Posted by dusty rhoads on July 11, 2010, at 15:31:42
In reply to PMDD and estrogen therapy?, posted by dusty rhoads on July 9, 2010, at 2:45:06
Thanks for all the great postings! Janejane, thank you so much for your thoughtfulness in taking the time to provide a lot of useful information that I didn't previously know about. I feel for all of us PMDD sufferers, and can honestly say that the more I've doggedly pursued effective treatments, the more I've found. Sharing info and ideas with others going through similar symptoms is invaluable.
So I looked into over-the-counter estrogen creams, and ordered a bio-identical estriol cream that I found on amazon.com. From what I've been reading, estriol or E3 is the gentlest of the three types of estrogen (it's the type that peaks only during pregnancy) and taking it through a skin cream makes the cancer risk much lower than taking it orally .. it is even associated with a reduction in the size of cancerous tumors, and also improvements in skin tone, mood, sexual function, bone density, and all the other things that estrogen is good for. It is usually taken by postmenopausal women so I'll do a bit more research and perhaps talk to my naturopath to make sure it's safe for a woman who still has a monthly cycle and would like to have kids one day. I ordered "bio-identical" instead of "natural" estriol because I read in that book on menopause that natural hormones can come from all kinds of animal sources and can differ chemically from the hormones found in the human body. Janejane, I'm sure you know this already, but the "bio-identical" ones are usually derived from plant-based sources and are safer and more effective because they're chemically identical to the hormones that our bodies naturally produce.
To answer a couple of your questions ... I have tried Yaz and Yasmin. Yaz made me feel better and worse at the same time, if that makes any sense .. I felt happier and more confident, but got angry and cried at the drop of a hat, like a little kid - which became a problem at work, not to mention life in general. These effects were throughout the month, and then I'd actually feel slightly relieved during the week when I stopped taking it. I stuck with it for 3 months to see if my body would adjust, but ended up just feeling a different kind of crazy than before the pill, so I switched to Yasmin, which gave me less of the happy/volatile feeling and actually made me feel more depressed. I then researched birth control pills that have lower progesterone levels (I think one was Lutera or Mircette) but those also made me feel depressed, so I just gave up on birth control pills entirely.
I have tried a handful of herbs. Herbs that help: evening primrose oil (calming), chamomile tea (calming), schisandra (calming, energizing). Herbs that did not help: vitex (more irritable), rhodiola (tired, depressed), st. john's wort (sunburn after 10 minutes of sunset). My jury's still out on dong quai .. I think it calms me, but upsets my stomach. Are there other herbs that folks would recommend? Janejane, thanks for the word on black cohosh .. I picked up a bottle and am going to give it a try.
It's very interesting to hear about the PMS types. I'll have to look more into that. Although it seems that I'd fit into PMS-D (Depression) because of my low estrogen, I feel like my worst symptoms are irritability and anxiety. Maybe I'm a rare type of a rare type. :)
As for soy, I did find some articles on PubMed that found that soy could either raise or lower estrogen levels. I've decided to steer clear of it.
To answer your question about my hormone test, it was a saliva test around day 24. (Because my cycle ends around day 30-32.) My estradiol was 2.9 and the reference range was 1.2 - 8.4. My progesterone was 267.2, reference range 99.1 - 332.6. I got the test through my naturopath, and none of it was covered by insurance, unfortunately .. but I'd gotten to the point where I wasn't going to let cost stand in the way of hunting down my lost sanity.
On a tangent about doctors ... the vast majority of doctors out there haven't a clue about PMDD, and even the specialists have limited knowledge, at least in my (perhaps unlucky) experience. My naturopathic doctor (N.D.) has been so much more helpful than any of the gynecologists, psychiatrists, and endocrinologists I've seen. In my view, PMDD is one of those whole-person problems that can't be addressed through a single discipline .. it's hormonal, emotional, nutritional, lifestyle, energetic, cognitive, etc. I highly recommend that anyone with PMDD look for a well-reviewed naturopathic or holistic doctor. Definitely get your hormones checked as well as your neurotransmitters, and ask them ahead of time if they'll do hormone and neurotransmitter testing, so you're not wasting your time. My norepinephrine was high, along with some other neurotransmitter imbalances which my N.D. explained was directly related to my irritability, anxiety and depression. Based on this, she recommended that I try taking taurine, L-theanine, and fenibut .. all of which have been pretty calming, but they're still in the trial phase with me. Taurine gives me a headache and might make me more depressed, and fenibut can cause withdrawal symptoms if taken habitually. However, I've noticed that since trying them, I do feel calmer - less anxious/irritable. My N.D. also gave me a pretty amazing liquid herbal concoction that is calming and energizing at the same time .. I have to ask her what's in it exactly, and will post her answer.
Did I mention melatonin? If you think you might have PMS-D and don't have an autoimmune disease, you should consider melatonin - you can buy it over the counter. It made me feel noticeably happier and calmer, and improved the quality of my sleep. However, I have an autoimmune disease (a mysterious type of arthritis which may be fibromyalgia) and the melatonin made my arthritis worse, so I had to stop taking it.
Sorry for the super-long response! I'll close with a few links that I've found interesting:
Soy can have an anti-estrogenic effect: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19235040
PMDD women have low estrogen (depending on how they define PMDD, they may be talking about PMS-D): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17956950
PMDD women produce less melatonin, and later in the sleep cycle (another reason to get a full night's sleep every night!): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9104690
poster:dusty rhoads
thread:953868
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20100703/msgs/954128.html