Heavy Menstrual Periods

Gretchen Addison is a running coach and fitness instructor in southwest Virginia through her business, Run 4 the Hills Coaching.  Her passion is helping others to live fit and healthy lives in a way that is sustainable for them.  She loves to talk about women's health topics with anyone and everyone, because it affects everyone in some way, and women especially need to know more about how their bodies work so that they can advocate better for themselves. When she's not working, she enjoys spending time with her horse, hiking, cooking, and reading. In this conversation, she shares her story of experiencing extreme pain and heavy bleeding during her menstruation for over two decades, until she finally got a prescription for a medication that relieves those symptoms significantly. Some of the tools that contributed to her treatment included the Creighton Model of cycle tracking, and a certified NaPro physician who was able to think beyond birth control to find a more targeted treatment.

She shares these resources:
Pearl and Thistle by Christina Valenzuela:
https://pearlandthistle.com/

Femammal Episode: "Energy and Mood Throughout the Menstrual Cycle" with Christina Valenzuela:
https://femammal.buzzsprout.com/1996844/11156748-energy-and-mood-throughout-the-menstrual-cycle

NaPro Technology:
https://naprotechnology.com/

Creighton Model:
https://creightonmodel.com/

FAbM Base with Emily Frase and Mary Bruno
https://fabmbase.org/about-fabm-base/the-founders/

Ashwood Fertility Care
https://www.ashwoodfertilitycare.com/

Lysteda information from the National Institutes of Health:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183964/

Contact Femammal:

• Email femammalpodcast@gmail.com
• Follow the podcast on Facebook at Femammal Podcast

If you have feedback or want to be a future guest, please get in touch!

Logo design: copyright Darragh Hannan

Transcript

[00:18] Greer: 
Hi, this is Greer, your host for Femammal, the podcast that holds space for women to explore what it means to live well in our bodies and celebrates moving through this world as female mammals. Today's guest is Gretchen Addison, who is a running coach and fitness instructor in southwest Virginia. Her passion is helping others to live fit and healthy lives in a way that is sustainable for them. She loves to talk about women's health topics with anyone and everyone because it affects everyone in some way, and women especially need to know more about how their bodies work so that they can advocate better for themselves. When she's not working, she enjoys spending time with her horse, hiking, cooking, and reading. In this conversation, she shares her story of experiencing extreme pain and heavy bleeding during her menstruation for over two decades until she finally got a prescription for a medication that relieves those symptoms significantly. Some of the tools that contributed to her treatment included the Creighton Model of cycle tracking and a certified NaPro physician who was able to think beyond birth control to find a more targeted treatment. Well, welcome to the podcast, Gretchen. Thank you so much for joining us and for being open to sharing with us your experience with really painful, difficult menstrual periods and how you ultimately got a treatment that worked for you. Would you start by telling us a little bit about what your experience of menstruation was for most of your life?

[02:08] Gretchen: 
Sure. And thanks for having me here. I'm glad to share with everybody. So my period started in 8th grade, which is the only year I was homeschooled, and it was about halfway through the year, and they were heavy and painful from the beginning. And I was so glad that I was at home and not in school, so I didn't have to worry about that in public school bathrooms. Ibuprofen didn't help at all. That's the only thing my mom would offer me for the pain. And as far as the heaviness, I didn't know what was normal and what wasn't. I just knew that it didn't seem right, but she didn't really have anything to offer me. Yeah, I just kind of dealt with it. Yeah.

[02:50] Greer: 
And were you managing trying to find a period product that worked with that heavy flow and that type of thing?

[02:58] Gretchen: 
Yeah, I was so embarrassed to ask for pads to begin with and then to try to tell her, I'm leaking at night, is there something different I can try? And she tried to find ones and nothing really worked. I ended up just having to kind of layer my underwear with various pads at night and train myself to sleep on my stomach because it seemed to leak less that way.

[03:19] Greer: 
Yeah, that's so uncomfortable. Especially as just like a young teenager, kind of a preteen. And I'm just so sorry that you had to go through that because that's definitely a sign that the bleeding was out of control.

[03:33] Gretchen: 
Yeah. I mean, I'd be walking circles around my bedroom in the middle of the night because it hurt too bad to lay down. Yeah.

[03:40] Greer: 
And how did that experience affect your day to day life, both professionally and personally? I mean, you talked about being home schooled initially when you were first menstruating, but then you entered-- 

[03:55] Gretchen: 
The next year I went into high school. Yeah. The idea of getting to miss school for period pain was never presented to me, and so it never occurred to me to ask for that. I just thought I had to suffer through it, and so I did. But there were days I could not pay attention in class because I was in so much pain. A teacher might call on me and I'd be like, what were we talking about? I would get nauseous in the mornings. And the best of my knowledge, you only got morning sickness if you were pregnant. So I was like, well, I just won't tell anyone because what are they going to do? Tell me it's in my head.

[04:38] Greer: 
Did you get the sense that other girls around you were experiencing this? Like, did you just assume, oh, this is normal?

[04:45] Gretchen: 
I'm not sure, but no one talked about it, so I guess I assumed either everyone else was really good at hiding the suffering or I was the only one suffering. Yeah. But it wasn't something anybody talked about, and I was definitely too shy and introverted to be the one to talk about it.

[05:02] Greer: 
Yeah. And how did it impact your career once you were an adult?

[05:07] Gretchen: 
So I became a teacher. I mean, there were days I was up and I taught pre K through 8th grade, so it's kids and some of them were rambunctious, and there were days where I just could not deal with it, but I had no choice. I didn't have very many sick days. I couldn't afford to take more than whatever I was given. And since it wasn't an option to take time off from school when I was younger, I didn't think it was an option as an adult, so I just suffered through it as best I could. Yeah.

[05:35] Greer: 
So you're just kind of gritting your teeth all day, and then when you got home, what was that routine like?

[05:42] Gretchen: 
Probably a lot of laying on the couch. Yeah. And I'm a runner, and I know exercise can help with cramps, but the cramps wear me out, so I had to first have enough energy to get out the door, and then usually if I could get out the door, a run would help, but they'd come back worse after the run. It was always kind of a catch 22.

[06:05] Greer: 
Yeah. I mean, good for you for trying. The times that I've tried to run when I had really bad cramps, I've nearly passed out, and that's not good either.

[06:15] Gretchen: 
It's like, you have to wait till they subside just a little bit and then go for it, and it won't hurt while you're doing it. But then when I realized they got worse afterwards. Is this even worth it? Especially with the exhaustion, because pain is exhausting.

[06:28] Greer: 
Yeah, it really is.

[06:30] Gretchen: 
I mean, there was one time it was so bad, my husband watched me puke in the front yard. Yeah. And he was like, can you not get help for this? And I said, Well, I've tried. They won't offer me anything but birth control, and I don't want that. He was so supportive once I finally found the avenue to take.

[06:50] Greer: 
Yeah. That's great. How many years do you think you dealt with all that pain and the heavy bleeding?

[06:58] Gretchen: 
Over 20. 

Greer: 
Wow. 

Gretchen: 
Because I would have been 13 or 14 when I started, and I didn't get help till I was 35, 36. I think I'd been asking for help since 2012, kind of on and off, because I'd ask a doctor and they wouldn't really help and I'd give up. And then eventually I'd get a new doctor and try asking and they wouldn't help and I'd give up. Yeah.

[07:24] Greer: 
So how did those types of conversations go when you were trying to get help along the way?

[07:30] Gretchen: 
So, the first one, I think I had finally decided that this probably wasn't normal and there should be some help. And so I think I brought up to doctor and just like, my periods are really painful, they're really heavy. Is there anything we can do about it? Because at that point, somebody had told me that I was going to damage my kidneys from all the ibuprofen I was taking, because I was taking 800 milligrams every 4 hours. 

Greer: 
Wow. 

Gretchen: 
And so I didn't want to kill my kidneys. So I went to the doctor and she was like, well, birth control is really the only option. I said, well, okay. And at some point, I just stopped taking ibuprofen and dealt with the pain because even the 800 milligrams really wasn't doing anything by that point. It might cause damage. So I just dealt with it. 

[08:19] Greer: 
Yeah, I see. Were you able to bring it up to a healthcare professional when you were a teenager experiencing this at all?

[08:26] Gretchen: 
I don't think I ever mentioned it to the pediatrician at all because I know my mom had said that there's no point in telling the doctor because all they'll do is prescribe birth control. And you can't be on birth control because it's like a sin or something. Because I think back then, like, the attitude in the Catholic Church was you couldn't even use it for symptom management because that meant you'd go have sex or something. I don't know. Yeah.

[08:49] Greer: 
You and I grew up in similar communities, and I remember being kind of fed that line, whether or not that's, like, the official statement. Definitely there was that sensibility in the communities we grew up in.

[09:03] Gretchen: 
I think it was just associated with the only people who would be on this are the ones who want to have all the sex. So if you're on it, it'll automatically make you want to do that too.

[09:12] Greer: 
And you grew up and continued to deal with the symptoms and did have a concern with pursuing birth control as a treatment for those symptoms. As kind of, a mature adult on your own, what were your concerns about trying out the birth control option?

[09:32] Gretchen: 
I think at some point I had heard kind of vague things about side effects, and even though I'm not even sure where I heard them, because everybody I knew was just on it and loved it, but somewhere I think I'd heard that it could cause anxiety and depression. And I had already dealt with that through all of high school and college because of an asthma drug I was on, and I was just not willing to go there again.

[09:55] Greer: 
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you had kind of brought up to a lot of different doctors along the way what you were dealing with, and none of them offered you anything other than the birth control. And you weren't interested in trying that because of your understandable concerns about side effects and based on other side effects that you'd experienced with other medications. So I know there was a turning point. What was the turning point for you where you finally did get an intervention that worked for you?

[10:27] Gretchen: 
I really credit instagram with all my knowledge of hormones and women's bodies and what's normal and what's not. But I was following Christina Valenzuela from Pearl and Thistle, and I was watching her post, and she had posted I don't even remember what the post was, but it showed me that there really could be help out there. And so I started digging and learned about NaPro, which is I always forget what it stands for.

[10:54] Greer: 
I think it's Natural Procreative medicine.

[10:57] Gretchen: 
Yeah, some natural procreative something. Yeah. And I learned that they don't prescribe birth control, but their goal is to get to the root of the problem and actually try to fix it. I said, well, that sounds like what I've been looking for forever. So then I had to dig into, okay, how do I get with one of these doctors and where can I find one? And the closest doctor to me was two and a half hours away in Winston Salem, North Carolina. And in order to see one, I had to learn to chart my cycle using the Creighton Method of fertility awareness, which is checking for cervical mucus every single time you use the bathroom before and after you do anything. So then I had to find an instructor for that.

[11:45] Greer: 
Yeah. Okay, so this is a lot that you just talked us through. So first of all, thanks for your shout out to Christina Valenzuela. She was actually our third episode guest way back when this podcast started, so I'll link to that episode in case anyone missed it. It was a really fantastic discussion about hormones and moods and energy levels throughout your cycle. So that was a really neat one. And it sounds like you had some good awareness through social media, which was really a good resource for you about how your hormonal cycles can affect a lot of things and can drive a lot of symptoms. I take it that you didn't have great sex ed during high school, like, a lot of us didn't have great sex ed during high school.

[12:34] Gretchen: 
I'm pretty sure I had zero sex ed.

[12:37] Greer: 
Yeah, that's unfortunately common.

[12:39] Gretchen: 
Like absolutely zero.

[12:41] Greer: 
Okay, so Instagram started filling that gap for you, and Christina's website is really a great resource. So thanks for shouting out Pearl and Thistle. That's awesome. So you started exploring how hormones might be contributing to your experiences of excessive pain and blood flow.

[13:00] Gretchen: 
And I hadn't learned anything about what the help might be, just that if there was help, the NaPro doctors would probably know what it was.

[13:09] Greer: 
Yeah. And the Creighton Method that you highlighted, that's one of several methods of what's called natural family planning, or other people use the term fertility awareness. And had you been particularly aware of various natural family planning methods or had you explored that for yourself before this?

[13:31] Gretchen: 
So I had known about them even before I understood what sex was or any of that. I knew my parents used this thing called natural family planning and that it was the only thing that was okay to prevent a pregnancy, basically.

[13:47] Greer: 
That's really interesting. Like, a lot of parents don't necessarily share with their children how they approach that personally.

[13:55] Gretchen: 
And it was partly because I think they just randomly would allude to it sometimes. I know one time I had to go to a chiropractor and he had all these books in the waiting room for people to learn about things, and my mom was like, you have everything but one about natural family planning. Why don't you have that book? And he was like, well, if you buy it, I'll put it on the shelf. So I didn't really understand how it worked or what exactly it was. I just knew it was this thing that Catholics could use instead of birth control.

[14:21] Greer: 
Did it come up during marriage prep classes or anything like that?

[14:28] Gretchen: 
So I got engaged in college and my dad gave me a kit from Couple to Couple League, I think it was, and was like, this is what your mother and I use. We hope you'll use it too. And I tried doing the oral temperature thing every morning for a while and saw absolutely no pattern and eventually gave up and ended up breaking off that engagement anyway and then just didn't think about it again for a long time.

[15:01] Greer: 
Okay, sure. So you had some awareness about methods and options.

[15:06] Gretchen: 
I think I knew there were multiple methods.

[15:11] Greer: 
Okay. And then the Creighton Method is one very specific one and it relies on the fact that your cervical mucus changes throughout your cycle. What put that on your radar as this is the one that you have to do if you're going to go see the NaPro physician.

[15:29] Gretchen: 
I think just in the research about NaPro, it says, I think in their literature, like we use Creighton charts, you have to get with a Creighton instructor who will refer you to the doctor.

[15:39] Greer: 
Okay, so you found a Creighton instructor?

[15:43] Gretchen: 
Yeah, so then I had to find, I think Creighton has a website. If I recall, it wasn't super user friendly or modern looking, but it had some kind of a map with where instructors are and I found one 45 minutes away, got in touch with her and she said, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm not taking new clients right now. So then I got on Emily Frase and Mary Bruno's website, FAbM Fanbase, and they have an instructor database on there. So I searched for that database and picked one.

[16:20] Greer: 
And was that through the internet? Like, was that instruction going to be online?

[16:25] Gretchen: 
Yeah. 

Greer: 
Okay. 

Gretchen: 
And that was during late COVID, I would say. So by then online was pretty normal and it was getting really common for people to offer online who may not have before that, I guess.

[16:38] Greer: 
Yeah, one of those few silver linings from the pandemic.

[16:43] Gretchen: 
Yeah. And so I got hooked up with Carrie Beadner at Ashwood Fertility Care. They have instagrams too, and she was great.

[16:53] Greer: 
So you learned the Creighton Method for charting your cycle from her?

[16:57] Gretchen: 
Yes.

[16:58] Greer: 
And then you were able to get enough data so that you could actually make an appointment with that NaPro doctor?

[17:07] Gretchen: 
Yeah. She said you need a full cycle of charting in order to get the referral. And as soon as I had a full cycle, she was like, yes, there's clearly things going on here, I'm going to send you in that referral right away.

[17:18] Greer: 
Okay. So was the idea behind that to identify that this was definitely a hormone driven problem rather than driven by something else?

[17:29] Gretchen: 
To get help for the periods, I don't think they really technically needed the chart. They just needed me to tell them my story. The chart also showed that I probably have really low progesterone, so that was something we could address afterwards. But I mean, the chart for the bleeding days, you just put in stamps, red stamps, and then you say if it's light, medium or heavy. So for that, just the fact that I put heavy or very heavy almost every day would be the chart indication that something was wrong with my periods. But I could have just as easily told them that. 

Greer: 
Okay. 

Gretchen: 
Looking at the rest of the mucus observations throughout the month really had nothing to do with the periods.

[18:08] Greer: 
Okay. And I guess we should have talked about it at the beginning. Like, how many days were you experiencing this heavy bleeding every month?

[18:17] Gretchen: 
Probably seven or eight. And I would also usually spot one to three days before and after.

[18:23] Greer: 
Oh, my goodness. So it's virtually half the month.

[18:26] Gretchen: 
Yeah. When you're looking at the stamps on your creighton chart, they were more red stamps than any other color.

[18:31] Greer: 
Oh, my goodness. Okay.So the charting gave some insights, but also insights that you just had from your life at that point. Just my own curiosity: Did people ever broach other potential diagnoses to you, like endometriosis or something else that could have?

[18:51] Gretchen: 
I kind of went into it assuming I had endometriosis, and I don't think that's necessarily been ruled out. It's just that you can only diagnose that with surgery. So if my symptoms are managed without going that route, I think it's probably not worth going that route.

[19:09] Greer: 
Yeah, fair enough. So you finally have the information you need to set up that appointment with the NaPro doctor who is, you said, like two and a half hours away.

[19:21] Gretchen: 
Yeah.

[19:23] Greer: 
Did you need a referral to set up the appointment? How did that work?

[19:28] Gretchen: 
So Carrie, my instructor, sent in a letter of referral, I guess I think she sent my chart and a letter of referral. I don't remember if the doctor's office contacted me or if she just I think it was once she sent it in, she just said, okay, they have it now, you can call them to schedule an appointment. And so then because I was traveling, I was going to have to spend a night in a hotel. I think we spent two, but I had to do at least one because it's too long a drive to do out and back. And I had to make sure the doctor wouldn't be on call the day of my appointment because then there would be a chance that I'd get there and have my appointment canceled if she got called in for an emergency. And it was about three months out that I was able to schedule an appointment. 

Greer: 
Wow. 

Gretchen: 
Because they were pretty busy. And the day she had opening, she was on call. So it took had to go three months ahead to find a day that she wouldn't be on call. That was also a Friday, so I could make a long weekend out of it.

[20:25] Greer: 
But you did get in front of the doctor eventually. How did that conversation go with her?

[20:30] Gretchen: 
So that went pretty well. First I had to basically tell the whole story to the nurse. She was very nice. And then she, I guess, took a lot of notes. And then the doctor finally came in and summarized the notes from the nurse. And then she basically just said, there's this prescription I can give you that might help. And she said, you'll know immediately if it's going to help or not, and if you don't know immediately, then it's not helping. And it was called Lysteda. And what it does is it helps my blood clot. So with all the heavy bleeding, I also had a lot of clots in it. And we didn't really talk in depth, it's one of those things I wish I had asked more questions while I was there, but my understanding is that what was happening. But she said the first three or four days is you're shedding the lining of your uterus, but then you keep bleeding a little bit after that until your uterus clots off. So my understanding was that mine must be trying to clot off and failing. And again, she didn't specifically tell me that. That's just kind of what I gathered from it and wish I'd asked her more questions while I was there.

[21:42] Greer: 
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So it was going to help your blood clot. It didn't necessarily address any hormonal issues driving that.

[21:53] Gretchen: 
Right. So just having that pill, I take it three times a day while I'm bleeding and it reduces the bleeding by about half. 

Greer: 
Wow. 

Gretchen: 
And also the pain is much more manageable and I do still take an Naproxen prescription. 

Greer: 
I don't think I know what naproxen is. 

Gretchen: 
It's like Aleve. I think it's another NSAID just not Ibuprofen.

[22:16] Greer: 
Okay. And do you experience any other side effects or just anything when you're on the Lysteda?

[22:29] Gretchen: 
No, I don't have any side effects. She just said if you're ever on a really long flight while you're taking it, you might want to make sure you move your leg so you don't get a blood clot in your leg. 

Greer: 
Okay. 

Gretchen: 
But I'm a pretty active person and have no long days, long flights in the future. Yeah, I haven't been too worried about it.

[22:50] Greer: 
Okay, well, that's fantastic. And you said you experienced relief right away, so basically on day one you said, oh yeah, this is working.

[23:00] Gretchen: 
Yeah. From day one I was like, wow, I'm not bleeding as much as normal. I don't have to go to the bathroom every 2 hours to change my cup anymore. Wow.

[23:09] Greer: 
Yeah. Had you switched over to a menstrual cup to try to deal with that really heavy flow?

[23:14] Gretchen: 
Yeah, I had. Partly because I had heard that it might reduce cramps because some people say that tampons can make your cramps worse because they irritate you or something. So I tried the cup partly for that and partly because I knew it would hold a little bit more than tampons did. I also just love the cup because when you're traveling or just out and about, you don't have to worry about carrying extra products in your purse. You just take it out, dump it and put it back in.

[23:41] Greer: 
Yeah. So for people who are less familiar with this menstrual management strategy, there's like an actual is it like a rubber cup?

[23:50] Gretchen: 
Medical grade silicone. 

[23:53] Greer: 
Okay. And you insert it through your vaginal canal, and it literally catches all the blood, and then you remove it and dump it.

[24:03] Gretchen: 
And they last for years. The ones I use are rated for ten years, but I think I get a new one every like, two or three. Yeah, and it saves so much money versus other products too.

[24:14] Greer: 
Yeah, I can only imagine. And then you sanitize it, like, daily or something?

[24:19] Gretchen: 
I mean, I rinse it out whenever I dump it, and then I'll boil it or just wash it really good at the end of my period. Yeah. 

[24:28] Greer: 
Neat. So, yeah, you started having a much more positive experience on your periods. Do you want to describe how that changed your life when you were on your period once you were taking that prescription?

[24:42] Gretchen: 
Yeah. So instead of being on the couch hugging a heating pad and wanting to cry and being mostly non functional during my period, now I can just go about my normal daily life like nothing is happening. 

Greer: 
That's great. 

Gretchen: 
And sometimes I have really faint cramping, but it's never enough to stop me from doing any of the things I want to do like it used to.

[25:01] Greer: 
That's really great. And are you sort of an ongoing patient now of this NaPro doctor?

[25:10] Gretchen: 
So I think I'm about to part ways. She has stopped filling my prescriptions unless I go back to visit her.

[25:18] Greer: 
Okay.

[25:19] Gretchen: 
I decided I don't want to drive that far right now. 

Greer: 
Sure. 

Gretchen: 
But my primary care doctor is perfectly happy to take over the prescriptions for me, so I've decided to just do that for now. 

[25:31] Greer: 
Oh, great. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about how you're because just any type of medical care, sometimes it's hard to get different types of specialists to talk to each other or things can kind of get lost in translation or slip between the cracks. So how did it work? Like, after you had this positive experience getting the help you needed from the NaPro doctor, how did you go back to your primary care doctor and share that information, and was there any conflict there?

[26:01] Gretchen: 
So the primary care I had when I initially went through all of this was I just told her I was on these new prescriptions. She was like, oh, yeah, that's a thing. Why didn't you ever suggest it? They just kind of shrug you off. 

Greer: 
Wow. 

Gretchen: 
And I actually got a new doctor back in October. I think somebody new just started a practice in town, and he does what's called direct primary care. So you just pay a monthly fee and that covers all your visits. 

Greer: 
Wow. 

Gretchen: 
So I can go as much as I need to, because before, if I had some kind of medical problem, I go to the doctor. But if it required follow ups, I would tend to not do them because it's so expensive to go to the doctor. With this doctor where I'm just paying a flat monthly fee, I feel like I don't feel bad for going extra because it's all included.

[26:50] Greer: 
Yeah. And so then that really helps with compliance, and therefore that helps with health outcomes. So it sounds like it's a win for everybody.

[26:57] Gretchen: 
He's been super helpful for my asthma, my acid reflux, getting my iron levels under control, and he's really receptive to pretty much anything I throw at him. 

Greer: 
Oh, fantastic. 

Gretchen: 
He thinks more things should be primary care problems instead of primary care doctors always sending people to specialists. He's like, no, that should be covered by your primary care doctor. So I was like, I'm taking these medicines, and in order to keep the prescriptions, I have to go back to Winston-Salem. Would you mind taking them over instead? He was like, of course not. Yeah. 

[27:29] Greer: 
Well, that's great. Are you going to be able to be on Lysteda as long as you need to be, or is there any kind of, like, you shouldn't take this for X number of years?

[27:38] Gretchen: 
As far as I know right now, I can just be on it forever. 

Greer: 
Great. 

Gretchen: 
Or I guess till menopause. Yeah. Which sometimes feels like it's probably right around the corner. 

[27:52] Greer: 
Right. Well, good. I'm glad that that seems to have been, like, a surprisingly easy fix. Do you have any kind of reflection on, like, the 20 years that I don't want to say you lost them to the pain, but it seems like--

[28:08] Gretchen: 
But it was really frustrating to know, so once I got on Lysteda, I decided to do some Google research and discovered it was FDA approved, like, 2009, maybe, or maybe 2012, whenever it was. I think it was FDA approved right before I started asking for help.

[28:26] Greer: 
Okay.

[28:27] Gretchen: 
And then I was like and then I asked for help for ten years, and not a single doctor mentioned it.

[28:33] Greer: 
Yeah.

[28:34] Gretchen: 
And I get that doctors don't know everything and don't know every new drug, but I'm like, when you have a patient coming to you with a problem, wouldn't you want to do your own research to try to help them? Yeah, so that made me a little bit angry.

[28:47] Greer: 
Sounds like they kind of have a marketing problem or something.

[28:48] Gretchen: 
Or I mean, they're just told that birth control is the cure for everything, and that's what you need to prescribe. 

[28:59] Greer: 
Yeah. And it's frustrating because it really just mutes symptoms. It doesn't necessarily address underlying problems with any kind of targeted approach.

[29:10] Gretchen: 
Right. But most doctors don't really seem to realize that. Yeah.

[29:14] Greer: 
It sounds like a big value of the medication you're on, is that it is such a targeted approach. It's not doing a whole bunch of things to the rest of your system, because our hormones affect everything, so tinkering with them can really reach into a lot of corners of our bodies.

[29:32] Gretchen: 
And so when I googled it, I was like, oh, this drug must have been created for some other problem. And then the NaPro doctors just discovered that it would help with heavy periods, but my Google research said that it was actually FDA approved for heavy periods. So I was like, there's this drug specifically for the problem I have, and none of my doctors knew about it.

[29:54] Greer: 
Yeah, it must be a real education gap. And it is frustrating because there are a lot of problems that the only tool they have in the toolbox right now is birth control. But it sounds like this problem actually does have a tool that's built for it. So I'm glad that you did all that research and found that option for yourself. So I'm curious how going through that whole experience affected your attitude towards your body.

[30:30] Gretchen: 
I guess it's more just, really my attitude towards my uterus specifically versus towards my whole body. I referred to it as my angry uterus for many years. 

Greer: 
I love that!

Gretchen: 
And I'd be like, oh, my angry uterus strikes again. It's trying to kill me again. I didn't want kids, and I'm like, my uterus is angry. It makes me miserable, and I'm not even using it for anything. But at the same time, I knew I didn't want to go get a hysterectomy because you need your hormones as long as you can keep them. But it was frustrating knowing that there's this thing in my body that's doing nothing but cause me pain and frustration.

[31:13] Greer: 
I'm really impressed that you're such an avid runner and you even have a running coaching business, because I can imagine that it really interfered for a long time with your workouts and your fitness goals.

[31:29] Gretchen: 
Yeah, for the most part, I think I was just able to struggle through it.

[31:35] Greer: 
Yeah.

[31:36] Gretchen: 
Because that was my life. We had required sports in high school, and my dad was a cross country and track coach, so I became a runner, and I wasn't allowed to skip practice because I was on my period, so I just got used to working through it. 

[31:53] Greer: 
Wow. Okay, so do you feel like your attitude towards your uterus has changed at all since you got this treatment?

[31:58] Gretchen: 
I don't hate it as much anymore. I'm still not using it for anything in particular, but I'm glad that it's not so angry anymore.

[32:08] Greer: 
Do you have a new nickname for it?

[32:11] Gretchen: 
No, now I just don't think about it most of the time.

[32:15] Greer: 
Well, that's good.

[32:17] Gretchen: 
Yeah. I mean, it's a big improvement, right?

[32:22] Greer: 
Can you name any ways that you've grown through this whole experience?

[32:27] Gretchen: 
I think in my confidence to speak up for myself in the doctor's office, because now that I know that if I really pursue what I want, I'll get answers in the end. And it also has made me much more comfortable talking about periods and hormones, which I think is something that we all need to be more comfortable about, because I don't want another generation of girls to grow up like my generation did.

[32:51] Greer: 
Yes. And thank you for being part of dismantling those taboos. That's fantastic. I really appreciate it.

[32:58] Gretchen: 
Glad to be able to do it. I have two stepdaughters and I don't think they like how much I talk about this stuff, but I'm like, you're going to get used to it. 

Greer: 
That's great. 

Gretchen: 
If you ever have a problem, you don't wait 20 years to get help like I did. Yeah.

[33:12] Greer: 
You are a gift to them right now. Like, even if they're uncomfortable with it right now, they will appreciate it years to come.

[33:20] Gretchen: 
That's my hope.

[33:21] Greer: 
Yeah, I believe it. What are some things you celebrate now about where you're at in your health journey?

[33:30] Gretchen: 
I guess I just celebrate that I'm not suffering all the time anymore. Yeah. Sometimes I have half marathons while I'm on my period, and I'm like, you know what? There was a time where that would have been a really bad day. But now I know it probably won't be so bad, and I'll probably be able to run just fine and not worry about being extra exhausted during the race because I'm in pain. 

[33:53] Greer: 
That's fantastic. And last question that I love to ask everyone who comes on as a guest, what kind of advice do you have about learning to listen well to our bodies?

[34:04] Gretchen: 
Mainly just that knowledge is power. The more you can learn, the better equipped you are to advocate for yourself so that you can be the healthiest you and feel your best. Because doctors don't know it all and sometimes you have to do your own research to help yourself. 

[34:21] Greer: 
That's true. That's really true. Well, I'm so grateful for all the knowledge that you shared today. I hope that for people who might be suffering in a similar way. You've said something that piques their interests and they can do their own research. And maybe it's prepared them to ask questions at their next doctor's visit or make suggestions that their doctor could review with them. Because it sounds like you really got the help you needed. And that to me, is a really great story.

[34:47] Gretchen: 
Thank you for having me on today. I appreciate being able to share the story.

[34:52] Greer: 
Oh, you're welcome. Your story is a gift to us all. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at femammalpodcast@gmail.com. That's femammalpodcast@gmail.com. You can also follow this podcast on Facebook. Just search for Femammal Podcast and you will find a community of people who are interested in living well in our bodies. And of course, I'd love for you to rate this podcast and leave a review wherever you download your podcasts. Until next time, be well.