Re: Thyroid, female hormones and weight gain!

That's actually a nice hormone panel, not excessive. I wish you had included ref ranges for everything.

A close female friend is a few years older than you so she and her doctor are getting close to finding the right combo for her. She's had some of these ups and downs, although thankfully her thyroid has been rather stable throughout.

My guess is that you are taking too much progesterone. Remember, Prog is tricky during peri if there is still a chance you are going to get your period that month. Prog levels vary greatly during a woman's monthly cycle. If you tested at the wrong time of the month, the results can be quite confusing.

Honestly this is one reason that I like a pregnenolone test as well. Preg is the immediate precursor to prog but its levels don't vary as much during the month.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Steroidogenesis.svg
Note: DHEA is not abbreviated in the diagram.

Preg also has a good reputation for its effects on the brain. It turned on my friend's foggy brain and helped make her more stress tolerant. It was certainly not a cure-all, but is was a very nice part of her adrenal/sex hormone combo. She probably has more of a secondary AI/AF than others so this might be the reason preg has worked so well for her.

I mention this because preg is an inexpensive supplement in the US! Therefore don't expect your doctor to mention it or test for it. We had to request the test from my friend's doctor. In my opinion a person should make sure preg is in the center third of the normal range and then test for and adjust downstream hormones as needed.

My guess is that your prog is high and your body tends to convert more of it than normal towards the sex hormones than towards cortisol. This plus the DHEA is then causing estrone to be high as well.

Btw. Remember that a woman's T levels are rather well tied to her libido! This can be a nice hint about your levels of T.

My friend strangely gained weight--mostly around the middle--when she was on 12mg hydrocortisone (cortisol support). The situation stabilized when she reduced the dose to 5 - 7.5 mg per day and increased pregnenolone slightly. However it has not been easy to loose that weight.

She gained again when her doctor mistakenly instructed her to take too much E3/Estriol for dryness. A recent "hormone holiday"--cf Dr Lee's books--resulted in some encouraging weight loss.

Her doctor also has not been sympathetic about the weight gain.

I don't see a need for you to get a new doctor. I suggest that you get Dr Lee's classic book on hormone balancing, check out the diagram above and learn about the various hormones, especially symptoms of taking too much and not having enough.

If you are open minded about taking a larger number of hormones, you probably will make it easier for your doctor to dial-in the right combo for you. Communicate that to your doctor.

For example, you might be able to eliminate DHEA and reduce your dose of prog if you take 10-15mg of preg twice per day. However, you might then need a little HC/cortisol and Estrogen. I don't know if that will be estradiol cream or estriol vaginal cream. The doctor might not be so sure either. Every person converts these at slightly different rates. It seems to be quite challenging for good doctors to get it right on the first try.

Also other supplements can affect levels of hormones. For example, I had been on 12mg DHEA for a year with good results as suggested by my functional medicine doctor after testing. However an increase in zinc when starting a heavy metal detox protocol seemed to result in symptoms of high DHEA and T. Preg plus tiny amounts of DHEA have worked well since then. I explained the details recently in another group.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/frequent-dose-chelation/conversations/messages/148429

Hang in there. Getting the hormones balanced correctly is worth the effort. Please let us know what works for you.
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