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Post by erzulie on Mar 30, 2006 18:46:02 GMT -5
I was wondering if any of you have tried the herb wild yam, and if so what it did for you (if anything). In November, the month before my surgery, I started researching herbal remedies for endometriosis. I took vitex berries, red raspberry, and wild yam in pill form for a month, and had a much lighter and less painful period than usual. I thought it was a crazy coincidence, and stopped taking all the herbs until after my surgery. I decided to start a new herb each month and to take each herb for three months and then stop taking it for a month to see which herbs have an effect on me. In January I started taking vitex berries and noticed no difference. In February I took both vitex berries and red raspberry; again I noticed no difference. This month I added wild yam to the mix again and had another period just like the one in November. I think it can't be a coincidence; it has to be the wild yam! I am thrilled to death about this because my doctor wanted me to take birth control pills because they thin the lining of the uterus (and therefore theoretically thin the endometrial implants outside fo the uterus), and I refused to take them because of the side effects. The wild yam caused me no side effects, adn appears to have produced the same results. If I ahd a lighter flow, that implies the lining didn't grow as thick this time, right? The only thing i don't know for sure is if the wild yam is doing this by itself, or if it is the combination of this and the other herbs. I have stopped taking vitex berries this month to see if it will make a difference. If my April period is no worse than the last one, I will assume they were doing no good and then I'll stop the red raspberry to see if that makes a difference. At any rate I am curious to know if other people have had good results with wild yam. Any of you who haven't taken it, you might want to try it!
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Post by ouchy on Mar 30, 2006 19:44:30 GMT -5
Heyyy! The wild yam makes a lot of sense! It contains natural progesterone. A lot of the progesterone cremes are made from yam. You have the idea down pat, though. The progesterone causes the lining of the uterus not to grow as thick, also inhibiting the implants
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Post by erzulie on Mar 30, 2006 19:58:03 GMT -5
Fascinating, I never knew that wild yam contained natural progesterone. I just read that it helped with pain--I never had the least idea that it could affect the lining of the uterus. I'm so glad I decided to try it!
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meka
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Post by meka on Mar 30, 2006 21:16:50 GMT -5
erzulie, I've been taking wild yam capsules for a few months now, and I haven't noticed a marked difference. My pain level goes up and down depending on the month, but I haven't noticed a low-pain period that I could attribute to the wild yam.
Which brand are you using, and how much do you take? I take more than the recommended dosage, but maybe I'm doing something wrong.
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meka
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Post by meka on Mar 30, 2006 21:30:13 GMT -5
What I've heard about wild yam:
Some progesterone creams claim that they are "natural" and that their progesterone comes from wild yam. I also read in a book about progesterone that this is true of some creams. I bought a cream based on this premise.
But later I read somewhere that it isn't possible for the progesterone in the cream to come from wild yam for some sort of chemical reason. That the progesterone isn't as "natural" as we would like to believe. I don't understand these opposing views. If anyone else knows about this specifically, please inform. Does wild yam actually have progesterone, or is it a chemically identical substance?
At any rate, the girlfriend of a friend of mine was taking wild yam supplements (I don't know if it was capsules or the actual plant). She said she was allergic to latex condoms, so they used the wild yam as a birth control (she would never use bc pills). They believe it worked, 'cause she didn't get pregnant! But then, she decided to change her original form of wild yam, and just drink the tea instead because it was more convenient. She got pregnant right away.
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Post by ouchy on Mar 30, 2006 22:28:48 GMT -5
Oh. I've also just read contradictory information from my previous post, that wild yam has to be chemically converted to produce progesterone.
However, I dont' know if that is entirely true that it must be converted, because I've read several sources that state that Nigeria has one of the highest twinning populations in the whole world, in part, because their main staple is yam, which contains natural progesterone, which tricks the ovaries into thinking that they have not ovulated, at which time they double ovulate, leading to 2 eggs, leading to twins.
There is always contradictory info on everything. grrrr. Who knows! But if it helps you! go for it!
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meka
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Post by meka on Mar 30, 2006 22:47:07 GMT -5
Wow, that's pretty interesting about the twins deluge. Especially considering the story I posted about the girl who used it as a birth control method. Maybe the guy got duped! Maybe people having trouble conceiving could benefit from it. Is it wild yam or the potato yam that the Nigerians consume? I thought the two were completely different.
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Post by ouchy on Mar 30, 2006 23:34:56 GMT -5
humm. you know. i'm not sure. All of the culture programs I have watched on Africa show the people eating big tubers, like huge yams. So, I know they are not the little potato things we eat here, nor are they the common sweet potato/yam we have here. Definitely in the yam family, and nothing like what we see in the grocery store.
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Post by erzulie on Mar 31, 2006 19:09:22 GMT -5
Wild yam is a plant with no relation whatsoever to the yams people eat. I am now utterly confused about all previous posts because I don't know which people were talking about the herb and which were talking about the food! meka, I have been taking Solaray wild yam capsules. Each capsules contains 400 milligrams, and I take two capsules twice a day, so that's a total of 1600 milligrams a day. Which kind have you been taking?
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Post by ouchy on Apr 1, 2006 0:52:33 GMT -5
cool link on wild yam. www-personal.umich.edu/~ycchung/Dioscoreaceae.htm . Just because our body doesn't convert the compounds in yam into progesterone, that doesn't necessarily mean that some of the progesterone receptors wont' be triggered. I'm guessing this based on the same principal that phytoestrogens aren't converted in our bodies to estrogen; they just trigger the same receptors.
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meka
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Post by meka on Apr 1, 2006 21:21:26 GMT -5
erzulie, I also take Solaray wild yam. I'm currently taking what sounds like the same one as you, 400 mg per capsule, the bottle with the green top. I try to take 3 capsules in the morning, then 3 more at lunch, and 2 at dinner. This is way more than the bottle suggests, but I'm hoping it's helping (the pain level I'm feeling this month gives evidence to the contrary) I had been taking the Solaray Mexican Yam Extract, 275 mg. per capsule. The bottle says "guaranteed potency," and it's twice as expensive as the other bottle, so I want to believe that it's stronger than the other. But the health store ran out of this type. I don't know if "wild yam" and "mexican yam" are the same plant or what.
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meka
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Post by meka on Apr 1, 2006 21:28:20 GMT -5
BTW,
Sorry for the confusion. All of the info I posted was about wild yam, the herb. I think the same for ouchy.
We were just trying to figure out if the yam the Nigerians were eating is the common yam Americans consume especially during Thanksgiving time, or if it was wild yam the herb that people use for women's health/reproductive issues. I think that's still kinda up in the air. Hope that helps clear up some confusion.
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Post by erzulie on Apr 1, 2006 23:17:15 GMT -5
It's ok. According the the link ouchy posted, however, taking too much wild yam is bad for you, and you really shouldn't exceed the recommended dosage. If it isn't working for you, maybe you should just give up on it. I don't think there's any one treatment that works for everybody. I don't even know absolutely for sure yet how well it works for me; it seems like it's helping, but I haven't been taking it long enough to be sure. I know it hasn't helped a bit with my between-periods pain, but I really think it is doing something for the menstrual pain.
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Post by erzulie on Jun 15, 2006 21:36:46 GMT -5
Ok, after some experimentation, here is what I have found out: Wild yam alone does not do much. Wild yam in combination with vitex berries and red raspberry leaves does WONDERS. I have tried each of these things alone and I have tried every combination, and nothing as worked as well as taking all three at the same time. Last month my period was really bad. This month I added the vitex and raspberry back in, and yet again I had a period that wasn't all that painful, with less bleeding than usual. On the third day of my period, I was outside shovelling dirt. That would ordinarily be unthinkable for me! Not only that, but this round I hardly had any pain post-ovulation--usually I am in some pain most every day. I strongly recommend taking these three things to anyone who hasn't found a good treatment plan yet.
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meka
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Post by meka on Jun 18, 2006 23:35:15 GMT -5
Congrats that you've found a natural treatment that's working for you!
Nothing seemed to be working for me. I've accepted that I was, perhaps, overzealous with my supplements. So I went the opposite extreme and stopped taking everything. Soon I'll start back a little more systematically, as you did, and hopefully that will help.
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