Anyone deal with low progesterone?

KISSIES · February 2014

Hi girls, I'm so angry right now I've been spotting since 5 weeks my progesterone was always under 20 with pio shots. They checked at my request before me stopping at 10 weeks. it was 24 I expressed my concern since it was only 4 points higher than needed with supplementation. I had good feeling it would drop and asked if i could have it rechecked. ob staff called 4 times to tell me to stop taking medication n' that placenta takes over. well i'm now going to be 12 weeks on friday. I called this am for prog level they said dr didn't review them yet. call them around 4pm because they didn't call like they said n' guess what progesterone 7.9! now i'm terrified i'm going to miscarry because no one would listen to me! my hubby is currently running to hospital to get pio. she said i'll take it for 2 weeks then she really doesn't know what to do in re: how long i should continue. she said maybe she'd have to ask high risk dr. The other concern is why isn't placenta producing it? placenta looked good position no tears on ultrasound yesterday. oh and can't forget best part before speaking with the dr the nurse says result and says so she wants you to ask your re. well first off nursing office of re closed, next i'm now her patient and they told her if it was under 20 to resume medication. I can't wait 2 days to get medication from re! ok sorry for the vent and messy post but i'm just so overwhelmed, angry, nervous, stressed right now! I just didn't know if anyone else ran into low progesterone after 10 weeks when placenta should kick in?

TJ1979 · February 2014

I don't have any advice, but that sounds really frustrating and overwhelming. Take a deep breath and try to remain calm. I know that's easier said than done. I'd try to get in with a high risk dr or at least a different ob. That office sounds awful.

itsmevkb · February 2014

I hesitate to respond to this as I don't want to scare you and we all know that every pregnancy is different so my experience does not mean the same will happen to you. I did have low progesterone in my third pregnancy. If you'd like all the details I will share them but my advice would be to try and see a high risk maternal fetal medicine doctor, although even then, some don't buy into progesterone supplementation so it would be great if your OB knows one who does.

KISSIES · February 2014

Yes u can share wont scare me i know the high risk of losing baby. Im so annoyed re wrote letter if i bleed after stopping prog do ultrasound and prog level if under 20 start med. I call today bc ob doesnt know how long i should be on it. Now re changing mind and said not to restart. So i hung up called fert pharm to see if i still had refills on re script n did so ordered it. Her excuse most people dont check prog levels at this point so maybe 7 good. Sry not trustin my baby in a drs guess. So im tryin to do my own research so i can inform my ob what i want done. So any help or knowledge good or bad would be great.

itsmevkb · February 2014

With my third, my progesterone was tested right when I found out that I was pregnant and since it was low I was put on Crinone. It was never tested again because my doctor said it was just being absorbed into the tissue and wouldn't really show up in blood tests. I has some bleeding at 12 weeks, ultrasound showed the baby was fine and they thought maybe the bleeding was from the crinone irritating my cervix and/or a small polyp that was close to my cervix. I stopped using the crinone at that point. I kept spotting for about a week and then it stopped. A few days later I had an episode of massive bleeding and I was passing very large clots. At the emergency room they found the baby's heartbeat but didn't do an ultrasound (it was Christmas Eve and later in the evening and they didn't have an ultrasound tech there.) I was sent home and told to take it easy and see my doctor on Monday. When they did the ultrasound on Monday they told me that the baby had died. I began bleeding again and was sent to the hospital to deliver the baby. We would later find out that the placenta was quite abnormal and looked more like one from a woman who had gone well past her due date and not like a normal 14 week placenta.

My doctor chalked it up to bad implantation and low progesterone as did a maternal fetal medicine specialist. Both, however, said that it was a no win situation in that the bad implantation caused the low progesterone and that I possibly only delayed the inevitable by supplementing as the placenta was never going to be able to properly take over. I tried to pin the MFM doc down on why supplementing throughout the entire pregnancy wouldn't have worked (the way women with a history of premature labor do) and she didn't really have an answer for me. Later, I believe after my second miscarriage, I saw a different MFM doctor and he recommended a much higher dose of progesterone in future pregnancies (which I used in my last two successful pregnancies), although I believe he too felt I was doomed to lose that third pregnancy no matter what.

Honestly, not knowing what happened and why has been so hard for me to accept. I replay a lot of things from that pregnancy - nagging feelings I had from the beginning that something wasn't right, lifting my toddler that Christmas Eve night and wondering if I didn't cause the placenta to pull away from my uterus, did I have a SCH and they just missed it on the 12 week ultrasound, was it all from low progesterone and I screwed up by stopping it, was it natural killer cells attacking the placenta and that's why it degraded so quickly? In the end I just have to accept that I'll never know.

KISSIES · February 2014

Yeah I've been having hard time for last 7 weeks that there is no explanation of my spotting. I more have bloody mucus only when i wipe sometimes. I haven't lifted anything heavy since my transfer. The placenta looked like it was just starting to form good position and no tears they say. So it leads me to believe it's the progesterone. I did read somewhere that sometimes placenta not producing it means birth defect or chromosome issue. did they test your baby for chromsome issues? They tested my missed miscarriage that was my first pregnancy and it had trisomy 2 which i'm sure is due to ivf with icsi. I just wish it was easier for me to find more info but like drs tell me alot of people don't believe in the prog supplements and don't even test. (my thoughts yah u just let them miscarry instead) my re now changed her mind against letter she wrote to ob and said not to restart prog. I was so angry and got no explantation why she changed her mind other than they don't usually test at 11 weeks maybe 7 is normal. It's like hello prog should rise in preg not decrease 24 to 7 in 10 days omg I'm hoping ob can find a high risk dr that knows something! Nuchal test friday.

KISSIES · February 2014

oh yeah and i purposely chose pio this time b/c it worked with my twins and i bleed on crinone the cycle before this that did not work and they tried telling me it was the irritation i knew i couldn't live with wondering if something was wrong or if it was the med.

itsmevkb · February 2014

We choose not to have an autospy done, which is what was offered to us. After seeing him, it was just really difficult for us to say go ahead and do that. I had already had the nuchal scan and blood work done which had all come back with very, very low risk for abnormalities so my OB felt that the loss was most likely not due to a chromosome issue.

Prior to and during my fifth pregnancy I did see a reproductive endocrinologist who thought my miscarriages might have been caused by immune issues and high levels of natural killer cells in particular. I was treated with IV intralipids. With my second miscarriage my progesterone always tested normal but the baby was always measuring a week behind and stoped developing altogether at around 8-9 weeks. I had a d&c and then did have some tissue tested and it came back as being normal, although since it although came back showing the baby was a female there will always be some question as to if they tested my tissue and not the baby's. Anyway, all that is just to say, that after that loss, my OB recommended I look into immune testing as in his mind I had most likely lost two genetically normal pregnancies in a row for no known reason and that is when I went to the reproductive endocrinologist.

I hope you get some answers soon and that your NT test goes well. I'll be thinking about you and your baby.

d&jwhite · February 2014

You may want to check into NaPro Technology which has a protocol for progesterone therapy in pregnancy. This website should be a good start: https://www.fertilitycare.org/progesterone-support-in-pregna/. Also, on the left side on the screen, there is an option for "find a medical consultant" which would be the place to start to find a Doctor who knows the protocol and how to manage progesterone support in pregnancy.

hope this helps!

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