Progest-E And Inflamed Thyroid

How does one possibly get enough progesterone to counter the ill-effects of estrogens when their thyroid periodically inflames in response to Hashimotos auto-antibodies? I had been supplementing Progest-E for 2 years when 1 year ago I was stricken with swollen thyroid and discontinued the Progest-E. I have been taking Nutri-Pak thyroid glandular for 3 years after first experimenting with Cynoplus and without finding the correct dosage for me. From what I understand in the case of Hashimotos, the thyroid needs to be supplemented sufficiently prior to the supplementation of progesterone. I am finding this to be very difficult to accomplish even though I have cut PUFAs and have been sticking to a RP eating routine for about 2 years.

I am a new poster; however, I have been reading Peat for many years but find that this forum's extremely knowledgeable members have been very helpful in my understanding of how to apply the knowledge of RP into my everyday life.

kajcomp,

Not an area of expertise for me, but if I've understood Peat correctly on this, his concern with supplementing progesterone while there is a goiter is that the progesterone could allow the thyroid to suddenly release a lot of the stored hormones into the system in a short time, making someone temporarily hyperthyroid. If you have already been through that phase, and the stored hormones have not built up in the thyroid again, that risk may be past.

Did you find the progest-e helpful when you were using it?

Do you have any clues about what has triggered the recurrence of inflamed thyroid? Do you see any patterns related to diet, season, activities, sleep, other stresses, etc?

Tara,

Thanks so very much for the reply, as I am new to the forum, but have been reading the forum and studying the Ray Peat website for quite some time. Love the man.

As far as the effectiveness of Progest-E - I haven't noticed any changes in symptoms in the 2 years I've been taking it as I have dosed the daily 20 mgs or so. I took OTC progesterone hormone cream for about 3 years prior to taking Progest-E two years ago. All I know is that about a year ago, I had a significant feeling that I had a "knot" below my adam's apple at the base of my throat on the top of my clavicle. I have not been to get that feeling checked as I do not care to go to western doctors for now. However, I did have blood tests with western doctors that showed high Hashimoto's auto-antibodies that the doctor didn't feel that she needed to do anything about at that time. As far as I know, for the time I have taken Progest-E and other OTC progesterone cream in years prior to Progest-E, I have not experienced a hyperthyroid condition. I only experienced a hyperthyroid state when I experimented with Cynoplus and Cytomel and could never get it "right". So I gave cynoplus and cytomel up and have been on Nutri-Pak thyroid glandular for a couple of years. Do you know if a hyperthyroid state would occur, then would it be okay to resume Progest-E after the hyperthyroid symptoms subsided??? I suppose that the Nutri-Pak is helping - don't know really for sure if it's helping or my adrenals are kicking in off and on all the time and still working overtime as they have seemed to do for 30 years or so! Just after the cessation of my periods at age 56, I went through an extremely "LOW" time when all I wanted to do was try to sleep (if I could) and had NO energy nor no inclination to participate in daily life.

You ask if there are any clues as to what has triggered the inflamed thyroid - I haven't a clue - I have been sleepless for most of my adult life for whatever the reasons.

For the record, I am 61 years old and had my last period at age 56, and after "cold turkey" stopping my period, then all **ll broke loose. It was just as if a faucet had been turned off in my body and all "minor" problems that I had suffered all my adult life (arthritis, insomnia, vague migrating aches and pains, extreme dryness in eyes and otherwise, extreme knee, back and foot pain, that prohibited my mobility, horrible digestive reflux, depression because of it all, etc.) all of these symptoms were magnified, amplified almost to a degree of debility.

I will have to say that the later 10 years of my life have been wrought with much emotional stress - the loss of my dearest friend that I cared for the last 2 years of her life; my father with continuous 6 months in hospital congestive heart failure and then, marrying at age 56 for the first time in my life and moving to
another state. Yes, way too much within too short a time span, 10 years - but, alas, it seems that most of my life has been as such.

Thanks for your reply and anything that you might lend ...would be oh so helpful - In Ray's Wisdom, Light and Love

Kathy

Hi Kathy,

I'm sorry you lost your friend, and your father, and have had a stressful time.
Congratulations on your marriage.

It seems that different people respond to very different doses of progesterone. Some women use a lot more than 20mg/day, and some get all the benefit they need from 10mg. I think Peat's suggestion for dosing is to start with 3 drops/10mg progest-e 5 times a day, and after symptoms have subsided for a while, reduce to 3x a day or less, as required. Taking too little can apparently draw estrogen out of tissues into crculation, but not be sufficient to adequately oppose it. Some cycle it; I've been using it continuously (currently 10mg twice a day, but I used more earlier). If you have not experienced hyperthyroid conditions previously when using progest-e, I imagine it would be unlikely now (but as I said, I'm not an expert). It may be something you could experiment with more.

If you have had tests previously, you should be able to contact the relevant doctor and ask them to send you the complete results - ie all the numbers, not just her/his assessment that TSH etc are 'normal'. This might give some useful clues to people here who are better at interpreting them than I am.

Have you had a go at tracking your body temps and resting pulse? Ideally a few times a day for a couple of weeks (including on waking, 1/2 hour or so after breakfast, sometime in the afternoon), but any measurement for several days is better than none. This can give an idea about how overall metabolism is going, too.

If you want to, you could post about your typical diet (including roughly how much) - people come up with all sorts of variations inspired by Peat's ideas.

Chronic sleep deprivation is very rough - are you still having trouble with this?

Are you able to get regular sunshine?

Tara, thanks so very much for your response.

I have my blood results - my TSH is 1.9 and Hashimotos autoimmune antibodies are high. I understand that the ranges of TSH (as other values of other health markers) are way out of whack and should be re-evaluated with more "modern" ranges put into place. I have been taking my b.p., heart rate and temp for a year or more and usually the temp tops out for the day at around 97.9 or so with a BPM pulse of 80 - 95. I had a saliva cortisol performed (by my insistence) which showed that my cortisol levels were highest between 2 a.m. thru 8 a.m., then very low from 8 a.m. until about 2 p.m. and then rising from 2 p.m. throughout the late evening. This accounts for the reasoning that i have always been a "night' person and also why i, most every night, wake up around 3 a.m. for several hours.

I am wondering if anyone has experience with taking Nutri-pak thyroid glandular and if results have been similar to Armour or Cytomel or any other T4, T3 combos. I do feel that I have been helped by taking the Nutri-Pak some, but it seems that I have so many other health issues that i can't seem to concentrate on "fixing" the thyroid for thinking about everything else.

Another issue i have had for some time and has gotten extremely worse within the last 6 months is edema - feet, calves and, i think, general body edema with extreme foot/ankle pain to limit walking. Two weeks ago I began taking a homeopathic called "cell salts" or "Bioplasma". Within 3 hours of taking the first dose, my ankles reduced their swelling very noticeably. I have been taking these "cell salts" for 2 weeks and miraculously the edema and foot pain are gone. Are you familar with these "cell salts"? I am having a hard time finding much about how they effect the body. Basically they appear to be a very dilute (homeopathic) electrolytes.

Tara, yes, i still have sleep problems - it seems worse when i know i have a lot to accomplish and my mind cannot be still when i wake up - but it seems that my sleep is slowly getting better lately. I get sunshine, take Vitamin D3, Vitamin K2, vitamin A, pregnenolone, gelatin, aspirin , vitamin E daily along with thyroid Nutri-Pak glandular.

I am not opposed to taking Ray's Progest-E again; however, it was quite scary when I felt as if my throat was closing up and i remembered Ray said to supplement the thyroid first and reduce the size of the thyroid first before supplementing progesterone. It really worries me, now that i am post menopausal that i am not taking Progest-E to counter estrogens that we are all subjected to.

I have listened to Ray's audios numerous times, and without a scientific background, i have tried to glean all i can; however, alas, i just have to re-listen over and over , finally to be able to assimilate only a percentage of the information. This is why i have come to this forum to study - there is much to learn here and I am grateful.

It's late here for me and I'm going to bed soon, but I wanted to quickly put out a few things for your consideration.

I can sympathize with how overwhelming it is to have a lot of health issues. But I think getting your thyroid in a good place will ultimately help with most everything else. Good thyroid function can help your body process the estrogens, for instance.

Are you supplementing selenium? Or getting any through your diet? My thyroid antibodies dropped significantly when I started supplementing selenium. No guarantee it would work for you, but just thought I'd suggest it.

How are you dosing the Nutri-pak? Taking it all at once or splitting it up? Some people find taking a little at bedtime to be helpful with sleep by lowering stress hormones.

I have a little experience with homeopathy. I'm not sure where Peat stands on it; he may not have looked into it much. I have personally been helped by it somewhat, and it's my understanding that at low doses (like the Bioplasma) it will either help or do nothing. I believe there is probably no harm in it if you find it helpful.

Sweetpeat,

Thanks for your input. I have used selenium, with not much regularity though. How much did you use, if I can ask? Since I no longer see any doctor, I unfortunately do not know where my numbers are on the thyroid tests. I only can tell that, for weeks at a time I feel there is a "knot-like" feeling in the base of the throat - sometimes worse than other times, but never completely gone.

I split the Nutri-Pak dose in two - one first thing in morning and then mid afternoon. Do you know anything about Nutri-Pak and if it is as reliable as say Armour? It seems that it helps me, but like you say, and I agree, that the thyroid needs to be optimal before any other healing can begin - I fear that perhaps I am not doing all I can do to help the thyroid. I take one and a half tablet total per day. One tablet is 130 mg - Of course the actual amount of T4 and T3 is not measured.

The Bioplasma cell salts have reduced the edema in my feet and calves to the extent of relieving foot/ankle pain when walking, so I will continue with that as long as it continues to work; however, one of the components is Ferrum Phosphate which is iron. This worries me as I try not to take in iron - even to the point of changing out all my cookware to old Corningware pieces and enameled cast iron. From what little I can find out about the Bioplasma is that it is basically electrolytes. Then that might mean that my electrolytes were unbalanced?

Thanks again for your time.

I supplement with selenium capsules because I don't eat a lot of seafood. I ones I have are 200mcg which I think is the basic standard dose. I take just one a day now (when I remember), but I may have taken it twice a day for a while when I first started. That was a couple of years ago.

Depending on where you live, you can get lab work without having to go through doctors. Here is one place that does it with pretty reasonable prices: walkinlab.com
A basic thyroid panel is $45. This would be out of pocket but worth it if you can manage it.

Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with Nutri-pak. But if you're getting positive results then I would say keep going with what's working for now. Just maybe experiment with moving one of your doses to bedtime to see if it helps with sleep.

Most likely your electrolytes are indeed out of balance. This is pretty common with hypothyroidism. I doubt that the iron in the Bioplasma is anything to worry about. Especially if you are avoiding iron with your diet.

Sweetpeat,

The 200 mcg selenium is what I have - I wonder if any one brand is better than the others? I will incorporate them daily into my supplements I take and try that. How would the selenium assist the thyroid and reduce the thyroid inflammation?

I was familar with the labs that test without a drs. scrip. I was waiting to locate a complete B-12 panel and get quite a few tests done at the same time. It's so funny that my husband and I have very good health insurance and I seem to never use it! (so far). I wanted to see where my B-12 numbers are because so many of my symptoms mimic a B-12 deficiency also. (i.e. high out of range MCV and MCH on the last three CBCs I have had). There are a few other tests that are not commonly given that confirms a B-12 deficiency rather than the simple blood tests usually given. I took some sublingual B-12 a year ago for a couple of months and now I am waiting for that to hopefully get out of my system before testing as that could have an impact on my numbers.

Thanks again

kajcomp said:

Sweetpeat,

The 200 mcg selenium is what I have - I wonder if any one brand is better than the others? I will incorporate them daily into my supplements I take and try that. How would the selenium assist the thyroid and reduce the thyroid inflammation?

Click to expand...

Selenium helps with the conversion of t4 to t3, and many women have a conversion problem, usually due to estrogen. Or from not getting enough selenium in the diet. It also can reduce the antibodies that are attacking the thyroid. This link explains it in more detail: Selenium

I hope this helps!

kajcomp said:

Another issue i have had for some time and has gotten extremely worse within the last 6 months is edema - feet, calves and, i think, general body edema with extreme foot/ankle pain to limit walking. Two weeks ago I began taking a homeopathic called "cell salts" or "Bioplasma". Within 3 hours of taking the first dose, my ankles reduced their swelling very noticeably. I have been taking these "cell salts" for 2 weeks and miraculously the edema and foot pain are gone. Are you familar with these "cell salts"? I am having a hard time finding much about how they effect the body. Basically they appear to be a very dilute (homeopathic) electrolytes.

Click to expand...

I looked up Bioplasma cell salts and this is what I found at
What Are Bioplasma Cell Salts? | LEAFtv
Bioplasma cell salts contain calcium fluoride, silica, natrum mur, calcium phosphorus, calcium sulphur, ferrum phos-iron, kali mur-potassium, kali phos-potassium, kali sulphur-potassium, magnesium phosphorus, natrum phosphorus and natrum sulphur.
I have no idea which ingredient produced the effects you mentioned. Perhaps the sulphur. Have you tried taurine as a supplement? I'm concerned about the calcium fluoride because according to Ray, each atom of fluoride inactivates one molecule of thyroid by replacing the iodine. I'd also not be willing to take phosphorous supplements, Ray has mentioned that too much phosphorous is not good. I also have no idea what some of the other ingredients are.

artlange said:

I looked up Bioplasma cell salts and this is what I found at
What Are Bioplasma Cell Salts? | LEAFtv
Bioplasma cell salts contain calcium fluoride, silica, natrum mur, calcium phosphorus, calcium sulphur, ferrum phos-iron, kali mur-potassium, kali phos-potassium, kali sulphur-potassium, magnesium phosphorus, natrum phosphorus and natrum sulphur.
I have no idea which ingredient produced the effects you mentioned. Perhaps the sulphur. Have you tried taurine as a supplement? I'm concerned about the calcium fluoride because according to Ray, each atom of fluoride inactivates one molecule of thyroid by replacing the iodine. I'd also not be willing to take phosphorous supplements, Ray has mentioned that too much phosphorous is not good. I also have no idea what some of the other ingredients are.

Click to expand...

You would not really be getting any measurable amount of phosphorus or iron from 6x or 12x diluted homeopathic cell salts. The doses are so tiny that most scientists would say they are non-existent. They supposedly work on an "energy" level by stimulating the body's own healing response. Homeopathy is a completely different modality of medicine, based on very different principles, than conventional medicine or herbalism. So for example, if you have problems with iron, it's quite likely that homeopathic iron might be beneficial to you, according to homeopathic principles. If you have too much estrogen, a homeopath might give you homeopathic estrogen. Homeopathy is not "supplementation" of nutrients. That's why so many of homeopathy's most popular medicines are made from toxins such as Arsenic, Belladonna, Poison Ivy, snake venom, etc.