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Misty Rooks: Hey everybody, I'm Misty Rooks, and this is the Make Me Better Podcast. My co-host, Dr. Chad McDill.
Dr. Chad: Hello.
Misty Rooks: Hey, thanks for being here.
Dr. Chad: Absolutely.
Misty Rooks: Okay. So this segment is by design, and of course, we always are talking about mixing faith with our health. I don't think you can have one without the other. So we recognize that we do have a higher power. God created our bodies. We have a physical body that we have to take care of along with our spiritual side of life.
Dr. Chad: Yes.
Misty Rooks: And they really do mix. And so let's get into it today. Our topic is gonna be menopause and perimenopause. I feel like perimenopause is a word I never even heard of until about ten years ago.
Dr. Chad: I can't say that I had either, but maybe it is our age.
Misty Rooks: Yeah. 'Cause ten years ago I was thirty something, so maybe that's why I was hearing about it for the first time or I don't know, do you think it's just a buzzword?
Dr. Chad: I think that it could be a categorization, you know, we're and I think that we're trying to make better definitions, hopefully have better language, and things are trending in that way. but either way, that's the conversation. And so we'll have it in that framework. And I think that one of the big things is that we need to get right out in front that the symptoms and the the way that ladies are feeling it's for real, and so guys want to.
Misty Rooks: Thank you. Thank you.
Symptoms
Symptoms
Dr. Chad: This is not like this isn't just you know get over it type stuff. And so guys watching, this is not like this isn't just, you know, get over it type stuff. This is the a real biochemical, neuroendocrine, the whole all the language we can be as fancy as we want, but it is there and it's testable. And I think that those are the things that we need to expect and talk about.
Misty Rooks: Okay, so funny story. talking about symptoms. So I'm one of my friends and I just call each other sometimes to tell each other what we've done today that was sort of a bonehead thing to do to and we always blame it on Perimenopause. Okay. So so last week when I was leaving your office, headed to Ingles, I stopped at a red light at the interstate and looked both ways and nothing was coming, so I started to go and I got pulled over before running a red light that I was already stopped at.
But I was just you know, talking to my daughter and she was asking me what I wanted for my birthday and writing it down, so I wanted to be sure.
Dr. Chad: Hey man, be specific on that one, right?
Misty Rooks: I gave her a detail and I guess I was thinking really hard about it and I just started go of course everybody was safe and I'm glad about that 'cause I was look I don't know, I guess I was just treating it like a four way stop. But anyway, so I was like so embarrassed to get pulled over for that, you know?
Dr. Chad: Sure.
Misty Rooks: Because if you if you know me, you know like I'm scared, I don't want anybody else to drive, and I want to drive because I'm the safe one. So, and then the very next day I recorded a podcast with the most lovely woman ever and did not press record. She was so gracious, we had to do it all over again. And I was like, I have never done this before. I have never recorded a podcast without recording a podcast.
Dr. Chad: Well, I think that you've just proven the symptoms are real. So there we go. Right on. All right. Yeah.
Misty Rooks: Two days in a row. So how can we move from just blaming perimenopause for the silly things that we do to fixing it or making it better?
The future can be different for your daughters.
The future can be different for your daughters.
Dr. Chad: Absolutely. I think that it is–now that it's real, it's something that we're dealing with, it's naming it, and then it's saying that just like the shirt I chose to wear today is this concept of trying to live fearlessly through the knowledge that our lifestyle will affect 90% of the things that we will experience in life. And so the and that's the just baseline with Alzheimer's and you know, menopause and diabetes and just cancer and heart disease, just all of them. And so it's a blanket statement that the lifestyle that we live will if we can improve it, it will improve everything, including perimenopause.
And so I think that at that point we just have to say, well, where do we want to start with our own level of commitment to that? And then we discussed this paramenopause and menopause and that I think one of the biggest things that we should start with is the timing of things, of the age of when ladies should start talking about this and thinking about it. And I think that goes back into your 20s or whenever that is when ladies start to have a regular cycle. Whenever that was for those of you who are in perimenopause, menopause, you have to think back and say, well, when did things really get regular?
And then that's when, and I think from moving forward for children, grandchildren, it's hey, well, when that happens, then it's time to start doing some blood work to lay the groundwork for the knowledge of what we use that blood work for now.
Misty Rooks: Yeah, I think I mentioned this to you recently. If I'd kept up with that, because I recently had some blood work, and it was like if I had kept up with that, we could compare how things have changed over the last couple of decades.
Dr. Chad: Yeah. And I think that that's the new thing. I mean, for your daughter that you were talking to on the and running the red light. But it gets to change for her because then that that conversation and I think generational health and the legacy that these ladies are expecting in the future can change. And I I love that concept. That's one of the reasons I love this podcast is just we we get to change that.
And then it's of course improving ourselves as w you know, we experience life. So I think biggest labs are mm cortisol, which is the one that nobody talks about. Right.
Bloodwork/Labs you need for perimenopause
Bloodwork/Labs you need for perimenopause
Misty Rooks: Well, it gets a bad rap. So what what do we need to know about cortisol really though?
Dr. Chad: Well it's an essential hormone that is part of-it affects everything. It affects you know, 'cause when you talk about menopause and paramenopause it's estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.
And then if somebody's a little more conversational, it'd be FSH and but cortisol rarely gets talked about as the stress hormone and it is since it's a stress hormone, it's upstream of the creation.
Misty Rooks: And so does that mean it affects all those?
Dr. Chad: Well, it can be if you're more stressed out, your body will deem need for cortisol production to keep your body functioning. And though the estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, all those are downstream. So cortisol can siphon off all the metabolites of your ability to.
Misty Rooks: So it can take away from?
Dr. Chad: To even produce those hormones, much less the concept of where peramenopause starts out at that point where a lady's cycle maybe becomes weaker, it becomes less regular, ladies start experiencing things like sleeplessness and maybe some night sweats. Well, maybe, but then it's more the starting to gain weight and the the brain fog that you're experiencing and the things
Misty Rooks: the brain fog is real y'all. It is real.
Dr. Chad: I would encourage you to the more you want to know you can look up podcasts on Dr. Sarah Zal S-Z-A-L Dr. Sarah Gottfried, Dr. Berg, and their Huberman podcast and his interviews with people and really start to reference and keep yourself learning. I think that estrogen, when we start talking about that it gets less and more erratic and that's when ladies are starting to experience the things that we start to call perimenopause.
Misty Rooks: Yeah. But I think it's important to talk about this too, when you get those labs.
When you get those labs, they're gonna fluctuate depending on what week, what day of your cycle it is, so we really should be doing some different things there.
Dr. Chad: I think that it's great talk because if you're gonna look at those things like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and things, that day nineteen to day twenty one is gonna be good testing. also using saliva testing and even hair testing for cortisol.You can then look at but if you're gonna look more at progesterone and things like that, you're looking more day one to day three of the cycle. and then but doing snapshots of things, I mean, I feel like the the blood work is just while the needle's in your arm, right? It it and then you've got what time of day was that? Was it the morning? cortisol is better to test in the morning because that's gonna be the peak it's
, it's cortisol's high to wake you up and that's its natural rhythm of peak. and then looking at some other labs. So we've got the progesterone, testosterone, estrogen, looking at the metabolites of estrogen, looking for the three main breakdowns because that will and this is again in the 20s, so that you're seeing how your body is metabolizing estrogen because that if it's in the protective EHO2, well then that's protecting you from breast cancer. But if you're more in the 16 category and you're metabolizing in one of the more toxic metabolites, well then now you're gonna have more of those things, the tendencies to go towards breast cancer and things. And so looking at sex hormone binding globulin is another big lab that is often missed. and then you're free T3, your FSH file I should say TSH and then your free T4 looking at the thyroid functions and then because of course your cortisol is gonna be really looking at your adrenal glands. And so these are the things that are we're assessing all of those endocrine organs, the thyroid and the ovaries and the you know just all of it.
Misty Rooks: So my my follow-up question to that is do you have to ask for this blood work specifically?
Dr. Chad: Absolutely. It's not gonna be in your typical panels unless when you go in, you're very strategic in that conversation. You're I am here for this and I'm experiencing these things. I think I'm going into perimenopause. I'd like to get these labs to see. and then typically you'll use the reference of a family history of problems, because you know, you're wanting to see your vitamin D levels is another lab, because that vitamin D is a part of all the steroid hormone ability to even make it. and then you're gonna get your normal blood work, your cholesterols and your triglycerides that you can and then very, very much imp important is who is reading those labs for you. Yeah. And then who's relating how they all relate back together and looking at then, are you going to do something
And looking at then, are you going to do something pharmaceutical? Are you gonna use lifestyle? And then, you know, what's that gonna be?
Misty Rooks: Right, right. That's really my concern because you know, bringing this this topic back to the whole entire focus of this podcast, mixing your health with your faith, knowing that this is part of aging. God designed our bodies. We are well able to make it through this part of life. people years ago did not have this blood work and things to to go by. So then I always think about that too. Like how do people do stuff in ancient days and, you know, hundreds of years ago, and so knowing that, okay, even if you don't go get all these labs, there there's things that people did, and and we don't know them today. And and that's what I want to find out more about because I don't really want to go the synthetic route. Absolutely. And s and I feel like that is what it is just presented mostly to to women.
Dr. Chad: I think we need a sidebar.
Misty Rooks: Okay. All right.
We have lost generational wisdom to deal with menopause and life's transitions
We have lost generational wisdom to deal with menopause and life's transitions
Dr. Chad: So I'm very annoyed with this tendency now that I'm seeing in society. I'm hearing it from lots of grandmothers and grandparents of how children today are having children and they're separating themselves from their grandparents and saying, hey, I'll have my, you can't, we don't want to be around the kids as much. You know, y'all are immune-compromised, you're older, we're protecting my child, or we're setting up our habits, our lifestyle, we're involving, and and it's a a mindset that the reason I go down this rabbit hole is that it illuminates this huge problem that you just pointed out.
In ancient days, you had this the the lady, the matriarch was the sage who had been through everything.
And she had had conversations with her mother and her grandmother. And there was this ancestry. And we're so involved with ancestry these days, and we want to know our genomics and who we were attached to, but we are separating ourselves from the real the real history, the ancestry of hey, when did you go through menopause? Now that you know what menopause is, where do you think you started perimenopause? What do you think affected you? And when did you start getting gray hair? And when did you start gaining weight? Or when did you have to fight more for these things? Or, you know, did you experience brain fog and all the things that just being a part of a family? Yes. And that that the way God designed us is we are, this is our heritage. This is our ancestry. And so I hate to see these trends going on with that in and our society. And I think that it is a way of separating us more and more and stopping conversation and rational common common sense thinking and breaking the family unit down and then making us rely more on whatever the new hot buzzword is and the new, whether it's a supplement or whether it's a pharmaceutical or whatever. because now the pharmaceutical companies are buying up the supplement companies well, because they see where the trends are going with the natural health and I just I don't know. I wanna speak to that and get back to we've lost that
Misty Rooks: and I think it is a cultural issue.
Dr. Chad: I agree.
Misty Rooks: In our country, maybe in a lot of parts of the world. Yes. but yeah, so we it's the heritage thing, it's the it it is cultural because it's it's the lack of community and passing down from generation to generation and
Like you said, a lot of times it's the younger people. It's not that the older people aren't trying to mentor the younger ones. It's that kinda we've got it figured out. We don't need that sorta. Yeah.
Dr. Chad: Absolutely. Yeah. And and you know, too young to know that you don't have it all figured out.
Misty Rooks: Exactly.
Dr. Chad: You know, and so with that, sidebar, it's I think number one blanket statement is all those gold standard labs. Yeah, so there's the gold standard labs that if you and in today's society we can. We can get those labs very easily. And then get a snapshot into where that person is at, whether you're in your twenties or whether you're in your for 30s, 40s, 50s, and you think you're going through towards menopause. And menopause, of course, is when you've had one year of no cycles. and then it's just a kind of a day that denotes, well, it's been a year. and then there's that post-menopause, which now is a new topic of, you know, how's the body compensating after that year of no cycles? And and looking at the fact that all of it plays a role. The blanket statement is that if you do things that make you healthier in general, it will affect you. And some I think it's Lisa Mosconi is a researcher, Cornell, that is showing that estrogen receptors in the brain of ladies and ladies that have the highest estrogen receptor content in their brains are showing some of the major the brain fog issues and more of the the things that are they're experiencing with the the neurological symptoms when estrogen becomes really erratic and starts to fall. And so you know, that's another person to again look up and watch some of their content and and see and talk about the things w what is that me? And then how do you want to affect things? is it toxicity? Is it your mindset? Is it your nervous system? Is it your lack of exercise? Is it your gut health? you know, where where do you feel like the biggest gap is for you? And then start with that biggest fault that you feel like you have I haven't paid any attention to that. You know, is it your perceived stress? And then what's gonna move the needle? What's really gonna make the biggest dynamic change for you is different. And I think that that goes back to that confidence you have in someone. And I feel like that is something that we try to provide for our patients is do you can you have that conversation for the individual in a repetitious conversation. I think it's one of the beautiful things about being in chiropractic is that we do see people more frequently. and therefore there is those aha moments that can happen. Well, nah I I'm experiencing this and you know, okay, well let's just change one thing and then see you in a week or two and hey, we're back and I saw something change and no I did not.
And and then what's the next thing? What's the next thing that we can add? And I think for those of us that are seekers, that are believers, that are that we have faith in the design, then we can have faith that it will respond.
Misty Rooks: Yes. And I'm glad that you said that because one of my big frustrations with the healthcare system today is if you go into your gynecologist and you're there for your annual visit, you can't talk about any problems that you're having because that is supposed to be a separate visit because of insurance, because of the way things are billed. You know what I'm talking about. So you can only talk about one problem at a time. And and it it's just so wild to me that it's like, well I'm here, why can't I talk about this thing going on?
Dr. Chad: And you're only there once a year, maybe.
Yeah.
Right?
I mean if you're annual.
Right.
And and so they won't talk about you know, depending on what office it is, they either won't talk about it, won't let you mention it, or if you do, they're making a note of it and then, you know, you have to pay for your, you know, an extra visit. And I think that for those of you who are listening
Dr. Chad: And I think that for those of you who are listening, you have questions at home about particular issues that you want us to answer on the next podcast, because this is obviously mushrooming into the a topic that we can cover in two two episodes is that number one- If you have an amazing gynecologist where you go and you feel like you get the labs and you are experiencing great results, with of course, where we are gonna go with this, whether it's your lifestyle management of perimenopause and menopause, or whether it's hormone replacement therapy and the difference you know that you're seeing with that and just all the things, then make positive comments of I go here, this has been great, and you know, these are the labs you mentioned I had or you know things like that. It does and then questions that you have so that we can again just customize this show to our listening audience.
Lifestyle management for perimenopause and menopause
Lifestyle management for perimenopause and menopause
Misty Rooks: Yes, because we're definitely gonna run out of time on this one. We're gonna do a follow-up episode because we we still have a lot to talk about. so just getting back to I think to sum up kind of what you said maybe it's if we will just focus on the five essentials that's gonna help us age. It's gonna help us, you know, women go through what we're going through as well as just you know basic healthy lifestyle that's gonna help a person any age.
Dr. Chad: I agree. I think that that is a great way of summing it up. And that it starts in the things that you wished you'd known and done. Now a a girl in their twenties can have this labs done and then see how their lifestyle is, what's it creating inside of them? And then how do I want to manage that? It's not a pharmaceutical management. It that's the you're you're empowering yourself with this knowledge and then how to change your behaviors, your lifestyle.
to then retest later to then be able to measure the the the changes that you're experiencing and then how do you feel? How's your energy levels and your your connection to people and your emotional stability and how's your physical stability and your weight and your mindset and your all the things that we we know we can we have the power to change.
Misty Rooks: Yeah, that's right. And don't forget for a lot of us we're throwing kids in there too in our twenties and thirties. So then we're recovering from that. And then we're having another kid.
Stress impacts our overall health, which in turn impacts the change of life
Stress impacts our overall health, which in turn impacts the change of life
Efforts to improve our baseline health will mean less symptoms during perimenopause
Dr. Chad: Okay. So before we leave this, I think that that is the underlying current that isn't talked about, and that is that cortisol current of that your stress and your perceived stress then affects how every other hormone in the body can be managed and how cortisol interacts with them. and it reminds me I forgot fasting insulin as a is a is a lab
and so when we when we look at that that that current of stress management and looking at what is affecting cortisol, I think that that and the adrenal fatigue that can happen. And then we come into this age where the conversation isn't enough about that it's the aging parents, it's the
it's the older children going maybe in in teenage problems, or maybe it's they're moving out of the house, and it's a lot of times the emotional stress of just you know the empty nesting maybe, just all those things and how that's affecting ladies who have more rhythms and cycles going on than than guys, and and then how that's just kind of tearing things out of the frame and making things more out of balance and that I I love the mention Dr. Sarah's Azal mentioned, you know, the Lisa Mosconi research and how that she's showing that ladies who have the healthiest lifestyle have the least amount of symptoms in perimenopause and the way our bodies were designed or ladies are designed that to go through that transition, the healthier you are, the less symptoms you're going.
And then it that gives a is a reminder of the five essentials and how our bodies, those five essentials really support the natural progression at any age, at any stage, in any phase. Yeah.
Misty Rooks: So we need to be concerned about our baseline before we reach this point.
Dr. Chad: Absolutely. And I think that that's the baseline of all of it.
All of it. Baseline of exercise, nutrition, stress, you know, your nervous system, your oxygen and extra you know, all of it. Yeah. Your toxicity.
Misty Rooks: Okay, so what I want to talk about on the next episode is possible treatments, supplements to address all of these labs, all of these things that are going on. I mentioned before, because I don't really want to go the synthetic route.
A lot of you do.
We hope that you're listening and enjoying and learning something new. I wanna learn something new.
Dr. Chad: And and nowadays it's the bioidentical. Like it's not the synthetic. At least the it is it's being compounded and it is less because no one and I'm gonna state that no one should be doing the synthetic hormones. It increases the risk of breast cancer eight percent per year you're on it. And so no lady wants that.
Misty Rooks: So I want to dig into that next time. Like what is bioidentical? What does it really mean? Is it the best option? Are there other things we can do? And anything that we missed today and any questions that you have, please drop in the comments because you know, with this brain fog that I have, I can't think of all the questions.
Dr. Chad: Well, and the fun thing is that five years from now, we're gonna do a podcast on the things that you changed and how that went and how your brain fog's doing better. That's what I am predicting. Yes that's that's what I'm gonna put out there.
Misty Rooks: There we go. Yes. I will agree with that. Okay. So hey, thank you so much for the conversation today.
Dr. Chad: Absolutely. It's fantastic. I love it.
No need to change God's design for our bodies--we should change how we are treating the design
No need to change God's design for our bodies--we should change how we are treating the design
Misty Rooks: So as always, we just want to make sure that we leave you with something positive. God designed our bodies. He knew what he was doing. We need to figure out how to kind of restore that back to our natural state and just help ourselves to age, age well, live well.
Dr. Chad: Yeah, I don't think we need to change the design. I need to think, I think we need to change how we are treating the design.
Misty Rooks: Absolutely.
Dr. Chad: And that then its glory will be manifested and we can things that we're supposed to be experiencing.
Misty Rooks: Absolutely. We go back and honor that-Original, original design. So thank you guys for joining us today for the Make Me Better podcast.
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