My first step with my doctor was to get my labs taken and to start tracking my blood sugars.

If you missed my first blog post, go check it out here. I’ll tell ya how I got started on my hormone healing journey.

The Labs

There were 2 different parts of my lab work that I got done. 

1. My initial getting 6 vials of blood drawn for a super long list of tests. I got this done just at a Lab Corp at Walgreens.
2. A saliva hormone test. This one was interesting. I had to spit into a small tube 4 times throughout the day. 30 minutes after I woke up, 30 minutes before lunch, 30 minutes before dinner, and 30 minutes before I went to bed. This was to track my cortisol levels throughout the day and to test all my hormones.

My Results

Now, I’m going to share with you a lot of my results. I believe it’s important to be vulnerable. But first, I just want to share what I was thinking *before* I got my results.

I would look to other women with PCOS (friends I knew and just others who shared their journey online). 

They would express their symptoms and what was going on in their body. Immediately, I would relate myself to her and tell myself I have the same issues.

For example, my mom has a series of auto-immune diseases. I have always let myself believe that I also have these same issues because I’m her daughter and my joints would ache like hers. (Spoiler alert, I don’t even have any markers for auto immune disease!). 

My point is, you won’t know what is actually going on in your body until you get tested yourself. So do it! Go get tested. It’s the first step to healing your body. 

Okay. Back to my results. 

1. My glucose came back high, and my A1C was also high. 6.1. I am officially pre-diabetic.
2. My Vitamin D is low. (Who isn’t low here in Washington haha)
3. Iron and ferritin are high
4. C-Reactive Protein was high. This means that I am at a high risk for a cardiovascular event.
5. AMH (anti-mullerian hormone) is also low. This basically just means that it is unlikely for me to get pregnant. 
6. High ALT. This signifies a bad liver, or liver disease. 

As for my hormones:

My estrogen and testosterone look normal. However my progesterone is really low. 

As for my cortisol levels, I wake up on the low end of the “normal” range, but by lunch my cortisol levels plummet and stay low the rest of the day. My doctor talked about how this will cause me to be tired all day from lunch on. 

My Thoughts & Feelings

I’m not going to lie to you. All of this was extremely overwhelming for me to take in. I mean, I expected as much to have high insulin levels and to be pre-diabetic. I wasn’t quite expecting my liver to be bad or to have really high iron. 

The good news is that I am already taking the steps necessary to heal everything. So even though I was overwhelmed with all of these results, I also felt SO empowered. 

Empowered to change. Empowered to do better. Empowered to take my health into my own hands so I can be the best mom to Selesa and hopefully future children. 

And quite honestly, everything was starting to click. I really thought that it was so hard for me to focus on my photography business. It was hard to stay focused and get work done. All I wanted to do was to lie down and binge watch my favorite shows. I couldn’t seem to be productive to save my life. 

But now looking back and realizing that I simply had no energy all day long and probably had lots of brain fog to go with it, it all makes sense.

Blood Sugar Monitor

My doctor had me start tracking my blood sugars right after our first appointment. I picked up a Libre Freestyle 2 continuous blood sugar monitor. The first 2 weeks was simply just to see how my body reacts to food. 

I ate my normal diet and by golly was I surprised at how I consistently had high sugars. It also seemed that they just kept rising throughout the day. By the time I went to bed, my numbers were always the highest. 

What I loved most about this tool is just how I could see for myself how my body reacts to food and exercise. 

I struggle with diets. I hate them. I actually think that the diet industry is more harmful than good. 

BUT, I do know how important it is to eat a well balanced, high nutrient dense diet. 

Now that I’ve had my lab results, my goal is to keep my blood sugar balanced. I will have to share another blog post about that because I just have so many thoughts around it. 

Wrapping it up

If you’ve made it this far, thank you! Sharing this is SO personal to me. But I want other women to feel empowered to make change. 

If I can do it, so can you.

Until next time,

Keli