Menu

Post-Menopausal and doesn't seem like I am getting anywhere, except mor confused

by Donna
(Illinois)

My problems seemed to start in January of 2013. Went to see my primary physician and he ran blood labs. I had been taking Natural Progesterone 20mg daily. I was not having hot flashes, just not sleeping well, have to be in a dark room with a fan for some white noise or I am so hyper-sensitive to any and all sounds. Lack of energy, weight gain, low libido, fuzziness with thinking and forgetful, sleep patterns all over the place. Blood tests showed that my Estradiol was at <12pg, FSH was 76.9ml, have not had periods for almost 3 yrs, progesterone was at 0.15ng. My perimenopausal yrs. were insane and severe and lasted for 10yrs, was on bioiendtical hormones during this time. I am now 50 and my doctor put me on DHEA 5mg, micronized prometrium 200, which I used vaginally, and Estradiol 1mg. which I really didn't want to take for dryness and I was also new studies found this could help with heart disease and osteoporosis. He had been going to conferences and it had changed his whole thinking. Before he was all the bioidentical and now had new theories. After a couple months was put on testosterone at .015 injected cypionate, then because of fatigue he also gave me Armour Thyroid 60mg. I had a huge rosacea breakout on my face, he said it would not do this. Gave me Doxycycline which hurt my stomach, but took for 2 weeks and it improved, but within a week my face was really bad.At that time blood labs were 180pg for estradiol, testosterone total 378, progesterone 2.45ng Changed doctors and found out my thyroid was always normal from her looking at previous labs and told me stop taking immediately. I fasted and came back for labs, they came back with estradiol at 96pg, progesterone 10.67n.and testosterone at 27ng. I am taking 200 mg. Micro-progesterone vag. along with Estradiol 1/2 mg. every other night. No testosterone or DHEA, still not feeling right. I am not sure what is wrong, the new internal doctor does not seem to know anything about hormones and I cannot see the new gyno. until Sept. because she specialized in menopause. Rosacea is better, been off of the thyroid med for a week now, really have no energy and feeling even more confused. Should I only be taking micronized progesterone or I know you talk about NatPro, still foggy, changed diet. I am really at a loss!! If you have any suggestions, I would appreciate it. Also libido is back again, I didn't for some years.

Comments for Post-Menopausal and doesn't seem like I am getting anywhere, except mor confused

Click here to add your own comments

Aug 02, 2013
 Post-Menopausal and doesn't seem like I am getting anywhere, except mor confused
by: Wray

Hi Donna It seems all the experimenting done on you has made you worse off than before. If you're hypersensitive to noise it sounds as if your adrenals are exhausted. Did anyone check for this? Are you sensitive to smell and light too? As these are two further symptoms of adrenal exhaustion. Fatigue is another. Please could you have a cortisol test done, if you can face more tests that is. If not, please try taking 1/2tsp of salt in some warm water every day, and see if that helps. Sodium is vital to the adrenals. Interestingly salt is needed for sleep too, so try taking it at night. You might like to read this excellent page here. It explains all about salt, oestrogen, progesterone, and the thyroid too. I can't agree with giving women testosterone, although a few benefit, most don't, see here, here, here, here here, here, here, here and here. DHEA will always convert to testosterone too. It's no wonder your level rose so high. Your last lab results give a P:E2 ratio of 11:1, which is very low. Take a look at our Saliva Tests, you'll see the ratios are all over 600:1. I don't believe any woman needs more oestrogen, there are over 100 oestrogen mimics in our environment now, see Our Stolen Future. Plenty of phytoestrogens in our food too. Continued below
Aug 02, 2013
 Post-Menopausal and doesn't seem like I am getting anywhere, except mor confused Part 2
by: Wray

Hi Donna And if you want to learn more about oestrogen, please see our page on HRT. It doesn't matter if it's synthetic, from horse's urine, natural or a phytoestrogen, they all behave in the same way. Oestrogen is an excitatory, inflammatory, mitogenic hormone. Progesterone is calming, an anti-inflammatory and inhibits mitosis, i.e. it stops cells proliferating. Although yours has come back, you might like to read our page on Libido too. If interested in the Natpro, please see our page here. Please have a vitamin D test too, it's such a vital nutrient and low in most of us. I'm sure yours is too low. Finally you might like to look through our page on Menopause. Take care Wray
Aug 10, 2013
 Menopause Research
by: Donna

Wray,
Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I did research all that you were talking about. I did know the information about Oestrogen and it's effects. I think people have to choose for themselves what they feel they need to take in order to obtain balance with hormones. Every person is different and we can have different sensitivities to anything, while others are fine with it. All labs that I have are normal, but I do take Vitamin D supplements, we have become a society that is so afraid of the sun that most skin products contain some type of sunscreen. The standard levels get changed, which I believe gets confusing for people. When I say more confused, I mean we hear about how there are many mimics of Oestrogen from products, our homes that we are living in, to our foods with GMO's verses Organic. You do research and you think everything needs to be in glass bottles, but most of my supplements come in plastic including my progesterone, and the other hormones that I have taken at one time or another and they are not BPA free. Then you hear organic and yet studies will say that between wind, soils conditions most organic products are truly not organic. We are mostly estrogen dominant while going into menopause and depending on how much you research, we have taken our doctor's or caregivers as people who know more than us. Not discounting professionals, but as woman we need to be more proactive with ourselves, our bodies, and what we are putting into it. I do not have control over the environment, only what I do or not do! Research can and does help, but it can also contradict itself. This is where we have to take what is useful to us and not others and see how our bodies respond to this. It really is trial and error for a while, and yes confusing for many people including me. I did look at the adrenals and did some research with the salt. I am now trying that idea to see if it will help me. Again with the adrenals there are people who believe in it and then there are people, including doctors think that it is depression. Again, people need to listen to there own body and what has been going on in there lives with stress. So many of the symptoms of depression also have many common denominators with thyroid,adrenals,etc. Sometimes peoples lives are just spinning out of control, and going through the menopause years are hard not only us, but the people we love and are around. I always thought it would be nice to get something going for woman in my community to get together and share ideas and help one another, support each other, it seems like everyone is to busy, not enough boundaries, we commit to things and stress our own selves out and then we wonder why we hit a wall!!
Aug 10, 2013
 Pt. 2 Menopause
by: Donna

I do hope that as woman we can see we do have choices to say no, even to doctors, or others who believe we should be taking whatever has worked for them, but when you are desperate for help, you make desperate decisions, which are not usually good. This is just my experience. Do the proper research and make informed decisions for your quality of life! There is to much toxic information, along with toxic people in our lives. Let go of what you need to, and start healing.
Aug 11, 2013
 Menopause Research
by: Wray

Hi Donna No need to apologise, our lives are not only filled with toxins, and contradictory ideas, but with too much to do and not enough time to do it. I do hope you succeed in finding the balance you need. Take care Wray
Sep 20, 2013
 Cont'd
by: Donna

Wray or anyone that might have had this before.
Has anyone had a ferritin test done. This is my first one and it came back in high on 7/25/13 at 128ng. I had another one taken on 9/17/13 and it came back a little highter at 132ng.

I don't believe I have ever had a ferritin test done before, since I am menopausal and I had some issues with imflammation because of Rosacea, my doctor ordered a anti nuclear, which came back fine. She is now sending me to a hemotologist for further evaluation. I have been on prometreium 200 mg. and take some estradiol 1/2 mg as needed which is not alot. I put in an order for Naptro today and cannot wait until it arrives!

Well I have researched the whole ferritin thing and how my body is storing excess iron in it, which is not a good thing, kinda scared because of the reading on the internet. It says it is caused by inflammation and can build up in the organs and cause many problems. I am afraid that my liver my be overloaded because I had my gallbladder removed about 3 years ago. I looked at my supplements and found that I have Iron and Vitamin C which I found helps the iron absorption. I have plums daily with almonds in the morning, this too has iron, well I mean the plums. I also have some wine, well again I see this red wine has iron in it! And if you have some with red meat it will pull the iron out of the meat! Anyway I am not looking for some miracle here, just want to know if anyone is dealing with this or has. Found out between green drinks and supplements I am getting so much Vitamin C it is toxic! And my grains, which is steel cut oats also contains iron! What to do??
Sep 25, 2013
 Cont'd
by: Wray

Hi Donna Ferritin is the storage protein for iron, levels can rise due to inflammation or disease. Which in itself causes inflammation. But your levels aren't high, they fall into the normal range of 12-150 ng/mL, see Medline Ferritin. This is another site you could look at here. If you're concerned, consider taking antioxidants, it could be you lack them, particularly vitamin D, please have a test done. Although this paper here is about autoimmune diseases, the one thing they have in common is inflammation. In each of the diseases tested, they all had very low vitamin D. The researchers of course say it's 'relatively' low, as they are taking the cut off point of 20ng/ml. Specialists are saying the minimum should be 50ng/ml, the less conservative between 70-100ng/ml. Vitamin C is not toxic at high levels, I once experimented by taking 50g/day (50,000mg/day) for a month, nothing untoward happened. I was trying to cure the bruises I had, which it didn't do. Progesterone did though. This site here gives a list of foods high in iron. I don't think you have to worry about what you're eating, although I would avoid all grains. Not because of the iron, but because of the carbs they contain. Let me know how you get on. Take care Wray
May 14, 2014
 New updates
by: Donna

I have been involved with some great websites and I am posting a link for this one in particular because, I have found that just taking Natural Progesterone is no longer working for me. After reading this article, things made much more sense to me. I hope if you are struggling to get the right information about menopause and know that we are all individuals and we made need to do things differently as I am learning. We are not a one cream/pill does all. Or just adding more progesterone may not be the best for some of us. Here is the link for anyone interested. I hope you read this about Estrogen Dominance and what it really means. And how all of our hormones really work together. So here is the link hope it will help with some of your confusion! It really did with me.
http://www.womentowomen.com/hormonal-imbalance/estrogen-dominance/
Maybe you have already read about this as I have just wanted to get the word out to others, who like myself may need to talk with there doctor, natropath, or gynecologist.

The best to all of you on the jouney

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Menopause.

Share this page:
Find this page helpful? Please tell others. Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.

Search over 8,400 pages on this site...