RTL Episode 70: Ana Gonzalez Herrera: Endometriosis, Hormones, & Reframing Your Situation
On this episode of Responding to Life, I am joined by Ana Gonzalez Herrera to discuss her battle with Stage IV Endometriosis. After her last, and most invasive of a series of surgeries, Ana started her entrepreneurial journey with a vision of rethinking the women's wellness space.
Inspired by the idea that hormonal wellness is the result of a balanced approach to health and with naturopathic principles in mind, Ana launched Glow Botanica, a company that provides a series of effective natural remedies to help achieve hormonal balance by targeting PMS and menopause symptoms.
Tune in to hear us discuss:
Living with Endometriosis
Hormone University, the first educational platform focused on hormonal health
Ways women can be in control of their hormones and not controlled by them
https://hormone-university.com/
Receive 20% with the code: RTL20
Episode 70 Transcript
Josephine Atluri (00:09):
On today's episode of Responding to Life, I am joined by Ana Gonzalez Herrera. Ana battled stage four endometriosis, which cause remarkable disruptions to both her professional and personal life. After the last and most invasive of a series of surgeries, she started her entrepreneurial journey to fulfill her vision of rethinking the woman's wellness base. Inspired by the idea that hormonal wellness is the result of a balanced approach to health. And with a naturopathic principles in mind, she launched Glow Botanica, a company that provides a series of effective natural remedies to help achieve hormonal balance by targeting PMS and menopause symptoms. Knowing from her personal experience that wellness starts from knowledge. Ana also took charge of building and launching Hormone University, the first educational platform focused on hormonal health, aiming to not only raise awareness, but also empower women to take control over their hormonal health to be prepared when they step into the doctor's office and to get their questions answered. Let's hear now from Anna and her amazing story. Thank you so much for joining us on the show, Ana. I'm so excited to have you and share your journey with our listeners.
Ana Gonzalez Herrera (01:21):
Thank you, Jo. Thank you so much for having me. It's really nice to be here. Thanks.
Josephine Atluri (01:26):
And so I introduced you and I talked about your journey very briefly with a stage four endometriosis and I've had several guests before who've been on, who've also had that diagnosis, but I don't think anyone's been to or who has had it at stage four. So I'd love for you to share your personal journey with endometriosis and then we'll get into how that led you to where you are today and the things that, the amazing things you're doing.
Ana Gonzalez Herrera (01:58):
Thank you. In life, sometimes we have to go through so many obstacles to find our inspiration and I guess that's the silver lining. But yeah, I basically had my first encounter with kind of hormonal imbalance with fibroids when I was 21, 22. And then my period started gradually getting really, really painful to the point where just every time it came I was in full anxiety because I knew that this tsunami of painkillers and not moving and nausea and headaches and you name it I've been there were coming. So yeah I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I was a lucky one that I was diagnosed. And I want to say this to your audience Josephine, because unfortunately endometriosis is something that is not diagnosed these days still. It takes an average of seven to sometimes 10 years to get this diagnosed. And it's a very simple reason. We just not being heard.
(03:17):
And so many women especially coming from minorities or other races, they just don't get the diagnosis. So that is really a sad fact. But yeah, I was one of the lucky ones. I had an incredible old school doctor that explained everything to me and saw it straight away and I didn't have a clue what the hell that was, right? I was like, Jesus, what does it mean? What is it? And he said, Now these explains your very painful periods. So I went through five surgeries in total and the endometriosis, meaning laparoscopies and I had other surgeries kind of related to hormonal imbalance. So yeah, I'm kind of like, I go to an operating theater as if I go to the park, it's like, oh, okay, here I am again. And so the last surgery was unfortunately, or fortunately, I mean I just couldn't function. I could not move.
(04:29):
I was in pain 50% of my time, five zero. So you can just multiply that in months of the year six months of the year I was in pain and nausea, vomiting. It was just crazy. So at the time I was married, we were trying to have a baby I went through ivf and so a lot of very tough situations and just days and weeks of pain. So I have no other choice than to go through a full hysterectomy. And you asked me at the beginning what is stage four and the endometriosis? So stage four and the endometriosis is very severe pain combined with going into other organs as well, infiltrating. So it infiltrates it can infiltrate in your skin, in your lungs in your eyes. I mean images is still a very unknown condition and there is no cure. In my case, it infiltrated my colon. So they had to basically cut it and put it back together. So that last surgery basically was six hours of taking away all my reproductive organs, plus dealing with my colon. So I woke up and I had two teams with me and ob gyn surgeon plus the surgeon that was doing the colon resection. So I woke up with they had to open me up and that also meant that I went straight away into surgical menopause.
Josephine Atluri (06:25):
Well first of all, thank you so much for sharing all of that with us and I really appreciate it. I know oftentimes we get used to telling our stories but I'm sure that just that flood of memories that comes back when you have to relive it, retell it. So I do. I really appreciate that. And just knowing that your story is helping others, because like you said at the very beginning, what I heard from other guests is that it is insane how long it takes for someone to be diagnosed. I mean, considering now the amount of people that come forward and are telling their stories about it, it just feels like we're so behind on just the ability to do so considering that so many people are going through it. And so I appreciate stories like this because it can help other people who may not understand what's happening with their bodies and they don't feel like they can advocate for themselves because they don't know what's happening, whether or not it's endometriosis.
(07:32):
You could take a lesson from this in terms of just trusting your body and being able to advocate for it and feeling like you are heard when you're talking about your own physical symptoms because a lot of us, especially as I talk to the infertility community and who people who are listening, that's a big thing for all of us, is just that ability to stand up for ourselves and get the care that we need and that we deserve. And so let's fast forward then. You had this insane experience, all these surgeries. What happened next in terms of how you then lived life with this diagnosis of endometriosis, which you said could just keep coming back, and what did you do with how did you respond? That's the whole title of the show, which is why I like to invite people to come on, is to show people how my guests responded to their own situations, how they responded to life.
Ana Gonzalez Herrera (08:41):
That's a great title by the way. I loved it when I saw it. And look, I still have tears. I mean, you're looking at me, people are not gonna see this. But I tell my son, I still break into tears, but my whole thing in life whenever something comes that is negative or oh, it feels so hard,
Josephine Atluri (09:06):
Oh, take all the time you need.
Ana Gonzalez Herrera (09:09):
I like to reframe situations.
(09:12):
...and well, the pain was gone. I went through then surgical menopause, which is heaven compared to, and the endometriosis, anyone going through and the endometriosis knows this. I was getting this, all of a sudden I was getting what a woman goes through with. Menopause is a period of perimenopause into menopause. It's around seven years. So you have enough time, your body has enough time to get accustomed to very low levels of progesterone and having all these night sweats and hot flashes. But for anyone having surgical menopause overnight, so all of a sudden you're waking up and you're like, Oh my god, your body's going crazy. But I was so grateful that I had no pain. That to me that was like, Oh, okay. Hot flash is a night night, so that's fine. So going back to your question Josephine, I think that it's just the beauty of life is that you can make it as you want to make it right. You can totally turn things around depending on how you look at things. So my anger was about, wait a minute, so many of us don't know about hormonal imbalances. So many of us don't get hurt.
(10:45):
So many people don't have the possibility to learn about this. So that was basically my inspiration to kind of say, Okay, this is my chance to help others. So that's when I decided I'm going to create an educational platform. Horman University was born mid 2020 and then at the same time I started working on this consumer brand and a consumer brand mixing my 17 years of experiencing personal care and beauty companies and leading brands for other companies and having this personal experience with very, very extreme PMs and menopause. So I also had, when I went through that surgical for menopause, I had a very extreme reaction to Hormonals treatment. And so I was just like, okay, I will do this myself. I just couldn't find anything in the market that was natural. And I also had other severe reactions in the past to taking the pill for so many years taking way too many painkillers to help with the pain.
(12:02):
So that combination of experiences led me to just go, okay, I have to create my own brand. And that was the start of creating global bot Taika. So here we are, two startups, after all this time, what can I tell you? I'm really proud. I kind of took that situation and I thought, okay, this something has to come out of this. Something good has to come out of this. So our goal is to help millions of women with their hormonal wellbeing. No matter whether you are going through your period or you're going through perimenopause or menopause, you can go to Hormone University, learn about this, advocate for yourself and come to Global toca and help yourself with relief without products.
Josephine Atluri (12:56):
I love it. I just love it and I love that you're empowering women to through two different ways. First of all, just learning, having a platform where they can learn about it. Because I feel like when, I don't know about anyone listening, but when I go to my ob, I feel like they either just, one, they don't have the time and then two, they assume that you already know because you have access to the internet not really even telling you where to go to look for information. So they kind of gloss over what your experiences are like for example, with going into perimenopause and things like that, you don't really hear about all of the things that you will be experiencing that you may experience. It's just something that almost feels like it's passed down from what you hear from elder women in your family or friends if they talk about it.
(13:55):
And so I really love that you've created that platform, the Hormone University. And then how we met was through a mutual friend that we were just talking about, but that's where I saw your product. This I have it right here is on my dresser, The Glow. And it was the tummy butters. It's going through this gift bag for an event that I intended. And I thought, what is this? Because I experience, especially as I've aged, I've noticed that my PMS symptoms have changed and I didn't know what was happening. And that's how women are feeling like what is happening? I don't know. And so I'd love for you to just touch upon this particular product, but just in general, what Glow Botanica helps as you lightly touch upon it. But this tummy butter, I tried it you reminded me to give it a try and I tried it and I loved it. So if you could tell everyone about it, I think it'd be so helpful. Cause I love it.
Ana Gonzalez Herrera (14:57):
Thank you. Yes, of course. So yeah, it was a two year preparation, right? Planning, researching, talking to doctors, talking to pharmacologists, biochemists. So it was a really long road and I didn't want to launch a product without really testing it with women that were going through PMs and menopause. So after we did the whole business plan and all the research and I reached out to this doctor in Germany who uses one of the key ingredients that we have, which is wild yam root and is just an unbelievable ingredient. It's something that many people don't know this, but the actual extract of that root is what the pharmaceutical companies use to create the peel. So they make it synthetic but we use the actual extract of the plant because it basically, what it does is it stimulates your progesterone levels. So it's a natural way to get that balance that we need when we're going through PMS.
(16:14):
And I decided to make it topical for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to do something different that is not supplements. I take about, I don't know, six, seven, sometimes 10 supplements. I find it really tough sometimes. And when I spoke to our lead scientific advisor, who's amazing, amazing doctor, her name is Dr. Elizabeth Poynor, she's been voted one of the top OBGYNs in the U.S. She went to Princeton and was in -- and she's just an incredible woman. She was like, oh my god, I love that you're doing topical because so many women are going to her with gut issues. So the gut microbiome, when you take too many different things then it gets affected. Not for everyone, of course, but that's one of the things that she was telling me about. She's like, wow, this is great. You're doing topical.
(17:14):
It's much gentler for the body as it goes through the bloodstream. And so yeah, we decided, okay, let's do topical solutions, transdermal solutions, and that's how Tummy better work. And then we added other ingredients is well known to help with fertility. For example Marshmallow root is really well known to help with bloating and water retention. So then we have other ingredients, alovera and even in Primrose oil. So everything was about, I was kind of obsessed, like let's get these hormones balanced. So yeah, we did the study for three months with women going through PMS and women going through perimenopause or menopause. And the results just came out. I mean, I cried so much when because not getting those results would've meant not launching or just taking another six months to do research and change the formula. So yeah, coming from the beauty personal care industry, most companies, they just launch products and they don't test them in advance. And for me that was an important integrity factor was to do that. So yeah, we launched in January, we're truly a startup.
Josephine Atluri (18:39):
Indeed that's fascinating to me. That's why I had to ask you about it because I love hearing how people come about not just with their businesses, but the different products that they are creating and sharing with the world. So it's love to get that sort inside look as if you'll, Yeah. So let me ask you this. Considering you have that platform of Hormone University, and I have a lot of people who are listening right now who are going through or are trying to conceive, be having issues with infertility and they themselves are being pumped with so many different hormones, what advice would you give to them for maybe just something that they should keep in mind that about their hormones or in just navigating the challenge that they may experience as they are going through all these hormonal injections?
Ana Gonzalez Herrera (19:42):
It's such a complex topic. I went through it myself so I know what it's like and it just so depends on what that person's situation is about. For me personally, I was going through the endometriosis, so they were very careful with how many and or the quantity of hormones that they had to give me. And I appreciated that. Well, it didn't work obviously. I mean my fertility was almost gone by then. But each person, what I would say is just see how you feel with your doctor. And I think that that chemistry between you and your doctor and feeling hurt and really understanding that your doctor, you're not just one number in this fertility craziness and this fertility industry that makes me so mad. This is moving billions. So for me personally, and what I always say to people is make sure that you find the best doctor for you.
(20:56):
Because some people might feel great with one doctor, some people might not love that doctor. So I find that that level of trust is going to have a major impact in your process. If you really trust your doctor, you're gonna feel so much better. So I think that that's an important factor to take into consideration. And you know, and I talked about this, right, is meditate and do things for yourself. So this doesn't become your everyday existence and this doesn't become something that you, it's all you talk about or all you think about. And I know it's so hard, but I think that's also important. I was the type of person I threw myself into work. Maybe not, that's not the right thing to do, but it kind of worked for me. And I also spent time with my friends and saw them regularly and I hosted at home like little things, nothing major, but kind of like, hey, come over to my closest friends and just have a good laugh that's so important. And read and definitely educate yourself.
Josephine Atluri (22:16):
Wonderful, all wonderful pieces of advice that I second as well. So let's go to the other end of the spectrum then. And we've already talked a little bit about women who are going through perimenopause and menopause, and so I'd love to hear that same question about anything that you can offer in terms of a piece of advice for them to consider as they go through these hormonal changes that they may or may not know about.
Ana Gonzalez Herrera (22:52):
Well, the first thing I want to really acknowledge those women that go through a full hysterectomy. There is a certain percentage of very young women that unfortunately or fortunately, like I said before, have they just have to go through it because they have no other choice and they can't live their lives. And so they go into menopause. That's also the same situation with some cancer patients. They're put into, they stop their hormonal cycle immediately. So they go into menopause and they start having all these hot flashes and night sweats and there is brain fog and you almost get a little bit of irritability kind of state. So I really want to acknowledge those audiences because people kind of forget about them and they're also going through menopause and they have to go through those symptoms. So we say in global Hanukkah we say it's not about age, it's about symptoms.
(24:02):
And a woman at 34 might have early menopause and a woman at 15 might go through PMs. So we have to just try and forget about that stigma that we have been put on ourselves. And we have always heard about, you see if you Google menopause, look at the pictures there. I mean they're all this older woman, so we should acknowledge definitely other people that go through it. And I would say to people going through perimenopause and or menopause, look, it's just a face that we can't escape from <laugh> it's life. And I almost wish we could change that word because it has that stigma attached to it but it's a face that also has great things, the confidence that age brings, if that's the case. And I just think that reframing is a big thing for me. You have to just reframe things and it sucks these night sweats and libido changes and all of that stuff, they suck. But you can find solutions and you can find ways to look after yourself. So of course I am very biased, but I am going to say, do go and try tummy butter because we've tested it and all these women are, we're getting glowing reviews, <laugh>, pun intended. So <laugh>, yeah, you can find a lot of ways to look after yourself and minimize those symptoms in a natural way.
Josephine Atluri (25:59):
Well, I really appreciate this advice that you gave and I found it really very informative, which is just a joy to be able to hear from you and experience the wisdom that you took from your own personal journey. And I love that you brought up that certain words do have stigma attached to it. It's so true with menopause, with so many different things. And reframing is a big thing that I like to coach my clients on and that I put in my books. And it really can make such a huge difference just taking whatever situation you have and trying to flip the script on it and looking at things through a different lens can make all the difference. It can make the difference of staying in that situation that you're in or else creating beautiful companies and platforms like you have done. So I think that is definitely a great takeaway for our listeners and thank you so much for sharing that with us. I always like to end our podcast episodes with my guests sharing their gratitude. It's another way of reframing one's day, looking at things through a different lens. So if you could share a gratitude that you have for today.
Ana Gonzalez Herrera (27:23):
Well thank you so much. I am very grateful that you invited me to your podcast. It's really an honor. I'm very grateful for that. Just spreading awareness is really a wonderful thing and I really appreciate that you invited me. I'm grateful that my heart is beating a hundred thousand times a day, which is what the heart does every single day. And I think about that often because we have life and breath and that's important and I feel great. And after going through so much physical pain, I feel very, very grateful and I never take that for granted.
Josephine Atluri (28:15):
Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And one more thing to share, if you could share with our audience how they can connect with you through Hormone University through your products, I'd love for them to have that information.
Ana Gonzalez Herrera (28:29):
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. So if you're on Instagram Hormone University is just altogether at Hormone University. If you are looking for amazing content and educate yourself in anything that has to do with women's health, hormonal health, go to hormone university.com and then for wonderful products that are gonna help you with any hormonal imbalance from PMs all the way to menopause Instagram is get Global Botanica and our website is global botanica.com and we are really delighted to offer your audience, Joe, a special discount if they want to purchase any product from global botanica.com. And the code is RTL 20.
Josephine Atluri (29:26):
Oh, perfect. So I'll put that in the show notes for everyone so that you have that. Thank you so much for that kind offer that's that'll be so wonderful for them. And thank you so much for being a guest on my show. I really enjoyed our conversation. Like I said, it was super enlightening and informative and I'm really grateful for you for being so candid with your own personal journey.
Ana Gonzalez Herrera (29:45):
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Josephine Atluri (29:47):
Thank you so much for joining me for today's interview with Ana Gonzalez Herrera. I am so grateful for all of you out there listening and supporting the important topics discussed on this podcast. Join me next time for another inspiring guests that will share their experiences or expert advice on how to respond to the various challenges presented to us in life.
(30:07):
Thank you for listening to Responding to Life: Talking Health, Fertility and Parenthood. If you enjoyed the show, I invite you to share it with others and leave a rating and review on whatever podcast outlet you use. To learn more on how to apply mindfulness to your life, please check out my book, the Mindfulness Journal for Parents, available on Amazon and on my website, jatluri.com. You can also check out older podcast episodes and so many tips on infusing mindfulness into your life, particularly if you are trying to conceive, experiencing infertility, managing your mental health or navigating parenthood. I offer affordable online mindfulness workshops as well as private online meditation sessions. Thank you again for your support and I look forward to sharing another inspirational story with you real soon.