No matter where you are in your journey, I’ve got you.

For fifteen years, I dreaded my oncoming period. I would count down the days until I’d be in chronic pain again. The windows between bleeding started to get shorter and shorter, and I felt like the walls were closing in on me.

How could I mentally prepare for a hard month knowing that I’d be sobbing in my bed, cursing the ceiling for making me a woman for weeks?

I woke up one day and decided that this couldn’t possibly be my life.

I went through six months of extensive testing. Ultrasounds, 25 blood draws (I’m terrified of needles), endless appointments with my primary care doctor and gyno.

My gynecologist told me, over and over again, that it was normal to be in pain. If I didn’t want birth control pills (which I had HORRIBLE reactions to) then I’d have to learn to live with it.

At the end of it all, my incredible primary care doctor (I’m not being sarcastic, I’m eternally grateful for her dedication) sat me down and said,

“I’m sorry. We couldn’t find anything. I truly hope that you can figure this out.”

I sobbed in my car, feeling like she’d sealed my fate.

I was halfway through my degree in integrative medicine, being asked every single day what I thought the focus of my practice would be. I took a deep breath, and decided then and there (without even REALIZING it) that my focus would be periods.

Back then, I had no idea what that would lead to. I didn’t even truly believe I could live without my cramps, they were a part of me. It was hammered into my brain that this was going to be my life.

I haven’t had an intense period cramp in two years. I have heard hundreds of stories of other women’s journeys, and been lucky enough to lead women to the other side. Not just of cramps, but of PMDD, PMOS, mood swings, intense bloating, clotting so severe they end up in the ER.

Women who were told that they just had to learn to live with it.

They didn’t have to learn to live with it, and neither should you.