Excess Estrogen -Smiling on the Outside-Struggles Inside

There can be visible clues, on a female body, of excess estrogen.  Often (but not always), this can be a “padded” body. Thicker arms, shoulders and hips. Often (once past the teenage acne stage), beautiful skin–plump with a certain “sheen” to it. For those ladies who are post menopause yet often complimented on their beautiful, full skin, its worth having estrogen levels checked since dominant estrogen can lead to female cancers. Once you get used to seeing the signs of estrogen dominance, its possible to see it even if there aren’t tests to prove it. Of course, hormone testing could verify yes-or no–but testing is also known to be wrong or misdirect a person to a different issue.

If symptoms signal dominant estrogen, its well worth suspecting it and working to reduce the levels via less or zero chemicals in foods/personal care/cleaning products, avoiding birth control pills or injections or avoid commercial dairy–especially milk (!) These are not the only sources of creating xenoestrogens (powerful–unnatural–estrogen), but they are surely some of the first areas to consider.

While I would like to pat myself on the back for spotting dominant estrogen via a womans visible signs, (so far my batting average is 100%), truth be told, it’s not rocket science. It’s not hard to guess-from her appearance AND from the average female today–that she has painful periods…or fibroids or infertility, precocious puberty or miscarriges, PCOS, Endometriosis. All of these are symptoms of excess or imbalanced estrogen. If I, as a layperson can see the signs of excess estrogen, why can’t our doctors? Instead they most often totally ignore the root cause of the estrogen side of things when a female comes in for hormone related symptoms and issues. Their answer is either narcotics, surgery or synthetic hormones. All are a dead end road as far as resolving the issue of dominant or imbalanced estrogen. And, sadly, both carry not only short term side effects, but long term side effects.

What causes high estrogen? Chemicals (big-time). Fragrance is a huge culprit because most do not know fragrance is a chemical. Sadly, most of our females today grew up wrapped in blankets coated with fabric softener (sticky molecules in chemicals in fabric softener). They have bottles loaded with fragrance–shampoos, conditioners, lotions, hair spray used on their tiny bodies. They inhale air freshener from nasty plug ins or spray (think highly absorbable nasal membranes loaded with blood vessels to absorb the chemicals in these “fresheners”). When we discuss eliminating fragrance, our females do not like it. They resist it. They love fragrance. They are attracted to fragrance.

Certainly fragrance isn’t the only chemical in the aforementioned products. But I consider fragrance the most evil of all because it attracts our females-like sheep to slaughter-to these chemical laden products.

Excess/dominant estrogen is, by far, no joke. If you do one-and only one-favor for your child, get the fragrance (aka chemical) and other chemically laden products out of your home…before baby is born. Fabric softener, perfumes, air “fresheners”–both spray and Plug Ins, scented (fragrance) laundry detergent, garbage bags, make up, lotions, body wash etc.  These should be replaced with clean, natural options even before baby, because Momma is absorbing these same chemicals and affecting not only herself (think miscarriage) but also her unborn fetus.

We do not live in a clean, safe society. Chemicals are cheap and freely allowed in the United States. And they are widely accepted because we do not know better. Hence, cheap production means big profits for the manufacturer. Nobody is complaining or changing the laws regarding chemicals in our products so the manufacturer has no reason to change.  To add to the issue, when we visit our doctor hoping for a solution to the pain and frustration, we do not have doctors warning us of the effects chemicals have on our bodies. Honestly, they don’t warn because the majority of them do not know. If you ask them, you will most likely get a response that ridicules the suggestion.

But I ask you this…are you going to take the advice of someone who has yet to cure one single female with narcotics and synthetic hormones? Or are you going to look at the hundreds to thousands of research articles verifying the damage of fragrance and chemicals to hormone balance?  Believe it or not, the very best place to look for help is with yourself and the research you can do.  If I, as a common layperson could do it–you can do it (really!).

The mindset your child-or yourself-is unique, too far gone or too severe in your/their hormone condition is a mindset that will cause you to give up before you even get started. If you believe you or your child cannot heal, you will continue on the current path. If your current path isn’t working–isn’t it time for a new one? Isn’t it time to trust you must look to the cause of these hormone issues rather than trying to resolve with pills or surgery? Because, honestly…unless you get to the source, you have no choice but to continue the current–likely very unsuccessful–treatment.

As much as thinking of changes being a cure, think of them more as resolving a condition. Female hormone issues are often referred to as diseases. They are not. They are conditions. A condition was created in the body and a condition can be alleviated. That’s not to say you or your child might not be predisposed. Considering the number of mothers drinking from plastic water bottles and using fragranced products, it’s likely you or your child IS predisposed. This is all the more reason why the chemicals need to be eliminated. I have one child with all symptoms of Endometriosis alleviated. None of the answers came from standard doctor treatments. In fact, the damage from the current medical treatments was huge.  The answers did, however, come from things our doctors either never mentioned or literally scoffed at when asked about the source.

While bioidentical progesterone can literally be a Godsend, it is not the long term solution. Let’s go full circle back to chemicals. If you use bioidentical progesterone (BP), but do not cut chemicals, the source of excess estrogen continues. Your BP can do wonders for awhile. But without removing excess estrogen, the BP will eventually be less and less effective.  Use the BP to get relief. Use it to help balance or offset the excess estrogen. But make the ultimate goal to be removing the source of excess estrogen and eventually eliminating the need for BP. To do anything less, will be playing Russian roulette with your hormones. Because excess estrogen is almost always from chemically created estrogen mimickers called “xenoestrogens“.–as much as 10-100 times more powerful than natural estrogen. This is the reason for the powerful symptoms from excess estrogen. The human body cannot handle these xenoestrogens. To only use BP to balance without eliminating the cause of xenoestrogens leaves us exposed to the ramifications of these xenoestrogens.  I discuss ways to address the powerful effect of xenoestrogens and the benefit of bioidentical progesterone in more depth in my book “Essential Gut & Hormone Wellness”.

It’s somewhat of a curse that I look at smiling pictures of young women today and can’t help but be concerned whether they are truly happy. They should be happy. These should be some of the most carefree days of their lives. But their overall body “look” and the statistics on female hormone conditions predict differently. While this may seem a dismal prediction, the fact is…it IS dismal. Unless….

Yes, the result of today’s chemicals effects on our female hormone balance likely means a future of health struggles. But we don’t have to accept that prediction.  If we are aware and if we look at our chemical exposure to remove them from our homes and our lives, we increase our odds of recovering balance. We can choose to brighten the future greatly by self educating and accepting that something that seems so simple–chemical exposure (including and especially fragrance)–does make a difference on our hormone balance. It is possible to help our hormone balance and give our females the right to enjoy life rather than “survive”. This help begins by emptying out all products with high chemical content from the home and in the personal hygiene closet.