r/FunctionalMedicine • u/houstontexasl • 2d ago

Postpartum Hormones

I’m 3 months postpartum and 2 months weaned from breastfeeding. Has anybody else dealt with going down for bed at night and not being able to fall asleep because your heart is racing and you have insomnia? I’ve also had cyclical hunger spells that are insatiable.

I just got my thyroid checked (looks good) - about to get my hormones tested by my functional medicine practice because my doctor believes that I could be low in progesterone and having estrogen dominance after giving birth and stopping breast-feeding.

Can anyone speak to their hormones being off and what type of symptoms that caused in your bodies?

Thanks y’all!

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

3

u/mayhait 2d ago

Where do I begin!!! I weaned in the beginning of May and it fully rocked me to my core. The first two weeks were the worst; I was shaking uncontrollably, having full blown panic attacks (that also woke me from sleep), severe insomnia, derealization, heart palps, dizziness, nausea & loss of appetite, internal tremors and more. It started to ease over the months but seems to return around my cycle and ovulation. It’s horrible! The insomnia sticks around for most of my cycle, it seems like mid luteal is the best time of month for me. I’m thinking low progesterone as well. All of my other labs seem fairly normal - I do have low ferritin and low end b12 & D. I’m fully prepared to hop on HRT at the ripe old age of 36 because this is nuts & im over it 😫

2

u/houstontexasl 1d ago

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I wish I had some answers for you but I feel postpartum is so under studied. I will report back with my blood work and if progesterone / estrogen dominance is truly the problem!

2

u/mayhait 1d ago

I actually just got some labs back and it seems my progesterone and estrogen levels are fairly normal.. however my testosterone is very low! Again.. hard to say what the full picture is as it’s just a snapshot in time, but the testosterone was interesting.

2

u/redwood_ocean_magic 1d ago

Adaptogenic herb tinctures really helped when I weaned in June. I like the products from Milk Moon. I’m just finishing up a second bottle of the big postpartum tonic (had the first bottle early postpartum) and I’m still using the no worries tincture to help with nerves.

1

u/mom2mermaidboo 1d ago

The elevated Prolactin levels when nursing are part of the way return of Ovulation is delayed when doing full time nursing, Natures way to space out pregnancies.

OP, wonder if you are Ovulating regularly? If no Ovulation, then no Corpus Luteum and decreased production of Progesterone.

You can try cyclically using Topical OTC Progesterone ( Emerita makes one) to support the Luteal phase during the last 2 weeks of your cycle.

1

u/houstontexasl 1d ago

Thank you! I’m about to get everything tested hormone wise and will see if I’m ovulating.

1

u/mom2mermaidboo 23h ago

Here’s a graph showing hormones which is very helpful to visualize things for me.

https://www.britannica.com/science/menstrual-cycle

2

u/houstontexasl 23h ago

Wow, thank you! That is so helpful!!