I was in my late teens, and my health started to go awry.  I was vomiting daily.  Literally every day.  My hair was falling out.  I was terrified – what was wrong with me?

I did what you’re supposed to do, and I went to the Medical Doctor.  I told them what was wrong, I cried because I was so scared for my health.  It can’t be normal to vomit every day.  It can’t be normal to lose so much hair in such a short period of time.

At this point in my life, I was preparing for university, with dreams of someday becoming a Medical Doctor myself.  I was an excellent student, articulate, and intelligent.  I felt capable of communicating with this health care professional how seriously I was concerned for my health.

But I was dismissed.  Summarily dismissed.  I was given a pregnancy test, told there was absolutely nothing, and challenged that I was causing myself to vomit daily because I had bulimia.

The shock and disbelief I can still feel to this day.  No lab work?  No testing?  I certainly didn’t want to be vomiting every day.  How could I be so easily dismissed?  Why didn’t this doctor believe what I had to say?

I have heard versions of this story every day from women in my practice.  Women whose symptoms are dismissed, whose doctors don’t believe them when they share their symptoms.  I know now that this gender bias* is real – that doctors often don’t believe women and are more likely to ignore their concerns or consider them to be “all in her head.”

Now my story has a happy ending.  I learned from a Naturopathic Doctor that my symptoms were due to my vegetarian diet (the low iron was causing my hair loss) and the vomiting was due to the impact of stress on my nervous and digestive symptoms.  The diagnosis was made in one visit, the treatment took longer, but it worked.  And it changed my life forever.

Now I’m a Naturopathic Doctor, maintaining an abundant practice in Toronto, and working with women who are like me.  Women who need to be heard.  Women who know they need better from their health, and from their health care.  Women who want to understand what is happening in their health, and how they can be a force in improving their health and wellbeing.

As a naturopathic doctor I have three main goals: to listen, to educate, and to empower.  I want the hundreds of women who move through my practice to feel knowledgeable and ready to navigate the stages of their life in a state of abundant health, with all the energy, happiness, calmness, and love that they need.

I don’t want women to feel the way I feel.  I want women to be fired up.  Because the world needs us.  And we need you.

*Want to read more on the horrifying topic of the gender bias in medicine?  Check out Maya Dusenbery’s phenomenal book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick.