Could this be your daughter?

Last week I discussed the painful disappointment women face when they believe they have been doing the right thing for their health, to only discover down the line that it actually created deeper and more serious problems. It is frustrating as a health practitioner to see so many women, under ill advice, actually exacerbate the root causes of the menstrual symptoms they are trying to fix. This issue must be taken more seriously by all women as it not only impacts their fertility and overall sense of wellbeing, but also the next generations to come.

Today I will share a case story from the youngest group of women I typically see in my practice. It is important to note this is a very common case which would conventionally be treated with hormonal birth control to suppress symptoms.

Young Girls with Menstrual Imbalances: Beth’s Story

I am always uplifted by the opportunity to address elimination imbalances early in a young woman’s life because our work together not only establishes a symptom-free healthy adulthood, but will benefit any future generation she may choose to have. This young lady, if she stays on this path, now understands she can actually impact her own health and well-being and won’t face the issues her mother or grandmother had with chronic symptoms like uterine fibroids, menstrual hemorrhaging and ovarian cancer setting in during their 40’s.

Beth, a shy and scholarly 15 year old, was brought to my office by her mother for help due to prolonged and painful menses of 7 days followed by up to another 7 days of clear discharge. The discharge would have barely ended and she would begin bleeding again. Beth also shared that she regularly experienced frequent loose bowel movements and woke during the night to urinate—both clear signs her kidneys were working very hard, yet still could not keep up.

Here’s What I Saw:
Based on my intake and her symptoms of skin issues, dry/brittle hair and nighttime head perspiration, I suspected Beth had a very low vitality and high state of inflammation. The discharge and pain she experienced only confirmed that her body was highly inflamed. Her body was using her uterus to dump the acids not removed by the bowels and kidneys. At the same time, her body was attempting to use as many emergency exits as possible to clean the wastes not being eliminated by her kidneys—her skin, her bowels, her vagina, and she had chronic sinusitis.

Here’s What I Did:
While I had experience with a known protocol that would address the vaginal discharge directly, I was concerned the intensity of the drainage would trigger an aggravation in her urinary tract. It was clear to me I needed to regulate Beth’s bowels first (frequent loose stools) which would keep the kidneys from working so hard (night urination) to then take the pressure off the uterus so it was not in a constant cleaning mode. Because her body was dumping acids through her bowels and her uterus, it was necessary for the first protocol to support her kidneys at this stage in the process. Beth began by taking three gemmotherapy extracts—Blueberry and Birch Sap each morning and Lingonberry each evening.

We also had a serious talk about diet. To begin with she needed to alkalize her body, so I suggested she begin by eating the all fruit breakfast to help her lymphatic system get off to a good start each morning. I also know dairy products are not kind whatsoever to women with menstrual symptoms of any sort. Beth was a yogurt lover and that was going to be a hard change for her. I suggested she get started with the fruit in the morning and the Gemmo protocol and see for herself how her next menses went. If she saw some results she may be more inclined to make the switch off dairy. Beth felt that was fair.

Here’s What Happened:
After two weeks Beth reported she was now only having 2 bowel movements daily as opposed to 4 or more and while she did have a painful menses, it was much shorter in length and with 50% less cramping than in the past. These were all good signs her body was beginning to respond. While she was still waking at night to urinate, it was only once compared to three times indicting her kidneys were not working so hard. She also reported she was willing to go dairy free the next month to see if she could improve her symptoms further. That was a very mature decision for a 15 year old and the right one.

After a total of six weeks on the protocol and the dietary changes, much of the inflammation had come down and Beth’s next menstrual cycle increased in length to 21 days. Our goal would be 28-30 days, however, my experience has been with cases like it often takes until the 3^rd or 4^th cycle to get there. Much depends on how compliant clients are with changing their diet and routinely taking their Gemmos.

While there is still plenty of work ahead for us, it is clear this first stage of Gemmotherapy treatment is getting Beth’s body out of the acute inflammatory state she was in and beginning to balance elimination.

Final Thoughts:
Had Beth’s mom taken the conventional or allopathic path for her daughter’s symptoms, the underlying cause would never be addressed. Once Beth decided in her 20’s or 30’s to stop the birth control to get pregnant, she very likely would face great difficulty with conception because her body would have an incredible build-up of lymphatic wastes and be in a state of acidosis. This build-up of waste impairs organ function, particularly reproductive organs. Because birth control meds suppress and alter normal menstruation, those organs have not had an opportunity to clean for years! Future fertility is not always the first thing on our minds when we see our daughters struggle with painful periods, but it needs to be. It’s often hard for us to imagine the distant future, so it might be easier to sum it up this way: any action that decreases by one third the body’s ability to rid itself of wastes leads nowhere other than chronic inflammatory dis-ease. I encourage all of my clients to pause and mindfully consider any “solution” that would impair the long-term health and well-being of their daughters—even if those solutions seem to resolve the current symptoms. It’s very important for everyone to know there is a natural, holistic path that eliminates the symptoms because it deals directly with the root of the problem.

While I will be moving off the topic of women’s health for the next four weeks to share my adventures and findings in Europe, it is by no means the end to this discussion. It is far too near and dear to me to drop and a dialogue I want to see in a much wider arena than just this blog. Please do share this information with your female family members, friends and colleagues. We can change the course of women’s health care from the grassroots level, but only if we inform one another and take the steps required.

The Root of Infertility, Part 1

Last week I encouraged mothers to talk to their young preteen and teen daughters about the body’s cleaning and elimination process and how certain menstrual symptoms indicate an imbalance that needs to be addressed rather than suppressed. Today I want to share more on the treatment of menstrual symptoms and how I have seen over and again that the suppression of these symptoms only adds to inflammation and further lymphatic stagnation which can lead to decreased fertility.

What I am seeing
I am seeing three distinct groups of women who come to my practice for help with menstruation/fertility.

1. Young women in their teens with menstrual imbalances.
The conventional allopathic answer for their menstrual issues would be birth control to suppress the menstrual flow. To have the opportunity to talk with these young ladies before they take that step is greatly rewarding work. I speak with them about the fact that menstruation has an extremely important role in the body’s ability to clean itself and suppressing that can lead to a host of ongoing secondary symptoms equal or greater than the original ones they experience once a month. The secondary symptoms one might expect when blocking menstrual flow include:

• acne
• roseacea
• eczema
• sinusitis
• candida/yeast infection
• reoccurring UTIs
• irritable bowel symptoms
• staph
• migraines

These young ladies will also learn that optimizing and bringing balance to their elimination methods naturally early in life will save them from the countless chronic symptoms down the road that their mothers or grandmothers may have struggled with.

2. Women in their 30s on hormonal birth control or currently coming off birth control.
These women are trying to manage the symptoms that they had in their teens or twenties which have now returned. They usually come to see me for one or more of the above secondary symptoms that have developed while on a menses suppressing birth control method. While some of these young women have made the connection between their symptoms and their birth control method, most have not. Most have never considered that suppressing their menstrual cycles could lead to any problems. This is where our conversation begins about how the body cleans and the importance of optimizing all routes of elimination. The protocol I use for these women begins with changing birth control methods, cleaning the inflammation that has built up and then going to work balancing their elimination so that the original pre-birth control symptoms are healed:

• Brown bleeding at the start or end of menses
• Clotting
• Heavy bleeding
• Pain that keeps you from your normal activities
• Bleeding that starts and then stops
• Mid-cycle bleeding
• Cycles that are shorter than 28 days or longer than 32

These symptoms can all be addressed with a combination of gemmotherapy, homeopathy and in most cases, dietary changes.

3. Women ready to get pregnant.
These ladies have either been told by a physician their chances are low or have been trying and have yet to successfully conceive. The common factor between them is they have had past experiences with a menses suppression birth control, menstrual irregularities since their teens or have been prescribed Accutane for their acne.

My work with these women, as with all my clients, begins with restoring elimination. This can take some time particularly when Accutane has been used. Then I move on to a protocol especially for cleaning and fortifying the organs that SUPPORT fertility (adrenal glands, pituitary, liver, and kidneys). By focusing on the support organs we are addressing the root of the problem.

It’s important to see that the process I use is in direct opposition to tradition fertility treatment that pushes reproductive organs which have already given clear indications they are not operating optimally. In that scenario the body has already indicated it cannot support the creation of life and the use of conventional medical science forces the issue rather than healing the root cause. This also happens to be why these pregnancies become high risk—there is an increased rate of pre-eclympsia among mothers, a greater percentage of premature births, and birth defects under these conditions of conception.

For these reasons and because I know healing the root of the condition works, I follow protocols that clean and fortify the organs that support women’s fertility. My protocols include gemmotherapy, homeopathy and dietary changes.

Right Reasons, Wrong Choice
Believing you have been doing the right thing for you or your family, to only discover down the line that you were actually creating deeper and more lasting problems is truly heartbreaking. I am disappointed that so many women I work with have been, under ill advice, exacerbating the root causes of their menstrual symptoms. I take this issue very seriously because, for many women, this not only impacts their fertility and their overall sense of wellbeing, but the next generations to come. Next week I will discuss this topic further and share some case stories from each of the three groups.

A talk I want you to have with your daughters…

Last week I shared some very important information about painful menstrual cycles and endometriosis along with the good news that it is treatable—naturally. I want to follow up this week to encourage you to talk to your daughters and share this information, before they begin menstruating and keep an open conversation about the topic once they begin.

FIRST I want you to let them in on some big news that is apparently not common knowledge: their periods do not have to be painful! I hope everyone heard that because it is true. The reality is that painful periods are a sign of a deeper imbalance within the body interfering with its ability to self-clean. If addressed early, the pain will stop and the host of chronic diseases that plague many women later in life are much less likely to occur.

The degree of discomfort felt premenstrually and during menses is directly related to the amount of inflammation present in the abdominal region. The more pain, the more inflammation and the more inflammation the more likely there will be future fibroids or tumors. Inflammation is simply accumulated waste; acid based lymphatic fluids that have not been eliminated by the bowels or kidneys. This inflammation left unattended does about the same thing in your body as it would if you let trash overflow in your back yard. It becomes a prime target for bacteria and for the reproduction of unhealthy cells.

NEXT I want you to explain that menstruation is part of a cleaning triad for a women’sbody along with bowel movements and urination. Because webelieve a clean body can and will heal itself, we need this triad to function optimally. If either the bowels, the kidneys, or uterus is not doing its full job to remove acidic wastes, the others with attempt to pick up the slack.This plays out in menstrual symptoms this way—heavy flow indicates either the bowels or kidneys are slacking, and pain indicates lymphatic stagnation. Noting this early and taking steps to rectify the imbalance will keep undue stress off the bowels and/or kidneys and prevent a build-up of inflammation.

AND I want you to point out the important signs that indicate an imbalance. Help your girls get comfortable sharing this information with you. Again, the more we can take care of at 14 or 16, the fewer complications we’ll face at 28 or 40. The symptoms include:

• Brown bleeding at the start or end of menses
• Clotting
• Heavy bleeding
• Pain that keeps you from your normal activities
• Bleeding that starts and then stops
• Mid-cycle bleeding
• Cycles that are shorter than 28 days or longer than 32

Further explanation can be found here in this post.

FINALLY I want you to discuss with your daughters the double edge sword of our modern birth control methods. Yes, they may be quite reliable in preventing pregnancy, but they wreck absolute havoc with the perfectly designed system our bodies use to clean AND lead to serious issues later on, the least of which, sadly, is infertility.

While many methods may offer relief to menstrual symptoms such as cramping and heavy bleeding, they are stifling the body’s ability to clean in a BIG way and, trust me on this, the body will find alternative routes and it won’t be pretty. Because most birth control methods reduce, shorten or stop menstrual flow, they are only making the root cause of the original symptoms worse. The sinuses, skin and vagina are all emergency elimination routes for women’s bodies, so when menstrual flow is suppressed you will see the body attempt to clean through these routes and also see undue strain on the bowels and kidneys. The development of the following are all related to suppressed menstrual flow and should be taken as clear signs of imbalance: all forms of acne, roseacea, eczema, sinusitis, candida/yeast infection, reoccurring UTIs, irritable bowel symptoms, staph and migraines.

So what is the answer? This is something I talk about it my office a lot. Personally I’d much rather see healthy birth control methods released over an iWatch any day, but apparently I’m a minority. Faced with options today it really comes down to choosing the lesser of evils unless you are in a mature and committed relationship. I don’t think those exist among teens, so my suggestion is a low dose birth control pill along with a gemmotherapy protocol to support the liver and kidneys from the build up of toxins and then condoms to prevent the spread of STDs.

Looking back upon the last few generations of women, none have gotten it right, so it’s high time we do so now and simultaneously spread the word. A woman’s menstrual symptoms are direct indicators of her health and if we continue not to speak about it as our grandmothers did, or power through as my generation did, or stifle symptoms with modern pharmaceuticals as this generation is doing, we will continue to manifest chronic dis-ease that really can be avoided.

I’d like to dive deeper into this story next week because I can’t remember the last time a 30-something woman came into my office without a birth control horror story. You’ll probably not be surprised to know that many are now struggling with infertility. Check back next Friday to learn why and how those early menstrual symptoms and many birth control methods can lead to fertility issues.

Last week I shared with you these three beliefs I have in regard to women and their menstrual symptoms whether they happen at 15 or 45 years of age:

1. No woman should suffer with symptoms that can be treated.
2. Small changes early on can prevent so many further issues later in life, including, but not limited to, infertility, endometriosisis and its complications, fibroids, cancers of the reproductive organs and autoimmune diseases.
3. Holistically supporting women’s health from an early age impacts the health of generations to come.

I shared a list of symptoms that should serve as red flags that something is amiss. Painful periods is the red flag that I want to discuss in this particular post. This is a topic that should be of greater concern to medical practitioners than it is because pain is the body’s signal that inflammation is present. I am a firm believer that pain needs to be noticed and addressed not suppressed. Further, I urge my clients with daughters to check in on a regular basis with them about their cycles. It’s important for young women to learn that their body is signaling for attention if any of these symptoms appear and that early intervention can stave off a host of bigger issues.

So, to be clear, painful periods are not normal or okay because your mom and her mom also had the issue. Pain during menses is an indicator that inflammation is present and should be taken as a clear sign the lymphatic system is not doing its job. Take a look here at the number of lymph vessels and nodes in the abdominal region. As I wrote in a recent post on elimination, 50% are right where you or someone you know experiences intense pain during menses. If the lymphatic system is congested or sluggish in its cleaning, waste will accumulate in this area AND when estrogen levels raise right before menses, the problem is exacerbated. Due to the acidic quality of the hormone estrogen, it can shift an already imbalanced pH into overdrive, which then increases the level of pain.

While lymphatic stagnation is the main reason behind painful periods, another similar problem most often associated with excruciating pain during menses is found in the case of endometriosis. What is endometriosis? Dr. Aviva Romm, an NYC expert in holistic health care for women, explains that endometriosis occurs when tissue that normally line the uterus are found in other areas of the body, most commonly the abdominal cavity. During menses these tissues then shed dead cells and bleed, irritating the nerves in the abdominal region. Endometiosis is a condition that should not be ignored, however, conventional medicine fails in the treatment it offers. Having suffered from this myself for years, before my exposure to homeopathy and gemmotherapy, I found the solutions offered to me completely unsatisfactory. Now being equipped with answers, I want to help as many women as possible heal the underlying cause.

Because lymphatic stagnation is the root cause of both painful menses and endometriosis, I start my clients on a gemmotherapy protocol and recommend an alkalyzing diet to get things moving. These two steps will engage the lymphatic system to drain off the acidic wastes, reducing pain within the first month of treatment and eventually completely. If the problem is truly endometriosis then I use a homeopathic protocol to reduce the inflammation and shift the constitution of the individual being treated and suggest Mayan massage and/or acupuncture.

If you or someone you know suffers from painful periods or endometriosis it’s important to know you don’t need to endure  symptoms month after month, there are solutions that are drug free, accessible, and work.

I’d like to challenge some ideas you may have about “normal” menstrual symptoms—whether you are 15 or 45. One of the first things I discuss with my female patients is the character of their menstrual cycle, paying close attention to listen for these signs:

• Brown bleeding at the start or end of menses
• Clotting
• Heavy bleeding
• Pain that keeps you from your normal activities
• Bleeding that starts and then stops
• Mid-cycle bleeding
• Cycles that are shorter than 28 days or longer than 32

Each of these symptoms signifies a deficiency in the bowels or kidneys, adrenal fatigue, or decreased pituitary function.

Each of these symptoms can cause harm greater than just the discomfort you may be experiencing.

All of these symptoms and their root cause can be addressed with gemmotherapy and homeopathy protocols.

Most of these symptoms are seen in the mainstream medical community as within the norm, but because I am fortunate to treat women of all ages in my practice, I have come to recognize that these signs and symptoms, when left untreated, can lead to serious conditions later in life. I believe in supporting the body so that it can clean, heal and harmonize rather than treating diagnosed disease, so I am all for catching the first signs of an imbalance. With this approach we can practice true preventative medicine rather than passive disease care.

As women, we are designed to have three methods to clean and eliminate for a reason and we need to optimize all three to do their job so that our body stays in harmony. What does harmony look like?

1. All systems working their fair share to clean the body.
2. The immune response is rapid and strong.
3. Bodies are free of inflammation.

The subject of elimination comes up frequently here and menstruation is just that, a method of elimination the body uses to remove waste and prevent inflammation. Like our other two means of elimination, bowels and kidneys, when it is not functioning optimally we need to take note. If you have some of these symptoms or a weakness with one of your elimination systems, you will be putting undue stress on the others. You may already begin to see the connection in yourself.

When it comes to menstrual issues, especially those in young women, I take quite a strong proactive stance for these reasons.

1. I don’t want anyone to suffer with symptoms that can be treated.
2. Small changes early on can prevent so many further issues later in life, including but not limited to: infertility, endometriosisis and its complications, fibroids, cancers of the reproductive organs and autoimmune diseases.
3. I firmly believe that holistically supporting women’s health from an early age impacts the health of generations to come.

Please share this article with women you know of all stages in life. I will be writing more each Friday about the root of these symptoms and sharing case stories of how gemmotherapy and homeopathic protocols made a difference.