Women's Health: The Point Selection

One practical thing first, because it changes how appointments are booked. If your symptoms follow the cycle, the appointments should too. Premenstrual symptoms are treated in the week before bleeding; period pain in the day or two around it. Booking the same slot every Tuesday regardless of where you are in the month wastes half the sessions. Tell us your dates and we will hold the right slots.

What people come to Freshwater for: period pain, premenstrual symptoms, perimenopausal sleep and flushes, and the general wound-up feeling of a demanding stretch. A session runs about an hour, mostly lying down, usually with heat over the lower abdomen and low back if pain is the issue — that is the part people ask for again.

What goes to a doctor instead, and promptly: any bleeding after menopause, bleeding between periods or after sex, periods stopping without pregnancy, bleeding heavy enough to leave you anaemic, and severe pain with fever. And cervical screening if it is overdue, which is worth more than any appointment here.

If you are pregnant, trying to conceive or in a fertility cycle, say so at the start. It changes positioning, which points are used, and whether herbs are appropriate at all — and for IVF stimulation we want your specialist\u{2019}s clearance in writing rather than assumed.

We are ten streets from Balgowlah and about twenty from Manly. Bring three cycles of dates.