Functional Medicine | Women's Health
By Dr. Shawna Darou, ND I’m seeing people exhausted rather than refreshed after the December break. If you think about it, after almost 2 years of pandemic, we flew into 2022 at high speed and none of us started the year in great shape. Not surprisingly, I’m seeing so much fatigue, burnout and hormone imbalance especially. Simply put, people’s …
Continue Reading about Steps you can take to prevent burnout in 2023 →
By Dr. Shawna Darou, ND Hair thinning is actually a very common issue that I see in the clinic, and it can be extremely distressing for women. In this article, I will review some of the causes of hair thinning that I test for, and some solutions to get your hair growing again. One important thing to note is that getting the hair into a re-growth …
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By Dr. Shawna Darou, ND It certainly has been a challenging couple of years, with ongoing stresses living through the pandemic. I find it interesting that everyone I speak to has had different stresses, but it does seem that almost universally, the load of stress has been significantly higher than it was previously. We are very good at …
By Dr. Shawna Darou, ND Fatigue, or tiredness is the number one complaint that brings people in for naturopathic care. There are many underlying factors to investigate in determining the cause of tiredness. Below is my top 10 list of factors that that can be causing your fatigue. Many of these are missed in a conventional medical work-up, or …
By Dr. Shawna Darou, ND It’s typical to feel the impacts of stress after the stress is over, or when you finally let go and begin to relax. Think about getting sick after final exams in university, or the flu that hits over Christmas holidays. After this incredibly challenging year and a half, I am hearing from many women overwhelmed, …
By Dr. Shawna Darou, ND Cortisol is an extremely important hormone for women’s health, because all of the hormonal systems are interconnected. A change in stress hormones can impact your thyroid function, blood sugar regulation, weight and body fat distribution as well as your reproductive hormone balance and fertility. Quite simply, when …
By Dr. Shawna Darou, ND Every day in my practice, I hear from women who feel very alone in their struggle either physically or emotionally. My intention is to normalize some of these things, and provide you with insight and resources. Today’s post is certainly close to my heart – I’m in it with you. I’m a self-employed working mom with two kids. …
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By Dr. Shawna Darou, ND I’m writing this article because it’s a pattern I see quite regularly, where exercise or nutrition habits are taken too far, and then some type of hormone imbalance develops. This is usually more subtle than an overt eating disorder, where the imbalance of caloric intake and energy burned is more extreme. There can be too …
By Dr. Shawna Darou, ND In challenging times, we rely on our resilience to get us through. The past months have been one of these times for many of us, and now that the acute anxiety has eased up, it’s time to refocus on wellness again. “The definition of resilient is someone or something that bounces back into shape or recovers quickly.” (1) …
