Hi! I’m Denise
Clinical Herbalist, Cycle Wellness Coach, Cycle Health Educator
How I got here
Let’s start off with my own journey of struggling with a hormonal imbalance.
Growing up my cycles weren’t that much of an issue. I barely had any breakouts and my periods weren’t really painful. Then in my early 20s while finishing up my bachelor's in Psychology, I decided I wanted to get on hormonal birth control to prevent any more pregnancy scares. At the time I didn’t know much about birth control, so I opted for the ones with the highest efficacy. Those being the Depo Shot and then the Implant a year later.
Shortly after I started getting the Dep shot I noticed that my clothes weren’t fitting me anymore. No matter how hard I worked out I couldn’t build any tone or lose the water weight. After a few months, I started experiencing cystic acne.
At first, I didn’t know if the acne was caused by what I was eating, the makeup I was using, if I wasn’t drinking enough water, or if my pillowcases needed to be washed on a daily basis. It took me 3 years to learn from an online forum on hormonal acne, that it was caused by my birth control. No one told me of the side effects birth control had and what was mentioned was downplayed in a list of possible side effects.
Even after I got off birth control I was still suffering from weight gain, acne, irregular periods, and I was a sugar addicted monster. The only solution I was given by doctors was to go on a birth control pill. When I asked If it would help re-balance my hormones they said "It would help with the acne".
That answer didn’t sit well with me, so I went to a dermatologist who then prescribed me a blood pressure medication (Spironolactone) to help with my severe cystic acne at that point. (One of the side effects is that it helps with acne).
It did help my acne, but it did much more damage to the cause of the problem. Whenever I asked when I could start getting off the Spironolactone, my dermatologist would tell me that the acne would return and I would be back at square one again. No one talked about why my body was reacting this way. Instead, they focused on putting a band-aid on the issue.
I followed every research breadcrumb I came across:
I tried different diets like Keto, Vegetarian, and Vegan.
I learned all I could about ingredients in makeup and skincare products. I tried literally hundreds of different skincare combinations.
Worked out 5x a week and was super strict with my body.
I came across plant medicine when I visited my homeland of Colombia. Where plant medicine is a lot more common. In fact, it was my dentist who prescribed me Calendula flowers when I got my wisdom teeth removed. That’s wild! That’s when I knew I had found the path I needed to heal myself.
My herbal, cycle healing and learning journey:
I tried learning about herbalism for cycle health on my own but there was so much information that I didn’t know where to start. That’s when I decided to take a few courses on herbalism overall.
I did my first few courses at the Herbal Academy. Doing their Intro and intermediate courses on herbalism. There I got a really good understanding of why balancing our hormones can be so difficult. It’s because they are affected and interact with so many different aspects of our overall health.
I was able to get a good idea about what herbs might help me but I didn’t know much about what foods I should be focusing on. So I enrolled in the Basics of the Fertility Awareness Method and a holistic view of the menstrual cycle taught by Clara Bailey. This helped me not only see how each phase of our cycle impacts us but also how tracking our cycle in detail can give us so much insight into our overall health like our hormone levels, if we are ovulating, and even how hormone disruptors can alter our hormones.
At this point, I had finally been able to heal my hormones and cycle. I no longer had hormonal breakouts after struggling with them for 6 years! Along the way, I began to realize just how amazing herbs are but also our own bodies in their ability to heal themselves given the right support. This started out as just a journey to heal my cycle but it turned out to also be a journey to finding my passion. (eh sappy I know) Once I realized that I wanted to help others I went to the School of Evolutionary Herbalism to get my clinical in herbalism.
Now, I use everything I’ve learned to help others heal their cycle naturally using:
Lifestyle habits: I’ve learned just how much of an impact things like getting good quality sleep and stress reduction are on our hormonal health. As well as how important it is to reduce hormone disruptors in our environment, tracking our cycles, and other lifestyle habits that seem small but really start to add up.
Nutrition: Our food is how we nourish our bodies and get the fuel that we need to function. All of the building blocks of our hormones come from the food that we eat. It is the fundamentals of how we support our body.
Herbs: Herbs help support the body in many different ways. From helping you wind down to get good quality sleep to helping support the liver so that it can process all the used-up or excess hormones. Herbs are here to help us reconnect with our bodies.
This is why I truly believe our body has a blueprint of how it should function
We just need to learn its language!
If healing your cycle naturally is something that interests you, I have a few suggestions.
There is the Healing Your Cycle Naturally starter kit that has an introduction to hormone disruptors, description of what’s going on during each phase of your cycle, nutrition guides, among other goodies. You can get that for free when you sign up for the newsletter below.
If you’d like to learn more about what it would be like to work together you can find out more here.
Happy to have you here!