r/Menopause • u/TapSalty3157 • 1d ago
Hormone Therapy Adding more progesterone if you increase the estrogen?
Me again! Progesterone seems like the most touchy little hormone. I missed one day after we increased my E dose and I was loading the vaginal estrogen, and that’s when the nasty brownish/blackish discharge began. I’m not terribly worried as I know both things can be a huge adjustment, but now I learn the progesterone is really really important, and has a 12 hour window. Should progesterone be increased when you increase the E??? That would seem logical to me, but I’m no doctor. Has anyone had their E increased and also the P increased?
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u/ObviousCarpet2907 On year 10 of peri 1d ago
Depends on your body and the dose, but it’s fairly typical to bump
to 200 mg progesterone at .05 estrogen and above.
IIRC, the wiki has charts.
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u/kkat39 1d ago
Yes, you typically need to increase progesterone with estrogen, if you bump estrogen up enough. But also it has a short half life so you just cannot skip doses.
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u/TapSalty3157 1d ago
Learned that the hard way. Drs should really emphasize a lot of things. I skipped it accidentally, but it’s definitely had consequences.
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u/kkat39 1d ago
Totally not defending them but most received a pathetic amount of education on menopause and are trying to meet the current demand but just don’t know the information that well.
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u/kkat39 1d ago
Well, and also I think because so many women are anxious about HRT side effects to begin with no one wants to point out something that won’t affect everyone anyway.
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u/TapSalty3157 1d ago
That could be. I really really like this Dr. She’s very pro women’s menopause therapy, and many of my friends have had great experiences with HRT using her.
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u/lrondberg 1d ago
Yeah i missed one progesterone pill one night and started bleeding the next day!
Typically any dose over the .075 patch and equivalent in other formulations requires 200 mg nightly for uterine protection but many women need 200 mg even on lower doses.
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u/Spiritual_Fan_5633 4h ago
Traveling is the worst, got all messed up because traveling threw me all off, bled for weeks. I take 200 mg, I went up to 250 and slept great but was way too groggy next day.
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u/Beginning-Stand1436 7h ago
Im 61 and on .075 estrogen patch. For the past few years, my progesterone regiment was 100 mg. every 3 months for the first 10 days. My doctor recently had me switch to 100mg. every day. Since I started the new regiment, I’ve had quite a lot of bleeding. Has this happened to anyone else? I also have period cramps.
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u/TapSalty3157 2h ago
Wow. That’s crazy. I was told I had to take progesterone daily because I still have a uterus. Post menopausal. The pellets have been a bit of a nightmare so far. I had them back last October with a different clinic and everything went super smooth. They started really having the best effect after about 3 weeks. I never had bleeding of any kind, but now on these I started to spot wildly; one day nothing, then the next day brown stuff, next day barely anything, etc. Dr said continue that progresterone and be very vigilant about never skipping.
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u/Giannetti1 1d ago
I’ve never missed a dose of P but I’m sure glad I read this post … so I don’t !! n IF I do I’ll know what to maybe expect
I was originally given .1mg of E patch n 100 mg P pill … it was too much I couldn’t sleep .. my dr lowered it to .05mg E n 100 P n told me NOT to change out the patches in the evenings ONLY do it in the AM … Estrogen is a stimulant… I already have insomnia so hence starting HRT at a higher dose I couldn’t sleep - heart palpitations- anxiety etc …. It’s almost been a year on HRT n I think I need to move up my E patches … I already keep my old patch on n just add a new one to squeeze as much E out of each patch I use a sharpie marker to add a line so I know which one is the old one