My fiancé wants to stop her menstrual cycle without hormonal BC

saturnuscv

My fiancé suffers from extremely painful menstrual cramps. She is from outside the USA and claims that since moving here they went from a minor annoyance to an extremely painful debilitation. It interferes with her ability to work or go outside, every month for several days.

I’m aware that prostaglandins theoretically play a role here. We are actively working on PUFA depletion, she takes aspirin regularly, and I am giving her Progest-E almost daily to try and break free of estrogen dominance. But this takes time. The ultimate goal is to help her pain while we work out our long term escape from this disgusting country to somewhere nice in Europe, and then when she gets off hopefully the less toxic environment will lend itself naturally to less pain.

We decided that ideally she would stop having periods entirely while we work on her overall metabolic health. Obviously hormonal BC is the easy solution here, but past experiences with it made her incredibly depressed. I’ve wondered about giving her some kind of bioidentical HRT as an alternative to BC. I know that many androgens will stop menstruation in women and I am wondering if I could administer one to her (in a reasonable non-virilizing dose) alongside progesterone/pregnenolone (and estriol?) to stop her periods. The side effect of body recomposition is not an issue here.

Is this completely insane? Has anyone tried this? Thoughts? Theorycrafting? Concerns?

moonpiemantooth

@saturnuscv yeah as a woman this sounds dumb. Not having your period is a sign of bad health. I’ve had success with vitamin e progesterone and thyroid.

saturnuscv

@moonpiemantooth I understand that not having your period due to malnourishment is a sign of metabolic dysfunction. I’m talking about purposely stopping it while not malnourished in the same way BC would. I don’t think they’re the same thing.

moonpiemantooth

@saturnuscv I don’t think there is such a thing. Stopping a period purposely is going to cause side effects, just like BC.

For what it’s worth, I am no longer bed ridden from my period with Vitamin E daily especially during luteal phase, progesterone during luteal, and thyroid. Also working on keeping my digestion moving during luteal too.

Sunniva

@saturnuscv
https://expulsia.com/health/peat-index#3

Go to books section, then read FROM PMS TO MENOPAUSE, FEMALE HORMONES IN CONTEXT.
That should give you some better ideas.

Also, progest-e needs to be cycled with the menstrual cycle. Taking continuously will just result in it being excreted by the liver. Dr. Peat recommended at least a one week break each month, but in a menstruating woman, you want to use it in conjunction with that phase of the cycle.

notmcas

I'm interested too, does anyone know if a daily dose of progest-e would do this similar to progestin BC?

Peatly

Thyroid might help but I wouldn't rush into supplementing thyroid. Is she getting enough calcium/magnesium? As stated above, progest e might help. Or a good quality vitamin E for its anti estrogen effects.

saturnuscv

@Peatly @moonpiemantooth @Sunniva these are good suggestions and we will try them before resorting to more drastic measures.