Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[discogirl]

Hi all,

Im really sorry to post again, but I'm just needing a lot of help at the moment!!!

I've been on HRT since last thursday (early days I know), and I've been suffering from chronic insomnia since february.

I've discovered that for some women utrogestan can cause insomnia and as I'm wanting to avoid anything that might cause insomnia I was wondering do you have to take the utrogestan at night?

I mean can you take it earlier in the day? and if I do take it earlier in the day, would that help me avoid insomnia from the utrogestan?

thanks xx

[Marchlove]

Hi Discogirl

For the majority of women it doesn’t cause insomnia, in fact the opposite, it helps them sleep.

Have you tried it yet?

You can take it in the morning but if you haven’t tried it yet I’d start off with at night so you can test it out for yourself.

X

[discogirl]

Hi Marchlove,

Yes, I've been on it since last thursday.

It's just I'm also on amitrypline 20mg for tinnitus, but I take that in the morning as it doesn't help with sleep, but it literally takes me ages now to fall asleep.

I think I just need to be patient with my HRT and wait for my estrogen and progesterone levels to even out and see if that helps.

thanks once again for your support, I really appreciate it xxx

[Marchlove]

It could be that it will even out for you.

But that said it never did for me so I take progesterone and estrogen in the morning now, first thing.

X

[discogirl]

Well I'm on estrogen patches

And so it is okay to take the progesterone in the morning?

And can you explain what happened with you regarding progesterone, I mean did it affect your sleep?

xxx

[sheila99]

You can take it whenever you like. Many take it at night as it helps them sleep. Others do this because they use it vaginally and it stays in for longer. If it suits you to take it in the morning there's no reason from an hrt point of view why you shouldn't. It doesn't help me sleep but it does give me fatigue in the day.

[Marchlove]

I wasn’t sleeping well before I started it and taking it did not help, in fact I think it made it worse.
Also, for me, taking estrogen at night makes my sleep worse.
So I take them both in the morning when they are naturally higher in your body anyway.
My sleep has improved, I get about 7 hours but I’m awake for about an hour during the middle of the night. Not anxious just awake and thinking over the day. So that’s still work in progress, but a lot better.

If you find that even after switching the Utrogestan to the morning that your sleep doesn’t improve, it may help if you switch to gel instead of patches and use it in the morning.

But it’s still early days for you on hrt so don’t make too many changes at once.

X

[discogirl]

that is so helpful. thank you so much marchlove
xx

[joziel]

Marchlove, waking up in the middle of the night and having 'two sleeps' is how humanity did things for a very long time ( in case you didn't know that), so it might not be evidence of something not being right - it might be optimal and not something to try to change.

See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/medieval-sleeping-habits-insomnia-segmented-biphasic/621372/

You can also google the idea of 'two sleeps' and medieval practices. It used to be very normal for everyone to wake in the night and do stuff and then go back to bed again....!

[Marchlove]

Ah ha Joziel, I’ll have a look!! X

[Marchlove]

I like the 3am awakening’s being an ‘ancestral echo’.

Bizarrely where I was once extremely anxious during these awakenings, this then moved into a complex spiritual part of my life where I thought about and saw images of what I came to think were my distant ancestors.
They never spoke just moved about in my head.
Difficult to explain, but anyway I found them calming and as time went by I have worried less about my lack of sleep and bizarrely since doing so it has slowly improved.
Since reading this, I might even stop looking for a solution all together! X

[discogirl]

Hi Marchlove.

Just wanted to ask, regarding your sleep and utrogestan.

when you were taking utrogestan at night, did you have trouble getting to sleep or was it waking in the middle of the night?

And now you take utrogestan in the morning, is your sleep a lot better? I mean, if you had trouble getting to sleep is that better now? It's just with me, it's trouble getting to sleep, I can lie there for hours and hours, once I'm asleep I'm fine. This and the anxiety were two of the main reasons I went on HRT. Sorry for all the questions.

And also regarding your 3am awakenings, that is so interesting; and amazing that this helped calming you down.

I would love to have a similar experience.

And Joziel, I totally agree, I believe that our sleep patterns, and sometimes the trouble we all seem to have with sleep patterns can be sometimes be related to  our 'modern way of living', and our original body clock, from our ancestors, was totally different to the way we have all had to adjust over the thousands of years.

Thank you both xxx

[Marchlove]

Hi Discogirl

Ok, so yes I had trouble getting to sleep but also waking up a few hours later. So it was more an overall sleep problem.

I now no longer take Utrogestan but am on compounded bhrt. Starting bhrt however made no difference to my insomnia when I used it at night.

So the Utrogestan and the compounded progesterone have both, using it first thing in the morning, slowly but surely improved my sleep.

I hope this helps you going forward, but do remember that my experience might not necessarily be yours.
So my advice is give each regime you use a long enough trial before you decide that is not the best thing for you at the moment.

M x

[discogirl]

Hi Marchlove,

Thanks so much for that and yes, that's exactly what I will do; I'm going to give it enough time as it very early days
yet and see how I get on.

Thanks for sharing about your experiences, I have found them so very helpful.

Take care x

[Suziemc]

I found that taking utrogestan at bedtime stopped me from getting to sleep, I'd toss and turn for an hour or two before eventually getting a good night's sleep. So I now take it at 8.30 every evening, this works for me as we generally eat at about 6 and I usually go to bed just after 10. For me it means it's two hours after eating and I fall asleep more easily. Maybe play around a bit with your timings, giving it a week or two each time, to see what suits you and your own routine.