Frequently Asked Questions in relation to other medical treatments

Will progesterone increase my blood pressure and interfere with my blood pressure tablets?

Progesterone can be used with your antihypertensive drugs but must be done with strict supervision of your doctor and regular check ups and regular blood pressure testing. Again, progesterone helps to eliminate the fluid retention aspect of the body because it is actually negating the estrogenic effects of sodium retention. Too much estrogen will cause fluid to be retained in the body. With the adjunct of progesterone, it reduces the amount of estrogen and the effects of retention, thereby often reducing the blood pressure in the body (progesterone also exerts an anti-spasmodic influence of blood vessels).

We emphasize that blood pressure changes may be due to physiological effects or other reasons and not to self medicate because they have a high blood pressure. Reports have indicated that the reduction of antihypertensive drugs have been necessary over a period of time under the doctor?s supervision purely because their blood pressure has been restored to normal.

Addition to hypertension: There is a potential interaction with progesterone and the group of medications known as beta blockers. This interaction may cause an increase in the resistance to blood flow in the hands and feet. The result may be an increase in the side effects of the beta blocker, especially the cold hands and feet. We stress that there have NOT been reports of this effect as yet, but the potential is there. You are referred to Mercuro article in our ‘References’ page.

Can I take progesterone while I?m on my anti-depressant drugs?

Yes you can. We again emphasize that anyone on any form of medication and using progesterone should be under the supervision and the monitoring of their doctor. Many women have found after seven months on progesterone they feel the inclination to start weaning off their antidepressants over a period of a few months, under the supervision of their doctor, and have had excellent results in maintaining a state of anti-depression.

They also have found that once coming off their anti-depressant drugs, often their libido and sex drive have also improved because a lot of the antidepressants have also suppressed a lot of their libido and/or an ability to be sexually aroused. Not all anti-depressants have done this, but overall a lot have had this common denominator.

Some anti-depressants may impair the functioning of the limbic brain including the hypothalamus which may affect the menstrual cycle. One of our ladies who had been on progesterone for several months, having achieved wonderful results, began to experience anxiety of unknown origin. Her doctor put her on low doses of an anti-depressant drug which completely destroyed her libido and was unable to experience sexual simulation and orgasm. One and a half weeks into the medication, she experienced migraines for 3 days, constant nausea, her breasts became swollen, night sweats, break through bleeding, and she started neglecting herself. This lady has a history of severe liver damage from substance abuse. Hormone balance had been achieved through the use of natural progesterone, complimentary nutritional supplementation and diet. Clearly, her body could not cope with any form of medication that would put workload back on her liver, throwing out her finely tuned hormone balance. Within a week of stopping medication, her progesterone kicked back in and hormone balance was restored.

Can I take progesterone while I’m on thyroid medication?

If you have been diagnosed with a thyroid problem, and you are on thyroid medication, and now want to incorporate natural progesterone into your regime, there’s no reason why you can’t providing you do so under the strict supervision of your treating physician.

Progesterone may cause a potentiation of thyroxine’s effects leading to hyperthyroidism. Normal T3 and T4 levels with elevated TSH suggests impaired thyroid hormone activity rather than insufficiency. Periodical TSH testing should be adopted on initiation or progesterone treatment in these patients.

Please do not stop your thyroid medication because you have read that progesterone helps thyroid function. Your thyroid dosage, however, may require regular adjustment as progesterone exerts an influence upon the thyroid gland. Correcting estrogen dominance may not correct your thyroid function.

The thyroid gland function can be improved with trace minerals such as selenium, iodine, zinc and manganese.

If you are unsure whether your thyroid is functioning optimally that can be characterised by an inability to lose weight, puffy and swollen body appearance, lethargy, muscle weakness, dry skin, hair loss and constipation, we suggest BEFORE resorting to progesterone to fix these problems you might be well advised to ask your doctor to order the appropriate tests. This includes blood profile to measure the levels of both thyroid hormones, T4 and T3, and also TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone). A shortage of T4 would be administered in the form of thyroxine tablets. In the USA, thyroid replacement therapy is available in cream form by way of natural thyroid hormone replacement using bio-identical hormones.

Can I take my bone building drugs such as Fosamax and Raloxifine with progesterone?

Yes, you can, however if you are using progesterone for bone building it will be severely compromised, if not rendered ineffective for this purpose. We suggest you consider why you are taking the bone building drugs in the first place and decide for yourself whether it is bone delay that you are seeking or bone building. Because the bone building drugs are not forming new bone, they are actually stopping and delaying the resorption of old bone. Blocking off the action of absorbing old, brittle bone, prevents progesterone moving in to build new bone in place of the old. On X-ray, bone building drugs look fantastic as the bone appears dense, but in actual fact may be quite weak and brittle because the X-ray is depicting ‘old’ bone that should have been removed and replaced with new. Slowing bone resorption doesn’t necessarily make your bones stronger.

As explained above, there are two different actions involved - taking away old bone, rebuild new bone. We cannot make the decision for you but we strongly urge you to seek out options, information, and do drug research. Ask your doctor for full disclosure of side effects, benefits, and the test trials, then look at these seriously because at the end of the day, it is your health, your decision, and your body. You might like to read our section on ‘Osteoporosis’.

Raloxifine blocks estrogen receptors. It is a selective estrogen receptor drug which has estrogenic effects on bones, and is known to cause hot flushes and blood clots. We don’t know what other effects it has on progesterone or visa versa.

Can I take Tamoxifen and progesterone at the same time?

Tamoxifen is prescribed to women for the treatment of breast cancer. Tamoxifen is sufficiently estrogenic to cause endometrial hyperplasia. As such, progesterone will block this effect. Women report some terrible side effects while taking Tamoxifen such as hot flushes, and get great results once they go on progesterone therapy, which takes about 4 months to take full effect.

Don’t forget to make sure your doctor orders regular pelvic ultrasounds to check that your endometrial lining isn’t thickening too much. And make sure your doctor knows you are taking progesterone.

Can I take progesterone through chemotherapy treatment?

We don’t know medically if there is a reason why you can’t, except that the endocrinologists may be very adamant about no other form of treatment. Some even frown on taking vitamins. Yet some women have reported initiating progesterone replacement therapy because they’ve asked their doctor if they can take natural things throughout their treatment and the doctor has indicated that it’s fine. Nonetheless, we remind our women that this is a hormone and not a vitamin.

Throughout surgery, many women have continued to take their progesterone prior to, and directly after surgery as it appears to assist their body with the stresses and the corticosteroid pathway. The body may be in shock and traumatised, so progesterone being the mother hormone, can actually help build other vital steroid hormones.

We know for a fact when the body is stressed, whether it be mental, emotional or chemical, it will actually take more progesterone in the form of cortisol. Often women will suffer the next month as a result with period problems or heavier bleeding, or headaches and signs of estrogen dominance. This is purely because progesterone levels that would normally sustain the body are just not enough under stress.

Surgery is therefore one of those qualifying periods where we say to women, if you can’t take progesterone during surgery, certainly increase your dose prior to, and resume progesterone application directly afterwards where possible, particularly if used cyclic.

You need to try and follow those cycles as closely as you can, otherwise you may be throwing the rhythm of the body out.