The majority of my clients struggle with estrogen dominant symptoms such as acne, hair loss, weight gain/difficulty losing weight, waking at night, low blood sugars, hypothyroidism, heavy, painful periods, bloating, and so much more.
It can be hard to decipher where these symptoms come from since they can all seem like they stem from different places, but the one thing they all have in common is estrogen and cortisol.
Why? Because as estrogen goes up in the body, cortisol goes up. When estrogen increases in the body, there is an increase in cortisol binding proteins. Unfortunately, these also bind to progesterone leading to lower progesterone levels, higher cortisol, and high estrogen.
This is a recipe for:
+ High insulin—estrogen increases insulin. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing since we need enough estrogen and insulin, but when we have too much, it’s easy to store more fat.
+ High cortisol and low progesterone—leading to bloating, painful, heavy periods, mood changes, sleep issues, headaches, migraines, and more.
+ Difficulty staying asleep—as estrogen goes up, our body has more cortisol and a harder time keeping glucose stored in the liver. When we don’t have enough glucose in the liver, we can’t keep our blood sugar balanced throughout the night. This leads to waking at night and sometimes you think it’s because you have to pee or you may wake with anxiety or hunger.
These all make it harder to go about daily life and feel your best.
If you are struggling with high cortisol and excess estrogen this is a great blog post to check out that can give you more insight on where to start.
You can also check out this podcast episode about optimizing cortisol levels.
reminder: i’m currently taking on 1:1 clients. if you’d like to explore what it would be like to work together and if we are a good fit, fill out this form to get more details!
