Side Effects of Natural Progesterone Cream
Most side effects of bioidentical progesterone can easily be avoided
by eliminating xenoestrogens and phytoestrogens from the patients
environment. Typically, if you do NOT avoid xenoestrogens
and phytoestrogens out of the patient's environment, then
30-40% of these patients will experience side effects. The
side effects can be easily avoided by eliminating the estrogenic
chemicals and herbs from their environment.
Usually, clinically, if you stop xenoestrogens and phytoestrogens
it takes about 1-3 months for these chemicals to wash out of the
body. After the xenoestrogens and phytoestrogens wash out of the
body, you can take the progesterone without having side effects.
If you do NOT eliminate xenoestrogens and phytoestrogens, then
you will get side effects. It is that simple.
If you do not avoid estrogens in your environment there is a 30%
chance, you will have these side effects from taking progesterone:
- Increased bloating
- Increased breast tenderness
- Increased migraine headache
- Increased irritability
- Increased pain
- Increased menstrual cramping
- Increased ovarian problems
- Increased depression
Most of the time when a patient calls me and complains that the progesterone does NOT work, it is because they did not eliminate xenoestrogens and phytoestrogens.
For example, I had one patient that had a breast cyst and began taking progesterone. The breast cyst started to disappear. I think she lived in Michigan. Her family wanted to take a 2 week vacation at a Texas beach. She wanted to use sunscreen. Most sunscreens contain chemicals that just happen to be estrogenic. I told her not to use the commercial sunscreens. She used them anyway. The cyst in her breast grew to the size of a walnut in two weeks. When she came back home to Michigan, she began to take bioidentical progesterone cream again. I told her not to. She decided to take it again anyway. The breast cyst continued to grow in size with the progesterone cream with breast tenderness. She called to ask me what happened. I told her to stop the bioidentical progesterone cream, cut out all xenoestrogens and phytoestrogens, and then try the progesterone 1 month later. The reason for this is that the sunscreen may take about 1-2 months to wash out of the body.
Why is it like this? Constant estrogen exposure by chemicals on
the skin that pretends to be estrogen lowers your sensitivity to
estrogen. Your body tries to become less sensitive to estrogen in
order to compensate for the constant exposure to these estrogen-like
chemicals. It is analogous to going to a loud rock concert. Initially,
it sounds really loud. However, after about half an hour, the rock
concert does not seem so loud anymore. Your body tries to get used to
the loud music. The technical term for this is called down regulation.
You try to become less sensitive to the stimuli, in order to operate
normally.
What happens is that as soon as you take bioidentical progesterone, your sensitivity to estrogen goes back up to normal. It is as if after you take progesterone, the rock concert becomes loud again. After taking bioidentical progesterone, your sensitivity to progesterone goes back up to normal and it seems that you are getting more estrogen even though you are not.
Again, the solution is to Stop all xenoestrogens and phytoestrogens, and
THEN take progesterone. For women with severe disease such as endometriosis
and multiple breast cysts, they will have to be more strict with their
avoidance list. For a person with mild disease, such as a mild pms,
you don't need to be as strict with the avoidance list.
Increased Sleepiness
Women using topical progesterone cream experience sleepiness. Some women use progesterone cream to go to sleep. Just take the progesterone cream just before you sleep once a day.
Simulating pregnancy using progesterone stops ovulation if taken before ovulation.
Taking bioidentical progesterone of more than 60 mg/day can fool the body into thinking it is pregnant. What does progesterone do to the body? Progesterone signals the body that it is pregnant. What happens when you are pregnant? You don't have periods. You don't ovulate. You need to have sufficient levels of progesterone to maintain the pregnancy. If you do not have high enough levels of progesterone, then you will have a miscarriage. If you take high enough levels of progesterone, then this will stop your period.
Also, if you take progesterone before ovulation, then progesterone will stop ovulation. This is because the ovaries look at the progesterone levels and think that the body is pregnant.
This effect of stopping ovulation by taking progesterone before ovulation
can be used to help infertility and start a conception. This can be
used to get women over the age of 35 to conceive. Women over the age
of 35, usually but not all the time have anovulatory cycles. You
can get these women to ovulate by suppressing ovulation for several
months, then come off progesterone. On the month they come off of
progesterone, any follicle left will spring up. This is the month
to try for conception.
Stopping miscarriage with Bioidentical Progesterone
Fertility Medical Doctors routinely use progesterone to stop miscarriage. Topical progesterone cream makes progesterone levels go up and down in about 7 hours. So you must take topical natural progesterone twice per day at 60 mg/day for a 150 pound woman. Usually first trimester miscarriage is almost always a progesterone deficiency and usually but not always can be remedied by taking progesterone. It is possible that there may be a chemical in her environment that is blocking progesterone. But it can be overcome by taking progesterone. Usually, the woman takes progesterone to prevent 1st trimester miscarriage for the first three months.
Initially, progesterone is produced by the corpus luteum for the first three months beginning at 40 mg/day. Then, the placenta produces progesterone for the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Progesterone levels continue to go up throughout the entire pregnancy until the placenta is producing 400 mg/day of progesterone during one day of third trimester pregnancy.
The danger of taking bioidentical progesterone to prevent 1st trimester
miscarriage is that if you forget one day to take progesterone, this
will generate a miscarriage. The dropping progesterone levels will
generate a miscarriage, signaling to the body that there is no viable pregnancy.
Therefore, it is extremely important if you are taking progesterone to prevent miscarriage to keep taking it every day and not forget to take it. Skipping one day of progesterone will create a miscarriage. If you are taking progesterone to prevent miscarriage during the first trimester, you cannot forget to take it one day. You must take progesterone without fail every day.
After 3 months, you can slowly taper off the progesterone very slowly.
There are some patients, that need to take progesterone throughout the entire pregnancy. These patients are typically very allergic and may have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. There is no danger in taking progesterone throughout the entire pregnancy. They have developed antibodies against progesterone. The danger is that you cannot forget to take progesterone every day.
Progesterone may also be used to prevent early delivery as well.
It would be better to use topical bioidentical natural progesterone under the supervision of a medical doctor.
Babies whose mother takes progesterone during pregnancy come out intelligent and more calm.
You can easily go up on the dosage of progesterone to 100 or 200 mg/day to prevent an imminent miscarriage. You may go up suddenly on the progesterone dose. However, you cannot come down on progesterone suddenly. Coming down suddenly on the progesterone dose will generate a miscarriage.
Again it is best that a doctor oversee using progesterone cream to prevent miscarriage.