67: Putting Women Back into Women's Health with Kate Powe

Welcome to another great episode of Unclassified Woman! Today, I'm speaking to the lovely Kate Powe.

Many people make assumptions about others without even realising it. We see a woman in her 40’s without children and assume she is selfish or too career-oriented to take time to raise children. Often there are circumstances playing out behind the scenes that we just aren’t aware of. Today’s show focuses on the problems that endometriosis can cause in terms of fertility and family-building and the need for women to have the knowledge about their bodies to make empowered choices. Imagine if we learnt about these subjects in school....

Kate Powe is an amazing naturopath based on the Northern Beaches area of Sydney, Australia. Kate has a passion for helping women balance their hormones and create happy, powerful lives. By integrating evidence-based medicine with mind-body principles and addressing underlying causes of cycle and hormonal disruption, Kate aims to support women mentally, emotionally, and physically to feel balanced and in control of their bodies, moods, and energy.

Kate holds a BA in English from the University of Sydney, an Advanced Diploma of Naturopathy from Nature Care College, and a Diploma of Advanced Metaphysics from Chiara College. Kate’s a member of the Australian Traditional Medicine Society (ATMS) and regularly furthers her education in naturopathic medicine, particularly in women’s endocrinology, including thyroid disease, endometriosis, and PCOS. She has contributed to many podcasts on endometriosis and written articles on the topic for numerous magazines. She has an obsession with all things Italian and sneaks to Italy and the UK as often as possible. Who can blame her! 

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• How both circumstances and choice played into Kate’s not having children. As one of six kids, she always assumed she’d meet a partner and have children---but it just didn’t happen
• How she suffered from endometriosis and adenomyosis during her reproductive years, which complicated matters and impacted her fertility.
• The factors involved when your life doesn’t follow the assumed “pattern” and the judgments that people make about you about being selfish and career-driven.
• Endometriosis is a real issue and taboo topic as a condition that impacts fertility and causes painful periods. Lesions, scar tissue, and inflammation impact the reproductive organs.
• Adenomyosis affects the muscle wall of the uterus and contributes to painful flooding periods.
• These conditions can take 7-13 years to correctly diagnose because everyone assumes having painful periods is completely normal. It isn't....and women should not suffer in silence.
• Both endometriosis and adenomyosis are not isolated conditions, but part of a larger inflammatory process in the body that can have a genetic component.
• Women in the past dealt with these conditions in silence, not knowing how to treat them. They weren’t aware of what was happening in their bodies and their doctors weren’t concerned.
• The cost of treating endometriosis can be higher than treating diabetes!
• Two keys to know about endometriosis:
  • The only way to accurately diagnose it is with surgery--not a scan;
  • It’s a moveable disease with sometimes silent and inconsistent symptoms.
• Endometriosis presents a wide variety of symptoms, including heavy and long, painful periods, pain in legs, discomfort after sex, and a connection with yeast infections.
• Now we know that endometriosis is a systemic inflammatory condition around an immune disregulation in the peritoneal fluid and much more than simply a reproductive issue.
• Naturopaths look at diet and lifestyle approaches to remove inflammation, detox the liver, and keep regular bowel function
• A key in endometriosis treatment is to guard against toxins in personal care products.
• How education can revolutionise women’s health, especially now that the driving force behind the push for more information is coming from women
• The old treatments for endo included “go on the pill” or “get pregnant”. Not very helpful is your endometriosis is causing infertility!
• The way Kate deals with grief now in her 40’s differently than in her 20’s and 30’s when there were lots of questions, suffering, symptoms, and surgeries.
• Dealing with the implication from others that “something must be wrong with you if you don’t have children”.
• How Kate has dealt with awkward social scenarios and the crazy assumptions people make about your personal life.
• How women can assume many different roles in life around caring and nurturing that don’t involve having a biological child.
• The added challenges for Kate in not having a partner and not feeling supported in that way.
• Statistics show that by 2030 in Australia, there will be more family units without kids, a changing family dynamic, and more global consciousness around “community”.
• Why “the pill” is not a good choice because it shuts down the female cycle, but women aren’t taught to question its use.
• Most of Kate’s clients are having post-pill problems and hormonal imbalances.
• How Kate shows creativity in her passion with women’s health, her energy medicine, and cycle essences to help women connect with their cycles.

Find out more about Kate and her work at www.katepowe.com

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I would love to hear what you found most helpful about this interview. Thank you.