Hello beautiful.
I want to talk about something that made me stop scrolling.Information. A statistic. And honestly, a thought I've carried for years that I finally saw put into numbers.
"A similar number of men suffer from erectile dysfunction as women who suffer from endometriosis." But the care given to both conditions? Is anything but equal.
The Numbers
From 2019 to 2023, startups focused on erectile dysfunction raised approximately $1.24 billion in venture capital funding.
Startups focused on endometriosis? $44 million. Upsetting right?
Not because we want men to have less access to care. We don't. We want everyone to have what they need.
But when you look at those numbers side by side, it becomes very clear women's pain has never been treated as urgent. Women's health has never been treated as a priority. And the downstream effects of what happens in the actual doctor's offices, is something millions of women are living with right now.
I was one of them.
What My Appointments Looked Like
Sitting in a gynecologist's office describing debilitating period pain, fatigue, bloating, cramps that made me want to pass out. My result was: walking out with a prescription for birth control and a referral for an ultrasound.. you know exactly what I mean.
They're (Mostly) not looking for the root cause.
They're managing the symptom. Isn't that right???
An ultrasound can confirm cysts. It can't tell you WHY your body is in that cycle or what it actually needs. Birth control can suppress the hormonal fluctuations that trigger flares. But it doesn't heal anything. It puts a lid on a pot that's still boiling.
I was on hormonal birth control from 2015 to 2023 to manage my endometriosis. Eight YEARS of suppressing my body's natural rhythm because no one offered me another option and honestly, because the research into those options was never funded the way it should have been.
The Mayo Clinic estimates endometriosis affects roughly 1 in 10 women of reproductive age.
1 in 10.
And we raised $44 million in five years to address it? THIS IS INSANE
You are not dramatic. You are not difficult. You are not someone who just needs to push through it. You are someone whose pain was systematically deprioritized.
People need to know this.
What Working WITH Your Body Actually Looks Like
I'm not here to tell you to throw out your prescriptions or distrust your doctor. That's not my place and that's not the point. This is your journey, your body and your choice.
What I am here to tell you is that there is MORE available to you than what you've been offered.
Understanding your cycle: the four phases, how your hormones shift through each one, what your body needs nutritionally at every stage. This is not alternative medicine. It's biology. It's what we at Nourish Cycles are here to help you learn.
When I started cycle syncing in 2020, my symptoms improved. By 2023, they were gone. I was off birth control, everything came back worse and then I had to restart this journey until symptoms were gone completely and I feeling better than I had in years.
I'm not saying that's every woman's path. I'm just saying it was mine. And I'm saying the research to find MORE paths like mine deserves billions.
We're going to keep talking about this. The funding gap. The research gap. The gap between what women are told and what women actually need.
And if you want to start learning how to fuel and support your body through your cycle right now, we made something for exactly that.
Nourish your body, period.
— Leslie, Nourish Cycles
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