Dr. Kyrin Dunston | It’s Not “Just” a Hormone Problem—Here’s What You’re Missing

Have you been told your depression is random? That it just came out of nowhere?

Maybe your doctor prescribed synthetic hormones to manage your heavy periods or irregular cycles, and now… things just feel off. You're questioning, “What’s wrong with me?” even though your life looks great on paper.

This week on the Hormone Prosperity Podcast, Dr. Kyrin dives into why depression, anxiety, weight gain, and other midlife struggles often aren’t the isolated issues they seem to be—and why a simplistic approach to “hormone problems” might be actually making things worse.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• It’s Not Just About Sex Hormones

While estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone are critical to your physical and emotional wellbeing, they’re just one piece of a much bigger hormonal puzzle. Insulin, thyroid, cortisol, DHEA, and even oxytocin all play a role in your mood, energy, and vitality.

• Why Synthetic Hormones Fall Short

Mainstream solutions like progestin IUDs and birth control pills don’t address the root causes of hormonal poverty—in fact, they can suppress your body’s natural systems and create more problems like depression, low libido, or fatigue.

• Symptoms Are Signposts, Not Problems

Just like water on your bathroom floor isn’t the problem—it’s a sign of a leak—heavy periods or mood swings are symptoms, not root issues. Treating symptoms alone won’t bring you the health and joy you deserve.

• The Path to Hormonal Prosperity

With proper testing, a holistic approach, and the right guidance, you can uncover the deeper issues behind hormonal imbalances and take action to reclaim the vibrant, joy-filled life you’re meant to have.

 

Your Call to Action

1. Take the Free Hormonal Poverty Quiz

Could you be in hormonal poverty? Find out in just 90 seconds!

👉 CLICK HERE to take the quiz and assess where you stand.

2. Join the Hormone Bliss Challenge

Want step-by-step guidance from Dr. Kyrin? The Hormone Bliss Challenge will walk you through actionable steps to rebalance your body, reclaim your sleep, and say hello to vitality.

👉 CLICK HERE to join today.

 

Help Other Women Get Their Bliss Back

Enjoyed this episode? Please share it with a friend who’s also struggling with hormonal imbalance or midlife metabolic mayhem. Together, we can help more women reclaim their vitality and health. Don’t forget to leave us a review or rating—your support helps build this empowering community!

 

Podcast Episode Transcript:

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (00:00):

It's a sex hormone problem, but it is not just a sex hormone problem. And that's what I wanna educate you about so that you're not looking in the wrong place for the answers that you're never gonna find. Greetings friend. Welcome to the Hormone Prosperity Podcast with me, the hormone prosperity coach, Dr. Kyrin. Here's where intelligent women over 40 go to get credible guidance and inspiration on getting out of hormonal poverty and into hormonal prosperity and the joy and vitality that brings. Go from asking disempowering questions like, what's wrong with me? To asking empowering questions like, what would hormonal prosperity do? Hashtag wwp d, join me as we dive into today's episode and get started on your journey off the couch, into your genes and back into life because bliss is your birthright and a healthy body filled with hormonal prosperity is the vehicle that gets you there. Welcome. Let's get started.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (01:07):

Great question from Christine about use of the progestin IUD to control menstrual symptoms and it causing depression. Maybe you've had that problem. Maybe you can relate. When I practiced mainstream gynecology, progestin containing IUDs like the marina, were standard of care to use to help control women's abnormal bleeding with their menses, particularly in the perimenopausal period. So right before you go through menopause, one of the main symptoms of midlife metabolic mayhem caused by hormonal poverty is irregular, prolonged pain, painful bleeding. And standard of care for that in mainstream medicine is some type of hormonal suppression using synthetic artificial hormones like the birth control pill or the maneuvering or implants or progestin containing IUD. So I used to use those as part of my mainstream practice routinely, but depression was often the side effect. And maybe you are on some type of hormonal suppression in the perimenopausal period, not realizing you are in hormonal poverty and you are experiencing depression too.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (02:26):

So I wanna talk to you about what exactly is happening that's causing the depression. No, you didn't all of a sudden get a mood disorder out of nowhere. Most of these women will tell me, I don't have any reason to be depressed. My life is actually pretty good. I have everything that I want and need. I have great relationships, I love my job, but I just feel depressed for no reason. I can't tell you how many times I have heard that complaint when I practice mainstream medicine. And so what is happening here is that these artificial synthetic hormones, whatever form they come in, are used to shut down the brain's signaling to the ovaries to make their naturally occurring hormones, right? Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone that keep you healthy, your neurotransmitters balanced, keep you happy, no anxiety, no depression, and feeling good and joyful in your life.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (03:27):

So if this is shut down, sure it stops your uterus, ovaries from functioning and your uterus. So the outward sign of that function, the bleeding goes away. And most women will become what we call amenorrheic, meaning no periods when they are suppressed with these medications that are given in a certain way, like continuous birth control pills or the implants or the ring or the progestin containing IUD. So your doctor suppresses your uterus from bleeding and then claims victory. Oh, you're not bleeding, symptom is gone and you actually claim victory too. You think it's great, but then, oh, what's wrong with me? I'm depressed. Well, I actually, when I practice, mainstream medicine would draw women's hormone levels just to see where they were. And a lot of these women that were experiencing depression using these hormonal methods were in the menopausal level. So I would sometimes have 20 and 30-year-old women with menopausal women's hormone levels and that what was causing was what was causing their depression.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (04:38):

So in perimenopause, if that's you that can be contributing to your depression and way better with a functional energetic approach, is to do the proper testing and look at what are your specific levels of your three types of estrogen, estro, estradiol, estriol, your naturally occurring progesterone, which is not in those medications and your testosterone because that's equally important for women, especially for their neurotransmitter function, for their dopamine, the get up and go drive initiative in life. Neurotransmitter is often primarily regulated by your testosterone levels. So super important for women too. Well, these synthetic hormones are suppressing all of that. You're going to get depressed. I'd say it's the rule rather than the exception. So if you do the proper test and you look at your specific levels of those sex hormones, that's one piece of the puzzle. But like I teach women in my hormone bliss challenge, it's not just about sex hormones.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (05:46):

We doctors teach women to hyperfocus on, oh, it's sex sex hormones. It's a sex hormone problem. But it is not just a sex hormone problem. And that's what I wanna educate you about so that you're not looking in the wrong place for the answers that you're never gonna find your whole life. Because that's actually what I see is most women never truly find the answers, never experience the health and life joy and vitality that's possible for them because they don't have the proper information. And it is my mission in life to make sure that you have the proper information. There are so many other hormones in your body. So namely, you probably have heard of insulin, thyroid, cortisol, DHEA, there's oxytocin, there are growth hormone. There's so many other hormones that go into making you hormonally prosperous or hormonally impoverished and causing depression, anxiety, or not causing joy and vitality.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (06:53):

So you need way more tests than just your sex hormones tested. And if you don't wanna have the side effects, like depression would just be one of them. Other side effects women will get when they have their menses suppressed with these synthetic hormones is no libido, difficulty to orgasm. These are some very common ones. Anxiety is another one. People will gain weight. That's huge. Brain fog fatigue. So 60 plus symptoms of midlife metabolic mayhem caused by hormonal poverty might not be your naturally occurring hormonal poverty. It might be due to the treatment that you're getting from your mainstream doctor. So I love this question because it really highlights that if you go after symptom management for your symptoms of midlife metabolic mayhem using mainstream medicine and synthetic hormones, you actually might be causing more problems for yourself. Sure, your periods have stopped, but if you're experiencing depression, anxiety, weight gain, fatigue, then that's a problem for you living your life.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (08:07):

And also it's increasing your risk for other diseases. Seven out of 10 of the main causes of death are increased by being in hormonal poverty. So don't fall for the mainstream lie that just because you got rid of the symptom, you've created health, you have not created health or vitality, all you've done is gotten rid of the symptom. So I want you to stop looking at symptoms as if they are the problem themselves and start looking at symptoms as if they are the signpost pointing to the problem. You know, if you're a tourist and you go to a city, a lot of the cities, they'll have these signposts with all these different arrows attached to them saying how far you know catman do how far Kenya, how far? You know Lucerne is from there, right? This many kilometers. So is that sign pointing to that place actually that place?

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (09:11):

No. It's a signifier pointing to the place and telling you how to get there. It's the same with the symptoms in your body. The symptoms are not the problem themselves. So you need to stop claiming victory when the symptom goes away because you took a drug or did a surgery. And you need to start looking at the symptoms as the signifiers pointing to the problem and learn how to read the symptoms by doing the right tests so you can address the underlying root cause that is the problem. Thank you so much for this question, Christine. I'm gonna give you another example of that because it really highlights this. So if you come home from work one day and there's water on the bathroom floor, what do you do? You clean it up, right? Okay, well you come home the next day, there's water on the bathroom floor.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (10:01):

What do you do? You clean it up after how many days coming home and there's water on the bathroom floor, do you do something different? Usually after 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 days, somebody's gonna say, what are you gonna do? You're gonna look for the cause of the water on the bathroom floor. You're gonna see did the toilet get clogged up and overflow? Did someone run a bath and didn't pay attention and it overflowed? Is the sink leaking? Did someone leave the window open? It rained and it came in. Did the dog come in and pee? Is the roof leaking? You're going to look for the cause of the leak water on the bathroom floor because is the water on the bathroom floor the problem? No, it's a symptom of the problem. Correct? Correct. So it's the same with your crazy crime scene periods that are irregular, prolonged heavy clotty, you know that you can get at any age, but especially after 40, when we start, most women start to go to into hormonal poverty. That is not the problem. It is a symptom of the problem. So stop treating symptoms. Your mainstream doctor's only gonna treat the symptoms. Start reading them like the tea leaves that they are pointing to the problem and start addressing the underlying root cause. I teach you all about how to do this in my Hormone Blist challenge, and if that can be a benefit to you, please, please join me. I welcome having you. Thanks so much for the question. I'll see you in the next video. Until then, peace, love, and hormones, y'all,

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (11:59):

Thank you so much for joining me on your journey from hormonal poverty into the promised land of hormonal prosperity. Loved today's episode. Share it with someone you care about, love the show. Consider writing a review and help other women find it too. Remember, we're all in this together right now. There are well over 100 million women suffering in hormonal poverty without answers. Please be of service by sharing, rating and reviewing the show. Help us reach at least 1 million of these women this coming year from one previously suffering woman to another. I thank you. See you next week.