Ask Barbie: Can I Take Progesterone Alone for Menopause Management?

Don’t Procrastinate – Automate!

Welcome to ‘Ask Barbie’

Welcome to this Ask Barbie segment. I’m the gynecologist that teaches you everything about menopause and more. Today, I’ll be answering the question, “Can I take progesterone all by itself for my menopause management?”

This is a very common question. So let’s address it by starting at the beginning.

Can I?

Any time a woman poses a question asking if she can do something, I answer with, “You can do anything you want. All the decisions are yours.”

My goal is for you to understand everything about your options so that you make good decisions.

So, let’s talk about progesterone … and empower you to decide if you want to take progesterone all by itself to manage your menopause.

Sex Hormones

There are three sex hormones. All three exist for the sole purpose of reproduction. Males possess the necessary sex hormones for the male role in reproduction. Females possess those necessary for the female role in reproduction.

This means that male hormones serve the purpose of providing sperm to fertilize an egg. But female sex hormones serve that of ensuring ovulation and implantation of that egg into your uterus to constitute a pregnancy.

So, the two female sex hormones are estrogen and progesterone.

It is estrogen’s job to ovulate an egg suitable for fertilization. It is progesterone’s job to protect that egg once it implants into the uterus as a pregnancy.

Progesterone

The word “progesterone” means hormone in support of pregnancy.

“Pro” = in support of
“Gest” = gestation (pregnancy)
“One” = hormone

The reason women produce high levels of progesterone, but men do not is because women get pregnant, and men do not.

So progesterone is something your body produces only for the benefit of a baby during pregnancy. In other words, progesterone is for the baby, not for you. Because progesterone is not for you, it does not benefit you.

Progesterone is responsible for ensuring that the pregnancy is protected. It cares only about the pregnancy. And everything it does is on behalf of the pregnancy.

Well, once you get pregnant, your function as the mom is merely to be a great incubator for the baby. So progesterone makes you just that … a great incubator.

Menstrual Cycle

Your two reproductive hormones are partners. They function as a couple. Each one has a separate role. They will never perform one another’s role. And they do all of this for the benefit of reproduction.

So I’ll address each female sex hormone in turn.

Your menstrual cycles are divided into two halves.

In the first half of your menstrual cycle, estrogen rises. Estrogen does two things for purposes of reproduction:

It matures and ovulates an egg for potential fertilization.
It thickens the lining inside your uterus for implantation of that fertilized egg.

In the second half of your menstrual cycle, progesterone rises. Because progesterone is the hormone in support of pregnancy, its only role is to protect a pregnancy should the egg become fertilized.

Progesterone serves to keep the lining in your uterus thick so that there’s a cushion in your uterus for the fertilized egg.

So progesterone sticks around only as long as there is a potential for pregnancy. But if you don’t get pregnant, progesterone has nothing to do. So, its level plummets.

And when progesterone plummets, it takes that thick cushioned uterine lining with it … simply because there’s no need for a thick cushioned uterine lining if there’s no baby.

So the menstrual bleeding you see on a month-to-month basis is merely a shedding of the inner lining of your uterus, which would have been a cushion for a fertilized egg, had you gotten pregnant.

Ask Barbie: Can I take Progesterone Alone forr Menopause Management?

PMS

In the second half of your cycle, progesterone peaks at just three days before your period begins. And the symptoms that progesterone evokes are all the things you associate with premenstrual syndrome(PMS).

Progesterone causes all the following:

Bloating
Weight gain
Fatigue
Drowsiness
Cravings
Breast tenderness
Depression

So most women hate the way progesterone makes them feel. And this is because progesterone produces symptoms that are beneficial for a baby, not you.

PMS is what you have if you do not get pregnant. It starts when your progesterone is highest. But it ends once your menstrual bleeding begins. And your symptoms go away when progesterone has plummeted to its lowest levels.

Pregnancy

But if you do get pregnant, it’s a different story.

In early pregnancy, it is progesterone’s job to support the pregnancy until the placenta takes over. So, instead of plummeting, the progesterone rises even higher.

When your progesterone rises even higher during pregnancy, those symptoms that are caused by progesterone continue, and even worsen. So high levels of progesterone cause all of the following symptoms:

Bloating
Weight gain
Fatigue
Drowsiness
Cravings
Breast tenderness
Depression

These are the symptoms that women associate with early pregnancy. And progesterone causes all of them.

Because most women do not like the way progesterone makes them feel, most women do not enjoy the symptoms of early pregnancy.

But your progesterone remains high throughout the pregnancy because its very job is to protect the pregnancy. Progesterone levels are 10 to 15 times higher during pregnancy than they are when you are not pregnant.

Peri-Menopause

When peri-menopause begins, progesterone is the first sex hormone to change.

This is logical because these hormones are purely for reproduction. And when the inventory of eggs for reproduction gets too low for pregnancy, progesterone will never again have the job of supporting a pregnancy.

So your progesterone starts decreasing in a chaotic, non-linear, unpredictable way. By definition, peri-menopause pertains primarily to progesterone: Progesterone deficiency. The symptoms of progesterone deficiency include:

Heavy periods
Irregular periods
Headaches
Anxiety

Peri-menopause can last for 2 to 10 years. All the while, your estrogen is trying to function alone, without progesterone. But, because estrogen and progesterone are partners, your decrease in progesterone is followed by a decrease in estrogen.

Post-Menopause

Ultimately, you’ll reach post-menopause. Post-menopause is when you lose your estrogen. And estrogen’s role was always completely different from progesterone’s role.

In addition to its role as a reproductive sex hormone, estrogen has several other roles.

It was your fountain of youth. It kept you young on the outside and on the inside.

So when you lose your estrogen at the time of post-menopause, you begin aging rapidly on the outside and on the inside.

The outside rapid aging manifests as a long list of symptoms … all due to estrogen deficiency. These include:

Anxiety
Hot flashes
Night sweats
Heart palpitations
Insomnia
Fatigue
Forgetfulness
Mood swings
Irritability

Depression
Joint pain & stiffness
Dry skin
Hair loss
Vaginal dryness
Urinary tract infections
Urinary incontinence
Weight gain
Decreased sex drive
Headaches

The inside aging manifests as three fatal diseases that are due to estrogen deficiency. These include:

Heart attack
Osteoporosis
Alzheimer’s disease

Menopause Management

Well, that brings us to our Ask Barbie question for today, which is, “Can I use progesterone all by itself for my menopause management?”

And now you can see that there’s a good reason for asking this question.

But the problem is that menopause really isn’t about progesterone. It’s all about estrogen.

Theoretically, you could use progesterone by itself during the peri-menopausal portion of your menopause transition. But inevitably, you’ll reach a point where your body is reacting to the absence of estrogen, rather than to the absence of progesterone. The problem is that you would not know when you transition from progesterone deficiency to estrogen deficiency. And that means, you won’t know when to add estrogen.

Because peri-menopause lasts 2 to 10 years, we don’t typically know where we are in our transition to post-menopause. What we do know is that we have undesirable symptoms. And those symptoms are due to estrogen deficiency, not progesterone deficiency.

If you are taking progesterone all by itself for your menopause management, you’ll likely have the undesirable symptoms of progesterone excess (like PMS and early pregnancy) … in addition to all the undesirable symptoms of estrogen deficiency.

Most women comment that they love the way estrogen makes them feel, but they hate the way progesterone makes them feel. Of course, there are exceptions to this sentiment. Most women do not like the way they feel during pregnancy. But there are some who love the way they feel during pregnancy. So there will always be individual differences with regard to responses to any hormone.

Symptoms versus Diseases

Menopause entails:

Symptoms of estrogen deficiency
Diseases of estrogen deficiency

Notice that both of these have to do with estrogen, not progesterone. This is because progesterone’s only job is to support a baby during pregnancy.

So, using progesterone all by itself may relieve some of your symptoms during peri-menopause, when your progesterone is the only hormone that is low. But it cannot alleviate symptoms of estrogen deficiency. And it cannot prevent any of the diseases of estrogen deficiency.

No woman can predict when her peri-menopause will begin. It can happen at any age.

The fact is that a fall in your estrogen and progestogen from “zenith to zero” prevents pregnancy, but also augments your risk for three fatal diseases. Additionally, this zenith to zero drop in estrogen and progestogen also creates a zenith to zero drop in your quality of life.

So, since peri-menopause is the time when you can still get pregnant, why not make your automatic pregnancy protection double as automatic peri-menopause protection?

Progestogen

Another important consideration has to do with the kind of “progesterone” you choose.

There are actually two different categories to consider. And there are different words for describing what falls into each of those categories.

“Progestogen” is the word we use for all molecules that do the job of progesterone.

Progestogens include:

The progesterone your body produces
Any progesterone product that has the same molecular structure as the progesterone your body produces
Any synthetic progesterone product that has a different molecular structure than the progesterone your body produces

“Progesterone” is the word we use for only those molecular structures that are identical to the molecular structure of the progesterone your body produces.

“Progestin” is the word we use for those molecular structures that are not identical to the molecular structure of the progesterone your body produces.

“Progesterone” is the word we use for only those molecular structures that are identical to the molecular structure of the progesterone your body produces.

“Progestin” is the word we use for those molecular structures that are not identical to the molecular structure of the progesterone your body produces.

Some people refer to progesterone as “natural, “and progestin as “synthetic.” But the words “natural” and “synthetic” are not as straightforward as you might imagine.

Other people refer to progesterone as “bioidentical” and progestin as “non-bioidentical.” Again, the words, “bioidentical” and “non-bioidentical” are not as straightforward as you might imagine.

The words, “natural,” “synthetic,” “bioidentical,” and “non-bioidentical” do not alter anything about the answer to our Ask Barbie question for today.

Well, the reason it’s important to know the difference between progesterone and progestins is simply because there are many different products in both of these categories. And they fall into the realm of both HRT for menopause and birth control for pregnancy prevention.

The big difference in HRT for menopause versus birth control for pregnancy prevention is dosage.

Regardless of whether you’re addressing a progesterone or a progestin, the options in the lower dosage range fall into the realm of HRT for menopause management. And the options in the higher dosage range fall into the realm of birth control for pregnancy prevention.

All systemic progestin products for pregnancy prevention list bone loss as one of the risks. These include Depo-Provera shots, Norplant implants, and Implanon implants. So you need to be aware that, while estrogen prevents bone loss, progestins can cause bone loss.

If one of your goals for menopause management is to avoid bone loss, you need to take this into consideration.

The Answer

So the answer to our question, “Can I take progesterone all by itself to manage my menopause” is, “Yes, but you will not be achieving the ultimate goals for menopause management.”

My goal is for you to understand the roles that each hormone plays so that you can choose management options that make sense for what’s going on at any given time.

Menopause is about loss of estrogen, not progesterone. And, while progesterone alone may work during peri-menopause, it will not work once you reach post-menopause.

Watch the video version on YouTube

Ask Barbie

Ask Barbie: Can I Take Progesterone Alone for My Menopause Management?November 26, 2025 - 11:50 pm
Timing is everything: choose yours wisely!
Ask Barbie: Should I Take HRT if I Don’t Have Any Symptoms of Menopause?October 28, 2025 - 12:56 pm
Why a “silent” menopause free of “noisy” symptoms can actually be deadly.