Beyond PMS: How Chinese Medicine Can Transform Women’s Hormonal Health with Dr. Chloe Webber

What if your menstrual cycle wasn’t something to simply endure, but a powerful window into your overall health?

This week on Morning Tea with Coach Kennedy, I sit down with Dr. Chloe Weber, Doctor of Chinese Medicine and founder of NOXI Herbs, to explore a holistic approach to women’s hormone health. Drawing from over 15 years of clinical experience, Dr. Weber explains how Chinese medicine looks beyond symptoms to restore balance throughout the entire body

www.noxi.com

https://www.instagram.com/guidingpathways2025/?hl=en

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Good morning, everybody. Today is Wednesday, July 29th, 2026. And this is your morning tea with Coach Kennedy. Last week, we learned about the benefits of mushroom coffee with Benjamin Brussington. This week, we're going to take another approach to women's health with Dr. Chloe Weber. Stay tuned.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Today's guest is Dr. Chloe Weber, who is redefining women's health one herb at a time. She is a doctor of Chinese medicine, and Chloe is the founder of Noxie Herbs, a groundbreaking herbal line designed to meet women where they are in their hormonal journey, if I can speak correctly. Hi, Chloe. How are you today? I'm doing well. How are you doing? I'm good now that I have my coffee. So, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became the founder of Noxie Herbs? I would love to.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

So I'm Chloe. I'm a doctor of Chinese medicine, and Chinese medicine is a really different medical paradigm than what we're used to here in the West. And instead of looking at one symptom that's coming up, what we look at is the body as an ecosystem and how we can restore balance. So as a doctor of Chinese medicine, over the past 15 years, I've worked with women balancing their hormones and had so much success in terms of supporting women with their journey with endometriosis, PCOS, fertility, you name it. And so as I've seen that women's health has been moving into the spotlight, which I always find fascinating because, you know, we just made every single human that's on this planet. So perhaps it's good for us to look into women's health and support it. I realized that Chinese medicine really wasn't a big part of the conversation. So what I wanted to do was create a line that made it really simple to support women's health and hormones from teens through menopause and get out there and help women understand their bodies so that they can make more informed decisions about how they're taking care of themselves every day to support their hormones.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yeah, that's very important. And and I and I've noticed that when I try to find information, it's not very, you can't search for it very accessible, it's not very accessible. If I can get my words out, it's not accessible. So I think that what you're doing is amazing. You talk about using Chinese medicine as a proactive model for health. Can you explain what that means and how it controls or how it contrasts with Western medicine's approach to women's health?

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Yeah, so in Chinese medicine, we really look at our cycle as a marker of what's going on within our body. So instead of just saying, okay, you have cramps, just take some pills and get rid of the pain, keep going, keep pushing through. Chinese medicine uses our cycle as a diagnostic tool. So if you're having cramps, that's an indication that you have what we call liver cheese stagnation. So what that indicates in our system is that you might be stressed, overwhelmed, overworked. You're likely going to see more PMF symptoms, irritability, fatigue, frustration, uh, breast tenderness. And so with something like that in Chinese medicine, we look at that and we look at the overall pattern of what's going on in your body. Are you sleeping well? Are you hydrated? Are you seeing friends? Are you managing your stress in good ways? So by making these shifts day to day, making shifts in your diet, making shifts in your lifestyle, you're able to start building health instead of just responding to disease. Where in Western medicine, we're really looking at it as just like, okay, you're losing estrogen, you might be low on progesterone, whatever's going on from the Western medical perspective. But that's just one aspect of what's going on. Not that we're not going to address those things with herbs, but we're looking at the whole picture instead of just looking at one symptom or one chemical pathway that might be sort of off in your body.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

So, how do you know when it might be something more underlining than just typical PMS symptoms? And how do you know to treat it like say by going out with your friends or hydrating versus with an herb?

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Well, I think it's sort of all of the above as much as possible. So, you know, to me as a doctor of Chinese medicine, what I always focus on is, you know, lifestyle. We want to make sure that your body is balanced and that your life is balanced. You know, herbs come sort of after, right? But so first we want to make sure are you actually taking care of yourself? Are you getting in sunlight? Are you moving every day? Are you drinking water? Are you getting high-quality foods? There are certain foods that are going to support certain hormones and support nourishing your body more than others. So just sort of assessing your overall lifestyle is going to help and is something that everybody needs to do foundationally. For most women, when it comes to hormones, our hormones are kind of innately out of whack in our society because we're so inundated with both stress and environmental toxins. You know, if you're not getting toxins from your food, you're getting it from the clothes that you're wearing or from the air that you're breathing. So it's pretty impossible not to be exposed to all of these toxins. And these toxins are incredibly detrimental to our hormonal cycles. So what I find is that most women benefit from an herbal supplement. But that doesn't mean that we can just take herbal supplements and think that that's going to solve all of the problems, right? Like it's one thing because it's like the herbs are so helpful, but to me, it's also like if we're not doing the foundational work to take care of ourselves, then the herbs can only be helpful to a certain extent, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah. It really does. Um can you walk us through how your module herbal system works and why different phases of our cycle require different support?

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah, of course. So this, I'm I'm embarrassingly proud of this model that I made it for this company. I really, really like it. So I I studied Chinese medicine for quite a long time. And in women's health, what we often do is we will do a different herbal formula based on the week of your cycle because our hormones are fluctuating throughout the course of the month. So after you bleed, normally you're seeing a rise in estrogen for the next week or two, right? And then that plummets, and then you see progesterone coming up. So what's made no sense to me is how if you look on the market, all of the supplements out there are just one size fits all. Here's your hormonal support formula, and you take this every day. Meanwhile, we are fundamentally not supporting the same hormones throughout the course of the month. Otherwise, we are, you know, like that's just not how our cycle works. We know this as women, we feel this as women because we experience the changes throughout the course of the month. So, what we do in Chinese medicine is we tailor that based on what's going on. So, in our system, when you bleed, when you have your menses, you're losing blood, you're losing kidney qi, which is sort of our vital reproductive energy. So, after you bleed, what you want to do is you want to nourish your blood and your kidneys. So you have really rich nourishing herbs that are gonna support that. I use a lot of medicinal mushrooms as well as traditional Chinese herbal medicines, which you can see behind me, or you can't see because this is an audio. Um but um but so you typically what you want to do is you want to support estrogen for the two weeks after your cycle. So in my formulas, we use that with our formula nourish, and this is such a great formula because it not only supports estrogen, but it adds herbs that are also gonna support brain health and your mood, right? And that's one of the differences about Chinese medicine, also, is that instead of just giving you one herb, we're giving you a combination of herbs that are dynamically formulated in order to support different aspects of health. So we're able to create formulas that not only support that estrogen and nourish the body, but support the brain and support your mood as well. So then after those two weeks after your cycle, when you're really building estrogen with nourish, then you move on to the next phase, right? And that's where progesterone is really coming up. What we see in Chinese medicine is if you're dealing with something like PMS, PMDD, irritability, frustration, or even endometriosis, again, we're bringing that back. That's normally connected to liver qi stagnation in our system. So for us, what we're seeing is that the liver's not flowing freely, so you're getting stagnation. So that stagnation manifests as those PMS symptoms. So in NOxy, what I recommend for that period is to take regulate. So you take regulate for the week before your period and through the week of your period. And that formula is based off of a classical Chinese herbal formula called Chao Yao Song, which has been used for thousands of years in Chinese medicine. It's probably the most popularly prescribed Chinese herbal formula in the West, and it's been studied extensively for its ability is to help with mood support, balance hormones. And if you're just dealing with some cycle irregularity or some cramps and PMS symptoms, that's also an option to just take regulate the week before your cycle and the week of your cycle as well. The flip side, we see a lot of PCOS and metabolically based hormonal challenges in our society because that's a huge issue again due to the toxins and the foods and everything that's going on. Not anybody's fault, but sort of the inundation of chemicals that are coming into our bodies and causing havoc in our hormonal signaling systems. So if that's more of an issue that somebody is dealing with, then I recommend that they take our formula resolve, which is really focused on digestion and moving the qi and blood as well. So that one is more focused for women who are dealing with those metabolically based hormonal disorders like PCOS. Um but what I did with this module is I also added a formula called Calm. So if you are perimenopausal or menopausal, another option that you can do is take nourish, which is the kidney support formula, all month long. And you can take calm, which sort of settles the heart. It's great for anxiety and stress, and you can take that and help with night sweats, help with getting deeper sleep, but it's also something that you can take sort of as needed for stress and anxiety during the day as well. So what I did was create these four formulas so that they can sort of be shifted around based on what you need.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

That is cool, that is very supportive, and I like how you have something for each stage of our womanhood at the beginning, at the end, in the middle, everything is covered. So that's very interesting to know that. What are some of the biggest myths or misunderstandings you hear about women's hormones and hormone balance?

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Well, I think one of the things that's hardest for me to understand, or the hardest thing for me to see, is that the two main options for women in terms of supporting our hormones and our cycles are birth control and HRT. And I'm really glad that HRT, like hormone replacement therapy, is, you know, getting more recognition for how supportive it can actually be in so many ways. I think there are a lot of doctors out there prescribing it that don't really understand how to do that effectively. My understanding is that sort of modulating it based on the time of the cycle is also the best way to do it. So finding a practitioner who really understands hormone replacement therapy, if you're gonna go that route, is really important. But when it comes to birth control, it's always really terrified me that it's something that's prescribed so readily. I know I was on it for probably a decade starting in my teens, uh, just to regulate my cycle and just, you know, you didn't even think about it back then. Nobody talked about the side effects of birth control. But the side effects of birth control are pretty well documented at this point, and they deplete our bodies of multiple multiple minerals and nutrients that we absolutely need. It also seems to have a very detrimental effect on our thyroid, which might be a connection to the dramatic rise of thyroid issues in women, as well as Hashimoto's and birth control. There are some studies that show that it seems to shift how a woman's brain actually develops. So it's pretty terrifying that we don't really know the full concrete long-term effects of these hormonal supplements that we're giving out to children without really any sort of proper advisement or understanding of what's going on. I don't think many Western doctors understand the downside of these pharmaceuticals. So that's what's most terrifying to me in terms of what's misunderstood in the Western medical sort of arena of women's hormone health.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

That's terrifying that birth control does that. Maybe I knew that on a subconscious level, and that's why when my mom was telling me that she wanted me to go on birth control, I absolutely refused to go on it because one, I didn't think that I was old enough to be on it. I was only a teen, and she said that I could be on it as long as she signed a waiver or some stupid thing, and I said, no. And we had this like big fight about it. I ended up not doing it, and she got mad. She's like, you always have to have your way, don't you? No, but when it comes to my body, I do.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

So which is huge. I mean, I think like that that brings it to another huge point in terms of the Western system, is like I think 80% of women have had the experience of having a doctor tell them that their symptoms are all in their head. Like, it's so infuriating to me, I can't even handle it. Like, they just don't understand. And I think that what's really frustrating about that is like Western medicine is really good at certain things, particularly emergency situations. But they have all these lab tests in different ways that they can analyze us, but women's bodies are so dynamic and they're shifting, as I said, throughout the course of the month. So testing our hormones one day just gives us a snapshot of what's going on on that one day. The next day, it's gonna be different, and so it makes it really hard to get appropriate support from the Western medical system, and I really don't think that they understand or seem to honestly care that much about getting it right when it comes to women.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yeah, and it's not just with our when it comes to our cycles either, they don't listen to anything that we tell them. Um yeah. For someone who is struggling with PMS, pre-menopausal, or fertility issues, what are the first steps you recommend to get to the root cause of the problem?

SPEAKER_02 17:55

So, as I was saying, in terms of lifestyle and diet first, you know, I think, yeah, I'm a special needs mom. So everybody always would be like, put your oxygen mask on first, and my response would be to internally curse them out and walk away, right? But like as women, we've been trained our entire lives to take care of everybody else. And so I think first women need to start actively taking care of ourselves, and that is sort of a radical act in our society and something that I'm hoping will not only change the health of women, but lead to a shift in our society overall. So first take care of yourself, take the time to go outside and go for a walk, or take the time to drink some water. It doesn't have to be a massive life overhaul, but really start working in self-care into your day in the ways that you actually can to manage your stress and start, you know, putting some of that care that you give to everybody else towards yourself and cutting out toxic people, cutting out toxic foods are going to be really helpful. I think a lot of, you know, if we look at a lot of these hormonal-based challenges, we do have to look at the environmental toxins that are coming into our bodies. I mean, I did a whole masterclass on microplastics and how they impact women's hormones. It's terrifying to see how these things are actually impacting our bodies. So look at your environment, look at the foods you're eating, and try and reduce the toxins that are coming into your life. And then when it comes to just supporting your cycle naturally with herbs, you know, doing that nourish and then regulate cycle sinking pair is really gonna help support you getting back on track in terms of getting your period regularly, alleviating those cramps, making you feel better, getting rid of the day of rage, as I so lovely lovingly call it, like just moving back in that. And a really great way for women to track that is doing like a BBT chart. So, you know, if you want to start tracking your hormones and seeing how you're doing, if you take your temperature first thing in the morning and track it on a calendar, what you'll see is that there's a temperature spike right around ovulation. And so if you don't see that half a point temperature spike, then you're probably not ovulating. And so there are different things we can tell from the BBT chart, and you can do it, you can probably just have upload it to chat, and chat will analyze it for you or whatever. You can go and see a practitioner like me, but it's gonna help you really see how your cycle is shifting over time and keeping track of that. Because I feel like most women, we are just so conditioned to just dealing with our PMS symptoms. Like even if my symptoms are like an eight out of a 10 month, one month, I'll forget about it as soon as I'm bleeding and everything's back to normal again, you know. So actually writing it down, writing down when you're getting your period, starting to look at it and seeing how you're feeling month over month and watching that change because it's not normally like, you know, when you're when you're shifting hormones naturally, it's not like a night and day thing. It's like it takes some time to see the shifts that you want to do, and you you actually have to make the changes and take the herbs.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

I have tried to track my temperature, and that is so tedious. I start, I can do it for like a week or two at max, and then I'm just like, you know what? I'm done. I I can't. This is how how can you shift that mindset to where it's not such a tedious thing for women to keep track of their symptoms and temperatures and all that good stuff to make sure that we're doing things correctly and taking full advantage of what we're supposed to be doing?

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Yeah, well, this I mean, this is a good place for technology, you know. Like there are apps out there where you can just, you know, like you just wake up, just take your temperature while you're still in bed, just log it on the app, and then you don't have to think about it. It'll make you a pretty chart, and you know, then you can take that chart and get it analyzed or give it to your doctors, and they should be able to help support you with that. But yeah, I mean it's it's hard making the changes. I I certainly struggle with it also, but it's one of those things, and and you don't have to do a BBT chart, but I think women, particularly dealing with fertility and trying to optimize that, or who are dealing with more significant hormone hormonal challenges, you know, it it is a really good way to start feeling empowered about understanding what's going on. And sort of seeing how that shifts as you're making the changes so you're getting some of that positive reinforcement. Another good way is just like write down every month how you're feeling before you're getting your period. You know, like I have a little assessment chart I can send to anybody who wants, just email me at Chloe at noxieherbs.com N O X I and it has the BBT chart, it has sort of like a symptom tracker, and it takes, you know, three minutes to go through and say, okay, my cramps were a five out of ten this month. They happened before my cycle, they happened day one of my cycle, I had digestive issues with my cycle, you know, and just sort of starting to be aware of what's happening every month. So either one works really well.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Perfect. How can women begin to understand their cycle as a diagnostic tool rather than a burden? And what signs should they look for?

SPEAKER_02 23:44

So again, like so cramps are a big sign. I think 90% of women get cramps was a stat I saw, but that sounds about right. Um, but they're not totally normal. We're not really supposed to have cramps with our cycle. So are you having cramps? Are you having cramps before your cycle or are you having cramps during your men's ease? Right? Those indicate different things. Digestive issues. So a lot of women also have loose stools when they get their period. So that's an indication that your spleen is weak in Chinese medicine. So in our system, the spleen is in charge of processing both foods and emotions. And so the spleen and the liver, which we talked about before, are on the same axis in Chinese medicine. So you can think of that as stress and digestion. So if you're stressed and your liver's impacted, your spleen's gonna have some sort of impact also. So we see this so commonly where like you get stressed and your stomach gets wonky, or vice versa. Like, so those two are really deeply connected. So the spleen, one way to really easily support the spleen is just adding some ginger tea into your day, or just having more warm, nourishing foods, cardamom, phenyl, those are great herbs to add into your diet to help support your spleen. Trying to think what other signs and symptoms. Yeah, breast tenderness, definitely like a liver chi stagnation situation. So the PMS and PMDD, another thing that's an easy thing for women to start doing at home in terms of Chinese herbs that you can start using in your day, are like you could make a mint rose tea, and that's going to help move the liver chi and nourish the blood. So there are a lot of just very simple ways that you can support your body through Chinese herbs with herbs that you actually can find and have at home.

unknown 25:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Well, do you have do you have anything else that you want the audience to know about how us women can better take care of our bodies during our cycles?

SPEAKER_02 26:03

I think it's good for women to just remember that, like, that's a time where you should go easier. So most of us are more creative, feel more energetic, have more strength physically. After you're done bleeding, that's when the estrogen is building. You're gonna feel better at that time of the month. It is natural to sort of dip in energy and motivation as you're leading into your cycle and as you're bleeding. So just start trying to listen to your body. Start trying to respect yourself and what you need and find the ways that you can make space for what it is that you need. And yeah, if you want to take the quiz on our website, it's noxyerbs.com and it'll recommend which formulas might be best for you. But also, I try and send out an email every week with really actionable advice on ways that you can support your hormones at home and different things that I'm finding helpful for my patients.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

So technically, if everything was running right in our system, we would have like zero symptoms. So it would it would just like come on like, oh, I'm here, hi, I'm here today.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

Yeah. Yeah. And that I mean, that's certainly not my experience, even with the herbs. But I can tell you, like, I take very similar herbs to what I make with Noxie. Like, I have another company, Radical Roots, and we have similar formulas. But once I actually like was dedicated to taking the Noxie formulas the way I prescribe them, and they're these are more specifically formulated for women's health. My cramps went from an eight, and I was in 72 hours worth of labor. So an eight is a proper fucking eight, went from an eight to like a three after just two months. And I was like, oh, that's cool. So it's like, you know, again, we live in a highly toxic world on so many levels. Things are so stressful and intense right now. So, you know, the reality of having zero cramps seems seems unlikely for most. But I think getting it to a place where it's manageable and isn't interrupting your life to the extent that it is for many of us is is very likely and very doable with Chinese herbs.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Oh, yeah, so it sounds like it would be doable. Um but I was just trying to imagine what it would be like for me not to have one symptom and then just be going about my business and then just, oh hey, here we are today. I don't know if I would want to be surprised like that or caught. I would want to have some type of knowing that it's coming rather than just count the days, you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Yeah. Well, I think I think once you know sort of once your cycle is regular, you'll sort of you sort of know when it's coming. But yeah, most of those signs and symptoms are signs that our hormones are out of balance. And that's impacting your brain and your body and your muscles and every aspect of all of it. I mean, and and our cycle, you know, like our our hormonal shifts can be a uh a bit of a superpower too, right? Like I if I do social media and I'm on there like cursing about the Western medical system, it does really well. So what I've decided is that I'm just gonna record all my social media when I'm PMSing. So you can use it to your advantage. But, you know, for those of us who are like really debilitated by it, it's like at least honing it down to a point where it's it's functional really opens up options instead of you know keeping us in bed in bed or feeling crappy for days on end, you know?

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Yeah, it's very important. There's been a lot of times to where I've been before I did my coaching, I was cramping and it was so bad to where I was doubled over in pain, and I've just immediately just I d I hate saying this and I would never, but I the amount of pain that I was feeling, like if someone were to come up to me, I just wanted to punch them in the face and be like, get away from me and just leave me alone. I was like trying to find something to like shove in my mouth or like to muffle because I was at work, I was on the floor, it was horrible. So to have it like brought down to where it's not causing so much pain, then yeah, that would be nice. Is there any way that people can work with you or learn more about what you do?

SPEAKER_02 30:54

Yeah, you can check out noxieurbs.com, no. There, I think you can sign up to work with me directly if you want to, and I can customize formulas for you and coach you through what's going on. But I try to make the formulas as applicable for as many people as possible to try and make it as accessible as possible. I also recommend that women, if you can and have the means to, try and find an acupuncturist in your area who can support you because acupuncture is just phenomenal for so many things, but really amazing for hormone balance. And so for people who can't see me in person, try and find somebody nearby. And yeah, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Again, it's Chloe at noxieherbs.com, and I do as much education as I can to try and help empower women and support the health of our society in whatever way that I possibly can. So there's a lot of stuff out there.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Perfect. Thank you so much, Chloe. I hope that you have a wonderful day and continue doing amazing things with Noxie. Thank you. It's such an honor to be here. All right. Bye. Bye. And there you have it, folks. If you want to work with Chloe, feel free to check her out at Noxie.com. That's n-o-xi.com. And for more coaching tips and tricks or to work with me one-on-one, feel free to check me out at Guiding Pathways on Facebook or Instagram. This has been your morning tea with Coach Kennedy. Until next week, everybody, take care.