experience with progesterone?

[Alex113]

Hello everyone, does anyone have experience with progesterone?


How does progesterone help patients with ME? How is it tolerated, and are there any worsening or improvements? In cases of hormonal imbalance, progesterone administration alone improved the condition? Can there be any side effects?

Best regard
Alex

 

[Faith2007]

The book From Fatigued to Fantastic!, 3rd ed., by Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, an internist and the former medical director of the Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Centers, specifically addresses this issue in his section on Low Estrogen and Progesterone, and treating it. I have been on the compounded medication progesterone for 12-14 years, taken before bedtime, which I tolerate well, without side effects. It helps keep me sleeping instead of waking up too early since my Trazadone doesn't last all night, which definitely worsened my fatigue. I have a sleep disorder where light wave sleep interrupts deep wave sleep. Dr. Teitelbaum also mentions that progesterone can decrease anxiety.

He writes that bioidentical hormones are preferred, since there may be risk of breast cancer with synthetic progesterone, but I'm not sure if that's only if it's taken with Premarin and/or estradiol.

Here's a further discussion on bioidentical vs. synthetic hormone replacement therapy and the risks associated with medroxyprogesterone acetate, a.k.a Provera, a synthetic form of progesterone, by Dr. Holtorf, the Medical Director of Holtorf Medical Group where I get treated for CFIDS: ▴https://www.vitality101.com/Fftf_chapter_4#safety

I take multiple things for hormone imbalance, so progesterone isn't a stand alone treatment for me for that.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

I used progesterone cream for about 15 years. It was very helpful. I did not take any estrogen products.

I think it's Dr. Lee wrote a couple of very good books on using progesterone cream. Bioidentical.

I used half the amount they recommend, topically. It reduced hot flashes and I was having rather intense periods which calmed way down once I used the cream. Maybe it helped with sleep, some.

Around the age of fifty, I noticed that any unusual stressors, prevented me from sleeping, which entirely sabotaged my life. I hated it. I had to give a presentation once, and never slept the night before and I was hallucinating. I pulled it off, nobody noticed, then collapsed and was sick for days. So I couldn't do things I wanted to do, any longer. I was getting panic attacks, which I could not identify as panic attacks. I think it took me maybe five years to understand what those were.