Case Study Articles 4

It’s everyone’s favourite blog post – case studies of women who have recovered their periods and how, in the most basic terms, they did it!

KB

Let’s start with KB. KB lives in Florida, is in her mid-twenties and at the time was an elementary school teacher. Her goal was to recover to get pregnant in late 2022/2023. She was nervous to start recovery because she wasn’t excited about giving up her exercise regime and body composition goals. However, she knew this was important and so she trusted that as a team we could figure this out.

KB absolutely needed to make some changes to how much she was eating and exercising and those fundamentals were actually the easiest to tackle and she implemented the changes fairly consistently. The changes included reducing exercise to only a handful of very light sessions and we focused on building really nourishing meals that were a good balance of carbs, proteins, and fats. One of the biggest changes was a huge reduction in caffeine intake. We also introduced some basic supplementation.

Her basal body temperature increased rather quickly, but we did have a stall. Recovery was taking a little longer than we would have anticipated for someone of her dedication, age, starting weight, and starting basal body temperatures. However…we knew from the start that her school teacher job was actually rather difficult. She took it very seriously, which meant long hours and a lot of movement working with kids in the classroom all day. 

I know from experience with other teacher clients and also just knowing a number of teachers in my personal life that school teaching is no joke. Sure, they get great school holidays, but that’s about it. When school is in session it’s going go- go and children's education is at stake. We had a feeling that the work stress was, well, not necessarily causing a problem, but meant that she actually needed even more support from food and rest.

We didn’t make any real significant changes to her nutrition, because what KB really needed was accountability, as it was her job that made it really hard for her to stay consistent with the changes made and the changes needed to get her period back. So we increased our regular check-ins to hold her accountable and with the new frequent check-ins we were able to see quite clearly areas of her life where old habits were sneaking in. When she would get back on board, the results were obvious in her charts! BBT and mucus increased!

A few months in she actually changed jobs to a cozy desk job! This was always on the horizon for her knowing how stressful she found the job. After that change, she found she was physically taking fewer steps all day and more importantly, feeling like she had space and mental freedom. 

There were still some challenges with consistently eating because she was still dealing with stories about how much she should be eating and so subconsciously she was holding back a little with her food. We were always checking in with her and bringing it up to her awareness and so she was able to consciously work through these stories over time. She did eventually cycle, it took about 4 months.

We stopped working together after her third period because it was looking great but stayed in touch if she had a question here and there. Everyone should have someone they can go to for period talk if you ask me! Sometimes we would message about delayed ovulation or suddenly really a short luteal phase.

Then in November 2022, she emailed me about trying to conceive. She had tried for a couple of months, but no dice even though her chart looked pretty good. She wondered if I had any thoughts on her chart and why she wouldn’t be getting pregnant. In the end, I told her that everything looked great and there is likely just something small happening and it’s either a matter of looking deeper at those lifestyle shifts or it could be a case of the third time’s a charm – staying consistent. I also recommended that knowing her and enjoying a bit of drinking, she considers not drinking for a couple of months to see if the stress on the body is perhaps impacting her.

In December she emailed me that she was pregnant! She hadn’t made the changes to alcohol, but she had considered that maybe, just like she has done in the past, she backed off of eating full meals and was perhaps not having the optimal cycle for her. Remember that yes, there is a textbook example of what a cycle should look like, but if your cycle parameters are at the end range of normal then perhaps YOUR body needs a little more fuel to get the job done.

AS

AS is a 33-year-old female living in northern America. She had had HA for 10 years and was diagnosed with unidentified infertility. She had one child which was conceived via fertility medications. And it was the hoops she had to jump through the second time she went through fertility treatments to get pregnant that made her look into the natural route and found the HA Society!

Her goal was to get her period back to get pregnant naturally.

AS had a history of undereating and overexercising. We implemented very specific changes to her nutrition including predominantly work on her portion sizes and physical activity. We did a lot of work on the emotional side, accepting the process and learning about charting and things to help her stay motivated and prepare for the time when she will be timing intercourse for pregnancy.

She was determined and had been through a lot with doctors, including misdiagnosis of PCOS, premature menopause, and undiagnosed infertility. She knew in the end that HA was her issue, so she fully stepped into the process.

In only 4 short weeks (of us working together…she really had been making a lot of changes on her own before we started) she ovulated and we were off to the races. I was very surprised at how quickly her body responded when she made those changes after 10 years, but that just goes to show that everyone's timeline is different.

After 2 strong cycles, she conceited naturally! After all of that she was perfectly capable of conceiving naturally she just needed to give her body what she needed.

Want more details? Both of these case studies have podcast episode interviews – so go find the episodes with Kathleen Bjork and Amanda Skogen