[00:00:00] Hey y'all, welcome back to another episode of the Vagina Rehab Doctor podcast. Y'all know who it is. Me, Janelle, I am going to be sharing with you today my five favorite teas herbal teas for your pelvic and sexual wellness. This is such an important topic because we want to thrive, right? We want to thrive in our bodies.
We want to feel confident in what our bodies can do and also just how we feel. It's not always about what we can do, what we can achieve, or what we can experience. But how can we feel on a daily basis? And many of us struggle with heavy periods. Many of us struggle with painful sex, low libido. many of us are struggling with just, you know, being confident in our bodies because of different medical conditions, we have body image, many of those things.
So I did a post, about a week ago about ginger tea and I took a three week trip to Kenya. in [00:01:00] February of this year with my family and ginger tea was so common there. It was. It was everywhere. It was at the restaurants. It was in the hotels. It was legitimately everywhere. And I got my hands on that stuff and it was so strong.
It was potent. It was spicy. You could tell it had a lot of powerful, antioxidants in it. And while I was there, I noticed that my bloating was down. I got more cervical mucus, which is important. It can be a, an indicator of ovulation. For me, this is very key because I have polycystic ovarian syndrome. So sometimes I don't get my period at all.
and many times that is because I'm not ovulating, meaning my ovaries are not releasing an egg. If you don't release that egg and if you're not getting pregnant, you should be getting a period, but you're not going to get a period if you don't release that egg. So with polycystic ovarian syndrome and not just PCOS with endometriosis, with fibroids, with, with many other conditions, [00:02:00] there's a lot of inflammation happening in the body.
But specifically with my condition, blood sugar management is important and that is important for every single one of us. Our blood sugar has to be managed well, and that can help contribute to hormonal balance, hormonal regulation and pelvic health. And so we're going to talk about some of my. favorite herbal teas.
I do want to remind you that if you're pregnant or if you're breastfeeding, you're going to need to do your own research. Talk to your doctor first, before deciding if you should be taking these herbal teas. And if you are on medications or if you have different medical conditions, you want to also speak with your doctor before taking these herbal teas because you want to make sure they're not going to interact unfavorably, with your medications or with your medical conditions.
Okay. So disclaimer there, make sure you always get the sign up from your doctor. All right, let's get into it. Let's get into it. So I'm going to talk more about these teas. Now, number one is going [00:03:00] to be, Again, the reason why is because it has potent anti inflammatories in it. Our body naturally is exposed to toxins and free radicals.
Essentially like these cells that go, uh, these, not chemicals, but Essentially, uh, cells that can damage other ones, okay? So we're exposed to free radicals, we're exposed to toxins, just the aging process, right? Stress. All of these things can contribute to the breakdown of cells and the damage of cells.
We need our ovarian cells to work well. they have to do a lot of manufacturing and processing and hormonal regulate. There, there's so much going on in our ovaries and our uterus, with the pelvic floor muscles. with, with our digestive system, the liver is a big one. And so, gender can help to calm inflammation and also particularly help with digestion.
If you have abdominal pain, if you have IBS, if you [00:04:00] have bloating a lot. If you're constipated, you have the strength to poop. You don't poop regularly. You have bleeding and, anal fissures and hemorrhoids and, okay, so your digestion needs some support. And so ginger for me has been so key because digestion is directly related to your hormonal and pelvic health, okay?
The pelvis houses many of the digestive organs and there's an interaction between the vagina and the gut. And so ginger, that's my number one. That is my number one. And I like to just chop, I like to peel the skin off. And then cut up the ginger in like cubes And then just put that in either boiling water on up in a pot Or I just put it in in a mug and put in the microwave for like three minutes Let it simmer for 10 minutes and then I drink my my ginger tea get it organic get organic ginger root Okay.
All right. Number two is going to be red raspberry leaf [00:05:00] Red raspberry leaf has been shown to be very helpful for those who have painful periods. Painful periods and also heavy periods and just helping you with your uterine health and your uterine contractions. Again, if you're, if you're pregnant, you might want to go ahead and check with your doctor, before taking this.
For many of these teas, one to three cups a day, um, would be, would be, uh, supportive of your health. if you're trying to get a therapeutic effect, meaning there's something that you're trying to do, like for me, I'm trying to seriously decrease bloating and digestive issues. I'm trying to help myself ovulate, I'm trying to decrease inflammation.
Then for me, I'm going to do two to three cups of ginger tea. A day. but with red raspberry leaf, you know, you would figure out how, how much tea, is good for you. but if you're having those period issues, those menstrual irregularities, the pain, the heavy bleeding, red raspberry leaf may be helpful for you.
and then I'm going to go on to, to this next [00:06:00] one, nettle. Okay. Nettle leaf and nettle tea can be super helpful if you particularly struggle with heavy bleeding because it helps the liver to detoxify estrogen. Okay, so it is our liver that truly helps with our hormonal regulation. When those hormones need to be excreted from the body, it's the liver that helps us do that, and then through the digestive tract of the colon, the rectum, obviously, feces, and urine, and all that.
But if our liver is not functioning correctly, or not optimally, we may see some issues with our hormones. And when our hormones are dysregulated, We'll see things like a lot of blood clotting missing periods, heavy periods, difficulty getting pregnant, et cetera. So nettle leaf also has a good source of iron.
And so if you're having heavy periods, you want that to be replenished. Again, you do want to speak to your doctor before trying any of these teas. I am not your doctor. Okay. I am not your [00:07:00] doctor. All right. All right. All right. So first ginger tea, I love it. Next. we talked about the red raspberry leaf tea specifically for menstrual irregularities.
Nettle, I think is, is great if you're having a lot of blood clotting or heavy periods. and then next we're going to go to spearmint tea. Spearmint tea is the truth. Okay. people have come to me and said, Hey, Janelle, since you started talking about spearmint tea, My acne has significantly gotten better or my periods have been regulated regulated better Spearmint tea is helpful for decreasing testosterone And high testosterone levels have been found in those who have polycystic ovarian syndrome.
I have it as well as I mentioned and so that can Contribute to acne that can contribute to a male pattern hair hair growth So i'm going to get the hairs on your chin the hair on your top lip even here on your belly or on your chest, you can also have, higher levels of fat around the waist if you have high [00:08:00] testosterone and high insulin levels.
So spearmint can be very helpful for high testosterone and or polycystic ovarian syndrome. I can't stress spearmint tea enough. It has been proven through research, okay? Get you some spearmint, not peppermint. Spearmint. Spear. S P E A R M I N T. Okay? It's not the same thing as peppermint. All right. Okay.
So number one, ginger, number two, red raspberry leaf, um, number three, nettle, number four, spearmint. And then lastly, let's talk about cinnamon. Cinnamon can help your body to, um, process sugar better. It can help your body to balance insulin. when you eat sugar or foods that have carbs, your, that breaks down to sugar.
And in order for the sugar to get inside of the cells, to help with energy production and doing what the body needs to do. Insulin is, is like the Uber that carries the sugar into the [00:09:00] cells. If insulin is not doing what it needs to do, then you're just gonna have a lot of sugar building up in your bloodstream.
That's not good, right? And that can lead to diabetes. It can lead to insulin resistance. It can lead to, missing periods. It can lead to decreased sensation with sex. It can lead to high cholesterol. These issues we don't want to have. And we've got to start looking at our overall health, our overall heart health.
Especially for sexual dysfunction. If you're having difficulty reaching orgasm. If you're not feeling any sensation with sex. You know, PCOS has actually been shown to be associated with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, those metabolic things. So the healthier your heart and your blood, your blood vessels, the easier it is going to be to have a great sex life because you're going to be able to get more blood flow down to your clit.
Okay. If you have a penis, more blood flow down to your penis. Erectile dysfunction is associated with like high [00:10:00] cholesterol. and high blood pressure and all that. It's just, it's similar for us. We have erectile tissues as well. That's our clitoris. And so we want to make sure that our blood sugar is regulated.
Well, cinnamon tea can help with that. Okay. So these are my favorite teas. Again, it may not work for you, but you need to look at what are the conditions that you have. What are the things that you're trying to improve and try try one out at a time and see how it goes Right for several weeks. How does it go?
Ginger, there is red raspberry leaf. There's nettle. There's spearmint. And then lastly we talked about cinnamon Y'all these are my five favorite herbal teas for supporting Your sexual and pelvic wellness. All right. So if you enjoyed this episode and you want to hear me talk more about lifestyle and what we can do, what can we, what we can eat, right?
So actually support our, our horniness to support that lubrication, to support feeling good in your [00:11:00] body and experiencing the joy. And the satisfaction that comes from being healthy. Let me know. Let me know. Send me a dm I want you to screenshot this episode share it to your stories And if you really support this podcast leave me a five star raving review just scroll all the way bottom Go to the home page of this podcast and then scroll all the way to the bottom If you go to the home page where all the episodes are scroll to the bottom and you can leave a five star raving review Thanks so much for listening y'all and I'll talk to you again next Monday