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Normal isn't the same as optimal and the gap is where most women get stuck
A free live workshop where I go through what standard testing misses about hormones, what optimal ranges actually are, the tests worth asking your doctor for, and why functional testing is where most women finally get answers.
This is for women who want to understand their own bodies well enough to make informed decisions about their health. And for anyone who has been told everything is normal and needs someone to actually look at the whole picture.
Thursday 10 September, 6:30–7:30pm NZT.
Live and free. Recording sent to everyone who registers.
What you'll leave knowing
If you've read your own results and thought that can't be the whole story, you were right.
By the end of the hour you'll understand what those numbers actually mean, and you'll know what to ask for next.
What "optimal" means, and why it's different from "normal."
A reference range is a population measurement, not a personal one. It's built to identify disease, and it's good at that. What it can't do is tell you whether your level is where you function best because your set point sits somewhere inside a wide band, and you can move well away from it and still be technically normal.
Why the day you're tested changes the answer
Hormones shift dramatically across your cycle, so the same test can read very differently depending on when it's taken. You'll understand what each phase actually shows, and why timing is worth planning around.
Which tests are worth asking your doctor about
Which tests are worth asking about and why, how funding actually works - your GP decides what's clinically indicated, and some tests are commonly covered while others usually aren't - and how to request bloods privately if you'd rather not wait.
Why one test is never the whole answer
Your history, your bloods and your functional testing each show a different part of the picture, and none of them mean much alone. What changes things is reading them together, which is what almost nobody has done for you.
Where blood testing reaches its limit
A blood test shows how much hormone is circulating right now. It can't show how your body made it, moved it through your tissue, or cleared it. With endometriosis and PMOS that's very often exactly where the answer sits, and it's a large part of why so many women get a normal panel and no explanation. We'll go through the main three hormone groups.
The pattern I see most often, walked through end to end
A standard panel showed a fraction of what was actually going on. You'll see exactly what functional testing added, the pattern that emerged once we could see all of it, and how that changed the approach.
Bonus resource: The Naturalist Testing Guide
Everyone who registers gets the Naturalist Testing Guide. This guide will explain the tests worth considering, when in your cycle each one is best taken, and space to record your own results alongside the ranges I work to clinically. It also explains what functional testing shows that bloods can't, what's actually measured, and why the two are read together creates a far clearer picture of your hormonal health. Built so you can see where your numbers sit, know which ones are worth asking about, and understand what a fuller investigation would actually involve.
Who this is for
This is built for women who want to understand what's happening in their own body, because let's be honest, you deserve to know!
Your bloods came back fine and you almost wished they hadn't, because at least then someone would have had something to work with.
You have a diagnosis - endometriosis, PMOS, PMDD but you still don't know why your body is doing this.
You don't have a diagnosis. You've been unwell for years. And you've started wondering whether anyone is ever going to give you a straight answer, or whether this is just how it is now.
The week before your period you don't feel like yourself, and it's been filed away as a mood thing, as though it has nothing to do with the rest of it.
You've got tests coming up and you don't want to waste them. You'd rather walk in knowing what to ask for and when in your cycle to book it.
There are results sitting in an app or a drawer that nobody has ever properly walked you through, and you've stopped expecting anyone to.
You don't need to know what's wrong to join the workshop, this is your opportunity to finally understand standard testing, what your results mean and where to go from here.
What it costs to keep going like this
The first appointment, you say something is wrong. By the fourth, you're saying you're probably just run down. You stop bringing it up, not because you feel better, but because you've run out of people to tell.
Meanwhile you've spent money. Supplements someone suggested. A practitioner who changed your diet. Tests done at whatever point in your cycle the appointment happened to fall. And you still don't know what's actually going on, which makes you hesitate before spending anything else.
Your instinct was right. You just haven't had the information to act on it.
Meet Tegan, your workshop host
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I'm Tegan, a qualified Naturopath and Medical Herbalist, and the founder of Naturalist. I've experienced endometriosis, PMOS, ovarian cysts, acne and metabolic problems for over a decade. Now I work with women whose symptoms are real and whose results keep coming back normal, mostly endometriosis and PMOS.
The pattern I see most often isn't a missed disease. It's a woman who's had the right tests run at the wrong time, or had one marker checked when six more were needed, and been told there's nothing there. That's not a failure of her doctor. It's a limitation of what standard testing was designed to do.
I work alongside GPs and specialists, not around them. What I add is the investigation that happens after the standard panel comes back clear - functional testing, and a root-cause approach to what the results are actually showing.
Test, don't guess. A result inside the normal range tells you nothing obvious was flagged. It doesn't tell you what's driving how you feel. That takes a full history, bloods read properly, and functional testing, read together rather than one at a time. And the point isn't for me to hand you a protocol. It's so you can make decisions about your health that are actually yours.