- Ashley’s personal journey with PMDD and fertility struggles that led her to found Ladywell
- How hormonal imbalances manifest and what signs to look out for
- Practical, natural strategies to support hormone health at different life stages
- The role of adaptogens in balancing hormones and improving fertility
- How to choose safe, effective supplements for hormonal health
Full Transcript:
Dr. Aimee: I’m here with Ashley Rocha of Ladywell, and we’re going to talk about holistic women’s health and fertility support. Did you know that nearly 80% of women experience hormonal imbalances that can impact their mood, energy, and fertility? Yet many of these issues go undiagnosed or untreated. If you’ve ever felt frustrated by fatigue, brain fog, or hormonal ups and downs, you won’t want to miss this conversation with Ashley. She’s on a mission to revolutionize women’s hormone health with science-backed plant-based solutions that actually work. I’m so excited to welcome Ashley to The Egg Whisperer Show today.
Welcome to the show, Ashley.
Ashley Rocha: Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Aimee: Of course. Your journey to founding Ladywell is deeply personal. How did your experience with PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) and fertility challenges inspire you to explore plant-based medicine and ultimately develop targeted solutions for women’s hormonal health?
Ashley Rocha: I began Ladywell about three years ago. We started formulating a lot longer ago than that, probably right before the pandemic hit. The reason why I even started Ladywell in the first place is because the moment that I went through puberty, I was thrown into this vicious cycle of PMDD.
For those that don’t really know what PMDD is compared to PMS, it’s intensified. The emotional piece of PMS is really intensified, so there can be a lot of anger, irritability, depression, highs and lows of those mood swings, and then you have the physical symptoms that go along with PMS usually. For me, that lasted almost two decades. During that time period, I would go to a doctor, I’d mention these symptoms, and they would prescribe me hormonal birth control or SSRIs.
I knew that I didn’t need antidepressants because the symptoms went away when I got my period. I took a lot of different birth controls, and none of them solved the problem, of course. I just kind of lived with it because that’s what I was told, PMS is normal. There wasn’t a lot of education around it. I didn’t know that there were things that I could do to solve PMS. I wasn’t even told about lifestyle changes like nutrition, exercise, or destressing. None of those conversations happened at all. I just honestly lived with this cycle of PMDD and the shame spiral that comes with it for two decades until my mid-thirties when I wanted to start having babies.
I started trying to get pregnant, and that didn’t come as quickly as I had hoped or had been led to believe when I was a teenager. When you want to have a kid and you are faced with the struggle of not having one, you really kick into gear, “What’s wrong with my body?” I put the pieces together, the PMDD, hormones, reproduction, something is off. During that time, I was also studying herbalism. I’m a trained herbalist. I was focusing on skin care and how herbalism affects your body in that way, but I was like, wait a minute, I should look to the plant world, a world that I know well, to solve these issues I have with my fertility and hormones.
I worked with other herbalists, and I went and saw a functional medicine doctor to address and see what was going on in my body, to help me find plants and create a formula and a lifestyle that was going to help me achieve my life goals of having kids and being PMS-free and PMDD-free. I tried so many different herbs and created different formulas and found things that worked well. Knowing how powerful plants are, I was pretty blown away that these things exist in the world, but it was so hard for me to find them. It took me so long, two plus decades of these struggles.
It made me sad that it took me so long to find that and that other women could be going through the same issues. I live in the Bay Area, and the Bay Area has a lot of access to naturopathic doctors and alternative medicine, so it was easier for me to find than for other women who live in areas where the access isn’t as apparent, the information is harder to find. I grew up in a time where there was no social media necessarily, Facebook was in the infancy stages, so there wasn’t a spread of information like there is on TikTok nowadays about cycles and hormone health and all that kind of stuff.
I began Ladywell because of that. I created formulas that worked really well for me. I started giving them to my friends because we all have similar problems. This is a huge issue across the board. Whether one person has mood swings or another person has fatigue, it’s all interrelated. It started working really well for other people. I wanted to bring this to more women, to continue the conversation, build more of a movement around identifying that your hormonal health is important, what hormonal health is, how it’s connected to everything, your fertility and your energy, just your productivity, everything is interconnected, just bring more education around that and bring more products to the market that women are in desperate need of.
Dr. Aimee: You mentioned many of the symptoms go unnoticed and we’re often given things like birth control pills. For someone who is listening, what are some of the most common signs of hormone imbalance?
Ashley Rocha: I think hormone imbalance can be a little bit confusing because a lot of the things we’re told we’re just supposed to have and put up with and we think are normal to everyday life.
One is fatigue and brain fog. You might not think that’s my hormonal health, but that’s a really common symptom of hormone imbalance. If you’re feeling drained no matter how much sleep you get, that’s the differentiator. If you’re getting enough sleep and you’re still tired in the morning or tired at 3:00, it can definitely be your hormones.
Mood swings and irritability is one that’s pretty commonly associated with PMS. We say women are bitchy during our periods, like that’s the common association. Mood swings and irritability, it’s those highs and lows. You can get angry really quickly when maybe at a different time of the month, you wouldn’t be angry. With that one, I thought this was just part of being a woman, but this is definitely a sign that something might be off in your hormone balance. It’s not something you have to live with. You don’t have to have mood swings. I think that’s an important thing for people to understand.
Unexpected weight changes, or a little tire around your belly, or an inability to lose weight, just a slow metabolism, is often a sign that something might be off. Irregular periods, that one is pretty obvious. If you’re skipping cycles, having really heavy flows, unpredictable timing, that is pretty clear that it’s hormone related and I think women know that.
Then in different phases of your life, you’ll have different symptoms. Hot flashes and night sweats, if you’re in a postpartum period or if you’re going into perimenopause, this will definitely be a sign of hormones. Digestive issues like bloating and constipation, gut troubles, your gut is so linked to your hormones. Your body needs to flush out the estrogen through your gut, and if that’s not working correctly, things will go awry.
Then low libido. I think women are kind of made fun of because we have no sex drive a lot of times, especially if you have kids or whatever. Men obviously have more of a sex drive, typically, but a low libido or low sex drive can definitely be a sign of hormonal imbalance, and there is something that you can do about that. If your partner has a bigger sexual appetite, you can fix your hormones and get back to that high libido stage.
Dr. Aimee: What can someone do proactively to support their hormone health?
Ashley Rocha: I think there’s a lot of things you can do proactively, instead of waiting for things to fall apart like I did. I definitely recommend looking at it as a lifestyle from a lot of different angles. You can’t just take a supplement and then go eat McDonalds, not workout, never have good sleep hygiene, and have everything function correctly. You need to look at your life in a 360, so nutrition, exercise, supplements, destressing, and having good sleep.
The nutrition piece is very important, of course. You need to be eating a well balanced diet. Then you can also eat toward the stage that you’re at in life. If you have PMS, there are PMS-friendly diets. If you are trying to get pregnant, you want to look at fertility-boosting foods. If you’re in perimenopause, there are different foods to eat. It is unique and specific toward the woman. It’s great to see a nutritionist, but you can also find this information online to see what is good for where you’re at in your life stage.
In an ideal world, we get everything possible through our food. Some things you can’t always get through food, but it’s important to take supplements that fix the issues you have and to proactively be taking care of your health. For example, something like ashwagandha is an amazing adaptogen. It’s unrealistic to say that we can never experience stress in life. Stress is horrible for your hormones, it’s horrible for fertility, but the fact is it’s always going to be there on some level, we can’t avoid it. Taking something like ashwagandha is a great thing to add to your diet to be proactive about your health because that helps your body in its reaction to stress so that when the stress comes in, you’re not falling apart as much. You will have an easier reaction, they’ll just come and go. Something like ashwagandha is amazing for that.
It’s always great to take things that we know the majority of us have deficiencies in, like magnesium and Vitamin D. For example, most people are deficient in magnesium and it can cause issues like sleep disturbances. I’m a mom, and I have sleep issues all the time. When I regularly take magnesium, it definitely helps solve that. I can tell I’m magnesium deficient, I’m not getting it through my diet, I’m not getting it in the ways that I need to, so I definitely supplement when I remember to, and it does make all the difference in the world.
I’ll move on to one more thing that I think is really important that we overlook a lot of times, and that is cycle tracking. I think cycle tracking is a proactive and important way for women to just be aware of their hormones, their health, and to have more knowledge and understanding of where they’re at. If you know where you’re at in your cycle and you know what that even means, like how you should feel at different points in the cycle, you can start to see if something is going awry and you’re more connected with your body. You can track where you’re at. If you’re getting your period and you’re having all these symptoms, it’s so easy for us to kind of forget about things after they happen.
For me, with the PMDD, I would have my PMDD episode and then once my period hit, that stuff would disappear and I would just totally forget about it. If you’re aware of your body, tracking your cycle, tracking your symptoms, you have the data on your phone if you ever need to go to your doctor. You just are more empowered with being connected to your body and being in tune with your health and you can start to see if something is going off and turning wrong. Like, “Oh my gosh, why am I fatigued all the time? I used to not be like that.” You can start to assess your body and bring in supplements, bring in help when you need it at the right time.
Dr. Aimee: I couldn’t agree more. I use the Oura Ring myself, and it’s really helpful. When I feel crabby, I know I’m in the luteal phase. I usually don’t crave sweets, but when the cravings come, I know exactly where I am in the cycle. My Oura Ring should probably tell me to put the chocolate away and send me messages on that.
Ashley Rocha: It helps you plan your life, too. It’s like if I’m going to be in a certain phase of my period where I know I’m going to have really low energy, maybe that’s not the time to have a two-day intensive workshop with my cofounder, or I shouldn’t send off that email that’s going to anger anybody. Take a step back, wait a few days, and then see if I have the same reaction then.
Dr. Aimee: Exactly. I do that. I literally look at where I’m at in the cycle and my reaction to something, and I won’t send that email out. I book talks when I’m giving seminars, actually, around times where I know I’m going to be in the follicular phase. So, I couldn’t agree with you more.
You mentioned the word adaptogens. For folks who are listening to us who don’t know what adaptogens are, can you share a little bit about what they are?
Ashley Rocha: Adaptogens are a special group of herbs and mushrooms that help your body to adapt to stress, hence the name, whether it’s physical or environmental. They work by supporting your adrenal glands, which play a huge role in hormone production and balance. When stress hits, your body releases cortisol, which is the stress hormone. Too much cortisol can throw off your entire hormonal symphony in your body, leading to issues like irregular periods, mood swings, fatigue, and more.
That’s where adaptogens come in, they help balance cortisol levels, which keeps the stress in check so your hormones can function smoothly. They support energy levels, so they help you avoid that crash and help you have steady focused energy throughout the day. They help you regulate mood and sleep, so calming the nervous system and promoting better sleep. Then enhanced resilience, so just making it easier to bounce back from life’s chaos, like I was saying earlier with ashwagandha being an adaptogen. It allows you to overcome what’s going on, to just keep going through your day, no problem.
Dr. Aimee: I’m alcohol-free, so I drink Aplós, and it has adaptogens in it. They’re great. They’re very expensive, though. I bring them to parties because I don’t want to look like the boring person.
Ashley Rocha: They have beautiful packaging.
Dr. Aimee: They’re beautiful and everyone steals them. I want to be a brand ambassador for them, so maybe I can get a good deal. I love them.
How do your products at Ladywell support women as they’re trying to conceive? Can you talk to us about what you offer and what someone who is trying to get pregnant should think about getting and what someone who is going through perimenopause should think about getting?
Ashley Rocha: We have a formula called Daily Hormone Balance, which we created for women that will help you through most of your life phases. We’re focused on creating targeted solutions to where you’re at in your journey. Our Daily Hormone Balance is great for women who are going through PMS, PCOS, PMDD, who are also trying to conceive. It’s a blend of adaptogens, herbs, functional mushrooms, vitamins, amino acids. Basically, what I did is I created a formula where I took the best of all of the things we need and put them in one thing because when I was on my journey, I was taking so many different tinctures and so many different things and it was overwhelming. I understand, especially being a mom, people are busy and we have to create a formula that’s comprehensive that gets a lot in and you don’t have to stack a bunch of supplements. That’s what the Daily Hormone Balance is, it’s a hardworking hormone balancer that helps you manage stress. All the symptoms you’d get with PMS, that’s basically what that is solving.
Women who want to conceive, we definitely recommend taking the Daily Hormone Balance because you need to have balanced healthy hormones in order to easily conceive and carry a healthy pregnancy, but then we have targeted supplements like our Fertility and Egg Health, which helps boost fertility and improve egg health, quality, and viability. That’s important, too. The egg maturation cycle is 90 days, so you want to start taking this, I would say, at least six months in advance. It has CoQ10, Vitamin D, folate, which all work well together to create this environment of the best fertility you can have and great egg health so that you can get pregnant easier and carry a healthy pregnancy.
Then we have a prenatal, of course. We all have to take prenatals before we’re getting pregnant. Once again, at least six months in advance. I recommend before getting pregnant, during pregnancy, and then it’s great to take prenatals when you’re postpartum, too. As you move into different life stages, we have a perimenopause formula for women in that stage.
Dr. Aimee: I reached out to bring you on the podcast because what you’re doing is so unique. What should women look for, if there are other companies out there, when choosing hormone-supporting supplements to ensure that they are truly safe and effective?
Ashley Rocha: When they’re shopping for supplements, there’s a few things that are really important. The first one is making sure that the formula is really clean and tested. What I mean by this is within the production process, you source ingredients from around the world where these ingredients are naturally grown, and you want to make sure that the suppliers test their raw ingredients. Then you want to make sure that the brand is testing the formula as its in production to make sure that it’s the same as what it’s saying on the label, like is it non-GMO, is it gluten-free, whatever those things are.
Then a great thing to look for is companies who do third-party testing. This is the difference between a company testing it themselves and somebody that is not invested in the brand testing it. What we do is we send our products to a third-party lab called NSF, and they test it for us to say if what we say on the label is true and accurate. It ensures efficacy and potency and cleanliness. If it has any toxins, molds, or any of that kind of stuff, it won’t pass that test. That’s a great way to ensure that what you’re putting into your body is clean. If you’re trying to get pregnant, you do not want to be putting any more endocrine disruptors into your body. You don’t want to be messing around taking formulas that have questionable ingredients.
I always recommend buying brands that are made in America because there’s a lot more quality control there. There’s a lot of things on Amazon, there are supplements that are coming from China that aren’t really tested, so it’s kind of risky of what’s in there, they’re kind of questionable.
Glass packaging for jars, I think that’s important. We all know microplastics are taking over our world and attacking us everywhere we go, so just trying to minimize that impact on your body. Once again, if you’re trying to get pregnant, you don’t want to put any endocrine disruptors in your body. Plastic leeches into supplements, so avoid that. Safe packaging across the board, whether it’s pouches or glass.
I think it’s always nice to look at brand websites. Is this made by experts, is this made by a doctor, what’s the story behind the brand? If you understand the brand, that’s really helpful. For example, with Ladywell, you’ve heard my personal story. We also have a team, a board of doctors and naturopathic doctors that help formulate our products across the board. We want to look at our formulas from different angles. Naturopathic doctors, nutritionists, fertility specialists, we have a cohesive team of people that look at different angles for women’s health versus just one viewpoint.
Dr. Aimee: That’s great. Thank you, Ashley. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us about this. I think a lot of people just don’t know enough about how they can naturally support their own hormones. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Ashley Rocha: I would like to say that we’re offering 20% off to your audience, so eggwhisperer20 is the promo code. You can find us at GetLadywell.com. Our handle is @Ladywell, if you want to go on social. We definitely put out a lot of content, we’re really big on education and we want to continue to build community and just have this be more of a conversation in the world, how we can be proactive about our hormone health, how we can destigmatize the conversation around hormones for women. Both of those things are very important.
Dr. Aimee: Thank you for doing that. Eggwhisperer20, you guys heard it here. I’m hoping that someone will listen to this and, hopefully, their PMDD will be resolved by all of the work that you’ve put into your company. Thank you, Ashley.
Ashley Rocha: Thank you so much.
