genuine question about cycle that I am slightly embarrassed to ask

Trying to get a straight answer on this: genuine question about cycle that I am slightly embarrassed to ask.

Why the evidence base here is thin, which is not your imagination.

The major trial programmes were designed around endpoints that do not answer most of the questions this board asks: cycle interactions, contraception, fertility, perimenopause. The populations were not enrolled to answer them and the endpoints were not chosen to measure them.

So when you search and find nothing, that is usually the actual state of the literature rather than a failure of searching. What follows practically: be precise about your question, take the pharmacology parts to a pharmacist who can look up product-specific information, and treat confident answers on this board — including the ones that agree with you — with more caution than usual.

The one practical change that makes this board’s hardest questions tractable: annotate your log with the cycle.

Hormonal variation affects appetite, fluid and symptom intensity in its own right. Without the annotation, a log shows a dose, a week and a set of symptoms that appear to move at random. With it, patterns that were invisible become obvious in about three months.

Members here who have done it consistently report the same thing: the same dose feels genuinely different at different points, and knowing that in advance converts a confusing fortnight into an expected one. It also makes a much better document to bring to an appointment.

Brought the cycle-annotated log to an appointment and it changed the conversation completely.

If somebody has the same thing measured a different way, post it next to mine and we will see whether they agree.