135. Girl Talk, Part 2 with Dr. CJ Kleene and Dr. Hannah Anderson

Dr. Calla Kleene 0:06

For me, I feel like just number one. If they have a messed up period, go to the gut first.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:13

Welcome to the Your Longevity Blueprint Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie Gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. Today again, you get to hear from Dr. Hannah Anderson and Dr. Calla Jane clean. This is part two of a two part series. If you haven't listened to part one from last week, I encourage that you go back and listen to that first, where we discussed female anatomy pros and cons of birth control and how important informed consent is. This week in part two, we'll continue the discussion with how we can support women on birth control what non hormone birth control options are best and share non toxic feminine care products. And lastly, how to detect female hormone imbalances. Let's get started.

Let's go back to kind of the direction I think you were going CJ as far as we'll hold up, let's like reverse and first even decided birth controls needed and like what are their options exist? So let's go there. If patients really don't need birth control, they're just looking for solution to their symptoms. So first, let's just talk about I guess maybe this will be a quick one. What are non hormone birth control options? So for women who let's say they are in grad school, they really don't want to have a pregnancy till they're done with that? What are some non birth control options? In your opinion?

Dr. Calla Kleene 1:34

I was gonna joke and say abstinence is always you know, step one, that's great birth control, but male condoms, but for the females, because I feel like this is so much more female oriented. There is a device called the femme cap stuff. I don't know. Have you fitted women for these? I haven't

Dr. Stephanie Gray 1:49

you asked me that before. But yeah, no. Yeah, I haven't.

Dr. Calla Kleene 1:53

No, because the wonderful world of telehealth you can get there. So there's a website and an all Stephanie, if you want to publish it, but it is a device that sits over top of your cervix, and you can place it so kind of coming back to that conversation that Hannah does. So well. In our girl talk, she really explains the anatomy. So so well, but so many women, like haven't even felt their cervix. And you know, they're like, I've been putting a tampon in forever, but I didn't know I could feel my cervix. And so the idea of putting a femme cap over top of their services like this really boring thing, but it's really not that hard on that website. They have a beautiful video that shows how it's placed. But it's good for 48 up to 48 hours. So that's nice, because you can take it out, you can sanitize it and put it in. But if we were teaching women how to understand their cycle, and to know where they're at in their cycle, we can show them how that they know their bodies ovulating. So one of the things that Canada does is she's got the lady cop, which is a hyper specific body temperature analyzer. And so our body temperature will spike which I don't know if Hannah, if you want to get into that on the days of ovulation, you're very, you're more familiar with that than I am. But you can kind of see. So I like explaining to women that there's the fertile window. And then there's the ovulation window. And sometimes websites and podcasters or health coaches will use those interchangeably, but they're kind of different. So the fertile window is kind of this 456 day range that's kind of around ovulation. So when the follicle gets released, when the egg gets released, the egg will only survive for 24 hours. The fertile window though is because sperm can live inside of us for up to five days. So I can't have sex with my husband on day 12. ovulate on day 14. And because of what I had sex on day 12 That led to conception. And so we can teach women if they know that they can do the basal body temperature or luteinizing hormone. So that's kind of the the low expense, I guess, if you will testing that you can pee on these testing strips. And they'll tell you when you get this spike of the luteinizing hormone. Clinically, I like getting the quantitative measurement versus just a positive ovulation test kit or a negative test kit. So some of the testing kits on the market for ovulation just say positive are peak, but they don't say how high that peak is. So I have some patients that they might be peaking but it's really not a good robust level of luteinizing hormone. So there's various degrees of quantitative devices out there, but my new favorite now is called the Mayra or the MIRA because those testing kits can not only tell luteinizing hormone, but estrogen and progesterone, but then you can also get that follicle stimulating hormone. And so now we can track them over a 28 day cycle. So some women it's just good that they can track on their own so they know when that ovulation window is and when that fertile zone would be, which I think is helpful but like when my daughter when she gets her period, I want to be able to teach her this cycle so that she knows from an athletic standpoint so she doesn't get injured but also from a body injury and recovery standpoint too. Okay,

Dr. Hannah Anderson 5:00

so I think what CJ is kind of wrapping up there is there are as far as other alternatives to birth control is there are barrier methods, multiple of them. I think there is this, some people call it natural family planning. But it's basically tracking your cycle and knowing the ovulation cues. So one of them is temperature, one of them is testing luteinizing hormone and one of them might be checking your cervical mucus, again, things that you kind of need to make girls okay with, because they're gonna, if they get to learn from the internet, most of time, they're going to be told that that's weird, or gross, or whatever. And I always say like, those same girls were truly just like picking their nose like three years before this. So it doesn't matter. Like, they were just gross, you know. So in really with the temperature thing, I also think if you can count on a girl to wake up and take a pill every morning, she can also take her temperature in the morning. I don't think that too much to ask. I think it's the same thing. I will travel with her to sleep over like a pillpack would or whatever. So there's more to the cycle tracking and that kind of stuff. But the I agree with CJ. And that's the thing I totally want my girls to understand is like there's a pattern to this, it does take a couple of years to regulate. So if it's not perfect right now, that's fine. That's kind of the thing is it did takes time. So that's a whole nother pregnancy prevention in itself. And then we get a ton of questions about copper IUD is because people do want to know, you know, is there a non hormone option. So how a copper IUD works, however, is that its goal is to create enough inflammation in the uterine lining so that a pregnancy does it can't happen and doesn't want to be there. Steph, you might agree, but like a lot of the issues you are helping people with is just taming the inflammation in their body so that they can get out of an autoimmune disease or get out of pain, or, you know, some chronic issue that they've had for a super long time. It's just like, how can we put the fire out and get as much inflammation gone as possible without copper IUD, because there are no hormones, its goal is just to stir up as much inflammation as it can without getting kicked out of the body so that no one wants to live there. So just making that uterus inhabitable. And like I said, we get that question at every talk, we get it constantly of just you know, is there like a least bad? And my answer is kind of like you kinda have to pick your poison if you do want to go on a birth control. So maybe that means you try some stuff and it doesn't work out and you try something else. So it is talked about like the low dose progestin maybe being the least disruptive. I think that's I don't know enough to argue one way or the other. But yeah, that's kind of where we're at. I think everybody's has a different genetic makeup, obviously, so that there's gonna be one least bad fit for everybody

Dr. Stephanie Gray 7:45

totally agreed, gosh, I want to pack like, unpack like 10 things there. But I would agree for most people, I think the low dose like progestin only pills, okay, you do need to think about that individual's genetic, like clotting risk. I mean, there's a lot that can go into that decision, including the anticipated length of you know, the use of that. So for some people, if they're going to have one IUD, that's it, they you know, they're going to have an IUD maybe three, maybe five years, and they really don't, and that's the only time they've ever been on birth control. They're otherwise healthy. They don't foresee long term use. Am I okay with an IUD once? Yeah, I think that's okay. For some people. I would agree with copper, causing problems. I used to recommend that I mean, like years ago, I used to recommend that as a non hormone option. And then I started seeing elevated copper levels in patients and I saw a lot more elevated estrogen levels, heavier bleeding. So for many people, the copper IUD actually worsens symptoms, because before they had light cycles, now they have heavy cycles, they're estrogen dominant and have high copper. I do see for those if listeners are in that situation, there is still hope. We're many of my patients who the copper ID is removed from, we're able to get the copper levels down and you know, reduce heaviness disciples and whatnot. But I have seen a lot of challenges with a copper IUD. So I'm not a huge fan of that. But again, you have to take one's individual kind of risk factors into consideration with the best decision for them. In regards to kind of what you were saying what we both are saying with natural family planning I think we all I mean, we should just be taught this in school like this should be you know, more thoroughly discussed so the women do understand

Dr. Hannah Anderson 9:22

when how baffling that like you got through all the schooling you have done CJ has gotten through all of her schooling I got through all my schooling. Not one of us was time that whole time I curious how you track your personal cycle Have you gotten taught like in the extended school that we have here are the phases of the cycle right and but it was never like here's how this directly applies to you. Let you know let's get some personal knowledge. Here's how it applies to getting pregnant like that applicable part. Never happened in all of our combined years of schooling like that is just the Met shouldn't be like middle school.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 9:58

I'll tell you what, and I remember I mean, as I was trying to achieve a pregnancy one thing that because I did some Creighton method, charting and whatnot, I was never never taught about cervical mucus. Like hello, you can't go back to what you're saying CJ just about the egg actually surviving in the cervical mucus, right? But you have to have cervical mucus for the egg to survive that long and many women don't have any cervical mucus, which actually is a huge clump for N acetyl cysteine. I heavily use that in my patients who are trying to conceive because it's great for sinus infections, right for respiratory issues. To them the viscosity of the secretion here, but guess what it also will thin cervical mucus and you want that egg white, really stretchy consistency, that's the best over an inch right. From a fertility standpoint. So yes, cervical mucus was never brought up in any of my training that I remember. And that's a huge gauge for women. Back to tracking temperatures. Also, there's an answer to that. Maybe the parent who says well, my daughter won't check her basal body temperature, although she is thoroughly capable. There are devices biohacking devices like the aura ring, I've been wearing this for probably five years, I don't even know I don't have to check my basal body temperature. This just checks it every single day, right? These are affordable devices that last for I've had this years and still knock on wood, right? working just fine. So then I can combine things like the basal body temperature from here, the cervical mucus I've been I've used the MIRA tracker for years as well. So I can see that LH surge, I can see my estrogen go up, but go down. I can see if I ovulate it based on the progesterone, you know, subsequent progesterone rise, I would say it's becoming a lot easier for women to kind of take back that power and control of knowing their cycles and their fertile window. And I think I will say this, it's easier for women who have regular cycles, it can be much more difficult for patients with PCOS patients whose cycles are you know, every three months whatnot, that's kind of a more complicated conversation. But for women who have regular cycles, it's becoming a lot easier for us to use natural family planning either to conceive or to not conceive, right as a non hormone method of birth control. So I think that was a great discussion I'm trying to think of there was something else I wanted to mention on

Dr. Calla Kleene 12:00

Stephanie, do you think between like all of your work just with patients, though, and in practice that like your aura ring and these wearable devices? Do you feel like it's helped empower, almost like our intuitive sense that now you don't even need your ring to tell you that you're like, Oh, I know, I'm ovulating? Because it's helped you kind of cue in to a little bit more of like, Oh, I'm really stressed out. I don't know if I activated this month? Or like, Have you been able to see that in various patients?

Dr. Stephanie Gray 12:26

Yeah, I mean, I just love data. I'm kind of addicted to it. I know some people get frustrated. Like, if their sleep score is bad. They're like, I don't even want to see it, because then they get discouraged. So like, I think there are pros and cons for you know, these sort of devices. But for me, yes. I mean, I can pretty much wake up now and know like, Okay, that was not a good night's sleep, probably have a poor sleep score, my heart rate variability probably sucks. And yes, I think I'm now to the point where I can many times, I don't know kind of predict the number I'm going to see in the morning, but I just I mean, I'm addicted first thing in the morning, I wake up, I connect my device to my phone, I see my, you know, my What is it my resilience score or whatever, I forgot what it's called your readiness readiness score to kind of see okay, it can I go for a run this morning, or should I take it easy, like I listened to those cues, I think they're important, I do think it has empowered me I do like that information. But I can see how for certain personalities that may create more anxiety. So I think kind of depends on the on the person

Dr. Hannah Anderson 13:23

want even knowing that to like, the thing that's best for me about the ordering is like I don't need to be told to work out that's not an issue for me, I need to be told to sit down. And I think CJ mentioned the very beginning men operate on a 24 hour cycle, they can make up do the same exercise, have the exact same plan to their day go to bed at the same time, like every single day, they can do that. But as a female you cannot in you know there that week that you are menstruating, you need to go in your cave and take more naps and you aren't going to hit a PR and you probably shouldn't work out every day, you should take more rest days. And you should definitely not fast also during those definitely not fast. You need to consume nutrients and you know refill your body. But so not only like using a device like that, or you know how many teenagers have an Apple Watch, but knowing that they didn't do anything wrong if they have three days in a row, where Yeah, their score is rough, that that's probably perfectly designed to tell them like hey, these are the three days where you lay low, like, you know, that's that's the advantage. And then if they know that then they you know, like, hey, in a week, your score is going to jump up super high and for the next week you're going to be you know, beast at whatever you want to do. And that's totally fine. So just that it's also how do you read it and read it well knowing your design versus a male design.

Dr. Calla Kleene 14:47

What I like about the wearables, like what I've witnessed in practice is that I have a lot of high resilience women, and I love it. I'm motivated by what these women have done and accomplished in life. But a lot of times I'll ask them like, Hey, are you stressed? out? No, not at all. Why? You know, and I'm like, Well, based on what you've told me, I don't mean to project. But I think that's kind of stressful, but they've been so disconnected and a powered through. And I'll convince them to either get like a Garmin watch or an aura ring. And you know, and after they get a couple, you know, weeks worth of data like, hey, turns out I'm stressed, here's my high stress rating. And they didn't know because that's just been such a day to date. They're like, this is always how I've operated. But now that they have that feedback, it's kind of given them that gentle permission of your heart rate variability is a very, very specific measurement. And it's, you know, between the sympathetic and parasympathetic, and it's showing that your body can't get into that rest and digest state. If we can't get it at rest and digest state. Hello, we cannot make our hormones they're made at night, manufactured at night. And so Gee, I wonder what's like messing up this whole cascade, from sleep quality to your you've overpowered your own awareness of you've got a lot going on.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 15:56

So true. And I believe I didn't want to say this word on the podcast, but I'm gonna say it. So I believe CJ, you told me you saw before you had COVID Your heart rate variability tanked like the day before? Yeah. Like you saw that. And I recently had this halo face laser done. And I was told by a colleague, oh, your heart rate variability will take the whole week after because you basically you're frying your face. And I said, and I was like, okay, and it did. I mean, it didn't take like to the degree like if I was sick, it didn't take but it did go down. And I thought, oh, my gosh, but I'm like recovering from this wound, which I self inflicted, then on my skin looks better. And I'm glad I did it. I don't think it was dangerous to do. But it's just interesting to take that into consideration. Like, yeah, I shouldn't go, you know, run five miles, I just had this procedure done. And yet, my bio tracking device is telling me it's time to take it easy. So that's the strength of all these of this wearable tech is that we, that just gives us more information, and we get to choose what to do with it. And few more questions here. I want to go back to kind of I think maybe what I was saying that we took a couple tangents off of like, let's go back to why. What are some other solutions for patients who are coming in? Maybe just wanting help with their painful periods or their acne? Right? What are some non birth control answers to patients who are experiencing kind of hormone imbalances, if that makes sense? Right? So they're seeking, maybe they there, they would seek out birth control from their conventional doc, but what could they seek out from providers like yourselves? And then I'll, I'll comment on this, too.

Dr. Hannah Anderson 17:18

Yeah, I think that in CJ has more functional medicine training than I do. So her entire thing is going to be more in depth. But I honestly have a really good book with supplement called femme quill from zymogen. It has done super well. It's not that it's for everybody. But man, it's like a very low, invasive and low cost place to start if especially for difficult periods or endometriosis, PCOS, things like that. And that has been super helpful. Getting the inflammation dialed down with the food sensitivities or food testing, that's a big deal. And just like you'd mentioned before, getting your gut working properly, because if your hormones are off, because you aren't getting rid of excess hormones, you aren't eliminating appropriately. So those are places I would start, but also checking to make sure they aren't malnourished with other labs, or, you know, if they've never been on a multivitamin I was going to offer you know, along those lines of informed consent, I'm like, we can spend the money and run the labs I'm game for it, we can also do get some check. It just obviously there are pros and cons to each of those. So people are really tight with the budget, I would say like I don't mind doing the kind of guessing checkup of what a very educated guess right off of what I seen and what I know. But you can go with that route too. And just try and fill their nutrients up, especially with like a teenager that isn't eating well, you know, doesn't eat breakfast and then eats like takeout or fast food for lunch or something like that, and then is too busy. And that means to eat a real dinner, like, yeah, they're probably missing some stuff there. So those are the big, big three for me, I think.

Dr. Calla Kleene 18:51

Yeah. For me, I feel like just number one after that. If they have a messed up period, go to the gut first, right, gotten sleep. And so sometimes, too, it's just the reality check of the sleep hygiene of there. A friend of mine texted me this article, when COVID kind of happened and everybody was on lockdown. There was this like, they called it a sleep revolt that parents because their kids were home all day when they would finally get into bed. And then they would like stay up because they had a long, quiet time. And it was like this sleep revolt that parents weren't going to bed until like midnight or one in the morning because that's when they had quiet space in the house. But I think just like the sleep hygiene in general, I mean, we're addicted to the blue screen, we're addicted to the TV show and we just don't work we've fallen away from discipline of really honoring like we need to get to sleep and make it a priority. And so between checking in with them on the sleep hygiene and seeing if they need to set some healthy boundaries up and then the food sensitivity so that there's always kind of like what Hannah said like the guests and check if food sensitivity isn't realistic or in the budget then it's like alright, you need to go 30 days gluten free, dairy free. And then if sugar is a problem, we might throw that Trifecta in there as well. You know, based out like that, yeah, the sugar problem. And sometimes people don't realize they have a sugar problem. Sometimes I'll ask people like, hey, I want you to do a food journal for seven days. And they find out that before 8am, they've had 75 grams of sugar between their, what they thought was healthy breakfast. And you know, a healthy shake. Turns out was jam packed with a ton of sugar. So I think that and then honestly, the iron deficiency and women, especially bleeding women is so common. So usually like an iron pill and a methyl D. And it's not that I like that before the off foundation multivitamin. It's I like that, because it's probably going to give them symptom relief first, where they might not see as much symptom relief on the multivitamin.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 20:39

Yeah, yeah. I would agree. I want to comment on both of those things. But I want to just go back also to like when a patient presents saying, Oh, I have hormone related acne and the doctors recommended birth control like for at least from my standpoint, I always explore if it actually is hormone related activate, right, we can check hormone levels to see if that's the case. However many times it is just due to inflammation and poor gut health, like you're saying, so examining which foods like you're saying run food sensitivity testing, we're taking them off gluten and dairy to figure out if that's what's triggering the acne will great that will improve their overall health just changing their diet in general and prevent the birth control. Or if let's say they really are having heavy bleeding, so they obviously need the iron. Why do they have heavy bleeding? Right? Do they have high estrogen if that's the case, putting them on a birth control pill with estrogen in it is not really going to help? I mean, it may actually help but if it's going to further worsen estrogen dominance and then individual so exploring why do they have the estrogen dominance? Are they a poor detoxify? Are they not pooping, what kind of personal care products are they're using, I just makes wanna cry what I used to put on my body, just go to Bath and Bodyworks and you know, get just slather on all that toxic stuff. I have so many chemical hair straighteners, I guarantee all of the that toxic burden that I again, self inflicted, but I also don't have the best detoxification genes led to the endometriosis that I had, but no one was connecting those dots for me like now I can reflect back and see the progression. But in that moment, no one was connecting those dots. So for mothers who are listening, right when your daughters are complaining of some of these symptoms, rather than just jump for the birth control, let's try to connect these dots to try to figure out why they're having the acne or the heavy periods, whatnot. I think fragrance and our heavily heavy use of plastics doesn't help I think living in Iowa with herbicides and pesticides floating around in the air, right, that doesn't help just eating organic can be beneficial. There just a lot of things even including reducing stress, as you were alluding to CJ, I've never seen so many wired anxious teenagers in my life, right? We even they are needing to do yoga and, you know, set healthy boundaries and these sort of things that I used to preach to my perimenopausal women, I still am. But I'm also not preaching to the younger patient population. But I want to go back to I mean, really just the principles in my book, Your longevity blueprint, right? So whether someone comes in with acne and painful periods, or maybe they come in with headaches, or fatigue or diarrhea when I'm walking them through kind of this longevity blueprint, all these functional medicine principles where we are testing for the root cause of the problem. And that's really what sets functional medicine apart is this advanced testing, so we can figure out right the dysfunction in the body and fix that. If we determine a hormone imbalance is present. I think what you were saying Hannah, as you were recommending some herbal support, I don't know that product off top my head, but I do use especially in young patients. And this is what I took when I was younger as well. I took herbs to help boost progesterone and help lower estrogen, which is really what I needed. I just needed probably more than there are herbs to lower androgens. If someone really does have a high DHT. Right high testosterone that's contributing to acne or hair growth, right? If they have PCOS, there are herbal formulations that can help there as well. You know, the summary a couple more questions here. But the summary of what we're offering today is really there's hope we need to provide better education. But there's hope for these patients from birth control is not the only not the only option. I don't know if you guys want to say anything else on birth control before we go to non toxic feminine care products. But do we? Are we done with birth control? Or are there more things we want to make sure we say on that

Dr. Calla Kleene 24:01

topic? Well, to echo you and your book with us? Your longevity blueprint? Stephanie's, you know, my goal is that my daughter doesn't have terrible symptomatic periods, right. And so we can incorporate so much about what you lay out in the foundational principles in your book, our daughters are more likely to be set up for success that we're not going to be like, Well, what do we do, and this is something I've been testing and overwhelming that there could be so many different issues. It's sometimes again, back to the foundation of what functional medicine is, is diet lifestyle, and that cascade. So our goal is is that our kids don't have and their friends and our nieces and nephews don't have the symptom cascade that you and I and Hannah grew up in the Bath and Bodyworks generation you know, things that we just didn't know at the time now that we know better. Hopefully we can help for the younger generation.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 24:52

Absolutely know better do better. So I think part of my problem also with my heavy cycles, I was using these chlorine soaps, tampons, which were just really contributing to problem which I clearly no longer use, but what are some of your favorite non toxic feminine care products also, because as we're talking about, you know, periods and cycles, we let's, let's kind of delve into that.

Dr. Hannah Anderson 25:11

Yeah, I'd say anything that is no chlorine on it. I personally will order from tampon tribe, which is just like there, it's nothing but organic cotton. And I'm kind of hippie as far as like sustainability stuff. So like the packaging is all compostable? That whole deal. And yeah, they come wrapped in like little, like not tweed, burlap, that companies like burlap bags, which I'm like, yeah, just rip them up and put it in my garden, because that's how I roll but yeah, I do not I a lot of I think a cup is a great option, a cup or a disc, if you can find those, they do have disposable discs, as well as like reusable discs, that kind of function has a cup too. So it's basically like a silicone cup that you can wash out and reuse. I personally haven't like found my best fit for that yet. But there's also like period underwear. So the things company that tha and x I think there are also several of those now, too, they don't have like the corner on the market on those anymore. But and I think it doesn't have to be one, one or nothing, you know what I mean? Are all or nothing they can be can use this blend of a couple of different things, especially if you know your flow is like really heavy for one day and then kind of find the rest of the time or something like that. So and I think the cup can be a little tricky too for like girls in high school who are in a bathroom and are like, how do I wash this out in the bathroom mission? That kind of stuff. So that's kind of the direction I would go just can you find something? Yeah, that is not bleach, absolutely no fragrance at all in that even just the skin down there. So say it was like a pad and a tampon. Even the skin of the perineum is like one of the most vascular areas of all time. So you're just wishing that stuff right into your bloodstream. Unfortunately, CJ, I know you've had more luck with the cup situation,

Dr. Calla Kleene 27:04

can I absolutely I love the cup, but like traveling I'll then I'll do the organic tampons just because it's easier. But I look from the sustainability standpoint of that creating more trash and more waste that it's reusable. It's really easy to clean and wash. But again, if you're out in have to go to use the restroom in public places like high school bathroom, it's not maybe as ideal on lighter days, too, it's a lot easier that you can change it and install and just bring like a makeup like a non toxic makeup will wipe to that you can use in the stall. So there are options, but even the panty liners, you know, to we have to really watch those labels.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 27:43

I had used Lola for quite a while and to my understanding there. i The paper, I guess it looks biodegradable, whatnot, certainly organic, non chlorine soaked. So yes, great tips here. I also we haven't really gone there yet. And I know we're I'll wrap up the show, because we've been talking for quite a while here. But I would say for women coming off birth control pills. Everything we are saying still applies to you. We still need to fix your gut and replete nutritional deficiencies and reduce stress and detox the body right? All of these principles apply to one coming off birth control as well. Are there any quick tips either of you want to mention to a woman coming off birth control?

Dr. Calla Kleene 28:21

The liver detox? liver detox? Yeah. You know, and to depending on the family history or the genetics, if there's high risk, high, high, high risk of cancers, any type of cancers, they should probably do that liver detox for 21 to 28 days. And then you know, they can do a little bit more that metabolic testing to see like, Okay, what is your estrogen load to see if they don't need to do it again in three months. And you don't want to keep detoxing without taking a break by any means. But what they can do to support their body and then to I'm like, if they're coming off and I'm like, Alright, then it's heavy come off, do the liver detox, eat clean, you know, solid for a good 30 days, and then we can get a baseline of where you at complete thyroid with the antibodies, a lot of the inflammatory markers, and then the estrogen and progesterone along with the testosterone, which is big in your wheelhouse stuff. Yep.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 29:12

I'm glad you mentioned that estrogen metabolism testing because I was going to kind of wrap up the show mentioning that but to tie into that point, my last question for you ladies is really what your preferred means for detecting female hormone imbalances is so are just as far as like hormone testing, is that something that you ladies are doing much of I can I'll say my piece around that at the end. But

Dr. Calla Kleene 29:32

yes, definitely, because we're so lucky that we practice in your town, we do very minimum because once we see so like a day 21 estrogen progesterone ratio, and we're gonna run it at a local lab. We have done the Dutch testing, which will do some of the estrogen metabolites, but typically if we see that they're so out of whack, then they get on your books, and we hand it off to you. We're happy to help you happy to help you.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 29:53

I'll just put a plug in here for patients. Going back to how you mentioned at the beginning of the conversation, CJ, you So, before patients went on birth control, we could test their hormone levels, right? I think that is super important right? Testing early in life. It's easy to test hormone levels in the blood. Sometimes we need to test in saliva, sometimes we need to test in urine. And I have other episodes, talking about that one episode where we talked about the Dutch test, the entire episode is on the Dutch test. So I encourage listeners listen to that, I will post a link in the show notes. But essentially what what you were alluding to CJ was looking at how the livers clearing out excess estrogen. So they're the only way to look at metabolism or elimination is through urine, not through blood. So we actually can, we can see hormone levels, but not how the body's detoxifying those through the blood, we can only see those in the urine. And so if a patient has been under control a long time, and potentially if they don't have the best genes and the best lifestyle, right, we may see some unfavorable hormone metabolites on that test. So that can be altered using nutritional principles like the B vitamins you mentioned, using dem, which is an extract from cruciferous vegetables, using things like glutathione and other antioxidant. So I love the urine hormone metabolism testing, because I do think it gets to the root cause of fibroids and cysts and cancers and endometriosis and whatnot. So that is something that if you're listening and you would like that test to be run in your patient at the clinic certainly call and we can get that test run on you. But there are a couple different companies that run it. The Dutch test we were alluding to is through precision analytical. They don't bill insurance. It's cash based lab. But it's an awesome, awesome test for hormones and cortisol and hormone metabolism. So yay. Well, as we wrap up the show here, ladies, I want to ask where listeners can find both of you,

Dr. Hannah Anderson 31:29

we practice in the same building. And we sometimes share patients like if you start with one of us, and we don't think it's the right fit, we'll send it right across the waiting room. It's all good. But we practice at a clinic called back in line in Hiawatha, Iowa and our website is my back end line.com. And our Instagram is also my back in line.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:50

Awesome. Awesome. I want to conclude the show, as I always do asking each of you your top longevity tip. But before I do that, I do want to give you one last opportunity. If there's anything else you want to say just on any of

Dr. Hannah Anderson 31:59

this. Well, I think the only thing that is missing for me is a question that I that we often get is we will have moms desperately bring in their teenage daughters to fix their hormones, but they're not willing to go off of hormonal birth control. And so I think keep that in mind, if you're listening to as kind of like a desperate parent, there's no way to fix their hormones while they're on a high dose hormone. So or a low dose hormone, right? Like their hormones are being changed by that. And there's definitely things we can do to improve their lifestyle around that. But know that going in and asking for like hormone balancing isn't really a thing on that. But we can do other things to hopefully take some of the burdens off of them chemically, emotionally, and all that kind of stuff. So it's not that you're there's nothing to do. It's just It's I don't think it's the thing that you're that they're wanting or that they think they want. I guess that's how I put it. But

Dr. Stephanie Gray 32:54

birth control will skew your hormone testing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Calla Kleene 32:59

Stephanie, thank you so much for not only having us on the show, but just having the dialogue for what you see in practice. And it's just, I love having this conversation. I want to keep having it over and over again. And thank you for what you do. Thank you for being the one that introduced me to functional medicine. It's changed my life personally and professionally. I can't imagine where I would be without it. So I appreciate you, and our life and our community. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 33:26

We certainly appreciate you guys as well having you around, especially the C kiddos also. So tell me each of your top longevity tips.

Dr. Hannah Anderson 33:35

Oh, I think that mine is that learning how to change the mindset of like things going wrong in your health to just gain perspective that that your body is trying to learn something new or that you need to learn something new or the that there's a lesson in it. So for instance, like when people get sick, or say like I only get sick when it's my day off, it's like yeah, because your body finally has time to chill out. And it let its guard down for a day and it needs the kind of like an update. Like I love how I behave. Zach blush fan and he describes like catching a virus as it's like your body is upgrading its software, like you literally have to integrate parts of that viral DNA into your body. That's how you your body evolves and learns how to do new things, you know, reframing things like sick days of like, oh my gosh, I'm so broken. I can't believe I got sick again. Or it's like me and I really needed some downtime so that my body could upgrade so I can eat better in the future, in that I mentioned before, but using that mindset to let your kids and your family know that they're not faulty when something is uncomfortable. So because they have pain during their period doesn't mean it's broken. It's okay I like it. It might be a sign that they we need to figure something else out. We need to find a way to support you or you need to take time in your schedule to take a nap or something like that but approaching it as a learning The aspect instead of being one terrified every time something hurts, or to wanting to shut it down immediately I don't I think changing those in your brain to more of an opportunity can just be huge of how you treat your health in the long term in the longevity of like living being able to live longer because you're not scared and you're not broken.

Dr. Calla Kleene 35:20

She talks so much more eloquent than I do. It's really lovely. More credit, but ya know, honestly, when I when I reflect on that I love this time of year as we kick off the new year, so of intentions and mindset so that I have to self reflect on what am I doing wrong, that does need to be shifted that what am I doing wrong, that's affecting my health negatively. And it's so silly how simple sleep breathwork and water is. And so it's kind of like the rule of eight hours of sleep 80 ounces of water, eight minutes of prayer breath work for that longevity, that, you know, there's so much that we can quick run to the wearable technologies or the really nice expensive supplements and do all this stuff. It's like, can we just get back to the basics? It's really funny how if we just honored those three things, that it really would help lower the burden on overall body and recovery and hormone health and, and especially brain health. Absolutely.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 36:19

I totally agree. That's the basics. Thank you both so much for all of your time today coming on the show and then just advocating for dialogue on how to improve women's health really starting at a very young age. I love that really through better informed consent and non toxic female or HSA feminine care products, and even advocating for hormone testing. So thank you both so much for the work you do for our community. This was awesome. This was great girl talk. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Dr. Hannah Anderson 36:44

Thank you.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 36:48

Cheers to the girl talk. I hope you've learned through this series that birth control is not your only option. But if you are on it, there are ways to better support your body while taking it like by taking a multivitamin B complex, Fishel, probiotic and vitamin D. I'd encourage that you start tracking your cycles, consider using either a menstrual cup or organic personal care products and see a functional medicine provider who can help you test and optimize your hormones. I agree with CJ that we need to continue to have this conversation. Please share these episodes with the girlfriend and check out the links to products discussed in today's episode in the show notes. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck. You can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time the course is 50% off, check this offer out at your longevity blueprint.com and click the Course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. Leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I do read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics guests and for how you're applying what you learn on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. This podcast is produced by Team podcast thank you so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting

the information provided in this podcast is educational no information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.