A specialized holistic approach to a woman’s wellness throughout her lifetime, including fertility, Obstetrics/Gynecology, hormones, breast health, and midlife transition. More about women’s health, Women’s Health Video

Women’s Health Centers

Natural Fertility Health Centers, (847) 392-7901, Arlington Heights
We are passionate about helping couples achieve their dream of parenthood naturally or in conjunction with western medical treatments. We help you reconnect with your FertileSpiritT.
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Women’s Health Practitioners

Dr. Nicholas LeRoy, DC, Dipl Ac, (312) 243-3338, Chicago
With my diverse knowledge base, I integrate diet, nutrition, acupuncture & other natural medicine therapies into a personalized treatment plan. I also provide safe, alternative treatments for cervical dysplasia, uterine fibroids and utilize breast thermography.
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Marilyn Mitchell, MD, BHSP, (847) 221-4700, Palatine
A physician healer who uses medical arts (medicine & surgery), energy healing & natural remedies to help women achieve wellness/empowerment. If you are interested in working on health/medical issues in multi-dimensional ways (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual), I would be honored to work with you. Profile

More About Women’s Health

Women’s Health covers a multitude of areas, focused on a holistic approach to overall women’s wellness. Women’s health areas covered include fertility issues, Obstetrics & Gynecology, hormone balance, breast health and midlife transition.

Women’s health refers to health and medical issues related specifically to human female anatomy. Associated structures may include the female genitalia, breasts and issues related to being female such as contraception, maternal health, menopause, menstruation, breast cancer and childbirth. Some medical and health advocates define Womens Health more broadly, to not only include specific illnesses and structures related to women, but also focus on issues related to womens health, such as access to healthcare, abortion and contraception and the differences in illness susceptibility based upon your sex, such as rates of cancer and heart disease between women and men.


Women’s health as an issue, has also been taken up by many feminists in the past also, where research has revealed treatment anomalies between women and men, and many feminists have campaigned for abortion and contraception access to be improved and approached as a health rather than a moral issue.

Key Points related to Women’s Health include:
- Read food labels to avoid preservatives, dyes, pesticides and other chemicals – artificial ingredients unbalance the hormonal system causing PMS and reduced estrogen levels.

- Try to eat only raw fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, fresh fish and whole grains – packaged goods lack nutritional quality.

- Your liver, ovaries, adrenal and pituitary glands and thyroid need a sufficient supply of omega 3 fatty acids, to produce our own hormones. Organic flax seed oil is an excellent source of Omega 3.

- If you are not producing enough of your own hormones, this can be helped by eating alfalfa and other foods containing phytoestrogens, as they act just like estrogen in the body.

- Toxins from non-organic foods, the environment and personal care products can cause havoc on your hormonal system and overwhelm the body. Exercises that move the whole body will remove toxins through the lymphatic system.

- USDA beef and dairy products contain heavy hormone residues. This interferes with your own hormonal system, try to eat organic dairy and beef, as they do not have livestock hormones in them.

- Altered fats and oils such as margarine, hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, chips, fried foods etc also disrupt the female hormonal system. Utilizing products with cold-pressed, organic unrefined oils are a great improvement.

- Hormonal imbalances can be added to by the use of synthetic and ‘natural’ isolated vitamins, switch to 100% whole food concentrate nutritional supplements. They are formulated to feed your cells with live nutrients that you are missing in your diet. This can bring huge benefits.

- National Institute of Health researchers found that the risk of hormone estrogen use increases the chances of women, who are otherwise healthy, of having a stroke by 41%, increase the risk of heart attack by 29% and breast cancer by 24%.

- HRT or Hormone Replacement Therapy – consists of drugs in the form of skin patches, creams or tablets, they increase the levels of sex hormone oestrogen.

Routine care is the best way to keep you and your breasts healthy, detecting breast cancer at it’s earliest stages is the main goal of breast care, but other benign conditions like fibrocystic breasts, cysts and other issues are often discovered during routine care.

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in the United States, other than skin cancer, and early detection of breast cancer greatly increases the survival rates. Treatment and options for breast cancer have improved greatly over recent years.

Painful Periods? ASSERT Yourself

By Ian Wahl DA, LAc, CH

Most women have experienced painful menstrual cramping, known as dysmenorrhea. For some women the cramps are debilitating; others experience only a slight discomfort.

What causes painful periods?
Medical science believes that the hormone prostaglandin triggers uterine contractions.¹ This hormone is secreted during ovulation. Current medical thought is if you don’t ovulate, you won’t have uterine contractions and therefore won’t experience cramping. That is why oral contraceptives are prescribed for painful periods.² When the oral contraceptive doesn’t work, conventional medicine starts looking at other possible causes from endometriosis to fibroids and cysts; and from pelvic inflammatory disease to chronic yeast infections and emotional stress.

All of the above can be responses to slight imbalances within a woman’s delicate endocrine system. Often times the imbalance can be so minute that it is difficult even for modern science to detect. These sub-clinical imbalances can throw off the entire endocrine system so that it no longer functions properly, thus creating a dysfunction in the way a woman’s body metabolizes hormones.

It’s not in your head, but it can be your lifestyle
Although we understand that painful periods are due to hormonal imbalances, stress, poor diet, lack of appropriate exercise or sleep, and either our modern “on-the-go-lifestyle” or its antithesis, the “couch potato sedentary lifestyle”, can make the problem worse.

Even Western medicine recommends diet and lifestyle changes coupled with prescription medications and antidepressants or tranquilizers. Of course, with large fibroids or severe endometriosis, doctors tend to recommend surgery to correct those symptoms. Although these may bring temporary relief, the medications and surgeries can cause unwanted side effects and do not address the underlying cause of painful periods.³ Remember, fibroids and endometriosis are just symptoms, not diseases.

The Severe Symptom Watch
However, some symptoms may indicate the need for western medical intervention. Contact your doctor if your painful periods are accompanied by any of the following:

- Increased vaginal discharge or sudden foul-smelling discharge
- High fever
- Severe pain occurring at times other than menstruation
- You have had an IUD for three months or longer

What else can a woman do?
She can ASSERT herself:
Acupuncture
Supplement
Self-massage
Eat properly
Relax and meditate
Take time for the right kind of exercise

Acupuncture
In 1997, the National Institute of Health (NIH) issued a consensus report that acupuncture is effective in the treatment of dysmenorrhea (painful periods).⁴ A licensed acupuncturist with a degree in Oriental Medicine can address the causes of painful periods (including endometriosis, fibroids, etc.) naturally, without medication or surgery, by restoring balance and harmony, both physically and emotionally.

Supplement
Use a high-potency multivitamin and mineral complex with vitamins A, C, E, B complex, zinc, and selenium. Chamomile tea soothes cramps and nausea; and evening primrose oil helps to ease bloating and water retention. Black cohosh, blue cohosh, and chaste tree supplements have been known to relieve cramps, breast tenderness, headaches, pain and hormonal imbalances. Add Royal Jelly and bee pollen to your diet; studies have shown that women given bee pollen and royal jelly supplements were able to alleviate their menstrual problems. A Harvard University study showed that women taking vitamin B6 were able to normalize their menstrual cycles. And blue-green algae has been known to regulate metabolism, nourish the endocrine system, and relieve painful periods also. Some women have found that natural progesterone cream helps relieve menstrual cramps.⁵

Self-massage
There are two major acupuncture points in the ear that help relieve menstrual cramping. The Endocrine Center is located in the intertragic notch—the little notch in your ear just above the earlobe. The Shen Men (calming point) and the Reproductive Center are located in the triangular fossa—the little triangular shaped indentation in the top part of the ear. With your index finger, perform a daily massage of those two areas of the ear until they are warm.

This abdominal massage is ideal for painful periods.

- Start by stroking clockwise around your abdomen with one hand following the other in a circle, using the whole surface of your hands.
- Then knead all over your abdomen with your fingers and thumbs.
- Then roll onto your side to knead your hips and bottom.
- Turn onto your back and stroke around your abdomen again.

Eat properly
Eliminate caffeine and nicotine. Start eating organic foods and hormone-free meats. The pesticides and hormones found in produce, meats, fish, and eggs contain synthetic estrogen-like substances which have a negative effect on a woman’s endocrine system.⁶ Eating more alkaline foods provide the right pH for balancing the endocrine system and hormone production. Low-fat, high-protein foods, such as tuna, lentils, cottage cheese, etc., help boost energy levels. Increase your intake of foods with tyrosine, the amino acid that helps improve energy and concentration levels. Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to help alleviate cramps (salmon, tuna, flaxseed, and omega-3 enriched eggs). Avoid processed foods as they usually have high sodium content and thus create more water retention and bloating.

Relax and meditate
Stress creates a physical response in our bodies that aggravate painful periods. Stress hormones produce the “fight or flight” response which was important from an evolutionary perspective. But today most of us live in environments that don’t require us to be in a “fight or flight” mode. Our stress response is today geared toward our work stressors, emotional issues, family issues, financial problems, worry, etc. Stress hormones redirect blood flow in such a way that blood over-nourishes certain parts of the endocrine system and under-nourishes others, so we don’t produce the right balance of hormones.⁷ And thus create increased PMS symptoms, including painful periods. Take warm baths. Use guided-imagery or meditation CD’s. See your acupuncturist, as acupuncture is extremely effective in helping the body deal with stress, insomnia, depression, and pain.

Take time to exercise properly
Over-exercise, pushing your body to its limit, is not appropriate for relief of menstrual cramps. Gentle Hatha Yoga offers an elegant way for a woman to help balance her mind, body and spirit. From the relaxing breath-work to the gentle stretches, yoga provides the perfect combination of exercise and healing that elicits a complete healing response from the body.

Remember, painful periods and other PMS symptoms are not a definition of who you are. It does not mean you are broken. It means that your body is hormonally and energetically imbalanced. ASSERT yourself and become physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually balanced—and start feeling like the woman you were meant to be.


Ian Wahl, DA, LAc, CH is a Doctor of Acupuncture and herbalist who specializes in women’s health and reproductive wellness. He is the Director of the Natural Fertility Health Centers (www.FertileSpirit.com), as well as the founder of the Wahls of Wellness (www.WahlsOfWellness.com) and the Midwest Allergy Relief Centers (www.MidwestAllergyRelief.com).

¹ Hill, Ashley, http://www.obgyn.net/women/women.asp?page=/women/articles/dysmen_dah

² Smith, Roger and Kaunitz, Andrew, Painful Menstrual Periods, http://www.uptodate.com/patients/content/topic.do?topicKey=~3PP3HNdnnTFVBkt

³ Coco AS. Dysmenorrhea. American Family Physician. 1999; 60: 489-497.

⁴ National Institutes of Health Consensus Report on Acupuncture, http://nccam.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/acupuncture-for-pain.htm

⁵ How to Use Progesterone Cream. http://www.progesteronetherapy.com/how-to-use-progesterone-cream.html

⁶ Jacobs, M. The Silent Invaders: Pesticides, Livelihoods, and Women’s Health. ZED Books LTD. 2002.

⁷ Mayo Clinic Staff. Meditation. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/meditation/HQ01070

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