What Your Cycle Says About Your Health With Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Welcome to Episode 8 of Season 7 of The PCOS Revolution Podcast:

What Your Cycle Says About Your Health With Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Your cycle isn’t just about having babies, it’s so much more than that. It can be a key indicator of your overall health.

This week on PCOS Revolution Podcast, I am having a conversation with Lisa Hendrickson-Jack. She is a Certified Fertility Awareness Educator and Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner. She teaches women to monitor their periods for natural birth control, conception and overall help. Lisa is also an author and podcast host.

Most women find fertility awareness for a specific purpose. Although, many start to realize how the cycle relates to overall health. The first day of your menstrual cycle is the first day of your period, but isn’t just your period.

Not only does your menstrual cycle help detect pregnancy, it is also a sign of health. There are ways to improve your health without drugs. We will talk more about this in this episode. We’ll also talk about how to look at your period like a vital sign and pay attention to cycle fluctuations and irregularities.

Learn more about Lisa, how she helps various women, a great deal of information about your cycle and overall health as well as so much more on this episode of the PCOS Revolution Podcast.

READ the entire transcript here:

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Farrar Duro

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the PCOS Revolution podcast. I’m honored today to have Lisa Hendrickson-Jack here, who’s a certified fertility awareness educator, and holistic reproductive health practitioner, for those of you who don’t know her, and she teaches women to chart their menstrual cycles for natural birth control, conception and monitoring overall health. In her new book The fifth vital sign, Lisa debunks the myth that regular ovulation is only important when you want children by recognizing the menstrual cycle is a vital sign. Drawing heavily from the current scientific literature, Lisa presents an evidence based approach to fertility awareness, and menstrual cycle optimization. And she hosts one of my favorite podcasts, The fertility Friday podcast, it’s a weekly radio show devoted to helping women connect to their fifth vital sign by uncovering the connection between the menstrual cycle, fertility, and overall health. So welcome, Lisa, it’s so great to have you on.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Thank you so much for having me, I’m excited to be here.

Farrar Duro

And I think today is going to be a little different, because a lot of times we talk about how, you know, to conceive and those sort of things. But we get a lot of questions in our clinic on how to prevent pregnancy if you’re not wanting to be on birth control. And you’re wanting to kind of do more natural methods. So, we’re going to get into a little bit of the details about that and how kind of tuning into your body is going to be very helpful in understanding the right times, even if you have an irregular cycle, or if it’s kind of all over the map, how to look at your period as a vital sign and also some assistance with doing natural family planning and that sort of thing. So I’m excited to get into this. So tell us a little bit about what made you really want to focus so much on the cycle and women’s health?

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, in my case, I discovered fertility awareness, pretty young. So I was about 18, or 19, right out of high school, and I was on the pill for heavy painful periods throughout high school. So I wasn’t using it for birth control. And it helped in you know, by masking the symptoms. So my periods were like I was able to manage my air quote, periods. But every time I would go off of it just to see if it actually had done anything, my real periods would always be the same or worse than they were before. So when I actually needed birth control, I was already skeptical of the pill because in general, because I knew it wasn’t actually helping whatever was wrong with me, it was just making it seem better while I was on it. And also because I wasn’t using it for birth control, I wasn’t taking it at the right time and I wasn’t, I just didn’t want to be scared all the time. Because I thought, okay, my goodness, if I like take it an hour late or something, I’m always going to be really stressed because that’s just my personality. And so it’s right around that time that I discovered fertility awareness. And it was one of those things where, like many women who discover it, I was sitting there in a talk and woman was describing how you can tell when you’re fertile by your cervical mucus observations and the cervical position changes. And it was only at that point that I realized, wow, we’re not fertile every single day of the cycle, there’s only a short window of fertility, you can figure out what you know when that is and then you can use that to determine like, you know, choose how you’re going to address it. So if you’re trying to avoid pregnancy, you can just avoid pregnancy during that short window manage your fertility in other ways, and then the rest of the cycle you can’t get pregnant. So for me, the reason that I focused on this field is because I mean, that was life changing for me. And I was even to this day, I’m just, most women have no idea how their fertility works, most women are still under the impression that you can get pregnant any day of the cycle and that assumption leads us to make choices if you believe that you’re fertile every single day of the year, all the time, 24 hours a day, that it may said a lot easier to choose a birth control method that is giving you protection 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And then the other thing was that early on in my journey, I discovered that your cycle isn’t just about having babies. Because when I was first charting, my cycles were actually quite long. On average, they were like 38-40 something days, and my temperatures were really low. And so because of what was showing up on my charts, my charting instructor kind of she kind of looked at me and was like, Lisa, your temperatures are too low, your cycles are too long, I think you should get tested for thyroid. And so in my very early 20s, I was actually diagnosed with like a really subclinical thyroid issue like so before it had caused any problems, it was detected just because of these subtle things that were showing up on my chart. So early on for me, it was more than just birth control, I really learned that there’s a connection between your cycle and your overall health in a personal way, before I started working with clients.

Farrar Duro

Very cool, it’s something that we don’t think about a lot. But I really think that the looking at the thyroid, you can, you know, you can tell a lot by your body temperatures. And maybe you know, that was the first time that that kind of even came up, like no one had ever really checked your blood work or anything like that. But you saw it in your temperatures. That’s very cool. So, as far as you know, your background working with other women with their cycles, what Tell me how you do that?

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, so over the years, I’ve taught women how to chart their cycles. And so when I’m working with clients, there’s always a piece of it where it’s very practical. So we’re learning about the hormone cycle, the menstrual cycle, the three main fertile signs: your cervical fluid, your basal body temperature, and your cervical position. And so some women are wanting to use this as their primary birth control method. So then we really dive in, learn all the rules, and all the specific things that you need to know if you want to use it, fertility awareness as a birth control method. And then obviously, some women are trying to conceive. So it really helps us to time it so that we understand exactly when is the best time of the cycle to have sex. But there’s this other component. So it’s kind of like the iceberg analogy, where a lot of women find fertility awareness for a purpose, that’s very practical, we’re going to use it for this purpose. But then you start to realize the connection between your cycles and your overall health. And so when you start charting, you can quickly see the difference between what a healthy cycle should look like and where your cycle falls. And for many women, this is an opportunity for them to do things to improve their hormonal balance, to improve their hormonal health, to regulate their cycles, in a natural way, without hormones and things like that. So it, you typically start for one reason, and then it becomes much more, and it also. So that’s a big part of what I do, it’s to support women to optimize their fertility to really improve their cycles because there’s a lot that you can do naturally, to help your hormones get to that optimal level.

Farrar Duro

And I think with PCOS, there’s just so many myths about, you know, well, I have to ovulate on day 14, and it’s just not true. And I think, you know, with my kids, it was day 25 I think when I emulated I don’t know, they were they turned out, okay, so, you know, it’s like, I don’t think that we have to have this, you know, thing in our head where we have to have perfect 28 day cycles, and rarely do people. I mean, we do see that. But you know, it’s not it’s not the rule. So, can you talk a little bit about why it’s important to get to know your body more and get to know your cycle rhythm and that sort of thing, beyond just, you know, trying to get pregnant?

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, I mean, absolutely, I kind of feel like this would also be a good opportunity to smash some of the myths. One of the most common myths, as you mentioned about the menstrual cycle is that in order for it to be normal, it does have to be 28 days, or that all women have 28 day cycles with ovulation on day 14. And when you look at women with healthy cycles, so typical average woman whose cycles are fairly healthy, the the normal length can range. So 20, even when you look at studies that have measured, you know, hundreds or thousands of women’s menstrual cycles, 28 or 29 days represents the average. And healthy cycle can range anywhere from about 24 days, to about 35 days. So one of the most common symptoms and signs of PCOS are the way that PCOS shows up on the menstrual cycle chart is long, irregular cycles. So cycles that are kind of regularly 35 days or more. Or you know, in a year, you’re having fewer than eight or nine periods, those types of things are really characteristic of PCOS. And in a cycle like that, it’s really helpful to understand just generally how the cycle works. So, when we talk about the menstrual cycle, a lot of women that comes you know, talk about the period, but the first day of your menstrual cycle is the first day of your period. And so in a, you know, the way that the cycle works is you have your period, a healthy period would be anywhere from about three to seven days. And then once your period is done, you have a few days before you typically start to see cervical fluid. So, for any woman who’s listening, who’s ever seen her cervical fluid, it can look like creamy white hand lotion, it can look like clear, stretchy kind of raw egg whites.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

And it can also for some women, they don’t see a lot of the clear stretchy egg white, but they’ll feel a sensation of lubrication, so they’ll be wiping themselves. And it’ll feel really slippery. So either of those three options for cervical fluid, but you’ll have a few days after your period, typically before you start to see it and then at some point, you’ll start to see your cervical fluid in a healthy cycle, you would expect to have anywhere from two to seven days of that, and then you would be late. And then after ovulation your period would come in about 12 to 14 days. So any woman who is cycling normally with PCOS will recognize that that may not be how it looks. So in a PCOS cycle, there’s a few things that you might see. So one of them would be multiple patches of cervical fluid or lots and lots of days of cervical fluid. Because when you have a long cycle, what’s happening is that ovulation is delayed. So the first half of the cycle, like the pre ovulatory phase, is the most variable phase of the cycle, it’s the most susceptible to stress. And to some of the issues that arise in women with PCOS. So many women who struggle with PCOS, some of the characteristics are inflammation in the body for different, you know, various reasons, as well as insulin resistance, glucose intolerance.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

And so there’s a variety of things specific to women with PCOS, that are basically causing, you know, lack of a better word, a state of stress in the body, and that negatively impacts ovulation. So when you kind of understand that, then it kind of makes the PCOS cycle make a little bit more sense, like it’s still super annoying and frustrating, especially when you’re waiting for ovulation to happen. But to understand that, it means when you have a longer cycle, when you’re going longer time between periods, it’s a delayed ovulation that you’re experiencing. So then it’s really common to see multiple patches of cervical fluid. So, for women who are actually tracking, for women who are trying to get pregnant, they might be looking for their cervical fluid, and they might see it, and then think, okay, I’m going to ovulate, but then they might, you know, it stops and then they see it again. So sometimes it can take a couple tries, essentially for ovulation to actually happen. And so that’s just a little bit of background, because we have this idea that the cycle has to be 28 days to be normal. There is a range of what’s normal. When the cycle does go regularly, beyond 35 days, that is a sign of issue, which we’ll talk about more. But hopefully that’s helpful, at least to paint a picture of what is going on in the cycle when you have PCOS.

Farrar Duro

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And it can be frustrating, like you mentioned, and for those are listeners who are not familiar with how to chart a cycle, when we talk about, you know, starting on day, one of the first day of full flow and that sort of thing. Do you recommend that paper charts so or apps that are out there, or any any particular apps that you recommend?

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

I mean, I think that every woman has a preference. So for me, I mean, I started charging, like 20 years ago, there were no apps, there were none, there was none of this cool technology. So the majority of my clients use charting apps and so there’s a lot now. I would say what to look for in an app, from my perspective. And I would say, especially if you have PCOS and your cycles have not been regular, is you want to look for an app, if you’re using apps that allows you to turn off the predictive settings. So a lot of the apps on the market are programmed with algorithms or calculators. And so what it’ll do is like you chart a couple of cycles, and it’ll calculate the average. And then it’s going to tell you about when your you know, going to ovulate, and all that kind of stuff. But the challenge as anyone who has kind of irregular cycles knows is that ovulation can vary from cycle to cycle and it does. Even in a woman without PCOS, has, you know, quite regular cycles, her ovulation is not going to fall on the same day, every single cycle. You can have a 28 day cycle and ovulate on day 14 or you can ovulate on the 16th. Yeah, because it changes and no guarantees that even if you typically do ovulate around a certain day that the following cycle, you will. So that would be you know, my recommendation, like, try to get an app that doesn’t fill that stuff in for you so that you can start to appreciate that for yourself. And then for the for those women who do like paper charting, because when I started all these years working with clients, I kind of thought, Okay, well apps are here, so no one’s gonna want to try them paper anymore. But there’s always a percentage of my clients who like paper. So I just came out with a paper charting book as well, which is kind of fun.

Farrar Duro

I like the paper. I’m old school.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

It’s nice to have a record. But again, kind of I don’t recommend any particular it’s kind of whichever one is best for you.

Farrar Duro

And I have a funny story about the paper charting it was many years ago, and I, you know, I had actually have a book that I give our patients about charting, that I wrote, just to kind of as a collection of notes and questions that I’ve gotten throughout the years and all that. And so you know, I have the story in the book that I have. But it basically, there was a patient that you know, was coming in for PCOS to try to get pregnant and I had given her the paper chart. And I said we’re going to just you know, each chart went to 40 days. So it was, you know, an extended chart. And so she had two charts. And she came into the office and she was furious. And she said, I thought this treatment was supposed to help, these acupuncture treatments, suppose to help my cycles become shorter, and they’re becoming much longer. And I said let me just see, because she had been out of town for a while I hadn’t seen her. And I said okay, that little dip means you ovulated. Let’s count how many days you know that it spiked after that dip. That means you’re in your luteal phase. So we started counting and counting. And I said, okay, it’s been 25 days. Have you taken a pregnancy test? And so she took a pregnancy test in the office, she was pregnant, you know? And she goes, Oh, I’m sorry. And it was so funny. I said everybody in the waiting room was looking at me like, what did you do to this lady, you know, but but had she you know, had she actually not been charting, she just would have thought she was used to having 60 to 70 day cycles. So, and after that she concieved four more kids naturally. So using charting, and I think charting is just a way to really making very clear that yes, you ovulated. And if you did not ovulate, there’s a great, you know, a great opportunity to kind of, you know, say okay, let’s, you know, seek treatment now, to help with this, instead of just continuing to chart and getting that flatline day after day. And that can be frustrating, too. So I wonder how many months do you recommend someone do charting? If it is sort of stressful for them? Or they’re they’re getting a little frustrated?

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, I mean, that’s a great question. Charting in and of itself, is just monitoring what’s happening, right. So, for instance, if you are working with a woman who is struggling with long irregular cycles, charting by itself, just watching, it doesn’t address any of those challenges, right? So, but charting does give you a really unique opportunity to, so there’s a few very practical things. So one, it’s kind of what you touched on. So when you’re charting, then for many women, this is the first time that they actually understand how their cycle works. So you know, most women, I can assume who are listening, we’re taught kind of or not taught in school, that you can get pregnant every day of your cycle. So we spend a lot of time in early 20s, like trying to avoid pregnancy, and completely terrified that we’re going to get pregnant all the time. And then when you start trying to get pregnant, then all of a sudden, you realize, whoa, there’s only a small window. And I like you have all the sex sometimes and then you don’t get pregnant. And so it’s really alarming, especially after years of knowing this. So, a lot of women who are struggling to conceive will go to...