progesterone causing headaches + poor sleep. pregnenolone completely relieves symptoms

ddjd

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my girlfriend is around 4 months pregnant.

one of the main pregnancy tips I've recieved from the peat community is that she should be taking regular progesterone.

so we're using a few topical progesterone creams, one from Emerita, another from NOW foods brand. ive used them both myself, they're both very effective and bioidentical, from wild yam etc.

the problem is my girlfriend almost always sleeps terribly on the days after using the cream and always gets a terrible headache the day after which will last the whole day.

thank God, i found that pregnenolone 100mg completely relieves her of the headaches within 30 minutes.

but why is she reacting so badly to the progesterone? and should we completely discontinue it?
 

Lejeboca

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Progesterone takes the estrogen out of the cells into the blood for further clearance from the body. So the blood estrogen might actually spike temporarily. When this happens vitamin E is a relief for me.
 
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ddjd

ddjd

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Progesterone takes the estrogen out of the cells into the blood for further clearance from the body. So the blood estrogen might actually spike temporarily. When this happens vitamin E is a relief for me.
but i think the fact the pregnenolone stops the headaches is a sign the progesterone is raising cortisol (i think)

 

Lejeboca

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but i think the fact the pregnenolone stops the headaches is a sign the progesterone is raising cortisol (i think)
I would be very surprised if progesterone raised cortisol. Do you have a reference?
I remember Peat suggested taking progesterone in high-stress events, such as car accidents. Presumably not to raise cortisol even more.
 
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ddjd

ddjd

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I would be very surprised if progesterone raised cortisol. Do you have a reference?
I remember Peat suggested taking progesterone in high-stress events, such as car accidents. Presumably not to raise cortisol even more.
peat himself recommends progesterone to people who want to increase their cortisol slightly to improve thyroid/ndt absorption. I'll dig out the quote for you
 

Gungnir

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peat himself recommends progesterone to people who want to increase their cortisol slightly to improve thyroid/ndt absorption. I'll dig out the quote for you
Sooo..... about that quote???
 

5a-DHP

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The Now Foods Progesterone cream contains Saw Palmetto which pregnant women are advised not to take for the same reasons that men are told to come off finasteride whilst trying for children.
 
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ddjd

ddjd

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The Now Foods Progesterone cream contains Saw Palmetto which pregnant women are advised not to take for the same reasons that men are told to come off finasteride whilst trying for children.
thats slightly worrying as it was used for several months, maybe once a week. But surely the progesterone content would counteract any hormonal reduction effect? bearing in mind progesterone probably THE most important hormone during pregnancy
 
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ddjd

ddjd

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The Now Foods Progesterone cream contains Saw Palmetto which pregnant women are advised not to take for the same reasons that men are told to come off finasteride whilst trying for children.
Just looked on Amazon and there's about 40 reviews of people saying they used this cream throughout pregnancy
?
 

TripleOG

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Experienced similar effect with a certain ProgestE-like product when my wife was pregnant. Was cheaper so gave it a shot. Very bad headaches for both of us. Switched back to HealthNatura, problem solved. Never found out why we responded that way. Some others tolerated the brand fine.
 
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5a-DHP

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thats slightly worrying as it was used for several months, maybe once a week. But surely the progesterone content would counteract any hormonal reduction effect? bearing in mind progesterone probably THE most important hormone during pregnancy
I'm sure it'll be fine my dude - not trying to worry you.
Regardless, would definitely be a good idea to move over to a pure oil-based product like HealthNatura, Forefront, etc, to avoid the SP content of NF's cream.
 

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