While modern medicine presents qualities both miraculous and restrained in nature, there is more that can be done. Preventative and holistic medicine often takes a backseat in our heavy science and drug based culture. It often feels like why heal or prevent, when we can make more money by treating. Denell Barbara Nawrocki, MA, a guide, speaker, and specializing in Women's wellness and Earth-based health, is on the side of using natural and preventative measures and, it seems, she is on the right path! After having a run in with HPV, she learned how important self care and natural methods could be in helping her regain her health. She received her MA in Integrative Health Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), and a BA in History from UC Davis. Denell has done extensive study in the fields of health, healing, personal transformation, indigenous wisdom, plant medicine and history, which can be seen in her latest book “Informed, Aware, Empowered: A Self-Guided Journey to Clear Paps”. Please read our exclusive interview below to learn more about Denell Nawrocki, and her journey with HPV.

Where are you based?
I’m based in Sebastopol, California, about one hour north of San Francisco. I live among the redwoods, oaks, and vineyards of wine-country.

Can you give us a brief background of your field of study, Integrative Health Studies?
Integrative Health Studies is a multidisciplinary field of study which looks at various factors influencing overall health and wellness in a human, encompassing body, mind, and spirit. Integrative health is representative of any practitioners or practices that address disease prevention, health promotion, wellness, and fitness. The impact of health in these sectors extends from the individual, to social networks, all the way to planetary well-being.

Your own diagnosis of HPV and cervical dysplasia was a catalyst for your entry into advocating and encouraging women to take care of their gynecological health. Can you talk about your own experience living with HPV and cervical dysplasia? How did you overcome your health issues?
I received my initial HPV and cervical dysplasia diagnosis at the age of 19 and, at the time, I didn’t know what that meant. All I really understood was that my pap smear was “abnormal”, but I had no idea what the implications of such a diagnosis were.

For the first few years of the diagnosis, I lived like there was nothing wrong with my body. I was in college living the college lifestyle with frat parties, late nights of studying while eating Taco Bell, and experimenting with all sorts of chemical substances. It wasn’t until the age of 22 when I found myself in a new relationship that I really began to consider how my cervical health may be affecting me. I didn’t tell my new boyfriend that I had HPV until months after we began dating, and he grew quite upset.

It was also around this time that my doctors began to grow very concerned about me because the cervical dysplasia was worsening at an alarming rate, and continued to push me towards treatment. I had an intuitive sense that surgical treatment wasn’t something I wanted to do. I had researched what the treatments were online and I scared myself out of getting them. My doctors wanted me to get the HPV vaccine, but I never understood how receiving the vaccine would help me if I already had HPV. No doctor could ever explain it to me.

It was at the age of 22 that I decided I was going to take my health and life back under my own control, and dove head first into learning everything I could about health, wellness, healing the body, the cervix, the immune system and overall reproductive health. How I ultimately overcame my health issues was a combination of lifestyle improvements (via nutrition, exercise, reduction of alcohol intake, more sleep, stress reduction, etc.) and diving into the psychoemotional aspects of sex, sexuality and my relationship with my cervix and female body as a whole. There are so many nuances to what the cervix can teach us, and while physical health is definitely a main aspect to focus on, the mind-body connection we have with our pelvis and embodiment of the female body also plays a very large role.

HPV is thought to be significantly associated with cervical dysplasia, and cervical dysplasia to cervical cancer. Cervical cancer treatment tends to vary based on cancer staging. Sometimes, precancerous cervical lesions are removed with loop electrosurgical excision procedure; cryotherapy is also another alternative. What are your thoughts on these medical procedures, side effects, and aftercare?
This is such a big question with a very nuanced answer. My thoughts are that while these treatment protocols do work to remove the abnormal cells from the cervix, they do nothing to treat the underlying causes of an HPV infection or cervical dysplasia. I liken these procedures with ‘silencing the messenger’. I see HPV and cervical dysplasia diagnoses as a message from our body that something is out of balance, and the only way our body can communicate this to us is by producing something ‘wrong’. Our body is highly intelligent and knows what it’s doing. Our body wants to live and be healthy, and if we’re treating it in a way that isn’t for its highest potential, it will tell us via symptoms such as these. The trick is to listen to the message it’s sending us, and not silence it. These treatments follow under the umbrella of ‘fighting a war against’ the body (‘War Against Cancer’). If we fight a way against our body, we’re really just fighting a war against ourselves.

It’s quite astounding for me to reflect on the hundreds of people I’ve spoken to who’ve received these treatments only to have the cervical dysplasia return and for HPV to still remain in their system. Often, they book an appointment with me in panic because they still have cervical dysplasia after many treatments on their cervix and the last hope their medical providers offer them is a hysterectomy. To me, removing portions of the body is not an effective route towards healing. Treatment does not equate to healing, and the focus of my work is on healing the underlying cause so HPV and cervical dysplasia never have to be worried about again.

In the last couple of years, there’s been research that’s come out about some very detrimental side-effects of these procedures, including cervical incompetence during pregnancy, the inability for the cervix to dilate during childbirth, a felt-sense of disconnection from pleasure during sex, chronic pain in the cervix during sex, and, even more so, a change in overall mood and mental wellness. What allopathic medicine doesn’t seem to recognize and honor is that the cervix is a highly innervated body part, with three sets of paired nerves terminating in the cervix itself. The largest of these nerves is called the vagus nerve, which is a direct circuit to the brain. When we sever and remove these nerve endings, this severs a female’s ability to enjoy, or even sense, deep intravaginal penetration, as well as feel embodied and connected to their cervix/pelvis. Nothing makes me more angry than when I hear from a client that their doctor tells them ‘there’s no feeling in the cervix’. This is completely wrong and a flat out lie. The cervix is actually an orgasmic organ, and cervical orgasm, which is only available to female bodied people, becomes difficult to achieve with severed nerves. Luckily, there are practices one can do to awaken a scarred or numbed cervix from these procedures, yet this doesn’t take away from the fact that this is being done to people on a daily basis.

In regards to the aftercare of such procedures, I’ve been unimpressed with how allopathy approaches how to instruct people to take care of themselves after highly invasive procedures on one the most sensitive organs of the female body. Most doctors will tell patients to not insert anything into the vaginal canal for 3-4 weeks and to rest for a day or so. I’ve had dozens of clients come to me telling me that even after 12 weeks their cervix was still extremely tender, and many others have experienced the scab over the wound of their cervix to grow infected and putrid. I personally feel that a procedure of this caliber needs to be treated as a major surgery, and time for physical, mental, and emotional healing needs to be given. Female bodied people already hold so much fear, shame, and guilt in their pelvis and reproductive organs, that, often, these procedures exacerbate the feelings. Mental health support is needed. Emotional support is needed. It’s not like getting a mole or wart removed. This is the removal of tissue from one of our most sacred body parts. There must be more support given. The trauma of these procedures are real, and the hundreds of people I’ve spoken to about this confirm this reality.

We generally know our immune system looks for and kills infected cells after a virus invades a host. Is it possible to strengthen our immune system to fight off HPV?
Yes, there’s so much one can do! First of all, if anyone out there has HPV, I invite you to immediately begin supplementing with Folate, or better yet DIM (which is a more bioavailable form of Folate). Viruses replicate in our bodies by injecting their genetic material into our cells, and our own cells then reproduce more viral bodies. What Folate does is fortify the cell membrane, making it more difficult (if not impossible) for the virus to inject its genetic material into the cells. Folate bolsters our own body’s protective mechanisms.

Other ways to strengthen the immune system to ward off HPV are very lifestyle based. What this means is that we must look at the way we’re living our life and the choices we make and determine, “Is this depleting me or nourishing me?” For example, late nights out at the club, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, eating low quality food, being in a high-stressed state, not sleeping enough, not getting outside, and not drinking enough water — all play a role in a weakened immune system. Truth be told, I had to change a lot in my life when I decided to heal myself of HPV. Yet, because I knew it was for my personal healing, it made the change in lifestyle behaviors that much easier.

The third point I want to touch on when it comes to supporting the immune system refers to the energetic level of our body. The immune system is like our protector system, searching and destroying any ‘foreign invader’, as well as our personal boundary system, differentiating between self and other. If we envision our body to be like a castle, the immune system is like the sentries on the turrets of the castle, the ones who look out and survey the land for anyone who is trying to take the castle. With this imagery, we can now see that HPV is much like a foreign invader and, for some reason, our protector system, our boundary system, was let down or crossed, giving HPV and ‘in’ to find room in our body system to proliferate. When a client comes to me with HPV, some of the first questions I ask them are ‘When in your life have your boundaries been crossed? When in your life have your sexual boundaries been crossed? When have you let your guard down when you really didn’t want to or weren’t ready to?’ The answers to these questions often indicate at what point in our lives did we become susceptible to HPV infection. How we can work with these stories is by addressing the energetic impact of these experiences in our body, engaging in forgiveness work, and somatically re-patterning our body to put up that guard once more and redevelop strong boundaries in our lives.

HPV has become very common. How do you help women who have shame from contracting HPV?
I make it a priority to remind women that HPV is one of the most common viral infections in the world, and that we’re, in fact, born with some strains in our body, passed in-utero. HPV has co-evolved with humanity. Paleo-archaeologists have even found HPV viral bodies in ancient human remains!

More often than not, the shame felt about having an HPV diagnosis is actually the shame we’ve already felt about our sexuality and having sex in the first place. I’ve never spoken to a man with HPV who’s felt the level of shame that women feel. I remind my clients and community that we’ve done nothing wrong and it’s not our fault. Unfortunately, most HPV strains don't show any signs or symptoms in male bodies so there’s no way for them, or us, to know they have it. HPV is not a punishment for having unprotected sex. Would we ever think that for a man? Probably not.

What choosing to self-heal HPV does for my clients is to reclaim our body and our sexuality for ourselves — to remove the shame we feel about being sexual creatures, to embody the fact that, yes, we love sexual pleasure too, and to also remember that we’re humans who live on this planet with pathogens. It doesn’t make us wrong, dirty, gross, or unsexy. It's just who we are, in a human female body.

Even more so, if we have a current HPV diagnosis, we can still have sex. We don’t need to stop. We may need to use barrier protection if we have multiple partners, or if you’re in a monogamous relationship, know that they probably have it too and they need to consider supporting their immune system as well. HPV doesn’t need to stop our sexual life. We don’t need to give it that power.

The CDC recommends the HPV Vaccine to protect children, both boys and girls, before they are exposed to the virus. What are your thoughts on the HPV vaccine? What are some preventative measures we can take in addition to the vaccine to avoid or fight off infection?
Ok, we’re really getting to it here! I’m going to be honest — I personally believe that the HPV vaccine is unnecessary and causes more harm than good. I’ve done countless hours of research on the history and efficacy of Gardasil and Cervarix, and quite frankly, it's horrifying. Statistically, one is more likely to die from side effects from the vaccine than from cervical cancer if you live in a developed country. If you do one online search for vaccine-injuries from Gardasil you will find thousands of stories of young girls and boys being very harmed, and even dying, from side effects of this vaccine. I want to make clear that this isn’t a statement about all vaccines, just the HPV vaccine. There’s an amazing book called HPV Vaccine On Trial, written by three lawyers, detailing the nefarious history of Merk and the development of this vaccine, the inhumane and illegal trials done in India, and the fast-tracked process Gardasil went through to get onto the market.

What young girls and boys need in lieu of the vaccine is proper sex education. We need for sexual literacy to be primary and for all people between the ages of 12-15 to know, and deeply understand, what STIs are, how they can impact us, what consent looks and feels like, what sexual boundaries are, how to communicate in sexual experiences, proper anatomy, and so on. Modern day sex ed focuses on hormonal birth control, condoms, and abstinence. While these are important things to know about, they in no way represent a comprehensive overview of proper sex education. I didn’t even know what a cervix was until something was wrong in my cervix. The fact that I had to teach myself everything I know is the problem. We also need better health education for young people. After high school, teenagers are sent to college to live on their own with zero idea as to how to take care of their bodies. We need more education, not more vaccines.

You often talk about the cervical tool kit. What is the cervical tool kit and what are the benefits of using one?
The cervical tool kit is a personal collection of tools, practices, and resources that benefit and support the health of the cervix that one can cycle through. Things that can be included in a cervical tool kit include: specific herbs for infusions/suppositories/douches/steams, a yoni-steam box or stool, downloaded guided meditations designed to guide us into the body and the cervix, supplements, daily ritual or practices to honor the healing of our cervix, a special journal for the cervical healing journey, a speculum and a mirror to look at our cervix ourselves, etc.

The benefits of having a tool kit is to give ourselves variety on the cervical healing journey. Variety keeps the journey of healing our cervix ourselves fresh and exciting. Healing is a marathon and not a sprint, so in order to stay in it for the long game, having a developed cervical tool kit will help us remain inspired to continue forward. If you’re anything like me, you may get bored doing the same thing every day for weeks on end, and having a nourishing menu of things I can do to support my cervix to heal is way more appealing.

You are big on self healing of the cervix. What does this mean and what are the steps?
Self healing the cervix is exactly as it sounds — doing the work ourselves to reverse HPV and cervical dysplasia on our own, without surgical intervention.

The steps for this to occur are unique to all of our life situations. We can all have the same exact diagnosis, but the path that got us to this point is different for each of us. In general, the steps can look something like:

1) Look at your lifestyle choices and behaviors and ask yourself, is this supporting my body or depleting my body? This in and of itself is a big task, because we may be faced with the realization that our friend group isn’t the healthiest, or our live-in partner is actually really depleting. Forming our daily choices and actions to fit the needs of our cervix and immune system is alway the first step.

2) Incorporate herbal medicine in the forms of vaginal steams, herbal douches, herbal suppositories, tinctures, or teas. Herbal medicine is the original form of medicine and is a very powerful way to support the body to heal.

3) Incorporate supplements into your daily routine. This includes Folate, vitamin B, trace minerals like zinc and selenium, and lysine.

4) One of my favorite quotes is by Dr. Christiane Northrup and she says, “Problems with a woman’s sexual organs are often related to her inability to say no to penetration when she wants to, but does not think she should.” The fourth step is to get very honest and clear about our sexual behaviors and tendencies, and to reflect on whether or not we’re listening to our body during penetration. Am I actually aroused when I allow penetration? Am I just going forward with the process because my partner wants me to? Am I ready for penetration and do I want it? These questions point us to our boundaries and whether or not we adhere and listen to them. This step is one of the most powerful parts of the cervical healing journey.

What are your thoughts on the link between hormonal birth control and cervical cancer?
There’s a lot of evidence pointing to the direct correlation between hormonal birth control and cervical cancer . Even the CDC website states that a woman who’s been on hormonal birth control for 5+ years is two times more likely to develop cervical cancer, and a woman who’s been on hormonal birth control for 10+ years is three times more likely to develop cervical cancer. As liberating as hormonal birth control is, the fact is that it hasn't been around all that long, and there are no clinical studies looking at the long-term effects of exogenous hormones on female physiology.

I personally was on hormonal birth control for 10 years, and even received the Implanon (implanted device in the arm) about three years into my diagnosis. Once I learned that there is a scientific correlation between hormonal birth control and cervical cancer, I immediately stopped hormones to help my body heal.

Cervical wellness is not often discussed, despite its importance. Childbirth, menstruation, and pleasure are all connected to the cervix. What are some of the best ways women can educate themselves in regards to the cervix and reproductive health?
My first two invitations are experiential:

First, I invite everyone to touch their cervix themselves for the purpose of love and connection. How many doctors and lovers have touched our cervix? This is not for the purpose of pleasure or checking cervical fluid (for those who practice FABM of birth control). This is about getting to know your cervix yourself.

Second, I invite everyone to look at their cervix themselves. All you need is a hand mirror, a flashlight, and a speculum (which are quite inexpensive when you buy them online). There’s something quite profound and magical about seeing your cervix yourself. It demystifies the cervix and helps establish a loving connection to our inner pelvis. Also, gazing at your vulva in a mirror is also powerful. Find some anatomy images and find your body parts on your own body. Check yourself out!

Other ways to educate yourself in regards to the cervix and reproductive health is to read books. There are many amazing published books out there with comprehensive information and education that go well beyond any single blog post, article or YouTube video. Within the last few years, dozens of incredible women have authored books on reproductive health. I, myself, published a book this January on reversing abnormal paps on your own. Heading to the library is a great way to resource yourself for very little money.

What are some things a woman can do to improve their gynecological health?
Here’s what I invite:

-Drink lots of non-fluoridated water and eat a nourishing diet with lots of saturated fats.

-Wear cotton underwear to help the vagina and vulva breathe. This helps us maintain a healthy vaginal biome.

-Vaginal steaming (also called yoni steaming) is a very powerful reproductive wellness practice. Sitting over a bowl of steaming herbs brings blood and herbal nourishment to the tissue, and have been clinically proven to support a myriad of reproductive health issues.

-Do more exercise than just yoga. Vigorous, blood pumping movement is paramount for gynecological health because our pelvic organs are organs of blood and indicated by our hormones. We must move and churn the blood through our pelvis for hormonal activation and blood cleansing. Moving enough to get your blood pumping and a good sweat going is a key.

-Intravaginal acupressure with a dildo, crystal wand, or your fingers is a very powerful way to release tension in the vaginal canal and pelvic floor. The practice of touching, holding, and breathing through painful points on your vulva, perineum, anus, and vaginal canal reduces stress, releases tension, and helps move emotions.

Do you have daily things you do to make sure you stay healthy?
Every morning, I drink a big glass of water with a pinch of sea salt in it as soon as I wake up. The salt puts minerals into the water which helps our kidneys absorb it. I make sure I do some sort of movement every day, whether it's going for a walk, dancing to some music, or heading to the gym to lift weights. I make sure I get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. I have lots of plants around my house and in my office to keep my spirits up. I prioritize time to eat meals and not just snacks. I use body and face oils to nourish my skin and nervous system. I have projects and activities just for fun. I write a gratitude list everyday. I ask for hugs.

Do you have any tips that can help while we are socially distancing?
Getting outside in nature is a cure-all for many of our woes. Not only does it support us psychoemotionally and psychospiritually, there are various healing mechanisms of being out in nature that also support our immune systems and overall health. For example, phytoncides are volatile essential oils emitted by plants that act as their immune system. These oils kill bacteria, fungi and viruses so the trees and plants don’t get sick. When we as humans breathe in these phytoncides, our own immune system is bolstered in a profound way. It’s been proven through studies that a single 30 minute walk in the forest can increase our immune functioning significantly for up to a week.

You normally give a lot of talks. How are you getting the word out now during quarantine?
Right now, I’m focusing a lot of my effort and energy towards Instagram, YouTube and sharing content online. I’ve also developed (and am developing) several new online programs that people can sign up for to learn everything that I’d teach and share in in-person talks and workshops. The internet is a beautiful thing for this reason.

What is your motto in life?
Say YES to the fear.

To learn more about Danell Nawrocki, please follow her via the following platforms:
www.cervicalwellness.com
Instagram: cervicalwellness
YouTube: Denell Barbara Nawrocki

Denell Nawrocki: Holistic Healing & HPV