Can Progesterone Make Me Depressed

Progesterone is usually soothing to mood but can sometimes cause anxiety. A negative mood reaction to progesterone is called northwardeurosteroid change sensitivity or premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and affects about one in twenty women.

Hither'southward everything you need to know about progesterone and mood.

Contraceptive progestin drugs are bad for mood

Progestins are non the same as the body'southward own progesterone, so shouldn't come into this conversation. Unfortunately, many doctors, journalists, and even scientists confuse progestins with progesterone and then say "progesterone is bad for mood" when they really mean progestins are bad for mood.

Contraceptive progestins such as levonorgestrel, drospirenone, and norethisterone have all been linked with anxiety and low, just mood symptoms from birth control are drug side effects, not PMS or PMDD.

Progesterone and the brain

For about women, progesterone is good for mood because it converts to a neurosteroid called allopregnanolone which calms GABA receptors in the brain. Progesterone's calming neurosteroid issue is why progesterone capsules are usually tranquillizing and why times of high progesterone (luteal phase and pregnancy) can crusade sleepiness. The progestin drugs of hormonal birth control do not convert to allopregnanolone, so are Not soothing to mood.

For women with PMDD, allopregnanolone does non at-home GABA receptors simply instead can produce anxiety and other negative mood symptoms.

Information technology's not that women with PMDD have more allopregnanolone; in fact, they may have less. Instead, women with PMDD seem to have an abnormal response to allopregnanolone because of a problem with GABA receptors.

GABA receptor PMDD — A GABA receptor with its five subunits, and showing where GABA and neurosteroids bind.

GABA receptors consist of five subunits that reshuffle and change configuration to adapt to the normal ups and downs of allopregnanolone. With PMDD, the GABA receptors are less able to adapt to changing levels of allopregnanolone. The outcome, co-ordinate to researcher Tory Eisenlohr-Moul, is neurosteroid modify sensitivity and the mood symptoms of PMDD.

Another factor is the new finding that progesterone can cause abdominal permeability leading to loftier LPS endotoxin and negative mood symptoms in the luteal phase. According to the research, women are more at risk of this endotoxin effect if they have an underlying problem with chronic progesterone deficiency and high estrogen.

Conventional treatment of PMDD

Conventional treatment for PMDD includes:

SSRI antidepressants to modulate GABA receptors, and/or
hormonal nascence control to close down ovulation and progesterone.

The problem with this approach is that:

SSRI antidepressants may increase the take chances of osteoporosis.
Contraceptive progestin drugs carry their own set of mood side effects.
Women need ovulation and progesterone for long-term health. According to Professor Jerilynn Prior, "regular menstrual cycles with consistently normal ovulation [and progesterone]…will prevent osteoporosis, chest cancer and eye disease."

How to take progesterone for premenstrual mood symptoms

The ameliorate arroyo is to stabilize GABA receptors and therefore exist able to tolerate the normal ups and downs of progesterone.

It's also possible to take progesterone. For women with mild premenstrual symptoms (PMS instead of PMDD), depression-dose progesterone (such as progesterone foam) can be helpful to outset the "progesterone withdrawal" that occurs at the terminate of the cycle.

For women with neurosteroid change sensitivity and PMDD, it can be ameliorate to take an optimal "sweet spot" dose of progesterone (100 to 200 mg), rather than a higher dose sheathing or a lower dose cream. That's because of the bimodal association between serum allopregnanolone and adverse mood, which ways that women with PMDD tin can feel good on a medium dose of progesterone, merely experience mood side furnishings from both lower and higher doses.

Unfortunately, there are only a few studies of progesterone for premenstrual mood and most used doses that were likewise high (400 to 1200 mg).

Natural treatment of PMDD

Equally I discuss in my summary post about premenstrual mood symptoms, other strategies include:

Reduce histamine and mast cell activation, which relieves histamine-induced mood symptoms and may normalize the sensitivity of GABA receptors. Histamine is one aspect of chronic inflammation which is a known commuter of premenstrual mood symptoms. Read The role of histamine and mast cells in PMS and PMDD.

👉 Tip: For many of my patients, avoiding cow'southward dairy is the fastest way to reduce a mast cell or histamine response. Another potentially beneficial effect of avoiding dairy is to reduce exposure to a casein-derived neuroactive peptide chosen BCM7, which affects levels of GABA.

Magnesium, which supports a healthy GABA response and relieves PMS past "normalizing the action of progesterone on the central nervous system." The best form is magnesium glycinate or bisglycinate because the amino acrid glycine too calms GABA receptors.

👉 Tip: The therapeutic dose is 300 mg of elemental magnesium, and then read the characterization advisedly. Most magnesium capsules contain 100 mg.

Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) has washed well in at least one clinical trial for PMDD. It works past boosting GABA, lowering prolactin, and promoting the healthy clearance of histamine. Be careful with vitamin B6 considering it can cause nerve damage.

👉 Tip: I become the best results with magnesium plus vitamin B6 plus the amino acid taurine (because taurine calms GABA receptors).