A 30 year old female presents with the following profile:
- Does not sleep well
- Does not eat breakfast
- Has a weight problem
- Her periods are irregular, with excessive bleeding and cramping
- Does not exercise
- Energy throughout the day is low to O.K., but never really good. Uses coffee 3-4x a day.
We worked with the following panel of tests:
- Blood Test: She has been diagnosed by her physician as having Insulin Resistant syndrome (excess Insulin, Glucose, and Cortizol). The pattern is as such, high glucose, high triglycerides, high platelets, low HDL, high LDL. These numbers do not have to be flags, as they can present as high or low normally, and this syndrome is in gear.
- Hormone Saliva Tests: Excess estrogen with high amounts of the stress hormone Cortisol
- Liver Clearance Test: To see if the liver is breaking down and eliminating estrogen properly. Her ratios are off. Her body is not breaking down or eliminating estrogen well, they are remaining at high levels in her blood stream. These estrogen configurations are carcinogenic.
- Toxic Metal Hair analysis: She is running high amounts of copper and mercury.
- Full thyroid Panel: She has been diagnosed by her physician as being hypo-thyroidal.
Whole-Person Care Protocol
Being that there are so many things happening, we cannot approach them all at the same time: we have to prioritize. Often when one thing is resolved a number of what appear to be disconnected symptoms follow. In this case, weight difficulties are created and enhanced by insulin resistance as well as the side effect of the medications. Everything we are doing is helping normalize insulin resistance. Insulin resistance syndrome has numerous patho-physiological and psyhcological effects;
- Breakfast is a big deal. If they will not eat or do not have the time I will put them on a nutritionally dense smoothie. Not eating breakfast is grossly underrated in its overall negative effect inclusive of dietary induced stress response. We are trying to balance blood sugars and reduce insulin load. If these are far enough out, for long enough, insulin resistance will damage almost everything in us. It reeks havoc on the nervous and nuro-endocrine system. Blood sugar crashing through the ceiling or floor, prolonged and excessively high levels of insulin and glucose can induce panic. Her diet has to be scrutinized more closely. Often, women do not eat enough high quality protein and tend to gravitate towards refined carbohydrates and sugar. This pattern can produce excess weight gain, insomnia, and suppress morning appetite.
- Sufficient and deep, restful sleep. Many of these individual symptoms are common. People who do not sleep well do not heal well. Being that this person has a disorder that affects her waking state as well as sleep, a global approach would be to use nervines during the day ( things that feed, calm and normalize the nervous system, without reducing the persons’ ability to focus and function normally) and hypnotic type herbs and supplements before bed ( stronger stuff to help sleep ). As an aside, I looked at this person’s posts on Facebook. Lots of anger and depression. Our body can only be beaten up for so long before it fights back. Part of getting people to sleep better is in calming down and draining a congested liver. It is also of primary focus when dealing with anger and depression. Generally these formulas also improve digestion, absorption, and elimination. This wing can be rolled into the nervine formula for the sake of efficiency and to simplify dosing schedules. In a broader sense, we are trying to reintroduce a very important circadian rhythm, one that impacts a number of other circadian rhythms in a big way. I often give formulas before bed that help blunt stress response by modifying excess cortisol and reestablish the normal rhythm of coritzol secretion. That rhythm is often inverted with insomnia.(can measure with saliva testing ).
- Re-establishing normal menstrual cycle rhythm, reducing blood flow, clotting and cramping. There are many great formulas for this in Chinese Herbal Medicine. Something as simple as mild exercise, done regularly, will reduce cramping and help about 50 other things as well. Balancing hormones will improve sex drive. Adaptogenic herbs play a major role in reestablishing endocrine and nuro-endocrine balance.
- Normalize thyroid. Many of the things happening to this women can create and enhance thyroid difficulties as well as to prevent it from healing( including toxic metals). Food for the thyroid include selenium, vit c, vit d, tyrosine, iodine, and iron.
- Lower the high toxic metals count. We need copper for a number of things. It is very tightly regulated by our body for good reasons. Copper above normally low levels is an oxidative nightmare and it is central to process of growing new veins for cancer cells to feed themselves. Mercury is a nuro-toxin and is very damaging to the immune system as well.(too many mercury fillings are a problem). It is possible to chelate both of these toxic metals out of our system with natural medicine. Mercury will also impact thyroid.
Overall Assessment
Chinese medicine considers the brain to be a para-organ of the kidneys. The kidneys are greatly affected by long term fear. The mind, as it relates to the life around us, is housed by the heart. When energy of the heart (Shen) is balanced, the mind is also. The liver is responsible for the even flow of energy throughout the body. In this protocol, we are doing all of this. The vestibular problem in the inner ear can be approached externally and internally with herbal medicine.
In this case it, change is slow, but consistent. This is common with constitutional problems that are complex and long term. Under these circumstances, if it was not already the case, I would recommend that this person be seeing an M.D. and Psychologist as well.