I was doing SO good.....a bam here it is again. I felt something slowly changing in my body plus for the last two months I've had two periods per month....fun fun!
I did a saliva test to see what was going on and sure enough my progesterone is way low and my estrogen, testosterone and DHEA way high. This happened once before so my compound Pharm lady bumped up my Progesterone starting on the 14th day of my cycle to 2x a day. I'm taking 0.25 at night and morn and night staring on the 14th. I was also taking Testosterone 2x week w/0.25....these were all cream topicals. This seemed to be the "magic" dose for me because for months I've been feeling great and then I just stopped absorbing the progesterone....so here is some of my questions:

I was not rotating my areas where I was putting the cream so do you think that is why I wasn't absorbing?

What made my body make so much estrogen and Dhea.....was it the progesterone or testostone?

Since I wasn't absorbing the progesterone my pharm lady wants to put me on sublingual progesterone....what are your thoughts on this?

I was told to totally stop the testostone and take a supplement called Dempro which is suppose to draw out the excess estrogen.....

Any thoughts.......

Thanks
OarsInSailsUp

Saliva tests for sex hormones have been proven to be unreliable and hormones should not be Rx'd based on them. You really need serum tests. Too much P can also cause excess bleeding.

In the beginning of my hormone journey, I also had saliva tests done, in addition to blood tests, and the saliva tests were way off, the blood test correlated perfectly with my symptoms and I do well basing my dosing of hormones on that.

My saliva tests have been pretty right on with my symptoms.....when I feel a change in my body I have one done and sure enough something has changed. My blood test seem to stay pretty even with my saliva tests.

I caqn think of something different, your progesterone is "not stopped being absorbed" it is rather "built up", as it is P-cream is notorious for being stored in fat tissues.
Not rotating sites can cause this even faster, in general, you need to apply it to the areas where you flash, with thin skin, not on thighs or stomach, when it had more chances to get accumulated in fat cells.
As for which hormone cause your exessive estrogen, see the char below:
http://www.biodia.com/TechnicalCharts/Ster...ormonechart.pdf
Not ever women knows that estrodiol is made from testosterone, to begin with, and progesterone is a father hormone for all hormones, including estrodiol.
All 3 main estrogens can be "converted" into each other, natural hormones work in mysterious ways.
There is a reason medical community used chemicals with not 100% idential molecular structure, to avoid the potential conversion of androgens to estrogens.
There is no way to tell which hormone causing your symptoms, and I don't think saliva testing is even more accurate than blood tests, which seems to be very accurate, only who can have blood drawn daily, so when a doctor wants to see what is happening on daily basis, they order saliva test, easy to spit in a tube. JMO.
I can warn you against sublingual progesterone, personally, I had horrible experience with sublingual hormones in general, and progesterone being a hard to deal with, is one to avoid in sublingual and oral form. Why not to try vaginal progesterone, very effective bioadhesive gel, used vaginally, goes straight where it is needed the most, and less symptoms of oral and transdermal.
In general, P-cream is hard to predict, it is either does not get absorbed very well, or tends to accumulate, one never knows.
One last thing, it is absolutely normal to first feel good on BHRT, and then be back to square one, it takes tweaking and constant testing, lots of work and no one can predict how each hormones will behave, as they all work syngergetically, if one is off, it creates domino effect.
The only way is trial and error, play with doses, different delivery systems, perhaps just E, P, and T, why add DHEA if you use pure testosterone?
Your body makes hormones daily or hourly, one day nothing, another one - too much, you need to adjust HRT based on your symptoms, but they also overlap, it is one huge puzzle.

Thanks....great insight.....So if prog gets stored up in fat cells it wouldn't show in lab tests? Does it hide in the fat cells?
Now you have me freaked about the sublinguals.....I see alot of women on this site talk about how prog was a nightmare for them....as for me it has always worked great so maybe the sublinguals won't be so bad.
I understand the trial and error thing.....I've been doing this for years. I've worked with the same compound lady now for about 3 years and see is very conservative when it comes to dosage and always available to talk. We tweak the dosages as needed....so the sublingual is a trial thing to see how it works. I've never used estrogen or DHEA....I've always tended to be very low on prog and high on the estrogen.
You have to wonder if all this isn't in vain when like you said our bodies make hormones daily or hourly.....one day nothing....another day too much

Try sublingual, what to lose, you may even like it, we all different. What woman's hormonal heaven, is another woman hormonal h**l, no one size fits all.
I hope all of it is not in vain for you, and you will find your balance. IMHO, it is all about fluxes.
best,
I.

I think that although the P is stored in the fat cells, if the levels were high it would have showed up, more than likely, on the saliva tests.

In terms of sublingual P, everyone's body is different and although there are many women who can't take P, I never had a problem with it prior to this. That said, I prefer the creams to the sublinguals because they upset my stomach but you may not have that problem. Other than that, I like the sublinguals. I would take it slow and if you discover that you are having side effects then I would back up on the dosage, if possible. Another suggestion would be the vaginal approach which some have had greater success with who couldn't take the P in other forms of delivery.

Regarding the conversion, the P that I was taking was converting to E causing me to have excess E symptoms for a while. I'm sure it has a lot to do with other factors and it sounds like your doctor is on top ot that, and you as well, in terms of immediatley noticing a difference in how you feel.

Regarding testosterone, there was another post recently from someone who was using progesterone oil caps and had great success with those, reducing her high testosterone levels, so based on that progesterone may do the job for you. The creams probably built up over time which can be the case with all hormones, but sometimes testosterone can build up much quicker since women don't need that much. Dhea is a precursor to testosterone and is produced by the adrenal glands so higher levels of dhea can lead to higher levels of testosterone.

You sound like an expert at tweaking and you're right about our hormones changing so much which results in the need to tweak...


Good luck to you...

TJ

Yup I was the one who had very high T and simply using the P oil caps for two months lowered me right down to normal. My DHEA also leveled out. One hormone can goof up every other hormone and you should really have a Doctor that knows what they are doing and have your blood serum done every couple of months in order to properly tweak. I do have a script on order for a T cream to help with lack of sexual desire. I haven't gotten it so haven't tried it. I am to rotate that vaginally every other day in the most minute of doses. Will update in the forums if and when I decide to try it.