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[Marchlove]

That makes sense Scampi and is what I essentially do now.

I don’t keep to a rigid low histamine diet, but I keep my estrogen supplementation low too, so I can sort or balance them.

On a good day!! X

[Scampidoodle]

Just looking back over the chat and Marchlove you mention insomnia and
Antihistamines. I don’t know if it’s related but I’m pretty sure my insomnia started when I started taking fexofenadine at night along with my loratadine. Sorted the waking with severe palpitations but I have had such light sleep since. Can’t see a way round this though as I need them at the moment.

Was absolutely without an ounce of energy today, couldn’t move and my body felt broken, low mood, chest flutters and brain fog. Then took a loratadine in desperation at 5ish and felt pretty normal again within half an hour. It’s just crazy. I need several antihistamines per day at the moment just to function.

[Marchlove]

I’d aim to take during the day certainly. Try and see what you trigger times might be and dose an hour before.

But try not to overdose, less is more.

I’m so sorry you’re having such issues with your new Minerva.  Early days, but horrible weathering the storm. X

[joziel]

I wish some doctors would come along and read all our experiences here. I feel like they would learn way more from listening to their patients than anything else sometimes 

[joziel]

Hey folks with palpitations, I found this interesting paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6932472/

When I did an ecg with my Kardia device, it often told me “sinus rhythm with wide QRS”. So I googled this in relation to HRT and found this paper. This is the relevant bit for me:

“ Women taking combined estrogen and progesterone therapy had the shortest QRS duration and those on estrogen alone had the longest QRS duration. Those taking estrogen alone also had significantly longer QRS durations than those taking no menopausal hormone therapy or past users of menopausal hormone therapy (Table 2). In addition, the QRS duration was significantly shorter in those currently taking combined estrogen and progesterone than either past users of menopausal hormone therapy or those taking no menopausal hormone therapy.”

So for me this lends support to the importance of progesterone in countering these effects of estrogen. And perhaps I just don’t have enough progesterone (for me). So I am going to double my utrogestan and we’ll see…

[CrispyChick]

I'm so glad there are people talking about the balance of prog/estrogen rather than just the benefits of one or other.

I'm striving for balance for my own natural estrogen, by using only prog. There is a lot of literature and anecdotal evidence which claims as you begin lower dose prog it actually upregulates your estrogen receptors. I have never found scientific papers on this - but maybe they don't exist.

Anyway. I am experiencing this. It makes starting prog very difficult. I'm thinking of upping my dose to help. So basically, your additional prog might actually make your estrogen work harder, until you use enough prog to reach balance.

This seems to relate to gilla and her original reasoning for starting this thread. Also, as we move through peri, our own prog will nose dive.

Balance I believe, is key.

[joziel]

Crispy are you saying that the more progesterone you add, the more estrogen you will need....   

I think maybe I need something to mop up my estrogen anyways 

[CrispyChick]

No. Far from it.

It says your estrogen is magnified by the addition of some prog. That's maybe why you feel like you need more prog.

[joziel]

Oh seriously? That's interesting. How does that work then!?

I'm totally stuck with what my next move should be. I don't really want to reduce estrogen more but I do want to stop these darn symptoms ASAP. If I don't reduce estrogen and stay at 50, and just do the progesterone switch (double utrogestan and stop desogestrel), I've no idea how long it's going to be before I know if that is helping and meanwhiles I could just be experiencing all this more.

And then if that doesn't work and I decide to reduce estrogen after all, would I stay at the double utrogestan?? Then i would be on a high dose of progesterone and pretty low estrogen???

[CrispyChick]

Oh man! I'm not sure joziel. Apogirs, I've not been following your story, so I'm not sure I can help.

I'm terns of the estrogen magnification thing. They say that if your estrogen is high, relative to prog, your body will protect itself by shitting down some estrogen receptors.

As you add in prog, your body then starts to reopen the estrogen receptors (as it's been waiting for prog) this makes you feel estrogenic symptoms stronger. It should die down, or you might need more prog to overcome it.

There. I think that's it. I'm just about to increase my prog dose as I think my low dose is stimulating the estrogen response, as above.

What are your symptoms??? You feel they're estrogenic???

[CrispyChick]

Ah.. So just skimmed a little. Are you on cyclic progesterone??

From what I've read this stop/start approach can keep triggering the antagonising of the estrogen receptors.

[joziel]

No, I'm on continuous utrogestan 100mg and desogestrel POP (for endo suppression), plus now 50mcg patch.

And yes, I think the symptoms I'm getting are estrogenic. But my blood estrogen on the 50 patch was just 233nmol a couple of months ago and so I'm a bit reluctant to drop even further back    But maybe I need to do that to get rid of these symptoms and then can edge up very gradually over time again....

I don't think just waiting will help much because I was previously on this combo of things for 7 weeks and it was the same as it is now. So although I've only been back on the 50 for 2 days, I don't have much hope that things will settle....

With the endo and progesterone, I was supposed to be trialling doubling the utrogestan to 200mg continuously and stopping the POP. Just because I'd prefer to stop the synthetic progesterone if I can - I don't have any endo symptoms at the moment. But I've been a bit preoccupied with fixing these estrogen symptoms so I haven't gotten around to doing any of that yet...

[CrispyChick]

Ah OK.

Just out of interest - when you do continuous utro, do you ever take a break?? Or is it every single day?

I don't think I can help much, other than to say I believe natural progesterone avd synthetic progestin compete for the same receptors. So you might well get a better result switching solely to bio prog. 

[joziel]

I don’t take a break, I take it every single day.

But if I started to get problematic bleeding I’d probably take it for 25 days and then 3 days off as the old style continuous regime, just enough to schedule a bleed.

[joziel]

I’ve been doing some reading and research during my sleepless hours 

I’m aware that this fluttery feeling I have is key to what I experience. And that it is some kind of palpitation although not the skipped beat kind.

I remembered that my Kardia machine said it was “sinus rhythm with wide QRS”. So I looked that up on the Kardia site.

It said that one of the possible causes of this, is high blood pressure. Considering I’m lying here pulsing away when this happens, that cause seems very probable.

So I am now thinking that somehow estrogen is causing me to have high blood pressure, which in turn is causing these palps.

I don’t know what the mechanism is for this. I know that estrogen for most women is good for heart health and blood pressure but in my Googling I’ve found some accounts of women who react in the opposite way to it. And also  for most women, pregnancy (v high estrogen) reduces blood pressure - but again there are some women who react paradoxically with dangerously high blood pressure. For sure I reacted in the same way when I was 21 and took the combined pill.

I’m reluctant to take high blood pressure meds to deal with an issue caused by estrogen. Taking meds to deal with the side effects of other meds seems a bit crazy.

Progesterone seems to potentially oppose this effect. So again maybe I should try doubling my utrogestan. 🤷‍♀️ So anyway I feel like maybe I’m a bit closer to working out what’s going on but no idea of the mechanism or what really to do about it. 

Does anyone else feel that blood pressure could cause their issues? I know some people have migraines- they can also be caused by blood pressure?!