Progesterone Cream

Pregnancy... How to use progesterone before conception and during pregnancy is explained on this page. There's is an explanation of a defective luteal phase and how to extend it. Plus information on the surge of progesterone that comes from the brain prior to ovulation, and how to use progesterone to enhance ovulation and implantation.

Contraception... Progesterone can be used as a contraceptive. It has none of the adverse side effects the drug based contraceptives can have.

It should be started 3 to 8 days or more before ovulation depending on the cycle length. This will stop the oestrogen surge which occurs 2-5 days before ovulation. This surge of oestrogen is necessary to complete the final step before ovulation. There's more information about the mid-cycle surge of hormones on the pregnancy page.

A study of progesterone contraception found a failure rate of 2.66 pregnancies per 100 women, which compares well with other methods. Please be aware that stress drops progesterone levels, so protection drops. Increase the amount used to cover the stressful time, or use a temporary alternate method. There's more information on this page.

Amounts of 100-200mg/day should be used.

It should be continued until bleeding occurs when it should be stopped. Resume using it again as outlined above.

Adverse symptoms... If symptoms are severe, it's advisable to use progesterone daily for the entire month, using it through any bleeding. Follow this procedure for 2-3 months or until stable. This ensures progesterone becomes the dominant hormone. Each time a break is taken for the follicular phase, ie from bleeding to ovulation, oestrogen rises again, and adverse symptoms return.

Once stable the cycle can be followed again. ie when the next period occurs, stop using the progesterone for the follicular phase, and resume again at ovulation. If this is not known, start again 12-14 days before bleeding.

For general use it's not necessary to know when ovulation occurs, beginning 12-14 days before bleeding is sufficient. But if pregnancy is the aim, it is necessary to know when ovulation occurs. The pregnancy page explains this in detail.

Very heavy, and/or continual bleeding... see the Menstruation page for information.

Stress... drops progesterone levels sharply, so adverse symptoms can return. The reason for this is cortisol, the stress hormone, is made from progesterone. The stress response is a survival instinct, so the body will use any available progesterone to convert it into cortisol to overcome the stress, be it acute or chronic, good or bad. Progesterone should be increased over any stressful time.

Oestrogen Dominance... This is a term coined to describe adverse symptoms which occur when first using progesterone. It generally occurs if 20-40mg/day progesterone is used. Dr Dalton's patients never experienced it as she gave them amounts varying between 400-800mg/day.

It also occurs in the early days of pregnancy with rising progesterone levels. If progesterone doesn't rise fast enough nausea, headaches, tiredness, high blood pressure and more can occur. The same symptoms can occur in the last month or so of pregnancy, when progesterone should be at it's peak. This can lead to pre-eclampsia.

It can also occur when first using progesterone, when increasing it, when decreasing it or stopping it. Or when changing brands of progesterone without taking into account the amount of progesterone in the product.

Many blame progesterone and reduce the amount they're using, ironically this does help. It's now no longer stimulating oestrogen, but defeats the purpose. Which is to suppress the excess oestrogen causing the adverse symptoms in the first place.

To prevent it happening progesterone should be increased. Ideally, high amounts should be used initially to prevent it occurring.
Adverse symptoms only occur when the ratio of progesterone to oestrogen becomes unbalanced.

They can occur from the last few days prior to and during bleeding, and are due to dropping progesterone levels, generally referred to as progesterone withdrawal. The medical term catamenial is used to describe them, from the Greek word for menses or menstruation. A more common term is PMS.

They can also occur just prior to and during ovulation. And they can occur during the entire luteal phase. Plus of course they can occur in the early days of pregnancy, throughout it's duration, or after birth.


In every case it's caused by a shortage of progesterone in ratio to oestrogen.

The higher the oestrogen, the lower the progesterone, the worse the symptoms.

Some of the severer symptoms which can occur are...
migraines
heart palpitations
seizures
anxiety and panic attacks
depression
asthma attacks
collapsed lung
post natal depression and psychosis after birth
If any of these symptoms are experienced prior to using progesterone, it's essential to use very high amounts to prevent worsening of symptoms due to oestrogen dominance, i.e. 400-500mg/day.

Oestrogen rises exponentially 2-5 days before ovulation. Progesterone should surge during these days too. This surge comes from the brain, and has nothing to do with the rise in progesterone after ovulation. If this surge does not take place, oestrogen will be dominant and severe symptoms can be experienced.

Oestrogen peaks mid-luteal phase. Progesterone should too. But if there's a failure in the corpus luteum to secrete sufficient progesterone during the luteal phase, or if ovulation does not take place, severe symptoms can be experienced throughout the luteal phase.

If the luteal phase proceeds normally, ie there is the pre-ovulatory surge in progesterone, ovulation takes place and the corpus luteum secretes sufficient, no adverse symptoms will be experienced.

But the rapid drop in progesterone levels the few days before bleeding are enough to cause adverse symptoms in many women.

The following pages give more information on other adverse problems...Breast cysts
Breast tenderness
Candida
Hot Flushes
Infertility
Ovarian Cysts
PCOS
Stress

From running Saliva Tests it's been found the ratio of progesterone to oestrogen should be 600:1 and over to feel well.Please have a vitamin D test done. For more info on vitamin D levels, test kits etc see...Vitamin D Council
GrassrootsHealth
Birmingham Hospital

Blood levels should be 70-100ng/ml or 175-250nmol/L and not the 30ng/ml or 75nmol/L most labs and doctors regard as adequate. The minimum daily dose should be 5000iu's per day, although the latest research indicates it should be 10,000iu's per day, see here.

See the Hormone Testing page for more information on hormone levels.

See here for information on... progesterone testing methods

The following chart gives an idea of when to use progesterone during a cycle. Bearing in mind if adverse symptoms are experienced, progesterone should be used daily throughout the cycle until symptoms have gone.
Ovulation Chart...

The amount of progesterone to use is dependant on symptoms.Follicular phase... This starts on the first day of bleeding and ends at ovulation, no progesterone is used
Luteal phase... This starts from ovulation until bleeding. It is always, in all women, 12-14 days long

Progesterone should be used during the luteal phase.

For contraceptive purposes, deduct 5 to 8 days from the date of ovulation to start progesterone.

Approximate date of ovulation...

Cycle length

21 day
22 day
23 day
24 day
25 day
26 day
27 day
28 day
29 day
30 day
31 day
32 day
33 day
34 day
35 day

Day

7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21



Menstruation should start within a day or two of stopping the progesterone.
Here's a chart comparing ml and teaspoons...


Having read this you have now learnt pretty much all there to know about how to use progesterone cream, but please don't forget the important message about...

'oestrogen dominance'



And, finally, here's how and where to...

Buy Progesterone Cream

Read more: http://www.progesteronetherapy.com/how-to-use-progesterone-cream.html#ixzz2DYhRV6bd
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