Your Joyful Order With Leslie Martinez
Ever wish you had your own personal cheerleader or coach in your ear, whispering encouraging words? Telling you how to kick butt in life, plus showing you how to get there? That’s exactly what you’ll get when you tune into Your Joyful Order Podcast. Each week you’ll get a mixture of preaching and teaching from your host Leslie Martinez who is a Certified Life Coach, Business Owner, Wife and Mom. Listen along for some entertaining real talk about life, business and relationships. Leslie wants to help you to reach your goals and motivate you to live out your God given purpose, by bringing you insightful knowledge, resources and sharing some tips and tricks to take action. No topic is off the table here, just know that faith will always be the foundation of our conversations and an occasional kick in the butt might come in the most loving way! Get ready to take your life to the next level and learn how to chase joy!
Your Joyful Order With Leslie Martinez
#109- Hormones, Health & Happiness-What Every Woman Should Know Part 2
When your brain feels like it's short-circuiting and your body seems to have a mind of its own, you're not losing your sanity—you might be experiencing perimenopause. In this raw, unfiltered follow-up episode, I dive deeper into the hormone changes that affect millions of women but remain widely misunderstood and poorly addressed by healthcare providers.
Fresh from my own doctor's appointment, I share my personal hormone panel results and what they actually mean. Did you know that when your FSH level climbs above 30, it signals your body is desperately trying to stimulate estrogen production but struggling to do so? Or that during perimenopause, your hormone fluctuations are ten times more dramatic than what you experienced during puberty? These wild hormonal swings explain the brain fog, rage, depression, and physical changes that make you feel like you're losing yourself.
I walk you through my decision to start Hormone Replacement Therapy, debunk outdated myths about HRT and cancer risk, and share practical strategies that have helped me manage symptoms—from collagen supplements to castor oil for skin (yes, really!). Whether you're in the thick of perimenopause yourself or supporting someone who is, this episode provides the knowledge to advocate effectively for proper care.
Text me your questions for next month's interview with a hormone specialist! Together, we'll navigate this challenging transition with greater understanding, faith, and the determination to reclaim our wellbeing.
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Email: lmartinez@yourjoyfulorder.com
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Hey everyone, I'm Leslie Martinez and you're listening to your Joyful Order podcast. Each week I will bring you joyful stories that will motivate and inspire you and, at the same time, bring order to your everyday life. Let's just say the show will be a mixture of preaching and teaching, with a kick of motivation from your girl here. Welcome to your Joyful Order podcast.
Speaker 2:Hey friend, welcome back to another episode. Today we're going deeper into the talk about hormones Hormones, health and happiness what every woman should know. If you didn't listen to part one, go back episode number 108, part one. I do kind of like an introduction, talking about a couple of things like symptoms of perimenopause, also how to advocate for yourself going into perimenopause, some things to expect while going through menopause, some of the challenges that I've been experiencing. And I'm going to be totally honest with y'all.
Speaker 2:I edited that podcast and I was like what the heck? I was kind of all over the place, y'all, and I'm going to tell you why. When I recorded that podcast, it was BMS week, right. So my hormones were just in a decline. My hormone levels dropped. I did the editing of that podcast.
Speaker 2:I had so many brain fog moments during that episode where I had to edit it out because I lost track of where I was at. I lost track of even words that I was trying to get out and say. And I struggled through that episode and as I went through it I realized I'm like I did not give them some of the most vital information that I think is so important. I did want to give you just a basic 101 on symptoms and some things that you can do to help you through perimenopause, but after listening to it I'm like I don't know that I really am going to make an impact for a woman who is really, really struggling. I wanted to wait until I have a doctor on I have a doctor coming on next month to really get into the nitty gritty, but I thought today I would spend a little bit more time giving you some more in-depth knowledge and wisdom of what I have learned. And again, this episode is strictly for information and entertainment purposes. I am not a certified doctor in any of this. I have gathered information from other doctors, from podcasts that I have watched, from books. I've put together information that I think is so vital for women that are going through perimenopause and menopause.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to be fully transparent this episode to y'all with challenges that I have had my own doctor's appointment that I literally just had today and also in telling you that I have a lot of notes for this. Normally I kind of script an episode out and I go online and I do this whole fancy typing and everything. This episode is kind of raw. I am reading notes that I wrote down from watching a recent podcast episode with Dr Mary Claire, and this is information, also knowledge and stuff that I'm going to tell you after my doctor's appointment today of things that I learned. And I'm choosing to record this episode, doing a part two, because everything is just fresh in my head right now and I don't have that crazy brain fog that I had last week where I felt like I was all over the place. So if you listened to episode 108 and you were like Leslie, get to the point or she's all over the place, forgive me y'all, that is perimenopause in true form, right there. So we're just going to dive in and I'm going to give you just a crap load of information this episode, y'all.
Speaker 2:Now we're getting into the nitty gritty of it all, but I want to start first with just sharing with you some of the personal struggles that I have been having. So last episode I did go through a breakdown of some of the symptoms that you can be experiencing while having perimenopause, and I did mention I had a ton of them, right, I didn't even count y'all the list, but I'm going to tell you the symptoms that I have been experiencing personally Brain fog, loss of energy, weight gain. Belly fat that's where the weight gain has been. Itchy inner ear tingling in my body, high cholesterol, asthma, flare-ups, decreased strength, depression, rage, night sweats, increased anxiety, sleep disturbances, migraines, joint pain, adhd-like symptoms, decreased libido, dry skin and hair, breath size increase, mood swings, electric shocks, bleeding gums, digestive issues, dry eyes, new allergies Like y'all, I've had new food allergies that have come up and then changing body order.
Speaker 2:So I mean, when you want to talk about TMI, like I'm being real with y'all, that is a huge list. I didn't even count them right now either. It's a huge list of symptoms all related to perimenopause. There are symptoms that are not listed on there, that were on the list, but y'all, I have a pretty extensive list of symptoms. So when I said that I am in the thick of it, I mean I am in the thick of it. Do I experience all of these symptoms at the same time? No, there are a lot of things that I have done to help eliminate some of these symptoms. Also, like, I'll say, dry skin and hair, y'all. I started taking collagen and I've been really consistent. I take a scoop of collagen every day. I put it in my AG1, which I'll get to that a little bit later, but I take AG1 and collagen every day. That has helped to eliminate that.
Speaker 2:The new food allergies I went and got tested for food allergies, I think almost about two years ago. I learned that I was allergic to eggs, cashews, almonds, milk and there was one more, I forget there was five food allergies and they're foods that I eat all the time. I started having crazy reactions to things that I had no idea what was causing it. If you guys follow me on social media, I did fully share like I had had an allergy where my lip got super fat. I look like Professor Klump I mean we're talking ginormous like.
Speaker 2:If you don't know, professor Klump, it's a movie that came out I think in the late nineties, maybe early two thousands, and his lip like I think in the late 90s, maybe early 2000s. And his lip like y'all. Just look at Professor Klump's lip. Okay, and I'm not even exaggerating in sharing what my lip looked like it looked like Professor Klump's lip and I had no idea I had that allergy about four times. It happened four times and the doctor couldn't narrow it down. So I did a panel and that's when they came back and told me you're allergic to egg and almond and cashews. And.
Speaker 2:I'm like what? I drink almond milk. I eat eggs every day. It doesn't happen every day. So my body started to react in different ways.
Speaker 2:The biggest challenge that I severely, severely struggled with was the mental health part of it the brain fog, the loss of energy, the depression, the increased anxiety, the rage, that stuff like the ADHD-like symptoms. That stuff like the ADHD-like symptoms, that stuff I can't wrap myself my brain around it. No matter how much therapy, journaling, all of the things that I knew to help combat those symptoms, nothing has worked. I tend to get migraines right around my cycle, like the first or second day of my cycle and then like a week after. I'm also going to share this with you. So I have had some female issues. That has caused me to be on birth control up until today. Literally, I have had issues with fibroids, irregular periods, very, very heavy bleeding while on my periods. So I have had fibroids removed. Not fun whatsoever. And when I was not on a form of birth control, my periods would fluctuate and I had very painful experience with irregular cycles. Painful experience with irregular cycles. So the best way for me to regulate that and not literally have to stay home for three days from work, because I would bleed out that much was to get on birth control and to remain on birth control. So I've been on birth control, which has allowed my cycle to maintain and be regular thus far.
Speaker 2:I went to my doctor today. I had my well woman's visit today and this is what sparked me, where I'm like I have to do a part two of this and I have to share everything, because in the last episode I shared my doctor's initial response when she saw that I was in full on perimenopause and she was like, oh, welcome to the club. And then I heard nothing and I was like what the heck? She just wanted to change my birth control and put me on like a higher estrogen and I wasn't happy with that. So when I went back to my doctor again today, I came ready, y'all. I literally came ready. I had my list of things to talk to her about.
Speaker 2:The my main points, these are my main concerns, these are the symptoms that I'm experiencing, these are the symptoms that I am most concerned with, and I kind of had a mini breakdown in her office like telling her look, I just need my brain to function normally. I am normally on it, I'm normally very high energy, I normally can think clearly. The fact that I literally forget words, I'm not okay with it. I need my brain to function. It's impacting my work, it's impacting my lifestyle, it's impacting so many different areas of my life and I kind of got emotional with her and I'm like look, doctor, I just I need my brain to function and this is what I'm doing to help with a lot of these other symptoms. But I cannot get my brain to just work right. So she's like okay, let me look at your chart. She looked at my chart. She looked at my chart. This is where I started to learn a lot of stuff. So my chart from last year, my FSH levels. I'm going to tell you what my levels were. I need you to learn and understand what I'm about to explain to you, because if you are in perimenopause right now, you have no clue about any of this. You're going to learn, as I had to learn here. Okay Again, please do your own research.
Speaker 2:Go online, watch Dr Mary Claire. There's other doctors. There are books that you can read. There is so many different forms of information that are out there, but you have to learn and understand first what your hormone panel looks like. So they're going to do a hormone panel. They're going to test your lipid panels. They're going to test your cholesterol. They're going to test your LDL, your triglycerides, your FSH, your estradiol which is the estrogen your TSH, your vitamin D. They're going to do a glucose panel on you also. Lots of stuff. I don't want to give you everything because this is just what my doctor did.
Speaker 2:From my understanding, this is kind of your average hormone panel when they are testing to see if you are in perimenopause slash menopause. So your FSH, that is the hormone level that basically determines if you are in perimenopause or menopause, y'all. So your FSH, when the an FSH stands for follicle stimulating hormone Okay, now I'm going to my notes here for this. Now, when your FSH is above 30, that means that your ovaries are producing less receptors. Okay, so that means, like your estrogen level is basically kind of dropping. So when your FSH is high, that means that your estrogen is low. So when your FSH is high, that means that your estrogen is low. Now, on average, if your FSH is above 30, that's an indicator that, hey, your ovaries are producing less estrogen.
Speaker 2:My FSH was at 33.2. 0.2. So I was over that 30 marker, which tells my doctor she's a menopause or like that perimenopause. Now I technically still getting my cycle, okay. So menopause is the day that when you have been a full year without your period, my period has been consistent. I have not had any discrepancies in my period other than it sucking and me getting like bad headaches and bleeding being irregular, stuff like that. But as far as it coming every month, I haven't had any issues with that. So she was actually kind of shocked to see that my FSH level was so high and she said what this means is you're probably no longer ovulating. Ah, okay, when you're no longer ovulating, that means the estrogen has basically like stopped.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what does this all mean? So again, the FSH, follicle stimulating hormone. When that level is above 30, it suggests that your ovaries are producing fewer hormones. And this is the hallmark for perimenopause, right here. Higher FSH, y'all. It is such a tongue twister. Higher FSH, what the heck Do you see? Perimenopause in effect, right here, like I just can't get words out. Okay, higher f h. Nope, higher f s h. I'm gonna leave this in. Normally I would take this crap out because you see me fumble. But y'all, this is like is like this, is it. This is the stuff that I have been struggling with. Like I can't get words out sometime because my brain is just like literally deteriorating because of a lack of hormones. Okay, a higher FSH indicates that your body is trying to stimulate estrogen production, but it's struggling to do so consistently. All right, now my estrogen levels. This is going back to last year. Okay, it's been a full year since I got this panel done.
Speaker 2:My estrogen levels were at 29. And this said that this level is relatively low, which aligns with the symptoms of like night sweats, brain fogs, mood swings, low libido, joint pain and dry skin or hair. So those symptoms that shows, hey, you're 29, like you're super low right there. From my understanding, I believe your estrogen level should be like in the 60s or 70s y'all. Yeah, that's like normal. That's when you know your ovaries are fully functioning and I'm at 29. So estrogen fluctuates and that fluctuation of estrogen that also attributes to the belly fat, that visceral fat that I talked about depression, anxiety and ADHD symptoms. So I have a better understanding of what it is. I'm being fully transparent, like I'm literally telling you guys what my results are for this.
Speaker 2:All right, there is also your TSH levels. My TSH levels were 1.16. This was actually within normal range, which means that my thyroid function is not a cause for the symptoms. So they could completely rule out that, hey, she has an issue with her thyroid. It's actually not menopause or perimenopause and that is something that you got to learn too. If you're a little bit younger and you're experiencing some of these symptoms that might be attributed more to a thyroid issue than hey, you're going into perimenopause Now.
Speaker 2:When you are in perimenopause, you tend to see a rise in your cholesterol, like high cholesterol, and you'll see like your LDL levels go high and that's common in perimenopause due to declining estrogen, which actually protects your heart health, and this is why it is so important for you to get help and start to look into how can you like supplement that estrogen that you're losing, because the estrogen protects your heart. So the lack of estrogen actually puts you at a higher risk for heart disease. That's why women have a higher risk of heart disease and heart issues, and the high cholesterol or a high LDL could contribute to the weight gain. Also higher inflammation levels, joint pains, migraines, the asthma, flare-ups, digestive issues and some of the new food allergies. So my cholesterol was high. I was at 200. My LDL was at 123. My non-LDL was at 143. So the lack of estrogen was causing that rise in my cholesterol, which is causing a lot of these other symptoms that I was experiencing. So there's also your HDL. I was at a 57 and my triglycerides were at a 96. So my HDL was, which is your good cholesterol, and my triglycerides were all within a healthy range, which was good. However, if I can reduce my LDL and improve, that will actually help to improve my metabolic health, and that's something that all ties in with your heart and all of that. Now, in testing your glucose, my glucose levels were normal. My vitamin D levels were optimal and normal as well. So those were all of the tests that I took last year. Now I want to share for you, because your FSH levels were significantly high and I want to make sure that you start to get some relief. Like we need to put the estrogen back into you Now with birth control estrogen, it is what is considered a synthetic hormone, synthetic estrogen.
Speaker 2:What that estrogen does is it actually stops your body from producing an ache, it stops the ovulation and it like thickens the lining of your uterus so that a sperm does not implant into an egg so it stops from the egg to coming in, but then it also thickens the uterus to where, like, when the sperm comes in, it just it's like an invasive environment with the sperm, so the sperm just like drops off and dies basically. But it is a synthetic form of estrogen. Is what they're giving you when you're on birth control. Now, hormone replacement therapy, better known as HRT, this is more of a what do they call it Biometric type of hormone, where it's actually replacing the natural form of hormone that your body would naturally make. So hormone replacement therapy is actually far more beneficial than if I were to just stay on the pill, being that my FSH levels were significantly high.
Speaker 2:That's where my doctor was able to say hey, I think you're kind of getting to that full-on menopause stage. I think we're safe to stop. You will see some inconsistencies with your cycle, but that is just all part of menopause, right? So some of the things that I want to share with you. These are things that I've learned, things that I've known before, things that were like oh yeah, I remember learning about that.
Speaker 2:Now a woman will have all of her eggs at birth. You are born with, on average, like one to two million eggs. It's insane. One of the things, as I was listening to podcasts today one of the things that Dr Mary Claire had said that it just kind of put it in perspective of this likeI hope you all know that as a woman, you're born with all of your eggs, right, but I was essentially inside my grandmother at one point. So I was an egg inside my mother, and when my mother was inside of my grandmother, I was in there too. Grandmother, I was in there too. So me, the little egg that turned into Wesley, I was inside my mama and my mama she had all her eggs.
Speaker 2:So I think when you are pregnant and the gender is revealed of your child, that's typically I don't know like 13 to 15 weeks, something like that, when you can see, and that's typically when, if you're a female in utero, your eggs start to develop. I could be totally wrong, but at one point I was an egg inside my mom while my mom was inside my grandmother. So crazy to think, right, but what's even more crazy to think is that, as that egg was being developed inside my mother when she was inside my grandmother, there could be some type of trauma that is experienced while your eggs are being developed. If there's trauma that my grandmother was going through while she was pregnant with my mother, it could have transcended to her aches, which then became me. Does that make sense? It's pretty crazy Like this is kind of how she was explaining it and it was like, wow, I never looked at it that way. I literally was inside my grandmother at one point, and that goes the same for males, because males were inside their mother, which was inside the grandmother at one point, and it's just, I don't know. It was an aha moment and I just wanted to share that with you because I thought it was a fun fact. But okay, talking about, like the eggs that we have them all at birth right Now, ovulation actually begins with the brain.
Speaker 2:Our brain actually tells the ovary when to release an egg. So I'm going to read you guys my notes that I took Okay, ovulation begins in the brain, not in the ovary, when to release an egg. So I'm going to read you guys my notes that I took Okay, ovulation begins in the brain, not in the ovary. Our brain begins to realize that estrogen and progesterone is low and the hypothalamus in our brain that part of the brain it signals our pituitary gland and our pituitary gland which produces your hormones. Okay, it begins to produce that LH and FSH, those two hormones. So your pituitary gland, it signals your brain is like hey, hypothalamus, it talks to the pituitary gland, it tells the pituitary gland, hey, yo, get to work, you got to start producing these hormones because it's a little low down there. So then it starts to produce the hormones. It starts to produce the LH and the FSH and these two hormones they go down to the ovaries and that's what triggers ovulation. All right, now estrogen peaks at ovulation. That's why women who are trying to get pregnant, they are tracking their estrogen because as soon as it peaks, it's like hey, I'm ovulating, let's get busy, right? That's women who are tracking and trying to get pregnant.
Speaker 2:Now, after ovulation, we see progesterone rise and this cycle is what happens every month for your average healthy woman. So your average healthy woman that you know is not struggling with fertility issues or stuff like that. That is healthy and thriving, not in perimenopause or menopause. That is what happens. Now. In perimenopause, the signal from the brain no longer works. Y'all Like that signal. The hypothalamus is like hey, where are those? Like signals, like it's not working. So the eggs decline, the brain begins to like wonder, where is the estrogen and progesterone, begins to like wonder, where is the estrogen and progesterone? They're not there. So your brain begins to send more of it so that there's a rise in the lh and the fsh and it causes like a delayed ovulation and then it causes like high estradiol. It's just madness going on in our brain and with our hormones y'all. Now, again, the FSH is that follicle stimulating hormone. So this is what is going on in our brain with our hormones during perimenopause. Some of you are probably listening right now and you're like what the bleep? Because you're going through it right.
Speaker 2:As I have started to learn about this, I've been writing it down like creating charts. Literally, I want to put it up on my wall because y'all know I'm a brain nerd, right. And when I learned about how ovulation actually starts in our brain and how much of an impact our brain has in producing those hormones, it just made so much more sense for me to understand why I have been having so many more mental issues with the perimenopause, as opposed to some of the other physical issues that our bodies go through. Now I've been going through the physical issues too, but the ones that I cannot wrap my brain around are the mental issues. And I understand why because it all just starts in our brain and it trickles down right.
Speaker 2:Our brain is the main source for our hormones. All our hormones are produced up here in our brain, in our pituitary gland, your thyroid. All of that dictates. Our brain is like the puppeteer that is telling the pituitary gland hey, yo, you need to release some more of this. Or our thyroid, hey, you need to release these. And when our brain it's seeing that, hey, the body's no longer releasing these, you see a huge fluctuation of hormones all over the place.
Speaker 2:In one of the books that I was reading about paramenopause a while ago I can't remember which book it was and you know, in all honesty, I might have just seen this like online somewhere, but it showed a chart of a woman, literally from birth all the way to like 70. And it's a chart to show at the different stages of their life where the hormone levels are right. So you have, like your estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, all of that. So from birth we have all our ovaries. We know that right. So there's like a steady amount of estrogen. It just goes straight.
Speaker 2:We get to puberty and you see a little like oh, it's a little rocky there, okay. You see pregnancy, oh it's a little rocky, it's more of an increase during pregnancy. You get to perimenopause, y'all. It's like like you can't even follow the lines In perimenopause. It is 10 times worse than it was in puberty, y'all. So we survived puberty all right. And we know, if you've had a teen through puberty, you know what that looks like. You just like want to throat punch them, right. It's that much worse in perimenopause. The levels of hormones are just all over the place. And then, once you get past menopause, then you, you know, kind of peak out again and it's like, oh, we're kind of. We're kind of normal again.
Speaker 2:You drop, you drop off a little bit, but you're normal. And this is what women are going through. Y'all men. Don't go through this, men. They will have a change in testosterone. Definitely there's a decrease in testosterone, but nothing like what we are going through, where I mean we just stop producing estrogen. I mean full-on stop producing estrogen.
Speaker 2:Now I want to talk a little bit about hormone replacement therapy. When I went to my doctor today I came like hey, doc, look, I need estrogen back in my body. I know that that's what is missing. One of the first things, because when I was telling her all the symptoms a lot having to do, like I said, with my mental health, you know she did say like hey, do you want to go to therapy? And I was like I'm not against therapy whatsoever. As a life coach, I know a lot about therapy practices and I'm not a therapist. I'm not trying to slap that on me, but I study a lot about mental health and a lot of challenges that I am going through mentally. I have tried to work through a lot of the stuff. Now, will therapy help me? For sure, I don't doubt that. But that's not going to solve the major issue of. I need estrogen back in my body and a therapist can't do that. I knew what I was advocating for. I need estrogen, I need hormone replacement therapy Because I can go and sit with the therapist all day long, I can journal, I can do all the things we can bring up stuff that, like I've already brought up, I can go through. All of that that's not going to replace my estrogen and that's exactly what I told my doctor. Like I'm not against it, doc, I am an advocate for therapy, but I know what my body needs.
Speaker 2:Now, women who typically begin hormone replacement therapy and I'm going to refer to it hormone replacement therapy as HRT, so women who begin HRT in the first 10 years of perimenopause actually have a 50% lower rate of developing cardiovascular disease and it decreases so many other diseases, cancers, all of that. But you have to begin it in those first 10 years of perimenopause because the sooner that you replace the estrogen that you are missing, the less impact not having estrogen and those hormones does on your body. So the longer you go without estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, the longer your body goes with that, the higher the risk you have of developing certain diseases. Now you may be in that error of people that you learned that hormone replacement increases your risk of breast cancer and it increases your risk of different cancers uterine cancer, cervical cancer, all that stuff. The study that was done on that. A lot of doctors have now re-evaluated that study and this was 20 years ago. That study was done in 2005. All right, so 20 years has passed from that study. Technology has changed, science has changed, our environment has changed. Science has changed, our environment has changed, food has changed. There's a lot of different things. That now impacts our bodies differently and how our bodies react to the change of hormonal shifts. Hormonal shifts have a lot to do with foods, also environment, all of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Now that study that was done in 2005, they put women on estrogen to see if it would help eliminate hot flashes. Those women that they did the study with, they were in their 70s y'all. They were far past perimenopause, they were in full on postmenopause. So because they were off of it for so long already, the risk were much higher for them. So when they went to introduce, like, those women were way past the 10 year mark of not having estrogen right or progesterone and all of that. So their body has stopped producing these hormones for so long already that they were already at a higher risk for breast cancer and heart disease and all of that stuff. So they're putting women in their 70s back on estrogen. And then what they did? So when you're on estrogen, you have to be on progesterone also. The progesterone offsets the cancer risk associated with estrogen. So that study they didn't do a balanced study, putting them on progesterone which, yes, it elevated the risk even higher because they were just on estrogen. So not only were they at a higher risk, because they were way past that 10-year mark of getting estrogen back in their body, so that cancer could have already been in their body. And then you were giving them estrogen without progesterone, the hot flashes went away, but it increased the risk of breast cancer. So then the headlines went to town with hormone replacement therapy. Estrogen puts a higher risk of women getting breast cancer. Go do your research on this y'all. Dr Mary Claire has been such a huge advocate and she has done the dirty work for us and she's a doctor that has explained this thoroughly of this. And then, from my understanding too, she mentioned something which is so crazy that that study that they did, where they showed an increase of women getting cancer that were on estrogen.
Speaker 2:They use a different type of estrogen and I don't exactly remember what it was called, but it was estrogen. It's like an old school type of estrogen. It was estrogen that was taken from horse urine y'all. They took female horse urine and they use that in this estrogen that they were injecting in these women. That was part of the study and that also that was like there was some unethical issues around that, like they're using horse urine first, so using animals for it, and then it wasn't the like. It didn't really match up with the natural type of estrogen that our body produces.
Speaker 2:Go do the research yourself, y'all. Don't believe me. Go look it up yourself. You can go to the journal itself and read the study. I'm trusting Dr Mary Claire because she's a doctor. She broke it down in a way that I can understand. When you read those medical journals y'all, I mean you've literally got to kind of be a doctor for it. So you can maybe pull the medical journal and upload it into chat, gpt and be like tell me what this means for me. I might do that myself because I think that's so interesting to do.
Speaker 2:All right, now here's another interesting fact. All right. 6,000 women reach menopause every single day. Women reach menopause every single day. So today there are 6,000 women in the US that has reached menopause. There are only 2,300 certified doctors in the US that are certified to help with menopausal care. So 2,300 certified doctors that can help women in menopause that are certified as a specialist in menopause, and every day you have 6,000 women. I don't even want to do the math. 6,000 women, actually, let's do the math. Hold on, let me, let me get my phone here. I want to be real with you all. All right, let's do the math here. Six thousand times three hundred and sixty five days in a year, that is two million one hundred and ninety women will get into full menopause within one year. Okay, and then let's divide that by only 2,300. That is like, on average, 1,000 patients for the certified. That's insane. Y'all More doctors need to be certified in this. So Dr Mary Claire did share. You can go to menopauseorg and there is a list of doctors who actually have passed the certification test for menopausal care. So if you are looking for one of these doctors in your area that is certified in menopausal care, go to menopauseorg. Go there, look for the referral. I think you can kind of break it down based in your area. All right, so we're going to keep kind of going on to talking about more of this hormone replacement therapy, hrt.
Speaker 2:Now I went to my doctor today and, like I said, I need to get estrogen back in my body. So she told me okay, you're going to stop taking your birth control as of today. I'm going to prescribe you an estrogen patch and some progesterone. My estrogen patch, as prescribed I have to change it out twice a week and the progesterone I am going to take 14 days out of the month, and the progesterone again helps to offset the estrogen and lowers the risk of the estrogen causing any type of cancer in me. I also I will disclose to you guys.
Speaker 2:My grandmother had breast cancer twice. She actually had breast cancer in one breast. They did a mastectomy for it, removed everything, did radiation treatment. Years later it came back in her other breasts and she had to do the same thing. My grandmother did not die of breast cancer. She got it all cleared out. She was good to go. My grandmother died at 90 years old due to a stroke.
Speaker 2:Now, because she has had breast cancer, I also have had an aunt that has had breast cancer. My mom they found some abnormal cells in her that she had to get removed has not been diagnosed with breast cancer or anything, but there was just some abnormalities. So because it runs in my family, I am what is considered high risk. So I started mammograms at an earlier age than I should have and I did the BACRA test. I shared about this in an episode a while back. I did the BACRA test last year and the BACRA is the gene that actually you can get tested for see if you carry the gene to get breast cancer or cervical cancer and pancreatic cancer. That gene is related to those three. Oh, and I also had an uncle who actually died of pancreatic cancer and that's on my grandmother's side that had breast cancer. So it definitely runs in that side of my family, that Fokker gene. So I went and got tested and I came back negative for carrying the gene, which is great. So that means I am automatically like at a lower risk. It tells me, hey, you don't carry that gene. Does that mean I'm completely clear of it? No, does it mean I can develop it later? Quite possibly. But I don't have the high risk with that gene, so I don't run the risk of breast cancer, cervical or pancreatic cancer. Now that's another test that you guys can test for or request to get tested if breast cancer runs in your family. Okay, so with that, said my doctor. Going back, she told me okay, we know that you're good with not having the Baccarat gene, so let's start hormone replacement therapy. That is as of today.
Speaker 2:As I'm recording this, y'all. It's crazy and I did like a happy cry where I'm like, yes, because I just feel that this is what is best for me. I have been struggling through this for a while, y'all, and one of the things that our mental health really gets affected in so many different ways. And I will tell you that I am certain that my perimenopausal symptoms began as early as like 2020. So it's been five years now, as early as like 2020. So it's been five years now. I attributed a lot of the mental health issues that I was having to COVID, because that's when I really started to see a lot of mental health issues like the lack of energy, the brain fog, like loss of motivation and depression, anxiety. I mean I shared this in the last episode, you know. I mean our whole world was stressed out, depressed and anxious, right. So it just made sense that I was experiencing those mental health issues early on. But now, as I started experiencing so many of the physical elements of it and really doing my research and looking at all of the effects of perimenopause, I'm like I started going through it back in 2020. Like I think that's when it really started.
Speaker 2:Now, dr Mary Claire also kind of looked at how trauma and certain events in your life can actually trigger perimenopause. Also, she shared her personal story that when she was going through it, she didn't realize she was going through it because she had just lost a brother. When she really started seeing some of the symptoms, she had a brother that had died and she attributed her symptoms with grief, which grief is. You know a lot of those symptoms. You know depression, anxiety, a lot of that stuff. Migraines like just grief is horrible also. So there are so many things that happen in the world, like you know trauma, loss of someone, all of this that can also kind of trigger perimenopause.
Speaker 2:In doing my research, I went and had this conversation with my mom before doing the first episode and I was, like you know, I don't even know how old my mom was when she went into menopause. You know, my mom was only 41. My mom was 41. My grandma was 38. So in having this conversation with my mom, I'm like what Mom, you were so young. Hold on, let me clarify this. My mom was 41 when she hit menopause. So my mom's cycle stopped at 41 years old. For my grandmother it stopped at 38. And I'm like what? Like how you were, you were so young.
Speaker 2:My mom, at 40 years old, she was going through the hardest chapter of her life, that's when she was getting divorced from my dad. My mom, for those years leading up to that was I mean, we were literally going through hell. My mom did not know how she was going to keep the house financially, how she was going to like help to support me. At this time I was going off to college. She was worried about losing her house. She lost her husband. Both of her kids at this point were you know, I was the second. My sister was already out of the house at this point. I was going off to college, still living at home. But so many things happened at that point in my mom's life, that trauma very well could have been the triggering factor to put my mom into menopause much earlier.
Speaker 2:My grandmother, at 38 years old she had two went through significant trauma. My grandfather had left her, mind you, she just had her 11th kid. I think my mom had said my grandmother was actually pregnant with her 11th kid when my grandfather, upton, left her. So she's a single mom now 11 kids. My grandfather was a drug addict, a womanizer, like all of that stuff. Also, she had to send her kids all different ways because she couldn't care for them all by herself. So some went into foster care, some, like my mom, she kind of was in and out of foster care and went and lived with one of her aunts. And I mean talk about trauma and PTSD. I mean talk about trauma and PTSD. So it's no wonder my grandmother went into menopause at such a young age.
Speaker 2:Grief is a horrible thing to have to go through, like the loss of someone, the loss of a close loved one, that can trigger perimenopause also. There are so many factors when talking about perimenopause and all of this. Now, let's see, let me kind of get back on track here with my notes. Okay, going back to hormone replacement therapy, some of the symptoms Now. Dr Mary Claire, she specifically talked about a couple of things.
Speaker 2:One of the symptoms that women really struggle with is frozen shoulder. I have not experienced this yet and I hope to not experience it during menopause. So frozen shoulder is one of the symptoms that you experience once you're in menopause. Your bones, all right, your bones don't function the right way. Your muscles don't function the right way. Your muscles don't function the right way. That elasticity that you had in your muscles it's gone, ladies, it's gone. I like I used to be flexible. Now I know why. I'm like it just all makes sense like y'all. I've been doing yoga since my early 20s. For the most part used to pretty flexible, and now I struggle to get in like downward dog position. If you do yoga, you know it. It aches and pains me and I'm like I can't. I can't touch my toes as easily anymore, where before I just like go down, touch my toes it's not even a big deal. Well, that elasticity of my muscles is completely gone, which explains why so many women struggle with what is called frozen shoulder. So women who are on HRT actually have a lower risk of getting frozen shoulder, and that's according to a recent study. Here's another study If the first five years of menopause, women typically will lose 30% of collagen.
Speaker 2:Y'all first five years of menopause. Women typically will lose 30% of collagen y'all First five years of menopause. I thought that through perimenopause like the dry skin, the dried hair, like I thought all that stuff was bad. But it gets worse, y'all Once you're in full on menopause, those first five years five years you're gonna lose 30 percent of collagen. That's where, like the crazy wrinkles and all that stuff come in.
Speaker 2:Ah, some of you ladies you might have already like started on the botox because you're like I'm already seeing it, the collagen and all of that. Your face is like right, the wrinkles up here, you're getting them, and you're like I'm not about that. I'm gonna go get Botox and I'm gonna like inject my face with all this. Who knows what stuff you do? You boo.
Speaker 2:Botox is not for me. I don't want to inject unknown foreign objects in my face and personally, this is my personal opinion on it. I'm not hating any of y'all that go and choose to do Botox, but I don't think Botox has been around long enough to see the true effects of it. Botox has just, you know, come around like I don't know last 15 years or something like that. What is it going to do to women in 20, 25 years from now? That's what I want to know. And I'm cool, not sticking needles in my face. I'll just say that what I have opted to do is take care of my skin, making sure that I'm eating the right foods, making sure that I'm drinking plenty of water, I'm staying hydrated and taking daily collagen I mentioned earlier that collagen has been a big factor of that and I'm just making sure, you know, I wash my face. I have a crazy like nighttime routine of all these like face creams and stuff like that. One of the things I will tell you guys the secret that I learned and I've been doing it long enough now where I'm like okay, I think I can share this with the women and say that I really have seen a difference in this.
Speaker 2:I've been using castor oil on my face. Yes, castor oil. There is a line of castor oil that I use. It's called Queen of the Thrones. It is, I think it's like called hex free or something like that. It's as natural as you can get, but it comes in a amber glass bottle and has a roller on it, like a quartz roller on it, and you literally like roll it on your face. Different women have different outcomes of it. Like they say, oh, don't put it on your face every day, cause actually I don't even know what it can do, but there's different effects for it. I've been using it for close to like a year.
Speaker 2:I use it as my night cream. You know, basically that's what I do. I use it every night. Actually, no, let me rephrase that I don't use it every night. I probably use it five to six nights out of the week. I put it all over my face, I put it under my chin, I get my neck and I like do this like hand massage over my face. I do like this rubbing of my neck to make sure that, like, my chin doesn't sag. You know, I kind of just rub it all in, get it all under my face, I like use my knuckles to rub it all in and then I sat my layer of my night cream over it and this has eliminated the dry patches that I was getting on my face due to perimenopause over a year ago.
Speaker 2:Over a year ago, my hair was brittle, my ends were dry, my skin, like the elasticity was not there, my skin felt super tight. I would get these dry patches all over my face and I hated it. My nose always looked like it was pilling, my chin looked like it was pilling. Then I had these random patches on my cheeks and like right in the middle of my forehead and I hated it, like I would try to put foundation on and it just wouldn't stick. You would see the dry patches everywhere.
Speaker 2:And I had heard about using castor oil from another fitness woman influencer who talks all about menopause and all of that stuff. And I was heard about using castor oil from another fitness woman influencer who talks all about menopause and all of that stuff. And I was like I and again I did my research, I did my research, looked up some stuff about the benefits of castor oil and y'all it has been a game changer for my face. So I'm choosing to go that route rather than going and like getting injections in my face, and I also want to embrace aging y'all. Lucky for me, I'm Latina and I look at my mom and I look at my aunties and my grandmas and stuff and I'm like I think I got some good genes. My grandmother she's going to be 90 years old and that woman looks like she's only 70 something years old. Y'all All right. So I'm fortunate that I feel like I got some good Latina genes in me, that the skin is going to hold up tight for for a minute, but I'm going to do what I can do to make sure that my face is glowing.
Speaker 2:So if you're, if you're watching here on YouTube, castor oil is your friend on your face, y'all. Okay, get you some castor oil. Make sure it's tax-free. Use the Queen of the Thrones. Go to their website. I don't have any affiliate link or anything with them, but it's just what I use and y'all. It's worth it.
Speaker 2:And that little rollerball thing one of them, I ordered it at a time when they had a sale. It was like a two-for-one. One of them I ordered it at a time when they had a sale. It was like a two for one. I have been using that one for probably close to a year now and I probably have like a quarter of it left. So a little goes a long way. If you know, castor oil is really thick and it's gooey, so put it on your face. So that is one thing that I use. And then I actually have a mask that I use kind of like one to twice a week. It's Peter Roth.
Speaker 2:Thomas, it's a rose stem mask and you can actually sleep with it. So I put it on like once to twice a week, sleep with it, and it just really hydrates my face. And that is what I have used to help eliminate all of that. And that's all due to the collagen that our body just basically stops producing, y'all. I also take collagen scoops every day. It's collagen. I get it at Costco, y'all. I go back and forth between two brands. I look at what everyone's on sale. They both do the trick. I put a scoop in my AG1 that I take every day. All right, so here are some other things to know.
Speaker 2:During perimenopause, there is a peak divorce and suicide rate amongst women when they're 45 years old. Why is that? Probably because they're going through perimenopausal. I mean some of full transparency. Me and my husband we've been at it many times during these last like few years because of the change that my body is going through, my reaction, my response, my lack of energy, my lack of interest in certain things. Like, if you've been on me in this journey for a really long time, y'all know that I was a hustler. I mean hustle, hustle, hustle. You still may think like let's see you do so much and you got your hands in everything Not at the rate of what I used to be and I'm not giving what I know that I am fully capable of doing. And because of that there has been I'm not going to lie there's been some strife in my marriage because my husband's like he's just getting on board now and understanding this as I'm learning about it.
Speaker 2:He's listening. He's actually the one that introduced me to Dr Mary Claire. He's like hey, I heard this doctor. He was on this podcast. She was on Diary of a CEO which he listens to often. He's like I think you should listen to her. And this is when I was just kind of starting my research about perimenopause and discovering some challenges that I was having and he introduced me to her and I was like, oh my gosh, this woman, this doctor, is amazing. So he started schooling himself about it. So now he's far more patient with me and understands and I think he's grateful that.
Speaker 2:He's like, oh my gosh, thank God she's going to get estrogen back, you know, because my wife is like has literally lost it many times and looking at this divorce rate and suicide rate at women of 45, y'all, I'm 46 years old. I'm going to turn 47 this year and, looking at this, I get it and it's sad. Like I can understand why women at this age like, why they drop off, because they lose purpose, they lose clarity. You know so much. Strife in a marriage because you change your mental health is just at a huge decline and it's just because we're lacking the hormones that our body used to make.
Speaker 2:I have not thought of either of these divorce or suicide. I will tell you that A lot of it has to do because of my faith in God. I stand firm that through thick and thin, till death, do we part? We're going to figure it out. We're going to figure it out. We just have to push through this hard season right now. Never thought of taking my life ever.
Speaker 2:But for the women that do not have faith, that do not know Jesus, that don't know the Bible and know that there is something past the struggle, I can see why divorce and suicide is so high during this time in a woman's life Makes sense, right, and you can be sitting on the other side of this and saying like, hey, I got divorced at 45, 46, 47 years old. My thoughts, I've had that thought of just ending it and I want to tell you, if you're in the thick of it right now and any of that has come divorce, suicide if you've considered it, if you've thought of it, if you think of this as a way out, there is hope on the other side. Do not give up. I hope that this conversation is making sense and you're like now I get it.
Speaker 2:It's not me. This isn't normal. This isn't how I'm supposed to be. Your hormone levels cause so much like normalcy in our brain and right now your brain's not normal. Your brain is not functioning the way that it should be. You're not yourself. You're struggling with a lot of emotions, a lot of mental health stuff, and you just feel like I just want to give up on everything. Right, there's part of me I've never once said I want to give up on my marriage or my life, but there's a lot like I want to give up the podcast. I want to give up what I think God is calling me to do, because I'm just not cut off for it. I just I just want to sleep. I just want to sleep. That's where I've been at many times. And showing up like showing up on social media, where I feel like, do I have to show up on social media again? And that's where my people are. I'm showing up for you.
Speaker 2:You know how many times I've wanted to end this podcast y'all because I'm like nobody's listening, nobody cares, nobody wants to hear me, and then I start feeling sorry for myself, right, but again, god, but God. But I need to be obedient to what God called me to do. But I am wonderfully and fearfully made. But I need to press on towards the goal and win the prize which God has called me to. For the spirit God gave us does not make us timid, it gives us power, it gives us love, it gives us self-discipline right. No weapon formed against me shall prosper. So these are all the things that I have to remind myself that I literally have a lot of these verses up here. That's what's keeping me sane, y'all, right now. God's word is keeping me sane through all of this. So all of these mental struggles that women are going through during this time. That's why, like when they go to the doctor and they start giving a lot of the symptoms, I'm depressed, I'm anxious. Brain fog, lack of energy, lack of interest, all this stuff immediately. Mental health, depression, anxiety, let me, let me refer you to a therapist. Let's, you know, send you off, oh, frozen shoulder. Okay, let's send you off to the orthopedic. So women, they go to their doctor and then they give them the symptoms and they're sending them to three, four different doctors for all these different symptoms, not attributing like, hey, let's just balance out your hormones. We can fix a lot of this if we just start you on estrogen, if we just start you on HRT, or let's see where you're at with your hormones, and maybe we can stop the frozen shoulder, these mental health issues, maybe they can get cleared up once we start balancing your hormones out. So on average, it is said that a woman has to go to at least six to eight doctors before menopause is actually diagnosed with them. You very well could be one of those women right now. You're like, dang it, leslie, I'm at like my fourth specialist right now because we just can't figure out what's wrong with me. Yeah, there you have it and I will tell y'all. Because I have learned of this, because I've done my research on this, I'm going to my one doctor right now, as of now.
Speaker 2:I feel confident after today's visit. I feel confident with keeping my care in her hands. I actually am going to revisit, have another doctor in about three months, once I get off the pill on the estrogen patch and progesterone. We're going to see where I'm at. We're going to see if symptoms have gotten better. So when I meet with her in a few months to see how my body is responding to it, we will adjust and go up if needed. You typically don't go down. It's like you typically increase to see where you're at, and then in about three months we're going to retest to see where all my levels are at. I will have been off of the synthetic birth control for 30 days and will have been on the HRT treatment for about 30 days. We're going to test then and then we're going to test again in three months. So I'm very confident with my doctor and her plan of action of what we're doing. But again it all goes because I've been doing my research and I'm like look, doc, I think I know what my body needs and, ladies, you know what your body needs, so you need to be that advocate for it.
Speaker 2:Now, another thing that we really need to look at is the onset of like osteoporosis and arthritis as we begin to age. So that estrogen it works a lot with our bones, right, our bones, our muscles, all of that our tendons. The hormones are like a lubricant for it almost Now. That's why women have a very higher risk of osteoporosis and arthritis. Now when you are able to start HRT treatment earlier, it kind of lessens your chances and severity of osteoporosis or arthritis as you age, like into your 70s and stuff like that. So when aging women tend to struggle or suffer more in their last years. That's where women in like their 70s and 80s they're approaching their literally their last years they begin to like their bones just begin to deteriorate. That's where you see, like sometimes women, they fall and break a hip and that just spirals into eventually leading to their death. You see women that struggle a lot longer with mental health, like Alzheimer's and dementia.
Speaker 2:I look at my grandmother. My grandmother was diagnosed with schizophrenia in her, I think, 50s or 60s around that, and then she it basically evolved into a form of dementia and her last like 20 years of her life she struggled with dementia and my grandmother just wasn't like the same person. I saw what that did and I don't want that for me. I don't want to struggle. I want my brain to be firing on all cylinders up to the day that I die and take my last breath, y'all. And if I can put into place now estrogen that helps to keep our brain, our bones, all of that stuff functioning properly. If I can do that now and eliminate the onset of dementia and other challenges with my brain, why not? I've seen what dementia has done to my family. They're not just with my grandmother, but I have other family members that are struggling with it and their ages, as they're approaching 70, 80 years old that dementia is no joke, y'all. I want to keep my brain functioning as fully as possible. God has a plan for me ahead, y'all. I'm just going to tell you that this is just the start of where God is taking me. So I need to make sure that my brain is functioning, that it has the hormones that it needs to fully function and take me where God has planned for me. I'm just going to tell you that, all right. A couple of other things that I want to talk about. I want to get into diet really quick and supplements.
Speaker 2:I was having some serious gut issues early on, which was another wonderful symptom of perimenopause, right so, gut issues. It was really hard for me to process certain foods meat like red meat, y'all. I went two years of not eating red meat because it just killed my stomach. Anytime that I would eat red meat my stomach would hurt so bad I'd get super bloated, I'd get constipated, I would feel it the next day Like it was so much work for my body to break it down Again. A symptom your gut and your biome is all connected to your brain. Y'all your brain needs those hormones, like it's all connected, all right.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that I had started to do, I started to take AG1. And y'all, I'm a drop. This is a mini commercial for AG1 also. Head to the link if you're interested in getting on AG1. But AG1 is a great lament. That really helped me.
Speaker 2:So AG1 has over 75 multivitamins, probiotics and greens that just help to regulate your gut. So there's vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, probiotics, greens and superfoods, antioxidants, stress adaptogens and it has digestive enzymes. So it has those live probiotics and prebiotics. It's a powder, it's known as athletic greens. That's what the AG1 stands for.
Speaker 2:But I have been on it for about a year now and I can tell you that it has regulated the gut and stomach issues that I was having due to some of the perimenopausal stuff. I didn't understand why I was having some of the gut issues at first because for the most part I'm a pretty healthy eater, monday through Friday, five days a week. We're pretty healthy eaters. On the weekends is when we will tend to splurge every now and then eat some pizza, go out and get some ice cream, but for the most part, pretty healthy eating. During the week I try to stay away from a lot of processed foods. I don't drink coffee. I don't drink soda. I stopped alcohol also. Alcohol is another big thing that affects you during paramenopause. Y'all yes. But going back to AG1, ag1 has been superb at helping to regulate my gut health and you just take a scoop of it, you put it in some water about like eight to 10 ounces of water you shake it up and you drink it and you know what? It doesn't taste bad at all, I've gotten used to it. But I also add my collagen powder into that and that's where I get my nutrition for the day.
Speaker 2:All my multivitamins, prebiotics and stuff like that I also recently I had shared in a past episode I went to chat GPT and I was like look, here's my test results. What other supplements should I be taking? I take AG1, all this stuff. So it told me to also be taking magnesium glycinate. But there are five different forms of magnesium and magnesium helps a lot while you are in perimenopause, figure out which one you need, and it's all based on your test results. Macaroot is another supplement that you can take and then there, all based on your test results, macro is another supplement that you can take. And then there's another supplement called DIH which actually helps with the estrogen, and I've been taking those for about the last 30 days and I haven't seen a big change. But typically it takes about 60 to 90 days to see results. Within the next 60 to 90 days I'll be on the hormone replacement therapy, so we're going to just kind of see all of that. So I'm being fully transparent on a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:I talked to you about eating a high protein diet. That's also important. Strength training is huge. Dr Mary Claire, she actually had mentioned about how significant just a 30 minute walk could be for women. It actually decreases diabetes by 50% and diabetes you're at a higher risk once you've gotten into menopause because of those glucose levels and all of that stuff. So a lot of women that are post-menopause after you know you've stopped your period after that, they're at higher risk of diabetes. But if you just walk for 30 minutes a day, throw on a weighted vest to help with that strength resistance. It decreases diabetes by 50%. Y'all Like this is simple stuff that you just have to learn Now.
Speaker 2:I gave you a lot of information and I cannot wait to have my interview with a hormone specialist doctor. She is going to be on next month. Again, send me an email If you're watching on YouTube, send me an email, even drop it in the comments If you have a question that you want to ask this doctor. That will be on my podcast next month. If you are listening through iTunes or Spotify, there is a text me feature in the show notes. Just hit, text me and you can say this is my question for the hormone doctor and I'm going to put together a list of questions that are from you, the audience. I'll be posting on social media also and kind of gathering all of that the week before I do my interview with her.
Speaker 2:But go out and learn, ladies. If you're in the thick of it right now that I am again become an advocate, learn all you can about it. Go do your research and you probably have those puzzle pieces that are just all coming together, because I kind of brought some more things to light for you. At least, I hope I did and, as I say with all my episodes, please share this with a friend. You know another woman who's going through this right now and this episode could definitely bring some light to her. So thanks for listening to another episode. Stay knowledgeable, keep pushing and learning all that you can about this topic If you're in the thick of it. I'm praying for you. I am hoping that you will get on the other side. You do what's best for you, but share this episode and remember you've got to keep chasing joy, see you.