Hormone Wildfire: Part I

Hey All.

I’m going to do a series of blog posts labeled “hormone wildfire,” in response to my own personal experience. As some of you know, I had a surgical intervention in late June 2021 for this issue as well. As I am getting back more of my hormonal and lab testing, I will add further posts about this experience. My hope is that this helps you in whatever hormone situation you have going on and also educate and empower you in this process.

Part I: During the COVID pandemic, I was taking a large amount of supplements to support my immune system. Working with my hands and physically touching other humans put me at risk of catching or transmitting the virus. During the past year, I didn’t get COVID and I worked on a large amount of patients that had this unknowingly.

About three years ago, I had my genetic work performed and found out that my COMT genes in my liver detoxification pathway were suboptimal (+/-).

{For reference, when you read a gene type, a “+” is an indication of a non-mutational gene that is working at full capacity. A “-” notes a gene that has a mutation and is not working at full capacity. You’ll always see them in pairs, because you received one from your mother and one from your father.}

Specifically, phase 2 in the liver detoxification pathway utilizes the COMT genes. This includes detoxification of the hormone estrogen. So, estrogen is made in the body AND it has to leave the body. The analogy that is most used is water into the bathtub. Phase one is the water filling the tub (the body makes estrogen), phase 2 is the opening of the drain (body starts to get estrogen ready to leave the body), and phase 3 is water into the sewer system (estrogen leaving our bodies via feces). Knowing that my COMT genes aren’t sub-optimal means that the plug in the drain doesn’t empty as often as it should. So, estrogen starts to fill that tub and becomes recycled throughout the body. NOT GOOD.

Late January 2021 was my first vaccine. A few days after, my cycle did not stop. It continued until late June 2021 in which a surgery was needed to stop this process. It was horrible, crampy, SO HEAVY, and full of clots. I’ve never had a “bad period” in my life. I’ve never passed clots, even after giving birth! My hemoglobin started to hit very low numbers and my ferritin (iron storage in the body) hit a FOUR. And it should have been a minimum of 50. And this was with two iron supplements per day!

One of the supplements that I was taking to support my immune system during COVID contained Quercitin. Quercitin was and is highly recommended for the preventation and treatment of the virus due to it’s highly anti-inflammatory properties! “Quercetin, as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, analgesic and inflammatory compound, is probably a potential treatment for severe inflammation and one of the main life-threatening conditions in patients with COVID-19.” (Link: https://journal-inflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12950-021-00268-6)

Unknown to me and my physicians, Quercitin in high doses triggers estrogenic effects. Basically, it creates high estrogen symptoms! Your estrogen increases prior your cycle to prepare your body for fertilization of an egg. These symptoms include: heavy, clotting periods; moodiness, irritability; and other PMS like symptoms. It does this by stopping phase 2 of the estrogen detoxification cycle.

“At high dose, quercetin has also been reported to bind to type I estrogen receptor, which trigger various tissue estrogenic effects [10]. In view of this, quercetin has been classified as phytoestrogen [11].” (Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4203161/#:~:text=At%20high%20dose%2C%20quercetin%20has,the%20reproductive%20cycle%20%5B12%5D.)

So, in hind sight…I was starting this process with a gene that was sub-optimal to begin with, increased quercitin that completely stopped the process of detoxification, and then the immune response from the vaccine created a storm. A 6+ month storm of bleeding to be exact!

During this entire process, two ultrasounds were performed and between these two (5 weeks and continued bleeding), the lining of the uterus grew almost 2mm.

A hysteroscopy and D&C was performed to stop the bleeding. It was successful!

But I’m always going to ask “WHY" when it comes to health. ALWAYS. It’s how I am wired. Having a hysterectomy for this issue won’t solve anything. The biopsy results came back as “proliferative endometrium.” Basically this means excessive growth. So, if this entire process would continue but the uterus is gone…estrogen is still too high. Estrogen is still be recycled in the body and eventually some other tissue will grow!

So, now what?

If I am genetically dealt a set of cards that causes sub-optimal detoxification of ALLL things (including estrogen), then I need to support the process. This process is supported with B Vitamins and minerals. I’ve added these in and removed my supplements that contained quercitin too. I’ve also added in Calcium-d-glucarate because it binds to excessive estrogen in the blood stream and removes it in the large intestine (i.e. bowel movements). I’ve also added in therapeutic doses of infrared sauna twice a week to support the detoxification of my body via sweating, in addition to exercise in my regular week. What have I noticed? Increased energy! Increased bowel movements too. But this is good! More calmness and less moodiness. Less feeling of being on edge, especially when I couldn’t put a reason to this!

Next steps?

Taking a DUTCH hormone test after my first cycle from surgery. This is one of the MOST COMPREHENSIVE hormone tests available. It’s a dried urine and saliva test that is performed on specific days of a cycle. I will dive more into this later once I get my results back!

Stay tuned for more blog posts on this journey as I’m learning how to hack these hormones.