[NaturalLady31]

Surferjoe,

Just read the article at the bottom of your posts - A good NBE program: http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=23076 - which gives a lot of information.

I have a few other quick questions about that. You stated the importance of herbs containing steroidal saponins for NBE (i.e., increasing hormone sensitivity). Makes good sense. But I don't seem to do very well with fenugreek because it seems to lower my blood sugar. Do all steroidal saponins such as fenugreek, goat's rue, or shatavari potentially affect insulin response or cause hypoglycemic symptoms? I hope not. If so, can you suggest an alternative herb/supplement for the purpose of hormone sensitivity?

Sorry to bother you with more questions!
Natural Lady

Yes all saponins are likely to lower blood sugar. It would be better to avoid them altogether. Some can tolerate 1,000-1,500 mg temporarily and then it lowers their blood sugar again, but at that amount it has almost no benefit. So better to use zero. I don't know other herbs for hormone sensitivity since they tend to increase sensitivity to all hormones in general including insulin.

I would suggest looking into the nutritional recommendations in that thread to help your hypoglycemia. Once it is a lot better then you might try those herbs. You can still manage without them. With any health issues like hypoglycemia and hormone imbalances it might be better to stick to non-herbal methods for the most part until the health problems get better. Do use saw palmetto and so on to balance out your hormones, but that's it. Try nutrition, massage, etc.

Yeah your water extract SP is probably weaker and require more for the same effect. The softgels you found look good. Oh by jaw line you meant jaw line breakouts. I thought you meant a pronounced jawline. Nevermind, breakouts in general is DHT. I don't know if your general testosterone is high or not; you would have to test and see. If you are estrogen dominant you can use vitex or progesterone cream. Vitex is weaker than PC but it's easy to overdo PC and it can raise your testosterone too. Vitex is slower but it's pretty mild and safe too. 500 mg vitex is plenty; more than that doesn't help more and you don't need an extract for vitex either. The more thorough the hormonal test the more sure you can be about what needs correcting. Like I said until your health improves I'd limit your herbal program mainly to correcting hormonal issues rather than trying to add any other hormonal herbs to your already stressed body.

I know that the blood sugar fluctuations are related to my thyroid/digestive absorption issues, because I never had a problem with hypoglycemic symptoms until my thyroid got wonky.

Anyway, I've been doing massage twice a day consistently since March without much result, so that's why I was researching information on specific NBE herbs.. I also was looking into MSM since, from what I've been reading, it's also good for healing the digestive system. So in your opinion, you think I should quit focusing on NBE altogether?

I don't have severe symptoms that coincide with estrogen dominance, but I do suspect a shift going on in my progesterone level. I took vitex periodically a long time ago and don't remember having any negative effects from it, so I suppose that's worth trying if my testing reveals excess estrogen.