I hope I can get some feed back to this side effect of natural progesterone.  I am working with Pete and take 100 mgs. 2x a day.  Since I have started taking it, after 2 hours later, I get an overwhelming urge to lie down and usually sleep for over an hour.  It's a tiredness that gives me no choice but to lie down.  Gosh!  I didn't expect this, but now I read this can be a side effect for some women.  Can anyone tell me if I'll get over this as I continue to take it?   I'd ask Pete, but he's not available til the end of this week.

Thanks.

No way could I take 100 mgs. in the daytime. At night, it is O.K.  I would think you could cut the daytime amount to 25 or 50, a more typical dose.

As for getting over it, I never got over the sleepiness of 100 mg. at night. I cut down to 50 mg.

Hope you can work it out.

Lucy,

Is this an oral dose?  Years ago I took 200 mg natural progesterone orally.   That is not considered a high dose for the oral form as it goes through digestion etc.

If it is the topical skin cream about 20 mg or so is about right.

So I assume you are taking an oral form.

I would half it and see in any case.   This is called TWEAKING.... sort of par for the course.  

I guess this shows how different we all are. A couple of years ago I used 100mg of progesterone in a capsule (Prometrium) each night, and it made me so dizzy that I was still dizzy the next morning.  Now i'm using 50mg each morning and night , mixed with my estradiol cream and it doesn't seem to be enough so i'm adding an extra 100mg of some leftover compounded cream i've had for awhile, each night, and I seem to feel better.   Go figure.........:confused:

Thanks everyone - The nat. progesterone I take is sublingual - 100 mgs. 2x a day.  I spoke with the pharmacist today and he suggested I cut it back to half of that for now, so I only took 50 mgs. this evening.  That stuff is very sedating!  

Hi Lucy! I take the progesterone sublinguals 50mg in a.m.,  50mg in afternoon and 100mg at night. I do get tired sometimes but splitting up the two doses into three seems to help. It is hard to figure out dosages. I am re-testing my hormones tomorrow to see where I am at. I take it three weeks out of the month because of my symptoms. Take care!

Well, Lucy... I guess we are all quite different.  :)  I also get my progesterone from Pete, sublingual, cycled, and I am taking 200 mg 2 X day.... 200 mg in the am and 200 mg in the pm.  That's quite a bit higher than anyone has posted here, but I have been taking it at that dosage for nearly a yr now, with no side effects of sleepiness.  

Lucy,I use estradiol and progesterone (150mg) in a cream.  The doctor and pharmacist both said to apply it at bedtime since it would make me sleepy.  In fact, the pharmacist said that I would feel exhausted all the time for a couple of months because my body had been so fatigued from insomnia, and the progesterone is a natural relaxant that would help me sleep.  And it would take a while for my body to get used to the progesterone.

You'll probably have some adjustment time getting used to the new hormones.  Good luck!

Barbie - I may give split it 3 ways as you are doing and see how that works for me.  Taking 100 at night would help me to sleep - something I don't do very well these days.  Guess that's why it makes so sleepy during the day - catch up time.

Sylvry - I know what you mean about being sleep deprived - if I added up all the sleep I've lost due to hormonal insomnia - I'd probably sleep for a month, so that is not surprising to me.  Are you caught up now?

Thanks for all of your replies.

L.

Kalanie - I was just wondering if you started out that that dose?  Does seem high compared to what I take.  Is there a particular reason why you need so much more?  I'm so new to all of this, so I'm full of questions.  Thanks for bearing with me.

Hi Lucy,Well, I WAS caught up.  But I stopped the lotion about 7 days ago because I had been spotting for over a month, and was very tired of seeing the brown gunk on the minipad every time I went to the bathroom.

I've had 2 rough nights in the last week - not too bad considering I used to have 7 rough nights out of 7.  So now, since the spotting has subsided -- A LOT!!!  (thank goodness!) -- I'll start up the cream again Thursday night and see if the spotting starts back up.  (unfortunately, the hot flashes and night sweats are back with a vengeance!)

I'm sure whatever happens "down there" with the spotting, my sleep will improve once the progesterone is introduced back in.

Nancy, do you think the oral progesterone is weaker, then? I thought it was the opposite. I had the terrible sleepiness with the oral, never with the cream. I thought it was because with dermal application sometimes it isn't well absorbed?

Kari, I had the exact same reaction as you did with the Prometrium. Did you feel drunk after you took it? Maybe your dizziness was the same as my drunkeness!

Kalanie, Dr. Uzzi Reiss' book details how some women actually need 400 mg. progesterone and even more (I think he said up to 600 mg.). Like you say, everybody is different.

Desrothchild,

Yes! Dizzy and Drunk is how I felt. I would literally stagger to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  I suffer from anxiety and dizziness anyway, but this was like adding fuel to the fire.  The cream, on the other hand, just makes me sleepy, and I like that.  I was considering changing to sublinguals but am wondering if I would get the same reaction as I did with the Prometrium.

Kalanie---I'm also wondering how low your progesterone was for Pete to put you on such a high dose twice a day.  I think if I used 200mgs in the morning.......i'd have to jump back in bed. LOL!

Lucy, Des, and Kari...

I decided to put you all together because your questions were kind of similar.  :biggrin:  

The dosage I am taking now is the same as when I started.  I think Pete made an educated guess, sort of, based on my symptoms and the fact that I am still having regular periods (since progesterone levels decrease first, which would leave one estrogen dominant, I think).  My hormones were not tested before I started the HRT, only FSH, which was at about 24 point something.  However, subsequent hormone testing since I have been taking it have all been in normal range, with the exception of estradiol, which was a little low.  

Honestly, I think I might not have known that progesterone can make one sleepy if I had not read it here... it has never made me sleepy.  Maybe I am such a hype to begin with or something like that, it just made me more normal, lol.  

Des... I have read in many places that natural hormone replacement requires higher dosages, as do orals.   Good to get that info that Dr. Reiss gives... his book has been sitting here on my shelf for months... I need to get time to read it!  :biggrin:

Thought I would chime in here again. I talked to my doctor and she said when we are pregnant we have 400mg+ of progesterone,and that some women patients of hers  take up to 600mg a day for PMS symptoms per day. I just re-tested my hormones this morning and will get the results in a couple weeks. I still feel that I am too low. I had to get off the progesterone for 36 hours before the test and I started to feel very strange last night. It does seem to help the tiredness if I split the first dose up 50/50 mg at a time. Hope it helps you too, Lucy. I like the sublinguals a lot.

DesRothChild,

I sort of go by Dr. Lee's theories.   He says normal production of progesterone is about 20 to 24 mg per day.   That is where the 20 mg comes from he recommends.  20 mg applied topically gets absorbed really well.

Dr. Lee says you have to take much more oral kind to get this equivalent because of the 200 mg about 85 to 90 percent gets excreted by the liver.   It is not weaker but just gets filtered out.   So to get the 20 mg you need,  you need to use 200 mg of the oral dose.

I know with my 20 mg per day of topical cream my saliva levels go up to about 1000 mg.    So if I used higher levels of progesterone, I think I would get too much and be drowsy...Dr. Lee says large doses can make one sleep and much too large an anesthetic or drunken affect.

Of course, each expert has his own opinion so who knows for sure....this is what I think for now.  

On the other hand, if they prescribe too much estrogen I would think you would need much more progesterone to balance it.   I know I halved my estrogen to 2 mg per day and most of that is estriol the weak kind.

Georgia Dove~~

The natural progestrone makes me also sleepy.  I take it 4 times daily 25 mg it's a little easier to handle.When I was taking 100 mg I could not stay awake, I too had that drunk feeling and in the morning I would feel like I wanted to sleep the day away. Now the Prometrium I had a allergic reaction.  It was like I was on Speed.  I was so hyper, my heart was ponding I had to take a Valium to calm me down.

It sure is tough being a woman...Here I didn't have a period for 10 months and bingo... here it is, another year now maybe.  I don't  need a period at 55.

I recently read Dr. Klaiber's book "Hormones and the Mind". He is a pioneer in the field of hormones and emotion. He notes that in some patients estrogen relieves depression, while progesterone can make it worse. He also indicates that progesterone makes most ladies tired and drowsy. He prescribes progesterone suppositories for his patients who take estrogen, but need progesterone to protect their uterus. He feels that progesterone suppositories protect the uterus, but minimize systemic side effects of progesterone. I checked  with Pete at College Pharmacy and he is experienced in making these suppositories. Some of you who are having trouble with taking progesterone orally, may want to consider this approach.  I'm just not sure how much uterine protection you actually get going this route.  But I tried oral progesterone once and it absolutely knocked me out in an hour. I felt dizzy and disoriented the rest of the day. I will never try that again.

P.S.  You insert these intravaginally. Pete says many ladies use them for 14 days every 3 months.

Ladies

Another good book and I call it my "Meno Bible" is "Smart Medicine for Menopause" by Dr Sandra Cabot.I've carried it around for the last 10 years .  I recommend it to everyone.  It has saved me.  It is in Paperback form and I found it in the Health Food store.