r/NCAH•
ouroborosborealis

Feeling better after adding Progesterone?

I recently started taking Hydrocortisone for the first time, and I haven't been doing well. I'm not sure how much of that is because I already wasn't doing great, but I think I might've gotten worse.

Lately, I keep drifting off in the early evening (7-9pm) for a few hours, as if I was so exhausted that I just couldn't not nap. It's hard to prevent this from happening, as I lay down pretty often for 30 minutes or so as I am often quite tired physically, but I usually don't fall asleep. Last night, I took 200mg Progesterone before bed and I feel better today.

Is it possible that my Progesterone levels were unnaturally elevated before I started HC (due to cortisol precursor buildup) and that starting HC, in downregulating my ACTH, resulted in a sharp drop in Progesterone levels?

For context, I'm MtF trans, so if my adrenal glands stop making Progesterone then it's not really coming from anywhere else unless I supplement it.

I'll keep taking the Progesterone and see how I go, today is only the first day back on it so I could be getting ahead of myself here, or maybe this is only a temporary thing and then I'll go back to my baseline.

Posted May 1, 2026, 5:55 PM UTC

22
Loading comments…