Wellness with Vanda
A women's health podcast where we'll be talking about hormones, mindset, motherhood, & everything in between. The host, Vanda, is a functional medicine nurse coach that helps women overcome hormone imbalance so that they can achieve optimal wellness. In her private practice she specializes in HTMA testing and DUTCH testing. Throughout this podcast she shares tips for boosting energy naturally, improve mood, recover from mom burnout, ways to increase fertility, ways to improve sleep quality, tips for pregnancy, tips for navigating postpartum and the fourth trimester, and more!
Wellness with Vanda
25: A Hormone Reset Sneak Peak & Pregnancy Migraine Talk!
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Hey there, welcome back to the podcast. I am going to give a quick like life update and explain why there was not a podcast episode last week and then I'm going to be giving you guys a behind the scenes sneak peek preview explanation of what all is included inside my hormone reset mini course and I'll get to like why I'm doing that here in a few minutes. So today when I'm sitting down to record this, it's Friday morning. Last Wednesday, it's like a week ago Wednesday, more than a week ago Wednesday, I got sick with a migraine which I don't really struggle with anymore but has been a significant issue for me in the past.
Speaker 1:If you guys have heard me share part of like my birth control story and my hormone story, you've probably heard me talk about those migraines a little bit. They're very debilitating. When I would get them, they like affect my ability to speak. I get numbness and tingling to speak. I get numbness and tingling. I have pain with it, kind of affects my vision, makes it like blurry, makes me a little dizzy sometimes and typically like they last for a few hours or maybe, if it's like close to bedtime, I can go to bed, sleep it off. I get up the next day. I'm like, hey, I've had occasions where I've had to go to like urgent care and get treatment, get a shot and get like some Toradol and Venogin and Benadryl, which typically will take care of it for me when the things that I can just like take at home don't work. Well, when you're pregnant, you cannot take Toradol. So when I went to urgent care this time, because it had been 24 hours and this migraine would not go away and I was not getting any relief from the Tylenol I was taking at home, they could only do so much for me at urgent care because they couldn't give me Toril, so they gave me Finnegan and Benadryl as a shot. That helped for a few hours.
Speaker 1:Really more than anything, I think it just knocked me out, like I was able to sleep, um, and then it was nighttime, so I slept some more and anyway I got up the next day and at first I thought I was going to be okay. This was on Friday morning, um, and for like an hour I was okay. I like was taking it easy. I was off work last Friday, um, because I was supposed to do some fun things with my mom, but that did not happen. I instead, like, got up, was taking it easy, was watching some of the Oaks coverage on TV, I was eating cereal and all of a sudden I got the saw blades in my eyes and this migraine just came back. And it came back worse than ever, as the worst migraine pain that I've ever had. And they had told me on Thursday when I was at urgent care that if it came back and or did not go away with the shot that they had given me there, that I would need to go to the ER to be treated because of my pregnancy and things and being limited in what I could take. So decided my mom and I decided that it was bad enough, that, yeah, I probably did need to go get checked out and try to get some treatment to get some relief and figure out why. You know it had been over 24 hours at that point, going on 36 hours and just kept coming back. It wasn't going away. And anyway, I was in the ER for multiple hours, received excellent care there, got two different rounds of like different medications and IV fluids and things and finally got this migraine to ease off a little bit. They discharged us home, sent me home with a prescription to take if the migraine started to come back, give me some instructions and things, and they thought that I was going to be like all good.
Speaker 1:I slept a lot of Friday and then, of course, slept Friday night. Saturday morning I got up and I thought that I was okay. I felt pretty decent, felt good enough that my kids had to go to sleep over at my mom and dad's house. We went and picked them up, took them to a birthday party. I kind of felt a little wonky while I was at the birthday party, just like not my normal self and stuff. But I was okay and I drank a little bit of caffeine while I was there, because sometimes that will help if you have a migraine. I don't hardly ever drink any caffeine, so I'm very like sensitive to it, so it's kind of a. It works to my benefit in that situation. So I was feeling pretty, you know, decent.
Speaker 1:But then the day went on Saturday and as it got to be closer to nighttime I was feeling bad again. We were getting ready for bed. My grand came back again I had to take some of the medicine they had given me from the ER, went to sleep, woke up in the middle of the night, was hurting and got up on Sunday morning, took, took some more medicine, was feeling okay enough that we tried to go. We went to church and we were probably at church for like 15 minutes and this, you know, these saw blades and this pain and stuff in my head came back. So we ended up making another trip to the ER on Sunday afternoon, more or less just concerned because you know there was like no, nobody could give an explanation or a reason about why this migraine just kept coming back and it had been so many days. And you know, when you're pregnant things are a little more, you know, I don't know you're just a little more cautious about things than you normally are. So we wanted to make sure that me and the baby were both okay and we were. And thankfully, sunday night I took some more medicine and the migraine went away for the last time.
Speaker 1:Now I spent Monday, tuesday, wednesday and part of yesterday still not feeling my normal self at all, like I don't really know how to describe it. I just I could not think. Clearly, I could not hold a conversation very well, I could not like find certain words that I wanted to say, or I felt like I wasn't explaining things very well. I couldn't pay attention, my vision was still affected and was still like blurry, so it's kind of hard for me to see and I was just really dumbfounded because I just could not understand why I still did not feel normal and that's obviously. That's concerning. And I have been to some like doctor's appointments since Monday, have had some workup done. I still have to get some testing done, um, but you know, so far everything has checked out is good, thank goodness, um, me and baby are both okay.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I have to get a few more tests to make sure that everything is okay, but for right now it seems like this was probably like a a fluke thing, possibly related to hormones, because I'm 24 weeks pregnant and that's kind of, you know, at the peak time of your hormones and pregnancy. So, you know, the thought is that that could have been a trigger. I was also dehydrated a little bit at the time, so it's kind of like all of these things can pile up on one another and could have just kind of like made the perfect storm for this migraine and kind of explain maybe why it lasted for so long and affected me so severely. I've had some lab work done since, since this happened earlier this week and that revealed some of my electrolytes were a little bit off, sodium most nameably, and like sodium is definitely tied to some neurological symptoms a lot of the time. So, anyway, work to be done there.
Speaker 1:I shared on my Instagram stories a little bit yesterday about this and like how I have admittedly not been good about taking my prenatals or my supplements. Since I got pregnant. I have had just like sort of an aversion to wanting to take the pills. I just have flat out not wanted to do it. I know that I feel better when I take them, but up until this point, when this happened, I had been feeling pretty good and you know I'm pretty on top of my nutrition, felt like I was meeting my needs and anyway I just it's, it's just not enough without some supplements, um, being pregnant and so, uh, I don't know if you guys like know this or not, but the woman's body when you're pregnant, your body will give the baby what it needs, um, and it will deprive the mom of like electrolytes, minerals, vitamins, whatever it might be nutrition to give the baby what it needs. Like your body's priority at that point is always the baby, so it's kind of not surprising that I am in a depleted state at this point and, again, have not, you know, been doing certain things to help myself in that area. So just by not taking my supplements I've been really on top of my nutrition. I've been really on top of like making sure I get minerals in my diet and doing mineral drinks and things. But you know, sometimes that's why we have supplements they're there to fill the gaps and when you are pregnant, postpartum, breastfeeding, certain times of life you just can't meet enough with your dietary intake and that's just kind of part of this picture. So, if there's any other updates on that, as I continue to like get my workup done I have an appointment with my OB next week. If there's anything that they identify as like a reason for these migraines or something specific or I don't know, I will be sure to share that with you guys.
Speaker 1:I had lots of people reach out yesterday and just wish me well and tell me they were sorry that I've been feeling so bad and going through all of this and I appreciate that so much. That's so sweet and I know that everybody's worried about the baby and glad to hear that everything with the baby looks good and everything is still going as it should be pregnancy wise. So I wanted to just kind of share that first. Last week I was just I was so sick and not feeling well and also, literally, if I had recorded a podcast it would have been a hot mess. I'm still like. I still don't feel like I'm a hundred percent myself, but I definitely, like at the beginning of this week and the end of last week, like there just would have been no way, like the podcast episode just wouldn't have even been like coherent, it wouldn't even have probably made sense, because I just could not concentrate for more than like two seconds and couldn't carry on a conversation, couldn't communicate the things that I knew in my mind, I wanted to, it just it didn't come out of my mouth the way it should. So, um, there's that Now we are.
Speaker 1:Today is Friday, may the 10th, so today I am wrapping up the HTMA giveaway that I have been hosting over the last couple of weeks. If you missed that somehow, stay tuned, I probably will do it again in the future. I've really, really enjoyed this and I think that it's going to be, you know, really impactful for whoever wins this testing package, because they're going to get a free HTMA test and everything that comes in that package, um, one of those things being my hormone reset course. And, um, soon, in the next um like week or so from when you're hearing this I will be opening up HTMA testing spots. Again. I have availability on my calendar, um, and then we have time to get people tested uh, plenty of time to get people tested before the baby is due. So I'm going to be opening up about 10 testing slots. Stay tuned to email for when that announcement is coming that those spots are open. There is a wait list that you can go ahead and get on, because people that are on the wait list will get first dibs at those spots, since they are limited.
Speaker 1:But one of the things that is included with the HTMA testing package is my hormone reset course, and I don't think that people always understand like why this is important or why this is like a super valuable thing that I include as a bonus with that testing package because I throw it in for free. I don't charge any extra for it. Normally the hormone reset course is like $197 just on its own and I added into this package for free because it is pre-recorded educational modules that are mini lessons. They're not super long, they kind of just get straight to the point of what you need to know and they cover the foundations of good hormone and mineral health. So it's those things that like apply to everyone that it's really nice that this is included in the package, because as soon as you purchase your HTMA testing package you get access to this course and you can start listening to these modules right away and start implementing these things right away, and that is helpful because it's things you can already start doing before we get your testing results. Then we can like customize and refine what you're doing when we get those testing results.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to do a quick walkthrough of what the modules are and tell you a little bit about each of them and like why they're important. So, first up, I included a bonus module. This did not used to be part of Hormone Reset, but I found that it was a really important class, a training that I had done. It's called Get to Know Aunt Flo and it is helping women understand their menstrual cycle and like what is normal, what's not normal. It's like the sex ed class that we should have had in high school, but how to predict your um, fertility and signs of ovulation, and what to watch for, how to track that Um. So it's a really valuable um little mini training that I have added as a bonus.
Speaker 1:Then, when you get into the actual modules of hormone reset that have always been there, the first one is called are you consuming enough? And in this training we're talking about diet, we're talking about food, we're talking about calories and how you can ensure that you're actually consuming enough fuel, enough calories, enough of your macronutrients. Because what I have found through my almost three little over three years now of working with clients is that so many people come to me and they are actually under eating and they have no idea that they're not eating enough. And when it comes to our hormones and all of our body processes, like functioning optimally, like we want them to, our body has to have enough fuel in order to do that. If it's not getting enough fuel, then certain processes, without like getting into too much the weeds here, certain processes are not prioritized anymore because our body goes into this state of thinking that like it's either in like a starvation type mode or there's not enough resources available and it needs to protect itself because, ultimately, the body's number one job is to keep us alive. Number one job is to keep us alive. So I talk in this module about how you can kind of audit what you're currently consuming and figure out if it's enough or not and then how to make adjustments to that, because if you do find that you are and have been unintentionally under eating, you don't want to just suddenly dramatically increase the amount that you're eating because that could then lead to some weight gain. There is a kind of a delicate process that you want to slowly increase the amount that you're consuming so that you don't experience that, because most of us are not looking to gain weight.
Speaker 1:The next module is on movement. The next module is on movement and this talks a little bit about movement and exercise that is most supportive to female hormones, that's most supportive to women's bodies, but also gives a little bit of encouragement to really dig in and find movement that feels joyful to you, that you enjoy, and giving permission to move, to not do things that you don't want to do or that like you've been doing, because you felt like you had to or someone told you that you had to or that was like the right thing for you to do, but maybe it's like not actually helping you see any results. Then there is a module on sleep, and this is not a module where I'm going to be like you need to sleep eight hours every night. I do give that advice Like, yes, you, ideally everyone needs to be sleeping seven to eight hours a night, but in this module, I also talk about how, like what to do when that's like not possible.
Speaker 1:A lot of us almost all my clients that I work with are moms and, and many of them have small children. Babies might be like freshly postpartum. My clients that I work with are moms and, and many of them have small children. Babies might be like freshly postpartum. Well, you can't sleep uninterrupted seven to eight hours when you have a newborn at home. So, like, how do you work through that? What? How can you support yourself instead? Um, what strategies can you use to make sure that the sleep that you are getting is of high quality? Make sure that the sleep that you are getting is of high quality. Let's see.
Speaker 1:Next up, we have a bonus. It's not like a training module, it's just a bonus that I put together. It's some journaling prompts, because the next module I'm going to talk about is the stress module, and it's one of the most important modules that I go over, because stress is unavoidable. We can't just for someone to tell you like you need to decrease your stress is really irresponsible, because we know that already and we would all love to decrease our stress. But there, yes, there are some things stressors that we can remove from our life, but there are a lot of things that we have to deal with that are stressful. So we need to know how to cope and manage that stress more so than we need to be told you need to have less stress. So this module is very like practical approaches for managing stress better than you currently are and helping you figure out how you can identify, like, what stressors you can let go of and which ones you know are just going to be part of life and you need to figure out how to better manage them. I put together a little bonus package that goes along with that. Also, there's some affirmations and mantras, because they are very supportive to our mindset and the act of telling ourselves something, saying statements as if they are already true, telling ourselves certain beliefs that we're trying to instill in ourselves, but saying them as if we already believe them. That's just very, very powerful. So I put a little package of those together just to kind of help support and supplement that module.
Speaker 1:The last module is on minerals, as you guys probably guessed, and this is kind of like a, as you guys probably guessed, and this is kind of like a starter guide for minerals. Like that, things mineralize that apply to everyone. So of course, this is something that we further talk about and we further refine once we get those HTMA tests back, because you're going to get your specific results and your specific like supplement and diet and lifestyle recommendations based on those results. But I wanted to go ahead and include this module in here because, like I said, there's about typically like a two, sometimes three week waiting period between when you sign up for the testing package, you receive your testing kit, you collect your sample, you send it to the lab, the lab processes it, they get me the results, I go over your results and I deliver your results to you. That can can, like I said, that can be like a two to three week time frame and that's a lot of time that you could already be implementing some things that are generally supportive to everyone. So that's why I included this module. I included this module there.
Speaker 1:These, like I said, these modules are short. They're not full of like fluffy things that you already knew, that like you didn't need to hear again. I really tried to, like I keep in mind with everything that I create, that my audience, my community, is busy moms, and I'm a busy mom and like I know what I look for when I'm trying to learn something new or I am engaging in a new program and I try to incorporate those like principles and values into what I create. So that's why there is like one topic per module. The modules are short and they are presented in even down to the software that I use to deliver them to you on. I use the Practice Better site mainly because they offer an app that you can download on your phone. You can access them on the go very easily and then I also can access them on the go very easily. And then I also, like with these modules, some of them do have PowerPoint slides that I'm like sharing as I'm talking, but it's nothing that you have to look at because I wanted them to be. I wanted it to be to where you could listen to these while you're folding laundry, doing dishes driving down the road, like. I know that you have limited time and that sitting down in front of a computer to like take a formal class is probably not ideal for you not going to work for you. So I kept all that in mind as I'm creating these things so that it's actually useful and actionable and things that you can implement on. So that is the end.
Speaker 1:The minerals lesson is the last lesson in the hormone reset course. That, again, is something that is included when you purchase the HTMA testing package. I put it on there as a bonus. It is a bonus that I will offer again here in about a week when I open up those testing slots. And just as one final reminder, if you're not already on the wait list for those testing spots, jump on there, because the wait list people will get first dibs at those testing spots when I open them up. And, like I said, I'm opening up 10 of those and that will be happening next week. So I'm gonna leave you guys with that today. Thank you so much for bearing with me, for just giving me grace for there not being a podcast episode last week when they were supposed to be, and being so understanding and just supportive of me and my health and the baby and stuff. I appreciate it so much and I hope you guys have a great week. I will talk to you next week, good Lord willing.
