Acne – does it ever go away?

October 20, 2017

Sista, I feel your pain when it comes acne. Been there, done that and from time to time, still got that – acne. (sigh) You feeling me? As part of this months LIVE membership call, I dived real deep into the dark and gloomy depths of hormones, acne and skin issues that seem to arrive unannounced. Acne can be relentless but the most difficult facet to treating acne is to get a hold on is the why. Getting to the bottom of your skin woes certainly isn’t something that stops with the skin itself. Acne is a sure sign your hormones are unhappy and your gut health needs some TLC and that all starts from within. Lotions and potions, come what may can only do so much with the root cause of the issue within. To help you work out what the heck is going on, I wanted to share some of the key talking points that I shared to our little girl gang – aka The Wellness Collective Membership (you’re totally invited too).

Consider the timing.

It’s important to stop at work out when your acne shows up. Here are the most common times;

Puberty

Pregnancy

During high stress

Post Travel

Peri-Menopause

But of course there are cycles within cycles and we need to be mindful how that affects our skin too!

5 things at the core of your PCOS.

September 20, 2017

The question on around 5 million women’s lips (or so it’s estimated) – Why do I find myself not only with my very own ‘brand name’ aka Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) but with a loot of symptoms that follow me around like really bad body odour? PCOS symptoms can be nasty but what’s worse, stubborn and for the 20% or so of women battling with it each and everyday, it can be nothing short of relentless.

What’s Causing Your Heavy Bleeding?

July 17, 2017

Your body, each and every day is talking to you in weird and wonderful ways. Sometimes gentle and other times it’s like a fog horn to our eardrums, the words it is speaking to us can be overwhelming at best, especially if we don’t really understand what in the world is going on. It was only a couple of days ago it was brought to my attention I hadn’t written in any depth about heavy bleeding. We’ve talked about bleeding by way of spotting previously, but never really dived into it’s big sister – bleeding or for some haemorrhaging.

Heavy bleeding is outlined as being a flow that is approximately 80ml or more. That equates to approximately 16 or more soaked pads or tampons in a cycle according to our recent Period Party Podcast with Robyn Srigley. That might seem like a lot to you, but bleeding is something that many women face each month and for some, it may continue for days at best sometimes weeks on end. It’s always important to get to the bottom of why this is happening to you and as a first rule, visiting your health care practitioner may help provide insight and discuss an appropriate plan of attack. As a first point of call, it’s good to tick off any discrepancies with a pap smear. We’ve talked about how to treat abnormal cervical cells before here and here.

The Simple Secret Hormone Balancing Weapon…

July 12, 2017

I’m all about less is more and I’m all about simplicity. After all, there’s already enough to life as it is, right? In the spirit of all that, I continue to keep my treatment focus for patients in the clinic pretty simple too which is why it hit me like a sack of psyllium when I had the idea to create something super simple for women, to help balance their hormones. Truthfully, my throat got to the point it started to close over (metaphorically speaking), each time I told a women to mix a few simple ingredients together in a bid to create happier hormones. But more so, asking several weeks later if my wish had been followed through, most often I got a blank stare and a reply, “I haven’t had a chance.”

So I took the chance and made it for you. EASY!

You know it; food is medicine. I will continue for the rest of my life to take Dr Tom Bryan’s words and use them as my own because they are so darn profound. Food is one of two things. It is either of benefit or deficit. There really is no in-between. It either supports health or strips it making each and every mouthful a powerful force. When I discovered that fibre was a secret weapon for women’s hormones, I was over the moon – because fibre is something pretty simple to add to our daily regime.

The Healthy Hormone Series – Testosterone

June 21, 2017

Whilst you might think testosterone is only for the fella’s, think again. Women need testosterone and the amount we need changes throughout the course of our reproductive and non-reproductive years. For women, testosterone is made in both the ovaries and the adrenals as well as in fatty tissue. What you may also be unaware of, is that as we age and progress through menopause, our testosterone becomes much like a superpower. It continues to become more important and more useful as we get older, unlike oestrogen which declines once we hit menopause, testosterone is there in full force.

That during our reproductive years there is less testosterone available. This is because Sex Hormone Binding Globulin or SHBG binds to almost all our free testosterone during our peak years and inactivates it as we age, SHBG begins to decline allowing more available testosterone and whilst the ovaries might pack-up shop on oestrogen production, they become very important to produce testosterone once menopause arrives. It’s also this decline in oestrogen that allows more testosterone in the body. Seems everything within you is working towards this special hormone rising as we get older.