My Story
Why do I call myself a hormone detective? Because I’m figuring out the root cause – the who done it – of your hormone health concern. Whether it be menstrual issues, sleep issues, fatigue, hot flashes, night sweats, PMS or PMDD.
Let me tell you a story.
I started my menstrual cycle when I was 13 years old, about the average age at that time. My mom didn’t discuss with me what would happen with the changes that were beginning. I learned from my friends and the book Hello God, It’s Me Margaret. Neither my friends nor the aforementioned book readied me for the onslaught of horrible symptoms and I was taken completely off guard and assumed; like we all do; that this was normal. Neither was the best way to learn but it was what it was.
My monthly cycle started out of the gate raging: severe menstrual cramps both in my lower abdomen and my low back and very heavy bleeding and clotting. I would bleed through maxi pads and that caused all sorts of embarrassment. Add to this I would feel so sick from the cramps I would vomit.
A few years into this I also developed cyclical headaches, meaning I had a headache nearly every time I had my cycle. The headaches and low back pain with my cycle were mostly resolved by my chiropractor.
The tipping point for me was when I missed nearly two weeks of school due to my cycle. My mom took me to see her Ob/Gyn and on his suggestion, I started on birth control pills. The cramps and heavy bleeding lessened quite a bit. I remained on the pill until the age of 30.
While in chiropractic college I wrestled with being on something so unnatural like birth control pills. After chiropractic college I moved out to New Mexico and decided I had had enough of the pill and took myself off of it. Within a month all the symptoms I was trying to handle with the pill came back with a vengeance. This was when I realized the pill wasn’t the solution and I needed to figure how to get my hormone hell under control, naturally. The first thing I did was work on my diet and yes, my diet was a train wreck. I added in better nutrition and whole food supplements, exercise, water and regular chiropractic visits. I started to not even have worries when my cycle was coming, unlike before. Each month got consistently better but I still would have some months where I would have all the ‘old’ symptoms and get very disappointed and frustrated, thinking this was my lot in life.
I went back to the Ob/Gyn to see if he had any other suggestions. Not sure why I thought he would have a natural solution but I went anyway.
His solution – take three Aleve at the start of my cycle. THREE ALEVE! Are you kidding me! I did on the occasions when my cycle was too much to handle. Oh, my poor liver.
I moved back to Virginia and opened my own chiropractic practice and was under a tremendous amount of stress and my diet got worse due to the stress. And along with the bad eating and stress, my heavy bleeding and cramps came back but this time I had clots when I would bleed. Some of these were so large I wondered if something bigger was wrong.
So, back to the Ob/Gyn again. Now you think I would have learned from the last two times – NOPE! His suggestion was, you got it, go back on the pill.
I left his office and burst into tears in my car.
That set me on my journey to find answers because I knew I wasn’t the only one experiencing these horrific symptoms.
Fast forward. I’m now 57, ugh, but finally handled my menstrual cycle which I call the first phase of hormonal imbalance. I’m in perimenopause and by cleaning up my diet and I’m happy to report that I’m going into it with little hormonal imbalance.
Guess what? You can too and that is why I am writing a book about my journey.
If this blog talks to you, text or call me and I’m happy to talk with you about your hormonal hell.