Review (1/5): OTC Progesterone Doesn't Do It For Me
For the past 10 years I have tried one over-the-counter progesterone cream after another, including ALL of the brands recommended in Dr. Lee's book. Unfortunately, none of them worked very well for me. After 10 years of going from one brand to the next, I finally gave up, got my hormones tested, and had my doctor prescribe a compounded bioidentical formula for me.
The problem with over-the-counter progesterone is that you really don't have any precise way of knowing how much progesterone you're really getting, regardless of what the label says.
I thought I was taking 40 mg. of Natra-Gest a day. And yet, when my progesterone levels were actually checked, the pharmacist said the amount of progesterone floating around in me was almost non-existent. Go figure. This makes me wonder if there really is as much progesterone in over the counter creams as specified on the label.
Now I'm taking 40 mgs. of compounded bioidentical progesterone cream. At least I know how much progesterone I am really taking in.
ZRT Laboratories has simple saliva testing which you can order online. You spit into a tube, send the saliva back to them, and within 2 weeks, they send back your results with suggestions. They even give you an easy-to-understand summary about what they found. You can then take those results to your doctor and arrange to get a compounded progesterone made specifically for you.
Because of the many problems I experienced with over-the-counter progesterone creams over the past 10 years, I'll never buy them again. They just don't work for me.
I guess each woman's body is different. My doctor did tell me, however, that compounded progesterone cream and over-the-counter progesterone cream cannot even be compared. According to her, they are like "night and day." Those were her exact words.
If you find that you are not receiving satisfactory benefits from any over-the-counter progesterone cream, it may be time to think about trying a compounded progesterone, made specifically for you. These one-size-fits-all over-the-counter progesterone creams are not able to help all women, especially women who are in their late forties and are in the perimenopause stage of life.