Hypothalamic Amenorrhea This post is dedicated to athletes, to anyone who has struggled with body image, and to anyone who has ever used anything external to affirm their self-worth. Hypothalamic Amenorrhea is the absence of the menstrual cycle due to too much exercise and too little fuel. It is AKA the female athlete triad (this term also recognizing bone density loss). HA actually begins in the brain, but affects the ovaries ability to menstruate. In a healthy woman, the hypothalamus, which is the master gland in the brain to regulate hormones in the body, signals to the pituitary via GnRH to produce follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone. Men have these hormones too to produce testosterone and sperm. In women they stimulate the ovaries to produce follicles, ovulate, build a lining and then shed the lining. Through this process estrogen is created and used. And estrogen is vital in so many processes in the body, regulating heart health, brain health, and bone health. So, when a woman begins experiencing physical stress from not eating enough and/or over exercising, the hypothalamus stops the loop of producing the hormones. Completely stops it. Why? My guess is that its an evolutionary adaptive feature to keep babies being born into a stressful environment where not much food is available. Because the body literally thinks this is what is happening: there is famine and danger in the world, and it wants to protect our offspring from this danger. And also a lot of energy is needed to fuel reproduction and if we are putting less energy into our bodies, it needs to go to the most vital systems, such as the brain and heart. The human body is actually quite wonderful and smart. So as far as my story with HA: Growing up I always struggled now and then with wanting to be the fit, athletic prototype. I also associated being athletic with being skinny and having abs and hip bones. I was athletic throughout high school but never as thin as I wanted to be. Then for my 3rd year of college, when I moved to Greece, I found out that the quality of my food made a difference in how I felt and looked. I started cooking for myself for the first time in my life from real, unprocessed foods, like actual vegetables. Ive always loved fruits. I stopped eating bread and ate less grains. I turned my diet into something plant-based. I was also starting to exercise more because of my awesome colleges outdoor Olympic swimming pool, free exercise classes, and gym. But heres the one thing I have realized about my self, is that I dont do moderation very well. I have an extreme personality and also an addictive one. So I was fitter and thinner but I had to be the fittest and thinnest. (I have since become more balanced and not so extreme (and crazy)) The summer after my first year in Greece, when I was 21, my period went away. I think I was happy about that. I mean, who wouldnt be...initially. I think my roommate might have mentioned to me that wasnt a good thing, and I think also my yoga instructor mentioned that I was entering a dangerous place by being so thin, but Im pretty stubborn (as my parents would probably agree) and I was doing my thing. This whole thing couldve just been a phase, I will never know. But that winter my brother died unexpectedly and I coped the best way I knew how. By turning deeper into my masochistic control of my body and healthy eating. I felt so helpless at losing my friend who connected with me at such a soul level, who had the same unique quirkiness and struggle with an un-ideal world. I shut down my happiness and free-spirit in exchange for the bondage of self-control/slavery. I was really a slave. This continued for 7 more years. I felt physically fine at first. I experienced a rush from tiring myself out and restricting what I ate. But last year I started getting weak. I couldnt run as far or as fast. My workouts were exhausting me and I wasnt recovering after them. I started getting stress fractures in my legs and hips and had to cut out running all together. I felt tired all the time. I used to drink a lot, but I began to not be able to drink without feel horribly weak and light-headed the next day. And I felt dizzy if I went awhile without eating, or when I did certain stretches I felt so dizzy I would fall to the floor. My blood pressure was actually very low and my heart wasnt working well. Then my back started hurting all the time. I was tired all the time too. I thought I had Mono or something. So last summer I got a blood test which showed my hormone levels, LH, FSH, and estrogen to be non-existing. I was oblivious to the meaningfulness of that at first, but then began to realize how hormones are so vital for health. I accepted that if I didnt do something to fix these hormones, I could possibly get really ill. At the rate I was declining, I couldnt imagine what Id be like next year. I was really scared. I visited an endocrinologist who said I had to eat until my periods came back. It was hard to accept, after so many years of eating just enough, but last November I started eating. I was already up 15 pounds from my lowest weight, but he wanted me to gain another 20. I began doing research on the most nourishing ways of eating and discovered the wisdom of Weston A. Price, eating nutrient dense animal products, fats and all. This kind of of fat, and cholesterol, is actually very essential for our health. It contains fat soluble vitamins, A, D, and K2, a vitamin responsible for activating many metabolic processes in our bodies, including transporting calcium into our bones and keeping it out of our arteries. And cholesterol is a building block for everything our bodies need to produce our hormones. These were nutrients I was missing for so many years and my body was craving them. I think getting these nutrients was key in improving my health and also reestablishing my leptin levels. Leptin is a hormone that increases in response to eating, to let your body know it is satisfied and does not need more food. There are two ways leptin signaling can be broken. One is by an inflammatory diet (processed foods, sugar), and in this case your body does not tell you to stop eating, and you can become overweight. When someone is underweight, their leptin levels decrease too, so that the person will feel hungry and keep eating until they are at a good weight. So, I didnt have any leptin. I was constantly hungry, even after eating and my stomach feeling full. But gradually this began to change and I felt content after meals. This was the greatest feeling ever after feeling like I was constantly starving for 8 years. Also my skin began to improve and I stopped getting cracks in the corners of my mouth, and my dizziness began to subside. I passed the 20 pound gain mark, and still didnt feel close to getting a period and had to figure out what I was missing. My diet was still actually pretty clean at this point and I was still controlling what I ate, in an orthorexic way. I did some more research about insulin, another hormone that regulates blood sugar and weight. For most people, a spike in insulin is not necessarily a good thing, as it means that there is possibly too much sugar in the blood and this stresses out the hypothalamus and adrenals. But for me, I needed more of this insulin spiking to stimulate my hypothalamus. I had to do something that I had nightmares about: eating junk food. I had to eat ice cream, and I even ate pizza. And I had to like it, which obviously wasnt that hard. So while these junk foods were directly doing something to my hypothalamus, they were also doing something to my spirit, which was teaching me to LET GO. I was letting go of my have tos and cants and entering a place of freedom with food, but it was also directly impacting my mind. And through this process I had to search for things that made me truly happy, talking to my mom or dad on the phone, riding on my moped along the coast with earphones in, spending late nights with good friends, and just generally going with the flow. I also had to stop exercising (besides walking and yoga). And then after 9 months of eating and a couple months of relinquishing control and finding peace and happiness within myself, my period came back (Sept 3rd, 2014!). I will never enter that dark place again. I know now that there is nothing to gain from a hopeless, dark, narcissistic, place of self deprecation, but so much joy in giving in, letting go, and realizing life is too short to not be happy in just being alive.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 03:26:15 +0000
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