If you're a human with social media curious about your health and hormones, then you've likely come across the buzzwords (buzz terms?) "hormonal imbalance". I've definitely come across it more times than I can count!
It's a bit of a catch-all term to explain everything from your mid-day slump and irritability to hot flashes and irregular periods.
I do believe it's brought a lot of much-needed attention to body literacy and trying to figure out symptoms that are getting in the way of life! However, I do think the widespread use of this very vague marketing term might be leading to missed opportunities to talk to your health team to get to the bottom of what's actually going on ... and perhaps a bit of predatory marketing (I do believe some of it is very well-intentioned!).
Let's dive a bit more into this.
The Good: Raising Awareness & Encouraging Advocacy
More conversations about hormonal health, PCOS, PMDD, perimenopause, infertility = good!
For too long, many people, particularly women and menstruators, have had their symptoms and health minimized and dismissed. The wellness space has really turned the tide here. Social media has done a great job at bringing more awareness and creating change; it's brought together community; it's shed light on things that were once taboo; it's given people language to advocate for themselves.
Not only that, there are some very good resources out there that help you understand, gain knowledge, help you identify weak areas, and even offer accountability or a plan to follow. These are great things!
The Concerning Side: Marketing Solutions that You May Not Need
That said, the pendulum sometimes swings too far in one direction if it was swinging in the opposite before. As such, these terms have become big marketing buzzwords to sell solutions that you may or may not need. Some, can even do harm. I see a lot of disordered eating being promoted online, which deeply concerns me. I also see a lot of "low-intensity exercise" or "don't do high-intensity exericse" kind of rhetoric, which is concerning because we have an epidemic of females not meeting the minimum exercise guidelines!
Don't get me wrong, sometimes the accountability and education piece is the solution you need to move the needle forward, for example, if you bought an online course or signed up for a nutrition or exercise program. However, there's a lot of misinformation (and, even disinformation), oftentimes very well-intentioned, that demonizes your very regular hormones that help you stay alive and well!
The truth is: that hormones naturally fluctuate--they're meant to do that! Even in perimenopause, when these hormones can fluctuate drastically, the change in menstrual cycles we see are expected. It doesn't meant that we don't support you, it simply means that testing your estrogen isn't of particular use--it doesn't tell us anything we don't already know (unless we're testing it for other reasons!).
We can hold all of these realities together! I simply want you to exercise critical thinking and make sure you're not spending your precious resources on things:
Getting Specific: Moving Beyond Generic Buzzwords
Hormonal imbalance can very likely be defined more specifically. For example, your severe heavy periods and mid-cycle spotting could be due to fibroids or endometriosis (and NOT "estrogen dominance"), or your irregular periods combined with fluid retention and cystic acne could be due to PCOS (and NOT "cortisol issues", although both could be true!), your hot flashes combined with infertility and spaced out menstrual cycles in your 30s could be primary ovarian insufficiency.
Rather than vague explanations of estrogen, cortisol, and hormone imbalance, we can say what's specifically going on, which means we support you more strategically as well!
Symptoms often labeled as "hormonal imbalance" include fatigue, bloating, water retention, hot flashes, acne, headaches, irregular periods, heavy bleeding, mid-cycle spotting, pelvic pain, and food cravings.
The key question isn't whether you experience these signs and symptoms, especially since some of these changes, if mild, can be part of natural hormonal fluctuations (especially as we age). We have to be curious about frequency, severity, impact on quality of life, your age, and then marry it with appropriate testing.
Balancing the Conversation On Hormone Balance
Listen, the goal here isn't to ignore your signs and symptoms, to suffer in silence, or to dismiss all of the information we have out there. It's to simply approach your health with a bit of reflection and curiosity, and take the offered solution with a grain of salt! I've fallen prey to many a marketing materials, so I TOTALLY GET IT (yup, I'm human too haha!)--don't feel bad if you have too! Do your best and bring topics you're curious about with your health team. My job involves a lot of back and forth with patients to talk these things through, and sometimes, we simply speculate together because we don't have full answers (yet), and that's okay too. As long as we're making informed decisions, that's the way forward.
If you're looking to see an ND to walk alongside you and to talk through things with, you can book in here.
Aaaand, if you liked this blog post, then The Period Literacy Handbook has lots more to chew on so you can make the best decisions for YOU!
