Diet taboos for adenomyosis

There are no foods that must not be touched with adenomyosis. The key things to avoid are Excessive foods with high estrogen activity, pro-inflammatory foods with high sugar, fat and salt, and irritating foods that can aggravate your own discomfort. Category 3, as long as the other foods are not excessive, there is no need to blindly avoid them.

Let’s first talk about the estrogen-related foods that everyone is most concerned about. Don’t believe the extreme statement that “you can’t eat anything with estrogen in it”. Royal jelly, snow clam, and placenta should really be put on the blacklist. They are animal-derived estrogens and are highly active. Long-term consumption is likely to stimulate the growth of adenomyosis lesions and aggravate the problems of dysmenorrhea and excessive menstruation. I have met several patients who heard that royal jelly can replenish qi and blood. They drink half a cup every day. The lesions have grown to almost 1cm in half-year review, and the pain is much worse than before.

But what many people say is that "you can't touch soy products" is really an injustice to soybeans. Soy isoflavones in soybeans are phytoestrogens, and their activity is less than one-thousandth of human estrogen. Normally, if you drink a cup of 200ml of light soy milk and eat half a piece of brine tofu, the intake will not reach the threshold of stimulating lesions. On the contrary, soy isoflavones have a two-way regulatory effect. When the estrogen in the body is high, it can help seize the binding site, and when it is low, it can slightly fill the gap. There was a 34-year-old patient who heard rumors and didn't eat any soy products for half a year. Later, the bone density was found to be at a low value, and the calcium loss was much faster than that of his peers. Later, he was adjusted to a cup of soy milk every day. After a year of follow-up, the lesions did not grow, the dysmenorrhea score did not fluctuate, and the bone density increased a bit.

Let’s talk about the pro-inflammatory foods that many people ignore. This is the hidden culprit for many people’s inexplicable aggravation of dysmenorrhea. The pain of adenomyosis is inherently linked to the level of chronic pelvic inflammation. Eating too much high-sugar, high-trans fat, and high-salt foods will directly increase the level of inflammatory factors in the body, and dysmenorrhea will naturally worsen. Last week, I met a 27-year-old girl in the outpatient clinic. Her usual dysmenorrhea is about 3 out of 10. During the team building, she showed off a 6-inch durian millet and two cups of iced pearl milk tea. She was rolling in pain in bed that night. She couldn't hold it down even after taking two ibuprofen. When she came for a follow-up visit, her face was still pale. There are also high-salt foods such as pickled products and pickles, which will aggravate water and sodium retention during menstruation. Women are prone to belly fat, swollen waists, and swollen legs. Eating too much will only make them more uncomfortable. Especially for people with premenstrual syndrome, it is best to eat less in the week before menstruation.

As for whether people can eat spicy or iced food, which is often asked, this is really the most individual difference. Many people say that people with adenomyosis should absolutely abstain from spicy food and ice. In fact, it is really not necessary. I have a patient in Chongqing who has been addicted to spicy food since she was a child. She has no reaction at all when eating mild spicy food. If she is forced to give up spicy food, she will be in a bad mood every day and her dysmenorrhea will become more severe. She maintains her original eating habits and has no problems after two years of follow-up. But if you have heavy menstruation and aggravated menstrual cramps as soon as you eat spicy hot pot, or if you break into a cold sweat after eating a popsicle in the summer, then you should try to touch these things as little as possible, especially before and after your period.

There are also rumors on the Internet that you cannot eat beef, seafood, and mangoes, which have no scientific basis at all. On the contrary, patients with adenomyosis generally have heavy menstruation, and many people suffer from iron deficiency anemia. Instead, they should eat more high-iron high-quality protein such as lean beef and pork liver. Omega3 in deep-sea fish can also help reduce inflammation and relieve dysmenorrhea. As long as you are not allergic to these foods, you can eat them normally.

In fact, I have been doing gynecology clinics for so many years. What I want to tell patients with adenomyosis most is that there is really no unified standard for dietary taboos. Your own physical feelings are the best yardstick. Don’t be so anxious about so-called “taboos” that you dare not eat or touch them. On the contrary, a good mood is 10 times more effective in regulating endocrine than strict taboos. If you really want to eat ice cream or a piece of cake, it doesn't matter if you eat it once in a while, as long as you don't feel uncomfortable after eating it. After all, happiness is the most important thing in life, right?