Sciatica & progesterone dependency
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8 days ago, I badly injured myself doing sprints. I pulled muscles, aggravated my lower L5 disk injury, flared up sciatica, etc. A few days later, I corrected a thyroid dosing problem (too low T4) which immediately improved but did not cure the injuries, especially the sciatica.
Before this debacle, I started experimenting with higher dose progesterone to improve my responsiveness to thyroid, to positive effects.
It’s taken a week for me to be in any position for > 30 seconds outside of just laying on my stomach. I can still barely move or walk. To quell symptoms, reduce pain, and relax my aggravated muscles and body, Ive been using progesterone in the 50-100mg range therapeutically, but then I found this.
“When you take progesterone steadily, without interruption, your liver interprets the constant high level of progesterone as being excessive, anything your liver experiences at high level, it produces enzymes to excrete. And so after 2 weeks, your liver has built up excretory enzymes that inactivate the progesterone. And so after 2 weeks, the effect of a given dose of progesterone is weaker. And stopping for at least a week lets your liver reset its threshold.”
My immediate reaction was to cease using the progesterone, where I tried and rapidly failed.
In 3 days, I will be 4 weeks into taking supraphysiological amounts of progesterone. That’s double the time Ray explained that the liver starts buffering against it.
My problem is I can’t come off of it, even for just a few hours. I take it immediately upon rising to stop the pain, and I need it regularly just to keep my symptoms at bay. I feel like I’m in a catch-22 - I possibly could not get better until I come off of and restore my body’s progesterone situation, but my body needs it and I can’t come off of the supplement because of how bad I feel when I try. I noticed that my reckless use of PROG has interfered with sleep, I don’t sleep nearly as much now and it’s interrupted. I know that can’t be good. I at least have the proper thyroid dose going for me, I’m praying that will solve all of this and I won’t need to use the PROG anymore. But what should I do? It seems like my body needs the PROG, I wonder if I should just keep taking it until my injuries clear up. -
@Ibshaver23 Are you male or female? If male, you could try taking 100-200 mg pregnenalone instead, or look into anti-inflammatory peptides like BPC-157 or KPV
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@Ibshaver23 said in Sciatica & progesterone dependency:
doing sprints
to improve my responsiveness to thyroid
I don’t sleep nearly as much now and it’s interrupted
Do you drink a lot of water by any chance? Or did you, being active, before the injury.
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@jamezb46 I’m a male. When I started incorporating PROG, I was rotating PREG in and out. I think weening off PROG will require PREG, I just don’t know if it’s going to work as well. I’ve taken PREG for years and I love it but it hasn’t been so profoundly anti stress as progesterone has, I think it’s the missing piece for me, I just need to use it safely and responsibly. I’ll look into the other compounds, thank you.
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@ThinPicking I don’t drink any water. I do drink a lot of fluids though (juice, milk, coffee, Mexican cokes) which require me to carefully balance my electrolytes with, so I’m constantly focused on mag, potassium, calcium, and sodium. Is there something I might be missing?
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Good. It's on your mind so probably not a factor. Except.
I wouldn't add but possibly take away something. Other than any form of sodium, do you take any of the others you mentioned as a supplement or you're just consciousness to get enough in food? And if a supplement, what kind/form.
