Have any of you ladies used progesterone cream for pre-menap

It has helped me with pms tremendously, no hunger, no headaches, no cramps, my mood has been good too. Everybody will react differently but my experience has been good. I am also on a estrogen hormone pill. I am going through peri-menopause and my pms had just been getting worse so that is why I started the natural progesterone cream.... wonderful results!

Due to an estrogen dominance situation I went off birth control and started progesterone cream to help balance things out. I'm having a hard time finding out what to expect other than longer term. I've read that it can initially exacerbate symptoms, but wondered how long that might last.

Anyone with any experience?

PS: This may not seem like much of a question for a weight loss forum, but one of my concerns that led to all this hormone jacking is rapid weight gain (30 pounds in 9 months).

This is a very pertinent question for a weight loss forum! Female hormones have a phenomenal impact on weight loss. How did you determine that you are estrogen dominant? Have you tested your levels on day 1-3 and again on day 21? Your response to one week on P cream suggests you are not a good candidate for it. There are other options depending on your situation, your metabolism, and your goals. For many women with uncontrollable periods it can be not-enough-estrogen to organize the lining of the uterus so that it is well 'held' til the end of the month. Or it could be low thyroid, or low P. I've known women who reversed fibrocystic breast problems with enough estrogen. There is just no simple answer. I'm wrote the following to give you a bit more background and to hopefully encourage you to delve into this more.

Very often what has been deemed estrogen dominance is actually low estrogen (see Screaming to Be Heard, It's my Ovaries Stupid, Dr. E. Vliet). Years ago I personally saw several alternative practitioners who deemed me "estrogen dominant" when even though my Day 1 and day 21 serem tests showed I was low estrogen and high progesterone. When I showed my blood tests they waved them away because their "theory" was the guide; the list of estrogen dominant symptoms, "Oh no, you are absolutely estrogen dominant". Later I learned, in my case, many of the symptoms of "estrogen dominance" are in fact my signs for not enough E and too much P. At first the OTC 3% P cream felt good and I seemed to lose weight more easily. Some speculate that it feels good because initially it upregulates estrogen reception - getting more bang from the estrogen that is circulating, but for many women, the hormone builds up in the tissues and they eventually get overdosed. When I became overdosed, I didn't know it. In hindsight I can see it plainly, but at the time I just thought it was allergies and odd immune system problems. I'd so thoroughly bought the idea that I was estrogen dominant that I never imagined it was the P that was making me sick. Overdose can be achieved easily with the over the counter creams. But for others, no problem.

During the early stages of overdosing you might be able to see the overdose in serem or saliva tests, but in many cases the overdose attaches to your red blood cells and it doesn't show up in a serem test and in some cases not even in the saliva (I have published references for that if it matters to you). What's wrong with an overdose? Elevated blood sugar, insulin resistance, edema, etc. I put a link at the bottom of my post to a European drug sheet on P.

Overdoing it on E or P leads to many problems, but progesterone is a much more difficult and fat loving hormone than many folks realize. 3% over the counter P cream is allowed to be purchased without an Rx, but that is not the case with estrogen (unless you are purchasing beyond the reach of FDA/DEA). That means it's also extensively promoted on the internet as a fabulous cure-all by those who are bias about it's value and deaf to hearing about it's dangers. Therefore beware. Also, it's a favorite of alternative practitioners who are still stuck in the old thinking that estrogen is the bugaboo bad guy hormone that's going to create cancer everywhere. Researchers are getting more aware that things promoting insulin resistance are more of a concern, say like .... progesterone.

Yes, some women do report doing well on 3% progesterone cream used AM/PM for the last two weeks of their cycle. There are many. But you simply don't know each woman's story and how it relates to you. I read Dr. Lee's books and I also talked to a researcher about the work. The researcher knew Dr. Lee and he and his colleagues were curious about the results because there was no science to support what he was doing. He said they did a small test to see if the application of the cream would lead to 'balancing' of hormones. It was negligible and it was no surprise. The mechanism isn't there in the body to convert outside hormones even though the alternative practitioners will show you a cascade conversion sheet to explain how P will convert to all the hormones you need. Dr. Lee did no peer reviewed work. My impression is that he was a good caring doc with a practice and all practitioners are always subject to human confirmation bias. Most doctor's practices will end up filtered to the patients that get some results with their approach. The ones who have bad results usually float away and then the doc writes a book about how he/she had such great success with X. Certainly some women have anovulatory (no ovulation = no P) cycles, and it could be carefully used for anovulatory cycles, but overall to put menopausal women on P doesn't make sense. My mother was put on it by an alternative practitioner and she got the shape of a boy with no waist and eventually got a nodule on her thyroid (related? perhaps given that all P messes with blood sugar, cortisol, and insulin). At the time, it never occurred to her that the P was a problem. It never reversed her serious osteoporosis, but eventually E and P together did.

Remember some of the roles of progesterone in pregnancy; create some insulin resistance (think increased appetite) to shunt nutrients to the baby, suppress the immune system to make sure the baby isn't rejected. It also lowers growth hormone levels at fairly low concentrations; another thing to keep the baby from getting too big. I keep mentioning on MFP that progesterone is repacked as a drug to increase appetite in cancer patients.

And some women love the stuff and do really well! It's complicated. Damn! LOL

http://healthandprostate.com/index.php/drugs/progesterone Some adverse reactions. Progesterone and the progestogens may cause gastrointestinal disturbances, changes in appetite or weight, fluid retention, oedema, acne, chloasma (melasma), allergic skin rashes, urticaria, mental depression, breast changes including discomfort or occasionally gynaecomastia, changes in libido, hair loss, hirsutism, fatigue, drowsiness or insomnia, fever, headache, premenstrual syndrome-like symptoms, and altered menstrual cycles or irregular menstrual bleeding. Anaphylaxis or anaphylactoid reactions may occur rarely. Alterations in the serum lipid profile may occur, and rarely alterations in liver-function tests and jaundice. Pain, diarrhoea, and flatulence have followed rectal use. Injection-site reactions have followed parenteral use.

Wow! Thank you Aurelina! Not so much that I'm not still confused, but for taking the time to write all that for me!

I think that my diagnosis has been more along the line of we can't find anything wrong so let's try this. This my story, in short.

I have been a life long extreme dieter. Never getting extremely thin, but losing and gaining the same 20 pounds over and over and quickly. I quit smoking in February of 2010 and quickly gained 20. I then did hcg. I lost but learned nothing and couldn't keep the weight off. I very quickly gained it back. I ended up doing hcg for 3 rounds in 2010.

At my annual physical in October my MD put me on birth control, nuvaring, to control heavy heavy periods.

In January of 2011 I had learned my lesson and gave up fad diets once and for all. I did 21 days of food combining to reset my metabolism. I was gaining weight quickly throughout this time. In March I added strength training and cardio-building up to my current 5 times a week. Still the weight was coming on with clean eating. I didn't actually count calories until May, but I eat pretty clean 90% of the time. No fast food, no fried food, very little processed food. All of this seems to have stopped the gaining, but still not losing anything. I ended up gaining 29 pounds from October until May. That puts me a full 50 pounds over my comfortable weight.

I went to my GP certain that it was my thyroid. I've had Hashimotos thyroiditis and been on synthroid for 8 years. I was shocked when my TSH came back low normal. Other than that on my labs, I had some electrolyte imbalances (which she redid the test, and still some weird stuff) She checked blood sugar and insulin levels-all normal. Lipids are super low (114). My low blood sodium is what caused her to send me on to an ob/gyn.

The ob/gyn thought it may be PCOS but other than the abdominal weight gain, I didn't show any of the other symptoms of that, but she checked whatever they check. I don't have the actual results from them in writing, just oral report that everything looked fine. I am scheduled to go back this week for an early morning fasting cortisol test.

She told me that I could be estrogen dominant even without low progesterone levels, so I'm assuming that I wasn't low on progesterone? I haven't had a saliva test at all, only blood work. So I'm thinking that the progesterone cream is a trial type thing to see if it helps.

Whew. Sorry, so much for short. I love to do internet research, and most of it seems to be by Dr. Lee or he is referenced in it. I did find info on exacerbation of symptoms in the beginning because it stimulates the estrogen receptors. Is this always just a trial and error process? And I'm supposed to give it three months and then reassess, but are you thinking because of the water retention I should stop the cream?

Thanks! This is all so confusing.

Yes, I went kinda overboard.... my intention's good! Trying to alert you to how complicated this is so that you won't think there is an easy solution with the hormones. For example, you could be estrogen dominant, but not have enough E to handle the extra P, so you could be estrogen insufficient, but dominant. Estrogen organizes the uterus for the first two weeks and if you don't have enough you can have unorganized bleeds. But you can have low E and still have P and still end up with lots of bleeding. The ring you used gave you continuous synthetic E and P which might work with someone who doesn't have a bleeding problem, but the insert says not to use it if there is an undiagnosed bleeding problem. Do you know what your day 1 and day 21 levels were? How long was it since you stopped the ring? Had your cycle kicked in again before you started the P? Another thought, given all the stuff your body has been through, a lot of it likely promoting insulin resistance, you also couldn't handle the fake P in the ring, which could make you more insulin resistant, hence... magic fat. )-:

But the super big deal in your story is this; you are autoimmune and sounds like insulin resistant (puts fat on your abdomen and makes it hard to lose it). :sad: That's your wake up call that you have to go much deeper into the mess to sort things out. :flowerforyou: That's good news. Some say that those who get fat easily are lucky cause we get the wake up call earlier.

So I'm autoimmune, insulin resistant, and my body has been through the wringer too, but I'm older than you (50) and I've lost 32 pounds so far - no starving or hard driving. I eat fairly high saturated fat (the good ones), moderate protein, and super low carb. Folks on the No, Grain, No Pain group do it too. I don't do hard driving cardio. My exercise focus is 1)mega sleep to quiet the fat promoting cortisol and heal the gut 2) weights - kettlebells - intensely for a short stint about twice a week 3) walking/dancing. My goals are to heal my gut even more (I've been on this for eons) and to feed the good bacteria in my gut, starve the *kitten* that make me fat (no starch and sugar! starve *****es!), and to keep the symbiotic beast that is my abdominal fat asleep while I burn it off my body. I keep the fat beast asleep by keeping my cortisol levels down, insulin levels way down with a keto diet and NOT doing hard driving cardio. I lift weights to keep my muscle mass and surprisingly I'm even have gains in strength.

There's lots of places to get info, but here's a few.
http://robbwolf.com/2011/02/22/the-paleo-solution-episode-68/ note the parts dealing with insulin resistance and Hashimotos
http://robbwolf.com/faq/
http://robbwolf.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=14
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread11858.html

It might help your reproductive system to step back from the hormones and simplify, simplify, simplify. Hope you talk to your doc about the problems with the P. Might have thrown too much at you. Take what looks interesting, leave the rest.

when i took P cream it made me a hungry hungry heffer! i wanted to eat everything in site. i imediately stopped it because of that alone.