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.
