Hi Essexragdoll - no it doesn't mean you are progesterone deficient at all - the symptoms you would experience if you were would be that your lining would get thicker and you would perhaps bleed erratically as it wouldn't be shed properly - it wouldn't cause the symptoms you describe.
The reason many women feel better on the prog part of tablet HRT (especially Femoston), as you said yourself and as I've pointed out before - is due to pmt which occurs in the normal menstrual cycle as the progesterone falls and before or sometimes during the bleed (initially). It is not progesterone deficiency but fall in progesterone and the physiological change sin your body - not the same thing as deficiency - which implies it is needed all the time!
What I've tried to explain ( probably badly) is that the whole progesterone phase tends to last longer in some tablet HRT and certainly with patch HRT - because you have 12-14 days of the prog part (combi tabs) and then another few days of the pmt part - so this can almost got into 3 weeks of the 4 week cycle! In the normal menstrual cycle it only lasts 2 weeks.
if you are progesterone intolerant this is very bad news because you might only feel well for 7 days of the month.
If you OK with progesterone but just get normal pmt just before a period, then you will feel fine on the combi tabs and the last part of the estrogen only tabs, but the first few oestrogen only tabs you are still under the influence of progesterone as it falls and the physiological changes - so this is when you will feel at your worst. If you were on a longer cycle eg 6 week this would be more obvious because, once the progesterone had gone and your body had acclimatised ( like it does each month) then you would feel fine eg for the next 3 weeks ( eg on a 6 week cycle).
The thing is if you view at as normal pmt then should be OK - no need to worry about having the wrong HRT - as long as it's not worse than the pmt you experienced on normal menstrual cycle. HRT will not get rid of this completely because you are recreating the physiological effect of normal menstural cycle - albeit crudely, and with your own hormones somewhere in the mix....
Does that explain at all? Wish I could draw a diagram as much simpler than words!!
Hurdity x
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Topic: Femeston 2nd month need advice (Read 2958 times)