Breast Soreness or Pain and Natural Progesterone

Swollen, lumpy, tender breasts generally correlated with estrogen dominance (high estrogen, low progesterone).

This generally occurs during the last 7 to 8 days of the menstrual, just before menstruation, and is primarily due to estrogen dominance over a prolonged period of time. This is a sign that your ovaries are not producing enough progesterone.

Breast fibrocysts respond remarkedly well to topical progesterone, a fact which the French first recognised some 30 years ago.

Using progesterone

Women can expect a pronounced change in your breasts within a few weeks of introducing progesterone cream, particularly if you’ve suffered severe PMS for many years.

Some women are actually ‘frightened’ by this experience when introducing natural progesterone for the first time. But to have such a painful and unsettling experience two weeks into progesterone supplementation is not as rare as one might think. There are stages of natural progesterone’s action in the body that women need to be aware of.

For example, we call the first 10-12 days of progesterone supplementation Estrogen Dominance Wake-up Crisis. As a consequence of reintroducing progesterone back into the body and thereby sensitising and stimulating the estrogen receptor sites, some women can actually go through a roller coaster of symptoms that may be quite frightening and debilitating unless they understand the reasons why.

Some of the more common symptoms reported can be increased PMS, breakthrough bleeding (spotting) or the onset of a very heavy non-cyclic period, increased tenderness of the breast, headaches ranging from unrelenting dull headaches to severe migraines, uncontrollable hot flushes, fluid retention, anxiety, teariness, aggravation, irritability and aggression, panic attacks, increased joint and muscle pain, exacerbation of thrush, impetigo, acne, weight gain, lethargy, palpitations, heartburn, and so on.

These symptoms are intrinsically connected to the ‘waking up’ of high levels of estrogen in the body that have, up until now, down-regulated due to the absence of progesterone.

Estrogen and progesterone are a pigeon-pair, each requiring the other to stimulate or ‘prime’ its activity in the body. That’s why it’s so important to maintain the correct balance between all our endocrine hormones.

As a result of this severe wake-up where the symptoms of estrogen dominance are exaggerated, women may want to double their recommended dose for the first 6-8 weeks in conjunction with a supporting herbal formulation to over-ride this phase.

You may need to supplement evening primrose oil or borage oil during these early stages of progesterone therapy. These oils act as natural anti-inflammatories to help ease the more severe symptoms [you describe above] that tend to persist until progesterone has time to oppose estrogen in the body, usually over three menstrual cycles.

You may also try swapping brands, perhaps opting for a cream that is free from additional hormones, herbs and alcohols.

Always seek medical advice to investigate suspicious lumps around the breast area or under the arms.

A baseline investigation would have been beneficial to determine hormone levels, and periodic salivary profiles taken thereafter to monitor and adjust hormone replacement therapy.

It is our aim, via our free monthly articles and extensive knowledgebase available via this website to most decidedly paint a realistic expectation of natural progesterone’s action in the body.

Some women, using their own unpleasant experiences, conclude that progesterone "is not that safe at all." That progesterone "even in small doses, is not the solution." Actually, the reverse appears to be true. It’s imperative we keep in mind that our ‘risk’ of some cancers such as breast cancer is determined by our overall exposure to estrogen during our lifetime. In fact, almost all the important human cancers that we get in Western civilisation, have the same origin, which is estrogen. While we remain in a state of estrogen dominance, we are at risk. Maintaining a healthy progesterone to estrogen (estradiol) ratio may offer us a degree of protection.

Dr Zava would have us appreciate that, "Some women need to work on further lowering the estrogen burden, prior to progesterone supplementation, with exercise, stress reduction, better diet (higher fiber, lower red meat), herbs, and extracts of cruciferous vegetables (these allow for metabolism and clearance of estrogens down safer pathways that will help prevent symptoms and potential damage to DNA of breast cells)."

Our reader Dianna writes,

"One day, I called in sick because my breasts had ballooned so large that it too painful to sit up and I had nothing to wear! It was during this time that I found a breast lump that we eventually decided to remove, only to find that it was not malignant, after all. I have since changed my diet to enhance the benefits of the progesterone and I almost never need pills for headaches, I never have pain with my monthly cycles, my moods don’t swing so drastically, and the lump in my breast has disappeared! I can’t believe it! It’s wonderful, and my new husband is very happy with my high energy and always positive attitude."

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