Dr. Daemon Jones makes the natural approach to health her first resort. She'll treat menstrual pain with magnesium to counteract muscle cramping. She recommends green leafy vegetables and pumpkin seeds as whole food sources of magnesium. And she mentions that women's cravings for chocolate during their menstrual cycle may be because chocolate contains magnesium.
Dr. Jones is on faculty at Smith Farms Center for Healing and the Arts and Food As Medicine Professional Training program.
(Transcribed from video interview)
Dr. Dae:
Hi, I am Dr. Dae and I am a naturopathic physician or a naturopathic doctor, and what that really means is, I look at the holistic approaches to how you treat patients using the most natural methods first before looking at surgeries and pharmaceuticals. And I am an author and I am an EmpowHer writer.
Whenever I have a patient or a woman come in and she wants to address issues related to menstrual pain or menstrual problems, the first thing is we always want to make sure that we are treating the underlying cause of the problems, so we want to see is that a hormonal imbalance, is it secondary to some other issue or problem that the woman has.
Now, most often, it’s an imbalance in her hormonal system. So I take actually two approaches. I have a short-term approach and I have a long-term approach. And the short-term approach is really, how do we get her out of pain as quickly as possible, and then how do we regulate the cycle so the cycle can be more normal over time?
And so, the short-term approach really focuses on if she is having pain because she is having some kind of cramping or some kind of issue like that. That’s generally because her uterus actually has muscles. It’s a very strong, muscular organ, and we have to, she has cramping because the muscles in her uterus are actually contracting and spasming.
So, one way to kind of relieve that kind of pain is through magnesium. So, I will either do some supplementation related to magnesium and making sure that it’s a high quality and it’s available to the body--bio-available. And I also recommend you have foods, like green leafy vegetables are high in magnesium, kale is high in magnesium, spinach, Swiss chard, broccoli, pumpkin seed. So, I’ll try to incorporate into her diet, particularly a couple of weeks before her flow, high magnesium types of foods.
Just kind of as an anecdote, that oftentimes women say, “I am having cravings for chocolate, like unbelievable cravings for chocolate.” And chocolate actually has a high amount of magnesium content for the amount of what we eat, which is hopefully a small piece. So when women say they have that craving, their body is actually saying, “I need something high magnesium,” and unknown to them, they realize that chocolate is high magnesium and so they go for chocolate.
So, if we can just give them magnesium, than sometimes they don’t have to go for the chocolate cake or something else that may not be really as supportive to their bodies as other whole foods that I mentioned before.
About Dr. Dae, N.D.:
Dr. Daemon Jones completed her undergraduate education in economics at Northwestern University (graduated 1992). She completed her naturopathic medical training at University of Bridgeport’s College of Naturopathic Medicine (2002). Dr. Jones founded Healthydaes Naturopathic Medical Center in Silver Spring, MD (2003. As a naturopathic physician, Dr. Jones is turning her life’s passion – the pursuit of vibrant health – into her life’s mission for others. She uses private consultations, cooking demonstrations, lectures and workshops as a hands-on way to help people enjoy learning about improving their health. She is a faculty member of Smith Farms Center for Healing and the Arts and Food As Medicine Professional Training program.
Visit Dr. Dae at http://www.healthydaes.org
Video:
https://www.empowher.com/menstrual-cycle/content/menstrual-pain-how-do-you-care-dr-dae-video