How to Help Teenage Girls Balance Their Hormones Naturally, Fix Their Period and Feel Normal Again

Hi.  It’s Emma here from Women’s Health and Hormones. Today I want to share a case study with you about one of my younger patients.

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Life Transitions

You see it’s really common for hormonal imbalances to onset or start during life transitions for women.  And of course, these obvious times are adolescence, the perinatal phase (around the time women are having babies) and peri-menopause.

I treat women a lot of women through all three of these life stages.   Most the time when I’m recording these videos, I’m talking about my older patients. Women who are peri-menopausal.

But today I thought it might be really helpful to share some insight with you about one of my younger patients.

I had this lovely girl come to see me when she was 14 years old.  Her period had started about a year earlier and she had been having long and irregular cycles.

Her first port of call with her mum had been to go and see her local GP and they’d put her on the (oral contraceptive) pill.

Side Effects From Oral Contraceptive Pill

Now unfortunately, she had a lot of side effects from taking the pill.  She had about a 10 kilogram weight gain which was quite significant for her age. She also had a petite frame so it was quite a lot of weight gain.  She was also experiencing mood changes with the pill too.  Unfortunately it didn’t help to regulate her cycle.  She was still having very long periods with heavy bleeding and bad period pain.

Natural Options To Balance Hormones During Adolescence

So when she came to see me, this lovely girl (with her mum) had already decided that she wanted to stop taking the pill.  She wanted to know what natural options were available.

And thankfully, there’s a lot that we can do with natural medicine to help young women who are in this situation.

Fix Anemia First

As a result of the heavy, long periods she had developed to anemia.  So our first treatment goal was addressing the anemia, making sure we worked on improving her iron stores.

Then I wanted to work with her on starting to help her body both produce and process hormones more efficiently.  There are some really simple dietary and lifestyle changes that can be so beneficial.

Flaxseed Meal to the Rescue!

For this particular patient, we started using flaxseed meal which was of great benefit.  Flaxseed meal is wonderful for increasing a carrier protein in the bloodstream called sex hormone binding globulin.   For this young woman, her sex hormone binding globulin was low so I  knew that was part of the problem.

Sex hormone-binding globulin can be increased with around one to two tablespoons of ground flaxseed meal each day.  This was an easy change for this young woman to start to incorporate into her lifestyle.

Herbal Medicine Can Help

I also got her to take some herbal medicine as well to provide some support for the uterus and to increase progesterone production.

As a result of taking the herbs and the different lifestyle changes we put into place, the very next period she had was pain-free which was absolutely fantastic.

It was still a long period.  But instead of bleeding for around six weeks, that period reduced right down to around three and a half weeks.  So that was a good initial improvement.  We knew that we were heading in the right direction.

A Great Outcome

As she continued to follow her treatment, her improvements continued as well.

She’s now at the point where her period lasts for about eight days.  The period itself is just a moderate flow – it’s not particularly heavy it’s not light either.

The anemia has been resolved.  We know that through follow-up blood work.

And her period is pain-free.

So this is a great outcome. But even more importantly for this young woman, she found that as a result of working towards improving her health and well-being and getting her body back into balance again that weight that she’d gained just naturally dropped away.

So that 10 kilogram weight gain resolved.   She didn’t need to do anything about that – it just happened on its own.

My Patient Feels Free Again

And she now feels free again.

This is so important for young women.   She feels like she can get out there and enjoy life again.   She no longer feels trapped, ashamed or embarrassed about her period.  She’s been able to get back into doing the things that she loves.  She’s back into dancing again which she had stopped.   She’s exercising freely. She plays basketball and she’s really enjoying life again.

The Suffering Caused by Period Problems and Hormonal Imbalance is Real for Teenage Girls

For so many young women the suffering is real and it can have a big impact on their mood, self-confidence and self-esteem.

So if you know a young women who is suffering, just let them know that there is help available.  There are things that we can do to assist them to really restore balance to their body so they feel normal again.

I hope this was helpful for you.  If you’d like to find out more about the work I do in clinic and how I might be able to help you or your daughter,   give my  office a call on (03) 5986 5170.

Yours in Health,

Book a Consultation with Naturopath Emma Stimpson