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Progesteron and mast cell disease

by Santino
(Köln)

Hello,

unfortunately my post was deleted on the main site under "progesterone and men".

I do not have the power to retype my message, so I ask the most important questions here:


1) On the page there is the info, that progesterone can be applied on thick skin as well. I noticed in 2012 that it helps with Alopecia Areata. Hair grew back where I applied the cream for a few weeks. So: Can I apply it daily on my head?

2) The main effect I am looking for is an inhibitory effect on my mast cells and I also want my body to give the extra progesterone to be able to make enough cortisol when needed. Because my cortisol showed up relatively low on Saliva testing. In the morning it was in the lower normal range and for the rest of the day it was all too low. I would need more cortisone because I suffer from a severe systemic mast cell disease.

3) The product which is sold here: Does it contain bioidentical progesterone? Or is it something that imiates progesterone or is it something like the yam based creams that are sold everywhere?


4) Can it be shipped to Germany?

Thanks

Comments for Progesteron and mast cell disease

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Feb 07, 2016
 Progesteron and mast cell disease
by: Wray

Hi Santino Unfortunately MCAD is little known about, but the symptoms are severe! I will give you some studies on progesterone re mast cells, plus a few pages we have to read now. From these maybe you could come back to me with more info, i.e. are you reminded of anything? It will also give me more time to look for studies. Mast cells, see here, here and here.

Hair loss, see here.

Vitamin D, see here and here.

I feel your vitamin D is too low, with something as severe as MCAD, I would take it up to at least 100ng/ml. You'll notice how beneficial it is for the skin if you read the page on topical vitamin D. If you wish to try a topical cream they are available on the internet but I have no idea of the quality. It would be better to make your own by adding a known quantity of vitamin D to your progesterone cream. Or to a natural skin cream with no synthetic additives. I have no idea about the quality of the cream you use, if you could give me the name I can tell you. Alternatively you could use the cream we make, it's as natural as we can make it, see here.

It can be used daily, there is no harm it doing that. Men do not have a cycle so they should use it daily. I use it daily now and have done since entering menopause over 18 years ago. You seem concerned that you won't get enough progesterone as it will be used up by skin cells or hair follicles. The answer to this is of course use more. Normally when a severe problem is experienced, i.e. epilepsy, or asthma, or heart palpitations I would advise using very high amounts of progesterone, i.e. 500mg/day. But I have no experience at all of MCAD, so you will have to feel your way, but giving me your symptoms each time you increase the amount would help. I suggest you don't take or use other supplements while using the progesterone as it could interfere with symptoms. We've not found progesterone interferes with other hormones, in fact it tends to have a balancing effect. We do have many men using it, mainly for stress, low libido, inflammatory disorders, depression etc. Yes we do ship to Germany, we have many customers there. I will post this reply on both the pages you posted on. If you reply to me, please only use one page, maybe the main page would be the better one as all your queries are there. Take care Wray
Feb 07, 2016
 Anwer1
by: henrik

Hello Wray,

thank you for your response.

The first study you posted was the reason I wrote here to find whether some people have used it maybe.

My symptoms are indeed very severe. Mast cell diseases are very often relatively harmless as they do not progress in most cases.

But my case is different. At first I was totally wrong diagnosed. And secondly I tried to regain tolerance by not avoiding triggers in the beginning.

I have the first symptoms from childhood on but they were relatively harmless.

Now I am down to 4 foods. White Basmati rice, chicken breast, flax seed oil and very little olive oil.

Doctors are not yet sure why that could happen but my immune system responds very bad to beta carotene and Vitamin A. I also react to Vitamin C but that is not as severe and long lasting as a reaction to A. I am not only talking about synthetic but also natural sources of all three substances.

I know that this sounds strange and it all is very complicated.

I tried helminthic therapy. Hleminths first evoke an inflammatory TH2 response and THEN they lead to an antiinflammatory TH2 response which means increased IL-10 and regulatory T cells which again leads to less reactiveness. That works wonders for some people.

I first tried HDC and it was a wonder because after 5 years my ALopecia Areata (that is autoimmune hairloss) was almost totally reversed. However all other mast cell reactions were not stopped.

So I tried another species which is more potent in reducing systemic inflammation which is Necator Americanus.

There is no need to google on that because there only false information out there.

Look at the bottom of this site for many scientific articles: http://wormswell.com/science-research/

However mast cell disorder is very strange disease and regarding helminthic therapy (and in principle any other therapy) patients are most complicated. So I still am in the inflammatory phase of my second experiment which should be calming down already.

The next step to deal with that would be antihistamines and if those dont work trying hydrocortisone.

I thought that progesterone could help. Maybe due to actions at mast cells (but maybe progesterone even makes them more aggressive?! I find the results from pregnany difficult to interpret and the other study was done with rat mast cells + histamine is only one mediator form mast cells).

1) But what about the cycle of woman? Woman tend to have more mast cell symptoms shortly befeore their period starts and during their period-->is that when progesterone is especially high or low?

2) Normally the body has feedback loops and I thought that whenever you add something from the outside, the body will stop own production. Also I found on this page that all hormones interact with each other. For example I have no trouble with excess DHT. More the opposite (not much beard (assuming I had not the AA), low Libido, no typical man hair loss in any of my male family members.

I ask myself whether too much progestrone could be a problem for me or maybe I even get dependent on it? I am just 28 and don´t want to disturb anything in my body that will be irreversible. I heard so many horror stories from people dealing with hormones.

If there is "excess" progesterone in my body, wouldn´t my body stop making as much pregnolone from cholesterone or wouldn´t he shut down pathways to make progesterone?

How is the progesteron in your cream made? The one I have now is made from a pharmacist (you cannot buy it here without prescription). I find lots of creams on the internet that are made of yam extract where I learned that this is not the identical progesterone that we have in our body.

Is the one you sell here bioidentical to our progesterone?

Best regards,
Santino
Feb 15, 2016
 Progesteron and mast cell disease
by: Wray

Hi Henrik To answer your questions, progesterone drops before a period. This is the reason for the adverse symptoms, oestrogen is high. Please could you have a test for the three hormones, progesterone, testosterone and oestrogen. I doubt you have high progesterone. I don't know why but I suspect you have high oestrogen. That one paper says …". Mast cells express high affinity estrogen receptors and estradiol augments their secretion"…. Yes the body does slow down it's own production if supplied by an outside source, but often the body's own production is so low it needs outside help. The manufacture of progesterone is a complicated process of which I know nothing about. I can assure you the one we use is progesterone, we've had it analysed in the past. It is not a yam extract, my symptoms would not have resolved if it had been. I'm not finding much info on MCD, but will continue to look. Take care Wray
Feb 28, 2016
 thanks Wray
by: Santino

Thanks Wray,

when my disease began in 2012 I had high progesterone, high estradiol and normal testosterone.

My progesterone in saliva was 69pg/ml (norm was up to 60 for males so I was outside the norm), while DHEA was 400pg/ml (150-620), estradiol was 2,3 (<2,5) which is very high-normal for males according to the lab and testosterone was normal with 88pg/ml (41-143).

However I checked cortisol and DHEA (unfortunately not the other hormones 2 months ago and the results were very low DHEA and my cortisol seen over the whole day was also too low. It only was normal the first hour after stadning up. But then all follow up measures were below nromal.

I tried to use DHEA cream but unfortunately had a mast cell reaction against it.

I tried progesterone cream in the evening but I seemed to not tolerate it well (bad sleep, red eyes next morning which is typical when I have mast cell reactions). However I did everthing at the same time. So I need to retest progesterone alone.

I also guess that I am now low in progesterone, because progesterone is needed to make cortisol and cortisol was too low...Also DHEA was far too low. However no chance to take it in...

Likely my body can´t make the hormones because I lack vitamins and minerals because of restrictive diet...:-/

I will try out the progesterone soon. I am just busy with measuring the Cortisol again to be sure I am low in cortisol.

Although not good in the long run, I might then need to support my adrenals with phyisologic doses of cortisol (if tolerated). Maybe I then get more tolerance to supply with DHEA and progesterone and stop the cortisone again...
Apr 18, 2016
 update
by: Anonymous

Hello Wray,

the last test of cortisol I did showed that my cortisol levels were somewhat improved but there were still in the very low normal range in the later day (from midday on).

I tried to add some hydrocortisone because all other therapy attempts failed and the inflammatory phase from the helminths kept on.

I took 10mg (about 1/2 - 1/3 of what the body normally would make).

Many many antiinflammatory things give me constricted sinuses and brainfog.

SO did cortisol. At first it was mildly and it definitvely helped with many mast cell symptoms that I have even on my safe diet. But I got more foggy slowly until I was depressive.

I then stopped taking it. The brainfog went away but slowly more inflammatory signs showed up again.

I tried the progestrone cream Saturday evening, Sunday morning, Sunday evening and this morning (monday).

Not sure yet if I tolerate it. It definitvely gives me the brainfog, too. But it is mild compared to cortisone so far. Like cortisone, it helps me to calm down some of my mast cell symptoms (heat feeling, sweating in my face + head, joint pain).

I will try to take it daily in the morning (I had more REM sleep and had congested sinuses in the morning because from evening usage).

So I guess I will try it in the morning only. However I am uncertain about the dose I should take.

I took 15-25mg each time so far.

I will try to follow your advice and increase my vitamin D more (I should have been above 40ng/ml and mostly above 60ng/ml during the last months, which is consideres normal. I am somewhat sceptic because there are researchers who claim that there might be a vdr dysregulation in chronic sick people (have a look here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4160567/pdf/11_2014_Article_755.pdf)

1) Can you tell me how much progesterone a male produces naturally each day?
2) I know that I am deficient in DHEA. Would progesterone cause ecessive estradiol or estrogen? I learned that the body can make estradiol and estrogen out of testosterone?

It would be nice if there was a pregnolone cream without any unnecessary additives. BEcause then my body could decide whether he needs DHEA or progesterone etc.... What do you think?

Best regards,

Santino
Apr 18, 2016
 follow up
by: Anonymous

Sorry, but I forgot some information:

So my worries are, that progesterone could make the organ or the system weak, that normally would produce progesterone so that I will end up depending on getting it from the outside.

And regarding the vitamin D I wanted to say, that I will try to increase it to about 70-100ng/ml to see whether it can help.

I ordered a vitamin D oil and will either take 10.000 IU daily until I reach the level or I will take it once weekly in higher doses if I find that I do not tolerate it well.

Best regards,
Santino

P.S.: Wray, would you please delete my real name in case I wrote it below my last post.

We can also have a email conversation if you prefer that:
santino2387@gmail.com
Apr 19, 2016
 another question I forgot
by: Santino

Hey Wray,

sorry but I have another question that I forgot:

First: It seems that I really can tolerate the progesterone. I get brainfog from it like I get from cortisone, but it is only short lasting.

It is interesting to observe, that at least for 2 days now I get awake earlier in the morning whereas I am often pretty tired and sleepy in the morning and would sleep 1-2h more...

However of course this is to early to take this as general. Maybe coincidence. I only know for sure whether I tolerate it if I use it a few weeks without any major problems.

The question I have:

I noticed that (when I used progesteron in 2012), that where I applied the cream, there was hair growing (I used the medial site of my underarms). As I have Alopecia Areata (AA), it would be interesting to see whether this also works at spots where the AA is active.

So I aks myself whether it is possible to dilute the Natpro or the creme I have (I would buy the Natpro as a follow up cream). So to dilute it, so that I can apply progesterone to a bigger area of skin. Otherwise I would have to use too much Progesterone (I mean unnatural doses).

What do you think?
Apr 20, 2016
 Follow Up
by: Joy

Hi Santino

As Wray has retired, I will take over from here, although there is not much else to add as I see that Wray has given you so much information. Did your read the Hair Loss page she gave you? That page will help you greatly. I noticed that you react to Vitamin A, too much of this vitamin can cause hair loss not sure if you are aware of that.

Supplementing with progesterone will not make your system weak. There are well over 100 estrogen mimics in our environment as it is, we need to balance this out with supplementation. It is vital that you get your Vitamin D3 level up as Wray suggested, a deficiency reduces the benefits of progesterone, plus it is connected to every single healthy cell in our bodies. Taking it once a week is not going to help you, it needs to be taken daily. Are you taking it with something oily? This seems to help D3 absorb better and it is really best taken in the morning, but if you feel that taking it all at once affects you, then split it up and take during the day. Are you taking co-factors? Magnesium is considered to be the most important one, but the others are important too.

Progesterone does not give one brain fog, excess estrogen does. My guess is that you are not using enough progesterone which is now stimulating your estrogen receptors, it’s an Estrogen Dominance symptom.

As for diluting progesterone, that is simple really, either use less or mix it with some aqueous cream, but I do not believe that you are using enough progesterone anyway. I trust that you are using the cream no less that twice a day, as explain in the How to use Progesterone cream page.

Please read the pages, if not already done so again that Wray has provided. The answers to your questions are all there. Please also read:

Vitmain D3
Magnesium
Environmental Toxins

I hope this helps you.
Apr 21, 2016
 answer
by: Anonymous

Hello Joy,
Thank you for your reply.
Of course did I read everything that Wray already wrote to me. I also read any article on this page. But I have questions beyond that.

How could you say that Progesterone cannot give one brainfog? That would mean that everybody is the same and reacts the same to a certain hormone. But this is not true. People with mast cell activation disorder can get symptoms from almost everything and there is a great variability between the patients with that disease.

I did not take the vitamin D daily because I also get brainfog from it on the day of intake. However I could raise my blood levels easily by taking loading doses of vitamin D. There were no problems with absorption. I raised my levels from 29ng/ml to 70ng/ml with only 2 doses of each 300.000IU.

One month later the levels was still 150nmol/ml which is 60ng/ml.

Why do you think I have estrogen dominance?

Please let me know whether this really could be the case for me. I only can tell you that I have a pretty low body fat percentage of about 12%, am pretty muscular (88kg by 187cm height). I look pretty muscular.

However my Libido is low and I have erectile dysfunction.

My testosterone levels is normal. My DHEA level was very low. However I could not tolerate DHEA capsules. Had a flu like reaction to it. Therefore my question whether pregnenolone cream would be a good idea?

Assuming I have Oestrogen dominance, how much Progesterone should I take then? On this site 100mg is suggested as highest recommended dose.

Also do I wonder why any male would need so much, as there isn't nearly as much produced naturally in male.

The argument about oestrogens in environment seems not evidence based for me. I know there is something in plastic bottles.

But can you link me to evidence that we really are exposed to these oestrogens? I dont look like I have too much oestrogen, but I am curious about what you suggest/why you think I have this oestrogen dominance...

After taking the Progesterone since Saturday (2x30mg, one in the morning, the other right before bed), I still notice some brainfog after each intake, but it is not as bad as it was in the beginning.

We all know that there are feedback mechanisms in the human body. SO can you please tell me how do you know that taking so much progesterone for a long time is safe for males?

I know that people with traumatic brain injury get a lot.

But they only take it short duration.

What about males taking it for months. Will they get dependent on it?

Progesterone could also be converted into oestrogens. How do I know that this does not happen?

Also are there reports on the internet that progesterone accumuates in fat cells when high doses are taken regularly.

My doctor (who prescribed me progesterone) there fore advised me to only take 15mg/day.

Thanks for you time Joy. I hope you can answer every single question :P

Thank you,
Santino

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