Hi.
I'm Dr. Marc Sklar, the fertility expert, and welcome to Fertility TV.
In this episode, I'm going to be talking all about the ever important hormone, progesterone.
That's right., progesterone.
So, if you're trying to get pregnant, you want to know what progesterone actually does,
how you can test for it and what you can do to improve it if you need to, and I want to
make sure you stick around not only to watch this video but all the way to the end where
I give you all the important information to help you get pregnant, so keep watching.
Hi.
I'm Dr. Marc Sklar, the fertility expert, and I work with couples from all over the
world to help you get pregnant naturally.
So, if you want more support on your fertility journey, then make sure you subscribe to Fertility
TV.
Hit that bell so that I can help you too.
Before I begin this video, I want to quickly announce that my Fertility Coaching Program
is open for applicants.
So, if you're interested in joining my group and want my support to help you on your fertility
journey, and I want you to use the link below in the description to apply for discovery
call.
If you want my help on your fertility journey, I would be honored to support you, so use
the link below so that you can apply for discovery call with me and my team.
As we get started discussing progesterone, this ever important hormone progesterone,
I want to know from all of you, how many of you believe that progesterone is an essential
hormone not only to get pregnant but to stay pregnant?
I want to know.
Comment below, yes or no.
Do you believe that it's an essential hormone?
Okay, so now, let's get into the details about progesterone.
First and foremost, I want you all to know it's one of my favorite hormones because of
how important it is and what it can do for you for your overall health, for your mood
and most importantly, for your fertility.
I will also tell you it's the hormone that I get the most questions about, which is also
another reason why I think it's really important.
First and foremost, just to let you all know, I've got my notes right here and that's because
I don't want to leave anything out.
I want to make sure I get you all the information that's in here out of here.
All right, so progesterone is one of the primary hormones that your body produces.
It's an essential reproductive hormone, essential for reproduction, for your menstrual cycle,
and for fertility.
It also works in synchronization with estrogen.
They work in tandem with one another so that they can support each other and balance each
other out.
Simply really, progesterone, for all of you who don't know, is most dominant in the second
half of the cycle in the luteal phase of the cycle, which is what the second half of the
cycle is called after ovulation.
It's at its lowest in the first half in the follicular cycle and really peaks seven days
post-ovulation.
That's when progesterone spikes and is at its peak.
It can rise a little bit more if you do get a positive pregnancy test, but right now,
for the sake of a regular menstrual cycle, progesterone peaks seven days post-ovulation.
So, how does progesterone rise after ovulation?
This is a very common question that gets asked.
So, what we have to understand is we've got to go back to the first half of the cycle
to understand how the second half of the cycle works and what progesterone does.
The follicle that matures in your ovaries, okay, so when someone is doing an ultrasound
and they are looking at your ovaries, they're not looking at the eggs that are being produced.
They're looking at the follicles.
The eggs are inside the follicles, and at ovulation, the follicle opens up, the egg
comes out, and we've got our egg that hopefully gets inseminated and fertilized and then implants
into the uterus, but this follicle turns into what is called the corpus luteum.
In the second half of the menstrual cycle, the corpus luteum produces progesterone.
That's what allows progesterone to stay high at that time of the cycle.
One interesting really cool fact is that the corpus luteum is an endocrine gland, so your
body produces a new endocrine gland every menstrual cycle.
That is super cool, super neat, I think one of the more incredible things that a female
body actually does, so put that in the back of your head.
Mental note to self, the corpus luteum is an endocrine gland, which is pretty cool.
If you have implantation, then the corpus luteum will help to maintain your progesterone
levels during the first trimester of your pregnancy until your placenta's able to take
over.
So, it serves a really, really important role, right?
Not only is the corpus luteum able to produce a lot of progesterone but it helps to hold
that pregnancy once you do have implantation.
When we look at hormones like progesterone and estrogen, we also often associate them
with temperatures.
Estrogen is a very cool hormone.
It helps to keep the temperatures a little bit cooler in the first half of the cycle.
After ovulation, when progesterone increases, progesterone actually warms up the body and
creates more heat in the body.
This is actually what causes your basal body temperature to rise, your BBT temps to rise,
is the increase of progesterone in the second half of the cycle.
This rise actually shows that you've ovulated, and it also is healthy because it tells you
you've got a good amount of progesterone, and hopefully, we see it not only rise there
but rise again that shows a pregnancy.
Progesterone does a lot of wonderful things in the body.
One of which is preparing the endometrium for implantation, which obviously is essential
when we're talking about fertility and reproductive health, but it's not the only thing that it
does.
So, what are the main things that progesterone does in the body?
First and foremost, it helps calm the nervous system.
It relaxes it.
Second, as I mentioned earlier, it does prepare the endometrium for pregnancy, which is one
of the most important things that progesterone does for us.
It also helps to maintain healthy breast health, heart health.
It helps with regulating thyroid function, with regulating the nervous system and with
brain function, and as a result of helping and supporting brain function, it helps with
mood, helps reduce anxiety and helps with maintaining healthy sleep.
You can never talk about progesterone in isolation.
You always have to talk about progesterone in relationship to estrogen, and there is
this phenomenon called estrogen dominance or having too much estrogen in the body.
I'm not going to spend much time on it at this moment in this video, but again, as I
mentioned earlier in the video and as I mentioned now, you really can't talk about progesterone
without talking about estrogen and vice versa.
You can't talk about estrogen without talking about progesterone.
I have created a whole other video that is all about estrogen, estrogen dominance and
what all of that means.
If you have not checked it out, then after you watch this video, you can click right
over here to check out that video as well because that's really important.
So, if you're more interested in estrogen, then click that video.
If you want to learn a little bit more about progesterone before you do that, then hang
out and keep watching, but these two hormones balance each other out and work with one another.
So, often, we might see that estrogen is too high but in reality, it's not.
Progesterone is too low, and that's why they work together and why they're so important
to one another and why we talk about them together.
All right.
So, what are some key signs of low progesterone in the body?
First and foremost is spotting or irregular bleeding.
This happens that you could have some bleeding in the luteal phase or some spotting in luteal
phase, or you might start spotting or bleeding too early before menstruation starts, so instead
of a day 28 or 29, it might happen at day 25 or 26, which is a sign that progesterone
is dropping and not high enough, not sufficient enough.
You might also see this in your BBT charts, that your BBT temperatures, they'd go high,
they maintain for a little bit, and then they drop just a smidge, or they come down too
early and too quickly.
This could also be a sign of low progesterone in the body.
Another indicator for low progesterone might be that you have long menstrual cycles.
That might be another indicator for low progesterone, having headaches or migraines.
Mood changes such as anxiety or depression could be a sign of progesterone.
We talked about before how it helps to regulate brain function and anxiety and mood, right?
So, this goes hand in hand with that.
You also might see low libido.
You might not have that sex drive that you used to have.
That could be a sign of low progesterone.
Hot flashes.
We already talked about irregular menstrual cycles.
Some weight gain could be a sign of that, and then some other issues, reproductive issues
could be fibroids, and endometriosis could be a sign of low progesterone.
They could also be a sign of estrogen dominance.
This is where some testing comes in, but last but not least before we go on to how can you
know more about your levels is thyroid function.
So, thyroid function or thyroid disease can be an indicator of low progesterone as well.
Three things that really contribute to healthy progesterone levels.
We already mentioned one of them just now.
Thyroid health, right?
There's a strong connection and correlation between healthy thyroid function and healthy
progesterone levels but also stress.
Stress can play a huge role in all of your reproductive hormones and healthy levels of
all of your reproductive hormones.
Progesterone is absolutely no different, and then also, blood sugar.
Maintaining healthy blood sugar and insulin levels will also help to support and maintain
healthy progesterone levels and vice versa.
If you don't have healthy blood sugar levels, then that can lead to low progesterone as
well.
So, how can we know what our progesterone levels actually are?
Well, I'm a firm believer of testing, not guessing.
So, absolutely, I want all of you to test.
If you want more information on what your progesterone levels are doing and what the
levels are, then the first thing you need to know is when you test your progesterone.
First and foremost, you test it seven days post-ovulation.
I actually also test progesterone in the beginning of the cycle because I just want to make sure
it's low, but it should be low there.
That's not the ideal time to test progesterone.
The ideal time to test progesterone is seven days post-ovulation, so you've got to know
when you're ovulating.
Count seven days, and then have your progesterone tested at that time.
That should be when your progesterone is at its peak, which is what we want to know.
Okay.
Ideally for me, I'd like to see that level be at least at 15, preferably 20 or above.
That tells me that there's a strong, nice, healthy, progesterone level that you're producing.
If you have not had your progesterone levels tested, then absolutely, I want you to get
them tested.
So, if you haven't had that tested, you can do this from the comfort of your home with
this awesome kit from Let's Get Checked.
If you want the link for this, then you can get it in the description below, and you can
use the code, DRMARC20, D-R-M-A-R-C-2-0, to get a discount on your testing kit as well.
Easy to do from the comfort of your own home, secure.
You get a private login for you.
You collect at home right here with a little vial, send it into the lab.
In two to five days, you will have those results in an email and in your private login to your
account.
So, it's super easy, super simple to do at home with Let's Get Checked.
The link again is down below in the description, so check it out.
If you want a coupon code for that to get a little discount, it's DRMARC20 to get that
coupon code as well.
So, if you haven't tested your progesterone, you should.
You could also test all your other hormones with them as well, but right now, we're talking
about progesterone, so I wanted to make sure that we address that specifically.
Again, seven days post-ovulation is the ideal time to do that.
This often gets messed up, which is why I keep repeating it.
Seven days post-ovulation.
Okay, last but not least, the ever important, what can you do to support your progesterone
levels?
So, let's just say you do get your hormones tested.
You find out that they're too low.
What can you do about it?
Well, two main things, first and foremost, magnesium is a great support for progesterone.
It might help to increase progesterone levels.
It also helps with so many other things like keeping you calm, helping you sleep, relaxing
the body, so in so many ways, it's beneficial, but one of which is to help progesterone levels.
Second, if your progesterone levels are really low, you might actually need to get on progesterone
hormone.
That is something that you should be discussing with your healthcare provider, your OBGYN,
your medical team.
Have your levels tested.
Discuss with them.
Maybe you do need it.
A caveat here is that it's not something you take all month long, okay?
We don't want it to be birth control.
We want it to support you, so the best time to take progesterone is in the luteal phase
of your cycle after ovulation, and then you continue taking it until you know you're not
pregnant or you start your period.
If you take a natural progesterone cream, which I still don't recommend taking unless
you discuss this with your medical team or your healthcare provider, it may not stop
you from starting your period, which is not a bad thing.
I'm just letting you know.
The higher the dosage the progesterone gets and the stronger the prescription, the more
likely it is that you're not going to menstruate until you come off of it.
So, if you do that, I want you to know that you're going to have to take a pregnancy test
every cycle that you're on it if it's stopping you from starting your period so that you
can know if you're pregnant or not, and do you continue to take it through your first
trimester, or do you get off of it and have your cycle start?
So, hopefully, you all found this video helpful and informative.
Please comment below.
Let me know, have you had your progesterone tested, and if so, what was the number?
I want to know, and let's learn from each other, right?
Let's see what everybody puts, so we can see what some of the averages are, what many women
are experiencing and what their levels are, so that way, you could know, if you're in
the norm, if yours is higher than that, or is it lower than that?
So, everybody comment below, and let us know.
All right.
So, did you like this video?
Did you find it important?
If so, give me a thumbs up.
If you are not a subscriber to my YouTube channel, you should be, so make sure you hit
that bell and subscribe so that I can support you on your fertility journey.
Again, if you want more information and more videos on how to support your fertility naturally,
then you can check out some of these videos right here, and until the next episode, stay
fertile.