women’s health

For as long as I can remember, my menstrual cycle has been a source of pain, fatigue, and emotionality. While I consider this monthly process of the body to be a sacred one, the disruption that it causes due to the pain and fatigue that I experience during this time is at the point of needing to plan events and trips around my cycle, and sometimes needing to cancel events when it arrives. Needless to say, for the majority of my life, I have overall not ‘enjoyed’ my menstrual cycle, and it is something that I have come to dread and feel powerless to the effects of.

Premenstrual symptoms are something lots of cis-women go through roughly every month for much of their lives. Some common symptoms include cramps, bloating, increased acne, depression, irritability and tender breasts. Research is still being conducted on why women experience PMS, and some doctors even believe PMS could be hereditary.

There is a little bit of everything inside of Mother Earth’s Medicine Cabinet. Anemia is a condition that occurs when your blood doesn’t have enough healthy red blood cells, also known as hemoglobin. The hemoglobin in our red blood cells is extremely important for maintaining good health. If you have abnormal blood cells or not enough of them your body will not get enough oxygen.

What Is Anemia?

For clever farmers, alfalfa is a nitrogen-fixer, but for those of us who aren’t quite on that scale yet, alfalfa sprouts add a fabulously light, crunchy, young-green flavor to any meal. And they taste even better when you grow them yourself…in your kitchen…with materials you (probably, hopefully) already have on hand!

I see many of my patients are living a healthy lifestyle and eating a plant-based diet.  It is especially important for me to make sure that these patients have enough of the essential mineral: iron.  I can determine if a patient is low in iron by looking at the size of their red blood cells, levels of iron circulating in the blood as well as the body’s storage of a form of iron called ferritin.