I have spent the last year educating myself about hormone balance and the systems that relate to hormone balance. With my own experience going into menopause, I wanted to make sure that I was getting my body in balance in a natural way and that way I could prevent further medical issues.
I am estrogen dominant, even though my estrogen is a bit low according to my saliva test. Estrogen dominant just means that I have more estrogen than other hormones and that I'm out of balance.
My compounding pharmacist spent over an hour with me educating me and getting me started on a good bioidentical progesterone. Over time and as my treatment progressed, I started learning more. I learned about my endocrine system and thyroid too.
What I found out at the last seminar I attended on hormone health is that my liver was holding on to a lot of old estrogens.
These old estrogens were from taking birth control for 15 years, meats I was eating, the water and milk I was drinking, processed foods, pesticides and plastics. These are also known as xenoestrogens. I didn't know they were hanging out in my body. My pharmacist talked about estrogen detox. While I have heard of a lot of detoxes and have been looking more into why I might need a detox and what kind, estrogen detoxes never cropped up. So of course I asked about this detox.
I found out about DIM-3. I know my compounding pharmacist has a high standard for his ingredients and his capsules are vegtable, which make it easier on the liver. This detox is 500 mg of Curcumin (a tumeric extract), 150 mg of DIM (diinodylmethane) and 5 mg of piper nigrum extract (the trademark name is Bioperine- it's from the Sabinsa Corp). It is a stable supplement that flushes out the old estrogens in the liver.
The recommended amount was one capsule in the morning and one capsule in the evening. I took the recommended amount. I started on a Monday evening then continued on Tuesday morning then Tuesday evening. By Tuesday evening I started getting a headache but attributed that to having spent the day out and about in the Arizona heat. Wednesday morning I woke up with a massive headache, so I called my chiropractor and went in for an adjustment. I thought the cause of my headache might have been because it's been a while since I got my adjustment. After that, she recommended I get some electrolytes, so I grabbed a water from a local store that has electrolytes in it.
Still, I had the massive headache. I had just read a section of a book by Dr. John Lee that talked about estrogen headaches, and as my aching brain tried to find an answer, I thought about that book. Then it hit me, when I first started taking birth control is when I first started getting migraines. When I got off birth control, the amount of migraines reduced significantly. I finally resorted to taking an aspirin so I could think.
I called my pharmacy and asked if it's possible that my flushing these estrogens out could cause this massive headache. He said that it is quite possible and has reduced the amount to just one a day.
This was a huge indicator that my body was toxic. If these estrogens hanging out in my body could cause a headache like that, what else were they doing? Were they responsible for some of the other aches I had? Who knows. The headache really brought to light just how much estrogen was in my body. Of course, my body is still naturally producing estrogen, but I needed to flush out these old estrogens.
It's a good idea to talk to your naturopath if you are concerned about these estrogens hanging out in your liver. The other factor in all this is to make sure you are regular. I made sure to get a lot of fruit, grains and other natural fiber sources so I would be regular because with any detox, if there isn't a regular movement, the toxins will just be re-absorbed into your body.
Hormones are so delicate to balance. It's important to manage them because our ecosystem is laden with estrogen. Our modern world has polluted us with more than dangerous chemicals. It's critical that we check our hormones and make sure they are balanced. They affect everything else in our bodies, and this includes men as well.