Turning 40: My Health Journey
What I’m about to share with you, is not to tell you what you need to do. I’m simply sharing my health journey and hopefully it helps you to take your own journey to discovering yourself more.
When people talk about self love and discovering yourself, it’s not just going to the spa or traveling more to discover a new you.
It’s also about discovering yourself by listening to your body (as it speaks to you daily), loving your body through exercise and nutrition, being more aware of your health and making adjustments as you age.
My Story
When I turned 40, I decided it was important to start taking charge of my health for getting older.
When you’re young, there’s a lot of things you can get away with but start to affect you as you age.
I’ve always been healthy and in shape but things started to change, so I needed to cater my body by changing my workouts
here.
Plus I got off the pill once I turned 40, which you can read more about
here.
Getting off the pill was a choice to learn where my hormone levels where, to help me ease into menopause later in life.
In order to do that, I see my gyno every 3-4 months where I get blood work done and she calls to tell me my results and any changes I need to make which you can learn more about below under “Blood Work.”
With women, our hormones are changing constantly especially when we get into our 40s and get off the pill.
Blood Work
1. Testosterone - This is what started my process of getting tested every 3 months. I went to my gyno about my low drive. I just wasn’t myself. I didn’t have the drive that I always had, even working out I wasn’t into it. I didn’t care about my work or about dressing up as much. Something was gone.
She suggested I get my blood work done so she could take a look.
She came back and told me my testosterone was almost non-existent. I was literally at 0.
She immediately started me on a testosterone cream and WOW! I was like a new person all of a sudden. It was like a high almost. My drive came back! I felt sexual again, pretty and wanted to feel beautiful by dressing up.
It eventually evens after after your body is on it and things went back to normal. Until I started feeling tired again. This time she said let’s do more blood work and check your thyroid because the symptoms I had told her before, she knew it was low testosterone.
But when I came back a second time, she knew it was probably my thyroid and it was.
2. Thyroid - We found that I had low thyroid and I have grave’s disease in my family (which my grandma had by not checking her thyroid early on). Left unchecked can cause major problems and with mood/energy.
Luckily I caught it early as it’s not too low. But before I took it I was starting to have low energy. I was just tired all the time and took naps which I had never done before. Once I took the thyroid medicine daily, my energy levels have been amazing.
I’ve been on it for 4 years and my dose has stayed the same, and hopefully it will keep me from getting grave’s disease by keeping it in check.
3. Vitamin B12 Deficiency - Again, I never knew I had this but wish I had known sooner. It’s not a pill I take but shots as they work better.
In the beginning I got weekly shots, then every 2 weeks, and now monthly. A deficiency in B12 can cause many issues which you might think is something else and not get treated properly. That’s why it’s important to get blood work done than treating yourself without knowing.
As soon as I got my B12 shots, my energy improved. And getting tested every 3 months, helps my Gyno to make sure my levels are good and whether or not I need less or more. Remember having too much Vitamin B12 can cause issues too.
4. Vitamin A Deficiency - if I had known this as a child, I probably would have better vision. I didn’t find this out till I was 40. Again, get this done early on to avoid so many future issues.
I now take a daily vitamin A supplement. Also, since I wear contacts I get my eyes tested yearly and this helps with catching anything early.
I have early onset of Macular Degeneration, it doesn’t mean I will go blind, as it runs in my family and no one is blind from it. But my eye sight can get worse. I’ve seen a retina specialist to confirm this where I get early testing to make sure it hasn’t gotten worse and I take special vitamins for this disease.
The vitamins have definitely helped my eyesight as I use to get really bad dry eye but has helped me tremendously with that.
5. Vitamin D - Even though I live in sunny CA and travel to sunny destinations, I don’t layout a lot. And when I’m home, I stay inside all day as I work from home. So my levels were really low.
They are now normal but we check them as sometimes they change depending on the season and whether or not I’m traveling.
6. Hormones - She’s always checking my hormones to make sure all is going well. She was worried that when I got off birth control, because I had been on it so long, that my estrogen levels wouldn’t come back or take a long time too.
Luckily, my estrogen levels came back full force within the first month. So they are all good for now but one day they will get lower and lower, and we will know when my body is entering menopause. And this way I can decide how I want to take action for that phase in my life. But until then, I’m still very fertile!
23 and Me
You might be thinking “What does this have to do with turning 40 and your health?” SO much!
They have a health test you can buy and you SHOULD get it. It will tell you SO much and it was SO spot on about things I felt or already knew, and it verified it.
It goes into so many little things. This is where I found I had a vitamin A deficiency. I got this before I started doing all my blood work. So I sent my gyno a copy as it helped her too.
And when we did the blood work she could confirm a lot of the things from 23 and Me.
It’s just a way to see into your future and hopefully take action now to prevent and/or slow things down.
I like to use it as a guide. Maybe it says you have grave’s disease that runs in your family, but doesn’t mean you will get it. Or you can find ways by talking to your doctor to help you. In my case, finding out I had low thyroid and taking action.
And as it’s learning more, it will update you about things it has found from your DNA by sending you email updates.
Conclusion
I’ve been doing this for 5 years now and it has improved my immune system, energy levels, mood, and helping with future issues I may have down the road.
Plus all the stuff I’m doing is good for anti-aging, helping me to be healthier as I age, and glowing skin!
By listening to my body and going to my doctor, who’s extremely knowledgeable about female hormones, we discovered so much that has helped me.
