Stephanie Peters FDNP, HHP

Before anyone comes after me, I am not bashing doctors or the medical field. Having spent 10 years as a pharmacy technician, there absolutely is a time and a place for doctors, surgeries, and medication. 💊

But understanding that conventional lab ranges are designed to identify disease is really important. They’re not necessarily designed to identify dysfunction.

In conventional medicine, the goal is often to answer the question: “Is there a disease process happening that requires diagnosis?” That’s a VERY different question than, “why don’t I feel well.”

So if your thyroid hasn’t completely crashed, your blood sugar isn’t high enough to be diabetic, and your iron isn’t low enough to be considered anemic, your labs probably came back as ‘normal’. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Meanwhile, you’re sitting here dealing with fatigue, brain fog, bloating, anxiety, insomnia, and weight loss resistance.

The challenge is that many of the symptoms women struggle with show up long before the disease does.

Your body doesn’t wake up one day with a diagnosis. It tries to communicate with you beforehand, but often it whispers and we don’t hear it.

Maybe it’s through subtle changes in energy, digestion, mood, metabolism, and hormones. These symptoms don’t always mean something is seriously wrong, but they do tell us that your body may be struggling to keep up with the demands placed on it.

This is why I spent SOO Much time looking beyond whether a marker is simply “within range”. I want to know and understand more.

- What is an OPTIMAL level?
- Does this pattern match with your symptoms?
- What story does these markers tell when we look at them TOGETHER vs individually?

Because lab markers don’t exist in isolated, and neither do your symptoms.

And jst because you’re not “sick enough” to receive a diagnosis does NOT mean your body is thriving and operating at optimal function.

How many of you have left a doctor’s appointment feeling relieved that nothing serious was wrong... but also frustrated because you still didn’t have answers?

I’d love to hear below ⬇️