Hi,
does anyone have experience or info about alcohol having a negative impact when taking the progesterone part of hrt? I don't drink much alcohol at all but I'm beginning to wonder if, when I do whilst on the progesterone part, if it's making me feel awful. I took Provera early December and with it being the run up to Christmas, there were a couple of evenings when I had a couple of glasses of mulled wine and I felt really awful the next day, and the feeling lingered. Well, I'm now trying Utrogestan and for 8 days it has been absolutely fine, I had one glass of prosecco 2 nights ago and within hours I felt awful, dull headache and as with the provera, it was as if all the side effects you can get from progesterone (like PMT) have started. The only thing is, the Utrogstan is being taken the vaginal route.
Any ideas?
Absolutely Sunnydays - exactly this effect and have posted on it in passing several times on the forum.
I also started noticing lower tolerance to alcohol before I was even peri-menopausal - eg terrible hangovers lasting 3 days after 2 glasses of wine during the evening - which I realised were actually migraines not normal hangovers.
I then also found this happened when I was on the progesterone part of HRT - but at first thought it was just progesterone withdrawal. This was on Cyclogest which is only used vaginally or anally. Nowadays I have to be very careful on alcohol at all and as I've said before if I drink a glass of wine eg after 9 pm and go to bed before it's worn off this can trigger a migraine. On NY Eve I had a liqueur at midnight - not fizz as I knew I would suffer - and I still got a 3 day migraine - but also partly due to going to bed late - even though I drank lot of water.
I still manage to enjoy a drink or two though by managing it very carefully - although I know this is boring. eg I can drink in the day and more than usual (like over Christmas - starting at about 1 pm!) - I just make sure I drink loads of water in between the wine and make sure it's all worn off by the time I go to bed.
You may be similar - just don't drink after 9 pm, and drink loads of water - more than the volume of wine that you have drunk!
I had a look at those links Limpy which are interesting but don't seem to answer this particular query- why the headaches and migraines on a small amount of alcohol - and especially when on the prog - I think it must be something to do with the liver. Our tolerance changes as we get older anyway and there is more metabolism of hormones going on when we are taking HRT - more so with oral HRT, so there is some other metabolic effect - in addition to the effect on the hormone levels in the blood stream.
No need to give up completely unless you are unlucky and you get a migraine from any alcohol at any time of day
![Sad :(](https://www.menopausematters.co.uk/forum/Smileys/extended/sad.gif)
I am still especially careful when I'm on the prog though....
Hurdity x