Listen up, parents! If your daughter is experiencing irregular periods, I’m here to tell you not to panic. Don’t start pumping them with meds. It’s a common occurrence, and believe it or not, there are natural remedies that can help regulate your daughter’s menstrual cycle.
Firstly, let’s talk about what causes irregular periods in teenagers. This can be due to a variety of reasons, including excessive exercise, very high or very low body weight, thyroid disorders, certain medications, hormone imbalances, and not consuming enough calories. It could also be caused by a condition called dysfunctional uterine bleeding (DUB), which occurs when the ovaries fail to release an egg, leading to irregular or heavy periods. It’s important for parents and teenagers to understand that irregular periods are a normal part of growing up, especially in the first few years after getting a period.
Now, let’s talk about what we can do to help manage irregular periods. The first and most important thing to do is to make some changes to diet and lifestyle. I firmly believe that many health issues can be solved with natural remedies, and irregular periods are no exception.
One natural remedy that has been shown to help regulate menstrual cycles is bananas. Yes, you heard me right, bananas! Bananas are rich in vitamin B6, which can help regulate blood sugar levels and support the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that can help with menstrual mood swings. Additionally, bananas are a good source of potassium, which can help reduce water retention and bloating, both of which are common symptoms of irregular periods.
So, if your daughter is struggling with irregular periods, I highly recommend incorporating bananas into her diet. It’s worth giving it a try for 60 days to see if it makes a difference.
And let’s not forget the importance of understanding and managing menstrual irregularities. It can be a stressful and confusing time for teenagers, so providing them with the knowledge and support they need is crucial.
In conclusion, irregular periods are a normal part of a girl’s journey into womanhood, and there are natural remedies that can help. Bananas are just one example of a natural remedy that may help regulate menstrual cycles. So, don’t panic, parents! With a little understanding, support, and the right lifestyle changes, your daughter can navigate her way through this phase with ease. And remember, when in doubt, go bananas!
If you are also struggling with irregular periods, do try eating bananas for 60 days
Anemic women continue to have periods all the time.
This is a bit of a complex answer. There tends to be heavy menstruation when iron is low in women. One could think this is obvious as red blood cells contain iron and the woman is loosing these red blood cells. The relationship is not that simple and female physiology is not always so nice. It has repetitively been my clinical experience that supplementing, with therapeutic dosages of the components the body needs to make red blood cells as well as being mindful of supplementing what the body needs to utilize those nutrients, leads to less heavy periods in a matter of months. This tends to result in reduction of many symptoms that can in many instances be related to low blood supply (ex. Fatigue, lightheadedness, heavy menstrual flow, irregular periods, prolonged menstrual flow). In extreme cases, people may start blacking out, “seeing stars”, or starting to fall asleep while driving. Of course, there are cases where any of these symptoms could have another cause.
There are many factors to consider with red blood cells. People need iron, vitamin B12, & folate to make a red blood cell. Folic acid is a synthetic form of folate and does not act exactly the same as folate in the body.
Vitamin B12 & folate are methylated as part of the biochemical process they do through to be utilized correctly. This means a methyl group is added to the vitamin. An enzyme is used in this process. However, many people have DNA that codes for an enzyme that isn’t able to add the methyl group. It causes more trouble if both of the areas of DNA that code for enzymes, that attach a methyl group to one of these vitamins, produce a defective enzyme. Fortunately, there are methylated forms of vitamin B12 & folate that can be supplemented.
Iron is a complex issue of it’s own. All the pharmaceutical irons I have come across have been constipating forms which often leads to anemic people refusing to take iron. There are less constipating forms.
The other issue is that vitamin C needs to be adequate when one is taking iron. Many people are very low in vitamin C. A very common and overlooked symptom of low vitamin C is capillary fragility (ie. easy bruising). This is why I bang my arm against the table in every new patient visit. I never get a bruise from this though when I had heavy periods I would get bruises without even knowing where they came from. So many women have bruised so easily since they were young that directly asking this question without a demonstration is of little clinical value.
I have come across at least 1 study with results demonstrating even when iron is injected into the body, iron levels do not go up without adequate vitamin C. Vitamin C tends to move the bowels though certain forms tend to be better tolerated in the high doses that demonstrate therapeutic effect in a reasonable amount of time. Therapeutic doesn’t not usually equal the amount a supplement bottle says to take. If it did, many people would experience harm from supplements they got at a grocery store or supplement store. Therapeutic dosage means a dosage a doctor prescribes to a particular individual, for often only a set period of time, to treat a particular condition based on many facts about that particular individual.
Testing for iron levels is a little complex for multiple reasons. Serum iron is a snap shot of how much iron happens to be in a person’s blood stream. Ferritin is a marker of iron stores, but it is also a marker of inflammation. I usually order inflammatory markers if I am ordering labs including ferritin so that I know if inflammation is increasing ferritin levels independent of how much iron is currently stored in the body.
The other issue is that lab value ranges tend to be based on averages for the population. While this is an improvement over a few years ago, the lab ranges for iron and ferritin are only slightly above what clinical manuals would suggest to be the threshold to not have to send someone for an emergency iron infusion. This leads to lots of medical conditions resulting from low iron getting treated in a manor that does not address the root cause of the conditions when they have resulted from inadequate blood supply (ie. inadequate oxygen to all the tissues of the body). That being said, there is something else to consider. Low vitamin B12, low folate, or low iron could result in low blood supply or anemia. However, if a women is menstruating heavily for a long period, she must be loosing all the iron that is contained in those cells.
With standard yearly labs, iron and ferritin levels are almost always not tested. A CBC (complete blood count) lab test is usually used to determine if an individual is anemic. Anemia means that hemoglobin, hematocrit, or red blood cell levels are below a certain level per milliliter of blood. There is a problem with assuming everything is fine if the CBC looks normal.
As a doctor, I am very concerned if the area of the fingernail, between the part that is typically clipped off the nail and the little half moon at the bottom, looks pale. The red color demonstrated in a healthy fingernail bed is red due to the presence of blood. Blood should be able to make it all the way out to below the fingernails. Also, I check if the mucous membranes of the lower eye lids to see if they are pale. This is the same idea. There should be enough blood supply for the body to be able to work against gravity and get blood up to an individual’s head when that person is upright. This is why lightheadedness even when just from getting up from chairs and cold hands can be signs of inadequate blood volume. When the body has inadequate red blood cells it often lowers the total body blood volume. This is why when these issues get to extremes, people will often say they have had unpleasant experiences with blood draws previously as they had to get stuck many times. Even a highly trained phlebotomist can’t get water from an empty well. In a state of low blood volume, the body prioritizes the blood going to the heart and lungs. This is great as it is good not to die. However, in this state the rest of the body suffers.
In women in their reproductive years that I have treated with therapeutic doses of iron, vitamin B12, folate, and vitamin C for menorrhagia (heavy menstrual flow), it seems they have adequate progesterone on retesting even if they had low progesterone prior to the therapeutic nutrient supplementation time period. That is not to say this will be true in every case and that there can not be more rare causes of heavy menstrual bleeding. However, low progesterone is associated with heavy menstrual bleeding. Estrogen tends to help signal the body to put the blood in the uterus and the progesterone tends to signal the body to keep it there. In a regular cycle, the progesterone drops at the right time and the blood starts flowing out of the uterus once the progesterone levels get sufficiently low. In a regular cycle (about 28 days in most women), progesterone levels are very low for the first half of the cycle. Day 1 of a menstrual cycle is the first day that a woman starts having menstrual flow. Perhaps the initial cause of the low progesterone in young women in their reproductive years tends to initially be due to inadequate blood supply which can be linked to not enough of certain nutrients to meet the needs.
In my clinical experience, there are a good number of children that aren’t always getting everything their body needs to expand in adequate amounts. When a mother brings her daughter in for heavy periods, even right after her first period, the young lady’s fingernails tend to be pale. Iron levels, hematocrit, hemoglobin, or red blood cell levels can be too high. When this happens outside of inappropriate supplementation, this is much more common in men with particular disorders. When an individual presents in my office with multiple clinical signs typical of low blood supply including pale fingernail beds, pale lower eye lid mucous membranes, fatigue, and lightheadedness it becomes hard to argue that there is not inadequate blood supply. This is not an invitation to self treat. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could stay up all night long if I really wanted to get into all the details of heavy menstrual flow and what treatment is typically appropriate. The other concern, is that individuals either supplement too little or supplement too much for so long that it can be dangerous. This is why it is important for individuals to follow-up with their doctors not only when they don’t feel good, but additionally when a doctor has expressed follow-up is necessary. However, it can be a great idea to see if there is a Licensed Naturopathic Doctor in the area that can discuss this if an individual is not already at a point where emergency care is needed. With frightening symptoms, such as blacking out, safe is better than sorry. That is why 911 exists. If an individual is in Oregon or Washington, they can set up an appointment with me (503–828–9265).
Don’t start pumping them with meds Believe it or not, there are natural remedies that can help regulate your daughter's menstrual cycle.
