Hormone Series Topic 4: Improving Your PMS Symptoms and Hormone Awareness with Dr Erin Ellis

In today's episode of our hormone series, Andrea welcomes Dr. Erin Ellis to discuss the complexities of menstrual health and hormone balance. Dr. Ellis, a naturopathic doctor specializing in women's health, shares her insights on improving painful periods and mitigating PMS symptoms through hormone awareness. She emphasizes the body's natural ability to heal itself when given the proper tools and support. This episode not only educates on menstrual health but also provides practical advice on taking control of one's wellness journey.


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Transcript

[00:00:00] You are going to love today's episode. It is topic three in our hormone series. And today I have an amazing guest, Dr. Erin Ellis. We're going to be breaking down, improving our crappy period symptoms and understanding hormone awareness when it comes to our periods to possibly help improve those terrible PMS symptoms.

Dr. Ellis is a neuropathic doctor who helps women balance hormones, fix crappy periods, and regain energy they once had to be their happiest, healthiest selves. Dr. Ellis's mission is to empower those to take control of their health, because life is too short to feel suboptimal, and with the right tools, your body has the innate ability to heal itself.

When she's not empowering others to become their best versions of themselves, that's Dr. Ellis enjoys spending time with her community, her dog, having game nights with friends and family and making memories with her firemen. And some more good news is Dr. Ellis is one of the app experts in the [00:01:00] app. She is covering educational videos on improving your PMS symptoms and also understanding your hormones a little bit better and giving you some really great educational info on your hormones to help balance them as well.

She really is amazing and a complete wealth of knowledge. Also, I have something really, really exciting to share. Like I'm so ecstatic to finally say this. The MakeFit Simple app is finally live. This is my app that I've been working on for a really long time. I didn't want to use a platform because they really limit you in on your ability to just share workouts.

And I really wanted to build an app from scratch where I could share solid workouts, I could share solid education, I could give recipes, I could organize things by mental health. Pregnancy, postpartum, core, hormones, so many different topics and that I could bring other experts in and help me teach these topics.

And because the app is built fully from scratch, we are totally taking your feedback of things you [00:02:00] want adjusted or programs you want added, and we're going to be adding content to it Every month, but right now we have launched with five workout programs, including beginner strength, strength and sculpt and interval program, which is kind of like a bootcamp style program, a body weight for when you're on the go or traveling and a postpartum program.

And again, we're going to be adding more into that every single month. We also have 140 educational videos with 18 other experts teaching on those topics, 75 plus recipes and so much more. And my favorite part of the whole thing is we worked really, really, really hard to make this app affordable. That was my number one thing because I have coached, I've done nutrition coaching for 10 years and nutrition coaching that's hands on can be pricey.

And I understand that not everyone can afford that, but I wanted to help as many. women as possible. I want people to have tools to feel amazing in their bodies. So when we built this app, I knew I wanted it to be a price that [00:03:00] people could make work for them. And I wanted to be able to reach more women.

So to launch the price per month is only 16. 99. And if you want an annual subscription, normally it's 170 and we're bringing it down to 140. Which 140 for the whole year is only 1160 a month for this app with literally 700 videos, five programs, hundreds of educational videos and recipes, and so much more coming every month.

I'm going to add the link directly to the app in the show notes. This deal is going to be a limited time just for this week, and then we'll go to our regular prices, but I hope you love it. I hope you try it out and we are giving 14 days free when you sign up so you can make sure it's for you because I want it to be a fit for you.

I care that it is and I hope that you truly love the make fit simple app and know that I have created it focusing on home workouts, focusing on functional workouts, focusing on your deep core and being able to teach you that the best you can. And I hope you truly love the app. Again, the link for the app [00:04:00] will be in the show notes.

It's 16. 99 per month or with the sale right now it is 11. 60 per month for an annual plus both of those you'll get a 14 free days. And as we talk about hormone symptoms and how to improve them, one thing that we can be aware of is making sure we're getting enough vitamins and minerals, which are also going to help our hormones.

This is one of the reasons I absolutely am in love with AG1. It is the most simple way for me to make sure that I'm getting a quality supplement to help with my vitamins and minerals. I love them because they're tested against 950 contaminants and banned substances. Like their testing quality is on point and it replaces my multivitamin.

It helps with digestive aid, immune support, gut health, energy, and so much more in just one simple scoop. I don't even have to think about it every morning. I just wake up. I have a little shaker bottle. I scoop a little bit in just one scoop. I shake it up. I down it and instantly. [00:05:00] I know I'm doing something positive for my health.

So if you want to have something simple to do in the morning that replaces your multivitamin and so much more, start with AG1. Try AG1 and you get automatically a free one year supply of vitamin D3 plus K2. And five free travel packs of AG one, which is going to be really great. Cause we're hitting the summer months.

And when you're on the go, you're also not eating as healthy. So it's nice to kind of have those travel packs with you. Go to drinkag1. com slash simple. Again, that's drinkag1. com slash simple. My name's Andrea Allen and I am a mother of four girls under seven, a wifey to a mountain man, a personal trainer, and a nutrition coach.

I love all things women's health and fitness. But let's face it, the fitness industry is complicated, and it's not built for the everyday mom. There's so much conflicting information, and you're busy, and you don't have time to figure it out. I hate feeling confused and overwhelmed, so I made it my mission [00:06:00] to simplify health and fitness while creating a welcoming, realistic, and empowering home for like minded women.

I'm happy you're here and I hope you stay a while.

Dr. Aaron, I'm super excited to have you on the episode today. It's been a long time coming. I've wanted to have you on for a while now. 

So glad that I reached out to you on the good old gram. 

So give me a little bit about your background, what you do, what you specialize in. 

Yeah, so I'm a naturopathic doctor.

I have my own private practice, Hope Natural Health in South Gilbert, Arizona. So I've been practicing almost seven years. I, I focus mainly, like I said, on women's health and hormones, but I really have a passion for helping women realize that their crappy periods are not normal because menstrual health has been normalized.

It's kind of like the elephant in the room. Nobody talks about it. And so many women are suffering with their menstrual health and they don't need to be. 

I'm in a couple of hormone courses myself, which obviously [00:07:00] are going to be way lower level than where, what you know, but it makes me chuckle. Cause if you've ever been to like a corn maze in the fall, I feel like that's a little bit how hormones are like you turn this way and then you run into this hormone and then this hormone acts interacts with this hormone.

And then you got to figure out, and it feels a little bit like a, for a lot of women, like a corn maze, like we're trying to weave through and figure out it. Our symptoms with our signs, with the hormones and trying to connect it all. But for you, you're like, no, it's actually simple once you get it. And I, I love people like you because I'm like, okay, okay.

You got to hook us up. You got to help us figure some of these things out. So today we're going to talk about periods and hormones. You said that one of your things is that you love to help people understand, you know, why their periods are crappy and how to fix those. So what are some signs that our periods may not be normal?

Because I think. Things become normal to us and we don't even realize that's not the standard. It's, it's just us, you know. 

Yeah, and, and even that too, like they've been told too that it's like, [00:08:00] oh, well, that's just the way it is or There's nothing that can be done or their options are here take birth control or here.

Let me pull your uterus out Well, I mean, those could be solutions, but they're not the right solution. The birth control fixes nothing. And we don't want to take, we want your body parts. We want to keep all of your body parts. So there's a reason why we have the things that you have going on in your body.

Your symptoms are messages. So we need to realize that if something's not right, like it's your body telling you something that we got to figure out. So that's my job. So signs that your period might not be normal are. You're calling out of work, uh, or you're calling in sick. You literally have to go home early because you're in so much pain or you're bleeding too profusely.

So Really really debilitating cramps or signs something's going on your period. I like to say your period should come and go Yes, we don't want it. Like it's not fun. It's annoying. Uh, it seems to come like super quick because time flies and you're like, I just stopped bleeding and here I am having another period.

It always [00:09:00] comes to the wrong. You're like, it's been 

12 hours. It's been 12 hours since my last period. It's 

back. That's what it feels like. Yeah. Or I always get it when I go on vacation, like, Oh, I'm getting married. I'm going to get my period. Oh, it's my birthday. I'm going to get my period. It's like, it always comes at the inopportune times, but it truly is our fifth vital sign.

And your vital signs are like your respiratory rate, your pulse, your blood pressure, your height, your weight. And then we've got our menstrual cycle. So for women, it really can tell us a lot about our health. And if your period is all over the place, irregular, which is another sign that. Something's going on, you're not getting it, you're skipping, maybe you haven't bled for four months, um, and then all of a sudden you get a period and you go another two months, or maybe you have like a 21 day cycle or a 12 hour cycle, and then you have it again two weeks later, like that's another sign that something's going on with, with hormones or, or, or whatever.

And then the heavy bleeding. So if you're having to change your product, you know, every one to two hours or less than two hours, that is way too heavy. And [00:10:00] if you're bleeding outside of seven days, way too heavy. So a lot of these symptoms that seem normal are really not normal. And you know, I, I look sometimes stare with You know, two eyes when I tell people, I'm like, you know, that's not normal.

And they're like, huh? Like, well, they told me it was normal. I'm like, no, it's not like, you shouldn't have to be ruining clothes and taking ibuprofen by the fistfuls and curling up in the fetal position and throwing up and, you know, You know, changing your product and having to wear a Tampad is what I like to call it a tampon and a pad because you're Bleeding so heavy you're gonna leak like that's not normal, but it's been normalized.

I love it Those are all really great symptoms of things that now we can recognize like it's not supposed to be that way Even if it is it's not supposed to be that way What are some signs that maybe our periods are affected by hormones? What are some different hormones possibly being off that can make these symptoms?

worse. 

Yeah. The primary hormones that influence our menstrual cycles are estrogen, progesterone, and um, [00:11:00] luteinizing hormone and follicular stimulating hormone. So in the first half of the cycle, you know, when you start bleeding till about 14 day, 14 through 16 on like a regular 28 ish day cycle, which is deemed normal anywhere from 26 to 32 days is considered normal.

But remember, it should be normal for you and consistent for you. So we don't want to have like a 21 day and then a 32 day want to have like, you know, relatively within the 26 to 32 days. Um, but in the beginning of the cycle, estrogen is, you know, typically starting to rise. So it's prepping. our ovaries to release an egg for ovulation so that we can conceive.

So follicular stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone, they're what stimulate our ovaries to drop our little egg for, you know, maybe implantation if we're trying to get pregnant. So if we don't ovulate, we don't make progesterone and progesterone really drives our second half of the cycle. But we need to make sure that we have a good relationship between estrogen and progesterone.

They're like the yin and the yang. Estrogen can cause water retention. Whereas progesterone acts as like a [00:12:00] diuretic. So sometimes if you feel like bloated and even poofy or maybe gaining weight, like that's a sign that you might have too much estrogen and very little progesterone. So if you have the irregular cycles or heavy cycles, there's something probably going on with estrogen and progesterone that we need to look at.

So those are primarily the four hormones that there's some other ones in there, but those are like the big ones that influence the menstrual health. 

Okay. So if, uh, Like some signs, can you give us some quick signs of like each one possibly being off, like things we could look for, like a different hormones.

Does that make sense? 

Yeah. So if estrogen is off, like most of the time we see, like for normal menstruating women in, you know, uh, premenopause perimenopause that are still menstruating. If you have too much 

estrogen, we're talking about people who are not in perimenopause or menopause. Yeah. 

Yeah, if estrogen is really low in menopause, what that would look like and why, but, um, but your estrogen, if we have too much, it can cause the cramps.

It can cause the heavy bleeding. It can [00:13:00] cause the, like, poofy, inflamed feeling. It can cause, uh, the bloating. So those are signs of too much, even too, like, if you have, like, PMS midway through your cycle. It's signs too that we have too much estrogen because estrogen and testosterone spike right before ovulation.

Um, so if we already have a lot of estrogen, then, you know, it can make ovulation not so fun either. And then, luteinizing hormone, follicular stimulating hormone, like signs that those are, is normal and that you ovulate is, one, you might feel a little bit of, um, Pain or, you know, pressure in one of your one or, uh, one of the ovaries or the other, because we usually rotate, um, ovulation between the left and the right ovary.

Uh, so you might feel a little bit of pain or pressure. You're also going to notice, um, some discharge. It's usually like a white consistency. That's typically signs that your, your LH and FSH are doing their job. You're ovulating your ovaries are. Are going to drop that egg [00:14:00] and then progesterone if we have too little we can have the breast tenderness we can trigger a migraine Um, we can have the still the heavy periods because we don't have that good balance between estrogen and progesterone um Progesterone is like my favorite hormone.

I call her the queen of our menstrual cycle because She literally will She influences our thyroid. She influences our blood sugar. She gives us like the productivity that we need on like the second half of our cycle. It's, she's wonderful, but so many women don't have enough and we can steal it from like a stress response.

Or if you're don't have a healthy menstrual cycle, you're not ovulating. So you're not making progesterone. So those are a few of the signs and symptoms. If we have too little estrogen, One, that could be due to the birth control. So birth control or the, the pill, not the IUDs or, um, those, but the pill, uh, cuts off the communication between your brain and your ovaries to do anything.

So you make no hormone. So when we run labs [00:15:00] on, um, a woman that's taking the pill, it looks like they're in menopause because they have zero hormone because it's cutting off the communication. And now it's what your hormones being, um, introduced into your body with the synthetic from the birth control, which is crap.

And then the Mirena and the Liletas, the IUDs, um, those have synthetic progestin, which is the synthetic progesterone. It's called progestin. Um, the copper IUD is non hormonal, so you will still bleed on that one. Um, but typically it could be a little bit heavier and you still make all your hormones with the copper IUD, but copper can influence estrogen, so that can also increase the estrogen, um, in the body if we're on the copper IUD.

And then if you have no period, say you have an ablation, um, or maybe you had a partial hysterectomy, you had your uterus out, or your endometrial lining's been ablated, so you don't have, um, a menstrual period, you're still likely cycling, you just don't make, you don't bleed. So we can still run labs and see what's going on.

Um, [00:16:00] oftentimes when women come to me with like an ablation or partial hysterectomy, hysterectomy for crappy periods, I'm like, Oh, okay. I know why you had this. Look at how much estrogen you have. Like, no wonder your periods were atrocious, or maybe they've had cysts or fibroids or something like that, that can, you know, influence, uh, the bleeding.

And then if you're menopausal with no period, then you have no hormone. So, you can have the night sweats, the hot flashes, the vaginal dryness, the, um, insomnia, uh, weight gain, things like that. So, as you can see, your hormones are, play a giant role in your overall health. 

For sure they do. I love that you called progesterone basically the queen.

We'll call her the queen bee. 

Oh yeah, I love her. 

Because she basically interacts with the other ones to make sure things, you know, she's like that, um, the Lady Liberty with the scales, you know, that she almost, you, she's got to be even with the other ones. So let's talk about how to actually improve these symptoms.

I know we've talked about Um, you know, moodiness, heavy bleeding, [00:17:00] you even mentioned migraines when progesterone might be too high. Some of those big symptoms that people might be realizing, Oh, it shouldn't be so dramatic every month. This is a lot. What can we do to improve these symptoms and make them feel more doable?

So we don't feel like once a week or for some people more often than that a month. That we're like losing our marbles or we're not ourselves. What can we do? 

Yeah, well, I'm a huge fan of getting labs done, but if that's not in the cards for you, then you can start with some basic foundations of health, like making sure that your diet is in check.

Um, washing the amount of inflammatory foods that you're eating, especially especially right leading up to your menstrual cycle. So when I say inflammatory, like a lot of carbohydrates, sugar, um, gluten, uh, alcohol, processed foods, like we crave, we have those cravings before our cycle, but it's typically due to a drop in estrogen and progesterone because they both help balance insulin.

So if we don't have anything to help [00:18:00] balance that, then that's why we choose low carb. You know, some of the crappy foods, it's just kind of in our nature. But if you realize that's what's going on, then you know that it's only going to make your period worse. So let's opt for maybe something a little bit more lighter, more whole grains, um, fruits, vegetables, beans, like things that are actually going to nourish your hormones rather than, you know, make your PMS even worse.

So you can start with the diet. 

So would you suggest before someone like, cause some people say, Oh, I get those cravings, 

if 

Before you get those cravings, you're saying shift and try to get those foods in first, because it could possibly reduce those cravings. If we're getting those foods in first, because if we're eating things that are inflammatory before, then it's just going to spike it even worse.

But if we can try to eat whole grains, beans, fruits, vegetables, before we get PMS y. It's going to make it easy. Well, that 

too, but also knowing that that's why you get those cravings. It's because of a shift in your hormones. So if you understand that, then you're like, wait, I don't need that cheeseburger.

I don't need that cookie. [00:19:00] It's my hormones talking. I know this is only going to probably make me feel worse, so I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to give in to my hormone response. And I bet you, if you try that your next cycle, your period is going to be a lot less heavy, You might actually feel a lot better than you did, you know, previous cycles.

Typically, this is a good example. We're in the beginning of January at the time of recording. So oftentimes, December maybe, but usually January, February periods for women are pretty bad, um, because of the holidays and all of the added exposures. Oh my gosh. Yes. The foods, the alcohol, you're off schedule, you're poor sleep, you're probably not hydrated enough.

So typically, like the first couple cycles of the year are not so fun. So if that's happening for you, that's probably an effect from, you know, the last couple months. So you can see too from this conversation, like how, how, How sensitive the female body is to like external factors when it comes to our hormones and menstrual health.

Yeah. I even recently was [00:20:00] doing some studying on alcohol and its effect on hormones and it surprised me so much how much it affects estrogen, which you've talked about. This matters so much in our periods and your liver can't detox. It can't, it can't detox and help that estrogen levels if it's busy detoxing alcohol.

So you're saying like there's factors we can make, right? This period situation a little bit better. What about for like moodiness or the heaviness of the period? 

Yeah, so that can be um I mean again like that's where we still want to honor our body. Make sure you prioritize sleep Um, and hydration and also be gentle with yourself with exercise.

Those things will help your mood overall, because if as women, like, I'm sure, you know, and we're all guilty of it. Like we're just go, go, go. We're high performers. We want to keep busy. We're go to the gym because it usually makes us feel better, but we have to take a step back. step back when we're, you know, about to menstruate or menstruating, because it's an added stressor.

Our body's already going through this [00:21:00] process of shedding its endometrial lining, which is what goes on when you bleed. And if you add in like crazy cardio or high intensity workouts or whatever the case may be, um, you're, you're really stressing your body out. Even more than it already is so that can contribute to Um, even like kind of stealing your progesterone or making you burn through Your progesterone a little bit more maybe triggering a migraine or poor mood stress like really trying to Manage our stress and it's not just around our period it's in general Like we are so stressed out as women and if we don't take a you know handle on that We're I we can't heal.

It's one of our obstacles to cure as we like to say in naturopathic Medicine it's like well Um, I need you to slow down. I need you to, you know, take some things off your to do list. And I really need you to honor yourself and take care of yourself first. Cause I can't, we're not going to be able to fix this unless you slow down.

So the over exercising can be messing up the progesterone, which you've already said that can trigger those headaches. [00:22:00] Is there anything else that can trigger? Cause I do know people who say every time I get my, my neighbor, one of my best friends, every time she gets a period, she gets this massive migraine.

It's usually a progesterone issue or a sudden drop in estrogen is typically what I see clinically. Yeah. So sometimes like you might not have enough progesterone. So if you're already starting off like, you know, below baseline and then it drops even more, like your body's like, whoa, and you can trigger a migraine.

So. we might have to add in some progesterone, um, you know, cyclically, like the last half of the cycle and the first few days of the menstrual cycle. And usually that will take care of it. But I, I commonly see to a lot of estrogen and estrogen dominance can, you know, trigger that too. 

Okay. 

So it kind of just depends, um, you know, where the labs are and what, what the levels are.

So 

for the, if it's, we kind of talked about estrogen a little bit and how we can, you know, with the anti inflammatory, if someone thinks their progesterone is low and maybe that's the it's triggering their headaches. What Things can they do about that to kind of offset that [00:23:00] naturally? 

Yeah. I mean, I'm a huge fan of bioidentical, um, progesterone therapy just because progesterone is like I said, the queen and I love her.

Um, but if you're not in a place to do hormones or don't want to do hormones, which that's a whole nother conversation, uh, you know, you can optimize one again, like we need to figure out like, two, are you ovulating? So if your body is just not producing progesterone, then that's, that's It's like, well, why are we not ovulating?

Um, do we need to support that? Maybe it has something to do with your blood sugar. So it's not necessarily like, Oh, you have a migraine here. Take this. Like, I want to figure out why we have it and what's going on so that we can fix it and give your body what it needs. So it's kind of hard to say like, let's do this when I don't really know why we have it low in the first place.

Cause it could be, you know, several different things. 

Okay, that makes sense. What about the woman who, because we talked about, you know, taking a couple of days and honoring your body, which I fully agree with. I think we over push all the time. And [00:24:00] I actually have a lot of clients who are over training and I'm like, you don't understand.

You are actually causing yourself problems by exercising too much. Rest is important. But sometimes I have interacted with women where they say I can't even exercise the week of my period because it's so heavy I can't stop bleeding. I can't even move What can they do? I know we are gonna get into like how to check, you know and when someone should check for hormones But what can they do?

naturally to try to you know, reduce that heaviness or like get it so they can move a little bit better because that's pretty tricky as well. 

Yeah. Well, without knowing exactly what's going on, because that could be an imbalance in hormones. It could be thickened endometrial lining. It could be cysts. It could be fibroids.

It could be PCOS, endometriosis, adenomyosis. Like there's a lot of things that could cause that heavy bleed. It could be clotting disorders. Um, so there, without like digging deeper, I would prioritize the hydration, sleep. Diet and stress reduction. I think just [00:25:00] doing those in general is going to make you a healthier person and have your body less stressed out.

Um, and then you will have, you know, not so bad of a period. I think you might see a reduction in the flow or maybe even the, the painfulness if you prioritize those things that we discussed a little bit 

earlier. Okay. So, We have some ideas that we can work on, you know, seeing if we can reduce the cramps, the cravings, the moodiness, the flow from, as you mentioned, you know, stress reduction, diet, sleep, some of those things.

When and why should we track our cycles? And then when should we know when to get our hormones tested? Because let's say someone is like, I'm trying to do the anti inflammatory, I'm trying to sleep more, I'm aware of taking rests, I'm doing all the things, but it's not changing. Yeah. What do they do then?

Yeah, so tracking cycles is so important, even if you're not trying to make a baby. Why? Because we want to use, be able to use our hormones to work for us. So if you understand [00:26:00] what goes on during, you know, the full 28 days of our menstrual cycle, because your, your hormones are all over the place, but we can use them, you know, to work for us, but we don't really know when we can use them if we don't know where we are in the menstrual cycle.

So, for instance, around ovulation, like that's the time to really do crazy workouts. When I say crazy, I mean like high intensity, maybe, you know, big heavy lift days, lifting a lot of weights because estrogen and testosterone are at their peak. So we want to use those hormones to work for us and have some, some really good, um, you know, 

two together.

I mean, those are the powerhouse hormones. Those two, you have a good amount of progesterone and testosterone. Wonder woman. 

And then we still have testosterone, you know, obviously throughout our cycle, but that's typically where it spikes because that's where it's trying to make us have a baby. Right. So if you know that, then you're like, all right, I can plan my workouts.

I can plan my social activities. Maybe I'm going to ask that. guy out or go out on a [00:27:00] date or maybe I want to ask my boss for a raise or whatever the case because that's you're glowing like your hormones are working for you but you won't know that unless you track and then girls on 

fire during that phase 

yeah exactly but also too like tracking we can kind of see some correlation between some symptoms that you're having because if you have headaches And say like, you don't know if they're triggered by our menstrual cycle.

They very much could be, we just don't know where they happen. Um, so if you track, you can say, Oh, I feel a little tired today. Or, you know, I, Oh, I had a migraine or, Ooh, I felt a little crampy. Like if you track that and it's so easy to track now, there's so many different apps out there. Um, you could just do it on paper.

I have a period productivity planner. Um, that you could use, but, Oh, you have your 

own. Yeah. You have your own? Okay. I'll link it in the show notes. Yeah. 

You can find it on Amazon. I love physical like planners, um, for that. I'm an old school. Like I got to write it down. I 

actually like, I write it down. If [00:28:00] it goes in my phone, it's lost to cyber abyss.

I'll never see it again. So I get that too. But then you can 

see where the abnormalities are so that we can see a correlation between your symptoms. Oh, and then when do we get our labs tested, right? So typically for a menstruating woman, I like to draw on the last half of the cycle, in the luteal phase, typically around a 19, 20, 21.

Why? Because that's where progesterone is at its peak. It's the only time that it should be elevated. So if we draw any other time of the cycle, it's gonna be low. So it's really not gonna give us a good representation of our hormones, specifically the estrogen and progesterone, then we'll know too, like, all right, it looks like we probably ovulated, ovulation is good, but maybe the progesterone isn't optimal.

So for fertility purposes, like that's huge, because we want to make sure if you're trying to conceive and you don't have optimal progesterone, we got to do something about that because we don't want to risk a miscarry. Um, so typically it's like cycle day 19, 20, 21, everybody is different. So if you have a [00:29:00] longer cycle, we can push that out.

Obviously a shorter cycle, we, you kind of want to do it about seven to 10 days after ovulation is, is good, but that's, you know, 19, 20, 21. 

The thing you pointed out about tracking cycles is interesting to me because you're right. I think a lot of people think, well, I'm not trying to have a baby. I don't really care.

But let's say you are having migraines. I remember a long time ago, I had someone on about migraines and she talked about tracking to see if your food was linked. So not only to see, is your migraine linked to your period, which might be linked to a hormone like testosterone, or is it linked to a food you're having or this or that?

But until we actually start tracking it, we're just basically Blindly guessing, and I don't know about you, but whenever I blindly guess something, it doesn't go well and you end up kind of down roads that aren't. So I love that you pointed that out. 

Yeah. And the same. And again, the, uh, migraines could be triggered by foods too.

So, and I don't remember what I ate yesterday, let alone the day before. So that's why it's like, you know, loosely writing it down and being like, wait, every time I have [00:30:00] dairy. I get a migraine like two or three days later, but you won't know that unless you like, you know, loosely write down the foods you're eating and be like, Hmm, where's the correlation here?

The one thing I do want to ask you about is mood swings on your period. And I know we've kind of already talked about symptoms and I, I do think. Everyone should take time this month and track. In fact, this has made me curious because I have some symptoms. That I consistently have, and I'm just kind of like, Oh, something's off.

And then I just move on with my life, you know, cause you're busy. So I'm actually inspired to be like, no, I'm going to track and see for a couple of months if that symptom happens at a certain time. So I love that you pointed that out. But a big one for me is I, the day before I get my period, I'm like a dragon.

My poor husband. I know that we talked about, you know, sleep and some other things, but is there anything I should be aware of? Um, it just seems like my fuse is really short and maybe that's normal, you know, but again, I'm asking, cause I'm like, is that normal? Now I'm really thinking all my [00:31:00] symptoms and what's normal.

Yeah, no, that's your hormones. So typically I see low progesterone or lower progesterone, suboptimal levels of progesterone and or low testosterone. So testosterone, you know, women need it as much as men, just not as much as men, but low testosterone can cause us to feel sad, depressed, irritable, same as too much testosterone.

We need that right Right sweet spot or you're just not going to feel normal So if you're like a short use that's something and it could be too much estrogen, too So again that estrogen progesterone need to be You know, in a, in a good balance. So it could be too much estrogen, too little progesterone or, you know, one or the other and or testosterone is typically what I see with the mood.

Okay. That's good to know, because I feel like if we, you know, that's not normal, then you can look into actually getting your hormones tested. 

No, I was just going to say, it just happened to me the other day. I'm about about to start here any day. And I was like a short fuse the other day. And I'm like, About ready to have a nervous breakdown.

I'm like, I'm [00:32:00] sorry. I'm just really irritable. My period's going to start. Like, as long as you know that, like you can recognize it and not beat yourself up for feeling like a crazy person. 

Yeah. But if that's happening. Constantly. And you're not like, wait a minute, my period, I just had it or my period was a week ago or whatever.

Then there's a good chance something could, I mean, obviously stress and situational things affect it, but hormones play a huge role. 

Yeah. And it could be your thyroid. It could be vitamin deficiency. There's a lot of things that influence our mood. So keep that in mind too. 

So if someone, we know when we should get them tested, but when should someone take that step?

Like, I know that we, I actually wish that everyone, it could be included in their healthcare to get their hormones tested once a year. I really do. I really wish people could see a pelvic floor doctor, a therapist, right after they have a baby, a couple appointments and that every woman had in her monthly, in her yearly checkup, check the hormones, because I feel like, I feel like we're running.

Rampant with hormone issues right [00:33:00] now. So if someone is in that spot and they're like, I think I have some things off, they know when to test, but is there a time when you feel like as a doctor, you need to move into this or like you can wait a little longer? Like, do you have an opinion on that? Because some people aren't in a situation where they can and some people aren't.

So what advice do you have? 

Uh, well, if I, if I could Say if everyone could have the opportunity, I would say yesterday, get them done. But I would say my best advice would be if you're like just here listening and you're like, Oh wow, I guess maybe I do have an issue. Um, I didn't really think so because you know, it's been normal for me.

Then you can try some of the first steps that we talked about, like the foundations of health, the sleep, the diet, the hydration, the stress management, um, and tracking, like just being more mindful of when the symptoms occur, but if you've been to the doctor and you've been suffering like this for a while, your, um, your kids are afraid [00:34:00] of you during that week, your husband is afraid of you, you've gone to the doctor, they've told you everything's normal, your only option is birth control.

No, don't take that for an answer. It's not fair. You deserve to feel like your normal self and not like you're going out of, like you're losing your mind. So I would recommend at that point, let's dive a little bit deeper. Find a functional medicine doctor, myself, naturopathic doctor, someone that will help you get the answers that you deserve.

Okay, and then if they're trying to test hormones, another thing is, for example, in the course I'm in it lists like what to test and there's like hundreds if someone's in a situation where they're like, I can't test everything What would you say lean hard into because there's different ones you can do full panels half panels I know, you know this better than I do obviously but like what would you lean hard into like look go to a natural path doctor and get A, B, C, D.

Like what ones are your like these at least at the minimum? 

Yeah. So your reproductive hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, your ovulatory markers, the LH that [00:35:00] would be a good start for your reproductive. I'd also recommend looking at your thyroid. Um, the thyroid can highly influence our menstrual cycle, so ask for a full, full thyroid panel.

Um, and then I would look at the adrenal function as well, or your cortisol levels, which is your stress hormone. And then if you could throw in a couple vitamins, vitamin D and vitamin B would be, um, you know, two important nutrients to check as well. And that's like, That's pretty basic. I mean, I don't know what doctor would run those.

Um, uh, OBs and not to say all of them, but from my experience, like they just don't know what to do. And so instead of telling a patient that they tell them that it's not necessary, which is not fair because hormones are necessary and we need to know where the imbalances are. So know that your current doctor that might, you might not have gotten answers from.

It's not that they say, um, It's not necessary. They probably just don't know what to do and that's no fault to them. It's just how that their education was. [00:36:00] Whereas we're complete, you know, trained completely different and have, you know, extensive training in like getting to the root of what's going on.

So that's what I would recommend. Full reproductive hormones, um, your thyroid and your adrenal function and vitamin D and B. 

That's a really great point that if you do go to a doctor and they say it's not necessary, there are other doctors. I know I probably harp on this a lot. I know I've said this.

multiple times on the podcast and different episodes that you go to where you can get someone to listen. And that can be hard. That can be very hard, but go where someone is going to listen and respect what you're saying and that you know yourself. So go somewhere else and some simple things can help. I know I, I get my hormones tested pretty regularly.

And one of the things one year that I was really tired and I was off my vitamin D was low and it was, it was really low because. Ironically, we live in the sunshine state in Arizona, but it's hot in the summer. We don't always go outside. And if we do, we're covered in like umbrellas and covered in [00:37:00] all the things because the sun's so strong.

And the doctor pointed out actually vitamin D is often low in this state because people are hiding all summer long or, or, you know, always just kind of out of it. So it could be something. Simple. That could make a huge difference for you, or it could be something that's more complex, but you definitely want a doctor to hear about, and I love you pointed those out.

Okay. Erin, if you could give any woman who's feeling like, man, my symptoms for my period are out of control, whatever it is, cramps, moodiness, heaviness, it doesn't matter. All the things we talked about migraines. What do you want her to know? What piece of advice do you want her to know as she listens to this episode and walks away to help her feel?

I don't know empowered like she's not alone. You know, what do you want her to know? 

I was just going to say you're not alone. That was my big big advice. You're not alone And you don't need to feel like that. So there is hope that you can heal from whatever it is We just need to [00:38:00] find out what's going on with you and your specific situation And then give your body, give your body what it needs and you can heal yourself.

It's as simple as that. 

Where can we, it's like so simple, but I do think as females, as females, we're so good at caring for other people. Like this sounds funny, but like being a mom, I'm like, it is the biggest excuse for me not to care for myself because I'm caring for other people. And you've got to care for yourself and your periods don't have to be that way.

Start putting yourself first. It's okay. Your, your, your husband and your kids are going to be fine. Like, you know, you need to take, what happens if you don't take care of yourself? You can't take care of them. So we don't want to get so far down the hole where you're just unable to take care of them. So start taking control of your health now.

And we're going to start by tracking our periods to figure out when our symptoms are linked. All right. Where can we find you? You talk a ton. I know you have a podcast, but you are huge on improving your period symptoms and balancing hormones. Where can we find you? [00:39:00] 

Yeah. So I'm very active on social media, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, um, a lot of educational content there.

I run my own social media, so you can always send me a question in the DMs. Nobody's in the DMS, but me, I have my podcast, hope natural health, and you can find me on my website on dr. Erin Ellis. com. 

I will say I went onto your podcast and you know, you can save episodes. I was scanning through and I saved like 50 episodes to listen to.

I was like, I want this topic and this topic and this topic. So she's also one of the experts in the app covering periods and hormones, which we're super excited about that content because you are amazing. I will link. her website and her podcast. Um, tell us the name of the podcast so people can search for it.

Hope Natural Health. 

Okay. And then it's on social media. What is your exact handle name? 

So Instagram and TikTok. It's Dr. Dot Aaron Ellis. And then on Facebook it's Dr. Aaron Ellis, n md. 

Perfect. Do you do only in person or do you do support online as well? 

I do support [00:40:00] online. Um, I'm only licensed in the state of Arizona, so I can't prescribe or diagnose outside of the state.

However, I can act as like a wellness consultant and give you the, the education that you need and the. the pieces that you need to give to your, your physician outside of the state. Um, I also have a done for you program too that you could, you could do that's kind of a little hands off to get you the answers that you need with some lab testing and results.

Uh, so there's, there's several options that I could do to help you if you can't get help in wherever you are. That's 

perfect because then people can get some answers before actually finding someone who can address those answers as well. Thank you so much for being on today. I probably am going to have you back on to talk about a million different topics because I love your knowledge.

So thank you so much. 

Thank you for having me. It's been so fun chatting about this. 

I hope you found that episode as educational and helpful as I found it. I am linking her hack for hormones and her period productivity planner off Amazon in the show notes so you can look both of those up and see if they're good for [00:41:00] you.

I know I personally am going to start tracking my own periods and see if there's some signs and symptoms that are linked with it so I can think about how I can adjust and what hormones might possibly be involved in those to really try to help reduce those. And as mentioned before, Dr. Ellis has some educational videos as well in our app that you're going to love.

So you can check those out on the Make Fit Simple app, which includes full body workouts, a handful of different programs based on your needs, recipes, and the educational videos. There's over 135 educational videos to help you on your fitness journey. The biggest takeaway from this episode is truly in most situations when it comes to health.

You are never stuck. There are always answers and sometimes we just have to look around for them and it might take some time, but there are answers. You are doing so much better than you think you are. I promise. We'll chat next [00:42:00] week.