Discovering The World Of Natural Medicine

Thankfully, I discovered this world of healing and natural medicine, but it was only after I found myself anxious, extremely fatigued, suffering irregular menstrual cycles, acne-covered and unhappy. I would struggle to wake up in the morning, struggle to get through my work without caffeinated drinks (thank you coffee for allowing me to pass Uni), yet I would lay in bed at night unable to fall asleep. Go Figure! I knew that there was something deeper than what I had been told by regular Doctors and I knew that it was my responsibility to search for the answer. It began when I decided to take myself off the dreaded ‘rod’ AKA, the Implanon or Implant. For those who don’t know what that is, it’s a small, match-like rod that sits underneath the skin of your inner, upper arm. It secretes a synthetic hormone called etonogestrel, which is similar to progesterone (the naturally occurring hormone in the second stage or luteal phase of your cycle) into the blood stream over a period of 3 years. Sounds great, right! I mean you don’t even have to think about your period or contraception for 3 years? Wrong. Of course, I would experience all of the possible side effects, despite my Doctor telling me to go ahead with the decision to put the ghastly rod into my arm. Long story short, it caused me very irregular bleeding, anxiety, severe back-ne, and vertigo (which was apparently all in my head, mind you). I’m sorry if there are any males reading this, I’m going deep into girly-stuff (not sorry!). My doctor refused to take it out until I demanded it out. Finally, after numerous Doctors visits and complaining of my irregular bleeding patters (which is a major side-effect of the Implanon too), I won and it was removed. I just want to make a quick point – the Doctors and nurses were great. I don’t have an issue with Western medicine at all, and there definitely is a place for it in our modern world. Unfortunately, however, Allopathic medicine looks more so at the symptoms of disease, rather than prevention and cause at an acute level.

Simultaneously, I met with my first, proper naturopath or natural health practitioner. She asked me questions, in depth and took the time to look at my blood underneath a microscope. I was shocked. I thought I was broken. How could Doctors for so long tell me that I was healthy when I witnessed something completely different? My blood cells were sticky, I had Candida and I literally witnessed a live parasite moving within cells. I felt sick. She told me, “I don’t want you to freak out, we can fix this but it’s going to take time”. And from that moment, I’d never felt so motivated to improve. It gave me purpose. She told me that I had nutritional deficiencies, I had candida, I had leaky-gut and I had the MTHFR-gene (I’ll explain later and yes, its exactly what it sounds like – a mtherf**er), basically, it can pre-dispose you to anxiety and depression. Everything started to make sense. No wonder I felt the way I did. From that hour, I was so determined to change, but unfortunately, it got worse. Later that afternoon, I had a panic attack. For those who have ever experienced a panic attack, would know it feels like you’re in cardiac arrest (not that I know what that feels like, but it felt close.) The ED doctors put me on an ECG and echocardiogram – basically fancy machinery that checks if your heart beat are regular and whether it was working properly. It was working, and I was discharged with anxiety disorder. I didn’t even know what anxiety was, let alone knowing that I apparently ‘had’ it. My anxiety got worse. I got told that I had it, so I let myself to believe that I had it. Throughout my world of anxiety, life had to go on. I learnt to deal with it, talk about it, and find my triggers. Once I knew my triggers, I could deal with my anxiety. Everything I feared, I faced, because I knew that was the only way that I was going to improve my anxiety. Although, the comfortable thing would have been to ignore my triggers and run away, but that wouldn’t have helped me in any way. There were moments that I thought, how the hell am I going to ever reverse how I feel? Is this really what my life has come to? I just had hope that it would improve. I spoke about how I felt, and often and I found that I wasn’t in fact alone, that there were so many other people who suffered from what I did, yet it’s not spoken abut enough – especially amongst males.

This brings me onto my next point. What happens when you’re in ‘fright or flight’ stress response due to the anxiety constantly? The body releases a stress hormone, called Cortisol. Cortisol is released in response to external stressors on the body whether that response is physical, psychological, emotional and so on. Here’s some science (cos I love me some science), The Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal Axis or HPA axis for short, collects data from our body in regards to stress. Our bodies won’t wait to distinguish between a life-threatening survival response like running from a bear or being stressed over what our boyfriend said last year. Our bodies react, and if you’re constantly stressed by any cause, it works OVERTIME. But what else does cortisol do, you might ask? Cortisol also

• Increases your blood sugar and breaks down muscle tissue for energy (just incase you get need energy to run from that bear).
• Switches off the immune system – noticed you get sick more when you’re stressed?
• Blocks the sleep hormone Serotonin, which keeps you awake at night – but great if you’re trying to run from the bear chasing you.
• Cortisol raises your blood pressure and blood volume – in response to injury and trauma.

Team high cortisol levels with trying to get to sleep at night and you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster. Throughout these months of stress, I didn’t realize how much it affected me. My menstrual cycle started to change – kept coming early and I started to put on weight unexpectedly (which was something I never had an issue with previously). I lowered my calories, trained more and felt worse. I kept gaining weight. I knew something was up so I went to my integrative Doctor and we checked my Thyroid hormone and cortisol levels. Results were as expected – low thyroid hormone and high cortisol – I had Hashimoto’s (my thyroid was attacking itself like it was a foreign disease). I was put on synthetic Thyroid Hormone (Thyroxine) in the hope of improvement but saw minimal change. I was determined from this point to find out WHY. I researched non-stop since that moment, podcast-after-podcast, blog-after-blog, article-after-article, until I began to work out why (which I will write in further posts on “How I’m healing my Thyroid”. You can’t give up. Even when you’re told that you’re in denial and you need to stat on your medication for life. I had to find the answer and giving up was not an option.

So why have I chosen to open up and share my personal experiences to a deeper audience? I know that I’m not alone. I know that through experience with my clients, that I see this kind of stuff too often and something needs to be done. Because, we’re told that it’s all in our head. That we’re young, fit and absolutely fine, when really we’re suffering without answers. The amount of people, especially those in the fitness industry that I have come across who suffer from irregular menstrual cycles or low testosterone, PMS, PCOS, endometriosis, fatigue, acne, asthma, eczema, thyroid disorder, unexpected weight-gain/weight loss, anxiety, depression, headaches, gastrointestinal problems, low libido, infertility, and so on and so forth. It’s not right, and something needs to be done in order to search deeper within. I may not have all of the answers just yet, but I know that I wont stop researching, studying and experimenting until I do. Because its not that it’s impossible, it’s just that we must search deeper for the answer.

I’m so thankful that these past experiences happened for me (not to me), because I wouldn’t be the person I am today or I wouldn’t have found myself so deep in to natural medicine and healing otherwise. Sometimes, all it takes is a small, yet deeply significant moment where your life can change completely. You get sick of your own shit, and decide, okay Dani; enough is enough. You need to make a change.