tea's routine

[teatowel]

greenbush fennugreek 3x daily per package instructions
3000mg per day

red clover 2-3x day 1500mg day

massage at least once/day...usually with fengreek, but sometimes with whatever I grab

took saw palmetto and did hypnosis for about 2 1/2 months starting aroung the end of August or the beginning of September, but have since run out of SP and time for hypnosis

use progesterone cream sparingly during pms

results: some swelling when i first started, followed by almost two months of total deflation. swelling began again in third month, but that is when i started using progesterone cream toward the end of my cycle so i think it is just glandular (glandular is nice too!). have not deflated completely for almost two cycles, but no obvious or measurable gains

[mominator]

Hi Tea,
You know when I see your routine...WOW! 3g fenugreek doesn't leave a lot of room for tweaking. But...you could certainly try dropping it down slowly, see if you can get your body to react to the lower dosage. Sometime it works. Fenugreek is infamous for causing water retention...you may want to add some fennel, which is a phyto-estrogen, but also a duretic.

[teatowel]

Switching to BO sometime in February. I am continuing massage and hypnosis. Also, I usually give up caffeine for lent...just to prove I can. Hoping that will help. I haven't decided on dosages. I will look up a thread on that and decide. tea

[Wahaika]

Hi Tea,

Are your Greenbush capsules 500mg or 575mg? If they are 575 mg, you are probably way over 3000mg.

Is that 3000mg of each herb or 3000 mg of the enancement blend? If it is the enhancement blend, then you might want to do the math and raise it because you might not be getting enough of each herb.

The deflation is a normal experience with herbs and it will all come back. But not if you are using progesterone cream every month, even sparingly. Under normal circumstances I would expect the initial deflation to return in 4 weeks. You might try adjusting the progesterone cream down to once per quarter on a day in the Luteal phase.

You are a special case. If what you are doing is working, keep it up. You might need a lot of time to titrate down that progesterone cream usage. Three months is a pretty minimal amount of time for evaluation in your case. You might try at least six months, once you find what works for you, before going to BO. It seems to me that PMS is a sign of high estrogen and you don't want to rob your growth with progesterone cream.

I have never figured out why progesterone cream does not seem to work like progesterone blockers. If anyone understands this, please chime in.

Again, you are a special case. Take all of this with a grain of salt and do what makes sense for you.

Wahaika

[teatowel]

LOL "special case" You mean like "freak". I love your way with words. There are other 34AAs here, though probably not any less than AAs, so how come I'm "special"? I'm just tired of trying to figure out how much of which stuff to take everyday and then running out of one thing or another. I did take a full 6 months of a proprietery blend a couple of years ago to no avail. hmmm. I'm listening to everyone and appreciate your help and concern and yes I'm laughing over Wahaika's choice of words. I will consider them carefully and try not to be impatient. tea

[Wahaika]

Hey Freakoid!

>>'so how come I'm "special"? '

I didn't mean special in the touchy feely usage of the term. By "special" I was referring to conditions that would surround a hysterectomy and how that kinda skews a lot of the logic that surrounds BE programs.

Maybe I have you confused with someone else (Dishrag?). AA certainly had nothing to do with it. You see, my sense of humor has gotten me into trouble more than once in emails, including this board (well, the MSN one). So, I beat around the bush a bit much sometimes in an effort to avoid offending anyone.

Really though, my sarcasm does get out of control sometimes. I have found that it's better to come off appearing too straight laced than to offend someone.

Wahaika

[teatowel]

thanks for remembering me as dish...loved that name. but i haven't had a hysterectemy. i can't remember who did either, but i remember reading about it...hmmm.
i am thinking maybe i should organize my herbs and stick with them during my "no caffeine" break that i take every year. it would be interesting to see what happens. another one of our little experiments. tea