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Saw Palmetto dangerous for women?

#1

So I just bought Saw Palmeto pills. I wanted something for anti-androgens.
On the bottle of my pills, it says:
For men only, not intended for use by women.

That sort of scares me! I went online and searched but I found articles where it says its safe for women and some say its dangerous for women.

I'm thinking to take something else for the anti-androgens. Any suggestions other than spearmint tea? Can I chew spearmint gum?Blush
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#2

Spearmint flavouring doesn't come from actual spearmint. :/

I know a LOT of women use SP for NBE, and it's really not as unsafe as they make it seem. Yeah, it's intended for men's use, but I don't see why it's not safe for women. There are always rare chances that you can have a bad reaction to it, and if that's the case, just stop taking it.

I don't know too much about its negative effects on women, but I say just try it and see what happens. Start at a low dose if you're worried about it.

I've been using it four months now, and it's helping me a lot. I just switched to a stronger brand, and it's caused my monthly to be late now, but other than that, I've never had any negative side effects. And having had a bad side effect, I now know that formula is too strong for me and I need to lower my dosage.
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#3

Hi Cupcake and Doll Smile

I haven't heard anything bad about SP and women other than you shouldn't take it if you are trying to get pregnant or if you are not using birth control while sexually active. This is because it will seriously mess up the fetus if you do get pregnant and are still on the SP, as it will block some of the necessary hormones for proper development. I think this especially applies to male fetuses. Other than that though, I don't know.
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#4

Hey!
Thank you both for your replies.
I decided to return my SP pills and will buy spearmint tea and use that for an anti-androgen.
On the bottle of the pills it says:
WARNING: For use by men, not intended for use by women.

Since it was written as a "warning", I did not want to take a chance with it.


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#5

Saw palmetto is commonly taken by women so I'm not sure where the danger's supposed to be. What is it supposed to do to women that may be harmful? In the past saw palmetto berries were eaten as food.
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#6

I've read that sp can mess up the bc, but I was wondering how about mini pills / progestogen-only pills? Does it affect the same?
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#7

(14-06-2012, 10:59 AM)ems Wrote:  I've read that sp can mess up the bc, but I was wondering how about mini pills / progestogen-only pills? Does it affect the same?


WHAT? Why should SP affect bcp? I so hope you are wrong. I am also using the mini pill btw.

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#8

(18-06-2012, 03:40 AM)CousinRose Wrote:  
(14-06-2012, 10:59 AM)ems Wrote:  I've read that sp can mess up the bc, but I was wondering how about mini pills / progestogen-only pills? Does it affect the same?


WHAT? Why should SP affect bcp? I so hope you are wrong. I am also using the mini pill btw.

Well what I've read of SP on the internet it says it's not recommended to take it with bcp if it contains estrogen. But I haven't found anything about mini pills + saw palmetto. I really don't know. x_X I don't want to take the SP just to make sure I don't mess anything up and get pregnant. Big Grin
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#9

It was dangerous for me.

I'm 28 and last year I took saw palmetto as suggested by the men's supplements for 4 months. 2 pills a day, really never missing a dose. 

I was taking it to get rid of my adult acne, and also maybe help my hair get thicker, which i believe it helped a lot with. My acne pretty much disappeared, and my hair was better too. I thought it was my miracle drug. 

But at the 4 month mark when my doctor put me on antibiotics for an unrelated infection, I stopped taking the SP pills cold turkey for a week because they thin your blood and blood thinners were contraindicated with the antibiotic.

6 days into not taking the pilks I starred getting SEVERE cramping in my uterus, and it was like constant bad period pain but I was not on my period or even close. Sex with my boyfriend also became suddenly painful and I went to my gynecologist to see what was up. 

They gave me an ultrasound and it turned out I had developed a uterine polyp. Uterine polyps develop from a sudden abnormal spike in estrogen, and I'm convinced it was the result of my hormones going into overdrive after suddenly not taking saw palmetto, an estrogen suppressant. I know it's just a theory, but I think the timing was a little too perfect to be a coincidence. 

Now I need surgery or hormone therapy to get rid of the pollyp and my periods are all messed up. 

I guess if I were to do it again I would either not mess with saw palmetto, or just take a minor dose and taper off instead of stopping altogether suddenly. 

I didn't realize SP suppressed ESTROGEN as well as testosterone when I took it, I thought it only suppressed testosterone. Otherwise I probably would have been more careful.
I also was not on birth control in case that matters. 

I guess just BE CAREFUL, sometimes the benefits dont outweigh the unexpected risks. I know this is a really old post, but if I came across it someone else might.
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#10

I tried to search saw palmetto and estrogen and couldn't find much:
Don't know how it works, but speculation that might inhibit estrogen receptors along with 10 other things: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25703069
Postulated that saw palmetto stimulates estrogen receptors instead: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20531057
And if anything blocking the conversion of DHT to T might cause the T to become estrogen instead.

Where did you find that info?  I couldn't find a study on it.  I also looked for info on thinning blood before and found that saw palmetto most likely does not thin blood.  Based on several studies.  The issue only came up in the first place because some web article without any references mentioned it.  What source did you find?

It's important that we check the reliability of our information with sources and quantify it too (how strong is it), or else everyone can get confused with 100 different bits of contradictory information.  Many women have used saw palmetto for NBE, sometimes even saw palmetto alone.  So if it is an anti-estrogen at all it must be pretty weak at it.  If it was strong it would be bad for NBE and possibly even cause breasts to shrink.  And without much anti-estrogen effect it would be unlikely to have much rebound.  For that matter I've never been able to find any herb that reduces estrogen much; all were very weak at it.  A great deal of men would love to find it if there was one.

From this on uterine polyps the cause is not known, but existing polyps might grow from estrogen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endometrial_polyp#Cause .

What antibiotic were you on?  Some have some estrogenic effect.  A quick search revealed that even those that aren't directly estrogenic can affect estrogen levels in a woman's body.  For example by interfering with estrogen metabolism in the liver.
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