[Isabelle]

Good morning Susan,

You definitely have progress. For targets 1 to 3 in the above list, you're done

I agree with you that steering on symptoms beats blood work. Many symptoms are much faster. And with blood work, you get a number, but you still don't know what it means.

I still struggle with finding the symptoms for too little DHEA, IGF-1, and HGH.

I need DHEA symptoms to steer how much maca I take. You and Pansy Mae helped me before with symptoms of too much DHEA. And from the one time I increased DHEA too fast after reducing fenugreek, I remember the insomnia.

But how do I know if I have enough DHEA? I know the maca I take has some effect, because my hips and butt are filling out all around. I have a nice, even, tight layer of fat under my skin all around my hips, and on my buttocks it's even thicker. But still, with the weight loss, I lost almost 2" there. I'll keep trying to increase maca.

I know now it's the xanthohumol in hops that decreases IGF-1. I take my hops with cereals every day now, to digest the xanthohumol. But I can't go much lower in xanthohumol, because I had a pimple in my face this week, and xanthohumol is also the anti-androgen in hops.

For HGH, I want to start L-arginine. But I don't want to make too many changes at the same time. I measure only once every two weeks, and right now I'm still evaluating what the goat's rue has done. I'm only three months on hops too, so the growth I get may still be from the hops alone.

[Isabelle]

Because of Mel's post about correct measuring:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=8982&pid=37699#pid37699
I decided to double check yesterday, looking sideways in the mirror to keep the tape level. Breast and Under have gone up an inch, but the difference, which I use to steer my program, is the same: 4".

Height: 178.5 cm = 5*.3048 + 10*.0254 = 5' 10"
Weight: 80.5 kg * 2.2046 lbs/kg = 177 lbs
Body Mass Index (BMI): 80.5/1.785/1.785 = 25.3
Breast: 107 cm = 42"
Under: 97 cm = 38"
Waist: 90 cm = 35"
Hip: 98 = 39" (actually the widest part around my butt)
Waist to hip ratio (WHR): 90/98 = 0.92

Progress:
Day 11/7 26/7 08/8 22/8 05/9 19/9 3/10 7/10 2014 2016
BMI: 26.5 26.4 26.2 25.7 25.3 26.0 25.7 25.3 23.0 23.0
B-U: 8.00 5.00 8.00 8.00 8.00 10.0 10.0 10.0 15.0 20.0
WHR 0.95 .945 0.94 0.92 0.92 0.96 0.93 0.92 0.80 0.70
B-U = Breast - Under in cm

[Isabelle]

The diosgenin in fenugreek increases progesterone. It increases estrogens too, but very little. A recent publication confirms this. I linked it here:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=10194&pid=37898&highlight=diosgenin#pid37898
Diosgenin is also the reason why fenugreek is a galactogogue, a property which was traditionally attributed to galactomannan. Galactomannan, a fiber, is responsible for the mucilage (slime), and blocks the intestinal absorption of glucose. This is why fenugreek is hypoglycemic, and why it makes some people sleepy, or at least, why it lowers their energy.

How I use fenugreek in my program is consistent with the above properties:
1) to make enough progesterone to prevent estrogen dominance (foggy thinking, headaches),
2) for swelling,
3) with the only carbs in my diet, to absorb them slower.

Most of the swelling, I get from goat's rue. Fenugreek also increases insulin, and I want to slim my waist. So I want to replace fenugreek by goat's rue, just to the point where my thinking doesn't get too foggy

I'm also balancing hops (digested/undigested) and maca, just to the point where I don't get pimples, and where I don't get depressed.

I only have the multivitamins, hops, maca, fenugreek and goat's rue to work with. The hops, I can tweak by digesting less or more of it. But that still leaves only five handles to manage a dozen hormones. True, some hormone levels are consequences of others, like cortisol, which will be OK if progesterone is OK.

But still, it makes it all the more remarkable what MydreamisGcup and idreamofD achieved with just Ainterol PM capsules, L-arginine, bc, and multivitamins. I'm already planning to try L-arginine. PM is not too different from hops. The progesterone I get from fenugreek is just as good as bc. I'm using my current stock of multivitamins, but several people commented there may be room for improvement there. MydreamisGcup used a hair skin nails, and idreamofD used a teen multivitamin. And both are young women. Maybe I should do more about the effects of age: the natural decrease of HGH and increase of SHBG. L-arginine is for HGH, and oats decrease SHBG. I could give that a try too.

[Isabelle]

I'm growing a quarter inch per month. Not that this is not sufficient. It's even faster than what Eve M got on average. But she used flax and soy and hops, and I only use hops as a phyto-estrogen.

I have been thinking about a second phyto-estrogen for a while, and I have flax, milk thistle, and panax ginseng here. I even see some logic in using oats to lower SHBG, because that goes up naturally with age, and binds the free testosterone, so aromatase can't make estrogens out of it. Flax, on the other hand, increases SHBG, so it could be counterproductive to use flax without adding oats. Both flax and oats are in Eve M's program.

Hanah.k and Dargona are now on both hops and PM:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=10221&pid=37622#pid37622
I will check their updates to see if there's something in it for me.

Sfem posted his symptoms and feelings after stopping the maintenance dose of 500 mg PM:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=10023&pid=37675#pid37675
Mostly male habits coming back, by lack of the estrogens and anti-androgens in PM. Not much different from what I would get if I stopped hops.

Chrishoney did a great search on PM cancer research. Finally some convincing results:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=9957&pid=36282#pid36282
My arguments for not using PM are becoming weaker. So who knows, one day?

The only thing that still worries me is that PM increases dopamine directly:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=8419&pid=36473#pid36473
Might be great for Parkinson's patients, but it also means PM can turn some people into junkies overnight. But even that can be managed: try it for a week, stop it, and see what happens.

[Isabelle]

My libido is on the high side today, and I have other things to do, apart from chasing every woman in sight. So today could be a great day to experiment with flax. I have broken brown flax seed here.

Flax is a phyto-estrogen, but it also increases Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG), and it inhibits aromatase. Moreover, mixing phyto-estrogens makes the digestion to estradiol less effective.

I'm not too worried about the decreased efficiency of the digestion: I have linked the publication before in this thread, and it says two phyto-estrogens are still better than one. That was tested on soy, hop, and flax, the three phyto-estrogens Eve M used.

I'm not worried about the inhibition of aromatase either. Testosterone binds 100 times stronger to aromatase than the lignans in flax. I also linked the publication about that before.

The increase in SHBG was observed after weeks of 10-25% of flax in the diet, so I wouldn't expect an immediate effect. But I can always try. Flax seed must be soaked in water before use. I'll put 100 g in water for later today.

[Isabelle]

My libido went down when I was still eating the flax seed. It takes an hour to chew 100 g of flax seed

I scooped up the old literature on flax increasing SHBG. This was a 12 week study on a diet consisting for 25 % of soy and flax:
http://journals.lww.com/menopausejournal..._on.5.aspx
"Marked increase in serum levels of SHBG was observed in the phytoestrogen-rich diet group (from 55.8 +/- 7.09 nmol/L to 71.2 +/- 6.56 nmol/L)."
That's huge. I assume 1 nmol/L binds 1 nmol/L of testosterone. Then the increase in SHBG after 12 weeks, 71.2 - 55.8 = 15.4 nmol/L could bind 15.4 nmol/L of testosterone.

"In the United States, male total testosterone levels below 300 ng/dL from a morning serum sample are generally considered low":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone
The molecular mass of testosterone is 288.42. Then 300 ng/dL is 300 ng/dL * 10 dL/L / 288.42 ng/nmol = 10.4 nmol/L. So the effect of 12 weeks of flax and soy on SHBG is enough to bind all of the testosterone a man has. Karen wrote that at her age, 500 is normal, 900 is way too high.

Moreover, in a male, only 0.7 % is free testosterone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone/SHBG

I found another, unexpected conclusion in an even older publication: flax lengthens the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Only by 1 day, but still:
http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/77/5/1215.short
I wonder what that means for women who experience longer cycles on PM. Do all phyto-estrogens lengthen the cycle? Does estrogen lengthen the cycle?

[Isabelle]

I woke up with libido as good as ever. So one big shot of 100 mg flax seed certainly does not do much to increase SHBG. I'll take smaller quantities through the rest of the week, and check if anything changes, on my tape day, next Monday, October 17th.

After that, I think I'll try milk thistle for a month. That will take me to mid November. I have a panax ginseng root too, but maybe I should try L-arginine first, because HGH is supposed to do most during the darkest months.

I measure the same as last week. Maybe breast - under bust has gone up 1 cm to 107 - 96 = 11 cm. We'll see. I have a feeling it was always 8 cm, until I added goat's rue. Then it jumped up to 10 cm. So maybe I should do more experiments, between a week and a month long, to see if anything else adds something.

[Isabelle]

I didn't mention my weight this morning: 80.0 kg. I'm definitely going where I want to be

The publication I found yesterday keeps bugging me. I mean the one about flax lengthening the luteal phase. If flax does that, how about hops and soy? Hops does cause "menstrual disturbances":
http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/84/6/2249.short
This is the publication about the discovery of the most potent phyto-estrogen in hops, 8-prenylnaringenin. Later work by the same authors keeps citing the same sentence, without specifying what these "menstrual disturbances" were.

Soy increases the length of the follicular phase:
http://www.ajcn.org/content/60/3/333.short
This is strange. Flax and soy both digest to estradiol. So what does estradiol itself do? Estradiol implants suppress ovulation and cause "severe menstrual disturbance":
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1167631
This publication also menstions that the administration or witdrawal of progesterone did not cause migraines.

So it should be clear by now: any phyto-estrogen, and estradiol itself, disturb the cycle. Estradiol suppresses ovulation. So stopping phyto-estrogens on day 12 is certainly part of the answer. I don't know if using progesterone in the second half of the cycle will help, but it certainly won't hurt.

[Isabelle]

What I read about cycling PM is beginning to make sense now. Estradiol suppresses ovulation. So it's stopping PM on day 12 that triggers an ovulation in one or two days. The period follows 14 days later.

Stopping PM abruptly on day 25 triggers a second ovulation on day 27. That causes the spotting on day 13 of the next cycle. It also explains why some cycles can be as long as 42 days. Symptoms of early pregnancy can also appear in the last week of a long cycle then.

This still does not explain why women who take PM continuously appear to get cycles of 36 days. One day of forgetting PM can be enough, but would they all forget it on day 20? What's so special about day 20?

[Isabelle]

Much of the confusion about PM cycling started on the second half of this F.A.Q page of Bella's, a PM vendor:
http://www.bellasbeautifullbust.com/FAQ-dosage.html
The text recommends starting PM on the last day of the period, and continuing for 15 days, based on a misconception about the estrogen cycle, assuming that estrogens are high for 15 days after the last day of the period. In reality, estrogens drop on day 12, counting from the first day of the period as day 1.

The text is right to recommend a gradual dose increase after the period. From day 25 to the last day of the period, estrogens are naturally at their lowest, but not zero. After the period, estrogens gradually increase up to day 11 (for a 28 day cycle). On day 12, estrogens drop steeply. The natural decrease is not all the way to zero, but so far, best results have been achieved by stopping PM completely until the ovulation is over.

A modest dose can then be continued up to, and including, day 24. As long as this dose is accompanied by enough sources of progesterone to ensure progesterone dominance, and as long as the decrease of estrogens on day 25 is not a sharp stop. A sharp stop could trigger another ovulation.

The last paragraph on Bella's F.A.Q. page recommends a decrease of the PM dose if the cycle is messed up. I agree that stopping altogether is not the right thing to do. It will just trigger another ovulation