EP. 095 Humble Honest Hormones - Part One

In this episode, you'll learn about hormones.

Included :

• What are the main hormones?
• E 2 Estradiol - the main oestrogen
• E 1 - Estrone - the most common post menopausal oestrogen
• E 3 - Estriol -  our protective oestrogen 
• Dr. Ray Peat's perspective
• Progesterone
• Testosterone
• Oestrogen dominance & its health implications 
• Xeno-oestrogens 
• Ratios of hormones (progesterone to oestrogen)
• Low progesterone symptoms
• Progesterone and its relationship to cortisol
• Testosterone function  in women
• If testosterone is low in women
• Testosterone in men & keeping it balanced
• High levels of testosterone and its effects
• Methods of testing hormones
• Blood tests for hormones - some downfalls
• Saliva testing for hormones
• Tracking & charting signs and symptoms for giving useful information on hormones
• Basal body temperatures - what it means if its low or high
• Ratio of progesterone to oestrogen (normal and best levels)
• Reasons why progesterone is often low
• Men benefit from progesterone too
• Menopausal hormone levels
• Where we get our hormones after menopause
• Fats and their requirement for good hormone levels
• Progesterone often goes low after menopause
• Conventional methods of HRT
• Bio-identical hormones
• Natural methods of boosting hormones versus HRT
• Difference between synthetic HRT and bio-identical HRT
• Risks of synthetic hormones
• How are bio-identical hormones made? 
• Wild yam creams
• Transdermal application of bio identical hormones
• Vitamin E in progesterone creams
• My preferred brand of progesterone creams
• Other progesterone creams - what to look for
• Sedative effects of progesterone
• Progesterone cream for repeated miscarriages
• Progesterone for menstrual problems
• Progesterone cream for growths of women's tissue
• Case of fibroids
• How to use progesterone cream
• Progesterone for anti-aging
• Synopsis of benefits of progesterone cream
• Cautions, signs of side effects of taking too much progesterone
• Low oestrogen in menopausal levels - how to approach it
• Hypothalamus and its role in regulating hormones

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

You're listening to Limbic Light Podcast. I'm Manisha Blunchley, your host. I'll be sharing great tips with you to inspire you, to educate you, and to empower you so that you can reestablish your health and well-being using safest and natural tips and therapies, including light, colour, sound, superfoods, and other great methods. Welcome to the show. Hello and welcome everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Limbic Light Podcast. Today I thought I would share some information with you on a very valuable topic, something that people frequently ask me about, and that is hormones. So what I'd like to do today is to give you a two-part episode. The first episode will be all about hormones looking at progesterone, estrogens, even testosterone, and getting a bit of understanding about the methods of testing, what they do, what makes them go out of balance, and just giving you a good solid background of and information so you can understand a little bit more about what happens inside your body. The second part of this episode, which will be published as a separate podcast, is all about natural ways that you can influence your hormones, how you can rebalance them in natural ways. So let's make a start. In this episode, I'd also like to bring up the topic of bio-identical hormones and hormonal replacement therapy, and have a look at what it is and what's recommended, what's safe, and what is around for you to explore and to use. Okay. First of all, I thought I would give you some information about what are actually your main hormones, particularly for women. Both women and men do have estrogen. Typically, most people think that there is only one type of estrogen, but in fact there are three major types which are often studied and looked at. For ease of learning and just understanding, I'll just call them E1, E2, and E3. I will give you their names as well and just briefly explain what they are. So E2, we'll start with that one because it's the most commonly used and understood. It's the main estrogen. It's called estradiol. It's the main estrogen that occurs in menstruating women, and it's the usual form of synthetic hormone or estrogen that's given when people want to take a form of estrogen. So that's E2. E1 is known as estrone, and E1 is a form of estrogen that kicks in mostly after women stop menstruating. So it's applicable for menopausal and postmenopausal women. And then there's estriol E3, which is the form of estrogen that's mostly prevalent during pregnancy. It's considered to be a very protective type of estrogen. But by far the E2 is the one that's most common. And just so that you know, when I discuss these hormones today, I am mostly basing it on a particular perspective which is a little bit different from the mainstream view of hormones, and it's based on Ray Pete's perspective or his research. And if you're interested in hormones, I highly recommend that you look up Ray Pete. There's lots of information on his work. And I also follow the perspective of a particular company called Owner. Owner's Progesterone Cream, they make other creams as well, but it's spelt ONA, Owner's Progesterone Cream. And previously, I'm not sure if it's still available now, there's some really useful information that comes from their website. So it differs a little bit from mainstream. Just so you know, I'm discussing more from a slightly different angle. So when we think of estrogen, we're thinking more about estrogen more as a type of stimulating hormone, and it's also growth promoting hormone. So it's the growing, it's the particular hormone which is present in the first half of our cycle, and the reason for that is that we're growing the follicles in our ovaries in that first half of the cycle. We're also growing the endometrial tissue in the uterus. So basically it's growth promoting. Whereas progesterone, the other most common hormone, which is found in women, is more found in the second half of the menstrual cycle. It's considered to be the stabilizer hormone. It's considered also to be very sedative, calming. It's also known for its anti-inflammatory actions. And then, of course, there's testosterone. Testosterone is present in women and it's often tested in certain hormonal tests. And of course, we mostly know it as a male hormone, but women also have it. So I'll discuss that a little bit too. Most people think that there's a problem with hormones actually becoming underactive or not enough hormones. Many people say I'm lacking in estrogen, or not that many people say I'm lacking in progesterone because there's not a great deal of information around about that. But I'd like to set it straight about estrogen. In fact, estrogen can more likely shows up as being in dominance or in excess, particularly in women who are at the menstruating age. And it can also happen post-menopausal as well. But this becomes a real issue when there's too much estrogen. One of the reasons why it becomes an issue, having too much estrogen, is because it is precisely the growth-promoting hormone. So what we'll often find is that when there's too much estrogen, all of the tissues that respond to hormones, that is the breast, the ovaries, the uterus, all the reproductive types of tissues in our body tend to overgrow. And that makes a predisposition for any types of growth, such as endometriosis, polycystic ovarian disease, fibroids, breast tenderness, breast lumps and growths, and even on the extreme growths of cancerous tissue in any of those parts of the body. So it can actually be a real issue. And because our environment is so filled with estrogen promoting types of substances, such as pesticides and a lot of the household cleaning agents and of course plastics, it tends to be more of an issue of overdominance of estrogen rather than a deficiency. And I'll talk about the menopausal thing in a little while. However, progesterone, as I said, is a hormone that's considered to keep estrogen in a type of balance. So in other words, we often say it's about ratio, and I often like to see the whole issue of balance in progesterone and estrogen as a type of seesaw. If you can imagine that estrogen is on one side of the seesaw and progesterone is on the other side of the seesaw, you can see that if one goes up, the other one goes down, and vice versa. And therefore, because often there's a problem with more or too much estrogen in people's bodies, we often find that there's just not enough progesterone to keep that estrogen in check, to keep it balanced and keep it controlled. So it's often overlooked by many of the mainstream doctors that progesterone can be a really helpful hormone to have in our bodies, particularly to balance out all that excess of estrogen. Typically, if you're low in progesterone, you can have all those symptoms that I just mentioned of estrogen dominance, but you'll also tend to have things like anxiety, stress hormones will go up, poor sleep, migraines, pain, headaches. And that's because progesterone is, as I said, it's a type of sedating, calming hormone that can keep the excess stimulation of the estrogen in control. In fact, progesterone also controls high cortisol levels. Cortisol is the hormone of stress and also pain. So if you find that you're in stress or pain, you'll probably most likely also have low progesterone, and you probably will benefit by boosting your progesterone levels. So progesterone in the natural field is tended to be looked upon as something really beneficial to boost and to increase, but you won't find that mostly in the medical literature or in most mainstream doctors. Progesterone is considered as a really protective hormone. Now I did also mention testosterone. Testosterone is also present in women and it's usually tested with most of the hormonal tests, but it's not a main player in the hormones. It's more of a supporting type of hormone, and it usually indicates what our metabolism is doing. If we have generally good levels of testosterone, it means that our metabolism is doing well. So testosterone is basically a supporter, it supports libido in women and also in men. It also supports motivation and the drive. Testosterone also helps with muscle tone and also with our mood resilience, helps us to be a little bit stronger in our whole mood outlook. But generally, women need much lower levels of testosterone than men. We generally wouldn't supplement women with testosterone because supplementing with testosterone can quickly become a problem. It can quickly become excessive and then cause a whole lot of problems as well. If there is low levels of testosterone in women, it's much better to supplement with a little bit of progesterone because progesterone will then convert into testosterone. So in men, testosterone will do exactly the same thing. It improves muscle mass, it increases libido, gives energy and confidence. But again, in the rape style or perspective, high testosterone does not necessarily mean optimal health. It's much better to be balanced with the thyroid, with the stress hormones, and basically good metabolism. And the other thing I mentioned is that high testosterone is often a problem. One of the reasons it can be so is because it easily converts back into estrogen. And I just mentioned what happens. It's not only for women but for men as well. If estrogen levels become too high, men can get m man boobs, they can get also headaches and clots and all sorts of problems. And this is known as an estrogen dominance. Either women or men have high testosterone, they're prone to having acne often. They can have hair loss, particularly on the scalp. There's usually irritability. And in women it's very common, they'll have facial hair growth. And the main causes are really more from poor metabolism, sometimes from polycystic ovarian syndrome, and also thyroid issues or unstable blood sugars. So, really, the high testosterone, I wouldn't be looking at necessarily as a problem. I would be looking at thyroid and metabolism and the blood sugars as being a way to fix that particular hormone if it's high. So before I go any further, I just wanted to talk about how do we know what our hormones are up to? Well, there's lots of different ways that we can actually assess and test and see what's going on in our body. The most common way, which most people know about, is a blood test. However, there are some downfalls of doing a blood test for hormones, and one of them is for women in particular, generally it's only the E2, which is the estradiol, the main estrogen, which is tested with blood. They won't test the E1 or the E3. Even though E3 is usually quite low unless you're pregnant, the E1 is quite significant, particularly for women who are no longer menstruating. So that's one downfall. The other downfall, it usually just gives a snippet in time. The blood changes moment by moment depending on what's going on with our blood sugars, what's going on with stress, what's going on in our cycle. So it's not always the best way to test. There's another way, and that is usually through a naturopathic type of laboratory. We have one here in Australia that I use called Nutripath, and they do saliva testing. And saliva testing is not a big deal, it basically just requires that you fill up a tiny little 5mm vial full of your saliva. There's instructions on how to do that, when to do that, so that it's accurate. And then from that, they'll measure all sorts of different hormones depending on what you want tested. Generally, this is a little bit more reliable unless you're already taking some form of hormones, which of course will alter the results. But the saliva hormones will test the E1, E2, E3. In fact, in a basic female profile, you'll also get testosterone tested, and the progesterone, and often the cortisol as well. And if you wanted a more in-depth reading just from the saliva, we can measure cortisol levels, DHEA levels, which are hormones that come from the adrenal glands. So there's a whole array of different hormones that can be tested with saliva. The other way that you can actually test your hormones is simply by signs and symptoms, particularly for women who are menstruating. It's a really good idea to map and chart out certain signs and symptoms throughout your cycle. Maybe even two cycles are enough to give us enough information to read and translate into what might be going on with the hormones. It's not a clinical diagnosis, but it's very valuable. In particular, taking the temperatures, the basal body temperatures. In other words, the temperatures that you have just upon rising. In fact, that gives us really useful information also for the status of our metabolism and our thyroid. So taking your temperature alone, even without tracking any of the other things, is a really valuable activity to do to gather data about what's going on with your hormones. Generally with metabolism, I won't go into it too much, but with metabolism and the thyroid, if the basal body temperatures are low, and that's generally below 36.4 degrees Celsius, and of course that varies with menstruating women, then the metabolism and thyroid is considered to be very low. The lower the temperatures go, the lower the metabolism and the thyroid is. When it comes to actually looking at your hormones, if you do decide to have either a blood test or a saliva test, I usually tell women and men that it's more about ratios, it's more about balance than it is actually levels. It's all relative and in reference to the other hormones. So for example, what we're looking for with estrogen, we're looking for a level of progesterone to be at least 100 times higher than estrogen. And when I talk about estrogen, I'm talking about the sum total of E1, E2, and E3. Now some naturopathic doctors will even say that we aim to go as high as 300 times. So the ratio is 100 to 300 parts of progesterone to one part of estrogen. And you'll really, rarely find that. One of the reasons why progesterone tends to be so low is that it is affected by stress. And we all know how prevalent stress is in the modern day life. So most women and men will have really low progesterone. By the way, I should mention here that men do benefit from taking or having good levels of progesterone as well. In fact, in Dr. Ray Pete's literature, he often refers and recommends men to take progesterone because of its protective tissue effect, anti-cancer effect. He claims that it has a really boosting effect on the brain, makes brighter, more intelligent minds, and as well as that it helps to sedate. In other words, if there's anxiety or poor sleep problems, a little bit of progesterone is very, very helpful. I wanted to mention menopause. Many of our listeners may be past the menstruating age. First of all, what happens during menopause, the estrogen levels will tend to spike up and down. And by the way, it's the follicles in the ovaries that mostly produce the progesterone in menstruating women. So, in other words, you need to have strong follicles, you need to have a strong ovulation, so that the follicles think can then turn into something called the corpus luteum, which then starts to secrete the progesterone. After menstruation, though, the E2 tends to go right down, and that's why a lot of doctors will say you're low in estrogen and maybe recommend taking some sort of hormonal replacement therapy. But what does usually happen is the different type of estrogen starts to kick in, the E1 after menstruation finishes at postmenopausal times. The body is so wise that we produce estrogen after menopause from our Fat tissue and also from our adrenal glands. And it's one of the reasons why I say after menopause, it's really important, and during menopause, it's really important A to look after your energy and stress levels. We want strong, healthy adrenal glands so that we can continue on to produce decent levels of estrogen. And we also want enough fat on our bodies, good healthy fat. I'm not talking about fried foods, takeaway foods, and all that type of fat. I'm talking about healthy fats, such as good organic butters and olive oils and avocados and nuts and seeds and generally really healthy oils. And the reason we want that is because A, those healthy oils and fats will help produce our hormones. Our hormones are mostly made up from cholesterol. So it's pretty diabolical if we go on anti-cholesterol drugs or cholesterol-lowering drugs, because we need those cholesterol particles to build our hormones. And as well as that, we need a reasonable amount of fat tissue in our bodies to be able to produce the estrogen after menopause. So don't be too strict with dieting and think that you have to lose lots of weight. It's healthy to have a little bit of fat on your body. And it goes a long way also for the brain and the nervous tissue. Also, what happens after menopause is that progesterone tends to drop very low. And that is our, as I said, protective type of hormone. And it's also the hormone that keeps us nice and sedate and calm. So that may explain a little bit why after menopause, many women might have struggles with sleeping and more inflammation, because progesterone helps as an anti-inflammatory, it helps as a sleep enhancer as well. As well as that, progesterone helps to keep that excess estrogen. And even though there may not be a great deal of estrogen in the body after menopause, it's all about balance and ratios. So we still want to have that ratio of more progesterone relative to the estrogen, otherwise, we're going to get those excess estrogenic effects of growth of the tissues, which may mean fibroids or it may mean the breast tissue lumps and problems like that. Okay, so what can we actually do about this? In the conventional field, talking about balancing hormones, is usually hormonal replacement therapy offered by doctors in the mainstream medicine as one method of correcting hormonal balance, and the other method is using bioidentical reams. Now they do overlap quite a bit. They're both basically a method where you're putting hormones back into your body. And I have to say, in all honesty, my preference is to do natural lifestyle, dietary, different types of techniques that are going to enhance the balance of your hormones in your body without actually replacing the hormones, without actually giving your body hormones. And one of the reasons why I say that, some people actually think that if you replace or put a certain body substance into your body, it makes your body less likely to produce it naturally. In other words, the body might become a little bit lazy and not want to produce it or make it harder for the body to produce it all by itself. However, saying that, I do know that many people do really struggle with some of these symptoms that are related to hormonal imbalances. So it can be valid to give somebody these hormones at least for a temporary measure of time, and at least until the body can harmonize itself or come back to a level status, and then work more with natural means to take over. So I'm not fully opposed to supplementing with hormones, but it needs to be done rather cautiously. They are strong molecules, but they have strong effects on our body, and we need to treat them with care and with respect. So, what's the difference between the synthetic hormones that not all but most HRT, hormonal replacement therapy from the doctors, is to bio-identical hormone therapy. So generally, with the synthetic hormones from HRT, the structure of the hormones is actually quite different to our naturally occurring hormones in our body. But the chemical structure of the bioidentical hormones is that it completely matches, it's the same as the naturally occurring hormones which we make in our body naturally. So basically, it can be more bioavailable, it's used more naturally, it's less likely to cause problems in our body. It's not so synthetic. So with the synthetic form, these hormones tend to be much stronger. The action is stronger, whereas the bioidentical hormones tend to be milder or more gentle. And the synthetic hormones also, the little receptors that take in the hormones, are altered, they're changed, they're different. Whereas with the bioidentical hormones, we use our own naturally occurring receptors. They're our natural receptors that we usually use to take in these hormones. So the whole mechanism is, you could say, a whole lot more akin to our natural processes if we go with bio-identical. One of the disadvantages of bioidentical is it's been less studied. So there's less known about the bio-identical hormones. Although I must say that more and more, particularly these days, bioidentical hormones are being recognized for their benefits, for their advantages over the synthetic hormones. And I'm told, I don't know if this is entirely correct, that some of the HRT that doctors do prescribe now do tend to be based on bio-identical hormones. However, there may be other additives as well. Whereas some of the producers of natural bioidentical hormones tend to be just the pure substance. Some of the examples of the synthetic hormones come with the oral contraceptive pill, something called premarin, and also progestins. If you're considering taking a hormonal replacement therapy and just check what's on the label, just read it very carefully. If there are progestins in there, they're considered to be rather difficult on the system, rather detrimental to the body. They can bind and cause some of the negative side effects of these synthetic hormones, is that they can bind and cause fluid buildup in the body. They can also cause mood changes, anxiety, breast tenderness, also headaches, and long term, which is quite serious, if these synthetic hormones are taken for a long time, there is an increased risk of breast cancer. So do watch out for that and always ask your doctor what's in the hormonal replacement therapy if you're thinking about taking it. Are there any synthetic hormones? Which ones are bioidentical? Maybe choose, ask the doctor to choose formats that are only bio-identical and definitely which don't contain the progestins. Whereas the bio-identical hormones, they're usually made from soya beans or wild yam, as I said in the laboratory, and they're made to the exactly same chemical structure as your natural hormone. So I want to just say something here. It's a note about wild yam creams. There was a bit of a fad some years ago where women or people thought that taking a wild yam cream was akin or equal to taking a progesterone cream. But even though wild yams are used in a laboratory to create progesterone, if you're just taking wild yam into your body, there is no way for your body to actually convert that into natural progesterone. So it's a bit of a fallacy, unfortunately, that having wild yam cream can actually create more progesterone in your body. Definitely, it won't be supplying you with more progesterone, it may help your body be calmer and less inflamed, which then may indirectly cause your body to create a little bit more progesterone, but it is a myth that wild yam creams give your body more progesterone. So if you're getting a bioidential progesterone cream, you're looking for something that has USP progesterone in it. It's a pharmaceutical grade of the progesterone, bio-identical progesterone. So always look for the USP in a cream and make sure that that is present. Otherwise, it may be the cream may be making claims that are false. There's several different ways that the body can take in bio-identical hormones. Some doctors will recommend to take them orally through the mouth, and then the more naturopathic approach is to put it transdermally, which is on the skin, and allow the skin to absorb the progesterone into the tissues, into the blood that way. And it's considered that it's a better method to use transdermal on the skin. One of the reasons is that there's a really low conversion, a low uptake by taking the progesterone through the gut. Whereas if you apply on the skin, it's regarded to be a superior way. And in fact, Dr. Ray Pete talks about the combination of vitamin E, that vitamin E works synergistically, in other words, it helps, it's like a catalyst when it's presented with the progesterone to the body, and the absorption and the usage of the progesterone is much higher when there's vitamin E present in the cream. So if you're able to find a cream which does have the vitamin E in it as well, you're getting a better product. One of the problems with the progesterone creams is that there are different products out there. Some of them have really low levels of progesterone, which makes the reliability of the effects uncertain and not as strong. So I have a particular brand which I really love, and they make stronger concentrations of progesterone cream. As I mentioned before, it's Owner's Progesterone Cream. It's spelled O-N-Awners Progesterone. You can actually check that out. They are an American-based company, but they do distribute now to Australia and I think to Europe, and there has been a recent problem with supply. It's been very difficult, they've been out of stock. But I did see that here in Australia they are once again supplying and they make different concentrations. Usually, if you can get 30 to 100 milligrams of USP, that's pharmaceutically active progesterone, in each pump, then you're getting a good dose. Now I did have a little bit of a look around, and most of the other progesterone creams at the very best will offer 20 milligrams, which is still lower than the 30 milligrams, which is recommended by owners. If you have problems purchasing owners, then I would look for some of the other products which do offer 20 milligrams per pump, and just start at that level and go slowly up. You may need to increase to get the clinically viable and observable changes that you're wanting. With Onus, they make a product called Luna Pro 5, which has 50 milligrams per pump, and Luna Pro 10, which is a whole hundred milligrams of the USP progesterone in each pump. So that's quite a strong one. It's probably best to start at 5, or that I think there is one that's even lower, maybe three, and that's a 30 milligrams. They use minimal fillers. So once again, if you're looking at different creams, then look for ones that have as least possible additives. I did actually look at a few on iHerb. There are two that I saw on there that offer 20 milligrams per pump with mostly natural substances. And one of the products was Now, another one was Organic Excellence, and there was a third one, and that's Protocol for Life Balance. So if you're interested, you can quite easily get them from iHerb as well if you're not able to get owners. It's my recommendation that you start low. Of course, if you do have a test and it shows that your progesterone levels are really low and you have a lot of the symptoms of low progesterone, then you could probably quite safely go up in dosage, start even at 50 milligrams per pump. Or if you're starting lower at 20 per pump, just gradually increase it until you start getting the results. I've used progesterone cream on myself and also for some of my female clients, and generally what I notice happens is that we do recommend to use it just before going to bed. There's a sedative, a tranquilizing effect, so sleep becomes a whole lot deeper and more nourishing. The nervous system tends to slow down a little bit, there's less anxiety, less nervousness. And I have recommended it for women who have repeated miscarriages, and it works like a charm for these women as well. One of the most common reasons why women do miscarriage is that their progesterone levels are not high enough to sustain the fertilized embryo, so they may actually be able to fertilize a tiny little egg and grow it to whatever stage that the progesterone levels allow it to grow to. But if the progesterone levels are quite low, which is really common, then there can be the bleed and the miscarriage. So by taking a little bit of progesterone to supplement the higher levels or the needed higher levels of progesterone during pregnancy is a really good way to help women keep their baby if they tend to have miscarriage problems. As well, for women who have really bad premenstrual problems, and that usually includes headaches or irritability, anxiety, acne problems, pain, indeed, are very, very good for menstrual pain. If women can use this progesterone cream just in the second half of their cycle, they'll notice really significant changes quite quickly. And of course, as I mentioned before, if you're a woman who struggles with any form of growth, unnatural growth, in either the ovaries or the uterus or the breasts, lumpy breasts or benign cystic breasts, growths in the breast, polycystic ovarian syndrome, or endometriosis or fibroids there, growths in the endometrial tissue of the lining of the uterus, then taking some progesterone can be really, really helpful. In fact, I did have one client who, before I started using progesterone cream for my clients, she was receiving progesterone injections. She had severe bleed outs from fibroids every cycle. And the only thing that worked for her was the progesterone, increasing the progesterone. So that's a good thing to know because many women will actually opt for a hysterectomy instead of looking at other options to correct the hormonal balance, which then can correct the heavy bleeding and the fibroid growths. So if you know of anyone who is in that situation, do recommend this podcast so that they can have a listen and explore this avenue. So when it comes to actually using the progesterone cream, there's a few little tips on how to use it. For women who are perimenopausal, that means that they're either going through the menopause or just before or just after. And also if they're postmenopausal, then they can start with having one pump in the evening just before going to bed for 21 days and then have seven days off. You can actually increase that to have one pump in the morning and then one pump in the evening. For women who are still menstruating, it's best to only use the progesterone once per day, and best only in the second half of their cycle. In other words, once they have ovulated, or you could say if they're fairly regular, then from day 14 to day 28. And for men, I mentioned it before, they can take it again, cycle it on and off, on every day, or probably every night is best. And this can be done for three weeks on and one week off just to give the body a little bit of a break. And I mentioned before that progesterone is the hormone of protection. It's highly anti-inflammatory, so it can be really good when there's pain and inflammation in the body. It's highly sedative, so it's very good to take before bedtime, and it's also calming, so that if there are any anxiety types of problems, it can be useful for that too. It's best to rub the cream on thin skinned areas, so for example, the forearms or behind the ears or the bottoms of the feet. This is so that you can actually absorb it better, so that it transports more easily and quickly into the body. And you don't need to rotate the areas, but it can be useful not to keep up the same place all the time, but rotate from one place to another. As I said, if you can find a particular bio-identical progesterone cream that has vitamin E in it, it will also give your skin a firmer and plumper look, a more younger look. And it can play a really significant role in reducing the appearance of many of the tiny little fine lines on the face and also wrinkles. As well as that, you can even rub the cream onto age spots, which will help them to fade naturally, and it also helps to repair the damage caused by exposure to the sun. So it can be used as a type of anti-aging protective cream as well. The vitamin E in it is also so beneficial, has the ability to benefit basically every area of the body, and it helps the body to look younger and helps the skin formation to retain its moisture and elasticity and also its health. So I'm just going to give you a quick Little rundown of the benefits of the progesterone cream. It reduces anxiety, it reduces inflammation, reduces pain, reduces hot flushes, improves sex drive, it can also help sleep, a more restful sleep, it helps to regulate the menstrual cycle, and it hydrates and also makes the skin smooth. So you do still need to be careful. Any hormone, as I said, needs to be treated with care and make sure that you're not overdoing it or that the body is okay with it. So I want to just give you some signs that might show that you're actually taking too much progesterone. And if this happens, then stop. Or give it a break and then come back to a lower dose later. So some of the signs include more fluid on the body if you're having too much progesterone. Some women may feel a little tired or it may affect their mood so that they become low in mood, more sensitive, and also tired. And as well as that, I have heard that women's breast tissue can grow more in response to excess progesterone. So just watch out. If you do decide to use the progesterone, it's not without possible side effects. You still need to observe it. It is still synthetic chemical and treat it carefully and wisely. And if you use it safely, then you shouldn't have a problem. But if you do notice any of these signs, then back off for a while at least. I wanted to mention the possibility of having low estrogen, and this is really common when women go to doctors and they have blood tests, and of course, their E2 is going to come up really low because they are post-menopausal and the body's no longer producing the E2. There may be some E1, but it's generally not measured. But if there is a genuine low estrogen level, then it's best to actually support progesterone first. Even in the low estrogen cases, progesterone helps first to stabilize the system, balance out all the hormones, and it also improves the sensitivity of whatever existing estrogen there might be in the system so that it can be used more readily and generally help to rebalance the estrogen levels. So I wouldn't jump into estrogen replacement therapy too quickly. Or if you are using estrogens, bioidentical estrogens, just make sure there is some bio-identical progesterone there as well to keep it balanced. And if you do decide to take estrogens as a bioidentical form, if the doctor offers you that, then I would insist on the absolute minimal dose and also ask for progesterone. Though I think most of the hormonal replacement therapy these days do combine progesterone with estrogen. But indeed, make sure that it's bioidentical progesterone they're giving you and not the progestins, which sounds like progesterone, but it's actually not. It's one of the very harmful synthetic hormones that you don't want to be taking. Of course, as I said before, my preference is to do the hormone balancing naturally. So I'll be giving you a whole podcast on different methods and tactics and substances and activities that you can do that are going to rebalance your hormones naturally. And in fact, not many people know, but the hypothalamus, which is considered to be the brain of the brain, it sits right in the center of our brain, is the controller of our pituitary gland. It sits just above the pituitary gland. And for those of you who know a bit of physiology and anatomy, the pituitary gland is more or less the master gland of all the hormonal glands, the thyroid, the adrenals, the ovaries, the testes. So it's imperative that the hypothalamus is working really well because it is the controller of the pituitary, which is the controller of all the hormone glands, which produce all the hormones. So it's sort of like going upstream to the main controller in charge of everything. And I'm just going to give you a little clue and a little hint here before I produce my next podcast for you, all about natural methods. The hypothalamus is mostly affected by stress and light cycles. When I say stress, I mean just generally moods and emotions. So that gives you a clue. Light and moods are two of the big, big players in our hormones. And I'll explore this a whole lot more in the next podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please pass this on to anyone who you think might benefit. And I look forward to speaking with you once again in our next episode. Stay well, all the best, and bye for now. You've been listening to Limbic Light Podcast. I'm your host, Manisha Blunchley, and remember to share this with whoever you think may benefit and subscribe if you want to be notified about all the new upcoming releases of episodes. Thanks for listening.