Symptoms of Low Progesterone in Women
Emotional Downfall
One of the first low progesterone level symptoms is an emotional downfall that makes women susceptible to irritability, vulnerable mood swings, and depression. You may feel disoriented and suffer from a disappointment of sorts with yourself. This is common and will unfortunately persist until your body becomes acclimatized to the hormonal changes.
Weight Gain
A slight to moderate weight gain issue can cause severe stress and anxiety for women. However moderate the weight gain may be, it has the potential to transform into an important health risk if left untreated.
Acne and Hair Growth
Women may notice a severe bout of acne and excessive hair growth, especially on their face, chin and neck. Due to these changes, they go through stress and frequent panic attacks when they see their well-being hampered by acne and excessive hair growth.
Menstrual Disturbances
You are likely to experience menstrual irregularities, the cycles being irregular and erratic in nature. You may also experience fewer period cycles or spotting between periods. On the other hand, a serious condition that requires immediate medical guidance, called menorrhagia, or excessively heavy menstrual bleeding, can also occur with a low progesterone level. If you are experiencing these troubles, consult your gynecologist without much delay.
Tender Breasts
A low progesterone level may result in breast tenderness. There are studies being conducted that are finding the correlation between menopause and progesterone levels being very low. Research suggests that women with low progesterone levels are at an increased risk of developing breast cancer.
Causes of Low Progesterone in Women
Estrogen
There are times when the body is able to produce too much estrogen in certain cases, such as in cases of obesity and with hormone medication. Fat cells produce estrogen. Thus, we may conclude that the more body fat you have, the more estrogen is being produced in your body. When the estrogen levels are higher in terms of production, the progesterone levels produced reduces naturally.
Resistance to Insulin Hormone
When a person’s body has a tolerance to insulin production, this can cause the hormones to become imbalanced, lowering the progesterone production in the body. Resistance to insulin all-together is a leading factor as well.
Chronic Stress
If you are leading a stressful lifestyle, you must know that this can affect the body’s ability to create and produce progesterone. Strenuous physical stress, mental trauma, anxiety and disturbances could severely affect body’s hormones and their productivity.
Insufficient Exercise
A sedentary lifestyle not involving any activity and putting up a lazy front when it comes to regular exercise can cause hormones to get dormant, inactivated or decrease production, causing trauma to the hormone producing gland and hindering the ability to release needed progesterone.
Inappropriate Diet
Malnutrition could be a cause of low progesterone as well. This condition will not only affect your internal organs, but your hormone production will also be hampered. For your body to produce progesterone in the body, proper nutrition is a mandatory requirement.
Need help? If you’d like to be assessed, call 651-209-9909 to schedule an appointment with Dr. Meaghan today.
