Posted 9/12/2014 2:34 AM (GMT 0)
@ Pirouette - bioidentical homones were a leap for me as well.
My symptoms first started when I was 46, and although all hormone tests (thyroid as well) came back normal, I knew I was having problems. Palpitations, derealisation, brain fog, hot flashes, panic attacks, increased resting heart rate, intermittent crashing fatigue. I could ride my bike 20 miles, but then several hours later, couldn't walk up the stairs. I was afraid to go to the grocery store. I would cry on my husband's shoulder saying it was not possible to get groceries. I would get lost trying to get there. I would forgot how to spell simple words like "apple". I would forget how to turn off the car when I got to where I was going.
This was long before I had even heard of lyme/bart/babs, and so I chalked it up to perimenopause. I was also dealing with our daughter (6 at the time) who was doing pretty extensive speech therapy, PT and OT to recover the fine/gross motor skills she had lost with her MMR at 15 months.
36 hour Holter monitor testing (that was a pain - all those wires) revealed some palpitations, but I was told it was nothing out of the ordinary. An endocrinologist said he would prescribe beta blockers, and all I could think was that I couldn't have a beta blocker insufficiency, so I took off on my own.
I have never been afraid to experiment on myself. After all, how bad could it get trialing bioidentical progesterone, certainly no worse than I was feeling at the time.
So I purchased some and started at low dosage. The first day I tried it was also my appointment for an echocardiogram. I remember putting some progesterone cream on my skin and leaving for the test. By the time I was lying on the table and the technician was doing the ultrasound my heart rate all of a sudden returned to normal. I'm lying there thinking "well there, I'm fixed". It made that much of an improvement. The results of the test were normal. I knew they would be.
I did have some estrogen dominance symptoms, mostly pain in my varicose veins (which usually never bother me), but it didn't last long.
If you are low in progesterone (ie your ovaries aren't producing it sufficiently, or it is used up producing cortisol in high stress situations), when you first start supplementing progesterone, your estrogen receptors which are usually packed with estrogen will be forced to release some estrogen to make way for progesterone. This extra estrogen which has been freed into your system will cause estrogen dominance symptoms to escalate until it can be processed back out by the liver. With continuous progesterone use, your body will reach a new equilibrium and estrogen dominance will subside. Start with low dosages and work up over several weeks time to the amount your doctor recommends. I just worked up to the dosage recommended on the package.
Now that we are doing well with the herbal protocols, I am finding I require less and less progesterone. Palpitations were usually my indication that I needed another application, but now I never get them, whether it's past time for application or not.
Girlie - sorry for hijacking your thread. I will stop now.