As you approach menopause (perimenopause), your progesterone levels naturally decrease. This can contribute to sleep problems and tiredness.
Cortisol is often called the “stress hormone” because it is responsible for modulating the body's stress response, both long term and on a daily basis. When the body is not functioning as it should, cortisol can spike at the wrong time, causing sleep difficulty which leads to fatigue.
Commonly reported side effects of progesterone include: abdominal cramps, depression, dizziness, and headache. Other side effects include: anxiety, cough, diarrhea, fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, nausea, bloating, emotional lability, and irritability.
Known as the “relaxing hormone,” progesterone has a mildly sedative effect.
Progesterone can increase your energy levels. It does this by stimulating the thyroid and speeding up metabolism. Adequate progesterone levels are essential for a healthy sex drive. As progesterone levels change during your cycle, it can affect your sex drive.
For most women, progesterone is good for mood because it converts to a neurosteroid called allopregnanolone which calms GABA receptors. Progesterone's calming neurosteroid effect is why progesterone capsules are usually tranquillizing and why times of high progesterone (luteal phase and pregnancy) can cause sleepiness.
Topical progesterone takes two to three months to reach the peak therapeutic effect. However, oral progesterone's effect on sleep is very quick, within 30 to 60 minutes. This helps us to determine the right dose for each individual woman. It is always best to start low and slow when it comes to hormone therapy.
During peri-menopause, the first hormone that decreases is usually progesterone. This can lead to estrogen dominance, a common symptom of which is weight gain, causing you to store more fat around your stomach area.
Symptoms said to be due to adrenal fatigue include tiredness, trouble falling asleep at night or waking up in the morning, salt and sugar craving, and needing stimulants like caffeine to get through the day.
Diminished estrogen also causes irritability and mood swings in women which furthers exhaustion. Too little progesterone is also linked to fatigue in women. The progesterone decreases sex drive and results in an overall less optimistic outlook. This anxiety or depression brings with it fatigue.
Estrogen and progesterone have many characteristics that aid in preventing aging signs on your skin. For example, they naturally increase hyaluronic acid (HA) and prevent the loss of collagen and elastin.
Since progesterone maintains your uterine lining during pregnancy so a fetus can grow, low levels can make it hard for you to stay pregnant. You need progesterone levels to stay high until you're ready to give birth. If you have low progesterone, you're at risk for pregnancy complications such as: Ectopic pregnancy.
Causes of Low Progesterone
Obesity, chronic stress and a poor diet can contribute to low progesterone, but there are also other causes, including: Hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) Hyperprolactinemia (elevated prolactin) Low cholesterol.
In more severe cases of suboptimal ovulation, it's unlikely that lifestyle changes or over the counter treatments will be enough to boost levels to where they need to be. But don't worry! Even if it requires a trip to the doc, low progesterone is often easy to treat.
Reasons for fatigue in females include high sleep debt, being out of sync with your circadian rhythm, your menstrual cycle and period, pregnancy, menopause, hormonal contraceptives, poor diet, lack of exercise, stress and anxiety, medication side effects, and medical conditions like thyroid issues or anemia.
Some women find that Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) helps with their fatigue. HRT is an effective way of managing menopause symptoms and can improve the overall quality of your life, energy levels and sleep.
In all these effects note that progesterone does not directly cause weight loss. Instead it reduces the effect of other hormones in the body which are causing the weight gain. Think of it as allowing rather than causing the body to lose weight.
Most of the time fatigue can be traced to one or more lifestyle issues, such as poor sleep habits or lack of exercise. Fatigue can be caused by a medicine or linked to depression. Sometimes fatigue is a symptom of an illness that needs treatment.
Fatigue is one of the most common symptoms of a hormone imbalance. Excess progesterone can make you sleepy. And if your thyroid -- the butterfly-shaped gland in your neck -- makes too little thyroid hormone, it can sap your energy. A simple blood test called a thyroid panel can tell you if your levels are too low.
In most cases, there's a reason for the fatigue. It might be allergic rhinitis, anemia, depression, fibromyalgia, chronic kidney disease, liver disease, lung disease (COPD), a bacterial or viral infection, or some other health condition.
you should know that progesterone may cause dizziness, lightheadedness, and fainting when you get up too quickly from a lying position. This is more common when you first start taking progesterone. To avoid this problem, get out of bed slowly, resting your feet on the floor for a few minutes before standing up.
When will I start to feel better? You will see improvement within the first 2 to 3 weeks of therapy, but it will take up to 8 weeks to feel the full effect. We want to achieve balance with the lowest dose of each hormone – the recommendation of the FDA and American College of OBGYN.
Estrogen can reduce menopausal symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness. If you have a uterus, you'll likely need to take progesterone along with the estrogen. Estrogen without progesterone increases the risk of uterine cancer.