About

Thank you for visiting my blog.

My name is Anusha Gandhi and I live in Ottawa, Canada with my fiance and my super cute fur baby.

Crampmystyleblog was created just before shit hit the fan. The goal was fairly selfish; to share my story in hopes of finding others who would allow me to feel less alone.

In late 2017, after nearly two decades of living with endometriosis, I was given the surprise diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis. Tired, confused and having done very little research on the disease, I reached out to several facebook groups to see if anyone else within the endometriosis community also suffered from any form of IBD. One lovely angel – let’s call her Jane – reached out to me privately and verbally walked me through what to expect, what to ask the doctors, and called me off the proverbial ledge. So, crampmystyleblog transformed from that point into a safe place for other women who are at a tipping point, or on that medical ledge, who need someone else to let them know they are not alone on their crazy medical journey. The wiser I become about pain management, mental health and dietary issues the more I realize how important it is to focus on the things I can control: 1) the words I scribble down to share my journey and 2) the things I put into my body.

Mixing medications and supplements and food ingredients into one big vortex of ‘what ifs’ is a lot for one person to handle. So I took it upon myself to deconstruct all the options into two categories: things that work, and things that don’t. I am willing to try everything once (or for a medically reasonable amount of time), but if the side effects are too great, or it just doesn’t work, its not worth it. For those things that do work, I keep it in my life and play around with it. Trust me, I have tried every pain med, and every hormone therapy, supplements galore, certain anti-inflammatory diets and everything in between. And, while these things work for me I do encourage you to find what works for you. For the purposes of this blog, feel free to click on the links below to read more about my endometriosis journey, my ulcerative colitis journey, and my curated list of recipes that are largely gluten and dairy free.

A little bit more about me.

I grew up in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, and moved up to Ottawa in 2002 (when I was 19) to begin university. I completed an undergraduate degree and a Masters degree in Neuroscience at Carleton University. After graduating I went on to work for a local company providing saliva collection kits to academics and commercial companies in the field of genetics. After several years I took a similar but different job within the same field that took me to Los Angeles. I then moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to work for a microbiome sequencing company called Microbiome Insights. Here – while I was diagnosed with IBD – I worked with some of the most renowned gut health researchers, pharmaceutical companies and innovators across the globe. I later took a role at a genetics company called Invitae; a role that allowed me to move back to Ottawa and work from home.

Aside from my career I spend a great deal of time sharing my insights on social media in hopes that my voice continues to inspire others to use theirs. You can follow me on Instagram (@crampmystyleblog) or Twitter (@crampmystyleblog).

I started a company in 2019 called Femade; A pain clinic for those assigned female at birth (though may identify otherwise) where they can find a safe space to feel and to explore with alternative medicines in parallel to their allopathic treatments.

In early 2020, myself and another endometriosis patient created an advocacy program in conjunction with a local surgeon to gather patient voices in hopes of achieving better standards of care for endometriosis patients here in Ottawa. You can follow us on our facebook page. We just launched a new website so you can follow our programs there as well.

If you are ever looking to collaborate please contact me at crampmystyle18@gmail.com

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