Cheryl’s biggest accomplishment in life as she entered into menopause was her children – some still living at home and others had children of their own.
She watched them play outside and felt guilty because she didn’t have the energy to keep up with them and be the mom she wanted to be.
Cheryl was snippy at times but knew deep down that’s not who she was at her core.
She watched her family leave in the mornings to go to work and school while she cared for the home.
She spent a lot of time on the couch, scrolling through her phone with no energy to do the things she longed for in her heart.
Not only did she dream of being an energetic mom, but she wanted health. She also longed for a closer relationship with her husband so they could enjoy intimate date nights and travel. Cheryl wanted the energy to meet friends for mid-day coffee and serve in her community more.
Deep down, she knew she was created for more.
She had tucked away her personal dream of becoming an author, but still believed one day it could be possible. But that would have to wait.
At this time, Cheryl was:
Unsure what to eatand bloated after meals because she was attempting to follow conflicting dietary information on the internet.
Lacking confidence because she was more than 50 pounds overweight and didn’t feel good in her skin.
Tired during the day because she was waking up in the middle of the night multiple times drenched due to hot flashes from hormonal imbalances.
She had been struggling with her health and weight for 20 years.
As she planned a big trip to Israel, she knew it would be physically taxing on her body and mind if she didn’t work on her health in preparation for the trip.
She did everything she knew to clean up her diet and started walking to build her stamina. She even lost a little weight.
The trip was one of the best experiences of her life, except for the pain and swelling she experienced in her legs and feet, which only worsened when she got home.
It took several weeks to recover. She realized she couldn’t manage her health on her own and prayed for answers and someone to guide her.
Cheryl and I crossed paths at a conference shortly after her trip and she shared some wonderful memories.
A few weeks later, our paths crossed again and she shared a little more about her health struggles.
My question to her was simply, “can I help you?”
This was the day everything changed for Cheryl. Her eyes brightened as if she had hope for the first time in a long time.
She had a lot of questions and wondered:
Will I be able to do the work?
Will you be able to help me?
Will I be able to afford it?
These questions aren’t uncommon. They are great questions, and I’m glad Chery was able to meet herself where she was and communicate her concerns.
I shared more about my Go With Your Gut Method and how I help clients heal digestive issues and balance hormones naturally so they can feel good in their skin and get their life back.
She decided to go with her gut that day and hired me to help her 😉
A Better Weight Loss Solution in Menopause than Weight Loss Pills
We focused on cleaning up her diet and did a good cellular detox – the right way. Detox is a buzzword right now, but most people don’t get results because there’s more to it than drinking a tea you get from the local health food store.
After getting amazing results with step 1, we continued by looking at a few advanced lab tests and did a very focused gut healing protocol and worked to balance hormones with natural herbs.
Today Cheryl has:
Lost over50 pounds and kept it off for several years.
Got rid of bloating and other digestive issues.
Gained confidence in what she needs to eat to fuel her body and metabolism.
Balanced her hormones naturally – and is free from fibroids, hot flashes, and mood swings.
Improved her relationship with her kids and husband and is able to keep up with them on the basketball court and on nature walks
Written and published her book, “Letting God Lead”
The best part for Cheryl is seeing her children and husband follow in her footsteps and improve their health right along with her.
Her entire family is thriving now because she took the first scary step and said, “I need help and I’m willing to accept it.”
If you’re experiencing something similar…
You are not alone!
My question to you is the same one I asked Cheryl the second time we met… “Can I help you?”
I help women improve their digestive system so they can balance hormones naturally and realize their full potential.
With over 20 years as a medical professional, studying the mind, body, and spirit from a traditional and natural standpoint, and 10 years dedicated solely to finding the missing pieces to this gut-hormone connection so women can truly heal, I’ve made it my mission to help others connect the missing pieces of their health puzzle so they can get back to feeling like themselves again… or maybe for the very first time.
Nothing is impossible when you have a strategic plan and a guide to support you through the process.
If you’re ready for an outcome like Cheryl, myself, and so many others, I’d love to see your application hit my inbox this week so you can take your life back. You can find health and weight loss during menopause without the weight loss pills.
Your hormones send little messages throughout the body, constantly working to improve the way it functions. Depending on the hormone(s) that are out of balance, you can expect different symptoms.
We’ll talk specifically about estrogen dominance today and the unwanted symptoms you may experience when this hormone is either high in general or high in relation to its counterpart progesterone. This can happen in both women and men.
Estrogen dominance can lead to:
Heavy/irregular cycles
Difficulty losing weight
Decreased sex drive
Anxiety & depression
Endometriosis
Mood swings
Fibroids
PMS
After coming off birth control and starting bioidentical hormone therapy, I was plagued with symptoms of estrogen dominance. I didn’t realize that I had a stagnant liver because I was told my labs were normal. This excess estrogen that built up as a result played a huge role in my symptoms.
My doctor’s answer was to give me more progesterone in an attempt to balance these hormones more. It was a dangerous combination for me that led to many sleepless nights, irritability, weight gain, and a lot of other symptoms I’ll discuss here.
Introducing the role of estrogen and progesterone
Estrogen is the hormone that takes charge during the first half of your menstrual cycle and builds up the uterine lining to prepare the uterus in the event that you want to get pregnant. It prepares for a baby.
If you’ve ever looked at hormone testing, you’ve probably seen that you have 3 types of estrogens that show up – Estrone (E1), Estradiol (E2), Estriol (E3).
These are important because they give us our girlish figure, balance our moods, strengthen our bones, improve our memory, and keep our skin looking great.
Sounds like estrogen is amazing, right?
Well it is… when it’s in balance. And we want to keep it that way in respect to progesterone.
Progesterone peaks toward the second half of the cycle and maintains the uterine lining. If you’re trying to get pregnant or did get pregnant while progesterone was at its peak, you need good progesterone levels to support a healthy pregnancy.
Ovulation helps you produce progesterone, and its role is to balance out estrogen. Progesterone protects against certain cancers, helps with deep sleep, keeps you calm and collected, and makes you feel grounded.
What is estrogen dominance?
Estrogen dominance is when estrogen levels are significantly higher than progesterone levels. In one case, you may have estrogen levels that are normal with low progesterone. Or you may have estrogen levels that are high with normal progesterone.
Your symptoms will vary depending on how estrogen dominance presents for you. If your estrogen levels are normal and you have low progesterone, you could enter into early perimenopause or have signs of PCOS (Polycystic ovarian syndrome), or you may have your cycle monthly but may not be ovulating.
If you estrogen levels are high and your progesterone levels are normal, you may have excess body fat, digestive issues, impaired liver detoxification. A lot of this could come from toxins in your environment in an external form of estrogen, often referred to as Xenoestrogens. Xenoestrogens are found in toxic makeup, skincare, body products, plastics, cleaning chemicals, and other environmental toxins.
Either way, estrogen dominance will commonly have symptoms like those mentioned in the intro as well as:
Breast tenderness
Frequent headaches or migraines
Hypothyroidism
Memory and cognitive dysfunction
Sugar cravings
Estrogen dominance is the driver behind such disease processes like endometriosis, PCOS, Fibroids, and even breast and uterine cancer. It puts men at risk for prostate cancer, mood disorders, erectile dysfunction, and infertility.
Estrogen Dominance Test
You probably want to know if you can reverse estrogen dominance. If you have symptoms of estrogen dominance, hormone testing can give you insight into how to best address it. The DUTCH test is a urine based hormone test that can help you determine how well you’re metabolizing estrogen. Depending on how well your body is utilizing estrogen and getting rid of the excess, you’ll have the information you need to address the symptoms you’re experiencing.
Estrogen has the ability to take different pathways when the body is detoxing the excess. Depending on the pathway your body is favoring, you’ll be able to choose supplements that will create healthy balance instead of guessing. If you choose not to test, you could do more damage by taking supplements that aren’t needed in your particular situation.
For example, many people will tell you to take DIM if you are in estrogen dominance. But this could cause more harm to your body if your estrogen is already low or it may not be needed if certain pathways are working efficiently. Yes, you can have low estrogen and be in estrogen dominance.
If you’re curious about your specific needs and would like to know what your hormone pathways look like, you can purchase a test and consult with me to review. I’ll share the best next steps for getting long-term results with your hormone balance.
How to get rid of estrogen dominance symptoms
Outside of testing to help determine the underlying cause, consider a few lifestyle modifications if you believe you have estrogen dominance.
1. Eliminate alcohol and processed foods to help with the detoxification process. If your liver is taxed from unnecessary medications or other substances, it could impair estrogen detox.
2. Eat foods that help with estrogen detox. Lignans in flaxseed help bind to estrogens and remove them from the body. Wild-caught salmon helps increase the formation of good healthy estrogen pathways. Eggs support the liver to help detoxify estrogen metabolites.
3. Eat foods that help support the digestive tract. Prebiotic-rich foods like garlic, onions, leeks, asparagus, and artichokes become food for the good healthy bacteria in your gut. They also improve digestion and estrogen metabolism.
4. Make sure your meats are ethically sourced. Conventionally raised meats are a known source of high estrogen levels and have a negative impact on our cortisol levels and can lead to imbalance in our bodies.
5. Poop daily to help get rid of estrogen metabolites. When you’re constipated, estrogens will recirculate in the body and contribute to high levels.
6. Clean up personal care products! Opt for nontoxic brands like BeautyCounter or Lumvi (use CHELSIE for 10% off) since estrogens are found in the majority of skincare products.
Final Thoughts
Hormone balance can be very disruptive to your life. These chemical messengers are responsible for running the show in the body, and when they are out of balance, we can feel like we’re falling apart.
If you’re experiencing any of the symptoms and are ready to take your health to the next level and work to heal your digestive system and balance hormones naturally, that’s exactly what will happen when we work together.
What makes this process different is that I will offer you an assessment that dives deep into your history and takes a comprehensive look at advanced labs as needed to look for risk factors as well as help you uncover the cause of your imbalances so we can address them at the root. If that’s what you’re looking for, complete this short application and schedule a time to meet with me for a consultation. We can determine if it’s a good fit for us to partner together to resolve some of your hormone imbalances naturally.
The gut-hormone connection is real. By healing your gut inflammation, it’s possible to naturally balance hormones.
A word of caution: Be careful with band-aid approaches that cover up digestive symptoms and hormone imbalance with things like birth control and over-the-counter remedies. We get ourselves in trouble when we focus on temporary relief instead of long-term resolution.
Let’s talk about how to naturally balance hormones by healing your gut and improving your liver health.
My Own Journey to Balancing My Hormones
One of my early childhood health-related memories was when I started my menstrual cycle. I was so embarrassed and didn’t know how to handle it. I tried to hide it – even from my mom.
My periods were so painful that I would lay on a heating pad most days and pop Midol like candy. By age 12, I was prescribed the pill! You know the one – birth control.
Over time, I moved from one magic pill to the next to control these symptoms. I ended up on a vaginal ring and then the depo provera shot. By age 27, I met with my functional medicine doctor after being off birth control for about a year and was told I was in perimenopause, meaning my hormones were fizzling out. I had not seen my cycle in 3 years.
My personal challenges as a child spurred my interest in this gut-hormone connection. It started with severe constipation, which I now know causes excess estrogen to build up in the system and causes estrogen dominance, which in turn causes those heavy cycles and severe PMS symptoms.
It was a vicious cycle that led to birth control and caused a lifetime of fungal infections and irritable bowel by the time I was in my teens because I never addressed the root. Even after natural hormone therapy with bioidentical hormones, my digestive issues and hormone imbalances got worse.
After doing the research and accessing the right lab tests that I use with clients today, I was able to heal my digestion, balance hormones naturally, and now I feel better than ever.
As I reflect back on my health journey, it’s evident that I’ve pursued health most of my life. You may feel the same. Oftentimes when we struggle, it drives us to find answers. I’m happy to say I was able to do that and I’m healthier now than ever.
But I have to be honest! This journey hasn’t been filled with rainbows and sunshine every day.
Standing on the other side, I look back and see that my health issues were compiled over time, and not something that happened over night.
We live in a toxic world, eat toxic foods, have toxic relationships, and those things all create a toxic body.
This is possible for you too, as I see it happen in the lives of others every day. If you’re experiencing digestive issues or hormone imbalances today, know that your body didn’t wake up one day and decide to start acting crazy. It’s been building up over time and even since childhood.
Today, we’ll discuss how these systems are connected and the signs you should look for when trying to determine if there’s a possible imbalance for you too.
What are the symptoms of hormonal imbalance?
Hormone imbalance can ramp up your appetite, decrease your sleep quality, and have a major effect on your mood and sex drive. This was my life.
Medications like birth control can also cause disruptions in the gut, so you end up with symptoms like:
Anxiety or irritability
Chronic fatigue
Irritable bowel, bloating, or constipation
Nutrient deficiencies from poor diet
Fluctuations in weight
And much more!
The Gut-Hormone Connection
When you control inflammation in your gut, it becomes possible to balance hormones and shed excess body fat naturally.
You may not be on birth control, but if you’re experiencing digestive issues and feel like your hormones are out of whack, I want you to know about the gut-hormone connection, because it could be the culprit. A huge piece of this connection starts with your liver.
When it comes to the liver, we usually focus on its role in detoxification. Your liver performs about 200 important functions that impact hormones, cholesterol, protein synthesis, blood purification, and more.
When your liver is working efficiently, it purifies the blood, regulates metabolism, stores vitamins and minerals, and even protects you from infections.
Even if your labs appear to be normal, you still may have a sluggish liver. We’ll talk about the liver in a minute.
The First Step to Balance Hormones
When you want to balance hormones naturally, you must address the entire body. The symptoms are not the problem. They are a result of the problem.
Try some of these foods that balance hormones:
Break up with sugar to prevent the bacterial imbalances and fungal overgrowth it causes.
Eat more fiber rich foods, especially those in the cruciferous family to help with estrogen detox – broccoli, Brussel sprouts, asparagus, and kale are some of my favorites.
Include naturally detoxifying foods for your liver like lemon, grapefruit, beets, dandelion greens.
And finally, talk to your doctor about healthy alternatives to medications that are harming your liver and get a second opinion if necessary.
How to Naturally Balance Hormones by Addressing the Liver
Clients like Erica often ask me to investigate hormone health because of low libido, weight gain, and loss of muscle mass. Specific questions allow me to determine whether the gut may be playing a role in this imbalance.
Many times these clients have been on birth control or some other form of hormone therapy and even things like antidepressants for years and complain that they’ve stopped working.
Here’s what happens:
Your liver goes through several phases of detoxification to make the toxins more water soluble using oxygen. The liver then uses enzymes to burn up these toxins. And the toxins are easily expelled through the liver and kidneys.
During this process, the liver produces more toxins, which sounds like we’re going backward, but it’s a necessary step as toxins are being pulled out of the system.
Your methylation pathways are responsible for detoxifying estrogen.
When methylation is slow, excess estrogen can build up in the body, leading to many of your hormone related symptoms.
This pathway is an issue for many of my clients, as it was for me. When we address the liver through proper detox and support the body in a natural way, it’s likely that the body will be able to make sufficient amounts of hormones without the support of pills, injections, or pellets.
4 Clues Your Liver is Causing Hormone Imbalance
Poor Digestion
Your liver is responsible for producing bile, which breaks down fat (including fat soluble vitamins) during digestion.
The gallbladder stores this bile until you need it to help break down food. When this process doesn’t work efficiently, you may experience nausea, indigestion, and bloating after meals.
Pain in the upper right corner of your abdomen, underneath your rib cage is another sign that your liver is inflamed.
Hormonal imbalance symptoms
Low testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone levels can show up as low libido, hair loss, fatigue, increased body fat, poor sleep, and decreased bone mass.
The enzyme aromatase converts testosterone into estrogen. With too much conversion, low testosterone can be an unwanted side effect that often leads to further hormone imbalances and even heart disease.
The liver plays a critical role in ridding excess hormones (like estrogen) from your body.
When there’s a buildup of these estrogens, symptoms are exacerbated and you may end up gaining weight and feel over-emotional.
Skin related issues
Your skin becomes a detox pathway when toxins build up in the system and the liver isn’t able to process those toxins out. As a result, your skin starts to clog, causing conditions like acne, rosacea, rashes, psoriasis, dermatitis, and eczema.
You may use topical creams to put out the flame, but many times the problem is a congested liver. Once you cleanse the liver, these conditions are more likely to heal.
Bad breath or white coating on the tongue
If you stick out your tongue, look in the mirror, and see a white film, it may be another indicator you have a sluggish liver.
This white coating leads to bad breath. You may try to scrape the coating off in an attempt to fix the problem. But unless you address the root, the white coating will return.
Your mouth, gut, and liver are all part of your digestive tract and play a role in digestion. This white coating is a sign that you’re not digesting your food well, and a sign of yeast or bacterial overgrowth in the gut.
Final Thoughts
If you want to look at the current state of your hormones to address the root cause, you can purchase the DUTCH testfor hormones and I’ll include an interpretation and offer guidance with next steps to address what’s causing your imbalances.
What makes Dutch hormone Testing different is that it captures more information about your hormones in one simple test. It offers a uniquely comprehensive look at the hormones, showing risk factors for conditions such as prostate or breast cancer, for example.
This in-depth look at the hormones allows you to better address the underlying cause of imbalance, rather than using a hormone or medication to put out fires related to symptoms. It offers insight so you can address the cause in a more natural way.
When we talk about the liver, we usually focus on its role in detoxification. Your liver performs about 200 very important functions. These impact hormones, cholesterol, bile production, protein synthesis, blood purification, and more.
When your liver is working efficiently, it purifies the blood, regulates metabolism, stores vitamins and minerals, and even protects you from parasites and other infections.
But what happens when your liver isn’t working efficiently?
And do you understand how your gut health impacts hormone health?
It’s important to realize that the labs can still appear normal even when your liver is sluggish. A lot of people come to me saying their doctor ran their bloodwork and their liver is fine.
So if your lab tests are normal, how do you know if you are suffering from a sluggish liver?
What Happens When The Liver Functions & Malfunctions
The liver plays a crucial role in your body. But are you aware of the symptoms of a malfunctioning liver?
Gut Health: Digestive Problems
The liver produces bile that helps to aid in digestion. But what happens when the liver is producing less bile? Or when the gallbladder is no longer doing a good job of storing bile to use when you eat? If this occurs, you may experience bloating, constipation, and loss of appetite.
Are you tired of digestive problems controlling your life?
The liver plays an important role in maintaining healthy blood sugar levels. So what happens when you have a sluggish liver?
If you are suffering from a sluggish liver, then your blood sugar levels will tend to fluctuate. This may leave you feeling weak and dizzy. Nausea, vomiting, and a total lack of energy are common.
Hormonal Imbalance
Think of your liver as a filter for your hormones. When this process is not working efficiently, you may experience sleep disturbance, depression, irregular periods, hot flashes, mood swings, and fibroids.
Skin Related Issues
When clients come to me with any kind of skin problem, one of the first things to come to mind is the liver. This is because it plays a huge role in eliminating toxins from the body.
One of the ways we detox is through the skin. When the liver isn’t working efficiently, toxins can come through the skin, and you may develop rashes such as psoriasis, eczema, itching skin, or even acne and moles.
Detoxification
Our livers take a beating regularly due to the toxic world we live in. Several things in our environment expose us to toxins on a daily basis, including:
Air pollution
Toxic cosmetics and skincare products
Home cleaning products
Prescription medications
Herbicides and pesticides in our foods
Toxic cookware
Plastics
And even tap water
Aside from your liver, you can also detoxify through your skin, lungs, kidneys, and digestive tract. However, when one of those areas becomes overloaded, it can take a toll on your body.
So where does the gut-hormone connection actually come in?
How Your Liver & Gut Health Impacts Hormone Health
Clients often ask me to investigate their hormone health. To do this, I start by asking questions to determine whether the gut is playing a role in their hormonal imbalance.
In my years of practice, there have been client cases where diet and supplements alone improve the hormone imbalance. This was the case for Tanya, one of my younger clients.
She had debilitating menstrual cycles that would even land her in the hospital. The biggest change we made was upgrading her diet to include more natural and whole foods, and eliminating processed foods. Doing this cleaned up her liver. And with targeted supplements, we even repaired her gut lining.
Your liver goes through more than one phase of detoxification. That’s why it’s important to know what you need for proper detoxification to take place.
If you feel the temptation to grab a detox in a box, you might want to reconsider to avoid wasting your money. Unfortunately, the juice cleanse trends don’t offer true detoxification benefits, because they don’t have everything needed to truly allow you to detox.
Phase One
During the first phase of detoxification, your liver makes the toxins more water-soluble using oxygen. Then your liver uses enzymes to burn up the toxins. This allows toxins to more easily expel through the liver and kidneys. This process stirs things up and causes the liver to produce more toxins. It sounds like we’re taking a step backward here, but it is a necessary step in the process.
Phase Two
In the second phase of detoxification, the oxidized chemicals combine with specific amino acids and organic acids. Then, they excrete through bile or urine.
There are six different pathways in phase two that are responsible for different substances, like estrogen, heavy metals, thyroid hormones, nicotine, bacterial toxins, caffeine, and more.
Other Detoxification Methods & Issues
Not all clients have it as easy as Tanya. When working with my clients, I use advanced hormone testing that looks at the pathways rather than just the hormone alone. This testing also looks at organic acids as well as methylation pathways.
Methylation Pathways
It’s fairly common to see problems with methylation pathways. They are responsible for detoxifying estrogen, dopamine, histamine, and heavy metals. However, when methylation is slow, we can increase certain types of B vitamins to strengthen the pathway.
Sulfation
Sulfation also plays a role in the detoxification of neurotransmitters, thyroid hormones, and excess bile acids. It’s important to realize that over-the-counter anti-inflammatories negatively impact this pathway. We can, however, support this pathway with sulfur-rich foods and supplements.
Estrogen
When it comes to estrogen, detoxification pathway blockage can lead to estrogen excess. This can result in fibrous tissue in your uterus or breast, thyroid nodules, heavy menstrual cycles, miscarriages, infertility, hot flashes, insomnia, weight gain, and fatigue.
Too many times, women have come to me after their doctors dismissed some of these as normal hormonal symptoms. That’s exactly what happened to Tanya. But when we completely assessed the situation, we were able to naturally balance her hormones and do away with her unwelcome symptoms – by addressing the root.
My Gut Hormone Connection
My own challenges spurred my interest in the gut hormone connection. As a child, I developed constipation issues. At the age of 12, I was put on birth control. This was followed by me dealing with fungal and candida infections for many years. I never made the connection between my symptoms and birth control. But by the time I was in my late teens, I received my IBS diagnosis.
In my mid-twenties, I lost my menstrual cycle for about three years.
Then at 27, I was diagnosed with perimenopause.
But even with the bioidentical hormones, my digestive symptoms never seemed to completely correct themselves. In fact, some of my symptoms even got worse. The cravings, weight gain, and inflammation in my body were still part of my daily life.
To be honest, I did feel slightly better. But I could tell the prescriptions were simply covering up my symptoms, just like birth control did for so long.
Turns out, I was being over-prescribed hormones. Under the guidance of a functional medicine doctor, I stopped taking those prescriptions. Instead, my new doctor was helping me to support my liver and detox my body in a way no one ever had. The funny thing is, I was suddenly feeling better than I had in years.
What I Learned From My Journey
Being a practitioner myself at the time, I took advantage of my resources. I started running the advanced assessments and labs that I use with my clients today. While looking at my digestive system, it was revealed that I had parasites.
So I started strategically working on those areas. By implementing a healthy lifestyle and a very specific supplement protocol, I brought my body back into balance. I was able to heal my IBS symptoms and rid myself of parasites.
The best part is, after years of struggling with hormone imbalance, from my first cycle at 11 through the age of 30, I was finally able to balance my hormones.
Heal Your Entire Body & Your Gut Health (The Liver, Gut, & Hormones) Will Follow
When you’re looking to heal or stop symptoms, it’s important to address the entire body. The problem you are aware of may not be the actual problem after all. Instead, it may be the result of a problem in another area.
It’s important to remember that the entire body is connected. One area can greatly impact another. And it’s understandable if you’re not sure how it’s all connected or not understanding how to do the detective work on your own.
Putting the puzzle pieces together took me a lifetime and lots of training to accomplish. But that doesn’t mean you should continue in your cycle of trial and error. It’s time to hire someone with experience. I can help you get to the root of your health issues so you can make a bigger impact in this world. Reach out today to start your own healing journey.
You may not know this, but Estrogen dominance is on the rise.
Part of my role as a health and wellness coach is to look at hormone tests every day. And everyday, I see more and more estrogen dominance when I start investigating my clients’ hormone imbalance.
Many times, this imbalance gets overlooked on a standard blood test. It’s not only the cause of irregular menstrual cycles and PMS symptoms, but it can be related to issues like weight gain, decreased sleep, increased appetite, low energy, insulin resistance, low libido, and even mood disorders like depression in both men and women.
When my husband and I first started investigating our hormone health, we discovered we both were estrogen dominant.
And we’re not alone in that!
So many people experience this same type of hormonal imbalance.
For me, I knew my hormones were out of sync. It started when I got on birth control at the age of 11 to manage my debilitating cycles. Although birth control seemed to help, I wish I had known about the negative impact that daily pill had on my health long-term.
So why are you hearing more about estrogen dominance in the health sphere? And how do you manage it before it results in permanent damage? I’m covering all that in this blog.
What Is Estrogen Dominance?
In general, estrogen dominance means that your estrogen levels are high relative to other sex hormones. We particularly look at the estrogen to progesterone ratio in women and compare to testosterone in men. It’s a delicate balance between having too much or too little estrogen. And this is true for all the hormones!
The great news is, it doesn’t happen overnight.
And in most cases, it is preventable and reversible.
If you don’t get your estrogen dominance under control, it can contribute to a variety of health issues, such as the following:
Hormone driven cancers like breast cancer
Tumor-like growths like fibroids
Autoimmune conditions like hashimotos
Yeast and bacteria overgrowth and drive conditions like candida
Simply put, the reason why estrogen dominance is one the rise is because of our environment.
We’re exposed to numerous hormone disruptors in our everyday environment. These are known as xenoestrogens. These xenoestrogens lead to estrogen toxicity and disrupt our natural hormone production.
You can most commonly find these xenoestrogens in plastics, chemicals, pesticides, and our water systems.
Take a moment to look around in your environment.
Start with your kitchen. The foods we eat are either processed with chemicals or coated in pesticides. Our tupperware that reheats our meals are made of plastics.
Evaluate your cleaning products. A few chemicals to look out for include cyclosiloxanes, phthalates, and parabens.
Then survey your medicine cabinet. Certain medications can impact your estrogen levels – especially hormone therapy drugs.
All of these small things make a great impact on our health.
If we don’t control our home environment starting now, we’ll continue to see a rise of estrogen over our progesterone levels. Ready to take control of your health? Let’s chat about how to redirect your course here.
How Do You Treat Estrogen Dominance
So, how do you treat this hormone imbalance? I’ve put together a couple of tips that you can start to implement today.
Decrease Your Exposure
It’s nearly impossible to totally eliminate our exposure to these hormone disruptors, but you can take small action steps to help. Try any of the following to decrease your exposure:
Opt for Pyrex dishes and glass containers instead of plastic food containers (i.e. tupperware).
Make the switch to non-toxic beauty products. Unfortunately, a lot of the makeup and body lotions that women are using today have hormone disruptors in them – especially those plumpers. They are filled with these fake estrogens.
Use non-toxic cleaners for your home instead of toxic chemicals. They not only smell better, but they’re safer for your home.
Use a water purifier so you limit the exposure to toxic metals and chemicals in your drinking water. Our body is about 70% water. It’s vital that you care about what you’re putting in your body – starting with your water.
Rather watch a short video with the same information…
Detox Your Body
Depending on the severity of your estrogen dominance, I may recommend a complete detox protocol where we strategically remove all the toxins impacting your body’s balance. If you’d like to explore what a detox would look like for you, schedule a discovery call here.
Love Your Liver
When you’re cleaning up these toxins, it’s also important to address the health of your liver. One of the liver’s jobs is to get rid of excess estrogen. If you fully support the liver by making sure its drainage pathways are open, then you’ll more easily eliminate the toxins you’re exposed to on a regular basis that could otherwise raise your estrogen levels.
To support healthy estrogen levels by loving your liver, you can:
Eat naturally detoxifying foods that support your liver, like lemons, beets, and grapefruit.
Consume foods that regulate estrogen levels, like broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussel sprouts, and arugula.
Use castor oil packs to naturally detox the body. It helps you sleep better, improves bowel movements (which helps you release old estrogen), helps with digestion, and reduces stress by activating that rest/digest state in the body. It has so many benefits.
Experiencing Estrogen Dominance?
If you’re experiencing hormone imbalance and it appears that you have estrogen dominance, these tips will not be enough (at least with my experience working with dozens of clients).
If you suspect you may have a hormonal imbalance and you want to gain access to the right lab tests and resources to help you get it under control, then take the time to schedule an appointment with me today. This could mean the difference between living a life traveling from appointment to appointment and experiencing freedom.
Are you dealing with a metabolism issue? That may not be easy to answer at face value. If you’re experiencing low energy, fatigue, brain fog, poor memory, and digestive symptoms, that may be an indicator for something more. The symptoms above paired with cold hands/feet, dry skin, and hair loss could be signs of a hypoactive thyroid. Many clients don’t seem to be getting better with their medications. Others experience the symptoms of a hypoactive thyroid, but their labs fall into normal ranges – indicating a normal thyroid. Then a few are masking each symptom separately with medications and supplements. We’re quick to blame the thyroid here, but it’s usually not the only piece to the puzzle – even if there is damage to the thyroid or an underlying autoimmune condition destroying the thyroid. If you’re searching for out-of-the-box therapies or want more for your life than pills and medications, discover where you should put your focus to heal your thyroid.
Find The Root Of Your Problem To Address Your Thyroid Issues
Our thyroid is the master of our metabolism; however, the symptoms we’re experiencing may not be caused by the thyroid alone. Instead of investigating the underlying causes – an imbalance of the gut, brain, adrenal glands, and/or cellular health within the body – we may be left with lingering symptoms. When we see a metabolism issue, we often blame the thyroid and treat those symptoms alone. When that doesn’t work, we typically get referred out to someone who “specializes in” a specific organ or condition. Unfortunately the root of the problem is never addressed. This is why people believe we must get sick before we die and that disease is inevitable. The truth is… If we address the underlying cause of our issues, then we can have a much healthier life.
Studying Your Thyroid From A Holistic Standpoint
Addressing the thyroid, or any other organ for that matter, from a holistic standpoint allows us to look at the person as a whole (instead of treating symptoms). When we approach the body in this way, it allows us to uncover imbalances that are leading to dysfunction in these organs. A thyroid problem is not always a thyroid problem. If we look at all the organ systems like the immune system, digestion, detoxification pathways, the nervous system, and even emotional health, we will uncover the stress that is actually leading to disease. When we uncover this stress and work to bring healing in those weak areas, we bring balance into the body. This balance gives us the results we are looking for as a side effect of good health. Of course, there’s a systematic process to accomplish this. That’s why so many people fail when they try to do it on their own. Most people I talk to have spent thousands of dollars trying to figure out their health on their own, when they could have hired a mentor to guide them through the process instead. Skip the heartache and empty wallet that comes with DIYing your health. Schedule some time to chat about your health with me today.
Rather watch a short video with the same information…
Why Is Thyroid Health Vital?
Your thyroid health regulates metabolism and energy production in the cells. It’s important for tissue repair, cardiovascular health, bone density, cholesterol levels, temperature regulation, and energy levels.
Two Types of Thyroid Conditions
When it comes to thyroid health, there are two different types of conditions – primary and secondary.
Primary Thyroid Condition
A primary thyroid condition is when the gland itself is not functioning at optimal levels. In these cases, medical supervision is required. When you include healthy lifestyle factors through nutrition, proper supplementation, the reduction of deficiencies, the use of stress reduction techniques, and gut healing strategies, you will improve your primary thyroid condition.
Secondary Thyroid Condition
A secondary thyroid condition is caused by toxicity from other areas in the body. This can also be due to chronic stress and inflammation in the body. Since this type of thyroid condition is caused by poor lifestyle habits or toxicity, medications typically will not bring the thyroid into balance because the thyroid isn’t the problem. The key here is bringing balance into all the organ systems of the body so you can experience health. When you address this from a holistic standpoint, medication may not be needed.
What Areas Should You Focus On When Healing Your Thyroid Health?
When someone comes to me with thyroid, metabolism, energy, or even autoimmunity, these are my biggest areas of focus:
Brain
Adrenal glands
Liver
Gut
Your Brain
Thyroid communication starts in the brain. The hypothalamus responds to the low thyroid hormone in the body and secretes thyrotropin releasing hormones (TRH). It sends a message to the pituitary gland to secrete thyroid stimulating hormones (TSH). TSH stimulates the thyroid to release more thyroid hormones into the bloodstream to bring the levels up. Keep in mind, TSH is a pituitary marker – not a thyroid marker. If your doctor is only looking at TSH to measure the health of your thyroid, you will not receive accurate results as to whether or not your thyroid is making enough hormones. Looking at TSH alone is a shot in the dark and does not give an accurate picture of thyroid health. Instead, acquire a full thyroid panel, and work with someone who understands how to interpret it to help you function optimally. You can see the type of results this type of investigation will give someone by reading Tina’s story here .
Your Adrenal Glands
Your adrenal glands play a big role here as well; they also get their messages from the hypothalamus and pituitary. They not only help to manage stress, but they also help regulate blood sugar and control mineral levels. Our adrenal glands are taking a toll due to the chronic state of stress we are in. Everything from mental and emotional stress to physical stress to environmental stress to internal stress inside the body… The adrenals are responsible for keeping the body in balance. Right now, they are overstressed – releasing large amounts of cortisol. The body then begins to break down. It will cause your thyroid gland to slow down so it can conserve energy. Your big takeaway here is that you must address your stress and your adrenal health if you want your thyroid to respond fully. Unfortunately, you may miss this point because you may not feel stressed. That doesn’t mean your adrenals aren’t stressed. The body wants to maintain balance; help it by addressing those disease processes from a holistic standpoint.
Your Liver
The liver is responsible for the conversion of T4 (inactive thyroid hormone) to your active form of thyroid T3. If there’s a problem with this conversion, then the T3 will remain low – leading to symptoms related to a hypoactive thyroid. This hormone gives your body fuel. When it’s low, you feel sluggish. The liver also produces a substance called thyroid binding globulin – which prevents thyroid hormones from being immediately absorbed into the cells surrounding the thyroid gland. In addition, the liver distributes and transports thyroid binding globulin into other areas of the body. When there’s a malfunction in this area, it can cause the T3 levels to appear high or low. Thankfully, there’s a sweet spot when it comes to your hormones. You don’t want them too high or too low. When the liver is doing its job, these thyroid hormones will come into balance. Utilize functional lab tests to discover if you have a liver issue and map out a healing plan with me.
Your Gut
My favorite area to talk about is the gut because as Hippocrates said, “it is the window to disease”. This is foundational when it comes to thyroid health. 20% of the free T3 that is used by the body is produced in the gut. Your good friendly bacteria play a huge role in the conversion of your active T3. Your gut is made up of billions of bacteria; they can either help us or harm us. The good bacteria helps to nourish us. On the other hand, bad bacteria produce toxins that make us sick. Poor diet, inflammation, medications, toxicity, food sensitivities, and low stomach acid can stress the gut. It leads to a condition called leaky gut – which allows toxins and other unwanted particles to pass into circulation. This puts stress on the immune system and causes an inflammatory response throughout the body. When food proteins spill into circulation where they don’t belong, the body begins to elicit an attack. Many of these food proteins look very similar to our organs, so the body may begin to attack specific organ systems. This leads to autoimmunity. And autoimmunity does not go away. While you can live symptom-free with autoimmunity, it is a condition you must work on to remain healthy.
My Recommendations For Healing Your Thyroid Health
If you want to start healing your thyroid health, here’s what I recommend:
Work with someone to access the right lab tests. Your doctor orders a lab test as a way to diagnose and treat a specific symptom or condition. Those lab tests do not address underlying causes of disease. Functional practitioners, like myself, use lab tests to see a clear picture of what may be causing a disease or condition. You want to make sure you address your brain, adrenals, liver, and gut.
Throw out the processed foods and focus on nutrient-dense foods that heal the organs. Try to include more good healthy grass-fed meats, organ meats, wild-caught fish, healthy fats (like ghee, coconut oil, avocado), dark leafy greens, and colorful vegetables into your diet.
Get your ZZZ’s. Get in bed by 10pm. The first half of the night is when the body is repaired, and the second half is for the brain. Don’t skip this!
Eliminate stress – not just emotional stress. Make sure you’re addressing physical stress as well as internal stress. The internal stress will require that you invest in yourself by hiring a guide. If you’ve been spinning your wheels for years trying to figure out how to get healthy on your own, and you’re still stuck in the same place you were years ago, it’s time to address your health in a holistic way. What is your other option? Are you going to spend the next five years doing the very same things that get you nowhere? What would your life look like if you actually reached your health goals? If you’re ready to tackle your thyroid, metabolism issues, autoimmunity, or any other chronic condition head-on, schedule a discovery call with me to strategize a game plan.
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