I Did a Hormone Cycle Mapping Test and Here's What I Found Out.

I've tried to start this post a million times and I have no idea what to say. My black journal sits next to me on my desk- open and ready. Four pages scribbled with notes stare at me and wonder why I haven't written this yet, don't I have a lot to say? Well, yes, but it's just not that easy. I smile at the random colorings of colored pencil on my notes, Aspen was here. Seeing those innocent drawings lighten the load of the heavy words that fill the page.

Friends, you already knew that I was nervous about getting these results and what would be revealed in these tests. If I'm being totally honest, I guess my biggest worry was that everything would come back "okay." I didn't want to hear that everything was okay. I wanted something to hold onto, something I could fix. Well, jokes on me because there are things that need to be addressed and fixed, but I guess what keeps bringing me pause is that the most critical aspect of this whole thing is not what I was expecting it to be.

Alright, so let's just dive in and get to the point.

I met with Tiffany in the middle of January to receive the results from my extensive bloodwork panel and my cycle mapping hormone test. My appointment with her lasted about two hours and I came prepared- coffee and journal in hand, ready to take notes.

We talked about a few overall things before we dove into my results and quite honestly this is what I love about working with an integrative health specialist. They look at the WHOLE picture before making any next steps.

We talked about. . .

-My nutrition. I try maintain an 80/20 lifestyle while focusing on whole foods and getting organic foods when and where I can.

-My water intake. It's not nearly enough and I know that I really need to push myself to drink more water throughout the day.

-My daily movement. I've been going for walks in the morning and I recently started attending Burn Bootcamp.

Red flag number one.

I could see a change in the conversation when I brought this up and we began talking about how I needed to slow up on the high intensity workouts and maybe consider switching to strength training, yoga, stretching, and more walking.

-My stress levels. I didn't feel constantly stressed, but I also wouldn't be surprised if my cortisol levels were elevated or if my body showed signs of being in a constant state of fight or flight.

-My sleep habits. How am I sleeping? How long am I sleeping? Do I struggle to go to sleep or wake up and then stay up? Nope, I feel like sleep is an area where I'm doing pretty good.

It was so nice to address all of these things and for her to have an overall picture of my lifestyle before we jumped into the results. Having this information is critical to reading the results of these tests because certain parts of your lifestyle can really impact how your body responds.

So then we jumped into the results of my bloodwork which was fascinating.

Overall, everything looked really good. My blood count, blood sugar, magnesium levels, cholesterol, all of that kind of stuff was fantastic and had no concerns.

There were concerns, however, with my Vitamin D, B12, Iron, Ferritin, and Omegas.

Okay, so this is where stuff gets super interesting. My levels were within the "normal ranges," but here's the thing about those normal ranges- just because you're within a normal range doesn't mean that you're within the "feel good" range.

Let me elaborate.

For B12, the normal range is 200-1000. The feel good range is 600-800. My level was 362.

For Vitamin D, the goal is 50-70. My level was 30.

For Iron, the goal is 50-170. My level was 61.

Ferritin, the goal is 7.3-270. My level was 24.7.

Omegas, the goal is 5.4 or higher. My level was 3.4.

One thing we discussed as she reading my lab results is that with other doctors, they may not see any problem with my levels because they're still within the "normal range" so it may never have been brought up or discussed. But since we are really trying to help my body operate at it's best, we want to help get it closer to those "feel good ranges." That's when you're going to see a difference.

Think of it this way- you never know how low, fatigued, or weak you feel until you see how GOOD you can feel.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Let's talk about my iron levels. Because those were low, my T4 and T3 (thyroid hormones that help your body to know what to secrete) were slightly off. My thyroid overall was fine, but these two hormones were being impacted by my lack of iron and omegas. As my iron and omega levels rise and as I continue to balance my meals with adequate protein, those levels would balance out.

This was a lightbulb moment for me- one of those A HA moments where you start to see how interconnected our whole body really is. Everything fits together like a puzzle and some of the mild symptoms I was experiencing- anxiousness, fatigue, moodiness etc. could very well be linked to these deficiencies.

Okay, so how serious is this and what are we going to do about it? Great question!

We began talking about the protocol of moving forward and how she handled treatment. Top tier, the first thing we're going to do is tackle it with diet. If we can improve certain parts of my diet to make up for these parts that are lacking- we will. Second tier, if the nutrition aspect is already there and it's just not enough, we will supplement. Third tier and kind of bottom of the barrel, is to resort to a medication. Obviously, this is not the first step and I was very thankful for that!

So we looked again at all of my deficiencies with my bloodwork and we talked about where my level was and how my diet was with foods that provided what I needed.

Vitamin D- everyone (most likely) is deficient in Vitamin D. No one gets enough sun light and there's not a way for me to get enough in my lifestyle or diet, so we are going to supplement with a Vitamin D supplement that she recommended.

B12- There wasn't going to be enough for me to get this through lifestyle and diet either so we decided to supplement this as well. I'm going to start by taking B12 supplements orally and we'll see how well my body is absorbing it over the next few months. If my body is still not getting enough, then we can switch to B12 shots (think injection, not a drink).

Iron and Ferritin- I was not surprised that I was low in this area, I've heard that before and again we decided to go ahead and supplement with a beef liver supplement that will give me what I need.

Omegas- We're starting with nutrition! I definitely don't have enough in my diet and this was an area where we both felt comfortable starting with diet. So THIS is why you've seen me up my intake of salmon, avocado, and walnuts.

I've gotten a lot of questions about how walnuts and omegas are related to fertility and come to find out, it's very important for regulating your hormones which is important for ovulation. They also increase blow flow to the uterus and help reduce inflammation in the body. Moving forward, I'll be working to have salmon at least two times a week, one tsp of chia seeds a day, and a handful of walnuts each day as well.

If that seems overwhelming and fascinating all at the same time, then welcome to the club because that's where I've been for the last two weeks. Oh, but don't you worry, it just gets deeper. That's only my bloodwork. We haven't even touched on the results of my cycle mapping hormone test yet.

*Takes deep breath*

This is where things become more overwhelming and probably more disheartening than it is fascinating.

The cycle mapping test tracked my levels of LH, progesterone, and estrogen throughout my cycle and I wish I could tell you that it came back with raving reviews, but as you can already guess- that's not the case.

The results from my cycle mapping test came in a packet of five pages that broke down basically what is happening in a menstrual cycle (in detail) and then shows different graphs for what should be happening followed by a graph that shows what is happening for me.

The chart that tracked my estrogen had a control line that steadily rose with a normal cycle and peaked at an ovulation point of ideally about 140-160 before going back down. It's a nice curve that builds and drops appropriately.

My line did not do this.

Instead, my line for estrogen slowly increased, but stayed close to the bottom axis of the graph. It peaked at 60 and then went back down.

My estrogen was supposed to peak around 140-160, but it peaked at freaking 60.

Major takeaway: my estrogen levels are very low.

Let's talk about why this is important and also problematic. Estrogen helps build up your endometrial lining throughout your cycle so when you have low estrogen, your endometrial lining is going to be THIN. Which means that even if an egg was fertilized, it's going to have a very hard time attaching to the that thin lining. For my IVF warriors, think about when you're prepping for an embryo transfer. They have you on estrogen for this exact reason and this is why they are constantly checking your lining. The thicker it is, the stickier it is, the easier it is for a fertilized egg or embryo to attach.

Moving on to the progesterone line. The same thing is expected to occur. Your progesterone levels rise after the ovulation has occurred and ideally, they rise relatively close to the estrogen and peak about 7 days after ovulation. Progesterone levels are expected to fall after the peak in the absence of a pregnancy.

My line, again, did not do this.

Instead, my line did as it was expected and peaked after my peak of estrogen, but it was a little higher at around 100. There was a dip which would indicate that it's doing what it should, but then the progesterone peaked again and continued to grow. This random little continued increase of progesterone sparked Tiffany to ask if I had had my period and if I was taking any sort of progesterone. Well, I had my period the week we were in Disney so I knew it wasn't pregnancy and I know that I'm not taking any progesterone so this is something we are still trying to figure out. Was it a problem with the test? Maybe, we're not sure.

As of right now, the increasing progesterone isn't the main concern and we're going to address that later. However, the low level of estrogen is concerning and to be quite honest, it broke my heart to hear.

Old familiar feelings of shame, unworthiness, and brokenness have started to bubble to the surface and again I find myself wondering "why is this happening?" I know what you're thinking and I know what you want to ask- what causes low levels of estrogen? Guess what, there's like a million reasons my estrogen could be low so we really don't have a solid idea, but here are a few culprits: genetics, low body fat, low LH levels (helps control your menstrual cycle), excessive exercise, and so on.

Maybe you can see where this is going from my previously mentioned red flag moment. This is where we began talking about my daily movements and how I really needed to be aware of this moving forward. With my estrogen levels being down in the dirt, I have to avoid high intensity workouts like Burn Bootcamp, avid running, and stuff like that. It destroys estrogen levels and that's not something I'm able to risk right now so I immediately threw the breaks on that real hard.

So what the heck are we going to do about this?

We're tackling this with a mix of nutrition and supplements before talking about doing any sort of estrogen medication like Estradiol or Clomid (nooo thank you).

Nutrition to Boost My Estrogen Levels:

-Starting cycle syncing. I'll do a lot of sharing about this, for sure, because it's FASCINATING.

-Starting seed cycling. I'm going to do another post on this (maybe next week) and talk about what it is and why it's beneficial, but the nitty gritty is that you eat certain types of seeds at different parts of your cycle to help increase estrogen.

-Increasing my intake of flax seeds, specifically.

-Increasing my intake of cruciferous vegetables (think broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, arugula, kale) to 4-6x a day.

Supplements to Boost My Estrogen Levels:

-Starting a daily supplement of maca as recommended by my health care specialist.

So there ya have it friends.

To say that I am overwhelmed would be an understatement. I am happy to have these answers and to know so that I can work to change and help my body as best I can, but to hear about the levels of my estrogen broke me in a way that I wasn't expecting.

We're tackling this head on and I'm very much the type of person who is going to take this information and run with it. Now that I have these answers, I'm not going to shove it off and say "oh well." I'm going to work to make sure that I'm doing what I need to do to make sure that I'm taking care of myself and honoring my fertility. I do wonder, however, how these levels would've looked six years ago. Were they worse? Were they better? I have no idea and I've come to terms with the fact that I will never know.

I don't regret our journey because a lot of that made me into who I am today. Because of our journey we have our two amazing boys and I would do it all again for them. It is just a very complicated mess of things and now that I know what I know, we're moving forward to do what we can.

I go back to see Tiffany in a few months after my body has adapted to using the supplements, nutrition, and lifestyle changes. We'll do some other testing to retest my estrogen levels and we will also test my cortisol levels (we were shocked when we realized that it was an area we forgot to test originally lol). My biggest hope and prayer is that we see growth and positive results at that appointment.

Now before you go, hear me out because . . .

This is what I DO NOT want you to do after reading this:

-Do NOT go buy supplements

-Do NOT make huge lifestyle changes

-Do NOT stop working out

If this sparked something inside of you or got you intrigued or interested to know more about your own health . . .

This is what I WANT you to do after reading this:

-Find a health specialist that you trust. One that will tackle this with you and will help find the right testing or tools to help YOU.

-Take a step back and assess your lifestyle and figure out if this would be beneficial for you.

-Talk to your spouse, family, or friends and start establishing your support system.

Remember that I am sharing results of my own individual testing and health journey. This took place over MONTHS and the changes that are to come will take MONTHS. This isn't a quick fix type of thing.

There's a million other things that I want to share and talk about with this stuff, but I feel like this is a solid place to end and oh my, if you've made it this far just know that I want to hug you. I know this was long and detailed and somewhat overwhelming, but what's the point in going through this if I'm not going to be thorough, right?

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here. Together, we're going to normalize hormone health and fertility! Having conversations and education about stuff like this is going to be pivotal when it comes to not only our own health, but the health and fertility of our children. You're choosing to live differently and I'm so stoked that we get to do this together.

If you have any questions, feel free to DM me on Instagram. That will be the best place for us to continue chatting about all of this.

Until next time, sending hugs!

SB