Once you are diagnosed with something, you have the blessing of being able to treat it. The doctors we worked with and my own research had us believing long before I was diagnosed that I had PCOS, so while we were waiting on the final confirmed diagnosis, we tried a number of treatments on our own.
Through the research we have done, we learned about a number of chemicals that can act as estrogens and mess with hormonal balance in the body. To combat this, we began swapping out our products for natural products. We did a lot of research before deciding that Young Living had the products and support that we needed. Young Living is an essential oils company, but they also have a number of pure natural personal care and cleaning products. We switched out our body washes, shampoo, cleaning products, and medication with the products from Young Living. This made my husband jump on board with getting healthy overall. He has been reading labels, going to the doctor and the dentist, and trying to quit smoking. I definitely appreciate his enthusiasm.
One of the things we found with Young Living that has been effective in balancing our emotions and rebuilding a connection with each other has been the Raindrop Technique. It is a massage technique that incorporates essential oils to aid with emotional release and cleansing of the body. It has helped tremendously with my husband's stress level since his promotion at work.
Aside from switching out our everyday products, we have been trying to eat more whole foods as well. We switched from your typical Midwest casserole diet to the Paleo diet. With this diet we learned a lot of interesting new things about each other. We learned that neither of us can tolerate squash. (My husband got the stomach flu the day after eating stuffed squash and swears it was caused by the squash- he's also terrified of almonds! I just don't like squash.) We learned that anything with mushrooms in it tastes solely of mushrooms when reheated. We also learned that grocery shopping once a week instead of every two weeks is the best thing when purchasing fresh vegetables. I love cooking, so finding new recipes to try was lots of fun. The not so fun part was the amount of time it took to prepare the meals in a tight schedule. We found that cooking ahead for the week on Saturday or Sunday saved a lot of time during the week. I found a number of support groups and websites to aid us in transitioning to this diet.
After reading the book Making Babies by Sami David, we went to the doctors to run some tests on both of us. We waited quite a while until my tests made any sense, and my husband's tests all came back normal. We decided, based on some surveys in the book, on a supplement regimen for both of us. Mine has been tweaked by the doctor along the way, but his has stayed fairly steady. He takes L-Arginine, a multi-vitamin, Clorophyl, ICP Fiber, and Fish Oil. Since he cannot swallow pills, my coffee grinder has become a vitamin grinder, and he mixes his vitamin powder with an Arbonne Fizzy Stick every morning. I am taking a long list of supplements, and will be adding more. My daily regimen consists of Flax Seed Oil, Super B Complex, Calcium, Prenatal, Zinc, Magnesium, Vitamin D, and ICP Fiber. On my doctor's recommendation I will also be adding an iodine supplement and may need to take iron depending on how my next round of blood tests turns out.
In addition to eating healthy and getting the proper nutrients, I also needed to make sure I was being active enough. I recently signed up for a gym membership to give myself more motivation to work out. The gym is open 24 hours and only 5 minutes from our house so I really have no reason not to go. I love the elliptical machine, but I am frightened by the treadmill. I like doing free-weights for toning and cannot wait for my one-on-one session with the trainer to learn how all the fancy machines work. I would love to do a Zumba or Step Aerobics class sometime. I have always loved those programs.
All of these things are natural ways that we have started to work on getting our bodies to the best possible health. Although I still do not have a regulated cycle, I have seen an improvement in my moods and energy just by doing these things. I hope that continuing them in combination with my new medications will bring about our long awaited rainbow baby.
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