The foundation of our mission at The Integrative Women's Health Institute is to help provide higher-quality, integrative pelvic healthcare for ALL people. My name is Dr. Jessica Drummond, and I am the founder and CEO of The Integrative Women's Health Institute, where our mission is to educate and empower practitioners in order to help improve the standard of care for women and people of all gender identities. Pelvic healthcare in…
It can be hard to determine the best probiotics for endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain. The "best probiotic" can be challenging to choose from among the many options. It's even more difficult to determine which probiotics are best for endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain. As health and wellness professionals who support clients with endometriosis and pelvic pain, we have to educate ourselves about the research on the best probiotics for…
When it comes to my perimenopausal clients, I don't like to focus on weight loss. However, for my clients it's often a welcomed side effect of addressing hormone imbalances, calming the nervous system, and regulating the body's processes. I believe there are far more important things to worry about than weight loss when it comes to our health and frankly, our lives. As Glennon Doyle famously said, “Your body…
How to Heal and Treat Vulvodynia Vulvodynia affects over 14 million people in the US alone. This complex pain syndrome is a frustrating condition to treat. Vulvodynia is a condition that causes pain in the vulva (or specifically in the vulvar vestibule). The root cause of vulvodynia is not fully understood. Vulvodynia is most bothersome when provoked and when the tissue is irritated. This often happens during sex, when wiping…
Gluten and Endometriosis Is there a link between gluten and endometriosis? Should women avoid gluten to lower their risk of endometriosis or to help to resolve the symptoms of endometriosis? Let’s look at the research… First, it’s important to consider that endometriosis has many characteristics of an autoimmune disease (Eisenberg, et al., 2012). It is clear that endometriosis is an inflammatory disease process. In endometriosis, the presence of endometrial glands…
Sleep issues and endometriosis often go hand in hand. Patients with endometriosis frequently struggle with a variety of sleep issues, including insomnia, pain-insomnia, poor sleep, chronic fatigue, restless leg syndrome, and more. But...why is it so common for people with endometriosis to struggle with poor sleep and sleep issues? When cortisol goes up, melatonin goes down. Cortisol, a key stress buffing hormone, inhibits melatonin, and melatonin is an important hormone…
Why are we talking about cannabis and CBD in relation to endometriosis? Because a whopping 76% percent of people with endometriosis use self-care strategies to manage their pain and other symptoms. (Armour, et al., 2019). If you know someone with endometriosis, you know that pelvic pain relief is always a priority. Recent studies indicate that CBD and cannabis are powerful tools for combating endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain. In a…
One of the most frustrating challenges that our clients with endometriosis face is how to relieve the chronic bloating known as “Endo Belly.” Over the years, my practice has seen thousands of women struggling with this, and we have developed an integrative protocol for relieving the bloat for good. What is “Endo Belly”? Before we get into the steps to relieving Endo Belly, let’s talk about what it really is.…
It was my honor to interview Dr. Allyson Shrikhande, MD, founder of Pelvic Rehabilitation Medicine about the role of rehabilitation medicine in chronic pelvic pain. Rehabilitation medicine includes the tools of pain and nervous system modulation medications, specific injections to improve local pain in the pelvis, including pelvic nerve pain, and management and referrals for integrative healing. At Pelvic Rehabilitation Medicine, the physicians are on the cutting edge of pain…
Histamine is essential to a variety of physiologic functions, and it is a versatile biologic amine involved in fine-tuning the balance between immunity and tolerance.Immunity is the ability to fight infection or clear abnormal cellsTolerance is the ability of the immune system to tolerate “outsider molecules” like foods, dust, environmental chemicals, etc.Histamines affect dendritic cells (cells that boost the immune responses by showing antigens on their surfaces to other cells…
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