Posted by janejane on March 18, 2010, at 17:11:52
In reply to PMDD, grapefruit, and melatonin, posted by dusty rhoads on March 17, 2010, at 11:39:01
Thanks so much for sharing this. I'm glad you found something that helps. The warning about interactions is important too. I seem to remember that drinking grapefruit juice can increase the potency of wellbutrin, for example.
This is a really timely post for me as I just had some blood tests for hormones done (results expected next week) because I suspect I might have low estrogen (and possibly also low progesterone during parts of my cycle). From what I've read about the subject, I think I might have symptoms of both PMS-D (depression) and PMS-A (anxiety), which would mean both low estrogen as well as low progesterone. I was going to try an OTC progesterone cream (which is supposed to help with PMS-A, the more common type) until I found that taking it might worsen PMS-D if I happen to have it. I decided I'd better get some tests done to check my levels before doing something that would make me feel worse so I found an integrative physician who does bioidentical hormone therapy. I sort of wish the doctor had ordered the saliva tests that you take over the course of a cycle rather than single blood tests (since the saliva would show changes over time), but I guess the blood tests are a reasonable starting point.
By the way, did you know that green tea can lower estrogen? It has a lot of health benefits, but if you have low estrogen, you might not want to drink too much of it. In fact, it might be one reason why Asian women get breast cancer less often. Women who are heavy green tea drinkers have something like 13% lower estrogen (sorry I'm going from memory so that number may be a little off). Pretty interesting, isn't it?
poster:janejane
thread:939815
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20091202/msgs/939966.html