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Hello!
Long story short, I am positive I am estrogen dominance. I am a 37 year old female. I have have PCOS (diagnosed when I was 25) and most of the symptoms that go with it including weight issues (I'm over 100 pounds overweight), thinning hair, irregular periods, panic and anxiety issues and sugar cravings big time!, etc, etc. My main concern today is this. Obviously being diagnosed with PCOS, I have been ED for awhile, but lately my period pattern has changed.
I went from not having a period for long amounts of time ( 3 to 4 months in between heavy painful 10 day periods) to the last 7 months I have been bleeding 90% of the time. It's been light and watery to full on rapid waters of intense heavy flow with lots of blood clots. This can happen with estrogen dominance, right??
On a side note, I notice when I cut sugar completely from my diet, my flow is lighter or even stops for days. When I eat sugar again, my period comes back but I digress. Just something I noticed. Is there any correlation or am I nuts?
Any-who, I can not take birth control pills as about 6 years ago, while in surgery to get my gallbladder out, I developed bi lateral pulmonary embolisms and almost died. So no synthetic hormones for me.
Prior to surgery I was on a low dose combo BC that worked wonders, I feel great, my PCOS was under control and I loss all my weight. I was a new women! When I was taken off of them, I gain back all the weight and then some and all my PCOS symptoms returned including many more that I didn't have before. Obviously, I've been hormonally imbalance my whole adult life hence the PCOS issues.
I have a appt with a conveniently trained OBGYN next week, I need to get my hormones balanced but I can't and don't want to go on BC. She might try to prescribe a synthetic progesterone or worst tell me I need some sort of surgery like a D and C or something but it won't get to the root of the problem, my imbalance.
How can I convince her to give me bio identical progesterone instead and if I take it, will it cause me to form blood clots in my lungs etc? I'm freaking out because I need for this bleeding to stop but I also have a very real concern about having embolisms again and this time, if it occurred, I might not live.
I can't keep going on this way I am as I am miserable with imbalance hormones, but what can I do? Is there a natural stable way to balance my hormones, to lose weight and to get rid of all the PCOS issues?
The only time I have ever had relief and have ever felt wonderful was when my hormones where balanced by birth control pills. I don't have that option now due to my embolism issues and frankly my age as I am pushing 40 now. Can I do it myself with diet etc? Please share your advise and specific tips or directions.
Thank you so much!!!
Jennifer
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Hi Jennright7772-
It sounds like along with PCOS you may be starting peri-menopause. You are definitely in the right age group. This usually means progesterone levels start to drop, then your estrogen can go up and down. All the hormone shifts can cause the problems you are discussing. Have you talked with you doctor about all of this? There is a lot of controversy around the bio-identical hormones mainly because they are still hormones and nothing else. In your case, birth control pills are hormones, progesterone is often in birth control pills and even if you get specially compounded bio-identical hormones you still have the exact same risks that you have with taking any other progesterone product. The main difference is the name and where you get them.
This means you could have clots again if you take bio-identical hormones. You have a lot of factors here. Your doctor can test your hormone levels and see where you are, what is high and what is low. It is a simple blood draw. Then you can discuss what to do about it. Maybe you can take a very low dose of something along with aspirin every day or something similar.
There are dietary interventions that some people use, but the changes are usually pretty subtle unless you are extremely strict. For the amount of weight you want to lose, you will need daily exercise and an adjustment in your diet.
I suggest you take all these questions with you to your appointment, and go over all of them with the gynecologist. Once you have a diagnosis and know for sure what is going on with your body, then you can talk about what to do about it. Much of what you are going through is normal for peri-menopause. It is natural even though it can be frustrating.
I do want to mention that I had an endometrial ablation a year ago. That is basically a laser D&C. It improved my quality of life tremendously. I do not have PCOS, but I had the common peri-menopausal bleeding issues for years and was quite anemic, miserable and everything else. That 10 minute procedure changed my life. So you might want to consider it even though it won't cure PCOS. There is no real cure for PCOS, so if you can do things to improve your symptoms and the way you feel, it's worth looking into.
We have a video on estrogen dominance: https://www.empowher.com/community/herstory/gina-shares-her-estrogen-dominance-symptoms-video and a very large peri-menopause section: https://www.empowher.com/condition/perimenopause as well as information on PCOS: https://www.empowher.com/media/video/what-pcos-dr-cobin-video
Please be very direct with your doctor about what you are hoping to get out of treatment, and listen to all your alternatives so you can make an informed decision. Good luck.
April 15, 2010 - 6:32amThis Comment
im having the same problem. Im 30 and i was told when i was 15 that i was estrogen dominant but all the doctors did was give me BC pills that were high in estrogen which only compounded the problem. i have had extremely heavy horrific cycles since the age of 10. i also am a huge chicken when it comes to making an appt with a gyno and seeing it through. i have an appt with supposedly one of the best ob gyn docs in plano in feb. i was wondering if anyone who has underwent an endometrial ablation had an easier time taking off any excess weight afterwards. im seriously thinking about undergoing this procedure. i dont want to deal with taking any more oral contraceptives that dont work. HELP!
January 15, 2011 - 8:27pmThis Comment