How Inflammation is Directly Impacting Your Hormones: The Mousetrap on the Football Field
Firstly, I have to give credit to Dr Jaclyn Smeaton, ND for a sports reference even I can understand.
Dr Smeaton's analogy goes something like this:
Imagine a football field littered with millions of mousetraps, and on top of these mousetraps are ping pong balls. As long as no one goes onto the field, or breathes too loudly in its direction, everything stays quiet and peaceful.
Now, let's say you (or Justin Herbert, my husband's favorite quarterback) throw a football onto that field. You can easily picture what happens. Absolute chaos. One after another, mousetraps and ping pong balls start flying everywhere. There is no end in sight.
Even if you reach in and remove the football, the cascade has already begun. You are too late, and good luck trying to calm the field.
Now,
Why, as a Naturopathic Doctor whose focus is on women's health and complex illness cases, do I care about this analogy, let alone use it with my patients?
Because, it is the perfect representation of inflammation within the body and why it can be so damned hard to reduce it. Inflammation (think red, hot, swollen & painful) contributes to anything from heart burn to headaches to unexplained infertility.
Even if you are able to constantly remove the football, until we figure out what is laying down the mousetraps and how to stop that process, you are never able to truly get to the bottom of your inflammation and resolve it. Overtime, there is a chance there will be so many mousetraps that the football field itself disappears.
Many women across California struggling with chronic inflammation, are also struggling with unwanted weight gain and challenging weight loss. Check out my other blog to learn more about the link between inflammation, hormones and weight.
This is where our work together comes in.
The beauty of having a full hour to discuss your story and journey is the flexibility to get into the details about seemingly unlinked/unimportant/never-thought-of-before symptoms that are contributing to how your feel and your experience.
The human body is not defined by one system or one symptom. And building a complete picture can take time, but that is why you are here.
You are here because navigating your symptoms has become unbearable. Navigating your journey feels lonely. And, navigating the healthcare system feels unsupportive.
Inflammation is the product of “Something is Pissing off your Immune System”
And, it is my goal to work with you to figure out what that is.