MY “WHY”
Whenever I meet someone or see a post from someone who is into clean/non-toxic products & food I always want to know their “why”. Why did they start pursuing this lifestyle? I’m always fascinating to hear their stories and see how they relate to mine. I’ve learned so much by hearing other people’s journeys. The purpose of this post is to give you my “why”.
This will be lengthy as I’ve had quite the journey so far so bear with me. Please note I am not a writer/blogger or medical professional so know that this is just my personal experience based on my own research and life and I’m just going to rattle it all off here with no type of formatting.
Up until I was 18 I had no health issues at all. Right around my 18th birthday I started having some hormone related issues though so I went to my obgyn and she prescribed me birth control. I started taking it and for the next 7 years life was great. I had absolutely no side effects or anything. Then things changed. Right as I turned 25 I started developing some pretty intense headaches and even some migraines which I never had before. I also started getting acne along my jawline which was new. I had perfectly clear skin prior to that point. I was extremely confused by this but I had heard that every so often you needed to switch up your birth control and I had been on the same one for 7 years so I went to my new obgyn where I lived in Fort Worth. He basically said he wouldn’t do anything until I saw a neurologist due to my newly acquired migraines. Cue my frustration! So I went to see a neurologist. He took a bunch of scans and he came to the conclusion that my head was fine and he didn’t see anything concerning. I also decided to see a primary care physician to get checked out. She prescribed me a drug called Topomax which was supposed to be taken daily to avoid a migraine from even coming in the first place. I went back to my obgyn and he basically told me that he wasn’t concerned with helping my headaches .... yeah. That actually happened. I quickly found a new doctor. I also started taking the Topomax. I think I took it for two days and I was NOT OKAY. I felt like I was on some serious drugs. I couldn’t think straight, was talking slow and felt awful. I was so out of it that I wasn’t even able to properly connect that the drug was causing this. I went to an emergency clinic and I don’t remember all the details but basically the emergency doctor told me this specific drug works great for some people. However for a small percentage of people (yay me!) it could cause huge issues and have terrible side effects like the ones I was having. Needless to say I have never taken that again.
After I found a new obgyn I went to see her and she put me on a new pill. To make a long story short over the next year and a half or so I was put on different pills and that was just making things worse and giving me more issues such as brain fog and sleep issues. This doctor also never tested my blood at all. She just kept saying that a new pill would work and made assumptions about my hormones. I started to become increasingly frustrated and so I decided to go to a different primary doctor for more help. She actually did blood work. She confirmed my hormones were normal. (or so I thought)
I was frustrated that I had been to doctor after doctor and nothing was helping. I decided to take matters into my own hands. I had a friend who was “crunchy/granola” and I thought maybe she knew something I didn’t. I decided to talk to her and wow - she opened my eyes! I decided I wanted to stop taking birth control and that I should start looking at my products and also find a doctor who would actually listen to me. When I told my doctor I was going to quit birth control she strongly advised against it. She insisted my symptoms weren’t caused by any of the pills and that I just needed to stay on them and things would get better. I decided otherwise.
After 10 years I stopped taking birth control at the end of September 2017... and October 2017 was my detox month. I didn’t know that post birth control syndrome was a thing but it is. I was sick for a whole month while my body detoxed.
After I got through that detox period my body slowly started to adjust but my issues were still partially there. I still had some acne and head issues. My crunchy friend sold Beauty Counter products so I began using some of those in October. Then in November a friend from college posted about an online essential oils class through Young Living so I signed up. I had somewhat heard of oils before and figured it wouldn’t hurt. I ordered my starter kit after the class.
Over the next several months I started researching how products truly do affect your body and hormones. I began actually using my oils. I found podcasts with qualified speakers and just poured myself into learning about products + how foods can heal. I switched out my own products + started buying organic, simple foods. I moved back to Houston in June of 2018 and I decided to go see a holistic doctor that my friend recommended. She took the time to sit down and explain things to me and she took extensive blood work. I mean like 17 pages worth of every single detail about my blood. I told her I was trying to get pregnant and I wanted to heal my body and she was so thorough with me. I finally felt like I was being listened to! Through this blood work I found out I had the mthfr mutation which is a whole different topic in itself but basically I learned that I really needed to clean up every single thing I was using or consuming. This doctor was also going to take a specific hormone panel on me. In order to do that she wanted me to test during a specific time of the month based on my cycle. Guys. This matters. The other doctor who took my blood to test my hormones didn’t even know where I was at in my cycle yet she said my hormones were “normal”. How can that be? Hormones should be at different levels at different times of the month.
Ultimately I didn’t end up doing that hormone panel because I got pregnant! I was actually already pregnant when I went to see the doctor in June but didn’t know it yet. Once I found out I was pregnant I obviously was even more determined to become more “clean” with things. I’m not going to go into a lot of details here but we lost our first baby in August of 2018. I had a missed miscarriage and ultimately had to have surgery. I don’t want to dive too much into this because it’s extremely hard but for those of you who have experienced this you know how this feels. This does impact my journey though and steps I've taken since this happened.
This is where I’m going to end the story for today. A lot has happened from losing our baby in August until today and maybe I’ll share some of that later. Here are some takeaways for now though-
1. What you put on your body matters. Buying makeup and hair care and lotion and cleaning supplies and all of those things we use with clean ingredients truly makes a difference. Toxic chemicals can wreak havoc on your hormones.
2. What you put in your body matters. For years I ate whatever I wanted. I’ve always been thin and I truly though that meant I could eat whatever and cause no harm to my body. That was wrong!
3. I am so thankful for traditional doctors but I think it’s so important to find a doctor who will listen to you and help you fix whatever issue you have and not mask it with a pill. I would highly recommend having a holistic doctor as well.
4. Since switching out products & buying better foods my body has drastically healed and that’s the whole point of this post. That is why I’ve now become the crunchy girl sharing information about oils or organic foods or whatever else. It’s because I truly have seen my symptoms - acne, headaches, brain fog, etc... go away because of these changes. This is something I’ve actually become passionate about and that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gone through this myself.
5. As I said above, I do not have any type of medical/nutrition degree so I am not qualified to give specific advice but I am so happy to help point you to resources I’ve found that have helped me learn about healing my issues.
If you are still reading this, God bless you! I feel like this was the longest post ever but yet I also didn’t go into a whole lot of specifics on each topic. This was a very broad overview of my story. If you’ve read this and feel like you’re having some of the same issues please reach out! I love talking about this stuff and helping others. ❤️
Hope this helped you understand my “why”!