CHAPTER 1
Hormone Hell
Out of Control
If you've ever known the misery of feeling trapped in hormone hell or been around someone who has, you'll welcome these pages with open arms.
When you know that life can be fulfilling, rewarding, and pleasurable, it compounds the frustration and restrictions of those times when hormones dictate another path, demanding you succumb to their plans for you. When normal, sweet, and caring people become raging monsters, all because of an imbalance in biochemistry, it makes sense to try to restore some level of equilibrium and control.
Unfortunately, the knowledge of modern medicine still hasn't knocked this on the head for the millions of women who are still suffering worldwide. And it's not just the women who suffer. Their relationships, careers, and the people around them also pay a high price for what theoretically is a normal body function that, for whatever reason, has run amok.
Emotions Run Wild
Any woman who suffers hormonal symptoms also needs to be aware of the underlying energy or emotions involved. Whenever a woman loses touch with her nurturing, female aspect and takes on a more male-orientated energy, it disrupts the ovaries and breasts, causing menstrual and breast problems.
Women need to reclaim their self-nurturing and femaleness. The techniques outlined in this book will help facilitate this.
This step is critical, because if you seek hormone therapy without addressing the underlying emotional imbalances, you'll only improve your bodily function without truly healing and restoring harmony in your body. Restoring function without addressing the underlying energy concerns buries the issues deeper—only to arise again in the future with potentially more severe symptoms.
The Facts
According to the National Women's Health Information Centre (NWHIC),
• 75 per cent of women get premenstrual syndrome (PMS); 35 per cent of women get PMS to the degree that it impairs their daily activities; and 5 per cent have premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), symptoms so severe that it's debilitating. This represents 40.8 million women in the United States alone.
• 5–10 per cent of women of childbearing age (twenty to forty years) have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and 30 per cent have some PCOS symptoms. This is another 6.8 million women in the United States alone. 50 per cent of these women are insulin resistant, which can degenerate into type 2 diabetes.
• 10–20 per cent of women of childbearing age have endometriosis. Again, this is 13.6 million in the United States alone.
• There are at least two million new cases of female infertility annually.
These are the statistics for women who actually have the hormone conditions. And for every one of these, there's another circle around them who are also affected because of their condition.
Even if they experience only one day per month at less than their best, this means they're compromised for nearly two weeks every year—that equates to a whole year and a half out of their lives.
Unfortunately, most women are affected much longer than that.
Most women feel low an average of three and a half days every month because of their menstrual cycle. This means they're having pain and other hormone-related problems (e.g., irritability, anger, depression, breast swelling and tenderness, skin problems, headaches, backache, insomnia, nervousness, dizziness, fainting spells, lethargy, confusion, bloating, fluid retention, changes in personality, and cravings for sweets) for six weeks a year. That's an alarming four and a half years of menstrual difficulties in a lifetime.
This is not just a personal issue; it's a community issue. It impacts every aspect of life, including relationships, work, family, and society.
If you're suffering for two weeks per month, as many women are, this is nearly six months per year—a horrible eighteen and a half years of your precious life. This is not OK, and changes need to be made.
Symptoms versus Cause
In this era of modern medicine, research, and availability of information, why is this still happening?
So much has been written about hormone issues from both orthodox and traditional medicine, so why is it still rampant in our society? Why are the figures growing, rather than receding?
Logic says, "If you keep doing the same thing, you'll keep getting the same results. If you want a different result, you need to do things differently," so clearly we need to look at what's happening and what to do about it differently.
Most people know the benefits of exercise, nutrition, adjustments, herbs, hormone-replacement therapy (HRT), massage, acupuncture, energy healing, meditation, and so on. Even so, the statistics are screaming. We've been missing something.
Have we spent so long looking at symptoms and how to minimize or cope with them and missed the cause of the problem?
If the old approach isn't working, then doesn't it make sense to take a new one?
In this book, we're going to explore the causes of hormonal imbalances and give a variety of options as to what you can do about them—to manage them, adapt to them, and ideally to heal and resolve them.
You won't need a medical degree, any prior knowledge of herbal lore, or the intricacies of the way what you think, say, and do affects the physical health of your body. It doesn't matter if you've already tried and done everything you've known so far, seen everyone from your medical doctor to shamanic doctors in a bid to ease your plight, or if this is your first port of call; the concepts and information in this book will still be able to help you.
You don't need to be born with a healing gift to heal yourself—just the right information and the initiative to take the right steps. Understanding and accepting your uniqueness will help you find your way with the most direct route.
These keys I'm offering you aren't intended to replace wise medical opinion; however, they are intended to provide you with more knowledge, awareness, practical techniques, and solutions so you can work with your team of professionals to not only manage your condition but also free yourself from it with clear intention.
If you've been on a merry-go-round from one practitioner to another-swallowing vitamins, minerals, herbs, and medications; sucking lozenges; sticking patches; using creams; or imbedding implants—and still have problems, then it's time to look for new keys.
This doesn't mean stop using the medications or therapies you need to support yourself. I'm not saying they're bad. What I am saying is if you're using them and you still have issues, then you need to look deeper. If you stopped using them, would your symptoms come back? If so, then you need to look deeper, because what you're currently doing is merely masking your symptoms and not healing the cause of why you have the symptoms in the first place.
It's time to stop treating symptoms and deal with the real causes of problems. If you're driving a car and the oil light comes on, does it make sense to tape over the oil light so you can't see it anymore? Isn't the light a sign of a deeper issue? Isn't it likely there's going to be a bigger problem soon if you don't deal with that deeper issue?
If your body expresses symptoms, it's telling you something is wrong. If you keep covering your symptoms with pills, lotions, and potions without also dealing with the deeper issues, you too will likely have a bigger problem soon.
If you don't listen to the whispers, you'll get the screams.
For example,
• If you crave carbohydrates, you need to find out why. Is it a chromium or vitamin B6 deficiency causing your cravings? If so, why do you have a chromium or vitamin B6 deficiency? Are you eating the right foods in the right amounts and combinations for you? If not, why not? What are you going to do about it and when?
Are you absorbing the nutrients from your food efficiently? If not, why not? What are you going to do about it and when?
Do you need to eat more protein? Are you not digesting protein efficiently? If not, why not? What are you going to about it and when?
If you just restrict yourself from eating carbohydrates without resolving why you're craving them in the first place, the cause doesn't get resolved and you'll have to fight the cravings indefinitely—until you either do or you succumb to the consequences of inflammation and diabetes that can result.
There are a lot of questions here, but that's exactly what's needed. Keep asking questions of "What causes what within you?" until you get to the root of your trouble.
• If you crave chocolate, do you have a chocolate deficiency? Really?
Do you have a magnesium deficiency? When you're low in magnesium, you'll crave chocolate—in direct proportion to the degree of deficiency.
What stress have you been under that's chewing up your magnesium? What are you going to do about the magnesium deficiency, and when?
What are you going to do about the stresses? When?
• If you have a progesterone deficiency, why? What caused the deficiency in the first place?
If your progesterone building blocks have been used up to make cortisol and other stress hormones, what are you going to do to dissipate that stress and stop more stress and progesterone deficiency in the future?
If you have a spinal subluxation (a misalignment of a vertebra causing interference to the nerve supply to corresponding organs, muscles, and systems) of your third lumbar vertebra interfering with your ovaries and their production of progesterone, what are you going to do to realign your spine? How? When? What are you going to do to maintain the alignment of your spine?
It makes sense to take your vitamins, minerals, herbs, and medications to support you while you resolve the underlying causes, but don't be tricked into thinking they're healing you. They're helping you, while you get on with the business of healing yourself. Covering the oil light in a car does nothing to fix the underlying problem.
It's you that heals you, not external things. If you cut yourself, it'll heal all by itself given the right conditions.
If you cut a piece of steak, it's never going to heal no matter what you inject it with, rub on it, or wrap it in. If there's no life force, it won't heal. It's the life force in you that heals you.
It's your job to remove all the blocks you've put in place that interfere with your life force. What are they? That's what you need to find out—and resolve.
Find Your Path
Everyone is different.
We know that logically because we all look, sound, smell, and think differently. No two people on the planet have the same finger or voiceprint. We're seeing the personal importance of this more and more. A career that is inspiring and fulfilling for one person, such as computer technology, appears boring and equally unfulfilling to another. A food that is essential nutrition for one person, such as dairy and wheat, is allergic poison to another.
It's imperative you seek out the concepts, therapies, and supplements you have a personal affinity with and run a mile from those you don't.
For example, you may need to do things that help your body make more oestrogen, whereas someone else may need to do things that help their body rid itself from an excess of oestrogen.
Most of our imbalances come from simply having too much or too little of something. This book will help you determine where this has relevance for you and what to do about it.
My Story
I'm just the right person to write this book.
I've bitten off more heads than foxes in a chicken yard.
I've gained and lost weight enough times to make Jenny Craig go pale.
I've consumed enough chocolate to keep the economy of Belgium afloat.
I've been focused and lost it. Started projects and stopped them.
I've been gorgeous and inspired and grumpy and lazy.
I've been everything!
The pendulum swing of my hormonal cycle was overriding my life on every level, affecting everything from my mood and motivation to physical appearance and sensuality—until I found the keys to open the right doors.
I know the concepts and methods in this book work because they're the foundations I utilized to restore my own hormonal and life balance.
I was born the youngest of seven children, all of us girls except for six boys, in country Western Australia. It's no surprise I grew up very athletic and competitive. By age ten, I won bronze at the state gymnastics championships. Then at age twelve, seeming disaster struck. I was doing backward somersaults on the trampoline and landed on the frame, fracturing my pelvis. If you've ever fractured a bone, you'll recognize the agony.
The pain was just the beginning. All the organs around the fracture site had to compensate for the injury. Within a year, my period stopped, I had my appendix removed, I gained weight, and my moods took on a life of their own.
At fifteen, I went to boarding school (not renowned for quality nutrition), and my health suffered even further.
At seventeen, I went to Victoria to attend chiropractic college. By now, my body was adapting to the adaptations. I was getting constipated and headaches as well. I had the good fortune to be adjusted by a chiropractor known affectionately as Billy Mac (Dr. Bill McPherson). Billy Mac was one of the forefront teachers in Australia of sacro-occipital technique. He adjusted my pelvis and my period came back. It was a miracle for me.
Even at such a young age, this got my attention. It laid the foundations for a journey into the healing arts. I went into private practice as a chiropractor and craniopath, but my healing and learning journey never stopped. I attended post-graduate courses on nutrition and herbs and added them into my health maintenance regime, as well as using this knowledge to help others.
I was a sponge for knowledge.
I learned about flower essences and essential oils and how they help emotions and biochemistry—and added them in. I studied neurolinguistic programming (NLP), including how we process information through sight, sound, feeling, and logic, and how this affects our experience of the world.
Even so, my hormones were still nagging for my attention.
I was already gifted at being in my head. It became evident I needed to get out of my head and into my body rather than farther into logic. (In contrast to me, if you're a person who "feels" too much, it's likely you'll need to pay more attention to what and how you think or process life, rather than feel even more deeply.)
Every time my hormones screamed louder than what my current regime was holding at bay, I'd learn another modality to add into my self-maintenance program.
I had a patient who was a trance medium and learned Chiron healing through her. This work with the master diamond blueprints of the body's electromagnetic fields fascinated me immensely. So much so that I wrote all the training manuals for this method and became principal of the school. I studied yoga and became a teacher. I studied aromatherapy and cosmetic manufacture. I studied meditation, pranic healing, Pleiadean light work, and delved into everything that expanded my knowledge of how our bodies work and what I could do to enhance their function and quality of life experience.
In the early days, I learned about natural progesterone creams and began importing them from the United States. At this time, a group of clinics in Sydney began testing hormones in more detail and were using troches.
The concept of bioidentical hormones made sense to me. In other words, if your body isn't making enough of a particular hormone to keep pace with the out-of-balance lifestyle you're submitting it to, then at least support it with nature identical hormones rather than those harvested from pregnant horse's urine and the like.
At this stage, my life was extremely out of balance. I was a divorced single parent with three ex-stepchildren and living in relationship with a single-parent man who had two sons—all the while maintaining a busy clinic, running the Chiron healing school and teaching throughout Australia and New Zealand most weekends.
I knew I desperately needed more progesterone (the feel-good hormone) but hadn't learned why I needed so much. Yes, I had a damaged right ovary from the trampoline accident, but the extreme business of my life was chewing up the building blocks I needed for progesterone by using them to make stress hormones!
The new Sydney clinic promised to have the answer. Yes, they gave me the progesterone I needed, but they also insisted on giving me oestrogen, because in their experience, women my age (then fortyish) needed oestrogen as well—even though I told them all the reasons, according to my research, why I didn't need it.
I learned the following big lessons:
• to listen to me. I had done my research and knew from my symptoms I was oestrogen dominant, not deficient.
• the power of hormones. My mood went from being a bit dark sometimes to so black I couldn't override it with positivity with my usual strategies. I was feeling so dark that even mentioning oestrogen to me now makes me shiver.
• to be responsible for my own decisions. If someone isn't helping, no matter how expert they say they are, go somewhere else!
• to never give up. The next step always shows up if you keeping asking and paying attention.
