45302842 hormones disruptions red gradient concept icon scaled Hormones: pillar #3 in Bay Wellness Centre’s health strategy Bay Wellness

Hormones: pillar #3 in Bay Wellness Centre’s health strategy

Category: Blog

Does the mere mention of menopause or perimenopause cause dread in you? Are you concerned that during this time of hormonal transition, you’re going to experience all of the most common symptoms that you hear about? Symptoms like hot flashes, low libido, weight gain, or interrupted sleep. If you’re longing to feel like yourself during this transition and you want to avoid all of those common symptoms. Stay tuned.  

Hi, I’m Dr Annie Savage. I’m a Naturopathic Doctor at Bay Wellness Centre, located in Downtown Vancouver. Today, we are going to talk about hormones and hormonal transitions.  

In our office, we primarily treat women and women’s health concerns. So we are always balancing hormones. Looking at weight loss and stress management. In our most recent video series (and blog posts), we have been talking about the four pillars of health. We began with nutrition and detoxification and today we are jumping into that third pillar – our hormones. We are talking specifically about hormones at the transition of perimenopause to menopause. This means we are speaking directly to anyone who’s in their 40s to 50s. 

What are hormones and which ones most affect perimenopause and menopause? 

So, what are your hormones? Hormones are chemical messengers in our body that act to start and stop processes, speed them up and slow them down. They travel through our blood and send messages everywhere they go.  

The hormones that we’re focusing on today are estrogen and progesterone primarily. Other hormones that we could talk about in this series would also be testosterone and DHEA but we’re not going to touch on those quite yet. This transition period of life has a lot of common symptoms with it. But I want you to know that just because the symptoms are common does not mean they’re normal. It does not mean that you have to experience each one, either.  

You can work to balance your hormones so that as they decline, they stay balanced and you don’t get or have to endure all of those symptoms that you’re hearing about. During perimenopause and menopause, your hormones are declining. So estrogen and progesterone are declining throughout those years. If they decline in an unbalanced way you may have more estrogen than progesterone. That is how we begin to see symptoms arise.  

What happens hormonally at menopause and before that with a woman’s periods? 

Menopause is considered 12 consecutive months without a menstrual period. And many, many women will experience those common menopausal symptoms for up to five years, but they don’t have to. We can balance your hormones so that you don’t experience those common symptoms at all.  

So what is going on here during your menstruating years?  

Your ovaries are producing your sex hormones the most but your adrenal glands are producing very small amounts of those same hormones. It’s in a ratio of about 70:30. So your ovaries are doing the majority of the work while your adrenal glands are there in a supportive role. What then happens in the perimenopause and menopause age range is that we see a flip of this ratio. Your adrenal glands are meant to take over the production while your ovaries are shutting down. What happens, especially in North America due to the way we live and our chronic stress is that our adrenal glands cannot actually pick up the slack. This is in part the cause of our symptoms. Those adrenal glands are not able to produce enough hormone and that contributes to the imbalances that lead to those most common symptoms.  

Of note is that some common imbalances that we see in female hormones during perimenopause and menopause, can actually also happen during our menstruating years. Today, however, we’ll continue with our focus on perimenopause and menopause…but what we see is generally an elevated estrogen compared to either a normal progesterone or a low progesterone. What this creates or what we then see on the outside is hot flashes. We have that elevated estrogen causing hot flashes, midsection weight gain, and when we see this low progesterone in our blood, we tend to see interrupted sleep or insomnia as well as increased anxiety. 

Help for your personal set of symptoms and individual needs approaching menopause is available. Consult with us at Bay Wellness and enjoy a calmer healthier transition that enables you to thrive through menopause.    

The journey to balance follows the four pillars of health 

In our office, when we’re working with women, we always implement all four pillars of health. Everyone thrives when we treat in this way because we want to get to that root cause and allow for true healing.  

In the process, we first look at your gut health and your detoxification pathways as well as your specific nutrition. Then we’ll look specifically at your hormones to see how we can balance them so that those symptoms will go away. This way, we can help you through all transitions of life – whether you’re menstruating or looking to get pregnant. So we’ll start to talk about fertility or into the ending of your period or about perimenopause and menopause to support you and to reduce or eliminate your symptoms. Again, those symptoms are common, but they are not normal when our bodies are in balance – no matter how many people experience them.  

Learn more about adrenal health and how you can support your adrenal glands and your cortisol curve here on our blog on the role of adrenals or visit our services page about adrenals. 

Join us next time as we look more closely at LIFESTYLE factors to enjoy an excellent and healthy living experience.  

Let’s make health your priority. 

Book a consultation and we would be happy to go through everything with you and find the best solution for you on your health journey. 

Join us in our next video and blog on our next pillar of health, which will be on lifestyle. Look out for that soon and let’s make health your priority! 

If you’re ready to discover how the four pillars approach can improve your health, book with us, today. You’ll find a convenient booking link below or you can call us directly or email us. 

At Bay Wellness Centre we provide personalized nutrition and hormone plans and detoxification plans for you so that we can address all of your health concerns in a step-by-step fashion. 

In the Four-Pillar Health Series, we address each pillar of health on its own. You’ll get the information that will help you determine the next steps you can begin on your own and also see the larger picture balanced on the four pillars your health is dependent on. 

Get our free Ultimate Guide to Managing Menopausal Hormone Imbalances by visiting the Bay Wellness Centre website. You may also like the blogs we have for you and that our patients have told us they love for the reliable information on topics of interest to them. 

Ready to make wellness your priority? 

Dr. Annie Savage
Dr. Megan Maycher
Your holistic health advocates &
Founders of Bay Wellness Centre 

Connect with us
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Phone: 604-569-0099 

info@baywellnesscentre.com 

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