25-11-2013, 04:07
3. I wasn't able to find much concrete information on primrose oil.
4. Minor so I'm going to skip this one but it's not necessarily nothing.
5. Popular here and probably helps
6. Contains saponins so it may help, but I can't tell how much and it seems a bit expensive.
1-2. Until you know your hormonal status I'll suggest this:
A few hundred mg red clover, 1 capsule is usually fine
50-500 mg saponins, though there isn't really an upper limit.
Both would be taken all month. Fenugreek is about 1.5% saponins, Wild yam is about 1% saponins, and goat's rue and shatavari are around the same ballpark. So the whole herb takes quite a lot and towards the higher end could upset your stomach. But you can get concentrated extracts that have a lot more and they're fairly cheap. Or you could eat a lot of fenugreek sprouts: soak seeds in water overnight, rinse twice a day for 1-3 days. There are roughly 3.5 grams in a teaspoon of fenugreek seeds. Most herb powders are around 2.5 grams in a teaspoon. Red clover balances out estrogen so it can be good whether you're too low or too high, and it has a ton of these weak estrogen balancing phytoestrogens so you don't need much. Saponins however are virtually unlimited; the more you use the more it increaeses your own hormones. So use whatever amount you need to get results: start low and increase bit by bit until you find out. Because it increases your own hormones they've often been used for estrogen or progesterone or many other things but actually they're for everything and you likewise use them all month.
If you do find out that you have too much estrogen then that's difficult to deal with without progesterone cream. But you can use 40-125 mg vitex agnus castus to slowly raise prolactin which can help. At about 250 mg and above it lowers prolactin instead so don't overdo it. That amount is around 1/60th to 1/20th of a teaspoon so you might mix a month's worth with a month's worth of something else to make it easier to divide. Red clover and saponins will help too. If you instead find out that estrogen is too low then you can use 250-1000 mg pueraria mirifica and that you would use only part of the month. It's also far stronger so without progesterone to counterbalance it you may want to lean towards the lower end.
4. Minor so I'm going to skip this one but it's not necessarily nothing.
5. Popular here and probably helps
6. Contains saponins so it may help, but I can't tell how much and it seems a bit expensive.
1-2. Until you know your hormonal status I'll suggest this:
A few hundred mg red clover, 1 capsule is usually fine
50-500 mg saponins, though there isn't really an upper limit.
Both would be taken all month. Fenugreek is about 1.5% saponins, Wild yam is about 1% saponins, and goat's rue and shatavari are around the same ballpark. So the whole herb takes quite a lot and towards the higher end could upset your stomach. But you can get concentrated extracts that have a lot more and they're fairly cheap. Or you could eat a lot of fenugreek sprouts: soak seeds in water overnight, rinse twice a day for 1-3 days. There are roughly 3.5 grams in a teaspoon of fenugreek seeds. Most herb powders are around 2.5 grams in a teaspoon. Red clover balances out estrogen so it can be good whether you're too low or too high, and it has a ton of these weak estrogen balancing phytoestrogens so you don't need much. Saponins however are virtually unlimited; the more you use the more it increaeses your own hormones. So use whatever amount you need to get results: start low and increase bit by bit until you find out. Because it increases your own hormones they've often been used for estrogen or progesterone or many other things but actually they're for everything and you likewise use them all month.
If you do find out that you have too much estrogen then that's difficult to deal with without progesterone cream. But you can use 40-125 mg vitex agnus castus to slowly raise prolactin which can help. At about 250 mg and above it lowers prolactin instead so don't overdo it. That amount is around 1/60th to 1/20th of a teaspoon so you might mix a month's worth with a month's worth of something else to make it easier to divide. Red clover and saponins will help too. If you instead find out that estrogen is too low then you can use 250-1000 mg pueraria mirifica and that you would use only part of the month. It's also far stronger so without progesterone to counterbalance it you may want to lean towards the lower end.