Dee Zibara
Rosie’s period was a ‘crime scene’ for decades.
For years, Rosie Lockhart has described her period as a “crime scene”.
With an intensely painful, heavy and clotty menstrual cycle, affecting how she worked, lived and trained, as well as suffering with diarrhoea, vomiting and fevers, she said it got so bad that “there was a stage when I was eating nurofen like candy”.
The 37-year-old Sydneysider was only recently diagnosed with endometriosis and adenomyosis after decades of suffering.
If she didn’t still hold hope for growing a baby of her own one day, she may be a perfect candidate for hysterectomy.
Both her mother and grandmother shared her cycle struggles and both had a hysterectomy after children to relieve the intensity… feeling they had no other option.
She’s an example of the growing number of women who feel lost and confused, exhausting what they believe to be all options.
Specialists, tests, doctors – you name it, women like Rosie have done it all.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said.
“Women feel like they don’t have a choice.
“We can’t have 5-6 days of annual leave every single month. We need to work to live but we aren’t told of other options.”
“Until 2.5 years ago, I didn’t have the funds or resources. Searching for answers costs a fortune. I’ve easily spent over $30K in the last 2 years.”
For most Australian women, the state of the economy and the lack of disposable income means it’s not even in the realm of possibility to spend the time and money required to deep dive into their health and truly uncover what’s actually going on in their bodies.
What we know
* 1 in 3 women in Australia are electing to have their uterus (and sometimes more) surgically removed, and many are having the surgery not for traditional reasons like reproductive cancers.
* Hysterectomy is one of the most common procedures performed on women, worldwide and in some countries more than half is due to heavy, painful periods.
* The compounding number of women opting for hysterectomies in their 30s, given the known risks, is a sad trend that has left both medical professionals and women themselves seeking new answers.
It’s clear – we need an affordable alternative.
So, what’s a woman to do?
In my clinical experience, three things matter when correcting hormonal imbalance:
1. A cycle-specific diet;
2. Cycle-specific exercise; and
3. Nervous system regulation
Rosie found this in The FlowFit Challenge – a 6-week holistic health program that helped her reduce her period pain by 50%. It was there that she finally learned, at 37, that her heavy and painful periods are signs of hormonal imbalance.
“I’m so hopeful now,” she said.
“I wish I could tell women there are other ways of getting to the root cause.”.
While those three natural strategies to balance your hormones will not be the end of hysterectomies, it’s one less woman enduring an unnecessary, invasive medical procedure.
By Dee Zibara, a women’s health expert with 14 years experience. She helps women navigate the complexities of their hormonal health.
