Hormone Help Please. (Female)

Pharma TRT
21

KSMan:
TSH 1.51 range 0.27-4.2 mU/L
The range is 0.27-4.2 quoted from lab… so i’m at 40%. Sounds ok to me?

That temperature was half hour after i woke up. About 11.30am. What is an ok morning temperature? :S

I don’t eat salt, don’t add it to food and cook most of my meals from scratch. My sodium intake is low, as you can see from the kidney function tests… No i don’t eat kelp or seaweed.

I did read that vegetarians were healthier in body than meat eaters but not healthier in mind. Perhaps due to the lesser intake of fat. I wouldn’t say i have a really low fat diet because i eat cheese everyday… :stuck_out_tongue: I mean it’s just lower than the average meat eater. I’m not sure if this is what is causing my low hormone levels or something else. Perhaps i am not having the blood test at the right time in my cycle or right time of day also. Most blood tests i have taken in the afternoon, would a woman’s testosterone levels be lower at that time anyway or should they remain same all day? :S

I will get my cholesterol checked next time.

With regard to my vitamin question, what should i take then?:

  • fish oil, nuts, flax seed oil or meal - for EFAs’ essential fatty acids
  • 5000iu vit-D3 available in tiny oil bases caps
    ZMA (instead of magnesium)
    http://www.solgar.co.uk/...100-Tablets.htm
    Vitamin D and iodine.

The female formula i posted doesn’t contain large amounts of each mineral, does it? Or is 100% RDA considered a large amount. Which trace elements am i missing, you didn’t say… The female formula or the multimineral formula both contain all the trace elements one would need…but you said (and i have read) that zinc would be inhibited, and zinc is the one i think i’m probably low on.

I probably shouldn’t take ZMA though as it’s got B6 in it and i am already taking a B complex. So i’ll probably just take zinc, copper and magnesium tablets. as i get calcium and iron elsewhere. What else do i need??

22

Alpha F: I have taken oestrogen implant for 7 years, it works very effectively. I take micronised progesterone with the implant to prevent cancer, i HATE the progesterone now. Therefore i had to stop taking the oestrogen. The only way i can get my oestrogen levels up now is to do it naturally because ive tried all types of progesterone and they all disagree with me.

KSman: i’m sure my body produces plenty of it’s own progesterone, and even at low dose, it has the same side-effects, unfortunately. I’m still taking progesterone at the moment as i have to take it for a year or more after i come off oestrogen implant, to prevent cancer risk. I can feel my pms returning, progesterone makes no difference. I tried progesterone alone as a treatment for PMS before i found my current doctor. It made me very sedated back then too.

I really doubt oestrogen dominance causes PMS because oestrogen makes women feel good. You won’t have read that on the internet because the treatment i’m on is very new and my doc is an expert in UK at least, he goes to conferences all over the world. Katherine Dalton proposed progesterone as a treatment for pms way back, and websites have touted it as a treatment ever since and probably coined the term ‘oestrogen domninance’. Progesterone is sedating, which is probably why women thought it helped them. Older antidepressants are also sedating. As are tranquilisers. People tend to view sedating drugs as helpful if they are experiencing painful emotions because they ‘fog up’ the mind so help you forget, plus relax you too.

23

[quote]Wileykit wrote:
Alpha F: I have taken oestrogen implant for 7 years, it works very effectively. I take micronised progesterone with the implant to prevent cancer, i HATE the progesterone now. Therefore i had to stop taking the oestrogen. The only way i can get my oestrogen levels up now is to do it naturally because ive tried all types of progesterone and they all disagree with me. [/quote]

OK, if you are a low estrogen female then why would it not just make sense to take a small dose of micronized estradiol?

The implant does not give you bio identical estradiol, is that correct?

24

[quote]Wileykit wrote:

I really doubt oestrogen dominance causes PMS because oestrogen makes women feel good. [/quote]

Women are different.
You cannot even generalize the same pregnancy symptoms on the same woman.

Estrogen makes you feel good and helps your PMS due to your specific endocrinologic and psychological make up.

Estrogen is highly toxic.
It has more toxic metabolites than progesterone and testosterone.

My case is completely different from yours but in taking the 2 mg estrogen, just to give you an example, I could not tolerate it: I threw up violently and was very aggressive.

I discontinued it.

Now I can tolerate and feel better on 300 mg of progesterone.

The female hormonal balance is really not an easy endocrine system to tamper with.

25

Alpha F: Yes the implant is bioidentical, i wouldn’t have taken it otherwise… And i cannot take oestrogen because they will not prescribe it alone, even at low doses, without giving you progesterone too because of it’s effect on your womb - it could cause endometrium growths/cancer if it is not balanced with progesterone (in accordance to how our bodies use the two hormones together).

Yeah you are right, i should not generalise and you make good points (hormones are a nightmare!!). I’m just going on what my doctor has told me (and what i’ve felt myself) - that testosterone and oestrogen both have an antidepressant effect on the brain, and that most women who are lacking in the hormones feel good when they take HRT. I’ve never noticed any side-effects with oestrogen, except slight nausea and sore breasts when i first started patches at higher dose. I do experience aggression when i first start taking testosterone tho.

I don’t know what you are taking oestrogen for? Perhaps you don’t need it… are you doing so under the supervision of a doctor? :S Too much oestrogen will make you feel nauseas and give you sore breasts. I’m guess you took too much. My doc would give me a maximum of 100mg implant bioidentical. The pills might be a different strength in mg…

Since i have just learnt that meat contains a lot of oestrogen (vegetarian women in Italy had lighter periods after turning vegetarian according to my friend who worked for the Vegetarian Society there), and i know America uses growth hormones in their livestock too, you could be right that most American woman suffer oestrogen dominance. I’m just telling you what i’ve been told by my doctor who has specialised in hormones, and who is president of the UK PMS Association. I’m not saying all women need more oestrogen, i’m saying that oestrogen has an antidepressant effect on the brain at the normal, correct doses which i was taking, specifically for full cycle suppression of my own hormones. I hear what you guys are saying about some doctors being idiots/missing stuff (because the NHS only pays for treating disease, not treating mild deficiencies/unhappiness), however my doc was the first doc who listened to me about my hormones and helped me. It’s just a shame i’ve become so intolerant to the progesterone because that treatment totally stabilised my moods :frowning:

26

ps the only way i could take the oestrogen now (without progesterone), is for 7 days around my period, as the do with menstrual migraine (which i get!). And i may do this once the implant has come out of my system completely. However my doc said that he hasn’t found this works as well with PMS patients, as it just delays the onset of the PMS symptoms until after their period :frowning:

27

I should probably explain further about the hormone treatment:

For PMS women, they give you HRT hormones which are identical to your own hormones. PMS women are sensitive to the normal fluctuations in hormone levels over the month because hormones affect the level of serotonin in the brain, if you are senstive to hormones like me. (i’ve also read that pregnenolone plays a part in pms which comes from progesterone and affects the GABA system of the brain). When oestrogen drops, serotonin drops also. The HRT suppress’s your normal cycle, in the same way the contraceptive pill does, however the HRT hormone doses are at much lower levels to the contraceptive pill and are bioidentical hormones which makes a difference. My doc was the first doc to believe me that artificial progestogins make PMS women moody… altho he did keep trying to get me to have the Mirena coil which was annoying, coz he said the effects are localised to womb. So I had it for a year, mood swing central! I don’t believe doctor’s now when they tell me drugs stay in one place and dont get into the rest of your body! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Also - i don’t mind the sedating properties of progesterone, it helps me sleep, so that doesn’t bother me. It’s the effect on my stomach/IBS that i can’t tolerate any longer. Makes me nauseas and makes my stomach do backflips. I have a theory on this too: progesterone apparently slows down the motion of food through the gut… and i’ve recently been diagnosed with Gilberts syndrome which if you read about, can affect Gastric emptying time. So the combination of that means food probably sits in my stomach for too long. I also get sick from migraines, and they give you motilium for that now, which speeds up stomach emptying apparently. However if i take it for few days in a row, it makes my IBS worse too. This is why i don’t want to take progesterone.

I came here for advise on increasing oestrogen through diet. If you can give me advise on how to cure drug induced gastic distress, be my guest too! I’m taking aloe vera juice at moment but symptoms keep coming back (i ate wheat few times last month and have wheat intolerance too).

29

KSMan:
So are you saying that it’s ok to take this multivitamin, even though it has iron in it because it’s only 100% RDA?

Maybe i’ll try taking Mg, Zinc and Cu for 3 months, then female for 3 months and then if there’s any competation between minerals, it’ll get corrected?

I’m not going to stop taking my iron supplements until my iron stores are up at the correct levels, even if it means eating meat more. I can take vitamin E and Zinc at other times of the day just in case i’m getting deficient?

30

I’ve just read this which is annoying, will see what my levels do once i’m off the implant:
Oestrogen therapy ? the combined oral contraceptive pill or oestrogen replacement therapy for managing the symptoms of menopause. Oestrogen, with or without a progestin, suppresses the hormone which stimulates androgen production and when given by mouth, increases the binding protein for testosterone, making less available for biological action

And this:
Testosterone is difficult to measure for many reasons. For example, the amount circulating in the blood does not reflect the amount active inside body cells. To further complicate matters, a woman?s blood test results can vary depending on when the test is taken, because hormone levels fluctuate, not just throughout the menstrual cycle, but during every day.

Typically, blood to check testosterone levels should be taken in the morning, when testosterone levels are at their peak. For a woman of reproductive age, the test should take place about eight to 20 days after the start of her menstrual period.

from:
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Androgen_deficiency_in_women

So yeah hormones are complicated.

I may stop taking the testosterone implant as I do get headaches and have always thought the HRT made those worse :frowning: But it could just be the wheat i ate recently too.

31

Just found those links on iodine. I eat organic cheese and buy organic milk when i buy it which is rarely. I do eat fish though but not enough to get enough iodine in my diet. Cheers for that KSMan…perhaps you are onto something there… :slight_smile:

Found this article on Sea Kelp though:
http://www.zest.co.uk/healthy-body/sea-kelp--super-supplement-or-health-risk/3505.html

Also interesting:
Two studies published in 2005 by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found a diet containing brown kelp seaweed (Fucus vesiculosus) lowered levels of the potent sex hormone estradiol in rats and in women with abnormal menses. The kelp corrected the abnormal menstrual cycles. This has raised hopes that brown kelp seaweed might decrease the risk of oestrogen-dependent diseases such as breast cancer in humans.

And also this (more worryingly):
Kelp is not recommended for low-sodium diets.
Is there some link between sodium intake and how much iron you need?

32

This is most interesting:
People with marginal iodine status who eat foods containing goitrogens
Consumption of foods that contain goitrogens, substances that interfere with the uptake of iodine in the thyroid, can exacerbate iodine deficiency [2]. Foods high in goitrogens include soy and cassava, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and other cruciferous vegetables. Deficiencies of iron and/or vitamin A may also be goitrogenic [35]. These issues are of concern primarily for people living in areas prone to iodine deficiency [6]. For most people, including most of the U.S. population, who have adequate iodine intakes and eat a variety of foods, the consumption of foods containing goitrogens in reasonable amounts is not a concern.

Deficiencies of iron may interfere with iodine uptake. Also i’m recomended to eat more cruciferous vegetables for Gilberts syndrome (they are brilliant foods for you liver!)

So i will get myself a kelp supplement of some sort. Shame i hate Sushi!!

33

This is what i plan to take, unless anyone has any objections?!

Ocean Kelp Thyroid Supplement to Aid Weight Management | Higher Nature (iodine)
Female Multiple Multivitamin Tablets - Solgar

***NOTE the female supplement above already has 200% RDA of vitamin D2 in it. Why do i need another 2000% of vitamin D3? (remember i’m not training/very athletic at all…just in case you think i am!!).

Plus fizzy vitamin C and iron tablets in morning until my iron stores are up.

Also p7

Cheers

34

[quote]Wileykit wrote:
Also - i don’t mind the sedating properties of progesterone, it helps me sleep, so that doesn’t bother me. It’s the effect on my stomach/IBS that i can’t tolerate any longer. Makes me nauseas and makes my stomach do backflips. I have a theory on this too: progesterone apparently slows down the motion of food through the gut… and i’ve recently been diagnosed with Gilberts syndrome which if you read about, can affect Gastric emptying time. So the combination of that means food probably sits in my stomach for too long. I also get sick from migraines, and they give you motilium for that now, which speeds up stomach emptying apparently. However if i take it for few days in a row, it makes my IBS worse too. This is why i don’t want to take progesterone.

I came here for advise on increasing oestrogen through diet. If you can give me advise on how to cure drug induced gastic distress, be my guest too! I’m taking aloe vera juice at moment but symptoms keep coming back (i ate wheat few times last month and have wheat intolerance too).
[/quote]

Liz,

The advice through diet from me is start eating meat.

I am British and am very well acquainted with the NHS and the doctors in the system.

I got married to an American 2 years ago and now live here.

My husband is a medicinal biochemist and whilst not a doctor he knows extensively about hormones and drugs. He tells me absolutely you can prescribe micronized estradiol alone.

No you can not compare the oral intake of a hormone with the implant.

Yes you can take estrogen alone and I was prescribed by a doctor the 2 mg tablets of micrnized estradiol.
Then switched to being prescribed micronized progesterone 100 mg tablets.

When I was in the UK they offered me the Mirana implant and I refused because I knew it was not bio identical and when I asked if here were bio identical ones I was told no.

I sincerely don’t see why you cannot be prescribed a small dose of micronized estradiol to be taken orally.
You are under producing and adding the estrogen alone would only bring to normal levels - why should this give you cancer if you are producing enough progesterone naturally to offset that?

Maybe that is something for you to ask your doctor.

35

It might be better to state that low hormone status is associated with depression, not that estrogen acts like an anti depressant. There is a difference. When a man has elevated E2, depression like symptoms are common.

Growth hormone is a peptide and does not survive digestion. It gets broken down into its constituent amino acids. So there is no issue there at all. If this were not the case, people would be taking oral GH instead of injecting. So no need to worry about the effects of BST. Other cattle hormones might have some effect. But note that milk and cheese contains the hormones that come with bovine lactation. So that was always there.

All women have a degree of estrogen dominance with age related decline in progesterone.

Without eating meat and eggs, one can have B vitamin deficiencies, notably B-12. Vegan Nutrition | Vegan B12 | How to get it

36

Iodine replenishment: If you need to take in 750mg iodine, calculate how many days it will take to do that with 150mcg supplement. Answer=5000 days. Read the sticky again.

37

Thanks Alpha. Whereabouts are you living in America? Are the doctors any different in America? My company are American so I could go over to San Fransisco!

Perhaps micronised oestrogen isn’t available here yet then, i just looked on BNF and couldn’t see it. Micronised progesterone has only been available for a couple of years. It’s what i’m taking now until oestrogen levels drop to normal. I will ask my doc in 6 months time if i can have it, last time i went they said there was no way they could give me oestrogen without progesterone because of cancer risk. They were really nice and concerned i was coming off the treatment. Regarrding oestrogen, it’s because of the effect it has on your endometrium, causing growths. Even though it is natural hormone, the method of taking it isn’t natural so perhaps this is why?

What are you hormone levels pre-taking hormones, out of interest? (for comparison)

38

[quote]KSman wrote:
It might be better to state that low hormone status is associated with depression, not that estrogen acts like an anti depressant. There is a difference. When a man has elevated E2, depression like symptoms are common.
[/quote]

http://www.hgi.org.uk/archive/mindfood2.htm
It is an antidepressant because if you increase oestrogen, you increase serotonin (in women).
My doc said my PMS is caused by the fluctuations, not the low level and it’s only for myself that i want to increase my hormone levels, although reading about how they increase risk of cancer, perhaps i’d be better keeping them low-ish! I think my constant carb-cravings are probably lack of serotonin too!

That is true actually, hormones are destroyed by the stomach so perhaps oestrogen levels in cattle aren’t important. That would indicate i could get my hormone levels up by eating more of any kind of fats, not just animal fats tho? :S Although i did vaguely read somewhere that there is something in meat that raises hormone levels? Do you know what that could be? I did eat a LOT of meat before i went veggie at age 12, and that was before i started periods so ive no idea if lack of meat affected me, or if my body was used to the meat. I’d rather not eat meat but if it solved my health problems i would eat as little as possible.

But oestrogen declines with age, too doesn’t it? :S

I eat eggs so no danger of that. Had my vitamin levels tested also, and fine except for iron. My vegetarian friend told me she has her vitamin levels checked every year and i should too so will consider that. Although i’ve always eaten healthily. Lots of veg and beans… just the carbs and cheese i’m not sure about but i think they are important in veggie diet anyway.

My morning temperature was 36.78 degrees/98.2F today. Which is normal, just read your thyroid thread. I had to get out of bed to fetch thermometer though so i will test again tomorrow. I don’t understand why you said in thyroid thread that optimum level is 1, i would have placed it at 1.5 if going for mid-range? Mine was 1.5 and then 1.97 Which sounds quite healthy according to your thread? I do think i could be at risk of iodine deficiency though as i drink organic milk so will take the supplements with RDA anyway and ask for thyroid tests again. I think i’m more likely to suffer from adrenal fatigue but i don’t know enough about it yet. I sent myself lots of links to read a few weeks ago but haven’t had time yet.

Were those vitamins i posted, everything i need? If i take those and increase the amount of protein in my diet, would that be enough?

39

Mid range for TSH is not good. Mid range for T4, T3, fT4, fT3 is good. That is just the way that it is.

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[quote]Wileykit wrote:
Thanks Alpha. Whereabouts are you living in America? Are the doctors any different in America? My company are American so I could go over to San Fransisco! [/quote]
You are welcome.
I am in Florida.
The doctors are not different because people are not different in the way most do not want to be in charge of their bodies and place total reliance on doctors to “solve” their issues so this over dependency creates the same type of " I am the doctor and I know better." attitude.
Having said that the system here is different and when you are paying privately you do get some control over your treatment.
Also what is available ( approved or not approved ) is also somewhat different.
For example: You can buy codeine over the counter in the UK. Here it is like you are asking for a prescription of cocaine itself and the doctor refused to write me a prescription for 2 pills ( I was overcoming an ovarian cyst that had burst ) even though I said I just wanted it in case I was struck with severe pain.
In the end I managed to get the prescription for 10 ( I only wanted two and only used two ) but I had to fight for it. [quote]

Perhaps micronised oestrogen isn’t available here yet then, i just looked on BNF and couldn’t see it. Micronised progesterone has only been available for a couple of years. It’s what i’m taking now until oestrogen levels drop to normal. I will ask my doc in 6 months time if i can have it, last time i went they said there was no way they could give me oestrogen without progesterone because of cancer risk. They were really nice and concerned i was coming off the treatment. Regarrding oestrogen, it’s because of the effect it has on your endometrium, causing growths. Even though it is natural hormone, the method of taking it isn’t natural so perhaps this is why? [/quote]

I am confused because your estrogen value in previous page was in the normal range.
Is it that you want them higher or has the doctor actually attributed your e is too low compared to your progesterone? What is the ratio there?

I am currently trying to help my neighbor in London with obtaining Estrace ( generic: micronized estradiol ) and Prometrium ( generic: micronized progesterone ).
She is going to try to get it from her GP and/or a clinic in west London which specializes in menopause.
If not, we are going to try an online pharmacy.
But she is over 50 and well into her menopause but the question remains for us whether she can get bio-identical hormones on the NHS or whether the system only allows synthetics or a combination of both. [quote]

What are you hormone levels pre-taking hormones, out of interest? (for comparison)[/quote]

Day 3 ( and last day of my period ) follicular phase:

LH 10.8 mIU/mL Follicular phase range: 2.4 - 12.6

FSH 12.8 mIU/mL Follicular phase 3.5 - 12.5

Estradiol 25.0 pg/mL Follicular phase 12.5 - 166.0

Progesterone 0.5 ng/mL Follicular phase 0.2 - 1.5

Please bear in mind that the British units are different.

And I only have one fallopian tube and one ovary ( had both on the right side removed 2 1/2 years ago ).

That was when my problems began. And when the doctors misdiagnosed me and gave me Lupron Depot ( Gonopeptyl ) and shut me down for 6 months and sent me into a premature menopause.

In short, I can’t even compare to myself before the operation.

For you, though, I would try the paleolithic diet and I would start lifting heavy weights.

I am not a bodybuilder but I am female and I love lifting heavy just for the health aspect of it.

I highly recommend it!