What to bring to a 3-month HRT review

A record that covers the three months

What is worth having written down:

• What you took, and when it changed. Product, dose, and the dates of any change. This is the single most valuable item, because effects have to be read against a timeline.
• The symptoms you were tracking before starting, recorded the same way since — so before and after are comparable.
• Anything new that appeared after starting or after a dose change. Dated.
• Bleeding, if relevant. Dates and pattern. NG23 addresses unscheduled bleeding specifically at the 3-month review, so it is a thing your clinician will ask about.
• Anything you missed — patches that fell off, doses forgotten. Not a confession, just information that changes how the rest is read.

Why dated dose changes matter so much

Because without the dates, nothing else can be interpreted. "I've felt better recently" and "I changed dose six weeks ago" mean something together and almost nothing apart. If you record only one thing, record what changed and when.

Questions worth writing down beforehand

The Menopause Society's advice to write your questions down in advance applies particularly here, because a review appointment is short and structured. Things people commonly wish they had asked:

• Is what I'm experiencing expected at this stage, or worth investigating?
• How long should I give this before we consider a change?
• What would make you want to adjust the dose or the form?
• What should prompt me to get in touch before the next review?
• When is the next review, and what will we look at then?

What we can't tell you

Whether your HRT is working. Whether your dose is right. Whether a symptom is a side effect or something else. Those are clinical judgements about you specifically, and no app or website is in a position to make them. What a good record does is put your clinician in a much better position to make them well.