I Cried in My Paper Dress

It was my annual visit to the gynecologist. I was escorted into the examination room, where I was asked to disrobe and put on that dreaded paper dress. Ladies you know the one I’m talking about. It’s always freezing cold, and they give you the thinnest sheet known to man. Is that supposed to make me feel more comfortable? Because I could not feel more vulnerable than I do right now.

This wasn’t exactly a routine visit to the doctor. I was on a mission. (Actually I am still on it.) My mission was to get off birth control, and to have my hormones checked. Well, needless to say, this did not go as planned.

A Journey to Healing

I have been on a personal health journey after getting diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) in 2017. It’s the diagnosis that I have determined they give you when they can’t figure it out. I have had a colonoscopy, dropped off bowel samples to the lab, tried numerous medications, and none of it seemed to help me. Shit! (Pun intended.) I’ve been on medications to help with the side effects of other medications. Wait, what!?

After giving up for a while, I finally came across the idea that there has got to be more to health than modern medicine. What if food and lifestyle also played a factor? I began to explore InstaGram, (Because hey, I’m a millennial.) and I found so many people that have cured numerous different ailments by changing what they put into their bodies, and by simply moving more.

First things first, I started running again. I used to love it when I was in school. And to be honest, it’s relatively cheap compared to joining a gym. All you need is a pair of shoes. I did make a point to go get fitted for some nice shoes however. Shin splints are for real.

Food wise, I began by doing the Whole30. (This is a whole food elimination diet designed to help transform your habits related to food, health, and habits.) I followed all of the rules, and completed the program. But after reintroducing all of the foods back into my diet, I still couldn’t seem to figure it out. My IBS was still acting up. Again, I gave up for a while.

I had a few mental health challenges come up after that. I quit my job, got in an accident, and then my mother-in-love passed away unexpectedly. During all of this I did begin therapy again, and I also starting seeing a functional pharmacist/nutritionist.

The Hippocratic Oath

People usually remember the part of the Hippocratic Oath that says not to share personal information. There is also a part that says “that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.” This is therapy for me, this is dealing with my own shit.

What this does not look like to me is going on more medications for more symptoms. I am not even necessarily opposed to medications in the right circumstances. In fact, I am on quite a few right now. What this does look like for me is using the medications as needed, while also trying to find the root cause.

Let’s not forget that it was also Hippocrates (you know, the guy that wrote the oath) who said that “all disease begins in the gut.” Well guess what IBS is. It’s a gut problem. This is where functional medicine comes into play.

Nobody tells you the part where modern medicine and functional medicine collide. Modern medicine is a business. They are in it for money, (I am not talking about specific doctors. I am talking about the industry as a whole.) and not necessarily in it to help you.

Think about it. If you no longer need medication, how will all of these businesses stay in business. If they cure you, they don’t get your money anymore.

Functional medicine is more about getting to the root cause of the issue. It’s about looking at all of your symptoms together, and treating you as an individual instead of a statistic.

Hormones

It all started with me reaching out to a functional pharmacist about my IBS problems. It was just getting worse, and I was getting even more frustrated. I started to feel as though modern medicine was failing me, so I looked elsewhere.

At our initial meeting, I just laid it all out on the table. The anxiety, the depression, the frustration with my IBS, the fact that I wanted to stop taking birth control, everything. He sat with me for over an hour and gave me a customized action plan. I am pretty sure my general practitioner hasn’t spent more than 15 minutes at a time with me.

I left feeling empowered. I felt as though someone actually listened to me. They didn’t just ask me what was wrong and throw a pill at me. I also didn’t have to put on that God-awful paper dress.

You see. I have been on birth control for 20 years. I am getting older, and so is the birth control pill. It was only put onto the market in the 1970’s. The studies of what this pill actually does to your body are only beginning to come out. It’s looking pretty grim to me.

Besides all the horrible side effects of which I was truly unaware when I was first put on it by my doctor (I’m sure I am not the only one.), they are now finding out that being on this drug for extended periods of time can have lasting effects on the rest of your hormones.

In all honesty, I don’t think I would have understood nor cared about any of this at the age when I was put on this medication. Now that I am older, I am looking more closely at my health. I want to understand what is going on in my body. And I want my doctors to help me figure it all out.

When I told my gynecologist that I no longer wanted to be on hormonal birth control, she was not very helpful. Ok. Stop taking it. That was the whole conversation. Ok. Whatever.

When I asked her to run my hormones, she asked me why. This is where my emotions flooded my system. I told her about the functional pharmacist that I was seeing to help me with my gut issues. He suggested that I ask to have these labs run. I didn’t have a chance to explain any further before she was completely offended.

She got very angry, and defensive of her practice. This is the moment I lost control. And there I was, a 35 year-old woman, sitting in an examination room crying in my paper dress. I cried through the actual pap smear and breast exam. I dressed, and I left feeling even more let down by modern medicine.

And here I sit no longer on birth control, with a rash on my face and my hormone tests results in hand. (Thankfully my general practitioner ran them for me.) My next step: Now I have to figure out what all of this means.