Natural Progesterone - A Safer Alternative

The toxicity of progesterone is extremely low. Progesterone creams contain the hormone identical to that produced by the human ovary. And because you’re not going against Mother Nature, women report minimal, apparently benign side-effects.

If experienced these may include breast tenderness and swelling, fluid retention or slight vaginal bleeding. Dizziness, nausea, fatigue, headaches and light headedness have been reported occasionally and usually disappear with adjustment of dose.

There appears to be an optimal beneficial level of progesterone. Doses higher than the optimal level result in reduced benefits.

In excess, progesterone can cause lethargy or sleepiness, which is often reported when women use oral progesterone.

Even in an excessive dose, high progesterone levels caused no particular side effects other than a decrease in potential progesterone benefits. This loss of effect due to excessive dosing is not uncommon. In fact, overdosing generally leads to a reimmergence of estrogen dominance symptoms. What you need to do here is restore a normal progesterone to estrogen ratio.

Research has shown natural progesterone is safer than all over-the-counter pain medications currently available, and there has never been a single case of anyone being admitted to hospital due to a poisoning from this natural-to-the-body hormone.

Take a closer look at a comparison of the artifical progestin drugs against the bio-identical progesterone creams and it becomes fairly obvious these NOT-natural-to-the-body progestin drugs carry the risk of serious side-effects when the body reacts adversely.

When asked, "Can a woman ever have too much progesterone?" Dr Katarina Dalton responded, "No, I don’t think she can. A normal menstruating woman can’t have too much because she can’t get up to that “normal” level that she has in pregnancy. As a general rule, it is safe to say that it’s better to overdose than underdose. There’s no harm in overdosing. You can’t reach it. Very definitely overdose."

We are now learning that ‘too little’ progesterone (needed to oppose estrogen in our body) is more risky than applying ‘too much’.

Our Network believes a ‘one size fits all’ approach to natural progesterone cream is just not always realistic. One needs to individualise dosage and application methods according to her medical and family history, lifestyle considerations, diet, metabolism, etc. This fact is sometimes over-shadowed by cream availablity and apparent simplicity of cream application.

We suspect the collective experimentation with bioidentical progesterone as reported to our Network has yield largely positive results because women incorporate the following 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.

• If symptoms of hormone imbalance persist, consult you physician. Your individualized prescription of human-identical hormone therapies may need to be adjusted.

Bottom Line: Doctors, in considering a patient’s need for hormone replacement therapy (HRT), should be measuring hormone levels FIRST, and then giving women only what is deficient, in small, physiologic doses of NATURAL hormones.