Prevention of recurrent miscarriage -when to stop progesterone therapy?

[Trixy3]

Hello,
I was just wondering whether anyone of you has experience with progesterone treatment for prevention of first-trimester miscarriage?

I have a history of unexplained recurrent miscarriage, and after doing some research asked a private obstetrician/gynecologist to prescribe me progesterone treatment, as I heard that it may reduce the risk of miscarriage in women with recurrent first-trimester miscarriage.

I have been taking 2x400 mg Cyclogest (vaginal pessaries) since my positive preganancy test, and it really seems to work, because for the first time I have reached the 12th week without bleeding, and the ultrasound scan was ok so far. I am now really scared to stop taking the suppositories, as I fear that in case my placenta cannot produce sufficient progesteron I will start bleeding again. The private doctor who made the prescription said I should stop after my 'critical phase' was over and together we decided that this would probably be the 12th week. However, I am not sure what to do. There is a research study that was completed e few months ago, I think, but has not been evaluated (the PROMIS trial) - I think participants in this study took it till the 12th week.

Has anyone of you ever taken progesterone treatment for this purpose, and if so, when did you stop taking it and what happended then, i.e. did you have another miscarriage or did you proceed with your pregnancy? If the latter, what was the pregnancy outcome, i.e. was the baby ok or were there any abnomalities that might have been side effects of the treatment?

Warm regards,
Trixy

12th week for me and everything was fine.

Good luck

Great, thank you!
Does anyone else have experience with progesteron treatment?

Hello,

how did it go for you guys? I’m 5 weeks on progesterone and have no idea if it’s working.

Following @Trixy3

Hello @maxi123 and all,
Time flies, and I just realised that my message above is more than ten years old and this week my first-born will be ten years old. I had made a follow-up post about this somewhere else, but cannot find it now - After having had four miscarriages, I took Progesterone for 12 weeks (until the unborn baby can produce their own progesterone) and had two healthy pregnancies - so for me and also for a few of my friends it worked!
I was therefore confused that the PROMISE trial I mentioned above that had evaluated progesterone therapy showed negative results, whereas previous smaller trials had shown positive results. Given that it worked so well for me and a few of my friends (we were all older and normal or underweight, and probably no longer able to produce our own progesterone during the first trimester), I strongly believe that progesterone works for a sub-group of women with recurrent miscarriages that had not been properly captured by the trial as they mixed up various participants with possibly different underlying, but unknown reasons for miscarriage. For some reason, I had also not heard back from the trial, after I had previously asked to take part and my GP had faxed them my medical records... so I might not have been eligible, but clearly, people like me would have contributed to positive outcomes.... Trials also have to pre-define any sub-group analyses and if they have not done that for a specific sub-group they do not stratify and/or do not have a sufficiently big sample size for particular sub-groups so the results might show only slight trends for particular sub-groups, where a combination of f.ex. two subgroups into one sufficiently powered pre-defined subgroup would have shown statistically significant results.

Therefore, even if there is the risk of disappointment, as progesterone clearly does not work for everyone, I think it is worth a try, and if your GP or Obstetrician refuses to prescribe you Progesterone based on the PROMIS trial results, please feel free to quote what I said (I am a researcher myself, but in a different area).

My heart goes out to everyone who experiences the nightmare of recurrent miscarriages and I hope more research will be done to find help for everyone.
Good luck and love to you all!

I am so happy for you@Trixy3 !! And it gives me hope. Ive had 2x recurrent miscarriages within 4 months (since May 2022 we got pregnant but had 2x miscarriages since). The gaenacologist said if i were to get pregnant again they would prescribe me with vaginal progesterone pessaries. I really hope things will turn out ok for me, I have no idea what is wrong with me as I already have a health toddler who is 3.5 years old and that was a straight forward happy pregnancy. Im 33, not overweight, no health problems...just hard to have unanswered questions! Wish you all the best x

Glad to hear all worked out for you @Trixy3 do you mind me asking whether you experienced bleeding with the miscarriages? I’ve had two consecutive miscarriages one CP and one MMC with no bleeding and I’m obviously at my wits end about why this keeps happening to me. I’m healthy, but stressed now it is to do with my age at 36 (and a half) and I haven’t had any successful live births. I feel like im in the middle of hell and it’s so horrible I don’t know how this is going to pan out for me and my partner 😢 sending love x