I started cycling 100mg prometrium this month. I have taken it for 6 nights. Today I am having crashing depression and suicidal thoughts that I've never experienced before. My husband is really hacked at me and is not speaking to me because of how he says I've been acting. He took the kids somewhere for the day because he does not want to be around me. I have been unwilling to put up with things I normally do and have been saying things about it. He says I'm attacking him and giving him attitude. I don't think I am, but who knows, he is insistent that I am. I've been trying to get my peri symptoms under control for three years with moderate success. I've recently increased my estrogen patch and added prometrium. My biggest symptoms have always been insomnia and body aches. Some depression on and off, but nothing like this. Since the prometrium is the new thing in the mix, I'm inclined to think maybe it's playing a role. I'm feeling desperate and at the end of my rope today. I feel CRAZY. I have small kids (had them late) and the thought of what it would do to them is keeping me from acting on anything. But the amount of thought I'm giving is is really scary. It feels like something is very wrong.

I'm sorry you are feeling so badly.

Is it possible that you are unaware of how you are acting toward your husband? Not to take his side or anything--but you did mention you have upped your estrogen--and too much estrogen can cause people to become agressive. Perhaps that is the problem and you are unaware of it. Higher estrogen can feel like your progesterone levels have dropped because the balance has changed. I'm wondering if you are feeling bad PMS from the hormone changes---and since you are Peri--there is no knowing whether or not your body is adding to the mix.

There's always the possibility that your depression has nothing to do with your hormones and you may need something else but the fact that you have changed doses and started cycling prometrium and now this problem arises makes it seem like they are connected.

I think you had better get in touch with your doctor and tell him/her what is going on. This is probably easily fixed--but you have to tell someone who can help what is wrong before they can help you.

About the suicidal thoughts--try to ignore them--it is not really you sending those messages--there seems to be somethng physically wrong that is causing them--remember that. Did you tell your husband about the thoughts? It might be a good idea to let him know what is going on so he can better understand the pain you are feeling.

I hope things improve for you soon. I think explaining what is going on to your husband would be a good first step. You need his support right now. You need to talk.

Take care.

Miss Tibbs

Well it's definitely possible that I'm not aware of how I'm acting and that I've been acting aggressively. A lot of what I've been saying is along the lines of "I don't have to put up with this *$^#& anymore". I don't cuss at him, but that's definitely the attitude that goes along with it. I'll have a blood test next month so I'll have a chance to see what the estradiol levels are. It was so low with the .05 path (37) that's it's hard to imagine they could be too high. But, your right, maybe my body decided to make more estrogen on it's own this month. I'm in peak PMS time right now, which occured to me when I finally started to calm down and feel a little more sane.

I ignored the suicidal thoughts the best I could while it was going on. When I feel crazy everything feels so magnified and so real. But... while I may think, at the moment, that my husband is a supreme heel, my kids are my angels and I could not do anything to hurt them. I also called a friend who helped me get a little more grounded in reality. I guess that's the scary part. More and more these days during the PMS time of month reality can seem a bit elusive.

Hi Chris

I don't know if this helps, but whenever I started a new hormone regime I experienced periods of depression (and anxiety as well) - anywhere from one hour to 48 hours in duration. It seems more than coincidental that you've started taking prometrium and now suddenly are experiencing intense mood effects.

When my periods first went haywire I experienced hot flushes, insomnia and anxiety (I'd never had anxiety in my life before). My GP prescribed oral HRT (estradiol and a progestogen) and in the first month of taking it, I started experiencing periods of depression as well which I hadn't ever had before. In fact when I started taking HRT the mood disruptions became much worse until gradually it settled down over a period of three months and the depression stopped (still sometimes experienced anxiety though).

When I abruptly stopped taking HRT two and a half years later I had bad episodes of depression again. I can't describe it - it wasn't behaving like normal depression in that it wasn't a consistently depressed mood - I would just switch into these states, it was obviously brain chemistry due to disrupted hormones.

Two months after stopping HRT I started using natural progesterone cream (3%) and reacted to that again with mood disruptions including episodes of depression.

I'm happy to say everything's settled down now. I'm using natural progesterone cream and phytoestrogens and I feel fine.

What you're experiencing therefore could be due to hormonal disruption. Try and explain to your husband or perhaps show him this forum. When I was in those sorts of moods, outside things like arguments would really have an effect on me whereas they wouldn't normally - their effects would be magnified. You might have been abrupt with him, who knows, but he needs to understand that there are receptors for estrogen and progesterone in the brain, so if you're suddenly upping your intake of these hormones, it can affect emotional state temporarily. Increasing estrogen and progesterone also, so far as I know, affects the balance with other hormones such as testosterone, cortisol and DHEA, all of which might affect mood temporarily. As Miss Tibbs says, if you're still in peri your own fluctuating hormone levels might also be contributing to what you're experiencing.

Do speak to your doctor and take his/her advice. I expect this will pass but I know how bad it feels when you're in the thick of it.

Hugs and best wishes to you.

Chris,

I'm so glad you are feeling a bit better. If you start feeling badly again, try to remember it is just the hormones until you can see the doctor. I'm so sorry you are going through this.

I had suicidal thoughts once--back in the 80's--I was trying the new diet pill--Dietac--Over the counter. I wasn't surprised when years later they pulled everything with phenylpropanalamine off of the shelves--that's all Dietac was!

I've also had terrible mental and emotional symptoms from hormones--and it truly is hell.

Just wanted you to know that I understand. I'm so glad you thought to call your friend.

Brenda

I am sorry Chris7 but I had the same problem with Prometrium and sublingual progesterone, which forced me to quit BHRT. I felt crazy, depressed, suicidal thought, horrible muscle pain, chest pain, indigestion, leg cramps, and other bad symptoms, which was cause by Prometirum only. I also was taking Biest at the same time and felt good while on Biest 1st 1/2 of the cycle.
Some women can't tolerate oral progesterone or any progesterone in any form, like myself.
I suggest to stop Prometirum ASAP and seek alternative delivery system, like vaginal gel or Mirena IUD that contains small amounts of progesterone. I have read that women prone to depression should use progesterone with caution. I fell like this hormone was toxic for my body, period.
I hope you make informative decision but based on my experience, most symptoms improved as soon as I stopped it.
HTH,
I.

Thank you for all the insight and suggestions. My gut is telling me it's the prometrium. I have three more nights to take it this cycle. I kind of feel I should because it was a compromise with my care provider. She would increase the estradiol to see if that helped take care of some of my low estrogen symptoms, in return I would cycle prometrium to make sure the higher estrogen did not cause endometrial build up. I will see this cycle through but not listen to anything my head tells me in the next three days.

Either marital stress is aggravating my symptoms or my symptoms are causing marital stress. It's hard to tell which. Maybe some of both. I've gotten willing to stand up for myself in situations where I normally would not and it's causing enormous conflict in our house. Today when he was so angry and left with the kids I think it just triggered a panic attack or something along like that. The irrational thinking was along the lines of Oh no, now I've done it, he's going to leave, and I'm such a fricking mess these days that everyone would be better of without me. When sanity started returning I realized that of course my kids would not be better off without me, on the contrary it would be an absolutely horrible thing to do to them. I also realized that if he's going to leave me over this, he's going to leave. Living in fear of it isn't going to change anything, in fact, it will make it worse.

So.. I'll take it the next three days and then see how I feel when I quit taking it and go from there. If things are still crazy thinking bad when I'm off it I will talk to my care provider about what else I need to do.

If you are taking supplemental estrogen I think most would agree that supplementing progesterone is a good thing.

Sounds like you have pre-existing issues, and perhaps the progesterone-caused change in your personality is bringing them all more to light. You know what, maybe not taking this $%@ any more is the RIGHT way to be thinking !

Perhaps you can reduce your dose and see if you don't feel better. Isn't 100mg kind of a lot ? Especially for someone who is just starting out ? I think half is lost through the digestive process, so let's say 50mg is getting into your bloodstream. When I started using the OTC progesterone cream and I accidentally used like 30-40mg of the stuff, I was knocked out ! Not angry or depressed, but terribly sleepy. There's another possibility for you, switch to the cream.

I just want to add my 2 cents. I believe progesterone cream is OK to use as monotherapy only, not in conjunction with ERT. P-cream is not potent enough and not all cream have good penetration ability, especially most OTC, that are oil based. If you use ERT, then you need to make sure that you use potent enough progesterone to protect endometrial tissues. If Prometirum causes nasty symptoms, may be try Prochivel or Mirena IUD, this releases very low amount of progesterone, and hopefully will be easy on your body.
I don't think using P-cream with ERT is safe option, Progesterone molecules are tiny (good cream is micronized USP grade progesterone), especially those that are vegetable oil based, very little will get through.
I hope you will make informative decision, but it seems that Prometrium is aggravating your situation.
HTH

Chris,

I cannot take oral progesterone because I have awful side effects similar to yours. I had to switch to vaginal progesterone because I cannot tolerate oral. Sometimes increasing your dose of estrogen can help with progesterone side effects.

100 mg of oral progesterone is not the accepted dose for cycling progesterone, the correct dose is 200 mg for cycling. You may not even be getting enough progesterone to cause an adequate shed. The dose needs to be high because of the first pass through the liver which deactivates much of the progesterone. The metabolites created with the deactivation process can make many of us feel awful.

Personally, I would stop the oral and try a different route like vaginal. You can use oral progesterone vaginally but the dose may be too high. A usual vaginal dose would be 25-50 mg/day for up to 12 days. Topical progesterone has not been proved to effectively protect the uterus in up to 30% of women who use it (so I personally stay away from topical).

Kathy

Cycling the 100 mg is kind of a dry run to see how I respond to the prometrium. I was apprehensive about trying it to begin with so i asked if I could just try the lowest dose and see how it went. My annual exam is in Jan. so we'll re-evaluate everything then. I'm going to suspend judgment for now. Up until my brief nervous break down on Sunday I'd been surprised at how OK I'd felt on it. I did not think it was making me feel better (does not seem to help with my insomnia at all), but I did not think it was making me feel worse either. I am still having periods, extremely brief, scant, periods. I've assumed that was due to how low my estrogen was. I have felt OK the two days since then. Maybe a little shaky from how emotional and freaked out I got that day, but I have not felt depressed. I also did not feel depressed before it happened. I don't know. Maybe it was just situational and I had a very bad fight with my husband while I also happened to be PMS'ing.

Good luck with this Chris! It can be difficult to get things works out with hormones but the work is worth the result. Keeping a journal of how you feel and fights that you have can be helpful. It was not until I examined my notes did I realize that I was fighting with my husband every month when I started my progesterone. Now I tell him when I start it and ask him to give me a break if I am irritable—most months that works. I think sometimes the first couple of days on P are worse for the fighting thing because it takes me by surprise. When I know that I am irritable because of P it makes things better because I realize my feelings are from the progesterone NOT because my life s*cks and my husband is a jerk.

Kathy

I've been spotting today and I suspect I'll start my period tomorrow. Not surprisingly I felt very good and grounded today. What a difference a day makes, because just last night I was feeling overwhelmed and panicked. Luckily I called a friend and talked to her until the worst of it passed. I feel for my husband because sometimes I think I lash out at him because he's the one here. When I think about why I thought I was upset with him last night I can tell today that it had nothing to do with him. Kathy, I think your right about journalling and finding ways to be more conscious of whats going on hormonally. I always seems to figure it out in hindsight when it's to late to do me any good.

My husband knows all about whats going on hormonally so I can certainly ask him to be a little more tolerant or understanding of my moods on days I'm taking progesterone. He's actually very supportive as long as I'm not taking things out on him. Go figure (:

Depression is one of those disorders which most people face in there life as some stage for one reason or the other. If it's children the pressure of studies gets over their head and if it's adults the pressure of work attracts depression. Rather than going on drugs, one should look for the reason behind there problem . Keeping your self busy and changing the schedule also helps sometimes to get over stress and depression.
The best way to get over stress, depression and anxiety is to take a break from your regular schedule, go out, and take good sleep. This helps in clearing the mind and try consulting a specialist who can suggest you as how you can get over your problem. There are various prescription drugs to get over anxiety and depression, but these should only be used in accordance with the instruction of a physician and going on anti depressants should be the last option.

Yes, progesterone, too, made me much much more depressed as well as having a sedated feeling. It actually acts on the brain like a benzo and is known as the calming hormone whereas estrogen is more stimulating and acts like a MAOI (antidepressant).... I cannot take benzos at all so I guess this is why I was unable to take the progesterone. It made me also very dizzy and practically non functional. Maybe I did not give it enough time but I was very scared to continue as I was having suicidal thoughts. Then when I did quit, the withdrawal was unbelievable. I had anxiety panic, and shook like crazy for about 2 weeks.

I agree with you on the relationship with your husband issue. It is hard to know if our hormonal upheaval causes the dissension between us and our loved ones or if the dissension causes our symptoms to be worse. I think it is a vicious cycle. I am surprised my husband has stuck it out this long with me. Being men, I think they want to "fix" us to be back like we were and sometimes it is hard for them to be patient with us. All I know it has been a nightmare for me, so I do understand a little what you are talking about.

Please hang in there with the rest of us.

hugs,
mood_swinger