Dr. Louise Newson

So it's a natural steroid, if you like.

So lots of people who were given biologic agents or prednisolone would actually probably really benefit from having progesterone instead.

Yeah, so it depends.

Some women, you know, I did a podcast recently with someone called Rosie who's been diagnosed with bipolar from a young age and she's written a great book.

And you know what was going through my mind as I read it about her hormones.

She came on my podcast and told me that she also had PMS.

And she's talked about her story, so I'm not breaking any confidentiality.

So I've just given her progesterone for those few days before her periods when her mood was really dipping.

And she's already feeling so much better.

So sometimes people only need like a top up of progesterone.

Sometimes people are low in all three hormones, in which case I would prescribe all three.

But just progesterone can make a massive difference to people.

And it's so sad that it's so hard to access.

I have a lot of women contacting me of,

children in their you know who are 13 14 15 they're missing a lot of school they're maybe starting getting migraines just before their periods they're really struggling they don't want their children to go on contraception and their GPs are refusing to prescribe them natural progesterone and it's like well like sometimes in medicine we try something if it doesn't work we can try something else it's

It's just like the barriers are down.

We're not allowed to prescribe this.

And it's like, well, you can prescribe anything if you're prescribing in good faith and it's safe for your patients.

Probably not in our lifetime.

Oh, you're joking.