Gretchen Reis, M.D. of Integrity Wellness MD is a Women’s Health Specialist providing (PMS) Premenstrual Syndrome Relief to Charlotte Women using natural bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

Pre-menstrual Syndrome plagues many reproductive aged women and can often cause debilitating symptoms that disrupt a woman’s life for close to half of a month. The week before a woman’s period her estrogen and progesterone levels may become imbalanced, and these symptoms may interfere with work, relationships, and social habits. Once the menstrual period finally does begin, women may continue to feel poorly due to a whole other set of painful symptoms that arise during the actual menstrual cycle. Being uncomfortable or in pain for close to two weeks out of every month is challenging for anyone, and when you must also manage family, work, or social obligations, it simply isn’t reasonable.

Integrity Wellness MD in Charlotte has helped countless women overcome the symptoms and pains of pre-menstrual syndrome. Our comprehensive bioidentical hormone replacement program can help women to regain balance and avoid dealing with severe symptoms before their periods. By helping women to improve their diets, reduce stress, and balance their hormones, we reduce several painful symptoms that can interfere with everyday life. Integrity Wellness MD takes the time to listen to women’s concerns and provide safe and natural treatments that can truly help them to improve their health issues and achieve a greater quality of life.

Call (980) 701-9228 to speak with Charlotte Women’s Health Specialist at Integrity Wellness MD and schedule your bioidentical hormone consultation today!

Functional Medicine Solutions at Integrity Wellness MD

Experience the comprehensive benefits of functional medicine at Integrity Wellness MD, where our focus is on personalized treatment strategies tailored to your unique health needs. Our approach combines advanced hormone testing, bioidentical hormone therapy, targeted supplementation, and lifestyle modifications to help you achieve optimal health and vitality. Take advantage of our extensive resources, including a free health quiz, detailed guides, engaging webinars, and schedule a personal call with Dr. Gretchen Reis. Discover how our precise, targeted approaches can enhance your overall health and vitality, even in cases where conventional tests may fail to reveal the full picture. Begin your journey to lasting wellness with us today!

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Most Common Symptoms of Pre-Menstrual Syndrome

Bloating is caused by the retention of salt and water that occurs when estrogen and progesterone levels change. The dreaded discomfort of the bloated belly has been the boogeyman of PMS symptoms since women’s discovery of their own reflection. Not only is it physically uncomfortable, but visual sensation of bloat can lead to a great deal of emotional distress, as if a menstrual woman doesn’t have enough on her plate.

As hormones fluctuate, serotonin and other neurotransmitters in your body become impacted, and as these hormones drop, your blood constricts and BAM! Migraine. If you’ve ever been laid flat for a day, wishing to get out of your own head but unable to think of anything else, then you may benefit from balancing your hormones.

Hormones plummet and our energy levels seem to drop with them. This fatigue can keep us in a vicious cycle of brain fog with a low mood, untypical food cravings, and easily socially exhausted. Being so drained can make us feel unable to maintain our healthy and active lifestyle choices, but if we boost the hormones, we boost our energy and get back to doing what we love without the monthly dip.

Struck by all of the compounding symptoms of PMS, it is no wonder that women take an emotional plunge along with their energy and joy. PMS can leave you tired, cranky, hungry, with a headache, and in physical pain, and the feel-good hormones ducking out is an emotional last straw. Balance your hormones and let us help you defeat the depression.

Once a month we say goodbye to our natural ability to produce serotonin, the feel-good hormone that is released when we ingest starchy goodness. The less we can produce for ourselves, the more we crave it from external sources. It makes sense, even though it doesn’t make it easier. If you’re having trouble conquering your cravings, it’s a great time to look at restoring your natural serotonin stores.

Hormone levels drop, we begin to crave the sweet and the salty, we are too exhausted to work up a sweat and too depressed to care. It’s okay, it’s natural, but now we’re experiencing all of this and the scale’s gone up, which is a hit to our self-image and body-confidence. But you can beat it with help, if we restore your hormones, we restore your body’s ability to work through those monthly setbacks.

Swelling of the body with the dropping hormones also occurs in our breasts, leaving our chest feeling heavy, sagging, and tender to painful. If hormone levels are restored to a balanced state, the inflammation of the breasts may go down, leaving you feeling more comfortable and happier to get those sports bras on in the morning!

With all the other symptoms of PMS, plus the general fact that menstruation is a monthly given for most of us, it is reasonable and expected to feel a little upset. However, if your dropping hormones are leaving you constantly wishing you had a plate to throw at the next person who asks if it’s your time, you may benefit from a hormone balancing program.

Headaches, fatigue, weight gain, depression, and bleeding for days at a time simply isn’t enough, we must also deal with cramps. Have your hormones dropped suddenly and now you’ve found yourself keeled over next to the frozen peas in your local market, trying to decide if you should leave or grab a bag to hold to your tummy? We get that, which is why we help boost your hormones so you can say goodbye to the monthly feeling of being socked in the gut.

Think of all of your PMS symptoms, is it any wonder that between cravings, migraines, cramps, and hyper focusing on the daily irritations you are suddenly also unable to sleep? When our hormones decline, we can find it difficult to manage enough calm to even sleep it off, which makes the next day somehow worse. With balance, we can improve your sleep cycle and have you up and ready to tackle the challenges of the next day.

Younger women that are just beginning to get their periods may have more severe PMS because their hormone levels are adjusting to becoming fertile. In younger women, the body usually rebalances itself; however, healthy exercise and eating habits can help to reduce PMS symptoms. Women that are going through perimenopause may also notice PMS symptoms becoming more acute due to hormonal fluctuations. When the primary female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone fluctuate during the beginnings and ends of their fertile years, women may notice more bloating, cramping, headaches, mood changes, or fatigue.

Women going through high amounts of stress may also experience elevated PMS symptoms. In women, both the ovaries and the adrenal glands produce vital female hormones, and if the adrenal glands become worn down due to stress, they may not be able to produce a normal amount of the sex hormones needed to support the ovaries and the menstrual cycle. Women that have undergone or are still experiencing chronic stress may notice more severe PMS symptoms that usually include extreme fatigue, food cravings, poor sleep, migraines, and mood changes.

Several lifestyle factors such as dietary habits and exercise can influence pre-menstrual syndrome. Dietary factors are extremely important in avoiding the symptoms of PMS, and women that maintain healthy diets and a healthy weight can keep their bodies balanced and potentially prevent PMS. In women that have a high amount of body fat, pre-menstrual syndrome may be more prevalent because they have increased amounts of estrogen.

Body fat actually contains estrogen, and if estrogen levels are too high, the symptoms around the menstrual period may be intensified. Women should take in adequate amounts of proteins, vegetables, and fruits in order to allow their bodies to produce healthy amounts of hormones, exercise is also vital in order to improve blood flow and keep the heart healthy. When women have healthy dietary habits and exercise, they can potentially prevent the many debilitating symptoms of PMS by keeping their stress down and hormones better balanced.

However, sometimes hormones dropping and becoming imbalanced simply happens anyway, Integrity Wellness MD doctors will help you get to the bottom of what is causing you distress and will work with you to create a plan that will bring you peace and relief.

Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Treatment Protocols

Oral Hormone Supplements:

Hormone therapy can help restore normal hormone function and health and restoring those primary functions can be as easy as taking a couple of extra supplements in your day. Oral Hormone Supplements can be in the form of pills, soft gel capsules, powders, and liquids and can be a wonderful and simple addition to your health and upkeep routines.

Transdermal Hormone Patches and Creams:

Skin is the largest organ of the human body and can absorb all manner of things it encounters, from cosmetics to the plastics from the bottles those cosmetics are stored in. Hormones can also be absorbed this way and, by placing them directly on the skin as a cream or on a worn patch, it allows those hormones to be absorbed directly into the systemic circulation system (the system that carries blood through your arteries, veins, and capillaries), which means less work for your liver. From there, it’s simply a matter of the hormones working through the system to give that healthy, natural boost and amplify your wellbeing!

Hormone Injections:

Receiving much needed hormone therapy can be as easy as a quick injection. These injections are most often administered to the upper thigh or buttocks at consistent increments, usually about once or twice a week.  Because of their quick metabolic absorption rate and frequency, they are most quickly and easily adjusted to make sure they are fitting the needs and balances of the individual.

Implanted Hormone Pellet Therapy:

The procedure for implanting hormone pellets is actually quite quick and very simple. After a local anesthesia is applied to the upper buttocks area, a small incision is made and a pellet the size of a grain of rice is inserted, then is covered with a small bandage. This procedure takes about 15 minutes and lasts for 3 to 4 months. While they are in your system, implanted pellets slowly release those helpful hormones in response to your natural stressors, keeping you steady and level for longer periods.

Reis Gretchen Charlotte North Carolina Pre Menstrual Syndrome Women Treatment

Don’t Just Wait for PMS To Happen, Do Something About It Now!

Call (980) 701-9228 to speak with Charlotte Women’s Health Specialists at Integrity Wellness MD to learn more about bioidentical hormones as a  safe and natural treatment to help you overcome the challenges of Pre-menstrual Syndrome.