My Journey to Natural Health
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I am so overwhelmed by all the responses I got on my first post and I really can't wait to share more with everyone! I felt like it would be meaningful to share more of my background and how I got to where I am. 10 years ago, I would never have thought that I would be on the path that I am now!!!
Let's start with 10 years ago. I was 16. I had just arrived back from a trip to England where I was an au pair for the majority of the year. I had finished school (matriculated, as we call it in South Africa) in March 2008 and was on my way to study something sport related at university and I was determined to have a career in sport.
Somewhere in December, 2008, I bumped into a 7-year-old girl that I knew from school and she asked me so innocently, "What do you want to be when you are big?" In the second that it took me to respond to her question, it was as if my life flashed before my eyes and I knew the real answer suddenly. I said, "A missionary," and shocked myself into some serious action. I needed my dad's help to change my course of study at university from sport stuff to Nursing Sciences. I somehow got accepted with less than a month left til classes started, with a bursary that covered my studies and all my student-life expenses.
My four years of studying got me a B.Cur degree in General, Community and Psychiatric Nursing and Midwifery. I was 20 years old after completing my studies and ended up with the highest average marks for theory and practical exams and graduated Cum Laude. I started working at a clinic in a township called Ikageng. 
Image credit: https://suedafrikachillz.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/besuch-bei-mosaik/
It was during this year (2013), that I first started questioning the western medical system. I saw thousands of people coming to the clinic month after month with problems that were never solved. The clinic had loads of generic medications that we would prescribe to everyone coming in, and there wasn't any improvement. I was saddened and frustrated by the sad state of health of the community surrounding me. And I knew that it wasn't just in my community, but probably in most of the world where western medication is depended on for getting by.
I got involved with a company in mid-2013 that opened my eyes to the world of natural health. I started researching and found masses of studies and news reports about how medication is killing people. Here are just a few links:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/prescription-drug-killing-nearly-many-8997584
https://bjgp.org/content/66/645/172.short
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1403265/
https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/pressannouncements/ucm612995.htm
I started realising that the medications everyone was using so freely had risks far above I had ever imagined. I decided to stop using medication and haven't used any since September 2013. My body is still recovering from the negative effects of medication that I didn't think twice of using and that the prescribing doctor never mentioned any side effects of to me (hormonal birth control, if anyone was wondering...). I felt betrayed by the medical system and furious that so many people were being lied to (not telling the whole truth counts as lying) about what was beneficial for their health. My training at university had made me so comfortable to advise young girls with irregular menstruation to go on birth control pills to help regulate their cycles.
Now I know that I only helped to further ruin their hormonal health. But I will go into detail on the horrors of hormonal birth control in a later post. What I really want to say is that I was an uninformed health practitioner, doing just what I had been taught to do, without question. And when I started questioning, I knew that I had to make a radical change and that my journey to help people attain optimal health and well-being was, in fact, just beginning.
I am grateful for my years at the university; I do not in any way regret them. I know that my time there equipped me to be the effective researcher that I am now and it was a vital stepping stone on my path. I now am a real food and herb advocate when it comes to addressing health issues. I will definitely be sharing more about this soon, as well as how I came to be a home birth midwife. In fact, I will share about my midwifery journey in my next post, and follow that up with my own birth stories.
Keep a look out!!
Kindred spirit here! I am in a bit of a different aspect than you but I was very much involved directly with people and seeing their decline was sad, and the people with cancer who are hopeful that the current poison given to them would help. How far our system has gone down the drain of profit over people.
My mother was a nurse for many years. It got to a point where when she was struggling with shifts and her health she ended up taking drugs to help her sleep. Now she's retired she's attempting to undo all that, but damage has been done. Some things are improving, but some aren't. So glad you have started your journey much sooner. Look forward to reading more about your knowledge on the pill. As far as I'm aware, I haven't had ill affects long term from it, but I used to have to change periodically due to psychological affects whenever I stayed on any one for too long.
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Hi Vanes! I am SO envious of your matriculation at 16! Accelerated school curricula are awesome, what a waste of an intelligent and inquisitive mind to be stuck in school for two or three extra years when we all know that everything we ever learn in school could be done and dusted SO much faster. I really hope that my daughter and yours can embark on whatever careers, sports, hobbies, vocations, callings, relationships, families etc, as late or as early as they choose! I suspect the way we are teaching them is going to help with that!! You are well on your way to being a very competent herbalist and natural healer, and thanks for the bulbinella and lamb's ear you gave me, they fixed Zoe's roasty on her knee in a day or two, and they are growing nicely in my garden now! Keep the posts coming, very inspiring xxx
Yes! I agree! Let's help the girls become who they are without holding them back!!!
I have a lot more for your garden. I found out I have feverfew and wormwood too, that I just never knew how to identify!
Class of '08 here as well, though I was 19 at the time lol.
Those couple of sentences are amazing to read, and I've rarely if ever heard them. Listening to Elaine Ingham speak about soil health and how we've destroyed it here in the US, she mentions that it is never said by those that teach conventional methods that they were wrong. They never consider it, let alone admit that they've been leading millions of people down a destructive and unsustainable path.
Thank you for saying that, and thank to for questioning! You're doing the right thing, and I'm so glad to be around to read about it :)
It's difficult, but vital, to remember that we all started somewhere and are on a continuous journey... I can so easily judge a health care practitioner that I hear about doing something ridiculous, then I have to remember that I was also there. I am so grateful for growth. One of my favourite things to think about, that is actually quite scary sometimes, is something a friend said to me (it's probably a quote by someone): "My biggest fear is to look back a year from now, and to see that nothing has changed."
I really look forward to reading more about your story @vanessamidwife, I find it so heartening to read stories like this. I would love to know more about how you got into midwifery.
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STOPDear @vanessamidwife, I want to know more about birth control pills. I've heard some time ago about it's bad effect.. I can't wait your post about it!
Yes! Yes yes.
I am 100% in agreement with you about the pill. Even calling it the pill as if it is just a little nothing that every women should just pop.
I know it has caused me many issues. The endocrine system can not be tweaked without a domino effect. Alter one thing and everything else shifts. This crosses every system of the body, they are not separate.
Wow I could write a dozen posts on this.
Mood.
Connective tissue.
Adrenal function
Eating disorder prescribing to synthesise an absent cycle (that was my speciality area in psych).
Increased risk cancer, stroke, heart disease.
Endometriosis, prescribing the pill to suppress symptoms. 10 % of Australian woman are predicted to have endo. We have almost zero funding into the condition and defiantly zero understanding from the medical profession.
I was enrolled in a visual arts degree, and transferred just weeks before to nursing. I always say it was a sensible career oriented choice, but I loved working with people. Even when I admit it isn't for me anymore, the last position I had, working with people who were experiencing eating disorders was so rewarding. Such misunderstood courageous woman.
I have endometriosis (among other issues) and have been pressured to take the pill so many times over the past years. Don't even get me started on the merina device, I will write a book. I also have a connective tissue disorder, Ehlers danlos syndrome._ Taking the pill would further soften and damage my ligament and tendons. I already such trouble holding myself up and frequently dislocate, but consult obs/gynea and they have zero comprehension of this. In fact endocrine have zero comprehension of the effect of progesterone on connective tissue. Doctors just peddle the pills like every other cog in the medical machine. My past 2 years of illness and seeking treatment from doctors has transformed me from a marathon runner working mother etc to a disabled house bound invalid Who cannot ambulate past the corner with organ failure and facing practically palliative cared for by my husband without even knowing why.
I have been determined to dig my way back to health, but have dug a deaper hole, I should have been climbing out of the system not digging for answers.
Maybe I will still be able to get some quality of life, it is a slow road back to health.
Thanks for raising important issues. People don't know about these things. If a doctor tells you something you invest gospel faith in their words.
I could keep going. Many anti depressants for instance, people don't know are working on a hormonal level. Serotonin, noradenalin. People are told they are brain chemicals that is not true, they effect the brain when reuptake is disturbed but they have an impact on all systems.
Thanks for stimulating my neuro receptors, sorry for my rant, I enjoy your posts.😊
@vanessamidwife thank you for sharing your health journey. I am fascinated and encouraged by each person's different path to healing and natural living. It is sad that the medical profession, on the whole, which is meant to help us create so many more problems. I can only imagine how challenging it must've been for you. But how wonderful that you could use your medical training and now, at such a young age, are instrumental in the health of so many, and more especially the precious new lives! What a blessing! ABBA bless and guide your every step