10/18/2026
Which one of these types is annoyingly specific for you?
1️⃣OVERLOADED CLEARANCE
Your breasts get tender around day 20. Your waistband is fine at breakfast and offensive by lunch. Constipation, heavier bleeding, clots, or feeling wrecked after one drink may join the party.
🔍I review bowel habits, liver and gallbladder history, medications, alcohol, and estrogen exposure. These symptoms cannot confirm a clearance issue on their own.
2️⃣DEFICIENCY AND DEPLETION
Your cycle keeps stretching, bleeding becomes very light or disappears, hair piles up near the drain, libido drops, and every workout feels like it came with a three-day recovery fee.
🔍I assess energy intake, training load, iron, thyroid, prolactin, sleep, stress, and medication effects.
3️⃣TRAFFIC MISDIRECTION
Deep lower-face acne, new chin hair, or scalp shedding shows up beside bloating, tender breasts, and mood changes.
🔍I look at ovulation, androgens, insulin signaling, thyroid function, PCOS, medications, and life stage. A mixed picture needs more than one lab value.
4️⃣DYSREGULATED RHYTHM
You wake at 1:56 a.m., crawl through the morning, crash at 3 p.m., then get a suspicious second wind at bedtime. Your cycle is 27 days, then 36, then who knows.
🔍I ask about light, shift work, meal timing, sleep disorders, exercise, and ovulation.
If several fit, that is common. I use the pattern to choose better questions and decide what should be evaluated first.
Track the symptom, time of day, and cycle day for one month. The timing often gives me more useful information than the word “hormonal.”
