About Me

My story

I got my period at a young age, like most women in my family, 11 years old. When I was around 13 years old, I woke up one morning with excruciating abdominal pains that I couldn't walk or stand up straight at all. I skipped school and my mom took me to the hospital. I spent the entire day in the kids emergency room doing every test imaginable, to find out if I was having issues with my appendix. After 8+ hours, the doctor told me it was just menstrual cramps. The doctor wasn't concerned by that amount of pain I was in for just my period cramps nor did the doctor recommend things that I could do to ease those pains and take control of my period.

I spent my teenage years with the worst possible periods. I was always under the impression that it was normal. My remedy? Four Advil liquid gels and a hot water bottle on my abdomen for 5 days straight.

When I graduated High School, I was encouraged to go on birth control. I thought it was something that all girls did at 18, so I had no hesitation going to the gynocologist.

Immediately, I started taking birth control and my periods stopped all together. As a teenager, I was ecstatic about this. No more pains, no worries about going in the pool during the summer, and being able to wear whatever I wanted! After a year of no periods, something inside of me told me to be concerned. I brought it up to my doctor during multiple visits . Her response was, "oh, that's normal!" No explanation of why that was happening or if I should switch to another kind of birth control pill.

While I was at a regular pap smear at only 19 years old, my doctor noticed lumps on my breasts. She sent me for testing and I was terrified. By the time I got testing done, they were gone. The tests concluded that I had fibrocystic breasts, meaning I would get harmless cysts in my breasts on and off. I was recommended to stay away from caffeine and chocolate nearing my period to reduce these lumps.

At 21, I stopped birth control because I started to fear that I would experience infertility later in life since my body wasn't going through it's natural menstrual cycle and I was never getting a period or withdrawal blood every month. After stopping, I also stopped getting lumps in my breasts!

I started to get my periods again and they were back to being painful. Now, at 23 years old, I'm so passionate about learning how to live my life in sync with the different phases of my cycle.

Did you know? Your periods aren't supposed to hurt at all!

With proper nutrition and movement, your periods should be on a schedule every month and be totally painless. Yup, that means no tender breasts, no bad cramping, no bad PMS, no lower back pain, and so much more.

It's hard to believe that because we have been conditioned to believe that painful periods are normal and that your period is the worst time of the month. But actually, your hormones are your superpower. You should feel empowered by your menstrual cycle and take control of it.

We need to start teaching young girls the different phases of their cycle and how to take care of themselves at each phase for a healthy body and painless periods. We also need to start discussing how to chart your cycle to know when you are most fertile and how to avoid pregnancy naturally. A basic autonomy lesson that isn't taught to women.

Women are so powerful. It's time to get in tune with our body's.