When a woman's hormones change
He does not answer this with an age, which is the first useful thing about it.
Dr. Martin on the three events:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 869I've talked a lot about this, but there are three hormonal events in a woman's life, the first time they experience menses, first time they have their period, having a baby, and menopause.
Three, and menopause is the last of them. That is why he is so unimpressed by the idea that a woman's hormone story begins at 50. By then two of the three have usually already happened.
He adds a comparison that puts it in scale. Men, he says, do not have to go through stuff like that.
Dr. Martin on what those events can do:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 869That can be an enormous shock to a woman.
And then, immediately, the qualifier that keeps him honest.
Dr. Martin on how varied it is:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 869Now, some women fly through that.
He uses turbulence as his picture for this. Some women get smooth skies the whole way. Regular periods, maybe one heavy day, otherwise fine. Which means your sister's experience is not evidence about yours, in either direction.
Event one, the first period
The first one is the one nobody counts, because it happened forty or fifty years ago.
He says it often started right there. Women came to him with bad periods, and when he took the history it had been that way since the beginning. Heavy bleeding. A week of dread beforehand. Skin that broke out. He describes patients whose mood dropped so far in the week before a period that it frightened them.
What he is pointing at is a pattern with a long history rather than a new problem. If the balance was off at fifteen, the same tendency is usually still in the picture at sixty, and it makes more sense of the last decade than menopause alone does.
Event two, having a baby
The second is the one with an actual mechanism attached, and it is the least known of the three.
His explanation is that the progesterone is left in the placenta. The placenta becomes a major source of progesterone during a pregnancy, and when it goes, that supply goes with it. The body has to make its own again, and he says it does not always come straight back to where it was.
Which gives you an estrogen side that is unchanged and a progesterone side that is short. The same imbalance he talks about at 60, arriving at 32.
"Women, it's a tightrope."
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 869Event three, menopause
He treats menopause as turbulence rather than an arrival. The plane is still flying. The air got rough.
He is also direct about the conclusion everyone jumps to, which is that falling estrogen is the problem and estrogen is therefore the answer. His answer to that is no. What you need, in his framing, is balance between estrogen and progesterone, and you need it at every one of the three events, the first period, the baby, and menopause or the years leading into it.
If your question is whether menopause can still be going on well past the age everyone quotes, that one is can you still be in menopause at 70.
Nothing here is a reason to start or stop anything a doctor has prescribed. Talk to your doctor first.
Why it is a tightrope and not a switch
Underneath all three events is one fact he keeps coming back to.
Dr. Martin on how a woman's body runs:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 869Women, your body is an estrogen driven body.
Your body wants estrogen, he says. That is not a complaint. Compare it to a man's, where on his description there is no balance to keep, just testosterone and more of it being better. A system built on a ratio can go wrong in ways a system built on one number cannot.
And because he gets accused of being anti-estrogen, he says the opposite outright.
Dr. Martin on estrogen itself:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 869Estrogen makes you a woman.
Estrogen on its own is a beautiful thing, he says, and you need it. It becomes a problem when it is out of balance. He taught that to physicians, endocrinologists and gynecologists, and says he was never trying to remove estrogen, he was trying to bring it back into proportion.
What changes after 60
By 60 all three events are usually behind you, and what is left is whatever balance they left in place.
Both hormones are lower than they were. That is not the interesting part to him. The interesting part is that they rarely came down together, and progesterone is usually the one that fell furthest. So the ratio can be more lopsided at 65 than it was at 45, even with both numbers looking small on a report.
That is the whole of what estrogen dominance means after 60, and it is why a low estrogen reading does not close the question for him.
What he would do
Food first, because insulin is a hormone and it sits in the middle of the same chart. Then the liver, since that is where excess estrogen is cleared and where most of your T4 becomes T3. Then the estrogen load coming in from outside, from plastics and chemicals your body reads as estrogen.
The thyroid is downstream of all of it, which is why he ends up there so often, and that argument is the thyroid never acts on its own. For the wider hormone picture, including the cholesterol argument that gets tangled up in it, there is the whole cholesterol thing is a hoax.
None of this is a diagnosis, and nothing here is an instruction to start or stop anything you have been prescribed.
Common questions
When do a woman's hormones start changing?
He names three events: the first period, having a baby, and menopause. On his framing the first one is where it starts, not the last one.
Does everyone get hormone symptoms?
No. He says some women fly through it, with what he calls smooth skies. Regular periods, maybe one heavy day, and otherwise fine.
Why do hormones go off after a baby?
He says the progesterone is left in the placenta, so the body has to make it again from scratch. That is his explanation for why the balance can sit wrong afterwards.
Is menopause the end of hormone changes?
He treats it as one of three events rather than the only one, and as turbulence rather than an ending.
Why are women affected more than men?
Because a woman's body is an estrogen driven body, so it is a balance. He says a man's body is not looking for estrogen, it is looking for testosterone, which makes it a much cruder system.
Read next: Why Am I Still Having Hot Flashes At 60? and Should A Woman Over 60 Take Estrogen?.
Work on the balance
Martin Clinic's Hormonal Support Formula is built for the pair, estrogen and progesterone sitting right against each other, which is the thing he says goes off at all three events.
60-day money-back guarantee.These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Always consult your healthcare practitioner before starting a new supplement, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition.
