[ShelaVenna]

I’ve been considering adding shatavari, fenugreek, or goats rue. In the end I decided to buy fenugreek AND goats rue and a percussion massage gun too.

I may have gone overboard and I hope this doesn’t somehow give me high prolactin.

Just in case my post about prolactin wasn’t clear, I think a slight boost of prolactin is probably fine and might be helpful, but high prolactin is probably always bad for NBE unless you are on a prolactin-only program and you don’t mind potentially having to follow a maintenance program for the rest of your life. I’m not sure how easy it is to push prolactin into the high end of the range using herbs and massage alone. I suspect that it’s actually pretty difficult. At least I hope so.

<meta charset="UTF-8">My hands are too weak to give myself a good massage for more than a few minutes, but I’ve always suspected that vibrating massagers aren’t good enough for NBE unless you really push the massager deep into the breast tissue and smoosh it around like you would do with your hands. That’s why I decided to get a percussive massager instead. It pushes deep into the tissue on its own, but you do still have to move it around. My percussive massage gun has a soft head, which is very important because massage guns can be dangerous to use on boney areas and my chest is very boney. It’s also dangerous to use a massage gun over nerve and artery bundles like the one that’s just in front of the armpit. It can cause neuralgia if it’s pushed into a nerve bundle too hard for too long, and my armpit nerve area is already under a lot of pressure from pumping. So I’ll be completely avoiding the area near my armpit.

Fenugreek and goats rue can both lower blood sugar, but mk677 can raise blood sugar especially in people who are insulin resistant. I thought that the mk677 might have been making my blood sugar shoot up too high, so I stopped taking it, but I never confirmed my sugar levels with a blood test. I’m going to start taking my mk677 again along with the fenugreek and goats rue and I’ll be using a blood sugar tester to see what’s happening to my blood sugar levels. I ran out of both my inositols, and haven’t been using them, but I might not buy them again because they also lower blood sugar. I also want to keep my program relatively simple. I might stop taking all my anti-androgens except reishi, just so I won’t have to swallow so many supplements.

That’s a lot of changes and it’s pretty confusing, so I’ll summarize my new program in the next post.

[ShelaVenna]

Updated Program

Morning:

Fenugreek Extract- 475 mg

Goat’s Rue Extract- 1900 mg

Reishi Extract- 656 mg

Amata Life PM Plus- 100 mg of a very strong PM extract (roughly equivalent to a 500mg Ainterol capsule) plus some other things that I don’t really want or need

Night:

Fenugreek Extract- 475 mg 

Goat’s Rue Extract- 1900 mg

Reishi Extract- 656 mg

Now Progesterone Cream- 1 pump with 20mg 


1 dropper-full of fenugreek extract for massage.

Homemade PM Alcohol Liniment- I don’t measure this. I just use enough to thoroughly coat my breasts using a flat wide makeup brush.

Transdermal gel: this is a plain thick gel designed for pharmacists to help increase absorption of topical hormones. I apply it after the liniment, because I think pouring the liniment straight into the transdermal gel might ruin the gel’s formula somehow.

10 minutes intense massage on each breast using the massage gun

4-12 hours of pumping- depending on how much time I have and how much my back is hurting (I pump on my back)

Earlier I mentioned that I increased my PM and progesterone doses by 50%, but I’ve decided to go back to the original dose while I try out all this new stuff.

[ShelaVenna]

I have no idea why the line spacing on my last post is so huge and uneven and weird. This forum is long overdue for an update.

[Bustyprincess]

Hi Shela! Just wanted to add as I see you are concerned about your blood sugar that goats rue can lower blood sugar levels ALOT especially in higher dosages so its a gamble I personally dont have any issues with my blood sugar levels so I am fine taking it but if you do this is something to keep in mind. Some practitioners use goats rue in conjunction with proper diabetes medication for treatment interestingly enough. GL X

[ShelaVenna]

Hi Shela! Just wanted to add as I see you are concerned about your blood sugar that goats rue can lower blood sugar levels ALOT especially in higher dosages so its a gamble I personally dont have any issues with my blood sugar levels so I am fine taking it but if you do this is something to keep in mind. Some practitioners use goats rue in conjunction with proper diabetes medication for treatment interestingly enough. GL X

Yes I know. Thanks for reminding me. I hope it will counteract the blood sugar increase from the mk677, but I never tested to see if it was really raising my blood sugar. I’m just going to use a blood sugar tester and adjust from there. I’m more worried about high blood sugar than low. I think I am leaning towards becoming prediabetic, unless I’m there already. I hope not.

[Bustyprincess]

Hi Shela! Just wanted to add as I see you are concerned about your blood sugar that goats rue can lower blood sugar levels ALOT especially in higher dosages so its a gamble I personally dont have any issues with my blood sugar levels so I am fine taking it but if you do this is something to keep in mind. Some practitioners use goats rue in conjunction with proper diabetes medication for treatment interestingly enough. GL X

Yes I know. Thanks for reminding me. I hope it will counteract the blood sugar increase from the mk677, but I never tested to see if it was really raising my blood sugar. I’m just going to use a blood sugar tester and adjust from there. I’m more worried about high blood sugar than low. I think I am leaning towards becoming prediabetic, unless I’m there already. I hope not.

Nws  " alt="" title=""> just keep an eye on it as it can happen pretty quick with goats rue according to literature god forbid you faint wouldnt want that.

[ShelaVenna]

It’s time for my weekly pumping update. I averaged only 3.5 hrs per night this week, but I’m convinced my back pain is improving, so hopefully I’ll be able to pump a lot more next week. So far I’ve pumped 291 hours total.

[ShelaVenna]

I just got my new breast milk pump, the Ardo Calypso. My current milk pump is the one sold by Bosom Beauty as a breast enhancement pump. The owner of Bosom Beauty (aka Gismostore) has always claimed that he worked with the makers of the pump to create a version that was more suitable for breast enhancement than a normal breast milk pump, and I always suspected he was lying, but now I’m not so sure. The BB pump has drastically stronger suction and a much shorter “release” cycle  than my new Ardo Pump. Breast milk pumps suck and then release pressure over and over again to simulate the way a baby suckles. The stronger pressure and shorter release cycle of the BB is a good thing if you want a lot more short term swelling and a very short wear time. It’s not so great if you want gentle suction and a very long wear time. It also automatically turns off after 30 min, so you can’t use it while sleeping. That being said, the BB pump is also much, much quieter than the Ardo pump despite being a lot stronger. Thats odd, because I saw plenty of reviews claiming that the Ardo Calypso is the quietest “name brand” pump on the market. If that’s true, I can’t imagine how loud the other name brand pumps must be. Not only is the normal suction loud, but every few minutes the Ardo pump makes a super long louder suction noise and then goes back to its usual quieter pump and release mode. I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to happen, but I really wish it didn’t. It doesn’t hurt or anything like that, but it’s really loud when it happens.

The minimum Ardo Calypso vacuum pressure is 37 mmhg per cup increasing in 9 mmhg increments to 100mg. That’s less than the 125 mmhg I was hoping for but it’s still 4 times stronger than the average pressure of the Brava pump. The Brava pump is so gentle that the first time I tried it out I thought it wasn’t sucking at all and I messaged the seller about replacing my “broken” pump. Thank god my message was polite because I was totally wrong.

The weird thing is that even though the Ardo pump is much stronger than the Brava pump, so far it seems much more comfortable than the Brava because of its long release cycle. For the first time in my life, I think I might not have visible ring marks after pumping. At the very least, I might not get those bright red painful pumping marks on my sternum where it sticks. I’ll check my skin in the morning and update this post. I think you might not even need any padding while using this pump, but I won’t be testing that out any time soon.

I still haven’t received the yoga mat that I was planning to use to make new padding. I don’t have my goats rue or fenugreek yet either. For now, I’ll just be testing out this new pump.

[SweetO]

I just got my new breast milk pump, the Ardo Calypso. My current milk pump is the one sold by Bosom Beauty as a breast enhancement pump. The owner of Bosom Beauty (aka Gismostore) has always claimed that he worked with the makers of the pump to create a version that was more suitable for breast enhancement than a normal breast milk pump, and I always suspected he was lying, but now I’m not so sure. The BB pump has drastically stronger suction and a much shorter “release” cycle  than my new Ardo Pump. Breast milk pumps suck and then release pressure over and over again to simulate the way a baby suckles. The stronger pressure and shorter release cycle of the BB is a good thing if you want a lot more short term swelling and a very short wear time. It’s not so great if you want gentle suction and a very long wear time. It also automatically turns off after 30 min, so you can’t use it while sleeping. That being said, the BB pump is also much, much quieter than the Ardo pump despite being a lot stronger. Thats odd, because I saw plenty of reviews claiming that the Ardo Calypso is the quietest “name brand” pump on the market. If that’s true, I can’t imagine how loud the other name brand pumps must be. Not only is the normal suction loud, but every few minutes the Ardo pump makes a super long louder suction noise and then goes back to its usual quieter pump and release mode. I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to happen, but I really wish it didn’t. It doesn’t hurt or anything like that, but it’s really loud when it happens.

The minimum Ardo Calypso vacuum pressure is 37 mmhg per cup increasing in 9 mmhg increments to 100mg. That’s less than the 125 mmhg I was hoping for but it’s still 4 times stronger than the average pressure of the Brava pump. The Brava pump is so gentle that the first time I tried it out I thought it wasn’t sucking at all and I messaged the seller about replacing my “broken” pump. Thank god my message was polite because I was totally wrong.

The weird thing is that even though the Ardo pump is much stronger than the Brava pump, so far it seems much more comfortable than the Brava because of its long release cycle. For the first time in my life, I think I might not have visible ring marks after pumping. At the very least, I might not get those bright red painful pumping marks on my sternum where it sticks. I’ll check my skin in the morning and update this post. I think you might not even need any padding while using this pump, but I won’t be testing that out any time soon.

I still haven’t received the yoga mat that I was planning to use to make new padding. I don’t have my goats rue or fenugreek yet either. For now, I’ll just be testing out this new pump.

I love your reviews! They're so easy to follow!

[ShelaVenna]

I spoke too soon about the Ardo Pump. I think I got scammed. It was probably already broken when it was sent to me. I don’t think it was actually supposed to be making that loud noise every few minutes. After about 2 1/2 hours it started flashing orange and displaying an error message that’s supposed to mean it’s unrepairable. I tried turning it on again and it did run for an hour or so before displaying the error message again, which is why I think it was already broken before it was sent to me, even though it was technically working when I first plugged it in. <meta charset="UTF-8">It’s true that you’re not supposed to use the Ardo pump for several hours at a time, but I’ve used my BB pump for 4 hours at a time for multiple days in a row in the past and it handled it just fine. The BB pump is a pretty cheap pump, but the Ardo pump is worth around $200 new. I paid much, much less for a used one without any “extras”.

I don’t want to give up on this yet, so I think I will buy another that claims to be open-box or “returned” rather than used. I have a feeling that a newer ardo pump might be quieter and stronger than the broken one that I just bought. If that’s true, I’ll post about it.