Ways to understand your hormones better

Start with your menstrual cycle

Did you know that your menstrual cycle can reveal an awful lot about your hormones? It’s now being referred to by gyneacologists and obstretricians as the fifth vital sign of health. If something is not quite right with your cycle, you will most likely be experiencing a hormone imbalance.

I believe that the first step to understanding our hormones better, is to start with getting an understanding of our cycle. It’s likely that you learnt some stuff in school related to this, but either it was patchy or you simply can’t remember. People often confuse their cycle with the length of days they are on their period. Our cycle includes our actual period, which takes place in the follicular phase, ovulation, which is the main event of our cycle, and the luteal phase. Did you know that knowing when you ovulate in your cycle will actually give you insight into whether your hormones may be out of balance. For example, if you ovulate very late in your cycle, past day 20 for example, you may have an imbalance of oestrogen and progesterone. This is because the first part of your cycle, before ovulation (the follicular phase) is the part where ostrogen is the dominant hormone. It’s is only after ovulation that progesterone is released. The luteal phase will only ever last as long as 16 days, however, if you’re body is struggling to ovulate, the follicular phase can go on and on.

Look out for symptoms

There are all sorts of symptoms that may indictae that your hormones are out of balance.

Symptoms of high oestrogen

• Heavy periods

• PMS

• Low libido

• Fibroscystic breasts

• Sleep problems

• Hair loss

Symptoms of low progesterone

• Irregular/skipped periods

• Short luteal phase

• Migraines

• Acne

• PMS

• Pre-menstrual spotting

• Early miscarriage

There needs to be enough progesterone to balance out oestrogen which often leads to oestrogen dominace. So high oestrogen may be due to low progesterone, or it may be due to your body’s inability to break down oestrogen, or it may be due to an excess of adipose tissue.

Start to chart

Charting is a very powerful tool that will be able to give you insight into your hormones. Through tracking your body’s key fertility biomarkers (fertility isn’t just all about making babies by the way), you will be able to tell when and if you ovulate. So you will be able to see if you are experiencing delayed ovulation.

Did you know that you can experience a bleed that is not a period? This blew my mind when I learnt it. I always assumed all bleeds would be periods, but sometimes bleeds can actually happen before you ovulate. This happens because the role of oestrogen in the follicular phase of your cycle helps to build the lining of the uterus. Without ovulation, there is no progesterone, the role of which is to help to maintain the lining of the womb. So eventually if ovualtion doesn’t occur, the lining of the uterus begins to fall away and shed. When this happens before ovulation it is know as a breakthrough bleed. A period only comes at the end of the whole cycle, after ovulation.

You saw above that a short luteal phase may be indicative of low progesterone. Charting your cycle will show you the length of your luteal phase.

At home tests

My favorite new discovery. Proov at home - hormone testing kits. Set up by a PhD scientist, these amazing tests help you to test your homone levels at home. I’ve recently had a go at testing my progesterone levels, and I find it so fascinating. Even though we can identify ovulation through charting, it is actually the quality of ovulation that matters when it comes to our hormones, and especially for women trying to conceive. These tests measure the level of PdG in your urine, which is a marker of progesterone. By identifying your peak day through charting (ie. ovulation), you can then go on to test PdG levels throughout your luteal phase, and the Proov app will give you the results of your progesterone levels.

There’s a really big reason why I find this so fantastic. One key problem that can occur for women getting progesterone levels tested with blood tests, is that they may test on the wrong day. If ovulation if not correctly identified, the results may be inaccurate. It also really helps you to know where you are at so you can take positive action to balance your hormones or seek further help that may be required.

If you’re interested in these home kits take a look at the Proov website.

They have also very kindly given me a special 20% discount for my clients if you include the reference ‘chartwithlove’ when you make a purchase.