Issue #255: Why We Should All Be Paying Closer Attention to Our Hormones

Chatting with an expert about PMDD, histamines, and happier cycles.

Every single month, for about two days around my ovulation and then again before my period, it feels like a switch flips. I go from being a fairly level-headed, happy person, to experiencing a depression so deep, I often compare it to falling down a tunnel with no handholds.

All of a sudden, I feel completely encompassed in darkness, which I experience as depression, insomnia, complete lack of creativity and motivation, and even suicidal ideation. It feels like all of the things that make me me go away, until I get my period and the clouds magically part.

Over the past few years, I’ve learned that my symptoms are consistent with PMDD or “Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder,” a cyclical hormone-based mood disorder. In the time since, I’ve tried a lot of different solutions—I go to acupuncture religiously and take Chinese herbs, I’ve tried different forms of birth control, I track my cycle like my life depends on it, and have made countless lifestyle changes. Everything helped a little, but nothing made such a dramatic and immediate difference as when I discovered the link between histamines and hormones and began taking a Zyrtec and Pepcid-AC every night of my luteal phase. I couldn’t believe that allergy medicine was making such an enormous difference, so I decided to call someone in who can explain what’s going on here and how safe this method is.

When I mentioned it offhand in a “Sunday Edition,” several of you reached out to ask for more details, so asked Dr. Elise Schroeder, a naturopathic physician who specializes in women’s health education, and who I’ve been seeing for treatment for the past nearly two years, if she would be willing to come onto Morning Person to share her wisdom with all of you!

In our conversation, she broke down the basics of your menstrual cycle, the differences between PMS and PMDD, what happens hormonally in perimenopause, and the histamine-estrogen connection that has genuinely changed my life. We also got into antihistamines, bioidentical progesterone, and why “estrogen metabolism” is so important for our mental health!

Dr. Elise Schroeder is a naturopathic doctor, herbalist, and women’s health specialist based here in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Elise studied human biology and women’s studies at the University of New York at Albany before earning her Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine.

She’s been helping women achieve vitality since 2001, and her path has taken a lot of shapes over those two-plus decades: volunteer medicine, running Women In Balance, an education-focused women’s health institute, work in reproductive health and fertility clinics, and consulting on thousands of clinical hormone cases. She’s the real deal—and the best person I could think of to have this conversation.

Read on to listen to, watch (!), or read our conversation (edited for clarity and length)! I hope you find it as helpful as I did!