supplement help?

[lindi]

Sorry for being so needy guys- just still at the beginning stages of my sway, so amassing all the info I can! Here are the supplements I am taking. If someone could recommend amounts, that would be great. I have read studies about some of these things but the amounts don't line up with the tinctures, etc. Also- what time of the day is best for vitamins and minerals? The herbs all say between meals, but what about the rest? Thanks.

Calcium
Magnesium
Folic Acid
B6 (increase progesterone production, which inhibits excess LH which triggers testosterone production)
Fiber capsule (will help eliminate excess testosterone, and since I'm doing away with whole grains/oats etc I thought this would help)
Vitex tincture recommended 30 drops 2-4X a day (works to regulate pituitary gland= increase progesterone, normalize prolactin= balance hormones--every day)
Licorice Root & White Peony tincture -recommended 30 drops 2-4x a day (in lieu of Saw Palmetto- my research indicates it prevents testosterone production in the ovary, not just blocking the effects of testosterone)
Cranberry

I have a FISTFUL of pills! Help?

[Coccinelle33]

bump

[atomic sagebrush]

I LOVE questions! Keep em coming because you guys think of things that I may not remember to mention or have never even stopped to consider (licorice root and peony being one of these!!)

Calcium (1200-1800 mg a day, INCLUDING diet)

Magnesium (Don't take more than 200-300 mg a day. Too much mag can actually be dangerous and you'll be getting some through diet as well. You'll know if you're getting too much because you'll get loose stools)

Folic Acid (400 in the morning, 400 at night) (Take throughout the first trimester at least and don't quit taking it cold turkey, wean off slowly)

B6 (Start with 50, if it screws up your cycle dial it back to 25 and if it doesn't, try bumping it up to 100.) (Oh yeah, DON'T quit this cold turkey if you get pg, you need to wean off slowly and it is safe at this amount throughout pregnancy.)

Fiber capsule (I think this is a fine, fantastic idea and I am excited to see if it works for you!!!)

Vitex tincture recommended 30 drops 2-4X a day (I don't know how the tincture works but I took 400 mg in the morning and 400 mg at night and it really helped me to ovulate when I wasn't)

Licorice Root & White Peony tincture -recommended 30 drops 2-4x a day (I don't know but I'm following along breathlessly!!)

Cranberry (Start with 2 tablets a day and see if it causes bleeding. If it does, try one a day, if it doesn't, try three tablets. IF it causes bleeding at one pill a day, you can even try every other day or two. Some people take truly insane amounts of cranberry and I don't think it's safe because it is a blood thinner. Also, you may want to skip cran all together and try one baby aspirin a day instead, it will acidify without adding the extra nutrients that the cran does.)

[lindi]

Thank you! I am actually still awaiting my white peony-its being shipped- hard to find specifying WHITE. Ugh. I have af now and have been taking 2-3 cranberry a day, and my period seems totally normal so far- no excess bleeding. I ovulate every month, so I'm unsure of the vitex. We'll see this next month- I have been making so many changes, I hope it doesn't screw up something that wasn't broke you know? And thanks about the fiber capsule- yeah it occured to me when I was reading about diet factors and testosterone. I have been taking waay to much b6! Yikes! but only for 3 days. (150! My tablets are 50mg, so I'll cut back to one pill immediately- no need to wean at this point I don't think!)
One thing- so I've been doing the diet for a week or so, and adding supplements all week- maybe TMI but my stools are totally the same except they are pretty lightly colored. Um does this make sense?

[atomic sagebrush]

150 is probably safe but people have found b6 wreaks havoc with normal cycles. You can def. screw stuff up with some of these supplements, so I'm hoping that the vitex just works for you with no messing up of your cycle.

I had wondered about Chitoslim (indigestible fiber source) a long time ago in my blog but never came back to it and had forgotten! I was thinking it would absorb fat and help people lose weight but that was before I learned about Vit. A and D raising T levels. The fiber will also help suck up some A and D (fat soluble vits) and lower T in that way, EXCELLENT detective work, my friend!! Plus people get really super constipated on the TTC girl diet and it will help with that too.

I wouldn't worry about any changes in stools as long as you're feeling ok. The loose stools can mean you're getting too much mag like I said above.

[lindi]

Check out my question and MVP and magnesium- don't think Im getting too much mag!

[Another princess]

Sorry for interrupting this interesting thread. Im just becoming increasingly worried about taking the saw palmetto. Linda you posted that it can prevent testosterone production in the ovaries? is this the reason you are going to use an alternative? Ive always been sceptical about using it but reading posts like this does worry me. Could this cause problems if you use it and conceive a boy? however because we are stopping the supplement at ovulation this should be safe? I remember reading on ig that after 48 hrs of stopping it the herb is out of your system, and some even suggested stopping it as soon as you get a positive ovulation test. Atomic do you believe it to be safe? Lindi thanks for the excellent and new supplement ideas.

[atomic sagebrush]

AP - Lindi is saying that LICORICE blocks testosterone production at the ovaries, not saw palmetto (which seems to reduce the amount of free testosterone circulating instead.) So she is thinking that licorice might be superior to saw palmetto at reducing T production for that reason.

Here's the thing. We don't know about the saw palmetto. The research has not been done. We ~believe~ that stopping saw palmetto at, or a couple days prior, to ovulation is safe even for opposites. Baby boys make their own testosterone, that's pretty much the sole purpose of the Y chromosome. A few weeks into development, the Y chromosome turns certain genes off and on, which makes little tiny testes which churn out their own testosterone. Without the Y chromosome/testes/testosterone, the embryo develops ovaries instead. THAT'S what makes your little bean into a little man, the testosterone produced by his own testes. Nothing at all to do with your personal testosterone levels, to the best of science's knowledge.

[lindi]

Yes- and it was a study I read about the combination of licorice and white peony on women with PCOS (they produce too much testosterone for one thing). It is actually based on Chinese medicine from what I can gather. The white peony is hard to find outside of chinese medicine concoctions. It showed that within the ovary, levels of testosterone production were significantly lowered. The ovary makes the sex hormones- estrogens, progesterone, and testosterone at different levels at different times of the month based on signals from the pituitary gland- but the hormones all signal things to each other and its very complex etc. But I was interested in lowering the testosterone IN the ovary, because of some studies that showed a link between women with high testosterone and having boys- with this theory that the egg came out "primed" for x or y sperm. So, lots of testosterone would (not sure how) create eggs that attract y sperm. That would happen IN the ovary. If I was cutting levels of circulating testosterone in my body, that might do something for the environment, say, in the fallopian tube and uterus, which might be all I need, but I wouldn't be doing anything about changing the conditions that "primed" my egg for a y sperm necessarily. Where if I lowered the testosterone being created IN the ovary, I would both affect how the egg was primed, AND lower the circulating testosterone. So I thought I would give it a try. But I am definitely going to stop the herbs at ovulation. It also takes several days for the embryo to implant and start really getting anything "from" you I think, so the herbs should be gone. In the study I read, it also specifically mentioned women getting pregnant on this herbal regime.

[Viene]

I am glad you found the info on the licorice/peony combo. I looked in to it too and the first thing that came up was this: http://medherb.com/Materia_Medica/Glycyrrhiza_-_Licorice_root_and_testosterone.htm

It does have some valuable info for those trying to lower testosterone. The only thing I question though, is if one doesn't have PCOS induced elevated testosterone then I wonder if it will help just as much because it's the cysts that typically cause the elevation of testosterone, not just a normal process between the ovary and pituitary gland. At any rate, I don't think it would hurt anything, but I think it would be best if you give your self a few cycles to see how it effects you and to make sure it doesn't create a lot of EWCM for you.

In case those reading this don't want to read the whole article here is the bit on the dosing:

"Glycyrrhiza glabra samples reportedly contain approximately 6-15% glycyrrhizin (Budavari). Therefore the 500 mg daily dose of glycyrrhizin in the trial represents about 3.0 to 8.0 grams of crude plant material. A significant dose of this constituent would be difficult to deliver with standard tincture doses of less than one teaspoon per day. As ô00ö capsules containing about 400 mg of licorice root each, about 8-20 capsules would be expected to deliver a dose of glycyrrhizin comparable to that used in the trial. This would be the equivalent of two-six teaspoons of the powder. Doses of glycyrrhizin on the same order of magnitude as those in the trial could be expected to be delivered from a standard decoction. The standard daily dose in Chinese medicine is 3-12 grams/day, usually as a decoction. This could also result in a dose of glycyrrhizin similar to that in the trial. The German Commission E monograph on licorice prescribes a dose of 5-15 grams of the root per day, which would deliver a dose of 200-600 mg of glycyrrhizin (Blumenthal). (This monograph defines the glycyrrhizin content of licorice at 4% instead of the 6-15% described in the Merck Index.) According to the Merck data, this dose of crude material could deliver 0.3 to 2.3 grams of glycyrrhizin, up to over four times the dose used in the trial. "

ETA: I also came across the fact that licorice lowers potassium levels. One more thing that may help it sway girl.

[Viene]

Oh, and I almost forgot, aside from the supplements that specify to take on an empty stomach it is best to take them with a meal or snack including at least some fat in it to help breakdown and absorbtion (but, again it's questionable as to whether you want all the calcium to be absorbed while ttc a girl). You don't want to take more than 600mg of calcium at a time because any more of that isn't absorbed well. So, it's best to take your calcium twice a day instread of all at once.

[Another princess]

Thanks for replying ladies. That has reassured me Atomic so thankyou. Bet u wouldnt believe im a nurse he he! Wow lindi you are definitely doing your homework! Good for you.

[Another princess]

Oh, and I almost forgot, aside from the supplements that specify to take on an empty stomach it is best to take them with a meal or snack including at least some fat in it to help breakdown and absorbtion (but, again it's questionable as to whether you want all the calcium to be absorbed while ttc a girl). You don't want to take more than 600mg of calcium at a time because any more of that isn't absorbed well. So, it's best to take your calcium twice a day instread of all at once.
Viene thanks for that advice.

[lindi]

Thank you!