88. Women’s Health with The Vagina Coach, Kim Vopni
Listen & Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
In this week’s episode, Surabhi Veitch and Kim Vopni chat about how we can better educate women about the pelvic and hormonal considerations through our life. Kim shares her personal story, from her initial resistance to childbirth after a Grade 6 sex education class to her pivotal moment witnessing her sister-in-law's empowering birth experience.
As an entrepreneur and the Vagina Coach, Kim has been at the forefront of integrating pelvic health into various stages of life. She co-founded Bellies Inc. and developed the Prepare to Push program.
Join us for a candid conversation about breaking taboos, empowering women, and redefining pelvic health across all life stages.
✨This episode is sponsored by Embodia https://www.embodiaapp.com/ - use code momstrength to save $20 off your first month’s Tier 3 membership.
✨Click here to learn more about How I use Embodia as a Pelvic Physiotherapist!
About Kim:
Kim Vopni is known as The Vagina Coach. She is a certified fitness professional, a published author, and a women’s health educator.
Kim is the founder of Pelvienne Wellness Inc - a company offering pelvic health programs and coaching for women in pregnancy, motherhood and menopause.
Connect with Kim:
—Instagram @vaginacoach
—Website https://www.vaginacoach.com/
—Facebook https://www.facebook.com/VagCoach
—YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/KimVopniTheVaginaCoach/videos
Connect with Surabhi:
Website: https://www.thepassionatephysio.ca
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Surabhi: [00:00:00] Hey y'all, and welcome back to another episode of Mom Strength. I'm your host, Surabhi Veitch and I am here with the Vagina Coach today. Kim Vopni. I'm so excited to chat with Kim. Um, if you don't know who Kim is, she's the vagina coach. She's a certified fitness professional, a published author, a women's health educator and advocate.
Um, she's the founder of Pelvienne Wellness, Inc. A company offering pelvic health programs and coaching for women in pregnancy, motherhood, and menopause. Hi Kim. Hello. Thank you for having me. You are so welcome. I actually met Kim in person in the fall at an event for incontinence. How cool is it that they are hosting events for things like incontinence?
Now we're able to publicly talk about it. There's no shame. And we have everyone from healthcare professionals, fitness professionals to [00:01:00] influencers attending.
Kim: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was great. I it exactly, you know, it's a pad company, which I, I certainly don't promote pads, but it was, it was enlightening and, and refreshing to see a pad company.
I. Who technically wants to keep us wearing pads for the rest of our lives, but they were bringing light to the conversation around, uh, bladder health and pelvic health and what causes incontinence. And brought together a really great panel and amazing, as you say, practitioners and influencers for a really lovely event and, uh, really helped increase awareness.
So super grateful that that stuff's starting to happen now.
Surabhi: Exactly. So I would love to hear, um, from you, your journey into how you got into coaching this specific, um, population. Mm-hmm. Which is like pretty common. Half the world is, you know mm-hmm, mm-hmm. People with uterus. So, um, it makes sense, but I would love to hear how you got into it and what your journey has been.
Kim: I, I certainly didn't grow up thinking that I would work in this space. I, I think from a fairly young, like [00:02:00] probably around my teens, I always had a passion for health and fitness. So I, I, I think I knew that I would end up somehow in the health and fitness space. But grade six, I remember seeing, I. A childbirth video as part of our sex ed.
And I thought, no, no, I don't wanna do that. And so I grew up thinking I'm not having babies. And that was, that was it. I remember even having a sticker album that I had, you know, little sayings posted in and one of them was, I will not have a baby.
Surabhi: That's hilarious.
Kim: Yeah. So I think that's funny. Anyway, that was kind of the start of it, but that, so that video planted this fear, but also fascination.
I went home and I looked at my mom differently and I looked at all the women in my life and I thought, well, they've done it. And then as I got older, I started to notice my mom would stop running and she complained of back pain and she eventually had surgery for incontinence. She had a hysterectomy, and so all of these things I was witnessing when I had a little bit more awareness as I was older, and that was sort of at the time affirming like, okay, no, I definitely don't want to have children.
I really like the way my body works now and I want to continue to do all [00:03:00] these things that I love. I met my husband and watched my sister-in-law give birth, and that was a bit kind of like the TSN turning point where I, I saw birth differently than anything that I had ever seen. It portrayed as in the media and she was using midwives.
She was in a sideline birth position. I remember the next day asking her about, you know, is everything falling out? 'cause she allowed us to be in the room when she was giving birth. So I saw how, that's incredible. I saw the whole process. It was amazing. And she said, no, you know, I have a little bit of soreness and tender, but.
Everything feels kind of normal. And I thought, huh, alright. And then so the next year I was pregnant, decided I did wanna start a family, and then I was now determined I'm gonna have a different story than my mom and other women I know had had challenges and. I was using midwives and I was asking them, how can I prevent tearing?
How can I prevent these challenges that my mom experienced? And they said, well, we've heard of this thing. There's perineal massage, and we've also heard that of this product called the EPI-NO And so I researched this product and uh, it made sense to me. It's a kind of [00:04:00] fitness principles, stretching, strengthening, biofeedback, preparing the body for a physical event, and yeah.
I purchased one. I had a great experience and then I thought, well, why is not every single person who's giving birth using one of these? And I contacted the company, they're from Germany, and I said, could I be a distributor in Canada? And my intention was not for it to be a business per se, I thought little exercise pocket money, I'll sell it to friends and through my midwives.
That was the intent. And it was very much a side thing. For a few years, I used it again with my second baby, and then after my second child was born. We moved to, uh, Ontario. So we were in Vancouver. We are in Vancouver now, and we moved to Ontario for my husband's work. And, uh, just let me back up. I, I had no tearing.
Um, and that was in my mind, okay, if I haven't torn, then I'm not gonna have incontinence like my mom. So this was my knowledge at the time, right? Yeah. I associated tearing an epi episiotomy with other problems and I thought, okay, if I can just [00:05:00] prevent that, then I'll be fine. So we moved to Ontario for my husband's work.
I'm working full-time in hr, have this little EPI-NO thing on the side. Two kids in daycare. My husband's a pilot. He's away all the time. We have no family. So I'm thinking, huh, you know what? I wonder if I could do something with this little EPI-NO thing. Yeah. So that I could be home with my kids. And I said, I'll give myself a year to grow it.
And then three months later, I was laid off the whole financial downturn of 2009. Yeah, I was laid off. I was like, okay, here we go. I had already started a website, so I, I wasn't starting from complete scratch, but, uh, then I was like, all right, let me see if, uh, if there's other pelvic health products. And then I started to get pelvic health physios referring to me.
I'd never heard of pelvic floor physio, so I learned what they did. And then again, I was screaming from the rooftops just like I was about the EPI-NO this is important and we should all be doing this. Yeah. And should be treating it like we do the dentist go once a year. And so that kind of became my mission and it was very much, uh.
Trying to prevent, because so many pregnancy and birth is [00:06:00] such a pivotal time and where so many of these challenges begin. So if we could get this information to women ahead of time, could we help mitigate some of this risks? That was my intention. I created a program called Prepare to Push. Primarily focusing on pregnancy.
Then I was recognizing, and I had lived in Southeast Asia, that we do postpartum recovery. Very different, and I myself was also like, Hey, baby's out. I, I'm good. I, I would just wanna get back to the gym. I wanna go running again. I wanna do all these things and no respect or honor given to the need to recover.
Yeah. And so as I was learning more about pelvic floor, starting to see a link with diastasis recti. I reached out to this woman who was in the United States and was teaching a program about diastasis, and I went down and took her course and thought, okay, I'm gonna bring back her program. It was, um, uh, Julie Tupler the Tupler technique.
So I thought, okay, I'll bring this back to Canada. And so I went and took this course, and then another person who I then randomly met on the, not randomly, I, I was looking for people doing the same work, and [00:07:00] I met another woman named Samantha Momi. Who I know, you know? Yes. And two of us got together and we said, huh, what are you doing for this?
And are you doing pelvic floor? And so she went and took the same TUPLER training and the two of us were going to bring this back. And so we, we were incorporating the techniques. We were selling some of Julie's products and. We then started to get a physiotherapist referring patients to us, and we couldn't find this random physiotherapist named Julia DePalo.
And anyway, so we carried on, but we were, we were noticing little things we, we thought we would do differently had it been our own. And one day we met this physiotherapist. The three of us sat down and said, you know, what are you doing? What are you doing? And we compared stories and ended up starting a business.
So we started a a, a business together called Belly Zinc. And we wanted to optimize postpartum recovery, bring pelvic floor. Recovery exercise into that kind of period of time. And we also recognized the techniques of belly wrapping [00:08:00] or belly binding that many cultures do in the world, but we wanted to be, make it a bit more mainstream.
So we designed our own product. So that was another whole journey. And
Surabhi: wait, wait. Belly's Ink, that wrap is designed by you guys?
Kim: Yeah.
Surabhi: I just put that together right, right now. Oh, okay. Well, now, you know.
Kim: Yeah. So it's, it's now we, we, it's sold another woman, uh, uh, an amazing friend and doula out here in BC now owns and runs the company and has expanded it through there.
But yes, that was our, that was Samantha, Julie, and I. Designed that, that product. And um, and, and we loved it. And, but we also, none of us loved manufacturing. None of us loved managing that aspect of the business. And we all had our own independent businesses as well. So it was a lot. And we all had children and then we started to go through perimenopause and so it was a lot.
And yeah, so we, we passed the reins and went back to our own individual businesses and now. Funnily enough, both Samantha and I focus more so on that perimenopause [00:09:00] menopause phase of life as opposed to prenatal postpartum. And Julia, uh, has actually moved to the states and she's still, um, I think she's working on getting her license now to be able to practice again as a, as a pelvic floor physical therapist.
And so to wrap up the story, that was sort of the journey that then we sold Belly Zinc and I, uh, the, the epi. The, uh, health Canada put in new regulations, uh, new medical device regulation process that was way more costly, way more hoops to jump through. So the manufacturer of the epi nose said, no, we're not gonna do that.
They pulled out of Canada. And with that decision, I fought that hard. And with that decision, um, I, it was beyond my control. And so I ended up shutting down my e-commerce store and focusing on getting all of my stuff online so that I could help more people. 'cause I had people saying, I live in Australia and I live here, and they obviously couldn't come and see me in person, so I wanted to get more kind of workshops and then.[00:10:00]
Did some coaching and brought my programs online and then developed an app. And that's kind of where I'm at now. And again, nice. The majority of the people that I serve are more perimenopause, menopause, the odd people. Yeah. Uh, the odd few people who are kind of early postpartum, but um, but that's, I guess now with people having
Surabhi: babies later, there's just more overlap between where postpartum is and perimenopause starts.
Kim: Yep. A hundred percent.
Surabhi: And I love, I love this story because I think a lot of people who. Might listen to this episode, our fellow healthcare professionals, PTs, fit Pros and you know, you've had such a successful journey through, um. Kind of various, you know, from the epi No to bellies in to Pelion wellness.
Like, so there's, I think what I'm getting at is it, you didn't just start off right away knowing what you wanted to do. You started with what felt right. Hell no. In that moment, and then that evolved to the next thing. Totally. That worked in the moment and that evolved again. A thousand [00:11:00] percent.
Kim: No. It, like, I am the, the definite supporter of the entrepreneur journey is very up and down and all over the map and squiggly lines everywhere.
We had no idea what we were doing. I had no idea what I was doing. I just thought, oh, I'll just sell a little product on the side and oh, well manufacture this little pro. Like, it was so much more than we thought. Um. And it's been, there's many times I've been wanting, I've been wanting to just, no, I can't do this anymore.
I'm done. But I'm glad I've stuck through it. I absolutely love and adore what I do. Um, but no, we, we had no idea what we're doing and it's all been a very, looking back, it all makes sense. It was this natural, organic path, but at the time it felt like, oh my God, like we had to learn something new every time or, but that was a key piece of the pelvic health component was started out in pregnancy wanting to prevent.
Recognizing a void in postpartum recovery. Then started my own perimenopause menopause journey and said, this is not a do your Kegels in pregnancy and you're fine. This is, this is a whole life journey [00:12:00] that we go through that we have to consider the influences impact and impacts to our pelvic health, but nobody.
Is talking about that?
Surabhi: No. And even what you said, like if I got the help in pregnancy, if I used the EPI-NO, I could prevent tears and then not end up like my mom with incontinence or you know, a hysterectomy or whatnot. But a lot of people have incontinence and they've never had children. And a lot of people get hysterectomies and you know, so sometimes we think we do this that will prevent X, Y, Z, but the reality is we're all aging and these changes may happen with or without.
Our approval. So getting support for wherever we are at is important. Even if, you know, we could have prevented this, sometimes we, we just don't know what we are gonna experience until the time comes. So I love, I love that perimenopause and menopause I think are a natural progression because you're also getting to that stage of life and you're seeing that, hey, there are women my age who have no clue what's going on in their bodies.
Um, and I see it as well. Tell me a little bit [00:13:00] about, one of the things you mentioned was. How similar are Postpartums to post-op hysterectomy? So hysterectomy, how common are they? Do you know? I don't know the stats around that. Are they pretty common?
Kim: Super common? Um, in the states it's about 600,000. In Canada, it's about half that, so about 300,000.
And the majority of those are four benign conditions. So there are some times where. This is not a choice. It could be cancer related or, or tumor. Yeah. Yeah. There's lot there. There are definitely those reasons, however, many of people are having them for heavy bleeding during perimenopause and no investigation to root cause.
Many people have them for fibroids. Many people have it for pelvic organ prolapse. And the frustrating part about that is
Surabhi: super frustrating. They're,
Kim: they have this surgery thinking, okay, great, and, and it does remove symptoms from your uterus, prolapse, of course, however. The act of having a hysterectomy increases your risk of prolapse.
And if the reason you had that surgery was because of uterine prolapse, it increases it even more. [00:14:00] And that's never shared with anybody. And people are then experiencing incontinence and other forms of prolapse after hysterectomy and thinking, oh my gosh, this is, I thought I was done with this. Right. So,
Surabhi: exactly.
Kim: Yeah. Hysterectomy is so, so common and a huge, I'm actually putting together a webinar on it to understand the various, 'cause there's many different. Types, many different surgical approaches.
Surabhi: Yeah,
Kim: but I really want people to do some investigation into root causes first, and there's no shame in having surgery.
I remember when I was going through perimenopause, not knowing the term adenomyosis, not understanding hormones and why I was bleeding so heavily all the time. And yeah, hysterectomy was offered to me, but I, I, in my gut, I knew it wasn't, and I knew the risks of, from a pelvic health perspective as well, but I knew that, that it can't just be, oh, just take your uterus out.
Why am I bleeding so heavily? I needed to understand why, and that is something that's not in our mainstream medical system, the way it's put up, you know, the way it's organized now, unfortunately, [00:15:00] they wait for there to be a disease state for them to fix rather than looking at. Prevention. Or why? And prevention.
Exactly. Yeah. So, um, and, and the post-op postpartum, it's not even just hysterectomy, it's really any. Pelvic surgery. I mean, it could be any surgery, arguably, but we're focusing on the pelvis here. And so I went through a pelvic surgery. I had a, a stage two rectocele and did all the things, lived with it for nine years, wasn't moving the needle, approaching menopause.
And I said, this is the time for me to do this that I, I'm, I wanna do this now. And so I, I went through that process and, and said really a lot of what I was doing in terms of supporting my body was I was preparing for the event. Putting my body in the best state possible, working on the nervous system, working on the muscles, working on, you know, preparing for what my recovery is going to be like, making sure I had all the things I needed, the support system, all that stuff, and go through it, go through the recovery and, and I said, this is really what I [00:16:00] counsel a lot of women to do.
Postpartum pregnancy to prepare for their postpartum and what they're doing from a postpartum recovery perspective. So there's really a lot of overlap that, that I saw going through that, uh, experience myself. Yeah. And, uh, and recognize there like there's already not a lot of information about pelvic health and there's definitely not a lot of information about pelvic health as it pertains to surgery.
There's so many women going, as we talked about hysterectomy, but. So many other PE pelvic floor surgeries are happening for incontinence, for prolapse. And again, no shame in the surgery. I just want people to be informed as to what are the things that contributed to that happening
Surabhi: in the first place,
Kim: and how can we mitigate that, that the likelihood of them happening again at like the recurrence rate with pelvic surgery is so high.
And I think a big piece of that is no root cause investigation. No pelvic physio, no pelvic exercise. So many like people are told. Oh, you don't need pelvic exercise anymore. 'cause I've just fixed the problem. You're, you're fixed.
Surabhi: Yeah.
Kim: Yeah.
Surabhi: And I think actually to a certain extent, that's [00:17:00] the standard of care.
And a many orthopedic surgeries as well. Yep. Like knee replacement. Oh, your arthritis is fixed. Now you've got an artificial knee. And that person is functionally weaker when they leave the hospital because now they have extreme amounts of pain, inflammation, um, swelling, and now they. Bend less, they move less and then they're fearing pain and then that those symptoms just come back.
Yeah, the difference. And so pelvic surgery is the same. The difference,
Kim: yeah. The difference with that though is those people who are having knee replacements or shoulder surgery are given a full recovery protocol protocol with Physio Incorporated, and people who go through pelvic surgeries or give birth to babies or provided nothing, nothing.
Surabhi: There aren't any protocols that are clear cut standards of post C-section. You do this at week six? We do, and we, we are kind of as pelvic physical therapists, as fitness professionals. We're figuring it out for ourselves. So maybe in 10, 50 years there, there will be protocols, but Right. You're right.
You're exactly right. And surgery, [00:18:00] there's no shame in surgery, but it is not the only thing that we need to do. It's that Plus. The rehab component. Yeah. That plus lifestyle management, that plus nervous system management, right? Yep. So, um. I love that this is, this is great for all of us who are aging, who are slowly getting older and you know, thinking, you know what, I have a prolapse now.
Will it get worse when I get older? How will I manage it if I get worse? And I love that you shared that. You know, you nine years, you put in the work. You decided I'm gonna go for this 'cause this is what's best for me. No shame. This is just the decision that's gonna work for you. Yeah. Um, and that's also something very few people talk about openly, so thank you for sharing that.
Kim: Yeah. I felt shame for sure. I felt like a hypocrite. I felt like, how can I do this after I've been preaching all these things that are supposed to help you avoid surgery. So I. I struggled with it for four years, that decision, and I booked and canceled twice before I went forward with it. Part of that was investigating why am I bleeding and making sure I got a, [00:19:00] a handle on, on all, on all of that.
But I definitely felt a lot of that, the, the shame that people feel. And I, and then I looked and, and I was speaking with, um, a woman who had had a tummy tuck procedure Yes. Who also works in this space. And we shared stories and she said. There's certain, there are things that all the exercise and all the lifestyle approaches in the world's just not gonna work.
Just simply not gonna fix. Exactly. And there, there, sometimes surgery is the best option and that can help improve function for many people. So I, I sort of changed the lens that I was looking at it through and also looked at it now through the lens of so many people that I support who are afraid of.
Talking about this with anybody who are afraid of, of who feel like they've failed, who feel like they've taken the easy way out. No, absolutely not. It's
Surabhi: still, it's still the hard, you're still putting in the hard work. You know, I just, I'm working with a mom now who is a mom of twins with a huge diastasis and hernia.
She just had a surgery and she [00:20:00] already at like eight weeks post-op. She's doing better. Yeah. And she's so happy she went through with it. Yeah. So it's. She put in the work, she strengthened, she did all that, but she still had a huge hernia and diastasis. So surgeries, I think it's, it's the balance of like, that's one option.
It's not the only option. Yeah. Um, and there's no shame or, you know, I, I get, I get how that would feel though as, especially as a fitness pro. 'cause you feel like, oh, I'm telling people to exercise and, you know, but, um. I'm glad that there are people like you who are speaking openly about it. Mm-hmm.
Hopefully that helps to reduce the stigma for people who are in the field and who are not in the field. Mm-hmm. Um, tell me a little bit about some of the ways you, 'cause you speak all over the place, uh, about these kinds of topics. I would love to know, as a pelvic physio myself is what, how did you get about doing, go, go about doing more of the speaking stuff.
[00:21:00] And advocacy around pelvic health.
Kim: Um, it
Surabhi: Did you start online? Did you progress to in person or did you always go in person? I.
Kim: It was, I think like looking back, I started doing some in-person workshops. So way back in the day when I was in Ontario, I, and I was, I laid off and I thought, okay, let's see if I can do something and build a pelvic health business.
I started an event called Kegels and Cocktails, and that was, I wanted to make an event to draw people together, to have conversation, to have speakers, to, to be educated, but I didn't want it to be clinical and boring, and boring if all the things that we associate with. Really a lot of health education, but definitely pelvic health.
So, so that was kind of the first thing. And, and it wasn't, like I said, I, I brought guest speakers in. I always had a, I still always have a pelvic physio at those events because I believe so whole wholeheartedly in that profession and what you do. And so that I think was maybe kind of the, like the gateway.
And [00:22:00] then I was, you know, I did webinars and in-person workshops here and there, and. And then it just, you know, random places would just ask me to come and speak about something to can you come and speak to a group, you know, it was a lot of women's networking groups that would have somebody, um, have guest speakers come in.
So it was that. And so I didn't necessarily go out looking for it. Mm-hmm. It just kind of happened.
Surabhi: It evolved. Yeah.
Kim: Yeah. And, and a lot of the events that I speak at are geared to, like, sometimes they're retreats and they are weekend retreats that are focused on. Health and reconnection and, and all that kind of stuff.
So I've been guest speakers at retreats and, um, now this week or next weekend, I'll be at a, a business and Leadership conference, but that was actually kind of where the Vagina Coach came from. I was, many years ago, I was invited to speak to the, it was called the Mompreneur. Um, organization at the time, and I was, I was a member of that group and I wrote this blog post, [00:23:00] said how optimizing your pelvic health can make you about me better mompreneur.
And they loved that article and they said, we want you to come and speak at our national conference. And so I was one of the speakers and all of this speakers were some sort of business coach. And here I come up on stage talking about pelvic floor and I've got these big signs up with the, you know, giant vulvas and vs.
Anatomy on the screen. And, and I, I joked and I said, well, now you have a vagina coach for your business. And, and it was, it was a joke. Total joke. It just came out of nowhere. But it was like this light bulb. 'cause I had been known as the fitness doula beforehand. Oh, I, I, I was a personal trainer. I still am.
And I, because I was working primarily with pregnant women and new moms, I, I trained as a doula as well. Combine those. So that was kind of my handle. And then as I started to transition into this perimenopause, menopause space, doula wasn't so, didn't resonate so much. So I knew I needed a bit of a shift and then I was like, okay, I'm gonna step into this really uncomfortable world or word and and talk [00:24:00] about what I'm so passionate about.
And that's kind of where that started. That's so cool. Yeah. So now it's, it's just random people just reach out and say, can you please come and do this? And. I say yes most often because put me in front of a group of people who wanna learn and I'll, I'll show up and tell you.
Surabhi: I agree. And I think that like we, we wanna make pelvic health seem.
So commonplace and so easy to say the word vagina. Say the word vulva so there's not that icky feeling around it. Yeah, we can say those words around the dinner table, like we're saying shoulder or knee. Like that's a good thing. Um, and I think just the fact that your handle is, you know, the vagina coach, I.
That itself is just, people are saying those words people are getting used to and getting comfortable seeing those as just words and not dirty words or, you know, always sexual words or anything related to, um, stigma. Right. Um, that's, that's, thank you for sharing that. I love speaking and I [00:25:00] love educating.
And so this is something that I want to get into more and more. And last year I was invited to speak at a few events and so I always like seeing how people go about, you know, becoming. These, um, well-known speakers who get to go and share their passion with everybody around them.
Kim: Yeah.
Surabhi: Um, and you, you know what I would argue too, that a lot of US health and wellness coaches.
We are helping people in such a great way that I think that is more worthwhile in many ways than a business coach. Because if you feel good in your body, if you're not peeing your pants at a meeting, if you're going to public speak and you're not worried about, you know, farting without control, you're gonna feel better in your body.
Right. Totally.
Kim: That was, that was, that was my whole talk right there. It was just like, how. This is such a distraction in your life, and imagine how much more energy and confidence you'll have in your business or any other aspect of your life if you're not worried about can they smell? Can they hear, am I leaking?
Is there gonna be a [00:26:00] bathroom nearby? Like all the, all the things.
Surabhi: Yeah, I, I, I love it. I love it. Tell me a little bit about Hashimoto's, because I think it's a word that not a lot of people know about, even though there's actually quite a lot of people who have Hashimoto's mm-hmm.
Kim: And don't know it. Yeah. And, and don't know it. I'd never heard of it before. And so in my, you know, going back where I had pelion, uh, growing belly, zinc, and. I started to bleed ridiculously heavily. I started to get really, really weird symptoms and everybody was like, oh, it's just, it's stress. And I was like, of course.
Well, I don't feel stressed, but yeah, I have two young children. I'm away from my family. My husband's away a lot. I'm trying to juggle these two businesses for sure. I've got a lot on my plate and I can totally attribute it to stress, but, but it just, I was like, I don't, I don't know, can't, I don't think it's just that it's not just stress.
Right. And. So the, the bleeding heavily, I was like, I, [00:27:00] I would go through a 20, um, a, uh, a super plus tampon in about 20 minutes for usually a couple of days. Like I would be housebound. I couldn't do anything. And, and so I knew something like in my mind I was like, I think my hormones, like probably my hormones are off.
Like I knew something. And so. I struggle with it for many years. And then when we moved back to Vancouver, I, I, we've got a new doctor, you know, do all the things. And I went to my doctor and I said, you know, I'd like a, a hormone test. I didn't, I started to kind of work with a naturopath, but it was still very much mainstream medical.
And so I went to my doctor, I said, I, I, I would like a hormone test and I have this test. I didn't even really know what to ask for. I just said, hormone test and. She did a panel of a few things and, and then it came back. She calls, she's like, I need you to come into the office. And I thought, oh, great. She found something I, I, my hormones are off.
And she said, no, your hormones are fine, but your ferritin's very low. And I said, well, yes. I like lose half my body weight and blood every month. Right. And yeah, so I was like. That was my kind of, [00:28:00] again, another TSN turning point where I looked and I said, this is not where this is. This is not gonna serve me.
I know this is not normal. And I started to do more investigation, so I started to read books. Dr. Sarah Godfrey was one of the first books called The Hormone Cure. That was kind of my first introduction to I. How the hormones work and what does it mean? And like, I'd never heard of the term perimenopause before.
And a lot of the books I was reading, have quizzes, have hormone quizzes. Are you estrogen dominant? Are you low in progesterone? Are you, you know, all the things. And I would always end up ticking a lot of boxes in this hypothyroidism category. Right? And again, I was like, thyroid. Like where does, how does that come into play?
So I started to dig more and learn more about thyroid. And then I started to hear this Hashimoto's piece and again, was ticking off all the boxes. And at this time I'd started to work with a naturopath. And I, I went to her and I said, I would like this test, this Hashimoto's test. And I had that test, and sure enough, I have all the, the antibodies are elevated.
So [00:29:00] many women are diagnosed with hypothyroidism, so low thyroid. And many women are diagnosed with that through the mainstream medical system with no additional testing. It's usually TSH and maybe T three, which is our active form, um, uh, of thyroid hormone. And then if that TSH number is really high, that actually means low thyroid.
So they get put on thyroid medication, often just T three medication. And so many women who are diagnosed, like I've heard statistics of in the nineties, from the majority of sources that I follow. 90 ish percent of women diagnosed with hypothyroidism actually have Hashimoto's. But the mainstream medical does not test for the, an doesn't do a full thyroid panel.
Mm-hmm. So many women, women go on this thyroid medication and they're like, well, you know, I, maybe I feel a little better, but they don't really feel better. And they, and sometimes will feel worse. And a lot of it is because it's, that's not the root, that's not what's happening. You actually have an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto's.
So Hashimoto's hypothyroidism [00:30:00] and symptoms of perimenopause. You could put those three lists together of common symptoms that they look identical there.
Surabhi: There's so much overlap. Yes,
Kim: totally. So what is it just perimenopause? Is it hypothyroid? Is it, is it Hashimoto? So one thing I started to recommend every woman do is see, uh, pelvic physio do a full thought.
Well, I've been recommending that for a long time, but, um, I was gonna say, I love
Surabhi: your sign.
Kim: Yeah. For those of you listening to
Surabhi: this, it says pelvic chlor physio. Just do it. Yes. I need that sign. It's amazing. Yeah,
Kim: so that was always on my list, but then it was, it started to do, do a full thyroid panel and do hormone testing if you can.
And the full thyroid panel is TSHT three, T four, reverse T three TPO, which is an antibody and TGA A or TGAB, which are the last two are antibodies.
Surabhi: If you aren't testing those, and you get this with your doctor though. Like your medical
Kim: doctor, you probably have to pay privately. Okay. So you could like I, I'm in bc I can, yes, go to my medical doctor and ask for that, [00:31:00] but I need to pay for that test.
Surabhi: Okay.
Kim: It's not just randomly covered for everybody. Anybody to go through. They'll TSH, yes. T three, yes. But the other ones, no, I have to pay. But without that knowledge, you wanna understand is it truly hypothyroidism or is it Hashimoto's? And the majority of women will follow in the Hashimoto's category, which is autoimmune and another.
Symptom that I had that I'd never had before in my life was constipation. And of course, being in pelvic health, I know how damaging constipation is, and I know that was a big trigger for the development of my rectocele. So right. Doing all these things, thinking I'm doing all the right things. I exercise, drink water, eat high fiber, and la la, la, all the things and, and I can't poop properly.
And all came despite doing all those things. Totally. And so all of the weird symptoms I had. Anxiety, heart palpitations, weird skin rashes, not sleeping well, poor tolerance for exercise, getting sick very frequently. Constipation, which I mentioned. [00:32:00] Is, those are all very common with perimenopause, with hypothyroidism, with Hashimotos.
So you have to understand they have to do the full thyroid panel at least once and understand if you have autoimmunity or true hypothyroidism. And, um, and that was, you know, understanding that about my body. Then I could make the changes that all of a sudden everything started to normalize. All these interesting things that I'd had.
Been struggling with for years started.
Surabhi: Is it a medication like that for Hashimoto's or is it more if it's autoimmune? Like basically your immune diet is a one is, yeah. Nutrition diet. Yeah. For,
Kim: so gluten is usually a big one for Hashimoto's. Yeah. Um, so I, I removed gluten. I remove, I did, I did all the things like.
Remove all anything that was inflammatory in my body. 'cause autoimmunity creates inflammation and so I, I took out, uh, gluten, dairy, and eggs for me at the time. I'm, I'm now back where I have dairy and eggs and I, I [00:33:00] do tolerate gluten fine every now and then, but. That's a big piece is the nutrition component, optimizing sleep, reducing stress, all of that.
And my antibodies were starting to come down. I took out caffeine, I took out, uh, alcohol was the last one where I, I've never been a big drinker. I. I was like, you know, I have a glass of wine or two a week maybe, and I thought it can't be. But as soon as I stopped alcohol completely, it was life changing.
Wow. It was life changing. So it was kind of a series of a lot of things, bioidentical progesterone. I started on that. I was doing some Chinese herbs. I was doing lots of things and my antibodies were starting to slowly come down. Then I, through research, found out about this medication called low dose Naltrexone, which high dose Naltrexone is for alcoholics and drug addicts, and on a low dose, it's used with autoimmunity, it's used with cancer.
It's used for a lot of things. And this one thyroid person who I, uh, [00:34:00] follow, I did a consult with her and she, uh, works with a naturopath who also uses it in his practice, he's actually a blend between, he's a medical doctor and. Functional. So he is not even really a naturopath, I should say. He called.
Surabhi: I think that's a cool combo medicine, like the medical doctors that have that holistic perspective.
Kim: Um, totally. Yeah. His and education handle is middle, middle path medicine, which I love his name too. But anyway, they were talking about it and I thought, okay, so I gave that a try and it just, it totally brought my. Antibodies down and I felt really good. And, and I've come off, I'm actually due, I'm having a blood test again coming up to check.
Um, I've had a couple of follow follows and, and, and I've stayed, you know, kind of in that remission quote unquote state.
Surabhi: Yeah.
Kim: Um, but yeah, so that was a huge, huge thing for me. And, and when I started to dig and understand how many women actually struggle with that, it, it was, it was just another piece that I recommend that all women get, get baseline hormone testing.
Get a baseline, full thyroid [00:35:00] panel and, uh, and it can be totally life changing and take that get, get more of that root cause that, that we need.
Surabhi: Understand what you're actually treating instead of treating the wrong thing. Right. Because that, yeah, from what you're describing, that makes sense why so many people who have low thyroid, they're on the medication, but they still have that.
Lethargy, they're still having trouble with all the same things, but it's slightly better, right? It's not fully better and
Kim: yep,
Surabhi: stress is always gonna impact every disease, every condition. But it's not just stress, right? It's like,
Kim: no, it's a component for sure. And a couple of my favorite resources for thyroid, l Russ, ELLE, Russ is awesome.
And, um, Dr. Amy Horneman, uh, the thyroid fixer, they. They know the thyroid inside and out, and highly, highly recommend people.
Surabhi: Awesome. I'm gonna go follow them. Yeah. If there, yeah. Um, I have some questions for you just about yourself.
Kim: Mm-hmm.
Surabhi: I would love to learn a little bit about what you do as a [00:36:00] business owner of multiple businesses as a mom for self-care.
What are three simple things you do for yourself every day?
Kim: In the morning, I wake up before everybody else, so I have a nice quiet house. I do have one son who's outta the house now. He's away at university, so the house naturally is quieter a little bit without him here.
Surabhi: This is, yeah.
Kim: Yeah. But, um, but I, I do enjoy the time in the morning, just me, myself, and I will, sometimes I read a book, sometimes I look through Instagram.
Sometimes I sit in front of a red light device. Sometimes I do a little, I have a little like sauna blanket, so I. Just depends
Surabhi: on switch it up. But you do you have that quiet time? Yeah, I have a quiet time. What did you do? Do you remember what you used to do when your kids were younger? Because this is what I wanna know, is like Yeah, same thing.
I
Kim: woke up early.
Surabhi: You did? Oh
Kim: yeah. This is like, I, but I've always, I've naturally always been an early bird, so I, I and my kids were, sometimes they were, you know, sometimes I didn't have a lot of time. 'cause they were early birds too. They aren't anymore. Yeah. But they would often wake up and you'd have like 20 minutes and be like, oh, that's not enough.
But, but I did, I woke up [00:37:00] early. I, I've always been an early bird, so I feel fortunate for that.
Surabhi: Yeah, my kids are early birds and I am a night owl, and so they're always up at 5 36. I mean, they're still young. They're three and you know, almost six. But I, I can't even imagine waking up before them because Yeah.
I just, yeah. I stay up late. That's my me time. Yeah. Um, but then it doesn't help with sleep. It's whatever. Right. So whatever
Kim: works. Yep. It's harder when they're, they're younger for sure.
Surabhi: What else do you do? So you do your morning routine. Um, yeah. What are a couple other things that you do for yourself during the day?
Um,
Kim: hypo oppressive is kind of a non-negotiable for me. So usually that's in the morning after I've had a poop. And again, usually sometimes people are up now, but, um, but I do a 20 minute hypo oppressive practice.
Surabhi: And what is a hypo oppressive practice for those who don't know what that term is?
Kim: Yeah, hypo oppressive.
Um, the term means low pressure, hypo. Pressure, like low hypo, oppressive, sorry. And yeah, I [00:38:00] randomly probably 13 or 14 years ago was doing like talk, who's talking about pelvic health on the internet. And I, I found this gal and she was doing this weird technique for prolapse and it was all in Spanish, so I couldn't really understand.
Um, but she, I found some that she had some English content, so I reached out to her and her name was Kai Tuman. And she is, uh. She was doing this technique called hypo oppressive, and it was helpful for prolapse. And I thought, well, I work in that field. And anyway, long story short, she eventually came to Canada and, uh, certified a bunch of us probably about maybe 11 or 12 years ago, I can't remember now.
And it's this, it's a, it's an exercise technique that in it is a breath practice. It's a posture practice.
Surabhi: Hmm.
Kim: And it involves. Uh, um, within your breath cycle, something called an apnea, which is a breath hold. And during your apnea you, you take like a false inspiration. You, you close off your glottis, so you don't allow air to come in, but [00:39:00] you expand your ribs as if you are going to take a breath in and it changes the pressure inside and creates this sort of suction almost, or vacuum and.
It's remarkable with prolapse and I was able to re reverse my own stage two uterine prolapse. I know many people who've moved the needle or reverse their usually bladder and uterine rectocele, not so much. And yeah, it's been a life changing technique, so I, it's like a, a non-negotiable for me. And there's, of course, the odd day I don't do it, but I'd say probably five days a week I'm doing a hypo practice in the morning.
And then I have. Uh, have some breakfast and then I do, usually, it depends on the day, but I'll either go out for a hike with my husband or I do some resistance training, or it's been crappy weather here, so I have a bike. Same, I, I do a stationary bike sometimes, but
Surabhi: get some movement in,
Kim: do my exercise, and then I, and then I do my work for the day.
Surabhi: And hyper oppressive sounds similar to some [00:40:00] type of yogic. Mm-hmm. KL or breath techniques. And Ana banda it. Yeah. It's great to do in the morning, right? Yep. You wake yourself up too. It's just like a that I love it. I love it. Yeah. Um, tell me something that brings you, that you're really passionate about right now Could be work related or just something in your own personal life.
Kim: I'm actually really obsessed right now with blood sugar, so I, I am always. Even, you know, as I said when I was young, I've always been obsessed and passionate about health and wellness and, uh, I listened to a lot of different. Podcasts and influencers and biohackers and people talking about longevity. And I listen to all the things and something that I don't think I've really paid attention to very much before is, is blood sugar?
'cause I was sort of felt like, oh, it's for people who have diabetes and yeah,
Surabhi: I, I'm not at risk so I don't have to worry about it. Right.
Kim: Yeah. But more and more people talking about insulin resistance and what exactly that is and pre-diabetes and. So it, it's, it's been really interesting to, to again, look at it from a different lens of not just [00:41:00] somebody who's diabetic, but just how are we handling blood sugar?
And when I think about a lot of the clients that I work with talking about, you know, not pooping or talking about their energy levels, talking about their sleep, talking about, um, bladder pain, like diet always comes in there somehow. And, you know, I've talked about low inflammation and lowering inflammation with diet and, and that kind of thing, but there's also a blood sugar component in there.
And the people who are frequently eating, the people who are eating a lot of carbohydrates, especially as we get to this perimenopause menopause phase with weight gain and all that, it's, it's, it's an interesting time to, to understand different ways of managing blood sugar. So that's kind of my latest obsession.
Surabhi: Very cool. I also notice. A lot of moms who don't eat for long periods of time and then they eat everything in a very short period of time. Yeah. Um, I did this for sure in postpartum. It was like [00:42:00] day's so busy. You've got two young kids, you're just go, go, go. You might have a smoothie maybe I. Then evening hits and I'm having my three meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner from five o'clock to, you know, midnight.
Yeah. It's, it's just not gonna work for your body. Even if you don't have diabetes, you know, those sugar crashes, your body's trying to figure out what is going on. Your body's under stress, so, yeah. Yeah. Um, I love it. That's something that I think we could all learn more about. If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?
I'd like everyone to get along.
Kim: I think I, I just, is it really
Surabhi: so hard?
Kim: I know, I, yeah. I, there is, there's so much hate in the world and it's just, it's devastating and it's heartbreaking and, um, and I just wish we could all just be humans together and get along and see each other as, as humans.
Surabhi: Right. Yeah.
To respect each other as humans. Yeah. Um, tell me about your, what do you think is your biggest mom's strength? [00:43:00] I.
Kim: I, I think I used to say one of my most proudest moments was I could get my kids to blow their nose. Like that was a win for me when they were younger. But, um, but I think my, I think my mom's strength is that my kids feel safe telling me anything, and I wanted to always make sure my kids knew that.
You know, it doesn't matter what it is. You, you can tell me anything and I will listen and I will not judge and I will help you navigate it and we'll figure it out. So, um, I feel grateful that they tell me, they tell me everything. Well, I. Almost everything.
Surabhi: Everything that they need to tell you.
Kim: Yeah, they're, they're both, like my oldest is an adult is he's 19 and he can vote and he can drink alcohol.
He can do all the things and, and um, and my youngest just turned 17 and, um, and I respect their privacy, but I know that if something really is important that they need to talk about, they [00:44:00] will, they will come to me, which. I feel really proud about,
Surabhi: which I was gonna say, which means you've done a great job as a mom to hold that space, to have that non-judgmental space where they can actually trust you and trust that you will be there for them no matter what.
Um, that's what I'm trying to do with my little ones. And, um, you know, it's, we're we're parenting so often in different ways and we were parented. Yeah. And I feel like. As a business owner, myself and as a mom, I'm learning from so much all the time. Mm-hmm. And at times it can feel overwhelming, but at times you're also like, Ugh, it's working.
Like all that work that you're putting into the learning is actually working. 'cause then you see your kid come home and tell you something and. Know that no matter what they tell you, you won't, you know, be upset at them or judge them for it. Right. Totally. So, totally. Um, thank you Kim, for spending your time with, um, me today.
For everyone who's listened to this podcast, I hope you enjoyed it. If you listen to this, share it with a friend, share it to your stories and tag us and let us know what you think. Um, this is a really important episode, I think, for [00:45:00] anyone who works in this pregnancy, to perimenopause to menopause field, but also anybody with a uterus to help feel health.
Yourself, feel empowered to advocate for yourself and your health, um, to not accept the, um, simple answers if that's not actually working for your symptoms. Um, and to feel like just because you feel this way now doesn't mean you're always gonna feel this way. There's always help down the road. If you haven't found it yet, you will one day.
Um, Kim, how is the best way for people to connect with you?
Kim: Well, if you put Vagina Coach into Google, you'll find me on some platform and, uh, most people reach out through Instagram. Yeah. Um, sometimes through Facebook and, uh, and my website's, vagina coach.com.
Surabhi: Amazing. Any new products launches that you'd like to share?
Kim: Well, last year I launched a podcast as well. My podcast is called Between Tulips and hard to believe that it's been a year. But, um, and, uh, and I'm actually working [00:46:00] with a new, um, new marketing partner and I wanna bring some. Products, it's not just gonna be another supplement line, but a few things that are specific to pelvic health and women's health that I think can support people's health and longevity.
And, um, so working on developing that right now too.
Surabhi: That's very cool. You have a very creative brain. Um, and I'm excited to see what is in store. This podcast will probably come out in the next, I wanna say, month or so. So for those of you listening sometime late February, early March, um, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
Thank you so much for having me.
