My health journey

Like many in my profession, I have my own story of a health journey that brought me to where I am today. In my late teens, I started to experience debilitating gut symptoms - extreme bloating and abdominal pain. I looked to my GP for support but was told “it’s IBS, and there’s nothing we can do”, and that was that. I experimented with removing various foods, but nothing helped.

Fast forward to my early twenties, I’d just finished my psychology degree and I was still experiencing IBS symptoms but also had extreme fatigue, Every night I would fall asleep on the sofa, I would wake in the morning feeling anything but refreshed, and getting through the day felt like dragging myself through treacle. I took many trips to the GP and in 2012 I was eventually diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, which causes an underactive thyroid. I thought I had my answer with the prescription for thyroid medication, but I continued to experience symptoms for the next few years.

I had extremely irregular periods during this time, I’d come off the birth control pill and I never knew when to expect my period, sometimes it was 30 days, sometimes 65 days, even up to 107 days at one point. I was eventually given a PCOS diagnosis but no support on managing this or how to get my cycles regular again.

In 2018 I started working with a nutritional therapist (NT), I had an interest in natural health and over the previous few years had experimented with elimination diets, using supplements, and making lifestyle changes. Nothing had truly worked though, because going it alone was difficult. I had no idea what would work for me, I wasted a lot of time (and money!) and found myself still experiencing nearly all my symptoms.

After only a few months of working with an NT, I started having regular cycles and my gut symptoms were all but gone, after 6 months I felt like a new person. I had never in my adult life known what it was like to feel energised and excited about life. All thanks to personalised nutrition and lifestyle recommendations, working on the underlying root causes of my symptoms, and empowering myself with the knowledge that allowed me to reconnect with my body after years of feeling betrayed by it.

My education

As soon as I felt well enough to go back to studying, I knew that I needed to change careers and become a nutritional therapist to help people in the way I had been. I enrolled with the Institute for Optimum Nutrition and studied with them for four years. I’m now registered with the British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine (BANT), and I’m a member of the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC). Both of these accreditations require me to continue my training on a regular basis, ensuring I am up to date with the latest nutritional science generally, as well as in the field of women’s health.