The Truth About Bioidentical Hormone Therapy

Welcome to Day Two and Hormone Overview 0:00

Hello and welcome back to day two of Mastering the Menopause Transition Summit. I hope you loved yesterday as much as I did. And I'm kicking off today. We've got another amazing chock full day for you. But today I want to have my morning talk with you about hormones. Because, let's face it, what's going on in menopause? Your hormones are cliff diving. They're jumping off a cliff. Sometimes they're skiing, so it's more gradual. But the end result, no matter what, is that your hormones are all crashing.

Your progesterone, your estrogen, your testosterone, your DHEA, perhaps your oxytocin, your growth hormone, your thyroid, your adrenals. We'll get into that in other days. I want to kind of stay focused right now for this morning, chat about the sex hormones, about your progesterone, your estrogen, your testosterone, because there's so much noise out there about how to take your hormones, when to take your hormones, not to take your hormones, why you take your hormones.

Why Hormone Testing Matters 1:18

And I just want to set the record straight. After 23 years in practice, I know a few things about hormones, and I have thousands and tens of thousands of patients and women I have helped, whether it's one on one in my practice or through the summit or in an online class I teach, or through my test plus consult, which you'll learn about after the summit. But it gives you an opportunity to work with me one on one to find out about your hormone levels. So let's just talk about some of the most important things.

Number one, testing the way you have your hormones tested is so important because we have to test. We cannot guess, especially when it comes to hormones. There's no way to know how your hormones are metabolized, knowing which kind of estrogens you're making and what your levels are. Without testing, we can guess, okay, you're having hot flashes. Your estrogen is low, or you're not sleeping, your progesterone is low or you have no sex drive. Your testosterone is low. So or whether your testosterone is low.

So we have to test. And what's the standard out there is not the gold standard. Most doctors are just testing your levels in blood. And there's a lot of problems with that, because that is just a millisecond of what's going on in your serum. It has nothing to do with what's happening at the receptor site, with how you're metabolizing, with what's happening over the course of a day. And so as you're going to learn, if you hang around with me, the gold standard way of testing is 24 hour hormone urine testing.

It is the only way you can't see in blood accurate what your real levels are, what your two methoxy estradiol levels are, what your 216 ratio is, what your four hydroxy Astron is, and these are all very important for different reasons. Your four hydroxy estrogen is the metabolite that is most closely associated with DNA damage. It's considered to be carcinogenic. So when you hear estrogen causes cancer, well, that's like an itty bitty part of the story.

Understanding Estrogen Metabolites and Cancer Risk 3:34

Yes, there are certain Metab lights that are more proliferative, but there are other metabolites like two methoxy estradiol, which are anti-cancer, which I use to treat cancer to prevent recurrence of cancer, to prevent cancer. And so it's very lazy medicine when someone just says estrogen causes cancer, that is not true. And so it's really important to understand what your body is doing. Some women, they lose their testosterone first. Other women they lose it last. So when you need to be supplemented is very different for every woman.

If you're carrying around some extra pounds, which we've got answers for you at this summit, but you may be aromatase in converting into estrogen in the fatty tissue, and that estrogen is a proliferative estrogen. Estrogen, it's E1 and we don't want a lot of that type of estrogen. We want E2 which is estradiol in combination with E3 which is real, which is anti-cancer anti proliferator. So if you're just taking a patch and you're only getting estradiol, chances are you're not metabolizing to. But maybe you are.

And that's why we need to 24 hour urine test. It's so so important. I have done this with so many women. And I can tell you, for example, most women on an estradiol patch are not converting maybe out of 100 women to are. So it's really important to know if you're in that two or if you need to change the way you're taking your estrogen, or add in the way you're taking your estrogen. So it's a symphony and we want the or we want the hormones just like we want the symphony. We want the wood strings and the percussion all to play beautifully together.

So testing, not guessing and testing the correct way. If you test in saliva and you're on hormones, it is not an accurate way to check your hormones. You will have elevated levels and then your doctor will tell you you need to reduce your progesterone, but really you don't. And then you start feeling good and then you start feeling bad because you reduced something you shouldn't have reduced because the test gave you inaccurate information.

Bioidentical Hormones, Delivery Methods, and Pellets 5:57

So I am a stickler for how I test things. Yes, I test cortisol in the saliva. We'll talk about that in another day, I promise. Adrenals are important, but hormones in the urine. How we take it. So using creams, properly compounded creams. I didn't say it to start, but I'm always, always talking about bioidentical hormones. If you're going to get synthetic hormones, don't take hormones. You need to find a doctor who works with bioidentical that is identical to what your body produces. So when they get to the receptor site, the receptor site goes, oh, I recognize this, I know this hormone.

I will let you in. Not oh my gosh, what is this weird molecule? And then you get all these side effects. So also pellets are a no no. Out of the tens of thousands of women I've seen, I've literally seen like maybe 1 or 2 women who were on pellets. And we're not testosterone toxic or estrogen toxic or liver overloaded. So I am not a fan of pellets. I'm a fan of creams applied correctly. I'm a fan of proper testing and why? Why hormones? And so a lot of times you'll hear, well, you got to get your diet together, you got to be exercising.

Like all these things are really important before you do hormones. But we forget that our hormones are not just about getting rid of hot flashes. Our hormones are intimately related in our blood sugar, in our blood sugar regulation, in our brain health, in our sleep wake cycle, in our bone health, in our cardio vascular health, in our breast health and our our urinary health, it would be easier for me to just say, your hormones are intimately involved in every system in your body. And so yes, yes, yes, yes, it is important to eat right.

You're going to see through this summer. You already started to see yesterday. It is not just about taking hormones. You have to do all the things right. I want you to put hormones into a healthy health. I want you to put hormones into a happy, healthy, balanced terrain. However, you can't eat your way or supplement your way, or sleep your way or move your way out of low hormones. Taking the hormones is natural. Taking an herb is not natural. Your body is not mocha deficient. Your body is estrogen deficient.

So the way I look at things, we replace the hormones

How Hormones Affect Whole-Body Health 8:51

with like a handshake that you are not going to replace the hormones and then go to McDonald's, that you're going to get on board, that you're going to prioritize your health. But we replace the hormones and then we tidy up all the other things. We support the liver, we get the lymph flowing, we prioritize protein. We prioritize your bedtime. We prioritize relationship to self and to others and to community and to nature. We do all the things, but when you have your hormones replenished, then you can think straight.

Then you can sleep up, then you have more energy and so it enables you then to get to the gym to not make stressed out poor choices. When you open the fridge. And so balancing your hormones is crucial in how you will live this next stage of your life. And finding someone like myself who is an expert, who has been there because I have learned this over trial and error. For instance, progesterone don't just take cream or just don't take capsule. You've got to take both. They have very different mechanisms of action in the body.

Progesterone capsule across the blood brain barrier will metabolize down to alo pregnant alone and will then affect Gabba. Gabba is our main inhibitory which means quieting chilling, neurotransmitter in our brain. And it can help us sleep. So that's capsules. But the cream applied properly to the external labia helps with our bone health, helps with our breast health, helps with our uterus, helps with our blood sugar, etc., etc. our immune function. So this is something I didn't know when I first started practicing, but you're getting the the benefit of me having done this for so many years, and now I've got it nailed down.

It's like now when a patient comes in, for the most part, 90% of my patients, I can get their hormones balanced within 3 to 4 weeks, get them feeling great, get the symptoms gone, and most importantly, get the prevention on board. Because yes, of course, of course. I want you to feel good. I don't want you sweating. I don't want you crying. I don't want you snapping. I don't want you feeling like garbage. I want you feeling good. But I want the benefits of what the hormones are going to do to prevent Alzheimer's, to prevent cardiovascular issues,

Progesterone Forms and Their Benefits 11:21

to prevent osteoporosis, to prevent immune dysregulation and autoimmune disease, to prevent cancer, and so on and so on and so I always people say doctor stills, how long do I have to take my hormones for? And I say, for as long as you want to feel good and get all the preventative effects. I've had a couple of patients throughout the years who've been like, all right, I don't want to do this. I'm tired of rubbing creams on my hoo ha, and I don't want to spend the money anymore. I'm stopping and I'm like, all right, it's not advised, but you'll hear me say it a lot. You do. You read? I'm just here to guide you.

I'm not here to, you know, whip you into submission. I'm just here to share my knowledge and my experience both times. They came back within six months and went, oh, yeah, that was a bad idea. Give me back those hormones, please. And of course, it's never too late. And it's never too early. I love last year at the summit, I had so many women who were not in menopause, but they were in their late 30s, early 40s, and they were like, I want to get it together right. I want to have a great menopausal transition.

And I know starting now, pre gaming as I say, is the key to that. So it doesn't matter what your age. Share this with all your ladies in your life your daughters, your nieces, your granddaughters, your sisters, your mothers, your coworkers, your neighbors, your friends, etc. because we are being misled. We are being told bioidentical hormone replacement causes cancer. It's not safe, it's not natural, it's not necessary. And all of that couldn't be further from the truth. So I want you to balance your hormones and I feel better now.

Honestly, post-menopausal, than I did when I was cycling,

Long-Term Hormone Balance and Summit Wrap-Up 13:12

because now I'm stable, my men up, my hormones are happy. They're in a great range, my metabolites are balanced and I can get on with it. None of this up and down and roller coaster madness. And believe me, I was there. If you listened to my talk yesterday, I told you how I got started and if you didn't, I highly recommend listening to it because I'm no different than you. I'm just a woman. I just happen to be a doctor who specializes in this situation. But I don't have magic powers. I have to work for my health too.

And I can tell you at 56, I feel better today than I felt in my 20s and 30s, and it just keeps getting better. So I hope this has given you some clarity. There's so much to share. You're going to learn a lot during the summit. You're going to launch a lot after the summit because I'm going to keep the party going. There's some fun stuff I do after this summit, so stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy all the talks. Today I have personally hand curated who I interviewed and what we spoke about, and I know this information is going to be life changing for you.

So, just to recap, testing 24 hour urine application, typically creams, but I didn't get into the details. I will say stay tuned. But some are good as sublingual drops, nasal sprays, all the things capsule for progesterone. But it's important you take your hormones the right way. You take them at the right time, and you find someone who understands bioidentical hormones and can help you in your journey. So I love you all already. I'm so excited you're here. I'm so excited to watch your lives change and your hormones to be a big part of that.