Hormonal health through a Female lens

Nicole Dawson Cullinan
Oct 18
5 min read

Updated: Oct 19

We need a different mind-set when looking at women’s health - this blog offers a view of hormonal health through a 'FEMALE LENS'

Watching the seasons change outside, I have come to understand that Female Hormonal Health too is a spectrum and a continuum of cycles... beginning before birth and influenced by so many variables... from your genes, nutrition, hormones including transgenerational trauma, adverse childhood events (ACE's), environment and life circumstances etc.

I started consciously taking care of my own health in my early 20's when I was student and learning about health and disease.

I was lucky to grow up with relatively wholesome foods on offer unlike the current generation where eating ultraprocessed 'foods' are more the norm. And this has been an advantage I think in creating a good strong resilient base for hormonal health together with a career and family that validated the natural way.

Just the other day, I was saying to my daughter that our bodies are self healing when we give them the right ingredients and bathe them in the right environment. We have power in our the daily diet and lifestyle choices even though the choices may be difficult. They can be impactful both positvely and negatively especially on our hormones and as we age.

So whether you are male of female, look at your hormonal health is a continuum. This wider lens brings more awareness to the interconnectedness of all things and the bigger picture of hormonal health and disease.

Menarche to Menopause

There are three stages in a woman's hormonal life where she is potentially most vulnerable: puberty, pregnancy and menopause. This is because of a normal physiological backdrop of internal transition and change. It can show up where constitutional weaknesses lie but are generally hidden when there is relative biochemical and hormonal stability. Unsolved issues in puberty often show up in some form in pregnancy and/or perimenopause.

Adolescence

Teenagers need to be encouraged to be aware of their hormones and educated about their menstrual cycles (yes boys included - let's also demystify menstruation for boys and men) especially if they are incapacitated by pain and unable to take part in normal daily activities. Ignoring and medicating away symptoms can be deleterious in the long term as many hormonal red flags present in adolescence. When symptoms show up we Homeopaths see them as important messages from the internal workings of the body and opportunities to solve the underlying disturbance. It is best to tackle the problems with a holistic and root cause approach as early as possible.

The Fertile years

In your 30’s hormonal health is dependent on your diet & lifestyle in your 20’s. As a young adult, this is an optimal time to be educated and informed about how to create healthy self care habits, as I discovered. The hormonal goals of this life stage is fertility and procreation. Because energy and the vitality of youth is highest in these years, many people ignore early signs of disease as they present or openly abuse their bodies and push through discomfort. This is often to the detriment of health in your later years.

Perimenopause

Your hormonal health in your 40’s is dependent on your diet & lifestyle in your 30’s. The hormonal goals of this life stage relate to stamina for child rearing and career building. By feeding and caring for yourself well your children also benefit from your role modelling and the solid base a healthy diet and lifestyle provides in creating positive future health outcomes for the whole family. Perimenopause highlights aspects like stressors for example, that you may have been able to tolerate in your 30's but can no longer white-knuckle you way through it. We may be forced to choose better and why is that considered a bad thing? - except if we are missing vital understanding of the wisdom that is contained within the continuum .

Menopause and beyond

Your health in your 50’s - how you experience menopause and andropause - will be directly influenced by your lifestyle and hormonal health in your 40’s or the perimenopausal years. The hormonal goals of this life stage is the end of fertility and resilience through transition. Because the perimenopausal period can be unpredictable and reactive, you need consistency and structure. Postmenopausally (and andropausally) hormones are steadier, therefore you need nuanced stimuli and more support.

The importance of this view of the hormonal spectrum and continuum has not generally been validated by conventional thinking and medicine because of various prejudices and biases that have disempowered and even abused women. Historically flawed thinking resulted in 'difficult' and/or menopausal women could be institutionalised in an insane asylum at the request of her husband and given a lobotomy or labelled 'hysterical' and given a hysterectomy! Mercifully medicine has evolved beyond such barbaric practices but the remnants of such thinking and ignorance remains.

Bias in scientific research

I am not blaming men for the discrepancies in hormonal health care, because they have also been conditioned. It was only from 1993 in the US, that female participation in clinical trials was mandated by law. We only have 30 years of clinical research truly relevent to female health and disease norms to draw from and thankfully the tide is turning. This bodes well for more appropriate, unbiased understanding and education of both medicial professionals and the general public about women's hormonal health and disease.

Women are not just smaller men as outdated conventional medical science would have us believe.

Women's health is more complex than that of men because of its cyclical element and the additional hormones of oestrogen and progesterone. Through our cycles, we are also more connected to the rhythms of nature. When we are informed through a different and holistic female lens, and don’t fear our cycles (from menarche through menstruation to menopause), we instead better understand our bodies. We can then learn new ways to keep our hormones in a sustainable balance.

I see mostly women with a range of chronic conditions in my practice. The most desperate are those women suffering from conditions traditionally blamed vaguely on their hormones. This includes PMS, painful periods, Endometriosis, menopausal symptoms but also including thyroid, gut, immune, emotional disturbances and burnout. They find me because they are often misdiagnosed and always misunderstood and therefore not managed effectively and suffer on an ongoing basis.

The female lens sees the cycle, validates the complexity of their biochemical distress and solves the often perfect storm of illness through active listening, gentle and effective guidance and natural modalities.

We need a different mind-set when looking at women’s health. And we need to recognise that a pervasive systemic bias in medicine and in our culture has blown off women's complaints and served to invalidate the normal cycle and common experiences of being human in the female form.

Discover holistic and personalised care through a female lens, using Homeopathy and Functional medicine for your hormonal and general health needs.

Until next time, take care