DR. R: Today, I'd like to talk about the bottom line of menopause medicine: the art of finding the right doctor.
JOSHUA: This is either a really easy question: a woman should go to her own doctor, or I’m going to guess that you’re going to suggest something else…someone else. Here’s the kicker: I've got to say, at least for myself, this can be quite daunting. I mean, even just finding the right auto mechanic can drive me nuts. I don’t know what to look for, or what to ask. In the end I make a guess, based on too little information. When it comes to something as important as finding a doctor, holy smokes!
DR. R: And this is exactly why I’m bringing this up. Turns out that there are two primary criteria for me in treating women in menopause. The first is to find a practitioner that has gone beyond our original training in medical school. Unlike the specializations like becoming a surgeon or, let’s say, a dermatologist, few doctors treat menopause treatment like this.
When I lecture to doctors on menopause and when these doctors come up to me on breaks and ask me questions, it's rather astounding to me how little so many of them know. And that's not to fault them, it's just, that this is a big field.
As a holder of a medical license, as an example, I could go get a job in an emergency room. You don't want to encounter me in an emergency room! You want to meet up with a doctor who has had extensive training and experience in emergency room medicine. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of little jewels an emergency room doctor can use to save your life. The field has burgeoned so much over the last 30 years. Same is true of menopause.
As far as hormones go, the best are bio-identical and there's a whole knowledge base on how to test for them, how to balance them, how to take the right dosages. It's extensive.
Joshua: So you have clarified the importance, but not really answered the original question: How does a woman find the right doctor?
Dr. R: Well, good question. I’d have them start with the organizations that, in my opinion, do the most thorough menopause training regimens for doctors. One of these organizations is our own where we train doctors. There is also A4M and ACAM.
Joshua: Well, thank you, doctor.
Dr. R: You’re welcome.
Joshua: If someone wanted to lower blood pressure, other than by taking medications, where would you have them start?
DR. R: Well there are all sorts of great topics, but today let's talk about how a funky diet can raise your blood pressure.
JOSHUA: So, my guess is that what you’re going to say is that, I better eat less salt because too much salt increases high blood pressure.
DR. R: Well, of course, I have said that. Yeah, 50% percent of people with high blood pressure have got a salt issue going. They're eating too much and or they are sensitive to salt in general. They've got to reduce their salt, but that's not the one I want to refer to today because there's a much bigger cause related to diet and it’s sweets: sugar, simple carbohydrates. Let me explain to you how this works. A simple carbohydrate like sugar absorbs into your bloodstream out of the stomach very quickly and you get a spike of glucose in your blood. And your body thinks that you ate a huge meal because for millions of years...
JOSHUA: ...it would never see that much sugar unless I eat a big meal.
DR. R: That's right. Food was far more complex until about a 100 years ago and it didn’t contain a lot of sugar. So, your thinks you had a huge meal, it protects against a glucose spike because glucose burns very hot. And it needs to get into the cells quickly. It needs to be converted to fat to be stored or processed right away because it burns too hot. The body has a special hormone to get glucose out of the blood and into the cells and that's called insulin. So, your body puts out insulin as if you had a huge meal but you didn't and now there's extra insulin at the end of its work. You get hypoglycemia! Some people can even feel that. They get a little tired or a little faint when they have eaten too much sugar.
Now…the body does not tolerate hypoglycemia: too little sugar. But it's got an internal restorative mechanism called hormones that can raise the blood glucose again. Same ones that do it for fight-or-flight: adrenaline, and cortisol. There's a lot of people where the adrenaline's going to raise that blood pressure.
JOSHUA: So I think I understand this. I think I get why sugar raises my blood pressure. It's something like this: I drink a soda. My body thinks I must have eaten a large meal for that much sugar to be hitting my system. It pumps a bunch of insulin into my bloodstream to deal with that much sugar. It overshoots the mark because it thought I ate a giant meal. Now I have too little sugar in my blood stream. Well, it can't deal with that, so it pumps in adrenaline and cortisol to make up for that…and that raises my blood pressure.
DR. R: You got it.
JOSHUA: So sugar leads to adrenaline and adrenaline leads to high blood pressure.
DR. R: Exactly. This is a description the short run of things. Do this over a long period of time, everything gets worse. You get something called insulin resistance, ultimately diabetes. Moral of the story, if you have high blood pressure, you've got to examine your simple carbohydrate intake and reduce it. Well, what are simple carbohydrates: sugar and sweets. If it's sweet, it's simple. Yet, there's some hidden stuff. For example, almost all processed foods have a very high sugar and salt content. So, if it's in a bottle, box or can, look out! There’s more too: pasta, bread, grains, certainly pastries are are too simple as well. So, there's a piece of work to do here!
JOSHUA: Okay, great. Thank you.
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There are many facets of anxiety and depression: Looking at the physical aspect, you have powerful biochemicals called neurotransmitters and hormones. They are the biochemistry of emotional well-being. When they become depleted and unbalanced, there’s a written guarantee that mood issues develop.
Looking at it another way, when you are suffering from anxiety and depression you almost always have these depletions and unbalances.
One way the medical profession know this to be true is that certain medications and hormones, when administered specifically for anxiety and depression, almost always improve it in some, but not all, ways.
How in the world did such significant depletions and imbalances develop in the first place? Causes that are at the very foundation we address in other formats. And here is one of the most common dog-chase-its-tail stories: Life on earth, in case you may have noticed, has periodic stresses ranging from small, medium and large. In the good old days, when we were roaming the Savannah and met up with a saber-toothed tiger, we dug very deep biologically to be able to successfully fight or flee. Mothers have been known in modern times to lift cars off their entrapped child.
Where did this super-physical strength come from? The biologic stress response: a robust outpouring of hormones including adrenaline, cortisol, insulin, estrogen, testosterone and even thyroid if stress was prolonged—and neurotransmitters—serotonin, adrenaline, glutamine and PEA. Great. These are ferocious energizers.
However, mobilizing for stress, though possible, these special biochemicals are there primarily to function in normal day-to-day living, as well as mood. In these modern times, though we no longer confront tigers, our bodies respond to stressors of any kind by mobilizing this primal call to action biochemistry. Worrying about jobs, kids, spouses, relationships, traffic and your place in the grocery line: If you do not have certain skills, you can and will activate tiger-fighting physiology.
And the real problem is that if you do this for days, weeks and years, somewhere along the line your glands and nervous systems cannot keep up with your increased demands, and you get depletions and imbalances. If you continue to trigger the biology of this stress response on a daily basis, you begin to drain yourself of these precious chemicals that are actually intended for normal day-to-day activities like breathing, walking, talking, thinking, laughing and loving. Clearly this is a critical body function when encountering true danger like an impending tornado or a home intruder.
Thankfully, there are proven tools, methods and even supplements that can assist you with overcoming anxiety, depression and how you respond to stress. Aside from the obvious benefits of experiencing less anxiety and depression, you’ll enjoy an increased sense of well-being and improved body and brain functioning.
To start enjoying a life of less anxiety and depression, here are four tips you can employ today.
If anxiety and depression are debilitating, there’s an army of caring, trained, skilled and helpful counselors, social workers, psychologists, group therapies and others that can make such a major difference for your mental and emotional state. It can require courage and effort to find the therapist or group that feels right for you – especially if you are feeling tired and hopeless.
It can come as quite a surprise how much better you can feel and be when you do receive this help. So many people have felt lower than the absolute bottom only to seek help, get on a path and acquire information, tools and support and change dramatically over time to return to a normal life.
There are health professionals, often of the holistic/functional medicine type, skilled in assessing hormones and neurotransmitters. With precise lab information, hormones can be replenished and rebalanced. This can make a world of difference. (And if you are menopausal, this can be such leverage point for you and your mood).
Neurotransmitter depletions can often be addressed with nutritional supplements. At times it is optimal to begin with medications designed for anxiety and depression to help you swing back towards decent, while other ways you are addressing your situation are being put in place.
Medical studies reveal the importance of these and the benefits. If you really want testimonials, go to your local YMCA and interview the first ten people you see. Ask them if they had a change of life from before they became a consistent exerciser to after.
Whatever exercise regimen you select, try to find something you think you’ll like and thus more likely to stick with. It also might be a good time to try something totally new like a walk with a friend, spin classes, yoga or local boot camp classes that can also foster positive social interactions.
Think about slowly but surely changing your diet. One by one you can identify a dietary pearl. You’ll learn about it, shop for and prepare it and you can integrate into your daily food plan. In a year or so you will be eating better and feeling better.
Anxiety and depression, and its accompanying shallow and repressed breathing, leads to less oxygen. This matters greatly. You can prove it to yourself by holding your breath for a bit. Short- and long-term return to sufficient breathing, to providing adequate oxygen, improves the functioning of your everything, including your mind and your attitude. It does take practice.
By utilizing these four tips, you may begin to experience less anxiety and depression. There are natural supplements out there that can help as well. In fact, combining these proven strategies and all-natural supplements may be just what you need to keep anxiety and depression at bay.
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The Internet also provides access to online communities ranging from chat rooms to discussion boards, which can inspire, motivate and help you feel less isolated when attempting to learn about potential health issues.
While the Internet is a wonderful source of information, it can also be a bottomless wormhole of outdated, incorrect and unintelligible misinformation. Which websites should you trust? After reading peer reviews, which specialists should you visit? With so much contradictory information, how do you know what to believe?
Let’s explore how these issues, and more, often make the Internet a difficult path to navigate when looking for medical advice, as well as what you can do instead to live your happiest and healthiest life possible.
How can you be sure if the resources you’ve uncovered on the web are to be trusted? During your research, you’ll be inundated with theories and strategies that often contradict each other while some are flat-out wrong.
As an example: You’ve probably read the calorie in/calorie out theory that states weight loss is simply about burning more calories per day than you take in. Or what about the notion that consuming cholesterol will increase your cholesterol numbers?
Sound familiar? Are these ideas even true? Turns out, these examples are mostly inaccurate. How can you – how can any of us – differentiate between accurate statements, partially accurate statements, and downright misstatements?
There is often a huge division between traditional Western and complementary medicine advice on the web despite the fact they can work wonderfully in unison. Yet time and again information on the Internet suggests utilizing only one of these two approaches for ailments while discrediting the other. The art is to know which combination of methodologies and methods will best serve you and your individual needs.
It’s one thing to read health advice on the web, but it’s quite another to understand the “why” behind it.
A perfect example: A diabetic is told to cut down on sugar by her doctor, but what if she’s also told why? If she learns that too much sugar in the bloodstream damages the eyes, hardens arteries, and can lead to amputations, then the advice of eliminating sugar from her diet starts to make sense.
We act when we understand.
Have you ever looked at Yelp for reviews of local restaurants and merchants? Ever notice how people tend to leave reviews when they’ve had a negative experience more so than a positive one?
It has become human nature to express consumer dissatisfaction on the web, which often results in skewed metrics.
Real-world consequences of online review websites include doctors prescribing unnecessary tests and medications so you won’t go online and write, “The doctor didn’t even do anything to help me get better.”
Doctors may also spend too much time encouraging you to leave them positive reviews instead of really getting at the heart of your ailment. Such are the fears of poor online reviews.
You’ve read the articles: Drinking coffee is good for you. Drinking coffee is bad for you. A glass of red wine is healthy. A glass of red wine is unhealthy.
And on and on it goes until you’re so overwhelmed with conflicting information that you become paralyzed with confusion and end up taking no action at all.
Go visit any health and medical website and enter “abdominal pain.” Suggestions for the discomfort include serious issues like gallstones, hernias, and appendicitis.
Those are some serious causes for what could potentially be just a run-of-the-mill tummy ache induced from poor digestion or constipation.
Ask your doctor what she thinks of medical information online. What you’ll get is a strong opinion. Doctors know that self-diagnosis and self-prescribed treatment methods and medications can muddy the waters and take a patient down the wrong path. The value of the Internet should be to find clarity, motivate you to find better choices and uncover beneficial treatments that you may not have found otherwise – not to scare you into inaction or to give you misinformation to badger your practitioner with.
Oftentimes, advice on the Internet can include a daunting laundry list of to-dos. If there are too many steps, complicated instructions or poorly communicated reasons to act, you may not find the motivation to act and stick with it.
What you can do instead
While the health and medical field can be a confusing place on the Internet packed with infinite pieces of advice and information, there are some hidden gems out there that want to help you.
From diabetes to insomnia to basic health advice, there are sites featuring trustworthy doctors that will provide you with free video series, podcasts, and more dedicated to helping you live a long and healthy life. You can even contact them directly with the confidence of knowing that potential negative Yelp-like reviews won’t influence the diagnosis and treatments.
Find sources that you trust that integrate traditional Western and complementary medicines based around your issues, needs and that provide support to ensure you see your lifestyle changes through.
No more feeling overwhelmed by fear-based misinformation laden with convoluted steps that paralyze action.
With the support of these credible doctors and websites, you’ll be able to make better choices that add additional years, mobility and quality to your life.
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