When I first met Nicole McPherson, she was desperate—desperate for a life without the constant digestive issues that plagued her, and desperate for relief from excruciating menstrual pain each month. You see, for years Nicole had been careless with her diet. As a naturally thin person with a high metabolism, she never paid much attention to healthy eating. Although her digestion was not great, she could get by. It wasn't that Nicole was uninformed about her body and its systems. In fact, she is a biomedical researcher with a background in clinical research. However, a busy work schedule and the day-to-day race of life distracted her from her own health, and she ignored the warning signs that her body sent her—until those signs were too severe to be pushed aside any longer. After a trip to India, she contracted a severe stomach virus, one that took a full six months to work its way out of her system. At the same time, work stress increased and the drama of a property renovation took its toll. Nicole's body finally returned to normal after the virus—but she began to realize that "normal" was not good enough. Normal was too painful. Starting a Paleo Lifestyle Nicole joined a CrossFit gym and discovered the Paleo diet and lifestyle. She understood its ancestral health background and its emphasis on whole living, so she began live by those guidelines. "It cleared up a lot of digestive issues," she says. "As well as brain fog and tiredness and things like that. I loved Paleo—I was really on board." However, a year after beginning her Paleo diet, Nicole began to develop other symptoms. The pain during her menstrual cycle became horrible, and her fatigue got worse. It seemed her Paleo diet was falling short. Trying Conventional Medicine Desperate, Nicole visited doctors, following the route of conventional medicine, but no one was able to completely resolve the symptoms that troubled her. "I did a lot of my own kind of troubleshooting with supplements," she recalls. "I've probably spent thousands of dollars on supplements over the last couple of years, and none of those really helped." Nicole is not alone. I see many individuals who suffer from chronic, unexplained health issues attempt to boost or improve their body's function using supplements. Occasionally they see improvement; more often, the costly purchases end up in a kind of supplement graveyard in the bathroom cabinet. After her failed attempts to find the source of the problem, Nicole turned to Paleo-style medicine. She visited a female doctor with Paleo leanings but soon found that the doctor's foundation was still in conventional medicine. Nicole's progesterone was low, so her next stop was a gynecologist who diagnosed her with PCOS and recommended surgery and a topical cream to boost progesterone. However, the benefits of the cream disappeared after just two months of use. She felt like she was right back where she started. Connecting with the Right People One day, Nicole happened to hear me speak on a Robb Wolf podcast, and she thought, "I have to get in touch with this guy. He seems to get it." The first test that I recommended was a 4-point saliva test. Nicole had just 16 points of cortisol for the day—a drastically low count. Ideally, she should have double that amount. "At this point, I just could not get out of bed in the morning," Nicole remembers. "My boyfriend would say, 'Let's go get coffee and breakfast,' and I just did not want to get up. I couldn't even cope with going to the gym, even if it was just for a light workout." The feeling of being dragged down, of lacking energy to the point where moving seems like an overwhelming task, affects many people. This feeling points to a cortisol problem, as well as to an issue with the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. Discovering the Importance of Testing Nicole had been supplementing with a topical progesterone cream before we met, and interestingly, the numbers on the lab work were normal whilst she continued to suff