Dr. Tabatha Barber, a physician, describes how severe estrogen dominance from stress and sleep deprivation as an OB-GYN led her to functional medicine changes. Years later, progesterone deficiency improved her sleep and anxiety on oral progesterone, but recent drops in estrogen triggered severe sadness and loss of motivation.
Questions this video answers
47 (almost 48).
April 27, 2023.
Over a year (approx. >12 months).
The episodes have occurred over the past 3–4 months; individual bouts last a couple days.
Chapters
You know, I am 47, I'm almost 48 years old. I used to have estrogen dominance quite bad. When I was still working as an OB gyn, I was sleep deprived, I was extremely stressed out, I was living on junk food and garbage and I had estrogen dominance. So I cleaned all that up over time with functional medicine. I cleaned up my diet, I started sleeping and just prioritizing good sleep habits. Giving up obstetrics definitely helped with the sleep and the stress management of it all. So fast forward, you know, eight years later, I have been having more symptoms of progesterone deficiency and I've been on oral progesterone at bedtime for, for probably over a year now. That really helped not only balance my estrogen dominance, but help me sleep again at night because I was waking up in the middle of the night and my mind was racing or I couldn't fall asleep at the beginning of the night because my mind was racing and I was starting to feel anxious and overwhelmed by things that normally wouldn't. And progesterone helped get rid of all of that. And so I've been on progesterone at bedtime for, like I said, I don't know, over a year maybe. But the past three or four months I have had severe bouts of sadness where I am crying very easily and I'm just feeling defeated with life and wanting to give up and not having any interest in things and it lasts a couple days. And mind you, I was on antidepressants in my 20s and 30s when I had crazy irritable bowel syndrome and untreated Hashimoto's. I don't know if I ever had clinical depression or if I was just vitamin and mineral deficient and had other issues and gut dysbiosis. That is what I suspect because I was able to come off of my antidepressant once I healed my gut, got my hormones balanced, got my vitamins and minerals up to par, all of that. So here I am thinking, oh my gosh, am I depressed? What's going on? And I know that hormones play a significant role when it comes to mood and feelings. And so I was suspicious that I was having huge drops in estrogen and these low periods of estrogen episodes were causing this sadness and depression and just no motivation for life and whatever. So I had my hormone levels tested and in fact that was what was going on. I thought, okay, I'm just stressing my system too much. I started running again. That's a physical stressor that can IMBALANCE your hormones and rob your hormones. So I've been trying to manage it just with lifestyle changes. And last week I had a meltdown. I was crying. I did not want to continue my job, my career, any of this stuff that I was doing. I didn't want to be married to my husband anymore and I didn't see a future for myself. And mind you, I'm a very driven person. I'm almost done writing my second book. I do this podcast every week. I'm always on other podcasts. I have a successful one on one private practice. I have children that I take care of and I'm raising. Like I'm doing a lot of stuff. And I'm very driven and motivated. I have big goals and big dreams. But literally last week it was all gone. That was really scary. So I want to share this with you because it's so important for you to realize how important hormones are to our health.
