For years I suffered with PCOS. Many of those years unknowing what was wrong with my body. Concerned for what my future health would be like. Even today I still do not have 100% certainty of what all my body was going through since doctors failed to provide answers. But now that I have balanced my hormones, and overcome PCOS, I am healthier than I have been in years. Which is why I’m talking about my period and sharing my personal journey. From struggling with PCOS to balancing my hormones and healing my body!
After years of searching for answers, I found the right habits to focus on that helped my body heal itself. Now I’m sharing my experience and knowledge with whoever will read (or listen).
Why It’s Important to Talk About PCOS
While PCOS has become a more understood and discussed topic among women. Less commonly understood or explored is the cause of PCOS. Which is linked to estrogen dominance. A hormonal imbalance that can be corrected with lifestyle Hormonal health and balancing your hormones is not talked about enough. As women we are taught very little about our feminine bodies. Only to feel shame and embarrassment at the mention of our natural cycles. To keep things discrete and not to complain. “Just take pain-killers and hormonal birth control. Pretend like you don’t even have a period!” Even acknowledging your womanhood and the accompanying discomforts or hormonal ups and downs, is a sign of weakness.
Not Talking About Your Period and PCOS is Dangerous
But not talking about our health is dangerous. Leaving women ignorant to how our bodies work and unable to know the difference between good health and a warning sign. Making us more susceptible to bad medical advice, and a myriad of health complications. Many of which can be remedied with things as simple as diet and daily habits.
That is why I’m sharing this information. My goal is to help you determine if you are struggling with hormonal imbalance just like I was. I created The Fertile Garden to share the steps that I took so you too can balance your hormones. I’m getting personal about my private health so that it can help others.
If you are where I was a few years ago – scared, frustrated, mad and in pain. You are the reason I’m here. This information is too transformative, and too important to keep to myself. That’s why I’m here. I want to share with you what I think are the three most important things for balancing your hormones and living a life with less pain and more energy.
So let’s wind the tape back and I’ll walk you through what led me here.
Living with PCOS
A Sudden Hormonal Shift
About six years ago, maybe a little more now. Things suddenly took a very sharp turn for me when it came to my menstrual health. All of a sudden I started to experience the most excruciating periods that I had ever had in my life. Up until this point, I never really had pain during my cycle. It definitely didn’t disrupt my regular schedule or keep me from living the very active lifestyle that I lived.
I was a runner and ran a couple of half marathons. I biked, I climbed, I was constantly training for something. And then suddenly around the age of 26 everything changed. My periods started to take over my life and for three days a month I was fully incapacitated. Taking painkillers and drinking too much wine to try to feel better. (Unknowingly making the problem a lot worse. Whoops!)
Around the same time I started to struggle with insomnia, increased joint pain and moodiness. The worst of all was anxiety at a level I had never had before. Even depression started to make its way into my life. It was quickly turning into one of the darkest times in my life.
Looking for Answers
Noticing this huge shift in my cycles and patterns with my menstrual health, I went to the doctor. Because that’s what you do when you have big health changes. You go to your doctors to figure out what is happening. To get answers.
But even the doctors who supposedly were homeopathic and into alternative medicines, were still telling me that the only thing that I could do was hormonal birth control. Something I was never interested in doing.
I had tried hormonal birth control when I was in college for a couple of months. It noticeably messed with me and soon after I experienced my first cyst bursting on my ovaries. It was so bad I got off of it after only a few months. I swore never to take it again.
So when that was all my doctors were suggesting to manage my painful and heavy cycles, I was upset. My intuition told me that wasn’t a cure for what was wrong. It would only mask my health problems. Which is why I probed them further. “I’ve heard of this thing called PCOS and of endometriosis. Could you run tests for that?”
Now this was only around 6-years ago, but even that recently even the doctors (who were women) did not know much about PCOS and other similar conditions. Which is why being a well informed patient and an advocate for your ownhealth is so important. Which is why I asked – – “I’ve heard about these conditions, I’ve been reading about them. Can I get an ultrasound to rule out PCOS or endometriosis?”
I all but twisted their arm, but they did the ultrasound. In doing so, they found that my ovaries were covered with cysts. Despite the presence of many cysts that were causing me pain, and that you do not actually need to have cysts on your ovaries for a PCOS diagnosis, if other symptoms are present. I received no diagnosis. The doctors response was that it was completely normal. The reassured me I was perfectly fine. They even went as far as to say that a cyst bursting on me when I would work out intensely, was not a concern. Even after informing them how I would quite literally collapse, hardly able to breathe in so much pain. I was still brushed off and told the only thing I could do was hormonal birth control.
And in case you’re wondering – this OB/GYN was a woman herself and still only pushed the pill.
Feeling Hopeless
I started to feel defeated and hopeless when actual doctors were so incredibly useless. Until I realized that I needed to go back to the way I grew up.
As a kid, my mom always had herbal remedies for various things in the house. Alternative medicine and health food stores was how I grew up. So I turned to natural medicines, herbal remedies and Chinese medicine. Trying to figure out how I could potentially get some relief.
I researched and found as much as I could online, which really wasn’t much. But I started to blend my own herbal teas and take supplements with herbs like raspberry leaf, cramp bark, and Dong Quai. What I didn’t realize was that – I was trying to add things to solve my problems, when what I really needed to do was take things away.
Unfortunately that lesson took me a very long time to learn. For 5 years I tried different supplements, various painkillers, teas, etc. and none of it ever worked. After a couple of years, I started to get defeated.
I felt like I had to accept my fate. I started to make peace with it and even though it was painful and inconvenient. I tried to love my body anyway. After all “it could be worse” it’s just a couple of days every month that I’ll be incapacitated. There’s nothing else I can do about it. So I just started figuring out how to live with it. I was scheduling my work and planning trips around my cycle. I was blessed that I was an entrepreneur and could do that.
The Turning Point
While I started to make peace with the fact that my menstrual health was my new reality. What really changed everything for me, was when I finally said enough was enough when it came to my insomnia. While my painful periods were really only an issue 3-days a month. This was a nightly battle and something I later learned was related to my hormonal imbalance.
Starting down the path of solving this seemingly unrelated problem, was the skeleton key to all of my problems.
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