Healing PMS, PMDD, and Anxiety with Bean Protocol (Detoxing Copper IUD)
A Gentle Copper Detox Protocol That Worked for Me
This is going to be a long post. I am finally overcoming my resistance to writing this guide, and I hope this will be helpful for those who are seeking answers.
This is particularly addressed to readers who are struggling or were struggling with this specific topic. While it’s also an exploration of women’s health and body sovereignty more generally, it’s okay if this is not your cup of tea—other essays are coming.
Disclaimer before we begin: there’s a lot of information. In fact, each section could have its own essay written on it. I tried to put the most comprehensive and short guide. I am also not a nutritionist/naturopath— this comes from my personal first-hand healing experience and research.
Earlier last year I shared an essay Psychic Geologies about healing from copper toxicity that was induced by copper IUD (intrauterine device). Since the publication, I had at least 5 women tell me that they have taken out their copper IUDs after reading the essay and have been gently returning towards the wisdom of their bodies. My heart is happy, and I wanted to create a further support material for those who have removed or are considering removing copper IUD and looking for ways to restore the body from excess copper.
Interlaced with our ecological destruction, our mining and extraction practices not only end up in our bodies as microplastics but also reach our interiors through minerals and metals.
It’s strange how the womb becomes a place of further colonization. The history is soaked with blood of wrongdoings against women and people with wombs. Of course, modern medicine has saved so many lives, but it also contributed to compounding pathologies.
My hope is that this post serves not only as a how-to guide but as a step towards reclaiming simple and deeply powerful ways of relating to our bodies.
This guide is for those who have or had a copper IUD (intrauterine device). This is also a guide for those who are struggling with symptoms of PMS and PMDD, or any symptomology surrounding anxiety/depression around menstruation—as they are very much related to each other —and excess estrogen.
Systems in our bodies are incredibly interlinked and are always striving towards healing and well-being.
Your body is an archaeological site, and you are a psychic geologist.
Your way of navigating healing is highly connected to your ability to read your body and emotional states — and to trust your system, even if it’s gone out of its homeostasis. There are many voices out there, many “experts”. Modernity has a way of praising the disconnection from the body and only going “tried and tested” ways forward. But what if those paths lead you to a dead end?
In the end, it’s our responsibility to connect and understand what is happening within us. I see the healing journey as an opportunity and a place of repatterning. We are being given a chance to create spaciousness around what within us is asking to be heard.
Where I was
I had a copper IUD for almost 4 years in my body. I got it in the summer of 2019 and removed it in spring 2023. It was a long time. I have not noticed all of its compounding effects until year 3, so it might be that you’re just fine.
In Psychic Geologies, I lay out the first part of my story in a longer form. There I share the whole journey of discovering how copper was affecting my body.
In short, in the summer of 2022, I noticed how almost every week I would have 1 emotional breakdown. The anxiety and feeling of depression would come out of nowhere and would take over for the remaining part of the day. I was constantly battling feelings of hopelessness. I would joke that this was just a quarter-life crisis, later realizing it was a bad PMS (PMDD). Some things that were happening:
PMS, PMDD symptoms of deep mood swings before period;
anxiety and feelings of helplessness;
ADHD, ADD symptoms
easily triggered, always having to work through integration and processing of strong emotions and negative beliefs;
always locked into fight, flight, or freeze response;
working out made me feel even worse afterwards (emotionally);
ovarian cysts (that would come and go during my cycle) - I was told by the doctor it’s normal;
periods that lasted 6ish days, losing a lot of blood and nearing anaemia.
Where I am at after 11 months of healing
Several months into the healing protocol, I started feeling better. I was afraid it would take forever and I would see no end. But slowly, it all came back into balance.
Currently, I feel great. My period has returned to its natural cycle, being around 3 days of moderate flow. The PMS is almost gone. I am reaching the point where I don’t have any cramps or bigger complications. My moods have stabilized and the very usual existential crisis of the luteal (pre-menstrual, PMS, PMDD) phase is gone.
I am not drinking any more coffee. I still drink black/green tea from time to time (and sometimes have chocolate), but if I have too much black tea (2 cups per day), I will feel anxious. I used to wonder where my anxiety came from, I thought it was related to trauma—but it was coffee. (So there my little speciality coffee career in my early 20s goes out the window—I am happy that it ended there and then.)
I am coming back to exercising. Intense exercise is something I became afraid of. During the whole process, I realized every time I had more intense exercise, I would later feel a big rush of anxiety and depression at once. Exercise would cause a big surge of copper “dump” or detox from my tissues back into my blood system. My liver and body were not able to eliminate it fast enough.
Why copper IUD becomes problematic
It causes symptoms related to anxiety, depression, hopelessness, PMS, PMDD (pre-menstrual dysmorphic disorder, that feels 10x worse than PMS), suicidal thoughts and feelings, ADHD symptoms, and rage. Many women who have had post-natal depression also have elevated copper.
Each mineral in our body is paired with another mineral. Copper is paired with zinc. Too much copper in the body offsets our zinc deposits. Zinc is highly needed for nervous system regulation, immunity, hormonal balance, etc.
Copper also goes hand-in-hand with the hormone estrogen. We now know that the overproduction of estrogen is one of the biggest sources of female ailments, such as endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids, and even cancer. As well as many hard-to-explain, hard-to-treat conditions that are actually symptoms of a larger estrogen problem.
It’s hard to test for it. The only way to test is to go to professionals who are specialized in heavy metal testing and to blood serum and hair test analysis.
Copper tends to hide in soft and hard tissues of the body, such as in the liver, bones, and muscles, so it can be harder to detect in your hair or blood.
High-intensity exercise creates detox symptoms that flush copper back into your system. It can feel like an intensified emotional flush out of nowhere, several hours after the exercise.
Depending on how long you had the IUD for, Zinc and vitamin C can also cause deep detox symptoms as well. Zinc limits the absorption of copper in the body. Vitamin C helps the liver to detox.
We have to develop safe detox pathways that do not re-toxify the body with heavy metals and oxidative stress.
Copper IUD Healing protocol
Things to know in advance
This is a learning journey. Taking a gentle approach might work the best and not exhaust your body. When I started, I wanted to be “free” as soon as possible (I started taking Zinc and vitamin C that initiate detox), but this just shocked my system into something called “copper dumping”. Due to detox, your body flushes up all the copper that has been stored in your tissue back into your bloodstream and this will give you the same effects as PMS/anxiety/depression.
The detox might take a couple of months or over 6 months. This depends on how long you had the IUD for and what were your symptoms.
During my search for answers I turned to my gynaecologist. The only thing she said was, “You know, some people start taking medication for depression and anxiety.” Copper toxicity was impossible in her eyes, especially when her business was to insert IUDs into bodies.
Then I went to a naturopathic GP who also could not believe my story either but agreed to do a blood test (which won’t show copper levels anyway). The test for copper in the blood came back fine. Afterwards, I went to a private naturopath. We agreed on a healing plan through supplements. This new regime threw my whole system off, as I started taking way too many supplements at once, and it caused a lot of bad detox symptoms.All this means that rarely, a health professional will be able to connect all the dots: heavy metal intoxication, female hormonal imbalance, elimination and detox support, mental health, as well as healing through nutrition.
I am not a nutritionist or a naturopath, but I believe in the capacity to find the right information and trust the healing process. You might want to speak with one or more health professionals about your choices, but remember that not everyone is caught up on the latest research and can treat root causes holistically.
1. Removal
There is no healing without addressing the root cause. This was a hard pill to swallow because I felt that the only “safe” and reliable type of birth control was gone. I thought that copper IUD was the only good birth control out there (before copper started compounding in my body).
It’s also believed that copper is a non-hormonal choice of birth control. However, high copper levels prevent the liver from eliminating estrogen. Then, elevated levels of estrogen prevent the detoxification of copper. It’s a negative feedback loop.
I will assure you that you can find natural and non-harmful ways to protect yourself from unwanted pregnancy and become more aware of your fertility.
You start learning about your body and fertility windows, and become more conscious of the knowledge women have understood for hundreds of years. I am still learning, too.
2. Gentle copper detox & Bean Protocol
What we don’t do to our bodies is as important as what we do. Below is a very simplified explanation of how beans help eliminate copper and excess estrogen.
For me, the most helpful healing through nutrition was the Bean Protocol.
Bean protocol by itself is worth a whole article, but I will try to condense it here and provide you with resources for your own research.
The basic premise of Bean Protocol
Your body is always metabolizing and eliminating toxins, hormones, and other byproducts of internal chemical reactions. However, 95% of your hormones get re-absorbed at the end of your gut, through re-absorption of bile (called Enterohepatic recirculation). This recirculation is what causes the liver to be unable to eliminate all the extra hormones (especially estrogen) that are produced due to increased copper levels. Copper is also held in the liver, which also blocks the liver’s capacity to eliminate estrogen.
Once that happens, estrogen dominance increases, cascading the rest of the hormonal imbalances, causing all unwanted symptoms of PMS and PMDD.
For the body to fully recover from intoxication, we need to eliminate stimulants and toxins that continue eliciting high hormonal responses in our bodies: sugar, caffeine (caffeinated tea, coffee, chocolate), alcohol, nicotine, and other stimulants. All of these stimulants increase cortisol and adrenaline levels in the body, which then, increase estrogen. The liver becomes preoccupied with clearing toxins and hormones rather than copper.
What does Bean Protocol look like? Tailored for copper detox.
Beans have soluble fibre that binds with bile, allowing you to eliminate all overproduced hormones, copper, and other toxins.
Nourishing the body and adding beans to your diet will look like this:
eating 3 half cups of beans per day (breakfast, lunch, dinner): all beans, lentils, chickpeas (not soybeans or green peas);
beans can also be replaced with psyllium husk;
eliminating stimulants (caffeine: kombucha, caffeinated tea, chocolate, coffee, energy drinks, nicotine);
eliminating processed food, sugar and sweets;
eliminating dairy products;
gentle, low-intensity movement (no heavy exercise), prioritizing rest;
eating a whole food diet, focusing on protein and complex carbs (I am vegan and now eat eggs, so in my case, I need to make sure to find rich sources of non-animal protein);
eating fats separately from beans - or very small amounts while cooking (30 min - 1 hour apart);
no coconut oil (or any oil that is hard in room or cooler temperature);
soy products are not advisable as they also encourage estrogen production;
include heavy metal chelating foods (sulfur-rich) such as onion, garlic, and cilantro.
I can say that I jumped into this protocol with big trust, and it worked. I never realized how much of my emotional energy was moved by my mineral imbalance as well as intoxication with stimulants, like coffee or sugar.
It took me a while to fully transition into this protocol. Even if I go off rails, I notice the difference and meet the consequences. Later in the healing process it becomes easier and can adjust your diet accordingly. I can feel effects of sugar and caffeine so much more in my body, now that I know what normal baseline feels like.
Another good thing to incorporate into your diet is foods rich in zinc and magnesium supplements. I didn’t take any zinc supplements for the first 8 months, as I didn’t want to induce unexpected detox symptoms from copper.
There are many “liver detox” protocols out there, but very few of them include the very end of the elimination process that the bean protocol addresses. We can stimulate our liver as much as we want with all the detoxes on the internet, but if the pathway is not open for full elimination, all the toxins are just going to recirculate back in your body, due to Enterohepatic recirculation.
The woman behind Bean Protocol is Karen Hurd and her incredible healing story. I will include Karen’s course on PMS and Bean Protocol below, as well as other in-depth resources you can start with.
3. Reconnection with cycle and womb
This is the part where your cycle will vary. It took about 6 months for my cycle to balance out and return to its original and natural state.
The length of the cycle fluctuated, and so did the flow.
Having a foreign device in your womb can create a sense of separation between you, your cycles, and your body.
How did that disconnection feel and manifest in your life?
Were you talking to your body?
A lot of our creative life force energy is stored in our wombs.
What projects, ideas, and creative work have been stagnant and not moving forward?
On the day after my IUD removal, I lay in the sun in a park with bare feet on the ground. I gave an inner libation to my connection with a part of me that I suppressed for almost 4 years. I felt genuine sadness for the time of disconnection. And I welcomed this part of me back with grace and softness.
How can your journey of reconnection take physical nourishment while you tend to yourself spiritually? How can this process of reconnection, connect you further with your life force energy and your deep desires for your life?
I had a big feeling that once I had the IUD taken out, a lot of creative energy would come back to my life; that I would also open pathways for intuition to better guide my life choices. I’m grateful to say it turned out to be true.
It’s a good idea to start tracking your cycle and keeping a journal to feel a sense of progress with each month. When do triggers arise? Did you have any stimulants that day or the day before?
4. Emotional nourishment & coming back to Self
If during your copper IUD journey you experience deep mood swings and emotional symptoms as I shared above, it’s important to take a look at how you can mediate the nervous system and emotional wellbeing while you support the body’s healing.
Perhaps, this period of emotional uncertainty made you question a lot in life. What are the things that need to change around you? What are the systems, relationships, friendships, and patterns that hold you back?
When our bodies have refused to heal for a long time, we are being invited into a very different conversation with ourselves. When conditions are right, healing becomes natural and normal. What conditions around you need to change? Even if you are in a tough place—what are the smallest shifts that you can make to start liberating your aliveness?
In this process, we need to recognize what stagnates us, what keeps us away from our own life force energy; what positive choices we are closing ourselves off from. This experience of inner storm season invites us to re-evaluate meaning and importance: what is important in my life? How can I move towards it?
Inner work in the healing process is important because you’ve been given a glimpse into what anxieties and negative thoughts and behavioural patterns are looming within. Surrounding yourself with people who can support your healing is a deeply important aspect. Protect that space.
I wrote a lot about reclaiming your life force energy in this essay.
This wraps up this guide!
Thank you for reading. I believe in the power of open knowledge and wisdom, which is why I made this resource available for free. Please share it with a loved one who would benefit from reading this.
Get my personal support on your healing journey
I am opening 1-3 support places for women who are interested in healing holistically. If you would like to work together during your transition and healing (physically and emotionally), OR if you’d like me to create a more detailed, self-paced online course on healing copper toxicity, you can reach out to me by replying to this email or Substack DM. I am currently gauging the public interest in this topic and approach. I truly value your responses! You can also support my work by becoming a paid subscriber.
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Resources
Podcasts
Courses
Karen Hurd’s course: How to Conquer PMS, Endometriosis, PCOS and more
Studies/Blogs
Hey Ruta, thanks for this, really interesting. I do wonder though, as the amount of copper emitted from the copper in the uterus is supposedly insanely small compared to that which we uptake daily through food ... what is your take on that?
Thank you for the awareness, sensitivity and restoration of dignity you are sharing with the world!