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So PCOS has a new name. Everyone, welcome PMOS (polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome). And honestly? I have feelings. Some of them good, some of them are classic naturopathic beef with the system.

In this episode I break down what the rebrand means, why it's actually a step in the right direction, and why — as far as getting to the root of things goes — a new name doesn't change much without a different approach to treatment.

If you have a PCOS or PMOS diagnosis — or you suspect you might — this episode will give you a much clearer picture of what's actually happening in your body, and why getting to the bottom of it requires more than a new label.

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TIMESTAMPS:

01:14 — The original beef with the PCOS name (and the polycystic problem)
02:32 — What "polycystic ovaries" actually means — and doesn't mean
03:00 — The new name: polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS)
04:56 — What "polyendocrine" acknowledges: adrenal glands and androgen production
07:53 — The stress-hormone connection
08:42 — Blood sugar, insulin, and the metabolic foundation of PMOS
13:51 — Insulin resistance explained: when cells stop answering the door
15:06 — High insulin → less sex hormone binding globulin → androgen excess → impaired ovulation
16:57 — The pathogenesis diagram: following the chain from diet to diagnosis
19:39 — What I hope the new name does for women receiving the diagnosis
20:16 — The exciting news: we have tools to reverse PMOS
22:12 — Practical tool 1: meal sequencing (vegetables before carbs)
22:55 — Practical tool 2: circadian eating (most calories in daylight hours)
23:00 — Practical tool 3: movement after meals (10 squats or a walk)
25:00 — Practical tool 4: cinnamon and insulin sensitivity
26:25 — What I mean by "treating you, not the syndrome"
27:00 — The syndrome is a message, not the problem
28:22 — Symptoms don't come out of thin air
29:24 — What gets missed when practitioners treat the label, not the person
30:06 — What "getting to the bottom of it" actually looks like
31:00 — Following the root cause chain backwards: from symptom to driver
31:22 — What happens when we address root drivers: client results
32:11 — Don't stress too much about the label
33:21 — Book a free Body Story Call

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hey there. Welcome back. Welcome back to another episode of Oh My Menses. I am your host, Karinda. I'm a women's health naturopath, hormone lover, and menstrual cycle educator. Thank you for clicking or tapping on me today. We are going to cover the name change of a little old syndrome that I've had beef with in the past, which you may or may not recall.

[00:00:38] And what this, what this rebrand of PCOS means. yeah, I'm just gonna give my off-the-cuff, off-the-cuff thoughts about it. And if you'd rather read, I also have a blog that I've just written, explaining, a bit more professionally, explaining the [00:01:00] reasoning for the name change

[00:01:01] and how, regardless of the name change, as a naturopath, I'm still looking at the same things in terms of working with you as a whole person, in terms of not relying on a diagnostic label to determine and be the be-all and end-all as far as treatment goes. So

[00:01:22] I think I'll start off with the beef that I had with PCOS. And, and I did a whole episode on this. And my thinking with PCOS for years has been a

[00:01:35] See, I wanna, I wanna, my brain goes to quote Shakespeare, and it wants to use, like, "A rose by eve- any other name would smell as sweet." Is that even a Shakespeare quote? My God, fact-check me on that. Yikes. And I was thinking, like, a condition by any other name would be as shit. it just kind of made it worse that polycystic ovarian syndrome [00:02:00] was not a great name to begin with.

[00:02:03] Namely, you know, namely

[00:02:05] Namely because of the phrase polycystic. Polycystic, multiple cysts. Uh, when the thing is that people could get diagnosed with PCOS without actually having the appearance of polycystic ovaries. And the women who do have the appearance of polycystic ovaries as diagnosed by ultrasound, it is literally just that, the appearance of cystic ovaries.

[00:02:32] The cysts are not cysts, they are follicles that have, uh, gotten to a certain point of development before they have sort of been suspended, and their development hasn't progressed, and that is what impairs ovulation,

[00:02:46] which is a common feature of, um, a lot of cases of PCOS. So that was my beef to begin with. So now they've called it polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. [00:03:00] Cool. And look, I, I felt... the internet was excited. The parts of the internet that I dabble in, you know, lots of alternative, holistic, functional health practitioners, lots of, and, and fabulous researchers in the women's health space, very excited about this name change.

[00:03:19] And I, I still feel split, but let me first s- I'll, I'll share m- you know, why I think this is a good move. It's a good move because polycystic ovarian syndrome was always simplistic. It, it, it, it focused on a feature, uh, of the syndrome that was almost, you could say, is the least important part of it, you know, polycystic.

[00:03:40] That doesn't tell us anything about what causes the syndrome or other organ systems that are affected by the syndrome. You know, it, it's really maybe one of the least important features. It, it's almost, you know, having an ultrasound to see the polycystic appearance of your [00:04:00] ovaries or to see if it's there or not is, is really just like conf- a confirmation.

[00:04:06] It's, it, it doesn't inform treatment. There's no treatment where it's like, "Oh, yeah, let's just, like, blast off all the, uh, underdeveloped, uh, immature follicles that keep building up," because there's something else that's impairing ovulation, that is preventing ovulation, that is preventing those follicles from getting to the point of maturity that enables ovulation.

[00:04:29] "Yeah, let's just get all these follicles out and, uh, then you won't have, uh, polycystic ovaries anymore." Like, it just it's... N- no, no. Way too simplistic. So I like the name change because firstly, I guess, s- and something I've seen a lot, is that it is validating for women who got diagnosed with PCOS but were told they didn't have polycystic ovaries based on their ultrasound.

[00:04:56] Like, I, I can only [00:05:00] imagine that specific flavor of confusion to, to be handed this diagnostic label and then told like, "Oh, but you don't have the, the thing that's in the name." So confusing. So polymetabolic, no, sorry, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. It acknowledges, okay, polyendocrine. It acknowledge that there's multiple layers of the endocrine system that are involved in this, not just the ovaries, not just the reproductive organs, right?

[00:05:33] The sex hormones that we think about a lot, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, they are only really one level of the endocrine system. The endocrine system referring to the system in us that governs pretty much all our hormonal activity. Polyendocrine invites in the consideration of our adrenal glands in polycystic ovarian syndrome, [00:06:00] which, uh, play a really, really relevant role, in that they spit out cortisol, one of our key stress hormones that can exacerbate or bring on a number of symptoms that are features of the syndrome. But more importantly, and maybe more, more specific to the syndrome, th- the adrenal glands are responsible for the production of androgens. It's not just the ovaries. The adrenals can produce these androgens like DHEA that contribute to a lot of PMOS, I guess I'll start calling it.

[00:06:37] Um, and specifically in women who experience the androgen kind of dominant presentation of PMOS, where there may be signs like, acne, uh, or, or just like pimple breakouts, having very oily skin, whether that's, you know, on your face, your chest, or your back. Hirsutism, the growth of [00:07:00] hair in places where it's not ordinary for it to grow.

[00:07:05] You might get this like on your upper lip, on your chin, on your chest, around your nipples, or closer to your navel, um, above your pubic, pubic bone. And also the, uh, increased androgens will, will mess around with ovulation a bit, and anything that messes around with ovulation will mess around with the length of your cycles.

[00:07:27] So, you might get the, uh, you might have irregular cycles. And also, if the adrenal glands are working overtime, it's likely that you will feel some degree of, I, I wanna call it stress dysfunction. Maybe you are feeling totally fatigued, totally flat. Your stress response is like flat lined, kaput, nothing left to give.

[00:07:53] Or maybe you are still in the zone of maybe feeling more anxious, feeling more amped up, you know, waking up with [00:08:00] panic. That's, the adrenal glands are involved in that. So I like, so the new name brings adrenal glands into it, not directly, but indirectly. And of course, the word metabolic, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome.

[00:08:16] We have known, I mean, I, how I was trained at uni when, when thinking about PCOS, we were taught that it was a metabolic disorder. And to this day, I b- to, for the most part, I believe that's what the syndrome, the presentation of the syndrome comes down to, a metabolic dysfunction.

[00:08:42] And essentially, to put it in the most simplest way, metabolic dysfunction, we're talking about a mismatch or an imbalance, a dysregulation, in how your body takes in, [00:09:00] uses, and stores energy. The main way that we obtain and use energy is through eating. And our bodies extract sugar from food that we digest. That sugar goes into our blood, and then it needs somewhere to go. It goes into our cells of all different tissues around our body, into our muscles.

[00:09:21] You know, it can be stored in the liver as glycogen. And a key factor in that blood sugar regulation process is insulin. Insulin is a hormone that comes from your pancreas, produced by your pancreas, released from your pancreas in response to blood sugar levels. So you eat a meal, and depending on the quality of that meal, which is a, a huge thing, a huge factor, the sugar that is able to be digested from your meal will make its way into your bloodstream, and that can happen very quickly.

[00:09:58] That can happen very slowly. It all [00:10:00] depends on the actual food that you're eating. And now we know it also depends on the time of day that you're eating, you know, the state that you're eating in. All of these things affect blood sugar response. So say I have some honey or some rice, something that, you know, with really simple, simple carbs. I'll eat the food.

[00:10:19] The carbohydrates will be broken down into sugars in the rice. In, in the honey, it's a lot more direct and faster. And that sugar from my, from the bottom of my stomach and the start of my small intestine will be absorbed. It will cross my gut lining and will go into my bloodstream. And it will spread 'cause our blood's always circulating, so it spreads around the body.

[00:10:42] And we have so many different, like, sensors and detectors, uh, for blood sugar. And our pancreas is responsible for sending insulin into the blood to chase after that blood sugar to make sure that it can get into our cells, [00:11:00] to make sure that it can get to our muscles or our liver or our brain tissue, wherever we need it, right?

[00:11:05] Essentially, if blood sugar is high, insulin is put out. Now, what happens when we spent, we have spent a lot of time eating foods that maybe have ma- been made up of refined carbohydrates, or we've had carbohydrates maybe in excessive amounts at, like, most meals of our day. Or maybe we snack a lot on sugary carbohydrate foods.

[00:11:37] And now I, I feel like I also need to clarify, like, carbohydrates... Sometimes clients just ask me, like, "What are, like, what are carbohydrates? Like, spit some foods out at me." It's not just, like, sugary things like candy, you know? I, I feel like that's where people's brains go to, but we really need to broaden that.

[00:11:55] Like, carbohydrates are in anything that has wheat in it, or [00:12:00] flour, or rice, or comes from, like, a cereal grain. Anything that's grain-based, right? As well as anything that, of course, has sugar in it, whether that's added or whether it just naturally has it in it, has naturally occurring sugars. Um, glucose, fructose, sucrose.

[00:12:18] You know, so many... There's different kinds. Bread, and bread is a big one, okay? We, we can't ignore bread.

[00:12:25] So we eat lots of these foods, and what happens in our bodies is that o- our blood sugar kind of, like, keeps staying high because we're eating these things that can easily spike our blood sugar. And so the pancreas is like, "All right. Well, let's, let's put out more insulin." The thing is, with that output of insulin, over time, there's high insulin, and high insulin comes with all sorts of effects on different parts of the body and body [00:13:00] tissue and can present in a lot of s- a lot of different symptoms.

[00:13:04] Weight gain, uh, you know, without going too much into the nuance of weight, weight gain is certainly associated with high insulin output, right? And your body's doing this over time. You eat, eat these foods. High blood sugar spike. Okay, high insulin to make sure the sugar can get out of the blood and get into the cells where it's needed.

[00:13:28] Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. What happens over time is this phenomenon called insulin resistance, where our cells become kind of numbed out to insulin, because they're so used to it being there all the time, knocking on the cells' doors, being like, "Hey, can you let this sugar in?

[00:13:51] This... We've got this sugar in this blood. It can't stay here. That's gonna be a problem. Can it, can it come inside?" And the cell's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. All right." [00:14:00] And after enough time, that knock is just getting too loud, too frequent, and the cell's just like, "No. No, I'm not answering the door. I'm, I'm not letting, I'm not letting this sugar in."

[00:14:14] Right? Another way you can look at that is that, like, cells in your body... Literally, you're made up of cells. Every organ, every tissue, every part of your skin, everything is made up of cells, right? All of these cells have a lock on it, you could say, that opens a door that allows sugar in, and insulin is a key to that lock.

[00:14:40] And when that key gets used over and over and over in excessive amounts, in, in... To put it in another way, in amounts that are beyond what our human bodies evolved with, in amounts that are unnatural for our human bodies to, to handle. [00:15:00] Pestering that lock with the insulin key over and over again, it kind of distorts the lock.

[00:15:06] So eventually, that key, that insulin key stops working or work- starts working less effectively. So blood sugar stays higher for longer. That causes symptoms, let me tell you ladies. And the pancreas keeps sending out insulin into the blood 'cause it's like, "Oh, our blood sugar..." The detectors are like, "Our blood sugar levels aren't coming down.

[00:15:28] Well, shit, there mustn't be enough insulin, so spit out insulin." So insulin gets higher and higher and higher.

[00:15:34] And this insulin resistance and high insulin output can increase the level of androgens, which impair ovulation, can create a state of inflammation in your body, which can help the adrenal glands spit out more stress hormones,

[00:15:51] can create type 2 diabetes, which comes with its own set of everything that is not, that is not separate from [00:16:00] PMOS to be, to be sure. And that high insulin also does this thing where it reduces the level of this protein that we all have called sex hormone binding globulin.

[00:16:14] It's one of the, it's one of the limiters on how much of our sex hormones, like estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone, is available to our tissues at any time. So whatever hormone we have floating around, A portion of that will be bound to sex hormone binding globulin and so not able to be used by our tissues.

[00:16:35] The more insulin we have, the less production there is of sex hormone binding globulin, and that allows things like testosterone and other androgens to proliferate and to have greater action. And then we get all those hyperandrogenic symptoms, and our cycles start to stuff up and we stop ovulating, you know?

[00:16:57] So I actually have a diagram of, like, what we [00:17:00] call the pathogenesis, which is, like, how a disease starts. We have pathogenesis of poly- what, when, what was then called polycystic ovarian syndrome. That's a complex one. But down here, we've got a really simple one, and I don't know if that's gonna flip itself around, uh, when I edit the video.

[00:17:19] But essentially, we've got insulin resistance that leads to hyperinsuline, insulinemia, which is high insulin levels. And you can see we've got less sex hormone binding globulin, increases testosterone. We've also got stimulation of our theca cells, which are in our ovaries. They produce more testosterone, and by having larger theca cells and producing more testosterone together, we get impaired ovulation or anovulation.

[00:17:47] That reduces progesterone, and low progesterone on its own causes a huge array of symptoms, because we need progesterone for whole body health. It can affect our thyroid, which will affect other aspects of our [00:18:00] metabolism, our energy levels. It can affect our immune system, so we might find that we are more susceptible to infection or take longer to recover, or our bodies have a harder time managing a viral load.

[00:18:12] Progesterone also can help reduce, inflammation and proliferation that is associated with excess estrogen. So you kind of have this picture where, like, testosterone and, and maybe estrogen, it's different in everyone, kind of runs the show and when you don't have ovulation, you don't have progesterone.

[00:18:31] Um, n- certainly not in sufficient levels anyway. And these hormones are kind of just left to, like, run wild. So your insulin's up, your testosterone's up, your adrenal androgens like DHEA are up, and your other stress hormones might be up, and this is the syndrome. So that's explaining the new name a bit.

[00:18:54] And keep, I mean, I think the thing, the thing I really want to highlight there is [00:19:00] that that's how we've always looked at it. Nothing has changed about the syndrome itself, the features of the syndrome. No. They've just changed the name to reflect it. So I would encourage you, if you have been diagnosed with PCOS or you suspect it, I encourage you not to get too caught up in the name, because the name doesn't change much other than, hopefully, more women feeling a bit more seen, a bit more validated, a bit less confused when they receive the diagnosis.

[00:19:39] Hopefully, the language change also helps doctors be able to better explain how it relates to their metabolism as a whole. I mean, I, I hope so. Anyway, So this was published in The Lancet. It's like a, they, they've made a conses- consensus. They used a lot of different methods to come to this consensus and, [00:20:00] um, it's a, it's a part of a three-year kind of like transition plan to like really change the clinical language everywhere.

[00:20:07] Don't get too caught up in the name, because a condition by any other name would be as shit. Okay.

[00:20:16] The really exciting news here, yes, there's exciting news. The really exciting news here is that that pathogenesis that I explained for you, that pattern of high insulin and high testosterone, da, da, da. We have so many cool tools and strategies and treatment options to make those happenings not be happening in your body.

[00:20:46] We have so many things that can reduce insulin, that can improve your blood sugar response, that it c- can improve your insulin sensitivity, where your cells that were once like, "Ugh, go away. Stop knocking at my [00:21:00] door, insulin," they're like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll, I'll open the door. Okay." And they start to warm up to insulin again.

[00:21:08] And this stuff is also based in evidence. Unfortunately, it's just not always in alignment with the mainstream model of healthcare. Cinnamon, one of the species of cinnamon, can improve insulin sensitivity. That's not the kind of thing that your doctor or endocrinologist is gonna be telling you if you've just received a PCOS diagnosis, you know?

[00:21:35] Like

[00:21:36] Unfortunately.

[00:21:37] Simply changing the order of what you eat in a meal, like having a, some green non-starchy vegetables first before having the carbohydrate part of your meal. Like say if you're having a pasta, if you have... Or even like mashed potatoes or something, or rice, stir-fry, noodles. If you have like a [00:22:00] little salad first with some apple cider vinegar, you will get a less intense blood sugar spike after eating those carbs just because you had some veggies in front of it.

[00:22:12] And the other cool thing that your doctor probably isn't telling you about is that if you eat, if you focus most of your calories in daylight hours, which I know sounds obvious, but I know a lot of us can be late night eaters That influences the blood sugar response to a meal and the insulin output and the sensitivity of your cells' insulin receptors. The time of day, the time of day that you eat a meal can change the whole metabolic output, the whole metabolic process that happens after you eat.

[00:22:55] If you do 10 minutes of exercise... I shared [00:23:00] this on Instagram recently, and you guys loved it. If you do 10 minutes of exercise or even, I say start, start even simpler if, especially if, if this is a problem for you and you don't have a current, like, solid routine of moving or exercising intentionally. You have your meal, you go for a walk around the block, or you have your meal and you do 10 body weight squats. You have a meal and you do a couple of rounds of calf raises.

[00:23:31] That's on your toes, putting your heels up and down, up and down. Getting your muscles active after you have a meal tells your pancreas Is that how it works? Yeah tells your pancreas, "Hey, don't stress too much about too much insulin. We're, we're using this blood sugar, okay? We ne- yeah, we n- we, yeah, us muscles over here, we're using this blood sugar, okay?

[00:23:51] So don't, don't, uh Don't send too much of it into the other cells, okay? We're using it, we're using it. It's when we have high blood sugar spikes [00:24:00] and our energy output is not using that blood sugar. Like, if we've got a low energy output, but we're eating lots. I mean, and I mean, that's just, that's, that's the basics of it.

[00:24:12] That is the basics of it. I know some people don't like to, um, again, when it comes to weight, don't like to simplify the issue that much, and I agree there is so much nuance attributed to weight gain, weight loss, how we store energy, how we use energy. But if you're consistently taking in, especially, like, high sugar foods or meals that result in a high sugar spike, and your muscles aren't putting that sugar to use, you're not moving in a way that is putting that sugar to use,

[00:24:46] Your body's gonna get the message that like, "Oh, shit, send out, send out all that insulin. Like, my God, we need to, we need to pack up this sugar from the blood."

[00:24:55] So many things you can do. And that's, and that's just focusing, that's just four things that are [00:25:00] free. I don't think I... Well, you have to buy cinnamon or just use more of the one that's hiding in the back of your pantry. But they are low-cost or free things that you can do to start reversing your insulin resistance today.

[00:25:19] And that leads to reversing the existence of this syndrome in your body

[00:25:26] And I make it sound simple. I know I make it sound simple

[00:25:28] And it can feel hard, of course, if it, and if it's a massive change, of course. Of course that can feel hard, and this is why I love what I do. This, this is exactly what I'm here for. I c- I have specific tools that help these specific things that are going on in your body. And I, I can't, I don't just like say, "Yeah, this, this, and this."

[00:25:47] I work with you. I'm like, "Okay, let, how can we make this applicable to your life? How can we make this so achievable for you? How can we make this so doable for you? What blocks or obstacles do we need to get this, do we need to get [00:26:00] through first to ensure that you can actually take action that is designed to undo the patterns in your body that are perpetuating this state of illness?"

[00:26:13] Whether it's PMOS or PCOS or endo or PMS or PMDD or acne, whatever it is, that's the same foundation.

[00:26:25] Here's something that I wanna leave you with for your consideration

[00:26:30] You go to the doctor for your PCOS or your PMOS, and they treat the PCOS or the PMOS because they believe, as far as their training goes, that's the problem. But the problem is not the syndrome itself. The real problem is the collection of conditions that existed that paved the way [00:27:00] for that syndrome to develop in your body in the first place PCOS, PMOS, all shades and colors and shapes of disease don't come out of thin air.

[00:27:12] Even when there's a genetic component, by the way, it doesn't just happen from nothing. Symptoms do not express themselves for no reason. If your GP or endocrinologist, hormone specialist, gynecologist, if they're not asking about what your diet looks like now and what it looked like when you were growing up, 'cause that plays a role, if they're not asking you about your muscle mass and what you do to support your muscle strength and health, if they're not talking to you about your stress levels, your nervous system, and the fact that your adrenal glands might be overworking, and if they're not looking for other signs of inflammation in your body, they're gonna be missing the main areas that are under stress in [00:28:00] cases of PCOS or PMOS.

[00:28:03] And when you miss those areas, you totally skip the root drivers, the root drivers that are causing the symptoms, that are perpetuating the syndrome. And when you don't know what the root drivers are, how the hell are you ever gonna get to the bottom of it? You'll just be in this loop of, like, symptom suppression, right?

[00:28:22] And trying to, like, fix the symptoms. So when you go to the specialist that's treating your PCOS or PMOS rather than treating you as a whole person, you are getting symptom suppression. You're not getting a root cause treatment, and you're probably not getting anything that's actually tailored to you or your specific presentation.

[00:28:46] You're getting a protocol that's based on you being like a textbook, that's based on the syndrome being the problem. The syndrome is just communicating something to you [00:29:00] about a much bigger picture that's been going on for probably a long time. It didn't start yesterday, I can tell you that much. If you're ready to look at the actual picture of what's going on, what caused the syndrome in the first place, I invite you to book a free Body story Call with me.

[00:29:24] Whatever you're going through, tell me about it. Tell me what's going on in your life. Tell me about what your body's doing and how you're feeling in your body, and I'll help you decode what your symptoms are telling us about your body. I'll help you map out the story that your body is telling us through the symptoms that you have.

[00:29:44] Because it doesn't matter if it's PCOS or PMOS or something else. Your body is always telling us a story, and there is information and insight beneath the symptoms. You [00:30:00] saw that beautiful diagram I showed you, if you're watching. Shout out. Watch on YouTube if you're not already. You saw that beautiful diagram.

[00:30:06] There's a pathway of how this stuff starts. We start from the symptom. We start from the outcome. How is it expressing itself in our body? And we, we follow it back. Well, what came before that symptom? Oh, well, your hormone levels started to change. And what changed the hormone levels? Well, your blood sugar regulation started to change.

[00:30:26] Oh, and what changed the blood sugar regulations? Well, your diet started to change and your stress levels started to change. Oh, and you also had this virus that caused a huge inflammation spike in your body that you never probably dealt with, and now your microbiome's changed. And I know it sounds overwhelming, but, like It, when you look at it that way, it connects everything together.

[00:30:46] So instead of having these, like, separate issues, like I need to fix this symptom and this symptom and this symptom and this sy- symptom, we get to, like, one to three, like, kind of root causes, [00:31:00] and we work on those. And all the symptoms across all different body systems start to improve. And the people that I work with get to a point where their symptoms are either reduced and so much more manageable than they were when they first came to see me, or they kind of disappear.

[00:31:22] And a year or two down the track from working together, they forgot. Like, it, it's just... It, it's actually funny sometimes how it's just so not their issue, especially with clients with, like, say, PCOS and, like, uh, a symptom like acne. And I might not see them for a year, and I- they'll book in, and I'll be like, "Okay, I'll, I'll check in on their skin, see how their, their acne is going."

[00:31:47] And they'll just be like, "Oh." I ask them about it, and they're like, "Oh, no, no, that's..." It's not even an issue anymore when it's, like, the reason that they came to see me in the first place. So yeah, don't stress. Don't stress too much about the [00:32:00] label. I know it feels, like, exciting now. It feels like a win for women, and in some ways it is, but as far as healthcare goes, we have a long way to go.

[00:32:11] And until you start seeing these symptoms and diagnostic labels differently, we're not, we're not gonna get to the root of things. And women's health will just keep getting into a deeper and deeper, like, more dire situation, um, which is kind of how things are heading now. But I choose to believe that the pendulum is swinging, that more of us are waking up and realizing that our bodies are talking to us, and that there's so much we can do to help bring our bodies back into balance, naturally.

[00:32:48] Naturally, without using crazy medications or drugs or getting intense treatments or being told that there's nothing we can do or, you know, being told to take the pill or get the IUD [00:33:00] inserted into your uterus, you know?

[00:33:02] There are so many options. I'll leave it there, folks. If you haven't already, download my free cycle tracking guide if you wanna get started on, uh, decoding the language of your body if you have a menstrual cycle. And if you're listening to this, I would bet that you do. Uh, so that's the best way to start.

[00:33:21] And

[00:33:22] So yeah, if you've been like nodding along, if you relate to-- if you have a diagnosis of PCOS, if you've been interested in the name change because you kind of relate to some of the symptoms and it's opened your eyes a little bit, and you've just been like, "Oh yeah, shit, I understand, understand the links that Karinda's making," book in for a free Body Story Call.

[00:33:45] You've got nothing to lose. You'll-- Like, the, the worst-case scenario is that you book the call, and I'll leave you with something that I would suggest getting started with based on what I think your body is telling us, based on what you share with me. [00:34:00] And the best-case scenario is that I share that with you, and you're happy with it, and you like my analysis and feel seen in my analysis of what your body's telling us, and you wanna do more work with me.

[00:34:15] But there's no obligation. So book in for a free Body Story Call. I'd love to meet you anyway. Take care, guys.