Lorraine's Hormonal Journey

I have always suffered with my hormones from a young age, PMT from my teens, where I was a typical moody girl for a few days a month! After my children, I struggled and it was put down to Postnatal depression, which I didn’t agree with at the time. In my 40s I really started to feel different, it wasn’t just a few days a month, it began creeping up and I also started to have panic attacks. Before children, I was a really driven career woman and I didn’t understand mental health, I always thought it was something ‘you could just get a grip of’. The panic attacks were debilitating, once I started to feel them coming on there was nothing, I could do to stop them. I was back and forwards to the doctors, and each time I came away with different medications, some of which helped long-term. Desperate, I began my own research and found that all of my symptoms matched with pre-perimenopause. However, my doctors disagreed, and I was told that I was too young to be in perimenopause. Eventually, a year later they did blood tests which showed up that I was indeed pre-perimenopause. I was given HRT which at first really helped me, I finally started to feel like I was getting my life back on track, but it was short-lived. I started again to have the real lows that were now there for two weeks a month, I changed as a person completely during this time. My family and friends didn’t recognise me as that person. Sadly, my marriage ended, and to this day I blame my hormones. I had to learn how to live my life around what is known as ‘hell week’ in the PMDD community. I didn’t make any social plans; I planned my work around this and generally avoided people. I am one of those people who likes to get to the bottom of things, I wanted to know what was wrong with me, or was I just losing my mind? PMDD - full name - Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, came up during my incessant research and I instantly knew that is what I was suffering with. PMDD is like an extreme version of PMT, symptoms are emotional and physical – panic attacks, irrational thoughts, rage, binge eating, insomnia, and the list goes on. It’s intense as it’s contained to a small window and worst of all you know each month it’s coming. All the doctors wanted to do was throw more anti-depressants at me which I didn’t feel comfortable with. They helped a little, but it didn’t stop. Finally, in 2017 I saw a consultant who understands women’s hormones, it was a huge relief, and I could have hugged him! I was booked for a hysterectomy and couldn’t wait to lose the body parts that had caused me so much pain over the years. Friends and family were wary, and I was warned I would shrivel up, and age overnight, but I was determined! After my hysterectomy, I decided I didn’t want to carry on taking more pills than chemists! I wanted this to be a new start – I felt quite liberated! It was then that I started to research natural health alternatives and was surprised to find so many and not just that, so many that worked. I learnt that it’s not just about taking one particular supplement, it’s about blending, taking ingredients that work in sync with one another, a bit like a magic potion! We believe we have three fantastic formulations in three different products. We are passionate about delivering vitamins transdermally as it’s so effective. This is why we chose transdermal patches as two of our formulations and this is a range we will continue to develop. These are the hapi hormone patches and our hapi glow copper peptide vitality patch. Patches are the future – maximum results with minimum effort! Collagen was always something we wanted to do as it’s such a fantastic product for women. It’s hard when our collagen depletes with age, both mentally and physically. We didn’t want just ‘another collagen supplement’, we wanted something that works harder, and our Collagen Boost capsules do just that! Hormones are what we do and we are good at it because we understand, we haven’t just talked about the journey, we have walked it! Lorraine x