[Doll]

You're waaaaayyyyy smarter than me, so bear with me here.

As far as being slightly estrogen dominant to achieve growth...I'm sure that's definitely possible, as I had become estrogen dominant in my program after stopping maca, and continued to see slow growth during that time (permanent growth, as well). However, it would be very tricky to do this on purpose, so you would really have to make sure of what you're doing in order to achieve this. Still, my best growth was in the beginning when I was on maca and had more balanced hormones, although I can't say as to whether that was just my body's growth spurt on its own after needing these hormones all these years, or if it really had to do with exactly how balanced I was at the time. It's also possible I suppose that in my huge growth spurt, I wasn't taking enough maca to fully balance my hormones, and was still very, very slightly estrogen dominant. Since I haven't had a hormone test, it's impossible to say for sure. All I know is that I was estrogen dominant, and I still continued to grow (even as my estrogen dominance became a little more severe and started showing symptoms).

I don't know much about prolactin, but as I'm sure you know, L-Arginine can become expensive over time. Of course, this also depends on how much you intend to take; I'm not sure if you'd be taking less than most because of your goal or not. However, while it may not be the best way to try and raise HGH (a short jog would be much better), it's still great for getting the blood flowing, and would definitely be a great additive to your other pills, especially before massage. Personally, I consider that reason the only real good reason for using it in NBE (although I've never heard of the prolactin aspect before), and if you're able to afford it, it should definitely help.

Wish I could be of actual help, you just know so much!

[mochaccino]

Tibetan, I understand what you're saying, and it's possible that my tests will show a serious imbalance, but I doubt it. I still lack any surefire symptoms. I haven't responded much to herbs, but I don't know if my lack of response can be considered a symptom of anything. It's not as if I've tried every major BE herb, and besides, I might still get some growth from PM. Maybe I've been being a bit too pessimistic about the chance that the PM will work. I am getting pains after all, and it's only my second cycle. Even if I were to get HRT, as far as I know, boob growth isn't considered a good thing during most HRT, at least not by doctors, and I'm not even sure how often it happens as an unintentional side effect. If it turns out that I do actually need HRT, I won't turn it down, of course, but my imbalance would have to be extremely severe for a doctor to be willing give me replacement hormones at my age.

The questions I asked are based on the idea that it might be possible for a normal healthy adult to grow by changing their hormone levels to mimic the hormone levels of puberty. I would love to do it under the supervision of a doctor, but medically supervised NBE doesn't exist. HRT is an entirely different animal. If it turns out that I don't need HRT, then I will have to set my own hormone goals and monitor them myself. I'm not saying that HRT doesn't help with NBE in people who need it. I'm sure it does, but probably only in addition to something else. On the other hand, maybe applying the topicals only to the breasts would make it possible to grow on HRT without any additional supplements, even though HRT is not designed to cause breast growth. Then again, I heard that constantly applying hormones to the same spot will lower the absorption.

[mochaccino]

It turns out that my plan to imitate puberty was based on some really wrong assumptions If I do decide to use estradiol cream, I will need to come up with a different plan. Here's the conclusion I came to in another thread:

I found something! http://aitlvideo.uc.edu/aitl/NewLaBarb/3...Stages.swf

Unfortunately it looks like girls do NOT have higher sex hormone levels during puberty as compared to adulthood. It turns out that all those dumb TV jokes are wrong, and teenagers do not have tons of excess hormones compared to adults. Instead the hormones start out at almost nothing (which is no surprise), and then they slowly rise to adult levels, at which point puberty ends. As far as I can tell, the hormone levels shown for tanner stage 5 are just normal adult hormone levels, except that FSH seems to be high. In other words, recreating puberty is like unbaking a cake. Clearly my plan to imitate puberty is a dead end.

[Doll]

Oh...wow...that's so strange! It makes sense, but at the same time, it really doesn't for NBE. I thought the idea of NBE was to raise your hormones to make your body think it was back in puberty to stimulate growth again! D:

[mochaccino]

No need for the scared face! Your own success is proof that it's possible to grow breasts by raising hormones in an adult. I just wish I knew exactly which hormones need to be raised and by how much. I though I could look up pubertal hormone levels and use them as a kind of cheat sheet. So much for that idea

[AbiDrew85]

Yeah. Agreed that Doll is proof-of-concept that elevated hormones in an adult WILL give breast growth!

Also... Really does suck that there's no such cheat-sheet. I guess we're just all stuck with guess-n-check still.

[mochaccino]

I'm floundering a bit right now thinking about what my program should look like when I start up again after my test. I'm going to do one more cycle with PM and PC, and than I'm taking a month's break to get tested. That gives me a little over 2 months to think it through and plan it out.

PM contains a phytoestrogen similar to estradiol, and it nearly always lengthens the cycle by huge amounts when it's taken on a normal cycling schedule. The length of the cycle wouldn't even matter to me if it weren't for the fact that the amount of time per cycle that I'd spend OFF of PM is becoming much, much longer than the time I spend on ON PM. I'm worried that it could be counterproductive. It seems like estradiol might have a similar effect if I cycled it. I wonder If I should attempt to suppress ovulation if I do decide to use estradiol.

Does anyone have any suggestion for how someone could use estradiol and progesterone creams for BE? Any ideas at all? I'll definitely look into all the options closely before deciding anything.

[TibetanPrincess]

I am currently testing this. If you read my thread, you see how its prescribed.

I however had started on day 4 of follicular phase and my reason for it is to hopefully cause the same effect I had when using a week early with otc progesterone cream. The growth spurt. So I am Ginnie piggin' it.

Trial and error waiting to happen. I'll let you know if it works. Most likely, I will not know till 2-3 months if anything is happening.

[mochaccino]

Yesterday was the first day of my new cycle. I ramped up to 2000mg of PM. It didn't even give me menstrual cramps. I feel totally normal. Im thinking of continuing at this dose for 3 weeks to supress ovulation, but Im not sure what will happen to my cycle if the dose isn't high enough and my ovulation isn't supressed. What exactly happens in that case?

My last cycle was 36 days long. Not that I really care how long my cycle gets, except that it could completely throw off my supplement schedule. I also don't want to cause more serious issues, like extremely heavy or prolonged bleeding. I wonder if I should ramp up my PM dose by a small amount in the 3 or 4 days leading up to ovulation, just to be sure that I don't ovulate, and then drop back down to a normal dose after ovulation. Is that even a good idea?

I was also thinking of overlapping my PC use with the third week of PM use. During my last cycle, I felt the most breast pains when I used PC and PM cream at the same time. I also dimly remember hearing that teenage girls get all of their breast growth during luteal phase at the point where E and P are both raised. Maybe there's something to learn from puberty after all, but I could be imaging things. Does anyone know if it's true? Later I'll probably look up how breast growth relates to the menstrual cycle in puberty. Hopefully Ill actually learn something useful.

[mochaccino]

Tibetan, I just reread your last response, which I didn't really understand the first time. I need to check out your new program. Are you saying that you got the most growth while raising E and P at the same time?