Do post menopausal women have to take a break off the progesterone cream?

Hi Catherine,

Do post menopausal women have to take a break off the progesterone cream when they are on a low dose of estradiol .5 once a day and 200mg. progesterone.

Thank you,

Carol

Dear Carol,

Let’s kick-start this discussion with a few words from a much respected field leader in natural biochemical medical treatments since 1983 …

“It occurs to me,” says Jonathan V. Wright, M.D., “that if something operates on a cycle for 35 to 40 years and after that we start overriding that cycle by taking the hormone progesterone in the same quantity every day with no regard to that cycle and with no break (that break being the functional equivalent of the menstrual period) when there?s very little progesterone around, and if we start overriding that cycle that?s been going on for several years, there?s a very strong likelihood this will cause problems.

“It turns out that one of the estrogen hormones called estriol is generally conceded to be either anticarcinogenic, or at the worst neutral, but not procarcinogenic. And all animal research studies have shown it to be so with the exception of when the estriol is given continuously. The longer the estriol is given continuously the more likely it is to be a carcinogen to that animal.

“We should observe what happens in nature and copy it as well as we can. So not only do we want a molecule with the same size, same structure, the same weight, the same wave length, the same everything. We also we want the molecule on the same schedule as is found in nature. We’re trying to mimic individual nature.”

Homo sapiens suddenly emerged some 150,000 years ago. Natural selection adapted woman to this unique environment. However, there is little, if any, adaptive evolutionary preparation for menopause. Even though it is normal to have a menopause due to the failure of the ovaries if one lives that long, humans are the only species that lives much past reproduction.

This longevity is comparatively new and comes from our great mental powers that have allowed us to evade the usual things that carry off aging individuals: hemorrhage, infection, birth accidents, and natural predators. Half of our lives happens after reproduction is over, and we have no evolutionary adaptation for this. Women who go through menopause at 45?55 years of age now live to be 85 or 90 years old.

Based on these life expectancy trends, women face the prospect of spending the last one-third to one-half of their lives in a state of hormonal imbalance. The quality and quantity of life for these women will be determined by how well they (and their doctors) manage hormone replacement.

So what are our options here? On one hand, evidence suggests we need give serious consideration to hormone supplementation to ward off premature ageing, osteoporosis, breast cancer, dementia, heart disease, etc., while, paradoxically, the media has us on constant alert to yet another clinical trial suggesting, if not proving conclusively, that foreign-to-the-body hormones typically used in HRT carry significant health risks and should not be used long term.

In an evolutionary sense, we’re sailing blindly (and some might say arrogantly) into unchartered waters.

Of course, we’re not without a ‘road map’ to guide us, as Dr Wright points out. Yet, even in light of Mother Nature’s template and conventional HRT’s bad press, a large majority of doctors continue to align themselves with drug-company-driven HRT protocols that dump pharmacological doses of unnatural-to-the-body hormones into our stomach without adherence to periodic breaks to prevent down-regulation of receptor sites, often without first capturing the patient’s baseline hormone levels.

This ‘one size fits all’, cookie-cutter approach to HRT is out-dated, dangerous, and invariably falls short of the mark.

A safer choice is human-identical hormone replacement therapy which, when administered transdermally, has no known negative side effects.

Carol, over the coming weeks, in our ‘Cream Dosage & Usage section of our ‘Step-By-Step Guide’ section, I’ll explore in more detail how we can draw upon our reproductive cycle (as we remember it) to individualize a monthly HRT supplementation program that can be applied before, and after we enter menopause.

In the meantime, here are some suggested guidelines:

• Use saliva hormone testing for a complete and individualized hormone profile.


• Supplement hormones only when you have confirmed you are truly deficient in them.


• Use only human-identical hormone replacement therapy rather than synthetic hormones.


• Apply hormone replacement transdermally (through the skin).


• Supplement hormones according to your unique reproductive cycle.


• Use only in dosages that provide normal physiologic tissue levels.


• Take cyclic breaks (from cream) to rest receptor sites, and sustain balance.