Insomnia from Progesterone?

by Marie
(Michigan)

I'm 39 and blood tests on 2 occasions showed lack of ovulation, though my cycles do arrive every month. Around September I suddenly started having severe insomnia, on top of other menopausal type symptoms like dryness, lack of libido, and hair thinning. Nothing I took seemed to help me sleep.

My doctors all attributed it to anxiety, which I've struggled with my whole life. However, there was no particular event that would have triggered the sleep problems and I had actually been sleeping better than I had in 2 years when this started. Recently I started using a bit of progesterone cream hoping to sort out the imbalance, along with other methods (meditation, etc.) to help me sleep (I was going along with the doctors who told me it was anxiety). After a few days of using less than 1/8 tsp of the cream in the mornings, I started sleeping better, and actually lowered my sleeping medication. But the following month the cream was causing the insomnia to become worse almost immediately (I was using less than 10 mg a day).

I'm scared to continue the cream, not knowing if this is something that will pass. The insomnia is horrible, and severely impacts my life.

I'm grateful for any advice.

Thank you!

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Insomnia from Progesterone?

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Feb 05, 2010

Low Estrogen
by: suzy-q

Sounds like you could have low estrogen. Low levels can cause anxiety and sleep problems. Progesterone while helpful to some can cause anxiety in others by raising cortisol levels (the stress hormone). I had to find this out the hard way, as I have encountered the same issues you have had. Hope this helps.

Feb 23, 2010

Insomnia from Progesterone?
by: Wray

Hi Marie. Anovulatory cycles do start at about age 35, so this is not unusual. But it does mean your progesterone levels are dropping, as it's only when we ovulate that we make progesterone. So the symptoms are not unusual either. Anxiety is caused by a lack of GABA, it's one of our most calming neurotransmitters. GABA itself is difficult to use, but as progesterone activates the GABA receptor sites, it's normally enough to stop the anxiety.
You might like to see this web page.

It would seem your progesterone has been too low all your life, and the 1/8th tsp is not enough. All the successful studies used between 100-200mg/day, some more for the severe cases. Stress does drop progesterone levels sharply, which increases adverse symptoms. If you're not ovulating regularly it would mean you have excess oestrogen, this also suppresses progesterone. Cortisol, our stress hormone, is made in the adrenals from progesterone, so any added stress would drop the level. The reason the insomnia worsened was excess oestrogen, please see this web page for more info. Take care, Wray