Castor Oil Packs for PCOS Relief (and much more)
Guest post by Dr. Marisol, ND
Throughout my lifetime, I’ve dealt with a myriad of hormonal health problems, no different than you. The female body is an intricate network of three regulating systems, the nervous, immune, and hormonal systems. Stress is a major cause of disease which we are all aware of. But did you know that because these three systems work together to keep harmony in the body, when you deal with an enormous emotional stressor, like a divorce, a toxic work environment, or caring for an aging parent or sick child, your stressed nervous system will throw your hormonal system out of whack?
Why does it do this? Because it comes down to the survival of the fittest. You or I, are not “fit” to procreate when there is an enormous amount of stress on our shoulders. Our ingenious beautiful female bodies shut down the reproductive system and down regulate our thyroid glands so we gain weight to act as padding to protect us when we go into fight or flight survival mode.
All three systems go into preservation mode and they all interconnect in the most important area of the body, the gut, or what I like to call the main hub. A mainstay treatment in my practice for all health conditions, especially those afflicting the hormonal, nervous system, and gut health is the legendary castor oil pack. No other treatment is as beneficial as a castor oil pack to help with:
- Calming a stressed nervous system
- Have healthy bowel movements[1]
- Reduce ovarian cysts and help the natural function of the uterus[2]
- Reconnect and regulate the hormonal, nervous and immune systems[3]
- Cleanse excess hormones and chemicals via glutathione preservation[4]
- Reduce inflammation[5]
- Breakdown biofilm[6] that helps to reset your gut healthy bacteria
My Story
My journey with hormonal health problems started early on. I was a moody, unbalanced, PMSing teenager, and then suddenly I would skip periods, or they would appear randomly with no rhythm or rhyme. It wasn’t really that much of a problem skipping my period, besides not knowing when it would happen. Let’s face it, Aunt Flow can be a bother sometimes on our summer vacations! However, I started worrying about the hair growing on my chin, just like my mom, and the mustache I seemed to be developing and constantly having to pluck or bleach.
When I was diagnosed with PCOS, through an ultrasound and blood test, I didn’t really fit the typical picture because I was thin. I was the outlier on the thin subset of PCOS, yet I definitely had problems with blood sugar highs and lows, androgen excess where my hair was growing everywhere, and my messed-up periods. But beyond that, what was really tearing me apart was the fact that I was told that with this diagnosis it would be extremely hard to have babies. Up until that time, I really hadn’t thought about babies, but when the carpet is pulled out from under you and you don’t have that choice anymore, that’s exactly when it gets scary, petrifying in fact.
It was about the time I was entering naturopathic school, I almost skipped out on going back to school because I thought I should probably work on having babies, but then I realized if I was going to find the tools to get better, naturopathic school would be the place.
The Fix
One of the first tools that hit me smack in the middle of the face was the castor oil pack. Did I delve into it? Well, no. Why? Because it was a bloody disaster to prepare with about 20 steps to execute. Who has the time? Taking supplements, eating well and exercising were already part of my routine, why would I do more? It wasn’t until my third year, after hearing and being prescribed these packs about 15 times, that I decided it was time to give it a try. But I reinvented my own pack that made it much easier, because I knew this would be the only way that I would be able to incorporate it into my busy life.
So, my little castor oil pack became the missing piece I needed to reset my body. I was doing all the diet, supplement, and lifestyle recommendations for my condition, but the missing link for me was the castor oil pack because my biggest issue was with stress dysregulating my whole hormonal and immune system. In clinical practice, I noticed it was the exact same thing for all my patients.
When I consistently did a castor oil pack, everything reset after a period of time. My periods started to regulate and became like clockwork. The funny thing is that my focus wasn’t really on fixing my PCOS, but more on fixing my irritable bowel and reducing the amount of stress my body was dealing with. There are many roads that lead to Rome, my friends, but the most important one is the one with our gut and our minds.
I hope this encourages you to work with castor oil packs, and don’t fret because now you have my Queen of Thrones™ Castor Oil Pack that is simple, reusable and easy to use. We no longer have to deal with the legendary disaster and mess of these packs. No, instead we get all the benefits that the ancient Chinese, Indian, Greek, and Mediterranean cultures recognized and used. Castor oil, referred to as the Palm of Christ, was given this name because Jesus Christ used castor oil in the bible to anoint the sick. We now have this ancient remedy at our disposal.
Castor oil packs help to balance our complicated feminine systems. Take action and make it part of your health practice today!
Why Queen of Thrones’s castor oil?
Quality. With something like castor oil, this really, really matters. Castor oil absorbs the chemicals in plastic and then brings them into your body. These chemicals are problematic for your hormones because they are endocrine disruptors. It’s not only BPA that you need to worry about. There are slip agents and UV filters in these bottles too. Please, for the sake of your health, only use certified organic, cold-pressed, hexane-free, extra virgin castor oil in a glass bottle.
Dr. Marisol, ND is a world leader renowned for her passion for cleansing and gut health, not only, because she has the degree on the wall but more so because she’s experienced feeling shitty and figured out the hierarchy on how to get healthy.Resources
[1] Arslan GG, Eşer I. An examination of the effect of castor oil packs on constipation in the elderly. Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2011 Feb;17(1):58-62. doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2010.04.004. Epub 2010 May 18.
[2] Tunaru S, Althoff TF, Nüsing RM, Diener M, Offermanns S. Castor oil induces laxation and uterus contraction via ricinoleic acid activating prostaglandin EP3 receptors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2012;109(23):9179-9184. doi:10.1073/pnas.1201627109.
[3] Grady H. Immunomodulation through castor oil packs. The Journal of Naturopathic Medicine. Volume 7 Jan 1 1998; 7(1): 84-9
[4] Holm T, Brøgger-Jensen MR, Johnson L, Kessel L.Glutathione preservation during storage of rat lenses in optisol-GS and castor oil. PLoS One. 2013 Nov 19;8(11):e79620. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0079620. eCollection 2013.
[5] Vieira C et al. .Effect of ricinoleic acid in acute and subchronic experimental models of inflammation. Mediators Inflamm. 2000;9(5):223-8.
[6] Badaró MM1, Salles MM1, Leite VMF1, Arruda CNF1, Oliveira VC1, Nascimento CD1, Souza RF1, Paranhos HFO1, Silva-Lovato CH1. Clinical trial for evaluation of Ricinus communis and sodium hypochlorite as denture cleanser. J Appl Oral Sci. 2017 May-Jun;25(3):324-334. doi: 10.1590/1678-7757-2016-0222.
