Lara Briden - The Period Revolutionary
Leading the change to better periods and hormones
PCOS is defined as a set of symptoms including androgen excess and anovulatory cycles. In simplest terms, PCOS is the condition of androgen excess when all other causes of androgen excess have been ruled out. It’s an umbrella diagnosis which can be caused by different underlying drivers or functional types. The four functional types of PCOS are insulin-resistant PCOS, post-pill PCOS, inflammatory PCOS, and adrenal PCOS.
You’re ready. You suspect hormonal birth control is no longer right for your body, and you have a sinking feeling it never was.
Of course, you have questions about the process of coming off birth control. What will happen to your skin? Will you get your period? Which natural treatments can you use to make it all go as smoothly as possible?
Struggling with hair loss? There’s no one-size-fits-all treatment because there’s no one-size-fits-all cause.
To find your hair loss solution, you need to think through nine different factors.
If you came to me for help with irregular periods, I would think very carefully about your thyroid.
It wouldn’t matter if you already had another diagnosis such as PCOS or hypothalamic amenorrhea. It wouldn’t matter if your doctor had vaguely said at some point that your blood test was normal. I would still think about thyroid. Why? Because underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) is a common reason for irregular periods.
The pill was an important step in our struggle to legalize contraception. I celebrate that, of course.  Hormonal birth control can also be medicine for debilitating conditions like severe endometriosis and very heavy periods. I celebrate that.
What I don’t celebrate is the distorted message that hormonal birth control is the only birth control. And I don’t celebrate its widespread prescription as “hormone balance” for any hormonal symptom that might arise in women and teenage girls.