Chandra's Collection Photography

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I WAS OUT OF WHACK!

Hey friends! So, if you’re reading this – you’ve probably hopped on over here from my Instagram Stories where I mentioned that I would be creating this blog post for those of you who are interested in Adrenal Fatigue & how I’m planning on fixing mine! I know, I know…this post is WAY different from my typical love story + wedding day posts – but hey, it’s fun to mix it up every now & then…right?

This post is LONG! So, grab a big glass of tea & let’s begin! Maybe even a notebook if you’d like to take some notes… (If you’re not keen on reading the full post, just skip to the bottom to read my bullet points)

In this post, I dive a little into how I got to this point & etc – I’m sure some of you can relate. I feel like this is pretty personal for me to be sharing – but if it can help at least one of you – it’s definitely worth it. If you don’t care to much about this type of thing…just kindly click off this page & go watch Maggie on my IG stories!

I went to my new Primary Care doctor a few weeks ago & absolutely love her. I went to see her because my hair had been falling out…yes, you heard that right! I’m not just talking about a  few strands here & there…no, more like a handful of hair every time I washed my hair. It was enough for it to be beyond noticeable & scare the crap out of me. Badly. I admit, it got so bad that I shed some tears over it & it got to the point where I dreaded having to brush out my hair because I knew what I was going to see. I know some of you are thinking…get over it, it’s just hair…but it was hard. I also went to my doc because it was REALLY hard for me to lose weight.  I was spinning my wheels + working out every single day, eating healthy & counting calories…and nothing.ever.worked. I felt so discouraged & felt like I was working so hard for what? I thought there may be an underlying reason as to why I may not be losing weight & the hair loss – perhaps I had a thyroid issue or something that I didn’t know about.

So, at my doc appt, she prompted me to have my thyroid checked thoroughly & get my hormones tested along with a full blood test panel. Huh? My hormones? I didn’t think I was old enough to even have hormone problems yet…wrong! You can have hormone imbalances at any age.

So, I opted to get a slew of blood work done that checked my thyroid & all my hormones & a full blood panel test. I waited a couple of weeks & went back in to get the results. I’ll admit, I was a little nervous while I was waiting for her to come & give me my results because I wasn’t sure what she was going to tell me.

She walks in, greets me with a big hug (yeah, she’s a doctor that HUGS YOU!) First things first – my thyroid looks perfect. Yay – go me! However, my hormones were WAYYYYYYYYYY out of wack. Without giving you too many details that I know you don’t care about – a lot of my hormones looked great – but a few really crucial ones were seriously depleted. Like, at the ZERO, ZILCH, NADA mark!

She told me that I have Severe Adrenal Fatigue, High Levels of Estrogen + Hormone Imbalances.

My doctor issued me a few things that I needed to incorporate into my Vitamin Regimen that I could order off of Amazon. She did prescribe me progesterone which will help combat the high estrogen levels that I have in my body. Estrogen is the culprit of terrible things & basically, you don’t want to be estrogen dominate. High levels of estrogen can cause a lot of scary stuff & I actually ended up having to get surgery a couple of weeks ago to remove a tumor that was caused from the high estrogen levels in my body. Yuck – so scary! Estrogen can be created by stress, environmental factors, cortisol levels, soy that is literally in every single mainstream food that is out there. Oh yeah, did I say stress?

Being a business owner & working around the clock + hardly sleeping the first few years of my business caused the onset of it, my adrenals were barely hanging on by a thread…& then, after my hubby went through that one thing that I hate to talk about…my body literally went into overdrive + stress mode & ended up creating a slew of increased estrogen throughout my body & that was the icing on the cake of what led to my severe adrenal fatigue, high estrogen levels, & other things like weight gain & severe resistance to weightloss, hair loss, anxiety & etc – all because of my imbalanced hormones due to the high amounts of stress that I was dealing with daily.

That part of our lives was a really, really, really, really hard & extremely stressful time for us & no matter how hard I tried to trick my mind into making myself think I was okay…I wasn’t, & my body knew it. I started suffering from panic attacks & severe anxiety afterwards. Never in my entire life have I been the type of person who has ever had anxiety or anything of that nature. I didn’t know what the heck was happening – I felt very off & not like my normal self.

After I found out I had a (benign) tumor the size of a softball, I went into Inspector Gadget mode & did hours & hours & hours of research of why it was in my body to begin with…

Here’s a suuuuuper brief synopsis:

High stress causes high cortisol levels which then in turn can cause your hormones to get way out of wack & create high amounts of estrogen in your body…which can also lead to (severe) adrenal fatigue, which can then cause a slew of crazy side effects like: hair loss, fibroid tumors, weight gain + a really hard time losing weight…and a million other things that I’m thankful I haven’t experienced. Basically = STRESS IS SOOOOOOOOOO BAD FOR US & we need to avoid it at all costs.

This also led me to do some digging on food, the food industry & how big of a factor that plays in our daily lives & health. I’ve concluded that the Ketogenic way of eating along with intermittent fasting will be best for me to cure my adrenal fatigue, lower the estrogen levels in my body & slowly heal my body from the inside out from the crazy amounts of stress that it’s been put through over the last few years. PS – I know Keto + intermittent fasting is a “trendy” thing as of lately, it’s for good reason. If you do some research regarding both of them, you can see the amazing benefits it has on your body & I’m all about dat life! lol

I was very curious about what my doctor would say about Keto & etc. She confirmed all of my thoughts & said that every human being should be eating a Ketogenic diet. This consists of a low carb, moderate protein & higher fat diet + cutting out sugar completely. I won’t go into details about it in this post, perhaps save it for another – let me know if you’d like more information about how I transitioned into a Keto way of eating & Intermittent Fasting as I’d love to write up a post about it & share my experience with it so far.

Everyone has SO many different opinions on these sorts of things – however, this is just what I’ve concluded. Disclaimer: I (obviously) am not a doctor & am in no way giving you medical advice or telling you to do any of this, but more so, to share my experience & encourage you to do some of your own research to find out what might work best for you.

So, here’s a shortened version of how I’m fixing my adrenal fatigue & lowering the estrogen levels in my body:

1. My doctor prescribed me progesterone (to help lower my estrogen levels). This is the only prescription that I’m taking – the rest are all vitamins (which I’ve listed on #4)  

 

2. I’m eating a Ketogenic lifestyle along with Intermittent Fasting. 

 

3. Doing Yoga + Meditation

4. Eating Organic

 

5. Taking Vitamins Daily: There are a lot of them so I won’t list them all – but here are some that I believe will help lower my estrogen levels, cortisol levels, help me fix my adrenals (I’ve linked most of them for you):

  1. Icelandic Sea Kelp
  2. Nutrional Yeast  (Vitamin B)
  3. Trace Minerals 
  4. Raw Wheatgrass Juice
  5. Vitamin A 
  6. Adrenal Support  &
  7. Adrenal & Cortisol Support (I kind of switch off between this & #6)
  8. Magnesium Citrate
  9. Ashwaganda
  10. Vitamin C & D-3 as well
  11. Stinging Nettle Root(Before taking any of these vitamins, please consult with your physician & do your own research! Sorry, had to put that in there again just incase lol)

So, my results? 

It’s been about 20 days since my surgery & about 2 weeks since I started my new vitamin regimen. Since then, I’ve noticed a significantly less amount of my hair falling out (Yipeeee!), I’ve been able to start losing weight, I feel better than I have EVER felt in my entire life & I’m excited to see the healthy changes! I go back to my doctor in 2 months to test my hormone levels to see if they are balancing out.

Thanks for reading if you’ve gotten this far! Feel free to leave a comment below or DM me if you have any questions or if you have suggestions about what you’d like for me to talk about next on my blog regarding this sort of stuff! xoxo, Chandy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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