From Hot Flashes To High Peaks: Thriving In Menopause

Summit Wrap-Up and Opening Reflections 0:00

Hello, ladies. Dr. Sharon Stills here. Oh my gosh, it's day seven. It has just been. Phenomenal spending these last days with you. And I am just so excited. It's like I gave birth to this summit. It truly is a labor of love. And it truly is like giving birth to like, quintuplets. Although that's what I say about my upcoming clinic that is opening up in March of 2025, in Scottsdale, Arizona. We'll talk about that in a second. But I just. Wanted to kind of sum. Up things for you. I want to talk about how you the title of the summit is Mastering the Menopause Transition.

And it's like, how are you going to master your menopause transition? You've heard so much information, your head is probably spinning, and I'm here to really be a guide and help you through it all. So I just want to go over some highlights and things that I think are going to be of extreme importance to you. So evaluations when it comes to testing, as I discussed, earlier on in the week, but maybe you missed that. it's really important to have a 24 hour urine test, not a dried urine test like the popular ones out there.

Testing and Hormone Evaluation 1:33

An actual 24 hour urine collection. And if you stay tuned, post summit party, I'm going to give you an opportunity to get one and have it reviewed by me with you so you can really understand your hormones. This is not a time to guess. This is a time to. Test. Assess, and understand so you can get the best proper care. And so you don't want to be working with anyone who is giving you pellets or oral estrogens that causes inflammation. The pellets overdose you. They stress your entire system. They stress your liver and your bile.

So you really want to be making sure you're getting the right types of hormones that they're monitored properly. Bloodwork is not acceptable to monitor hormones. You cannot see. Metabolites. It is just a snapshot. So walk away from here going 24 hour urine, complete urine. And blood work. Blood work is really important. For a. Lot of things. When I see my patients, I run close to 6065 levels on them in the blood. It's a lot of tubes. But not it just looks like a lot. But when you donate blood, you actually give a lot more.

And so it's really important. So stay tuned because post summit. There's going to be opportunities to get my blood work list to learn about the blood levels I'm doing to really understand. I love teaching about thyroid. I hopefully you caught my lecture on thyroid earlier in the week, but it's really important to one get the right. Tests. To understand how to interpret them. So you know your doctor actually understands how to interpret them so they can give you the right things that are going to help you feel phenomenal.

And I have patients just over the last week or two, a woman who hasn't slept in 12 years got on her hormones, sleeping like a baby, a 67 year old woman who hasn't had sex in forever feels like she's 40 now. Those were her words and she is raring to go. And she is loving life again. Women who are losing weight, who have more energy, who no longer. Have headaches. Whose joint pain is totally gone, who is not suffering with urinary tract infections anymore, whose hair. And skin looks lovely, who's not.

Thyroid, Symptoms, and Patient Care 3:56

Having mood swings. All of these things. That may be troubling you and so many others that I'm not mentioning, can all be helped. You do not have to suffer during this time. If you take nothing else, just the knowledge and the understanding that suffering is not necessary. During this time I've been helping women for 23 years and with the proper testing, the proper application of hormones, you truly can feel your best. I am 56, I am eight years post menopause and I feel better now than I did in my 20s and my teens.

Absolutely. By my early 30s I was a physician and I got on board with hormones and changed my horrible hormone picture of the worst PMS ever to feeling great to when I went through menopause. I never even had a hot flash. So no matter where you are, if you're watching because you want to be pre preemptive and you want to be in prevention mode, phenomenal. If you're in the throes of hot flashes and feeling like crap, it's fine. If you are post menopause by 15 years and you're not really. Having hot flashes or struggling anymore, there's still so.

Much can be done for you. Remember, symptoms are sacred messengers from the body. They are the body whispering, saying. Hello, hello. There's something out of whack here. Hot flashes or the hypothalamus saying there's no estrogen. I can't control your temperature. And so we want to listen to our symptoms. Speaking of that, I just want to throw in something about being a patient and understanding what it means to be on a health journey. So many patients come to me. They fly in from all over. And for the first appointment, I need an hour at.

Least to just take the case. So just understand you from your hobbies to your past medical history to your family's history, to symptoms you're having, to surgeries you've had to your dental history, to your exercise history, to your diet. There's so many things about you that. I need to learn to help you as a physician. Because you deserve. To be treated like a whole being on every level mental, emotional, spiritual. Physical. And so you really want to find someone who listens, who takes. The time to be with you.

And so don't be so concerned. About bringing stacks of past medical records, because I want to meet you right where you are today. We can always look at past medical records, and we're certainly going to need new medical records. But I don't want you to discount. I want you whether you. Come and see me or you go see someone else. That's totally fine.

Natural Hormone Therapy and Whole-Body Health 6:59

But I just. Want you to find someone who cares, who listens, who has. An open mind, who wants to hear your story, and who wants to be a guide and work with you as a teammate. No more of this doctor on the pedestal, and you just do what they say. You want someone who's going to work with you and understand where you're at. That is so, so, so important and so I hope that you have like a little bit of an understanding. Of. You know, blood work, 24 hour urine. Testing, stool testing to look at your microbiome, urinary testing to look at your toxic lewd saliva testing to look at your cortisol.

These are some iodine pre and post iodine testing. These are some really important tests for. Getting a good understanding of what's going on in your endocrine, your hormonal system that are just going to help you get balanced and help you feel amazing. Remember the menopause transition is not a deficiency of anxiety meds or sleeping meds. It's a deficiency of hormones. And so a lot of people want to do things naturally. Don't get more natural than me. I'm a naturopathic doctor. I am all about natural.

I truly practice what I preach and. Replacing hormones. Bioidentical is the best natural thing you can do for yourself during this time. All the chatter out there that hormones are dangerous, they cause cancer. Hopefully, after listening to. A lot of the interviews, you realize that we were snowed. We had a bad study that the media blew up over 20 years ago, and women were gaslit and they were mis properly treated. And a lot of women have suffered for no reason at all other than doctors just ran with this poor information and wouldn't give women hormones.

And so I'm so grateful that you're here today, that you are learning, and that you are taking this opportunity to make your hormonal journey no matter where you are in it, a healthy one, a natural one, and that you understand that just taking hormones is and I always say there's no magic bullet. Patients come to me, doc. Stills, you know, what's the one vitamin I can take? What's the herb? What's the magic food I can eat? And unfortunately, medicine doesn't really work like that. I wish it did. It would be a lot easier.

but it's. Always. Multifactorial. But the truth is. Hormones are like the closest. Thing. They're the closest thing to a magic bullet. But if I'm putting a patient on hormones, we're doing the magic handshake, and we're saying, yes, I'm going to take the hormones because I know they're going to make me feel fantastic. But I'm also committed to my entire terrain, to having a healthy lifestyle, to eating the best diet I can eat, to getting rid of the seed oils, to eating organic, to optimizing my protein to make sure I am absorbing my protein.

I see that so frequently women are eating the right things, but then they're not absorbing it that I'm going to. Commit to sleep. And movement and purpose, and that I'm going to. Really pause and evaluate my life, and I'm going to have a. Plan. For detoxifying. I'm going to. Have a plan for monitoring my health. I'm going to be preventive. I'm not going to wait till something happens. I'm going to take charge, and I'm going to do all the things

Purpose, Prevention, and the Next Chapter 10:49

I can do, because I promise you, when you take charge and you start. To live a healthy lifestyle, it just you feel so much. Better and you have so much more energy and then you can get into your purpose. Every one of. You. Is a unique, amazing butterfly unicorn. Being a goddess. However you want to think of yourself and you all have a gift to give and everyone's gifts. Some people have a huge give, some people have smaller purposes, but each one is equally important. Your gift may be to clean. Up your community, to start a community garden or your gift may.

Be to change a million lives with a book. You're going to write or anything in between. Your gift may just be to show your family how to be the best wife, mother, grandmother, sister, cousin, auntie. It doesn't matter how big, how small, it's all important. It's just clearing your physical bodies so you feel good. So the the noise is gone, so you can get in touch with what's important to you and what's important to you may be. Different from year to year, decade to decade. I know for me it is. I know this last decade.

It was really important for me to. Exhale, to change the way I was. Living, because I was coming off of running a huge. Practice, putting myself through medical school, raising two boys, and I needed an exhale. And now the fire's back in my belly. And if you haven't heard, I'm opening a. 7000 square foot clinic in Scottsdale. I'm getting out of my daily pajamas. And I'm being called to service because. Cancer rates are going up, autoimmune rates are going up, mitochondrial dysfunction and chronic fatigue is going up.

And I want to help on a deeper level. I want to have. A place. Where you can come, where you can get the right diagnostics, where you can get the right therapeutic tools, and you can feel heard and safe and you can heal. So that's my next mission of the next decade. After that decade. Who knows? Stay tuned and we'll find out. And so I want that for you. If you didn't know, I climbed Kilimanjaro to celebrate my menopause transition, and I literally stood at the top. We summited a year to the day from my last menstrual cycle.

So that's the official definition of menopause. And I did that to remind myself that menopause is just the beginning. If I can climb the highest freestanding. Mountain and stand on top of it. And say, menopause, I'm coming for. You, I'm excited. This is a brilliant. Time in my life. You can do it too. So I ask of you. What's your Kilimanjaro? Doesn't have to be climbing Kilimanjaro. What's your Kilimanjaro? What's your change? You're going to me. I hope this summit has been an opening. A new way of looking at your health.

A new way of looking at how you are in the world and how you are with others, and how you view the aging process because it truly is a privilege. It has been my privilege to be here with you, and I am excited to see where our journey takes us. So it may be the last. Day, but often we saved the. Best for last. So enjoy. Joy. Enjoy, enjoy the talks today and See you see with the live Q&A coming up next week. Deep gratitude bow, I vow so deeply to you all. Thank you for being here and for taking this step to make your health more vibrant.