Hormone Naturopath & Nutritionist · Australia Wide
Root-Cause Support For Women's Hormone Health.
Naturopathic Treatment For PMS, PMDD, Endometriosis, PCOS, Heavy & Painful Periods
You have a diagnosis you've been left to manage on your own, or you don't have a diagnosis and you're being told it's normal.
Either way, your periods, your PMS, your pain, and your hormones are not where they should be.
They're not telling you everything.
Bachelor of Health Science ◆ Master of Advanced Naturopathic Medicine ◆ Grad Cert Culinary Nutrition Science ◆ A5M Certified Anti-Ageing
Member ANTA & NSA
8 years clinical experience · Australian Nutrition Ambassador MyFitnessPal · 1,000+ women helped
You plan your whole life around your hormones.
If you're lucky, you get two good weeks where you feel normal.
The rest of the time you're dealing with pain, bloating, anxiety, irritability, and days where leaving the house feels like too much.
You've been handed a diagnosis with no plan or support, or you've been dismissed and told there's nothing wrong and to come back if it gets worse.
And the only solutions on the table are "go on the pill" or, more shockingly (and I have heard this from women in my clinic time and time again), "your only option is a hysterectomy."
This page is for women who want to understand what is going on with their body & get some answers.
The Symptoms I Hear Every Week
Does This Sound Like You?
You're between 20 and 45, and something with your cycle, your hormones, or your symptoms has been off for a long time.
Maybe it crept in.
Maybe it has been there since your first period.
Maybe it got worse after the pill, after a baby, after stress.
The list below is what comes up in my clinic every week.
Your PMS now starts a week or more before your period and takes over your mood, your patience, and your relationships
Your periods are heavy enough that you have to plan around them: dark clothes, double protection, knowing where every bathroom is
The pain is bad enough that you've cancelled work, plans, or whole weekends because of it (and the painkillers barely touch it)
Your cycle is unpredictable: short, long, skipped, spotting between, never the same two months in a row
You've been told you have PCOS, endometriosis, PMDD, or fibroids and handed a script for the pill and very little else
Or you have no diagnosis, your scans and bloods come back "normal," and you're being told to come back if it gets worse
You feel like a completely different person in the week leading up to your period (and not in a good way), you're angry, irritable, deeply emotional, and your tolerance for any kind of inconvenience or annoyance is long gone
Your energy disappears the week before your period and doesn't come back until day 3 or 4 of bleeding
You plan your life around your cycle because the mood swings are that predictable, and there are days, sometimes a week or two at a time, where being social, organised, or motivated is not on the table
Your libido is gone (and if you're on the pill, it has been gone for a while)
You've tried supplements, seed cycling, cycle syncing, elimination diets, and the symptoms haven't shifted
If you're ticking five or more of those, your hormones are not where they should be.
Your bloods probably look "normal" because standard testing doesn't catch most of what's happening.
The Science, Simplified
What Is Hormone Imbalance
Hormone imbalance is the term used when the hormones that run your reproductive and metabolic health are out of balance with each other.
The four hormones doing most of the work are oestrogen and progesterone (your two main reproductive hormones), testosterone (yes, women produce testosterone too, in smaller amounts), and your thyroid hormones (T4 and T3).
When they are in the right range and the right balance, you feel like yourself.
When the ratio between them shifts, even slightly, the symptoms are wide-ranging because these hormones influence almost every system in the body:
mood
energy
sleep
skin
weight
cycle
digestion
nervous system
cognitive function
The most common pattern I see in clinic is oestrogen too high relative to progesterone.
This is called oestrogen dominance, and it does not always mean your oestrogen is high on a blood test. Your blood result can sit in the normal range while your progesterone has dropped low enough that oestrogen is unopposed.
Oestrogen is the stimulating hormone, it builds the uterine lining each month, supports your skin and bones, and influences your mood through serotonin and dopamine.
Progesterone is the calming hormone, produced after ovulation, that balances oestrogen, supports deep sleep, reduces anxiety through the GABA pathway in your brain, and keeps your nervous system steady through the second half of your cycle.
When that balance is lost, the symptoms can appear everywhere:
heavy bleeding with noticeable clotting with your period (because the uterine lining has built up too thickly under unopposed oestrogen and sheds in larger pieces),
the severe mood symptoms of PMDD (where low progesterone removes the calming GABA signal in the brain and the resulting nervous system reactivity is significant enough to take over the second half of every cycle),
the worsening of endometriosis (where oestrogen feeds the growth of the lesions and inflammation outside the uterus),
breast tenderness,
anxiety in the luteal phase,
struggling with your sleep and waking through the night,
and weight gain around the midsection, hips and thighs.
The other patterns I see in clinic take different clinical routes into the same symptom picture.
In PCOS, the central driver is insulin resistance, which pushes the ovaries to produce more androgens (like testosterone and DHEA), and that androgen excess is what produces the acne, the facial and body hair changes, the irregular or absent cycles, and the ovulation issues that define the condition.
Fibroids are oestrogen-fed growths in the uterine wall that respond to the same oestrogen dominance mechanisms I described above, which is why heavy bleeding, pelvic pressure, and longer cycles often run alongside fibroid diagnoses.
Low progesterone as a standalone pattern turns up in women whose oestrogen is within range but whose progesterone has dropped from chronic stress, anovulatory cycles, or nutritional gaps, and this is a common clinical picture behind PMDD, early waking, luteal phase anxiety, and short cycles with spotting before the period.
Thyroid dysfunction can overlap with almost all of these, because the thyroid is directly affected by oestrogen, progesterone, and cortisol, and low thyroid function impacts the rate at which your liver can clear oestrogen, so oestrogen keeps building up in the body.
You can have every one of these hormonal imbalances and still have standard blood tests that come back within range, and this is one of the most frustrating parts of hormone imbalance.
Standard pathology in Australia tests a small number of hormones at a single point in time, and often only when the GP decides to run them.
Oestrogen and progesterone swing across a 28 day cycle, so a blood test on the wrong day gives you one dot on a curve that is constantly moving, and it does not tell you the full picture.
Progesterone in particular needs to be tested around day 21 of your cycle to catch the luteal phase peak, which is rarely done.
Androgens like testosterone and DHEA are often not tested at all, or only the total testosterone is run instead of the free testosterone (which is the form that is free in the bloodstream and available to your cells).
Thyroid testing in most GP clinics stops at TSH, which is not enough to catch a thyroid that is under-converting, and the antibody testing that identifies autoimmune thyroid conditions like Hashimoto's is left off entirely.
The result is that women with significant, clinically obvious hormonal symptoms can go years without a blood test result that reflects what is happening, because the right tests were never ordered or were ordered at the wrong time.
Hormone imbalance is not a single condition, it is the result of what happens when your hormones, your gut, your liver, your nervous system and your blood sugar are being pushed out of balance by the demands of modern life, and then left unaddressed for years.
Jean Hailes has a good overview of women's hormone health if you want to read further.
I find in my clinic that most women have been dealing with hormonal symptoms for 5 to 10 years before they walk into a consult with me, and the first thing I do is explain what is happening in the body, because nobody has done that yet.
From the Clinic
Hormone Imbalance Symptoms I See Most Often
These are the symptoms that come up in my clinic every week.
If you are ticking multiple, it is worth investigating rather than waiting to see if it gets worse.
Dysmenorrhoea (severe period pain), where the cramping is significant enough to need strong pain relief, bed rest or time off work (if that is even possible),
Menorrhagia (heavy menstrual bleeding), where you are needing to change a tampon every 2 to 3 hours and need extra support with pads or period undies to prevent leakage.
Clots in your period blood that range in size from little chunks the size of your fingernail to a 10 or 20 cent piece.
Mittelschmerz (severe ovulation pain) and significant bloating around ovulation.
Shortened luteal phase (under 11 days) (this is the time from ovulation to your period).
Dyspareunia (pain with sex) and pain with bowel movements during your period.
Diarrhoea or looser bowels just before or during your period, often alongside stronger smelling gas at this time.
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), with severe low mood, hopelessness, heavy irritability and anger, anxiety, emotional reactivity, tearfulness, and a sense that you are not yourself for 7 to 14 days of every cycle, which usually goes away in the first couple of days of your period.
Cyclical histamine symptoms, including sinus congestion, headaches, feeling puffy, brain fog, irritability, itchy skin or rashes, and skin flushing that worsen around ovulation or premenstrually.
Headaches or migraines in the week leading up to your period or during it.
Swollen or tender breasts in the week leading up to your period or during your period.
Hyperandrogenism (the clinical signs of androgen excess) including jawline and chin acne, increased facial or body hair, thinning at the crown or temples, and irregular ovulation.
Insulin resistance symptoms, including elevated fasting insulin or a raised HbA1c with normal glucose, weight gain concentrated around the midsection, strong carbohydrate cravings, and energy dips after meals.
Iron deficiency symptoms with a normal haemoglobin (low ferritin), including fatigue, hair thinning, breathlessness with light exertion, and low mood.
If you are ready to get to the root cause of your hormone symptoms with a clinical plan built around your body and your life, this is where we start.
The Mechanisms Behind It
What's Going On With Your Hormones
Most hormone advice stops at "your hormones are out of balance." Which is true, and also not useful, because it does not tell you why they are out of balance, which hormones are involved, or what systems in the rest of your body are contributing.
The useful question is what is causing the imbalance, because your hormones do not exist in isolation from your gut, your liver, your nervous system, your blood sugar, and your thyroid.
This is what I look at in clinic.
Progesterone drops first
Progesterone is one of the first hormones to drop for most women with hormonal symptoms, and it takes a long time to be identified because the symptoms are so often attributed to stress or ageing.
Progesterone is the calming, steadying hormone.
It is produced by the corpus luteum in the ovary after ovulation, which means it is only made in meaningful amounts in the second half of your cycle, and only if you ovulated that cycle.
Chronic stress, undereating, over-training, nutritional deficiencies (particularly zinc, magnesium, and B vitamins), perimenopause, and certain hormonal contraceptives can all interfere with ovulation, and if ovulation does not happen, no progesterone is produced for that cycle.
Plenty of women are ovulating and still have low progesterone, because a cycle can produce the egg but not produce enough progesterone afterwards, which often comes from stress, poor luteal phase function, or the same nutritional deficiencies that disrupt ovulation in the first place.
Progesterone does a lot of work beyond the reproductive system.
It supports deep sleep by converting in the brain into a neurosteroid called allopregnanolone, which binds to GABA-A receptors, the main calming system in the brain.
When progesterone is adequate, your nervous system has its natural brake on, and you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake feeling settled.
When progesterone drops, that calming signal weakens.
Sleep becomes lighter and more fragmented, you start waking through the night (particularly between 2 and 4am), anxiety rises through the second half of your cycle, mood becomes less stable, and irritability and anger feel disproportionate to the situation in front of you.
This is what is happening behind PMS and PMDD.
Progesterone also balances oestrogen through the second half of your cycle.
When progesterone drops, oestrogen is unopposed for longer, which is where heavier bleeds, spotting before your period, breast tenderness, and PMS that takes over 10 or more days of your cycle come from.
I see low progesterone in women in their 20s all the way through to perimenopause, and it is one of the first things I check when the presenting symptoms are anxiety, poor sleep, worsening PMS, and cycles that have shortened.
Oestrogen dominance is about the ratio between oestrogen and progesterone
This is the most common hormonal pattern I see in clinic, and it is one of the most misunderstood.
Oestrogen dominance does not always mean your oestrogen is high.
It means your oestrogen is too high relative to your progesterone.
Your blood test can come back with oestrogen sitting inside the normal range, and you can still be oestrogen dominant, because the relationship between oestrogen and progesterone is what produces the symptoms, not the absolute number of either one.
Oestrogen is the stimulating hormone of the female cycle.
It builds the uterine lining each month, supports your skin, bones, brain, and cardiovascular system, and supports mood through its effect on serotonin and dopamine receptors.
When oestrogen is in the right range and well balanced by progesterone, it supports almost every part of how you feel day to day.
When oestrogen is unopposed (meaning progesterone is not keeping up with it), oestrogen's stimulating effects go unchecked.
The uterine lining builds up more than it should, which is what produces heavier bleeding and larger clots.
The breast tissue becomes more stimulated and tender, which is what produces premenstrual breast pain and fibrocystic breast changes.
The nervous system loses its progesterone buffer, which is where the mood and sleep symptoms come from.
Oestrogen also feeds the growth of endometriosis lesions outside the uterus, and feeds the growth of uterine fibroids, which is why both conditions worsen when the oestrogen-to-progesterone ratio is out of balance.
There are two ways a woman develops oestrogen dominance.
Either her oestrogen is elevated (from impaired clearance through the liver and gut, from insulin resistance producing more oestrogen in fat tissue, or from environmental oestrogens added on top), or her progesterone has dropped too low to balance her oestrogen, or more commonly a mix of both.
Your liver is how you clear oestrogen out of the body
Every time your body produces oestrogen, the liver is what clears it out once the oestrogen has done its job.
The liver does this through two phases of detoxification.
Phase 1 uses a family of enzymes to metabolise oestrogen into smaller compounds, and Phase 2 packages those compounds up so they can be safely removed from the body.
Phase 2 uses three main packaging pathways: methylation (which needs B12, folate, B6, and magnesium), glucuronidation (supported by the compounds in cruciferous vegetables), and sulfation (which needs sulphur, found in garlic, onions, eggs, and cruciferous vegetables).
When all of this is working well, the liver keeps up with the oestrogen you are producing and clears it at the rate your body is making it.
Phase 2 can slow down for a number of reasons, and in most women I see in clinic, several of these are happening at once.
Chronic stress, years on the contraceptive pill, chronic inflammation from poor gut health or blood sugar instability, and alcohol all slow Phase 2 directly by reducing the liver's processing capacity, and they also deplete the specific nutrients the liver's detoxification pathways need to do their work, which is a double hit.
The B vitamins, magnesium, and sulphur (and the other nutrients the liver detox pathways need) can also be depleted by low stomach acid reducing nutrient absorption, gut issues reducing absorption, a diet low in vegetables and protein, and genetic variants that increase demand for these nutrients.
Your liver is also processing environmental toxins every day, from paracetamol and other over-the-counter medications, prescription medications, cleaning products, beauty products, perfumes, fragrance in candles and laundry powder, plastics, pesticide residue on food, and car exhaust.
Most women have no idea how much of this their liver is processing every day, and over time these exposures accumulate.
If you take pain relief (like paracetamol) every month to get through your period, that is adding to the load on the liver and slowing the oestrogen clearance that is supposed to be happening.
The slower the clearance, the more oestrogen dominance, the heavier and more painful the next period becomes, the more pain relief you need to get through it.
I see this in clinic in women who have been managing severe period pain with pain relief for years, and it is one of the reasons the symptoms keep getting worse.
When Phase 2 slows, oestrogen clearance slows, and so does the clearance of cortisol, neurotransmitters, medications, and the synthetic oestrogens you are exposed to every day.
This is why a sluggish liver does not produce one symptom, it produces clusters of them.
Worsening PMS and heavier periods from unopposed oestrogen, increased anxiety and poor sleep from cortisol that is not being cleared properly, slower clearance of histamine (which amplifies hormonal and allergy symptoms), and a general feeling of being wired and inflamed.
When clearance is impaired, oestrogen that your body should have finished with stays in circulation longer than it should, and oestrogen accumulates in the body.
This is one of the main reasons I see oestrogen dominance in women with otherwise normal blood tests. Their oestrogen is not being overproduced, it is being under-cleared.
Your gut microbiome plays a direct role in oestrogen balance
Once your liver has finished Phase 1 and Phase 2 of oestrogen detoxification, it packages the oestrogen up and sends it into your digestive tract through bile.
This is Phase 3 of oestrogen clearance, and your gut microbiome plays a direct role in how well it works.
From there, your gut is meant to escort that oestrogen out of the body through your stool.
Fibre binds to the packaged oestrogen, and regular bowel movements carry it out.
This is where the gut microbiome becomes clinically important.
There is a specific collection of gut bacteria called the estrobolome, and one of its jobs is to modulate how much oestrogen leaves the body and how much is recirculated.
When the microbiome is diverse, balanced, and the gut is working well, the estrobolome supports oestrogen clearance and the oestrogen your liver packaged up leaves in your stool.
When the microbiome is disrupted (from antibiotics, long-term poor diet, chronic stress, low fibre intake, or gut infections), certain bacteria overproduce an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase.
Beta-glucuronidase strips the packaging off the oestrogen that your liver has already processed, which reactivates it and sends it back into circulation through the portal vein.
Your liver then has to process the same oestrogen all over again, and while that is happening, the oestrogen is still active in your body and adding to the total oestrogen load.
This is one of the reasons gut symptoms and hormonal symptoms often appear together in clinic.
Women with bloating, constipation, reflux, or irritable bowel type symptoms alongside heavy periods, PMS, or endometriosis are often dealing with a microbiome that is contributing directly to their oestrogen load.
Constipation is a particular clinical concern here.
If you are not having a complete bowel movement at least once a day, packaged oestrogen is sitting in your colon for longer, and beta-glucuronidase has more time to reactivate it.
Bowel regularity is a hormonal intervention, not just a digestive one.
Insulin is the central mechanism behind PCOS
PCOS is most commonly diagnosed as a hormonal condition, but the hormonal changes in PCOS are almost always the result of a metabolic problem, and the metabolic problem is insulin resistance.
Insulin is the hormone your body releases after you eat, and its job is to move glucose out of your bloodstream and into your cells for energy.
In insulin resistance, your cells have become less responsive to insulin, so your pancreas has to produce more and more of it to get the same job done.
Your blood sugar readings can still look normal on standard testing, because the pancreas is keeping up by overproducing.
But your insulin stays chronically elevated, and that is where the symptoms begin.
Chronically elevated insulin does several things that contribute directly to PCOS.
First, it signals to the ovaries to produce more androgens (testosterone and DHEA).
This is the mechanism behind the acne along the jawline and chin, the increased facial or body hair, the thinning at the crown or temples, and the difficulty ovulating regularly.
The androgen excess is the consequence of insulin being elevated, rather than the starting point.
Second, elevated insulin interferes with ovulation itself by disrupting the signals that would normally trigger ovulation mid-cycle.
This is why PCOS cycles become long, unpredictable, or stop altogether. If ovulation is not happening, no progesterone is being produced, which is where the PMS symptoms, the sleep issues, and the mood instability that often run alongside PCOS come from.
Third, elevated insulin promotes weight gain (particularly around the midsection), and fat tissue produces its own oestrogen through an enzyme called aromatase.
So a woman with PCOS often has both androgen excess from the ovaries AND additional oestrogen from fat tissue, which is why many women with PCOS carry elements of oestrogen dominance on top of the androgen excess.
This is also why the standard PCOS advice to "lose weight" fails so many women. If insulin resistance is what is causing the hormonal issues, the weight is a consequence, not the cause.
Addressing insulin resistance first is what shifts everything else, because it addresses the metabolic problem underneath the symptoms.
Chronic stress is one of the biggest hormonal disruptors I see
When I talk about stress in clinic, I am not talking about the occasional busy week or a rough few days. I am talking about the low-grade, always-on stress most women are carrying through work, family, financial pressure, sleep deprivation, and the mental load of managing everything.
That kind of chronic stress directly disrupts your hormones through a mechanism called the pregnenolone steal.
Pregnenolone is a hormone precursor your body uses to make both cortisol (your main stress hormone) and progesterone.
When you are under chronic stress, your body prioritises cortisol production over everything else, because cortisol is what keeps you functioning through perceived threat.
The pregnenolone that would have been used to make progesterone gets redirected into making cortisol instead.
The consequence is lower progesterone, sometimes significantly lower, and this happens whether or not you are ovulating normally.
It is one of the reasons women can be ovulating and still have low progesterone, which I covered in the progesterone section above.
Low progesterone from the pregnenolone steal is where the PMS symptoms, the anxiety in the second half of the cycle, the waking through the night, and the mood reactivity come from in women who are not in perimenopause and not on hormonal contraception, but whose progesterone is still too low to balance their oestrogen.
Chronic stress also suppresses the signals between your brain and your ovaries that control ovulation.
If the signals are disrupted enough, you stop ovulating altogether, which means no progesterone is produced for that cycle, which makes every oestrogen dominance symptom significantly worse.
At the same time, chronically elevated cortisol slows liver clearance of oestrogen, which means oestrogen accumulates in the body, and it promotes insulin resistance by reducing the sensitivity of your cells to insulin.
So stress is feeding into oestrogen dominance through multiple pathways (slower clearance, lower progesterone to balance it, and more insulin-driven oestrogen production in fat tissue if the stress goes on long enough).
Chronic stress also suppresses thyroid function by reducing the conversion of T4 into the active form of thyroid hormone your cells use.
This is why stressed women so often develop thyroid symptoms (fatigue, cold intolerance, weight resistance, hair changes) with normal TSH results on standard testing.
This is why addressing stress is a central part of a clinical hormone plan.
Every other hormone in the body is affected by how the nervous system and the HPA axis are functioning.
I see this in clinic every week. Women working at capacity, managing everything, eating reasonably well, doing the "right things" nutritionally, and still dealing with worsening PMS, heavier periods, anxiety, sleep issues, and weight gain around the midsection.
Chronic stress is almost always the thing that has not been addressed, and until it is, the hormonal work can only go so far.
My Approach
How I Work With Hormonal Issues
My approach is root-cause, systems-based, and built for real life.
You have a job, a family, a schedule that does not pause for your hormones.
Your plan is built around that, not against it.
And I am not going to dismiss you the way you have been dismissed for years, or send you away without a clear plan.
Food as Medicine
Nutrition is the foundation of your hormone plan, and thanks to my Graduate Certificate in Culinary Nutrition Science alongside my clinical qualifications, your food plan is delicious, practical, and designed around your life.
It is built around what your body needs based on your clinical presentation, not a generic template pulled off the internet.
I look at your symptoms, blood sugar response, inflammation levels, nutritional gaps, and the specific foods that support the systems under most pressure in hormone imbalance: hormones, liver, gut, adrenals, thyroid, and nervous system.
You also get a custom recipe book matched to your plan, so you are never staring at a protocol wondering what to cook on a Tuesday night.
The goal is a way of eating you can sustain for the long term, that still lets you enjoy a margarita or pizza on a Friday night.
Supplements and Herbal Medicine
Supplements and herbal medicine are two of the most powerful clinical tools I use in hormone imbalance, and you get access to practitioner-only prescriptions built specifically for your body.
These are the highest-quality clinical formulations available in Australia, with therapeutic doses and activated forms that absorb and work in the body.
A different tier entirely to anything on a chemist shelf.
Your protocol is matched to your hormonal symptoms, test results, and the systems we are working on, whether that is hormone balance, cycle regulation, PMS relief, or mood support.
Herbal medicine is one of the oldest and most evidence-backed forms of medicine in existence, and when prescribed correctly for hormone imbalance, it often produces results faster than women expect.
I adjust your prescription across the package as your body responds, so you are always taking what is clinically useful and nothing you do not need.
Nervous System Regulation
Your nervous system regulates almost every other system in the body, and when it is held in a chronic stress state, hormone imbalance becomes harder to correct.
Digestion slows, hormonal balance suffers, sleep quality declines, inflammation rises, and your body holds onto weight regardless of your diet.
Chronic stress is one of the most significant contributors to hormonal symptoms, and it is the part most treatment plans overlook.
Your plan includes clear, practical strategies that fit into a busy life: vagus nerve support, short breathwork practices, sleep support including circadian rhythm work and clinical strategies if your sleep is disrupted, stress regulation built around your capacity, and movement that supports your system rather than adding to it.
Most women notice improvement within the first few weeks.
Advanced Testing & Integrative Pathology Review
You have access to advanced functional testing when it is clinically useful for your case and your budget.
This includes DUTCH Complete and DUTCH Cycle Mapping for hormone pattern analysis, GI-MAP for oestrogen clearance support, full functional blood panels, DNA and nutrigenomic testing, organic acids, advanced thyroid panels, and food sensitivity testing when indicated.
I only recommend testing that is going to meaningfully inform your treatment direction.
I also review your pathology through an integrative lens using functional optimal ranges, which are tighter than standard population reference ranges.
A result can sit inside the "normal" range and still be contributing to your hormonal symptoms, and this is often where the clinical answers are found.
80/20 Always
You can have the wine. You can have the margarita on a Friday. You can have the pasta, the cheese platter, and the slice of birthday cake.
Restriction, perfectionism, and constant dieting work against your hormones, your nervous system, and your long-term consistency, which is the last thing your body needs when you are working through hormone imbalance.
They also compromise your relationship with food, which is one of the most difficult things to repair.
Your plan is built to be sustainable for life, not for 30 days, so you can continue addressing your hormones and enjoy your life at the same time.
The goal is a way of eating and living that fits into a full social life and continues to support your clinical outcomes.
Realistic & Built Around Your Life
Your plan is designed around how busy you are, your schedule, who you cook for, how much time you have, and the capacity you are carrying in this stage of life.
Simple, sequenced, and achievable.
I will not hand you a protocol that requires hours in the kitchen, a fridge full of obscure ingredients, or a morning routine longer than the average commute.
No plan produces results if it does not fit your life, which is why most generic programs fail women working through hormonal symptoms.
Yours is built to fit yours, step by step, in the clinical order your body needs.
Naturopath In Your Pocket
Between consults, you have direct messaging access to me for questions about your protocol, new symptoms you want to flag, situations that change the plan, or progress you want to share.
You are not waiting for weeks with a clinical question until your next appointment, and you are not working through the complex parts on your own.
Hormonal symptoms shift month to month, and having clinical support between sessions makes a significant difference to outcomes across a multi-month protocol.
Most women tell me this is one of the most valuable parts of working together.
Mindset & Your Relationship With Food
Most women I see with hormonal symptoms already have a bit of an idea of what they need to do.
They have read the books, followed the accounts, bought the supplements, and started the protocols.
What keeps them stuck is what is underneath: all-or-nothing thinking, self-sabotage when progress begins, food guilt, body image concerns, and years of yo-yo dieting that now feel amplified when you are working through hormonal symptoms.
This thinking consistently undermines the clinical work in every protocol a woman has tried before.
Your plan includes work on these patterns as part of your clinical care, because a treatment plan does not produce lasting results if the thinking underneath it is pulling in the opposite direction.
This is part of your care, not an extra.
Your Questions, Answered
Hormone FAQs
Can a naturopath and nutritionist help with hormonal issues?
Yes. A naturopath and nutritionist can be one of the most useful practitioners to see for hormonal issues because the approach is root-cause and systems-based. I look at hormones, gut, thyroid, insulin, cortisol, liver function and nutrition together rather than treating one symptom at a time. For Australian women who feel dismissed by conventional care, or who want support alongside the pill, HRT, or other medications, it is often the piece they have been missing.
What is the difference between a naturopath and nutritionist and a GP for hormonal issues?
A GP is usually your first stop for diagnosis, medication, and conversations about HRT or the pill, which is valuable clinical care. A naturopath and nutritionist takes a root-cause, holistic approach to your health, because what happens in one system of the body affects every other system. Your hormones, gut, thyroid, nervous system, and metabolism all communicate with each other, and treating them in isolation rarely gives lasting results.
In clinic, I use functional testing (DUTCH, GI-MAP, full thyroid panels), practitioner-only supplements, custom herbal medicine, and personalised nutrition to support all of these systems together.
This is a comprehensive, intensive, and hands-on approach. You get a personalised clinical plan, ongoing support between consults, and the time to work through your hormonal symptoms.
The two approaches are complementary. I work with many women who are on HRT, the pill, or other hormonal medications through their GP and working with me on the gut, nutrition, nervous system, and lifestyle foundations that medication does not replace.
How long does it take to see results for hormonal issues?
Energy and digestion usually start to improve in the first 2 to 4 weeks. Mood, skin, and early symptom relief follow between 4 and 8 weeks. Cycle regulation and deeper hormonal change come across the 3 to 6 month mark. Every woman is different, but most describe significant improvement within the first few months of working together.
Can I work with you if I am on the pill, HRT, or other hormonal medication?
Yes. I work with women on the pill, HRT, antidepressants, and other hormonal medications regularly. The goal is to support your body through hormonal imbalance regardless of what else you are taking.
I do not prescribe or deprescribe any medication, that conversation belongs with your GP or specialist. I support the foundations (gut, nutrition, nervous system, lifestyle) that medication does not replace.
What testing do you use for hormonal issues?
Tests vary depending on each person, and recommendations are based on your history and symptoms. Not every woman needs every test.
Commonly, I will run fasting insulin, inflammation markers, and nutritional markers including vitamin D, folate, active B12, and a full iron study. Alongside this, a full blood panel with full thyroid (TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3, TPO and thyroglobulin antibodies), HbA1c, and lipids.
Where it is clinically useful and fits your budget, I also use DUTCH Complete and DUTCH Cycle Mapping for hormone pattern analysis, GI-MAP stool testing for oestrogen clearance support when gut symptoms are present, and other functional tests when indicated.
Do I need a GP referral to see you?
No. Naturopaths and nutritionists in Australia do not require a GP referral. You can book directly.
Do you consult online across Australia?
Yes. All my consultations run online via telehealth, which means I work with women in every state and territory. Most of my clients are in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and regional NSW, but geography is not a barrier.
What does it cost to work with you for hormonal issues?
The initial consultation is 90 minutes and includes a personalised plan you leave with. Follow-up consultations run 30 to 60 minutes depending on what is needed. Testing is additional and quoted up front so there are no surprises. Full pricing is on the Consultations page (here). Private health rebates may apply depending on your fund.
Do you order blood tests?
Yes. I can organise pathology and functional testing directly through the private labs I use in clinic, including full functional blood panels, DUTCH Complete, DUTCH Cycle Mapping, GI-MAP, DNA and nutrigenomic testing, and other specialised tests when indicated.
These are out of pocket because they are not covered by Medicare. Some standard blood tests are covered by Medicare when ordered through a GP, so for those panels I will write you a clear list of exactly what to ask your GP for, which keeps the cost down.
Functional tests like DUTCH and GI-MAP are not available through Medicare or the public system, so these are always out of pocket. I will give you the cost up front before we commit to any testing, and I will only ever recommend testing that is going to meaningfully inform your clinical plan.
Will I have to give up wine, coffee or sugar?
Not forever. Not all at once. I work on the 80/20 rule personally and professionally. There will be periods where reducing certain things speeds the process up (particularly in the early weeks of rebalancing blood sugar or the gut), but the plan is always built for sustainability.
You can have the glass of wine. You can have the margarita. Restriction is not the strategy.
Credentials
Bachelor of Health Sciences (Naturopathy)
Master of Advanced Naturopathic Medicine
Graduate Certificate in Culinary Nutrition Science
A5M certification in anti-ageing medicine
8+ years of clinical practice
1,000+ women worked with
Australian Nutrition Ambassador for MyFitnessPal
© Michaela Sparrow 2026
