you", you know and I just said "I don't know".

It wasn't so much, I do, I did get the hot flushes but it was the, I got panic attacks as well. I stopped driving, I had terrible panic attacks, I couldn't drive, in fact I don't drive still. And I got dreadful, I couldn't go out the house. I got terrible panic attacks and in the end I went back to the GP and she, a few years later, I don't know how long after, well it must be, anyway it was still that first practice and she put me on it. And I've never looked back since. 

So, while you were having these symptoms were you able to talk to anybody or did you feel isolated or were there people you could talk to, other women or? 

I don't think I did that, you just go through it I think, you know. You just talk to yourself and try and pull yourself together but it's very hard when you can't describe to someone why you cry and why you feel fed up and why you get these sudden horrible panic attacks where you don't want to do anything. But I mean I don't have anything like that now, and that's why I'm staying on it.