Prempro

Use plummeted after the Women's Health Initiative released its results.

The long-standing belief has been that symptoms subside a few years after women have their last period and that taking hormones might help women avoid symptoms, although strong scientific evidence about the duration has been lacking, Ockene said.

Researchers, she said, "would have assumed that 5 1/2 years, which is the average length in this study, would have been enough time to see them not return." Smith, of Fitchburg, Mass., said she started having menopausal symptoms at age 49, with hot flashes so severe that they steamed up car windows.

They disappeared during the study.

"Within a month they were back again.

Not quite so bad, but I still wake up at night with a good one," Smith, 73, said recently.

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