11-09-2011, 01:54 PM
No swelling, no libido. 2,000 mg of FG is clearly not enough: apparently, my progesterone decreased too much. Today, I upped FG to 3,000 mg again, and I'll see how much GR tea I can drink before too much prolactin from the FG and the GR shuts down my libido again.
Combining FG and GR got my libido in a catch 22. Too little FG, and libido shuts down because of too little progesterone. Too much FG + GR shuts libido down too, because of too much prolactin. But then I had no swelling this morning, and no urge to clean out a closet, so I may have lost more prolactin from decreasing the FG, than I gained from increasing the GR.
If I want to keep an acceptable libido, I may have to stop GR. The anti-androgen in my hops also decreases libido. If I decrease hops for better libido, I also lose phyto-estrogen, and may need to add another one, like PM.
Or I could follow Eve M's program more closely: the oats decrease Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG), and free up testosterone. But after the sex drive did what it had to do, or after the home improvement project is done, I need to increase SHBG again, or else I break out or lose hair. Flax increases SHBG. But flax decreases the efficiency of the digestion of hops to estradiol. So I need more phyto-estrogen, maybe more than I can get from the flax. Maybe add soy? But that slows the thyroid. And so on, and so on.
The algebra of NBE appears to leave little flexibility around my program, or around Eve M's, for that matter. After I get my program running again, I'll try to add FN for progesterone next time I decrease FG. If that doesn't help, a second phyto-estrogen may be the only way left to tweak my program. Or combine a phyto-progestin with a second phyto-estrogen: RC?
Combining FG and GR got my libido in a catch 22. Too little FG, and libido shuts down because of too little progesterone. Too much FG + GR shuts libido down too, because of too much prolactin. But then I had no swelling this morning, and no urge to clean out a closet, so I may have lost more prolactin from decreasing the FG, than I gained from increasing the GR.
If I want to keep an acceptable libido, I may have to stop GR. The anti-androgen in my hops also decreases libido. If I decrease hops for better libido, I also lose phyto-estrogen, and may need to add another one, like PM.
Or I could follow Eve M's program more closely: the oats decrease Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG), and free up testosterone. But after the sex drive did what it had to do, or after the home improvement project is done, I need to increase SHBG again, or else I break out or lose hair. Flax increases SHBG. But flax decreases the efficiency of the digestion of hops to estradiol. So I need more phyto-estrogen, maybe more than I can get from the flax. Maybe add soy? But that slows the thyroid. And so on, and so on.
The algebra of NBE appears to leave little flexibility around my program, or around Eve M's, for that matter. After I get my program running again, I'll try to add FN for progesterone next time I decrease FG. If that doesn't help, a second phyto-estrogen may be the only way left to tweak my program. Or combine a phyto-progestin with a second phyto-estrogen: RC?