Speaker 1: We never really address the way that it should, which
Speaker 1: is with hormones. But it's frequent UTIs women when they
Speaker 1: start getting that dryness, they start getting more recurrent UTIs
Speaker 1: more often. Nowadays we even say see young women getting them,
Speaker 1: and it's actually when they're losing their hormones and they're
Speaker 1: getting less lubrication, more dryness, and now they're more prone
Speaker 1: to UTIs.
Speaker 2: And this is Wake Up with Marcy, a space for
Speaker 2: honest conversations about healing, recovery, and women's wellness. I'm Marcy Hopkins.
Speaker 2: Take a breath, You're safe here. Let's begin. Hello, Well,
Speaker 2: welcome back to Wake Up with Marcy. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Marcy Hopkins, and I am so grateful you are here today.
Speaker 2: I am actually here at Relive Health in Delray Beach, Florida,
Speaker 2: and I am with Paul and I recently came in
Speaker 2: because I have been hearing so much about HRT hormone
Speaker 2: replacement and I'm so interested in it, and I came
Speaker 2: in and you guys were phenomenal. So I just wanted
Speaker 2: to bring all of you, invite you in with us
Speaker 2: to have this conversation because this is a conversation that
Speaker 2: so many really aren't having or understand and we need
Speaker 2: to be having it. And Paula is truly amazing. She
Speaker 2: is a Doctor of Nursing Practice. She is also a
Speaker 2: Board certified Family practitioner. She is certified in functional medicine,
Speaker 2: anti aging and also peptid therapy, and the list goes on.
Speaker 2: So thank you Paula for being here with me today
Speaker 2: and my pleasure inviting me here at Relive is such
Speaker 2: a beautiful space.
Speaker 1: Now it's our pleasure to have you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, So tell us a little bit about how
Speaker 2: you got into this world of medicine and why it's
Speaker 2: so important to you.
Speaker 1: When sometime back when I started, I started in primary
Speaker 1: care and I saw all the patients coming in, a
Speaker 1: lot of them older, and they were struggling. It was
Speaker 1: like they had all those issues. And you send them
Speaker 1: to different specialists and you got everything involved, and no
Speaker 1: one finds what's wrong. But they are suffering. They're not
Speaker 1: feeling well, they have joint pain, they have mental like,
Speaker 1: they don't have energy, they can't work out anymore, and
Speaker 1: libido problems, body composition, bring fog, the frozen shoulder. You
Speaker 1: send them Lui Orthiopedes And now we're injecting aeroids back
Speaker 1: to back and nothing helps. And I started to a
Speaker 1: lot of them will come back and the specialists would
Speaker 1: be there's nothing wrong, like we're just going to give
Speaker 1: this medication call it a day. And I started to think, like,
Speaker 1: there's got to be something better. There's got to be
Speaker 1: something that we have to find the source. We have
Speaker 1: to find the root cause and help them not to
Speaker 1: just give a band aid with a medication, but address
Speaker 1: what is causing it and have a better quality of life. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And that's how I, yeah, enter into the journey of
Speaker 1: functional medicine, finding out the root cause, treating hormone imbalances,
Speaker 1: either from different causes, from toxins, from things we're exposure to,
Speaker 1: like aging. As we age, we also have the aging
Speaker 1: process that we lose those and we don't need to
Speaker 1: suffer this day and age. We have so many things
Speaker 1: that we can do too. Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean quality of life, having a good quality
Speaker 2: of life and understanding that there is help. And Mike,
Speaker 2: you said, not putting a band aid on and going
Speaker 2: to all these doctors and we're being treated but not
Speaker 2: knowing really what is wrong, what is happening to our bodies, right,
Speaker 2: So let's talk about HRT and what that is exactly.
Speaker 1: So HRT is hormonal replacement therapy, and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to touch because there's a lot of stigma, a lot
Speaker 1: of belief. Back in the days, we had studies that
Speaker 1: indicated that hormonal replacement could give cancer, could cause cancer,
Speaker 1: and that generation lost so much because everyone now did
Speaker 1: want to replace the hormones. They were afraid of cancer.
Speaker 1: And back in the day, yes, we had equine hormones
Speaker 1: which were very high. Their dozing was like super physiological,
Speaker 1: not like the ones we have today that are bioidentical,
Speaker 1: that are like physiological doses that we replace. But those
Speaker 1: studies were done with synthetic like a derivative from horse urine,
Speaker 1: and they were very strong. And then yes, a lot
Speaker 1: of these women won. They were too late and replacing
Speaker 1: the hormones. And second, a lot of them had very
Speaker 1: high doses of astrogen, which now we don't have that.
Speaker 1: So fortunately FDA had remove a lot of the black
Speaker 1: box warning saying that it causes cancer. I think now
Speaker 1: we have a bright future for many men and women. Yes,
Speaker 1: men have entropause, women have menopause, And now we're seeing
Speaker 1: and even young patients. I see young patients that are
Speaker 1: losing their hormones because of toxins, because of things that
Speaker 1: were exposed.
Speaker 2: But we're eating the exposure. Everything is different today, Everything
Speaker 2: is different. Yeah, and our bodies are responding to that.
Speaker 2: And yes, and these young girls even starting their cycles
Speaker 2: so much earlier. And like you said, I mean I
Speaker 2: feel like these poor young girls. I have a daughter
Speaker 2: that's twenty and I felt like she was going through
Speaker 2: menopause at the same time I was, because we were
Speaker 2: having the same side effects, if you will.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and they are and it is true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like and we see every day, hear even young creatients
Speaker 1: that they're losing their hormones and we're trying to find
Speaker 1: the root cause because they shouldn't. They shouldn't young, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is different when women go through menopause than we
Speaker 1: have a varying failure and then we do have to replace.
Speaker 1: It's part of life, but we don't have to suffer anymore.
Speaker 2: I think it's amazing. And I mean when those reports
Speaker 2: came out, and I'll tell you, women still talk about it,
Speaker 2: women that I am around, and they're still fearful of it.
Speaker 2: I hear everything, yes, and so anyway, I'm fifty six
Speaker 2: and I decided I had been interviewing some people on
Speaker 2: HRT and also met someone at another event and they
Speaker 2: were like, it's life changing, you have to do it,
Speaker 2: and so let's talk about what happens when you come
Speaker 2: in to let's say relive, because the process was very easy,
Speaker 2: and I'd love to even show what you guys shared
Speaker 2: with me and what I'm now using, and I'm already
Speaker 2: starting to see differences.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to hear. That's what I live for. But
Speaker 1: pretty much when you come in, we're going to evaluate
Speaker 1: first if you have any symptoms, your history, risk factors,
Speaker 1: we have to evaluate all of that, making sure your
Speaker 1: lifestyle because depending on your age bracket, we want to
Speaker 1: make sure what are you doing. If you're younger and
Speaker 1: you're losing hormones, what is it that is causing What
Speaker 1: are the lifestyle modifications that we have to do. And
Speaker 1: also even if you're already hit menopause, we need lifestyle
Speaker 1: modifications because our bodies handle hormones like the same way
Speaker 1: we have dot sense. We have to metabolize them, we
Speaker 1: have to excrete them, we have to toxify from them.
Speaker 1: So we need to make sure everything is working like
Speaker 1: a symphony, and everything is working. So we have to
Speaker 1: assess where you are risk factors, the blood work. Once
Speaker 1: we replace the hormones and everything's doing good, we evaluate
Speaker 1: how you're excreting them, how you're metabolizing them, and so there's.
Speaker 2: A lot of steps, a lot of steps. But like
Speaker 2: who's a good candidate and who's not? I mean, is
Speaker 2: there any one way that we can figure that out.
Speaker 1: There's many different things that we take into consideration when
Speaker 1: we place someone on an HRT. Most of the people
Speaker 1: are I would say everyone that has hormonal imbalance is
Speaker 1: a candidate. I don't want to say for hormonal replacement,
Speaker 1: but for hormone optimization. One way or another. We can
Speaker 1: always like.
Speaker 2: And can you do that when you're in paerimenopause or
Speaker 2: is it when you're in menopause?
Speaker 1: Now you should do it when you're in perimenopause.
Speaker 2: It was a nightmare for me, exactly. I always put
Speaker 2: on antidepressants.
Speaker 1: A lot of women are.
Speaker 2: I was drinking alcohol excessively. I mean, that's a big
Speaker 2: part of my story.
Speaker 1: It was awful. It is it is real. A lot
Speaker 1: of women get placed on and in all honesty, even
Speaker 1: when I was in primary care, when we saw, okay,
Speaker 1: you have those, your blood work doesn't show anything. And
Speaker 1: when you're in paerimenopause, it's like a roller coaster. So
Speaker 1: depending when we check your blood work might come back
Speaker 1: saying you're beautiful, you're not a menopause. You have all
Speaker 1: your hormones, but it fluctuates, and then if I check
Speaker 1: on the right amount that you're taking, you're dipping, then
Speaker 1: I'm going to see that you look like a menopausal
Speaker 1: woman and that's perimenopause. It's almost like going through puberty again.
Speaker 1: It's that roller coaster of hormones. Everything's changing, and I
Speaker 1: think it's harder than when you you're either a menopause
Speaker 1: or you're not there yet. Yeah, because absolutely it's crazy.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It really truly affected my life in very negative ways.
Speaker 1: Yes, but that's the time that when you have, especially
Speaker 1: when you're starting to have the symptoms to have the changes,
Speaker 1: then we start supporting that loss. So we kind of
Speaker 1: give that support. So you're because you haven't lost a
Speaker 1: year and you're going to have periods in paerimenopause that
Speaker 1: you're ovaries will try to make hormones and then they'll fail,
Speaker 1: So you have the roller coaster when and when we're supporting.
Speaker 1: It's not a full replacement dose, but it's like a
Speaker 1: supporting those and it mitigates all those symptoms and everything
Speaker 1: that we do that women go through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so when I came in, we had a blood
Speaker 2: test and then from that you were able to read
Speaker 2: what was happening within my body. One of the things
Speaker 2: that you mentioned, I want to I want to expand
Speaker 2: on that. But one of the things you mentioned is
Speaker 2: family history. So what would inhibit you from not being
Speaker 2: able to do it due to family history?
Speaker 1: We would approach different ways. If you have a family,
Speaker 1: especially a stronger family history of cancers that are sensitive
Speaker 1: to estrogen or to hormones, then we do have to
Speaker 1: do it in a different way. We have to make
Speaker 1: sure we're checking you first, make sure you're up to
Speaker 1: date with all your preventative screenings. Make sure you don't
Speaker 1: have like the genetic predisposition to develop anything, because we
Speaker 1: don't want to trigger anything. But still with that we
Speaker 1: can help with hormones.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, So anyway, I came in had my
Speaker 2: blood work done, and you said that my brain was
Speaker 2: triggering for the hormones to write, because right, so what
Speaker 2: is it to go to my brain for different Those.
Speaker 1: Brain signals your ovaries to produce uh huh. So we
Speaker 1: saw at the time that your brain was trying to
Speaker 1: signal very strongly to get your ovaries to produce the hormones,
Speaker 1: and your body was trying to give you the building blocks,
Speaker 1: which sometimes we see a light increase in cholesterol and
Speaker 1: certain markers in the in the blood work.
Speaker 2: But so that's what was happening.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Of course, my ovaries weren't responding, and also my cholesterol
Speaker 2: has been higher, and I even had multiple tests done
Speaker 2: on that and I didn't have to go on medication.
Speaker 2: But that is something to look into, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: and that has never been mentioned to me that that
Speaker 2: could be.
Speaker 1: A possibility, you know, but it's it's a common one
Speaker 1: of the common found things when women and men start
Speaker 1: losing their hormones. One of the building blocks for your
Speaker 1: body to make hormones is cholesterol. And when your body
Speaker 1: sees because your body is very spine, it's going to
Speaker 1: see that you no longer have that hormone, it's going
Speaker 1: to go, Okay, let me raise a little bit and
Speaker 1: give you the building block see if you can make
Speaker 1: is that incredible?
Speaker 2: Our bodies are so fascinating their the machines. So anyway,
Speaker 2: so you provided for those listening, these are creams. Those
Speaker 2: are creams compounds that have been created specifically for me.
Speaker 2: So everyone would have their own.
Speaker 1: Their own, yes, so into their own needs. We monitor
Speaker 1: with symptoms and how you deal with them.
Speaker 2: Right, so you start with a certain dosage and then
Speaker 2: see how your body would respond. And you also help
Speaker 2: men with this. Is that correct? Okay, because that's tell
Speaker 2: us a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: So men also go through something very similar to menopause,
Speaker 1: which is called andropause, and with aging, they start losing
Speaker 1: their hormones too. Male main hormone is testosterone. It's very
Speaker 1: interesting because once man start losing their testosterone, it actually
Speaker 1: predisposes them to diabetes, to high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease,
Speaker 1: it does all of that.
Speaker 2: I don't know anybody talking about.
Speaker 1: That woman too. So we yes, we should, because we
Speaker 1: can be preventing a lot of disease, chronic disease of aging. Yes,
Speaker 1: when we replace the hormones. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, and also I just want to say so I'm
Speaker 2: about three and a half weeks in now, and today
Speaker 2: m hmm. I realized today was my first day, like
Speaker 2: I've always been a napper meeting rest, and today was
Speaker 2: my first day that I have felt alert, I have
Speaker 2: felt awake, I have felt good, and it's amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2: I haven't felt like this, and I can't tell you
Speaker 2: how long I am blown away by the fact that
Speaker 2: I feel clear headed and that I just feel so
Speaker 2: alert and happy. Yes, so it has been just incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was saying, that's when patients say that
Speaker 1: it's life changing, it.
Speaker 2: Is, and yes, and that's what makes me so excited
Speaker 2: about what's to come.
Speaker 1: Yes, not even considering the changes that you don't see
Speaker 1: and you don't feel, but they are happening because now
Speaker 1: you're preventing oste, you're preventing sarcupedia, meaning like you're not
Speaker 1: going to be losing your muscle mass, you're going to
Speaker 1: have more like less of the brain fog. A lot
Speaker 1: of women complaining of like frozen shoulder, frozen joints, so
Speaker 1: they're now able to exercise, to be active without hurting everything.
Speaker 1: So there's so much.
Speaker 2: I also had problems with my legs when I would sleep,
Speaker 2: and meaning that I would have what is that called
Speaker 2: when your your legs will like jolt and they have
Speaker 2: like hyper active and you feel like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it really affected my sleep?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's another thing. Yeah, a lot of patients
Speaker 1: is such an incredible change in sleep. Yes, how restorative
Speaker 1: and better qualities to sleep they have after they start
Speaker 1: replacing their hormones.
Speaker 2: What are some of the side effects of perimenopause menopause
Speaker 2: that that isn't normal? Like we all know about the
Speaker 2: hot flashes, and we talk about the brain fog and such,
Speaker 2: but there are definitely some side effects that women are
Speaker 2: really not aware of. And I mean, I'll just say
Speaker 2: vaginal dryness.
Speaker 1: Vaginal dryness is a very common and with a vaginal
Speaker 1: dryness there is one that is very common. I saw
Speaker 1: a lot in primary care, and we never really address
Speaker 1: the way that it should, which is with hormones. But
Speaker 1: it's frequent UTIs women when they start getting that dryness,
Speaker 1: they start getting more recurrent UTIs more often nowadays we
Speaker 1: even say see young women getting them, and it's actually
Speaker 1: when they're losing their hormones and they're getting less lubrication,
Speaker 1: more dryness, and now they're more.
Speaker 2: Prone to UTIs and a lot of women feel uncomfortable
Speaker 2: to talk to the gynecologists about these things, so they're
Speaker 2: not being honest.
Speaker 1: They're not No, so there's sometimes the visit is so quick,
Speaker 1: where like you're in and out in five minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so sometimes they don't even have time.
Speaker 2: So functional medicine, a functional medicine is where we would
Speaker 2: receive the hormone replacement, right. I mean, you're not going
Speaker 2: to your general practitioner.
Speaker 1: It could be someone that specializes in hormones. But functional
Speaker 1: medicine is when we're looking you at your health as
Speaker 1: a whole, and we're addressing the root causes of everything.
Speaker 1: So not only are we going to do hormones, but
Speaker 1: we're going to make sure your body is handling the
Speaker 1: hormones well, that you're doing all the lifestyle changes that
Speaker 1: we're addressing anything else that can be causing your body
Speaker 1: not to be optimized, because you should be optimized. You should.
Speaker 1: You should sleep well, wake up energized, have energy throughout
Speaker 1: the day, not needing several cups of coffee or other
Speaker 1: things to stay awake, to have clarity of mind, to
Speaker 1: be able to exercise, to be active, all the quality
Speaker 1: of life that everyone should have.
Speaker 2: Amazing so let's talk about some of the negative side effects. Though,
Speaker 2: maybe someone has started HRT and I mean, what's something
Speaker 2: to look for that maybe it's not working right.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of dozing adjusting in the beginning.
Speaker 1: It is true. So sometimes let's say if progesterone, when
Speaker 1: we start with progesterone and estrogen, some women might retain
Speaker 1: a little fluid, which sometimes it's normal. It activates a
Speaker 1: system that it's like a diuretic system, and as your
Speaker 1: body adjusts to it, sometimes you retain fluid in the
Speaker 1: beginning and then you start diarrasing normally again. So sometimes
Speaker 1: that can happen. Breast tenderness. If you have access hormones,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have symptoms. So you start getting a little
Speaker 1: some mood swings, some breast tenderness. Someone might going to
Speaker 1: have like breakthrough bleeding. So those are problems. There's a
Speaker 1: nuisance that can happen, and it's it's really easily fixable.
Speaker 1: That's about the dose. Yes, okay, right, so let's talk about.
Speaker 2: The peptide therapy.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: I don't know a lot about peptide therapy, but I
Speaker 2: hear that's a game changer too.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think it's becoming very popular. It is becoming
Speaker 1: very populous. It's been in it around for.
Speaker 2: A while, but we're just catching on.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes it's been around it but pretty much. Baptized
Speaker 1: are short chain you know, acids, and they signal things peptize.
Speaker 1: What our love about peptides is that they respect the
Speaker 1: mechanisms that your body have, the safety mechanisms. So let's say,
Speaker 1: when I replace hormone, I have to be very careful
Speaker 1: because i'm telling mandating your body to do something that
Speaker 1: it needs to do. When I give you peptides, I'm
Speaker 1: asking kindly your body to do something. And if your
Speaker 1: body is not ready for it, or if you don't
Speaker 1: have the terrain for it to happen, it's not going
Speaker 1: to do anything. Well. When sometimes I see people that
Speaker 1: use baptists like I haven't seen anything, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: it's probably because your body we're not ready to receive
Speaker 1: the peptize yet.
Speaker 2: Well, tell me what exactly are there for? What tell
Speaker 2: us when when do we need them?
Speaker 1: A lot of different pep tides. There's peptides for healing
Speaker 1: that are peptides to improve your mitochondrial health that are
Speaker 1: peptides that help with gut healing, some help, some help
Speaker 1: with tendon ligaments. Some actually help with bacterial fungo infections. Uniaming, like,
Speaker 1: there's so many different ones. It's incredible, it is. It
Speaker 1: is a whole world. The most common one you know
Speaker 1: is the weight loss one right, which is now very popular,
Speaker 1: the gp ones right, EMPI, the manjaros that found. Yes, uh,
Speaker 1: but we have many O. There's some help with visceral
Speaker 1: fat fatty liver.
Speaker 2: Now are using all the same kind of peptides for
Speaker 2: that or we have many different times, many different ye
Speaker 2: any differferent types of paptides.
Speaker 1: Some help with a libido mini pathtides already after approved,
Speaker 1: some are not. So there's a lot of great areas
Speaker 1: we never hear. We really try to go for pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: so we use compounding pharmacies. We don't use any labs.
Speaker 1: We want to make sure our patients are getting quality.
Speaker 1: They're not. They're getting why it's written in the vial
Speaker 1: and there's no fillers, there's no contamination. But unfortunately, nowadays
Speaker 1: we do have peptides everywhere, Like you'll google it and
Speaker 1: you can get it.
Speaker 2: What you're getting, I know what you're getting.
Speaker 1: You don't know what exactly, So that's the danger.
Speaker 2: So tell us relive relive health, what is it overall?
Speaker 2: What is the mission of relive and what all are
Speaker 2: you offering here? What can someone come in and you know,
Speaker 2: regain a holistic and happy life.
Speaker 1: So our mission, our goal is to really get you optimized,
Speaker 1: to get to have for you to have the best
Speaker 1: quality life that you can have, to be your best,
Speaker 1: to fear your best.
Speaker 2: Yes, amazing. And what about for a woman out there
Speaker 2: that is just feeling really low and maybe she's afraid,
Speaker 2: what would you say to her?
Speaker 1: I would say, come see.
Speaker 2: Us because we will help you.
Speaker 1: And we have a many different We really have a
Speaker 1: variety of treatments here from we have a hormone replacement,
Speaker 1: we have pap tides. We take a full dive into
Speaker 1: functional medicine, so we have specialty tests that we'll look
Speaker 1: into your microbiome. We'll look into micronutrients, food sensitivity, mold toxicity,
Speaker 1: lime disease, fungoing, bacteria, overgrowth, You're name it. Amazing, We're
Speaker 1: addressing everything so you live your best life.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. Well I'm already feeling better. And the gut
Speaker 2: health one, it's actually getting a little better already, I
Speaker 2: will say, but that is something that I struggle with
Speaker 2: and I think a lot of women.
Speaker 1: Especially with age, we have a lot of issues.
Speaker 2: Actually, I don't know, if I think back, I think
Speaker 2: it's most of my life something.
Speaker 1: You know, the amount of patients when I ask them
Speaker 1: if they because sometimes they don't even stop and think.
Speaker 1: But when I ask if they have constipation, or if
Speaker 1: they have abnormal stools or more or bloating or reflux
Speaker 1: or stomach issues, it's a lot. Yes, it's a line.
Speaker 2: And especially now with all that are in our foods,
Speaker 2: and our foods are just different today, Yes, they are
Speaker 2: just different. And I mean our our gut is a brain,
Speaker 2: and and how our gut is functioning is affecting our
Speaker 2: entire body. And I don't think people realize that so much.
Speaker 1: Everything starts it does It starts with the.
Speaker 2: Gut and then it signals to the brain and how
Speaker 2: our brain works in our hearts.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so I mean it is incredible, it's very
Speaker 1: very important.
Speaker 2: So well, I just have to say this has been
Speaker 2: an incredible conversation Paula, and thank you for all that
Speaker 2: you do. And I absolutely love it here we're here
Speaker 2: in Delray Beach. But can you can you find relive
Speaker 2: health in most.
Speaker 1: Parts of the United States? Yes, yes, everywhere right, And
Speaker 1: it was a pleasure to have you. Thanks for having.
Speaker 2: Me, absolutely absolutely, it's.
Speaker 1: Always a pleasure to talk to you. Well.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and thank you all for tuning in.
Speaker 2: If this resonated with you, please like, share, comment, Please
Speaker 2: share this with someone that could use this information. It's
Speaker 2: so important. Maybe it's not for you, but it is
Speaker 2: for someone else, and especially for the men in your
Speaker 2: life that we've we touched on this and that's something
Speaker 2: that I want to I want to take a deep
Speaker 2: dive into that also because women's health is so important
Speaker 2: to me, but the men in our life it's important
Speaker 2: to make sure that they are healthy too. Absolutely. So
Speaker 2: remember you are not broken, You're becoming and it's time
Speaker 2: to wake up to your worth. And I'll see you
Speaker 2: every Thursday with a new episode. So have an incredible
Speaker 2: week and I'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: Bye.