I was at the top of my sport
when my body turned against me
I was a synchronised swimmer — now called artistic swimming — training at an elite level with a place on the national team roster in my sights. I was strong, disciplined, and I knew my body the way only athletes do: its limits, its stamina, its signals.
Then my periods started. And from the very first cycle, the pain was debilitating. Heavy, relentless, impossible to train through. Within months I was on hormonal suppressants. Then stronger doses. Then cocktails of medication. Then injections. Then pain medication that grew progressively more powerful until, years later, a daily preventative dose of morphine had become my normal — just to function.
In training, I was fainting. My nose bled without warning. My injuries multiplied. My performance — and my dream — fell apart in front of me while I was still fighting with everything I had to hold it together.
"As an athlete, I used to know my limits and my strength — physical and mental. But everything was falling apart, and I couldn't recognise who I was anymore."
I began to dissociate from my body entirely. Not as a choice, but as survival. I separated myself from the thing that was failing me just to get through each day. I was not living. I was surviving.
Until the doctors revoked my right to train. It was too dangerous for my health. My career was over.
Seven years.
Six specialists.
Zero answers.
I had exhausted every test available. I had seen six different gynaecologists, none of whom could diagnose what was wrong. What they could do — and did, repeatedly — was suggest that the problem was me.
"You are not as strong as you would like to think. You should stop putting pressure on yourself to be the perfect athlete. You clearly don't have the mental or physical capacity for it."
This is what medical gaslighting looks like when it comes from six separate specialists wearing white coats. You can be as well supported by the people who love you as anyone could be. You can be as certain of your own strength as you have ever been. But when the same message is delivered again and again by people with the credentials to know how the human body works — you start to believe them.
I started to believe I was weak. That I was imagining it. That I had somehow brought this on myself.
After seven years, I finally had a word for my suffering: endometriosis, alongside PCOS, chronic fatigue, and total exhaustion. The relief of a diagnosis was real — I was not inventing my pain. But the answer that followed was devastating: there is no cure.
More experimental hormonal treatments followed. Surgery to remove adhesions and unhealthy tissue. Another round of hormonal therapy. Increasingly potent pain medication. And still — constant pain, no resolution, no path forward that anyone could offer me.
I had enough.
A pandemic.
A decision.
An experiment that worked.
I was certain an alternative existed. I was equally certain that no one else was going to find it for me. So I made the decision that changed everything: I took my health into my own hands.
The pandemic gave me the one resource I had never had enough of — time. I began researching. I found a short online herbal medicine discovery course. Cautiously, reluctantly almost, I began to experiment on myself after deciding I was done with conventional medication.
It was slow. It was exhausting. There were countless trials and errors. But I could see results. For the first time in years, something was working.
"For the first time in years, I felt in control of my health — my body, my mind. That is what discovering plant medicine gave me back."
And then my family became my first clients.
My mother's arthritis flare-ups. My sister's anxiety and sleep. My father's recurring throat weakness — sore throats and colds from constant travel and speaking. I made formulations for each of them. I will be honest: some of those early blends were rather dreadful. But they are all well and very much alive, so I consider that a success.
Those months — quiet, experimental, rooted in love and necessity — were the beginning of everything that followed.
From self-taught
to clinically trained
What had started as personal necessity became a calling. I enrolled in a full clinical training in naturopathy and herbal medicine — a degree-level programme spanning Western herbalism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Ayurveda.
I did not stop at the curriculum. During my training I spent six months working alongside an external TCM and acupuncture practitioner in their dispensary — outside of my school hours, on my own initiative — deepening my understanding of Chinese herbal medicine and its application to the hormonal and gynaecological conditions I had lived through myself.
Over two years in student clinic, I worked with clients navigating endometriosis, PCOS, chronic fatigue, perimenopause, hormonal disruption, and stress-driven illness. I recognised their stories immediately. Not because I had read about them — because I had lived them.
I also hold a diploma in Indian Head Massage, trained as a naturopath, and bring the French phytotherapy tradition into everything I do — a relationship with plant medicine that is woven into European culture in a way that feels like coming home.
And I was a high-performance athlete. I understand what it means to push a body to its limits — and what it feels like when that body can no longer perform. That shapes every consultation I have with active people who are struggling.