September 30, 2025 • 13 mins
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I'm Bridget Walton, a Women's Hormone Coach helping ambitious women ages 25-40 naturally restore hormone balance, fix irregular periods, feel confident in their fertility, and resolve gut health issues without restrictive dieting.
If you struggle with missing periods, PCOS symptoms, bloating, or unpredictable cycles, this women's health podcast will teach you how to support your hormones through strategic nutrition and lifestyle changes that actually fit your busy life.
On I'm Hormonal, you'll discover natural solutions for period problems, learn how gut health impacts your hormones, and get practical hormone balance tips from a functional nutrition perspective - no more guessing what your body needs.
This episode explains how previous courses of antibiotics could be impacting your gut health even if it's been a decade since you last took them. Unpredictable periods, missing periods, and hormone imbalance for women are all influenced by gut health. Learn where to start if you want to support your gut health or if you're ready to dive in, book your introductory call to get your personalized plan.
👉 DM us on Instagram @im_hormonal - we want to hear your biggest takeaway
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Question, why do I ask all of my new clients about
their childhood antibiotic use?
Answer because what happened toyour gut and in your gut 20
years ago could be impacting whyyour periods are irregular and
unpredictable today.
Yes, antibiotics were necessarymedicine when you needed them,
but now understanding how theyaffected your gut microbiome,
(00:23):
that can be the missing piece tofinally fixing your cycle.
Welcome to the I'm HormonalPodcast.
I'm Bridget Walton, a women'shormone coach, helping busy,
ambitious women just like youthrough personalized,
data-backed solutions.
Whether you are working with meone-on-one or listening here, my
goal is the same to help youstop guessing about your hormone
(00:46):
health and start seeing realprogress.
Let's get into it.
(01:16):
And I say, Great question.
And then I walk them throughsomething like what you and I
are about to walk through here.
So what happens when you takeantibiotics?
And if you've taken them before,which honestly, what kid hasn't,
um, but you'll know that youtake them when there's some sort
(01:36):
of bacterial overgrowth rate, aninfection, a bacterial
infection.
You take the antibiotic, takescare of that infection, but we
also have um a cabilliondifferent types of bacteria and
other microbes living in ourdigestive system.
And we don't want, we don't wantthose to go away.
We need some of these goodbacteria to stick around because
(02:00):
they help us to eliminate ourhormones, create our hormones,
digest our food properly.
There are a lot of reasons whywe have, I mean, billions and
billions and billions, I don'tknow the exact number, of
bacteria in our digestivesystem.
When you take antibiotics,though, you know, the
(02:21):
antibiotics don't discriminateagainst what bacteria they are
wiping out.
And so that's why it can be aproblem.
You know, if you, when you werea kid, you had recurrent ear
infections or, you know, you hadso many, you got streps so many
times that you had to get yourtonsils taken out.
Well, what happened to your guthealth when you were taking all
of those antibiotics?
(02:42):
Because even though it couldhave been decades ago, there
still could be sluggishness inyour gut microbiome recovering,
coming back up to where it wasbefore.
Or there could be theopportunity for this
opportunistic bacteria orpathogenic bacteria to uh to
(03:04):
flourish, to take over.
And so we'll talk about whatthat causes in a second here.
But just taking a step back, thelong story short is that when
you take antibiotics for aninfection, well, it's probably,
it's inevitably going to wipeout some of the bacteria that
you do want.
And that can leave open the doorfor issues with your gut health.
(03:27):
I had a client who came to me.
You might have heard me talkabout her because um, this has
been top of mind recently.
It was very acute for her.
But anyway, she started workingwith me because she was having
very unpredictable periodsreally spread out.
We took her through a gutprotocol, we did a GI map, a
stool test with her.
(03:48):
After we went through that gutprotocol, her cycles tightened
up.
They got much shorter.
Then she took antibioticsbecause she had a sinus
infection, and we saw that hergut health went back in the
opposite direction that wewanted it to.
She started to have bloatingagain.
She started to have irregular orlow energy, she started to have
(04:09):
a lot of acne popping up.
So we paid attention to her guthealth.
We went through another gutprotocol, and we saw that again
her cycle lengths came back intoideal range, going from an
almost 90-day cycle back down toa 32-day cycle.
And she was able to confirmovulation through taking her
(04:32):
basal body temperature everyday.
So that's just one example foryou of how your gut health and
addressing and improving yourgut health can have a direct
effect on what's going on withyour menstrual cycle, regularity
and predictability.
You know, the challenge here isthat if you have some type of
(04:53):
imbalance in your gut, a lot oftimes these imbalances get worse
over the time, right?
What are some things that couldmake it get worse over time?
Well, certainly stress.
Stress will negatively impactyour whole digestive process,
starting first with preventingyou from making an adequate
amount of stomach acid.
Now, stomach acid is like yourbody's natural antibiotic in a
(05:17):
way, because it'll kill offthose initial pathogens that
come into your system.
So that's just one example ofhow being stressed is going to
impact digestion, which impactsyour body's ability to keep the
right bacteria in and keep thewrong bacteria out of your
system.
Two other things that can alsoimpact and worsen your gut
(05:42):
health if or when there is animbalance would certainly be
consumption of one alcohol andtwo sugar, depending on what it
is, the bacteria or yeast thatmight be flourishing in your
gut.
Um, some of those littlebuggies, they eat sugars.
So if you're just feeding them,feeding them, feeding them,
(06:03):
giving them this buffet ofsugar, then that can help them
to flourish as well.
Now, I had mentioned earlierthat bloating or acne
fluctuations in energy can popup when there are imbalances in
the gut.
Something else that can be quitecommon with imbalance in the
digestive system isinflammation.
(06:25):
If you've listened to I'mhormonal before, you've heard me
say this a million times becauseinflammation, actually, let's
take a step back.
What even is inflammation?
We hear this term, but what doesit mean?
Yes, it is like swelling, right?
You twist your ankle, there'sinflammation.
You know it because you can seethat there is swelling there,
your ankle's getting fat andfluffy.
(06:47):
But what's happening on theinside is an immune reaction.
Your immune system is reactingto this injury and trying to,
you know, support recovery fromit.
A similar thing can be happeningin your gut when there is a
diotic overgrowth.
And that can then lead to higherlevels of your stress hormone
(07:08):
cortisol, which you know canimpact your hormone health
directly.
All of these systems areconnected.
But that's why it's so funnythen.
Like this is the connection thatcan be missed if you are so
focused on, you know, restoringbalance to your hormones that
(07:30):
you don't think to look at yourdigestive health.
If you're only looking athormone health and hormone
balance in a silo, then you'llmiss it.
That's why this is so importantto inspect what's going on with
your gut health.
And again, that's why when I'monboarding new clients, I'm
asking them about if they weresick as a kid, do they have, I
mean, also recurring infectionsas an adult, because that is
(07:53):
going to be really informativeabout okay, what sort of
testing, you know, should we goahead with a stool test with
this gut panel to help get a lotof good clarity about what's
going on in your digestivesystem?
If you are thinking, oh shoot,wow, okay, this sounds like me.
I have unpredictable periods andI've been taking a lot of
(08:16):
antibiotics over these years,then I want you to know that I
support women that are just likeyou in my practice every day.
If you are ready to get to thebottom of it, go ahead, click
the link in the show notes tobook your introductory session,
and we can create yourpersonalized plan.
If you are thinking, wow, thissounds like me, but you're not
(08:37):
ready quite yet to take the leapand make that introductory call,
then here are four suggestionsthat I want you to consider.
Number one, supporting adequatestomach acid production is
really important, as we touchedon.
And easy ways that you can dothis would be by relaxing and
(08:58):
resting while you eat.
Maybe eating at the table, noton the go, not while you're
driving, not in front of the TV.
And similarly, don't multitask,right?
So if you're just chill, you'refocused, the activity for right
now is eating your meal.
You don't need to rush throughit.
That is going to be one lovelyway to enjoy your tasty meal,
(09:24):
but two, a better way to supportyour overall digestion and gut
microbiome balance.
Second, I want you to thinkabout eliminating sugar in your
diet.
This can help because, again,you're avoiding giving this
feast to, you know, if you havea yeast overgrowth or if you
have another overgrowth that isa sugar-loving microbe.
(09:49):
Is that a enormous, you know,tall order to say, oh yeah,
yeah, hey, just go ahead andeliminate sugar, like just do
it.
But yes.
Easier said than done for sure,but it starts with small steps.
It starts with being open tochanging what you're eating.
So if that is the only takeawaythat you get from today that you
(10:12):
think, you know, I'm I I see whychanging what I'm putting in my
body limiting the amount ofsugar that I'm consuming.
I see why and how that can behelpful for me.
So I think I'm open to makingsome changes like that.
Beautiful.
That is a great first step.
But then move on to step two andthree and actually make a plan
(10:37):
to limit your exposure.
My third recommendation for youis to put a good probiotic into
rotation.
Now, a probiotic is not going toit's not going to bring down
levels that are high.
However, it could be helpful inpreventing, you know, certain
(10:57):
levels of bacteria from becomingelevated.
And so that's the overallfunction that you want to
support.
Get a different um bottle eachtime.
You don't need to take the sameexact type of probiotic every
single time.
You'll want to get exposure todifferent strains, different
probiotics.
So switch it up.
(11:18):
That's my third recommendationfor you.
Fourth and final, and this isone, you know, if only we could
time travel, or if you do findyourself in the future having to
take an antibiotic for aninfection, then remember to take
something like Sacchomycesballardi while you are taking
that antibiotic.
Saccharmyces ballardi is a yeastthat can help to maintain a, you
(11:43):
know, as healthy as possiblebalance of microbes in your gut
while taking an antibiotic.
So just something to keep inmind, even if in the future
you're like, ah shoot, what didBridget say?
I don't remember, I don'tremember what it's called, but
you'll remember to look it up,and that's what I want for you.
So that's my short rundown forthe day.
(12:05):
I hope this was helpful for youin making this connection
between, okay, I've, you know,I've tried all of these things.
I feel like I've done it all,but okay, now I can see how
things that happened to my bodythat I took, medications that I
took years and years ago, couldbe a part of the equation and
(12:25):
something to investigate on thisnext step forward.
In the next episode, I'm gonnabe talking a little bit about
three foods that could also beimpacting your gut health,
despite not being antibiotics.
So come back and stick aroundfor that conversation.
A quick reminder (12:40):
all of the information that I share with
you here is for educationalpurposes only and is not a
substitute for medical advice ordiagnosis.
If you have any questions, Iwould love for you to connect
with me on Instagram at I'munderscore hormonal.
And that's all I've got for youtoday.
I will see you on the next one.
Thanks for listening.
Question, why do I ask all of my new clients about
their childhood antibiotic use?
Answer because what happened toyour gut and in your gut 20
years ago could be impacting whyyour periods are irregular and
unpredictable today.
Yes, antibiotics were necessarymedicine when you needed them,
but now understanding how theyaffected your gut microbiome,
(00:23):
that can be the missing piece tofinally fixing your cycle.
Welcome to the I'm HormonalPodcast.
I'm Bridget Walton, a women'shormone coach, helping busy,
ambitious women just like youthrough personalized,
data-backed solutions.
Whether you are working with meone-on-one or listening here, my
goal is the same to help youstop guessing about your hormone
(00:46):
health and start seeing realprogress.
Let's get into it.
(01:16):
And I say, Great question.
And then I walk them throughsomething like what you and I
are about to walk through here.
So what happens when you takeantibiotics?
And if you've taken them before,which honestly, what kid hasn't,
um, but you'll know that youtake them when there's some sort
(01:36):
of bacterial overgrowth rate, aninfection, a bacterial
infection.
You take the antibiotic, takescare of that infection, but we
also have um a cabilliondifferent types of bacteria and
other microbes living in ourdigestive system.
And we don't want, we don't wantthose to go away.
We need some of these goodbacteria to stick around because
(02:00):
they help us to eliminate ourhormones, create our hormones,
digest our food properly.
There are a lot of reasons whywe have, I mean, billions and
billions and billions, I don'tknow the exact number, of
bacteria in our digestivesystem.
When you take antibiotics,though, you know, the
(02:21):
antibiotics don't discriminateagainst what bacteria they are
wiping out.
And so that's why it can be aproblem.
You know, if you, when you werea kid, you had recurrent ear
infections or, you know, you hadso many, you got streps so many
times that you had to get yourtonsils taken out.
Well, what happened to your guthealth when you were taking all
of those antibiotics?
(02:42):
Because even though it couldhave been decades ago, there
still could be sluggishness inyour gut microbiome recovering,
coming back up to where it wasbefore.
Or there could be theopportunity for this
opportunistic bacteria orpathogenic bacteria to uh to
(03:04):
flourish, to take over.
And so we'll talk about whatthat causes in a second here.
But just taking a step back, thelong story short is that when
you take antibiotics for aninfection, well, it's probably,
it's inevitably going to wipeout some of the bacteria that
you do want.
And that can leave open the doorfor issues with your gut health.
(03:27):
I had a client who came to me.
You might have heard me talkabout her because um, this has
been top of mind recently.
It was very acute for her.
But anyway, she started workingwith me because she was having
very unpredictable periodsreally spread out.
We took her through a gutprotocol, we did a GI map, a
stool test with her.
(03:48):
After we went through that gutprotocol, her cycles tightened
up.
They got much shorter.
Then she took antibioticsbecause she had a sinus
infection, and we saw that hergut health went back in the
opposite direction that wewanted it to.
She started to have bloatingagain.
She started to have irregular orlow energy, she started to have
(04:09):
a lot of acne popping up.
So we paid attention to her guthealth.
We went through another gutprotocol, and we saw that again
her cycle lengths came back intoideal range, going from an
almost 90-day cycle back down toa 32-day cycle.
And she was able to confirmovulation through taking her
(04:32):
basal body temperature everyday.
So that's just one example foryou of how your gut health and
addressing and improving yourgut health can have a direct
effect on what's going on withyour menstrual cycle, regularity
and predictability.
You know, the challenge here isthat if you have some type of
(04:53):
imbalance in your gut, a lot oftimes these imbalances get worse
over the time, right?
What are some things that couldmake it get worse over time?
Well, certainly stress.
Stress will negatively impactyour whole digestive process,
starting first with preventingyou from making an adequate
amount of stomach acid.
Now, stomach acid is like yourbody's natural antibiotic in a
(05:17):
way, because it'll kill offthose initial pathogens that
come into your system.
So that's just one example ofhow being stressed is going to
impact digestion, which impactsyour body's ability to keep the
right bacteria in and keep thewrong bacteria out of your
system.
Two other things that can alsoimpact and worsen your gut
(05:42):
health if or when there is animbalance would certainly be
consumption of one alcohol andtwo sugar, depending on what it
is, the bacteria or yeast thatmight be flourishing in your
gut.
Um, some of those littlebuggies, they eat sugars.
So if you're just feeding them,feeding them, feeding them,
(06:03):
giving them this buffet ofsugar, then that can help them
to flourish as well.
Now, I had mentioned earlierthat bloating or acne
fluctuations in energy can popup when there are imbalances in
the gut.
Something else that can be quitecommon with imbalance in the
digestive system isinflammation.
(06:25):
If you've listened to I'mhormonal before, you've heard me
say this a million times becauseinflammation, actually, let's
take a step back.
What even is inflammation?
We hear this term, but what doesit mean?
Yes, it is like swelling, right?
You twist your ankle, there'sinflammation.
You know it because you can seethat there is swelling there,
your ankle's getting fat andfluffy.
(06:47):
But what's happening on theinside is an immune reaction.
Your immune system is reactingto this injury and trying to,
you know, support recovery fromit.
A similar thing can be happeningin your gut when there is a
diotic overgrowth.
And that can then lead to higherlevels of your stress hormone
(07:08):
cortisol, which you know canimpact your hormone health
directly.
All of these systems areconnected.
But that's why it's so funnythen.
Like this is the connection thatcan be missed if you are so
focused on, you know, restoringbalance to your hormones that
(07:30):
you don't think to look at yourdigestive health.
If you're only looking athormone health and hormone
balance in a silo, then you'llmiss it.
That's why this is so importantto inspect what's going on with
your gut health.
And again, that's why when I'monboarding new clients, I'm
asking them about if they weresick as a kid, do they have, I
mean, also recurring infectionsas an adult, because that is
(07:53):
going to be really informativeabout okay, what sort of
testing, you know, should we goahead with a stool test with
this gut panel to help get a lotof good clarity about what's
going on in your digestivesystem?
If you are thinking, oh shoot,wow, okay, this sounds like me.
I have unpredictable periods andI've been taking a lot of
(08:16):
antibiotics over these years,then I want you to know that I
support women that are just likeyou in my practice every day.
If you are ready to get to thebottom of it, go ahead, click
the link in the show notes tobook your introductory session,
and we can create yourpersonalized plan.
If you are thinking, wow, thissounds like me, but you're not
(08:37):
ready quite yet to take the leapand make that introductory call,
then here are four suggestionsthat I want you to consider.
Number one, supporting adequatestomach acid production is
really important, as we touchedon.
And easy ways that you can dothis would be by relaxing and
(08:58):
resting while you eat.
Maybe eating at the table, noton the go, not while you're
driving, not in front of the TV.
And similarly, don't multitask,right?
So if you're just chill, you'refocused, the activity for right
now is eating your meal.
You don't need to rush throughit.
That is going to be one lovelyway to enjoy your tasty meal,
(09:24):
but two, a better way to supportyour overall digestion and gut
microbiome balance.
Second, I want you to thinkabout eliminating sugar in your
diet.
This can help because, again,you're avoiding giving this
feast to, you know, if you havea yeast overgrowth or if you
have another overgrowth that isa sugar-loving microbe.
(09:49):
Is that a enormous, you know,tall order to say, oh yeah,
yeah, hey, just go ahead andeliminate sugar, like just do
it.
But yes.
Easier said than done for sure,but it starts with small steps.
It starts with being open tochanging what you're eating.
So if that is the only takeawaythat you get from today that you
(10:12):
think, you know, I'm I I see whychanging what I'm putting in my
body limiting the amount ofsugar that I'm consuming.
I see why and how that can behelpful for me.
So I think I'm open to makingsome changes like that.
Beautiful.
That is a great first step.
But then move on to step two andthree and actually make a plan
(10:37):
to limit your exposure.
My third recommendation for youis to put a good probiotic into
rotation.
Now, a probiotic is not going toit's not going to bring down
levels that are high.
However, it could be helpful inpreventing, you know, certain
(10:57):
levels of bacteria from becomingelevated.
And so that's the overallfunction that you want to
support.
Get a different um bottle eachtime.
You don't need to take the sameexact type of probiotic every
single time.
You'll want to get exposure todifferent strains, different
probiotics.
So switch it up.
(11:18):
That's my third recommendationfor you.
Fourth and final, and this isone, you know, if only we could
time travel, or if you do findyourself in the future having to
take an antibiotic for aninfection, then remember to take
something like Sacchomycesballardi while you are taking
that antibiotic.
Saccharmyces ballardi is a yeastthat can help to maintain a, you
(11:43):
know, as healthy as possiblebalance of microbes in your gut
while taking an antibiotic.
So just something to keep inmind, even if in the future
you're like, ah shoot, what didBridget say?
I don't remember, I don'tremember what it's called, but
you'll remember to look it up,and that's what I want for you.
So that's my short rundown forthe day.
(12:05):
I hope this was helpful for youin making this connection
between, okay, I've, you know,I've tried all of these things.
I feel like I've done it all,but okay, now I can see how
things that happened to my bodythat I took, medications that I
took years and years ago, couldbe a part of the equation and
(12:25):
something to investigate on thisnext step forward.
In the next episode, I'm gonnabe talking a little bit about
three foods that could also beimpacting your gut health,
despite not being antibiotics.
So come back and stick aroundfor that conversation.
A quick reminder (12:40):
all of the information that I share with
you here is for educationalpurposes only and is not a
substitute for medical advice ordiagnosis.
If you have any questions, Iwould love for you to connect
with me on Instagram at I'munderscore hormonal.
And that's all I've got for youtoday.
I will see you on the next one.
Thanks for listening.
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