We are excited to introduce you to yourself as a High Androgen Woman!
Previously, we identified as women with PCOS. Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is the awkward name given to a complex metabolic condition in which a woman may be found on ultrasound exam to have enlarged ovaries with lots of tiny follicles that are interrupted in their development. Ovaries that are polycystic are one aspect of a pattern of multiple other hormone-related symptoms. The hormone levels typical of PCOS create physical changes that can cause us everything from mild annoyance to heartbreaking loss, chronic disease and severe emotional distress. Most of this disease and distress is completely unnecessary, the product of cultural ignorance that stretches into the medical and research communities we rely on for accurate information. Slowly this is changing, and at High Androgen Women! we are dedicated to moving the process removing prejudice and supporting human diversity along! Disease risk can be minimized and our distress soothed when we thoroughly and accurately understand both the gifts and the challenges of our natural tendencies. High androgen women living with PCOS have certain strengths and advantages, as well as some challenges and vulnerabilities, all of which can be optimized with education and support.
I am here to help you experience your natural hormonal array as a powerful positive in your life. As a woman who has lived on the high androgen-continuum for 60- plus years, I can assure you that the rewards of self love and self care are fulfilling and effective beyond your wildest dreams. I want you to stop struggling to “be a normal woman”. You ARE normal! That is, you are a human being with certain born-with characteristics. Like all humans you can live in ways that maximize your potential, or you can make choices that do not benefit you and add to your life burden. You are “normal” because like all humans you are an utterly unique combination of features. Like all humans, you belong to a bunch of different sub-groups with similar characteristics. Some sub-groups of humans are huge- think of Humans With Brown Eyes, for example. Big group! Humans born deaf is another, smaller subset of humans; they have some outstanding physical characteristics that profoundly affect their lives. They will always be people who cannot hear, but once they have learned how to optimize, they do not continue to suffer negative health effects specifically related to being unable to hear. But regardless of how healthy and functional individual deaf people and high-androgen women are, they still share the life-long burdens of bias against their uncommon-ness. As long as we accept pathologizing our genetic inheritance, as long as we continue to live in shame or despair about our fundamental selves, we will continue to suffer what can be crippling psychological and emotional challenges. I can help you experience the joy of self acceptance, the power of self care and the effectiveness of a self-fulfilling person.
As a naturopathic physician, I have been well prepared to explore broadly and examine deeply the complex cause and effect relationships that result in how each of us expresses the genetic potential of high-androgen body chemistry. There is really an enormous amount of information and assistance available now. This was not at all true as recently as 2005, when my first book, The Natural Diet Solution to PCOS and Infertility, was published. Since then women and their physicians have developed an impressive array of specialty diet and self-help books, on-line consumer support groups and professional associations dedicated to optimizing the lives of high-androgen women. There being so many sources of support to choose from among for your own self-care is a great problem to have!
We have learned there are a few fundamental realities that high-androgen women universally grapple with, and a corresponding basic set of guidelines for living to follow. These allow the majority of high-androgen women to eliminate troublesome symptoms and minimize health risks. That part is really no longer very mysterious. What remains difficult are the facts of being an uncommon woman. High-androgen women and girls have some health risks that are common among males. These health risks are addressed by both males and females in a variety of typically successful ways.
Less easy to “fix” are the perceptions that being uncommon is to be undesirable, defective or dysfunctional. A majority of the significant suffering experienced by women with PCOS stems directly from living somewhere outside of cultural expectations about female appearance, function and value. Especially in the deeply personal arenas of sexuality, fertility and physical appearance, high-androgen women experience themselves as The Other. It has been a desperate and lonely road for thousands and thousands of us.
Like ALL humans, high-androgen women have to consistently behave in certain ways or we will not feel well and we will be subject to ill health. It is difficult for everyone to behave with consistent self care, making optimal self care choices. For high-androgen women battling daily messages from family, physicians and public media that she is not-right, dysfunctional or permanently sub-standard, consistent loving self discipline is very difficult to sustain. WE are now going to change that!
In consultation with me, you will be guided to learn what behaviors will help you create optimal physical health. I will help you sort through the many available choices you have to achieve what is most important to you. You will have access to resources for transformation of learned negative beliefs about yourself, and on-going support to practice, practice, practice your loving self care so that this becomes your consistent natural state.
Transforming your efforts to ‘correct’ yourself, to an exploration of your personal strength, individual beauty and untapped potential, is a power you already hold in your own hands. Let me help by saving you some time and effort, guiding you to safe and effective treatment options and supporting the opening of your heart to your personal power, beauty of spirit and fulfilled potential!