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Uncertain

by Anonymous

Hello, I am 32 years old. My problems started about a little over a year ago, although looking back, it's probably been much longer. I first started menstruating at the age of 9, with horrible flooding, cramps that would keep me home from school and bleeding that would last for two weeks. This continued until I was 17 and was put on bc pills, which I felt great on but then I eventually developed severe cyclic migraines that would last for days at a time and stopped taking them around the age of 23 or so. After that, my cycle was pretty normal, although I never really tracked it. During my 20's I also suffered from bouts of constipation which would fluctuate. At 28 I became pregnant (no trouble getting pregnant as my husband and I weren't trying), had bleeding several times in the first trimester and horrible morning, noon and night sickness. I felt miserable being pregnant and gained tons of water weight. My daughter came two weeks early, and I had a little post partum depression, but I don't feel it was overly severe. Even though I bf her until 16 months old I still resumed my period four months after having her. I felt okay for about two years after having her, and then two years ago I went through a very stressful time: major financial issues and my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 inflammatory breast cancer (an estrogen based cancer; estrogen dominance runs in my family; my grandmother had a hysterectomy after fibroids were found and all my mother's sisters have issues). A couple months after everything started settling down (last January) I started to get mid cycle cramping which progressed to mid cycle spotting and lighter, shorter periods (for me). I went to see my ob about it, which she checked everything, had an ultrasound and took blood work. I don't think she checked my hormones or vitamin D levels; I had started supplementing with vitamin D after my mother's diagnosis. Everything came back 'perfect', no masses detected on ultra, blood work fine, and negative for cancer, etc. When I tried to understand what was going and talked to my ob about what could be wrong, she basically tried to pawn me off on a colleague of hers for more invasive testing and basically didn't want to do anything else for me. My symptoms had gotten worse by now, spotting/bleeding on and off all month, sore swollen breasts, burning in the abdomen, cramping all month, tired, emotional, back hip pain, foot problems, reoccurring yeast infections, and peristalsis in my intestines where my abdomen would move with digestion; I felt awful! I didn't have normal issues that most women seemed to have though, like heavier periods or flooding. My period always came on time and was never worse than usual! I thought maybe it was the stress causing hormonal issues/endometriosis or something, so I started taking estrosense to take away the estrogen dominance symptoms. I did not go back to the doctor, as I hate invasive testing and did not want to go that route. The estrosense does make a lot of my symptoms go away, I've been on it for almost a year. My symptoms are generally better in the summer months: less spotting, less pain throughout the cycle. I actually feel the best when I have my period! However, this past winter the spotting has gotten worse, it used to be a little before my period and for about two weeks after; now it changed to no spotting a week after and then spotting increasing the rest of the month until my period. I still get lower back hip pain as well, but everything else is better and my constipation completely cleared up. So, I decided after seeing your forum and page to try progesterone cream. Natpro was out of stock so I researched and decided to try Beeyoutiful' s brand. My cycles tend to be around 28 days, so on day 14 I started it, which was two days after the spotting started. I felt great initially and started with 100-200 a day, putting it on am and pm. My spotting would go away until about 3 pm and then would start back up, so I started putting more on in the afternoon. Because of how much I was using, I ran out of the cream quicker than I expected, went to order Natpro again but it was still out of stock, so after ordering more of the Beeyoutiful brand I ran and got the Emerita progest to use until my other ointment came in the mail. The Emerita brand did not make me feel better and I had to increase up to 300-400 a day with still having spotting intermittently throughout the day with no reason. Ran out of that tube within 3-4 days and my other cream got delayed by the post office so I bought more emerita to hold me over. By then, I was starting to feel grumpy, tired and irreparable, still having spotting, covered in cream all day, getting bloated and gaining weight (my pants didn't fit!) and then developed severe constipation; I couldn't even go. By the time my other cream came, I decided to stop using the progesterone cream altogether because I felt miserable and was starting to bleed more. Now, I have had constant bleeding, not heavy, but comes and goes morning noon and night, bright red, and intermittent cramping throughout the day. A side note, I have exercised at least five days a week since I was 16 and when these issues started a year ago, exercise makes me bleed more or have gushes of spotting; so does jumping around with my daughter or lifting her and carrying her around. I haven't gotten a period per se since stopping the progesterone cream and now I'm afraid to try it again since I can't deal with the severe constipation! I was putting the cream on my abdomen, arms and thighs; another awful symptom I acquired since last year is extremely low sex drive and dryness. This has continued and never gotten better as well as reoccurring yeast infections. The progesterone cream seemed to help with the yeast infections, haven't had one since using it, but still no sex drive. I don't know if I should start using it again, however it is financially taxing as well as stressful due to ordering online and not getting it on time or if and also about the constipation. Was I using too little? Too late? Too much? I started taking the supplements you advised a couple days ago, a B complex, a zinc/mag/calcium supplement (I know you said not to take too much calcium, so I will look for one without it next time) and I also take 10,000 iu of vitamin D a day as well. Having intermittent bleeding all day now, off and on with cramping, and feeling very tired even with the supplements. I'm not sure where to go from here, I guess I don't know what I'm doing! Any advice would be greatly appreciated! And thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this through; I apologize for being so long winded, I just figured giving background would be best!

Comments for Uncertain

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Feb 28, 2015
 Uncertain
by: Wray

Hi there Thanks for the details, I'll go through them as you've given them to me, maybe some have resolved but best I give as much info as I can. Please see our page on Menstruation and Migraines. Plus the two we have on Pregnancy and this one here. I'm sorry to hear about your mother, I do hope she's recovered. A lack of vitamin D is another cause of Cancer and Fibroids. Mid cycle cramping and/or bleeding is called Mittelschmerz, it's a German word meaning middle pain, see here, here, here and here. But most of these symptoms…. spotting/bleeding on and off all month, sore swollen breasts, burning in the abdomen, cramping all month, tired, emotional, back hip pain, foot problems, reoccurring yeast infections……. suggest you are not ovulating, so not making progesterone. Or if you are the amount of progesterone the corpus luteum is making is insufficient to counter the oestrogen. It's known as a defective luteal phase, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Estrosense is a good product. We do have a page on Libido too. The menstruation page gives details on a protocol to stop heavy and/or continual bleeding. Progesterone does help Candida, oestrogen exacerbates it. It's so difficult to answer your questions about too little or too much etc. It is trial and error. If you could read through the pages I've given above, you should get a better idea of how to proceed. One further page you might have seen is How to use Progesterone Cream. Take care Wray

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