Traditional Chinese Medical wisdom reminds us that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a hurricane halfway around the world. The admonition is to remember the cascading effects on a person’s health with just the smallest alteration to the body. For us Oriental Medical Doctors health is maintained by attaining a delicate balance of yin and yang energies.
Blooming orchids sway in the early morning breeze in our clinic’s consultation area located under the shade of a huge Ficus Benjamin. The waiting area is filled with women suffering from many different symptoms. A young female adolescent is here with her parents who are concerned that their daughter is showing signs of sexual maturation at age nine. I see swollen legs on another woman suffering from water retention while her waist and hips sag from the stored fat.
Women have come to our clinic because of sluggish blood circulation, debilitating migraine headaches; others are here because fibroids and endometriosis is making getting pregnant difficult. Others are here for looking for help with mood swings. Some slightly older women are here with open leg sores developed because their small arteries have clotted impairing their circulation. I recognize a woman who has had a slight stroke and wants our help to prevent another.
Today is another day of helping these women to get a control of their sex hormones. Most women in our Western cultures are estrogen dominant, but there are aspects that are worsening the situation. I never would want to take away a woman’s right to take charge of her body to take steps to avoid unplanned pregnancies or reduce the symptoms of menopause. The ability of synthetic estrogen drugs to prevent unplanned pregnancies and reduce menopause symptoms might be reassuring to many women, but the side effects can be devastating.
Many women who use hormone drugs complain of severe abdominal pain that cannot be explained by food intake or stomach flu; severe or sudden chest pain or shortness of breath; unusual or suddenly severe headaches with dizziness or vomiting; eye problems that include blurred vision, flashing lights or blindness; severe leg pain or numbness in the calf or thigh. Other women will complain of nausea; skin changes; and weight change or fluid retention. Hormone replacement (HRT) for menopause, “The Pill”, especially the latest “patch” that limit your cycle to only four periods a year contain large amounts of estrogen that will increase your risk of heart attacks, breast cancers, strokes and pulmonary embolism.
Worse of all for many women and men, birth control pills or the “patch” mask the ovarian function, floods your body with excessive estrogen that thickens your vaginal lining and chills up your G-spot and epicenter nerves due to insufficient testosterone and kills the secretion during sex of the orgasm hormone, Oxytocin, from the pituitary gland. You can be very wet but cannot get an orgasm.
Many young women who are using birth control pills to control their menstrual cycles, irregular bleeding, cysts, or endometriosis are headed to more problems. Birth control pills never correct the underlying dysfunction. It is essential to balance the adrenal glands in these situations, as cortisol levels modulate and control the female hormones, especially progesterone. Most of the menstrual problems, but certainly not all, are related to low progesterone levels in the last half of the cycle.
Oral contraceptives and HRT are synthetic hormones that the body is not designed to be exposed to. Long term use will invariably increase the user’s risk of developing serious chronic illness. It is important to remember that synthetic hormone drugs can deplete your body of B – complex vitamins, folic acid, vitamin C, magnesium and zinc.
The use of birth control pills is a major risk factor for developing yeast overgrowth because it promotes estrogen dominance. Because birth control pills give a woman’s hormonal system a continual stream of estrogen, an imbalance is created. The yeast, Candida albicans, generally makes its home in the digestive tract. But, in a modern society where common lifestyle choices for women include birth control pills, antibiotics, a highly refined bread and sugar diet, coupled with high stress levels, Candida overgrowth can have wide-ranging effects causing problems far beyond the common vaginal infection.
Symptoms ranging from migraines to infertility, endometriosis, psoriasis, PMS, depression, fibromyalgia, digestive disorders and many other seemingly unrelated health problems have been attributed to yeast overgrowth. Our clinical results show that treating yeast overgrowth with colon hydrotherapy and dietary changes often alleviates these symptoms. These symptoms can be so widespread that it is difficult for patients and most doctors to comprehend that this is could be related to one underlying cause.
Get the Point! In my professional opinion, birth control pills or hormone replacement for menopause have absolutely no therapeutic benefit that outweighs their huge risks. In our clinic we ask all of our patients to stop them at the end of their current cycle. I am sympathetic to couples who want to avoid unplanned pregnancies and women who want to lessen their hot flashes. I concede that synthetic estrogen drugs have provided an easy, but unsafe means to family planning and lessening menopause symptoms. There are numerous safe and effective ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies and lower the symptoms of menopause. A synthetic estrogen hormone pill might be a small flutter in your day that could be causing your medical hurricane.
CARLOS VIANA, Ph. D. is an Oriental Medical Doctor (O.M.D.) having studied in China; a US Board Cert. Clinical Nutritionist (C.C.N.), an Addiction Professional (C.Ad.), Chairperson of the Latin American Committee of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT), a Rejuvenating Cell Therapist specializing in Age Management, has a weekly radio program, writes and lectures extensively. For information: VIANA HEALING CENTER, Kibaima 7, St Cruz TEL: 585-1270 Web Site: www.vianaheal.com
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