After moving to Singapore in Summer 2017, I noticed many changes in my body; the texture of my skin, the increase in hair loss, overall lethargy and sluggish-ness. Not to mention the weight gain from eating all the delicious foods! Oh, the food. While Hong Kong has been the officially ranked food-crazed city in the world, Singapore is at the tippity top of my list. (Admittedly, Hong Kong Disney served some killer caramel popped corn!! In contrast, the soy sauce-d popped corn at Disney Sea in Tokyo, Japan – not so nummy.)

Yes, let us begin at the top; my hair. Obviously our hairstyle is part of our identity; boys or girls. So although I have only experienced this through a girl’s lens, I assume the identity issues are same-same. Bedhead or freshly laundered and styled, hairstyles say a lot about a person. I am not interested in being stereotypical so you can think to your own experiences. A person’s hairstyle speaks of their passion, their career (or lack there of), family and friend situations, and all that makes up our character. Raise your hand if at anytime you have said that you are having a bad hair day, to somehow manufacture your specific circumstance. And we all raise our hands – it’s ok.

Stay with me, your hair, for whatever reason, does not represent who you are (or want to be) that day or perhaps what exactly you are showing up for, ie. wearing a last minute messy ‘do to a formal. In fact, making this “bad hair day” statement gives you the excuse for the other downfalls in your day. Had you NOT spent an extra 10-min on your ‘do you would not have been stuck in the dreaded weekday morning traffic. Had you NOT spent an extra 10-min on your ‘do you would have had time for breakfast, if at least to grab a granola bar, except now it’s 9:30am and you have to wait for hours and hours before you can have some resemblance of a proper lunch you had hoped to have, all in preparation for your afternoon company-wide WebX presentation with the CEO. It’s a trickle down effect you see. “Sorry Mr. CEO, I must be having a “bad hair day.” 

Well, I am 43-year woman, mother of twin teenagers and although I no longer have WebXs/coworkers, or even a CEO, as I am self-employed, I too have bad hair days and make excuses. And I too sometimes get stuck in weekday morning traffic as I drive my children to school. Sometimes we forget water bottles. Sometimes we leave our shoes in the shoe rack. All because one of us forgot to brush our hair. Seriously, it has been used as an excuse. And why not, it’s fashionable?!

In November 2017, I remember the moment getting out of the shower, staring into my palm filled with what looked to be a million strands of hair and oh, right, that day was a day I took my kidlets to school, we were running late. Water bottles forgotten. Shoes left behind. Crying session in the shower. And an all around “bad hair day”. I wanted that excuse to go down the drain; without the million strands, of course. Let us try to keep them attached to our skull, Mel. 

On to the largest organ in our body; the skin. Besides my obsession with clean-as-possible teeth and telling my kids that the first thing you see of a person is their smile, hence one of the reasons for them to take the best care of teeth as possible, my (our) skin should be treated with gentle care. Except for our heels. Scrub the mess out of the them because I tell you what, living on an island where everybody and their Auntie wears sock-less sandals and flip flops, you can tell from a meter away who DOES and who does NOT scrubs those suckers.

Back to my (our) skin, other than from your ankle down. Like your pearly whites, folks do notice your skin. The wrinkles, freckles, blemishes, etc. You know it’s true, otherwise there would not be such a huge variety of products available to us. We apply oils, anti-wrinkle creams, foundation, powders, lotions, in no particular order, zit creams, cream to cover the black circles under our eyes, etc. Everybody has their own skin regime and they should as our skin is different, our lifestyles are different, our preferences are different. Good on those who take the extra time to tailor their routines as such. Well, up until this time my routine had been working. Something was wrong and I needed to change.. something.

On my 40th birthday, spending our Summer Home Leave back in America, I asked my daughter to take a picture of me with a “I’m 40-years old” mug while in the drug store (see photo below). Thinking I was cool I promptly posted it on my FB page for all to see and to celebrate my big transition to what could be 1/2 my lifetime. Bags under my eyes. Skin pasty white (more so than usual). Jet lag, perhaps. Probably. I was FORTY. Dang, I remember when my Mom was FORTY. That’s old. Lol. And the big ‘ol bags. Certainly, that picture made me think, and I was a bit disappointed in myself. And I don’t mind saying that regardless of who reads this. A bad hair day, perhaps? 

Realization. I needed to realize and come to terms with the fact that if I truly and unhappy and needed to make a change, be it big or small, drastic or minute. We never honestly know until we “give it a go,” says my Australian friends. “Give it a shot,” my American friends say. Either way you slice it, some sort of action needs to applied by my doing. To be successful in a quest like that, one needs to be determined to 1) win or 2) lose. Lack of determination gets us nowhere. If the later is the undesired consequence, a win with desired outcomes needs to be the determination. Otherwise, you fall back into giving it a “go” without any gas in the tank. Of course this is sometimes easier said than done. But what would my life have been worth if I hadn’t enjoy being me in this beautiful life. That was my realization and I needed to be in the game for the long haul.

This takes me to beginning June 2018 when I had searched a bit on Facebook for a pet sitter for Xiao Li. While Singapore is such a safe city I felt safe to ask around on one of the Expat sites. In late June 2018 a lovely Australian woman and her husband, newly fur-parented by a Singapore rescued German Shephard named Frankie, answered my plea for help. Our initial correspondence was about dogs this and dogs that. She and her husband were such a delight; young couple living their best life. Over the course of the next few months each of our families traveled here and there, leaving the pets at each other’s house as necessary. It was a lovely fur-parent relationship, one that I had never experienced before. While we love our dog, I realized that they loved Frankie more and so I learned from them several things. One being Frankie had her own dedicated drawer under the TV to keep her toys. Mathilde returned those toys to the drawer every night before bed and then the next day came. Out came the toys and the cycle repeats itself. Much like children. 

It wasn’t until beg Mar 2019 that I had realized that Mathilde was a Life Coach. At the time I had no clue what a life coach was. After doing some research (It was easy, apparently this sort of occupation was a “thing” as I found out later that other friends of mine held that same title. Behind the times much!?) I discovered that a Life Coach is “a wellness professional who helps people make progress in their lives in order to attain greater fulfillment. They aid their clients in improving their relationships, careers, and day-to-day lives.” according to verywellmind.com. Many thanks to Xiao Li and Frankie for bringing Mathilde into my life. She guided me to Dr. K. Thanks, friend. 

Dr. K. is a a Naturopathic Doctor. Never heard of one, neither had I. 

Naturopathic Doctors (ND) are trained at accredited residential naturopathic medical programs so yes, they are “real” doctors. Their approach to medicine is that of encouraging the patient to look after their own health and well-being and to understand what works and doesn’t for themselves. Far too often, specifically in America, the health professionals have the idea that their expertise is worth more than you how the patient feels pertaining to a certain situation, medication, illness, etc. My thought is that we are not encouraged to discover for ourselves what our body needs and desires. Anyways, I digress. A Naturopathic Doctor will provide support in helping the patient’s body the capacity to heal and to balance the body. 

So Dr. K. began my consultation with the usual introduction and then asking the reasons why I came to see her. We chatted for a bit; talking patient history and the like, all checklist items as normal. Then she wanted to know how I am doing and how Singapore is treating me. Having lived overseas for several years herself, she knew full well that there could be other contributing factors that lead to my office visit. 

Doctors sometimes know the truth without us having to admit anything. Like Moms. Anyways, looking back on that visit, I believe she saw me then as I saw myself in my 40th Birthday mug picture. To consider it desperation is a bit much, really, but I think it was obvious that I needed to be there at that moment. 

After our welcoming chat, Dr. K. asked me to sit on the table, checked my eyes and nose and reflexes then took a blood sample right then. Some people really have to psych themselves up for giving blood but not me. Don’t get me wrong… I too don’t enjoy setting the appointment, sweaty palms in the cold waiting room, and then the act of handing over my “good” arm and the final thoughts, “it will just be a pinch”. I don’t look forward to it but this process is all about the results. At that time I had the initial blood draw. A week or so after my first visit, I went to another office where the Doctor read my results.

Dr. K.’s recommendations adjusted my lifestyle as follows; 2-weeks dairy-free and gluten-free, a daily liquid iron supplement and a morning addition of collagen powder to a glass of water/juice immediately after breakfast. My family was not thrilled about this temporary lifestyle because I wanted them to do it with me. Safety in numbers. Exercise buddies. Study buddies. This did not go without struggle and so I gave in as this was my situation, for now. No milk in my coffee. No milk in my cereal. No milk with dinner (always a glass of milk with a meal, I remember my Dad saying). No garlic bread. No toast with jam. No more “pizza night” with my family. Oh, heavens. Taking away “pizza night” for any member of my family was unheard of. But I am proud to say that I did it on my own.

Yep, I survived to tell about it and man did I feel great. I substituted my homemade pizza dough recipe for a Gluten-Free pizza crust, store-bought after my attempt fell short. It didn’t go to waste, however, as I am not one to throw food away, especially when I needed to be strong and follow through with Dr.’s orders. Eating bleh food was not part of the paperwork but I had my pride to uphold. My coffee has never tasted the same with the substitute of coconut milk. I had always enjoyed coconut milk, say, in a foo-foo drink but had never enjoyed it on a regular basis. In Asia, coconut milk is used in my most favorite foods: curries, but cows milk was always used in coffee, or so we are told in the west. With regard to garlic bread, I just didn’t eat it. With regard to jam on bread, I frequented the local health food store and found an amazing Gluten-Free banana bread option and ate it like a mad man. I sometimes craved our local bakery’s sourdough bread but meh, the banana bread was pretty tasty and didn’t leave a wheat stalk in my belly. 

After a week of the iron-providing liquid, I developed some marks on my right chest near my shoulder blade. Dr. K said that it should go away in a few days. She explained that the marks are simply my body’s way of detoxifying but that I should lower my prescribed iron-providing liquid dose. As instructed, I lowered the dose and the marks went away. After the liquid ran out, I purchased vegetarian iron capsules at 150% DV but I haven’t seen a huge difference in how I look or feel. My husband grills and/or smokes meat every weekend so the fact that I am low in iron did not make much sense to me. Admittedly I do not always eat a large quantity of the meat at one sitting, but I do indulge on corned beef!! I had wondered if lacking a sufficient amount of iron may be hereditary? My mom was always low in iron although she indulged in a steak meal (including an ocean of butter on her baked potato) nearly every week.

Strange how our bodies work differently. Possibly I may pass this deficiency down to my children so eating up all their dad’s grillings is an important thing to stress.  Throughout this process I continued to take my multi-vitamins, afterall, I had been taking them for over a decade and I have always felt a difference in my energy level during the day. I admit that my eating habits have gone to the toilet since arriving in my new home with such a rich food culture. Living here are persons from all walks of life and with that comes their homelands foods and that rich food culture, one reason why people travel to Asia. 

A person’s journey, no matter how big or small is important to their life story. I need to write things down otherwise I forget some of the details. Bad hair day, perhaps? Or maybe just aging, hopefully gracefully. No matter. My last thought is this. If some of my problems struck a cord with you, or that you have felt a little-less-than-human lately, it is possible that a Dr. K should be in your future. 

My first visit was in March 2019. My final visit was June 2019. I am posting this five months following my initial visit. At times the office visits schedule is murky to me as there was so much information to digest.