Welcome to the Newsome Health Menopause podcast.

I'm Dr Louise Newsome, a GP and menopause specialist,

and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and wellbeing centre here in Stratford-upon-Avon.

So in this week's podcast, I decided to bring back into my clinic, Dr Rebecca Lewis,

who is a great friend, mentor to me, and also she's a GP with a special interest in the menopause. She's also one of the clinical

directors here with me at my clinic in Stratford-upon-Avon. So we thought we would actually

go back to the basics a bit in this podcast and talk very openly about HRT hormone replacement

therapy, what it is, the different types, the different doses,

and just really start with some very simple messages about HRT. So welcome, Rebecca.

Well, thank you very much for having me. It's lovely to be here. So we both coming here on a Saturday

morning because we both work so much during the week

we never really get to talk to each other.

So we decided to have a little oasis of time away from the stress of clinic.

Very nice it is too.

So HRT is three letters.

Just talk us through.

So HRT hormone replacement therapy can come in various guises, pills, patches, gels.

And so it can be quite confusing for women, really, where to start with HRT.

I mean, traditionally, the old-fashioned HRT really was an oral tablet,

which combined usually estrogen and progesterone. But we've moved on

since then and are now using transdermal estrogen because of the benefits. So that's through the

skin, which means through the skin, exactly. So estrogen, that's one of the most important

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