Ep. 173: Naturally healing hormonal acne without birth control with Maddie

Pimples aren't just for teenagers, especially when they are caused by hormones. Women struggling with hormonal acne are often given one option and one option only: birth control. But what if you don't want to use birth control? What if you want to get to the root of the problem? Is it possible? Is there a solution for hormonal acne? These were the questions our client Maddie faced after years of acne struggles and very few answers. She joins us to share her honest story of  deciding to come off of birth control and seek healing for acne that had plagued her for years. I appreciate Maddie's willingness to share her story because hormonal acne is something so many women face -- and without any hope of answers! If you feel that way, don't miss this episode. Spoiler alert: with time and effort, she found the answers and healing she hoped for. 

NOTE: This episode is appropriate for all audiences.

Guest Bio: Maddie works as a journalist, photographer, and storyteller in Jackson, Tennessee. She has been married to her husband Zach for a little over one year and they love to travel together and host people in their home. Maddie's experience with healing her body and hormones has been a long journey that has drawn her closer to the Lord and has transformed the way she lives her daily life now.

Other episodes you might enjoy:

Ep. 19: PCOS 101

Ep. 128: Healing irregular cycles and reversing PCOS -- Emily's Story

Ep. 152: Do PCOS cycles work with fertility awareness methods?

Ep. 106: Creighton vs. NaProTechnology - What are they?

Transcript

Caitlin (00:23)
Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. Client stories, they're just my favorite. These are ladies that I love and I'm always so excited for you all, our listeners, to get to hear from them. So today we're talking with a client, Maddie, who works as a journalist, photographer, and storyteller in Jackson, Tennessee. She's married to her husband, Zach. She's been married for a little over a year now and they love to travel and host people in their home.

In Maddie's own words, healing her body and hormones has been a long journey that has drawn her closer to the Lord and transformed the way she lives her daily life. I cannot wait for you to hear all the details about that from her. So Maddie, welcome to the show.

Maddie (01:08)
Yeah, it's so good to be here. I'm excited.

Caitlin (01:12)
I'm excited too. maybe we could start by like, how did we get connected in the first place? What were you looking for when you first reached out to Woven?

Maddie (01:21)
Yeah, so I really like was about to get married. I think I was like four months out from getting married and I was really looking for a natural method of birth control because I didn't want to get back on the pill. I had been on the pill for a couple years in college for skin issues I was having and I was just talking to my sister-in-law about it.

in the car one day and she had been doing Creighton for a little while ⁓ and had loved it. And so she told me about it because I had tried things like natural cycles before and it didn't work for me. It just wasn't really like detecting what it needed to. She was giving me bunch of red days and I was like, this isn't gonna work. This is just not what I'm needing right now. So I had gone to the doctor and like literally had my prescription.

for birth control, like I'd gone and gotten it and something was just like, I don't need to take that. And I'm so thankful that she just shared like her story with me just because I was willing to ask her, ⁓ you know, and like share what I was struggling with with her. And then I attended, you know, one of the intro sessions and then decided to give it a go. And thankfully my then fiance, Zach was really supportive of it.

Caitlin (02:24)
Mm.

Maddie (02:48)
And was just like, yeah, we'll do whatever we need to do. And it's been great since we started.

Caitlin (02:55)
And good for you that obviously long before your wedding, months before your wedding, you were already exploring natural options and trying to find what was going to be best for you. And you actually gave yourself enough time to try out natural cycles to see if it could be a good fit and to discover, ⁓ man, this is not actually working with my body, my reproductive health, so that you still had four whole months.

Maddie (03:15)
Yeah.

Caitlin (03:22)
to learn something new or to explore other options before you got married. for me, in an ideal world, ⁓ women or couples, I should say, would get started with Creighton a minimum of three to six months before they get married. And then in our first meeting,

I asked you about your experience on birth control, what that was like, and why you were taking it because that can, I always ask that question because it's usually it's going to reveal some sort of symptom or concern that the woman has that the doctor never treated or looked into. They just said, ⁓ here, take the pill. So in our first meeting, you mentioned acne, skin issues.

which is something so many women are dealing with and are frustrated about. what had been done previously when it comes to skin issues

Maddie (04:09)
Yes.

Yeah, so I really started having hormonal acne issues beginning when I was like 12 or 13. And that was like pretty typical, you know, like you're a teenager, it's like, you're going to have acne. But then it just kind of kept getting worse and worse. So I went to an OBGYN. I also went to a dermatologist like all through high school. We tried pretty much every like

prescription medication you could be on, most all topical medications. And then they wanted me to do Accutane and I was pretty strongly against that. My mom and I both were like, we draw the line there. And then I kind of like begged my parents to let me be on birth control, freshman year of college because my skin was just so bad that it was affecting really like my everyday life and

just the way I saw myself and it was a difficult season. And so that's why I went on birth control and then decided to come off of it senior year of college because my skin had gotten pretty good and I had friends who had gotten married and they had also been trying to come off the pill as well. So was kind of like I had friends doing it too and who had gone before me.

Caitlin (05:29)
the more we understand about women's health and how cycles work, the more that makes sense because you tried every topical dermatological treatment there was and it wasn't treated. Why? Because it wasn't actually an issue of the skin, but it was related to the hormones. It was, they were hormone imbalances that were causing that physical manifestation of that. And so of course, all the things that the dermatologist was giving you, I mean, they're giving you everything they got.

but it's not treating the root issue of the hormone causes. So then when you take birth control, and I'm just sharing this for anyone listening who's wondering why does birth control actually work for acne. So you take birth control and it suppresses all those hormones. So you have very, very low levels of potentially estrogen or estrogen and progesterone and I should clarify.

not actually estrogen or progesterone but chemicals that are synthetic mimickers of those hormones so they do function differently. There are different risks associated with them but they're very very low levels and so of course you're not having periods, you're not having ovulation, you're not having any symptoms that you would have from hormonal imbalances as well. So then when you came off of the birth control you're going to have those symptoms again

the hormones are going to return. So when you began charting with us at Woven, we got you connected fairly quickly with a restorative reproductive physician that's trained in napro technology, which is kind what we partner with as a Creighton organization. So what was their approach to acne?

Maddie (07:13)
Yeah, so I think ⁓ with the charting, We thought maybe like, low progesterone. And so I thought maybe it would be an easy fix. But seeing my doctor for the first time, she pretty much looked at my chart and was like, I don't know that you're ovulating. And that was like crazy that someone

could just like look at a chart and tell that. ⁓ But kind of from that and then like some initial labs, ⁓ which my dermatologist and the OBGYNs I had seen I'd never done. Like they, I asked for lab work several times and they just didn't do that. And so it was really awesome to have a doctor that like did the lab work and like you could see on paper that my hormones were very imbalanced and

It turns out that I had not been ovulating for several cycles, if not for possibly six months to a year. And that because of that, my hormones were just kind of all over the place because my body would like try to ovulate and then it couldn't. And that was very reflective in the charting. You could definitely see that that was what was going on. And so then, you know, from there, she really wanted to do all the tests. We did ultrasounds.

We did lab work at different parts of my cycle. And then from there, she really offered me several different options. I really loved that, like working with a napro doctor, there was medical options and there was supplements or like natural ways of helping my body do what it's supposed to do. So I've changed a lot about my lifestyle, like in what I'm eating and exercising and

managing stress and sleeping and just all of those things combined with taking supplements and also medication for a little bit there. So that was really cool to have like just the option to be like a long-term solution to the problem instead of just, ⁓ you know, even the dermatologist is very like short-term based because, you know, even like the top of the things we would try maybe worked for like two months.

and then they would stop working. And so really it was like, how can we shift your lifestyle to help support your body and what it needs to do? And then we also discovered that I do have PCOS. And so, you know, that was like really demonstrated in mostly my skin, but I didn't have a lot of like the usual symptoms that women have. I wasn't missing my periods. They were still pretty regular, which...

the OBGYNs just didn't think that I would have PCOS because my periods were still there. And so it was also really cool to see a doctor who looked beyond just what like the norm was. And I think for me, like it had been, I guess like a 10 year struggle ⁓ with my skin. And it was kind of just like, is this ever gonna end? Like, is this gonna be a struggle for the rest of my life? And ⁓

Caitlin (09:58)
Mm-hmm.

Maddie (10:22)
It was just really, really cool to have a doctor that could hear me and see me and really dig beneath just what the norm is and what surface level things may say.

Caitlin (10:35)
Yes, I think how you just phrase that like surface level things, but that's how so often we approach any medical issue, but especially anything within women's health, or we separate things so much that we think, ⁓ acne can't be related to women's health when absolutely it can be, but somebody who actually took the time to see you as a full person and want to acknowledge that and honor that and treat you with

dignified, compassionate care, while also educating you. Like it sounds from everything you're saying.

She gave you so many tools that you now have as a resource for your success and your wellness and your health the rest of your life. So, you know, if you go through a season a few years from now where things start to change, one, you'll be able to see it on your chart because like you said, you can actually see it happening on your chart in real time. People always think that they can't use Creighton if they have PCOS, but it's the opposite. You absolutely can use it.

Maddie (11:39)
It actually

worked so much better for me than natural cycles because that couldn't detect that I was ovulating because I wasn't.

Caitlin (11:48)
Yeah,

exactly. But on the Creighton chart, you're able to see when your body is attempting to ovulate or what may be even it can be kind of a guide or a roadmap to look at what's underneath. So ovulation isn't happening. Here's some potential reasons why just by looking at the chart, it can give that kind of clarification. So but in all that you're describing, I can tell that it was a good process, but it doesn't necessarily sound like an easy process.

Maddie (12:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think the best way isn't always the easiest way. And I think it's like that just in like our walk with the Lord too. I think a lot of the times he's calling us to difficult things and the difficult road. And I don't want people to hear me say like, healing my skin naturally and like, you know, getting my body to do what it's supposed to do has been an easy road. It's been difficult. Like there's, I think in the beginning.

there was a lot of months of like, I gonna have, like, am I gonna be fertile? Like, am I gonna be able to ovulate? And ⁓ thankfully I had a doctor that was like very helpful in that. And also just having you and like having the biblical side of the natural fertility world really helped too. But I mean, there are hard days when I just like wanna eat sugar and I can't eat sugar because.

then my body is not going to opulate and then my skin is going to break out. You know, and it is all about balance and I do still have treats every once in a while because like no one can live a perfect eating habits life. But I've really been able to treat it as like almost a biblical fast, a biblical fasting sense. Just in drawing near to the Lord and asking, like inviting him into this and

Caitlin (13:24)
Yeah, yeah, I'm glad to hear that.

Hmm.

Maddie (13:46)
Really like, yes, I'm doing the work to like eat more protein and like not eat sugar or not eat as many carbs and exercise, but ⁓ really like he's given me strength to do that. And he's given me this body that I get to steward and like this gift of fertility that I get to steward now. And so I think he's just changed my heart a lot from like, ⁓ I just wanna do what I wanna do and eat what I wanna eat to like.

let's just invite the Lord in and surrender this to him. And it's been incredible to see really how he has healed my body and he has connected me to you and to my doctors and even like my sister-in-law and just his sovereign plan through it all has made the difficult days easier. ⁓ But yeah, the easy way isn't always the best way because taking birth control certainly was easier.

It was, you know, just taking a pill every day. But also coming off of that, I lost like 15, 20 pounds that I didn't know I was carrying extra weight. Like there's been a lot of positives to ⁓ healing my body in this way and like having the tools from here on out to, you know, be able to know when my, how it feels to have a regular cycle.

really didn't know what that felt like. I didn't know what it felt like with your progesterone is off or if I'm not ovulating. And now I know exactly what that feels like and looks like, which is just so helpful for the longterm because like, what was I supposed to do? And I didn't want to be on birth control anymore. You know, if I had gone back on birth control and then a few years later decided I wanted kids and then what am I just supposed to deal with? You know, having horrible skin issues or

I, who knows what, what, you know, could have been the future for my husband and I's family if I had just, stayed on the pill for years.

Caitlin (15:46)
I think so often about how we forget that women are women. We forget that women are human beings who are, female in nature and their hormones and their reproductive system is going to be different than a male's. So we can't simply ignore those reproductive hormones, ignore those reproductive organs, and expect everything to be great.

Maddie (15:52)
Hmm.

Caitlin (16:13)
you make a really good point about you had the potential to be on birth control until you're ready to conceive and then whoa, surprise, you're not even ovulating and there are several reproductive health issues going on and that would have been best case scenario a year or two of investigating that to get to the root cause and be treated before you could try to conceive.

⁓ worst-case scenario you would have been immediately referred to an IVF clinic and gone down that road when there are other options. I realize that everybody's story is going to be different but I think that I want every woman to be educated, informed, empowered, and be able to advocate for those other options and I think that's something unique about you is that you were interested in the natural options before you had to be.

And I love your phrasing of it as we were just talking about it. You said, this is my body that it's a gift to steward and my fertility is a gift to steward. Thinking of that through the lens, thinking of those parts of who we are as a person through the lens of a gift of God, totally radically changes how we see them, how we nurture them, how we preserve them.

And I think also it helps us to incorporate them into our lives and say, oh, this is, this is that thing over there that I can just kind of ignore for a while. No, this is from the Lord. And so I want to respect it and honor it.

Maddie (17:40)
Right, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I totally, totally agree. And I think it also changes just our perspective towards children and like seeing kids as a gift from the Lord, which is such a cool thing to have in marriage, even if like our intention isn't to conceive right now. And we are preventing pregnancy. It's still amazing to have this perspective of our fertility is a gift and children are a gift from the Lord. And

It's just been really life-changing, I think, for me and also for my husband, for us to be able to pray through this together and see the Lord's work in my physical body. It's not really super often that you get to see physical healing in your life. And so that's just been a really, really sweet experience.

Caitlin (18:34)
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Maddie. I really appreciate it.

Maddie (18:38)
Yeah, it's been awesome. Glad I can share it.

Caitlin (18:41)
Listeners, I know that there are those of you out there dealing with acne and that can be a very honestly tender, ⁓ vulnerable topic and it can often feel like there is no hope. I hope this has been an encouraging episode for you to know that there is hope, there is a way to address it and there are people here ready to partner with you, empower you and help you. As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.