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    I Took Chinese Herbs To Help My Period Pain And They Made A Huge Difference

    For seven months now I've been taking Chinese herbs to see if they would help my excruciating period pain. And, spoiler alert, they did.

    Hi there, Lara here, and just like around half the world's population, I have a period. This period of mine has been historically excruciatingly painful thanks, in large part, to the fact that I have endometriosis.

    SO with all that being said, when Elix Healing (formerly called Period Pain Free, as you'll see in a lot of my images) reached out and offered to send me personalized Chinese herbs that they claimed could help with my period pain every month, I said why the hell not?

    In order to determine which herbs should be in your own personalized cycle, you have to take an online assessment. I've screencapped part of the assessment below so that you can get an idea of what it entails. The assessment has three parts; your cycle, your gynecological health, and your general health.

    After finishing the three-part assessment, you then have to upload a picture of your tongue. It may seem sort of odd, right? But in Chinese medicine it's not. According to Dr. Glathe, "The tongue photo collected at the end of the online health assessment provides further insight into users’ specific hormonal imbalance patterns and the final step in confirming diagnosis. Practitioners of Chinese medicine have considered analyzing the tongue key to diagnosis because, until humans drastically evolve otherwise, the tongue is the only internal organ visible without a scalpel."

    Then, 2–3 days after completing the assessment and trying to figure out the best angle to get a picture of your tongue, your new herbs will arrive in the mail. Below is a picture of my latest shipment as well as the updated ingredients list.

    What I ingested every month (and what you can see in the picture above) is now referred to as Elix's Cycle Balance, which is a custom formula of 12 to 18 organically-extracted herbs clinically proven to regulate menstrual cycles and treat PMS by targeting and correcting users’ specific hormonal imbalances. The herbs prescribed to me by Nicole Glathe, who is a cofounder of the brand, holds a doctoral degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and is a board and certified acupuncturist and herbalist, can be seen below.

    And this is what my original formula looked like back when I first began taking these herbs in July:

    And here's a look at the new formula. It's still brown, but it doesn't look quite as unappetizing. And although it's not like, the best thing I've ever tasted...it's really not that bad! I should know, I've been religiously drinking it every month for seven months now.

    The first month that I drank the herbs I still had an extremely painful period. I honestly didn't notice much of a change at all. After that, I wanted to write them off as yet another thing that didn't end up helping me, but after speaking with Glathe about it, she encouraged me to keep going (if I was willing) because it can take around three months to begin to notice a difference.

    So I did keep going. And by the third month, sure enough, I did notice a difference. Changes started happening slowly at first. Like I noticed that my actual period seemed to be shorter. Then I noticed that my breasts weren't as tender. And then, ever so slowly, the horrific abdominal and lower back cramping that had ruined my life every month for nearly a decade became...less intense. I was able to sit up. I was conscious. I was having conversations with people while losing ounces of my own blood!!!!!

    It has now been seven months since I began my journey with these Chinese herbs to help my period pain, and I can honestly say that I am a firm believer in this stuff. Although the herbs were provided to me free of charge during this experiment, moving forward this will absolutely be something that I spend $48 a month on because for me it really has worked.

    If you are interested in trying out your own personalized herbs, you can do so here.