Oil painting of the snow-capped Teide rising above a sea of clouds at dawn, with a solitary woman seen from behind, in an olive-green wool cape, gazing at the volcano from a rocky summit with Teide broom in flower and a leather notebook with a fountain pen on a basalt stone
Tell me about your case

They wanted to operate on me.
I didn't have the operation

You went to your GP. “All normal.”

You tried the supplements.

The diets. The detox.

The next consultant. And the next.

And you're no better.

I walked that whole road. Until I stopped looking for solutions and started looking for the cause.
A woman of about fifty, exhausted, sitting at a wooden table at night under the light of a lamp, her forehead resting on her hand; in front of her, blood test results, bottles of supplements and blister packs — the search that never found an answer

You went to your GP. “All normal.”

You tried the supplements, the diets, the next consultant.

And you're no better.

I walked that whole road. Until I stopped looking for solutions and started looking for the cause.

MY STORY

Finally understanding what is happening to your body. And no longer having to depend on anyone

My story: how I stopped covering up symptoms and went after the cause.

Carmem, seen from behind, in the consulting room: the doctor turns the screen round and points with his pen at an abdominal scan — “this has to come out”, the cold appointment that decided to operate without asking how she lived

I still remember how cold that couch was.

The doctor turned the screen round, pointed with his pen and, coldly, let it drop like someone jotting something on a list: “this has to come out”. Polyps.
And that was that.

He didn't ask me how I lived. Or what I ate, or how I slept. Operate, and off home.

And I, who knew nothing about medicine, said no.

I didn't have the operation.

I couldn't explain it. I only knew something didn't fit.

Carmem Carvalho during her years as an international tour guide — the life that looked like freedom before she learned to listen to her body

Years earlier, I never stopped.

To understand that “no”, I have to take you back.

I spent my life working as a tour guide. Endless days, little sleep, eating whatever there was in each city.
My body had been warning me for a while. I wasn't listening.

First it was digestion. Constipated one day, diarrhoea the next. I went to the doctor, he ran some tests and told me I was fine.

Then came the bloating. Everything I ate left me bloated. I went back. “All normal, you're fine.”

Then, the fatigue and the exhaustion. They ran my blood tests. Within range again. Once again, you're fine.

I started to think it was normal.
That maybe I was exaggerating.
That I had to get used to it.

That it would be stress, or age, or something else.

But inside, I knew. I wasn't well.

Until one day, all of it caught up with me.

Carmem, seen from behind, in front of the alternative practitioner: crystals, a pendulum, incense, tinctures with blank labels and a phone playing a health video — remedies without a diagnosis, the doctor all over again but disguised as natural

Obviously, saying no to the operation didn't make me better.

I needed another way out.

So I did what anyone would do. I started looking elsewhere.

I went to the herbalist's and bought whatever they recommended.
I tried a detox I'd seen in a video, which had worked brilliantly for someone else.

And when none of that worked, I ended up with the therapists. The alternative ones, the natural ones.
One told me it could be sorted out with the mind. That it was a matter of attitude.
Another gave me a protocol from a book, the same one he gave everybody.
Another talked to me about energies and cleanses, without once looking at me.

Nobody examined me. Nobody understood what was happening to me.
It was the doctor all over again. Only disguised as natural.

Something eased it for a while. But nothing solved it.

The same thing again.

I couldn't explain it. I only knew something didn't fit.

I had no alternative left. No more doors to knock on.

And I started to believe it. That maybe this was just how it was. That I would have to learn to live like this.

An old family photograph from Carmem's childhood in a rural setting — the memory of her mother, who looked after the body by going to the root

And then I remembered my mother.

It was an ordinary night, after one more thing that hadn't worked.

There were several sisters at home. And when one of us fell ill, my mother didn't rush off for a pill.
She went to the kitchen.

She would put a vegetable broth on to boil.
The whole house smelled of broth.

And she would give it to us hot, saying:
“This is to get back what the body has lost.”

She didn't cover up the symptom. She went to the root.
She gave the body what it needed to recover. And to not fall ill again.
And she didn't even know she was doing it. She just did it.

And that's when I saw it. Nobody was doing what my mother did.

Not the doctor. Not the natural therapists. Not me.
Everyone covering up the symptom. No one going to the root.

But realising this didn't make me better.
The polyps were still there. And everything else, too.

There was nobody left for me to turn to. Only me.
So, for the first time, instead of looking for someone to make me better, I decided to understand it myself.

Carmem Carvalho absorbed in clinical literature — the study of her own case, with the urgency of someone who needs to save herself

So I had to become my own patient.

I spent my nights with the table covered in books. I studied by day and by night.
Underlining, taking notes, cross-referencing one thing with another.

Clinical literature, studies nobody had ever put in front of me.
This isn't something you learn in a weekend.

It wasn't a miracle. Nor one of those videos that promise to fix you in a week.
It took months. It took years.
But for the first time, I began to understand what was happening to me.

So I went off to train properly. Above all, so that I could do it with other people.
Every piece I had been missing myself, I went and filled in.

My training
An antique brass magnifying glass over a split pomegranate — the cell, where everything begins, a symbol of bio-orthomolecular medicine

Bio-Orthomolecular Medicine and Cellular Nutrition

Restoring health from the cell, with food as medicine.

Universidad Helio Alonso · Rio de Janeiro · 2019

Light passing through a cut crystal over an open hand — the connection between what you feel and what hurts, a symbol of psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Because what you feel ends up taking its toll on the body too.

IPCDB-Fatao Nacional · Brazil · 2021

A glass jar with white roots growing in water — the hidden ecosystem that sustains everything, a symbol of the gut microbiome

Microbiome and Gut Health

Repairing the gut, where almost everything begins.

Instituto Avanzado de Salud · Madrid · 2023

An apothecary's brass balance with astragalus root on the pan, beside ceramic bowls of goji berries, liquorice and cinnamon — the right measure of the ancient, a symbol of traditional Chinese medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Understanding the body as a whole, not as separate parts.

Escuela Internacional de Terapias Integrativas · Santa Cruz de Tenerife · 2024

Carmem receiving her clinical acupuncture certificate alongside her trainer — a symbol of acupuncture and manual therapy

Clinical Acupuncture and Manual Therapy

Calming the nervous system, the piece that closes the circle.

Istant Wellness System · Tenerife · 2025

I came out of it with something I hadn't had when I started. A method of my own.

I was no longer looking for help. I had it.

Carmem Carvalho seeing a patient in her practice, in a green velvet wing armchair — a vocation found, the method applied case by case

Today I do with other people what I learned on myself.

When someone sits down in my practice for the first time, I don't watch the clock.
The first session lasts as long as it takes. Three hours. Four.
Because a case can't be understood in a hurry.

First, where it comes from. Only then, the solution.
And since no two people are the same, no two protocols are either.

If you've got this far, it's because something I've told you sounds familiar.
You're where I was.

I'm well now. But it wasn't quick, or easy, and I did it alone, blind, for years.
With what I know today, it would have taken far less.

That's why I do this. So that you don't get lost the way I did.

Now there are two paths in front of you.

A middle-aged woman, alone and tired in her kitchen, facing another handful of supplements and another diet — the path of carrying on as you are

Carrying on as you are

Another supplement. Another diet. Another five-minute appointment.
And staying where you are, wasting time.

Because what you have, today, is still a signal. If you let it pass, it could end up as something serious.

Carmem and a woman sitting face to face in two green armchairs, in a warm, unhurried consulting room — the path of understanding where your discomfort comes from, with company

Finally understanding where it comes from

Sit down once. Look at your case in depth, without rushing.
Leave with a plan designed only for you.

It's what got me out of that. And what I do today with anyone who arrives the way I did.

I work with few people at a time, because each case takes hours.

Tell me about your case

The first call is free and with no obligation.