Acupuncture for periods.
"Your menstrual cycle is a vital sign, just like your pulse, temperature, respiration rate, and blood pressure. And it provides you with essential information about your health"
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If you would also like to understand how a 'normal' menstrual cycle works then I suggest reading my blog post.
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I have also saved some reading, at the end of this page, which I recommend if you are interested in learning more.
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Recommended reading
Period Repair Manual by Lara Briden.
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The book explains how to use diet, nutritional supplements, herbal medicine, and body-identical hormones and provides advice and tips.
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Period Power by Maisie Hill
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You will discover how to maximise your natural superpowers each month while making adjustments for the darker days and plan your month to perform at your best in all aspects of your life.
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Maisie has a membership programme to join and understand how to work with your hormones
Beyond the Pill by Dr Jolene Brighten
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Dr Brighten has lots of resources online including Instagram and her website.
This book specializes in treating women’s hormone imbalances caused by the pill and looks at reversing the myriad of symptoms —whether you choose to stay on the pill or not.
Woman Code by Alisa Vitti
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Alisa has a cycle tracking app and also wrote this book to help people naturally eliminate problems with their period, improve their fertility, and get their body, mood, and sex drive back.
Fertile by Emma Cannon
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I love Emma. She is a spiritual and wise woman who has lots of experience in the area of fertility.
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This book gives practical ways to improve your health and wellbeing ready for conception and pregnancy.
The Fifth Vital Sign by Lisa Hendrickson-Jack
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This book, in my opinion, is awesome. It allows you to see your menstrual cycle as a vital sign, just like your pulse, temperature, respiration rate, and blood pressure. And it provides you with essential information about your health.
Acupuncture and periods: period tracker
Menstruators are amazing. And tracking your cycle is very important. It allows you to understand your ovulation, your signs and your symptoms. It also highlights your triggers and means you can start to notice times when you feel good or bad.
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The more you know, the more acupuncturists are able to understand conditions and the more we can help you.
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To help you please feel free to download this period tracker I created (by clicking here). You will see below a picture of what it looks like it. It is very simple.
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Because it doesn't need to be tricky or high-tech.
For example using my PDF, you can track
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- mood
- period length
- cycle length
- quality and quantity of your period blood
- temperature
- colour of bleed and clots
- pain
- discharge
- cravings
Why is period tracking important? As Lisa Hendrickson-Jack calls it, it is the Fifth Vital Sign. It provides you, and your acupuncturist, with a wealth of information.
So, what does your menstrual cycle tell me as your acupuncturist?
By tracking, you know what is normal for you. There is a fallacy that a 'normal' period cycle is 28 days. Yours may be shorter or longer. As long as you can start to gauge an idea of when you ovulate and then note when the first day of your full bleed is, this will start to tell you how long your cycle is. If your periods are always 24 day cycles, that is normal for you. That means I know where you are in your cycle when I provide treatment. Because when we treat people who menstruate we actually tailor our treatment to suit where you are. Even if you come in for something non-menstrual cycle related.
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As an aside, unless you have a problem with your menstrual cycle we actually try and avoid treatment on that week.
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So what about everything else?
Your period colour tells me something
Your period pain and where and when it happens tells me something
How much you bleed tells me something
If you have large clots in your bleed tells me something
If you get PMS (and the signs and symptoms which are specific to you) tell me something
If you would like to know more about periods, from an acupuncture perspective, you can take a look at my blog posts below. I have written about:
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An alternative way to treat PMDD with acupuncture and Chinese medicine lifestyle advice
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Period: looking at how you can help yourself during the phases of your menstrual cycle
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Or feel free to speak to me, and see if I can help you.
Free downloads
The most important thing is that you get support and help with your periods. I have created these free downloads so that you can start to investigate your period problems. Feel free to download what you need.
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My email is always open if you have questions.
You can also download, for free, my guide on menstrual cycle blood tests here.
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This 11-page guide looks at the various blood tests when you should do the test, the ranges, possible signs and symptoms, and what this means for your menstrual health.
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If you have any questions please feel free to message me.