Wellness with Vanda
A women's health podcast where we'll be talking about hormones, mindset, motherhood, & everything in between. The host, Vanda, is a functional medicine nurse coach that helps women overcome hormone imbalance so that they can achieve optimal wellness. In her private practice she specializes in HTMA testing and DUTCH testing. Throughout this podcast she shares tips for boosting energy naturally, improve mood, recover from mom burnout, ways to increase fertility, ways to improve sleep quality, tips for pregnancy, tips for navigating postpartum and the fourth trimester, and more!
Wellness with Vanda
34: Friday Questions #1: Are My Period Symptoms Normal?
Each Friday I'll be answering a question submitted by someone in my community. These questions can be related to female sex hormones, periods, PMS, cycle synching, period symptoms, hormone imbalance, minerals, mineral imbalance, etc.
Have a question you'd like to submit? Click here and do so anonymously.
Today's question: Anyone else get extremely anxious, bad headache, very irritable, zero energy like 2 days before Aunt Flo visits? When it finally comes, it's like a wave of relief. But those 2-3 days are miserable. Is this normal?
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Hey everybody. So I am starting something new today. We are going to start doing Friday questions. These are being pulled from questions that get submitted to me through email, through Instagram DMs, things that I have kind of saved up from the past that are common questions, and what I'm going to do is, on each Friday, I'm going to answer one of them and then it's going to get sent to you in email. It'll be uploaded as an episode in the podcast and I think I'll also put it on my YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:This is just my way to help support you guys a little more, be able to answer your questions and give some advice. Some of my own thoughts Now, of course, this is not medical advice Always consult with your provider, your doctor, before you make any changes, so just keep that in mind when you listen through this. My idea is that I will keep these short and sweet, since it's just one question a week, and I hope that if you find value or it helps, you just let me know. And then, of course, always submit your own question If there's something that you are wondering about. There are no dumb questions here. There are no questions, really that are off limits. I've set up an anonymous form where you can submit questions, and I will try to link this link that everywhere that this is posted.
Speaker 1:So this week I want to start with something that is honestly frequently asked of me and I'm going to read you exactly what this person asked of me. And I'm going to read you exactly what this person said. So they're wondering if anyone else gets extremely anxious a bad headache, very irritable, zero energy, like two days or so before ant flow visits. When it finally comes, it's like this wave of relief, but those two, three days are miserable. Any tips? And is this normal? So first of all I want to address is this normal?
Speaker 1:It is common that many women experience either symptoms to that degree or maybe even worse, or maybe a little milder. It is common. But just because it is common does not mean that it is normal. And no, that is not normal. That means that you've got some hormone imbalance going on there and we need to do some things to address that at the root cause of it, to figure out. You know why it is you're having those symptoms and what it is you need to do about it.
Speaker 1:So ideally you could, especially if this has been going on long term, if this is like a newer thing for you or you're recently postpartum, still breastfeeding, I wouldn't necessarily recommend testing yet. If it's long term and it's been going on for a long time and you've been dealing with that for a long time, then absolutely it's time to consider some testing, like Dutch testing and HTMA testing. However, if you're like, no, this is just kind of a newer thing for me or I'm not ready to do testing yet, there are still some foundational things that you can do to help support your body that will help start to address some of this stuff. So I want to go over a few of those things as tips for you to take away from this and be able to start implementing if you're also struggling with a period like this that really sucks month after month and makes you dread it coming. So, first and foremost, I think that you should look at your diet intake and make sure that you are having at least one soft form bowel movement a day. A lot of times, if you're not, or if it's not soft and formed like if there's, you know it's you're like a little constipated or whatever you need to increase your fiber. You're like a little constipated or whatever. You need to increase your fiber.
Speaker 1:The reason that this is important is that this is one of the ways that we excrete part of our estrogen. These symptoms although we wouldn't know for sure without testing these symptoms line up with an estrogen dominance of some type, whether that be frank estrogen dominance, meaning your estrogen levels are just too high, or you can have relative estrogen dominance, which means that your estrogen level actually falls within the normal or optimal range, but your progesterone is so low that you still have an estrogen dominant situation. There's other factors there. One of the things that I really like about the Dutch test is that we get to look at all three of your estrogen types, the amounts that are there, and then how your body is processing those estrogens and metabolizing them. That helps, gives us insight into like they're certain. If this type of estrogen is high, you're more likely to have this type of symptom, and there's specific things, if this type of estrogen is high, that you can do to help bring that level down, not to try to get into the weeds too much there, but so that would be the first thing Make sure that you're having at least one formed bowel, and do that by increasing your fiber, first and foremost, that's going to look like more fresh fruits, veggies.
Speaker 1:You can supplement with fiber if you need to. Adding in like nuts and seeds into your normal habits are a great way to do this. So, like chia seeds, flax seeds, sunflower seeds anything that's going to increase the fiber a little bit, or that you can add to things like yogurt or salads you make chia pudding anything where you can add more fiber to what you're already eating is a total win. The next thing that I would do is start incorporating a mineral drink every single day, if you're not already doing so. The reason being is that eight, nine times out of 10, when I do testing with clients, they are depleted in some minerals. Their minerals need support. It's because of the high stress lifestyle that we all live, the stressors in the environment that we are exposed to that we can't totally avoid or address or remove. And then most of my clients are moms. So when you have been through a pregnancy, women, while they're pregnant, lose at least 10% of their minerals, sometimes more, and then if you breastfeed after that, you continue to lose those, and it's really hard, unless you're super intentional, to keep up with that and continue replenishing what you've lost. So mineral drinks.
Speaker 1:My current favorite brand right now is the cure Um, and I really like both the strawberry Kiwi and I think it's blueberry pomegranate. Now I'm kind of questioning myself if that's the right one, but those are the two flavors that I really really like. Um. Next time I'll be adding lemon to my order as well, I think, because I tried like the travel pack or the like sample pack and I really liked that flavor as well.
Speaker 1:The third thing that I would do that I would look at. It's a supplement. So again, remember to always consult with, like your provider, get advice there before you start anything. But a supplement that I would look at is from the company called Full Well and it's their fertility booster supplement. People ask me when I recommend this like well, but I'm not trying to get pregnant right now. Would you still recommend it?
Speaker 1:Yes, I would, because it supports overall hormonal balance, your fertility and being fertile is an indicator of good hormone health. So the fertility booster will still support you and still help with your hormonal balance and making sure that you have healthy hormones, even if you're not intending to conceive right now or, honestly, ever again. So it's a really good supplement, has a lot of really great ingredients. The Full Well Company is fabulous. I love to work with them. I love I use their products, like right now I'm currently taking their prenatal and I took the fertility booster before we got pregnant.
Speaker 1:I'll be taking it again after my pregnancy is over to help get things balanced back out. And it has some additional supports in there, like it has some antioxidant support. It's got just a little bit of ashwagandha in it, so it's also going to support your cortisol and your adrenals, which are huge when it comes to your hormonal health. So that would be my three things that I would like. If you were looking for something to just like I need to start something right now. I don't know what to do, help me. That would be where I would get started. So I hope you guys enjoyed this Friday question. Like I said before, please submit your own Friday question so that I can keep this going and continue to support you guys in this way to get you some guidance, get you some advice in a really easy and free way for this community.
