Real-life Case History of Estrogen Dominance

Real-life Case History of Estrogen Dominance

While Jane's Story is a compilation of the classic estrogen dominance continuum, here is a real story from a reader who wrote to me about her experience.

Dr. Lam,

I read your articles and found them very informative. I think this is the first time I have found a site that incorporates everything that I have been wondering about and reading up on: the estrogens in the environment. I can see how I must have been effected when very young according to the symptoms that started to develop in earnest in my 20's: (wish I knew about this earlier as my husband and I had wanted to have another child):

1) My parents were raised on Long Island, NY, a site indicated for its high breast cancer rates. I lived on L.I. for first three years of life. A study is ongoing about breast cancer rates in L.I. (Nassau County where my parents lived) and Tolland County, CT, ironically where I was raised after age 6.

2) Where I live (CT) is number one state in Nation for breast cancer rates. Neighboring MA is Number Two. Vermont I think is still Number Three.

3) We lived in Vernon, CT and a lot of pollution occurred there from factory smokestacks. When we ran outside to play tag in the summer, our lungs would hurt. In fact, (we live in a rural section of CT removed from this area now) when we drive towards Hartford now, I notice that just about at the Vernon border is when you can really sense the air pollution.

4) We drank chlorinated, fluorinated water. Our diet was heavy with meat, dairy products, and crackers and cookies and margarine with trans-fats.

5) My sister also has mild endometriosis, (but she never tried to have children so whether she is infertile we don't know). She exercises almost to the extreme, is healthy except for chronic intestinal problems. Her light cycle has never been more than five days. She is now in menopause. She is 42.

6) I started to develop acne in the mid twenties; it progressively started to get worse, especially after I ate a lot of fatty foods or was run down. I took an antibiotic for awhile to treat it but reacted to it. Had mild PMS, thought it was what everyone had. At the same time of the acne, started to develop mild facial hair, but never any kind of hair loss until chemo.

7) It took 1 1/2 years to conceive with my daughter and after that, we moved to GA for four years where pesticides were the norm weekly to keep our lawns from a mole cricket devastation. We would just dump this stuff onto our large lawn by the bagful. Twice I was caught outside when they came around in a truck to spray mosquitoes in the air.

8) I would regularly drink the chlorinated water in GA for two years, heat up food in microwave until recently with plastic containers and plastic wrap and drink water out of large tupperware plastic containers and even until just recently, pour piping hot beverages for tea in plastic portable containers.

9) Was on a mild fertility drug for three cycles in 2000.

10) I had insomnia up until a few years after my daughter was born, and in growing up years, slept with a nightlight regularly.
11) Forgot to mention that I take Artichoke herbal supplement for the liver.

12) Started eating fried tofu and soy meat analog products regularly a few
years after my daughter was born until just recently.
13) Had gallbladder symptoms until just recently (seem to have dissipated with the reduction of estrogen in my system after the chemo), however, they briefly resurfaced over the holidays this year with a very fatty Christmas dinner. I had liver tests done in GA when I was experiencing these symptoms at first and they came out normal. Also had a hormonal function blood test done and that was normal in 1996.

13) Had a cryo done after abnormal cells surfaced at cervix, before we left military.

14) I was the first one to develop in the fifth grade class, although menstruation came at age 12. My daughter is now starting to develop at about the same age. I had two different blood tests done--there is no hereditary basis for the cancer I had based upon these two negative results, although thyroid cancer runs in my dad's side of the family, only affecting his brother and his son.