Bioidentical Progesterone Cures Vaginal Dryness Estriol Cures Vaginal Atrophy
Dryness
Progesterone levels drop to less than 1% of normal after the age of 35. Estradiol levels drop to 60% of normal after menopause. After menopause many times the woman begins to complain of vaginal dryness and sometimes vaginal atrophy. Sometimes there is bleeding after sexual intercourse if there is vaginal atrophy.
Bioidentical means "human-identical" progesterone. It is the same progesterone your body produces. Bioidentical progesterone taken at 20-40 mg/day topically easily counters vaginal dryness. Vaginal dryness is not a problem after taking natural progesterone.
The natural progesterone cream may be put anywhere on the
body 3 weeks out of 4 weeks. We tell patients to cycle off
of progesterone for one week so that they are not taking
progesterone continually. If you take progesterone continually,
then you will become less sensitive to progesterone. This
lessened sensitivity is known as "receptor down regulation".
Cycling off of progesterone for one week prevents receptor
down regulation.
Thicker Skin
To increase the thickness of the vaginal skin, take topical estriol 0.5 mg every other day. If you take estriol every day this will allow an unhealthy build up of estriol in the body. Estriol is E3 or the "forgotten" estrogen. Estriol goes up 100 times during pregnancy and toughens up the vaginal birth canal for passage of the baby.
Your body produces three types of natural estrogen, estradiol, estrone, and estriol. Estradiol is the strongest estrogen. It goes into the receptor and messages your body to produce breasts and large hips. Estrone and Estriol are "weak" estrogens. They go and bind to the estrogen receptor and block out all the other garbage. Estriol in particular is the estrogen of pregnancy, increasing 100 times.
What do we know about women that are pregnant many times? These multiparous women have a smaller chance of breast cancer and endometrial cancer. Therefore, Estriol must be relatively safe to use in women since estriol is so high in pregnant women.