How I Balanced My Hormones Coming Off The Pill

Ok ladies, let’s chat hormones. As of March 18th, I made the full decision to come off the contraceptive pill for health reasons. It took me a few months to balance my hormones but praise the heavens, mother nature decided to swing on by two weeks ago. So, with that said, I thought I’d share a few of my tips that I actively took to re-balance my hormones…

I’d be a bit of a liar if I said coming off the contraceptive was a breeze. Whilst I haven’t really suffered from any physical side effects, the mentality part of it is a whole other ball game.

You see, once you start learning more about your menstrual cycle and the fact that yes, it is bloody important to have a period every month, it kinda becomes a big deal when your body suddenly stops doing its thing. And because of this, I found that my anxiety went crazy. What was wrong with my body? Is there a serious underlying issue that the pill has been covering up all this time? Will it ever return? Am I ovulating?

After many frustrating and unhelpful doctor appointments – “let’s put you back on the pill” – I decided to take matters into my own hands and learn about my menstrual cycle myself and how I could possibly regulate my hormones naturally. Because let’s face it, they weren’t very happy.

Tracking my hormones

That’s when I came across Fertility Friday and learnt a whole bunch of stuff about my womanly bits and bobs. From taking the right supplements for hormone health to tracking your basal body temperature every morning, I started to become a heck of a lot curious about my body.

Without going into too much detail, I started to track my basal body temperature (to see if I was ovulating or not) and cervical fluid (yes, true) with the KINDARA app. At the start, I was completely clueless as to what I was doing. After a few lessons on the app however, it became clear as to what I should be tracking and eventually, I learnt a lot about my body and its hormones. And actually, it’s a pretty damn wonderful thing. I recommend that at least every woman should try tracking your menstrual cycle at least once.

After I had a months worth of charting jotted down (temps, data, etc), I could very easily see that my body wasn’t ovulating. My numbers were all over the place and in actual fact, my cervical fluid was anything but fertile when it should have been (not just important for fertility). So, with that in mind, I decided to switch up my supplement routine with Primal Living’s high-quality supplements (not an ad)…

Vitamin B6

B6 has been shown to lengthen a short luteal phase, lower prolactin levels (high prolactin can stop ovulation and shows up when B6 is low), and it works wonders for PMS (likely because it improves dopamine & serotonin production – happy brain chemicals). B6 also helps reduce estrogen dominance and instead, helps boost progesterone – exactly what my body needed. Click here for the exact supplement I use.

Magnesium

Magnesium appears to be depleted by cyclical changes in female sex hormones during the luteal phase. As a result, this leads to PMS symptoms like migraines and bloating. Not fun.

But perhaps the biggest thing to note… Did you know that our bodies literally get rid of magnesium when we’re stressed because it acts as a preventer? Crazy, huh. Plus, for those who have been on the contraceptive pill, it’s been studied that the pill can actually deplete our magnesium levels.

FloLiving goes into a lot of detail about how important magnesium is for hormonal health, but in a nutshell, it really is a supplement you should start with if you’re aware that your hormones aren’t quite balanced. Click here for the exact supplement I use.

Probiotic

Probiotics help support the good bacteria in our gut and, if you didn’t know already, the contraceptive pill may have been doing you more harm than good.

In a 2016 paper, Dr. Hamed Khalili, a gastroenterologist, reviewed evidence from numerous studies about connection of IBS and hormonal birth control pills and, surprise-surprise, found a link between the gut microbiome, oral contraceptives, and the body’s immunity levels. “This supports the intriguing hypothesis that the gut microbiome lies at the crossroads of pathways linking exogenous hormone use with innate and adaptive immunity”.

What a lot of people aren’t aware of is the fact that the contraceptive pill can unfortunately, cause inflammation to the gut. In fact, it can cause leaky gut, IBS, yeast overgrowth (hiya thrush) and decreased microbial diversity.

In the last year, it’s safe to say that I experienced all the popular symptoms of a poorly gut thanks to the contraceptive pill. I would bloat to the point I would look pregnant, suffer from a lot of gas (sorry ladies) and at the time, I was convinced I had IBS. Who knew it was all down to the pill, huh?

Since I’ve come off the pill, however, and supplemented my diet with a high-strength probiotic daily, I’ve found that the above symptoms have completely gone. Yes, gone. Click here for the exact supplement I use.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is another essential supplement for balancing your hormones and it’s pretty great for raising your progesterone levels. Low progesterone levels can cause irregular period, no periods or spotting inbetween periods – to name just a few symptoms.

Progesterone is your natural anti-anxiety and anti-depressant hormone. It also affects your emotions and sleep. Low progesterone is the second most common imbalance experienced by women over 35 and when it comes to vitamin C, it’s the number one nutraceutical to help your body produce more progesterone. Click here for the exact supplement I use.

Zinc

Just like magnesium, the contraceptive pill can also deplete your zinc levels and unfortunately, zinc is crucial for hormone synthesis and balance. In fact, zinc is so important because it’s an essential trace element that’s found and used by every cell throughout your body.

This critical vitamin is only needed in tiny amounts, but if you don’t get enough zinc, the consequences can be pretty nasty. This is because your body relies on zinc for growth, maintenance, and numerous biological functions – including hormone creation and balance.

Research has found that zinc levels are directly associated with the following hormones:

• Testosterone 
• Growth hormone
• Thyroid hormones – T3 & T4
• Estrogen
• Progesterone

Again, this is another supplement I take in my efforts to try and re-balance my hormones. In fact, why don’t I paint a pretty supplement party picture for you? Every day I take magnesium, zinc and Probiotic at night time. And then for the morning, I take vitamin C, B6 and a good Multivitamin (I think everyone should, IMO). Click here for the exact zinc supplement I use.

Seed cycling

Now, I’d like to say that’s pretty much all I’m currently doing to help re-balance my hormones, however, at the beginning of June, I decided to go one step further and look into seed cycling…

Yes, I expect to see a few eyes rolling right now, but bear with me…

Seed cycling is known to be a gentle way to balance your hormones throughout the two phases of your menstrual cycle using the nutrients found in seeds. Seed cycling can help by boosting estrogen in the first phase of your cycle, and progesterone in the second phase. It’s also known to help relieve PMS, increase fertility, ease pain from conditions like ovarian cysts, endometriosis, and PCOS, and regulate cycles to their norm. I’ve heard that it can be effective for women who are menstruating, pre-menopause, postpartum, and post-menopause but of course, I can’t vouch for that.

How does seed cycling work?

Seed cycling works by supporting each phase of our cycle – the follicular phase (day 1-14) and the luteal phase (day 15-28). During your follicular phase, your estrogen levels start low and steadily increase to prepare for ovulation. To keep estrogen levels in balance, you start by cycling with 1 tbsp of flax seeds. These contain phytoestrogens which adapt to the body’s estrogen needs during this phase. If estrogen levels get too high, the lignans in the flax seeds can bind to the excess so it can be eliminated from the body. During this cycle, you’ll also take 1 tbsp of pumpkin seeds. These are high in zinc to support progesterone production in the next phase.

After your follicular phase, your body then begins to ovulate. This is known as your luteal phase (day 15).

This phase of your cycle is brought on by a sudden drop in estrogen right after ovulation. Progesterone levels begin to steadily rise to build up the uterine lining. Estrogen also increases during this phase to prepare for the menstrual cycle, however, if estrogen gets too high, PMS symptoms and painful periods can occur. Progesterone is the hormone that keeps estrogen in check. Therefore, the focus is to encourage the body to make progesterone. 

During your luteal phase, you cycle with two different seeds. Sesame and sunflowers seeds. Sesame seeds are high in zinc and selenium and block excess estrogen, and sunflower seeds are high in vitamin E which helps support progesterone levels.

My experience with seed cycling for hormone health

I can’t say I had much faith in seed cycling – if any at all. But, after listening to Fertility Friday’s podcast with Dr Nicole Sandilands, I thought, why not? What had I got to lose? A period?

And, as crazy as it sounds, by the end of the month, Mother Nature decided to pay me a visit. Was I surprised? Absolutely. After months of frustration, tears and agony hospital visits, I finally felt a sense of relief that finally, my periods were slowly getting back on track.

Do I think seed cycling had anything to do with the return of my period? It’s hard to say really. Whilst I certainly think that my supplementation routine worked to slowly help regulate my hormones, some part of me believes that seed cycling gave my body the extra push it needed.

Although I had my first natural period for the first time in 8/9 years only 2 weeks ago, I’m still continuing to take my supplements every day, as well as seed cycling. It’s also important for me to note that I’ve also been pretty strict with my diet too – limiting dairy as much as I can, eating a diet high in fruit, veg and fibre and not consuming too much refined sugar and caffeine. Again, these are all issues that can affect your hormones too. Just do your research – learning about hormones is a whole other world.