What You Need to Know About Progesterone
Hormones are responsible for nearly everything that goes on in your body. They are the courier service that delivers messages to every organ and system, letting it know how to function and what to do and when. When you have a better understanding of these hormones, what they are, and how they work, you can come into a better understanding of your body and health as a whole! With that goal in mind, let’s keep learning about the many different hormones in the human body, focusing on progesterone.
What is Progesterone?
Progesterone, like testosterone and estrogen, is a sex hormone. This means that its primary functions have to do with the reproductive system and sexual health.
Similar to estrogen, progesterone is considered a largely “female” hormone, because its most vital functions are in the menstrual cycle and pregnancy. However, both men and women have some amount of progesterone in their system, just like estrogen and testosterone! In males, the levels of progesterone are simply much lower than in females.
What Does Progesterone Do?
Progesterone plays a big role in the formation and function of the endometrium, or the lining of the uterus. This lining is what builds up throughout the month and then sheds during a period if a woman does not become pregnant, and it becomes the placenta if a fertilized egg implants and the woman becomes pregnant. Rising progesterone levels cause the endometrium to thicken in preparation for fertilization and implantation, and if this doesn’t occur, progesterone levels drop off, causing the shedding of the endometrium and the monthly period.
If a fertilized egg does implant, progesterone also plays a role in the early stages of pregnancy. It helps to encourage the endometrium to form the placenta, stimulating blood vessels so that it can nourish the growing fetus. Progesterone levels stay high throughout pregnancy, preventing any more eggs from being released, and it also is one of the hormones that stimulates lactation after the baby is born.
In men, progesterone plays a role in the regulation of testosterone levels and the formation of sperm. It also has an impact on mood, sleep, libido, and bone density!
Where is Progesterone Made?
Most sex hormones are made in the primary sex glands– the ovaries for women and the testes for men. This is partially true of progesterone, however, it’s a bit more complicated.
In males, progesterone is just produced in the testes. In females, it’s actually produced in a temporary gland called the corpus luteum. Here’s what happens. Inside the ovary, a structure called a follicle releases the egg into the fallopian tube, where it is either fertilized or dissolves. After the follicle releases the egg, it forms the corpus luteum. This is the gland that produces progesterone to help the uterine lining thicken up in preparation for a potential pregnancy. When the egg isn’t fertilized and breaks down, the corpus luteum breaks down too, and progesterone levels fall, causing the period to happen. Basically, each time you go through a menstrual cycle, your body is creating, using, and breaking down a new gland!
If a woman does become pregnant, the corpus luteum doesn’t dissolve. Instead, it keeps pumping out progesterone to create the placenta. Eventually, once the placenta is large and developed enough, it starts to create progesterone on its own, becoming the major producer of this hormone in the body throughout pregnancy to keep the fetus nourished and prevent both ovulation and premature uterine contractions that might cause early labor.
What Happens if You Have Low Progesterone?
Low progesterone is often associated with fertility problems and trouble conceiving or carrying a pregnancy to term. If you aren’t pregnant but you have low progesterone, you might have irregular periods, headaches, mood swings, mood difficulties like anxiety or depression, trouble sleeping, or hot flashes. If you are pregnant and you have low progesterone, you can be at risk for ectopic pregnancy, preterm labor, or miscarriage.
Progesterone levels, like estrogen levels, also drop off as you age and begin to enter menopause, and this decrease in progesterone is associated with the common symptoms of menopause, like night sweats, hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and mood swings.
What Happens if You Have High Progesterone?
High progesterone levels aren’t often seen outside of pregnancy, but they are to blame for some of the common unpleasant symptoms of pregnancy, including nausea, breast tenderness, and fatigue.
If you do have high progesterone levels when you’re not pregnant, you may notice these symptoms, as well as anxiety or depression, low sex drive, or bloating and weight gain. These elevated levels might be due to hormonal birth control that you’re taking, or it could be a sign of an ovarian cyst or another abnormality with your reproductive system. If your blood work shows high progesterone levels without any other explanation, your medical provider should discuss these possibilities with you.
What to Do About Progesterone Imbalances?
The most common reason people have trouble with progesterone imbalances is menopause. The dropping levels of this hormone can make life extremely difficult for some women! If this is true for you and you’re interested in feeling better, hormone replacement therapy might be the right path for you. Make sure you contact the team at Renewed Vitality to learn more!
The changes of pregnancy and the postpartum period are some of the most intense hormonal changes that a woman’s body will ever go through, and even though they’re normal, they can be difficult to manage. Right after birth, some hormone levels fall dramatically while others rise, and this is what leads to the postpartum issues that so many women experience– depression, extreme fatigue, hair loss, and more.
Knowing what to expect and some ways to cope with these changes can really help to make it easier for you to get through this stressful time! Here are some of the things you should know.
How do your hormones change postpartum?
Estrogen and Progesterone
Over the course of a pregnancy, estrogen and progesterone are at very high levels. Right after delivery, whether you deliver vaginally or via C-section, these two hormones drop very fast. This is a natural change– your body doesn’t need the high levels anymore and there are other hormones that need to get to work.
However, the sharp drop is often part of the reason (combined with the stress of labor and a new baby) that many women feel low or just “off” physically and emotionally right after the birth, and it’s a large contributor to postpartum depression in the following weeks and months. This change is also what leads to postpartum hair loss, and can contribute to some additional sleep disturbances on top of your new baby.
Around three months after your baby is born, your estrogen and progesterone levels will begin to return to normal.
Prolactin and Oxytocin
At the same time that your estrogen and progesterone levels are falling, your prolactin and oxytocin levels are rising. Oxytocin plays a role in labor– it’s the hormone that stimulates uterine contractions. It also plays a major role in early mother-child bonding. Prolactin, on the other hand, is the hormone involved in milk production.
If you choose not to breastfeed, these hormone levels will drop off fairly quickly, but if you do nurse your baby, they will stay elevated until the baby is about six months old. Around this time they start to eat solid foods, so their demand for breast milk will slowly start to taper off, which is why this hormonal change happens.
What can I do to manage postpartum hormonal changes?
Focus on Your Diet
One of the most effective ways to get through rising and falling hormones during the postpartum period is to focus on eating a nutritious diet. Adding in plenty of healthy fats and proteins as well as fruits and vegetables will not only help your energy and mood, but can set your body up as well as possible to produce the hormones you need.
Accept Any Help You Can
As much as hearing it is probably exasperating, reducing your stress levels and getting plenty of sleep and gentle exercise will do wonders for how you feel as you recover from birth. Obviously, with a new baby, that’s much, much easier said than done! As a result, one of the best things you can do for your physical and mental health is to get help.
From your partner to friends and family members to professional services if you can afford them, there are plenty of ways for you to get the assistance you need so that you can care for yourself and your baby as efficiently as possible. Let loved ones cook you meals or come clean the house and do laundry! Split nighttime feedings and diaper changes as evenly as possible with your partner, and enlist them to hold the baby while you take a shower and have some time to yourself. Any way you can find to focus on your own wellbeing in addition to your baby’s will help you to feel better as you ride out these hormonal changes.
Speak to Your Doctor
When all else fails, difficulty with hormone levels during your postpartum period is definitely something you should speak to your doctor about. They can help you with any concerns about your health, so make sure to prioritize yourself and make an appointment if you feel like you need it!
In this busy day and age, we’re not always the best about listening to our bodies, but a missed period will set off alarm bells in most women’s heads as a clear sign that something is up. The most obvious answer is that amenorrhea (the medical term for a missing period) is a sign of pregnancy, but for those who are not sexually active or for whom a pregnancy test has ruled that reason out, what could be the root cause of a missed period? Turns out, there are a lot of potential reasons.
For starters, how long should you be skipping periods before you start to worry? Typically once a pregnancy has been ruled out, the time span varies based on regularity. If you’re usually very regular, start talking to your doctor after a few months have passed. If you have a history of being irregular, six to nine months is usually the time to start looking for the cause of your amenorrhea.
Nutrition and Lifestyle
When the body doesn’t receive enough nutrients, endures exercise that is too intense, or a combination of those factors, the reproductive system shuts down to try to help the body cope with the physical stress. Amenorrhea is a common symptom of eating disorders for this reason, but it’s also seen in athletes or people with intense and unhealthy fitness regimens. You may see the myth floating around in weight loss and exercise circles that a missing period means you’re on the right track and working hard enough, but this is false– and dangerous. If you’ve noticed your period stopping as a result of your diet and physical activity, it’s time to reassess. Make sure you’re getting enough nutrients of all kinds and not over-exerting yourself when you exercise.
PCOS
PCOS, or polycystic ovarian syndrome, is a hormonal disorder, and even though it’s fairly common, it is often overlooked. Irregular or missing periods are a symptom of PCOS, as well as infertility problems, weight struggles, and excessive body hair and acne. A doctor can diagnose PCOS through checking your hormone levels with a blood test. If you suspect you have PCOS, it’s important to bring it up to your doctor and ask about being tested, because women with PCOS are at a higher risk for diabetes, and you may need regular screening to help you avoid this additional problem.
Thyroid Disease
If tests have ruled out hormonal problems like PCOS but you’re still having trouble figuring out why your period is missing, it’s possible that your thyroid might be the problem. Because there are so many potential causes for amenorrhea, the thyroid isn’t often the first thing doctors test for, but it is important to consider it as a factor when other explanations don’t add up.
Birth Control
Going off the pill and suddenly having a missing period can be a shock when you’ve gotten used to the regularity that the pill offers, but it’s not unheard of. Some women do experience about four to six months of amenorrhea after stopping the pill, so if you’ve just cancelled your prescription, make sure you rule out pregnancy as a cause, and then give your period a little time to come back before you really start worrying.
Menopause
We all know that menopause marks the end of our menstruating years, but your period won’t just stop dead as you approach this age. In most cases, it’s a slower process in which your period becomes irregular and unpredictable, often just skipping a month. It’s important to note that you can still become pregnant at this time in your life! When your period is irregular it becomes harder to predict ovulation, so make sure you stay on top of your birth control methods if a baby isn’t in the cards for you at this time.
Breastfeeding
With the craziness that accompanies a new baby, you may be grateful to hear that periods often stop during breastfeeding, especially if you are exclusively breastfeeding. During the weaning process it may crop back up and be irregular at first before settling back into your natural cycle, but again remember that missing or irregular periods does not mean it’s impossible for you to get pregnant. Ovulation comes before the period, and it can still happen if you aren’t careful.
Stress
There’s a good reason that medical professionals of all types are always urging their patients to lower their stress levels. Stress really can damage your physical health, and one of the telltale signs of this is menstruation coming to a stop. When stress of any kind becomes intense enough, the body goes through changes that allow it to better handle danger, and one of these changes is shutting down the reproductive system. If tests and discussion with your doctor have ruled out other causes and conditions, it may come down to the stress of your life forcing your body into a constant state of fight or flight.
With these potential causes for a missing period in mind, you’re now ready to take charge of your own health and get to the bottom of what’s going on with your body. Renewed Vitality is passionate about helping people stay informed and involved in their health. We are the Berks County area’s top facility for hormone replacement therapy and other treatments. To learn more, don’t hesitate to contact us!
Throughout pregnancy and for some time after, the body’s hormonal balance and composition shifts. Once the pregnancy ends, many women find their bodies in a state of hormone shock. In addition to all of the fresh duties motherhood brings with it, the body must also adjust to the new normal of postpartum life.
What causes these hormonal imbalances?
While the simple answer is “childbirth,” there’s more specifics going on here. The most common imbalance is that of estrogen and progesterone. These two hormones are incredibly important to the development and continued health of both mother and child during pregnancy as well as after. The reason these fall out of balance is because throughout pregnancy, the placenta produces large amounts of progesterone, and the rest of the body adjusts estrogen production to match.
Once the placenta is delivered, the regular source of progesterone is gone, but the body is still producing far too much estrogen. This is known as estrogen dominance. Symptoms of estrogen dominance include insomnia, mood swings, and difficulty losing weight to name a few. Usually these levels balance out over time, but there are several ways to speed up the process.
How do you combat these imbalances?
Increase Fiber Intake
Increasing fiber intake can go a long way towards cutting down on abundant estrogen in the blood. Fiber binds to estrogen as well as cholesterol, and carries it out of the body. High in fiber foods like lentils and whole wheat pastas are great sources of the fiber your body needs.
Avoid Refined Sugars
Excess carbohydrates and sugars are stored as fat in the body. Bodies that have more stored fat produce more estrogen, which would exacerbate the situation. Instead of eating foods like white bread or most kinds of pasta that contain processed sugars, shoot for some low-carb options. Replace the bread on your sandwich with some crisp lettuce leaves!
Avoid Alcohol and Caffeine
These substances can cause your hormone levels to shift unpredictably, making it difficult to treat any existing hormone imbalance. By interfering with the hormone producing glands like the thyroid, ovaries, and pancreas, these imbalances can become much worse and lead to long term problems.
Increase Vitamin D intake
Vitamin D can potentially lower estrogen levels in the blood. You can raise your vitamin D intake by spending more time in the sun, or adding a supplement to your diet.
Get More Rest
Make sure to schedule in plenty of rest, as lack of sleep can lead to even more problems when it comes to hormonal imbalances. Sleep is a time for our bodies to recover, and without that rest period, the body is more susceptible to future hormone imbalance issues.
Speak with a professional
If your hormone levels are out of sync, it can seem like you are alone, but you’re not. Millions of women experience the same imbalances after pregnancy, and there is help out there. If you’re looking for assistance with your postpartum hormone imbalance, the experts at Renewed Vitality are ready to help! Schedule a consultation today.
