The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Natural Fixes for Frequent Headaches, Hormone Imbalance, and Infertility

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

You asked, Dr. Josh Axe answers! From hormonal imbalances to frequent headaches to painful cramps, Dr. Axe is answering your most commonly asked questions surrounding women’s health!  Dr. Axe answers: What are the root causes of headaches and how to heal them naturally? Should my work out routine change depending on the stage of my cycle? Are there supplements to balance estrogen dominance? How to naturally boost fertility, support pregnancy, and regulate hormones after having kids?  In this candid Q&A, Dr. Axe tackles your most pressing questions surrounding female wellness. Gain clarity on the pros and cons of birth control options, HRT therapies, and postpartum care. Tune in now to hear clinically backed, natural solutions to start feeling your absolute best.  Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I want to get off my birth control, but when I do, my hormones go all over the place. Yes, this is exactly what happens. How can I balance my hormones after having kids? My teenage daughter is dealing with really severe cramps. Do you have any suggestions that aren't pills? The more stress, the more severe the cramps. What are your thoughts on the HPV vaccine? Here's the reality that I want to share with you right now.

Should women do different exercises depending on the stage of their cycle? Yes. Hey everyone, welcome the show. I am Dr. Josh Axe. I'm a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. I am the founder of Dr.ax.com, ancient nutrition, and leaders.com. And this podcast is all about helping you grow into the greatest you. And on today's episode, I'm answering your questions regarding women's health. Now, men, if you're watching this, I don't need to turn it off. Here's what I want to tell you is that women's health. Think about what a great husband or boyfriend or friend you can be. If you know how to

care for your woman that's in need. We're going to talk about everything from balancing your hormones to naturally curing frequent headaches, to my thoughts on the HPV vaccine and more. Let's dive in here to the first question. Here it is. I have frequent headaches. How can I heal them naturally? If you're getting ongoing headaches, what I've seen to be is it's either typically a biochemical issue or a structural issue. If it's biochemical, you may have to be. have a food sensitivity, okay, and your body is reacting to something you're eating on a regular basis. What I would do is take a period of time and do what I call an elimination diet or what a lot of people call an elimination diet, and that is there are certain foods you cut out, you add each

one back in and see if there's something that's causing headaches. Now, some of the most common culprits could be gluten, could be dairy. You might also go in to get a food sensitivity test done to see if you have a high sensitivity to a certain type of food, but that is really, really frequent. The other thing could be, it could be structural where your shoulders and your traps and your neck are getting too tense and that's going up in the back of your head and compressing some of those muscles and it's causing a headache. And if that's the case, seeing a chiropractor can often help, sometimes getting even a shoulder massage or neck massage can help. But I would say chiropractic care or osteopathic care can be a really, really great remedy for frequent headaches. They can kind of

reduce any sort of tension up there, help with your structure. One of the things that happens actually with headaches, sometimes people get this condition. It's called forward head posture, where their head starts going way out in front of their body, and that puts more tension on the traps and necks. And so then you start to get headaches. And so if you go to see a chiropractor that also does a form of physical therapy, they oftentimes can retrain your body and put a curve back in your neck, and that can really, really help headaches. Now, from a supplement standpoint, magnesium is the most commonly prescribed mineral for headaches. You typically want to do probably about 500 to 600 milligrams at a time.

I would do a magnesium chelite. You could also do a 3 in 8 or a citrate powder. Most forms of magnesium can help headaches because they all have a relaxation effect. But that's what I would do. There's a few others as well, fever, few and butter burr are a couple others that are often prescribed for headaches. Those are sort of like natural herbal remedies. you could try. But I think those are some of the most important.

The other big one with sometimes with headaches is hydration. What I would do is get an electrolyte powder, add it to water, and drink some more electrolytes and more water during the day because you'd be surprised how many headaches are due to improper hydration. I think sometimes people think hydration is just drinking water. It's not. It's water plus electrolytes. That is what will actually keep you hydrated.

So that's another thing I would recommend there for headaches. And again, going back, you can't overlook the food sensitivities. This is very, very common cause of regular headaches. Next question here. I have estrogen dominance, low testosterone and progesterone, and I'm already eating very clean. What should I do? Okay.

So if you're estrogen dominant in Chinese medicine, I'm going to hit on that view first, the Eastern medicine. then I'll head on it from a Western perspective. But from the Eastern Madison perspective, your body is two yin in your lacking yang. So yin means you're doing a lot of things that are feminine, which can be great, right?

So that could be yoga. And by the way, what I mean feminine, because estrogen is seen, though, is that more feminine hormone, let's say testosterone or progesterone on the other side, specifically testosterone. but there are certain things that will cause in more estrogen dominance. And so certain foods that are more yin dominant, which means they're more moistening to the body, that will make

things worse. So like flax seeds wouldn't be good or bananas or yogurt or milk. Anything that creates more mucus or fluid in the body will increase estrogen dominance. Well, we'll help with that are foods that are, and so that's going to be a lot of fruit and foods that are, again, moistening. Again, I mentioned milk, dairy, those sort of things. All those will make estrogen dominance. We're soybeans. That'll make it worse, too.

Some of the foods that will help are foods that support testosterone, which would be doing more meat. So trying to get about 30 to 50 grams of meat per meal. So breakfast could be a protein powder, maybe collagen and a plant protein. And then for lunch, you do a chicken. and then for dinner you do wild salmon or or or a grass-fed beef. Okay, but you want to make sure that's your main, you're focusing on protein during your meals.

You're also getting some healthy fat. And there are some herbs and things that actually support progesterone, like I believe sage in time or herbs you can take as well for testosterone. Fenugreek tends to be really, really good. And so you may supplement with those as well. And then milk thistle. Milk thistle helps your body as an earth. herb, get rid of extra estrogen. So if your estrogen dominant and have too much, take milk this

or drink milk thistle tea on a regular basis to help rid your body of the excess estrogen that you currently have going on. But I would say here are the remedies. One, for testosterone, you want to start doing some weight training. Do some weight training and interval training rather than something like a yoga. Okay. From a dietary standpoint, loads of protein, a lot of green vegetables and then I would say like spinach like steamed vegetables and then and then again I would do I would do some herbs like fenyagreek I would do vitex I would do cinnamon and I would do time okay I would do some of those herbs there and then you might also look into peptide therapy you could find a functional medicine physician who does peptides and they could help work on balancing out the

hormones that way as well and I think if you do those things you're going to see good results. The other thing, again, milk this. So it's going to get rid of that extra estrogen for you, or at least some of it, or a liver cleanse like supplement, dandelion, which I don't like dandelion all the time. So milk this was probably better for you or burdock, something like that. But that's what I would do. All right, next question here. I'm nervous about doing hormone replacement therapy. Are there any other options? Yes. This is where I really like peptide therapy. Okay, peptides. And you can go, what I would do, here's what I would do. I would go online into your area, wherever you are.

Let's say you lived in Nashville, okay, where I'm located. You could go, and maybe you're in Brentwood or maybe Franklin, but somewhere in the national area and you do a Google search for peptide therapy, National Tennessee, or peptide therapy for hormones, Franklin, Tennessee. And just do some research and find somebody that does peptide therapy, but that's what I would do. So I would do peptides. I would also do herbs and spices.

So, for instance, if I had a woman come into me who was having some of these, who is having hormone issues, okay? What I would do is I would have them, rather than putting them on hormone replacement, I would say, okay, let's look at your diet. Here's the food you should eat. These are the ideal foods for estrogen or progesterone or testosterone or thyroid hormone or whatever it is because there are different foods for each. If you've got a thyroid issue, you want to do a lot of rice and berries and wild fish.

But if you have an issue with low testosterone, you want to do a lot of, red meat and steamed spinach and herbs like fenugreek cinnamon and ginger. So actually the foods you eat, food is medicine. And food, depending on your condition, certain foods will serve you a lot better than others. I know we tend to think, well, a salad is healthy for everybody or vegetables are healthy for everybody. It's not actually true. Every person, every woman, every man is incredibly unique.

and what foods that might completely heal a friend of yours may actually be terrible for you. So going and finding a doctor who can tell you or somebody saying, these are a personalized custom diet for you based on what you have going on. Now, sometimes you can do self-research. So again, as I mentioned earlier, if you're too estrogen dominant, you want to consume more yang foods. If you're low in estrogen, then we need to start having you consume more of those yen foods. So you can do research and maybe discover this if you're savvy yourself,

if not go and see a good health coach or, functional medicine doctor or somebody who knows what they're doing a nutritionist somebody knows what they're doing nutrition-wise um but here's what they would do again most doctors they should work on your diet they should prescribe certain supplements and herbs and then peptides and then maybe even other exercises things to reduce stress but that's you want to really focus on healing your body via a protocol not one thing there's not one pill there's not i mean that's even the problem with hormone replacement therapy there's so many things that you should probably be doing to bring harmony to your body. And most doctors are like, here's a supplement, here's a medication, here's an injection.

That's not the way that you truly heal. You tend to need to work on the diet, the supplements, the herbs. There are things like peptides. There are lifestyle factors in order to truly create balance. Next question. I want to get off my birth control, but when I do, my hormones go all over the place. Yes, this is exactly what happens. How can I get off of it without these challenges? And what is the best type of natural birth control is best. One, know that that's normal. Okay, you're likely going to have some of that where your hormones are going to be all over the place after getting off birth control.

So one, just accept and no, it might be hard, but then it's going to easier and easier and easier over time. So just know that you're going to have a challenge for several months and that's, that's the way it is. What I would say is one of the most important things to do is take a high dose of probiotics. Okay, you want to take, maybe even two brands. I would take an SBO probiotic and another diverse strain of probiotic, because that's what, yeast overgrowth is one of the first things that happens when women get off birth control.

So you want to make sure your diet is mostly, is very, is not going to feed Candida. So you want to do a lot of meat, vegetables, cranberry juice would be good, a little bit of rice. That should be the basis of your diet. Meat, vegetables, little rice. You could do some berries, cranberries. That's kind of the ideal diet there for you. And then I would also say, I mentioned this earlier, but I think this can be good for women getting off birth control,

doing a little bit of milk thistle, doing a little bit of an anti-candita tea, something that has something like cinnamon or ginger, even like a chai tea, would be really good. So you want something to really keep your blood sugar balance. One of the keys, I think, is keeping insulin as balance as possible when you get off of birth control. And outside of that, just keep stress down. I like red light therapy. I think that can help doing the infrared light. I think there's some benefits there,

but I think also just knowing, it's just going to take a little bit of time. Okay. And then you might go and see a functional medicine doctor after you've been off a month or two, go and do a micronutrient test and get tested for your vitamin D levels, your nutritional levels to see where you're at,

and then take some supplements specifically for where you're deficient. That should also help bring some balance there once you're off. Now, in terms of the best type of natural birth control, listen, I'm going to share with you, I mean, you know, what Chelsea and I have done for years, we've had two methods. One, we use a condom.

And the other one is we have something called the lady comp, okay? I don't, we don't have a deal with them, but it's like this, is this little, very little device. And basically, it tells us Chelsea when she's ovulating, you know, green says go, red says no, okay, in terms of getting pregnant. And so what I would say is look into that device. It's called the Lady Comp, Lady, L-A-D-Y, Comp, C-O-N-P, Lady Comp. And there's probably different versions of it, but that's what we've used. There's also a mucus test that you can do on yourself to see what your mucosa is like and the thickness of it. That can tell you the forms of natural family planning.

I've written an article on this as well. If you go online and search, Dr. Axe, Dr. Axe, Natural Family Planning. Okay, so Dr. Axe, natural family planning. and I've written an article, you can read more there. But I think those are some good solutions. And hey, any women that are watching this, I would love to hear, hey, have you ever used the lady comp? What are some of the things you do for natural birth control?

I know we have a lot of wise women who might share their thoughts on here on social media or on YouTube as well. Another question, how can I get an optimal shape to conceive in my late 30s? Okay. So what I would do is, is, again, I would have a multi-pronged approach. if you're looking at conceiving. And in Chinese medicine, conception is based on the health of your adrenals and kidneys and reproductive organs. So think about it like this.

If you want to conceive, let's say you let's say like on your on your phone here, you got a battery between zero and 100. The reason why women typically can't conceive. Now this isn't 100% of the time, but this is probably 90% of the time. Okay, almost all the time when women can't conceive, it's because this battery, okay, like on your phone here, it's too low. Okay. So the battery for your adrenals. So if you're in a fight or flight state too much or you're too stressed or you don't have certain nutrients to wear, like a lot of it's tied to kind of your energy and your vitality. Now having a miscarriage is a very different thing, by the way. Miscarriage is a weakness around your spleen and your pancreas and your insulin levels

and holding something. It's very different than conception. So again, with carrying, you want to actually do something a little bit more different. It would be things like cinnamon and sweet potato and beef and things like thinking about Thanksgiving meal, sitting by a warm fire, cozying up. That's for caring, but for conceiving, you want to strengthen up, you want to really think about those adrenals. And so I would take some adrenal supplements. I would take something like an aschwaganda. Rishi mushroom is another great one. So things to really strengthen up that sort of those adrenal areas. Also, it may be hormone balance, that it could be an estrogen, progesterone imbalance. If that's the case, Vitex as an herb is very effective. But I would say generally speaking, a good diet would be, again,

a good amount of meat, a lot of vegetables, berries, and rice. These all feed in Chinese medicine called your water element, which is tied to conception. And so that's what I would focus on there. But you really want to focus on just taking care of yourself. Here's the, you've got to keep stress levels low. And you've got to build a lot of peace and fun in your life. Okay. So if you're constantly worrying and thinking you have fear in some way that's constantly going or you're overthinking stuff, over analyzing all the time, or worrying about, okay, I'm in my late 30s. I got to do this before 40 or before 45. You know, that's very stressful. So what I would say is you need to get in a state of mind that's building peace. And the best way to do that is not just to say, okay,

I'm going to try and de-stress. It's to schedule things you love to do. Schedule things that bring you schedule things that help relax you. Read novels. Go for walks in the park. Do lunch with the best friend. Go to church service, praise, and worship. Do things that are going to reduce stress in your body. And in addition, eat a clean diet. Don't over-exercise and don't under-exercise. You know, if you're doing CrossFit for three hours a day, that's typically not ideal. But if you're going for an hour a day and you're generally pretty healthy, that's great. So that's my best advice for increasing your fertility is eat incredibly healthy. There are some good things. I do like red light therapy for sort of anti-aging there as well. I think could be a good

thing if you get an infrared, one of those infrared lights. There's a couple brands there. There's like Juve and Bon Charger couple I know that are really good for those infrared light. Are there any natural treatments for low platelets during pregnancy? Well, I think this is contraindicated, so I don't even know if I'm going to say it. Well, typically if people have low platelets, papaya leaf historically is very good, but that might be contraindicated. And I don't have that in the back of my head. I used to know, but I don't now. So you need to go and look up papaya leaf.

If not, here's what you need to do. You need to get a lot of red meat, okay, and green leafy vegetables and do, I like beetroot juice powder. Okay? You do a lot of things to kind of help build the blood. But red meat is ideal. Now, this is also contraindicated in the United States, but in Europe, they do it all the time, is women will eat some liver. Okay. And I think that sometimes there's a concern about the vitamin A and iron level getting too high.

But I think if you're doing a small amount or dose of organ meat, I do think that there are tremendous benefits there for platelets. But I would say focus on doing red meat for most your meals. I mean, lunch and dinner, a lot of red meat, beetroot juice, okay, as a supplement. Getting a little bit of cinnamon and ginger, those herbs are very good for platelets, cinnamon especially. So if you're having, let's say, something in the morning, like a little bit of oatmeal or, let's say, a little bit of smoothie or some applesauce, add some pumpkin pie spice in, okay, or cinnamon. So add about a fourth a teaspoon, you know, get some cinnamon and ginger. Those will help. But my best advice to you would be herbs.

cinnamon and ginger. And then the other thing I would do is a lot of red meat, beetroot juice, you know, steamed spinach, some of those steamed green vegetables. Those are some of the best things you can do naturally to help elevate your platelets. All right. Next question here. What are the best postpartum supplements to take while breastfeeding? You have to build your blood.

after you give birth, there's been a lot of blood loss, okay? And did you know, do you know what breast milk is primarily made up of? Blood. So when women are breastfeeding, they need to really focus on building blood. You'll see this with a lot of, like, like if you look, if when I looked at Chelsea right after she gave birth to Arwen for the next month, her skin was a lot more pale, okay, or the days afterwards. And so I knew, I said, okay, we really have to go build your blood. known across the board in Chinese medicine that after women give birth, you've got to build blood. This is why that oftentimes what we'll do with Chelsea is will encapsulate her placenta

and have her start taking that because the placenta is almost all blood. It's blood and collagen. That's like a, when you take your own placenta, you're getting like a blood collagen mineral supplement. That's what it is. And so that's one of the first things you should do is encapsulate your placenta and do that afterwards. And then what I would do is, again, I really like organ meats. And so I would say liver or you can take liver capsules or an organ capsule that has multiple organs together. I would do that. And then very similar thing to the last person, actually.

You just want to really build your blood. Okay. Now, platelets are a little different, but they're very similar. It's going to be similar food. So beetroot juice, a lot of grass-fed beef and bison and lamb. Cinnamon is another really good one to have postpartum. but that's what you want to do. You really want to do everything you can

to really build and strengthen the blood postpartum. That'll lead by far to the fastest healing. An acupuncture, I think, is really good as well if you want to get acupuncture. I really like that for helping. But supplements and organ supplement, organ blend. And then a blood builder. So you can get a blood builder, whether it be Floridex

or there's a number of them out there, but I would do something to help build the blood. How can I balance my hormones after having kids. You know, I think, you know, there's some overlap with some of these questions, but I would say with this one, get more healthy fats and don't overconsume carbohydrates.

I think that's one of the biggest things I see is when a mom, it's like, well, you're feeding your kid this, so you're going to eat that. And it's just there starts to be, you know, kids can handle more carbohydrates. I look at our three and a half year old, and it's like she could eat like a banana and an orange and a fruit, like, and she's just fine, right?

And I was like that as a kid, and I would never get tired. So for you, I would go high protein, moderate fat, low carb, generally speaking. So when you're eating a meal, get lots of protein and lots of meat, lots of vegetables. Berries are great. You can do some rice, sweet potato. You know, sweet potato tradition is actually very good for hormones as well. So sweet potato or yam, I think are very good. Now, now, there are a lot of herbs that I'm going to recommend now, too.

If you know you're a little bit higher on that stress level, which a lot of women are, they go and get into more of that fight or flight state because even even uh that maternal instincts of being the protector for their children and watch like cautiously watching out like you got your mom radar on and you know when there's about to be a kid falling off a you know a countertop you're in a fighter flight state so aschwaganda and adaptogenic herbs that kind of help lower those cortisol levels can be extremely beneficial so i would say ashwaganda would be number one on my list um in addition to that, I would say astragalus. It's

immune-related, but also it's hormone-related. I like Vitex a lot. Vitex or Chastberry, it's also named, is also kind of helps spring balance to those hormones after having kids. And you can take an adrenal blend. There's another one called Romagna,

R-E-H-M-A-N-N-I-A, that isn't really popular in the U.S., but I think it's very good for, it's really popular in China. One of the top five most prescribed herbs in all of Asia, but we just don't use it here that often, but it's a really good one for female hormones after birth, and if you feel like you're a little fatigued and you need to, you know, and stressed and you need help there. And then don quai. That's known as female ginseng, but it's a don quai. So those would be my top ones there,

I would say, for hormones after kids. Let me just give you my, aschwaganda first, don quay and Vitex. Those are the three I would take. Aschwaganda, Vitex, Donkwai. What are your thoughts on the HPV vaccine? Here's the reality that I want to share with you right now is that I can't actually tell you what I want to tell you about my views on this because this video will be banned. So what I can tell you is our daughters, Irwin and the one that's about to be born here any day now,

won't be getting it. But I can't tell you what you should think about it. But I can tell you our family won't be giving that to our kids. All right, a couple more questions. My teenage daughter is dealing with really severe cramps. Do you have any suggestions that aren't pills? I'm still going to give you an herb, but I am going to tell you some things you can do. It tends to be due to stress, okay?

So the more stress, the more severe the cramps. So everything you can do to help your daughter just lower those stress levels, you know, I think knowing that maybe where she's deficient, let's say she's a worrier, help her with worry. Maybe you spend some time as a family reading the Bible together. And you and your, you know, if you're married, your husband, you talk through some things that you need to do to help her with whatever unhealthy emotion she's experiencing. But I think there's a lot of emotions that are tied to cramps. And from a dietary perspective, you want to do a lot of, you know, you want to do very similar diet. I've talked about a lot.

You want to do a lot of meat, a lot of vegetables, a lot of fruit. and then things like sweet potatoes and rice, that's sort of the ideal diet, okay? If she's eating a lot of like cheese or anything she's allergic to, it's going to make it much worse. You know, dairy products especially when we're looking at cramps or wheat or gluten,

so staying away from those. From a supplement standpoint, cramp bark. It's literally called cramp bark. It's a Chinese medicine herb called cramp bark. It's the herb that's been prescribed for thousands of years for cramp bark. cramps. So that would be one I would recommend. Vitex is the other one. And then if she is maybe excess estrogen, milk thistles the other one. So those are the herbs I would recommend. These also can be

very effective sometimes for acne for young women. So that's what I would recommend. And if she's also losing some excess blood, she can do don quai. Another big one is magnesium. Okay, I would really recommend magnesium before she has her cramps coming on, have her start supplementing with magnesium days before she knows her cycle starting and take it throughout. So that would be another big one. But milk thistle, vitex, cramp bark. And if you also know she's got maybe excess estrogen, then milk thistle, that's what I would. And by the way, I know those are kind of pills.

Hey, if you don't want to pill, take those as a tea. Okay, you can get teas or a powder magnesium. So, all right, next question. I'm curious about working out and training throughout different stages of my cycle. Some days I feel way more ambitious and excited to work out than others. Should women do different exercises depending on the stage of their cycle? Yes. The answer is yes.

And so, by the way, my wife and I, we've actually talked about this. This was years ago on a podcast we did. And I've actually looked into the science of this. I've interviewed women in the past about this, hormonal experts, an endocrinologist. And basically, listen to your body. when you know you're going through that stage of your cycle where you're going to feel strong, do your leg day, do your butt day, lift heavier weights, do more hit training, do those things. And on days where you just feel weak and depleted, do a lighter exercise, you know,

do lighter weights, do body weight stuff, go on walks, do yoga, do Pilates, do Bar. Now, by the way, I'm not saying Pilate and Bar are easy, by the way. I think that sometimes they're less physiologically taxing because you aren't doing as many reps with, let's say, like, sometimes a bigger muscle group. But if you're doing very intense yoga and bar, then that can also be too depleting or bar or Pilates. So I would say that, yes, think about it. Be strategic about doing more heavyweight training and interval training cross-foot, those sort of workouts on those days where you feel like you have the most energy on the others. go for a light 20 minute peloton. You know, go for a walk, do a yoga class. I definitely think there is wisdom in doing that 100%. Hey, for all the women out there who've been watching this, hey, let me know

what your biggest takeaway was from the podcast and other questions or episodes you want me to cover in the future. And for men, hey, I hope you listened in on the needs of your women. So the next time your woman has a headache, you know what to do for her. If she has questions about her cramps, well, maybe you can be a little bit more sensitive and maybe, hey, even recommend some cramp bark. You know, maybe you just come in as a hero there and show up with some, you know, some with cramp bark Vitex or or Don Quai and, you know, be the hero of the day. So all that being said, hey, I appreciate everybody. Thanks so much for the comments.

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