What Does Hormonal Imbalance Look Like?
Hormone imbalance is one of the most common conditions I see in my work with women as a Leaky Gut Coach. In this post you’ll learn about 8 common symptoms of hormone imbalance in women ages 16 to 60 and what you can do to help yourself (and them) to greater wellbeing.
1. Amenorrhea:
A womans menstrual periods may become erratic because of the fluctuating hormonal levels in her body. Once a woman attains menopause her periods stop completely, a condition known as amenorrhea.
It’s only when a woman does not menstruate for a full year that she’s considered to have reached menopause. More and more women however are experiencing premature menopause in their 30s and 40s, instead of at midlife in their 50s.
If you are experiencing premature menopause, you might consider stepping up to a 30 day Reboot of your microbiome to restore your reproductive health, and also to clear the brain fog, fatigue, insomnia, headaches and digestive issues that may accompany your early menopause. Hear from women in their 30s and 40s who’ve regained reproductive ability by clicking here.
2. Insomnia and poor-quality sleep:
There are at least 6 different hormones that participate in creating a good night sleep for you: estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, insulin, cortisol, melatonin, and thyroid hormones. When production of any one of these drop, you can experience sleeplessness. During peri-menopause and menopause, the ovaries gradually produce less estrogen and progesterone, which promotes sleep. Falling estrogen levels may also contribute to night sweats that wake you up, contributing to fatigue and lack of energy. What's more, several of these hormones are produced by the body only when you are deeply sleeping, so a vicious cycle ensues.
If you've taken all the recommended pre-sleep measures like keeping your bedroom cool and dark, exercising during the day, reducing alcohol and caffeine intake and turning off all screens an hour before bedtime, and still sleep evades you... You might consider resetting all your hormones with a 30 day reboot of your gut microbiome.
All it takes to put your delicate hormones out of balance is a sustained period of emotional stress, where adrenaline is continually being released into the bloodstream. Adrenaline affects the gut directly by lowering the pH making it more acidic which is unfavorable for friendly bacteria to colonize. In this way, stress destroys friendly flora without antibiotic use. And when invasive yeast, mold and fungus move into their place, fragile hormone balance is easily compromised.
If you've been under sustained stress, your sleeplessness could very well be linked with your gut microbiome. Whenever friendly flora die (however it happens) the acids and alcohols from neighboring species destroy the metabolic pathways for many hormones required for a satisfying sleep.
For example, ethanol, an alcohol secreted by candida yeast not only destroys dopamine, but converts testosterone into estrogen and upends other fragile hormones so they are unrecognizable to receptor cites and can no longer perform their function in the body. Read about proper sleep returning to people who focus on the gut microbiome for 30 days. Sleeplessness Reviews.
3. Night sweats and hot flashes:
These symptoms are associated with a deficiency of estrogen and are commonly seen in the peri-menopause phase (whatever your age). My experience having passed through this phase is that night sweats and hot flashes are totally optional and not a necessary part of peri-menopause. They are strongly linked with feeding candida yeast overgrowth in the body. Just as an alcohol drinker can experience night sweats immediately after drinking and up to 7 days later as a form of alcohol withdrawal, the alcohol produced when your own microbiome is fed concentrated sugars has the same effect. The alcohol destroys hormones left and right. If night sweats are your reality, notice if you’ve consumed simple carbohydrates in the 24 hrs prior to the hot flashes or night sweats. If so, it’s time for a tune up of your microbial garden.
4. Unusually heavy bleeding:
If you've had a normal blood flow during your periods, but then they progress into unusually heavy flow it's a sign of hormonal imbalance. It is caused when the level of estrogen is too high compared to the level of progesterone. (Remember how ethanol from yeast can convert your testosterone (yes, women have it too) into estrogen. Hear from women who’ve restored a normal flow during menstruation.
5. Osteoporosis:
Almost 80% of all cases of osteoporosis are observed in postmenopausal women whether they're 35 or 60+. Scientists attribute this to a sudden fall in the level of estrogen after menopause. But it also can be attributed to the effect of elevated acids in the bloodstream from overgrown Candida yeast.
Acids act as a mineral thief in the bloodstream pulling alkaline minerals like calcium and magnesium from your bones, teeth and myelin sheath. Rather than trying to make up the difference by eating more milk products or supplementing with megadoses of calcium (which actually don't remineralize you), you can preserve your bone mass by removing the acid forming overgrowths in all the permeable parts of you. These are robbing you of your basic essential minerals. Tending to these microbial invaders is the fastest way to alkalize your body for better hormone balance and so much more.
6. Anxiety and Depression:
Anxiety and depression are related to a sudden dip in the levels of estrogen, and complicated by a cyclic loss of the body’s natural supply of dopamine. How does this happen? When candida yeast overgrows in the gut, it excretes ethanol into surrounding tissues. While ethanol may be great in your car’s engine it’s actually a neurotoxin to your brain once it enters the bloodstream. Alcohol triggers anxiety and depression in several ways.
To begin, ethanol cancels the effects of dopamine, your happiness hormone, which has the enormous job of regulating your mood, behavior, sleep, cognitive thinking, motivation and reward. Dopamine helps with decision-making and creativity and when it’s interfered with, you feel a bit off, like the joy for life's leaked out of you.
When dopamine drops very low, states of brain impairment such as Parkinson’s, schizophrenia or ADHD are the result. In addition to destroying your dopamine, acetaldehyde and ethanol from yeast destroy defenseless enzymes needed for cell energy, and causes the release of free radicals that can damage your DNA. All not good.
Uncomfortable Symptoms Linked with Blood Alcohol Levels
It's a big mess that most of us are oblivious to as we continue eating a high sugar diet and medicating the resulting inflammation. If you know you haven’t consumed alcohol, yet you experience many of the symptoms of alcohol toxicity like:
- anxiety,
- depression,
- dizziness,
- weakness,
- fatigue,
- foggy-thinking,
- memory loss,
- incoordination,
- quick temper,
- nausea,
- impaired vision,
- slurred speech,
- gas,
- bloating and burping or
- addiction to simple carbohydrates (sugar, soft drinks, pasta and yeast breads) or
- moldy foods like cheeses, mushrooms and peanut butter…
If clouds of anxiety or depression are blocking out your naturally sunny self, spend a few minutes reading testimonials on depression and anxiety on our Results Blog. Today there is a strong scientific link between your mood & mental wellbeing and the state of your gut microbiome.
7. Migraines:
Estrogen deficiency is one of the reasons behind migraine in post-menopausal women. But if you experience migraines much earlier in life, it could also be due to acids from overgrowth in your microbiome destroying fragile hormones that keep you free of inflammation and feeling good. Read stories of migraines resolving as the gut microbiome heals.
8. Increased risk of developing heart attacks and stroke:
It’s believed that estrogen exerts a protective action that prevents heart attacks and stroke. That’s why their incidence is low in pre-menopausal women. However, once a woman has reached menopause, the level of estrogen dwindles and women are at par with men as far as the incidence of these diseases goes. Read reviews of people healing their heart problems HERE. To learn how leaky gut and it’s microbial constituents can lower estrogen and contribute to heart palpitations and fibrillation read Leaky Gut and Heart Problems.
The Wrap Up
A word on the Use of Estrogen Therapy:
(ET) in hormone replacement therapy is associated with an increased incidence of endometrial and ovarian cancer. So this form of hormone therapy is more often recommended for women who've undergone hysterectomy. Use of EPT (with progestin) is associated with increased incidence of breast cancer, and cardiovascular diseases. These risks are especially more pronounced with a prolonged use of the hormones.
So, rather than submit to prolonged use of synthetic hormone therapy and increase your risk of these cancers, why not address the microbiome directly and see how many (if not all) of these hormone related symptoms you can mitigate?
We’re here to help! Please reach out on our live chat with any questions you have. There is so much you can do to help yourself to greater hormone balance and wellbeing. And we’ll walk with you each step of the way.