Sunday 10 December 2017

Could Low Progesterone Contribute to Addiction?

a post by Kristen McGuiness for the World of Psychology blog

When I had six years sober, my husband and I decided to get pregnant. I quit the birth control pill and entered the darkest depression of my life.

I wasn’t surprised when the test results came back. After three chemical pregnancies and one miscarriage, it was clear that I was having trouble getting pregnant. But what I didn’t expect was that my fertility troubles might be related to my past struggles with addiction. And what was that common ground? A lack of progesterone.

For years, I had struggled with depression. Though I never charted the highs and lows of my mental health to determine whether it was hormonal, after my OB/GYN explained to me that low progesterone levels could not only cause difficulty in the implantation process, but also depression, I felt like the detective at the end of Usual Suspects, Kaiser Soze. That’s what’s wrong with me.

Progesterone is one of the hormones that stimulates and regulates various functions, playing a key role in preparing the body for conception and pregnancy while regulating the monthly menstrual cycle in order to maintain pregnancy.

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