Feel Sick Before Your Period? It Might Be Menstrual Flu and You Can Fix It | Dr. Jolene Brighten

Dr. Brighten: [00:00:00] Have you ever felt like you were coming down with the flu before your period? Like the achy exhaustion, maybe a little bit feverish, feeling only to have those symptoms entirely disappear when your period starts. Yeah, this has happened to me too and I actually struggled with symptoms of the period flu off and on for years.

So if this sounds familiar, you might be dealing with the period flu too. And while it's not an official diagnosis, it's a very real experience and for many women struggling with it, it is something that they get gaslit about. So today in the Dr. Brighten show, we are gonna break down the period flu and what you can do about it.

Hi, I am Dr. Jolene Brighten I'm board certified in naturopathic endocrinology. That means I'm a hormone doctor. I'm also a certified menopause specialist and a certified sex counselor. And if you don't know, my background is in nutrition science, so we'll be talking a lot is food is medicine to help with the period flu and PMS struggles that can come up.

Now in [00:01:00] today's episode, we're gonna cover what the period flu is and why it happens, the role of your hormones, inflammation, histamine. ' cause yes, histamine plays a big part in this. And I'm gonna give you the strategies to relieve symptoms and even prevent the period flu altogether. We also have to talk about how certain hormone, like chemicals called prostaglandins are influenced by omega fatty acids and how changing your diet can influence those to reduce.

Symptoms. And then I need you to track your period. Friends, I need you to track your whole cycle. We'll, we'll be talking about why tracking your symptoms is critical and how to advocate for yourself if your doctor dismisses you. So if you're tired of feeling like you have the flu every single month, this is the episode for you.

Please, please, please consider leaving me a review or sharing this with a friend. Reviews help so, [00:02:00] so much. And big thank you to my sponsors because without them I wouldn't be able to make all of this content for you. All right. With that said, let's dive on in. Now if you're dealing with the period flu right now, I wanna give you three things that you can do today to feel better fast.

So the first thing is take one gram of fish oil or a thousand milligrams, or eat some wild caught salmon to help lower prostaglandins. Number two is drink ginger tea. And that can help reduce nausea, but it also can help with inflammation as well. It's really great for the gut. Number three is don't drink alcohol cocktail shots, uh, glass of wine, whatever it is.

Don't drink alcohol and avoid processed food for the next three days to help reduce the histamine flareups that you might be experiencing right now. Okay? So I wanna get that in so that you have some tips that you can employ right now. But we need to talk about like what is the period flu. [00:03:00] The period flu refers to a set of flu-like symptoms that show up in the second half of your cycle.

So post ovulation, but before your period starts. So let's do a quick refresher of your cycle. Day one first day that you bleed, that's your period. Two ovulation is the follicular phase. Estrogen is going up, up, up, up, up, and it's peaking right before ovulation. Your uterine lining getting nice and thick, and your body is preparing for ovulation.

Ovulation then happens, and that is estrogen spiking. So estrogen's gonna go really high. Spike, tell the brain, okay, it's time. The egg's ready. The brain releases luteinizing hormone and that triggers the release of the egg. Uh, if you read, is this normal where I do also talk about the period flu, I used the, like, you know, release the kraken voice of like release the egg.

Now, once you release the egg, you enter into the luteal phase. Progesterone should be [00:04:00] going up that's supporting the possibility of a pregnancy. And so progesterone is being produced by the corpus lium, a temporary endocrine structure that's left behind as a result of ovulation. It's going up, up, up, but sometimes it doesn't.

This is when many women experience PMS, but also the period flu can happen and the period flu symptoms that can include things like. Muscle aches, nausea, vomiting. Cramps, abdominal pain, uh, low grade fever, so not a, a fever to like, you know, call the doctor about, but a little bit of a fever, chills, headaches, migraines, dizziness, lightheadedness, constipation and diarrhea can come with this.

You might feel like you can't sleep. You might have extreme fatigue or exhaustion, and your joints may also feel achy. The key thing to note is that these symptoms happen at the same time every single month. And they go away when your period [00:05:00] starts. So that's why you need to track your symptoms. You need to be tracking this because you might actually be getting sick.

You could be sick, but if it's happening month over month. Friend that's most likely the period flu. So what causes the period flu was probably what you're wondering right now. The exact cause isn't well studied. Shocking. I know, right? Because we just like don't study women's health because why would that matter at all?

I digress. Anyhow, here's what we do know then. Theories that we have. So the hormonal fluctuations I was talking about in that quick mini crash course on your cycle, your hormones are shifting dramatically during that luteal phase. Progesterone rises and then it drops sharply before your period. So that can trigger fatigue, mood changes, sleep disturbance.

Estrogen also declines right before your period, and since estrogen supports serotonin, its drop can leave you filling off like you're sad and also coming down with [00:06:00] something. But what often happens is you don't make enough progesterone estrogen's unchallenged. Then estrogen goes in interplays with histamine.

And it can cause you to feel irritable and cranky. And achy. We're gonna talk more about histamine, but it's usually an issue with not getting your progesterone up. So here's a few things you can do. Number one is manage your blood sugar, protein, fat, fiber, every single meal every single day. Keep your blood sugar stable, support progesterone through decreasing stress and regulating your blood sugar.

Super important Vitex. You know, I'm a fan of this herb. I talk about this herb all the time. It can help boost your progesterone naturally. Usually we're using about 200 milligrams a day throughout the cycle. Magnesium also helps with , regulating your hormones, and it can help with reducing inflammation and can help with prostaglandins that we're gonna talk about soon.

300 milligrams is usually a sweet spot of magnesium [00:07:00] glycinate. Limit alcohol and caffeine during this time because alcohol can raise histamine and caffeine can make anxiety and sleep issues worse. That doesn't mean you can't have any coffee, just like friend. Don't be passing three cups a day. Okay, now, prostaglandins and inflammation, I mentioned those .

Briefly, but. We gotta put together this little puzzle piece for you. Prostaglandins are hormone like compounds that drive inflammation. They're not all a bad thing, okay? Because prostaglandins can cause uterine contractions, which help shed your uterine lining. That's your period and help with you having a baby.

But when they're too potent, they can contribute to really severe cramps, headaches, nausea, and even fever. They're also responsible for period poops, and yes, that's a thing they make your digestive system like more active. They're stimulating your intestines as well, leading to diarrhea in some women. But here's some things people don't always [00:08:00] know.

Prostaglandins are made from omega fatty acids, so there's different types of prostaglandins and there's different potencies of prostaglandins, and they can be pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory depending on the fatty acids they come from. So Omega-3 fatty acids, those are the anti-inflammatory ones found in wild caught salmon, flax seeds, walnuts.

These help with you having effective prostaglandins causing your period, right? But not so much that they cause period pain. So we need prostaglandins to contract our uterus to shed the uterine lining, but we don't want them being super potent. And how do we get super potent ones? We have a diet rich in Omega six fatty acids and omega six fatty acids are found in vegetable oil seed oils like soybean, corn, sunflower fried foods, and these make more potent prostaglandins.

This is why a diet rich in ultra [00:09:00] processed food is a fast track to horrible periods that you hate. So a quick fix. If you're struggling with the period flu is to increase omega threes and reduce processed foods, reducing omega six oils. So you can try fish oil supplements one to two grams daily. You can add more wild cut salmon.

You can eat chia seeds, you can have fresh ground flax seeds in your diet. These things will help to shift the Omega-3 profile of your diet. Now I wanna shift gears to histamine and the period flu. We gotta talk about this because it's a major but often overlooked factor in the period flu. So what is histamine?

I. Histamine is a compound that's involved in the immune system and it skyrockets when estrogen is high. It's also involved in your mood as well, and we can see there's a connection between histamine and PMDD as well. I'll put a link in the show notes about that. Now estrogen triggers histamine [00:10:00] release while progesterone helps with its breakdown.

So if you have something like estrogen excess, or an imbalance of estrogen, progesterone. If you have histamine intolerance, you might have headaches and migraines, nausea, sinus congestion, feeling dizzy, anxious, heart palpitations. He can show up in a lot of ways. And if this is resonating with you and you're like, say more about histamine and then friend, we gotta talk about being neurodivergent.

So both A DHD and autism have been linked to MA cell activation syndrome, histamine intolerance, histamine problems. In general, this means that women with A DHD or autism may be more prone to histamine related symptoms, especially when estrogen fluctuates in the menstrual cycle. So PMDD and period flu may be upon you.

So why does this happen? Okay. Histamine plays a role in neurotransmitter regulation, so what's happening in the brain, including dopamine, which [00:11:00] is already dysregulated in A DHD. Many autistic women have heightened immune responses leading to increased mast cell activity and more histamine release. A DHD is also associated with dopamine dysregulation and histamine influences dopamine signaling in the brain.

So I will put some links in the show notes to A DHD and PMDD and this whole histamine connection if you wanna read up on it. If you want me to do an episode about it, just leave me a comment, let me know. Now, let's talk about how to reduce histamine triggered period flu. Firstly, you may need to eat low histamine foods.

So focusing on fresh meats, leafy greens, apples, pears, coconut products, and avoid high histamine foods like aged cheese, processed meats, alcohol, fermented foods, and sometimes chocolate. I hate that one. Just the week of your, before your period or, uh, the, the time that you've [00:12:00] identified that you deal with the period flu.

We also need to support the DAO enzyme, which is the enzyme that breaks down histamine. And you can do that by eating more B six found in Turkey, bananas, chickpeas, or supplementing it 25 to 50 milligrams a day. Quercetin, which is found in onions, apples, capers, and ne leaf tea, uh, that can help stabilize the mast cells so they don't dump all this histamine.

You can also try a histamine blocker. So if your enzyme is struggling, supplements and diet aren't enough. You may want to try something like Zyrtec or Claritin that can help with histamine related period flu symptoms, but you need to talk to your doctor. Okay? So with all of this advice here, remember I am a doctor, but I'm not your doctor, so you need to check in with all your doctor.

We're not in doctor patient relationships, so just wanna be certain of what's right for you. Now we also have to talk about gut health and [00:13:00] liver support. So since histamine and hormone balance are tied to gut health and detox pathways, adding in some quick love to those organs can be super powerful. So eating cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, Brussels sprouts to help the liver break down excess estrogen considering maybe broccoli sprouts.

If you are someone who's struggling with histamine issues, you're trying to avoid histamine foods. You can support your gut with probiotics and fiber to prevent estrogen from being reactivated and put back into circulation. And you could try things like dandelion or burdock root T to help with your liver's detox pathways.

Now, I want you to keep in mind that women with histamine intolerance often have gut issues like. , Irritable Bowel Syndrome, sibo, leaky Gut. You have to address those. And so it's very important that if you think you have gut issues, that you look into those. And I will also [00:14:00] link to the quick IBS endometriosis episode that I did so that, um, you can see why IBS is sometimes a mistake to diagnose someone with.

Now many women are getting dismissed by doctors when they bring up the symptoms and they say something like, period flu. And so I want to talk to you a little bit about like, how can you advocate for yourself if your symptoms are severe enough to make you miss work or school every month? Don't let anyone tell you, it's just normal PMS.

If your doctor isn't taking you seriously, ask for hormone testing, histamine intolerance, evaluation, even a referral to a naturopathic or functional medicine doctor. 'cause the reality is, is that you deserve to feel good all month long. Now if your doctor is dismissing you, you can say something like, I have these flu-like symptoms at the same time of my cycle every single month.

I'd like to investigate the potential causes, [00:15:00] including what hormones or histamine issues could be involved. And then let them know how it's impacting your activities of daily living, how it's interfering with your life. So I know that can be difficult. And even though the period flu isn't widely accepted, it's very real.

And if you're feeling sick every month before your period, it's definitely time that you listen to your body and hopefully you are able to get your doctor to listen to you as well. And I wanna remind you that the period flu is common, but that doesn't mean it's normal. And these symptoms are your body's way of talking to you.

They're really giving you a clue of what is going on and helping you, you know, navigate like what you know, what these symptoms are saying to you. You know, that can be as easy as tracking your cycle. So track your cycle, track your symptoms. Use something like Natural Cycles, which is a really easy app to leverage.[00:16:00] 

I wanna recap with reminding you that you can shift your diet. So increasing Omega-3 fatty acids. Lowering histamine foods to reduce inflammation can help. Advocate for yourself with your doctor, even that they dismiss you. Ask for testing, ask for evaluation, and try quick relief tips like you know, the magnesium, we talked about the ginger tea.

It's also important to stay hydrated and making sure you know when you're staying hydrated, that you are drinking enough water throughout the day to support those detox pathways. So if you found this episode helpful, I would hope that you would share it with a friend or anyone you think. Needs to hear it.

And if you've ever experienced the period flu, DM me on Instagram or comment on my latest post. I wanna hear your story. I'd like us to start breaking the silence of this and help more women [00:17:00] take control of their health because this is something that. Women are struggling with month after month, and they're getting absolutely dismissed and unheard , and much like, you know, PMDD.

Used to be something that was dismissed as just bad PMS. Um, we see adrenal fatigue used to be the term that patients used. Now there's oodles of studies saying HPA dysregulation, and it's becoming more acceptable. Leaky gut was a term that patients used. I brought it up and I said it in this episode. And there's still doctors who will dismiss that, and yet intestinal hyperpermeability is validated in the research.

So while we don't have a ton of research on period flu, I do expect in the future. We are going to see both medicine and science finally validate what women have been saying forever, which is like the reality of what happens, right? [00:18:00] Whenever there's studies that come out about women's health and they're like, oh, this is real, and it's like, Hmm, we could've, we could've told you that.

In fact, we did tell you that you just chose not to listen. So medical, gas, lighting is real. Research and medicine is really not where we need it to be to help us right now, and it is my hope, and I do believe we are going to get more information on this in the future. However, I think that what we need to do now is we need to honor what is true for the individual.

We need to believe women about their bodies, and we need to start formulating our best ideas and offering simple solutions that people can manage in their life. Now, the last thing I wanna talk about is I said it's important to track your cycle. Okay? If you are tracking your cycle, or if you're not tracking your cycle, I should say, and you're like, okay, how do I even start this?

Day one is the first day of your [00:19:00] period. We need to know how many days does your period last, and how heavy is it throughout the, the cycle. By the way, I outline all of this. My book is this normal and I take you through what's normal and what's not normal about periods and hormones and, uh, everything really about being a woman and living in your body.

So we wanna know. Quality, consistency of the period, how long it lasts, how much pain there is, are there clots? How big are those clots? We wanna quantify as much data as possible. We wanna know when your period starts, and then the next period starts. How much time is in between there? So how long is your cycle?

Then we wanna understand things like what happens around ovulation. There are, I go through the six signs of ovulation in my book. But one of the key things is that we will see a basal body temperature spike, and we see lots of cer fertile cervical mucus that precedes ovulation. That's a sign that estrogen is up, [00:20:00] so we wanna know what's going on around that time.

If you are someone who struggles with histamine issues, this can be a clue and an insight because if you don't feel good around ovulation, that's when estrogen is super high. As I told you, estrogen is going to be up and it will cause histamine to go up. It also will slow the enzyme that breaks down histamine, so you could be dealing with histamine problems.

Also, if you have endometriosis, you might be having pain around ovulation. That's another important sign to track. Then we wanna know what happens after that. If your mood tanks within a few days post ovulation, we might be looking at PMDD. If you are finding that seven days post ovulation, you're like, no, I'm.

Still feeling pretty good, but once I get where I thought within like three to five days of my period, now I'm feeling achy. Now I'm feeling that feverish flu-like kind of symptoms that can point towards the period flu. [00:21:00] Why is that? It is often, as I said before, not enough progesterone relative to estrogen, so we don't make enough progesterone and estrogen just gets to come out and play, which might be great sometimes for dopamine and for serotonin, but it's not so great if you're dealing with histamine issues during that time.

So you need to track those symptoms and understand what's going on when you identify when those symptoms are going on. Three days before that, that's when I would say start a lower histamine diet. Make sure that you're getting in, um, you know, the, some of the things we talked about with the DAO enzyme clearance in supporting that, making sure that you have those things on board.

I. That way you can cut it off at the pass. So really important to identify when those symptoms are and then to act early. I am not a fan, by the way, of a low histamine diet for life. I think it's a horrible way to have to live. No leftovers ever. Like I ain't got time for that. And as I [00:22:00] told you, like histamine is very closely associated to A DHD and autism.

And like to my A DH ADHD ladies out there like, like meal planning and prepping and like having to like all of that. And then for autism, the change in the routine like that can cause more stress, which then causes problems for your progesterone. So if we're going to use a low histamine diet, I'm trying to dial in the window of when is it absolutely necessary to utilize that?

And if we identify that, like, okay. This, you know, five days before my period, I have the period flu symptoms coming on, but I can't change my diet. That's too much for me. That's fair. Sometimes what we do in my office is we start Claritin. I. Doing 10 milligrams twice a day the day before, we would expect the period flu symptoms onset, so 24 hours before.

And then just through that phase, that's a short term [00:23:00] strategy while we work on some of the bigger underlying issues like what's going on in your gut. Again, while I mentioned a medication here, I have to remind you, you must talk to your doctor even though this is over the counter. These medications, while, it's better than Benadryl.

I will say that, um, the, the newer gen is better than Benadryl. I. You still have to talk to your doctor. You might be on a medication that has, uh, that this will interact with. You might have a medical condition that this would be problematic for. You might decide that you're just gonna stay on this indefinitely, and then we might have cognitive changes in the future.

We don't want any of that. So talk to your, your provider. Make sure that this is safe for you. And if you are on medications and you're like, I can't get in to see my provider for like six months, 'cause I know that's reality for some people. Go to your pharmacist. Talk to them about the medications you're on.

Talk to them about like, I would like to use Claritin. Uh, see what they have to say. They will advise you. Your pharmacist is such an [00:24:00] ally when it comes to managing the medications that you're on. I. Alright. I hope that this has been very helpful for you. I do have a free hormone balancing meal plan. You can find that in the show notes or at drbrighten.com/hormonekit, and it does talk about other strategies to boost your progesterone as well.

The hormone balancing meal plan is not designed to be low history. Tomine it is, however, gluten-free and dairy-free 'cause I know some people have issues with that. And it is designed to support your liver detox pathways, your gut in moving out the metabolites of estrogen and, uh, the estrogen you no longer need.

So again, you can grab that at drbrighten.com/hormonekit. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a re a review. I would really appreciate that if you have left a review. Thank you. I read them all. I really appreciate it, and as always, you drive the conversation. So let me know what you wanna hear next.