Nobody Gave Me Answers So I Found My Own

In my late thirties, I started experiencing symptoms I couldn't explain.

Fatigue, joint pain, anxiety, hair loss, insomnia, palpitations, acid reflux and digestive problems. I knew something wasn't right, but I couldn't work out what was happening.

I went to the doctors, had tests and tried to get answers. By the time I was 37, I was taking five different medications, including laxatives and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), which I'd been told I'd need for life.

I wasn't against taking medication. I just wanted to understand why I was having so many problems in the first place.

I remember wondering how I'd reached a point where I needed five different prescriptions before I'd even turned 40. Was this really how things were going to be from now on?

I didn't know what else to do, so for a while I carried on.

Things started to change

It was another two years before I started working with a personal trainer and changing the way I ate.

I hadn't set out to investigate my health. I wanted to feel better, get stronger and do something positive for myself but the difference was enormous. I felt better physically and mentally, and I became increasingly interested in why those changes had helped me.

I started learning more about nutrition, exercise and how the body works. Eventually, in my early forties, I qualified as a personal trainer myself.

Later, I trained as a health coach.

What began as a personal experience had become something I wanted to understand properly, and something I wanted to help other women with.

Then came perimenopause

By my mid-forties, things were changing again.

I tried HRT, but it wasn't the positive experience I'd hoped for. Some things got worse, and once again I found myself trying to understand why I felt the way I did. I want to be clear about something here. HRT can be life-changing for women, and my experience doesn't mean it won't be right for someone else. What it did make me realise was how differently women can experience midlife, even when they're going through similar hormonal changes.

I became more interested in the connections between hormones, sleep, stress, digestion, metabolism, movement and the circumstances of our lives. Hormones can have a profound impact on our health, but they don't exist separately from everything else that's happening in the body.

Sometimes hormonal changes may be the main reason a woman feels unwell. Sometimes another health condition needs attention. Sometimes several things are contributing.

I began to question why so much of the health advice aimed at women seemed to focus on one explanation at a time.

How Allyonics came about

Over the years, I kept studying, reading and trying to understand the science behind the things I'd experienced.

I became particularly interested in how different systems influence one another, and why something that helps one woman might make very little difference to another.

That's where Allyonics™ began.

The idea is simple. Your health is interconnected, and understanding those connections can help you work out where to begin.

There isn't a fixed order that every woman has to follow. For one woman, addressing menopausal symptoms with HRT may make an enormous difference. Another may need help with sleep, digestive problems, an existing health condition or the demands she's living with.

There may be one main driver, or several things contributing.

What matters is understanding what's happening for that woman rather than assuming everyone needs the same solution.

Why I'm sharing this

I still remember how frustrating those early appointments were. I wasn't expecting anyone to have every answer, but I wanted someone to take the time to look at what was happening as a whole.

I also know how much difference it made when I began to understand more about my health and the things I could do to support it.

That's why I created Allyonics™ and why I've spent the last few years writing “Wired But Tired”.

I want women to have access to information that helps them ask better questions, understand their options and make decisions that make sense for their own health.

If you've spent years feeling that nobody has quite joined the dots, I hope you'll find something useful here.

Ally x