Hormones are your body’s chemical messengers, pulsing out signals to help you grow, drive reproduction, manage hunger, alert you to danger, promote sleep, and more. Our hormones change naturally throughout our lives but can also be impacted by a number of environmental factors. This makes maintaining your hormone stability a delicate balancing act.
As a functional medicine provider, Dr. Ryan Gunyan frequently sees patients struggling with hormone imbalances who aren’t finding relief from traditional therapies. Rather than starting and stopping at treating your symptoms, Dr. Gunyan takes a deeper dive into your health history and daily habits to identify the root causes of hormonal issues. Read on or book a virtual consultation to learn more about how functional medicine addresses hormones.
What Are the Symptoms of a Hormone Imbalance?
Your endocrine system is responsible for a wide range of bodily processes, from regulating your metabolism to maintaining your blood pressure. The symptoms of imbalance are just as varied. For example, a woman going through menopause usually has different health concerns than one with thyroid gland dysregulation.
Some signs of hormonal imbalance include sleeping too much or too little, hot flashes, fatigue, weight gain or loss, low libido, erectile dysfunction, hair thinning, depression, brain fog, and headaches. These symptoms often overlap with digestive issues. And while they are common, they are not normal. You shouldn’t accept these difficulties as unavoidable parts of your life.
What Causes Hormone Imbalances?
Hormone imbalances are usually caused by other imbalances in your body. While conventional (allopathic) medicine treats the symptoms and diseases, functional medicine investigates beyond the surface to find the source of the problem. When creating treatment plans, Dr. Gunyan considers the numerous factors that could throw off your hormones.
For example, chronic emotional stress could contribute to everything from metabolic to immune system issues. Environmental disruptors like mycotoxins (found in fungi like mold) can negatively impact your reproductive function, as could your weed killer. Your gut also plays a major role in your hormonal health. Identifying and addressing the root cause of imbalances allows your body to better repair and realign itself.
How Can I Balance My Hormones?
While hormone replacement therapy, prescription medications, or even surgery to remove the thyroid gland or reproductive organs can provide some relief from symptoms, these treatments often have unpleasant side effects and leave a lot to be desired.
Comprehensive functional hormone testing using the gold standard DUTCH test offers a complete assessment of sex and adrenal hormones and their metabolites, giving Dr. Gunyan an idea of your baseline. He can figure out if you are producing and secreting hormones properly.
From there, he might make several recommendations to balance your hormones, including:
- Avoiding environmental toxicities.
- Addressing your gut health.
- Including more healthy cholesterol and fiber in your diet.
- Adding physical activity to your daily routine.
- Reducing emotional stressors.
- Eliminating nighttime distractions to promote better sleep.
If you’ve been disappointed by other quick-fix hormone treatments, this extensive approach could be the key to feeling like the healthiest version of yourself.
Schedule a Virtual Consultation for Happier Hormones
Hormone imbalances can impact every aspect of your life, from your appetite to your relationships to your risk of future health conditions. While allopathic medicine often treats individual symptoms, Dr. Gunyan treats your body as a unique whole versus a collection of parts. Rather than addressing one issue at a time, functional medicine acknowledges how every system interacts with each other. Book your virtual consultation at 970-639-8069 to discover how a new treatment approach could help you.