[00:00:01] Welcome to Anti Aging Unraveled, the podcast where we redefine aging and empower you to age your way.
[00:00:08] I'm Dr. Laurie and this show is rooted in the lifeevity philosophy. Living life the way you want to with energy, clarity, purpose and longevity. Here we break down integrative functional medicine, bioidentical hormones, peptides, metabolic and brain health, gut, immune connection, and cutting edge longevity therapies. So you're not just living long, longer, you're living better.
[00:00:34] If you believe aging should be intentional, personalized and on your terms, you're in the right place. Welcome to Anti Aging Unraveled. Let's unlock longevity and help you age your way.
[00:00:47] Hi, beautiful people and welcome back to Anti aging unraveled.
[00:00:52] I'm Dr. Lurie, your Functional medicine guide to what we like to call life. Jevity. Living life to the fullest on your terms.
[00:01:00] And today we're talking about hormones, energy and giving you that clarity that you deserve. So we are going somewhere that is going to make a lot of people uncomfortable and we are going to talk about birth control.
[00:01:13] So, yeah, birth control, right? It's been around forever. We've been using it for a long time and people really don't talk about the pitfalls of birth control. So before you click away, I'm not here to tell you what to do with your body. Obviously most of you are grown women listening to this podcast. You make your own choices. And what I am here to tell you is that the medical system has been wildly under informing you. And in my world, under informed is just not acceptable.
[00:01:39] So buckle up. We're going to pull back the curtain on something that 150 million women worldwide are on right now. And most of them have no idea what it's actually doing to their bodies. We're talking about the birth control pill, the patch and hormonal IUDs and the ring, all of it. Because here's my thesis for today. Birth control is the original hormone disruptor.
[00:02:01] And I don't say that to scare you. I say that because you deserve the full picture.
[00:02:06] And then you can decide, you know, decide if this is really something that you want to do or if the downfalls outweigh the benefits. So before we get into it, if this is your first time, I want you to hit that subscribe button. And if you're watching on YouTube, make sure you smash that like button. It tells the algorithm that real evidence based women's health concern matters to you.
[00:02:27] And I'm Dr. Laurie and I put out new episodes every week or Every other week. So you don't want to miss what's coming.
[00:02:33] And. Yeah, so let's dive in.
[00:02:36] So let's start at the beginning, because I find that most women, even my patients, who are super educated, have no, no idea or never have actually had someone explain to them their birth control, what it's doing at a cellular and hormonal level.
[00:02:49] So let's fix that right now. Your natural menstrual cycle is a symphony. It's one of the most elegant biochemical sequences that your body actually does. And. And every month, your brain, your ovaries, and your uterus are having a complex conversation.
[00:03:06] Estrogen rises, you ovulate, progesterone surges. And that progesterone surge is literally everything.
[00:03:15] The second it is the second half of your cycle. It protects your uterine lining from extra estrogen. It's what calms your nervous system, what helps you sleep. It's what protects your breast and your uterus from cancer.
[00:03:28] Progesterone is the great balancing act, and I really think it's the unsung hero. And birth control, almost every form shuts that entire conversation down. It suppresses what we call the HPA access, or HPOA access, the hypothalamic pituitary ovarian axis, and your brain stops signaling, your ovaries stop working, you stop ovulating. And here's the critical piece. When you don't ovulate, you don't make real progesterone, not even close to the amounts that you really need.
[00:04:02] So the synthetic hormones and oral contraceptives suppress what we call GNRH from the hypothalamus in the brain. It's basically gonadotropic releasing hormone, which just tells your body to start releasing your sex hormones. And it also blocks LH and FSH from the pituitary, which is actually what stops that ovulation from happening. Okay, so without ovulation, what we call the corpus luteum never forms. So actually, natural progesterone production drops to near zero.
[00:04:36] The body runs on synthetic estrogen, synthetic progestin in birth control, which is a fundamentally different biochemical environment than your natural hormones.
[00:04:48] So this depression can persist for months to years after discontinuation of birth control, which we will talk about.
[00:04:55] But I think first let's talk about how progestin in birth controls and progesterone are not the same thing.
[00:05:04] One of the biggest misunderstandings I see is that people think that they are the same. And even among physicians, I hear all the time that they're the same thing and they're not. People use progestins and progesterone like they're in the same world. Again, they're not. This is like saying a painting of orange is nutritionally equivalent to an actual orange. So eating an orange and painting an orange are not equivalent. Right. So it's not even close.
[00:05:27] And bioidentical progesterone, the real stuff, the same chemical molecule fits your progesterone receptors like a glove, like a lock and key. We talk a lot about lifelinks and locks and keys in lifeevity. And bioidentical progesterone is just that. It crosses the blood brain barrier.
[00:05:46] It converts to something called allopregnanolone, which is your brain's natural calming mechanism.
[00:05:52] It hits your GABA receptors. Again, it's that mild tranquilizer. It's not a sedative, but it kind of chills you out. And it supports myelin production in your brain, which is actually the sheath that actually protects your neurons and your neuronal health balances estrogen from a cancer perspective standpoint in the breast, uterus and colon. So this is a real problem, replacing a real natural progesterone with a synthetic. Synthetic progestins like norethedrone or levonorgestrel, they're what you find in birth control pills like the Mirena. They're definitely chemically modified molecules. They do not fit like a lock and key. They bind to progesterone receptors, but not well. And they also bind to androgen receptors, glucocorticoid receptors, mineral corticoids. So water fluctuations. Right. Very male pattern in testosterone receptor type of things. And this creates a cascade of off target effects that natural progesterone simply doesn't do.
[00:06:53] And critically, synthetic progestins do not provide that cancer protection.
[00:06:59] This is documented in the Women's Health Initiative data and even the re evaluation of the Women's Health Initiative data.
[00:07:05] It's not controversial. It's actually just based science. It's factual and we know it to be true. So let's just summarize those key points.
[00:07:13] Progesterone bioidentical fits progesterone receptors precisely. And there's no off target receptor binding converts to something called allopregnanolone, which calms the brain and is a GABA stimulator, helps with sleep, it protects the breast, uterine and colon from estrogen sensitive proliferation or cancers.
[00:07:34] Crosses that blood brain barrier for that neuron or brain health. And it supports metabolism, insulin sensitivity, it improves it and helps with thyroid function.
[00:07:45] None of these are done by synthetic progestins. And worse yet, you have the androgenic effect, which can cause acne and hair thinning. And you can also have the water retention and weight gain side effects that you would not have with progesterone.
[00:08:03] So let's talk about what happens when progesterone disappears, what it means for your body when real progesterone goes away. Because this is where so many of my patients, like, have their light bulb moment, right, where they come to me with weight gain.
[00:08:17] They can't explain anxiety out of nowhere, terrible sleep and complete emotional flatness. And they're in their 20s and 30s, right? So we're not even talking perimenopausal levels yet. Of course, this can happen then as well.
[00:08:31] But when I ask about their history, the answer is almost always that I've been on the pill since I was 16 and I was fine, or I've been on the pill and I was 16 and I've had anxiety for my whole entire life.
[00:08:45] First, let's dive into this, because mood and anxiety is literally one of the biggest things I hear with progesterone shut off.
[00:08:53] Real progesterone is your brain's most powerful calming molecule.
[00:08:58] When it's gone and replaced with a synthetic progestin that doesn't hit those GABA receptors, many women experience a noticeable increase in anxiety, irritability, emotional reactivity, and even depression. Studies have shown significantly increased rates of depression diagnoses and antidepressant prescriptions in women on hormonal contraceptives. We've talked about this in previous pods, particularly in adolescence, when we're handling 16 year olds, something could be quite eroding their mental health, and no one is connecting those dots. And that would be birth control.
[00:09:36] Second, let's talk about sleep.
[00:09:38] Progesterone helps you achieve deep restorative sleep. It literally has a mild sedative effect, and I will say mild, because you can take it during the day as well.
[00:09:48] But it helps those GABA receptors to calm down. And when women go off birth control and start natural progesterone, one of the first things I hear is I'm sleeping better than I have in years and I'm less anxious or irritable. And that's just biochemistry, right? It's just calming that brain down.
[00:10:05] Third, and this is one I can't stress enough is metabolism and insulin sensitivity.
[00:10:11] Progesterone is a natural insulin sensitizer, which means it makes it work better. It helps your cells respond to Insulin appropriately supports that blood sugar regulation. So it helps when there's a lot of sugar around. If you have progesterone, it will take that sugar out of the body and bring it into your cells, out of the bloodstream. When you suppress ovulation and real progesterone production, you shift to a more insulin resistant state. This means more fat storage, particularly around the belly and abdomen, more difficult to lose weight. You have blood sugar swings up and down over time and particularly can increase your cardio metabolic risk over time as well.
[00:10:50] So this is why so many women on the pill say they can't lose weight no matter what they do because their hormonal environment just isn't working. It's working against you. You put back some regular progesterone or bioidentical progesterone or get your natural production back and that helps exponentially.
[00:11:07] And fourth, let's dive into a little bit to that cancer protection. I want to be very clear here. Estrogen is not the villain.
[00:11:15] Estrogen is essential. But estrogen that's unopposed by progesterone or not balanced by real progesterone is a growth signal. It tells your cells to proliferate and divide specifically with estrogen in the breast and the uterus. Without that natural progesterone to balance that signal, the anti growth or anti proliferative signal, you're in a state of relative what we call estrogen dominance. I always say that seesaw is just off your one side is higher than the other and that state sustained over years is a risk factor of estrogen sensitive cancers.
[00:11:51] So synthetic progestins don't provide the same protection or the same balance that progesterone does.
[00:11:58] So to me this is a huge red flag warning sign.
[00:12:03] We need that progesterone for that cancer protection. A couple of research highlights. In 2016 the JAMA of Psychiatry actually journal said 1 million Danish women that were on course hormonal contraceptive use associated with were associated with significantly increased risk of depression diagnosis antidepressant use. We've talked about this in previous podcasts as well in Fournier in 2008 Breast cancer research and treatment Bioidentical progesterone is associated with lower breast cancer risks versus synthetic progestins in postmenopausal HRT. This is from 2008 2003.
[00:12:42] Stanzic said progestins and progesterone have fundamentally different pharmacologic profiles. Synthetic progestins do not replicate all of the progesterone effects.
[00:12:54] That's so Important.
[00:12:56] And we also know that progesterone's role in insulin sensitization is documented very well through what we call a GLUT4 transporter, which is a glucose transporter, which helps the insulin and the glucose modulation to be more efficient. Okay. So I want you to really understand that. And I will, I will make that data and those studies available for you guys as well. I will pop them into the chat for you and you can also get them. We actually provide a research paper, Google Doc, that you can also ask us for if you're in one of our programs.
[00:13:29] So let's talk about what happens when you go on birth control and testosterone. Let's dive a little bit into the connection of this. And people never talk about testosterone and birth control, and that's because they don't talk about something called shbg. It's another layer of the birth control puzzle that almost no one speaks about.
[00:13:48] And that is sex hormone binding globulin.
[00:13:52] Just what it sounds like. It holds onto testosterone and doesn't let it go.
[00:13:58] So stay with me. Here is a little bit of biophys that it's going to be a little bit to explain, but it's a carrier molecule made by your liver and its job is to transport the sex hormones through the bloodstream, particularly testosterone.
[00:14:11] But here's the big thing about shbg, whatever, your hormones are bound to it. They're inactive. Like I just said, it makes it not usable. They can't get into your cells, and it's not going to create the biologic action. They can't do their jobs. Synthetic estrogen like ethanol, estradiol and birth control pills massively stimulates your liver to make more shbg.
[00:14:33] So when you go on birth control, what naturally happens is that binding globulin goes up and hold on to your testosterone for dear life. We're talking about four times the normal level in some women for that SHBG when they're on oral contraceptives.
[00:14:49] So again, that means your testosterone can't be used. So your free, bioavailable, active testosterone form that actually does the work in your body gets gobbled up. And all that extra SHBG just holds onto it.
[00:15:01] And your testosterone in your labs might actually look normal, but your free bioavailable testosterone is tanked. And you need to measure that SHBG and your total testosterone to really evaluate those levels.
[00:15:18] And here's the insidious part. For many women, SHBG stays elevated for months to years after stopping the pill.
[00:15:25] There's Multiple published research studies on this. It's called post pill SHBG elevation.
[00:15:31] And some researchers actually have called it the oral contraceptive pill, a chemical castration for female sexual function, meaning it cuts it off because their testosterone is just non existent. And I really don't think that's an overstatement. And I know that when we go to our OB GYNs or primaries, they say that, you know, the libido is not affected really by birth control, or at least the testosterone is not discussed. And it's a huge problem.
[00:15:58] So what does low testosterone actually mean for a female?
[00:16:02] Let me count the ways. First, libido gone, greatly diminished. Because testosterone is a hormone of desire.
[00:16:10] It's not just a male hormone. Women need it too. We're about 1/10 of a male level. And when your free testosterone is suppressed, your sex drive follows. And for many women, like I said, even after they stop birth control, this SHBG can stay high and that testosterone level does not come back quickly. Additionally, you actually have shrinking down of the clitoral area when your testosterone decreases, which takes time to increase and come back up to levels, if it does at all.
[00:16:41] Second, testosterone drives muscle mass. It's anabolic. It signals your muscles to grow and maintain.
[00:16:49] Low testosterone means reduced muscle protein synthesis, less muscle mass, and over time, a slower metabolism.
[00:16:58] So not only are you losing the progesterone help that insulin sensitivity gives you, now you're not making as much muscle and muscle is so metabolically active that you put on weight and you can't put on muscle mass. So it's harder to work out and make gains in the gym when you're on the birth control, they can't build or maintain tone.
[00:17:18] And third, weight, weight. When you are on birth control, you have less muscle, you have more fat storage, your insulin resistance goes down from that low progesterone and now your testosterone is gobbled up. To me, that's a trifecta that makes weight management feel like you're swimming upstream. It's not a willpower problem, it's a hormone problem. And we're going to talk about, does that actually come back all the way when you go off birth control? I think one more really big one that's underappreciated and under discussed is mood and cognitive function. One of the first questions I ask when a female comes in to me to treat her for menopause or perimenopause is how did you feel on birth control?
[00:18:02] Because I want to know how she did when her progesterone basically Was completely suppressed.
[00:18:07] Mood and cognitive function, anxiety, brain fog are huge with birth control as well, because progesterone goes down. But testosterone has significant neurologic effects on women as well. It influences dopamine, motivation, confidence, that mojo, that cognitive sharpness. And when it's depleted, women describe feeling flat and unmotivated, like a dimmer switch has been turned down. Their entire personality and their motivation.
[00:18:36] I see this all the time in my practice. And women do so well when you put them on testosterone.
[00:18:42] And they never thought that testosterone was ever the culprit. And honestly, even without birth control, that's one of the first hormones to go down early in perimenopause and after kids. So that's one of the first culprits as well of hormone deficiency that we see.
[00:18:57] So just to kind of reiterate, reduced muscle protein, reduced lean mass, slower baseline metabolism, less dopamine for the brain, emotional flatness. All of this happens because you're gobbling up that testosterone and increasing that binding globulin 2 to 4 times normal levels because of that synthetic estradiol. Okay. Also obviously reduced libido.
[00:19:23] All right, so I'm going to pause here because I know that this is resonating with a lot of you.
[00:19:29] If you are hearing yourself in this information, you need to be in our community. Share this with a friend to be in our community. Search for the L list. L dash list. The L list ladies, Hormone and lifeevity reset on Facebook. It's the L list ladies with a colon. And then it's hormone and lifeevity reset on Facebook. To join us, we will do special posts that might be more relevant to you. It's a group of incredible women who are just done being dismissed, done being under treated, and are ready to actually understand their bodies and bounce ideas off each other. We talk about all of this. Birth control, hormones, metabolism, peptides, all of it. So come find your people and I will put the link show in the notes as well. So go write and join and then you can come back.
[00:20:15] And I really appreciate it.
[00:20:17] So let's talk about what happens when you become estrogen dominant. That little seesaw mismatch for long periods of time, meaning you're on birth control for 15 years like I was, or more.
[00:20:29] You're running on synthetic ethanol, estradiol, and a progestin like norethedrone without the protection of that real progesterone like we talked about.
[00:20:38] And again, that seesaw is on balance. So because this is the environment of true estrogen dominance. And when I say Long term, we're talking years and decades, which is exactly how long women, most women are on the pill. They go on it after babies, they go on it during their adolescent years, and they just go on it right after they have a baby over and over. Right.
[00:20:57] Ethanol estradiol is not the same as your natural estradiol and it's significantly more potent. It is actually first pass resisted in the liver, meaning it doesn't get broken down efficiently and circulates at a higher potency. Much stronger stimulation effect on estrogen sensitive tissues.
[00:21:14] And norepadrone is an androgenic progestin that's birth control's counterpart that does not provide the same counterbalance protection to those estrogen receptors that natural progesterone does.
[00:21:26] So over time, what happens? Sustained estrogen dominance drives what we talked about. Proliferative changes in the estrogen tissues, fibrocystic breasts, uterine fibroids, endometrial hyperplasia or enlargement, worsened endometriosis, despite the fact that birth control is commonly used for endometriosis. Right.
[00:21:47] Let me be clear about that one. Hormonal birth control can suppress endometriosis symptoms by suppressing the cycle, but it doesn't treat the underlying immune and inflammatory disease process. Right. It just stabilizes the cycle. The moment you stop endo often comes roaring back. And sometimes worse because of years of immune suppression have allowed it to progress silently. So you're still getting this growth, but you're not getting that ovulation period.
[00:22:16] Estrogen dominance is a major driver of also thyroid dysfunction.
[00:22:21] When you have excess estrogen, it raises that binding globulin for thyroid. Again, we talk about these binding globulins, which does to your hormones exact thyroid hormones. Exactly what SHBG does. It binds them up and makes them non available.
[00:22:35] So women on long term birth control often have what we call subclinical Hypothyroid patterns. Free T3 and free T4 or total T4 are even low.
[00:22:45] TSH looks normal because TSH is not being stimulated. So it's not asking for more help. It thinks it's okay. This compounds fatigue, weight issues and mood symptoms.
[00:22:57] So now you have a metabolic dysfunction that is now spanning multiple organ systems.
[00:23:03] And then there's the depletion of nutrients.
[00:23:07] Almost every medication has some complication with depleting nutrients. But synthetic hormones deplete B6, B12, folate, magnesium, zinc and CoQ10, which are not optional nutrients, they're cofactors in methylation.
[00:23:22] Neurotransmitters for our brain Mitochondrial energy for our ATP production and our energy, our body energy and antioxidant defense.
[00:23:32] So you deplete them for years and you're getting, you're setting the stage for fatigue, mood disorders, cardiovascular risk and impaired detox.
[00:23:41] So women that have been on birth control for long periods of time, when they come to me, it's not as simple as just taking them off of birth control, right? Because now we have this relative estrogen dominance for a long time.
[00:23:54] Maybe we have fibrocystic breast, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, fat redistribution, belly fat, which creates all kinds of downstream effects on the metabolism.
[00:24:06] Thyroid can be hypofunctioning and what I would call like a low functioning thyroid. You have this nutrient depletion effect and then you also have had this estrogenic activity for long periods of time, which does put you at higher risk of cancers long term, not to mention acne, cholesterol issues, hair thinning, anything else that this really potent androgenic estrogen, the birth control pill, can do.
[00:24:30] So the real question here is what is the research actually show? I get this question all the time. I stopped the pill. Why don't I feel normal yet? Will my hormones come back to where they were? And the honest answer is sometimes yes, relatively quickly, and sometimes it's complicated. The medical party line is that fertility and hormonal function return quickly, often within one to three months. And for many women that's true. But I will tell you, the average return of ovulation is not the same as full hormonal recovery and well being restoration.
[00:25:03] There's a significant subset of women whom this is not a fast process. They don't get the brain receptors saturated, they still don't get their testosterone back as quickly.
[00:25:12] And for example, post pill amenorrhea, the absence of period after stopping can last months.
[00:25:19] Post pill SHBG, as we discussed, that binding globulin can persist for 6 months to a year, keeping that testosterone suppressed long after they've stopped the pill. And depending on age, it might not come back.
[00:25:30] There is a condition called post birth control syndrome, though it's not formally recognized in mainstream medicine, that describes a constellation of symptoms. Acne, hair loss, irregular cycles, mood changes and fatigue that can emerge in the weeks and months after stopping hormonal contraceptives.
[00:25:49] So ovulation suppression is just one piece of the puzzle.
[00:25:53] We're putting the women on birth control at 14, 15, 16 and right at the time when their hormonal axes are still developing, that they're not fully mature until their early to mid twenties. So suppressing it during these critical times may have implications on how robustly it recovers. We don't have great long term data on this and in my opinion, that lack of data should give us pause before we just reflexively prescribe contraceptives to teenagers for any non contraceptive reason.
[00:26:24] And when I tell my patients this, your body is incredibly resilient, you know, some women are gonna come right back. Proper nutrition, sometimes target targeting those bioidentical hormone therapies, giving you some to bridge the gap. But recovery is not always automatic, it's not always fast. And anyone that tells you the pill is seamless is definitely not being honest with you. Most of you that have tried the pill and it didn't work, you know what I'm talking about. For those of you who have been on it for a long time that are going to go off of it to get pregnant or have other reasons to get off of it at this point, maybe brain changes or otherwise, I'm not sleeping, things like that. What you're going to realize is it does take time and sometimes it doesn't always come back to where it was previously because you've also aged right?
[00:27:11] So I want to be very honest and put that out there that it could be quick where it's a couple months or it can take years. And if you've been on it too long and you're older, it might not bounce back to where you were before.
[00:27:23] So I'm going to take a quick break. If you're learning something today, if this is filling in the gaps that of course, most of your doctors never filled in for you, please do me a favor and follow this podcast right now. Whether you're on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen, hit that follow button so you don't miss an episode. You can also find it on my website, mydrlori.com and find me on Instagram and Facebook. You know, you can look up my name, Lori Gerberdo or Dr. Dr. Laurie Gerber. I put content out every week or every other week that no one else is talking about.
[00:27:58] All right, let's get to the part you've been waiting for. What can you actually do about all of this? Is it fixable? How can we help you? And I think this is what you guys really want to hear. So let's get into solutions because this is where my patient's eyes light up. Because there is another way. It starts with bioidentical progesterone. I really think the unsung hero and you can take bioidentical progesterone alongside birth control?
[00:28:24] Yes, I do this in clinical practice all the time. If a woman needs to stay on birth control for some reason, for contraceptive reasons, or she needs the hormone, we don't want to pull her off it for whatever reason. If she's struggling with mood, anxiety, sleep or other symptoms that see progesterone related, adding topical or low dose oral bioidentical progesterone during the second half of her cycle or in some cases every day, makes a huge difference. Huge difference. We're essentially adding back what the pill took away. Right. We're giving you that seesaw. We're giving you that bottom half of the seesaw brain and body calming balancing molecule that was designed for you to body the hat not be shut off.
[00:29:06] And I know this isn't mainstream, most OB GYNs will not do this. But the biochemistry fully supports it and my patients feel a tremendous difference on it.
[00:29:18] So let's also talk about using bioidentical hormones instead of birth control, getting you off of that, especially if you don't need it for birth control or if you can put in a copper iud. Because for many conditions birth control is reflexively prescribed and there are better options, ones that actually address the underlying issues rather than supporting or suppressing the entire hormonal system.
[00:29:42] Right.
[00:29:43] For example, endometriosis. Birth control suppresses symptoms by shutting down the cycle. We talked about that.
[00:29:50] It doesn't treat the immune driven inflammatory process.
[00:29:54] Bioidentical progesterone, particularly when you put a higher dose on board, has significant anti inflammatory, anti proliferative or growth effects.
[00:30:04] It opposes estrogen at estrogen sensitive areas like the breast, ovarian and uterine tissue. And some women see remarkable improvement in pain and symptoms with optimized bioidentical progesterone without the metabolic and the physiologic trade offs that you're going to get with a synthetic. Right.
[00:30:22] So that is huge.
[00:30:24] And similarly, uterine fibroids are also estrogen dominant tumors.
[00:30:30] They grow in the presence of extra estrogen and insufficient progesterone.
[00:30:35] So the conventional response is birth control.
[00:30:39] Okay, well some more synthetic estrogen plus a progestin that doesn't provide real protection.
[00:30:46] How is that really helping to suppress or prevent new growth of uterine fibroids?
[00:30:52] Bioidentical progesterone with dietary and lifestyle strategies lower the overall estrogen load. It's far more physiologically sound than giving someone more estrogen and try to give him and trying to Give them progestin.
[00:31:08] So if you actually, like, bring the estrogen down, help with gut recycling of estrogen, all the things that will help, and give them a little bioidentical progesterone that's much more effective.
[00:31:19] Okay, and then let's talk about other areas that we give birth control for a lot. Cystic acne.
[00:31:26] This one frustrates me the most because most women are put on Accutane or birth control pill for acne without anyone investigating their underlying hormonal drivers.
[00:31:37] Cystic acne in women almost always is a hormonal issue or an inflammatory issue involving elevated androgens, insulin resistance, progesterone deficiency, without relative estrogen dominance, addressing these root causes or food sensitivities or other things with bioidentical hormones, and testing with nutritional support, Gut Health and optimization treats the actual problem.
[00:32:03] The pill actually just masks it. Right? So as we've discussed, some synthetic progestins are androgenic. They can worsen acne over time. So there are women that go on birth control that actually get worse with their acne because the progestin is so androgenic, it makes their acne worse.
[00:32:23] And this one is so unsung. And so under discussed PMS and pmdd.
[00:32:29] If your worst days of the week are the week before your period, or literally, you feel like you might only have a couple good days right after your cycle that you feel normal, that's progesterone deficiency.
[00:32:42] The luteal phase of your period is hitting you harder than it should.
[00:32:46] Your brain feels like it's going crazy, right? You're getting emotional, you're getting agitated and angry, you're anxious, you're not sleeping. And bioidentical progesterone in the luteal phase of that second half of your cycle, if you're younger or all month for someone that's even a little older, is a game changer. I have patients that went from a week or two, or maybe even almost a month of rage to feeling completely themselves throughout their cycle.
[00:33:14] It's not magic, although it seems like magic. It's really just physiology and progesterone. Progesterone is huge.
[00:33:22] So let's talk about how to wrap this up. What do you do next? So how do you decide what to do? So let's bring this home. Today we covered a lot of ground, right? We talked about how birth control suppresses your natural progesterone, what that costs you in terms of mood, sleep, metabolism, and cancer protection. We talked about how synthetic progestins are not the same as bioidentical progesterone, not at your brain receptors, not at your breast tissue, not at your uterus.
[00:33:51] We talked about that SHBG binding globulin and testosterone problem. The libido, muscle and weight piece that no one warned you about with birth control.
[00:34:00] And we talked about long term estrogen dominance. What happens when you basically give yourself estrogen for long periods of time with the birth control and suppress your natural progesterone.
[00:34:10] What that does to your thyroid and your tissues, also with weight and metabolism. And we talked about post pill recovery and how it's not always easy or quick.
[00:34:20] And then most importantly, we talked about the fact there are better options. Bioidentical hormones, root cause medicine. Right? Options that don't require you to shut down your entire hormonal management system.
[00:34:35] Right? Here's what I want you to do. I want you to get tested. This is the most important part. Get your hormones tested. Test. Don't guess you can test all of these numbers very, very easily.
[00:34:46] Not just a cursory panel either. I want free and total testosterone. I want a sex hormone binding globulin progesterone. And if you can time it, we try to time it on 18 to 21 days in your cycle. If you're cycling estradiol, I do an estrone, which is a more potent or stronger estrogen, dhea, dht so we can see the backup products of your hormones. A full thyroid panel. Not just a TSH free T3 free and total T4 reverse T3. Bring these numbers to a provider or myself who speaks this language.
[00:35:22] If your current doctor dismisses these questions, please find someone who won't because you deserve these answers and you can get these answers relatively easily. These are not super complicated tests to run to get the information. And if you are already on birth control, just know that your progesterone is going to come up zero, basically. And your estrogen is. Estradiol specifically is going to be what you're replacing with that birth control. You're also not going to be able to see an LH and FSH if you're perimenopausal because you're suppressing that response.
[00:35:55] The only thing that's really going to be accurate in these pills for you, your thyroid, your testosterone and maybe some of the breakdown pathways and your shbg. Okay, so you see an accurate progesterone. If I want to get an accurate testosterone on someone who is on birth control, I will wean them off and put them on some bioidenticals first so they don't go through withdrawal unless they don't have a problem coming off of it because it's just for birth control and they don't need it anymore.
[00:36:22] So my team, of
[email protected] works with women across the country on justice. You know, all these problems, I hear this every my girls, my PAs, my nurses, they hear this, this every single day. And you know, the biggest thing we hear is that, you know, women are feeling validated. They don't feel crazy anymore. Their doctors dismiss them. Then they finally ended up with an appointment with us and they are beside themselves that we're telling them everything that they thought was true is true. It's happening. Our life Jevity programs are personalized hormone optimization. We do peptide therapy. We treat everything from the brain to the butt, metabolism, brain, everything, even chronic bugs, infections and inflammatory causes. All root cause functional medicine.
[00:37:04] So the link is going to be in the notes for you. Please come find us. We're here for you. We're here to validate what you're going through is and help you treat that in a way that is scientific and personalized. We say they're personalized, proactive and participatory. You have a say in everything you go on and what you take. So this is your body. This is your one life, right? This is the way that you should be able to get to age your way with full information, full hormone support, and a doctor that actually sees you and listens to you. So next time, be well, be empowered and obviously keep unraveling this information.
[00:37:42] And you know, before you go, if this episode opened your eyes, please do something for me. Share it. Send it to a friend who is on the pill and had this conversation.
[00:37:51] Send it to someone who's obgyn wants them ill and they don't know what to do.
[00:37:56] Send it to a daughter, send it to a sister, even your mother. So this information should not be a secret. Every woman deserves to understand what her hormones are doing.
[00:38:06] Thank you guys for joining me. Until the next Anti Aging Unraveled.
[00:38:10] Thanks for joining me on this episode of Anti Aging Unraveled, where longevity is personal and you're empowered to age your hormones way. If you found today's episode helpful, be sure to subscribe to the podcast or our YouTube channel, Anti Aging Unraveled. And of course, follow us on social for more tools, insights and conversations rooted in lifeevity philosophy, living life the way you want to take your next step, visit mydrlori.com click get started now and fill out your wellness or weight loss intake to begin your personalized longevity journey. Until next time, keep living with intention, vitality and purpose. Here's to longevity, lifeevity and aging your way.
