Give us a call on
020 7096 0283
A large number of our patients come to us with irregular periods, who commonly complain about: irregular periods, missing periods, uncertain or missing ovulation, dryness underneath, hot flashes, night sweats, prolonged bleeding, and mood swings, among other symptoms associated with missing periods.
Hormonal imbalance is, by far, the main reason why women have irregular periods.
Some of our patients will have already done some hormone tests and had found out this is why they had been having irregular periods. Those who haven’t get them done after consulting us.
Hormonal imbalance that impacts periods mainly takes on one of two forms:
Other hormone imbalances can include high prolactin, which can suppress ovulation, and both hypo- and hyperthyroidism, which can disrupt or suppress ovulation.
There is evidence to suggest that stress can suppress circulating gonadotropins and gonadal steroid hormones, which then disrupts the normal menstrual cycle. In extreme cases such as prolonged exposure, stress can lead to the complete impairment of reproductive function.
Our clinical experience seems to support this: Patients who come to us who have had no periods for a long time have reported they had experienced extreme stress, such as a loved one’s death.
The short answer is: not necessarily.
Patients who have highly irregular or missing periods tell us that their doctors did some tests on them and found that their FSH is high. Many are told, straight away, that they have premature primary ovarian failure: They are told they are premature because they have not reached the common age for menopause, which is 51; some of our patients as young as in their late 20s were (incorrectly) told they were going into ovarian failure. Upon diagnosis, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is routinely offered.
Upon further investigation, we found that many of our patients who’ve gone through this are under 40, and that more than half of them still have periods — albeit highly irregular, typically every 2 to 3 months.
As, technically, menopause is defined as someone who has not have periods for 12 months consecutively, it seems clear that this criterion is not always followed. When the diagnostic protocol hasnot been followed, it can be argued that the woman in question may not have primary ovarian failure: It is the diagnosis that seems to be premature.
Patients reported that the diagnosis made them feel anxious, even depressed. Many struggled to understand how they ended up having menopause so early, despite healthy eating and living. Those who aspired to have children were devastated by the diagnosis, and their doctors advised donor eggs.
As long as one has periods now and again and/or one is under 40, it is unlikely that the woman in question has primary ovarian failure. Ultimately, we have to look beyond a diagnostic label that may or may not be correct. The more important questions we think worth asking are: Would these irregular periods impact fertility? Can irregular periods be treated?
Irregular periods are a problem for fertility because irregular periods are largely caused by hormonal imbalance, as this affects egg quality, which is the most important factor of female fertility. When hormones are at the right levels and are balanced, egg quality is likely to also be good — and good egg quality indicates good hormone levels.
In other words, irregular periods are strongly associated with poor egg quality because both are caused by hormonal imbalance at the same time.
Besides poor egg quality, when a woman has irregular periods, she is more likely to miss some ovulations. At the very least, her ovulation timing becomes uncertain, making timely intercourse (to increase fertility chances) more difficult, or impossible. She may have dryness underneath, making intercourse painful or unpleasant. She may have low libido, too, making intercourse less frequent.
Western medical treatment tends to focus on regulating periods using some forms of contraceptive, including IUD. This clearly poses problems if one wants to have children. Some doctors may prescribe ovulation induction medication such as Provera. However, since hormonal imbalance is the cause of irregular periods, the quality of the egg that comes out is still poor as the root cause hasn’t been addressed, rendering successful pregnancy unlikely. Last, but not least, all these measures are temporary fixes — they cannot be used for too long. More importantly, they do not tackle the root course of the problem, namely, hormonal imbalance.
Nearly all of our patients who come to us are already taking an array of supplements. The fact that patients still come to us seems to show that the supplements they take have not helped them regulate their periods.
Another problem with supplements is that patients usually take quite a number of them. Few, including those who market the supplements, can tell us what happens when they’re mixed together. We have seen some patients’ periods get worse as a result of taking a cocktail of supplements.
The bottom line is there seems little evidence that supplements can change hormones for the better. If they cannot do that, we know it will have little impact on irregular or missing periods.
At TCM Healthcare, we focus on the key issue: egg quality. Since some key reproductive hormones are strongly associated with egg quality, this means that if these hormones are improved, egg quality also improves. That’s what we do at TCM Healthcare: We help women improve their egg quality by improving their hormones, through prescribing herbal medicine in our traditional Chinese medicine practice.
Our protocol is to obtain up-to-date hormone test results first. These tell us what exactly the problems are — which hormones are out of sync. They also serve as baseline measures for patients to check progress after a few months of treatment. In over 80% of cases, our patients’ hormones improved and their periods came back, or got better, as a result. By definition, their egg quality also improved and many went on to have successful natural pregnancies. You can read some of their stories here. For more stories about our patients, please click testimonials.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form
