How to Choose the Best Hormonal Imbalance Supplements
Most women suspect that they have a hormonal imbalance. The clues include fatigue, hair falling out, moodiness and more. But figuring out how to rebalance your hormones is a tricky business. In this article, I’ll share some common patterns of hormonal imbalance in women we see in our private clients, and supplements to balance hormones.
Hormonal Overview
Hormones are dictating so many processes in your body. Let’s do a little review of some endocrine glands that may contribute to your symptoms. Many women are seeking natural ways to balance hormones, but first, you need to know what you’re dealing with!
Thyroid Gland
This little gland in your neck regulates your metabolism. Too little thyroid hormone can lead to fatigue, hair loss, and constipation. It can affect other hormonal levels by keeping too much cortisol and estrogen in circulation.
Hypothalamus/ Pituitary Gland
This pair of master glands nestled in the brain tells other endocrine glands what to do. If you are under stress, it could do less signaling. If you don’t clear old hormones, it could respond by not signaling to make more hormones.
Ovaries
The ovaries (or testes in men) produce estrogen, testosterone and progesterone. Estrogen and progesterone being off can mean infertility, PMS, spotting, breast lumps, fibroids, insomnia and more. There is somewhat of a natural imbalance of these hormones in perimenopause. Testosterone is important in both men and women for sex drive and a feeling of confidence and vitality.
Adrenal Glands
These hard-working glands give us energy for everyday life and help us respond to stress. The problem is that the modern world is super stimulating, so they can put out too much stress hormone, or get exhausted and produce too little.
The Patterns of Hormonal Imbalance
Just like Goldilocks, we want hormonal levels to be just right. Too little usually feels like exhaustion and early aging. Too much means symptoms like wired energy and ‘excesses’ like heavy menstrual flow.
High Estrogen
High estrogen is common but you need to run a urinary hormone test to know if you have true high estrogen, or just not enough progesterone to balance it out.
Natural hormone supplements for high estrogen include Estroquench, which blocks an enzyme involved in estrogen production, to help you balance female hormones.
You also may want to consider a topical, bio-identical progesterone oil on weeks 2-4 of your cycle, or daily. We carry Progon- BL 4X by Bezweken for this purpose. Increasing progesterone can help keep estrogen in check, preventing PMS, insomnia and heavy periods.
Lastly, I’ll mention that many clients I meet are not getting adequate B vitamins for hormone production and detoxification. We carry a high-quality one-a-day multivitamin called ONE by Pure Encapsulations that can get you your essential Bs, zinc, iodine and more. We also carry a highly absorbable Vitamin B12 and chelated magnesium powder.
High Cortisol
Some of our clients are keeping too much cortisol in circulation. This is often related to a thyroid problem, so I’ll advise them to do a full thyroid screening. Life Extension offers a thyroid panel that you can order online in most states and has all the markers you need.
You can also learn more about thyroid testing at our blog. If we know there is a thyroid issue, I may recommend Thyromend, which supports thyroid production and assimilation at all stages of the process.
Low Melation
Another hormone we measure on the DUTCH hormone test is melatonin. Melatonin plays many rules in the body, but it famously helps us sleep. If melatonin is low, or cortisol is high, you may not sleep well.
Many of our clients were falling asleep by waking up during the night. So we introduced 5-HTP with SRT (sustained release technology) to help them. 5-HTP is a tryptophan compound that helps you make serotonin. With plentiful serotonin and darkness, you make melatonin.
Low Cortisol
Other clients are barely producing cortisol, even in their 20s! In functional medicine, we always dig deeper to see what is stressing the body, but meanwhile, we may as well go ahead and support those adrenal glands!
I chose Adrenal Assist for this purpose. Adrenal Assist is a combination of stimulating, protective and adaptive herbs and nutrients for adrenal support. Stress, including the chronic stress of illness & toxicity, can take a toll on the adrenal glands. It supports stress-handling, energy production and immunity.
Low Sex Hormones
When you are tanked out on sex hormones, you will likely feel tired and unsexy. Again, we can work on root causes, but in the meantime, you may as well start feeling better!
For this I like a couple of supplements:
Phyto BL 4 X by Bezweken has both estrogen and progesterone in the right ratio to give you a little help with each.
I also really like Libido Stim F to boost overall sex hormone production, especially testosterone. Libido Stim F contains both herbs for sex drive and DHEA, a sex hormone precursor.
You don’t want to take either of these products if you have a history or family history of hormone-induced cancers.
Conclusion
I hope that gives you an idea of how I work with female hormones. Much of this information applies to men as well, just with a different slant, and we are happy to work with men too!
If you’d rather talk about your case before trying new supplements, speak with your doctor (always recommended) or schedule a 30-minute supplement consultation with us.
As I mentioned, we also offer a very affordable and comprehensive urinary hormone panel that comes with a 30-minute review of findings and custom recommendation of natural remedies for hormonal imbalance in women. Schedule that here. We’d love to meet you!
What methods have you tried to balance your hormones? What has helped you? Share with us below!
Bridgit Danner, LAc, FDNP, is trained in functional health coaching and has worked with thousands of women over her career since 2004. She is the founder of Women’s Wellness Collaborative llc and HormoneDetoxShop.com.
Bridgit, a toxic mold survivor, is also the author of a free guide to supplements for toxic mold exposure. Check it out here!
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