I had active Lyme for 9 or 10 years. Every antibiotic. Then what I think was a remission. I haven't been on abx for about 4 years. I still get "blips" sometimes, particularly pre-menstral blips. I am wondering if others experience this? Last week I had pretty significant tingling in all my extremeties for several days, then broke out in a rash (not sure if related or not). With onset of menses, both symptoms on the way out.

Is there a correlation between pre-menstral time with what I call "post-lyme blips"? I'm wondering if it has anything to do with estrogen levels and whether anyone has found that treatment with progesterone cream has been successful?

I have about a week of feeling Ok'ish after my period. Have you had hormone tests done? Have you had long spells on the pill?

I never would have thought about Black Cohosh. Thanks a lot. Never took the pill so that isn't part of the problem.

For women, Dr. Barkley has found that testing around the time of menses increases the probability of discovering the presence of Bb. "Women with Lyme have an exacerbation of their symptoms around menses," she explains.

"The decline of both estrogen and progesterone at the end of the menstrual cycle is associated with the worsening of the patient's Lyme symptoms."

The website is; http://www.mercola.com/2001/jul/25/lyme_disease.htm

After finally balancing out some hormone replacement therapy, I am glad to say that I don't get those monthly swings with lyme symptoms any more. It's lovely.

I use bioidentical estrogen and progesterone from a compounding pharmacy. The estrogen is drops under the tongue and the progesterone is in capsules.

I tried the regular patches and oral hormones and it didnt work well for me....Never seemed to get comfortable. The drops are infinitely more manageable. They allow you titrate the best level for you specifically.

What she said, however, is that it is not absolutely predictable, for any one person, whether adding additional hormones will help or hurt. You have to experiment and find out for yourself. We still just don't know enough to predict for sure.

Test to find out what you are low in, and then adjust cautiously, then check to find out what happens. Most of the sex hormones can be converted into other ones. For example, progesterone can be converted to estrogen, and eventually testosterone.

So if you are supplementing, you need to keep an eye on all of them, to make sure it is ending up where you need it, and not where you don't.

There does seem to be a fairly predictable drop in immunity prior to the bleeding at your menses. It doesn't just feel bad, you are actually more vulnerable. That they have been able to prove. And it does seem to be related to estrogen levels.

They just aren't sure yet what it means, or what to do about it.

I then had a blood test done through my GP and he said that they were 'normal' levels. And my FSH was 'normal'.

I know that there is something going on with my hormones because I ovulate for about ten days (extremely painful) and I have other stuff like dryness and PMT.

I've had scans and a laparoscopy which didn't show up anything.

This all started when I stopped taking the pill.....