Some Real Talk About Periods
- Periods -
Your body's natural report card
Ladies, our bodies are clever little things! They are constantly assessing which are the most important tasks & allocating blood flow and nutrients to things of the highest priority.
But it can only do so much!
The body will prioritise keeping you alive, doing basic functions, ensuring your stress responses are working (so you could run away from danger) and waaaaaay down the list is hormonal regulation & fertility.
Though there's very few of us who enjoy getting our period, it is a great continual report card of how your overall health is doing.
(Unfortunately, the info from periods on the pill or other hormonal contraception are not accurate or indicative of your overall health).
So what does a normal healthy period look like??
Cycle Length
Between 24-32 days is a good looking cycle!
FYI,
It's not that common to be ovulating on day 14 every month
Day 1 is considered the first FULL day of bleeding
Spotting doesn't count as day 1
If your period comes in the afternoon, the next day is day 1.
Longer cycles can indicate a range of things from Poly Cystic Ovaries to low iron, a sluggish thyroid, inflammation or hormonal abnormalities.
It's important to not jump to conclusions and get the proper tests done on the correct days of your cycle to know what's really the cause.
No Dr Google!
Shorter cycles can indicate low iron, inflammation or hormonal or thyroid abnormalities.
The best way to know when you ovulate is to take your temperatures & track your cycles. See more here
Pre period symptoms - Progesterone
The less symptoms the better! The less days of symptoms = all the better too.
When hormones are flowing 😅 as they should, there should be very little pre period symptoms.
A slight twinge the day of or day before is really what we are aiming for!
Feelings of fatigue, brain fog, feeling cold & low mood are happening because your progesterone levels drop right before your period.
We call this Qi (energy) & Blood (iron) Deficiency in Chinese Med.
Progesterone also affects your neurotransmitters (aka your moods).
If these symptoms are significant or prolonged, its because your progesterone levels are low and the drop right before your period makes the levels even lower.
Progesterone levels reflect egg quality so there can be many causes of low progesterone.
Crave chocolate before your period? It's likely low magnesium, low iron, low progesterone or a combo!
Pre period symptoms - Oestrogen
PMS, sore or swollen boobs, bloating and fluid retention can all be signs of excess oestrogen.
This is what we call Qi (energy) Stagnation in Chinese Med. It's where things feel stuck & not free-flowing.
Extra oestrogen is perfect if you're pregnant! Not great if you're not.
Copper (copper iud's, water in copper pipes) drives up Oestrogen Dominance. Having good zinc levels helps balance copper and level out oestrogen.
Avoid soy products (fake Oestrogens 😳) if you have excess oestrogen symptoms!
Having good iron levels also helps.
It assists the liver do its job of detoxing & breaking down excess oestrogen so you don't have too much in your system.
Flow
What is a good flow??
Ideally, 3 days of medium flow with a light day at the end is what we are aiming for.
What is medium flow you ask??
If you need to change a regular pad or tampon every 4 hours or 2 small cups / 1 big cup in a day.
If you could technically leave it longer between changes, its light.
Changing/emptying any earlier means its heavy.
You want all but the tail end of your period to be a nice crimson/maroon/garnet colour.
Pale pink, "nose bleed red" or brown/black all show imbalances and mean the lining isn't as lush and healthy as it should be.
Stop-start flow can be a sign of fibroids. Chat to your doctor and get a pelvic ultrasound to know for sure.
Pain
Ahhh, probably the worse thing about out of whack cycles is the pain.
Some women get it beforehand, others just during.
Just because pain is common, doesn't mean its normal!!!
Pain can be a sign of Endometriosis - especially if it comes with tiny gritty clots or pain with ovulation or sex.
The only way to 100% know if you have Endo is to have keyhole surgery (Laparoscopy).
Ultrasounds will not not rule out deep Endometriosis.
Not all pain is Endo though...
The cool thing about Chinese Med is its been helping women long before blood tests, scans and exploratory surgeries! In our medicine, it doesn't matter for us if you haven't got a clear diagnosis yet. We still work to treat the underlying imbalances and symptoms that we see.
**If you have unusual excruciating pain, talk to your doctor asap or head to a hospital. It may be a cyst bursting or an ectopic pregnancy.
Spotting
A little spotting at the tail end of your period is ok.
As is a half day of spotting to give you the heads up before your period becomes full force!
Otherwise, lots of spotting means your hormones are out of whack.
Spotting before a period or midcycle can be caused by low progesterone, low iron or fibroids.
Prolonged spotting after your period can be for the same reasons.
Basically, spotting comes from being too tired, nutrient deficient or stressed to regulate hormones properly and create succinct periods.
Chinese Med is great for energy & stress!
A note on iron
Ladies. Those who've seen us or read enough of our blogs know how passionate we are about iron!
It’s literally life.
Not enough iron and your organs and hormonal systems just cant work as they should.
Here's 3 things to remember about iron in relation to your hormonal health and general wellbeing
Iron is the petrol your car needs. Not enough in the tank and you wont be able to drive well or far!
The conventional Western Medicine iron reference ranges are the same for a 70 year old man as they are for a woman with periods... Isn't that shocking?!
Different labs also have different reference ranges, meaning if your levels are quite low but “not out of range” they actually might be if you’d tested with a different pathology company…
Which is why we use the Integrative Medicine reference ranges of Ferritin (iron storage) needing to be between 75 - 150ug/L rather than 30-300ug/L.Ferritin (iron storage) can be falsely high if you're body is inflamed. Meaning if you were sick or have an inflammatory condition, such as Endo, or an autoimmune condition, your ferritin levels likely lie! Make sure you get full Iron studies done and if those other numbers are low, you're likely actually anaemic!
Periods aren’t what you’d like them to be?
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