GYM GIRLS LOCKER ROOM - The TRUTH About Women's Hormone Health, Healing Your Gut, Endometriosis & Sex Phobias with Sophie Richards

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

S2EP3 - Welcoming SOPHIE RICHARDS (@sophie.richards) to the Gym Girls Locker Room! We LOVED chatting to Sophie for this episode, she is a female health legend and is so incredibly passionate and captivating. Whether you struggle with endometriosis, PCOS, irregular periods, stress or are literally just a girl trying to learn more about her body, this episode is not one to miss. We hope you enjoy and remember to tune in every Tuesday for a new episode. P.S. Apologies for the audio quality on this episode, we had some difficulties but this conversation simply too good to not share it so I hope that you are still happy to listen and learn. 💘 join the GGLR community: INSTA - https://www.instagram.com/gymgirlslockerroom/ FACEBOOK COMMUNITY PAGE - https://bit.ly/3TqhxDG TIKTOK - https://www.tiktok.com/@gymgirlslockerroom/ 📲 find Syd on socials: INSTA - https://www.instagram.com/sydgrows/ TIKTOK - https://www.tiktok.com/@sydgrows/ Want to work with Gym Girls Locker Room? Email us: [e-mail] GYMSHARK - 10% off code: SYDNEY10 ESN - 10% off code: SYDNEY

Hi guys and welcome back to the Gym Girls Locker Room Podcast hosted by me, Sydney Cassidy. Merry Christmas everyone! It's the Christmas episode. What is it? Christmas Eve. I don't know why that took me a while to think of. Guys, I hope you are feeling festive and having a gorgeous, gorgeous time with your friends, your family, people you love. Today's a really exciting episode for you. Today we have Sophie Richards on who is a content creator obsessed with female hormone health. In this episode we discussed endometriosis, PCOS, smear tests and a whole heap of women's health topics. We talk about advocating for yourself and your own health, the difference between having female and male doctors in women's health matters.

You know when you go to an appointment you're just like oh I don't know I feel uncomfortable. So Vue really helps like nail what you can do to make you you feel like you're kind of owning the space and comfortable. I talk about some of my own experiences and things that I found. We discuss hormonal health and anti-inflammation diets contraception how to feel more comfortable when it comes to smear appointments and honestly that's just the start so I really really hope you guys enjoy this episode I'm giving you a warning now the quality is a little bit um interesting I didn't realize this was one of our first episodes that we kind of recorded online and unfortunately that's just kind of what comes with the territory but regardless it's a freaking

good episode I was just completely engaged I first saw Sophie at a talk that she was doing she was invited on and as a guest and I was completely captivated by her she's such an excellent storyteller and she's had such a you know tough journey with her own sort of women's health issues and chronic conditions she has endometriosis and had a really tough time kind of getting to like that point of diagnosis so um yeah when I finished watching her do the talk I literally ran up to her I was like I need you on my podcast is there any chance you would be interested in joining and she of course said yes and we had a really beautiful conversation and I took so much from it and I know you girls will too I think it's so lovely to be able to have like a open and sort of honest slightly vulnerable well

actually very vulnerable conversation about something that affects so much of us that definitely isn't discussed more so that's kind of yeah my angle and what and sort of logic behind wanting to like have this discussion I think that's everything from me if you enjoy the episode please do consider giving us a follow to make sure that you don't miss any episodes enjoy the christmas break get some rest i hope you have a wonderful christmas and new year and on with the episode welcome to the show thanks for joining us um a question we a question we love to ask people at the top of the show is what is your workout split and it can be anything so my current workout split is two upper body two lower body and then two forms of cardio somewhere in between the neck

but I say current because I'm very new to the gym world I used to just go for a long walk every single morning and I wouldn't really push myself I might sprinkle in a yoga class a little bit but I'm trying to be a gym girl so it's really important to build muscle and so that is my workout set lovely lovely but yeah I feel like we should dive into the endospectrum and what you're about and yeah then we can unpack it all from there but I feel like yeah let's start there yeah absolutely so long story short I was super late getting my period everyone else was getting their period and bringing their pads and tampons and I was genuinely so jealous because I'd see them like scurry off to the bathroom together and I was just like when is my time gonna come

and then I turned 17 so super late and there's nothing wrong with that like everyone's cycle come at different points so the fact that I was 17 has nothing to do with the fact that I have endometriosis I was just a late zoomer got my period and thought fantastic it's come and then second period comes a month later and I'm like oh that was a that was a big one and then by the third period that I had that is kind of where my life just spiraled. So I went from having no issues, full of energy, loved school, loved life, wore my Johnny jeans that everyone else was wearing, super high-waisted, mini little bra look, had no boobs at the time.

And then my period came and then all of a sudden I was in agony. I had no energy. Like there's being tired and then there's being like deep fatigue and the only way I think people can understand it is you know when you have the flu and you're like my eyes and my actual body are heavy and I can't get out of bed it was like that in the run-ups my period and the first few days of my period like every month was getting worse and worse and then the bleeding was getting worse so they were getting heavier getting longer it now wasn't like four or five days of a month it was creeping up to 10 days a month which is really common with a condition called endometriosis and I was going back and

forth to the doctors and they just kept saying like oh bless you bless you you're just so much later getting your periods like you'll get used to it all of your friends have and I kind of get it because everyone or typically everyone on their period will go oh god I'm on my period oh this is a nuisance oh god I've got a bit of a cramp so I just thought I'm being dramatic because the doctor's telling me and also I am quite a dramatic human anyway so as time went on I kind of took that diagnosis of it's just a painful period and as things got worse probably two years down the line when I was now missing a week of school my skin erupted I was just crying all the time being told that I was

probably just suffering with a bit of anxiety and depression and how that had nothing to do with my periods even though that's what was making me feel awful and it's something I still feel very angry about because instead of them listening to my emotions and why they were there, i.e. responding to my physical pain, they were like, she's sad, she's got depression. So I went back and forth to the doctors. They found a couple of cysts on my ovaries, which are super common. So then they always had a reason to be like, that's why you're in pain. It's probably IBS and that. and it wasn't until five years later that I finally had a diagnostic laparoscopy they call it which is basically when they do keyhole surgery on your tummy they go in they have a look and they

found endometriosis but in the run-up to that I had five years of people being like it's just painful periods it's just IVF you're just depressed my favorite was psychosomatic symptoms which is a very common thing to be told to young women which is basically the symptoms aren't real but you feel like they're real and to that I was like well what about the volume of blood that's happening so it was a very long journey university I found really difficult because I had a boyfriend at the time but they just kept telling me that it had to be familiar even though I had 17 STI tests that were all negative like uni by the way so it was kind of like I was just never heard and then finally had the diagnosis and they were kind of like yeah you've got this

chronic condition see you later there's nothing else we can do so that was kind of how I got to my endo too. And what for people that don't know is endometriosis because I feel like that's not even you know like that's something I'm like I don't even know if that was covered in school. Yeah, no, never. So I'd never heard of endometriosis. And now knowing what the symptoms are, I'm like, I just would have been straight away like I've got endo. Endometriosis or commonly referred to as endo is when you have cells that are really, really similar to the wound lining. So like almost identical.

So if you imagine your wound was this wonderful little egg and it's made of all these fabulous cells and they shed every month. And then you have this perfect funnel, which then your blood comes out of. But when you have these cells, these endometriosis cells, they are found outside of the wound and they can be found anywhere on the body or almost anywhere on the body. Some people even have it in their chest, their bowel, their diaphragm, around their ovaries, anywhere. And these cells respond to those monthly hormones that you have.

And so they do what they're told. They shed and they bleed, but there's no way, there's no funnel for this blood to go. And so that's when you have scarring, the endometriosis grows and it can become very very painful and one of the worst things that can happen with it is that you have adhesion which is kind of like when your organs get sticky because of all this stuff that's going on and then they stick together and if they stop together for too long they can actually fuse together and surgery is the only way that you can separate those so I am now on surgery number four for endometriosis which is wild considering I was told that this was all in my head when I was younger

and have gone through two rounds of fertility treatment because this isn't the case for everyone but for a lot of people with endometriosis you can have fertility problems and that can be because you have endometriosis. It's an inflammatory condition and inflammation is not the perfect space for a baby to grow. But on top of that, for people like me who've had surgery, which normally involves,

if it's around the ovaries, removing parts of the ovaries, which decreases your fertility. So it's not just having these cells, these endometriosis cells are the problem it's the wider impact of having that which is the full body inflammation so that is why one of the things that I talk about on my page are probably the biggest thing is the anti-inflammatory lifestyle diet exercise stress and all of that good stuff because endometriosis is chronic you can't get rid of it

even when you have the surgery it grows back but what you really can do is hone in on your lifestyle to see how you can minimize the the impact of the condition on your life yeah and it's crazy it's like isn't it like one in ten women have it at least at least one in ten and I always say diagnosed people yeah exactly alone the rest the rest and I think it's a it's a good time to talk about the symptoms because I do I do sympathize with doctors on why it's not diagnosed because the main symptoms are um and when I say this you do not have to have all of these symptoms by the way you can have a couple of them and you can still have endometriosis so a common common one is very painful periods, fatigue, brain fog. A classic one is this hugging, twisting, sharp pain in your stomach.

For me, I have this wonderful rectum pain every month. I was like, why do I feel like something is trying to pull out of my ass? Like it was just this horrible corkscrew pain um and it wasn't until my third surgery that they found endometriosis in between my rectum and my vagina which is called recto endometriosis rectovaginal endometriosis so it can literally be anywhere and that tugging pain is really common and then something else is the endo belly which is this very large very swollen aggressive hard tummy which can typically come before your period. But also people with endometriosis struggle during ovulation.

So you have four cycles, four phases of your cycle. And bang in the middle is ovulation, which everyone always hails as this incredible time because you've got your oestrogen flowing. They call it your Beyonce hormone. Yeah, she's already. You're actually scientifically prettier during ovulation because you're just like trying to get pregnant or at least that's what our body's trying to do for people with endometriosis sometimes they don't

respond very well to oestrogen and so you have two points in your month in in your cycle where you feel pain and it's ovulation and it's pre-period so it's a very difficult condition and a lot of people as well struggle because there are different stages of endometriosis one two three and four someone with stage one so a tiny tiny amount of endometriosis could be bed bound for their entire life someone with stage four endometriosis might not even know they have it until they try and have kids and struggle and then they're like oh shit it's everywhere so there is zero correlation between stage of endometriosis and pain which is something that is really important to know as well and what is the stage is the stage the like the amount of presence of endometriosis of endometriosis exactly so it's not off of your pain level at all it's

just they go in and they have a look some doctors don't even call it stages because it's kind of a blurred area of like well what part of your body do you go oh well yeah it's hit three points so we'll call it stage three but typically once it reaches your chest they kind of say well that's stage four but every doctor is different there and I think that is something I'm still struggling with is even endometriosis specialists will say different things um so it's just under researched as is the majority of women's health conditions because the the cycle is unpredictable woman to woman so my cycle is different to yours and so we would be very difficult to study but also my cycle and your cycle is different every month so it is very hard to study but i don't think the answer is to not study us at all because

then you have a condition like endometriosis, which is very common. And in this country, the only actual way to diagnose it is surgery. So 10% of the population with a womb has to have actual surgery to see if you have it, which is insane. And just interested in what you said, you said like in this country, are there other methods of diagnosing it or is surgery the only option to fully diagnose? There are some countries that will do MRI only. The problem with that is, or they'll do a scan and they'll say you have endometriosis. The issue with that is some people have scans and they can tell whether you have endometriosis. So I have had a MRI, a multiple, but one of them shows endometriosis. But that is because during that time I was having a flare.

And so what they called it in the scan was like these cells were glowing up like a Christmas tree so they could see them. They can also see under a scan, which is why I think scans are still great, adhesions. So if the organs are stuck together. So they can't say you have endometriosis. But that is such a telltale sign that you have endometriosis but they can kind of go your organs are sticking together you probably have endometriosis the issue with any other form of diagnosis that we currently have is that not everyone's endometriosis will show up in a scan so we still have people today and probably in the next couple years going in and just having a simple pelvic ultrasound and then going no I can't see endometriosis

which is what I had for five years so there is no real way but there are more like holistic like practices that will say oh you have bloating you have this your painful period it's probably endometriosis um But yeah, there's no country that's cracked it. Oh my God, it's fine. You know the thing that I'm like immediately struck by is that you said that like it's not just something that occurs in that kind of region of your body where your uterus is.

And I so thought that was the case. My kind of earliest interaction with understanding what it was, was I remember there was a girl that I was like living in halls with and she was struggling and she had very, very painful sex, very, very painful periods. And I think she had endometriosis in that region. So that's why I thought, I just I had no idea it was like in your body yeah it's like strange in itself like I'd imagine if you is it literally like you could have it in your shoulder or is it like yeah so that's confusing in itself I don't know you know I can understand someone suffering with shoulder pain would not necessarily jump to oh yeah that could be endometriosis like yeah

and it's probably hard to find yourself yeah yeah so those two symptoms that you've mentioned so painful sex very very common something I've struggled with and had sex phobia and I know a lot of people struggle with sex phobia it's why I would love to work like a sex toy company I just think but for me and my partner Dylan's probably gonna be like I can't believe he said that on a podcast but actually it's very open anyway but when we started our relationship I was super honest with him that I was quite like scared of sex because sometimes you have sex and it's great and then other times you'd be like I've been shot I've been shot like that's how it would feel so we started like experimenting and using toys as like a non-invasive way of like trying to have fun and trying to have pleasure which a lot of people just shut off immediately which is totally normal

because if you think of feedback loops if every time you have sex it's painful or you've had an extreme situation why you'd never get horny like it would never happen you wouldn't want to have sex um so for anyone listening who has painful sex even if you haven't been diagnosed with endometriosis that is a common thing. But just because it's common doesn't mean it's normal. So it should definitely be investigated. And then the other thing is shoulder pain. So you can actually have shoulder pain, hip pain, joint pain with endometriosis and not necessarily have cells in those areas.

It's just like I mentioned earlier, the domino effect that having a chronic condition like endometriosis and lots of other conditions, especially autoimmune conditions can have on the body because of the cascade of inflammation because the hormonal imbalances that come with endometriosis can cause inflammation joint pain and all of that other stuff so it very much is a full body condition regardless of if you have endometriosis in your direct pelvis area and it's why one of the best endometriosis specialists said if you are trying to have children it does not matter if you have endometriosis only around your diaphragm it can still impact your chances of pregnancy which I think is really fascinating

and some people on their period will cough up blood so when I was in university I used to get these chest cramping pains and my mucus was bloody so I wouldn't say I had like huge amounts of blood but I was like oh god it's bloody and then the MRIs I had suggest I have two cysts in my chest but I will never say I have chest endometriosis because they've never looked in and done a biopsy because to have surgery on your lungs can be more problematic than trying to fix the problem anyway. And I'm fortunate that it doesn't bother me too much. But there are some people who literally will have a bleeding nose on their period because these cells are bleeding and that type of thing.

So yeah, it's literally been found in almost every organ in the body. That is so wild. That is so, so wild. I know. Okay, so going back to diagnosis like do you feel like you were like gaslit by the doctors yeah I do and I will always say I love doctors they saved my life multiple times and they are incredible however there were so many doctors that I would love to meet now and be like fuck you because I was going back to them every single month in agony and they were barely making eye contact with me and I understand that if you aren't interested in women's health that you're probably not going to give me the time of

day but do the decent thing and refer me to someone who can because they just kept giving me different pills and now understanding what I do about endometriosis a lot of them were feeding my condition and feeding the symptoms so that was awful and the other part of it was just the really crap old-fashioned thing of you're just a young hysterical woman and if they just would have taken the time to see me as a human they would have seen that so much more was going on and they would be oh the first GP that really listened to me was one that I'd met in London and this was four years after um I'd been struggling with a pain I'd already had one surgery by this point I wasn't diagnosed with endometriosis

and I actually only went to see her for Oramoc which is morphine tablets and I was 21 and I was so desensitized by my experience with doctors I literally just went in and was just like hey I have all these issues I just need to be prescribed Oramor because they won't understand that you get that over the counter and she was like oh can you tell me like a bit about this so I started speaking to her and she just like looked away from her computer looked at me and she was like I can't believe this has happened to you and it was just this like weird like wake-up call for me of like oh my god like she's actually just listened to what I've said and just hasn't printed off my description and she was the doctor that said look

I don't think I'm the best person for this but do you mind going to speak to this endometriosis specialist and I was like well who the hell was operating on me last time and this is where and this is not my sob story this is a common story with multiple people with endometriosis to this day the surgeon that I had that did my first surgery who removed my endometriosis removed in air quotes one did the wrong surgery he did ablation which is where they laser off the endometriosis which is the equivalent of cutting a weed it's actually going to grow back really quickly really painfully so there's no point in that surgery um the second thing was that he told me that having a baby would cure endometriosis because of the

reset in hormones which is true when people have kids their hormones can reset but it is not true that a baby cures endometriosis and I was told that when I was 21 by the way so like I was like I cannot have a baby this is nuts and so the final option was having hysterectomy which was again apparently going to cure endometriosis which it does not it cures a very similar condition called adenomyosis so you know those cells that are found outside of the womb adenomyosis is often called the sister condition to endo which is where it's the same kind of cells but they're only in the womb and so removing the womb would therefore get rid of your symptoms but even that is a very extreme thing to say to a 21

year old because I was going to go through menopause I would have because they were going to take my ovaries as well so there was no balancing out of like what's the best case scenario for this person so for anyone listening who has been diagnosed endometriosis or thinks they have endometriosis go and see a specialist because you might be at risk of seeing these doctors who are general gynecologists who still perform that surgery to this day by the way it's like the most common one and it doesn't help so I'm interested to know you said she so yeah I don't know I feel like there's this common thing even when it comes to anything sort of women's health, I personally always prefer to have a female.

I remember I had a little bit of a scare last year with like needing to get like multiple biopsies after like smear tests. It came it came back like, OK, eventually. I remember having it having the man perform this procedure. And let me tell you, I could not relax my legs up in these stirrups and I was like this is crazy was your experience with those um doctors who you weren't feeling were seeing you were they male and female and was that just just unfortunately was everyone yeah so I actually had a really mixed one and so I don't actually have a strong opinion that women are better or that men are better because the experience that I've had with men are generally I find them rougher when they do examinations because one

of the saddest questions I get in my dms is from really young girls who have no sexual experience and they have to be examined so their first experience of anyone touching them is a medical procedure and it's such a precious experience to go through yeah when you don't want it to happen it it it feels so wrong you don't want it to happen but you're like I'm consenting to this but I don't want it to happen it's a very out-ofing to this but I don't want it to happen it's a very out-of-body experience and it really messed me up when I was younger the first surgeries I had was an emergency one and I've always felt that because they don't have the same anatomy they maybe don't understand how sensitive that area is and it's just a very medical procedure

for them whereas I find women are much more sensitive touch wise and will you know this is an option by the way speculums you can ask for a small speculum I don't know if they're more expensive and that's why they don't typically use them but they have them in the GP surgery so ask for a smaller one women are absolutely fine with that the downside so sorry so that those are the negatives with the men that I've experienced the positives I've experienced is that because they don't have the same anatomy they are forced to learn a lot about women and women's health and so when you speak to them about these symptoms they go into their kind of medical brain and go I remember learning this in the textbook it could be this

this this and so I feel like my experience was that they were more willing to dig in whereas with women like I said great more touch-wise sensitive and just more kind of empathetic when you're in the chair typically but some were actually really mean and were like well I have a period and that's painful too sometimes like us women just kind of kind of have to get on with it so there's the downside of that too and even though the endometriosis specialist that heard me was a female the person that did my egg freezing uh journey was the most sensitive doctor I've ever had in my entire life very sensitive to the touch very hearing very kind and he was a man so I can't say that I've had a gender specific experience I would say it just it's a person thing are you an empathetic person do you care about the person in front of

you and it comes down to more of a personality rather than the gender in my experience yeah absolutely okay so I'm very aware that people might be listening and thinking holy shit even if I do suspect I've got something like this or I'm a female and I'm aware that like in my lifetime I'm gonna need maybe contraception I don't know inserted or maybe I need a smear test I am very conscious that like I don't want to scaremonger because whilst it can be unpleasant and I've had my fair share of unpleasant examinations um I do think that it is very unpleasant, and I've had my fair share of unpleasant examinations, I do think that it is very, very important. And I also think that there are like steps you can do to make it like the best experience for you. My personal things I would say is like, if you don't feel comfortable with someone, if you don't get a good vibe with them, you absolutely have like the

control and power to say like, I actually would like to have someone different. Yeah. And I and I would just love to know like do you have any advice for some people that are listening that are like oh my god girls like no simply no um yeah a hundred percent so one understand yourself in terms of what you need for support and to feel comfortable so weirdly for me because I always went to appointments on my own when I was in school I find it more uncomfortable going with people because I then feel like I have to put a face on for them whereas if I'm on my own and I need to have a cry or if I'm upset about something I feel better and I can just get in the zone a little bit more so I know that for me to feel safe and comfortable going to appointments I just go on my own. If you need someone there with you that is also absolutely fine because it

can be a nerve-wracking experience. I also know people who've booked smears together to go and get it done together which is great and I also love the idea of booking in something that you enjoy after the appointment because then it's more of a positive feedback loop rather than I've just gone and had this experience the other thing I want to say is that I have had honestly I can confidently say over 100 examinations which is wild wow of those 100 I'm going to say three of them I didn't enjoy all of the others were absolutely fine and a few of them I found absolutely fascinating so there was a smear test I went to and I'm obviously interested in this kind of stuff and she was like okay you let me know anytime this is uncomfortable we're just going in

we're doing this and say what you need so she said do you want to see the screen because with a smear test if someone's listening hasn't seen it there is actually a screen so she said do you want to see the screen because with a smear test if someone's listening hasn't seen it there is actually a screen present if you don't want to see it and they haven't asked you about it tell them to turn the tv away you don't need to see it exactly like you said you can advocate for yourself if you are not getting good vibes from this person it is your body your choice and you say thank you very much not today i would like to see someone else you always have as a woman a chaperone in the room so they can hold your hand which is really really common I think that's the other thing people are seeing they're going to have this negative experience and actually it can be really educational and

actually a positive experience and share that with someone else so I'd say know yourself and know what makes you feel comfortable take a friend if you really if you really feel that you need that because it can help it can also inspire your friends to get something like a paediatric done which is great and also know that ultimately as much as people are negative and I don't like this about social media because there is more negative than positive about doctors nine times out of ten they are there to make your experience as positive as possible because the reason they find out to be a doctor is because they want people so when you're sat in that chair they are going to do everything that they can to help you now you have also responsibility in this it is not all of the doctors you need to use your mouth you need to

tell them what you need what you don't like what's what's uncomfortable and what's not so that they can help you too and I think that's something I wish I'd have done more of because a lot of the time I left my appointments disappointed and that's because I wish I'd have done more of, because a lot of the time I left my appointments disappointed. And that's because I was quite like a mouse and not advocating for myself. And it's the outcome as well of an uncomfortable experience, not painful, uncomfortable, for sometimes 30 seconds, sometimes a minute, for potentially a life changing experience, especially when it comes to smear tests like they are things that we should all be getting frequently and I feel like smears have come on so much in the last five years like they are so much better at least in my experience than they were back in the day and they are absolutely nothing to to fear um so yeah I know that was a really long answer but one it's not something to be scared of they're yes not fun like no one's gonna enjoy it but it's

not painful um and like you said if you don't vibe with the person ask for someone else you can absolutely do that yeah no definitely I I'm very much the same like I I think my the way that I feel comfortable in those sorts of situations is by making sure that I feel like I'm in control of the situation so for me that's like asking questions and stipulating when I'm like booking the appointment like this is going to be a woman isn't it because I know that's what works for me yeah and I also have to say like I don't know if this this is the case for like the wider like gyne kind of um sphere but certainly with like smear tests I feel like they're like the loveliest most amazing like nurses and

practitioners like they seem to just be so they understand that this is a job where they understand where it's something that's so like intimate that like I'd imagine a large proportion of people that come through are very uncomfortable so I feel like with that they've'd imagine a large proportion of people that come through are very uncomfortable so I feel like with that they've learned to be like really attentive and I actually did a um TikTok where I recorded my whole like smear process and it was like it literally like actually the raw footage was like I think three minutes or something you know and it can be longer it can be more complicated but equally it can be longer it can be more complicated but equally it can be really pleasant and easy and simple and yeah I just I really don't

want to scare everyone it's good to talk about this but then equally like you know it's not awful and I think when it comes to your health it's just one of those things you've got to do right and there's things you can do to make it more pleasant yeah and like long term you'll love yourself for it and on the like just really quickly on a touch on hate go no no talking about yes yes yes um i was told i had hpd and i felt like my life was coming to an end i thought that was a good sentence i thought that i had cancer or that i was guaranteed to have cancer, put myself in a hole. I refused to speak to anyone about it, which I'm so furious at. And anyway, I've gone back year after year after year, and it is still there.

And I was like, it's progressing. It's getting worse. That's surely how it works. And it's absolutely not. And the last person I saw about the smear, I think she enjoys talking about smears. I enjoy talking about women's health. So we were just 20 minutes before even getting into the smear I think she enjoys talking about smears I enjoyed talking about women's health so we were just 20 minutes before even getting into the smear we were having a lovely

chat and she made me a suit with Mary and I was like talking about HPV like I don't really get it I don't get what the issue is like is it really bad and she said that 80 to 90 percent of female and male population will have HPV. The majority of the time, you don't even know you have it. And your body just clears it naturally for most people. But the reason they like to do these is because to some, it can be a different strain of HPV. There were loads of strains.

There were only a couple of bad ones. And they just like to monitor it. And your body just will naturally clear it. So me thinking, oh, my God, I've got it two, three years later. This is awful. And then I get a smear and she's like, just come back next year. And I was like, oh. So I have been crying and humiliated and felt like I had a death sentence

over something that 80% to 90% of the population. There's also that shame of, oh, it's because you've had loads of unprotected sex was it funny because actually sex is something that i struggle with so i've absolutely not been having loads of sex especially um and she said that hpv you would have to wear a full body condom to avoid it and even then it would be hard so basically you can wear all the protection in the world you can be the best of the girls and all of that kind of stuff and you can wear all the protection in the world you can be the best of the girls and all of that kind of stuff and you can still get HPV because 89% of people have it so when people say I'm going to disgusting or this that and the other I'm sorry you're lying because the chances of you getting it very very high very high and it's nothing to worry about

it isn't it's just something to check up on which is why these smears are so important and I'm so glad like you said we do have amazing nurses and doctors doing them because they no no one's comfortable going to a smear no one goes oh wait the annual checkup how fantastic but it's just really important that we do it and so when you have that stat in your head you're like do you know what if I see a positive result I should actually expect that because that's how common it is it's just that people wonder and talk about it because no one talks about their vaginas or cervix or anything that goes on and two there is this misconception that you get it from sleeping around I'm sorry

one of the things I found go for it use protection fine but protection doesn't always stop HPV so it doesn't matter and there is that horrible thing of like you did bully yourself to be like oh my god this is this is my punishment and it's just absolutely not and your body your fit your health it's cleared itself I am three years down the line still with HPV and I've actually most of the time had long-term boyfriends so that's also a thing where it's like well technically shouldn't have happened to me but I still have it and it's one of the reasons why not only do I focus on my lifestyle and inflammatory for endometriosis and hormonal health but it's also because in the presence of inflammation your immune system is down and that's one of the reasons you become more susceptible to

things like HPV is when you are feeling unwell your body's kind of open to these things so it's why I'm like I want to get as fit and healthy as possible so I can clear my HPV something that's super interesting is after pregnancy your hormones reset and um I don't know if you've heard of the period app Stardust but there's this amazing woman who works there Lola and she did a video about how she could not clear her hpv she had all of these hormonal health issues got pregnant the first smear she had negative and has never had a hormonal issue ever since which is is hilarious but for her pregnancy is what reset her immune system which is funny so yeah long story short anyone who has hpv same it's not a big deal you just need to keep an eye on it and your your body will clear it

naturally like yours okay so I really want to go into like you've been diagnosed with endometriosis or you suspect you've got it how you're dealing with it but first I just really want to know just because I don't actually know myself so is endometriosis also involved with hormones so it has a relationship much like any condition does on hormones because of the impact like i said the wide impact that endometriosis can have imagine your base is inflamed because you have endometriosis it's not supposed to be there and inflammation has a domino effect on literally everything and when we talk about hormones and i'm training for your menstrual health coach now so i don't have all the answers but i am gambling them and I'm loving it it talks about the hormonal hierarchy and right at the top

you have cortisol and insulin and if those two hormones are off and I bet you're very familiar with this because you've said you have PCOS when they are off it then is like this domino effect on all of your other hormones and inflammation is just absolute chaos for cortisol and insulin and so as a byproduct having endometriosis can then mean that you have hormonal imbalances because of the impact it has on your cycle and also the fact that endometriosis plays out at different points of your cycle and again the knock on effect that can have on your hormones and so it's not like or you're guaranteed to have hormonal issues because you've got endometriosis but the likelihood is is that you you typically would yeah I guess as well sometimes as like a byproduct as well like even just you know external factors like the stress that you're experiencing

from not having the answers or dealing with the symptoms like that cortisol rate like raising cortisol is going to be causing problems for you then you're going to have the skin issues and the and yeah I can imagine it doesn't help for sure um okay so yeah like what has what is the sort of where are you at personally yourself with like what's working for you obviously it's chronic so when we say chronic we mean can't be cured yeah is that what yeah can't be cured right now I I feel like it's just not been investigated enough I feel like there's got to be something like I refuse to believe that we have a condition which is affecting more and more people every single day and that we're not going to get to the bottom of it and I my my personal take on

endometriosis and where I'm at is that I've had great surgery so I had endometriosis specialist surgery which helped a lot however had I have known what I do now about diet lifestyle and all of that stuff I wouldn't have needed to have half of the surgery because the reason they do the surgery is because if your symptoms are presenting so severely which mine used to then you need surgery and my symptoms were still really really bad up until last year which is where I was told that it was essential that I had surgery and now that surgery is not on the table like it's not happening because I'm managing my symptoms purely through diet and lifestyle so I used to be on contraception I uh the best one I had is the Mirena coil.

And if anyone tells me that they will be going on contraception, I go, okay, if you are going to do it, the Mirena coil would be my favorite because one, it's localized hormones. So you're not getting it all throughout your blood like you would with the pill, for example. But also you have a really high chance of keeping your ovulation.

So ovulation is that wonderful spike of hormones when we're supposed to feel amazing. But that's also so, so essential for your overall health. So, for example, your ovulation is basically what helps your bone density. Because when we go through menopause, we don't ovulate. We don't have that estrogen. And so there are so many young people suffering with bone fractures and I'm like because we're on the pill we're not ovulating whereas with the marina coils you're supposed to still ovulate and I say supposed to because for 70 to 80 percent of the women

I think that is a fact all people who have the marina coil and just having a foreign object in that area can sometimes switch off your your ovulation in the same way that stress can for example so the marina coil was really helpful for me I loved it I hate to be skin mongering about the marina coil yes people have negative experiences with it like everything but mine was really positive and closely it saved my life for a couple of years and I then had it removed for my egg freezing had it put back in and I had this demonic experience where it was lodged in the wrong place migraines freezing all of that kind of stuff and so I actually decided to go off it and despite

what the doctor said they said my symptoms would get worse my endometriosis would get worse and I was like I'm gonna try giving this natural thing a go and deep dives into anti-inflammatory diets anti-inflammatory lifestyles and touch wood everything I track my cycle for contraception with temperature that is what I do and I've been managing my symptoms best I've ever done in my entire life with no surgery with no hormones and just all through diet and lifestyle which is a blessing and a curse because it's a blessing I get to do it naturally and I choose what I put in and what I don't in my body. But also it is that constant decision every day of having to prioritize your health, which is really hard when you love biscuits and love pizza and love all of that great stuff.

So that has been a challenge. But that has been the key for me because I realized that for myself and a lot of people with endometriosis and other conditions, PCOS I would put under this category as well. A lot of the time it's the inflammation and it's balancing blood sugar is the answer and so my entire life was built around reducing inflammation and balancing blood sugar which is what a lot of people should be doing anyway so I'm weirdly now grateful for my condition because I would have been living off of creams I did not think this diet so I just would have been a diabetic anyway but it's also given me so much joy like I

would never have met you had it not have been for this condition I would never have this job which I love and so falling in love with it a little bit and getting my like investigator hat on has been incredible and yeah I no longer think surgery is the answer for everything because surgery in itself has complications scarring all of that stuff so yeah diet and lifestyle huge part of it yeah absolutely okay can't wait to I can't wait as a PCOS girlie I can't wait to dive into that stuff but um in terms of like medication and things that would be offered for people that are diagnosed and suffering with endometriosis, is that kind of really the extent of what is offered? So first off, they'll probably just say go on the pill because some doctors believe that that stops endometriosis growing.

They don't actually know, by the way, how we have endometriosis. They don't actually understand how it works. And so we can't actually say that that is the case so some people say it does some people say it doesn't and then also it's asking yourself okay well if painful periods are the root cause of the problem and stop all the health fine but what is the wider implication of going on the pill like it is the negative side effects of the pill with it for some it is and I'm like it's your body your choice and if painful periods are debilitating your life and

you found something that helps that then maybe that is the answer for you for me I had symptoms that were outside of my painful periods like the sex like the tugging for example and chemical menopause is something else that a lot of young women are doing at the moment and so you're basically forced into to menopause but again you then are at risk of what our mums and grandmothers are going through which is bone density issue mood anxiety all that stuff that comes with that so that is not an option that people should take lightly and is a very common thing yeah can you explain what that specifically is i've not even heard of that like chemical yeah so the basic the way i was

explained it to you is that this very very basic way of explaining a complicated process is like switching off the function of your ovaries so like can't get pregnant you don't have the hormonal fluctuations that you would have throughout the month and a lot of doctors believe that the the pain element comes from the fluctuations of the cycle and so not having these fluctuations should help um but like I said again like it might help with pain but for me understanding what I do now about hormones and what I'm still learning I don't think it's a choice I would ever personally take at the moment anyway just because like I said the wider implications and and what happens when we then want to have children if that's something that you'd like to do is you've got to come off this and then face all of that

pain I just feel like it's not getting to the root cause of the problem it's like well let's just put a band-aid on it um so you see a lot of people go through chemical menopause and then come off it because they can't deal with the side effects, like 21-year-olds suffering with horrific flushes and all of that. So it's swapping one evil for another for me. So, yeah, that's really, really common. But, yeah, there's no one-size-fits-all, and there's no solution that actually is a positive one if that makes sense like it

might help one thing but trigger another um so yeah for me tracking my symptoms has been really important understanding that at certain points in my cycle I need to help myself more in terms of de-stressing a bit more or changing the way I exercise changing the way I eat supplementing in different ways so really understanding my body and finding a personalized diet for myself which has been something I've gone through this past six months and has been incredible but unfortunately I think that we should be supported through that with doctors rather than like all right let's jump on the operating table let's open you up again I just find it really barbaric really barbaric like 10 minutes with a doctor is not going to help you understand your

hormones and the implications that the pill has either it's just yeah I completely agree I mean I feel like you really that's these sorts of things especially women's health where it's just not researched as much like PCOS is kind of the same as well like it's just kind of a little bit of hearsay a little bit of oh maybe it's this but it also might be this and we're not really sure so um we can give you this that will help the symptoms but that's not going to actually heal it or cure it um so yeah that can be tough and I think being your own like you said before like your own advocate and like really educating yourself and reading into it. Like, you know, if that's, even if that's just

some articles here and there, make sure you're checking like the sources and that they're reliable sources. We also in the age of the internet have like access to like Google scholar and we can read papers and bits and pieces like that you can read books and there's podcasts but with regards to um medication and all that sorts of things and like hormone I feel like I think the thing that I've learned over the years is that it is just so nuanced and it's so such an individual thing and something that works for me would work horrifically for say even my sister who's like related to me you know and um yeah and there's so many factors should we just dive into we were going to get on to diet yeah so how did that all like come about for you like was it kind of like

out of a desperation for wanting to find something new or did you see something was it word of mouth um yeah yeah so after my third surgery it was in the middle of my placement year and so I ended up cancelling my placement year halfway through took six months out before starting my final year of uni and was like I am gonna deep dive diet because I was like I can't draw my endometriosis but I can try and help my symptoms and I did know that certain or I didn't know what foods they were but I knew that some foods made me feel ill because I'd have a meal and then all of a sudden I would come on my period or I'd have this huge floated belly and so I was like I can just get to the bottom of my inflammation I can kind of deal with the other stuff and so this is actually when I started the endospectrum which is um now my Instagram and TikTok but at the time it was just Instagram

and it was called the endospectrum because I was like I want to speak about endometriosis but I want to speak about a spectrum of stuff that comes with it how it impacts your life the symptoms all of that kind of stuff and it all started with me experimenting with diets which ironically five years on that's still what I'm doing and it I put into google I was like uh anti-inflammatory diet and the first thing that came up was prolonged fasting so I dove straight in I never even got into intermittent fasting I went straight in I was like right 24 hours let straight in. I was like, right, 24 hours. Let's go. And I was like, this is a miracle. Like I am not bloated. I feel great. The issue was there was a cycle of I would then eat and I would be in pain again. So there was this horrible feedback loop of like, well, when I eat, I'm in pain, but when I don't eat I'm starving but I'm not in pain and trying to find this kind of way of working and then was like okay fasting diet with food

and there was this thing called the fasting mimicking diet which was essentially a ketogenic diet and that felt amazing I could eat on it. I had no inflammation, but there were downsides. Couldn't stick to it for a very long time. It made my PMS so much worse. So just before my period, I was so up and down. I was very aggressive. And so it was helping some of my problems, but making other problems worse and so there was this back and forward back and forward back and forward situation where in my head I'd convinced myself the only way forward was a low carb diet and since then advancing and more research coming on about fasting and how actually it can be really detrimental to hormone health especially because one we need carbohydrates at two specific points in our cycle especially in the lead up to my period into our periods rather um which is funny because that's when I was in most pain so I would go well I'm definitely not having a carb before then which was long term making my unbalanced hormones even more unbalanced um and then the other part of it was cutting out nutrients because I was like okay well meat makes me feel really good.

And sometimes I bloat with veg. So instead of looking and realizing that some people don't process raw vegetables very well and cooked would have been fine. I was like, guess I'm just eating meat and we're looking into the carnivore. Like there were all of these rabbit holes I jumped down. And it was really hard because, and I said, funnily enough, I actually made two posts on Instagram the last couple of days of like hit and miss anti-inflammatory diets fasting keto and carnivore temporarily helped my inflammation but long term made everything so much worse and for me I'm very lucky that disordered eating hasn't been an issue in terms of body image but it definitely made my relationship with food worse because I was just convinced a potato was going to make me keel over which isn't a good place to be and then for anyone listening as well

he was determined to go down the fasting route I would really recommend listening to Dr Mindy Pals who made a book called Fast Like a Girl and she just explains the intricacies of our cycles and how if you are hell-bent on doing it there is a specific way of doing it that's not going to hurt your hormones but doing the hormonal course that I'm doing now started learning about how important certain carbohydrates are how eating protein first thing in the morning so like the specific thing like you wave cup and you're shoveling food in can be the best thing for your cortisol and balancing blood sugar all of the things that I wanted to do and so over the years of like learning and blogging and going through these experiments of myself of like keeping bits that I liked so

everyone hates red meat for information for me I find it very very beneficial so kind of making my own personalized nutritional approach I went on a endometriosis retreat back in March and I said before going so I'm into manifesting all that stuff I was just going to talk I've been on it a few times and it's done by a company called hold underscore well-being they're amazing and I went and I said I'm going to learn something that is going to change my life and like when I see this thing I'm going to know it's for me. And there was another hormonal health coach there who's way more advanced than I am and really knows his stuff. And she said, for some people who tried it all, there is something called the AIP diet, the autoimmune protocol. And it's basically where it's a full gut reset, but it also gives you

time to understand whether you are intolerant to foods, not other people telling you that gluten and dairy are going to be issues for you but you yourself give yourself that decision and it's a very long process to go through it's this huge elimination phase and you reintroduce food slowly one by one and I went through it April May June and tapering off of it now in October which is insane and I found out that chili flakes cause me to have an endometriosis flare and I used to have chili flakes all the time all the time all the time all the time because they're in smashed avocado they are in basically everything and I realized that a very small teaspoon of chili flakes can tip me over and it's been one of the best things I've ever done.

And the reason I love the AIP is because it's a personalized approach. So when you go through this elimination, you reintroduce foods. And then depending on your response to that food, it depends on whether or not you keep it in your diet. So yeah, that's where I am now, where I've gone through this entire thing. And ultimately, it's all about balancing blood sugar and understanding your body and listening to your symptoms which I think everyone knows but not many people actually practice unless

you're forced to like you and I for example I'm sure with PCOS you've gone into your diet probably and seen what what you like and what you don't like yeah well I mean for my for myself I always used to be I used to advocate or not advocate but I used to be like yeah freaking love uh fasting I won't eat anything until like the afternoon and I did that I think really all through sort of I think my a-levels which is kind of anyone that's listening uh outside of the UK like that latter part of like you know your teenage years in education and I did it throughout uni and that's when I started having really bad like really bad cystic hormonal acne which um my audience knows well because I've shown them the journey um and yeah um the thing that got me the most was like the protein in the morning wild and I can't even tell you how much

better it makes me feel having a really good breakfast and I'm not talking a huge breakfast I'm not talking like really like rich or whatever I'm just talking about like understanding macros understanding what like what is protein like what foods you know are high in protein and like really trying to focus on that I mean luckily as a gym girl I'm always kind of like my radar is always about like high protein but to actually understand that like yeah this is really going to be good for my hormones has been so insightful, so insightful. And I think, yeah, with PCOS, one of the biggest things is obviously this relationship that they are aware of, and they're not sure like, how much it's, you know, causational, but the relationship between PCOS and insulin resistance and blood sugar levels. A lot of people women that have PCOS have um insulin

resistance so like just kind of changing the way that I eat my food and in a really really healthy sustainable way just like making sure that I'm not eating foods where I'm gonna have that huge glucose like spike you know um yeah so yeah I think it's I think it's incredible and I think you know it's a tough one because and I wonder if you get much you ever get like criticism saying you know that when you're looking into your health and like conditions and then also how like new um diet and nutrition can help it seems a little bit woo-woo because we're not used to it. And it seems a bit like, oh, you know, surely they would have told you that or we would all know that.

But it can really do some crazy, it can really change people's lives. Just really paying attention to how your body is reacting. I think that's wonderful that that's worked for you. I feel very, very lucky. And I think what you've said there is so interesting and so true about how people go, well, surely diet isn't going to do anything. And interestingly, whenever I've spoken about diet before on my page, it's been met with a backlash of how dare you say that food is going to change my life when I've got a chronic condition that will never go away. And they're right in terms of food is not going to cure the endometriosis, but inflammation in the body can absolutely be helped or hindered by food.

You just need to turn over the package of some of the foods that we are now consuming. It's really hard not to sound like a conspiracy theorist go into the chocolate aisle and read read the ingredients if you don't understand them that's not a good thing and it's not about fear-mongering of like you can never have these foods your body and your gut is so much more resilient than you are told by the way like this whole 80 20 there is truth to it 80 20 is essentially where 80 of the time you are living your life in a way where you are consciously eating exercising managing your stress they are all equally important by the way there's no point living having the healthiest diet and being stressed all the time because it has the

same impact as eating poorly 80 of the time eating that way and you know having real good focus on nutrition and eating in a way to support yourself and living in a way that supports yourself and then the 20% of the time maybe you're making decisions that aren't potentially the best so your diet might be slightly under sugar and you want to go get the croissant or the cinnamon bun or you want to do whatever it is which might not benefit you but because you've put that shift in of 80% of the time you've been great and you've strengthened your body you can deal with that 20% now I'll caveat that with a lot of people take this to the extreme where they restrict restrict restrict for 80% and then binge 20% that is not how that works it's just about

having flexibility in your diet but I call it honoring your body and being like what am I feeding myself am I giving myself enough nutrition because a lot of people hear 80 20 they go restrict on calories eat wherever I want 20 no it's am I eating enough fat am I using enough protein am I eating enough calories to be able to fulfill my goals and then the other 20 you're kind of like oh and I'm not going to obsess about it I'm going out for a meal with my boyfriend because it's my birthday that kind of stuff but traditionally a lot of our diets are the other way around so 80 at the time we are eating stuff that is not great for us we are living a life very high stress which is not good for us and

then 20 at the time we're like oh shit i should probably eat something healthy now um and it's it's doing this hormone course has been very eye-opening for me in terms of looking at my lifestyle and going oh my god i've been eating that every single day for like my entire life thinking i was healthy and it's actually got more sugar and more crap in it than a chocolate bar i could literally just had a daily milk bar every day and i would have been better off so it's just about making those decisions and informed decisions in your diet and being kind to your body in a way of making sure you're having those nutrients because without them you can't live optimally you can't push through at work you can't do the workout you

want you can't do all these wonderful things because you're not fueling yourself in the right way like imagine if you were fasting and not eating enough protein and trying to lift heavy weights like it's just not gonna happen imagine going to your corporate job and wanting to excel and put in all these hours and be motivated and excited and get and be creative like it affects your creativity not having nutrients it's not going to happen so it's being kind to yourself 80 80 percent of the time and then 20 being like perfect and the diet that you said uh that kind of food elimination process what was that yeah again called the AIP or the autoimmune protocol and it's what if anyone has ever heard of my socials is probably what you all know me for because I went into it thinking I am going

to have a witch hunt after me on socials of people being like this isn't going to help and it was just an experiment I had no idea if it was going to work or not because I didn't know anyone who'd done it I'd only just heard of the diet and I was like I'm just going to go all in and so I posted every single day updates of my face my skin my bloating and then documented my period symptoms and showed people what I was eating every day and I was like I feel really uncomfortable I always thought apples and sweet potatoes flared me but I can have them on this diet. Essentially, think paleo, but no grains, no nuts, no seeds, no coffee, no coffee, no tea, nothing.

It's just meat, vegetable, fruits, and fish. And some vegetables you can't have. They're called nightshades. And I was like, I don't know how this is going to go. And then all of a sudden, after a week, I was like, I feel really, I don't know how this is going to go. And then all of a sudden after a week, I was like, I feel really, really good. And I was like, oh, my face has like dropped half its size. I was like, I don't have massively inflamed cheeks anymore.

And then other people were commenting being like, you look really different. And I always thought I had this like stubborn stone of weight that I'd always wanted to lose and would never lose. And I was kind of just like, I'm just growing up and then I stepped on the scale one day because I was tracking everything and I was like I've lost a stone and I was like the math isn't mapping because it's impossible to lose 14 pounds of fat but that's when I realized how much inflammation and weight go hand in hand because I was literally just holding on to so much water and so much inflammation and the diet just gave my gut a break and all of a sudden it just rocked off me and then interestingly when I was reintroducing foods foods that weren't flaring me no change to my body no change to any of those things still had the benefit

ate chili flakes which like have no this is the thing I want to move away from the weight loss and calorie side of it I was eating like three and a half thousand calories minimum every day because I was ravenous on the diet there was no limiting of any of that kind of stuff and I wasn't exercising I was walking and I reintroduced chili flakes I put on in two days eight pounds scale weight and blew up. My face blew up. My skin blew up. My stomach blew up.

I came on my period. Like it was a real strong reaction. That is a reaction. Yeah. And so for me and my endometriosis and for a lot of people's endometriosis or conditions, the link between what we eat can have a huge impact and not just the classic process stuff, but just some ingredients don't get along with us whereas gluten and dairy no extreme reaction straight away but over a long period of time of a couple of weeks eating them every single day I have the

same reaction so for me my 80 20 is eating 80 of the time eating whole foods and some grains some nuts because sometimes they sit in my stomach and make me constipated and then 20% of the time I will have wheat and I will have dairy chili is off the menu for me because that's just an instant flare but interestingly they say that your guts can change with time and all of that kind of stuff so I'm going to give that a go in maybe five months I will see when I have no events on I'll see if it still is an issue but yeah it was a it was a big experiment and I think it's a really cool thing to do I would advise people to do it with a healthcare professional if they want to do it because I'm training to be a mental health coach and I have

the very fortunate position to have access to a lot of people who are experts in this industry and I can ask them what's going on um but it was very empowering for me and it gave me a lot of food freedom because now I'm not scared about going out for dinner because I know what I can and can't eat without a plate which is is incredible and I've never had such control over my endometriosis and my symptoms I feel like I have a normal life which I never thought I'd be able to do considering a couple of years ago I had to quit my job because I was so ill and 50% of my life was just bed bound like it I don't feel like the same person anymore and I feel very very fortunate to be able to say that yeah no that's that's incredible um just really one final thing for

me just because I it kind of just came into my head as as you were talking about like um the workplace and about maybe being in education like a lot of a lot of the girls are I'm sure at uni or at school still or they're working their first jobs trying to climb like the career ladder and like what would you advise for women that are going through even if it's not in endometriosis but they're going through a female specific health you know issue or problem and I don't know they're just like struggling with kind of showing up in these places like what would you recommend for them yes so one before entering the workplace I would really understand what their policies are in terms of how they respect women and when I say respect women I mean do they have a good percentage of women in the workplace do they have good maternity policies and fertility

policies because that is a really good indication of how they will treat all of their female workforce because if they don't bother putting time into that they're probably not going to care in the meantime when it comes to actually being in the job that you're in I'd always like remind people that your manager can only help you if you help your manager so for a very long time I hated one of my managers because I was like they're not listening they don't understand how are they meant to understand I never I never told them that I was in crippling pain around my period my my version of communicating to them was I can't come in today what's that giving anyone I just looked like a crap employee so when I was in the workplace I was really open with one of my managers

and he and I always emphasize he because again a lot of people think men aren't going to understand amazing he was the best human ever he was called jo jonathan olding and he's just amazing and i'm still in touch with him now even though i haven't worked with like three or four years he he just said you tell me what you need to and i'm more than happy that he was like just help me understand what you need and we'll make it then so i was like a week from a period i need to work from home sometimes i have no control over my flares so sometimes it's not before my period. And yesterday I was the healthiest queen ever. And I was excited and jumping around the office. And today I can't get out of bed.

I just need to know that I can work from home or move my hours around to facilitate that. He was like, done deal. Say no more. And he was like, we can call it whatever you want. And I was like, an endo day is what I like to call it. He's like, no problem. Anytime I said I'm having an endo day he would literally just be like what you need from me do you need me to take any work off your plate

do you want to work today or do you want to have hours another day so flexible that's all I wasn't asking him to give me an easy ride we just needed adaptations or reasonable and reasonable circumstances so or reasonable adjustments they call it in the workplace then my manager changed very aware of my condition because I then did a talk at um at this workplace and it was just not the same at all didn't and it's also that thing of from a manager's point of view you need to make sure that your employee feels comfortable to open up to you as well it's not always just on us and if you are cold and hard and aggressive in your demeanor then that is not a safe space for people to open up so for people in the workplace you need to create a space that is open and for you as an individual you need to open up so it's that that two-way street and and in the same way as if a doctor is not listening to you and if you're

not being heard advocate for yourself go to HR and say that you have reasonable adjustments that need to be in place and they have to be done like they have to listen if you have to bypass your manager that has to be done just remember that if you don't do that for yourself now you will end up leaving that job because you will not be supported stress has a a huge impact on our health. I just think when it comes to work days have a look at the policies that they have, have a look at how supportive they are and that will tell you a lot about how you are treated. Endometriosis, PCOS or any other condition alive because 100% of people with a wound will go through menopause and so you will face that challenge regardless of having a health condition um so yeah I feel very lucky to work

for myself and not have that issue but I also know that not everyone can go self-employed not everyone can start a business and not everyone is healthy enough to do that and is supported enough to do that so we need to make sure that we're open with our manager communicating what we need and understanding like our own bodies like do you need a tennis machine do you need time off do you need a job which means you can work outside a little bit more and not be chained to your desk because sat down all day is not going to help the condition which struggles with information for example it's a lot it's a lot of self-work but it's also choosing the right companies and not just being you know stars in your eyes because it's supposed to be a good

company on paper because not all bluetooth companies are what they thought they cracked that to be thank you so much for coming on um where can people find you if they want to give you a follow yeah so I'm on Instagram and TikTok I love chatting to people so please message me on there I'm so guilty for FaceTiming people all the time so don't think I'm weird I'm like you can FaceTime for chatting um and I also really want to start YouTube so I started a YouTube channel um but yeah Instagram and TikTok are my main ones so I would love to chat to anyone and everyone over there and I just want to say a massive thank you to you as well like you've been such an inspiration for me especially now that I'm

trying to become a gym girl and I'm looking at how you're doing it and I feel like of all of the fitness noise on social media you are a very quiet consistent strong space to look at where it's not overwhelming and I feel like you're doing it in a really nice empowering way um and I really enjoy I really enjoy your content so thank you from personal note for absolutely well right back at you thank you so much for joining us um I'll speak with you soon. Amazing. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you, Sophie. Bye-bye.

All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening. If you got through to the end, I told you it was a good episode, right? I literally was like so fascinated. Like that woman, incredible. Remember, you guys can find her at Sophie Richards on, I believe, all platforms. Remember, you can find us at jim and girls locker room on all platforms and i will see you in the next one merry christmas happy new year and goodbye