Print

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

[bombsh3ll]

Hi Kara,

I can't comment on the hair loss because slynd (drospirenone) is anti-androgenic and if anything should help against hair loss.

There can be other causes for this eg thyroid, nutrition, stress, genetics etc.

However the need for more estrogen is biologically plausible as drospirenone increases sex hormone binding globulin which binds up available estrogen so there is less free.

Additionally, this reduces free testosterone as well as the direct anti-androgenic effects, so potentially this can result in reduced muscle gain.

Have you considered taking testosterone at all? This may however have a negative impact on hair loss.

[karab]

Hi bombsh3ll,

My doctor did think the hair loss was probably being caused by the drug effectively reducing estrogen (and there were other signs of this), and that's why she bumped my dose up.  It may be some of the hair will come back with more time at the higher dose.  I haven't seen any sign of this yet, though, and I wasn't sure how far to go up on estrogen.  The better sleep when I messed up my patches made me wonder if I needed even more estrogen.

I am taking testosterone, mine was originally superlow (like 3 on a blood test), went up to more like 20 with testosterone cream, and then back down to 10 when I started taking slynd without changing my testosterone dose.  My doctor is recommending I increase the testosterone dose to counteract the slynd; she did say other patients were having testosterone problems on slynd.  Maybe it's just the testosterone drop causing problems with muscle and injury.

Kara

[Sugarant]

Hi Kara,
Just checking in with you about how you're getting on with Slynd. I've been on it since last June and immediately got massive hair loss and stopped sleeping. I thought those things would even out but the hair loss has only JUST stabilised in the last few weeks and the sleep continues to be terrible. It also didn't stop the constant spotting, which was the point of the change. I spoke to my consultant today and she's agreed to put me back on Utrogestan, and I'm so happy. She wasn't worried about the hair loss, saying that was just natural menopause hormones, but she agreed the sleep was an issue.
Are you still taking it? Has anything improved for you?
x

[karab]

Hi Sugarant,

No, I quit Slynd too, after massive hair loss that didn't seem to stop.  Now I'm on a higher dose of estrogen, along with 200 mg progesterone nightly.  I'm still having bleeding when I shouldn't, but much less than on the lower dose of estrogen.  It's still a work in progress, but I'm just so happy my hair isn't continuing to fall out.  Sleep is also better again with the estrogen patch and progesterone.

For others dealing with Slynd, I think it took a few months for my hormones to normalize after Slynd and I continued to need more estrogen than before.  I think it's just now coming back fully and I'm starting to go down on the high estrogen dose. 

No one suggested until recently that my breakthrough bleeding was because my estrogen dose wasn't high enough, since my dose was already "high".  I'm not sure what will happen in the end, but I know I feel a lot better than I felt on any other regime.  Other than light breakthrough bleeding and the results of the hair loss from other regimes, I feel like I have my life back.  I also think I started to feel it when estrogen was too much, which I wish I would have known would be the case.  I really felt I knew when to go back down -- I had kind a mild wired feeling all the time, and didn't want caffeine.  When I reduced my estrogen slightly, I felt a lot better.  Still taking .18 patch (which I know some think is too much for anyone) and just getting scans to make sure the 200 mg progesterone is enough to control any uterine build up.  Apparently if I was on low dose birth control, that would still be more estrogen than the .18 patch.

Hope both of our hair rejuvenates and your sleep gets better.  <3  Interested to hear if you come up with anything to help with the bleeding, and I'll try to update with my experiments.  I'm trying to go off the progesterone for a few days when I noticed bleeding to encourage withdrawal bleed and see if that helps.

Kara