[mochaccino]

I've been re-reading pieces of Ginie's thread whenever I get the chance, but I'm still not done. I think I'm going to attempt to contact her about how she used the PC, but I feel weird about it. She's been off the boards for a while and has presumably moved on with her life. For some reason that makes me feel like it would be wrong to bother her, but I really need to ask.

[Isabelle]

Good morning mochaccino,

I don't know if goat's rue does the exact opposite of what PM does. It's hard to find literature on what goat's rue does to dopamine. I agree one would presume the increase of prolactin decreases it. But then PM still has the estrogenic effect: goat's rue doesn't affect that.

From day 25 to day 10, progesterone is naturally zero. But you can still use goat's rue for swelling while you are taking PM. Goat's rue suppresses LH. The LH peak is necessary to trigger ovulation. So it's safer to stop goat's rue after day 10, until after ovulation, or use fenugreek or WY after ovulation: there's no point in keeping progesterone low then.

Goat's rue helps AAA nooglers to get some swelling to hold the cups. For people who don't noogle, swelling is a way to stretch the breasts, because prolactin starts milk production. Nooglers who have enough swelling to hold the cups, probably will not benefit much from goat's rue any more. The NB will stretch the breast tissue by itself. The belief is that stretched tissue grows over time, and becomes growth after a few months.

I use goat's rue without NB, and I need a lot. At the very least 3 g a day. The first time I noticed that it swells, I used 10 g in one day. It takes at least 1 g every couple of hours to keep the swelling up all day. Extracts are way to expensive for this use, but they may be useful half an hour before noogling. I just replaced all the tea I drink during the day by goat's rue tea. I don't drink it when I take another swelling herb, like fenugreek or black seed.

[adrianna23]

I too was inspired by Ginie's program and read it a few times, from what I remember she didn't use PC every month I think she used it every two months or so and I remember her words were: just a little bit. That's when she was on PM....before that she says she grew on PC alone

[mochaccino]

I just finished rereading Ginie's program. I also noticed that she said she only used "a little" PC. In the context of that post the phrase "a little" doesn't seem to be referring to the fact that she used it only when needed, but I could easily be wrong about that. It's really funny the way Ive been trying to tease out all the little nuances of meaning in the wording of her program page like it's an original draft of some sacred text I still don't know if by "a little" she meant that she used a small dose, or that she used it less than the typical 2 week period, or something else entirely.

Thank God I did manage to figure out how many days she used PM. She used the pills from day 3 or 4 until 2 days before ovulation. I'm not sure what day she usually ovulated but, if she ovulated on day 14, than she would have used it only 10 days per cycle. She also mentions that she used only half the recommended dose. Most people use the full dose for 14 days. If you do the math, that means that Ginie only used 30% of the typical monthly dose. I'm not sure if I should take only half the recommended dose of the Ainterol I ordered, since Ainterol is supposed to be so much weaker. When I first started researching PM ages ago I noticed that most of the women who retained growth from PM seemed to be using a smaller dose of PM on average than women who only experienced a rollercoaster of swelling and shrinking. This seems to confirm that in my opinion. Im sure the experience is different for a few women who's hormonal profile deviates a lot from the average and Im still unclear on what roll different BC's play. I would have jumped on that bandwagon a long time ago if it were perfectly clear that taking the recommended dose continually along with a BC produced retained growth in the majority of women. Thats not to say that there haven't been successes, but it seems to be contingent on a lot of different factors, not all of which I fully understand. Maybe there are people on this board who understand it better. Ginie's program can be finely adjusted to a lot of different hormonal profiles, especially if you use BBT charting the way she did. And you can adjust progesterone levels, rather than just phytoestrogens. That adjustability gives it a big advantage over static programs IMO. I think I just convinced myself to do BBT even though I really wanted to avoid all that fuss

I also found out more about the way Ginie used BBT to decide when to take PC. She says that when her cycle was too short she used PC during the 2nd half of the following cycle. When her BBT chart showed that she had had an anovulatory cycle, she used PC for the 2nd halves of the following 2 cycles. Chiyomilk also used BBT charting, but she adjusted her PM dose since she was not taking PC.

Ginie also used PM cream twice a day throughout her cycle. That's important because it means she was effectively taking a lower dose of phytoestrogens during
the second half of her cycle, just like Chiyomilk. Of course, Chiyomilk got her extra phytoestrogens from B-up, and it may have also raised prolactin. Ginie seems to believe that increasing prolactin would have improved her actual growth rather than just swelling, but she doesn't say where she got that idea and she doesn't seem to have done much to put the idea to use in her program. At some point she did begin drinking fennel tea, probably to increase prolactin, but she says she was extremely inconsistent with it, and I don't know how long she continued drinking it.

I still don't know what to think of the pig placenta in their programs. I was wrong when I said that Ginie used lamb placenta. She only used pig placenta and she says that she heard that pig placenta is somehow more similar to human placenta, and is more effective. Unfortunately she doesn't say where she got that info and she doesn't get into the details. She also says that a friend of hers claims to have accidentally increased one cup size from placenta alone even though she did not want larger breasts. If anyone has experienced any hormonal effects from pig or lamb placenta (and you were not taking any other directly hôrmonal supplements) please let me know. I still cant decide whether to take it

Im going to try contacting Ginie about the exact amount of PC she took. I wanted to be sure I carefully read through her program again before bothering her with questions. I know that a lot of people contacted her during her program and even months after she was finished with BE. If any of you were able to find out how many days she used PC per cycle, please let me know.

[mochaccino]

I noticed that their programs also contained a lot of things that are meant to increase collagen, but I was ignoring that and focusing on figuring out the hormonal aspects of their programs. I think I might take CH-osa (a bioavailable form of silica) for collagen synthesis and just rely on a healthy high protein diet for the rest. I'm debating whether or not I should start using my copper peptide lotion for perkiness again. I don't know if I'll have time for it in between applications of PM, PC, and vaseline (I use the vaseline for noogling).

I don't think I'm going to bother with a million different vitamins and supplements this time around. I'm trying to follow the 80/20 principle as much as possible with my new program. I don't think I'm even going to bother taking a multi any more. Not even for health, since it's probably barely serves any purpose in my case. Instead I'll just follow a healthy diet, and focus on the supplements that have a major direct impact on my hormones. I'm considering still taking biotin for hair and nails, but I'm not even sure I want to bother. Maybe it's TMI, but it's probably a bad sign that I was producing borderline opaque urine during the most complicated part of my BE journey Even if it wasn't dangerous, it probably meant that most of that stuff I was taking was just being wasted. No more money down the toilet, and no more forgetting to take an important supplement because I'm already taking too many stupid ones.

[mochaccino]

I just want to add that I post all this info for future reference but also to get useful feedback. If you disagree with any thing I'm doing, or you think I misunderstood something, or should add something else to my program let me know.

[Strumpet]

It's awesome that you're trying to sort out Ginie's program. She seemed to have really great results, it can be confusing to sort through because it's ostensibly based off of Chiyomilk's but it's actually got quite a few differences.

I think you've done a good job analyzing it. I was thinking about doing this one too and I wasn't sure about the pig placenta myself - Ginie mentioned she thought it might be having an impact both on her breast growth and she reported hip/butt growth if I remember correctly? But I wasn't able to find pig placenta except on Japanese sites which would make it very expensive. :/

Good luck

[mochaccino]

Thanks Strumpet
I'm considering adding lamb placenta and Maca to the program I described but I'm not sure yet. If I do include all the add-ons I'm considering, then my new program will have expanded to 7 different supplements plus Noogleberry, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid.

I've heard that glandular therapy is much more popular in certain parts of Europe than it is in the US and the UK. Does anyone know of human studies on placenta that are in languages other than English? I can't stand knowing so little about a potential supplement.

[Doll]

My god do you do your research. So much of it is so far beyond what I can even comprehend. ^^;

I do, however, agree with you on cutting vitamin supplements and such and focusing on a healthier diet. I was taking vitamins, but stopped because they were too cheap and didn't give me any benefits that the actual vitamin should. However, even expensive vitamin supplements won't give you the same nutritional value as a healthy diet. If you can afford to live on a mostly organic diet, you'll get the most out of your foods. However, even if you can't, adding more nutritional foods and veggies is still a lot better than supplements. Too much gets lost in the process of making those pills (which is why even with my herbs I try to go with whatever is the closest to being organic and has the least amount of fillers). I think I'm getting more Vitamin A out of my spinach salads now than I ever did with my Wal-Mart Vitamin A supplements.
And everyone says biotin/collagen and MSM are all great supplements with BE, so even if you stop taking other supplements, adding one of those might do you some good. Maybe my MSM I recently added is what's been helping me so much this month.

Also, dark urine can mean that you're dehydrated. Especially with NBE herbs, you should really be drinking more to make up for it. I rarely ever drink anything, I don't get thirsty, and mine became really dark once I started on my herbs. I have to buy water bottles so I can carry them around with me to remind me to drink now, since my body doesn't tell me on its own. Try drinking a little more and see if that helps any before assuming it's just the NBE.

Wish I knew more to give you more advice on your program, but you seem to be doing your homework, so I'll bet it works for you.

[mochaccino]

Doll, I'm hardly ever dehydrated. Actually I drink an obsessively huge amount. It's not unusual for me to get 2 refills of a large glass at a restaurant. I've just always been that way. Your program's always been so simple and reasonable, not crazy like mine was. I think at the most complicated point in my BE history I was taking around 25 pills a day. Megadoses of 10 different supplements will turn your pee a rainbow of colors. I'm trying to dial down the crazy from now on.