Melissa Christie: Founder of PCOS Pathways - Conquer Your PCOS Naturally

This is a past interview with Melissa Christie, Founder of PCOS Pathways and creator of The PCOS Journal. She experienced some incredibly challenging experiences related to PCOS and gained motivation through her experiences to help others with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome get back control of their health and their lives. While her small business is no longer active, the information and her story still resonate.

The transcript has been edited to improve readability, and I apologise that some technical issues affected the recording.

Trigger warning: miscarriage and grief.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Hi, this is Dr Rebecca Harwin for Conquer Your PCOS Naturally. Today, we have the opportunity to interview the PCOS warrior and author of The PCOS Journal. Melissa Christie, founder of PCOS Pathways, welcome to our broadcast.

Melissa C: Thank you so much, Rebecca. It’s so lovely to be here. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: One of the things I love about your story is that you are a woman with PCOS and that you take steps to dramatically change your wellbeing and your life. So, I wondered if you’d tell us a little bit about your backstory?

Melissa C: Yeah, sure, I’d love to. Well, I was diagnosed in 2012. And right away, I mean to be honest, I was relieved when I got the diagnosis because I felt like this finally explained me, and I could do something about it. And so I immediately delved into what I could do. And I spent the next few years exploring various options, each with varying degrees of success.

But then in 2015, I was travelling with my husband. Before travelling, I had been using Ayurveda, a traditional Indian medicine, and I had achieved some really great success with it. As my cycle returned to a normal range, my ovaries were no longer polycystic. I had some good results, but there was still a way to go. But when we went travelling… I mean, we went backpacking for almost a year, and I couldn’t take all these medicines with me.

And so a few months into travelling I was in China and my symptoms were kind of out of control like the worst ever kind of thing. Like my cycle was really long for me, I put on weight, my acne was pretty gross, and I was super moody… like, moody-like extremes. I didn’t feel good, I didn’t feel healthy. So, we were in China. I thought I might check out Chinese medicine. I managed to find a really great practitioner in our area, and she gave me a potent brew of tea. She knew we wouldn’t be in China for long, and then we were going to fly to Naples to go trekking.

On my next cycle or the one after that, we’d want to try to conceive a baby. We wanted to conceive while we were travelling, but I needed to be healthier. She gave me this medicine, and it worked for me. I went straight for a 28-day cycle, which for me was unheard of. Even when my cycle was regular, it was never exactly 28 days, you know? And so that was really unheard of for me. I felt really good. We went trekking in Naples, and I kept taking it. Then, in my next cycle, I was just extremely fortunate to… I conceived. Right away. It was just …

I had just been so lucky to find this medicine that really worked for me. Not to say that it would work for everyone else, we’re all different, but it worked for me. So we were quite elated. Then we continued travelling, and when we got to India… I had my first trimester in India. It was a tough trimester. I was really, really sick. At the end of it, at that 12-week scan, we’d found out that the baby had died. So it was devastating. Really, really devastating.

And so we went through this kind of really intense experience and grief while in India, which was just so foreign to where we were from. So I had to have surgery in India to remove the baby. We considered coming home, but we just sort of realised … a friend talked to me about it, and I realised that if we came home, it would have been such a sad reason to go home. I no longer cared about travelling. Of course, I was just shrouded in grief, but we decided we would keep travelling as it just seemed a bit nicer than coming home for such a sad reason.

We went on to Europe, and I was dealing with this grief, but I was also terrified, you know? And other women who have PCOS or other fertility issues will totally relate to this. I’m sure I was really scared that this would happen to me again because I knew I had probably miscarried because of my PCOS. We have almost twice the likelihood of experiencing a miscarriage. And so I just… I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to conceive again, and that if I did, I would experience a miscarriage again.

So, I very seriously wanted to heal my PCOS. I’d always been quite serious about it, but this was just a whole other level. And because I was overseas, I wasn’t around my regular practitioners. And so in a way, I kind of had to fend for myself. I had the support of my wonderful husband, and also the doctors I had in India were excellent. The doctor who did my surgery was just incredible and gave me fantastic advice. I felt like I was really on my own trying to solve this. I delved deeply into the internet, and I quickly found that… This was a few years ago, so it was different, and things have come a long way since then. There was a wealth of valuable information available. There was also… Not that much information out there. There were some great resources that you really had to dig deep to find and work on accessing.

And so I went on a massive healing journey and learned so much about PCOS and about my own body. But there were things that I really wanted that I couldn’t get. There was support I wanted that I couldn’t get, and I remember saying to my husband at the time, “When I feel better, ’cause I was still really grieving, “When I feel better, I really want to contribute to changing this because I think women with PCOS deserve better.” Look how many of them there are, you know? We’re losing babies, you know? This is a really serious condition, and we need support. I really want to contribute to changing that.

I went on this healing journey, and I was very fortunate that five months later, I conceived again right away, as soon as we started trying again. I was with Chinese medicine. It just worked for me. I went on to have my son. Having him just… I mean, I was grieving. It wasn’t until after he was born… Maybe a month or two after he was born, I felt like I had come out the other side of my grief, really. I was actually flooded with so much motivation and determination. I look back at before I had a baby, and a lot of people say this: What was I doing with my time? I have that time now because then you have a baby and you have the time while they’re asleep, really.

I delved into creating PCOS Pathways and began thinking about the support tools I wanted to develop, which led me to the idea of creating The PCOS Journal in 2019. We had a pretty amazing journey because it’s been really healing, but … When I lost that baby, the really overwhelming feeling was that I felt like I had no purpose. I knew in the back of my mind that that wasn’t true. Of course, I had a purpose. That was the feeling in my heart. Having my son, of course, my purpose has contributed to that experience.

So, creating this journal and PCOS Pathways, that terrible experience, it really changed my whole life. It changed the course of my whole life, and now I’m connected with all these women with PCOS and I’m part of this community, and I’m hopefully helping women in this community, so yeah…

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: I saw that there is a PCOS Journey group on Facebook to give women support. So, part of this journey, what exactly do you want to accomplish with the website, and what are you doing online?

Melissa C: I want women to feel empowered with knowledge. I want women to understand also the power of taking ownership of their health. Because I’ve looked back on my journey, and I’ve looked at where I was: so lost, so overwhelmed by my symptoms. Unsure of what steps to take and what was affecting what. I look back at that woman, and I consider where I am now. Don’t get me wrong, I am a work in progress. I still have PCOS. I still have symptoms that I’m working on, and it can be up and down for me.

I look at where I am now, and even though I still have PCOS, I feel really strong. I feel really empowered. I feel like I’m in control of my health. I have examined what has caused that for me. What are the changes that I’ve made? And the changes I’ve made are that I have taken ownership of my health and endeavoured to understand the condition and my options.

As I mentioned to you, I’ve explored a variety of options. So doing that has made me realise, “God, there is not one answer,” and I think we all know that.

Things that work for someone else, and it doesn’t work for us, but I don’t want them to lose hope when that happens to them, because, if something doesn’t work for you, in a way, it’s a good thing because it means you can rule it out. And now you are honing in on what will work for you, and there are many options. Many women are unaware of this. That’s part of what I’m doing here. The journal is a day planner, right? So it’s made into 2019. You can record appointments; it’s like a normal day planner, but it’s specifically tailored to PCOS, and it’s filled with information about PCOS and our treatment options.

I really want women to understand that there’s more than Western medicine. There’s more than naturopathy. Both valid options, but did you know there’s Ayurveda? Did you know there’s Chinese medicine? Did you know the power of meditation, relaxation, and mindfulness for PCOS? Do you know the power of yoga for PCOS? There’s research supporting the power of yoga for PCOS, so I explore various options throughout the journal.

Then, as you mentioned, I’ve created a Facebook group. It’s a book club. It’s called The PCOS Journal Book Club. Since the journal is dated 2019, we will be reading the same information together. I thought it would be nice to have a place where we can embark on that journey together and explore those tidbits of information a bit further, because… I delve deep into some sections of the journal, but scattered throughout are also little tips. Little bits of information about specific herbs or supplements or drugs or…

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Yoga poses. There’s so much information in there. It’s amazing. Even recipes for women with PCOS.

Melissa C: Yeah, thank you. Yes. In the book club, I want to delve a bit deeper. So say there’s a yoga pose that’s in the journal. I’ll share a little video about how to actually do that pose rather than just the image. I suppose I’m trying to create a community where we can genuinely support and build each other up, discussing the knowledge shared in the journal. I think that the most powerful thing we can do is understand our options and also understand our own bodies. That’s the other part of this whole journal and this whole project, for me, is enabling women to understand their own body, their own triggers.

I received the journal from the printer, possibly three or four months ago. They’re dated to 2019. They actually… I have used one of them ever since I got it. I cross out the days. I have discovered some really interesting triggers within myself simply by using this journal. I’ve found that there are numerous small notes and tips throughout the journal. One of them is to place a hot water bottle, similar to a heating pad, over your lower abdomen. I read that, and I was like, “Oh yeah. I forgot about that.” I’ll try to do that, and I’ve found that when I do that… When I get my period to when I ovulate, I ovulate sooner than if I don’t consistently do it. It’s something that really helps me. It’s just a little thing, but it’s sort of helped me to realise that.

Another thing, a really big thing I’ve realised, is that for my type of PCOS, stress really is a significant contributor for me. That’s not just a busy day; I mean, stress in general. I mean the kind of tenseness that you get in your body when you’re stressed. I was discussing this with someone else the other day. I actually have found that if I watch an intense movie or a scary movie, and you sit there for two hours, kind of tense, it’s like a thriller, and you’re on the edge of your seat, that delays ovulation for me.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Wow. It makes sense. When you look at stress and the whole underpinnings, it’s so much like PCOS. We experience a decrease in sex hormone-binding globulin, a reduction in fertility, and an increase in insulin resistance. There are so many things people don’t realise. One of the things I’ve seen in slender women with PCOS is that they are always stressed. They don’t “fit” into the standard category, I guess, because they tend to be really petite. In your experience, what do you find are the best things that help you deal with stress?

Melissa C: Now that I’m very aware of how that tenseness affects me, not just that busy stress, but that physical kind of reaction. I’m very aware of that now, and I breathe… I actually try to take a deep breath. It’s… the tenseness for me is really in my stomach. I’m a singing teacher, actually, and we very much use our diaphragm to control our breath. I’m really sort of aware of that sort of tightness in your stomach that can happen. For me, it’s about letting that tightness out of my belly. Taking a nice deep breath is really important for me.

There’s something else I was gonna mention, though. Just hold up. I just lost it.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: That’s okay. That happens. It’s interesting that you mention feeling the stress in your gut, because another thing I’ve observed clinically is that women often have vastly different experiences. Still, one of the things I’ve seen most consistently is gut issues. These problems are extremely common. Do you have any of those problems?

Melissa C: I’ve only just recently been paying more attention to that. Again, it actually comes from using my journal. One of the things that I track in my journal, ’cause you can track all your symptoms, is digestion. And I’ve been getting the issues with it. Which I hadn’t thought about before. It’s just something I’ve actually implemented. It’s a new habit that I’m trying to implement. I’ve only been doing it for a couple of months. I love that it takes your body a good 90 minutes after eating to kind of clean out … I can’t remember if it’s the small or large intestine, but it’s kind of to clean out your intestine. If you eat in those 90 minutes, that gets put on hold, and it has to wait.

I always think of it in this bad cycle where I live in a really small… I live in a hut. It’s one room. The bed’s in the same room as the kitchen. It’s just one spot. So, my hallway’s my kitchen. At-home mom, so I’m always here. I found out in the afternoon that I had been constantly snacking. Even if the snacks were healthy, it was just … I wasn’t getting through 90 minutes without having something in my mouth. I have implemented a new habit for myself, where I leave that gap. I try to go for at least two hours. It’s become very easy to do that.

That’s for my gut health. I feel so much better. My digestion’s improved, and I feel like I have more energy. I’ve always attributed those energy issues to my PCOS, so it’s really interesting to work with both of them.

I remembered what I was gonna say just before. Back with the stress. Cortisol is a powerful stress hormone. I’m sure you know all about it, where it can really be attributed to a lot of PCOS symptoms. Women with PCOS, a lot of them with PCOS, have higher levels of cortisol. It’s released when you feel a lot of stress. Back in the day, it would be like, “Oh, there’s a tiger.” Cortisol gets released. Adrenaline’s released, and you survive. Now we’re sitting at our desks, and we’ve got deadlines happening, and we’re sitting there typing and stressing out. When cortisol is released, it does so in a similar manner to blood sugar, and therefore, you need to burn off that blood sugar. It allows you to have more energy, but if you can survive a stressful scenario, and all we’re doing is sitting at our desks, our blood sugar levels rise, and we don’t do anything with it. And it’s floating around, and it’s causing insulin resistance and high testosterone levels and all this stuff.

One thing I’ve been doing to remedy this is, if I feel like something stressful has happened to me and I think my cortisol levels are up, I actually try to do a little bit of exercise.

I mean, I’m not always in a position to, but like I said, I’m a stay-at-home mum, so often I’m just out here, and if something like that happens, I just … I’ll even just run on the spot or I’ll jog around the house a little bit. I’ll get active. Just to kind of burn that. I don’t know. I haven’t really read that, but that’s what I feel I should do.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: No, I think you’re spot on. As you said, when you get stressed, you release hormones, which increase insulin, allowing you to maintain a stable blood sugar level and escape. Again, as you said, if you don’t escape, it becomes constant, so rather than short-term, these changes become long-term. One of the things I used to get patients to do is pretty much what you said: run up and down in the spot, kick, scream. Tell that tiger that you’re fighting it off. It’s helped so many people. I think that’s wonderful advice. Another thing I pick up from what you’re saying is that many small tips can make a huge difference. If you’ve got a diary like this, a journal where you’re taking note of your symptoms, you can really, I guess, identify what makes that difference for you because we all are so different.

Melissa C: That’s right. That’s exactly right. Because there are so many tips in here, there are options. I think it’s about identifying what affects you and what impacts your PCOS. It’s also about finding what you enjoy, because you want to do things that will be sustainable. And so if you try putting a hot water bottle on your abdomen every night, and you hate it, you’re probably not gonna keep it up, but you can find something else in there that you might enjoy doing at that time of the night or something. For me, I think this is a tried and tested way of forming habits: attaching them to a routine or another habit.

For example, I’ve more recently been doing some abdominal massage. If I just said to myself, “Okay, you want to do that every day,” I would probably forget half the time. I actually integrated it into my routine, so in the evening, we have dinner, and I have a shower with my two-year-old, and then my husband dresses him and then reads to him. I have a few minutes while he’s reading to him, which is usually when I like to play on my phone or something. Now I take those few minutes to lie on the couch and give myself this massage. That’s really working for me.

Integrated into my routine, so it’s much easier to maintain. So, yeah, the journal provides a lot of small tips like that, allowing you to find what works for you.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Absolutely. Regarding abdominal massage, it can help alleviate abdominal inflammation. The inflammation can cause scar tissue. One of the reasons that we can have pelvic pain is due to inflammation. I think that massage, abdominal massage, is a wonderful thing to do. As you said, it doesn’t have to take forever. There are options like Mayan massage, but you can also do it yourself at home. So other than what we’ve already talked about, is there anything that you’d really advise women with PCOS to do? Like, just any different ways of thinking, any ways to get started if they’re really way back at the start of their journey and don’t know what to do? And is there anything that you’ve done or seen that’s really made a massive difference?

Melissa C: I could talk about this for so long. One thing that I would definitely say is we’ve all got a story to tell about being treated poorly by our healthcare practitioners. It can really bring you down and make you feel very alone because the person who’s supposed to be helping you doesn’t, or they fat-shame you, or they tell you you’re never going to have children. There’s a lot of misinformation coming from our healthcare practitioners. It’s holding us down.

So, something I would really stress is taking ownership of your health, rising above it, and absolutely keeping an eye out for a good practitioner. Having a good practitioner in your life, I think, is life-changing.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: It is. Yeah, awesome.

Melissa C: Yeah, it’s another brain that can help you. It’s support. It’s someone who’s going to bat for you. Who has ideas about how to help you, but you’ve got to keep finding, you’ve got to keep looking, because no doubt you’ll go to one, and they won’t be what you need. However, don’t let that stop you. Keep looking.

Another thing, which I have already discussed briefly, is the pursuit of knowledge. Seek the knowledge of the different modalities that are available to you. And follow your heart. Read about Ayurveda, read about Chinese medicine, read about naturopathy, and if something really piques your interest, that’s a sign. Do that. Visit a practitioner in that field and see what it’s like, and explore it. If it doesn’t end up working out for you, it’s okay. You’ve just narrowed the field. Go find another one.

That’s a big tip for me; really, just drawing on that strength within yourself to keep looking for a good practitioner.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Absolutely.

Melissa C: In terms of a few little specific tips, I think one of the best things that I’ve done for myself is I’ve stopped eating after dinner. There’s nothing new about that; that’s an old thing to say. It’s a very predictable thing to say, but…

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: No, really. And lots of women don’t do it. There’s a thing called night-time eating syndrome, where people will try so hard to be good the whole day, and then eat a loaf of white bread at night. It’s actually really good advice.

Melissa C: Yeah, no. That was me. Back in February, I had just… It’s funny. In February, I made all these changes. As I mentioned to you, some things you don’t enjoy, and some things are hard to stick to. I fell off every single one of them except that. I stopped eating after dinner. It’s just a part of my life now. I can’t see myself ever going back. It’s a very sustainable lifestyle change. I think that’s a big one.

Another one that I think is massive, but I… This is a goal for me. I’m not doing this right now, and I think it’s actually very detrimental to my health, which is going to bed at a decent time. You’re in bed by ten or eleven at the latest. I know some people have their shift work, and it’s just not possible, but for them, I would really recommend decent, good-quality sleep when you can. I mean, I read something recently. I can’t remember how long ago it was. It might have been back in the 1920s, it was a while ago, but not that long ago, the average sleep for humans was 8-9 hours a night. Now our average sleep is closer to 6-7 hours a night.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Yeah, absolutely.

Melissa C: That’s a significant change for a species that hasn’t evolved since then.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Exactly. That’s right. I was writing an article on this yesterday. I mean, again, this is going over it, but a deficiency in sleep increases insulin resistance and weight gain, as well as stress. All the things that stem from one habit contribute to all the hormonal changes. That’s one of the great things about your book, and what you’re saying is that one habit could change so many things. So, I agree entirely. Getting sufficient sleep is a great idea.

Melissa C: I think it’s important. I really want to be practising what I preach.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: It’s a bit hard when you’re a Mum.

Melissa C: I mean, I’m obviously working on this journal, and I’m already starting work on the next one. I usually … I work sort of ten o’clock at night doing that, and then I have an addiction to the TV show, Suits. I watch it. I watch it, and I stay up ’til midnight. Anyway. It’s hard for me to let that go and get to bed.

Dr Rebecca Harwin: It also shows we’ve all got, as you said before, we’re all on this journey and have things to improve on. Even people who’ve been on the journey for a long time, there’s still so much to learn. How can people get your PCOS journal, and how can they follow you and contact you if they’d like some more support?

Melissa C: Yeah, great. You can obtain the journal from my website at www.PCOSpathways.com/shop. You can buy it as a physical journal. I’ve also got a digital version now. It’s not digitally editable, but it enables you to download it. You get it instantly, and you can print it out. You can print the entire document, or you can print it in three-month increments. It’s a more affordable option. I have a lot of followers in some poorer countries, and I really want to create something that is more accessible for them. So it’s pretty expensive. I also have a bundle pack, which is really nice. Definitely check that out.

You can follow me on Facebook. It’s just www.facebook.com/PCOSpathways. On Facebook, I’ve also got two groups. I’ve got the PCOS Journal Book Club, that’s what it’s called. You can search for that. I’ve also got the Empowered Women with PCOS group, which is where we share any really interesting articles or research we find online, so we’re building each other up with knowledge. So that we can feel really strong and empowered, and take ownership of our health.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Absolutely. How can people find that?

Melissa C: That’s a Facebook group as well, so search for Empowered Women with PCOS, and it’s a Facebook group.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Awesome.

Melissa C: Or follow us on Instagram @PCOSpathways.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Wonderful. Great. Thank you very much for your time, help, and advice. We’ll look forward to sharing this with the women with PCOS out there.

Melissa C: Thank you, and thank you so much for having me. It’s a real honour to talk with you. You sound sensitive to the community, so thank you.

Dr. Rebecca Harwin: Pleasure.