There are few things in life that create the following reaction in me:
"HOW COME NOBODY EVER TOLD ME THIS?!?!?!"
In addition to the book imaged above, adult onset acne would be another example of said reaction.
I think it's safe to say that this book has changed my life and made me much more aware of my life as a woman and my own personal cycle.
Just under a year ago I firmly decided to go off of my birth control, I no longer felt comfortable with hormone supplementing and I felt very out of touch with my own body.
Since then, I've been taking my temperature, tracking my cycle and charting it using my handy app Ovuview. For several months I was in the "How come nobody ever told me this" mode. I wonder what our world's women would be like if every young girl were educated about her cycle as presented in this book. Regardless of your method of contraception, the information contained in here is so useful. And the method can be used to support fertility and conception or as your main method of contraception.
Incredible.
In addition, when I have consultations with practitioners (acupuncture and dental being the most recent), I have an armload of information about my hormonal situation just based on my temperature chart that I can easily pull up and show. I know that my basal body temperature runs low (partly why I often struggle to stay warm) which can also be an early indicator of thyroid problems or imbalances (find someone who offers hair testing rather than blood testing for more accurate reads on your thyroid levels). While I realize not everyone finds this information to be particularly exciting, I am thrilled to have every bit of information I can ready for a consultation, especially within a medical system that more often than not, does not take the individual case into account. The more information I have, the more any practitioner can work with me.
So shortly after beginning this new chapter off of birth control I was introduced to another method that has equally, if not more so, blown my mind.
In addition to taking my temperature every morning, I also have been seed cycling (note the link here mentions the use of Evening Primrose Oil in the progesterone phase but I use Borage Oil, also an Omega 6) and my experience with this has been profound.
I originally went on birth control years ago because my periods were so bad that I would get excruciating cramps, lose my vision, have cold sweats, vomit and be nothing short of incapacitated by the first day of my period. It wasn't every month, but it was frequent enough that I could no longer bear it and my nurse practitioner at the time told me, "Your body wants to be pregnant and this is the experience you'll likely have until you have children."
Awesome.
Since taking myself off of birth control (no consultation with a nurse practitioner or doctor for this decision) and with the use of certain herbs (Cramp bark and in particular Motherwort) I have had the gentlest experience with my period that I can remember (knock on wood for me here, please). My cycle is regular, hovering at just around 27 days, I ovulate right around day 14 and the cramps are so manageable I can hardly call them cramps compared to my prior experiences.
I do believe that I have the seed cycling to thank for this. Google it. I just shared it with a Naturopathic Doctor who had never heard of it but was going consider incorporating it into her women's health protocols.
Again, what would our society's women look like if they all had the opportunity to try something as simple as eating certain ground, raw seeds during certain times of her cycle?
Your experience with this may be different, but I'm specifically blogging about it, because I know my little collective of readers are women and I hope you'll share this information with the women you know. Go ahead, hyperlink it, share it, spread it, I think it's tremendously useful for women who have challenges with their cycle and can have a considerable effect, not only at a relatively low cost but using a natural food-based solution.
Stay tuned for my upcoming post about my newly discovered latex allergy.
