Menopause/Hormonal Support

[[Di...]]

Hi Rabbit

 

Yes, it's really hard to know what's going on when you are using/tapering a benzo as well.  I'll be so glad when my taper is finished (almost there), because then I will know that any symptoms I'm getting won't be benzo related. That's where I went wrong this time. I wrongly put my symptoms down to the valium, when it was the prog.

[[...]]

Tampon brand called Woolies....that is hilarious!  And yes they are expensive.  Thank you Hope for posting your prog regimen.  It is nice to know about choices and hear of similar experiences with tolerance to the progestrone.  I am now 4 nights without the P and nothing much except the water retention has changed but it is probably still to early.

 

Bunny  you mentioned you had test results.  Where is your estradiol now and where does your doctor want it to be?  Mine was at 174 when last tested.  Do you mind sharing?

[[Di...]]

Tampon brand called Woolies....that is hilarious! 

 

Never thought about it that way. It's what us Aussies call Woolworths. It's their generic brand.

[[Ra...]]

Bunny  you mentioned you had test results.  Where is your estradiol now and where does your doctor want it to be?  Mine was at 174 when last tested.  Do you mind sharing?

 

Eliz, I don't mind sharing at all.  Mind is about 73 right now.  I believe the range is 43 to about 150 if I recall for HRT therapy and blood spot testing.  So she is happy with where it is not.  But the progest is 4 times what it should be.  I've always been nervous to just be on progest cream because I've heard it builds up in the fat tissues when used transdermally like that, but I'm kinda at my Naturopaths mercy.  She knows more than I do, at least I hope she does.  I don't have much fat on me, so not sure what happens in that case.  I'll be very interested to see how my test comes out the end of April.

[[ro...]]

I can't take hormones due to a blood clot. Im 61, have insomnia and moods, crying, comming down off of lorazepam.Any help buddies.  Much thanks, Rose

[[Ra...]]

Oh Rose, I'm so sorry you're suffering so.  For the insomnia, have you tried any of the over the counter remedies?  Sleep is SO important to your healing.  I will be praying for you honey.

 

Love,

 

Rabbit

[[Di...]]

I can't take hormones due to a blood clot. Im 61, have insomnia and moods, crying, comming down off of lorazepam.Any help buddies.  Much thanks, Rose

 

Hi Rose

 

There is some evidence that the fear about natural estradiol and blood clotting is a bit unfounded. It is probably more related to the non-bioidentical hormones (ie the equine types). I posted a section from Dr Vliet's book about this a while ago. I'll see if I can find it later. Off to work in a few minutes.

[[Di...]]

Oh here is it!! It was on this very thread. I thought it was on another thread somewhere. It was easier to find than I thought..lol....

 

Why am I not suprised I'm in menopausal hell hot flushes all the time & I can't go on HRT as there is DVT in my family you know I have to laugh or I'd go mad .Thanks so much for all the info links so much helpful reading 

 

Just out of interest I looked up my trusty Dr Elizabeth Vliet’s “Screaming to be Heard” book and this is what she says about blood clots….

 

Another question which comes up frequently is “What about blood clots and the possibility of stroke?” The newest research from European centers, published since 1990 in the international menopause medical journals, has shown that the current doses and types of estrogen being used for menopause therapy do not cause adverse effects on clotting factors. This is particularly true of the transdermal form of estradiol, that bypass the liver “first pass” metabolism and do not therefore stimulate liver production of clotting factors. This recently reported PEPI trials in USA further supported the lack of adverse effects of estrogen on clotting factors, and also that women on ERT or HRT had lower levels of fibrinogen (one of the clot-forming factors) than women not taking hormones. The issue of estrogen related clotting disorders (thromboembolism and thrombophlebitis) has been more carefully evaluated with modern techniques and was found to be primarily due to the use of the older high-dose oral contraceptives in women who were also smokers.

 

She goes on to say more, but that’s the gist of it.

 

What I keep finding is that HRT keeps getting the blame for things that it’s not responsible for. There is so much evidence to show that it doesn’t increase the risks of anything. People are so used to being negative about HRT, and blaming it for everything, that when say a woman on HRT gets breast cancer, immediately the HRT gets the blame, but the sad fact is that she was probably going to get breast cancer anyway, and the HRT had nothing to do with it.

 

[[ov...]]

Thanks for all the info Diazepam!

Overcomer 

[[Di...]]

No problem. I'm happy to share.

[[Di...]]

I thought it was worth posting this link to a thread that Perseverance created a couple of years. Unfortunately these really informative threads often get lost if they aren't bumped regularly. If anyone knows of any other really good threads related to menopause or hormones, please post the links here, so hopefully they won't get lost.

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=47259.0

[[Sm...]]

That is very interesting reading DP

 

I find the stuff about benzos suppressing hormone production particularly soothing. Who knows.. maybe I wont be peri menopausal when I'm off this stuff? And it does make sense of why periods in particular are so hard for taperers - the time when your body has the lowest amount of hormones.

Stupid benzos.. just another reason to get off them

 

I find it curious that prog is cross tolerant to benzos. I feel worse - particularly with sleeping - when my prog is at its highest phase in my cycle.

 

eh.. hormones..

[[Di...]]

I find progesterone to be the most difficult hormone to understand, or to work out a routine with. I understand estradiol. It's good stuff. It's what all women need for their body to function normally. It helps protect against things like osteoporosis, alzheimers, heart disease etc, and to basically make you feel good. Progesterone, on the other hand, is the necessary evil problem child (if you're on estrogen therapy), and it seems to affect everyone differently.

 

I’m already sensitive to progesterone, but I rather stupidly thought I would try taking it on a continuous basis to try to be bleed-free. At first it was great. I was sleeping like a log every night, but after about a month the insomnia started to ramp up and I started to get symptoms which at first I thought were being caused by my valium taper, so I kept taking the prog, but then on reading more realised I was being “overloaded” with prog as it gets stored in the fatty tissue.

 

It’s now more than 2 weeks since I stopped taking it, but I’m still not back to normal, and this would seem to be because I am now suffering “withdrawal” from the prog, and I just have to go through the motions, but unfortunately doing all the things you would normally do for benzo w/d doesn’t help at all with prog. Things aren’t as bad as they were a week or two ago, but I still can’t get to sleep without taking something to help, like doxy or an AD. Sigh…. 

 

Hopefully when you have finished your taper, your hormones will rebalance themselves, and it will be years before you have to be concerned about them again. For me - too late - I've already crossed over in meno-land..lol...

 

[[Sm...]]

ahh.. well i take doxy and melatonin every night an i'm still on 7mg valium so a little sleep aid isn't the end of the world.

But I get it.. it is frustrating

And VERY hard to pin down.

Hormones are forever in flux - in your blood and tissues, everywhere there is too much or too little and occasionally the right amount.

Hopefully I'll be able to forget about them for a while post taper. At least once I hit meno I'll be better informed thanks to people like you P xxx

[[...]]

I find progesterone to be the most difficult hormone to understand, or to work out a routine with. I understand estradiol. It's good stuff. It's what all women need for their body to function normally. It helps protect against things like osteoporosis, alzheimers, heart disease etc, and to basically make you feel good. Progesterone, on the other hand, is the necessary evil problem child (if you're on estrogen therapy), and it seems to affect everyone differently.

 

I’m already sensitive to progesterone, but I rather stupidly thought I would try taking it on a continuous basis to try to be bleed-free. At first it was great. I was sleeping like a log every night, but after about a month the insomnia started to ramp up and I started to get symptoms which at first I thought were being caused by my valium taper, so I kept taking the prog, but then on reading more realised I was being “overloaded” with prog as it gets stored in the fatty tissue.

 

It’s now more than 2 weeks since I stopped taking it, but I’m still not back to normal, and this would seem to be because I am now suffering “withdrawal” from the prog, and I just have to go through the motions, but unfortunately doing all the things you would normally do for benzo w/d doesn’t help at all with prog. Things aren’t as bad as they were a week or two ago, but I still can’t get to sleep without taking something to help, like doxy or an AD. Sigh…. 

 

Hopefully when you have finished your taper, your hormones will rebalance themselves, and it will be years before you have to be concerned about them again. For me - too late - I've already crossed over in meno-land..lol...

 

Thank you DP for the link to Perserverance's post - good information.

[[po...]]

Hi everyone, I am 53, I have had a lot of bad menopausal symptoms that make my depression and anxiety issues a lot worse, especially night hot flashes and surges with elevated anxiety -- and I also had a hysterectomy because of wicked period pain about 8 months ago. I just started estradiol (0.5 2x daily) -- and my doc thinks the risks are not that great given my family history (no cancer) -- one interesting detail is that he is encouraging me to take the estradiol sublingually to minimize the impact of the liver.

AFter about a month of estradiol, I would say that it is helping quite a  bit but it is not perfect, I still have some anxiety and night waking.

Hang in there everyone !!! 

best wishes, polkie

[[Di...]]

It's good to hear that you are noticing some improvements. It's usually said that you need to give any hormone therapy a good 3 months to see the full benefits, so hopefully things will get better and better for you. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[Guest [Mo...]]

Okay Smifferooski, you got me.

Just letting you know I'm here. I won't be reading much today on the previous posts, because I'm off today.

But I'm in. I surrender.

 

Hormones suck. It's a big crazy hormone festival right now.

 

Will catch up soon. Just letting everyone know I'm coming in and it won't be pretty

 

[[Sm...]]

Okay Smifferooski, you got me.

Just letting you know I'm here. I won't be reading much today on the previous posts, because I'm off today.

But I'm in. I surrender.

 

Hormones suck. It's a big crazy hormone festival right now.

 

Will catch up soon. Just letting everyone know I'm coming in and it won't be pretty

 

You're brilliant. And soon brilliant sans hormonal hell .. hopefully

[[ho...]]

I thought it was worth posting this link to a thread that Perseverance created a couple of years. Unfortunately these really informative threads often get lost if they aren't bumped regularly. If anyone knows of any other really good threads related to menopause or hormones, please post the links here, so hopefully they won't get lost.

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=47259.0

 

Thank you for reposting.  I did a very slow taper off my bio-identical hormones after I read Perse's posts.

I just finished taper of the last of them... progesterone.  I'm now 7 days off and am experiencing increased sx... I'm going to stick with it though... Last time I came down low in my prog. taper and sx increased I up dosed it (last year) ...  Hopefully I'm far enough along in my healing this time to manage. 

[[Di...]]

I personally wouldn't taper off all my hormones. Too many benefits with estradiol, but prog is one to watch out for if you aren't being properly supervised medically. However, it all depends on your own personal circumstances, and every woman has to make her own decision about hormone therapy.

[[Ra...]]

Yeah, women are just plain lucky, hormones and a benzo withdrawal, can anyone think of a better combo?  I get my progest tested again towards the end of April.  I will be very interested to see where they are at given that I'm on cream only.  The cream makes me a little nervous because I know it can build up in your tissues.  I don't believe that is the case with sublinguals, troches or oral pills.  Do you know Pam?

[[Di...]]

From what I read, prog will build up regardless of what type you use, because it gets stored in the fatty tissue. When I had my recent prog problem I was taking the oral Prometrium, which is as natural as you can get, and I still had problems. They seem to be fading away now, finally, but it's been a good 3 weeks of withdrawal type symptoms, and it might still be another week before things are 100% back to normal.

 

Even though it's not licenced for vaginal use in a lot of countries, using Prometrium vaginally is a way of avoiding some of the side effects, but it will still probably build up to a certain degree. I have used it that way in the past, and that's the way I'll use it in future, but only for about 10-12 days a month, and definitely not continuously again. That was one experiment that didn't suit me at all.

[[Ra...]]

Thanks Pam!

[[ov...]]

Hope 56 or Rabbit or Pam:  Can you explain in layman's terms    why progesterone is bad for benzo w/d.  I take bio=identicals, which include estradial, progesterone, dhea and testosterone.  Does this make the my w/d worse.  I don't want to do a hormone w/d if I don't have to.

OC  :smitten: