Progesterone Balance and Progesterone Cream
I used a natural progesterone cream to help with my progesterone balance for a few years. After going off oral contraception I began to present with hormone imbalance symptoms such as: premenstrual tension, breast tenderness, dry eyes, water retention and bloating, muscle fatigue, night sweats, insomnia, heart palpitations, endometriosis and cold hands and feet. Some of the symptoms, such as cold hands and feet and endometriosis I had been experiencing for quite some time already and hadn’t known that they had anything to do with hormone or progesterone balance. I heard about Dr John Lee and Natural Progesterone Cream. When I watched a video of one of his talks, I heard about the symptoms of estrogen dominance and saw myself clearly. I bought the cream and Dr Lee’s book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause: Balance Your Hormones and Your Life From Thirty to Fifty After beginning with the progesterone balance cream I noticed an almost instant improvement in my premenstrual syndrome. I bloated less, my moods were more stable, my breasts no longer swollen and painful. Within a short time I was cleared of most of the symptoms of hormonal imbalance, with the exception of the endometriosis. Estrogen Dominance Dr John Lee coined the phrase ‘estrogen dominance’ to refer to women who “have deficient, normal, or excessive estrogen but have little or no progesterone to balance its effects in the body. Even a woman with low estrogen levels can have estrogen-dominance symptoms if she doesn’t have any progesterone.” The contraceptive pill is usually prescribed for symptoms of hormonal imbalance, including endometriosis. And it does work. For a while. It wipes out one set of symptoms only to present you with another. Dr Lee quotes a story of a woman with endometriosis who was persuaded by her doctor to go onto oral contraception to control her symptoms. Her symptoms improved massively, but her hair started thinning, she grew thick black hairs out of her chin and the hair on her arms became more thick and coarse. This is because the contraceptive pill contains progestins (not to be confused with progesterone). It is similar to progesterone but not identical, it has the qualities of progesterone, as well as the qualities of a male hormone, though “not truly any single male hormone.” I spent 12 years on birth control pills before finally tossing them due to very similar symptoms as the woman mentioned above: thick black hairs growing on my face, pigmentation marks and thinning hair. So, while the birth control pill might be keeping certain symptoms in check for you, do not for a second think that it is solving anything. Rather it is bringing you a whole range of new problems, many you may not even be aware of yet. The control of symptoms does not indicate healing! According to Dr Lee’s book, some of the symptoms of estrogen dominance are as follows: Acceleration of the aging process; Hang On To Your Ovaries! Dr Lee goes into significant detail on the considerable damage caused by birth control pills, synthetic hormones and unopposed estrogen, all frequently prescribed, as well as the considerable profit motive involved in both the medications and surgeries promoted. Dr Lee advises women to “hang on to your ovaries if you can”. He states that ovaries for women are equivalent to testicles in men. And just as removing a male’s testicles is castration, so is removing a woman's ovaries castration. In fact this is the medical term for the procedure. “The effect of castration can be just as profound in a woman as in a man.....he will be less aggressive, will have little or no libido, will gain some weight, and will begin to develop osteoporosis within a year or two. A woman who is castrated and no longer makes any appreciable amounts of estrogen, progesterone and androstenedione will often become depressed, have little to no libido, and, with the addition of some Premarin, she will be retaining water and will probably be anxious as well. She will also have increased risk of osteoporosis and heart disease, even if she takes replacement hormones.” It is this kind of information that make this book a crucial read for all women. So what causes hormone imbalance and what can you do about it? Dr Lee discusses the causes of hormone imbalance such as Diet, Stress, Birth Control Pills, Conventional ERT and HRT, and environmental factors. The major recommendations are to avoid dairy products, birth control and junk food: such as caffeine and refined carbohydrates, and to move towards a plant based fiber rich diet. He also strongly recommends the use of transdermal natural progesterone balance cream to bring back your progesterone balance. Bioidentical Hormones Natural progesterone balance cream is made from wild yam extract and is identical to that produced by the body. All hormones that are identical to that produced by the body are known as bioidentical, so natural progesterone cream is a bioidentical hormone. Do We Need To Use A Cream To Achieve Progesterone Balance? While I believe this book to be a highly valuable resource, my own experience has led me to discontinue use of progesterone balance cream and allow my body to restore its progesterone balance on its own. Progesterone cream may certainly be beneficial when you are living a more ‘standard’ lifestyle, as it helps to control your hormone imbalance symptoms. However controlling symptoms does not bring about healing. Only our bodies can heal, and when we keep putting stuff in and on our bodies to promote healing, we just get in our body’s way. I certainly did experience relief from premenstrual syndrome through use of the progesterone cream. However, I went off the progesterone cream soon after becoming raw vegan, almost unintentionally, I just forgot to put it on. Then, after a while I added it back in and suddenly: The symptoms came back full force! After resuming use of the progesterone cream a whole range of symptoms suddenly rose up from the dust to smack me in the face. Enormous water retention, bloating and puffiness, sore and tender breasts, mood swings, night sweats, insomnia, fatigue, dry eyes (so dry that during the night if I woke up I would have to pry them open with my fingers, they'd stick!). After a few months of raw foods my body was so much more sensitive and able to quickly let me know what it wanted, and it WASN'T progesterone balance cream. The progesterone cream was now CAUSING the symptoms it was supposed to prevent. So, I threw the creams away and decided to trust my body to heal itself. And this is exactly what has happened. My Endometriosis Pain has gone and I no longer have any symptoms of hormone imbalance. Our bodies create health, pills and potions do not create health! Due to fear and brainwashing, we constantly doubt and undermine ourselves, by thinking that we need to ‘help’ our bodies to heal. We think we need to use creams, pills, powders and potions to create health. These things do not create health, our bodies create health. All we need to do is get out of the bodies way, and provide plenty of rest, sunshine, exercise, fruits and vegetables and the body will heal itself. So if you are someone who recognizes these symptoms in yourself and if you think you may be suffering from estrogen dominance or any other kind of hormone imbalance, consider a vegan raw food diet to bring your entire body back into balance. Get out of your body’s way, it knows what to do. Stop putting things in your body that prevent it from achieving homeostasis. Put all the elements of a healthy lifestyle into place: low fat raw vegan food as the majority of your calories, plenty of exercise, sunshine, clean water and sufficient rest and leave the healing to your body.
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