Women's Health
What is Women's Health?
Women's health is a broad and important topic that encompasses various physical, emotional, and social aspects of women's well-being. From puberty to menopause and beyond, women experience unique health challenges and considerations.
Women's health includes balancing hormones as well as the nervous system to allow your body to the most balanced. Area's of women's health include:
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Menstrual Health: Menstruation is a natural process in which the uterine lining sheds every month. It usually begins during adolescence and continues until menopause. Understanding menstrual cycles, tracking periods, and managing any associated discomfort is essential for women's health.
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Reproductive Health: Reproductive health involves a woman's ability to conceive, have a healthy pregnancy, and give birth. Studing the body pre and post conception can help optimize the best outcome for pregnancy and delivery.
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Sexual Health: This includes both physical and emotional well-being related to sexual activity.Learning how to handle infections, flora imbalance and your relationship with your female organs will have a huge impact on your health and wellbeing.
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Menopause: Menopause is a natural stage in a woman's life when her menstrual cycles cease. It usually occurs in the late 40s or early 50s. Managing symptoms such as hot flashes, mood swings, and changes in bone health is crucial during this transitional phase. We address this with natural remedies such as herbs, diet and acupuncture. We can also dig further using testing, and bioidentical hormones.
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Mental Health: Your mental health can affect your hormones and reproductive system. We address your mood and emotions so you can feel balanced, confident and happy.
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Heart Health: Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death among women. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise, a balanced diet, and stress management, is essential for heart health.
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Bone Health: Women are at a higher risk of osteoporosis, a condition characterized by weakened bones. Adequate calcium intake, vitamin D, and weight-bearing exercises can help maintain strong bones.
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Psychobiotics: Psychobiotics are probiotics and prebiotics that can improve your mental health by changing the mixture of bacteria in your gut. The balance of this flora can increase or decrease your resting stress state, mood swings, vaginal microbiome, and hormone imbalance.
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Beliefs, Trauma and Thoughts: Anxiety can also be learned from our upbringing, events in our life and belief systems we choose to follow. In this case it's important to actively rewire neural connections & the vagus nerve, to calm and regulate the nervous system, and therefore allow for smooth flow of hormones.
Women's health is influenced by various factors like our biology, thoughts, and environment. Imbalances can present in different ways such as : PCOS, Infertility, PMS, vaginal infections, Acne, irregular/painful periods and mood swings. Research in this field is ongoing, and is continually trying to understand to understand the biological basis of anxiety further.
Symptoms of Hormonal Imbalances for Women:
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Irregular menstrual cycles: Changes in the length, frequency, or intensity of menstrual periods.
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Heavy or light periods:
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Amenorrhea: Absence of menstrual periods.
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Menstrual cramps: Pain and discomfort during menstruation.
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Mood swings: Unexplained changes in mood, including irritability, anxiety, or depression.
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Fatigue
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Sleep disturbances
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Weight changes
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Changes in appetite: Increased or decreased appetite.
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Acne: Breakouts or worsening of acne.
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Hair loss: Thinning of hair or excessive hair shedding.
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Excessive facial or body hair growth
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Vaginal dryness
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Hot flashes
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Night sweats
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Changes in libido: Decreased or increased sex drive.
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Breast tenderness: Sensitivity and discomfort in the breasts.
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PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome) symptoms: Bloating, breast tenderness, and mood swings, acne before your period.
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Headaches or migraines
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Digestive issues
Causes of Hormonal Imbalances:
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Puberty and Menopause:
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Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS): PCOS is a hormonal disorder characterized by enlarged ovaries with small cysts. It can cause an excess of androgens (male hormones) and disrupt the regular menstrual cycle.
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Hormonal Birth Control
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Pregnancy
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Stress: Chronic stress can impact hormone production and regulation, leading to imbalances in various hormones like cortisol, estrogen, and progesterone.
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Thyroid Disorders: Conditions like hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism can disrupt the balance of thyroid hormones, affecting the overall hormonal milieu.
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Weight Issues: Being underweight or overweight can affect hormone production, particularly insulin and sex hormones.
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Over-exercising: Intense or prolonged physical activity, especially when combined with low calorie intake, can affect hormones like estrogen and progesterone.
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Medications
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Certain Medical Conditions: Conditions like diabetes, adrenal disorders, and pituitary disorders can disrupt hormone production and regulation.
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Environmental Factors: Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in certain plastics, pesticides, and industrial pollutants can interfere with hormone function.
What tests to consider for Women's Health?
I love using the DUTCH complete test for women's health. This test will test all of your sex hormones, cortisol and your organic acids. Other tests to consider are food sensitivity testing, stool test, thyroid testing, & stool testing.
How I approach Women's Health...
Women's Health is treated by looking at the WHOLE system. First we balance the body chemistry with the appropriate foods that fit your constitution (I love using Chinese medicine principles for this). We also can use gut microbiome testing if needed to see if there are imbalances in your gut flora (parasites, fungi, yeast, worms). A balanced gut flora directly affects your mood and hormones. Just these simple changes alone can make a HUGE impact in the case. I also like to address liver health (the main organ for regulating and balancing our hormones & stress. I also want to make sure the detoxification pathways are working so byproducts can be excreted safely. (organs involved are the liver, kidney, lungs and skin and GI tract)
Next I use herbs,/ supplements to help balance your cortisol and stress response. By calming your nervous systems we can allow you to be calmer, and more hormonally balanced. This will also affect mood swings, anxiety and depression. Other modalities such as acupuncture/homeopathy help the body reboot it's nervous system and allow for deep relaxation as well as organ system balance. We also address your learned patterns to stress by learning how to rewire your stress response in your body using hypnotherapy, breathing and cognitive restructuring.