[surferjoe2007]

surferjoe2007, thanks for your reply!

You can perhaps omit the red clover / PM and leave in the vitex / progesterone cream.  Or include all but use a little more progesterone cream and cycle any portion of it that's over 1/8 tsp a day.

So you think I should still focus more on progesterone even tho I'm on combined BC pills? (my take on this was that they mostly contain progesterone anyway).
I guess I'll try including both: a bit of estrogen with additional progesterone source on luteal. Unfortunately it takes up to 3 weeks for stuff from iHerb etc. to reach where I live and I kinda dont wanna miss this cycle to experiment on, so, would you say this product is a an ok substitution for PM/RC? Saw it in a local pharmacy.

I could be wrong but I was under the impression that combination estrogen-progestin pills were still mostly estrogen, but with some progestin to help reduce the need for estrogen and to reduce side effects.  Yasmin does seem to have way less progestin than progestin than progestin only pills.

Soy isoflavones are probably just as good as RC if not better.

Hi surfer joe! Thanks for your contributions. I’m currently on a BO program and I’m looking for the best thing to work as a progesterone boost/cycle regulator in the second half of my cycle. 

I was looking at dong quai as an option but DQ seems to have potential estrogen effects and I found studies about it encouraging estrogen based cancer cells. 
But I think I’d rather take the vitex since it’s effects seem more clear. How much would you suggest only taking half my cycle alongside BO? 

Also I’ve read shatavari has estrogen. I’m trying to avoid extra estrogen since I’m already taking the BO and some Maca which I’ve read can act as estrogen. But from what I’ve read you suggest it for hormone receptor sensitivity. Would you say its ok to take throughout the cycle or would it be best suiting for a certain time?

I am on top of the nutrition part, just want to make sure I’m taking the right things so they don’t interfere. 

Thank you in advance!

Progesterone cream is the only thing strong enough to have a major effect in the 2nd half.  Vitex has a small effect but it's so small you can just take it all cycle.

AFAIK there's one study weakly linking DQ to cancer.  But there are alternatives so yeah it's safer to simply avoid it.  I'm not sure if it has more estrogen effects or if it's actually multiple different effects.

Shatavari has an effect on a variety of hormones so writeups often lump it all into estrogen or estrogen-like effects.  Just liked generalizing and saying estrogen grows boobs (kinda true) when actually it's multiple hormones (more accurate).  They see general female hormonal effects and call it estrogen.  But actually shatavari tends to affect a variety of hormones and yes you can take it throughout the cycle.

You can follow my first sig link for more ideas.  BO has a pretty strong estrogen effect so yeah you'll want at least vitex to balance it out, if not maybe halving the BO too.  Early on for the first few months for A/AA (I skimmed your threads so that's just what I saw at the top) you probably want to do mostly nutrition and light herbs/BO if any.  And since it's such a low amount cycling is optional.