by Joan Haynes, NMD
Women with low progesterone often have symptoms of insomnia, PMS, anxiety, irritability, breast tenderness, food cravings, hot flashes, irregular menses, infertility, uterine fibroid, low thyroid, low adrenal function and a host of other symptoms.
Progesterone’s main job during child bearing years is to prepare and maintain the uterus for pregnancy. Progesterone also affects brain function. It produces a sense of calmness and helps promote rejuvenating sleep. But when progesterone levels are low, the body can feel it has too much estrogen, even though estrogen levels can be normal. This is known as “estrogen dominance”.
When woman are under stress, their progesterone gets robbed to feed the cortisol (stress) pathway. This can leave us less able to handle stress and we may find ourselves anxious, overwhelmed and extra grouchy with those we love. We may also end up with adrenal fatigue,which often goes hand-in-hand with low progesterone. These may be the first symptoms of perimenopause and can happen years before other symptoms start to occur.
Testing
Low progesterone levels can be easily determined with saliva or urinary hormone testing.
Read more in my article Testing for Hormones: The Big Five.
No Need to Suffer there is Help for You
If you aren’t feeling yourself, come in and we can see if low progesterone and/or low cortisol are making you feel out of sorts. We can talk about ways to restore your hormone balance naturally, perhaps using bioidentical progesterone, herbs, supplements and dietary changes.