Posted by JLx on October 28, 2003, at 8:20:25
In reply to Re: female hormones/cortisol link » JLx, posted by BarbaraCat on October 27, 2003, at 17:56:12
Thanks for the link, interesting discussion.
I wish I COULD work with a knoweledgeable doctor, and get tested but it's not possible right now. I am without a job or any income whatsoever, surviving on food stamps and charity from my parents, about to have my house foreclosed, etc. I hate guessing at all this, but health care, except by my own efforts, is a luxury I can't afford.
I stopped taking DHEA for a couple months when I started supplementing with magnesium, boron, eating better, etc. because I felt good enough. Then my mood dropped precipitously at the same time that I had pee dripping down my legs when I got up in the morning and my breasts seemed kind of deflated. I also had a period for the first time in 4-5 months. I was reading the natural progesterone books I mentioned earlier on this thread and decided to try progesterone -- Progest-E drops that you use sublingually. I think I inadvertently took too much at first, but then cut it down considerably as I experimented more successfully squeezing out that "3 mg drop". Aside from that one day when I had a burst of energy -- something I usually lack -- I felt rotten, worse as I went along (tried it for about 2 weeks), like I had PMS (irritable, craving carbs, swollen, tender breastst, etc.) so I quit taking it and felt better almost immediately.
Later I resumed the 25 mg/day of DHEA. Now, I've added amino acids and some other things to my daily supplement mix...and I suspect things are chaning hormonally again. DHEA used to give me a libido boost, for instance, but now less so. Now I'm experimenting with the DHEA every other day.
Here's an interesting thing -- to me anyway! ;) The Progest-E nearly cleared up my rosacea....and so does taurine. Taurine blocks or somehow mediates estrogen, I've read somewhere, and perhaps that's why. Or maybe it's related to stress somehow, as stress is related to rosacea, and taurine is calming.
I'm feeling pretty good on my latest regimen, but I can tell that as some things get "righted" some others get out of whack. I don't sleep as well as I used to before I added tyrosine and I'm having the devil of a time figuring out a good magnesium/calcium ratio which I suspect is related to the sleeping. I used to always be a nightowl, who needed 8 hours sleep, until in my 40's when I started sleeping less and/or wildly irregularly. My understanding is that sleep before midnight is more valuable than after so now I force myself to go to bed very early, which has felt good until lately when I am wake up periodically throughout the night. I'm also having these weird hot/cold fluctuations (like mini and mild hot flashes/chills), both at night and during the day. Nor have I had a period for a few months now.
Not sure where cortisol might fit in to that whole picture but I certainly WISH I had the kind of energy that I had that one day. (If you have any thoughts or insights, they'd be most welcome.)
> Be real careful with DHEA. It sounded like a good idea to my husband and me as well. Unfortunately, his was converting to estradiol instead of testosterone. Bummer. According to tests I needed it, but I was deficient in testosterone and the DHEA was converting to estrogen, further adding to my excess. I was just hoping to balance things out but for both of us it made things worse. Even more unpredictable is pregnenolone, so-called 'mother of hormones'. Again, sounds like a magic bullet but it's not and is very erratic in what it converts to down-line.
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> Here's a very informative link about cortisol, maybe more than you want to know. I'm digesting it very slowly so haven't gotten to the end. Perhaps you're looking for something specifically related to hormones and cortisol in which case, probably just do a web engine search on estrogen+cortisol or progesterone+cortisol or something like that. - Barbara
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> http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031015/msgs/269703.html
poster:JLx
thread:256950
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20031023/msgs/274210.html