🦋if nothing ever changed there would be no butterflies🦋
🌸i thought this was quite apparent to us 40 & 50 something women like me adapting & manoeuvring through “the change” Perimenopause can span over 10 years with a ton of symptoms with hormone changes which often need support…from mood management, irregular periods to hot flushes & night sweats to bone & muscle aches, heart palpitations & anxiety, sleep disruption just to name a few. It’s a massive time for women already with hectic lives with work, family & everyday stressors ….Often we are just floundering to work out what’s happening and then others undergo surgery like a hysterectomy if things get dire. It is super important to address the abdominal area over this time as we as women tend to store stress & emotions quite close to home which is essentially our lower abdominal area. This is an area that is really tight in most of my clients as we really can’t stop life happening and as women we are taught to be strong & carry on. Just this morning I massaged a client 3 months post hysterectomy surgery. I believe abdominal massage is really important to help balance out big hormonal fluctuations but also to recover properly post surgery. She even mentioned that post surgery you feel like everything is sorted as the dr has essentially cleared and cleaned up what they need too… in my opinion if the body is left post any abdominal surgery that scar tissue can wreak havoc with all of our organs in our abdominal region being so close together. I’ve developed a massage for menopause which uses a hormone balance protocol of essential oils which helps balance out hormones and the massage part helps flush, realign and clear any scar tissue that is potentially forming. That way we can go on living our day to day lives free from the havoc of hormonal fluctuations. If you are a woman needing support through this time of change I would highly recommend giving this massage a try. I would love to help you🌸💕 Book @ www.bloommassage.co.nz #perimenopause #menopause #massageformenopause #bloommmassagetherapy #bloommassageformenopause
1 Comment
Hi Pip
I’ve been meaning to reach out to let you know we have a beautiful little girl! She is 4 weeks old now and we’ve called her Katherine, born via emergency c section in the end but she is healthy and our dream come true. I want to thank you so much for your help and support through our fertility journey, 3 rounds of IUI and three miscarriages along the way and we ended up concieving naturally after one of your magic pre conception massages. Not only do you have magic hands but your emotional support and understanding of the ups and downs helped me keep perspective, have hope and feel less lonely on what was such a challenging journey. I can’t wait to book in for post natal massage and keep up my endo massages with you as well. Thank you! Christina x My story begins as a teenager, I always had heavy and painful periods and then they appeared to get less painful as I got older but continued to always be heavy but manageable. I was questioned to have endometriosis in my early 30s but no diagnostic tests were done by the GP and I continued on. Ten years later I proceeded to sit in my gynaecologist office to be told I had extensive endometriosis (stage 4) after it took 2 years of a diagnosis after it was picked up on a MRI for a hip injury I had suffered.
I found Pip online after I did some online research and reading in a bookstore and felt to explore the ‘massage’ journey for symptom relief. The best way to describe my symptoms in the last few years was heavy, bloating and painful periods (requiring to be on medication for pain and breaking down clots). I am a person that can function and work with my periods but I have a very high pain tolerance so this helped somewhat! But I started to notice that between my periods I would feel ‘stiff’ a lot in my body (especially after exercise), and I could always ‘feel’ my endometriosis so to speak and hence would be readily aware of it on most days. I started seeing the results after my second massage with my period requiring no medication. I still felt bloated and uncomfortable but couldn’t believe not needing to take any medication. I didn’t understand about the ‘3’ massages but I clearly get it now after having my 3rd massage! I am now completely symptom free between my periods and after exercising. I sometimes have to take medication for pain and clotting reduction but hardly ever and I notice it’s more to do with stress. All I can say is wow and massage is so underrated in the medicine world - it should be recognised a whole lot more. For someone who was going to have a major operation to now not currently needing one…I don’t need to write anything else but thank-you Pip for helping me enter a ‘new world’ of symptom free, I still can’t quite believe it :) Claire Hi Pip,
Belated happy new year - hope you and the family are enjoying a well-deserved break! I was so glad to see you last month not only for a massage but to chat about the massage course etc. I feel really encouraged and excited now - thank you for always being so supportive and encouraging. As I said, I have had this email in draft for months now trying to get the words just right so please excuse the length. It is the first time I’ve ever put down in words all that I’ve been through and every time I try and read through it, I bawl my eyes out because I have never really taken the time to comprehend it all or more importantly, how much my life has changed for the better in the past 10 months since I met you. As you might remember, before seeing you I’d had a real time of it. I’d had heavy, painful periods that lasted for months at a time for over 20 years. I have always struggled with my weight and when I was diagnosed with PCOS in 2011, was repeatedly told by my GP to “just eat less and move more and that will fix everything”. I was put on the pill at 15 to “regulate” my period and stayed on several variations of it for a good 10 years on and off. I had severe anaemia and iron deficiency needing at least 12 iron infusions over a period of several years. I was repeatedly told not to worry about my cycle issues until I was ready to have a baby and that in the meantime, losing weight was the only way to address any symptoms I was experiencing. In 2019, I needed three surgeries to remove one of my ovaries due to a cancerous growth, during the second of which they found I also had early endometriosis. My surgeon recommended I get the Mirena to help with the excessive bleeding and because my iron was so severely low, I was able to get it for free, which convinced me to get it without really thinking much about it. The Mirena immediately helped to “control” my bleeding post surgery and for the first time, I experienced what I thought were normal cycles (bleeding once a month for 5 to 7 days) and my periods were significantly lighter. However, I knew I wasn’t addressing my underlying hormonal issues and always felt some discomfort in my abdomen, which I was told was normal and nothing to worry about and that it was still doing “more good than harm”. It was after my surgeries in 2019 that my endo pain got really bad. For years I had experienced back, leg and cramping pains but they were often dismissed as sports/ gym injuries and I was regularly referred to a physio or told that they were just a “normal part of your cycle because of your weight” and to lose weight to address it. From early 2019, though my bleeding finally seemed to be under control, I was in chronic pain every day. Some days it was so bad I could hardly get out of bed, spending much of our first level 4 lockdown curled in a ball on the floor. I was prescribed a number of painkillers but always had a bad reaction to them and also didn’t want to become reliant on them just to function day-to-day. I was prescribed some supplements by my nutritionist but they weren’t very effective for pain either. I started practising yoga regularly. Everything helped a little but any relief I got was short-lived. Then I saw Jessica from Wellness by Jessica post on Instagram about your massage treatments for endo and willing to try anything at this point, I made my first appointment with you in March 2021. I have now been completely pain-free since my second massage with you on 8 April 2021. I honestly didn’t think that was possible and I think I’ve just been so skeptical about the relief lasting (not a reflection on you at all - just that I feel I’ve been let down by my body so many times before in the past, being pain free has seemed too good to be true) that I haven’t wanted to jinx it by putting it on paper but now nine months on, I realise how different my life is and how far I’ve come. Some things I’ve been able to do since April:
These changes - which I haven’t really properly comprehended until now sitting down and writing them all out - have seemed gradual and small on their own but taking them together, I realise now how so much of my life has changed for the better. I still have a long way to go and as we both know, the work is constant but I am so relieved to finally be making some progress on my health journey and I know that the wins I’ve had already would not have been possible without your help. The biggest thing for me is that I no longer feel helpless. If I get some cycle pain or acne etc, I know what to do to try and address it. I’m not having to deal with 100 symptoms at once without knowing where to start. I now have tools that I can use to help myself and I feel so empowered being able to take control back of my health and my life. Now that I’m feeling so better in my personal life, it’s made me stop and do a bit of a stocktake about what I want to do with the rest of my life. As I mentioned, I’m enrolling in the Diploma in Wellness and Relaxation Massage at Wellpark College starting at the end of February as a starting point and am really looking forward to it. I’d love to keep chatting about training with you after that! Massage has been life-changing for me and I would love if I could help people the way you’ve helped me. Anyway, sorry this has been long but I just wanted you to know how much you’ve helped me even though words seem inadequate. Pip, you are such a godsend and the work you do is so important. I will never stop being grateful that I met you. The only downside is now that I’m pain free, I may not see you as often and you truly are such a ray of sunshine in what has felt like 20+ years of storms! I look forward to catching up again soon anyway. Thank you for supporting me and for the work you do. Love, Danielle xx Hi my darling Pip, it’s been such a struggle not messaging you sooner and so much of me wanted to tell you in person, but the other part of me wanted to make sure I tell you exactly how I feel xx
Ever since I met you, we had such a good connection, frightening in some senses as we were so much alike! You literally changed my life with your magic hands - to go from no regular cycle, not ovulating and being in crippling pain on a regular basis to having a regular cycle, ovulating and no pain was the biggest surprise and very welcomed one at that! I didn’t really appreciate the PMS that came with being a real women, but hey - you have to take the good with the bad right! I still laugh that I txt you saying ummm why am I so irrational and hormonal ha ha - thank god for Doterra Balance! It is with an overwhelming amount of excitement that I can tell you today I am officially 13 weeks pregnant! But wait for it.... this wee miracle isn’t an IVF baby, yes like you, over Christmas and New Years I relaxed and had a good time and much to our surprise I got the best birthday present ever - a positive pregnancy test!!! Our wee baby girl (yes girrrl eeeeeek) is due 28 September and thanks to you and your massages and Soojin with acupuncture I just know it’s all because of what you wonderful women do! I can’t thank you enough Pip, I will be eternally grateful for the miracle you have given us xx it is also a sign D was meant to walk into my life... if it wasn’t for him and his sister who also came for fertility massage, I may have never met you! I am so so happy right now, and I can’t wait to catch up and celebrate in person - over a sparkling water of course xoxo |
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