From the time women’s periods begin, typically in their early teens, females start internalizing the idea their menstrual symptoms are normal, just part of being female; go curl up in a ball until it’s over. (My mother actually used to give me sips of blackberry brandy back in the day to take the edge off.)
Normal? Hardly. Menstrual symptoms, beyond some mild cramping or even a skipped period here and there, are not inevitable. They’re a sign something is out of balance. If you start tracking female patients’ symptoms, testing their hormone levels and trying out some natural remedies, you’ll be amazed at the progress you can make.
How to hormone test
Hormone testing can be done through serum, which in a menstruating female is not ideal, or you can do a saliva test, which is better because you can measure hormones several times during the month. Typically, hormone levels are only checked at the beginning and around day 21 of a woman’s cycle and miss the rest of the month. Saliva testing can be done easily and at home during multiple points in the cycle.
We also can urine-test, which is lovely because not only do you get hormone levels, you can also run metabolites to look at the pathways; sometimes it’s a pathway issue to manufacturing a hormone or utilizing a hormone versus just a deficiency. There may be metabolites that need to be addressed to elevate or decrease certain hormones causing symptoms.
Adrenal testing utilizing saliva or urine, looking at the stress hormone cortisol and DHEA is also a good idea for women having menstrual issues.
More than hormonal?
You may need to go beyond hormone testing and order pelvic ultrasounds, even a pelvic MRI or CT scan, if you suspect a pelvic disorder due to symptoms like lack of menstruation, painful periods, very long-lasting periods and heavy clotting. You could be dealing with significant pathology, such as cancerous tumors, fibroids (benign uterine tumors), ovarian cysts or endometriosis, being the source of the pain, scarring and ultimately infertility. And pregnancy, which is the first “condition” you want to rule out before ordering a lot of diagnostic testing on female patients.
If there’s no period, make sure you’re running a beta HCG test, which can give you just a positive or negative result, like a home pregnancy test. Alternatively, you could order a blood test that gives an indication of the level of beta HCG so you can determine how many weeks pregnant a female patient is should she test positive.
Track symptoms carefully
With menstrual issues, it’s important to track symptoms in minute detail. A patient might report having PMS, but how long does it last? Ten days or three days? During menstruation is it dysmenorrhea (painful periods) rather than PMS?
In tests, we’re looking for the normalcy of both the estrogen and the progesterone levels, but also the relationship of one to the other. The ratios become really important because your progesterone might be fine within a range, but let’s say it’s at the low end of normal, and your estrogen might be fine within range, but at the high end of normal. The relationship between the two might still indicate estrogen dominance, which leads to headaches, cramping and mood swings prior to the period.
Treat the underlying issue, not just symptoms
A medical doctor taking a typical allopathic approach is going to prescribe either a synthetic or a compounded-type hormone to treat menstrual issues. However, we can use lots of natural herbal treatments and natural progesterones, such as wild yam. Herbals like holy basil, chaste tree berry and licorice can also be used to balance hormones, especially estrogen. That adjustment can help with heavy periods.
One of my magic tricks for that issue is chaste tree berry: about 100 to 200 milligrams three to four times a day with about 40 drops a day of a product called Shepherd’s Purse, a liquid tincture. This combination can actually stimulate contractions of the uterus, which can slow the flow to help with heavy bleeding, versus the allopathic approach of putting women on birth control pills to treat heavy periods; the pill can increase your risk of having a stroke or developing certain cancers.
Note: It’s worth mentioning birth control is the only thing I don’t have a natural alternative for. DCs don’t have an herb or other combination you can now take in place of a birth control pill to prevent pregnancy.
Likewise, let’s say a woman is developing fibroids. Those are usually estrogen dominant; they’re fed by estrogen. They can go in and remove them surgically, but that doesn’t fix the problem of the elevated estrogen. So the fibroids are going to grow back. If we shut off the source of excess estrogen to the fibroid, the potential for it to shrink is there, and certainly not to grow more.
A typical patient in my office
I was seeing a female patient with headaches and mood swings. She had had irregular periods for a majority of her life. A lot of emotional crying for no reason, feeling depressed. Almost not functioning, like having trouble leaving the house and going to work and some pretty bad headaches.
Once we ran the hormone panel looking at her estrogen and progesterone levels, we used an adaptogenic product, calcium D glucarate and some B vitamins, some omegas and some vitamin D. Her estrogen would drop significantly right before a large elevation correlating to the timing of her symptoms. This combination helped regulate her estrogen so it was even throughout the whole month, and her headaches went away.
My go-to remedies for menstrual issues
One thing to keep in mind with any course of treatment is that you have to give the body a chance to adapt and balance before determining whether to continue a protocol or try something different. I recommend observing for at least a few menstrual cycles to see how the body responds before changing things up.
Here are my favorite remedies for various menstrual issues:
Headaches: I like some of the homeopathics, like those including belladonna. Iris versicolor, magnesium, omega 3 and riboflavin also work well.
Stress: Ashwagandha is good for dealing with high cortisol, as is exercise, according to many research studies.
Cramping: I use products with a lot of B vitamins and a lot of magnesium.
Hot flashes: Maca is my go-to first even if I haven’t run hormone levels yet.
Breast tenderness: Vitamin E and flaxseed are great.
And to improve any symptom:
Stay away from xenoestrogens. These are basically exogenous sources of things that can screw with our estrogen levels. Check out ewg.org for a list of ingredients in common products that interfere with estrogen. Avoid chemical and pesticide exposure, too.
Get off the caffeine, alcohol and sugar and don’t smoke. Good advice for everyone, all the time.
Sleep. It’s critical to the health of every body system.
Final thoughts
Many female patients will never have had hormone testing or other diagnostics in connection with their menstrual issues, whether minor or severe. By delving into this area with natural interventions to create balance, you can vastly improve a woman’s health, well-being and quality of life.
CINDY M. HOWARD, DC, DABCI, DACBN, FIAMA, FICC, is a board-certified chiropractic internist and nutritionist in private practice and the owner of Innovative Health and Wellness Center in Orland Park, Ill., where she focuses on individualized care. She is the author of Positively Altered: Finding Happiness at the Bottom of a Chemo Bag and writes for Stopain Clinical. Learn more and contact her at DrCindySpeaks.com.
