My Approach To
Hormone Imbalance & Perimenopause: Why Your Hormones Aren't the Real Problem
If your cycles have gone sideways, your PMS feels unrecognizable, your sleep has unraveled, and the version of you who could handle anything seems to have quietly left the building — your hormones are not the villain. They are the messengers. They are telling the truth about your liver, your gut, your nervous system, your minerals, your toxic burden, and the season of life your body is being asked to walk through. Here's how I actually think about hormones, perimenopause, and the years that lead into them.
"She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come." — Proverbs 31:25
First, a little of my own story
There was a stretch of years when I genuinely did not recognize myself the week before my period. The rage. The crying. The insomnia. The debilitating pain the first few days. The anxiety that came out of nowhere. I would white-knuckle through a few days, then feel almost normal again — and convince myself I had imagined it. Until the next month. Until my cycles started shortening. Until my sleep got worse. Until the version of me my family was used to felt further and further away.
I had labs run. My hormones were 'in range.' I was told it was probably just stress, probably just my age, probably just life. I was offered birth control or an antidepressant. Neither one was an answer. Both were a way to silence the messenger.
What actually changed things wasn't a hormone protocol. It was finally addressing what my hormones had been trying to tell me all along — a sluggish liver that couldn't clear estrogen, a gut that was recirculating it, minerals on empty, a nervous system stuck in survival, blood sugar swings I had normalized, and a toxic load my cells were quietly carrying. When I worked in that order, my cycles came back. The PMS softened. The sleep returned. The woman my family knew came home.
Why Conventional Care Misses Hormone Imbalance
Conventional medicine has two main tools for hormone complaints: birth control and antidepressants. Sometimes an IUD. Sometimes, much later, HRT. None of these tools ask why your hormones are dysregulated in the first place. They quiet the symptom and call it care.
Standard labs check a handful of hormones, usually on the wrong day of your cycle, often without ever looking at how you metabolize estrogen, whether your liver is clearing it, whether your gut is recirculating it, whether your minerals are present, whether your blood sugar is stable, or whether your nervous system has been in fight-or-flight for a decade. Women are told their numbers are 'normal' while their lives are unraveling.
Even in some functional spaces, the answer is to throw bioidentical hormones, DIM, seed cycling, or another supplement at the symptom without ever opening drainage, healing the gut, regulating the nervous system, or addressing the toxic load that is driving the imbalance underneath. You can't supplement your way out of a terrain problem.
If you don't recognize yourself the week before your period, you're not crazy — your hormones are telling on your terrain.
The PMS rage, the insomnia that lands like a switch, the debilitating cycle pain, the anxiety that lifts the moment you bleed — those aren't "just hormones." They're a body in perimenopause exposing every gut, liver, mineral, and nervous-system gap that's been there all along.
How My Approach Is Different
I don't lead with hormones. I lead with the systems your hormones depend on. Estrogen is cleared by the liver and escorted out through the gut. Progesterone is built on the back of a calm nervous system and adequate cholesterol, minerals, and blood sugar stability. Thyroid hormones can't convert without nutrients and a low-inflammation terrain. If those foundations are off, no amount of seed cycling, DIM, or bioidentical cream will hold.
We also test what actually matters. A full picture often includes a DUTCH test to see how you're metabolizing and clearing your hormones, comprehensive thyroid panels, blood sugar markers, nutrient markers, gut health, and toxic burden when indicated — read alongside your story, your cycle, your sleep, your stress load, and the season you're in.
And we honor the season. Perimenopause is not a problem to be fixed; it is a passage to be stewarded. The years from your mid-30s through your early 50s are asking more from your body than they ever have. The women who walk through this season well are not the ones with the most aggressive protocols — they are the ones whose terrain was tended in the right order.
The Order That Actually Works
Most women I work with have already tried 'a hormone protocol' — seed cycling, DIM, progesterone cream, an adaptogen, maybe a round of bioidenticals. The intention was good. The order was off. Here's how I actually sequence the work:
- Regulate the nervous system first — a body in fight-or-flight steals from progesterone to make cortisol. Always.
- Stabilize blood sugar — every hormone in your body is downstream of how well your blood sugar holds.
- Open drainage and support the liver — estrogen has to be cleared, not recirculated.
- Restore minerals and key nutrients — magnesium, B vitamins, zinc, iodine, selenium, and the foundations hormone production actually depends on.
- Heal the gut and address the estrobolome — the gut bacteria that decide whether estrogen leaves the body or gets pulled back in.
- Address pathogens and toxic load gently — hidden infections, mold, and heavy metals disrupt hormone signaling at the cellular level.
- Then, and only then, consider targeted hormonal support — bioidenticals, herbs, or cycle-specific protocols — layered onto a body that can actually hold them.
- Steward the season — sleep, sunlight, strength training, Sabbath rest, and a life that is not actively breaking you.
What I Want You to Hear
If you have felt like a stranger in your own body, please hear me: you are not crazy, you are not 'just getting older,' and your hormones are not betraying you. They are telling the truth about systems that need attention. The mood swings, the insomnia, the rage, the fatigue, the cycles that no longer make sense — these are not character flaws. They are signals.
And the hopeful part — the part I want to hand you with both hands — is that when we work in the right order, the woman you are missing is still in there. The sleep returns. The cycles steady. The fog lifts. The version of you your family knows comes home. Perimenopause does not have to be a decade of suffering. It can be a passage you are walked through with reverence.
You were made by a God who designed your body to ebb and flow, to bleed and renew, to ripen and transition. Our job is not to override the design. Our job is to remove what is in the way and trust the One who made it. There is a way forward that is gentle, faithful, and real — and there is room for you in it.
Go deeper
Library: Hormone Health
Estrogen, progesterone, perimenopause, and what your cycle is trying to tell you.
Library: Adrenal & HPA Axis
Cortisol, burnout, and why hormones can't balance on a depleted nervous system.
Library: Gut Health
The estrobolome, bile flow, and why estrogen clearance starts in the gut.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if my hormones are actually imbalanced?
Clues include PMS that has gotten harder over time, mood swings or rage in the week before your period, shortening cycles, heavier or more painful periods, insomnia (especially 3am wake-ups), night sweats, weight gain around the middle, low libido, hair thinning, breast tenderness, and feeling like a stranger in your own body. A DUTCH test is far more revealing than a single blood draw, because it shows how you metabolize and clear hormones — not just what's circulating at one moment in time.
Is perimenopause really starting in our 30s now?
For many women, yes. Perimenopause can begin anywhere from the mid-30s to the late 40s and typically lasts 7–10 years before menopause itself. Modern toxic load, chronic stress, mineral depletion, gut and liver dysfunction, and hidden infections are all accelerating the timeline. The good news: the more we tend the terrain, the more gracefully the body walks through this passage.
Should I just start bioidentical hormones or HRT?
Sometimes hormones are a beautiful, appropriate tool — especially in true perimenopause and menopause. But layering them onto a body with closed drainage, a sluggish liver, gut dysbiosis, mineral depletion, and a dysregulated nervous system rarely holds, and often creates new symptoms. The order matters. We tend the foundations first, then bring in targeted hormonal support if and when it's the right next step — under the care of a practitioner who can prescribe and monitor it.
What about birth control for hormone issues?
Hormonal birth control doesn't balance hormones — it overrides them. It silences your body's signals, depletes key nutrients (B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, selenium), alters the gut microbiome, and often masks the underlying terrain issue for years. When women come off of it, the original imbalance is usually still there — sometimes worse. There is a thoughtful way to come off and rebuild; we walk women through it.
How long does this kind of work usually take?
Foundational hormone work typically unfolds over 6–18 months, depending on how long the terrain has been depleted and what else is layered underneath (gut, thyroid, adrenals, toxic burden, infections). Most women feel meaningful shifts — better sleep, calmer PMS, steadier mood — within the first 2–3 months of foundational work, with deeper cycle and perimenopausal changes coming as the systems underneath are restored.
Ready for a real next step?
If this is your story too, you don't have to keep guessing or stacking another protocol. Start with the free Toxic Load Assessment + Masterclass, or apply to work with me one-on-one.