*major national geographic moment*
Let’s learn about our menstrual cycles to see how important it is for these hormones to work together. I don’t mean to insult anyone's intelligence here, but i seriously had to go back to sex ed 101 and so, now you do too.
A women's menstruation is based on a 26 to 35 day cycle. Some women have short cycles and some women have longer ones. On days 1 through 15 (day one being the first onset of bleeding) your body has shed the blood that has build up in your uterus and has a little rest period where estrogen and progesterone levels are low and steady. This is called the follicular phase. During this phase, estrogen begins to rise causing the walls of you uterus to start filling with blood and your ovaries to get another egg ready to go. Around day 15 your progesterone rises sharply, telling your body to release that egg and let it float into the fallopian tubes. This is called ovulation.
With a ripe egg and cushiony uterus, you body sits around waiting for it to be fertilized. This is called the lutreal phase. If you don’t have sex (the only 100% sure form of birth control) or otherwise don’t allow sperm to get to that part of the body, it gets tired of waiting around and expires. Around day 21, your progesterone will plummet below the levels of your estrogen, signaling your body to flush the lining of the uterus along with the useless egg and start all over again. This is called menses. The dramatic fall of progesterone below estrogen is why so many women experience depression, swelling, weepiness, mood swings and food cravings before their periods, otherwise known as PMS (pre menstrual syndrome).
If your methods for birth control don’t work, or the egg is otherwise fertilized, the egg will implant on the lining of your uterus and your progesterone will stay steady to support it. In about nine months that little seed will become a crying, giggling, hungry, pooping, wonderful bundle of joy, your baby. And the miracle of life continues.
This delicate balance of bodily chemicals affects every woman on earth from her first period (mine started at 12) through menopause (usually between the ages of 40 to 50). A lot of women think that "hormone problems" are limited to women going through "the change", but not so! Perimenopause can start as early as your thirties and because of the massive amounts of hormones in our environment, our young daughters are experiencing heavier and harder menstrual problems every year. We women in child bearing years should also remember that our bodies have a hard time bouncing back from baby sometimes. (btw, using progesterone can help with post partum depression in a major way, more on that later)
Also, progesterone is not there just to make your cycle go round, it is one of the major players out of all your body's hormones. It is the building block for the key hormones your adrenal gland makes and your thyroid uses. So if you don’t have enough progesterone to go around, those systems suffer as well and your whole body goes to crap! Now that you see how important progesterone is, you can see why having too little of it can cause a BIG problem!
When your progesterone consistently rides below your estrogen levels, it is called estrogen dominance. Remember how, in a normal cycle, that causes moodiness? (Or as they used to say, "Women’s Complaints") Well, if you have low progesterone it is like living with PMS all month long, only worse, your estrogen can literally become toxic to you. Some symptoms of estrogen dominance are:
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Panic attacks
• Aching body and joints
• Fatigue
• Breast tenderness
• Decreased sex drive
• Mood swings
• Mood swings
• Allergy symptoms
• Insomnia
• Weight gain
• Water retention
• Hair loss
• Migraines
• Heavy periods and bad cramps
But it doesn’t stop there. Because your body is an amazing thing, it can run on fumes for a long time. A lot of women will go for months or years not knowing they are feeling like crap because of a hormone imbalance. They soldier on (or are given an antidepressant) until they become crippled with one or more of these conditions:
• Uterine fibroids
• PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome)
• PMDD (premenstrual dysphonic disorder
• Infertility
• Miscarriage
• Autoimmune disorders
• Adrenal gland fatigue
• Thyroid dysfunction
• Fibrocystic breasts
• Hypoglycemia
• Insulin resistance (and diabetes)
• Accelerated aging
• Fibromyalgia
• Chronic fatigue
• Gallbladder disease
• Breast, cervical and ovarian cancer
If you have been suffering with any of these things, i am sorry, i know how bad it can feel and affect your life. The good news is that supplementing with bio identical progesterone can help and heal you. Here are the steps you need to get started:
1. GET TESTED
No doctor offices or drawing blood. ZRT hormone saliva test kits can be bought online. You can find them on Amazon or eBay or from www.supplementspot.com. These tests are designed to take on a number of different hormones and you will usually pay by which ones and how many you get tested. I would suggest that you test your progesterone and both kinds of estrogen, estradiol and estrone. The cost is about $50 per hormone tested.
You doctor's office may offer progesterone testing, but you should know that a blood test is not near as accurate as a saliva test. Your blood chemistry changes rapidly over the course of the day because it is a carrier system. It delivers chemicals and hormones and all sorts of other things to all parts of the body. Once it has "dropped off its package" it can be hard to tell how much of that hormone is actually being used in your body. That is where saliva can help. The proteins in your saliva give a much more accurate picture of what and how many hormones your body is actually using.
It is important to know where both your estrogen and progesterone levels are because you can have estrogen dominance where your progesterone is low and estrogen in normal (that’s what mine showed) or where your estrogen is low and your progesterone lower (this happens a lot with women going through menopause and may need both supplements) or estrogen is high and progesterone is low. At any rate, it is important to know where you start so you can check your progress later.
Once you package comes in the mail, just follow the instructions. You will want to test on days 15-20 of your cycle. Just spit in the vile, mail it in to the lab and you will have your results about 10 days later.
Depending on your results, you will be able to figure out how much and how often to supplement with progesterone. You should know that even if your results come back completely normal, it is still safe to use progesterone to help with bad PMS or in times of high stress. (i will fill you in more on that later)
2. SUPPLEMENTATION WITH BIO IDENTICAL PROGESTERONE
The bio identical part is important. There is a big difference between progesterone and a progestin. Bio identical progesterone is derived from natural sources and because it is, your body recognizes it and more readily accepts it. Things found in nature cannot legally be patented; therefore, if a pharmaceutical company wants to sell its own little pill, it needs to change the chemical makeup of the hormone. That is why a progestin (commonly used in birth control pills) is really not progesterone at all. Because it has been chemically altered, your body's rejection of it is usually the cause of all the nasty side effects.
There are a lot of progesterone creams being peddled out there, but a reputable brand is Progest. You can usually find it at any health food store and costs about $35. The store may have more in their selection and i think that as a rule of thumb, if they are there, you can trust them.
The cream part is important too, it is the most efficient way to take your progesterone. If taken orally in a pill, most of it will be destroyed by your liver before your body can use it. You can take shots, but honestly, wouldn’t you rather just rub on the cream? The progesterone is absorbed through the skin and held in your fat cells to be used. It is a gentle and efficient method.
A typical dosage is a quarter teaspoon, twice a day. This is a very basic dosage and a good one to start from, but don’t worry if you have to adjust it. This website has been instrumental in helping me follow my symptoms and adjusting my dosages to a helpful level, www.natural-progesterone-advisory-network.com. It may take several months of using progesterone to cure the underlying causes of your problems, but you can feel relief from your symptoms in as little as 48 hours from using bio identical cream.
3. EDUCATE YOURSELF
I have so much to share on this blog that i feel i haven’t even scratched the surface and even as i make new entrees, i am constantly learning something new that will help me or you. Every woman i different and your path to healing may differ from mine, learning as much as you can can help you make the right decisions for you. Here is some suggested reading:
"What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause" by John R. Lee, MD
He has another book of the same title about perimenopause.
"From Hormone Hell to Hormone Well" by C.W. Randolph, Jr., MD
"Feeling Fat, Fuzzy or Frazzled?" by Richard and Karilee Shames, MD,PhD,RN
These books offer a lot of great advice and information.
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