FAQ: Migraines, Endometriosis, and Estrogen Dominance

time now for questions. What a great podcast. Luke, what a legend. Yeah, he's a good bloke. He's good value, isn't he? Wow, that's great. Well, here's a question from Lucy. And Lucy asks, hi, Jeff, Matt. And so where's Jeff, by the way? Where did he go? To Carrefour. After we obsessed him probably doing some Carrefour. Okay, cool. Well, Lucy says hi to us three, and there's two of us. Just before I get into it, Brooker and Elsa are shit. Oh, hang on. Awesome. Sorry, sorry. I misread that word. Sorry. Are they listening? They're listening. No, they don't. No. I've been binge listening to your podcast over the last couple of weeks, and you've reinvigorated me in the search for the natural solutions to some aspects of my life that I've learned to accept, live with over time. My stats. I'm a 42-year-old, weighs 52 kilos, exercise five to six times per week, strength, resistance, and cardio, and have a good diet. Whole foods, balanced fats, proteins, and carbs. no fast food etc but I'm no party pooper I'd like a wine or two I started struggling with migraines as a child diagnosed with pediatric stomach migraines at 11 and put on steroid medication 6 to 12 months and have the school photos to prove it yes I've had a doctor dispute this diagnosis recently so I don't know what to make of that the reason why she's saying this she probably got on weight because it was probably a steroid I've suffered with headaches and migraine since puberty and continue to do so. Sometimes they seem to be hormonal. Others I can find a cause. I can't find a cause to get this. I was put on the pill at 15 for severe menstrual pain and subsequently diagnosed and underwent surgery at 17 for endometriosis. Wow. After only three years menstruation, I continued on the pill to manage the severity of my symptoms. Continued to suffer pain through this time until I had two children in my early mid-30s. I've not returned to taking the pills since. After my second child turned one, she is now seven, I returned to work and exercised pretty hard for a period of time and felt in a bit of a heap. I lost energy in my libido My blood tests by my GP showed very very low testosterone So she referred me to a naturopath Well I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue and prescribed a vitamin of subs, can't recall what they are specifically. The naturopath also took a hand mineral sample and found high levels of hard metals, copper, amalgam, and others. Amalgam, I guess she means mercury, I think. And so we put on a high quality inline water filter into our kitchen conveniently we were in the process of renovating that's good i took these steps for some time reduced my exercise and felt a bit better but not amazing at that time my periods were every 24 days or so it normalized the 26 to 29 day average over the past few months my cycle has shifted 34 to 36 days i experienced period pain and sometimes spotting on the 27th day now but then it doesn't appear until 36 days. This month I've had the pain on and off and nearly two weeks of bloating but no spotting and I'm up to day 36 with no arrival. My GP has given me a referral to get an ultrasound which I'm yet to do as last month was quote normal meaning it was timely but certainly not without pain. I do suffer with a short temper premenstrual. I can feel very stressed and pent up at times, I'm not sure I'm not nice to be around. That was her words. I feel in the cold. My feet are always cold and I get under the doona even in summer. But then even when it's hot, not hot, I will often find myself dripping in sweat in the middle of the night. Thought I don't feel hot at all. It infuriates my husband. Okay. My most recent body composition scan had my body fat at 22.2%. Visceral fat scored a three. I don't know what level that is really. I have what I think are subcutaneous fat deposits. Yes, they're even cold when the rest of me is hot from working out. A small patch just below my belly button, my button hips, waist, where your knickers dig in. Yeah, my knickers dig in there too, actually. I've avoided environmental estrogen influences such as, what was that? Phthalates. Phthalates, yep, and BPA as much as I can control in the last 10 years. I really can't access organic produce cost and availability though we grow some of our own veg and I try to buy it from the local market where I can so I hope it's fresh and local as possible good on you oh some additional symptoms in my mid-20s I experienced a very stressful time and was diagnosed with depression I was on antidepressants for a couple of years but it's been about 15 years then and I suffered no postnatal depression all good for you so after all of that my question is what subs would you recommend me taking? I plan to live a long and healthy life as possible. I want to enjoy it. If I don't have to live with migraines and period pain until menopause, then I don't want to. Thanks for reading my much longer than expected email. Also, I want to compliment you on customer service. Your online team are awesome at responding to questions. It makes a massive difference to your customers. Thanks, Lucy. Well, thank you, Lucy. Cool. This is cool, man. It's a cool one. You've seen the pattern. It's a very obvious pattern here. It's beauty. So what we're seeing here is an estrogen dominance pattern. Basically, estrogen dilates the arteries to your head. Your skull doesn't expand. Hopefully, your brain's not shrinking. So you pretty well run out of room between your skull and your brain, and that's what causes a migraine, too much blood in your head. The other thing estrogen does is it makes your blood sticky and gluggy. You get less oxygen out of your blood, which means you get more likely to have throbbing arteries going into your head. um estrogen dominance is always worse with an androgen deficiency so if you've got low testosterone because the testosterone and progesterone do the opposite to the estrogen your blood tests say you got low testosterone i'm picking up that you got low progesterone because when you said spotting mid-cycle and that sort of stuff with the estrogen dominance the fact that your cycle's going longer still means that your body the problem is not just androgen deficiency your problem is estrogen excess um because you don't have your period until your body can clear that estrogen away. Otherwise, your period goes longer. If you were to have full androgen deficiency, then you'd be getting periods every two weeks sort of thing instead of every 36 days, every 14 days. So what we're seeing here is too much estrogen. When you've got a high estrogen, it inhibits your thyroid. Estrogen increases cortisol. That creates the depression aspects. Estrogen exaggerates and amplifies any thought process. So that's why coming in towards the end of your menstrual cycle, you're only supposed to have two weeks estrogen and then two weeks androgens, you've got full four weeks and more, five, six weeks of estrogen affecting your brain, making it harder to switch off and exaggerating your thought processes. If I was to do any more testing, I'd probably look for the motherfucker gene, the MTHFR gene, polymorphin.

So the MTHFR gene, poor Lucy would be thinking it's a motherfucker if she's got it, because it explains the estrogen dominance, the endometriosis. It's also involved in the detoxification of catecholamines. It's also heavily involved in the elimination of vasoactive amines. If you can't actually eliminate vasoactive amines, then you're going to have, there's a lot of foods that you might eat, especially aged and preserved things, things that taste good typically. but you know like the parmesan cheeses all those sort of wines chocolate so wine definitely full of vasoactive amines chocolates nuts and seeds a lot of those sort of preserved meats weird shit like avocados herring pickled herring vegemites a lot of those sort of things have got these compounds in it called vasoactive amines and they just make the arteries in your head throb and can create migraines anyway classic ones so the stomach migraine is a vasoactive amine issue stomach migraines are caused by vasoactive amines going through the first pass metabolism and making the portal vein throb. Yes. And they called them stomach migraines in the past. Now I don't know what they call them because this doctor thinks to think that didn't exist. An interesting feature is heavy metals increase cytochrome P450 enzymes. A couple in particular is aromatase and 5-alpha reductase. And what does aromatase do? Well, aromatase converts testosterone to estrogen. So she would have low testosterone. So low testosterone, high estrogen. The other thing is that we could explain the low testosterone levels in the blood is the other ones, 5-alpha reductase, taking testosterone to dihydro. And dihydrotestosterone makes you angry and irritable, but it doesn't show up on, or they don't test for it in blood because it's typically found in cells. So she's got a high copper, which means she's probably got a low zinc, and zinc is the one that regulates. Exactly. And so what happens, so many cadmiums and that sort of stuff, and even mercury, what happens? You get a buildup of these heavy metals. Your main chelator of those is the zinc and selenium. and both the zinc and selenium are not only involved in the enzymes. If you don't have zinc and selenium, 5-alpha reductase runs too fast, aromatase can't be controlled, but also you actually aren't capable of using the diiodinase that activate the thyroid hormone. Yes. So this big link is forming. The end result is you've got too much bloody estrogen. Yes. And if we clear away some of that estrogen, you're going to feel better. Yes. So before we do the MTHFR gene polymorphism test and look for things like homocysteine accumulation and all that sort of rubbish, we get straight into the multi-food because it doesn't change the treatment. And multi-food's the answer anyway. All right now. So we've got multi-food. You definitely need multi-food, three capsules daily, just to make sure your body's capable of processing these hormones. What I want to do is also throw in the Alpha Prime. Prime. She's a prime candidate. For prime. Absolutely. Look at that. Must-have segue. He's everywhere. He's everywhere. So with the prime, what happens is it takes two in the morning, two at night. It's actually going to lower the sex hormone binding globulin that's binding up all your testosterone and allow that testosterone to be more active. The reason why... I was debating, Steve. I don't know. I was going to... Originally, I wrote that we do Venus in the morning, Prime at night. Oh, yeah. Because I want to increase. But then as you kept reading, it kept getting to the point where the periods are going longer and longer. And I'm always fearful that when we use Vitex, it can actually help the periods to go longer. So I think we'll just stick with the Prime two twice daily and use the Multifood three capsules daily. And the other one's Blocky 3. Yeah, block E3. Hey, you know those cold fat bits? Yeah. That's a classic sign of estrogen. What happens in those situations is estrogen makes those fat tissue. That fat tissue, terrible blood supply, but in that fat tissue, it makes more estrogen. So we can put in a product called Block E3. It's got a compound in it called Cryzon. Cryzon will block the aromatase in that fat tissue and stop your body converting testosterone to estrogen in your fat. Absolutely. There's one other suggestion. Can I make it? No. Oh. Because we've given it too much. You sure? Well, I reckon T432 because of the zinc and selenium. You're actually really smart. And they're feeling cold all the time. Yeah, and also because there is a vicious cycle that can form, and here I am getting clever and smart because as running through your discussion, you start talking about reproductive hormones early. So my brain started that way, but down the end it's all thyroid. Now, if we flip that around, it is possible that an underactive thyroid this whole time could have manifested as estrogen dominance. Well, she hinted that she was overweight in school. Yeah, and cortisol slows down thyroid hormone activity, increases reverse T3. Huge stress at the age of 20. Yeah, so with your MTHFR gene, also do a full thyroid hormone profile with your doctor and measure reverse T3. He'll probably say it doesn't exist, so just get him to measure it anyway because the pathology companies know all about it even if the doctor doesn't, and we can help you interpret it. So good idea, Steve-O. T4-3, Jeff's not here. No, he spontaneously combusted earlier like Spinal Tap's drummer. Yeah. Each podcast he's not here, we're going to have to come up with a new Spinal Tap drummer style story about where he's disappeared. T432 plus take... T432 one capsule three times daily Multifood three with breakfast Alpha Prime two twice daily Butter Up Blocky three twice daily after shower finely tuned athlete before you know it Absolutely We not here to diagnose treat or cure add disclaimers like Jeff would normally do and then I'll just say you're going to be a finely tuned athlete before you know it. And the beautiful thing is that we recognize that you've suffered a fair bit with this, so we're glad to help you out, and thanks for writing in. Thanks for the kind words about us, except she said that to her shit. Yeah, yeah, we're in Bruco and Elsa. I'd probably, oh, they'll take all the credit because I'll send it. Here's a little note from Brooko and Elsa. Oh, this is specifically for me. Oh, you're so wonderful, Brooko and Elsa. God, that makes me sick. Absolutely. God, they are good girls, though. All right. Man, how cool. I hope this isn't anonymous. I want a name like that. Oh, it's a great name. My name's Matt. Actually, actually, look at the email address. Look at that. I won't read it out, but look at that. Isn't that a great email? It's such cool. This isn't anonymous, is it? Say his name. I'll just see if he signs off yeah oh well it's from Guy Ranger we love that name that's great you know it's you know what the worst name in business is off now Matt Legg in business I was trying not to get personal the worst name in business I think is Micro Soft I just think that's a terrible Micro Soft like I mentioned if I said you're Micro Soft yeah that is a terrible name Terrible name for the biggest company in the world. Probably not. Someone's going to fact check that. One of the biggest. We're the richest man in the world. Microsoft. I never even said it like that. Oh, I just... You might have issues to think about that. Just, you know, he was a nerd, obviously, and nothing against that. But, you know, Microsoft. Can you imagine coming up with a name like that for a company? Microsoft. Yeah. Yeah, large and hard. Yeah, that's what I would have called my computer business. Large and hard. We sell hard drives. We're large and hard. Yeah. Yeah, and they're the people that invented the floppy disk and decided to call it a floppy disk. And wasn't the floppy disk the hard one? And the soft, flappy one was not called a floppy disk? When I went to school in 1947, they were five and a quarter inch, right? They weren't centimetres, none of that crap. No one talks about quarter inches, Steve. People don't go, it's five and a quarter. It's just like, no, I mean a six inch. That's the size of them. They were floppy like that. You could twist them like that. And then they got hard and a bit smaller. So I don't know. They got hard and smaller. They got around that big and shoved them in. It should be micro hard. Yeah. Okay, micro hard, mate. Micro hard. Macro soft, micro hard.