Can someone please explain progesterone to me?!

[Aismix]

Hi guys.

Just lost my 4th pregnancy.

Apparently we have zero issue getting pregnant! I just can't keep them in 🙈.

Being referred to get more specialist testing done but have to wait 6 weeks until my current pregnancy is totally out of my system.

See progesterone thrown around a lot for treatment of reccurant early miscarriages. Can someone please explain to me the process?

How did yous get onto it? And how long until you can TTC while on it?

Thanks in advance.

I'm so sorry to read this, I'm currently awaiting the loss of my 3rd and talking about progesterone after test and tomorrow's results. I have no living children.

It's all about confusing but hopefully we can get the answers and the help we need ♥️

🫶

We are in the exact same boat then. I am so sorry for your troubles.

If you don't mind me asking how did you end up getting seen?

I've had to fight and push. Found out yesterday that my first referral never was registered.

The waiting list to be seen privately in my area is 5 months also. Feeling very trapped.

I'll try to keep it brief. I've had a MMC and a MC. I am now with a new partner and after 4 months TTC I found out I was pregnant at 9DPO (the Sunday before last) but the lines have been faint and not progressed.

Yesterday I should have been five weeks, CB Digital still showing 1-2 (same as last Wednesday) and the cheapie tests were so faint so I called my doctor and explained. She said that she wanted for me to have blood tests 48 hours apart but it was likely I'd struggle to be seen so referred me to the hospital for bloods and potential scan. I had to battle to get through, explain my past and current situation. They had forms for me to collect and put me as a priority to queue skip to the front and get bloods taken which was nice.

I called them this morning (btw I am not yet bleeding but pretty certain a loss is imminent) and they said my HCG is 19 and progesterone is 21 and they will see me tomorrow for the second test and go from there.

I will push for this, I'm 37, no living children and I'm pretty certain this third one is a miscarriage so I've said about having progesterone to help sustain the next pregnancy which seems to be what they will do from what they said this morning but I need to wait for the second test.

That's where I'm at so far, test tomorrow x

It depends on your local NHS - I had several miscarriages and my recurrent miscarriage clinic refused progesterone - when I started down the IVF route it was routinely given (but I guess you get what you pay for! But it's a frustratingly relatively cheap drug so I don't know why it isn't given more on the NHS)

Anyway lots of IVF later and on my final go we doubled my progesterone and on transfer day tested it....it was 159...I had twins so I do think it helped in some way for both to stick

Just to say the best research on this I found was:
Ku, C., Allen Jr, J.C., Lek, S. et al. Serum progesterone distribution in normal pregnancies compared to pregnancies complicated by threatened miscarriage from 5 to 13 weeks gestation: a prospective cohort study. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth 18, 360 (2018). doi.org/10.1186/s12884-018-2002-z

Lower progesterone is linked to higher risk of miscarriage. My progesterone was on the low side, but I wasn't spotting so wouldn't have been offered progesterone by my EPU. They said in a subsequent pregnancy if I was spotting I would be able to get progesterone pessaries.

Tommy's PRISM trial shows progesterone can be useful in cases of 3 or more losses.

I tracked my BBT throughout the last 12-13 weeks. It's only now that my hCG is almost at zero that my BBT is starting to drop. It dropped slightly before my first scan at 6 weeks, which was before the embryo stopped developing, but presumably the placenta kept producing progesterone and had MMC.

I think the difficult thing is you can't tell if the embryo isn't progressing because of low progesterone, or whether you have low progesterone, because the embryo / pregnancy isn't viable... I had 3 earlier losses (5-6 weeks) between my two daughters over a decade ago.

With this latest pregnancy I tested hcg blood tests and progesterone privately with medichecks. My progesterone was 25.7 nmol/L at 18dpo and 17.2 nmol/l at 23dpo (the day after first scan at 6w3d when hcg was over 15000). The progesterone was low, but just within range. If I was pregnant again I would test these again at 7 and 8 weeks, but all my previous losses had been much earlier so thought it was going to be ok based on the hcg.

Because I had medical management I was able to request the embryo be genetically tested and asked to be referred to recurrent miscarriage clinic, plus planning to do a bunch of blood tests privately to start with when I get my next cycle (day 2-5 bloods, AMH, iron, DHEA, CRP (inflammation). I am 44, so I know any discussion will be about egg quality, so I want a better idea about FSH / AMH, DHEA, etc given my cycles are more regular than they have ever been.