E271: PMS Breast Pain/Tenderness Is Giving You So Many Clues About Your Hormones!

Can we talk about that moment right before your period when your boobs hurt so much you don’t even want to move, and then suddenly, they’re fine?

I used to just ignore it. Like, okay, this is just part of PMS, whatever. But once I started paying attention, I realized it’s actually not random at all.

It’s your body giving you a lot of clues about what’s going on with your hormones, your gut, your stress levels, and even how your body is handling everyday life.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• What that super sore → suddenly fine pattern is actually telling you about estrogen vs. progesterone
• The kind of everyday habits that seem harmless, but quietly build up over your cycle
• Why your gut, liver, and even how often you go to the bathroom play a bigger role than you think

There’s something important here that many of you overlook: you're managing symptoms instead of the root issue. And that’s the key difference. Next time, you can either ignore it or take the opportunity to understand it. 

Go listen and see what I mean.

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too! 
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Transcript

[00:00:00] PMS breast tenderness can be annoying, can be painful, but did you know that it's actually telling you a lot about your underlying hormone imbalances, even if it's the only symptom you have, if it's not the only symptom you have, this still applies to you because the deep dive that I'm gonna do into PMS breast tenderness and the root causes applies to so many other hormone symptoms as well.

All right, girlies. So this is really funny. I just have to tell this quick little story before I dive into PMS breast tenderness. My littlest guy is four and a half and he has come into my office several times in the last couple weeks and he'll see my mic out when I've been recording and he'll get his little face really close to it and he is always like, hello, Ashley.

Or , Hey Ashley, you know, this is something about Ashley. And I'm like, do you think I'm always talking to Ashley when. I'm recording and he's like, yeah, are you talking to Ashley? And it's really funny because I do have a couple friends named Ashley, but , I also am just like, maybe that is what I call my [00:01:00] podcast.

Girlies is Ashley, right? So if I start starting the podcast, Hey Ashley, you guys know why? Okay. So those of you who are actually named Ashley will think that's probably funnier than the rest of you. Let's dive into PMS breast tenderness guys. When I. I started researching this. I, and I say, started researching this, like when I started just putting together information for this episode, because it all just kind of came outta my brain, you know, not like I did a whole deep dive into research, because this is something that I work with all the time and I've had myself and all the things, but.

When I started putting together this episode and making some bullet points so my thoughts could come out in a clear fashion, I was honestly blown away myself by how much PMS breast tenderness tells us about what's going on in your body and how many different, essentially root causes that tie together are.

Underlying to show up as breast tenderness. So while this is one of the symptoms, I haven't even ever done a podcast episode [00:02:00] 280 episodes in, I haven't done a podcast episode on this, but the reason is because it's almost , feels like one of the quote unquote minor PMS symptoms and it wraps in with everything else.

But there are some things that are specific to breast tenderness that I think that we need to know, and especially when we're thinking about breast health in the realm of preventing breast cancer, it's huge, right? And when we want to make sure that our estrogen and progesterone, and thyroid hormone and cortisol are all balanced to keep our hormones optimal and active for long-term health, and not just for not having bad periods right now.

Breast tenderness is actually a pretty big red flag, . So this conversation really does extend even past just breast tenderness, but I'm focused on breast tenderness as a symptom. We can fill in many of your other PMS symptoms, like mood swings, like hormonal acne, like painful periods.

Like heavy periods, . Even ovarian cyst, they're probably going to [00:03:00] have some similar root causes and probably will hit on several of these. But breast tenderness specifically hits on a lot of things. Okay. I think I've given you enough of a preface here. So , when we're looking at breast tenderness, PMS, breast tenderness, I'm talking about obviously the week before your period, your boobs are hurting, they get swollen, they get really tender, , and really sensitive to the touch.

This is a tissue level, estrogen and inflammatory signal. So it's showing you that in your breast tissue there is excess inflammation and excess estrogen. And that's why it's so wild that like. Whatever day it drops off for you, whether it's the second year period starts, or a day or two before your period starts.

It's night and day. You're like, how could it have hurt so much yesterday, today? Perfectly fine. Right? Because anything else, , like pain and swelling and stuff like that, it would slowly taper off. But usually with PMS breast tenderness, it's like they're one day gone the next day.

It's kind of like [00:04:00] tapers. So. It's because it's a tissue level, estrogen and inflammatory signal. It can have to do with multiple different things that I'm gonna talk about. I have lots of bullet points today, but histamine, elevation can be a factor or dysregulation of histamine, fluid retention, poor lymphatic drainage, but each of those things.

Has so much more to it. So I'm just gonna start walking through and the very first thing that I'm gonna talk about is a low state of safety in the body. Okay? So this is what I talk about every single day, every single episode is your brain not getting the signals of safety that it needs to make hormones well.

What that actually means is that your fight or flight state elevated cortisol or cortisol dysregulation, if you get into more of a burnout state, down, regulates your progesterone. And if you're fairly new here, I have. Layers and layers of episodes on how estrogen and progesterone are supposed to work in a cycle.

But the super quick version, and we'll link some of those in the show notes, but the super quick version is [00:05:00] estrogen should rise cause you to ovulate, and then the second half of your cycle, progesterone should rise and be dominant above estrogen and above other hormones. But so much of the time when you have hormone symptoms, progesterone is not getting high enough.

And estrogen is not clearing well enough for you to be progesterone dominant in the second half of your cycle. That's what you really want, and that is where we see estrogen dominance or relative estrogen dominance. Which means estrogen isn't even high, but it's just higher than progesterone. And , this is where we see symptoms essentially across the board symptoms.

But PMS breast tenderness can be one of them. So that low safety state where your body, your brain is not getting those signals of safety. It's not getting the signals of safety from food. It's not getting the signals of safety from emotions. It's not getting the signals of safety from your schedule, from light, from sleep, from hydration, from movement.

All these pieces that we dive deep into in coaching, and we really make sure that you have each of them on track. [00:06:00] And what I usually see. Is that the amazing women that I work with are like eight out of 10. They have it so close, but just because there's a couple tweaks to still be made, their brains are not getting those signals of safety.

So it's not a complete lifestyle overhaul for the most part. It's really just targeting and being like, oh, there's the red flag for you that you can't see, and then we go from there. So that's what coaching really looks like. But when estrogen. Is dominant or relatively dominant, it stimulates breast tissue proliferation.

Okay? So that means swelling growing and increases water retention. that's why you can have the tender or swollen breasts, , or the swelling where you actually might see increase in size and it's because of that estrogen stimulation. And then it actually. Can relate to histamine as well. If histamine is dysregulated, that usually comes back to the gut.

We're gonna talk about that and prolactin sensitivity. So there are specific. Herbs that can [00:07:00] help with prolactin sensitivity, which is really interesting, but that's where we get the swelling and the heaviness and the pain. And this isn't where it lasts, it's just a short time because estrogen is surging towards the end of your cycle one last time.

And usually that's where we see that breast tenderness is that last few days where estrogen kind of surges and then drops off again. And it's a clear, clear pattern that your estrogen is. Above your progesterone and is not in balance. So that's the underlying mechanism of why this happens typically now, additional reasons, physical reasons for not having safety in the brain, in the body, and staying in that fight or flight mode.

Number one that I see almost every single time girls, is undereating slash over exercising. Or just not regulating blood sugar. Well, with the macronutrients you are getting and micronutrients you're getting, that [00:08:00] can be low carb intake. Some of the time. It can be low protein intake some of the time, but.

I can look at someone's food chart and usually see it really quickly what's happening, whether it is perfect macros at a couple meals, and I don't even believe in perfect macros to be honest, but really well balanced at a couple meals and then just , off the rails at one or two meals, or really just relying too much on convenience foods.

And I don't even mean . Fast food, but even like healthy convenience foods that are just not as satiating and don't make your blood sugar stay as stable. And so this undereating slash undernourished blood sugar imbalance is almost everyone because our lives are so busy that it's hard to keep up with it if you don't have a very, very clear template of what you need to do and someone helping hold you accountable.

But once we do that in coaching, it's a big part of what we do. Once we regulate that for you and we see what works for you, what keeps you more stable? What keeps your [00:09:00] energy more stable and. In the long term, help stabilize your cortisol levels and your hormones. Then it becomes doable when you just know, oh, I just needed this much more at breakfast, or I needed to switch up my lunch a little bit because even though it was clean, I didn't see this big gap.

. That is one of the biggest causes of not having safety in the body that I see. , Another factor is circadian disruption. So your circadian rhythm, , is your rhythm that your hormones follow throughout the day, and it should be based on sunlight and natural light and when it is based on sunlight and natural light, your cortisol is better, your insulin is better, your.

Everything, your mood, everything is better. However, we are usually fairly unplugged from circadian rhythms because we spend so much time inside and under fake lights, and that affects our sleep as well. So even if you're sleeping okay, you may not be getting the deep sleep that you need, and even if you're sleeping great, but just not sleeping enough, these are [00:10:00] factors that just tell your brain again and again, Hey, not quite enough here.

Struggling. Continue the stress patterns. Okay. So that's another factor that can directly impact your hormones and specifically breast tenderness.

We work on these things not only with our clients, but I in our own lives. All the time because these are things that need to continually not be something to stress over, but you have to pay attention, right? It's just so easy to get out of routine with sleep. It's just so easy to, , get busy and be on a new schedule and not be eating as consistently.

These are things that while they are honestly very simple, and once you know what to do, they're so doable. You still have to check back in with yourself and you still have to be paying attention. Number four on my list of things that are root causes of PMS breast tenderness is liver congestion.

Okay? Liver congestion is so common because of medications, because of toxins [00:11:00] in our world, because we do not have adequate bile flow most of the time because we don't have adequate stomach acid. I'm gonna talk about stomach acid and sodium here in just a minute, but bile flow. I think there's multiple layers of reasons that we don't have good bile flow.

Number one, because we do not eat enough bitter foods. I think that's a big cause. , That may not even be number one. I'm just saying numbers, but not eating enough bitter foods. I think that we don't have a lot of those in our American diet. Things like bitter greens or bitter herbs and things like that.

They're just not super common. , Really not having good digestive practices is also huge. We eat on the run. We don't chew our food. We're too busy to think about what we're eating and sitting and eating in community, in peace makes a huge difference in our digestion. I hear you in your brains being like, my community is not very peaceful because they're toddlers here.

You Yes. Been there still there Some of the time, , my kids aren't toddlers anymore, [00:12:00] but sometimes it's still not very peaceful and that's something that I work towards is. Teaching them good habits around food and around sitting and eating and staying in your dang chair. And don't ask me for ketchup 17,000 times, right?

, But just thinking about that with your meals, like, am I chewing my food? Am I giving my body the signals that it needs to even know that I'm eating so that I can have improved stomach acid and improved digestive enzyme flow and improved bile flow? . There are also a lot of nutrients that need to be there for bile flow to be appropriate, , like plenty of protein.

If you have low glycogen in your liver because you're not eating appropriate carbs consistently, that actually can cause big issues with blood sugar, but also with bile flow and also with liver detox in general because when the liver is chasing your blood sugar around all day, it cannot detox well. So that's why a blood sugar.

One of the reasons blood sugar balance is so important, but nutrient deficiencies like [00:13:00] glycine, that comes from , slow cooked meats, gelatin, collagen. That's one reason that I love the Equipped protein powder so much because it has collagen and gelatin in it, which translates to glycine.

And it just tastes so good that I just love it and it gives me that collagen and gelatin daily and some protein. So this. All good for bio flow. . When you don't have enough magnesium, B vitamins in these other nutrients, then you can have issues with phase one and two detoxification in the liver, and then estrogen recirculates.

 You're already having a hard time because your estrogen may not be staying low enough compared to your progesterone 'cause your progesterone's not going high enough because your stress and your body is stealing from your progesterone to make more cortisol. It's really a mean trick.

But it's trying to protect you, and then you are not detoxing estrogen well. So this is where we get into the gut, and if your liver is struggling, it's congested, it doesn't have the nutrients that it [00:14:00] needs, or the ability to focus on detox that it needs, and then your gut is struggling, then we have issues with estrogen recirculation.

So when I say your gut is struggling, you have to be pooping once or twice a day every single day. Or you're not detoxing well, there's just really no way around that. But when you are not, when you're constipated or when you have bloating, , so many of us have dysbiosis in the gut, which is bacterial imbalance.

Either the good bacteria isn't high enough or the bad bacteria is too high, or there's just some dysregulation there, but when there's a lot of overgrowth of bad bacteria. Gives off something called endotoxins, which are essentially these poisons from the bacterial life cycle, and those can wreak havoc on your body.

Those can cause. High inflammation in the gut. They can cause high histamine, which triggers things like mast cell activation syndrome, or even just these symptoms around ovulation, , that wouldn't be expected [00:15:00] or symptoms around your period. It can be things like rashes and stuffy noses and headaches and fatigue.

There's so many symptoms that can be caused by histamine, but when your gut is not functioning well, that. Increases the burden on the liver. And so then not only are you not getting the estrogen out that your liver has managed to detox, and then it sends it to your gut, and then your poor little gut is like, help.

We're on fire. We can't do anything with this. Everything's stuck in here. And then the estrogen gets pulled back into circulation. And so then even if you're not making too much estrogen, if you are not detoxing it well, you are going to be stuck with that estrogen. So that goes back to the very beginning where we talk about estrogen being dominant.

In relation to progesterone, whether or not it's actually high, the gut is a really bad or a really big part of this. And then when you do have those endotoxins from gut dysbiosis, that increases estrogen like I just said. But it also can increase prolactin and inflammation. And if you have bloating and breast ness, this is a huge [00:16:00] ding ding.

This is you thing to know that we need to look into your gut. And I do GI MAP testing, which I find to be. Honestly the best one for what I need to know about your hormones and your gut. And when we see that your gut starts to balance and there's less of the inflammation and less of the endotoxins, then your estrogen can balance as well.

So gut is really important for this and. , There's a whole, I could go way deeper down that trail, but for interest of time, , I will keep it there, but I just want you to know that even just the simple symptom of PMS breast tenderness probably does show that your liver is congested, probably because your gut needs some support.

Now your liver can be congested and your gut can be fine. But most of the time I see that it's both when you're having symptoms like this and then we walk into the metabolism and the thyroid, and this is going to be a just like hand in hand along with this gut and liver dysfunction. I can't say one started it or the other [00:17:00] started it, but they worked together and so because detoxing through your liver is energy dependent. It needs energy also making progesterone. You need energy for that because it's a fertility hormone, and your body is not going to make it if you're in a low energy state or it's not gonna make enough. So if your metabolism is low because you've been overstressed, undereating not sleeping enough, your body is just getting signals over and over again that there is not enough.

It's going to slow your metabolism. Through slowing down thyroid hormones, through slowing down your digestion, through slowing every process down in your body because it doesn't have enough energy to do them well, it's just gonna slow things down to keep you safe. But that slows down. Detox, the hormones accumulate, and then.

Because with a thyroid, T three to T four conversion happens in the liver. So T three is the inactive thyroid hormone that turns into T four, which you have to have to be able to have a clear brain to be able [00:18:00] to have a great metabolism, to be able to lose weight, to be able to focus, to be able to have energy, warm hands and feet, all of those things as well as fertility.

. You are unlikely to be doing that well if your liver is congested and if it's showing up as symptoms like PMS breast tenderness. So because that T three conversion happens in the liver, , the metabolism and hormones are just working hand in hand and the gut being inflamed trickles down to the liver and then we start to have thyroid issues Because of that, now you can have issues with T three and T four conversion and not know it with a basic blood test that your doctor gives you.

So that's really important too. The last couple things, this is where I was just like, man, everything is connected here. And this again, is kind of across the board for hormones in general, but really the PMS breast tenderness especially just is a huge example of how connected everything is. And because the breasts are.

Really rich in lymphatic tissue. Lymphatic congestion can be a big issue for breast [00:19:00] tenderness and for lumpiness in your breasts as well. And that the, , fibrocystic breast tissue that comes from all of these same root causes essentially. Because the breasts are so rich in lymph tissue, sitting too much, not getting a lot of movement, and then just wearing tight bras, underwire, brass.

Anything tight girls is not great for your breast tissue, for your lymph flow. I would just encourage you take it off anytime you can. Use the most minimal bra anytime you can and just start making that a challenge for yourself. Do what you can. , I'm not a girl who's gonna go without when I'm going out of the house or things like that, but.

Find one that is a little bit more loose, that , gives room for things to move. , Pay attention to actually doing some breast drainage, even if you're in the shower. I don't mean drainage, like draining milk out. , I just mean making sure that that tissue, if it's, , held up by a bra all day and it's put in one position, move it around, let it, [00:20:00] let it, .

I wanna say rest, but rest isn't quite what I mean. Just let it move so that that tissue can drain. , But also when you have low thyroid or even low sodium, I actually forgot to talk about low sodium. , Those things are going to keep your lymphatic flow from being as good as it can. So low sodium.

I do wanna go to that because I'm gonna talk about minerals before we wrap up. And a couple of just specific. Minerals can be depleted. That will just be another piece of the puzzle for PMS breast tenderness. But magnesium is a big one. Magnesium's rapidly depleted by stress. The thing is though, if you're just taking magnesium, it can throw off your sodium and your potassium, and so I like to have a balance of all three.

I love doing it with food first and then supplementation second, but low sodium. Contributes to low stomach acid, which really is a big helper in this whole issue of not digesting your food well, having [00:21:00] congestion in your gut and your liver. And so getting enough sodium not only helps with lymphatic flow and circulation in the body in general, but it also helps the adrenals so much, and we need to have an adequate amount of both sodium and potassium.

In the body for magnesium to be able to do its job. And I think that that, I see that one overlooked so much. So many of us know, oh, I need some magnesium. Yes, you probably do, but you need sodium, potassium as well to be able to even use your magnesium and not just push sodium potassium down because sodium and potassium are so important in getting nutrients into the cell, .

Insulin hormones into the cell too, like insulin and like thyroid hormone. So you could potentially be converting thyroid hormone and then not able to get it in the cell, and that would be a whole other issue. So supporting sodium and potassium is really important there. I know that that's kind of a lot of information in one episode and potentially might be a lot to sort through.

I don't know. , You tell me if that's a lot to sort through or not. [00:22:00] Hopefully it made sense, but I just really wanted with all of that to show you how connected everything is and how many factors there are in balancing your hormones, , and getting rid of symptoms, any type of hormone symptoms, there are a lot of factors, but that's why. It doesn't work to just take a little hormone supplement here and there, and that's why it doesn't work to take, you know, these little happy pills and things like that.

And you don't see these long-term results because there are so many factors, which is truly why I do exactly what I do, and I do it the way that I do it because I've seen over and over and over again, girls just chasing fads, but also chasing their own tail because they're missing a piece that they just don't even realize they're missing, like.

Their gut, they don't know that being constipated is an actual issue because they've always been that way or they don't know that having, , PMS mood swings every single month is actually an issue because it's always been that way. And so we wanna be able to take things really step by step. But the [00:23:00] beauty of the way that God created our bodies is that even though all of these things are separate things, separate organs, separate systems that work.

Really intricately in and of themselves, and then also together. When we start with the basics, we start to get nutrition, right? We start to get blood sugar balance right? We start to support adequate digestion, giving those signals of safety to the brain. All of these systems start to align. It's not that we have to address every single one of them separately.

So many of the interventions that we do address each of these, it's almost like dominoes getting knocked down, right? You just have to get the dominoes lined up in the right way. And then as you start to shift, you start to see changes in all of these body systems. And so I don't wanna oversimplify it because sometimes it's not super simple, but.

Understanding essentially the way stress causes a negative cascade in our body and how we can change that to a positive cascade when we're starting to decrease stress and understand how our bodies work so much better. [00:24:00] It really is possible to see real lasting change. I was just talking to a client yesterday who was finishing up and she was telling me the first couple months she was like, I wanted to think that there was change and there was some, but I wasn't really convinced.

But then the last two months, like months three and months four in coaching, I see the changes and I told her. That means in my book, that really means those are real changes because it does take your body time and consistency with the right things to start to actually make these shifts that are going to last.

And so sometimes you can take the supplement and it helps you out for a month or two, but then. It's not able to overcome, , the actual underlying issues. When we're doing things as a whole, we see lasting change. And maybe it's not a quick fix, right? I am never here to promise you a quick fix, but I'm here to tell you that when we have the right pieces in place and we're looking at the right things in context with your lifestyle and your emotions and your stress, we see change happen.[00:25:00] 

Little by little, and then it compounds from there. It's like those dominoes, they start to knock down a little bit faster, and we start to see symptoms go away a little bit faster. So knowing that there are multiple factors with your hormones. If you want my eyes on this, then send me an email hello@leishadrews.com.

Send me an email with the word audit, and I have been doing a few every week mini audits, totally free. And it's just my eyes on your hormones. I'm gonna ask you a couple questions. You're gonna tell me a little bit about what's going on with you, and then I'll just say, Hey, this is where I see the issue, and this is how.

We would work on it and help you just kind of hopefully peel back some of the layers that are hard to see for yourself. So if that's something you want, just send me the word audit and I will fit you in in the next week or so, and I would love to talk to you and I love to hear what's going on and be able to bless you with a little bit of support.

See you girls next week.