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Herbs for Menorrhagia

27-Dec-09

Hello, me again. First of all, I think the Vitamin D worked. I had symptoms of ovulation, then nothing. Two weeks later I had symptoms of ovulation again. Then 2 - 2 1/2 weeks after that I had a period. And it started out being as heavy as they usually are. Which freaks me out. The heaviest it has ever been was me soaking a pad in 10 minutes. That was years ago. I took blue green algae and that slowed it down. Ever since then I’ve been looking for everything I can find that will lessen the blood flow.

This time I added a few things I hadn’t tried before and my period went from me changing a pad every hour to me changing a pad every 5 hours. Very nice!

So, I decided to make a list of what I take and when I take it, and how much, etc., to show you what might be helpful if you have the same problem. I take most of these things every four hours. I even set my alarm clock for the middle of the night so I can take them then. I’m too afraid not to. I kind of have a fear of bleeding to death in my sleep. Not a fan of blood. Have a little bit of a blood phobia. (Could this be why?!) Anyway, I’ll start with the things I take every four hours.

Every Four Hours:
Ibuprofen (this blocks the prostaglandins that cause heavy bleeding and cramps), 200 mg.
Raspberry Leaf (this tones the uterus and reduces bleeding), 380 mg.
Lady’s Mantle (I think this balances hormones), 15 drops tincture (dry herb strength: 1:4)
Cramp Bark (helps with cramps, also reduces bleeding somehow), 15 drops tincture (dry herb strength: 1:4)
Shepherd’s Purse (this reduces bleeding of all kinds), 15 drops tincture (fresh herb strength: 1:1)
Spirulina (has chlorophyll which helps reduce bleeding), 500 mg.

Three Times a Day:
Lemon Juice (balances pH, possibly balances hormones, reduces bleeding), 1 tsp. in water
Apple Cider Vinegar (balances pH, possibly balances hormones, reduces bleeding), 1 tsp. in water

Two Times a Day:
Wild Yam (regulates hormones), 425 mg.
Cinnamon (reduces excess bleeding and “flooding”), 500 mg.
Vitamin C (I read that this reduces menstrual bleeding), 500 mg.
B complex (B vitamins help build new blood), 50 mg/mcg.
Beta Carotene (Vitamin A helps regulate hormones), 25,000 IU

Once a Day:
Iron (helps rebuild blood, may reduce bleeding), 50 mg.

Things I Stop Taking During a Period:
Vitamin E (this thins the blood, may increase bleeding)
CoQ10 (also may thin the blood and increase bleeding)
Ginger (increases circulation, thus increasing bleeding)

That about sums it up. I think the vinegar and lemon juice (which I took together in water and drank with a straw to protect my teeth) really helped this time. I hadn’t taken them before. I hadn’t taken Wild Yam before either. So, one or all of those 3 new additions made a huge difference this time. Usually my periods are still heavy, but manageable, but this time it was pretty light. It was awesome. I was going to take lemon juice and vinegar all month long, but I got lazy about that. I had this period in the middle of November and haven’t had one since. I still think the Vitamin D will straighten it all out eventually. I also kept taking the Wild Yam daily, but I reduced it to one 425 mg. pill a day instead of two. I noticed taking two made me very sleepy. Not during my period, though. Just after it. So I cut it back to one pill.

There you have it. Hopefully I will write more often in the future and not take two month breaks!

‘Til next time. ~Me.

Filed in Herbs, Menstruation, Minerals, PCOS, Vitamins | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

The Shiitake Experiment

26-Oct-09

And the results of the shiitake experiment are…. inconclusive. :) After taking shiitake for a week or so, I noticed I was hungry all the time, even just after eating. I realized I must be taking an appetite stimulant. Shiitake was the only thing I’d added to my supplements recently. So I stopped taking it, and sure enough my appetite went back to normal. So I have no idea if it would have regulated my menstrual cycle. I had to stop taking it. I hate being hungry all the time. Not a fan of that feeling.

Instead of shiitake I decided to take Vitamin D again, but this time I split the pill in half. I split a 1000 IU pill and took 500 IU a day, plus 400 IU that is in my multivitamin. I managed to avoid getting the Vitamin D tension headache. I still felt sleepy. Anyway, my period never started. Then I realized that a few days after quitting shiitake I started taking neem, because I thought I had swine flu symptoms and I wanted to kill them with everything. Neem is kind of like echinacea for fighting viruses, etc. But I read more about it and a few websites said it stops ovulation. It is used for birth control, I just didn’t know exactly how it worked. Anyway, that can’t be good for trying to regulate a cycle! So I stopped taking the neem. Still no period.

I’m wondering if the Vitamin D will work if I take it long enough. Now that I’ve got it down to a small enough dose to avoid the headache, maybe I can keep taking it and see if it regulates my cycle. I forgot to take it the last two days, though. I’m incorrigible. But I’ll get used to taking it. I’ll train myself to look in the pill splitter. I mean I usually just grab my bottles of vitamins and take one from each. But then there is the pill splitter with a half pill waiting for me. Hello, me!

I also think eating more protein may have helped me have my one lone period last June or whenever that was. I ordered my protein vegan foods, yes, even more than before. I have to get back to eating that way. Must lose weight, and must regulate the cycle. I want to feel healthy. Looove feeling healthy.

Maybe I should start taking strawberry leaf to jump start my period. It tones the uterus. Gets things in order in there. Maybe that could work? I have it in a tincture, though. It’s even harder to get myself to remember to take a tincture. (Harder than remembering to take a half a pill in the pill splitter!) For now I’ll stick with Vitamin D and getting back into high protein foods. Hey, maybe I need “high protein” because vegan foods don’t have complete proteins, and so I need more of it? To make complete proteins. Hmm…. whatever the reason, it seems to have a good effect on me, so I’ll keep doing it. And it would be good if I would actually start to exercise like I planned to. Pah! But that’s a whole other story. :)

‘Til next time. ~Me.

Filed in Herbs, Menstruation, Veganism, Vitamins | Tagged , , , | Comments (0) »

Shiitake, Vitamin D, and Ovulation

13-Oct-09

I’m convinced shiitake mushrooms help regulate ovulation. But I can’t find one bit of information about that on the Internet. All I find is that it has nutrients, helps the immune system, and helps with cancer. Here’s a nice page about shiitake: Shiitake Mushrooms. Now I’m going to talk about what I can’t find online.

I rarely have a period, because of PCOS. Last spring I started using this shiitake mushroom salad dressing, and I noticed right away it had an effect on me. Made me ovulate, basically. What the?? That was the only change I’d made to my diet. How did I know I’d ovulated? People laugh at me when I say that. But how can you not know? First I start to feel sleepy and relaxed and clumsy and my muscles feel weaker. All day, every day. This is because I have more progesterone in my system. Then a day or two later I notice cervical mucous on the toilet paper. Which means I am ovulating. Then a day or two later my breasts start to hurt and I start to hate everyone, because the PMS part of the month has begun. Woohoo! PMS lasts for 2 weeks before my period. Have to find a way to soften the effects of that. Anyway, then two weeks after ovulation I had a regular period. Totally weird. I never do that. I ran out of the shiitake dressing and haven’t had a period since.

From my online research I discovered that shiitake mushrooms have one of the highest Vitamin D levels of any plant food. Hmm. And apparently experiments have shown that Vitamin D supplementation regulates ovulation. So I figured maybe the Vitamin D content of the shiitake dressing made me ovulate. I thought, “I’ll just buy Vitamin D then.” So I did, I took it, 1000 IU every other day. Because Vitamin D makes me very sleepy and gives me a slight tension headache. Anyway, a few months of that and no period. At some point I bought shiitake mushroom in a supplement and took it, and it made me start spotting immediately. I thought, “That’s not what I want!” I stopped the shiitake and the spotting stopped. I searched online and still I could find no information linking shiitake mushrooms to the menstrual cycle. Weirdness!

Then last week I had a dream that made me want to start trying to regulate my cycle again, and I started taking the shiitake again. It made me sleepy, gave me a slight tension headache, then the relaxed clumsy feeling of too much progesterone. I thought, “It’s doing it again. How is there no research on this????” Then the cervical mucous, then the breast pain and…. irrational anger. :) I’m angry for no reason. Hormones. I’m surprised I’m writing this entry!

So, I expect a period in a week and a half. Probably premature to write this entry. I should have waited to see what happened. Pretty sure it will happen. Oh, my theory, by the way, is that maybe Vitamin D in its natural context works better than Vitamin D separated out into its own supplement. Even if, as I suspect, there is less Vitamin D in the shiitake supplement than in the Vitamin D supplement. Every day I take 400 IU of Vitamin D in a multi-vitamin. Have for… ever. Except for when I was temporarily taking more. And once again I’ve made no changes to my diet or supplements, except the shiitake. HMM. I’m sure I’ll be writing soon about how to lighten up a heavy period. I have that problem also. Probably because I don’t have periods often enough. I enjoy not having periods! But it’s time to get healthy.

‘Til next time. ~Me.

Filed in Herbs, Menstruation, PCOS, Vitamins | Tagged , , | Comments (0) »


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