Ahh this is an interesting read. I’ve written so much about hormones, the menstrual cycle, my own journey and a recent 3 part series of an interview I did as part of sharing my menstrual journey and story.
Through the lens of migraine (and it sounds similar for AS), those of us who experience migraine attacks either before or as our period starts (then plenty of us experience attack as it ends too) have a lower dip in oestrogen at this time than those who don’t.
Menstrual migraine is the most severe and disabling of all attacks, the most difficult and challenging to overcome and the most medication resistant. I imagine this is in no way dissimilar to other auto-immune conditions.
The angle I went down was to look into hormonal imbalance as the cause and taught myself to rebalance my hormones. Through reading the book “balance your hormones, balance your life”. It’s a big read and a lot of what you share here are ways to rebalance your hormones. So the good news is you’re already on that path - which, for me, made it somewhat easier to digest what I was reading and go ahead making the teeny tiny changes I had started with and really commit to those for as long as it took.
It’s a long term approach, took me 3-5 years but I do live a balanced life now and what felt like a 24/7 job (for 4 years) eventually became my way of life from year 4 onwards.
Doctors receive little to no training in hormones and as you rightly say, it is complex. Its helped me to understand that doctors are there to save lives and help us treat disease. They’re not there to help us create health - learning to create health is something that we can do for ourselves. (Though I appreciate we have years of gaslighting, dismissal and misdiagnosis to contend with too as well as lives lost and to then have to take radical ownership of this is massive). It is possible and the pay offs are big.
Thank you so much Amber, this is super helpful. I'm going to look into this more. I need all the help I can get to feel better in a more holistic way and hormones seem to be a huge chunk of that. Thanks for the book recommendation and I look forward to reading your articles about it too!
The game changer for me back in my disability days was learning to tune in to my own body and allowing it to lead the way.
Drowning out the noise of everyone else and doing this is the single most biggest thing I am proud of myself for in my entire life and I do not believe it will be beaten for as long as I continue to live.
I'm finding this to be so true. Our bodies do really seem to hold so much wisdom and know what it needs to heal. I'm slowly trying to learn to tune in and listen. I know it will be a bit of a journey but it's worth it!
Ahh this is an interesting read. I’ve written so much about hormones, the menstrual cycle, my own journey and a recent 3 part series of an interview I did as part of sharing my menstrual journey and story.
Through the lens of migraine (and it sounds similar for AS), those of us who experience migraine attacks either before or as our period starts (then plenty of us experience attack as it ends too) have a lower dip in oestrogen at this time than those who don’t.
Menstrual migraine is the most severe and disabling of all attacks, the most difficult and challenging to overcome and the most medication resistant. I imagine this is in no way dissimilar to other auto-immune conditions.
The angle I went down was to look into hormonal imbalance as the cause and taught myself to rebalance my hormones. Through reading the book “balance your hormones, balance your life”. It’s a big read and a lot of what you share here are ways to rebalance your hormones. So the good news is you’re already on that path - which, for me, made it somewhat easier to digest what I was reading and go ahead making the teeny tiny changes I had started with and really commit to those for as long as it took.
It’s a long term approach, took me 3-5 years but I do live a balanced life now and what felt like a 24/7 job (for 4 years) eventually became my way of life from year 4 onwards.
Doctors receive little to no training in hormones and as you rightly say, it is complex. Its helped me to understand that doctors are there to save lives and help us treat disease. They’re not there to help us create health - learning to create health is something that we can do for ourselves. (Though I appreciate we have years of gaslighting, dismissal and misdiagnosis to contend with too as well as lives lost and to then have to take radical ownership of this is massive). It is possible and the pay offs are big.
Thank you so much Amber, this is super helpful. I'm going to look into this more. I need all the help I can get to feel better in a more holistic way and hormones seem to be a huge chunk of that. Thanks for the book recommendation and I look forward to reading your articles about it too!
The game changer for me back in my disability days was learning to tune in to my own body and allowing it to lead the way.
Drowning out the noise of everyone else and doing this is the single most biggest thing I am proud of myself for in my entire life and I do not believe it will be beaten for as long as I continue to live.
I'm finding this to be so true. Our bodies do really seem to hold so much wisdom and know what it needs to heal. I'm slowly trying to learn to tune in and listen. I know it will be a bit of a journey but it's worth it!
It’s quite the journey but one I wouldn’t change for anything 🌷🦋