Morning, I'm so sick of our medical profession's approach to just fixing symptoms not the root cause. I'm on zoladex for excessive bleeding. Yesterday I had my injection and mentioned to the consultant that I'm trying to lower my estrogen and would like to increase bio identical progesterone. I've been reading LOADS about estrogen dominance and it has BLOWN my mind. My consultant is lovely but straight away admitted to knowing absolutely nothing about women's hormones. He actually laughed and threw his hands in the air. There I am getting put into chemical menopause again, and nobody can explain what the hell is going on. I asked him again WHY am I bleeding SO MUCH? He basically shrugged and said probably endometriosis. I absolutely know it's not my endometriosis - I have old old endo. I don't think it's the fibroids either. I think it's ESTROGEN. I think taking it addback is making the estrogen in my body worse. Its in my fat cells and tissue. I now think ALL of my issues have come from estrogen dominance. I've read a LOT about progesterone therapy and I had it all wrong! I thought progestetone was no good for PMDD and I didn't think it was a good idea. We are being given the impression by the media that estrogen will help us when all along it's bio identical progesterone that is the answer. Has anyone put themselves on high bio identical progesterone and fixed themselves?
If you are interested in this approach then I'd find the UK Facebook page on balancing hormones. I feel so stupid for not realising this earlier. 😪 I knew estrogen feeds fibroids etc. But I didn't join the dots until now.
Please let's discuss this xxx
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Sunset-lady
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According to this you suppose to take Oestrogen to treat menopause symptoms plus Progesterone (Utrogestan) help prevent oestrogen from stimulating Endo 💛
I'm on estrogen gel 2 pumps and 200mg of progesterone x I've dropped to 1 pump of estrogen and going to go to half and increase bio progesterone but I need to docit slowly.
I really don’t understand your rationale. What are your oestradiol levels? I would say you run the risk of severe effects of oestrogen depletion. And bio-identical progesterone isn’t regulated. You are better with body identical.
Well after reading all the information I just don't think I will be depleted. Estrogen may be low but so might be my progesterone. From what I've read and the information regarding estrogen dominance I think I need to try it. I can't go on like this. Honestly it's fascinating and so many women seem to feel better on it AND stop bleeding x
I am certainly no expert here, but please be careful reading about these things on places like Facebook. There is so much misinformation out there.
Having said that, it's absolutely ridiculous that your doctor has admitted he doesn't know about endometriosis or female hormones!! What an absolute joke! I think you need to ask to be referred to a specialist who is actually qualified to treat your condition and discuss your thoughts on treatment and hormones properly. And also tell them that your current doctor admitted he doesn't know what he is doing, because he clearly shouldn't have any women under his care, let alone anyone with endometriosis.
It's not my doctor it's the consultant at the hospital in charge of gynaecology. He delivers births and does hundreds of hysterectomies (he tried to do mine). When you ask them about hormones they know very little. It's not just Facebook- the research is out there and if you see a naturopath then they often recommend this pathway.
hi, you need to think about balancing you hormones naturally. Adding more of one hormone to balance another is just going to compound the problems. Your body knows how to balance these hormones but it requires the right tools to do it. Yes oestrogen dominance is the big issue but your body cannot easily excrete the excess oestrogen it has to be converted to oestriol which when bound to fibre can be excreted. This process requires knowledge of the systems and process, a good nutritional therapist who knows about this like Dian Shepperson Mills endometriosis.co.uk can help. Of course your diet could be rich in phyto-oestrogens and xeno-oestrogens (pesticides) so you need to ensure that your only eating these foods occasionally.
You are spot on. I've read a lot about this and I'm altering my diet to try to ensure I metabolise estrogen properly down the correct pathways and get it out of my body. Also the estrogen in our lives like plastics, make up must be making women experience early peri symptoms and young girls getting their period earlier. There's a lot of fascinating research out there and some women (like me) must be super sensitive to estrogen. If you're hemorrhaging all the time there has to be an imbalance. Many of us should get a DUTCH test particularly as many GPs refuse blood tests because of the erratic changes in hormones.
I disagree about adding more of one hormone than the other to find balance. We do this all the time with HRT. We are living at a time when women are upping estrogen like never before.
I’m no expert either, but I’ve read a lot a lot about it too and agree with you that bioidentical progesterone may help. But this is more of a functional medicine approach, rather than the traditional medical model. There are also other ways to support your oestrogen levels, through supporting detoxification. Have you read the ‘hormone repair manual’, by Lara Briden? She’s a functional medicine doctor. I think looking up a functional medicine doctor and having the conversation with them may help, maybe a specialist in women’s health. Or some nutritionists are trained functional medicine practitioners, Tanya Borrowski for example, she specialises in women’s health.
I couldn't agree more and thanks so much for the book recommendation. I see this as only one part of the jigsaw. I need exercise, nutrition and sleep too. I need to mend my liver after years of taking statins, mend my gut and balance my blood sugar. The problem is you can't do ANY of that whilst hemorrhaging because you are constantly anaemic and weak. If natural progestetone can stop the bleeding then that would be incredible.
Hi just a quick “I ditto Lara Briden - book and website” From her research I managed to convince my gynaecologist to prescribe me off label Uttogestan (200mg daily) without any oestrogen (I’m still peri-menopausal).
It sounds like you have a plan! Perhaps some support from the right professionals might help you get there. Good luck xx
I was just checking out Lara Briden’s website and it is very useful. Here’s a link to where she discusses the uses of bio identical progesterone and some tips on how to speak with your dr about it - larabriden.com/guide-to-usi...
I think I've just come to the conclusion that even the specialists don't know what to do. So I'm trying to educate myself and so something which thousands of other women have said worked for them. These women have spent a long time researching it. There's definitely something in progesterone therapy and I'm desperate now so I'm going to try it xthanks so much for the link. I've downloaded the book.
Yeah I'm sick of reading about women being told they don't absorb estrogen well and the solution is to add more estrogen and they continue to feel rubbish. Not all of them (I'm not against estrogen if it works for you. My best mate has gone through Louise Newson and is on 8 pumps a day!) But it's NOT working for me and I'm not sure why people don't consider increasing natural (not synthetic progestin) progestetone.
When my endometriosis was discovered during the hysterectomy (which they abandoned) it's grey with thick, deep lesions pulling everything and fusing it all together. My endometriosis consultant referred to it as "old endo" it's not actively fusing things NOW. It's just sat there and there's no blood. It's adhesions which is what I understand is old endo. It could flare again but it isn't at the moment which is why I have no symptoms of endometriosis.
I think you are going down a potentially slippery slope and I hope readers don’t take it as any sort of recommended course.
You say that you absolutely know it’s not your endo as you have old endo. You can’t know that - we simply don’t know enough about endo. We do know it is a complex systemic disease of the immune and endocrine systems and that the lesions are just the manifestation and not the disease itself. Abnormal bleeding is likely to be due to the hormone imbalance associated with the disease and not the presence of physical lesions. You can’t know for sure your endo is ‘old’ as in inactive. Once disease becomes densely fibrotic it isn’t associated with haemorrhage and will often come back negative at histology for active endo cells as they can be many centimetres beneath the fibrosis progressing silently.
Oestrogen dominance is about the effects of oestrogen outweighing the effects of progesterone. Endo is characterised by progesterone resistance so oestrogen dominance is effectively a characteristic of endo. In a normally cycling woman adding in more progesterone might redress the balance to some degrees. But there is a big difference between oestrogen dominance in those with naturally functioning ovaries and high levels of hormones and those whose ovaries are not functioning.
You can’t possibly be oestrogen dominant in the same way as your ovaries aren’t functioning. You mention fat and other tissues. Even if you are excessively obese the amount of oestradiol released into the circulation from fat is minuscule compared to that from normally functioning ovaries and oestradiol produced in peripheral tissues isn’t released into the circulation, it is directly taken up by receptors in the cells as is the case with endo lesions.
You need oestrogen and taking what seem to be any steps you can to eliminate it from your body by manipulating your hormones is likely to do a lot more harm than good.
Thanks for writing such a detailed response, and I really appreciate your knowledge and advice. All I know is I've had endometriosis all my life and at the moment it's not active. It doesn't feel the same way it did in my teens, twenties or thirties. I don't have any pain. The words I'm using, "old" and "inactive" aren't mine: they are the words of my specialist endometriosis consultant whom I saw privately in November. My understanding when he said "inactive" is that it doesn't seem to be growing at the moment. However I totally accept your point that it hidden behind the lesions. I will always have endometriosis as it's a life long disease but it has come and gone throughout my life, and I think lifestyle changes have helped.I agree completely that estrogen dominance could be linked to endometriosis. I think it's made me super sensitive to estrogen which is why I'm growing fobroids. I think going on HRT during peri menopause jacked up my estrogen and caused a lot of my issues- mainly bleeding. Not just a little bleeding, but hemorrhaging for nearly 2 years. I've not been on a huge amount of HRT either.
In an ideal world, estrogen is taken from the body and fat effectively down the right pathways but for many of us we have sluggish livers, sugar imbalances and poor gut microbes so it's not exited from the body well which is why we take supplements like NAC. Also our diets make things harder for us as we don't eat all the cruciferous vegetables which help to take estrogen from our body. Our thyroid may also not be working to optimum capacity and we may have high cholesterol. All of these things contribute to the way we metabolise estrogen.
For many women estrogen is the answer. I was with friends yesterday who are thriving on estrogen, and getting on with their lives whilst I am really suffering.
I don't think estrogen is for everyone and when I've researched it there are thousands of other women out there all saying the same thing.
I think women on here are intelligent enough to make up their own minds about things and do their own research. There are some fantastic podcasts out there, and lots and lots to read on this. I think it really does depend on your body and what's happening; I have to do something as every time zoladex wears off I hemorrhage for weeks. I can't stay on this forever; there has to be another way x
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