Noodle & Bloom

A feminist-informed look at health innovation, with a focus on women’s health

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A little note…

*A little note from me: While I have nothing against the use of AI for editing, I want you to know that I don’t use AI for this blog because I find it washes out my voice. As such, if you find the cadence and the tone a bit weird, that tracks. I’m weird. I’ve also never been accused of being short-winded, so, enjoy the long reads… 🙂

January 5th, 2026

Welcome to Noodle & Bloom

The Noodle

I’m sitting in my living room, reflecting on what the past year has given me, pondering what new form of anxiety has gripped my dog this week (suddenly rattled by couches and stairs), and thinking to myself, the world could use another blog. I mean of course no one needs that, but here I am, penning (typing??) one out, while you, presumably, take this journey with me as I bravely embark to scream into the void (metaphorically of course).

In all seriousness, as the world seems to descend further and further into chaos, I’ve been stuck on this notion that we can’t seem to effectively wrap our heads around nuance – and in my world I see this so succinctly in the space of health innovation. For those who have met me, you might know that my heart rests in women’s health innovation. I’ve always been captivated by an underdog, and there is no greater underdog in the space of health innovation than women’s health. Yet we persist! I’ve never seen a field of work that so promisingly embodies “punching above their weight.” It’s no secret that women’s health has been chronically under-funded, under-resourced, with patients systemically dismissed. With the rise clinicians, scientists, and people with lived experience becoming more vocal about the challenges, and more importantly, advocating for wide-spread change, I’m seeing impressive strides in this space. But we are humbled by our inability to incorporate nuance into these conversations, at least in my opinion. People who experience negative side effects from hormonal birth control deserve to be heard – their experience is real; AND, hormonal birth control is not “bad for you” – it’s in fact is an incredible innovation that’s served as a valuable therapeutic and an important tool for reproductive autonomy. Some populations have been pushed into over-medicalized labour and delivery practices that left them stripped of a dignifying experience, AND, our fascination with natural everything in pregnancy has left some folks unable to receive needed medical care – both can be true. Women’s health research has been systemically under-funded for years, creating an evidence gap that permeates the way women and femmes experience healthcare, AND, despite these challenges we have excellent evidence on different topics that is routinely ignored amidst the rise of misinformation.

I feel we’ve become obsessed with black and white thinking, silver-bullets, and the notion that one experience is true for everyone. But in a topic as complex as health, especially women’s health, with all of the medical, scientific, societal, and economic impacts and influences that permeate literally every aspect, we need to get more comfortable with nuance and complexity. Which is what brought me here, noodling around these complex topics, and maybe seeing if there are others out there who are keen to wade around in all this messiness. This blog will largely be focused on women’s health innovation through a feminist informed lens. But even the most neurotic of us get off-topic, so you should expect that too. I hope you’ll join me in this weird and wonderful adventure!

Lived Experience

My connection to women’s health has always been a combination of scientific curiosity blended with lived experience. My earliest experience in the women’s health system came in my early 20’s, when I had multiple cervical biopsies. At the time I was a baby research assistant, fresh from Undergrad, working in a spinal surgery lab (an extremely cool gig with some excellent people). To put me at ease, the OBGYN I saw asked me about what research we had on the go. I gave her the highlights, and asked, “what about you? Any new and exciting research you’ve got on the go?” I remember her peeking over the top of my gown to tell me, “Nah – this is women’s health. Nothing really ever changes.” A phrase that left me (and still leaves me) SHOOK. You mean to tell me it doesn’t get better than this??

Throughout my career, I’ve always been so surprised at how hard I’ve had to work just to get answers about my own body – despite the enormous privilege I have as a financially stable, white, able-bodied woman with a graduate level education that LITERALLY FOCUSED ON SYSTEMS IN WOMEN’S HEALTH. I was finishing my thesis on perinatal care systems when I was pregnant with my own daughter, and was constantly bewildered by the experience of researching a system I was going through from an academic perspective, and living it as a patient.

However, I think my most illuminating journey was my pathway to diagnosis and treatment of a uterine condition called Adenomyosis. It took me 5 years, a move across the country, and honestly, luck to get my diagnosis. I recognize that this is actually well under the average timeline for diagnosis. For those of you who’ve not heard of adeno, I like to think of it as the ugly little sister of endometriosis. It involves endometrial lesions growing into the musculature of the uterus (as opposed to endo, where this tissue grows outside of the uterus). Symptoms include persistent pelvic pain (regardless of where you’re at in your cycle), and VERY heavy bleeding. For me, this developed after the birth of my daughter (which is no surprise – a key risk factor for adeno is uterine surgery, like a c-section). But I had a hard time self-advocating (which I have some thoughts about… I’ll share at another time), because since these symptoms coincided with the post-partum period, I was caught in the trap of thinking that this is normal. “Parents are always talking about how tired and sore they are, right?” For 5+ years I had zero pain-free days, periods so heavy I was chronically anemic, and would plan my work around periods because it was common to bleed through multiple period products and all over my clothes. I had several ultrasounds over the years that always came back as “normal.” I have been on virtually every type of hormonal birth control, tranexamic acid (yes – the drug they give to trauma patients to keep them from bleeding out, also helpful for periods!), and progressively stronger NSAIDs to manage, all with results that were promising up front, and usually waned after about 3-4 months. When we moved across the country and I was doing a meet and greet with my new GP, I was sent for another ultrasound and bloodwork. The ultrasound came back “normal” and the bloodwork “girl, you’re a worry.” So I was sent along to a women’s health family medicine doc, who then sent me along to an OBGYN with a sub-specialty in uterine conditions. Between the women’s health GP and the specialist, I was placed on a drug originally designed for endo, but works well for adeno too. When I finally spoke to the specialist, I was surprised to learn that my ultrasound was not in fact “normal,” as radiology reports indicated over and over again. In fact, while subtle, there were visual clues on the imaging, that combined with my symptom profile and surgical history, indicated a very “textbook” case of adenomyosis.

I’m happy to report that since my diagnosis and treatment, my condition has been super well managed. The medication, named Dienogest, is more or less progesterone therapy. And I will HAPPILY play poster child because I can tell you that this medication gave me my life back. Did you know it’s not normal to be in pain every single day? Follow along for other fun Mom hacks! But in all seriousness, its wild to me that such an easy intervention took so long to access. The brand-name version (Visanne by Bayer) came onto the Canadian market in 2011, but the generic Dienogest (by Aspen Pharmacare) only became available in 2020. Regardless, its wild to me that with the rise of Endometriosis’ profile in the mainstream hasn’t translated to more prescribers being aware of this option, and more patients knowing it exists. When you speak to women with endo or adeno, treatment options seem to be focused on IUDs, surgery, or “get pregnant.” A recent study looked at women’s health therapeutic approvals in Canada. They found that only 53% of FDA approved women’s health medications had been approved in Canada since 2003, AND that it takes on average an extra year for women’s health medications to find their way onto provincial drug plans. Now I’m no expert, but I’d say this disparity on therapeutic development, approval, and provincial drug plan inclusion might be a sticking point as to why these medications aren’t making it into patients’ bodies!

While my experience with adenomyosis was illustrative to me about this intersect of scientific disparity and what it feels like as a patient, I’m willing to bet there are thousands of stories out there that hold similar clues in some of our biggest health innovation challenges. Since I’ve now overshared my personal health information on the internet (excuse me while I go hyperventilate), I invite you to do the same. If you’ve had a healthcare experience in the space of women’s or femme health that you’d like to share in this little corner of the innovation world, I’d love to listen to what you have to say.

Unofficial Bookclub

Let me tell you about a book that fundamentally BLEW MY MIND.

Enter: Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez. This book explores the gender data gap across sectors of engineering, tech, economics, policy, and of course, health. When we talk about the gender data gap, it speaks to the ways in which decisions are made, products are designed, and systems developed. These are informed by data, which has historically not included women. She speaks to a lot of topics including drug development, crash test dummies, and that tech bros don’t seem to understand that the typical iPhone does not fit in women’s pants pockets, and thus is not good tech for ambient movement tracking across genders. This book, released in 2018, illustrated to me that the disparities we know and hate in health data are not unique, and that the ways in which we collect, interpret, and use data across literally every sector are subject to this monumental design flaw. What’s even more wild to me is how little things have changed since the book’s release.

That said, there are some folks out there working on this gender data gap that give me hope! CIHR released a policy in 2016 that required consideration of sex and gender data in all grant applications in order to be funded. PROGRESS. However, as a grant agency, they’re limited to a degree in how that funded research’s data are reported, whether they disaggregate and actually analyze it, and how disseminated data are interpreted (especially by clinical governance bodies). All to say, to really make a dent in this gap from a clinical perspective, EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET ON BOARD! I’m looking at you, scientific journals, Institutional Research Service Offices, and Regulatory Colleges. One federal grant agency in one country can’t be the sole source of widespread adoption.

Anyway, I highly recommend giving this book a read. I hope it gets you to a place of feeling spicy!

Until next time my friends, that’s enough from me.

Cheers,

-Kate