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Menstruation is much more than bleeding several days a month. The menstrual cycle is present every month and involves constant changes in women’s bodies, mainly due to hormonal changes. Xusa Sanznurse and health educator specialized in hormonal health, highlights the importance of the call “hormonal environment”even when women do not perceive these changes.

Although the rule is little by little ceasing to be a taboo, Sanz is aware of the lack of education available about hormonal health and has been pouring his knowledge into social networks for years. On Instagram, for example, she has accumulated more than 70 thousand followers. He now puts it all together in his book The menstruation revolution (Ediciones Martínez Roca), where it addresses how hormones vary during the menstrual cycle, their ways of manifesting themselves, and also tips to relieve symptoms.

And hormonal alterations (mainly estrogen and progesterone) throughout the month can produce more than just mood changes, having a great influence on many menstrual disorders such as polycystic ovary syndrome, premenstrual syndrome, amenorrhea…Even other health problems must be addressed with hormones in mind (although not only that). For example, its relationship with the liver or the digestive system stands out.

“If something happens to you, it can even condition the way in which symptoms manifest. Imagine that you have a heart attack, it is known that it does not occur in women the same as in men. For example, it is said that it radiates to the left arm, but in women what is felt is more of a retrosternal weight. Many women have gone home diagnosed with anxiety and then it was a heart attack. That’s why we have to work with a gender perspective and know that women have this particularity,” she tells MagasIN.

Sanz believes that we must leave behind the pathologization of the menstrual cycle and assume it as a “vital sign”, although without romanticizing it. “I treat it as what it is, a medical part that must be taken into account. If you know yourself, you can give many remedies to the alterations. before what has been done. There are women who suffer pain for 10 years until they are diagnosed with endometriosis or clotting problems. If you identify those vital signs yourself, you can go to the doctor with more knowledge and try to remedy it in a better way.”

Also bet on studying the menstrual cycle in an “extra-reproductive” way, because it is something that is going to have an effect on women’s lives even if they do not plan to be mothers. “Menstruation is always seen with the focus of fertility, but not beyond. In the end what differentiates us between men and women, speaking in binary terms, is the amount of hormones we have.”

Although There is no magic way to relieve hormonal health symptoms. Lifestyle is essential because “it will greatly influence these hormonal levels.” “If you eat well, do sports and sleep well, even if you have an underlying problem, you will surely be better.”

“It is true that not everything can be solved with lifestyle and sometimes we have to resort to medications, be it the pill or other types of interventions. But for example, for metabolic syndrome and premenstrual syndrome, lifestyle It is the first thing that is analyzed, knowing how far we can go with it.

The revolution

Why do women now seem to have so many problems with the menstrual cycle? Has something changed in the way you live it or is it simply that before you didn’t pay attention to hormonal changes? Xusa Sanz believes that it is a little of both.

“I always put the evolutionary context from which we come. We are in a moment in which The woman has never had as many menstrual cycles as she does now.. Because? Ancestrally, our grandmothers – there is no need to go back to Prehistory – the one who did not have five children had seven. That is to say, We have gone from having an average of 40 menstrual cycles to almost 400. Therefore, this has a very large hormonal impact and many problems emanate from here such as premenstrual syndrome, endometriosis… I think we are still activating a mechanism that we are not ‘designed’ to always be there,” he explains.

On the other hand, it is true that the access to information and the ease of sharing experiences and knowledge on social networks is helping to stop seeing menstruation as a taboo and stop normalizing symptoms such as pain.

“I believe that we have indeed started the menstruation revolution. I installed Instagram because I was learning very cool things and I wanted to share them. It was like a ‘boom’ and people started asking me for consultations, there was a lack, there was practically no one with this approach. “Feminism has brought this most revolutionary part to health.”.

“There are many of us who are messing around with this, despite the fact that there were already many women before who were doing it professionally like Carme Valls or Enriqueta Barranco. There is still a lot to do, but I think there is an awakening, social networks “They are a wild speaker. In fact, I have been doing this for three years only with Instagram, so imagine.”

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