Jane McFadden:

Hello ADHDers and welcome to the next episode of ADHD Mums. We have got the most in-demand episode I reckon I’ve ever received and it is about PMS and ADHD. No surprise to anybody, I have had to bring in a guest because I know absolutely nothing about it and I’ve got lots of questions.

So I’ve brought in naturopath and ADHD mum, Kylie Smart. Welcome Kylie.

Kylie Smart:

Thanks for having me, Jane. I’m really excited to talk about PMS today.

Jane McFadden:

Beautiful. So I was just having a bit of a laugh with Kylie because I said to her, oh I’m just going to read your bio out. And I said to her, I’ve never seen a more sparse bio in my life. It says, Kylie Smart, I’m a naturopath with a special interest in working with ADHDers to help their moods, energy and hormones.

And I thought that is how I feel out of form. Completely sparse and there’s not a lot of detail there. So Kylie, can you share, do you have ADHD? Are you a mum? Whereabouts do you live? How old are you around about? Let’s get a little bit more detailed.

Kylie Smart:

Well, in my defence, you did ask for a short bio. So it did say short bio, so I kept it nice and short.

I am on the Sunshine Coast, which I think is where we came across each other in the Sunshine Coast Mums group on Facebook. So I have a clinic in Yandina. It’s called Lunar Wellness Collective with a main focus working with women, but also the greater community around here in Yandina.

Yeah, I have ADHD myself. I’m pretty sure my entire family has ADHD. I have an eight-year-old and a three-year-old, but we all manage that naturally.

I am a naturopath and kinesiologist and my main interest is working with women with ADHD, anxiety and women’s health issues, and which we’re focusing on this podcast. I see ADHDers have all of that going on at the same time. So it’s really important, but also as a lot of us naturopaths experience in our clinical practice, we end up helping those who have been through the similar things that we have been through. So that’s where my passion lies.

Jane McFadden:

Beautiful, beautiful. Okay, so we are going to put this episode primarily on PMS. So we are going to try not to get sidetracked into supplements because I’ve got lots of questions, but we’re not going to do that.

What I think would be great to tackle first, Kylie, is why is it that I see online all the time women saying, oh my God, my medication is not working. I’m borderline — I don’t want to have a trigger warning on this in terms of suicide, but people just start to feel completely messy and crazy in that PMS time, whether they’re medicated or not.

And then sometimes women in the ADHD community are feeling that they need to change. They need to run away from their house, their family. They need to make huge changes because clearly nothing is working in their life and they need to change it all right away.

I was wondering if you could give us an idea on why it would be that PMS just triggers off the ADHD symptoms so badly.

Kylie Smart:

Yeah, well, we’re cyclic beings, women. Our hormones fluctuate throughout the month. We’re not lucky like those men who have perfectly level hormones all the time. Ours are always moving.

So it’s generally with the fluctuations in estrogen that we see the issues with mental health symptoms changing. So estrogen is actually dopaminergic, which has a dopamine-like effect on the body. So times when our estrogen is higher, as ADHDers, we’ll feel better. We’ll feel more normal.

And times when it decreases throughout the cycle, that’s when you see these changes happen. So also ADHDers seem to be more sensitive to the fluctuations in estrogen as well, which may be because of some of the neurotransmitter issues and detoxification issues that are commonly seen in ADHDers that contribute to their symptoms.

So what was the question again?

Jane McFadden:

I suppose it is why would people be in there, you know, they’re experiencing PMS symptoms and then there’s this strong symptom increase or desperation that, you know, you sometimes see them online.

And then someone will comment and say, do you happen to have PMS because I find my medication doesn’t work or I feel completely crazy at that time every single month. Some people say, you know, they talk about they want to leave their husbands for five days out of every month, even though they’re completely the same as what they were a week ago.

And, you know, you were mentioning about the correlation between, you know, estrogen and ADHD.

Kylie Smart:

Yeah. So there’s two kinds of ways that our hormones will affect our moods. And one is this, the normal estrogen fluctuations that happen and the effect of estrogen on the brain.

And also we see this kind of getting worse in perimenopause because estrogen fluctuations become even greater. So, you know, if some of your listeners are in the later forties or mid to later forties, they may notice that it’s getting worse. And that can be because estrogen fluctuations are getting even greater.

But another sign that we might see, it’s important to kind of look at when you’re experiencing those fluctuations, because it can be when the estrogen is decreasing, because then you lose that dopaminergic effect on the body.

But it can also be when your estrogen is increasing, and that has got to do with the effects of histamine. So I can talk about histamine all day long and I will, but I also wanted to come back if that’s all right and talk about, I guess, some of the research around this and to let your listeners know that they aren’t crazy and that this is a real thing.

And there’s actually a recent study that was done in 2021. It was primarily around PMDD, which is premenstrual dysphoric disorder. So that is when we see the really severe, like you were saying, the really low moods, the possibly sometimes even suicidal thoughts, wanting to pack up everything and completely leave home.

And this is a study, so it’s only a relatively small study of 209 women aged between 18 and 71. So throughout kind of the whole adult life cycle. And what it found was that 45.5% of women who had ADHD also had PMDD. So that is a massive amount. That’s nearly 50%, 45.5%.

And the comparison of the general population is 28.7%, which is still crazily high, right? There’s a lot to be learned about estrogen and PMDD, but still that increase of nearly 20% more in the ADHD group. So we’re not crazy. You’re not imagining it. It is definitely, it’s definitely a thing.

The study also talked about postpartum depression as well. And that was even higher. So 57.6% of women who had had a child in that group also had PPD compared to only 19.6 in another study of the general population. So yeah, massive numbers. Massive numbers.

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Jane McFadden:

Okay. Wow. I love the research. Thank you for that. Just the amount of people is a bit of a worry, isn’t it? Or the amount of women?

Kylie Smart:

Yeah, absolutely it is. And I guess what’s — I don’t know about upsetting, but the scary kind of thing is what’s available to help with that.

So a lot of people don’t know about seeing a naturopath or how a naturopath can help them, or go see their general practitioner. And I know there are some amazing GPs around, but some of this can get dismissed as well, which I’m sure some of your listeners experience.

So it’s scary too, that there isn’t that knowledge out there about what can be done and how you can get help and support for this.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, absolutely. And the problem is as well is sometimes if you go to seek help, you might only go one time, and you receive some advice that doesn’t necessarily sit with you, or you’ve tried, or you’re not interested in, or you’ve heard bad things about, and then you don’t necessarily go back or try anyone else.

That can be — or you don’t have the money either to financially go back and keep trying around different places, which is why podcasts are so great in that you can get such great information.

So what would be some things that we could do as women with PMS and ADHD that we could do to try and minimize symptoms, do you think?

Kylie Smart:

Yeah, well, we can start talking about supplements here, but going back to what I was going to talk about as well is it depends on what is causing it. So what is the reason that you’re getting the PMS?

So I spoke about the estrogen fluctuations, and sometimes it’s about the difference or the fluctuation in your estrogen. So how high is your high estrogen? How high is your progesterone and the balance between the two?

So I guess when we go back to saying what can we do about that — it’s finding out what’s going on. Getting your hormones properly tested at the right times of the month, in the times when they’re at their highest, the times when they’re at their lowest.

The best times of the month, which are day two and day 21 in your cycle. If you have a 28-day cycle, seven days before your cycle are the best times to get it tested, and seeing a professional who can analyze that, obviously, and then finding out what’s going on.

So it may be because your estrogen is too high because you aren’t able to detoxify it, which we see really commonly with some genetic mutations that also work on the dopamine pathway. Hence why ADHDers experience that more and may have high issues in symptoms.

So some of those symptoms are also heavy periods, like with lots of bleeding and pain and clotting. That can be a high estrogen sign. So finding out if that’s what’s going on and then working with a naturopath or nutritionist that can help you to detoxify.

So the other thing, the other topic that I can talk about all day long is histamine. So if you’re experiencing your symptoms when that estrogen is at its highest — so that day 21, seven days before your period — most people will come in and tell me that they go crazy either just before their period or a week before and when they ovulate.

So if it’s happening for you a week before your period and when you’re ovulating, because you get an estrogen spike then, if it’s happening then, then it could be more histamine related. So a histamine intolerance that’s happening in the body that’s reacting with your estrogen.

Now this is because — now tell me if I’m getting too complicated, just butt in because this is my hyperfixation. Estrogen stimulates the mast cells, which are immune system cells in the body, to release histamine and then the histamine also stimulates the ovaries to produce more estrogen. So it’s this never-ending perpetual cycle that just makes your estrogen and your histamine symptoms worse.

So is it histamine that’s a problem for you? You might have some other symptoms that are histamine related. So a lot of people know about histamine because of the antihistamine drugs that you take when you have allergies, right?

So some of the symptoms that you can experience are allergy-type symptoms — sinuses, sinus pain, runny nose, headaches — but also hives and then some other ones that aren’t specifically related to that kind of area of the body: increases in anxiety, because histamine is a neurotransmitter as well, which we can talk about more.

And other symptoms: breast tenderness, fluid retention, period pain again and joint pain. Yeah, so it can be more histamine that can be the cause and then that kind of dictates the treatment as well.

So you could think that maybe it’s estrogen and these fluctuations and you take something that you’ve read online can help you to reduce your estrogen, but the problem may actually be histamine. And so then we need to look at that and work on that problem.

Jane McFadden:

Oh, that’s super interesting. I’m just kind of, wow. Okay. So how would you test for histamine? Is that the same thing? Is that the monthly thing?

Yeah. Can you test it with your monthly cycle?

Kylie Smart:

You can test it, but the jury’s kind of out about the accuracy at the moment. Some of my mentors — one of my mentors says it’s just the lab. Some of the labs aren’t very accurate and the way that they store it, it doesn’t, it breaks it down.

So I’m going to test that out and find out, but at the moment I don’t have confidence in the blood testing that’s available. So you can’t really test it, but you can work on reducing your histamine and see if your symptoms improve.

So one of the things that can contribute to high histamine is foods in your diet. So high histamine foods in your diet. So if you went on a low histamine diet and for a month, see how your PMS symptoms are, then that can tell you in that way.

And unfortunately for us mums, it’s a lot of our favorite foods are high in histamine. So alcohol and things that ADHDers use to self-medicate as well. So alcohol, cheese, avocado, bone broth, tomato, really high.

And you can find a list online. It’s really easy to just kind of Google low histamine diet. There’s lots of information. But so even foods that you think are healthy too, if you have a histamine problem, can make the problem worse. Like bone brothing is very popular still at the moment and having lots of bone broth, but that is high in histamine.

The other thing is kind of what also causes buildup of histamines in the body is called SIBO. So a problem in your gut. So SIBO is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.

So there’s in the past, there’s been lots of talk and the Inner Health Plus ad about the microbiome balance, the balance in the gut of good bacteria and bad bacteria, which is still very relevant, important, but it mainly talks about the large intestine.

SIBO we generally see further up in the system in the small intestine. So it’s when that imbalance has kind of moved up through into the small intestine as well, or down from the stomach. And those kinds of symptoms you’ll see — bloating is kind of the most common one for that.

So I do have some clients who come in and they look like they’re, you know, seven months pregnant after they’ve just had a normal, normal day of eating. And that is a real big sign for SIBO.

So those bacteria in the gut lead to histamine production in the body and you end up with more high histamine and then that affects all of this. So the gut has a really big impact on your hormones through histamine.

Jane McFadden:

Okay. So we’ve got three categories, just correct me if I’m wrong. We’ve got the oestrogen, the fluctuating oestrogen, we’ve got the histamine and then we’ve got the gut. Would they be the three major impacts that you think would be on PMS and ADHD?

Kylie Smart:

Yes, absolutely.

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Jane McFadden:

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, feel free to explain that one because I’m kind of like frantically writing down things. This is great.

Kylie Smart:

Okay, cool. Because I can talk about this. Sometimes my clients leave and are like, that was a lot of information.

But also issues with — so it’s really good to do with elimination as well, but also the type of gut bacteria that you have in your large intestine. But what they can actually do is recirculate the oestrogen back into your bloodstream.

So all of our hormones are detoxified in our liver. They’re broken down. You know, we make them in our ovaries. They go throughout our whole body, including in our brain. So that’s kind of — I was talking about oestrogen working on dopamine, and then they come back in and get broken down in the liver and get excreted through the faeces.

But what can happen with certain gut bacteria in the gut is that it, instead of excreting it, it actually takes the oestrogen back in and puts it back into the bloodstream. And it is a cause of that higher oestrogen level. So not just the histamine, but also because of that gut bacteria.

Jane McFadden:

Okay. Right. So stool testing can be really important.

Kylie Smart:

So there’s SIBO testing we can do specific for that. So it’s really defined by your symptoms and what your practitioner can see with your symptoms, but you can also do stool testing as well. And that’ll tell us if this oestrogen recycling is going on as well.

So stool testing, not just for gut issues, it’s, you know, it’s also really useful for hormonal issues and also neurotransmitter issues. But that’s probably another topic for another podcast because I can hyperfixate on that one all day long as well.

Jane McFadden:

So, okay. So what you’re — what I’m hearing you saying is that ADHD and PMS is a real issue. There can be that fluctuation of hormones, which then affect mood symptoms.

For me personally, I usually go onto my app and then I realized that my period’s five, seven days out or whatever it is. And then I kind of like take a breath and just try and think, just hang on for dear life. Don’t make any changes. Don’t decide anything. Just try and hang on.

I’m only 36, I think. Don’t love ADHD, we don’t never know how old we are. I’m only 36.

So if we were to — is that going to, are those symptoms only going to increase with age or like, can this, can it stay? Because I mean, I’ve never experienced PMS 10 years ago, but I do now, especially after having children. Is this something that only gets worse with age?

Kylie Smart:

I don’t want to scare you, Jane, but as I said, you know, it’s more about — it can be about the fluctuation in estrogen and how much it changes.

So when we go into perimenopause, I mean, if you read the textbooks about menopause and perimenopause, they make it sound like there’s this beautiful gradual decline that happens from your estrogen. It just, your ovaries just slowly, you know, go, I’ve had enough now. I’m going to go to sleep. I’m not needed anymore.

But that in reality, that’s not what happens. There’s actually this fluctuation that occurs between the brain and the ovaries and you have these highs and lows that go up and down. So it can be more pronounced.

And I guess that’s why it’s important earlier to seek support. And definitely if you’re concerned about your perimenopause and what might happen in menopause, if your mom had a really difficult menopause as well, or older sisters, siblings, aunties, then it is important to try to get that help earlier. Especially — it’s much easier to identify high estrogen problems earlier and before you start to have the fluctuations.

And we can support that to support you through your perimenopause journey. So yeah, I don’t want to say, I feel like I really want to tell you that it might not, but yeah, if you do have those really severe swings, they may — you know, it may not get better in perimenopause, unfortunately. But there are things you can do.

So working with a naturopath to help support your estrogen. Another thing that I’ve been learning about more that is really important that some of your listeners can do right now is actually increasing your soy, your intake of soy. So there is a component in soy called soy isoflavones.

They’ve got a few different fancy names, but increasing your soy intake in this kind of early forties range can really help because it helps to slow down that ups and downs of the estrogen peaks and troughs. So having soy every day really can really help — fermented soy being one of the best forms. So like tempeh and miso, as long as you don’t have histamine issues or soy intolerance issues, it can be common with gut issues, but that’s something that everyone can do at home.

Also used in the right way and for the right reasons and for the right person. And this can be controversial, but hormone replacement therapy can also be really helpful. So finding the right doctor who really understands what to do and how to use it can be really beneficial. But that’s not my area, but that is something that you can look at through the medical side of things.

Jane McFadden:

Okay. So question, just making sure I’m understanding you right. So at 36, and there’s a lot of women on the podcast that will message me from my Facebook stories. I think last month I did one, every car is a fucked up car because I had PMS raging and every car was just the slowest driver in the world and I just couldn’t stand it.

And I had so much like road rage and I was posting about my road rage and the amount of people that were messaging me going, oh man, I just want to run people over. And it was pretty funny, to be honest.

But what I’m wondering is, because I kind of backburned it thinking, okay, well, I’m only 36, I’m not going to worry about it yet. You’ve got young kids, so much to do, so much to worry about. You’re thinking, I’m going to worry about that later.

But I’m imagining from what you’re saying, it’s better to get ahead of it. So then it’s less — did you say it’s more simple to identify what it is before menopause actually starts? Is that what you said?

Kylie Smart:

Yeah, it is. Because of those fluctuations that start to occur in perimenopause, it can be harder to pick up. Your cycles also shorten and change. So being able to really get your testing done at the right time is harder.

So yeah, prevention is always better than cure. And yeah, definitely a reminder for ADHDers because we’re not so great at that. So yeah, good to get ahead of it.

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Jane McFadden:

I’m going to ask you a tricky one, but I think it’s going to be a question that a lot of people will have in their minds. So I’m obviously pro naturopath. I love naturopaths and I’ve seen naturopaths in the past. I don’t currently see one, but I have.

Pre and post baby, I was really worried about postnatal depression because I had a history of mental health, didn’t have ADHD diagnosed. So I was more like, I’ve got this slow battle with burnout and stress and depression, anxiety that I’ve never got on top of. I hope I’m not going to be one of those women having a psychotic break after having my first child.

So I got ahead of it and got on a lot of — Nozink and I can’t even remember what they were. But one of the things that stops me from seeing a naturopath, Kylie, is that I find it really complicated.

So for example, I do find sometimes that you go and there’s so many supplements. Aside from the cost, it’s just the sheer amount of testing and the tablets and the supplements and the timing that I have been before. And if I’m honest, I haven’t actually taken a lot of the stuff.

And it’s a little bit that all or nothing as well. Because I’m either on board a hundred percent and then if I miss a little bit of it, or I get confused, which often happens, then I go, oh, well, I’m just not doing it now. Like, how would you tackle like a mum with ADHD with some of these really quite complex — to actually get them motivated with everything else we have going on to get them on track?

Kylie Smart:

Yeah, I 100% understand. And I think that’s probably the benefit of seeing a naturopath who also has ADHD. Other than the tangents I will go on and my brain will get stuck in some hole somewhere and I have to say, what did you say again?

Other than that, is that I understand how hard it is to take things. I struggle with it sometimes, especially when we start to feel better, we’ll stop taking things because we’ll get focused on something else and really interested in that and it’ll go to the wayside.

So what I do with my clients is I try to simplify it as much as I can. I use nutritional compounding. So I’ll actually put all of the powders and nutrients that you need — because unfortunately, ADHDers do need a lot of nutritional support to get to feeling how they want to.

But I simplify it by mixing it up myself based on their individual needs and making it simple. So normally you’ll have one or two powders that you need to take and maybe some herbs and that’s it.

Jane McFadden:

Wow. Oh, that’s actually pretty good.

Kylie Smart:

Yeah. So a lot of the expense comes with needing lots of different nutrients as well and buying them from the supplement companies that we use as practitioners. You’ll end up on a few different tablets and then it all adds up and it all gets too hard.

So I try to simplify it by using nutritional compounding. The other thing — like some more complicated people will need more things and we do things like the pill containers and things like that. But it’s also around not getting too disappointed in yourself or upset if you forget or if you stop taking it or if you don’t take it too often.

Like I had a client this morning and I even do it myself. I always forget to take the one in the evening and so we’re working with her. I’m like, well, let’s take a bigger dose in the morning. So we just work with what works best for the person.

But also it’s about picking yourself up again and keeping on going and getting back on track again, which I think is a very common thing — but all parts of our lives as ADHDers, not just our health.

So as far as the costs of it as well, it being expensive, sometimes unfortunately it can be because there isn’t that support anymore with private health insurance, which is really unfortunate.

So it can be expensive, but I think that’s also why it’s really important to go see a naturopath who understands exactly what you need help with and can do the right testing and get you on the right supplements quicker, and so that you end up on a maintenance program quicker.

Because I think a lot of the costs can be coming backwards and forwards and trying different things, and if the naturopath isn’t really on top of what is required for ADHDers, then you can feel like you’re spending a lot of money and not getting a lot of improvement.

So seeing someone who specializes in what it is you need help with and using that limited financial set most of us have at the moment in the right way — just like going to see a good psychiatrist that you know, that you get a recommendation from a friend or on a Facebook group, someone who says, yeah, they’re really great. I know it’s a very similar thing.

Jane McFadden:

Okay, great. What about this, Kylie? Sorry to put you on the spot. Do you reckon you could give an example of like a typical client that you would see? Let’s say 35-year-old mum with ADHD or PMS symptoms. What would be their standard symptoms that you would see and what would be kind of their result at the end?

Because I think some of us don’t even know how good we could feel. We just feel like crap and we just accept it.

Kylie Smart:

Yeah, I guess what I say to a lot of my clients too, it’s different to how you feel once you start the medication as well because the stimulant effects for most people have quite a significant effect once you start taking it. You feel quite different.

But most of the time, it’s depletions that have happened in the body. So depletions that are contributing to the dopamine or things like the gut problems with the gut, which are contributing to neuroinflammation. So we’re decreasing inflammation.

So we actually end up feeling better and more normal. There isn’t that significant kind of, oh my God like straight away — it’s more gradual.

So what I see is the biggest thing I’ll see straight away is more — there’ll be less kind of emotional outbursts or emotional, getting that emotional dysregulation that happens. Especially when I’m working with PMS, that’s probably one of the first things we’ll see.

So, and it’s normally like looking back and going, oh, okay, I just had my cycle. And it’s more of what isn’t there anymore, because ADHDers just get on with it as well, like move on to the next thing. And so it’s like, oh actually I didn’t have that anymore.

And also the motivation, I see improvements in that pretty quickly as well. The things that take a little longer is working with the hormones and the gut, but that’s not always going to be the biggest component of helping the PMS either.

So I kind of will do like a symptomatic treatment, which is normally herbs, and that will help you to feel better pretty quickly. And then the nutrients and the underlying gut work is what maintains it over a longer period of time.

Did that answer your question?

Jane McFadden:

No, it does. And I think that makes sense as to why some people with ADHD, because, you know, we’re quite impatient and we want it all to happen straight away.

And I think the ADHD medication doesn’t help that expectation either, because, you know, sometimes I will call a short-release tablet, like an ADHD Panadol, and you get that quick hit. You also feel that when it comes off though.

Whereas, you know, what you’re talking about is a little bit more subtle, but also I would imagine if I got my hormones under control, I wouldn’t be kind of clicking on my app going, well, where’s my period?

I need to — and I said to my husband, it feels like when my period eventually comes, that you take the lid off the boiling pot and it’s like, okay, I feel a lot better suddenly. So I would imagine that I wouldn’t be on the app and, you know, probably up people’s asses in the car, but you know what you mean?

It’s what’s not there. And because we just move forward, there may not be enough time and space given — especially when self-care, hate the word self-care, but any self-care for an ADHD mum generally is right at the end, after everyone else is finished, everything else is done.

And then suddenly at the end, you might have three minutes to have a shower and that was your self-care time. So to, you know, invest that money and time into yourself with something that might not look like a fire is probably part of the battle.

I would say I’m kind of putting out fires a bit at the moment personally. And I’m like, geez, I need to really bump that up on priorities. However, prevention being better than cure is — it does actually, that does make sense to me that, you know, if you leave it longer and longer and the next thing you know, you’re 45 and you’re like, I’ve been experiencing this for 10 years. Well, probably could have gone a bit earlier.

Kylie Smart:

Yep. And I think too, it’s also when we talk about ADHD symptoms, I guess it’s what — which symptoms we’re talking about. If we’re talking about mental health symptoms that kind of technically aren’t ADHD symptoms, like anxiety and low moods, we can see a really significant improvement in them pretty quickly with some of the herbs that I use.

So those ones, it will be, you know, you see like a different person walk into the clinic the next time. But the motivation, the brain fog and that kind of thing does — it’s more subtle. But yeah, definitely those mental health symptoms can see the difference straight away.

Jane McFadden:

Yep.

Kylie Smart:

I forgot what I was going to say. It was probably good. Oh, that’s what I was going to say — an analogy.

I had a client a little while ago who she was very matter of fact, and she was feeling really amazing. And we were talking about how well she had done and how good she was feeling. Because when she first came to see me, she was really, really anxious. She could barely leave the house. She was really struggling with low moods, was bordering kind of suicidal.

And we were talking about how well she was doing because she was going to uni really well and thriving at work and feeling really good. And she said to me, oh, I think it was that last nutrient that we added in that really, like that is the one I should, I’ll just keep taking that one.

And I have — my previous career, I was an engineer. So I always use the analogy of cars and engines. So I said to her, I’m like, well, if you think about the way that an engine runs — and the body is a much more complicated system than that — you know, you need to make sure that it has enough spark.

You need to make sure that the fuel work is really good, high quality fuel. You need to make sure that the timing’s right. You need to make sure the compression is right. You need to make sure the oil temperature is right.

So it’s all of these different factors that all add up. And kind of the reductionistic way that we view health and medicine is, you know, one pill for one thing. So we think that that last thing that we took was the thing that made us feel the best.

But really it is very holistic and the combination of things and processes in the body that lead to feeling better with ADHD. And that’s kind of what I was trying to explain as well. Like it is subtle and it’s not always profound, but sometimes it is.

Jane McFadden:

What about in terms of kids, like with girls — obviously pretty much everyone listening to this podcast has kids. What about particularly for girls and boys moving into puberty? You know, is that something that you look at as well?

Kylie Smart:

Yeah, that’s interesting. When it comes to hormonally, I guess, we try to leave their hormones alone and let their, you know, get their body in the best health that it needs to be.

So commonly we’ll see with ADHD kids is low iron, low zinc, other nutrients that have become low. So supporting those and then letting their body do what it naturally does to increase those hormones as it does through puberty.

So hormonally, we don’t modify much. We just support them, their body, their neurotransmitters, their stress levels, so that they can go through puberty as normally and as well as possible.

But in a similar context, you know, supporting those mood fluctuations, probably more with herbs and things symptomatically while they’re transitioning through that is probably more how I would approach it with kids.

Yeah. But also, you know, we can preempt, I guess, when you’re looking at older teenagers as well, sometimes you’ll see really heavy periods and things. So we can have a look and do some preventative things with their hormones if we need to. But try to just support them and let their body do what the body needs to do.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, perfect. All right. Well, look, let’s finish up unless we’ve missed anything, Kylie. Have I not asked you anything? Is there anything you’d like to add before we finish up?

Kylie Smart:

I don’t think so. I think I’ve covered everything that I wrote on notes and a little bit extra as well.

Jane McFadden:

Beautiful. All right. Well, look, ADHDers, thank you so much, Kylie. If you have a review or you would like to hear or see more of anything, feel free to send me a message. I would love an Apple podcast review if possible, but I’ll take Spotify or anything I can get as well.

Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. And thank you so much to you, Kylie.

Kylie Smart:

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Jane.