She healed endometriosis naturally — and built a product around it | AAYU Science

Smita suffered from excruciating endometriosis pain. After being told the "cure" was stopping her menstruation, she decided to find another way.

She discovered a natural protocol that eliminated her endometriosis — and went on to have a daughter.

After years of research, she turned that protocol into a product to help others do the same.

Men & women's reproductive health: aayuscience.com

Transcript

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Imagine being told there's no cure for what you're dealing with and that having children is impossible. That's exactly what Smita was told when she was diagnosed with endometriosis, a chronic inflammatory condition that can cause severe pain and deeply impact quality of life. But instead of accepting that, she turned to Ayurveda and ended up fully healing herself and becoming a mother. Today, she's taken the same protocol and turned it into a product that can help other women do the same. Smeita, I'm really excited to dive into your story. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having me. It's wonderful. Of course. So, what were your symptoms like on a day-to-day basis? Um, on a day-to-day basis was just lethargy. Um, but on a monthly basis is what actually impacted my overall lifestyle more, is during my periods, it was excruciating um pain, um, heavy bleeding to the point where sometimes I couldn't even leave the house because it was just impossible to continue the bleeding. Um and and and I see pain, like like excruciating pain. And because of the bleeding, I was becoming anemic. Um, and just overall, I would say I was absolutely like I wouldn't do meetings, I would be absent from like important events um for about four to five days of the month. And so that impacted every um sphere of my life. Yeah, it's not extremely difficult. And like women already deal with the their periods, but having that extra layer of that excruciating pain, I can't even imagine what that is like. And and the sad part is that um because it goes undiagnosed, because the awareness, of course, you know, nobody in their 20s really understands what you know symptoms are. And because I had it from the very, like from a very early age, I just thought that's what periods were. Like, oh, okay, like four days, like, and now I'm gonna be like, I won't be able to go to classes when I was in college, for example. So I just kind of like made peace with it until um much later when I got actually diagnosed with um pretty severe endometriosis. And then it made sense because I I did have, you know, friends who would be like, oh, you know, like I would find out they're on their periods and I would be like shocked. Like, how am you walking around playing sports? Like, how is this possible? And so I just thought it was genetics, and you know, that's just how my periods were. Yeah, that's so unfortunate that it's so understudied. I mean, this is such a big deal. I mean, we deal with this every single month, and then having that extra chronic pain and inflammation, it's just insane. It just shows a lot about you know the healthcare system as well. And I actually have people in my life that also uh struggle with endometriosis, and I just know like they literally can't leave the house, they can't, you know, even hold a job sometimes. It's just really difficult to just live a normal life. So you were told there was no cure for your endometriosis, even when you when you found out what did that moment feel like for you? I actually don't remember what that moment felt like for me, but I just remember thinking that this cannot, that there's no way that this is how people deal with a hormonal imbalance because of my background in um biomedical technology and cancer biology, and I was I was very immersed with um uh clinical research and all of this. And so I have a basic understanding of human anatomy, and I know that it was because of a hormonal imbalance, and it was not actually that they told me there's no cure. Uh, what they had told me is we have to stop your menstruation for a year. Um, because with every cycle, the damage done is just severe. And so the only way to kind of curb the impact was to stop your menstruation for a year. That was what was told to me, not that, you know, there's no cure. That was their cure. And so that's when I realized there is there is no way in hell you are telling a woman of reproductive age that you have to stop the one thing that makes a woman reproduce. So that's when I kind of understood that I've hit a dead end with Western medicine. It was more the preposterousness of it than a deeply sad feeling. It wasn't because I knew in intuitively that Western medicine was wrong. That's great that you had that spark in you to like question that and look for other ways, because there's so many times where people are just told, this is it, that's all you can do. Yeah. And then they don't explore other methods. And sometimes even methods you may bring up are completely shut down, usually because there's not enough research or they weren't trained on it. But there's so much we still don't know, especially about Ayurveda plans, all this stuff. And I really think it needs to be really brought into clinical studies, like we talked about even more, because there's just a lot out there. It's not always just one magic pill or um one solution. There are other ways. So you had this feeling, let me explore something else. What made you think, let me try Ayurveda? Well, so I happened to be in India at the time. And um being Indian, Ayuda is a is a very common, like it's it's a novelty here in the Western world. Uh, but in India, Ayurveda is like, well, now the way yoga is, but um, it's a very common part. We're not, we we don't call it Ayurveda, we don't call it like, you know, it's such a part of like our everyday life. Like as an Indian kid, having turmeric and ginger and um turmeric milk, it these are just everyday parts of your life, you know. Here, um I almost chuckle when I see like golden milk becoming a product and becoming the billion-dollar product because you know, um we've we've grown up with it. Um so it was always there. But when I got this diagnosis, um my first instinct was actually, like I said, I'm a little biased towards science because of my education and training in it. I didn't actually turn into the Ayurvedic texts. I went ballistic on PubMed, National Library of Medicine. Um, any and all kinds of clinical studies, research papers that I could find on Ayurvedic herbs, done um effect on endometriosis, PCOS. And I didn't just limit it to endometriosis because oftentimes these are all different conditions with different symptoms, but they're all completely linked and part of the same um pyramid, linking back to hormonal imbalance. So I I just exhausted my entire uh repertoire of any kind of clinical uh research study searches that I could do. And I was actually very, very um pleasantly surprised that there were so many uh research papers on they were smaller, um, smaller subject groups, uh, but there were quite a few studies I found that took Ayurvedic herbs and used them on uh women with PCOS or fibroids or endometriosis or even just like hormonal um imbalances. And I want to say, Leah, like 99% of those uh studies had positive results. Where like, like as a researcher, when you look through a uh like a research paper, you're trained to look at the objective. And me, because of the premise, I just looked at objectives, methodology, and results. And every single research paper in the results section had, you know, the like 99% of the subjects had XYZ symptoms completely gone and they were managed with whatever else. Um so I was like, this is amazing. And so I took a few of those research papers, I got the exact formulations from them that those uh patients were put on. And being in India, it was serendipity. Um, it's very easy to get these herbs. It would be almost impossible to get the herbs here. And so I I put myself on a full formulation for about three and a half months. And after that, I uh did um an ultrasound at about the fourth month. And uh the lady that was doing the ultrasound, um, I was an ultrasound technician, and she said, Do you know why your doctor sent you to is he looking for something? So I said, Yeah, and the progress of my endometriosis. And she said, You don't have endometriosis. And she's like, I see endomiosis a little bit, but you don't have endometriosis. And at that time, I am fully guilty of thinking that this ultrasound technician didn't know what she was doing. At that time, I actually thought she didn't know what she was doing, and I was like, and so I was I still didn't act on it. I I uh repeated my ultrasound. Um, and this time I requested, like I went to a different place, and and I remember the doctor said, You have a clean, beautiful uterus. I will never forget those words. And I I think I was just too shocked to feel anything. Like part of me was just like exhilarated almost like in disbelief. But the the science nerd in me just you know, was just jumping up and down like holy F. Like this is this is this is I've hit gold. Wow, that is incredible. Like to actually take the exact protocol from the clinical research, do it yourself, and see results that fast. That is yeah, that's I was very, I was I was very diligent about it because at that time I had hit such a wall that I was like, I don't have I don't have time to, you know, screw around or you know, do half of it or not undo it completely, commit to it, and then we'll see. And I also had the had the peace of mind that usually everything doesn't have side effects because they're all naturally processed by the body and they just exit the body. Wow, and just to be so normal in India, like you don't even call it Ayurveda, it just is healthcare, right? Um yeah, it actually is, yeah. Yeah. So these are all like anti-inflammatory herbs, you know, I'm assuming like with the clinical research. They are um a variety of different herbs that work on the endocrine system overall. So the very premise of Ayurveda, the foundation of Ayurveda is balance. Um, one is balance, and two is um that the body is a connected system. Here, what we do is, you know, a liver drug will treat the liver, no matter what it does to you. And that's why you have these crazy disclaimers at the end of you know, drug commercials or you know, at the back of like the little footnotes that you see, it may cause um kidney strongly, it may cause XYZ, it may cause, and and so Ayurveda actually um anything that you take in Ayurveda treats the body as a whole. So uh something for the liver will 100% have something for the kidneys, have something for the gut, have something for the lymphatic system, because everything needs to work in order for the body to come back to balance. And that's something that I you of the brand output, of the formulation, I was very comfortable with it. That's amazing. I just truly believe in the holistic health, making sure, you know, it's impacting everything because when it's too pinpointed, it doesn't always address the root cause, you know, it could come from elsewhere. Yeah, it you know, it's like a symptom fixer. Right, exactly. That's very interesting. So all these herbs together help through the endocrine system and managing the hormones and the inflammation. Uh that's amazing that you were able to see results that fast. Yeah. So you're shocked, you're like, oh my God, I can't believe it. I don't have endometriosis anymore. And then it led you down the path of let me figure out how to help other people with this. So, what were your next steps with that? Um, I kind of indexed it in my head, and then it was more that when I found the results, um, it just sparked the science in me more to see what else does I have to offer. And one of the things that I'd always wanted to do is my background is in clinical research and biology, biomed, like all of that. But I didn't love being in in have and working in lab. So, long story short, about my background is I wanted to do my PhD in cancer biology, but after being in lab, I realized I was not cut out for the lab life to like come back at 3 a.m. in the morning to look at self, zero social interaction. Something in me just knew that this was not my path, even though I was so in love with the science of it all. And so I did an MBA at that time. I I quit that whole PhD thought, and I did an MBA instead. And so um after that, I'd always wanted to do something at the cusp of business and biology or something in that. So that was, I think, somewhere there. And so one of the things that I started with obviously was okay, if I really want to take it to more people, A, I need to do much more research, and B, I need to understand the market. And one of the things that I had always noticed about the Western market is um men's sexual health is even though Viagra is the be-all and end all of it all, it's largely overlooked and almost diminished to a performance market. So the wellness aspect there was completely missing. Um and so I kind of delved into what I bring has to offer for men's health. And again, I was blown away by the results of the studies, like extremely hard. Like, I'm talking taking men who were close to infertile or had really low sperm count or you know, had uh really, really severe cases of PE or um erythrough dysfunction and creating results that 50% plus um improvement. And so that was another thing that I completely delved into when I thought that men, especially in America, are so focused on performance in the bedroom that they completely miss the indicators of sexual health being an indicator of health. They just treat it, and that's the narrative in society, and healthcare wants you to think that if you can't get it, you're not mad enough. Whereas your body is telling you that it is the hormones are off. So you're completely overlooking and ignoring a very important health indicator when you when you just focus on performance. And so um that was another formulation that I really studied that could again treat the men like man's body as a full system, hormone, prostate, overall, mental health. Um, and when I found the research in that, I felt good about having like a men's line and a women's line. Then I started um thinking about how can I manufacture this, how can I get the herbs reliably. And in the meantime, I got pregnant and had my daughter. Wow. Okay, so that was uh transformative experience for me. And when that happens, and when that happened, I think I just knew I I had to before that it was more like doing the background work. When I had my daughter, it's almost like that was the real purpose. Like that's when the the purpose switch went off. And I was like, oh my goodness. I mean, imagine if I had listened to, you know, Western medicine. And and and of course, you know, they also give you hope with more Western medicine BS, which is, oh, but don't worry, you know, later on when we restart your periods, like there is IBF, there is this, there is that, and more hormones and more. And so I was like, and so for me to get pregnant naturally, um, and having uh by the race of the universe a really like smooth, healthy pregnancy, and just see my daughter, I was like, oh my goodness. Now I have a sense of purpose, and that's when I think officially IU, my my company, IU is born in my hand. Wow, that is absolutely beautiful. I mean, there's so much overlooked when it comes to like natural healing and you know, just the holistic systems. And it's unfortunate that we have to do so much of this research ourselves. And it's great that you just like had that inner knowing, I'm going to look elsewhere, I'm going to do the research, and you didn't give up on yourself. And now you have a new life in the world. And I bet that feels so incredible. So, congratulations again. I'm sure this gives a lot of hope to people out there who like are struggling with this too. And maybe they gave up because we were just told to trust what the doctor says. But sometimes there's more out there. Sometimes doctors are also tired, you know? So it really we have to take our health into our own hands. And I love that you were able to take this information, take this research, and that you have that background, which makes it so much better to be able to create the both products, male and female, because again, it's like the whole holistic coming together of like even both sexes as well. So that is absolutely beautiful. Yeah, yeah, that was that one's I mean, also because I mean they can't have babies without healthy men. Right. Right, exactly. You need both, it just makes sense to focus on, you know, the yin and the yang at the same time, and and uh have a healthy couple uh focus on the right things, of course, and there's so much in this world also like impacting that stuff we also don't even feel or see, like microplastics or just like chemicals in general, even in the foods that we eat, there's just so much like impacting us, and we don't even sense it. And we're like, what's wrong with us? I'm I'm eating pretty healthy still. But yeah, there's a lot that goes on. So, how do you think about the experience of someone taking your product? You know, not just the outcome. Um, it's just it's pretty much just taking any supplement. It's um the one thing that I would urge women and men to think or rethink is the way they approach wellness and the way they define wellness. I think we need to reframe wellness as um. Mind, body, soul health, as opposed to just, you know, being able to pump at the gym or go to the spa, and then um, you know, your mental health is not where it needs to be because you're burnt out, or you are a man who has performance issues in the bedroom, but they're not able to seek help because again, it's tied to performance instead of wellness. Or if you're a again, a woman with endometriosis who's just trying to keep it all together and you know, just get on with being a professional or being a mother, but whatever it is. I think we need to listen to our bodies more and respect what the indicators that we get. If a man doesn't get an erection, unless they had a medically diagnosed erectile dysfunction, um, 50% of premature ejaculation cases are actually for anxiety because of anxiety, performance anxiety. And why is it anxiety? Because of the word performance. It's called performance anxiety. So if you take away the word performance, like it's not an Olympic sport, like why are we calling it performance? Like, who are you performing for? Like who's clapping? Like, you know, if we just remove that whole idea of performance in the bedroom, then suddenly you will, I guarantee, men will feel a weight lifted off. And then they will finally start being able to listen to their bodies and understanding that um a delayed erection or uh premature ejaculation is a hormonal imbalance thing. It's the testosterone dipping, it's their bodies trying to tell them something, not so they can ignore it and you know, pop a pill and get an erection and go to the ER the next day. But it's really about listening to your body and understanding that more often than not, it's not just the symptom that needs to be, you know, suppressed. It's it's a much more deeper root cause. And the moment you start addressing the hormonal imbalances or any other imbalances, you automatically feel the balance kind of returning. And when when your body starts behaving differently and in a better way, you don't need uh someone to tell you that this is good for you. And that's what I think happened to me. And that's what I think anybody who um genuinely uh takes Ayurveda uh for the right reasons. Um once you see your body behaving differently, that you feel less lethargic, you have more energy, um, your skin looks better, or um, like some people go through acne during the periods, or whatever it is, it's also normal. Um periods get a little more regular for men. Again, like you're not as anxious, um, you feel more relaxed and in your your libido comes back. The experience of it, you will know that something is coming back to balance. And I think that's what will give them the belief that it works, because nobody should take just my word for it. Right. Um, I didn't. I put myself on something, and only then I realized that okay, I can stand by this because now I've experienced it myself. Right. It's all about that awareness and just, you know, even tracking maybe your symptoms over time, your improvements. I think that really helps show that as well. Um, because what from what I've like heard is that Ayurveda is usually like more subtle and slower. You know, is there people that just like give up on it too early? Or like when do you think is like the usual um timeline for seeing any type of change? I would say three months because again, like on first principles, I can only go by my own experience versus what a textbook or a magazine tells me. Um, so I would think it takes um at least three months because you have to realize you are undoing not months, but years of um um damage or years of um imbalance. Like imbalance doesn't happen in one day, it happens over the years. For women, I was just talking to someone the other day, and I was like, you know, I don't even think we realize that women take birth control pills starting at 18 or some even earlier. What are birth control pills? They're just hormones, right? So we start bombarding our body with hormones in a perfectly balanced system, day after day, not even month after month. And so when this system reaches, you know, its 30s or 35, whenever they want to, you know, have babies or really focus on suddenly their hormonal health, this system has been out of balance for years now because of an absolutely unnecessary um influx of hormones uh daily. So to undo that um and not to mention, you know, overall lifestyle and stress and try to do it all, you know, the lymphatic system is out of uh balance, the hormonal system is out of balance, the you know, gut is um a wreck. So everything takes time. So I think we need to, like I said, we need to reframe wellness as I need to feel better now versus how can I take care of my body so it goes long? Not, you know, feel good now, but it goes long. And I think once you shift the focus from um feeling good right now to longevity, which Ayurveda means the science of longevity, I think um you will you will start being more patient with um how you look at um Ayurveda and just just the results you get um will be enough to to stick to it, but you have to you have to give it two, three months to at least um I mean, come on, I mean you owe it to yourself. Right, exactly. And I feel like a lot of answers can be found, especially with symptoms that you could be dealing with. And you're like, I don't know where this is coming from. I found that at least in my personal life, if I look back on what I've been doing repeatedly, a lot of my answers are found there. For example, like for someone taking birth control every single day, you know, just taking a step back and looking at what am I ingesting or what are my actions every day and could this be causing it? Because sometimes we think, oh, our body's just just messed up, like just the way it is. For example, I have like I was getting pain in my um shoulders repeatedly. I was waking up with pulling my neck, like I was like, what is wrong with me? And I never could have guessed that it was literally from using machines at the gym. Like out of all things, like because my body, you know, it's a certain way, but now I can work out super hard without using the machines. I don't have any of those issues anymore. And so when I look back, like, what am I doing every single day that could be contributing to this? Even if you don't think it is that, it could be that. So yeah, and we push our bodies, we push our bodies, but um, you know, I think I think we just need to be a little more gentle with ourselves and realize that, you know, it this is a long game. Exactly. You know, life is short, sounds good in literature, but but we want a long, healthy life. Exactly, yes. Or else, you know, what is it really? We want to be healthy, we want to be able to enjoy 100% and experience it for the most. So, what is some feedback that you've gotten from customers that made you realize? So, I was in almost like a pre-launch phase. I did a very soft launch to test out the messaging and to understand um customers a bit better from the initial uh feedback I got, it was extremely uh positive. I have to say the men's was a little more um prominent as far as feedback because uh we have a gummy ferment, which is a shailajit gummy, which is very good for testosterone. And so when you take that with Ayuman, you almost within a few weeks feel the difference in your body. Um the women's just take a little bit longer. Uh and also I didn't do a full launch with the bourbon's uh line yet. Um, I wanted to test out the men's market a little bit more because the women's I already, I mean, I have I have a different confidence in the women's um line. So uh, but the the people that took it, they they loved it. I think one of the customers even left a review on the website, which is so funny, but you can tell it comes from like his review literally said, um, I'm waking up with morning wood again. That's amazing. Oh and that's literally what his review says, thank you. I am waking up with morning wood again and I was like my 20s. And I was like, how amazing was that feel for a guy to actually go once I become right? Right. Yeah, that must have had a huge impact on him. Like, wow, I went backwards, you know. Wow, that is amazing. I was it was, you know, when I read something like that, of course I chuckle, but I I know at the core of it is someone who's actually feeling like, wow, I haven't felt like this um in a long time. And so um again, like morning wood is just hormones, so you know that their hormones are back in the way that they were in your maybe like 20s and 30s. So it's it's very exciting. I'm very, very excited to for more people that have more products lined up. So I can't wait to like get it all out. Yes, I we're very excited too. I mean, where can people find your product? On the on the website, iuscience.com. Wonderful. I'll definitely put that in the show notes as well. And thank you so much for sharing your story. I know this will inspire people to think differently about their health, take other options, try out Ayu Veda and your product, and you know, take more ownership of you know what works for them. And if you enjoyed this episode and want to discover more Better For You products that can genuinely improve your life, make sure to follow the business of better and leave a rating. It really helps more people find the show. Until next time.