A student who shunned traditional medicine to treat her health issues with herbs and stinging nettles says she has "never felt better". <br /><br />Ash Ruiz, 27, turned to alternative remedies starting to study medicinal botany at Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia, in 2017.<br /><br />The course inspired her to try complementary and alternative medicine for her own health issues - including echinacea for digestion and mullein for bronchitis. <br /><br />Ash suffered from polycystic ovary syndrome - a condition that affects how the ovaries work - from the age of 14, and used the contraceptive pill to regulate her menstrual cycle.<br /><br />But she decided to seek herbal treatment instead after reading about the benefits and tried raspberry leaf tea and chasteberry vitex, which she says made her "feel like herself again".<br /><br />Ash has also used red clover and stinging nettle tea for balancing her hormones and oat straw and Nervine herbs - like lavender - to calm anxiety. <br /><br />Ash says her herbal remedies have helped with her migraines, irregular periods and anxiety and she'd "never go back" to using traditional medicines alone.<br /><br />Ash, a herbalist, from Woodbridge, Virginia, US, said: "I’ve been on tons of different meds from a really young age, but now I feel more in balance with myself.<br /><br />"I was put on birth control from a really young age - and now I’m constantly trying to find natural ways to regulate my hormones.<br /><br />"It started with juice cleanses - but now I use teas and tinctures."<br /><br />Ash had been suffering from irregular periods, weight gain and anxiety from the age of 14.<br /><br />In 2010, her parents took her to a gynaecologist for a scan - which showed she had "a lot" of cysts in her ovaries.<br /><br />She was prescribed the contraceptive pill to regulate her periods and stop her migraines, weight gain and severe anxiety, and took it for seven years.<br /><br />She says she “didn’t know any better” before studying medicinal botany - but her own health struggles led her to trying herbs for herself. <br /><br />“I have a condition called PCOS,” Ash said.<br /><br />“It’s a hormonal condition - and it can be insulin-resistant.<br /><br />“My main symptoms were irregular menstrual cycles.<br /><br />"From as young as 14, I could go three to four months without having a period.<br /><br />“My parents didn’t have a lot of knowledge about natural remedies, so they took me to a gynaecologist - who did a lot of scans.<br /><br />“None of us knew any better, so when I was put on birth control, I just took it. And it was horrible from then on.<br /><br />“I used to have migraines, irregular periods, weight gain, anxiety - so many symptoms, the list goes on.<br /><br />“And birth control just made it so much worse - I did not feel like myself.”<br /><br />In 2017, Ash began studying biology at Virginia Commonwealth University and chose medicinal botany as a module.<br /><br />She liked how “different” it seemed from the other areas of study and poured all her research into St John’s Wort - a plant used to treat depression, burns and cuts among other conditions.<br /><br />Ash “fell in love” with medicinal botany - and felt lik
