Currently I’m pregnant and you could definitely say hormonal (but your not allowed to say that to a  pregnant woman). The hormonal part doesn’t change much for some women regardless on whether they’re pregnant or not, it’s just part of being a women.

Not long after having my daughter back in 2018, I started experiencing random changes to my health. At the time I didn’t realise it, but it ended up masking issues that linked back to hormonal health. Something I’ve picked up on over the years, is that when a random health issue occurs and keeps persisting, it’s usually masking an underlying issue.

One of the random health issues that I started to experience was sinus issues, it came on towards the end of 2018.  I had relocated back to New Zealand from Australia and had moved to a new city, which I had been living in for just under a year. I’ve never experienced sinus issues before and as it turns out Palmerston North is very windy. Its the sort of wind that is constant and can bring on a lot of allergies or sinus issues for residents that live here.

Towards the end of 2018 two things changed for me and at the time they seemed unrelated. The first change was that we had moved into a new home and it was our OWN home! Yay we were finally home owners!!! EXCITING!!! The other change was a hormonal one, I was welcomed back to my monthly cycle (deep sigh), not so exciting.

Not long after those two changes, I started to suffer from sinus issues. It was slightly inconvenient, but you just deal with it as many people do. I figured that our recent move probably had something to do with it, an environmental change of some sort. I ended up getting a sinus infection within a month of having sinus issues. It also bought on a couple of migraines, apparently that can happen with all the facial pressure and I get migraines anyway.

Throughout 2019 I had managed the first 8 months of the year with no sinus issues and just standard women’s issues i.e.. PMS, a couple of migraines but all and all I was ok. The Doctor had given me some antihistamine to take when I needed it. I also made contact with a lovely Naturopath who I used to see in Australia. She made some recommendations on things to take that would help with general sinus and PMS stuff, which seemed to do the trick.

When September arrived, things went a bit pear shaped. That month I was unfortunate enough to experience a miscarriage. To go through that experience was awful, but naturally it wasn’t meant to be and that was something that I was able to process and move forward with.

When you are pregnant your body’s immune system is weakened. Unfortunately for me, my body decided to stay that way after the miscarriage.  What happened next was that my body became very fatigued, I felt like it was heading back to my days of ME/CFS. I picked up three sinus infections and had infection after infection, after infection and why not chuck in migraines too! That’s a lot of stress on your body!

The sinus infections came on without even showing any signs first. I had been trying out a number of different antihistamines which didn’t seem to prevent the infections and ended up needing to take several rounds of antibiotics, which ran down my body even more. It got to a point where my health had taken a turn for the worst and I pulled myself out of the paper I had been doing at uni so I could focus on getting my health back on track.

I felt like I kept getting dead ends whenever I visited the Doctor regarding the sinus issues. It wasn’t until I had ended up at the emergency Doctors on a Sunday (which cost me and arm and a leg) with my third sinus infection, which had been overlooked for a cold and was causing a world of pain. That day I took a firmer approach and thought there’s more to it this than just sinus issues! I went back to my Doctor and got myself referred for an allergy test, MRI and then tried two other alternative approaches, a hair test and dutch test.

I will go into a bit of detail of these experiences in a few posts, it took a number of months before I started to see a bit of normality with my health again.  For me the ultimate goal was to have my health back and be in a place where I wouldn’t be putting more strain on my body.  Fatigue had become an issue and there was a slight fear of heading down the ME/CFS road again. As it was, I was struggling to do the normal stuff.

Thanks for reading, I feel that women’s health isn’t talked about as much as it should, hence the reasoning for this post and the next parts to come. Post birth or miscarriage can bring on a lot of hormonal issues as well as affect your mental and emotional health. Not everyone likes to talk about them, I know I certainly found it hard to, but its important to highlight that it happens and that you are not alone.

Bye for now,

Lennae xxx