Annie, the prescription I came home with is a gel, to be applied, um, femininely. It says "progesterone" and not "progestin," so I think it's the natural stuff, not the synthetic. I wanted something to use in the second half of the cycle because I don't want to mess with my fertility if I don't have to, and from what I've read, straight birth control pills have proven ineffective for MG patients whose symptoms worsen at the end of their cycles.

The doctor said that at my age (44), it's a little unpredictable what this will do to my cycle. But I also used to get horrible migraines (the delirious, vomit-and-pass-out kind) at the time of the progesterone drop. These have been cured by the diuretic pill I take, but I would think that the way my body reacts to the progesterone drop means something's out of whack with my hormones anyway.

I haven't quite decided whether to do this or not yet...it really does make me nervous messing with hormones. Someone wrote to me off-list to say that she tried the same thing and it was a disaster for her MG.

I have read that women tend to have a worsening of MG symptoms--sometimes a full-blown crisis--when the progesterone drops. I have also read just the opposite: that they feel better when their period starts. Again, that makes me think it's the shift that disturbs the body.

I nursed my youngest child until he was around two, and that shut down my cycle. When I started to wean him and my cycle resumed, I was a total wreck. I was having panic attacks and fits of violent shaking. They went away when my cycle regularized. In retrospect, I think that was, again, hormones shifting.

Abby