Progesterone

[beachbum]

Hi lisa,

All I have to say if I didn't in my post in this thread that progesterone cream saved my life as did the progesterone therapy site I posted for others to help them like it did for myself and it can help men as well. It is extremely important to use a high does as you found out like myself. I currently use 500mg or more a day but finding I need something else because I have achy muscles and joints still. I also find if I follow RP for other stuff I feel I get high testosterone symptoms. So now I am looking for a the missing link. I also would like to mention I am 52 almost 53 and thought I was in Menopause until I started spotting the other day after none for 15 months. This came about when I decided to experiment with vitamin d that I stopped a while back, then some iodine and selenium. Well that put me into a massive headache and nausea then vomiting. Eyes hurt and dry/itchy. And chin hair. So not sure what to do from here. I may wait a few days then try a very small dose of selenium. I know vitamin d gave me the eye problem because I took that first for 2 days at night because it makes me sleepy, but after using it I woke up with the eye problem.

I am glad someone read that site for more help. Glad your feeling better. :)

 

[marteagal]

Thanks for sharing your highly impressive stories, @beachbum and @lisaferraro !

Were you initially scared about progesterone's possible effect of inducing anaesthesia? And if so, how did you deal with that issue? For instance, did you test your limits by taking 10 mg progesterone every 10 minutes until free of symptoms?

 

[beachbum]

Hello,

I first had to find a high dose Progesterone cream which I did called ona. Befoe I found the progesterone therapy site I was using around 40mgs a day and made me extremely worse that I end up in the er because my health was bad before using it and found out my estrogen progesterone ratio was really bad. So I found the high dose cream 10 percent ( 1 pump is 125mgs), and used at least 300mg and kept using more until may symptoms got better. Im up to 500mg a day or more. It does make me sleepy but push through it. On the progesterone therapy site I think she mentions it starts decreasing in 12 hours so I at least put it on in the morning and night and through out the day. I also been waking up middle of the night and put more on because I believe I use it up fast. Like lisa said stress of any kind depletes progesterone, even overeating, strenuous exercise.

I hope I answered your question.

 

[lollipop]

Thanks for sharing your highly impressive stories, @beachbum and @lisaferraro !

Were you initially scared about progesterone's possible effect of inducing anaesthesia? And if so, how did you deal with that issue? For instance, did you test your limits by taking 10 mg progesterone every 10 minutes until free of symptoms?

Hi @marteagal I never was afraid of high doses inducing anaesthesia for a couple of reasons:

*When I had first started Progest-e I could feel the chill effect on my nervous system and because of this realized how much I had been operating from stress - probably for most of my life. What saved me from more problems from operating this way was the massive amounts of yoga I do/have done. I also researched and found that a person needs most likely over 1000mgs for that effect to kick in. I knew I would not use near that much.

*I had researched progesterone enough, both sides of the argument, to feel confident in its realitive safety. My only concern was not wanting to use exogenous hormones. FINALLY I realized that I am in the perimenopausal stage and I need to adjust my hormones. I dabbled in NDT and did not really see big effects. The progesterone made the main difference.

*As to your question about trying as Peat recommended every 10-15 min. Well, here is my goofiness - would probably work! I never did. And because of my work - it is hard to take it like that. Twice daily high doses worked much more easily into my lifestyle. Also using some transdermally was my attempt to keep and have slow continuous release in my body.

Does that answer adequately your questions @marteagal?

@beachbum Your testimony earlier in the thread DID help me! Thank you dearly :) One thing that I have not pursued to any great length is NDT - natural desiccated thyroid. I have some sitting in my cabinet but haven't felt yet the intuitive urge to dive in. I keep trying to use food to repair and Progest-e as my main supplement. Red Light too. NDT might be be my next route if ever the progesterone stops working or doesn't truly solve all my issues. I have heard gelatin might help joint pain. You might search the forum as I have seen several people post about healing joint pain. I think recently I saw @Regina posting about it.

Thank you again and BEST of luck

 

[marteagal]

Thank you both so much!! Your responses are fantastic and really encouraging. What I also find interesting: that the lower dose of ~45 mg made your symptoms actually worse or did not help, as this is the recommended Progest-E starting dose (5 x 3 drops á 3 mg). My mother's "pregnenolone trial" is still ongoing, but unless it gives rise to better results by the end of the year, I will change her treatment plan to higher dose progesterone. It seems to me that if the progesterone dose is high enough, there is almost no excuse for the body to not respond to it in a positive way :)

 

[Emstar1892]

Hey guys!

I'm wondering about all this too. I was put on 20mg bioidentical cream 3 weeks ago, and increased to 40mg a week ago.

I have pretty bad brain fog and lethargy with weird bouts of anger, bloating, a puffy face, headaches and last night I had terrible insomnia (may have been muscle-meat triggered, though I've woken in the middle of the night a few times this week in a panic).

I want to increase but my doctor told me to reduce to 10mg as she wants me to go slow. I feel like I need to do the opposite though!

What do you think of my bumping up the cream by 20mg increments every fortnight? Or would you suggest that I jump into 100mg outright?

 

[lollipop]

Hey guys!

I'm wondering about all this too. I was put on 20mg bioidentical cream 3 weeks ago, and increased to 40mg a week ago.

I have pretty bad brain fog and lethargy with weird bouts of anger, bloating, a puffy face, headaches and last night I had terrible insomnia (may have been muscle-meat triggered, though I've woken in the middle of the night a few times this week in a panic).

I want to increase but my doctor told me to reduce to 10mg as she wants me to go slow. I feel like I need to do the opposite though!

What do you think of my bumping up the cream by 20mg increments every fortnight? Or would you suggest that I jump into 100mg outright?

I am not sure I am adequate to give recommendations and also I am not sure about creams. I would check out this site:

http://www.progesteronetherapy.com/ - look past the push to "sell their cream". Great info on the site! I read sooooo many threads where people post their concerns and receive responses.

For me, Progest-e is simply cleaner and more effective then creams. Hard to advise you based on your doctor's recommendations. You basically have two choices: a) trust your doctor and follow recommendations or b) trust your own intuition and follow that inner guidance.

Personally, I am self directing my health. Also, again I personally would choose Progest-e over creams because of purity. Creams are suspect contents. Also, is the Progesterone truly USP Natural like in Progest-e?

I simply crossed an internal line and said, DONE, I am boosting up - simply fed up with feeling soooo off and not myself. Also I have high risk tolerance for self directing my health. I have basically been doing this for 20yrs. I never saw in all my research a big risk for bumping up. I decided to do it for a month and see. Twenty minutes after my first bump upwards, I knew my answer. I made the right choice.

Hope this helps! Not sure it has, but sending you good thoughts for your journey

 

[Emstar1892]

I am not sure I am adequate to give recommendations and also I am not sure about creams. I would check out this site:

http://www.progesteronetherapy.com/ - look past the push to "sell their cream". Great info on the site! I read sooooo many threads where people post their concerns and receive responses.

Hey LisaFerraro, thank you so much for your response. All I want to do is go home and try 100mg but I'm nervous! Just find it hard to believe that there's really no danger in heavily dosing a hormone. I actually have a bottle of Progest-E at home, but when it arrived I didn't realise it needed to be refrigerated so it sat on my doorstep for about 6 days - do you reckon it's still good? It's been in the fridge ever since.

 

[Emstar1892]

Hello,

Befoe I found the progesterone therapy site I was using around 40mgs a day and made me extremely worse that I end up in the er because my health was bad before using it

I hope I answered your question.

Hey, I'm not sure I understand your post. Would you mind elaborating?

What symptoms made you end up in the ER and were they caused by the under-dosing of progesterone or the fact your health was bad?

 

[lollipop]

Hey LisaFerraro, thank you so much for your response. All I want to do is go home and try 100mg but I'm nervous! Just find it hard to believe that there's really no danger in heavily dosing a hormone. I actually have a bottle of Progest-E at home, but when it arrived I didn't realise it needed to be refrigerated so it sat on my doorstep for about 6 days - do you reckon it's still good? It's been in the fridge ever since.

I do not think the progesterone would be affected, if anything the Vit e. I would still use it. I would think that the entire Vit e would not have gone bad. I have used one out of the fridge for a month.

I became convinced of realitive safety after I read Katherina Dalton and the site I mentioned above. BUT hours and hours of reading. Maybe try reading it more?

I think if you gave it one week as a trial, might be long enough to test its either positive or negative affects. If it didn't work for you, that quantity for a short time would not affect your health imo.

Just my thoughts - again I have a high risk tolerance - low risk tolerance for pharmaceutical drugs. Took me 3 months at least after trying Peat's ideas to believe that aspirin was relatively safe. Before that time I had not taken an allopathic drug - not even aspirin - for over 20yrs!! We each have our risk points - lol.

For me research convinced me to give it a try. Peat even said that they give high doses for repairing brain trauma-1200mg. Dalton explains that as well...

 

[lollipop]

@Emstar1892 Here is a PDF of a good interview with her I think in 1999:

http://www.natural-progesterone-advisory-network.com/PDFs/dalton.pdf

 

[lollipop]

Also @Emstar1892 Excuse me for the continuing messages - lol - my brain is thinking We are different ages - that can matter. Also I had become estrogen dominant and self diagnosed by symptoms AND low progesterone. The high progesterone counters those two symptoms to create a better balance of progesterone: estrogen - Dalton thinks 600:1, Lita Lee said Peat told her more like 1000:1. Perhaps take some lab tests to see exactly where you are at in ratio. That might give you more data to go by.

If you are simply low progesterone AND not estrogen dominant, maybe not such high doses are needed. I do think it will require some data and reflection for you and I think it is all a bit individual and complex. There seem to be no easy answers.

Hope all of this helps!

 

[Emstar1892]

Also @Emstar1892 Excuse me for the continuing messages - lol - my brain is thinking :) We are different ages - that can matter. Also I had become estrogen dominant and self diagnosed by symptoms AND low progesterone. The high progesterone counters those two symptoms to create a better balance of progesterone: estrogen - Dalton thinks 600:1, Lita Lee said Peat told her more like 1000:1. Perhaps take some lab tests to see exactly where you are at in ratio. That might give you more data to go by.

If you are simply low progesterone AND not estrogen dominant, maybe not such high doses are needed. I do think it will require some data and reflection for you and I think it is all a bit individual and complex. There seem to be no easy answers.

Hope all of this helps!

Thanks, I was just reading through it all - feel free to tell me as much as you like! I'm keen to learn. My progesterone on day 21 was 2.0, and I cant remember the value for estrogen but it was about a quarter of the way into the normal range (so the equivalent of ~2 on a scale of 1-10).

 

[lollipop]

Interesting @Emstar1892 - so unless your estrogen is trapped in your tissue, estrogen seems to not be dominant. The small amounts of progesterone could be pulling the estrogen out of tissue and stimulating estrogen receptors.

You could try two directions: stop progesterone exogenously and use diet to create a better balance since you are so young. OR bump it up for a limited time to reassert progesterone dominance so to speak and then lower it again. I would think once you get balanced you would not need progesterone exogenously for your entire life. I probably will need it because of my age.

 

[beachbum]

Hi ladies,

Sorry I missed your posts. This is what happened to me. First I want to say I am 52, as lisa said it depends on age and you health. I new I was extremely estrogen dominant but at that time new I needed progesterone but thanks to that PT site that I need alot just by my symptoms. So in the meantime it i just tried to take care of my health and actually eat whatever I wanted which helped some and reduce stress and estrogen so how. Before I became sick I was trying to flow RP ways but that is what made me the worst at that time and for me personally. Im very sensitive to many things and using waaaaay too little progesterone cream is what end me in the er a few times. which they didn't know what was wrong with me. Ha what a surprise. I was lucky to find progesterone at 10% which happens to be a cream because I would have gone broke with a lower percent. Each pump is 125mgs. Back to dose, I went by PT site recommendation and started at 200mg she even told me she never seen anyone with such a low ratio. Now the thing is it you feel worse after that dose then keep adding more. Go by your symptoms. Definitely read the site. At some point I believe I was up around close to 1000 mgs. As of now I still use the same cream because it cost me way less $45.00 for 10,000 mgs. I personally couldn't use other supplements and minerals at that time because it made me worse. Trust me im in Menopause it it is really weird symptoms,my body went haywire at menopause. Just read that site. Anyway progesterone did save my life, and now I am tweaking it with other supplements and minerals etc. My progesterone dose is around 500mg a day. Depending on you condition it may take a while. I was really sick with hypo abd hyper symptoms and many others. I thank God for helping find what is working.

Good luck and God Bless you

Sorry if I rambled.

 

[Emstar1892]

Interesting @Emstar1892 - so unless your estrogen is trapped in your tissue, estrogen seems to not be dominant. The small amounts of progesterone could be pulling the estrogen out of tissue and stimulating estrogen receptors.

You could try two directions: stop progesterone exogenously and use diet to create a better balance since you are so young. OR bump it up for a limited time to reassert progesterone dominance so to speak and then lower it again. I would think once you get balanced you would not need progesterone exogenously for your entire life. I probably will need it because of my age.

Are you sure you don't think I'm estrogen dominant?? Just confirmed my records and progesterone is 2.0nmol (5.3-8.6), estrogen is 236nmol (122-1094).

This time last year my cortisol and DHEA were all out of range high (hence why, in my opinion, my body favoured producing those instead of the progesterone needed for fertility), then my t4 and t3 thyroid hormones dropped below range. I was bedbound a lot of the time, though I'm managing now. It all seems to be very much beyond diet sadly, at least at the moment!

 

[lollipop]

Are you sure you don't think I'm estrogen dominant?? Just confirmed my records and progesterone is 2.0nmol (5.3-8.6), estrogen is 236nmol (122-1094).

This time last year my cortisol and DHEA were all out of range high (hence why, in my opinion, my body favoured producing those instead of the progesterone needed for fertility), then my t4 and t3 thyroid hormones dropped below range. I was bedbound a lot of the time, though I'm managing now. It all seems to be very much beyond diet sadly, at least at the moment!

Oh your confirmed numbers change everything @Emstar1892! Seems high to me. Read up on the progesteronetherapy.com site. Really good info ALL referenced so you can look at the research as well.

 

[lollipop]

Really feeling for you @Emstar1892! Can see your suffering - really wanting your situation to change for you! Sounds like you need a multipronged approach to address your situation. If you want more thoughts from me, PM me and I will give some ideas - non Peaty - that have made a big difference in my life...they might work in addition to your biochemical approaches.

 

[tara]

I actually have a bottle of Progest-E at home, but when it arrived I didn't realise it needed to be refrigerated so it sat on my doorstep for about 6 days - do you reckon it's still good?

I think Peat has said the part of the progest-e that is likely to deteriorate first under poor conditions is the vit-E. The progesterone itself is pretty stable. I've been carrying around a bottle in my bag everywhere I go, including in the hot car sometimes, for many months. Good to store in the fridge when convenient, but I would assume yours will still be reasonably potent.

I don't know what makes sense for you in your situation. I think Olwyn said that chronic energy deficit can reduce the production of both estrogen and progesterone, and I don't know how that affects the usefulness or appropriate dosage of progesterone.
If I were you, and considering whether or not to experiment with more, I'd do the experimenting with the progest-e rather than the cream because the delivery is quick and it won't hang around so long in tissues if you want to stop because of a bad reaction. And I'd start by taking multiple small doses rather than one big one, so you can avoid overdosing to excessive anaesthesia. I think peoples need/tolerance can vary a lot. If you use the progest-e, you may notice quite quickly what the effects are for you. After experimenting like that, you may find that 100mg is no problem/big help, and you can take larger doses if you want. Or you may not like the effects, and stop.

 

[lollipop]

I think Peat has said the part of the progest-e that is likely to deteriorate first under poor conditions is the vit-E. The progesterone itself is pretty stable. I've been carrying around a bottle in my bag everywhere I go, including in the hot car sometimes, for many months. Good to store in the fridge when convenient, but I would assume yours will still be reasonably potent.

I don't know what makes sense for you in your situation. I think Olwyn said that chronic energy deficit can reduce the production of both estrogen and progesterone, and I don't know how that affects the usefulness or appropriate dosage of progesterone.
If I were you, and considering whether or not to experiment with more, I'd do the experimenting with the progest-e rather than the cream because the delivery is quick and it won't hang around so long in tissues if you want to stop because of a bad reaction. And I'd start by taking multiple small doses rather than one big one, so you can avoid overdosing to excessive anaesthesia. I think peoples need/tolerance can vary a lot. If you use the progest-e, you may notice quite quickly what the effects are for you. After experimenting like that, you may find that 100mg is no problem/big help, and you can take larger doses if you want. Or you may not like the effects, and stop.

Thanks for chiming in @tara! Your responses are so wise, balanced, and reasonable.