Jenna joined the Master Your Minerals course and did 1:1 work with me after struggling with significant hair loss, recurrent UTI’s and yeast infections, acne, painful periods (headaches/migraines), and bloating. She did a hair test and saw that her copper was very high. This was concerning for her since she currently had the copper IUD and she was worried this was impacting her symptoms. She had already tried A LOT and I mean a lot. She had tried pretty much every topical for her acne and hair loss (both holistic and conventional), regularly took antibiotics and antifungals to manage chronic infections, and even changed her diet and experimented with different supplements.

The elevated copper wasn’t shocking on her test since she has a history of taking the birth control pill, had the copper IUD in, was primarily plant based when she came to work with me, and had many signs of estrogen dominance. All things that can drive up copper. Let’s go through the rest of her case and dig more into her health history and minerals!

Stress Timeline & Foundational Interventions

Jenna had quite a bit of stress growing up in a hectic household, but had been out of that living situation for about 10 years when completing testing. This still is an important things to note–living in fight or flight for most of your life is incredibly hard on the body and will cause dysregulation in the nervous system, which will cause dysfunction and disease elsewhere in the body. She also struggled with constipation from a young age–although that wasn’t a big concern for her now. She also had painful, heavy periods since her first menses.

Things she was already doing really well:

• Eating regularly once she had her first meal.
• Routine based–had a good morning and nighttime routine.
• Enjoys where she lives and regularly spends time with friends and some family.
• Motivated but not obsessive over making health changes–which I find incredibly impressive when hair loss is involved.

Things to work on:

• Needed to eat breakfast sooner–had a solid morning routine but it put off breakfast for a couple hours for her. Adding a snack when she woke up allowed her to have something right away without disrupting her routine that she loved so much.
• Work on light exposure and getting outside in the morning/taking light breaks throughout the day. Less blue light at night (loves winding down with TV and spending time on her phone).
• Take a break from supplements. It’s always helpful to see how someone feels off of everything and to give your body a break.
• Add more animal protein in with digestive support that works for her.

These were all things she worked on outside of addressing the mineral imbalances on her HTMA. Yes, test results can be helpful, but it’s hard to regulate copper if you are stressed.

Learning From Her Minerals

Jenna’s HTMA gave us a clear picture of the dysregulation going on her her body. Not only was her copper elevated, but her calcium and magnesium were also very high showing that her metabolism has slowed down and that her body is stressed. She also had elevated zinc, which is a sign of inflammation but not surprising since she has a long history of gut issues. We will use up more zinc when there is inflammation in the body. Her sulfur was also slightly elevated showing her body was working hard to detoxify. The burden on her liver was significant from elevated copper (gets stored in the liver) as well as chronic infections.

Healing Ups & Downs

I always like to sharing the ups and downs in healing since oftentimes we are only shown the highlights on social media. Jenna saw a lot of improve pretty quickly, but addressing all of her main health concerns took time. Luckily, she had a good outlook since she had been dealing with many of these issues for the majority of her life. Here are some of the major ups and downs on her healing journey:

• Less infections in the months following IUD removal. She typically always got something around her period, but the first month was much less severe, so that was a quick and big win for her. They did not fully resolve until she went through her gut protocol.
• Less PMS and headaches leading up to periods after about 3 months of supporting her body and removing her IUD. This change took 3 months, which can be hard mentally when making lifestyle changes, but she remained consistent and eventually rarely had a headache or migraine.
• Acne was still present but moved to being more cyclical (happening mostly around ovulation) vs. being present all of the time.
• Hair loss took the longest to improve, which is pretty standard. Her iron levels were low since her copper was very out of balance and not being utilized properly. Once her copper started to come down and we worked on getting rid of infections in her gut, her iron labs stabilized. This plus reducing estrogen dominance was huge for hair loss. I also want to highlight her light exposure. She was not getting light in the morning and her energy was pretty low. We did not test hormones, but if I had to guess her progesterone was likely low along with cortisol. Improving her light environment likely helped hair growth and hormones.

Hear more about this case study in this podcast episode!

reminder: i’m currently taking on 1:1 clients. if you’d like to explore what it would be like to work together and if we are a good fit, fill out this form to get more details!​