What is Estrogen Dominance, and How Do you Know if you Have It?
You might have heard the term “estrogen dominance” before, but if you’re like many women out there you likely aren’t quite sure what that really means or if you have it. I know I certainly didn’t before delving deep into women’s hormones and going to school for nutrition! This term is important to know because so many women (maybe even you!) are struggling unnecessarily with it.
Imagine this: you get PMS every month about a week before your period begins, which consists of sore breasts, irritability, bloating, headache, and acne. Then your period finally comes and it’s heavy, like need to change your tampon every couple of hours heavy. You’re exhausted and feel miserable.
Does any of this sound familiar? If so, you may have estrogen dominance. Common signs of estrogen dominance include:
Mood swings
Weight gain
Heavy periods
Bloating
Sore breasts
Headaches & migraines
Cramping
Period pain
Anxiety
Trouble sleeping
Irregular cycle (length or consistency)
Fatigue
Memory problems
Brain fog
Fertility issues
Decreased libido (sex drive)
Hot flashes & night sweats
Histamine intolerance
So what actually is estrogen dominance? As the name would suggest, estrogen dominance is when there is an imbalance in the amount of estrogen in the body. However, it’s not as simple as there just being too much estrogen.
First, let’s rewind and talk about what estrogen actually is. Estrogen is a sex hormone that has several jobs in the body, one of which is to build up your uterine lining and prepare your uterus for a baby.
There are three different kinds of estrogen: estrone (E1), estradiol (E2), and estriol (E3). If these three estrogens are in balance it helps give you a balanced mood, increases bone strength, improves your memory, supports your immune system, and keeps your skin plump.
Estrogen fluctuates throughout your menstrual cycle. It starts very low and then rises during the first half of your menstrual cycle as your body prepares to release an egg. This is all necessary, and estrogen itself is not bad, but it needs its counterpart progesterone to balance it out because the wrong amount of estrogen isn’t ideal.
Progesterone steals the stage for the second half of the cycle and is essential to understand when talking about estrogen dominance. Progesterone is made once your body ovulates, and is important because it helps balance out the rising estrogen levels that occur (in addition to helping prevent estrogen-related cancer, keeping you cool, calm, and collected, and helping you sleep).
When talking about estrogen dominance you can have two totally different scenarios:
Scenario #1: Too much estrogen production with normal progesterone production. Your body is making too much estrogen, and progesterone levels are normal.
Scenario #2: Normal estrogen production with low progesterone production. Your body has a “normal” level of estrogen, but because there isn’t enough progesterone to balance it out it presents as estrogen dominance symptoms.
What causes scenario #1? Impaired liver detoxification, an imbalanced gut microbiome, constipation, excess body fat, poor digestion, or exposure to xenoestrogens in the environment can all contribute to this. This scenario is referred to as frank estrogen dominance because the problem is primarily the excess estrogen.
What about scenario #2? Inflammation, stress, anovulatory cycles, perimenopause, PCOS, or hormonal birth control can all cause this. This scenario is referred to as relative estrogen dominance because the problem is the relationship between estrogen and progesterone, rather than just too much estrogen.
As you can see, it’s much more complicated than just having too much estrogen! Your body needs to have a beautiful balance between estrogen and progesterone, and needs to have optimal gut health, digestion, liver detoxification, and immune function to keep the levels of these important hormones balanced.
If you’re experiencing estrogen dominance it’s important to understand that it is not a permanent condition, and can be fixed through diet and lifestyle interventions. Because this hormonal condition is so prevalent, many of my clients come to me with estrogen dominance and I help them rebalance their estrogen so that they can have easy periods, increase fertility, and energetically accomplish their goals in life without their hormones getting in the way.
If you’re interested in balancing your hormones, optimizing your cycle, improving gut health, and ditching PMS so you can have easy, pain-free periods, get pregnant when you want, and live a vibrant, joyful life, I encourage you to schedule a FREE strategy call with me so we can uncover what’s holding you back from living this way and make you a game plan to help you feel amazing in your body.
You can schedule that free strategy call here. Feel free to reach out with any questions!