Lara Briden - The Period Revolutionary
Leading the change to better periods and hormones
Healthy levels of thyroid hormone are essential for a healthy menstrual cycle.
Ovulation is beneficial because it’s how women make hormones.
Every month, as the ovaries get ready to release an egg, they pump out estrogen. Estrogen, in turn, stimulates serotonin, which is why women can be more outgoing and energetic in the few days leading up to ovulation.
Every month, after ovulation, one of the ovaries releases a huge amount of progesterone—the calming, soothing, anti-inflammatory hormone.
Thyroid tissue is strange tissue. It’s delicate and fatty, with a rich blood supply. It’s vulnerable to toxins such as mercury, which accumulate in the thyroid.
Even more strange is the histology or microstructure of the gland. It’s composed of little bubbles or sacs (follicles) that house the oxidative reactions of iodine transfer and hormone production. The surrounding tissue is shielded from these mini-cauldrons by only a single layer of cells. Imagine a pile of water balloons full of hazardous chemicals, and you get a sense of the precariousness of this gland. When tissue damage occurs, the body responds with repair and growth, and unfortunately at times over-growth, resulting in nodules and goitre.
Our stress response system—the HPA axis—is calibrated for intermittent, severe threats such as lions. Not for the incessant, trivial threats of modern life, such as difficult phone calls. We don’t want our hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis to charge up and release cortisol every time we drive in heavy traffic, but it will do so.
If you’re like me, you’re trying to ease up on the HPA throttle. I practice yoga. I take magnesium. I switch off my computer in the evening like a good naturopath. I sternly instruct my HPA axis to power down, but I must say that it does not always listen. If I could only be more Buddha-like, then I would not need to coax my HPA axis with a herbal medicine like Rhodiola.
Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) was supposed to be a simple way to detect thyroid disease. Before its invention in the 1970s, doctors diagnosed thyroid disease by symptoms.