Self-Medicating with Progesterone Cream

What is meant by self-medication?

Self-medication is the use of any drug, whether conscious or otherwise, to make oneself feel better; this would include alcohol, nicotine and caffeine.

The use of medicines available without prescription is nowadays generally accepted as an important part of healthcare. It is in line with the growing desire of everybody to take more responsibility for their own health. When practised correctly, self-medication can also save expenses for the national healthcare systems.

In the context of natural progesterone, for women in Australia, to self-medicate is to administer a drug (poison schedule S4) without appropriate supervision of a qualified doctor.

Women are taking more responsibility for their own health

Women are becoming increasingly interested in playing a more active role in managing their own health. Indeed, consumer research has demonstrated that people consider health as their most precious possession requiring constant effort and attention.

Information about the wide variety of health problems that can be treated without the intervention of a medical doctor is forever more widely available. At the same time, women are ? thanks to the Internet and other media ? better informed about the increasing range of treatments which their national health authorities are making available for these problems.

Given that women are more knowledgeable than before on health matters and want to take more responsibility for their own health, the logical course of action is to shift the responsibility for a woman?s health from the health-care system to the patient/consumer.

Self-care and self-medication will continue to play a key role in this process as statistics show that women are indeed capable and willing to treat certain health problems themselves.

Governments, industry and health professionals such as doctors and pharmacists have to ensure that they move in line with consumer expectations. This requires a high degree of cooperation between them. In the USA, perceived breakdowns in the trust of employers, government and health institutions have increased American?s desire to take health care into their own hands, according to a recent study by the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), which represents OTC drug and dietary supplement makers, and Roper Starch Worldwide.

Women are demanding greater independence and responsibility in their healthcare. They are more assertive, more questioning and more concerned about their options. They want to exercise greater judgement in informed and responsible self-medication.

To recap on why a woman might need to supplement progesterone…

Research has shown that women?s ovaries do not shrink to zero after menopause, in fact they remain pretty much the same size throughout life. Also, far from there being a complete halt in estrogen production, our ovaries and adrenal glands (also skin, & fat deposits) co-operate to produce estrogen at a rate of about 40-60% of previous amounts.

Our ovaries, however, do dramatically slow down their production of progesterone, because former amounts are no longer required for reproduction. This would not be a real problem if our adrenal glands were capable of ?kicking in? and functioning as efficiently as they are meant to do at this time, and if we were not burdened with environmental estrogens.

Post menopause, our adrenals should be up to supplying on going maintenance amounts of our steroid hormones, including progesterone. However exhausted ?stressed out? adrenals (abused by modern life) are very often incapable of functioning to any great extent. This means we are left with some estrogen still being produced by our ovaries, plus the ingested ?free-floating? environmental estrogens that clog up our receptors … but next to no progesterone! This leaves us in an estrogen dominant state, and our hormone ratios way out of kilter!

And estrogen without progesterone is a setup for many reproductive cancers, and this includes breast cancer.

Why is natural progesterone considered a ‘poison’ by the TGA?

Natural progesterone is referred to as ?natural? because it represents the same (bio-identical) molecule naturally occurring in the body. It can, therefore, be introduced into the body with relative safety and minimal side effects because the body recognises it.

Yet, in December 1997, the TGA, without warning, seized all imported progesterone creams, and micronised protesterone was lumped in the same drug class (S4) as artificial progestin drugs. This just did not add up when you consider toxicity of progesterone is extremely low. At the time, the TGA appeared, at least to those of us on the frontline, to be more concerned with how these creams were marketed rather than their supposedly toxic effect on women’s health. Why else would they make provision for Australian women to lawfully import three month’s supply of progesterone cream for personal use.

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

Chemically-altered hormones can shut down or reduce our production of natural hormones. Because the molecules have been changed, the synthetic hormones used in the Contraceptive Pill and HRT do not have the same effect on the mind and body as our natural hormones do. In fact, many of the effects of synthetic hormones are the exact opposite to the natural hormone they so ineptly replace.

One prime example of HRT’s ‘unnatural’ molecular makeup is in the case of medroxy-progesterone acetate, a synthetic progestin. If used during pregnancy, this progestin has the potential to cause birth defects. Natural progesterone, however, being bio-identical to the body, is routinely used in fertility clinics around the globe to help sustain pregnancy in high-risk situations. Further, recent research suggests natural progesterone may yet prove to be a major player in supporting pregnant women with a history of premature births.

Let’s review the list of potential side effects and adverse reactions to a progestin drug:

Progestin Drugs

Warnings:

• If taken in the first 4 months of pregnancy, may cause birth defects

• May cause partial loss of vision
• Dangers of progestin in breast milk is unknown

Contraindications:

• Cerebral apoplexy
• Known or suspected malignancies of breast or genital organs
• Undiagnosed vaginal bleeding
• Known sensitivity
• Liver dysfunction

Reported Adverse Reactions:

• Breast tenderness
• Sensitivity reactions such as edema (water retention), rashes, and others
• Acne, alopecia (loss of scalp hair, baldness), hirsutism (excess facial & Body hair)
• Weight increase or decrease
• Changes in cervical secretions, and erosions of the cervix
• Cholestatic jaundice
• Mental depression, pyrexia (fever) insomnia, somnolence (acute allergic reactions)
• Nausea & vomiting
• Headaches
• Thrombophlebitis & pulmonary embolism (blood clots in heart & lungs)
• Breakthrough bleeding, spotting, amenorrhea (absence of periods) or changes in monthly cycle

Additional chapters available within our ebook, “A Woman’s Guide to Using Natural Progesterone” …

• Are there any risks self-medicating with progesterone?
• Does overdosing on progesterone present a health risk?
• Doctors have no idea about NHRT, and those that do are hard to find
• The dilemma facing women EVERYWHERE!
• Is it too much to hope for an ‘integrative’ approach to medicine?