Never Fear Breast Cancer Again

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to “Mastering the Meno(Pause) Transition” Summit. I’m your host, Dr. Sharon Stills. I am excited to be here with you today. We are talking about a very important topic. And so often we think of menopause and we just think of hot flashes and our hormones, but we need to be thinking big picture, as we’ve been doing all throughout the Summit. And today, we’re gonna be talking about breast cancer which is something that is important and relevant and what I want you to be educated on. Not to fear, but to be educated, so you know how to prevent and what to do if you were to get a diagnosis. So I invited my dear friend and colleague, Dr. V, to discuss with me today and you, to educate you. She is the founder of the Breast Cancer Conqueror. So there you go for empowerment around breast cancer and also the 7 Essential System. And she’s the co-founder of My Breast Friend, which I love that name, which we’re gonna talk about what exactly that is today ’cause that’s something you’re going to want to know about. She is a Bioenergetic Chiropractor by profession and she’s personally conquered breast cancer, not once, but twice. She has a best-selling book called, “Heal Breast Cancer Naturally.” She’s, oh, there it is. She’s featured all over the media with her wisdom. She’s a guest contributor to many frequent media outlets and today, we are gonna talk and learn from her. So welcome, Dr. V, to the Summit. It’s a pleasure to have you here.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Thank you so much for inviting me on your Summit and sharing my message of hope with your community.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And right off the bat, I think because that’s such a big thing when I work with breast cancer patients and they recover, there’s that fear and is it gonna come back. And here you’ve conquered it twice, so I’d love if you just start off telling us about your history, ’cause I know you’re a chiropractor and a bioenergetic one at that. I’d love for you to explain that ’cause many listeners might not know what that means. That’s not a commonly term associated with chiropractic. And then just tell us your very inspiring journey.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Well, thanks. Thanks so much. Yeah, biogenetic chiropractic basically, it goes beyond just the spinal structural pain relief, but it looks at the whole body. I did a lot of bioenergetic testing when I was in my practice to be able to balance the meridians and really go deep into the root cause of what was happening in my patients. But my journey with cancer just started. I was 23 years in practice and was doing a breast exam in the shower and, bam, felt that lump that changed the course of my life forever. I mean, professionally and personally. And it was one of those things. Here I was Dr. V, the wellness warrior, and how could something like that happen to me, right? How could I get sick? I’m doing everything right, so I thought. So I had to do a lot of soul searching and really try to figure out, put the pieces of the puzzle together. What was I missing? I mean, I breastfed my kids, had home births, was under chiropractic care. 

I mean, I was just a very healthy person, or so I thought. And cancer came knocking on my door and so I had to really understand, and I knew that cancer was just the tip of the iceberg but there was a bigger root cause behind it. So as I was going through that first healing journey, I was kind of all over the map. I mean, I knew basically what to do to heal my body, but I felt like I needed a process and so I just literally sat down with a pen and a pad and said, “Okay, what are the steps that I need to take “in order to really heal fully?” And it was like a download. It was like, “Okay, bam, seven steps. Here you go.” You know, the 7 Essential System? So I started, two years later, I’m doing well, happy and healthy again, and started sharing my healing journey online. And one thing led to another. Now we’ve coached women in 60 countries and I wrote a book and we’ve supported a lot of women through this. 

But the interesting thing, how did I develop cancer again a second time if I was doing everything right the second time? And so basically, I was so engrossed in helping these women with breast cancer. I mean, I was working from sun up to sun down and I was doing one-on-one coaching, I was going through hormonal changes, I had some cavitation, I had some cavitation issues, I had a thyroid issue, wasn’t sleeping well, I was stressed out, and I created the perfect storm for cancer to show up a second time. That was 2015. And talk about a slap in the face and really feeling almost like a hypocrite. How could I be the Breast Cancer Conqueror and I’ve got cancer again? So that was tough, you know? I kept it in the down low. I did not share it with anybody, except for my close friends and family. But I went to work and for three years, I worked very hard at it and I knew one day I’d be able to come out on the other side and say, “Hey, this works. “It really does, if you do the work.” And there was a lot of work involved, but I got through it. And that was 2018. Everything was clear and I’ve been happier and healthier since.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mmm. Well, I’m happy to hear that and so happy to hear your story, because I think that this is something that I find when I’m working with patients dealing with cancer, that when they get cured and they’re on the other side, that often they forget that they still have to work on their health. And I’ve seen it one too many times where they fall off the wagon, they leave the train, they jump off at the station, and then whether it be two years or five years or eight years later, the cancer returns because they weren’t paying attention to their home. And the cancer was like, “Oh, this looks like a good place to set up shop again.” And so that’s such a good reminder. Not that you need to live in fear of cancer returning, but that you always have to be taking care of your body. It’s a-

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Absolutely.

Dr. Sharon Stills

It’s a full-time job.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Its it. It is, you know? And you brought up a good point there, Dr. Sharon, is that I think a lot of women put a lot of stock in, “You are cancer free,” you know? When they’re doctors tell them, “Oh, your blood test looks good. “There’s nothing on your scan. “You’re cancer free. Go live your life. “Don’t worry.” But it’s really a disservice, because they’re not telling them that there’s circulating tumor cells or there’s breast cancer stem cells that are more resistant perhaps as a result of some of the treatments that they’ve done. And so you really have to be vigilant and keep testing and staying on top of your health, going forward.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm-hmm. I had a patient just yesterday who has actually appendix cancer, which is a very rare cancer.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Wow. Rare.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And he’s going in for a surgery. They saw a lymph node that looks cancerous and they said, “If it’s just that lymph node, “we’ll remove it and you’ll be free of cancer.” And I said, “Well, that’s where our work really is gonna begin “because now we have to take care of your terrain “and balance you “and make sure that cancer doesn’t wanna come back.” And so it is a very different way, a different paradigm of looking at cancer. And so your 7 Essential System, I know I wanna know and I’m sure everyone else does. Can you take us through it?

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Sure. All right. So we’ll start with number one and feel free to jump in and interrupt or whatever. But Essential number one is let food be your medicine. And I’m sure your audience is very familiar. There’s so much information on good eating. To put it simply, you’re organic as much as you can and raw 80% of the time, if you can. Clean, lots of veggies, minimal fruits. I don’t recommend grains or carbohydrates. Clean protein, if you choose protein. And there’s no cookie cutter diet. There’s no, it’s only plant-based or it’s only meat-based. We’re all bio-individuals and so we always recommend to our clients to do testing, like the nutrition genome, for example, which will look at your genetic snips and weaknesses so you know how to best support your body nutritionally.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hmm. Yeah. I love that. And I agree. Some patients do really well on a keto diet and some do well on a vegan diet and sometimes it changes as their metabolism is changing. And so, but organic, eating clean, those are things that go across the board. You can’t go wrong. I’ve been doing a lot of glyphosate testing on patients.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Oh yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And I see pretty consistently if someone has been eating an organic diet predominantly. Their glyphosate levels are much lower than someone who has not been following an organic diet. So it really does make a difference.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Absolutely. All right. Essential number two is to reduce your toxic exposure. Speaking of glyphosates. I mean, we live in a toxic world. We can’t live in a bubble. But there’s a lot of things that we can do to reduce our exposure. So look at your environment from a macro level. Look at what you’ve put out in your yard as far as fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, that sort of thing. Change those because you can use organic and biodegradable things. Vinegar will get rid of weeds, something as simple as that. And then bring that inside your home and look at what’s happening in your home. Are you using artificial candles and artificial sprays and cleaning with toxic substances? You know, there’s over 150 chemicals in the cleaning agents that can cause breast cancer. 

So you have to be very, very careful about what you’re doing. And it’s so easy now. I mean, you can go to the local grocery store and find whatever you need that’s non-toxic. So it’s much easier than it was 20, 30 years ago. And then bring it in to the micro level. What are you putting on your skin? Because everything you put on your skin is being absorbed directly into your bloodstream. So there’s great websites like, the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org, where you can look up your cosmetics and your sunscreens and your shampoos to see where they are on the toxicity scale and start replacing them with things that are less toxic. Because so many of the chemicals that we’re exposed to, and this is very important for breast cancer, are hormone disruptors. And they’re called xenoestrogens or foreign estrogens, chemical estrogens. So plastics, BPAs, all this stuff that’s in the cosmetics and lotions and all of that, those things can overload the body with those aggressive chemical estrogens which can trigger some cancer.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yeah, it’s so important. And that’s something, ladies, we really have control over. We can really control what we’re doing in our yards and in our homes and in our bodies. And it’s one of your top 7 Essentials and I see it all the time. It’s one of the first things when someone has a cancer diagnosis, it’s like, okay, we need to look at the toxicity that’s in your body. And so it’s such an opportunity. If you don’t have breast cancer, if you’re not worried about breast cancer, that’s fantastic, but to detox your life at any time preventatively is always such a empowering step to take towards creating health and healthy aging.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Yes. And the good news is even if we’re exposed, as clean as we try to be, we’re still exposed, because of the environment, you can do things like sweating, you know? There was a study, they called it The BUS Study, where they looked at blood, urine and saliva, and they found that sweat contained the highest levels of environmental chemicals and heavy metals. And so get a sauna, get a Biomat, run outside and get a sweat going on. Really get your body going and do some dry skin brushing, coffee enemas. I mean, colon cleanses, liver cleanses. There’s a lot of things that you can do to really clean that toxicity out of your body.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yeah. I think sweat is the best prescription you can get. I think you have to get your sweat on every day. And you just mentioned coffee enemas and I’m sure some ladies went, “Huh? What? What is that?” So maybe you could just tell a little bit about what that is.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Okay. So a coffee enema is about four cups of a special kind of blonde coffee that is designed specifically for coffee enemas. And you insert it, you lay on the floor, insert it, and you hold it for about 15 to 20 minutes. And you’re not doing it for the purpose of cleaning out your colon, but you’re doing it to stimulate the liver because the phytonutrients in that kind of coffee and the caffeine going through the back door, through the portal vein into the liver, flush out the liver, stimulate the bowel production, increases your glutathione production by 200%. So it’s a great cleanser to really get those chemicals out of your body.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Great. Yeah. My actual first introduction to natural medicine way back in 1989 was from a neighbor who was a colon hydrotherapist who taught me about coffee enemas.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Okay. There you go.

Dr. Sharon Stills

First time, I was like, “Don’t you drink that stuff? “You want me to ?” But it is such a powerful tool and a powerful cleanser. So wonderful. Okay, so we’ve got our diet, we’ve got toxicity. What is Essential number three?

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Is balancing your energy. You know, we are one billionth physical matter. The rest is all energy. So how do we keep that energy balanced? So chiropractic care is extremely important to balance that nerve system, acupuncture to balance the chi energy through those meridians, getting grounded. We’re so removed from the planet, from the earth. We don’t walk barefoot anymore. But getting grounded, looking, getting some sunlight on our body, in our eyes, using things like PEMF mats, pulse electromagnetic frequencies, to get those earth frequencies that we don’t get anymore. Massage, all those things really help to balance our energy. And then most of all, especially since we’re on the topic of hormones and menopause is balancing our hormones. And unfortunately, conventional medicine has really vilified women’s hormones when it comes to breast cancer. 

You’ve got breast cancer, so we’ve gotta shut down your hormones. And don’t do this, don’t eat that, because it’s gonna cause some excessive growth. But we need our hormones for our immune health, for our bone health, for our brain health, everything. And so it’s not your hormones that are causing the cancer, but it’s these chemical estrogens and things in the environment that are triggering it. And then secondly, if you have a genetic weakness that keeps you from metabolizing or methylating your hormones, breaking them down properly so you can excrete them, then it may be a problem because those aggressive estrogens are gonna keep circulating. So find out if you have that methylation issue by working with your doctor, your naturopath, and then reduce your exposure to all these other things that can cause excessive hormones in the body.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I love that you brought up chiropractic and massage and acupuncture, ’cause we haven’t really talked about that a lot and I just came from my chiropractor. I have a massage later on. I think we, as women, have been trained to believe that these body therapies are something you do on your anniversary or on your birthday and they’re not healthcare. And I actually started off before I became a physician, I was a massage therapist.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Oh wow. Okay.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, these are medicines and these are not gifts you give to yourself once or twice a year. These are things that are really important to incorporate. You can see they’re in Dr. V’s. They’re number three in the Essentials. They’re important to incorporate as part of your healthcare plan. So I am always prescribing acupuncture, massage, chiropractic. You can Round Robin them, you can find what works for you. But I’m so glad that you have them in there because I think they’re overlooked so often, even by natural physicians, and they are key because, as you said, what did you say were one billion? What was it?

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Physical matter and the rest is all energy.

Dr. Sharon Stills

That’s significant.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

It’s powerful. Yeah. Pretty powerful, so. And sleep. Sleep is another important part of balancing your energy. And I’m sure you’ve seen this in your practice. So many women postmenopausal have problems with sleep and getting that thyroid balanced and the neurotransmitters and those hormones balanced, the adrenals balanced so that you can get a good night’s sleep because sleep is so restorative.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly. Sleep’s one of the first things I handle with patients because if you’re not sleeping, you’re just not healing. You’re not getting into that parasympathetic mode and you’re just, you’re a fish swimming upstream and making it more difficult.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And it is so true. Okay. So number four.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Four is heal the emotional wounds. So that’s a tough one for most women. And I think if I were to start over with the 7 Essentials, I’d put it as number one. Because you can do all the stuff, right? You can do the pills, the supplements, the this, the therapies, all of that, but if you don’t heal what’s in your heart, if you don’t heal that little girl, that wounded little girl, if you don’t learn to nurture yourself, love yourself, forgive yourself, forgive others. You know, you’ve got that chaotic emotional energy inside of you, that conflicting energy, and that is not conducive to healing. It’s going to suppress your immune system. Read psychoneuroimmunology. Your thoughts affect your nerves and your immune system. And so we always recommend a lot of emotional work. Books to read like Louise Hay, “Heal Your Life,” Joe Dispenza, “You Are The Placebo.” Really believing 1,000% that your body has all the chemistry it needs to heal properly. So there’s lots of emotional work. And things like EFT, EMDR, psychotherapy, whatever it takes to really help alleviate that emotional cancer in the body.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mmm. I think that. I agree that that could easily be number one. And I think, especially with breasts, because breasts are all about femininity and nurturing. And I know I have seen throughout the years, working with so many patients dealing with breast cancer, there can be a lot. I see it a lot happen after women are betrayed, they get cheated on, they get divorced, and then all of a sudden breast cancer develops. I was taught years ago by Dr. Rau over in Switzerland that a theme of breast cancer in women often is they were born to a father who wanted a boy and got a girl, and they’re constantly, and it’s hard to change that.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Or not having disconnects having with your children or your partner. And so there is such a huge emotional theme with all types of cancer, with all types of diseases. Like you said, Louise Hay. I’m always like whatever disease process is going on, it’s like, “Let’s see what Louise has to say about this.”

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Right. Right.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Like, “Oh, it’s spot on.” And sometimes you’re like, “That makes no sense.” But then you can sit with it and breathe into it and sometimes you’re like, “Oh yeah, “I guess that does make sense,” so.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Dr. Sharon Stills

It is super important. And I find, I don’t know what you find, but I find a lot of patients, sometimes they just wanna really focus on the body and they’re willing to take 75 pills or whatever vitamins you wanna give them, but they don’t wanna do the emotional. And then there’s patients who are more, “I wanna do all the emotional work, “but I don’t wanna eat broccoli “and I don’t wanna swallow pills.” And it really is a marriage in healing. You really have to be working in both camps, the body and the mind, ’cause they really are connected.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So number five. What’s number five?

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Number five is to embrace biological dentistry. So what you have in your mouth is going to affect the rest of your body. So if we look at it from a chemical assault, first of all, silver fillings. So those silver fillings are not silver, they’re 50% mercury, and mercury is known as a metalloestrogen, which mimics and stimulates estrogen in the body. And they find high levels of heavy metals in breast tumors when they analyze them. And so those things are very, very toxic. So you want to work with a biological dentist that has been trained in the SMART technique, safe mercury amalgam removal technique, or they’re certified in some technique to make sure that they’re not harming you when they’re doing the drilling and replacing those fillings with things that are compatible and non-toxic. Look at a root canal. 

A root canal is like a dead appendix or dead gallbladder in the body. No matter how aseptic they try to make it, there’s always a pocket of anaerobic bacteria that’s dripping toxicity, weakening your immune system. And so when you work with a biological dentist, you can really clean up your mouth and get rid of those toxins. From a energetic point of view, we’ve talked about acupuncture. So our teeth are connected to all our organs through the acupuncture meridian system. 

And there’s specific meridians that deal with the breast tissue up here. There’s four teeth up here and two down here. And I mean, we see the correlation all the time. Fillings, root canals, cavitation, which is an infection in the bone, on the same side, the breast meridian on that tooth. And I know my experience, same thing. Both up and down breast meridian, and the tumors are on the left breast. So there’s definitely a correlation there. And dental is difficult for people. The price for one thing, ’cause biological dentistry is not cheap. But then the pain and the emotional aspect of going to the dentist, not too many people look forward to that. But I see that every time. When they start working on the dental things and their numbers go down and their health improves. And so it’s a big piece of the puzzle that you really have to focus on.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Ladies, I want you to rewind and listen to that again and again and again, because this needs to be talked about more because it is a huge piece. And when you talk about the price, thinking how many patients I’ve kicked out of my office because they said, “Well, I can’t afford you and the dentist.” And I’ve been like, “Bye, go see the dentist. “I’m not gonna be able to clean up your terrain in your body “until you get rid of the root cause.” And the root canals on those upper molars and the meridian that’s connected is we see it time and time and time again. And that’s why I run thermography scans so I can measure the teeth, and I see it time and time and time again. And it’s one of the criteria we look at in seeing if someone is more worrisome that they’re gonna be developing a breast cancer. So I love that you have your Essentials. I wish everyone. And that’s such a European way of thinking. When I got trained over in Switzerland and Germany early on in my career, that was what they taught me. And I remember I had one of my mentors, Dr. Wertman from Austria, who unfortunately is no longer on the earth plane with us, but he came to my clinic, my little clinic on the island in New York, and saw patients with me. And he’s this big Austrian man and definitely a different vibe than me.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Right.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And he said, “I’m gonna watch you see patients.” And I said, “No. You see the patients. “I wanna learn from you while you’re here.”

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Right.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And patients would come in who had just been given a cancer diagnosis and he would just take out a piece of paper, start drawing their mouth, and I had to kinda talk a lot of them down ’cause they were like, “I thought I was coming to a naturopath “and now I have like seven things to go do at the dentist.” But it really drilled it into me that it is so, so important. And like you said, a lot of us, understandably, we don’t wanna deal with it. We all have not many people like, “Oh, I can’t wait. “I’m going to the dentist. “Gonna be so fun.”

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Right.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Important, important Essential.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Number six now.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Number six has to do with all the therapeutic plants and herbs and supplements that support the healing. So some are basic nutritional things like magnesium, zinc, selenium, vitamin C, vitamin D. Making sure that your vitamin D levels are optimal. And I’m sure you’ve seen this so many times. They’ve been to their oncologist and they say, “Oh, your blood work looks good. Your vitamin D’s fine,” and it’s like 25 or 30. It’s like, “No wonder you have breast cancer,” right?

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

And so those are basic things. And then you get into immune support, immune essentials. So medicinal mushrooms and then high dose vitamin C. And there’s so many things. I’m just kind of going blank right now. But then there’s also the ones that target the cancer specifically. So everything from apricot seeds to wormwood, to special formulas like Artemisinin and wormwood and Poly MVA and Salicinium, all these things. There’s literally hundreds. And when you look at the book, there’s over 700 references to published studies that show how effective so many of these substances are. And so, work with somebody who understands how to put protocols together for you. Because you’ve gotta balance, bring up your immune system, and at the same time you want to effectively kill those cancer cells. And it’s a balancing process.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Well, and I just wanna point out, I hope you all get Dr. V’s book and how this is just one of her Essentials, because I think because of how we’ve thought about medical care, we tend to wanna see someone natural and we just wanna, “What do I need to take? “What herbs do I need to take?” And so I just wanna point out, this is one of seven that she’s talking about, and the other ones are equally, if not more, important. And so we can’t expect to heal ourselves just by- Yes, it’s great to optimize our vitamin D and take all the mushrooms and all the things you’re talking about, but we need to be doing everything. And so I invite you all to step out of that thought process that I just need to find out what I need to take, what herb do I need to take. It’s much more than just taking the right herb.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Absolutely. Yeah. It’s a whole lifestyle change. We tell our clients, it’s not just about getting rid of that lump or the bump, right? It’s about a complete transformation because how you’ve lived your life to this point has allowed cancer to show up in your life. So from this point forward, all of that has to change, every aspect from your food to all of the things that we’ve talked about, the emotions, the how you manage your stress, how you sleep, all of that.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly. And then what is number seven?

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Number seven is very early detection and then always keeping a pulse on your health, right? Through testing, different kinds of tests outside of conventional blood testing. So let’s start with just the typical screening that is recommended by most traditional doctors, is the mammography. Not telling anybody not to get a mammogram. Personally, I’ve never had one. But the studies show us, there’s a 25 year Canadian study on 90,000 women. 25 years and it did not reduce breast cancer mortality rate, not by 1%. And then throw in the mix, the whole issue with breast density and so many times things are missed. By the time they see it on a x-ray, it’s been there for two to eight years. So there’s much more sensitive technology. So thermography is a great tool, as you mentioned, right? It’s not gonna diagnose cancer, but it’s going to show you physiologically what’s happening. Is there inflammation? 

Is there blood flow feeding a tumor? What’s happening in the body? But regardless of which one you choose, always back it up with an ultrasound because that’s another picture. ‘Cause nothing is 100% effective all the time. So use ultrasound. There’s a new kind of ultrasound now called SonoCine, which is like ultrasound on steroids. They do thousands of images. So very, very clear pictures. MRIs of the breast tissue, those are all great. And then looking at your blood work, which doctors like you specialize in, looking at inflammatory markers, your vitamin D levels. Now there’s screening tests that can detect 50 different kinds of cancers just by looking in the blood, the GRAIL test by Galleri. The cancer profile test looks at the hormones that cancer cells give off. There’s the RGCC Test known as the Greece Test, which filters your blood and looks for circulating tumor cells. And so there’s so many great tests out there now that really help you keep a pulse on your health.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hmm. And you are very involved with My Breast Friend, which is-

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Yes!

Dr. Sharon Stills

The best name ever.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Hold on. I forgot to pull it out. Let me get it. Here it is. Here it is.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Awesome. So I’d love if you’d teach us about that and I don’t know if you can do a little demo, but that would be fantastic.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Yeah. So My Breast Friend basically comes from MammaCare, the MammaCare Foundation. It’s a model that was created to train physicians and nurses how to do a proper exam. So the medical model is tan and brown, but the manufacturer of the model asked me to take this to the public so women could learn how to do it. So we made it look pretty. And you can see that there’s little nodes in there. And so there’s a whole training system that shows you where to feel, how to feel, and what to feel for. Because unless you know what a suspicious, hard cancerous node feels like, you don’t know what you’re looking for, ’cause your breasts are lumpy anyway. And the interesting thing is that the average woman who finds a lump is going to find it the size of a ping pong ball. When she’s trained to do a proper exam using this technology, she can find something as small as a pea.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Wow.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

So very, very- It’s very sensitive. It’s a great, great training tool. It comes with a little booklet, with a instructional video. And so we really encourage women because there’s such a thing as an interval cancer and that’s a cancer that appears between year one and year two of screening. So you’ve gone for your mammogram, all clear, so they say. Six months later, eight months later, ooh, you find a bump or something’s not right. And you get an exam and you get an ultrasound, mammogram, and they see that there’s a cancer that’s developed. But if you could do your exams every month, you could notice very subtle changes in your breast tissue and circumvent that possibility of happening instead of relying on a machine. You know, the pads of your fingers are very sensitive and you know your body better than a machine does.

Dr. Sharon Stills

That’s significant, from a ping pong to the size of a pea. And how long does it take for someone to get trained? Is it a long time or is it an hour or two?

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Yeah. I mean, the video’s 20 minutes long and you do the videos a couple of times before you start getting comfortable. You use the model, then you use your breast. And after you’ve done it three, four times, I mean, you get pretty comfortable with how to do it, where to look. And it’s not just the breast tissue. You’ve gotta get into the armpit, the clavicle, down the sternum. So it teaches you a very, very specific way of doing an exam. ‘Cause we’ve never been trained, right? Who teaches us how to do an exam?

Dr. Sharon Stills

No, exactly. And those areas are so important ’cause of the lymphatic flows. And for women, so for women who are watching, who are still getting a cycle, do they do it right after their period? When do you recommend they check?

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Yeah. So if you still have a cycle, right after your period, that’s the best time. And then if you’re post-menopausal, then just mark the calendar, first Saturday of the month or whatever, so that you remember to do them on a monthly basis.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Right. Yeah. It’s so important and such an empowering, empowering step you can take for yourself because I don’t- Do you know the percentage of how many women actually find their own breast cancer by doing self-exams?

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

On average, it’s 60% of women will find the lump either accidentally or by doing an exam. Because a lot of women will just, they’ll lay on something or they’re putting on their bra and they feel something. A lot of times it’s just kind of happenstance, but on average, 60% of the time women will find the lump before their doctor or the machine does.

Dr. Sharon Stills

That’s majorly significant, so to get trained and to really raise that percentage. And really that’s so, so important. And then you mentioned bras. I’m just curious, what you think of bras?

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Well, I try not to wear them at home. I usually wear a sports bra if I’m out and about. But yeah, you don’t wear the underwire bras, that’s for sure, because of the restriction in the lymphatic flow. And wear cotton. Doesn’t have to be tight, can be loose-fitting bras. But one thing that I like to do, there’s an oil called Healthy Girls Breast Oil, and it’s the basis of it is jojoba oil, and it has a lot of essential oils in it. And every night I spray it in my hands and I do a massage up into the lymph. Every night. I can’t say that I don’t miss once in a while, but it’s just a habit that I get into when I put my pajamas on. And it’s so important because you gotta feel those girls and get that lymph moving every day.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Me too, I have my healthy detox deodorant and my breast creams and my patients and exactly. Do I do it every single night? No, sometimes I miss. But it’s part of my, it’s on my nightstand, it’s by my bioidentical hormones. It’s really, really important. And so the other thing I just wanna go back to, I wanna make sure is that you mentioned mammograms and you’ve never had one and I’ve never had one. And yes, we are doctors. We’re not your doctor. We’re not telling you what to do. But the study you brought up is super important. And we know that mammograms are ionizing radiation and they can actually contribute to cancer development. So I hope that you walk away from this. 

If mammograms have been part of your diagnostic care, that you have a wider understanding and you could speak with your physician about, “Well, what about thermography? “What about ultrasounds? What about MRIs?” And I know in the past, when I have done thermographies on patients and I want them to then go get an ultrasound or an MRI, it can be very difficult with insurance. And doctors are like, “Well, I can’t write a script for that.” And so you have to find the right doctors who are gonna work for you, because ultimately, insurance shouldn’t guide your healthcare. Your health and your desires and what you feel is right should guide it. And so finding someone who will work with you on that is super important.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So is there anything else? I just adore you because you just have it all there.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Oh!

Dr. Sharon Stills

And personally, I agree with everything you say, so it’s like, “Oh yeah.” She can-

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Oh, that’s so sweet. Well, thank you. Thank you. That’s very sweet. You know, I think my parting words would be, don’t fear cancer. I know when we think of the words, “You have breast cancer,” right away, the first thing you think of is a balding head and sick and I’m gonna die, right? And we’re really trying to change that because you have a large measure of control of how your body reacts and heals. And there’s a lot of our clients, almost over half of our clients, are doing conventional treatments, but they come to us realizing that, okay, they’re gonna kill the cancer, but they also want to keep their bodies healthy. Their doctor’s gonna give them a treatment plan, but their doctor’s not gonna teach them how to be healthy and how to prevent the cancer from coming back. And so, regardless of which kind of treatments you use, recognize that cancer comes and goes and you have a large measure control of the outcome by how you live your life, the food you eat, your thoughts, your stress, your sleep. It’s just, it’s a whole shift in how you’ve lived your life. And so there’s always hope. I mean, we’ve seen stage four cancers and now they’re alive and well, and giving testimonials about how they’ve survived and thrived. So there’s always hope.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly. There is definitely, always hope. And I love that you brought that up because it is a fine line between being proactive and not crossing over into fear, which just automatically is such a big immune suppressor, that emotion, and really managing that. And I too have worked with women who have chosen to go totally natural, don’t do chemo, don’t do radiation, and we get amazing results, and women who choose to do more conventional and have me supplement. And a lot of times they’ll ask me, “Dr. Stills, what should I do?” And at the end of the day, I mean, I know what I prefer internally as a physician, but at the end of the day, you have to make that decision. And I say, “You have to, “when you lie your head down on the pillow “to sleep at night, if you’ve chosen to do chemo, let’s say, “then you have to believe in your choice “and what happens and what the outcome is, “you have to be okay with. “And the same goes if you’ve chosen not to.

 “If you lie your head down every night and you’re thinking, “‘Oh my God, I didn’t do chemo and now I’m gonna die.’ “That’s just as harmful.” And so you have to really feel good. Do your research. Breast cancer is rarely an emergency, and so when you get a diagnosis, take the time, read Dr. V’s book, do your research, talk to different people so that you can make a decision that really works for you. That when you lie down at night, you feel good knowing you’ve made the best decision that you feel, and the outcome will be what the outcome will be, but that you feel good about it. And don’t let anyone pressure you. I have sometimes accompanied patients to the oncologist’s office and it’s crazy what goes on in there. Because I find myself listening to them going like, “Oh my God, we better do the chemo.” And they go, “Wait a second! Wait a second!” They just scare you. And so bring someone with you, have an advocate, don’t be scared, and take your time making the choice that’s gonna work for you.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So I’ve been asked. Everyone has been so generous in giving free gifts to the audience, they’re gonna be very busy learning. And I know you have a free gift. Could you just tell us a little bit about it?

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Yes. It’s the first couple of chapters of my new book and second edition of my book. And we’ll post the link. We’ll send you the link. And so you just put your name in and we’ll send you a PDF.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Fantastic. And that book, I’m assuming, it’s available on Amazon.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

It is, yeah. “Heal Breast Cancer Naturally.” Yeah, available on Amazon and…

Dr. Sharon Stills

A good one to have on everyone’s shelf. A good one to buy for your girlfriends or your daughters or your-

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

That’s right.

Dr. Sharon Stills

The more we educate and learn, the more we change the paradigm. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking time to be with us and share your amazing, encompassing wisdom with the ladies. I appreciate it.

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

Thank you, Dr. Sharon. Thanks for all you do as well. Your wisdom and all the women that you’re supporting as well. Thanks for all you do.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Thank you. And thank you to everyone being here. I told you this was gonna be a good one. You’re gonna wanna listen to this one again. A lot of times I say in our interviews, “You pull out one little nugget,” but you’ve got seven really big, important nuggets here that apply to “Mastering Your Meno Transition,” apply to being healthy. So enjoy. Enjoy. And we’ll be back soon with another interview. Till then, be well.