Hormone Imbalance? Try these simple, natural solutions.

If you’re just beginning the journey to optimal health and hormone balance it can seem like a daunting and confusing road to travel. Just take it one step at a time! Here are some first steps that can help you get started on hormone balance.

1. Lifestyle Are poor eating habits, lack of exercise, lack of sleep or stress affecting your hormone balance? Make a list of things you can change that will have a positive impact on your health. Pick one thing from the list and write down the steps you would need to take to make that change. Take that first step! Positive change and hormone balance happens one step at a time. And by the way, you don’t need to have a perfect lifestyle to take the rest of the steps to hormone balance!

2. Track your symptoms. Here’s where you can find a Hormone Imbalance Symptoms Chart (scroll down the page to find the link to a pdf file) to help track symptoms.

3. Take the Hormone Balance Test, which adds up groups of symptoms. Your results will help you find out which hormones might be out of balance and give suggestions for how to bring them back into balance.

4. If steps 1 and 2 don’t point to specific hormone imbalances, get a blood spot hormone level test, which will measure your hormones. It’s an easy, accurate test that involves a simple finger stick and a few drops of blood, which you do at home. Then you drop the sample into a prepaid envelope and mail it to the lab. Your results are compared against “normals,” and written suggestions are given for balancing hormones.

5. If you’re still not clear about how and why—or even if—your hormones are out of balance, find a health care professional to work with. Read about How to Find a Bioidentical Hormone Doctor.

6. If you only need progesterone cream, you can purchase it online, at your local health food store, or with a doctor’s prescription from your local compounding pharmacy. If you’re new to bioidentical hormones, read the article Natural Progesterone – An Overview or read the book Hormone Balance Made Simple. If you’d like an in-depth education about how your hormones work, read What Your Doctor May Not Tell You about Menopause.

7. If you need estrogen or testosterone, Find a Doctor Who Uses Bioidentical Hormones and ask for a prescription.

8. If your adrenals need support (e.g. low cortisol), read the chapter on the adrenals that’s in all of Dr. John Lee and my What Your Doctor May Not Tell You… books and read some of the articles listed on the Fatigue and the Adrenals page.

9. Continue to keep track of your symptoms. If they persist, read Hormone Balance Made Simple, which has a series of helpful symptoms/causes lists.

10. If you’re taking hormones, adjust dosages and timing as needed. For example, if you’re using an estrogen cream and find that you feel bloated and have breast soreness, try reducing the dose of estrogen. If you have vaginal dryness or hot flashes, try increasing the dose a bit.

Over time, pay attention to symptoms and possible causes, and take steps as needed to bring your hormones back into balance, whether that’s less sugar in the diet, a different dose or type of hormone replacement, or a hormone level test to re-assess your hormone balance. Remember, hormone balance is not an event, it’s a process. The healthier your lifestyle, the smoother the process will be. There are many, many helpful resources on this website to help you achieve and maintain hormone balance.

This article was originally published on Virginia Hopkins Test Kits.

  hormone balance, hormone imbalance