Prometrium

It is the journey that could be years and decades that is really, really important for clinicians to understand.

And if they can't understand that some women do not tolerate Prometrium as much as they wish that they could, a lot of women are probably lowering or stopping their progesterone without them knowing at home now estrogen came in at 51 the lowest and that's probably because women have a little bit more fears about titrating testosterone without their clinicians knowledge hopefully that means on socials we've been you know teaching women that if testosterone gets too high you could have some permanent side effects And that alone kind of lets them think, maybe I shouldn't do that.

But still, that's still a lot of self-titration at home.

Now, one of the other interesting things is that a lot of the women who were quote unquote self-titrating weren't really doing it in the way that I was just describing when I gave examples of myself and my patients.

And that was the only difference between that group and the group that only took estradiol, who had a lower rate of heart disease and a lower rate of breast cancer than people who took nothing.

So you want to take Prometrium, which is the brand name of progesterone, and you can get that through your insurance.

Or you can take BLA progesterone, which is a progesterone that slowly dissolves.

Actually, you can have it as a lozenge or you can have it as a pill.

or days.

It's something that takes a long time.

So you want to ask for bioidentical progesterone in any form, or you're going to ask for Prometrium, which is bioidentical in peanut oil.

And that's something paid for by insurance.

And so, you know, especially from like an MD perspective that move things forward, but still get so many things wrong and still think you can't have estrogen with cancer or history of cancer and still think that pharmaceutical hormones are the way to go rather than looking to compounded hormones, which are much cleaner and don't have harmful ingredients like the pharmaceuticals too.

For example, you can get compounded progesterone or you can get Prometrium, which is a bioidentical pharmaceutical progesterone, complete with rancid peanut oil and artificially colored capsules.

So I think that we're moving, and sometimes it's a lateral move, but we are moving in the right direction.

I think more women are asking more questions about and need to keep asking questions and need to tune into themselves and need to get proper bioidentical hormone replacement.

You've got to have your hormones dialed in.

You've got to have them properly prescribed.

An estradiol patch and a Prometrium pill is not the answer for most women to get them optimized and feeling their best safely.

So hormones, hormones, hormones, like location, location, location in real estate.

Progesterone, if they do it orally, it's 100 or 200.

Then if you go the like Prometrium route.

But what about testosterone? What's used?

Yeah.

So I'm not a fan of that.

However, if someone comes into me and they're on an estradiol patch, because the most common thing is kind of like, here's an estradiol patch and here's Prometrium.

And Prometrium

is the oral progesterone, just as an FYI.

Right.

So it's not what I recommend, but if it's what you're doing and that's all you can do, that's fine.

We have to work within your realm.

But if you're on the typical estradiol patch and the Prometrium pill, I will test you and I will see what your body's doing with it.

So oral micronized bioidentical progesterone in a capsule can be a real game changer for many women when it comes to sleep, anxiety, and mood regulation.

Now, if the FDA approved capsule known as Prometrium doesn't work for you, you may need a compounded formula or a trochee that slowly dissolves in your mouth.

There's also the option to insert it vaginally or even rectally if when you take it orally, it makes you feel really groggy and sleepy the next day.

The good news is there are a variety of options, dosing, and formulas to fit each woman.

that's impacted by that change.

Today's topic is our hormone progesterone, another of the hormones that changes during this same midlife transition.

We tend to think of progesterone as a pregnancy hormone, and it's not just the pregnancy hormone.

Most of us learned that progesterone was the hormone that just shows up after ovulation and helps you stay pregnant.

True, but that's just a tiny slice of what it does.

Progesterone is also working on your brain, your sleep, your mood, your uterus, your breast tissue, and even your bones.

So today we're going to give a little tour everywhere in the body that progesterone actually works, what happens as it changes during perimenopause, and then we're going to clear up one of the most confused topics in this whole field, the difference between progesterone and something that sounds like it but is not it, progestin or progestogens.

That mix-up is actually a big part of why hormone therapy got such a bad reputation.

Here's a list of what they are.

And I would like to discuss a trial of an estrogen patch, Prometrium, vaginal estrogen, and the men's version of testosterone, given my history and my symptoms.

So the doctor at that point is going to pause and hopefully actually look up from the computer and say, okay, let's talk about that.

And that is everything.

And I don't know if they do...

They probably just do the patch and gel and, um, th- the Prometrium for progesterone because those would be...

I don't know that for a fact.

Um, I don't know if they prescribe, uh, t- transdermal creams as well.

Th- those have to be compounded.

Um, whether or not you can get your insurance to cover that, d- you won't the compounded creams, but the patches and the Prometrium you might be able to.

So if you're not able to get a doctor to help you, then you might wanna go to one of those, um, organizations online.

It's easy to do.