If you are a woman reading this, you need no introduction to the subject. If you are a man reading this, then you aren’t too much of a stranger to this subject either, unless you’ve been living on Mount Athos
For 80% of all menstruating women, that time of the month when your uterus makes it’s presence known loud and clear is not a laughing matter. More than 150 symptoms have been attributed to PMS! The symptoms are so common that the medical community considered discarding the term “PMS” and accepting the symptoms as normal! This attitude trivializes the daily significance of PMS for the millions of women who suffer from it.
For at least 5% of all menstruating women, the symptoms of PMS are so severe that they are incapacitated on a monthly basis. For many women, even moderate PMS can interfere with work and can disrupt everything from parenting to social relationships. In addition, if PMS symptoms weren’t enough, for most women menopause has become something to dread. Plus, now that little girls as young as 8 and 9 are hitting puberty (which isn’t normal, but more on that subject in another blog post), that’s far too many years of you being your held hostage by your biology right from puberty up until you hit menopause.
But is it really your biology holding you hostage? What’s really going on? Most theories blame your hormones, inflammation, prostaglandins, neurotransmitters etc making you believe that you really have no control over what’s going on in your body.
Symptoms such as depression, diarrhoea, bloating, anxiety, insomnia, migraines, and mood swings are often blamed on PMS. That blame is inaccurate.
These symptoms, like the supposed symptoms of menopause (night sweats, hot flashes, fatigue, dizziness, weight gain, digestive issues, bloating, incontinence, headaches, moodiness, irritability, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, heart palpitations, trouble concentrating, memory issues, insomnia and other sleep disorders, vaginal dryness, breast sensitivity, joint pain, tingling, hair loss or thinning, dry or cracked skin, and dry or brittle nails), are actually from underlying health conditions such as a sensitive central nervous system, IBS, heavy metal toxicity or chronic viral and bacterial infections.
These symptoms become more apparent at this particular time in your cycle because the menstruation process takes up 80 percent of your body’s reserves. The 20 percent leftover cannot manage the health conditions that your immune system normally keeps at bay. This is another prime example of how far conventional medicine is from understanding women’s health.
Rather than pointing to the reproductive system as the reason for a woman’s suffering at her time of the month, we should look at it as a messenger. Rather than drowning the signals in painkillers, steroids, immunosuppressants and antibiotics we need to support both the immune system and the reproductive system with healing foods and herbs.
Your uterus is a maker of life. It sustains life for 9 months. It’s a space where a living being has to be nurtured and protected. Your uterus is a fierce protector of life. This is its primary role. Does it make any sense at all that a healthy and natural life process should be causing so many problems?
Over the last few decades thanks to an overload from the environment, we have been overexposed to radiation, toxic heavy metals, mutated versions of viruses and bacteria and chemicals like DDT. These are invisible intruders in our lives, and are the root cause of the chronic illness epidemic that we are witnessing in our times. We are exposed to these and absorb these over our lifetime.
These can even be passed down generation to generation and can get stored in our internal organs like the brain, the gut, the liver, pancreas and even the uterus. These cause your underlying health dysfunctions, the ones that become so apparent during PMS and menopause.
Your biology is not holding you hostage. It’s in fact sending you signals that there are intruders in your body that need to be dealt with. Your depression, diarrhoea, bloating, anxiety, insomnia, migraines, and mood swings are all indicators that something deeper needs to be fixed.
What Triggers The Pain Though?
Well, the space in our abdominal and pelvic cavity is actually quite cramped. Every organ fits in there snugly and there’s no empty/ extra space. When any of the above factors triggers lymphedema or fluid retention, this excess fluid starts putting pressure on everything around it, there really is no place for your internal organs to go.
This pressure itself makes everything uncomfortable. The nerves in your abdominal and pelvic cavity are being touched by this pressure and start sending pain signals to your brain, and that is what triggers the pain. To relieve yourself of the pain and discomfort, here are 3 things that you can do to reduce your pain and suffering.
1. Include the following foods in your diet
Wild blueberries, Asparagus, Avocados, Apples, Spinach, Black grapes, Cranberries, Cruciferous vegetables, Leafy greens and Cucumbers
These will boost your immune system and support your reproductive system
2. Add the following herbs and nutrients to your daily routine
Lemon balm, Red clover, Nettle leaf, Licorice root, Zinc, Vitamin B12, Folic acid, B-Complex, Vitamin D3, and Plant based Omega-3’s
3. Exclude the following foods from your diet
Dairy, Wheat, Eggs, Corn, Canola Oil, MSG/ Natural Flavours/ Preservatives, Refined Sugar, Processed Foods
These foods not only cause inflammation, but also feed pathogens leading to a higher toxic load on your system.
If you struggle with issues you’ve always thought of as PMS, reach out to me to explore what could really be causing your symptoms and let’s address that true cause. Periods should be easy. You needn’t go through the pain. You deserve a stress-free menstrual cycle.
