Having initially stopped taking HRT due to adverse side-effects, Mary now takes a different brand of the treatment to prevent osteoporosis - and this week's reports have not deterred her, she tells Padraig O'Morain, Health and Children Correspondent
"I first started taking HRT when I felt the symptoms of the menopause, mainly night sweats and palpitations," says Mary.
Thanks to the hype which has surrounded HRT in the past, she expected more than just relief from the physical symptoms of the menopause.
"I thought it was going to change my life," she says. "I thought it was going to improve my mood in particular, because I had heard such great things about HRT from the media and read success stories."
But, "it didn't do anything. In fact it made me worse."
She doesn't deny that HRT helped her, but she feels it brought its problems as well.
"After a year, my physical symptoms had subsided somewhat so I have to say it had some benefit, but I felt that continuing the treatment wasn't necessarily helping me in other ways. I felt very depressed and I thought that this was possibly the cause, so I decided myself to stop taking it. After I stopped taking it I felt better."
As for the non-appearance of the allegedly wonderful, life-changing properties of HRT, "I was kind of disappointed. I felt that the risks, if there are any, outweighed the benefits I was getting."
Today, 18 months later, she is back on HRT, even though she has stopped experiencing the night-sweats and other menopausal symptoms.
"I went to my gynaecologist for my three-yearly test in January and she just got her pad out and wrote me the prescription. I wasn't complaining of any particular menopausal symptoms.
"Her main reason for giving me this treatment was for protection in relation to osteoporosis."
This is a different brand of HRT from the one Mary previously took. There are many brands of HRT and getting the right one is no simple matter.
For instance, a variation on the brand she was prescribed originally might have worked better, "but I didn't bother pursuing that. There are hundreds of different ones out there and I just didn't bother. I just decided to go without it".
This latest brand has not brought any return of depression but it has caused a certain amount of bleeding which, as it happens, it is designed to prevent.
"It could well be that my body is saying it wants to bleed. At this stage you can't be sure because sometimes this can happen at the early stages of treatment. She will review me in August and decide whether I should revert to one of the other types of HRT which allow you to have this monthly bleed."
Mary was not particularly alarmed by this week's newspaper reports of US research into one type of HRT and which suggest that women taking the product are exposed to an increased though small risk of heart disease and breast cancer.
"No, I wasn't really alarmed because it's not conclusive. I would think that anybody who would have a predisposition to breast cancer would be more alarmed than somebody who doesn't in their family history.
"I do intend to discuss it with my gynaecologist when I return in August but I didn't immediately say, 'I have to stop taking these'."