By age 36, I was living in hor-mone hell. I bled in between menstrual cycles, had constant vaginal irritation, polycystic ovaries, night sweats, insomnia, painful joints, debilitating fatigue and brain fog. My digestion was terrible. Perhaps most distressing of all, my facial and body hair started taking on male characteristics. Although I'd transitioned from allopathic to complementary medicine several years earlier, as my symptoms multiplied and worsened I returned to conventional medicine in a panic. The chief of endocrinology at a major medical center suggested birth control pills. An allergist/immunologist intoned, "Once this mechanism hormone imbalance is triggered there's nothing you can do." An infertility specialist placed me on the drug Spironolac-tone and I broke out in hives. One doctor wanted to give me weekly cortisone shots for the intense pain in my arms.
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