EP.367/ Using the Mira to Understand How Your Hormones Are Affecting Your ADHD, MCAS, POTS, PMDD and H-EDS Symptoms Across Your Cycle

Podcast

18 Oct

Okay so we are travelling tomorrow and so I thought I’d just be doing a replay today because of time, but something happened with a client yesterday that I was so excited about, I really wanted to share. Now, I am going to be doing more about this in the future, so this isn’t going to be a deep dive episode as I just don’t have the time for that today, but I really wanted to get this info out there because I know so many of you are struggling right now with MCAS, POTS, ADHD and hEDS, that I just felt like I had to get something out there.

So, as you know, all of my clients have endometriosis. And the majority of them also have hyper mobility or hypermobile-EDS, mast cell activation syndrome or histamine intolerance, postural tachycardia syndrome or dysautonmia and SIBO, there’s often ADHD and PMDD thrown in there too.

Now, yes, I do work with complex cases, but actually, this is becoming more and more common. And when it comes to these conditions, mainly EDS/hypermobiliy, POTS/dysautonomia, ADHD, MCAS and PMDD, they are affected by cyclical changes. But here’s the complexity, clients - especially those with MCAS and histamine issues - respond very individually to each other. So it can be really helpful to double down on data and testing with these clients, if they have the budget. Now, if they don’t, it’s not the end of the world, we can work it out, but when there is the budget, it can lead to some fascinating insights that allows us to really tailor our work together.

And so in the past few months, I’ve been using Mira. Mira is like a cycle tracking device, but it actually measures your hormones at home, so instead of doing something like a DUTCH or a blood test and sending the test off and waiting for results, you get real time results throughout your cycle, so cycle to cycle, you get to see what your hormones are doing.

Now, alongside that, I get my clients to track their symptoms - all their symptoms. Now, I am early into the process of this, so this is the first complete set of results I’ve seen, and so who knows what else is to come, but I had to share these results with you.

This client, who has all of these conditions I’ve just shared, had very clear worsening of certain conditions when her hormones changed.

So, on the day her oestrogen was at its very highest, her MCAS and her POTS flared massively. No other time in her entire cycle did she have this reaction. Why? Because oestrogen increases histamine production, and histamine causes veins and blood vessels to expand, which can lead to changes in blood pressure, triggering POTS symptoms. The histamine can also trigger the nervous system, further triggering POTS symptoms.

Now, when her oestrogen began to drop, literally the day of, her POTS and histamine symptoms subsided and moved to mild, background symptoms that weren’t really affecting her. But her ADHD symptoms started to surface, which we know can happen in low oestrogen states, which is why perimenopause and menopause can cause so many issues for those with ADHD.

Then we start to get a progesterone rise, and literally the day the progesterone starts to creep up, she starts getting body pain symptoms. Neck pain, severe back pain, severe pelvic pain, full body pain at night, and so on. She also starts to develop constipation and difficulty urinating. These are all symptoms of hypermobile-EDS, which can worsen for some people in the luteal phase, because progesterone is a muscle relaxant and triggers more joint laxity. In the average person, this might cause more sluggish bowel movements, as we’ve discussed before, but if you’ve already got a connective tissue disorder, the effects of progesterone can really cause a worsening of things.

This continues as progesterone rises, but we also see something very interesting. The day progesterone hits its peak, my client experiences a lot more irritability, insomnia, she looses interest in life, and so on. So, whilst this could be to do with her ADHD, it could also be to do with PMDD - because people with PMDD do not respond to progesterone as expected. For most of us, progesterone is soothing and calming, but for those with PMDD, it can trigger an extreme opposite reaction.

Now, there was actually a lot more insights that we gleaned from these results, nuances in when she felt her best with ADHD, and so on, but these are the top lines and some of the ones that I thought would be most helpful and insightful to those of you with these conditions.

Now, what can we do with this info? It means that we now know that her joints need extra support in the luteal phase, that she may need more salt and compression socks around ovulation to keep her blood pressure up, and stronger mast cell stabilisers and so on.

Now, with that being said, I don’t like to be reactive. I don’t want my client to have to be chopping and changing every week in order to smack down symptoms, instead, long-term, we’re working on root cause solutions to calm everything down overall, but in the meantime, by observing exactly what her hormones are doing every day, and exactly how she responds, we can start tailoring our efforts so that her cycle becomes easier.

Now, if that’s of interest to you, but you don’t have the budget for something like Mira, go back through my episodes - I’ve been talking about these conditions and how to manage them for the past three or so years, and so there are lots of tools you can start applying. You could also start observing just through writing it down, when each symptom is worse in your cycle, and respond accordingly. But, if you do have the budget, I was so excited by these results, that I asked Mira if I could share the discount code I use with clients, with listeners, and they kindly agreed, so if you want to try Mira, you can get 20% off with code: 2DJESS20 I’ve put the direct link in my bio. Once you buy the device, that’s it, you have it of life, you just need to by the wands, and you can use one pack a month or you can actually use less per month so one pack lasts two months. Of course, you also don’t need to track every month, you can track when your symptoms are really flaring, or something seems off with your cycle, or just to do random check ins on your hormones.

Now, hopefully whether you decide to use Mira or not, this quick episode has been really insightful, and may give you something to think about when it comes to your own symptoms and when they may be flaring in your cycle.

Okay, see you next week!

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20% discount: 2DJESS20

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