When Your Symptoms Don’t “Fit the Criteria”

One of the most frustrating experiences for women is being told that nothing is wrong… when your body is clearly telling you otherwise.

Maybe your periods are irregular.
Maybe you’re dealing with hormonal acne, breast tenderness, mood swings, or weight fluctuations that no one seems to take seriously.
Maybe you’ve been told to “just go on the pill,” even though you feel in your bones that something deeper is happening.

You sit in the doctor’s office, explaining what you’ve been feeling for months—or years—and walk out with a 10‑minute explanation that doesn’t match your lived experience. Suddenly you start questioning yourself:

“Am I overreacting?”
“Is this all in my head?”
“Am I expecting too much?”

No. You’re not.

Here’s the truth I want every woman to hear:

You don’t need a diagnosis to justify your symptoms.
Your body doesn’t speak in criteria.
It speaks in patterns.

Medical diagnostic labels can be helpful—but they also have limitations. Diagnosis requires ticking boxes. Your body does not.

For example:

• You may have polycystic ovaries on an ultrasound, but normal bloods.
  
• You may have signs of high androgens (hair growth, acne), but still fall “within reference range.”
  
• You may have irregular cycles, but not irregular enough to be labelled.
  
• You may have all the symptoms, but still get told “you’re fine.”
  

This doesn’t mean your body is fine. It means the current testing model isn’t showing the full picture.

Symptoms are not random. They are data points.

Irregular periods, acne, migraines, mood fluctuations, and breast tenderness are messages.
Not inconveniences. Not personality flaws.
Messages.

And when we step back and tune into the pattern—rather than the severity—we can begin to see the deeper story your body is trying to tell you:

• Are my blood sugars stable?
  
• Am I nourishing my body regularly or skipping meals?
  
• Is stress driving my hormones out of rhythm?
  
• Is my sleep misaligned with my natural cycle?
  
• Does my body feel safe?
  

Sometimes the most powerful shift doesn’t come from a diagnosis—it comes from understanding the language of your body.

Because once you understand the message… you know exactly how to support yourself.

If you want to hear a real, relatable story of what this looks like in action, I dive deeper into this with Mimi in Episode #30 PCOS Symptoms? The Steps That Changed Everything For Mimi on the What’s My Body Telling Me? Podcast, where she shares her journey from frustration to empowerment and how she finally learned to trust her body again.