Age & fertility

Something that really plays on my mind alot is my age.

I am 37.  My journey with PCOS began at puberty but didn't really manifest as symptomatic until my early 20's.  I was officially diagnosed at 29 and got married and started TTC when I was 30.  I didn't want to be having children past 35, I was determined to have completed my family by then.

Since my miscarriages, I have had a real hangup about my age and today I read an article that had been posted on Facebook about maternal age.  Any pregnant woman who is over 35 is classified by the medical profession as having a "Geriatric Pregnancy".

AT 35!!!!

So that makes me feel even worse about my age now.  Isn't it already difficult enough to deal with our emotions and thoughts without being labelled by doctors as geriatric?  It's just terrible.  If any doctor starts calling me a geriatric once I do finally become pregnant they will get a mouthful of obscenities.

I found this lovely affirmation today that I want to use anytime I start feeling the anxiety and stress about being my age and being childless:

I love and approve of myself.
I am loving.
I am lovable.
The source of love is within me.
I enjoy hugs.
I am happy.
I am effective.
Every age is beautiful.
Each moment in life is perfect.
I resolve the past.
I live in the NOW.
I am young again.
I allow myself to enjoy life.
I am safe.
My mind is flexible.
My mind is open.
I give freely.

DIM/I3C update

I have been taking DIM/I3C for about a month now and I can happily say that I think it has had a positive effect on my menstrual cycle.  This new cycle, while still being a heavy one, is definitely less clotted than usual and far less painful.

One thing I have noticed is that I didn't get any of the usual breast tenderness during the luteal phase (the last two weeks of the cycle before a new period starts).  At first I just thought I hadn't ovulated, but what if the tablets had something to do with it?

I have also been taking Saw Palmetto for the last couple of weeks, perhaps that had an effect too.

Very interesting!

I will need to buy some more DIM/I3C shortly and double the dosage and (if finances will allow it) I will also buy Serratiopeptidase to try as it should reduce the heavy bleeding and clotting even further.  These supplements are only temporary solutions until I can find a way to reduce the bleeding and clotting naturally through altering my diet.

I'm still here

This blog hasn't died, I have just been busy the last week or two with work.  I have changed to another department at the huge store I work in so there are lots of problems that need sorting out.  I also have stocktake coming up next month so need to make sure my department is super tidy and ready to be counted!  I get the feeling that it's not going to be a good result but I have to just do the best I can.

I have a few posts sitting in draft mode at the moment which I am slowly working on as they are pretty big topics to cover, the major ones being about detoxification.  I am planning to do a big detox in September when I have 2 weeks holiday booked.  It seems like the perfect time to do it as this is when the Christmas stock will be arriving at work and we will be ramping up to the silly season.

While at work on Sunday I realised something which made me feel really sad.

My period arrived on Saturday and was just some dark spotting, then yesterday it had progressed to light bleeding while at work.  I found myself wondering what I would do if I was in the situation again that I was suffering a miscarriage while at work.  Who would I call for help?  If I was locked in a cubicle in the public bathroom (customers constantly going in and out), would I tell one of them what was happening?  Or would I just ask someone to go ask for my supervisor, who knows my history of PCOS and miscarriages?

It made my heart sink to even need to think of something like that.  If I was a super fertile who popped one baby out after another, threatened miscarriage would most likely be the furthest thing from my mind.  It makes me wonder how comfortable and easy it must be to be that person.  If/when I ever do become pregnant again, I will not be able to avoid living in fear of losing my baby, I will most likely be on a constant state of alert for any signs that things are not right.  That is just horrible and sad to not be able to relax and enjoy the pregnancy.

Saw Palmetto & 5α-Reductase

Today I was listening to Jon Gabriel talking to Dr Howard Liebowitz about hormones and the role they play in weight gain.  They had a question from a listener who has PCOS and one of her symptoms is facial hair.

I have underlined the really important parts of the transcript of the discussion relevant to Saw Palmetto and an enzyme called 5α-Reductase:


JON: Okay. So, hirsutism is facial hair for everyone that’s listening.

DR LIEBOWITZ: What she’s describing are a number of the diagnostic criteria for a condition call polycystic ovary syndrome, and the polycystic ovary syndrome is a very, very frustrating syndrome because it’s part of the syndrome that’s insulin-resistance in obesity.

And what happens is, the ovaries are making a lot of cysts and they’re not ovulating on a normal schedule. They’re not making the normal rhythmic patterns of hormones, and when the hormones are irregular like this it produces, like we were talking before, it can produce stress in the body and abnormal cortisol levels and abnormal hormone levels and all sorts of things like that.

Patients like this are very, very challenging. To me, what a lot of doctors will do for them is put them on the birth control pill and, again, what

they’re doing is just treating the symptoms and that doesn’t really correct anything, it just gets the ovaries to stop functioning. Now, sometimes women will feel better on the birth control pill and their skin might get better, but it usually doesn’t help them lose weight and it doesn’t correct the problem.

What I try to do is I actually look at the hormones and try to get their hormones balanced. Oftentimes, these women have very low estrogen and they often have high androgens which are male hormones. So they have high levels of testosterone and DHEA and they also have a high enzyme called five alpha reductase. So, in other words, they’re converting more estrogen into testosterone, and what I try to do is to balance them and get their testosterone levels down and raise their estrogen levels, and many times that helps a lot.

It depends on how -- there’s all sorts of different levels of this condition. It could be mild to severe, and I’ve seen young girls with this who don’t look abnormal at all, and I’ve seen other girls who are very overweight and have a lot of facial hair and acne and obesity.

JON: So how do you treat the -- how can you lower the testosterone level?

DR LIEBOWITZ: I often give them five alpha reductase blockers. Saw palmetto is one. Beta sitosterols will do it, too, and if it’s very severe I’ll go into the prescription like the propecia and things like that.

JON: Okay. All right. So basically what you’re saying, for people who are listening, is that their testosterone levels are too high because they’ve got an enzyme converting estrogen to testosterone; is that right?
DR LIEBOWITZ: Yeah.

JON: The five alpha reductase.

DR LIEBOWITZ: And also their ovaries are producing too much testosterone as well.

JON: Okay. All right. So what would you recommend? She’s in Belgium. What would you recommend for her to do?

DR LIEBOWITZ: Well, there’s actually a fantastic hormone doctor in Belgium that I know. A Dr. Thierry Hertoghe, H-E-R-T-O-G-H-E, and he’s in -- what’s the capital of Belgium, do you know? Brussels.

JON: Brussels, yeah.

DR LIEBOWITZ: Yeah, I think he’s in Brussels. Thierry, T-H-I-E-R-R-Y, Hertoghe. He’s absolutely a brilliant hormone specialist and he has a clinic there and he would probably be able to help her.


So, ladies, if any of you are lucky enough to live close to Belgium, look up Dr Thierry Hurtogh!

But for those of us who aren't so lucky, there are other things we can do to REDUCE the amount of 5α-Reductase enzyme.

As Dr Liebowitz says:

• 5α-Reductase enzyme converts oestrogen into testosterone
• when we are experiencing too much oestrogen in our bodies, this enzyme is converting the oestrogen into even more testosterone, which in turn stimulates excess facial hair.

What does Saw Palmetto have to do with this?

Saw Palmetto is a 5α-Reductase inhibitor, meaning that it decreases the levels of available testosterone that binds itself to the enzyme.  When the binding of the hormone to the enzyme is prevented, this reduces the amount of dihydrotestosterone (DIH - the stronger form of testosterone).

So what else can we do to reduce the amount of 5α-Reductase?

• Cutting out dairy is number one
• Drink 2 cups of spearmint tea every day

Cutting out dairy

I have read many times from different sources that we should be cutting dairy products from our diets.
If only it was that easy!  I love my dairy!  I love cheese and cream and milk and yoghurt.  After 37 years of consuming dairy, I can't imagine trying to give it up :-(
But today I finally found out WHY it is important to kick dairy products to the kerb:

Milk, cheese and butter contain a substance called insulin-like growth factor ( IGF-1), which is similar in structure to insulin.  Its insulin-like properties mean it can stimulate storage of glucose in fat cells and can trigger increased production of testosterone.

We all produce a certain amount of IGF-1 in our bodies, with levels peaking in puberty (when we tend to get acne) but usually declining as we get older.  However, tests have shown that women with PCOS are more sensitive to IGF-1.  IGF-1 is involved in the maturing of the follicles on the ovary and stimulates the production of male hormones from the ovaries, increasing androgen production from the adrenal glands.  It specifically stimulates an enzyme called 5 Alpha Reductase, which converts testosterone to its stronger form DHT (dihydrotestosterone), causing acne and hirsutism in people with PCOS.

(page 50-51 of Natural Solutions to PCOS by Marilyn Glenville PhD)

In summary:

• Women with PCOS are more sensitive to IGF-1
• We all produce a certain amount of IGF-1 in our bodies. 
• When we consume more IGF-1 than our bodies need, it stimulates the production of male hormones
• IGF-1 specifically stimulates production of an enzyme called 5 alpha reductase
• 5 alpha reductase converts testosterone into its stronger form DHT
• DHT causes acne and hirsutism

This Youtube video also explains IGF-1 and dairy.  It also has some interesting info on Soy and why soy can be good for us if we eat the right type.  I will do a separate post on soy soon:

FAT triggers

The Gabriel Method uses an acronym called FAT.

FAT doesn't mean "fat", but it does refer to fat gain.

FAT stands for "Famine And Temperature".

Think about how our ancestors, tens/hundreds of thousands of years ago, lived in the wild. 

Before the domestication of animals, they had to hunt.  So they had to be fit enough to chase and catch their prety.

They were also the hunted.  In many places there were wild animals that were bigger and faster than humans.  Humans tasted really good to these guys!

There was also the risk of starvation, either due to famine or the weather.  When winter set in (or an Ice Age!) food was scarce, fruits were difficult to find because plants weren't producing them and animals were difficult to find as well because they went into hibernation or they migrated to places with warmer climates.

So basically, you were either facing the risk of being eaten, not having enough to eat, or freezing to death. 

These days, mostly in First World countries, we don't have to face those risks.  We don't have to dodge lions (unless you are in Africa!), you don't face starvation, and (hopefully) you aren't going to freeze to death because we live in houses and we wear warm clothes.

Despite not having to deal with those risks anymore, our bodies still respond to a multitude of stresses that it INTERPRETS as either Famine or Temperature triggers.

Any time we are feeling a LACK of anything - a lack of money, having no job, no transport, no housing, love, appreciation, creative expression, friendship - our brains (the hypothalamus to be precise) emit a stress hormone which the cells of our bodies interpret as Famine and we GAIN weight.

Any time we are feeling negatively stressed - our jobs are under threat, we are facing eviction, our boss or spouse or neighbour is always yelling at us, there may have been rape or physical abuse - our brains release more stress hormone which the cells interpret as feeling UNSAFE.  To try to create a safer environment, a "buffer", our bodies will GAIN weight.

But there are some other environmental stresses that cause us to gain weight too.

One of those stresses is HORMONAL.  If you are taking a medication such as the Pill, or HRT, or anti-depressants, in fact any pharmaceutical drug, your body can interpret that as a stress that causes you to gain weight.

Another type of environmental stress is TOXINS.  The human body is not designed to process artificial flavourings and preservatives.  It doesn't know what to do with them so it can store these toxins in the cells, and then it will want to gain more fat to make storage for the toxins.

Toxins also trigger INFLAMMATORY responses (which I posted about previously) such as asthma, ADD, eczema, depression.

So it is really important to avoid eating artificially flavoured, highly processed foods. 

Possibly the most important FAT trigger is NUTRITIONAL FAMINE.  If you are consuming alot of processed foods (pies, chips/crisps, fries, chocolate, sugared drinks, alcohol - basically anything that has been changed from its natural form!) you are probably suffering from nutritional famine because all the goodness has been stripped out of the fruit/vegetables/meat and highly processed until it no longer resembles what it once was.  Nutritional famine is exactly what it says - a type of Famine!

So if you are starving yourself of the nutrients it needs every day, the FAT switch is going to be flipped and your body is going to start gaining weight, storing every bit of fat you swallow.

More to come....