Believe the Blood Work

Recently, I went to see a new practitoner to get my hormones tested and to get a new method of bio-identical hormone therapy. I’ve had pellets and don’t really love the procedure nor being stuck with a specific dosage for three months, especially if it’s not a good ratio of hormones.

The nurse I loved had left the last wellness practice I’d been going to and my last two dosages (both vaginal suppositories followed by a round of pellets) were administered by the equivalent of Wil. E. Coyote. She threw caution to the wind and I grew facial hair like a teenage boy.

You might be thinking, “Hey, a small price to pay for a great libido” and you’d be wrong.

My hair was falling out and thinning even more and my libido was none the wiser, if you know what I mean. My anxiety and mood swings were back as well as the insomnia and hot flashes. And I paid good money for all of that misery.

If you aren’t in this phase of life yet, you may be wondering wtf is a pellet. It’s basically your bio-identical hormones packed into a grain of rice and inserted into the top section of your buttock. It lasts three months then you retest your hormones, make adjustments based on any lingering symptoms or new ones, and then get another pellet in the other buttock the next time.

It’s all fine and dandy, unless you have the wrong ratios like I mentioned earlier.

Anyway, that’s not the point of my story here. My point is centered around about the blood work I had done prior to getting my hormone therapy.

There were two things I’d been paying attention to since getting blood work done back in 2016.

My first blood work was with a naturopath/gynecologist whom I had switched to after not getting my needs met by the office I’d been seeing since 1998 when I moved to KC. I had started to see some unexplained weight gain, irregular periods, and a little more moodiness which were met with basically zero help. If you’ve been following along here for a while, I’m a “I need to know why” kind of gal.

I had searched for a functional practitioner who also provided gynecology services to no avail. But then I found a naturopath who did both and I thought I’d get a two-for-one because I was also very curious about how “healthy” I truly was. I knew getting blood work done was very helpful in understanding what was happening on the inside and so it seemed like a great match!

(I shared on my latest podcast of how I arrived here in a little more detail so if you want to know more of the story, head here to listen or here to watch.)

Her office also provided a body scan which revealed a stressed liver. At the time, I was still drinking and it was right after the fall and football season, so sadly, it made sense. (I quit drinking in 2018 for a year and a half and since then, every year it gets less and less.)

It also showed some low-grade inflammation so I had work to do. Fast forward a couple of years and those numbers were still around in the same range. We’d tried some different supplements, I went on some cleanses, but the numbers stayed roughly the same. Except one. My fasting glucose numbers steadily kept going up.

It was bizarre because at that time, I was eating more fats, less carbs, and a moderate amount of protein, basically a keto-ish diet. I was doing all the things that we are all told to help lower our blood sugar and help with insulin resistance.

After COVID hit, I stopped going to that naturopath and haven’t been back because I ended up down the menopause path in 2020. I found a functional doctor who also provided hormone therapy to help me with all of my symptoms, one of them being slow and steady weight gain.

So along with going over my blood work, she suggested intermittent fasting, continuing with drinking my Bulletproof coffee in the morning, and eating more fats than carbs.

And my glucose numbers kept going up.

I stopped going to her after a couple of years of feeling like I was getting a canned answer rather than personalized care, not to mention the exodus of some of her best employees.

In the meantime, I had been paying attention to some other schools of thought regarding keto and diets higher in fat and lower in carbs. I had seen some well-known practitioners in the wellness space talk about eating fruit and why carbs aren’t the evil they’ve been made out to be and thought I’d give it a try.

So I started eating fruit only in the morning, mostly bananas, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and kiwi. I sprinkle it with cinnamon and a little bee pollen for my immunity. And I felt great. I wasn’t gaining weight nor did I have a blood sugar crash after eating.

I also found that I relied less on caffeine in the morning because it was giving me the energy I needed for my mornings.

I recently got blood work done again so I could restart my bio-identical hormone therapy with a new practitioner and you’ll never guess what it showed!

My fasting glucose numbers were the best they’d ever been (70!) and my inflammation markers were no longer elevated. Funny thing was the practitioner told me to add some protein or fat to my fruit breakfast to keep my blood sugar from spiking. Even with the lab result looking right at her she still made the suggestion I’d heard for years.

I want to make clear that the whole time my glucose numbers were climbing (I topped out at 96), I was eating a lot of eggs and avocado toast for my first meal of the day and probably after a morning of Bulletproof coffee.

I’m still learning all the caveats of why having the fruit in the morning helps but to me it seems like a bit of if you don’t use it, you lose it. Insulin, that is.

The lesson I’ve learned here is that I need to believe the blood work. What’s it telling me? If I’m doing the things practitioners tell me because it’s supposedly what is the right path, then why do my lab results tell me otherwise?

If you aren’t getting your blood work done regularly (every six months), you’re missing out on a chance to really know what’s going on in your body and how your daily life is making an impact on those results. Play around and then test to see if it’s making things better. Or worse.

Then believe what the lab results are telling you. It’s time to challenge what you’ve been told to do and do the things that actually work for you.

Oh, and maybe give fruit a chance. It just may surprise you like it did me.