Hormone Issues
Hot flashes, cramps, and low libido... oh my!
In a perfectly healthy body, young women have a menstrual flow that comes and goes every month with zero symptoms. Yet as girls, we’re taught that periods come with cramps and irritability, and sometimes tender breasts, low energy, headaches, or blood clots. That’s because the majority of us develop hormone imbalances at some point in our lives. But it doesn’t have to be that way!
Did you know that it’s also possible to transition into menopause and completely avoid hot flashes or vaginal dryness? There’s no reason you have to stand in front of an open fridge to survive midlife!
Hormone imbalance can happen for a handful of reasons. Our reproductive hormones – estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and others – are all part of a delicate symphony of signals involving the brain and reproductive organs. When even one hormone is unbalanced, it can wreck the whole performance.
There are numerous types of hormone imbalance, all a little different, and all with a variety of causes.
Let’s start with estrogen.
When it’s too low, you often see hot flashes and the start of weaker bones. When it’s too high, you might experience weight challenges, heavy flow, irregular cycles, PCOS, fibroids, or endometriosis. To avoid symptoms, estrogen needs to be in a specific range, and so do your other hormones.
If your estrogen level is great, but progesterone is too low? You’ll get symptoms. If both estrogen and progesterone levels are great, but the way your body clears out hormones is faulty – well, you’ll get symptoms from that, too.
In some cases, hormone imbalance can be due to food choices. Your body uses some of the nutrients from the foods you eat to make certain hormones. If you don’t consume enough of the right nutrients, then your body simply can’t produce enough hormones. Eating the right foods for the right nutrients can be key to avoiding low hormone levels.
Another reason hormones become imbalanced is that your body is in survival mode and choosing to put its energy elsewhere.
Your body perceives stress as a danger, including the stress that comes from a packed calendar, work deadlines, and the digital overload of modern life. When your body feels like it’s in danger, it chooses to dedicate resources to organs that are critical… your heart, your lungs, your ability to walk and talk. That’s because you’re unlikely to survive without those critical systems.
As a consequence, other organs and systems that are less critical to your survival take a back seat – including your reproductive system, as well as your digestive and immune systems. A stressed body limits blood flow to those areas to deliver fewer nutrients, reserving your resources for the critical systems. It’s not hard to do the math: chronic stress = hormone imbalances.
Your hormones might also become imbalanced as a result of exposure to external hormones in your food and environment. The body’s ability to produce hormones could be just fine, but external hormones can interfere with your natural balance, triggering a disruption to the system or to the body’s ability to detoxify excess hormone.
Find the Root Cause of Hormone Issues
In most cases, hormone imbalances are really a symptom of another issue that is stressing your system, rather than a hormone production problem. Standard hormone labs never tell the whole story.
That’s why we dig deeper at Ann Arbor Holistic Health. It's important to find out what is stressing the body and attend to the root cause. Comprehensive testing paired with the right practitioner is always the first step.
Functional Lab Testing
With the results of state-of-the-art functional tests, we are able to see exactly what’s happening in your body at the biochemical level, providing the clues we need to create a custom wellness plan.
Connecting the Dots
With functional lab tests, bad results are actually great news. That's because any less-than-optimal result represents a healing opportunity.
A Holistic Approach
Because the cause of hormone imbalance is different for everyone, it's important for the solution to consider your individual body and lifestyle. No one-size-fits-all answers here!
Do I Need Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)?
The answer to that question is as unique as you are.
Supporting low hormones with hormone therapy is an effective approach for some that brings serious symptom relief. Hormones that can be replaced with HRT:
Estrogen
Progesterone
Testosterone
DHEA
Pregnenolone
However, it’s also important to question why and how your hormones got off track. Sometimes the solution is to nourish your hormone-producing organs directly, sometimes it’s a matter of “priming the pump” with supplemental hormones, and sometimes it’s just a matter of boosting basic vitamins and minerals used in hormone production.
The solution to hormone imbalance depends on your unique situation, and the key to success is discovering your personal biochemistry and needs.
If you’re feeling out of tune with your own body, we would be honored to help. Our goal is to help you paint a complete, comprehensive picture of your overall well-being. Based on our findings, we will work with you to develop a holistic strategy specific to your symptoms and wellness goals.
Hormone levels affect how your body reacts to stress and it regulates your digestion, the immune system, mood and emotions, sexuality, and energy levels.
An overabundance of estrogen can create problems in men and women. Diindolylmethane (DIM), found in cruciferous vegetables (think broccoli and cabbage), has been shown to improve estrogen metabolism imbalances.
Exposure to petroleum-based synthetic estrogens is rampant in industrialized countries. Supplementation with natural progesterone can balance excessive estrogen in the body.