FDA warning about "bioidentical hormones"

[TSund]

Hi Lois!

I am impressed by your onc that he said OK. 99% will go to the conservative side on this issue. From what I have read he's right on. Anything that will go to the androgens I'd stay away from.

Were you already using progesterone when dx'd? Did you continue or start taking it when he said OK? Are you still on it?

Interesting, as your dx was the same as RUth's. And "common" (but not necessarily correct in my view) wisdom says no natural progesterone if PR +. But Lee claims that's a good, not a bad, in one Q &A tho I found little referring to the markers in his book in general.

TRS

[jhandley]

I have been on natural progesterone for 7 years as per Dr John Lee's book. I got myself tested for hormones after dx and was low in progesterone and high in testosterone; both of which are linked to increase in BC risk.
I suffered from many of the symptoms of low progesterone (fibrocystic disease of the breast, fibroids, endometriosis) and when I asked BC survivors how many of them had one of these, more than 80% said yes.

It helped with the hot flushes but I mostly use it for cancer protective effects because Dr Lee's reasoning and studies makes a lot of sense to me.

Cheers
Jackie

[AlaskaAngel]

Terry,

The other thing that might influence whether or not one should use progesterone would be if one has had a hysterectomy. I had one several years prior to bc diagnosis, and my onc might have also taken that into account when he said it was fine for me to use progesterone (although I doubt that even registered with him).

I used progesterone cream off and on during treatment (it was hard to be consistent about much of ANYTHING that was optional and required discipline during treatment). One problem is that it is hard to know just what schedule to use for applying it -- i.e., 7 days off and the rest of the month on, or what, once one has had a hysterectomy?

I also couldn't find any really good information on the use of it when taking tamoxifen (yea or nay) and since I was on tamoxifen for almost 2 years after chemo I dropped off the progesterone.

After that I used it again some. But then when I was considering participating in the testosterone trial I dropped off it entirely far ahead of time so as not to interfere in any way with the results from that trial. So I was off progesterone for several months for that trial.

I haven't used it regularly since then. I wish we had more help from endocrinologists with all of this. I became more interested in the use of melatonin and have used that on a fairly steady basis. But I don't know how or if that has good or bad effects when using progesterone.

I'm also unsure if using progesterone without doing it on a regular schedule might not be a good thing.

AlaskaAngel