I was surprised to see this thread at Mudcat. I am ambivalent about whether this topic should be posted here at all. It would be more fruitfully discussed on a women's health board. . .

Don't you just love it when random visitors second-guess the discussions going on here at Mudcat?

Carol, I suspect that with your allergies you're probably already ahead of the game as far as watching your diet and such. Don't discard Northrup because of that review--I think it is inaccurate, though I will say that if someone reading it doesn't recognize her desire to empower women to control their own health destinies they might have a guilty reaction when reading it.

There are other sources of estrogen in the body beyond the ovaries. But I think the ovaries are the only place where a small amount of testosterone is produced. I'm not up on the progesterone end of things because I never took the pill. Once the hysterectomy happened, progesterone was out of the picture. I tried for a natural HRT balance that "felt" most like I felt when I was healthy. That meant a mix of estrogen and testosterone (my compounded Rx FYI, is E2 0.2mg, E3 0.7 mg, Methyltest 1.75mg). Look into the types of estrogen, and what your body can do to them when it metabolizes them. I don't use E1 because it is most closely tied in with breast cancer and estrogen receptor stuff. Methyltestosterone is the synthetic version, but that's there because your system can metablolize the yam version back into E1. (It's pretty amazing what your body can do along those lines, actually.)

Consider what will help you now, but also try to take a long view and think about what you may have to deal with in the future. Don't borrow trouble, but try to make choices that won't compound problems later. Good luck!

SRS