Posted 8/23/2023 8:14 AM (GMT -5)
Hormones are so tricky.... And there is so little actual research done about how these systems interact and even how they work.
I have not taken DIM, to answer your actual question. My providers have not liked the idea of DIM, so I thought I'd share what they recommended instead, just in case it's helpful or interesting.
My hormone levels all tanked right as I became chronically ill at 33. I saw a Lyme-literate functional medicine gynecologist, and she tested my hormones extensively over a five-week period, both blood and saliva tests, at all times of the day and night.
Then my treatment focused on HPA axis dysfunction. She felt strongly that you need to address the whole HPA axis and not just one hormone or another, since they are so interconnected. The pillars of HPA axis dysfunction at first are sleep, movement, stress, and nutrition. Once those things have been genuinely managed, if symptoms persist, then she adds adaptogenic herbs and/or vitex. If those don't help, then she considers bioidentical compounded hormone replacement therapy.
My current doctor (a different person, sadly, because I moved) does not recommend decreasing estrogen to combat "estrogen dominance" or achieve balance, but rather increasing progesterone to balance it, so that's what the focus of my treatment has been, as I meander further into perimenopause, now at 40. She also relies on testing to confirm high or low levels of hormones before attempting to influence one, and prefers to focus on the whole HPA axis to begin with.
What have your treatments been for hormone imbalance so far? Has anything been helpful? Which tests have been helpful?
Menstruation became much lighter for me when I was taking stevia medicinally because stevia lowers all reproductive hormone levels, and also has been lighter since I started taking vitex (though not until I reached a certain dose). Topical progesterone cream (from days 11-27 of my cycle) also helps me. My periods have been extremely heavy when on blood-thinning supplements, including the basic Buhner protocol. (SO many supplements thin the blood!)