Sara’s Suffering

Sara, age 38, came to my family practice to get established as she and her family were new to the area. What was remarkable was that she hardly ever had menstrual periods. Even more remarkable was that only one doctor had ever investigated as to why.

Sara’s story is all too common. During her teen years, she developed acne and hair loss. She also started gaining weight especially around her waist. Her menstrual cycles were fairly regular initially but with time became less frequent or with spotting and bleeding at random times. To add to this frustrating set of symptoms, Sara experience large emotional swings, water retention, and breast tenderness in the week before her menstruation. All her medical providers ever offered were birth control pills which are composed of artificial hormones that reduce ovarian function and create artificial cycles.

The pills stabilized her menstruation and reduced her acne but she felt depressed all the time rather than just prior to her period. What bothered Sara more was that she still didn’t know why her cycles were off and why she felt so bad. It wasn’t until she was in her early 30’s that a physician started to investigate and made the correct diagnosis of PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome. The treatment offered though was still basically the same—birth control pills.

Sara’s suffering ran deep. Having cystic acne, weight gain, and hair loss to the point of baldness is hard enough especially as a teenager. But to be largely ignored and dismissed was more upsetting. Her sense was that there was something wrong but she seemed to run into dead ends and eventually gave up trying. Sara was ecstatic when she learned that there is a way to accurately diagnose and treat menstrual/fertility disorders through NaproTechnology.

By learning to chart biological markers of fertility in a medically meaningful way through a fertility awareness based method called the Creighton model (see her chart below), Sara soon saw how she was really not ovulating or even producing signs associated with estrogen. With the implementation of proper treatment that is ordered to restoring normal health though NaproTechnology, Sara experienced estrogen cervical mucus production on for the first time August 8-10 which brought on a range of emotions from elation to anger. She was elated because for the first time in memory she felt “normal”. At the same time she was angry with every medical provider who never took her symptoms seriously. She had spent 20 plus years confused, hurting, suffering. As she stated “Things could have been so different.”

Again Sara’s situation is all too common. Women sense that they are to have regular menstrual periods in order to be healthy and when the cycles are disordered, something is wrong. And they are correct. Sara suspected rightly there was a larger problem than just irregular cycles. Her general health was being affected. PCOS was causing her elevated blood pressure and blood sugar levels. It is highly associated with diabetes, uterine cancer, and breast cancer and what women are not usually told is that the birth control pill carries those same risks. It doesn’t make sense to treat a disease with something that potentiates the risks already there.

Additionally it doesn’t make sense to treat based just on symptoms. I see this time and again in my practice where women give a history of cycle dysfunction and were promptly put on the pill. This makes as much sense as prescribing ibuprofen for a 50 year old overweight male with chest pain without any diagnostic workup. It is substandard medical care.

Sara is not alone. The other day a 33 year old woman exhibited the same emotions of elation and anger as she showed me her previous ultrasounds and lab work. “It was right there and they didn’t say anything! All this time I have been hurting and feeling so bad….” (Note that the “they” she referred to was an infertility clinic.) Happily she has finally taken my suggestion to get charting and allow me to use Napro protocols to diagnose and treat. She is excited that she is finally being taken seriously.

This silent suffering occurs in men as well. Men are often times treated inappropriately for fatigue and insomnia with testosterone shots without much medical testing beyond lab tests. Low testosterone levels are a symptom not a cause of underlying disease and testosterone will in fact reduce male fertility just as chemical contraceptives do to women.Concerns about testosterone use include hardening of the arteries and prostate cancer.

All people benefit from fertility awareness based methods and the scientific advances made through Naprotechnology: young teenaged girls and women with cycle disorders, normal fertility couples with serious reasons to avoid pregnancy, couples struggling to achieve a healthy normal pregnancy, men with general health issues affecting fertility. Medical personnel can prevent a lot of suffering by remembering the principle that infertility is a sign of underlying disease, not a diagnosis by itself.

By applying that principle, Sara’s health improved tremendously. As you can see in her second six months of charting (see chart below), she is now having regular menstrual cycles and feels better. Her blood pressure and sugars have normalized, weight loss comes more easily, and her mood swings have reduced. This all took time but she is happy that she has some answers and a treatment plan. As she said “Things could have been so different.” But happily things are different now.