I'm still having leg cramps in spite of a desperate attempt at relief by going on low-dose birth control pills. In fact, they seem to be escalating this past week. Maybe it's a progesterone problem?

Is there any problem with using ProGest while I'm on birth control pills?

Hi Teasdale,

I suffered through months of leg cramps myself, it's painful and scary, I would always wonder if I was going to get a blood clot or something. Mine actually started with taking hormones. The estrogen can make leg cramps worse (that is what my doc told me).

I don't know your situation, but for me what helped was eating a banana, or a couple oranges per day, it gave some relief. Also calcium at night can help. I get the liquid calcium citrate.

My best guess ( and I'm not sure), is that taking more progesterone is NOT a good idea, but that's my guess only. To much P can make you depressed and bring on mood swings galore, so be careful with that.

Sometimes when the cramps would bother me, I would soak in a nice warm bath to relax my body. The cramping thing lasted many, many months for me, but eventually it went away. I hope yours get's better soon.

Juliann

I take calcium citrate, magnesium gluconate, vitamin E and now quinine (my doctor gave me a prescription). I started getting the leg cramps at a time when I was eating bananas and avocados galore, so I don't think it's a potassium deficiency - and I just read that bcp's can make you too high in potassium.



That's encouraging! Maybe this is only temporary!

I do wonder if the estrogen in the bcp's are making it worse - but they're making me less tired and mentally foggy, and I hate to give that up.

Hi Teasdale,


When I started taking estrogen I felt really great also, and the leg cramps were really bad, but I didn't want to give it up either. Infact, I was freaking out about having to give it up. It seemed to come and go. Sometimes it was really bad, even the tops of my feet would cramp and my ankles.

I don't understand why it just finally went away, but it took a good 7-8 months to get over it. Maybe my body just finally adjusted to the estrogen, not sure.

My doc said that estrogen can cause it, and she said that it's good to walk around, which I do. Do you need to be on BCP??? Or could you just use the bioidentical hormones??? They are probably not as strong, just a thought.

Juliann

Walking does help.

I don't need the bcp's, but I don't know how to get anything else. I don't know who does bioidentical hormones, but I'm pretty sure I'd have to go to an alternative practitioner, which my insurance wouldn't pay for - and that could be a potential issue with dh.

I was thinking about adding progesterone cream also. I've been on the pill 4 years and continuously the last year and think I might have become estrogen dominant. Birth control pills after all are xenoestrogens (fake estrogens) and they are stored in the body. I've read many different things..... I considered picking some up yesterday and using a sixteenth of a teaspoon at night with my pill... it really probably couldn't hurt since I am now possibly estrogen dominant anyway. In any case, if you want to learn more about bioidentical hormones there are many books you can read. Here are a couple of links to doctors who have written books http://www.herplace.com/ http://www.uzzireissmd.com/ Also, bioidentical hormones are not "alternative medicine"; they are FDA approved medicines which require a regular doctors prescription. You could look in your yellow pages for an endocrinologist or doctor who specializes in women's medicine.

Teasdale,
I tried increasing my dose of estrogen and developed a cramp in my calf that didn't abate until I reduced my estrogen dose. Mine definitely was estrogen related as I was wearing an estrogen patch and after ripping it off, I had complete relief within 2 hours. I still use an estrogen patch but I switched to another brand, Climara, and have been doing well.

I would think twice before adding any progesterone cream to your existing regimen. It could actually make things worse instead of better. That is because progesterone wakes up the estrogen receptors when you first start using it. Many of the experts in this field say that estrogen doses usually need to be lowered once starting progesterone because of this effect it has on the receptor sites. Since too much estrogen seems to be the culprit, you might feel worse adding the P.

Any doctor can prescribe an estrogen patch for you if that is what you want. They are bioidentical and allow for much smaller dosing that the orals do. If you want a compounded hormone cream like biest or triest, you would need someone who understands bioidenticals.