The Root Cause of Hormone Imbalance
By Lyle Sunada, B.Sc. (Pharm.), NAMS Certified Menopause Practitioner
I often will have women who will see me with the goal of being “more hormonally balanced” or to “balance my hormones”. I have to investigate further to ask what their main symptoms are. Sometimes I hear hot flashes, night sweats, and vaginal dryness. Or I’ll hear anxiety, depression, irritability, and insomnia. Or hair loss, dry skin, fatigue, foggy thinking, and weight gain. Or low libido, loss of muscle tone, bone loss, and memory loss. All these symptoms could come from different hormone systems like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, adrenals, and thyroid. Unfortunately they can all affect each other as well so it can get complicated. My role as a Certified Menopause Practitioner is to figure out the root cause of your symptoms.
Some patients come in asking me to recommend products to help with their main symptoms. I’ll let them know that I can try and make my best guess but it will be a trial-and-error process. Some of my favorite products for hot flashes and night sweats are products containing rhaphontic rubarb (Estrovera), giant angelica, cordyceps (Rebalance), and black cohosh, sage, dong quai (Menosmart). If the patient responds well then great but if not then one would have to look further for the root cause including unwanted inflammation and blood sugar control.
For stress and adrenal support, I will often recommend products containing adaptogens like ashwagandha, holy basil (Exhilarin), withania, chaga (Vitality), and rhodiola, suma (Adrenasmart). I also will recommend Magnesium Glycinate and Stress B Complex by Thorne. Stress and managing cortisol levels can be complicated and may require in-depth testing to see if your cortisol production is the problem or if your body is holding on to your cortisol longer than it should.
For hypothyroid symptoms like hair loss, brittle nails, dryer skin, weight gain, low energy, and constipation, my favorite product is Thyrosol. This can be very helpful for borderline cases of hypothyroidism and patients that are lacking cofactors that allow for maximum thyroid functioning. I’ve had many patients come back to tell me how much better they feel but some patients will need a full thyroid assessment and comprehensive testing. They may need thyroid hormones even though the standard tests are “normal” or look at the root cause which can be related to gut health.
To truly understand the root cause of the hormone imbalance one needs to take a look at everything that can affect the hormone system including stress, gut problems, toxins, inflammation, and blood sugar regulation. For more information, I suggest coming to an upcoming Hormone Balancing Seminar that I hold every few months (visit www.CloverdalePharmasave.com to register) or ask for a copy of my 10-page questionnaire and consider booking a private one-on-one private consultation.
Lyle Sunada is an expert in hormone balancing; He has helped patients with menopause, peri-menopause, PMS, andropause, stress/adrenal dysfunction, thyroid dysfunction, hot flashes, insomnia, weight loss, hair loss, PCOS, etc. Cloverdale Pharmasave specializes in natural remedies and compounding for both human and veterinarian use, as well as lifestyle modification. Everything mentioned in Lyle’s article is available InStore.
