prof. Studd

[rusalka]

I was reading about him and his points of view on the HRT and I'm quite astonished. I mean, he is running a PMS and menopause clinic, so if not he, who else would really have knowledge and experience about this issue?? I was totally amazed about his treatment of PMS depression with 2-3 pumps Estrogel twice daily! This are 4-6 pumps daily all together and he recommends estrogen levels about 600! Wow! And only 100mg progesterone for 7 days in the cycle! This is so very different from what I have heard from gynos here in Germany, where more then 2 pumps of Estrogel is already a big risk and women should take 200 mg progesterone, to avoid the estrogen dominancy and to protect the uterus. These are so very opposing opinions that I really don't understand how is this possible, why are there no unified guidelines? It can't be that both are right in this case!
For us women this is very confusing. I'm much more open to "trust" Prof. Studd or Dr. Annie, because I feel that I need more estrogen as my gynos are "allowing" me and probably less Progesterone as prescribed. But as a lay person I'm still afraid to make my own decisions regarding the dose of my HRT. Do you know what I mean? How is this in your own cases? Are your doc's advocates of this both experts, or are you your own expert? I don't want to make something wrong or harmful, but I have my difficulties to accept the HRT policy here, where you should take as low as possible estrogen to be safe and where "normal" estrogen levels are not recommended to (peri)menopausal women, because they are "unnatural and risky"...

[rusalka]

Mar 1, 2013 20:32:04 GMT @lainey1976 said:

Rusalka,

Both these professionals are very highly thought over in UK. To say peri menopausal ladies should avoid these hormones is wrong. As we know the hormones start to deplete so why shouldn't we replace what our bodies had and also if hormones are so dangerous why are we born with them? This is what i ask others who rubbish hormones. The 600 level is about right. I asked a private doctor last week what she would like my o levels to be and she said she would be comfortable at 800-900 ish but not over 1000.. Re progesterone i think 100mg is more than enough. I was using 6 pumps of gel at one point and 100mg of P and my uterus was nice and thin and i felt fantastic..

Lainey xx

Lainey, thank you, this is inspiring me :-) Yesterday I made a crucial experience- in the evening ( when I already consumed my daily 2 and a half pumps E-gel, divided in 3 doses), I felt exhausted, depressed, a bit anxious and grumpy and I said- one pump more won't kill me immediately! So I applied another pump and guess what- within 20 minutes I started to feel great, I noticed an lift in my energy and the mood, depression was like blown away and I have spend an very nice evening with my husband instead to fall in bed early as usual. Also my sleep was better. For me this is clear- my body just needs more estrogen and I think that Estrogel effect last only 4-6 hours.

xx

[Deleted]

I think that would make sense - I had upped my oestrogel from two to three pumps daily and wondered if I should perhaps try to reduce it a bit, which I did for a couple of days. Result - blinding three day headache again. It may be coincidence but its odd that I haven't actually experienced this for a while, and as soon as my dose was reduced, they returned. Won't be doing that again in a hurry.

[rusalka]

Candy, I think I know which doc do you mean. He is an authority for HRT here in Germany and for him more then one pump of estrogen daily is already a risk and irresponsible if taken for longer period!! And he is scaring the women about the danger of not taking enough progesterone ( 200 mg daily, ideally without a break), you know, we will all get estrogen dominancy, which will make our lives even more stressful and difficult and our uterus needs so much P to be safe and- his standard quote- "you can never take too much progesterone!"
No wonder that I was so very confused, when I heard about how different is this opinion in other countries..

Today I was at the gyno, the boss of my doc and she is in certain details much better then he is. When I asked her, what E levels she would recommend during HRT and she said-
" if a lady feels good with E levels about 30 pg/ml, then this is great. ( her colleague told me, levels about 30 are good and I don't have to increase the gel!) But if other lady needs levels about 80 or 100 to feel good, it's also o.k. for her. Only if a patient don't feel really good with E levels about 120 pg/ml, for her it's clear that the problems and symptoms are not estrogen related".

So far, so good.. She also said my levels have to be higher and she took a blood example. She also said it's good that I'm splitting the dose of gel. If my estrogen didn't rise after the higher dose and better applying technique during the last weeks, she would put me on a patch. I'm also fine with this.

What I didn't liked was her suggestion, that we should replace Utrogest with some Gestagen, if my bleedings again starts only 2 weeks after the last period and only few days on Utrogest. She thinks, maybe is Utrogest not strong enough for me to create a stable cycle! When she said this, I didn't dare to say that I'm using only 100 mg vaginal and not 200mg. But maybe this was my mistake, maybe I really need such a high dose of P??
After everything I have read about Prof. Studd, Dr. Annie, Dr. Schwarzbein and from you here, I just can't believe, that 200mg Utrogest vaginal is really the best dose...
Why this has to be so complicated

P.s. I wonder how many pumps are using the ladies with really good estrogen levels? Probably with 1-2 pumps it's not possible to reach levels about 400 pmol??

[rusalka]

The problem is that all other gyno's here in Germany are following his guidelines

[rusalka]

Then it has be my poor absorption... Or it's in your case so, that your body is also producing some estrogen too? My own estrogen levels were zero, when I made 5 days break of Estrogel...

[rusalka]

Yes, I'm perimenopausal.

[rusalka]

I wish I was smart enough to understand what is going on...

[rusalka]

I have now my new estrogen levels under two and a half pumps Estrogel- it's 53 pg/ml ( 194 pmol/L) which is better then 29 ( 106 pmol/L) on one and a half pump. But it's still not enough for me, I will increase it on 3 pumps and see what happens.. What do you think?

[rusalka]

My levels improved since I'm rubbing the gel into the shoulders with my palms till it's dry.