Luteal phase insomnia

[Yvonne]

Dear Dr. Lara, Thank you so much for your persevering work to bring the opportunity for health and healing to women worldwide. Using methods outlined in your first book, several years ago I was blessed to be healed of PCOS.

Recently I've encountered a new challenge. I've searched your website and blog comments for insight, but haven't found a solution. I'm hoping you may be able to share wisdom. I suffer from terrible and exhausting sleep maintenance insomnia, which clearly worsens throughout my luteal phase and gradually improves (but doesn't ever resolve) at the onset of my period. It's gotten worse over the past several months.

After much effort, my gyn agreed to check my levels of estrogen and progesterone six months ago. On CD 21 of a 33 day cycle, estradiol was 284.5 pg/ml and progesterone was 8.5 ng/ml. For the past five months I've been BBT charting, so I can confirm I'm ovulating and typically have a 25 day cycle with ovulation on CD 14. However over the past month I've also faced lack of libido and relative vaginal dryness. I am age 36, eat dairy free, eat mostly gluten free (went completely GF for over a year), take zinc and magnesium bisglycinate, sometimes take taurine, and tried iodine a year ago. I don't have any other PMS symptoms except fluid retention sometimes. I do have a few to several days of spotting before my period.

Is there anything I can do to help stay asleep and also regain libido? Thank you!