Today I am going to share a very private and personal journey and the reason behind my passion and drive to help others improve their health and well-being.

June 2013 I quit my job as a receptionist to peruse studies in Food Coaching.  The toxic daily grind of making people coffee and scanning documents along with office politics no longer proved meaningful too me regardless of what I was getting paid.

My own health journey started back in 2011 when I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, a horrible “syndrome” which causes small cysts to development on the ovaries causing absent / irregular periods, acne, facial hair, weight gain, infertility, depression and a myriad of other lovely symptoms.

Mine started out with acne….horrible, painful, ugly, depressing acne. I had 15 cysts on one ovary and 17 cysts on another! I was depressed to the point that I missed so many social outings, called into work “sick”, hours or days hiding in a dark room trying to sleep off the acne, tears, tantrums and other erratic behavior.  I had never suffered acne, I was not used to having big red painful ugly lumps all over my face and I had trouble facing the world with it.  I was 27 years old…isn’t acne for 17 year olds going through puberty?? I’m an adult woman!

So for the next four years I was on a quest to rid my acne no matter what! So I tried some pretty crazy things!

Decided to take the “pill” because apparently it gets rid of acne..well I don’t know if this is coincidence or not but I took it for 2 months and ended up in hospital with pancreatitis – chronic inflammation of the pancreas which resulted in being hospitalised for 2 weeks on IV with NO FOOD.  By the end of the 2 weeks I was 42kg and looked like death..so safe to say I never took the pill again.

This is what roaccutane did to my skin.
Dry, red & unhappy

     ROACCUTANE – now please please please listen to me…DO NOT TAKE THIS!! I thought I had depression before..well this just made it 10 times worse.  What is roaccutane??  It is a vitamin A derivative that is administered orally in pill form with a meal that contains an adequate amount of fat, it’s prescribed at lower dosages for up to six months or longer. It dramatically reduces the size of the skin's oil glands (35%-58%) and even more dramatically reduces the amount of oil these glands produce (around 80%). It slows down how fast the skin produces skin cells inside the pore, which helps pores from becoming clogged in the first place.  GREAT sounds amazing! And guess what it did eliminate all my acne..but at what cost? It basically shuts down the body’s oil glands, so that means YES it does stop the oil on your face but it also stops the oil all over your body resulting in BONE dry flaking skin, the oil in your joints goes away so you can’t exercise without pain, you CANNOT take one step into the sun – you will burn in 5 seconds, your face permanently looks like a tomato due to the dryness, your lips crack and bleed – SOUNDS lovely hey..I was starting to wonder if I would just prefer to have zits…safe to say that after only 3 months the side effects got the better of me and I stopped taking it before the 9 months that I was suppose to.  My face stayed clear 6 months…then guess what – acne was BACK!

    Next….. HRT (hormone replacement therapy).  After taking some tests it was evident that I had low progesterone, so I started using bio-identical progesterone cream…acne got better in the beginning but after 6-8 months it got worse…the progesterone shot way too high and ended up with HUGE painful cysts along my jawline that never went away.  I didn’t get “time of the month” acne, I had full time acne :-( 

Products – HUNDREDS of dollars worth of every product imaginable – there is no miracle cream!

I decided to have my hormones tested again..I always have my hormones tested via saliva, the result is MUCH more accurate than blood.  The results were very scary.  Progesterone HIGH,  Estrogen (bad) HIGH, Testosterone HIGH – so high that I had the same amount of a man!

There are lots and lots of components to healing the body, you need to look at EVERY aspect.  You need to look at hormones, cortisol levels (stress), bowel function, poor liver function, leaky gut etc.  There is no ONE pill that will fix you (so I have learnt!)

I have FINALLY managed to get my skin under control by slowly and patiently healing every aspect of my body.

Exercise to manage my stress along with meditation, night time rituals (warm baths)  - reduce cortisol

Hormones – a combination of herbs that are working exceptionally well for me to control and manage my hormones

Leaky Gut/Bowel – high quality probiotic, L-Glutamine, Aloe Vera, Kefir, Saurkraut

Liver – herbs herbs herbs – NO sugar! No processed foods! No high carbs!

One very important thing to remember with PCOS is that sugar and carbs fuel it! So avoid them at all costs!  Personally I live a partial paleo diet.  When I say partial I still eat legumes, but everything else is fresh and organic.  I don’t eat anything that has a shelf life, think about it…would you eat something that has an expiry date of 2020?!!

My skin today 2015

My skin today 2015

So has all my hard work paid off???? YES it has!  I had a re-scan of my ovaries which confirmed I no longer had PCOS!

Don’t let doctors or anyone else tell you that PCOS is irreversible, it is! But it requires patience and hard work.  

There is not one magical pill out there that will cure you, because trust me if there was I would have found it.

Love yourself, be kind to yourself.

XOX

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