Hi,
I'm definately not an expert but, like you I've tried progesterone cream, and read all sorts of stuff for the last few years. For me it was to help cure my fibroids which supposedly grow because of estrogen dominance. Also battling being overweight...

Here's some things that come to mind from some of the things I've read. In his book "What your Doctor May Not Tell you about Premenapause" Dr. John Lee says this (your symptoms) may happen because progesterone causes the estrogen receptors to become activated and should go away after a couple or 3 months. So, it could be you just didn't wait long enough? It'd be nice to know our actual hormone balance instead of guessing. I couldn't convince any doctor to do the test!

If its in fact extra estrogen from other sources, as they told you, I have found numerous websites with lists of estrogenic herbs and foods on line. Look up "estrogenic foods herbs" on google and you'll find hours of reading. Julia Changs "sensiblehealth.com" has a short list of foods and herbs to definately avoid. Her site seems credible to me because she developed her own approach as she cured some of her own symptoms of endometriosis problems. She also offers some interesting herbal remedies for female problems. You can even call her or email her. Also, daily colon cleansing with psyllium etc. will help the estrogen to pass out of your system quickly.
FYI I started using one brand of herbal colon cleansing products with lots of estrogenic herbs (back in June before I knew) and wound up with a month of sore sensitive swollen breast symptoms like I would have as a teenager, so I figured it had to be those estrogenic herbs.
Also from my google search I just found out that the herbs recommended by those huge "healthbook" guides and herbal remedy guides that they have in health food stores to guide you in what to purchase that are supposed to help fibroids and endometriosis are also actually estrogenic in nature and could have made my probems worse. (ex burdock, black cohosh, flaxseed oil)
I found a website just this week by a homeopathic physician (I'll include the link below) who says that she finds extraordinarily high levels of progesterone in women who use either hormone replacement therapy or natural progesterone cream, and than she goes on to balance their imbalanced hormones. The way she does this is she offers a saliva hormone screening test, and than prescribes homeopathic remedies to balance out women's hormones and retests for results 3 months later with the saliva test again. Supposedly, according to Dr. Lee again, the saliva test is the only accurate way to really test hormone levels, not urine or blood tests. So, based on what this lady says, adding anything to our bodies messes up the hormonal balance and we might want to pursue it and either take way less progesterone or none! I wish somebody would make up their minds! I'm tempted to get help from this homeopathic lady but I just wish I could do it locally.
Lastly, I've even read recently online how in one particular study the results seemed to show that both estrogen and progesterone might stimulate growth of fibroids, whereas before progresterone was thought to offset the excess estrogen effect. so now I don't know if Dr. Lee is even right. So, the impression I get is that they really just don't know for sure, and that the jury's still out on all of this stuff. I hope you find your way out of the progesterone maze.
Zangie

http://www.wellnesscenter.net/wellness_center/hormone_assessment/me...