Hurdity do you think you have an issue with the absorbtion of the patch?
Hopefully I will be okay on the 7 days Utrogestan, it either that trying every to take it every other day. I'm so intolerant to most progesterones, either way I will have a scan to make sure all is well. X
Let us know how you get on with this!
Hurdity. I read in a trial which I cant remember now that the highest levels recorded were day 2 of the patch. Are you getting tested again? Maybe do it on day 2.
My gynae who suggested I go to 7 days saidxi will need regular scans but it's up to my doc to order them. Do you think yearly is enough?
Also be interested to know your thoughts on if we can take anything from progesterone blood results. They always test mine but never mention them. And I cant interpret them as the rangea on my form are are pre meno and that's obviously irrelevant post. If you're taking it conti post meno shouldnt it remain relatively stable.
But it seem there is no info out there on what the optimum P blood level is to protect the womb post meno . Nor on what the balance of P to E should be on conti post meno. In terms of blood serum. Maybe I'm wrong but I think more scientific research is needed to establish this. It all seemsi lke guesswork. After all there are lots of reasons for taking E but there is only 1 reason we are all taking P. A yardstick or range of optimum levels to protect womb needs establishing It feels like we are guinea pigs.
Hope scan goes well and you get back on track with E levels.
Xx
Thanks for comments Tracey E and Tc - it is strange yes! I don't want to switch the convo onto me at this point so I started another thread...
re the prog level - there is no absolute prog level needed to protect the womb because there is individual variation in how serum levels translate into acting on progesterone receptors and prevent overgrowth. The only was to do this is through trial and error when you use separate oestrogen and progesterone - starting with the licensed progesterone dose and increasing or decreasing depending on your oestrogen dose and how your body responds and knowing that it is dose dependent (more prog needed for higher doses of oestrogen).
There is some general research like there is for oestrogen doses classed as low, medium and high. You will see that some of the combination HRT products for example have different doses of progesterone for the different oestrogen doses and different prog doses for conti or sequi preparations ( but not always - but I think this is cost-saving eg Evorel conti is same dose norethisterone as Evorel sequi when they just use the conti patch for the sequi part, when in fact it could be less possibly for some women!). Thes prog doses have been arrived at through trials of different dose regimes of oestrogen and prog - but always the endpoint measured is endometrial thickness (and bleeding) and any abnormalities, as this is what is crucial - irrespective of serum levels.
The yardstick is the licensed dose and assumed to be for medium doses of oestrogen. Hopefully enlightened docs and especially menopause specialists can invidivualise the dose. We do have to be our own guineapigs to some extent - well some of us/ Ree,ber the vast majority of women on HRT won't go anywhere near forums like this and are happily taking the proprietary brands. Just tricky when you don't fit the norm or encounter problems or want to do something a bit different!
Yes you're right - levels should be constant post-meno so they don't actually need to measure prog when they do the test - this is normally to test whether a women is ovulating and not on HRT otherwise it's meaningless - although serum levels have been measrued for the various products as these are given in the Product Info on the web.
Hurdity x
