Hey girl, I want to talk to you today about something that I got totally wrong for almost 10 years and
That's being on the pill
So I got on the pill when I was really young and after working with
So many women in my practice I know that I am not the only one
And I got on the pill when I was around 16 because I had
debilitating cramps I
Actually had cramps for years before I really even knew that's what they were which sounds so weird and I think about it now
When I was a kid I was 13 I didn't really realize?
You know what I was going through and that my body?
was really having some major hormonal issues even from that young age
So because I had really been having this debilitating pain I
Went to see the doctor and you know kind of just as a matter of course she's like, okay?
here's what we do you get on the pill and that's going to regulate your hormones and
Then you're not going to have to worry about these
Monthly cramps be more so of course I'm a 16 year old girl and I was like great great plan
I don't want cramps anymore so I got on the pill and
I stayed on the pill for off and on for 10 years so I
Started you know really go and I stayed on it throughout college and I really didn't consider
getting off until I was married and ready to start thinking about having the family so I
You know I just what I did was I didn't really think about it very much
And so here I want to tell you about three things that I was dead wrong about
When I was thinking about health so the first thing that I thought because
I didn't know any better
Was that it, was going to balance my hormones right?
So here's what I thought I thought that my hormones and I didn't even really know
what this meant right I was a kid my hormones whatever that, was they were out about and
That the way I was going to get them into balance was with the pill?
so
Because I wasn't having the same symptoms that I was having before
And I was no bleeding every month well then surely my hormones must be regulated and oh joy
I didn't have any prints anymore so I'm gonna pause here
Side note we're gonna go over and talk about how hormones actually work and why the pill was not balancing my hormones
so I made this
gorgeous
Graphic for you so you can see all about how our progesterone and estrogen are actually supposed to work
So for the purposes of simplicity I'm leaving out a couple of important hormones so we have a couple of other hormones that regulate our
our cycles so
luteinizing hormone and follicular stimulating hormone or two other hormones that just start playing on this chart because I want to keep it nice and
Simple the other thing I did is i'm talking about estrogen
very simply just using the word estrogen but the truth of the matter is we actually have multiple kinds of
estrogen so
We have a strobe, which is also called a1
And it's a very weak form of estrogen typically after menopause is really
Me we only have a strobe for the most part floating around in the body
But we do still have it other times in our life
Estradiol on the other hand is actually the strongest form of estrogen so it's a steroid hormone
Actually that is produced mostly in the ovaries
But it actually can't also be produced in our advanced so it is thought that
Estradiol being the strongest hormone actually
can contribute to a lot of problems
symptoms of hormone imbalance like endometriosis or
Fibroids or even in particular the estrogen dependent cancers so if you have hormone
Related conditions that have already been diagnosed it's a good, chance that's related to estradiol because it's a strong form of estrogen and then estriol
Is the weakest or one of the weakest forms of estrogen and it's a waste product that's made after the body already
uses that estradiol and
so really the only time that your body is making estriol in large
Amounts is when you aren't pregnant so it can't be converted over to estradiol
Or testerone so that's a quick little timer on
three forms of estrogen but for my beautiful chart here
That I drew on my children's very sport we're just going to be using e for estrogen and P for progesterone
So you probably have at least heard of those two simple forms of our female hormones so here's what happens when
hormones are working way they're supposed to so when things are working the way they're supposed to
He you see my eat here this is estrogen
This is the first day of your period
This is the very beginning of your cycle your cycle day one is the first day of your period
so estrogen
gradually is rising throughout the first part of your cycle and
right before you you
Ovulate you have this big spike in estrogen so you see that it's going up gradually and then we get this big bump
right before ovulation and then it starts to go down
We have the Big O here not that big but another big oh right here
Which is ovulation the ovulation is when you have the release of an egg from your ovary so here's when that happens
more
Or less the middle of your cycle now every woman is different
And so you can't say that it is exactly in the middle of your cycle and if you start tracking your cycle which I'll talk
About another time you'll find that for many women it is not?
exactly min cycles but for this illustration this little dotted line here is the Big O of ovulation and
It's going to be happening right in the middle so
here's our little
Opposite line so here's estrogen up here and then here's progesterone so progesterone is is meant to be in balance
so in a specific relationship and ratio with with estrogen progesterone
Kind of like estrogen starts up pretty low here at the beginning of your cycle but then right after ovulation
it starts to go up so progesterone really goes up up up and it stays pretty high
Until both of them get low right before it's time to start your next period so
progesterone low and then going high and you see that it should cross this line and be higher than estrogen in the
Second half of your cycle so estrogen is actually still relatively high it doesn't just totally drop off the map
But it's it's lower in relationship to progesterone
if you are a woman who has had recurrent miscarriages or if you've had any problems with pregnancy
or if you're doing something like in vitro fertilization you often are getting synthetic progesterone and the second half of your cycle
Because progesterone job is actually to keep the lining of the uterus in place
So you have this nice thick lining of your uterus that's meant to be there in case of pregnancy
and
Progesterone is what helps to maintain it and keep it there
So that's why that progesterone only needs to be high and you might be getting some synthetic progesterone
In the second half of your cycle if you have any problems or if you have a really short
cycle, phase
So I'm gonna introduce one more set of terms that's going to be all of the technical bits for today so the other thing is
This part of the cycle is called the follicular phase so basically the development of the follicle which is a little
Will sprout on your ovary that's going to be making the egg, that's released your ovulation
So that's the follicle that's developing so it's the follicular phase and then this is the luteal
Phase so the luteum is
Part of your body that's holding on to that pregnancy that thing so
So the luteal phase is over here and this is the kind of the preservation
Phase, where we want to keep everything nice and steady if your body is getting ready for a pregnancy
So here's what happened so your brain is totally
Managing this awesome Orchestra of cool things that are happening
There's all the stuff on here and I didn't even really talk about those other hormones that are coming into play right
This is a really
beautifully balanced Orchestra and system and here's the other interesting thing
women have different
Hormone levels every single day of their cycle so men they just kind of float around
or like they got some testosterone going they actually have some estrogen and stuff too they have a little progesterone but they don't have these
Fluctuations throughout the month as you can see every single day of the month
Three women have different hormones so no wonder it's harder to keep these things
in balance and no wonder is harder for us and for men
to have balance hormones because
we're a different every single day every day if we were to draw a line down here and every day was different they have a
Month we'd have a different picture of what our hormones are supposed to look like
So here's what the pill does to that. Oh I didn't know how to keep my research
So, here's a little pill just erases all
Of that stuff and we just have these total flat lines well, we don't have that beautiful concert
No, we just have flat, or like dudes now you just want like totally flat
totally flat
So, that's not
Balanced that's that's eradication that's like you have nothing going on there and the reason why this feels like balance is because
We don't have the things going up and down every single day
so you're like
oh
well I kind of feel the same every day kind of like a dude well that must be
Balanced right that is not true at all so what we've done is what your brain was doing your brain
Was it was the the conductor of that Orchestra right the?
Conductor of making sure everything with a balance but now your brains going well
Okay, we kind of got the same thing going on every day
I'm just gonna take a little nap
So the conductor of your Orchestra just goes and takes a little now so your brain is is turned off, you're not having to balance
how many balance of the hormones so
Your brains not telling your body that needs to make any hormones because
I think you already have that covered
man we got that covered we got those hormones so your brain is turned off at that point and so we've dampens the
Hypothalamus the part of the brain that is managing all this the pituitary
Those are the two parts of your brain that work together it's to govern your endocrine system you just turn those guys off
That's not balanced that's the flat line right so it's fully different its eradication you haven't we've eliminated your body's
producing of its own hormones
So the first thing that I got wrong was I thought that the pill is gonna balance my hormones
So you just thought that is totally wrong
The second thing is I really didn't think there were going to be any side effects from the pill so I just figured hey
I'm not a smoker and that was actually the only thing that my doctor ever told me about
Risks from the pulp I'm not a smoker and the only thing that she told me
Was that smokers are at an increased risk of blood clots and stroke?
So that's kind of kind of scary but I also kind of thought
Well that happens to other people that's not going to happen to me right because you never think anything's gonna happen to us
So that's gonna happen other people not to me and
And that's it that's the only risk I have so
despite the fact that my little pill packet every single month came along with a sheet as long as my arm of
here's all the side effects that could happen from the pill I never read that she
My doctor number on that sheets me and no one ever told me anything
Except for that that that one thing don't smoke
Or you might get a stroke that was it well my cool I got that one down I don't have any side effects
so there are so many side effects associated with the pill and funny enough a lot of these side effects are things that I
Talk to women about every single day and that we're concerned with and he never put together that it could be something that we're taking
that synthetic that's contributing to these problems so one of the worst is an increase in depression
So you know we? Think there's something wrong, we?
Think we have this brain fog or you know this problem with mood
And maybe again maybe that's a hormone imbalance problem right I definitely need to be on the hook for that
when in fact
we are actually at a much greater risk for having to go on prescription antidepressant if we've been on the pill so there was a
Huge, study of Danish women over a million Danish woman who took place in this or who took part in this study
And found that the pill an independent risk factor for getting prescribed
Antidepressants later in life
the second unintended consequence is wreaking same thing man I
touched it so many women who feel like I have this stubborn weight and I can't get rid of it so
Let's just think about for a minute what the pill is supposed to be doing so the peril of telling your body
And that you're pregnant right so we can suppress all these other hormones because you're pregnant
So what happens in pregnancy we put on weight you're not supposed to be losing weight while pregnant because you're supposed to be
Maintaining that for a baby
Or gaining weight because it's preserving your pregnancy so weight gain is a huge problem with the pill and
the
But note that is only like three to ten
Pounds like only three to ten pounds how many women do you know who talk about oh it's just those last 10 pounds right
Those last 10 pounds it might be pill towns nobody wants to pull out
So other things that can happen
Metabolically we can develop insulin resistance and high blood sugar so again I see so many women who have insulin resistance
Or pre-diabetes and don't even know it
So this is a huge problem and I talk all about in some resistance all the time has been one of the primary risk factors
for hormone imbalance it's definitely implicated really strongly with things like PCOS and endometriosis
so
being on the pill can trigger the insulin resistance which means that your body isn't really responding to insulin you're going to have high blood
sugar
it can also contribute to metabolic syndrome and
at high cholesterol so if your cholesterol numbers are just always leaning back another reason for that could be the pill
So all these things that we just really don't associate with the pill
actually are
And then it can also affect your thyroid function. Here's something else I see so many women with all the time of my practice is
thyroid dysfunction so we have this really tight beautiful balanced kind of you know more instrument from the orchestra here of
Our endocrine system which are hormone system and our thyroid
Puts out fire in hormone and so fire rate hormone is another part of the endocrine system
These things all play together it's all a big symphony it's a concert and so
When we mess up one thing we're starting to mess up something else we start to play with estrogen
You're going to start to have an impact on your thyroid hormone
Synthroid, which is synthetic thyroid is actually the number one most prescribed
Pharmaceutical in the country so you think that it things like statins cholesterol-lowering medication no it's thyroid medication and
Maybe we've been jacking up my thyroid all these years, by taking an estrogen containing for up control
So all of those are specific ways if a pill can be employing influencing the chemistry of our bodies so
That was the second way I was I thought that just because I wasn't a smoker I didn't have an additional risk factors for
for being on the pill
And the last thing I thought
Was that once I stopped the pill?
things would just magically go back to normal and I would just be fine and I would just be able to
Get pregnant right away and everything would be totally just like you know I so I have just taken an advil or something like that
and in fact there is
Definitely a problem for a lot of women after stopping the pill so it doesn't happen everyone
But many many women have a post birth control
Syndrome now if you look into the literature there's actually a lot of disagreement about this and a lot of controversy
But I have seen it enough that I know there is a post birth control
syndrome at the very least
Some of the things are when the don't get their cycle back right away sometimes I even for a few months
When it starts to come back they're more pain than they did before so if you were taking the pill as a mask for
having
Pain every single month with your period. Or even
ovulation pain well that'sthat's gonna come back because
We didn't fix the underlying problem you just put a big old bandaid on it and that's all the pill is but they don't mandate
So we put the band-aid on and in reality we didn't fix that underlying problems of course those cramps are going to come back
Another problem I see for lots of women is that all of a sudden we start to get really bad for mortal acne so
We all men and women have all the hormones you just have in the different ratio so women actually do have
testosterone just like men do we just have a lot less of it and
One of the things that the pill does is depress our testosterone
so, when you come off the pill that testosterone can go up really high again and testosterone is one of the big drivers of
Acne so when you start to develop skin problems right after you get off the pill a lot of times it's an imbalance and all
of a sudden we have way too much testosterone
And that's going to contribute to acne
Some of the other things that we don't even think about is that the pill really defeats
Nutrients so I'm a nutritionist
I talk about nutrients all day long and some of the big ones are the vitamins
Mekinese and vitamin D so here's why that's important
Magnesium is super important for
Blood sugar regulation and I just told you that the hormone is going to jack up your I'm sorry the birth control pill is going
to jack up your blood sugar
it's super important
Also for relaxation so when we are magnesium deficient some of the things that go wrong as you start to be anxious and irritable
While maybe that's a pill issue maybe the pills depleting your magnesium and then you're getting these symptoms the other
nutrient that manages a lot of our neurological function and our mood is there B vitamins so if we start to have a
Depletion of B vitamins in particular b12 from being on the pill this is a known side effect
Again, we're gonna start to have some of these mood issues and I already mentioned we know depression is higher among women who have been
on the pill
Similarly when you're deficient in vitamins we can start to feel anxious or feel anxiety and I definitely talked about that before so
Those are two huge ones another one is
Definitely there's been research showing that women coming off the pill are lower in vitamin D so vitamin D is critical for immune function
including autoimmune issues but
Also just your standard run-of-the-mill I'm gonna get a cold all the time now that off is health
There's a whole long list of things that can happen
When you get off the pill but those nutrient depletion depletion are three really big ones that can really have a serious impact on
The rest of your hormones and also just your ability to like show up and deal with life right
so I
thought that everything would go back to normal when I was done with the pill but I didn't realize that for ten years an entire
decade of my life I had been
depleting these critical nutrients for my body and so I wasn't functioning the way that I would have wished you
So those are the three things that I got
totally wrong about the pill I thought that they would balance I thought it would balance my hormones I
Thought that if I wasn't a smoker that, was the only side effect that
I could have and I thought that once I got off the pill it would all everything would just go back to normal and I
Was dead well not all three of those things
now I do want to just mention here that of course I understand that the pill gives a lot of freedom to women and I'm
Not going to say that you can to make these decisions about your health slightly
obviously you have to talk to both your partner and your health care provider about
What the right choice is for you and if the right choice is the pill
Then that's your choice but I think it's really important that we have informed consent in this country this is a hard one right
believe it or not, we have not always had informed consent and I
Really believe that we really need to know about everything that
we do in our bodies and so if you willingly take the pill you should know about these other side effects and take steps to
improve those side effects so that you're less likely to be experiencing those negative effects from being on the pill I
hope you found this helpful
If you want to find out more about balancing your hormones go ahead and download my free
Six double book the bitch fix to find out all about how to balance your hormones naturally and stay tuned as I post more videos
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All about how to balance your hormones naturally see you soon
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