Irritability, headaches, fatigue, insomnia, cramping and breast pain.. oh, the joys of being a woman!
It doesn’t need to be painful (emotionally and physically) to menstruate.
What causes PMS?
Well first off ‘PMS’ is a collection of symptoms, not a disease. If you have any underlying conditions, they can be magnified during your premenstrual phase. So, treating PMS requires some detective work in figuring out what underlying conditions need to be treated, and then ‘balancing’ hormones.
First let’s look at hormones..
Hormones are good, although they often get blamed. They enhance mood and metabolism. But the problem comes from a lack of balance - we feel the changes in hormone levels, and when they are drastic you won’t feel good. Your hormones also have to be in balance with one another. For example is estrogen gets too high and progesterone is low you can get fluid retention, breast pain and feel irritable.
The drop in hormones during your cycle can cause a drop in neurotransmitters - for example when estrogen drops around ovulation, dopamine and serotonin can also take a hit. When progesterone drops at the end of our cycle we can feel anxious and have trouble sleeping. This is because progesterone enhances GABA - a calming neurotransmitter. So low progesterone can mean less GABA.
The key here is to even out those ups and downs, as well as make sure your hormones are in the right proportion to one another. So how do we do that?
The first step is to determine which hormones are out of balance. This is done through a combination of symptoms and lab testing.
Then we want to optimize your diet - your digestion is very important to the proper processing of hormones. Ensuring your liver is functioning optimally and your microbiome is healthy.
Lifestyle and stress management are important as stress can through off our progesterone levels.
A combination of herbs and nutrients can work to smooth those bumps and enhance hormone creation and function.
Finally, hormone replacement therapy is always an option using bio identical hormones.
In the next part to the series, I will talk about some of those other pesky PMS symptoms and inflammation!
Dr. Caitlin Batting, ND