The Fight or flight hormone

Adrenaline

Hormone therapy can be helpful throughout a women’s life. Using the functional approach, we address all hormones and work within their natural hierarchy. This means that we start with the most dominant hormone, adrenaline, and work our way down the chain. Adrenaline is known as the fight or flight hormone and takes total priority over all of the other hormones when your body needs it.

THE STRESSOR

Cortisol

Cortisol is second in line. You know cortisol as the stress hormone, but it also plays important roles in helping your body regulate metabolism and immune responses. It is highly affected by both lifestyle and emotional stress as well as physical stressors like pain or inflammation.

The sugar regulator

Insulin

Once your body has provided resources for adrenaline and cortisol, insulin is addressed. Produced in the pancreas, insulin controls the level of glucose (sugar) that is released into our blood. Poor dietary choices lead to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.

The work Horse

Thyroid

The thyroid gland creates two main thyroid hormones which act on nearly every cell in the body. They are most well-known for regulating your body’s metabolism and generating heat.  Thyroid dysfunction presents with symptoms such as weight gain, low mood, cold intolerance, fatigue, hair loss, and menstrual irregularities.

The differentiators

Sex Steroids

Estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone are all sex steroids. While it may seem counterintuitive to focus on these hormones last (especially at a women’s clinic!), they are impacted by all of the hormones above them. Therefore, it only makes sense to start at the top and address factors impacting those hormones first. Then, if there are still imbalances at the bottom, they may be supported with the use of hormone therapy, or, in cases where a hormone is too high, we may use approaches to improve detoxification and elimination of those hormones.