Women’s Hormone Health Support
We help you support and leverage your hormones, to thrive in your body
The naturopathic approach to treatment for PMS, Painful periods, Endometriosis
PMS, or pre-menstrual syndrome, is a set of symptoms that come in advance of a women’s period. There’s a long list of symptoms associated with PMS, which can include: anxiety, irritability, insomnia, headaches, acne, breast tenderness and fatigue. There is also a spectrum of pain women experience, that may be related to PMS, or might be a cue to a deeper issue such as fibroids, adenyomyosis or endometriosis. Most women accept or assume pain or symptoms with your period are normal.
While certainly common, symptoms of PMS can be supported and relieved in most cases, by looking at some of the root causes for why you are experiencing PMS symptoms. Endometriosis or adenomyosis, will cause more severe pain with the period, often when endometrial tissue is growing in areas it shouldn’t, which can include the ovaries, fallopian tubes, bladder and intestines. A work up for period pain, with your naturopathic doctor, will include assessing for endometriosis, which if indicated may include working with your primary care provider to get support for imaging.
Heavy flow, pain and depression or low mood, can also be supported naturopathically, with your naturopathic doctor at Make Care Health – through using herbs and supplements, and hydrotherapy in a physiologic way, we help replete nutrient deficiencies that contribute to these concerns and use plants to help address hormonal balancing.
How to treat PCOS or Period Irregularity
PCOS or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome affects 5-10% of women of childbearing age. Cysts develop on the ovaries as a result of eggs failing to fully mature and subsequent failure to ovulate. Since no egg matures or is released, ovulation does not occur and the hormone progesterone is not made.
- Heavier flow than normal
- Increase in facial and body hair
- Hair loss on the scalp, in women’s pattern balding
- Acne
- Infertility
At Make Care Health, naturopathic doctors have solutions to help your PCOS, beginning with the root cause and supporting your hormones to get your period back or into a regular rhythm, as well as reducing symptoms associated. We’ll do a full blood work up, over a series of months, to get more insight to how your hormones are functioning and how your body is responding to treatments, especially when considering fertiliity.
Common causes of PCOS
- Insulin resistance, often paired with high stress
- Higher production of androgen hormones including testosterone, DHT, androstendione
- Elevated prolactin
- Low thyroid function
Planning for pregnancy and fertility support
When planning to get pregnant, your naturopathic doctor at Make Care Health recommends working with us to support your body for a minimum of 3 months before trying to conceive. This way we can better evaluate and prepare your body’s hormones, nutrients, and yourself for tools and supports you’ll want to consider for each stage of baby. We’ll also be able to better evaluate and address possible contributing factors of a miscarriage or infertility, in advance.
Natural Treatments for Perimenopause – When is Hormone Therapy right for you?
Perimenopause is a natural transition that every woman goes through, but it can be a challenging time for many. Fortunately, naturopathic medicine offers a holistic approach to managing perimenopause symptoms that can help women navigate this time with greater ease and comfort. Perimenopause typically begins in a woman’s 40s but can start earlier or later. During this time, hormone levels fluctuate, and periods become irregular, leading to a host of symptoms, including hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes, insomnia and weight gain.
Here are some of the ways that naturopathic doctors at Make Care Health, can help women manage perimenopause symptoms by using natural therapies to balance hormones and address deficiencies. This includes dietary changes, addressing nutritional deficiencies, lifestyle factors, using plants that support hormone function.
Hormone replacement therapy is used when symptoms are severe enough and the patient’s lifestyle requires it. Hormone replacement therapy is not to be feared and is used regularly and is incredibly supportive. It may be right for you if you have a high stress load, if your capacity for making changes in your food and building muscle mass is limited, if your symptoms are affecting your quality of life and you have tried plant-based and other natural therapies and still want more suppot.
Ask your naturopathic doctor at Make Care Health, to walk you through the benefits and risks of hormone replacement therapy and if it is right for you.
Improving Libido and Sexual Health
Herbal medicine, stress reduction, and support for your hormones will be used when addressing low libido, vaginal dryness, pain or discomfort with sex or your vagina, as well as providing support to connect to the nervous system and address communicatio and needs that you have not been able to express or have met, that helps fire our libido and explore ways our mindset and lifestyle have kept it hindered.
At our Make Care Health naturopathic clinic, we take a holistic approach to sexual health. We believe that true healing requires addressing the underlying cause of any health issue, rather than simply treating symptoms. Our goal is to support your body’s natural ability to heal and restore balance.
Natural Treatments for Hypothyroidism, Hashimoto’s and Thyroid Care
Our thyroid gland in our neck, produces a hormone thyroxine, that helps regulate metabolism in all our cells. Hypothyroidism is when not enough hormone is produced from the thyroid gland, leading to slower metabolism, feeling of being cold, joint pain, hair loss, weight gain, heart disease, constipation and dry skin. Our thyroid gland can decrease in function over long periods of stress, which can then lead to an autoimmune disease arising to continue to cause low thyroid function, only in addition to attackign the thyroid glad with immune markers, and cause more concern for long-term health.
One of the benefits of working with a naturopathic doctor to support your thyroid health, is that often just adding medication when given the diagnosis of hypothyroidism, isn’t sufficient enough to help your body’s immune system heal or replete the nutrients and hormone balance needed, after long periods of stress.
Your naturopathic doctor at Make Care Health, will get to the root cause of understanding why your thyroid is functioning the way it is, and what nutrients, herbs or hormone replacement therapy would be best used, to support your body to heal.
If you’re experiencing 3 or more of the following symptoms, work with your naturopathic doctor at Make Care Health to investigate, do lab testing, and identify the deficiencies, as well as the best path forward to support your care and recovery, that works with your lifestyle.
- Chronic fatigue
- Muscle weakness
- Increased sensitivity to cold
- Constipation
- Dry skin
- Weight gain
- Puffy face
- Elevated blood cholesterol
- Thinning hair
- Low-mood or mild depression
- Enlarged thyroid gland or goitre
