Lara Briden - The Period Revolutionary
Leading the change to better periods and hormones
Natural treatments for breast health including iodine and body-identical progesterone.
Progestins such as drospirenone, levonorgestrel, or medroxyprogesterone are not progesterone.
That’s because progesterone is not a generic term like estrogen. Instead, progesterone refers only to the hormone made by the corpus luteum or taken as oral micronized progesterone.
Iodine can relieve breast pain, ovulation pain, premenstrual mood symptoms and help to prevent ovarian cysts. It works by promoting healthy estrogen metabolism, down-regulating estrogen receptors, and stabilizing estrogen-sensitive tissue in the breasts, uterus, ovaries, and brain. As one paper says, iodine has “a net anti-estrogenic effect.”
Iodine’s anti-estrogen effect makes it one of the best treatments for estrogen excess or “estrogen dominance”—although I don’t use that term.
Symptoms of high prolactin (hyperprolactinemia) include irregular periods or no periods, premenstrual mood symptoms, loss of libido, headaches, breast pain, vaginal dryness, acne, and hirsutism or facial hair.
High prolactin is one of several causes of androgen excess and can be mistaken for polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS. High prolactin may also play a role in pelvic pain and endometriosis.
Mast cell activation and histamine can play a role in premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).
That’s why mid-cycle, premenstrual, and perimenopausal mood symptoms can be relieved by antihistamines and natural histamine-reducing strategies such as quercetin, vitamin B6, SAM-e, and a dairy-free diet.