From frustration to empowerment: How holistic health saved my life

 

 

I remember the exact moment I vowed to myself I was done with the conventional health system. 

 

I had been struggling with chronic gut and digestive symptoms for about a year. Reacting to everything I ate, constantly bloated, brain fog and fatigue that left me too tired to pursue much of a life outside working — the whole shebang. On top of that, after going off the contraceptive pill my cycle had returned with debilitating cramps that left me bedridden each month, an imbalance that had been suppressed and gone unnoticed while on birth control. 

 

 

During one such day, I sat at the doctor’s office to get a certificate for my boss who was starting to get frustrated at all the sick days I’d taken recently. I went in to see the GP and, for what felt like the hundredth time, explained my symptoms and story. The advice I received?

“Just go on the pill. It makes it easier to be a woman.”

 

I left the doctor with, as usual, a pharmaceutical prescription in-hand which I promptly threw away. I went back to my car and furiously promised myself that would be the last time I would visit a conventional medicine service for my symptoms. I was frustrated to tears as I drove home at the complete lack of information, answers, understanding and actual health advice. 

 

My body didn’t just happen to wake up one day and start acting like this — I knew there had to be a reason. Yet, no one seemed to be interested in trying to help me find out what that was. After doing tests to ensure there was nothing more serious going on in my digestive tract, I was handed a brochure about FODMAP’s, told I would just have to live with the symptoms and sent on my way.

 

It took years and hundreds of dollars until I finally discovered the world of holistic health practitioners and booked in to see one. After a quick 15-minute phone call he had already referred me to two lab tests to complete to discover the root cause, neither of which I had ever heard of from a conventional practitioner before, including the ‘GI specialist’ medical doctor. Within a few weeks my results came back showing an overgrowth of bacteria in my small intestine and dysbiosis in my colon as the culprits behind my symptoms. 

 

 

 

 

Within a few months of working with the practitioner I felt like I had a whole new body. I was no longer bloated every day, I had energy back in my brain and body, I wasn’t scared of food or hunched over in pain after eating a salad. While being elated, I was also incredibly frustrated that it had taken me so long to receive what was, in the end, a very simple answer and relatively easy protocol to resolve chronic health issues I’d been living with unnecessarily for years. 

 

Experiencing the gap in true healthcare first-hand and growing more passionate about holistic health and healing every day, I began to search for courses where I would be able to gain the knowledge and skills to be able to help people just like me who were struggling with chronic symptoms and not getting the answers or help they needed from the system. 

 

I sifted through multiple standard holistic health coach and nutrition courses until I eventually learnt about the Institute for Integrative Health Practitioners on a podcast, where I would be qualified to not only help people maintain their health holistically but to go deeper with lab tests to discover the real root cause of symptoms — the essential piece to the health puzzle that allowed me to finally be able to heal. There are so many amazing holistic health coaches and nutritionists out there guiding people to better everyday health and wellbeing, but I knew I needed to know how to recommend and interpret lab tests for clients to be able to heal the real root cause of imbalances in the body. This is the missing key which leaves so many of us struggling with chronic symptoms unnecessarily and using band-aid approaches to manage the symptoms instead of properly addressing the cause, particularly when it comes to systems like the gut, adrenals, thyroid and hormones.

 

I won’t lie — it’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain health in today’s society where convenience, stress and institutionalisation is the norm, supermarket shelf food is as toxic as the air we breathe and there suddenly appears to be a marketing campaign against anyone trying to empower you to live a more natural life, eat organic, move your body and lower stress. It seems every second person you know is developing a chronic health issue, dependant on pharmaceuticals every day, complaining of low energy or developing some mysterious, annoying symptom that pops up randomly and doesn’t seem to be connected to a certain pattern. However, there are also more people than ever who are learning that there is another way and becoming empowered to take responsibility for their own health and longevity. We are slowly learning that we can create a different future for ourselves as a collective, one where dis-ease isn’t inevitable. 

 

I am so excited to be part of this remembrance and shift back to natural living and true, holistic health. We were designed to not just survive but thrive, and there’s always a reason why the body becomes imbalanced — it doesn’t just wake up one day and decide to stop working or grow dis-ease. Our body is always trying to work for us; it just needs the right tools and support. That’s where I come in.