UPDATES AND PROGRAM CHANGES
I felt like something was missing from my program last month. I got a little bit of soreness during follicular when I applied the pm cream but I didn't get much luteal swelling. I was also really busy this last month and found myself not staying true to my program. I rarely massaged, slowed down on eating vit c-rich foods and other foods that I have been incorporating into my program and I wasn't working out regularly
I hate feeling so off-track like this but I have some program tweaks for this next cycle and hopefully I see some results!
I should be starting my period today but I dont know if that will happen. I think my hormones were slightly imbalanced this cycle so we'll see when I start it.
Anyways, I came across a thread on here about this
E-book that someone made. It's really not long so it's a good short read.
http://www.botanicalbe.is/ebook
I found the info in it to be really helpful so I want to change my program a bit around it.
The book talks mostly about keeping your estrogen, progesterone, and prolactin receptors responsive and that by overloading with too much of one herb we are downregulating them. I feel like that's what always happens to me especially when I try to use PM.
So it talks about taking very very small amounts of certain herbs all throughout your cycle to keep those receptors awake and to upregulate hormones.
ALSO it mentioned (or maybe this was in the thread on BN directly) that spearmint raises LH and FSH which I already knew but didn't really take into account the effects of that. It says
"Prolonged or heavy periods can be explained by low prolactin and abnormally high FSH" . This makes sense for me because my period was definitely prolonged and I guess it was the spearmint tea causing it and not the pm! Or possibly a combo of both..
And it says "Light or a delay in a period can be explained by high prolactin levels"
Hmm this is interesting because I did find my periods were lighter when I was on SJW which increases prolactin levels. But I never had a delay in my periods.
Program Tweaks:
The ebook gives you a list of herbs to take and purposely leaves out any LH or FSH increasing herbs although mentions it might be helpful to use once in a while to promote ovulation I think.
So I chose to add:
White Peony
Wild Yam
Milk thistle
and Maca
It says to take an adaptogen to keep hormones in check during the second half of luteal and during menstruation (day 21 to day 7 for me). So i'll be taking maca since I have it on hand.
I chose most of these because I already have them. I really really wanted to add goat's rue instead of the milk thistle but it was so hard to find and the ones available are expensive. I had no idea!
I'm not sure how to take these yet. the book says its best to take the whole plant so you reap the benefits of the fiber from them too which can help with excess hormones. I wanted to make a tea out of them but I have the powdered versions (which the book says is fine). But last night i tried to make a tea and it tasted so awful! Lol. I even put a bag of green tea in it in hopes that it would taste better. It was really bad. And also I shouldn't be even using the green tea since it can be estrogenic. So gonna have to figure out how to take these.
I'm taking less than 1/2 teaspoon of white peony, milk thistle, and wild yam COMBINED. Oh also I am not sure but I feel like the tea I made might have caused an upset stomach. Im still worried about taking things internally just because of my stomach :/ I didn't have a stomach ache per say but I did have some action going on.
I also want to keep the PM cream and PC in my program. So I think I will just use a lot less. I'm thinking of dissolving either 1 or 2 capsules of pm into the rosehip oil and putting that into just 1 tablespoon of the lotion. Last time I did 3 capsules in 2 tablespoons of lotion but I slathered that stuff on so much. I didn't even use it all but it seemed like it was too much so maybe I will do just 1 capsule of pm..
My breasts feel full right now probably because of my period or because I have been wearing my bras differently. I realized my breasts ARE high on my chest. Before when I would take my bra off, I would see the marks about a half inch-inch below the bottom line of my breasts and I think this is why I always have a weird gap in all my bras even if when I put them on I have quadboob! So I've been wearing my bras higher up and I tightened the straps. It's more comfortable and I feel like i keep more boobage in the cups.