Hi, I need help with HRT information.  I had been taking Premarin .625 mg daily for 25 days and Prometrium 100 mg twice daily for 12 continuous days a month fpr 4 years.  I wished to reduce my risks based on the recent test results that have made the headlines and so was prescribed Climara Dis .025 mg - Patch daily.  However, they have prescribed that I take Prometrium once a day but daily.  If I am counting correctly, I would still be taking nearly the same amount of Prometrium as I was before - therefore not lowering my risks of breast cancer.  I don't want to do this.  What are the likely benefits and detriments to leaving the patch on for 25 days, and taking Prometrium 1 capsule daily for 12 continuous days starting on day 12 be? Could you help me with this?  

If you are asking what I think you are, Prometrium is a natural progesterone, NOT anything like the synthetic progestins used in the study that showed increased cancer, etc. I've generally read (and I could quote you doctor after doctor) that progestins are really horrible medicine. A lot of them also believe that natural progesterone, like Prometrium, prevents breast cancer.

So, I guess you may be able to reduce your progesterone to 100 mg. for 12 days (my doctor only prescribes 100 mg. with the patch, not 200, but doctors differ on this), but I don't know if that is necessary, unless progesterone produces side effects for you.

So quote away.  What doctors believe that natural progesterone, like Prometrium, prevents breast cancer?  And equally important, do any believe that it does not increase risk of heart attack or blood clot "event?"

I have not personally ever read that natural progesterone causes blood clots. I have only read that it "normalizes" blood clotting. I have read, however, that due to Provera being implicated in blood clotting, manufacturers have extrapolated this to include the real progesterone. The problem is, real progesterone has not been studied. But it is generally considered to be conjugated estrogens that are the primary culprit.

Obviously, there's no point in my typing the same things over and over from different doctors (though I do have one book by a female physician who dislikes even the natural progesterone, but she does concede that progestins are far worse), so I'll quote Uzzi Reiss, M.D., in Natural Hormone Balance for Women (Dr. Reiss is a OB/GYN  in Beverly Hills): "Progestins...are patented, chemicalized, progesterone substitutes. They are not the same as the progesterone your body produces. Unfortunately, nobody tells you otherwise. You hear the word progestin and you think they are talking about progesterone."

"These substances have some of the actions of the natural progesterone your body makes but a lot of disturbing side effects as well."

"Progestins were added to estrogen replacement therapy when it was established that unopposed estrogen could cause endometrial overgrowth and increase the risk of endometrial tissue and thus lower the risk of this type of cancer.

"I don't know if it is human arrogance at work, or the profit motive, but I never understood why researchers wouldn't simply open their physiology books and see how nature prevents this risky imbalance in the first place. Nature prevents it effectively with progesterone, the natural female hormone that balances estrogen....The fact is that progestins are drugs with side effects."

He then talks about Provera causing heart attacks and that, specifically, "the drug is a coronary constrictive. Whenever I mention this issue to cardiologists, they seem to be well aware of the problem."

Further on, he discusses the breast cancer connection. "One major epidemiological study reported in 1981 that women in their forties with a 'high' level of their own progesterone have 1/5 the rate of breast cancer and 1/10 the rate of other cancers in later life than women with low progesterone." He then discusses how progesterone protects the breasts through many mechanisms, like enhancing a protective gene system known as P53, how it prevents cells from proliferating excessively in breast and uterine tissue and decreased activity by 400 percent in some studies, etc.

He finds a disturbing trend where manufacturers, due to setting their sights on the huge female baby boomer market, are developing a new generation of progesterone substitutes. "The new drugs are also called progestins...A few still contain Provera. Most do not. But they are all chemicalized. None of them are the same as the progesterone in your body."

One more convenient doctor to quote (so I don't have to get up and pull out my other books) is John Lee, M.D., What Your Doctor May NOT Tell You About Menopause: "Using Provera for menopausal women should be considered medical malpractice." I have heard Dr. Christian Northrup (the author of The Wisdom of Menopause) say similar things. In fact, her newsletter is where I first learned about all of this. Have you read her book yet?

Anyway, my experience with nat'l progesterone (I've been using it for more than 5 years) has been a personal miracle (thank you, Dr. Northrup). But you will find women here who say they had side effects even from the natural. Everyone is different, of course, but I can't help but think a hormone chemically identical to the female body has got to be an improvement over a drug, at the very least (if you must take it due to using estrogen).

Whew, good thing I type really fast.

P.S. Have you ever seen the show Doctor to Doctor? The physician on that show mentioned a couple of  weeks ago some studies that showed decreased breast cancer in nat'l progesterone users. She believes it reduces all reproductive cancers as well as prostate cancer in men. She has a website but you'd have to do a google search to get the info.

Great information. Julian Whitaker, M.D. (has a wellness clinic in Newport Beach, CA) has opined these same things in his newsletter.

I think we all need to read and educate ourselves (like reading this entire website plus books) and go with whichever sources seem the most credible to us personally. For myself, it is the more forward-thinking medical professionals, not your everyday doctor who is pretty much brainwashed by the pharmacuetical reps who give him his sole information about drugs.

The issue was on the combo pill PremPro with Premarin and provera.  

My Doctor who is a teaching doctor at USC Medical center in Los Angeles in womans health told me that the study was on old women in their 70"s.

Her attitude is if you feel good and are monitored on a yearly basis getting your pap smear and mamogram and doing your breast check you should be ok.

My suggestion is that you need to be more informed and do your research.  Know your body and take control  find a Doctor that will answer questions and get to know you on a first name basis.

I strongly agree with all of the  posts above.  I think all women should be angered by the fact that the NIH  study on HRT was done with synthetic hormones. This is a disgrace. It is a very badly designed study.  I believe all of us ladies should contact the National Institues of Health in Bethesda Maryland and demand that they fund studies using bioidenticals. Unfortunately most drug studies are financed by profit-driven drug companies. NIH funding comes from your tax money, you have the right to demand better studies.