#093 Hormone Testing & Stress Hormones with Dr. Carrie Jones

They say you have to measure what matters.  If you’re tired of getting up with morning brain fog or have been suffering from insomnia ever since you can remember, it may be time to get a comprehensive hormone test.

In this week’s podcast episode, we interviewed Dr. Carrie Jones, one of the creators of the DUTCH hormone test, and she talks about :

• Cortisol awakening response
• Why you need to get  sensitive and specific test results
• DUTCH hormone test
• Tips on how you can help your body regulate your hormones and more!

Dr. Carrie Jones is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant, and educator on the topic of women’s health and hormones. She graduated from the National University of Natural Medicine (NUNM), School of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon where she also completed her 2-year residency in women’s health, hormones, and endocrinology. Later she graduated from Grand Canyon University’s Master of Public Health program with a goal of doing more international education. 

She was adjunct faculty for many years teaching gynecology and advanced endocrinology/fertility and has been the Medical Director for 2 large integrative clinics in Portland. She is the Medical Director for Precision Analytical, Inc, creators of the DUTCH hormone test.


Get $50 off a DUTCH Complete or DUTCH Plus when you use this coupon code: lessstressed50

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Transcript

spk_1:   0:00
never, ever, ever, ever stop your steroid medication without consulting your doctor. For a lot of you, you have to do some sort of step down weaning effect. If you just stop, you could absolutely have what's called an adrenal crash, and we would never want you to have that. Welcome to the less stress life podcast, where our only priority is

spk_0:   0:19
providing those ah ha moments toe up level your life, health and happiness. Your host Integrative dietitian nutritionist Krista Bigler, helps health conscious women reduce the stress and confusion around food, fatigue, digestive and skin issues at less stress. Nutrition dot com Now onto the show Welcome to 2020 Less Stress Life listeners. I am so grateful that you're with me at the start of this New year, and we have some great stuff planned for you. This first quarter were kicking off into a variety of women's health topics and men. If you are listening and don't worry, there's something there for you, too. But with these episodes, we're looking forward to more giveaways. Ah, things like lab tests and other things that the guests have. So I'm really excited about that. And next week well, First of all this week, you're in for a treat with Dr Carrie Jones, who is the medical director of Dutch Test. She is just so fun to listen to, so I won't. Yep, because, well, let her talk. But it seems like there's never been a better time to doom or around the topic of women's health. So I have something in store for you next week. So if you're listening to this late, it's already Oh, you can fast forward to the next week's topic because we're coming out with an Alexa Flash briefing. More about that. That's when you are talking to your little Alexa dot or app or echo or whatever it is in the morning in your car, on your phone, on your device in your kitchen and you ask her to give you a little new slash and you'll get the news flash about women's health from us. So next week I'll tell you exactly how to access that, But make sure you are subscribed to the less Stress Life email list, which basically gives you show no updates every week. So you just cover the less stress life dot com click on subscribe and you will be good to go now on to Gary Jones. Okay, today, on the less stress life we have, Dr Carrie Jones and before I get into her bio, If you don't follow Dr Carrie Jones on Instagram, I often tell people she's the primary reason to be on Instagram. So Dr Carrie Jones is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant and educator on the topic of women's health and Hormones. She graduated from the National University of Natural Medicine School of Natural Path Medicine in Portland, Oregon, where she completed her two year residency and women's health hormones and endocrinology. Later, she graduated from the Grand Can Universe University master of Public Health program with a gold doom or international education. She was adjunct faculty for many years, teaching gynecology and advanced endocrinology. Infertility. It has been medical director for two large integrative clinics in Portland. She is currently the medical director for Precision Analytical Incorporated, creators of the Dutch hormone test, which is such a great hormone test that we will talk about today. Welcome, Carrie.

spk_1:   2:58
Thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. I think you think you read my bio. The best anyone has ever read it all the way through. What? A company waited attention to detail.

spk_0:   3:07
Great. So I saw Carrie recently at a conference that Dutch or dried urine tests for comprehensive support. Most have I got the analogy, right? Or the acronym, right? Sorry, Correct. And the whole first date. I mean, it was really intense. People say, How was that? I'm like It was a little intense 13 hours the first day. It was a fast, as you had said, but we talked tons about. There was so much emphasis on what was going on with quarters all and the H P access. I want to dive deep into talking about that. But first will back up because hormones or a trendy topic you to such a beautiful job of giving analogies and making things really relatable. So first of all, let's talk about the big picture, because when people are like, Oh, I think my hormones are off. Let's talk about how they can kind of look at that, how it's commonly measured to look like our hormones commonly measured what's different between the way. If you go into your primary care providers office and say, I'd like to check my hormones. What are they gonna maybe do versus like, what is something like the Dutch tester? Another type, A type of testing. Tell us.

spk_1:   4:11
Absolutely, man, those were such good questions Because men and women are routinely going to the doctor saying, I feel like my hormones are off. And what's what's struggled I struggle with, and I'm sure you do, too, is that people will go in and they'll come out with something like their cholesterol, their red and white blood cell count, which is called the CDC, and what's called a metabolic panel. And they're like, Oh, you're And maybe maybe maybe they'll get one of their Farid markers run A T S h or thyroid stimulating hormone, and they're like, No, everything's normal. And I'm like, Okay, this is useless. Things tells me nothing, you know? I mean, if you were really sick, or, you know, if you had liver failure, kidney failure, Yeah. Okay. This is gonna tell me that, but for the average person who just is feeling hormonal, they're feeling tired. They're feeling burnt out there, feeling PMS. What we need are the real hormones we need to look at court is all We need to look at Esther dial. We need to look a testosterone. We need to look at progesterone. We need to look at D h e A. We need to look at the full thyroid panel and we look at it for both men and women. But when we're when we're looking at blood work, the problem with blood work is you can absolutely get those markers. But you have to make sure that you tested the appropriate time of your cycle. So, ladies, you want to test If you've got a 28 ish day cycle, you want to test like day 1920 21? Because sometimes women go to the doctor, they have a two o'clock appointment, they get their blood, drawn it to 30 and then they bring it to their, you know, holistic practitioner, functional practitioner. And they're like, Look at my hormones and you're like, Well, you Tuesday at 2 30 doesn't really tell me much. I need to know is the date 18 2021. So timing is everything. And the other thing I often hear from more conventionally trained practitioners is they're like, well, women's hormones fluctuate, so it's not worth testing them like That's true. They do fluctuate. But if we know the time in their cycle, then we can actually really see what's going on now. The other thing with lead testing is you have to be careful that they don't really look at pathways. And in the Dutch test, which, of course, eyes my favorite test. We It's a dried urine test so we can look at all the hormones. I can look at your estrogen and then I can tell you where it's going, which is the pathway which a lot of men and women want to know. We want to know. Why is my estrogen high? Why do I have PMS Y have heavy periods? Why, maybe, Why do I have a history of breast cancer? And one of the things we can look at is this pathway where I could go. Oh, you really struggled to clear estrogen out of your liver. This particular pathway is blocked or slowed down, or you have a genetic snip here. So let's work to correct that. And then it will essentially, you know, drain the bathtub and drain the estrogen. So that's why I like the Duchess It's just so much more comprehensive. So when people say I feel hormonal, I'm like I got you Not only do I can I touch your hormones, I can tell you where it's going, So I give you this big picture

spk_0:   6:57
and it's not just about the thing is, and I love that it's called Precision Analytical because, like you said Tuesday to 30 doesn't tell you much. But if someone knows the right time, so there is ah lot of effort that goes into taking that at the right time. Like what if someone has an irregular period?

spk_1:   7:12
Yeah, and it depends how irregular So some women will alternate. So someone will say, Um, every other month I'm more like 35 days is a post 28 days. I'm like, Great, since you know that already, if you're tracking, then we will just collect accordingly. So instead of take testing on Day 1920 21 of the 20 day cycle, you will bump it out for a 35 day cycle. Maybe you'll collect more like day 25 26 27. Same If it's a short cycle person, let's say, she says, I get my period every 21 days like you're gonna collect sooner. No problem now where it gets really tricky or those peri menopausal women. Um, who say I get my period every two weeks and then I'll skip four months like I have no idea what's going on or women who really struggle with, um, they've lost their period. They only get a couple of times a year. That's what it's really important to work with your functional practitioner to try to determine, should you just collect it The part where you haven't had you haven't a cycle in four months. Just go ahead and test. Maybe you're trying to get to the bottom of why you don't have a cycle as it ages it thyroid, is it? You know, a nutrient deficiency. Is that PCOS? Is it? You know, it is a medication you're taking. Is it because you just got off the birth control pill and maybe we're gonna address those things first and then test or are we just gonna, you know, try to map it out as best we can and hope for the best when it comes to testing, because it's really the estrogen and progesterone that get a little wonky when women are irregular. But the testosterone, the D G et the court is all the thyroid, You know, those markers are not quite as cycle driven, although fire it's more cycle driven than women think. But thyroids not tested on the touch test. But everything else you know, your stress levels, your adrenals. I think that's not necessarily cycle driven.

spk_0:   8:56
Yeah, great point. So there's so much. Even if you do take it at the wrong time. There is a lot of really great, useful information and the reason that we're trying to take it at a certain time as we're trying. That's what the reference Rangers air built for because they're built for the time that's normal at that, or the ranges that are normal at that time of a woman's cycle. Essentially,

spk_1:   9:14
yeah, absolutely. And we'll we'll see this a lot, right? Women will go get their estrogen drawn and there may be in the blood and it will be exponentially high. It'll be like 253 100 they freak out and everyone freaks out, and then we do the math and I'm like, Oh, actually collected this on day 12. It's supposed to be that high on day 12. It's right before ovulation, so that's actually normal. You don't need to freak out. But if you were on Day 20 or Day two of your cycle with day number one being the first day of your period, um, then I would be like, Wow, it's a little high now What's going on like now? Now that I know where you are in your cycle day to it should not be hot. High date 19. It should not be that high. But day 12 13 that's probably fine.

spk_0:   9:55
So one of the rumblings I was going on among colleagues when we were at the Dutch conference was that Mark kind of, I don't know, Mark. I mean, he's the back end research guy, and he'd been doing this kind of research. Yeah, owner. He'd been doing a bunch of work trying to figure out, like what? The best time to test for this And how do we best test for this marker? And what are the ways that our most reliable and really the vibe we were getting is that a lot of people are doing this work and really not sure what they're doing. I was kind of out in, like, test this and see, it was like a lot of experimentation, and you don't have to necessarily comment on that, But that was kind of the feeling and we got like, in the big world wide world of hormones, if you're not really paying attention to when you're testing during the month, like you're not really doing that person that much service.

spk_1:   10:42
And we know that just because when when their phenomena are when our patients and clients go to someone who dabbles on hormones Or maybe they don't do hormones, you know, other than occasionally that's not really what the thing is. But they're like, Yeah, Cheryl, all test your hormones. You know, they feel that they get that experience of like, I feel hormonal in the practitioners, like now You're fine. Everything looks fine. You're like, No, I feel terrible, like, you know, like you. You don't do hormones. I tell practitioners, you kind of have to do hormones, or you don't because you can really screw it up. And no woman or man wants screwed up hormones. It makes us feel a 1,000,000 times worse and and it can put us at risk for things. Yeah, so that's that's kind of what I stress to people like, this isn't This isn't something you just dabble in,

spk_0:   11:25
right? Sounds like a bumper sticker. No one wants screwed up hormones

spk_1:   11:28
nobody wants, you know? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

spk_0:   11:30
Bipartisan agreement. So let's talk about for people. There's a lot of health practitioners that listen to this podcast. So, in the world of serum and blood, how do you measure hormones in a dried urine test? And how do we know that that's accurate?

spk_1:   11:43
Yes. So what? So, actually, a lot of research is saying that what we should do is use a machine called a mass spec mass spectrometry E s. So what? At the lab, we use what's called GCMS and then L g C M s, M s and L C M S M s. Now the other option is immuno essay. So Immuno essay is what's really common. You can get it in blood work. A lot of saliva companies use that. It's very cheap. It's very easy to start up. Unfortunately, it's not as sensitive and not as specific, but it does allow you to run like large volumes because you can just set up lots of amino acid. Machines are at a time, but what we're going for, what research is pointing to is that well, like, really, we want to be sensitive and specific, and I have a really great example. A friend of mine was is a doctor in New York City, and he ran an estrogen on a man that was, like, 300 something which is exponential for a man like That's way too high for a man. And he called me and he said, I don't understand. I ran. This guy's just did a quick blood look at him. He's 300 but has no symptoms. He's super fit buff. No belly, no man boobs. You know, No depression, no erectile issues. What do you think it is? I said, call the lab. I said call the lab. I suspect there was some cross contamination. Sure enough, he called the lab. The blood was a blood lab and they went Oh, yeah. Hopes up. Sees that was done on Amy. No essay. And that batch, you know, we had some issues with, So let's switch it. Let's let's wish and run it to the more sensitive machine, called a a mass spec. And then, um, and in the results came back completely normal. Everything was fine. And so it just goes to show like that sensitive sensitivity and specific specificity when it comes to hormones like that's what we that's what we want. We don't want cheap and we don't want, you know, less sensitive unless specific, if we can avoid it, if we can avoid it. And so that's what's great about Dutch is that we do use is best that we can, that we know how you know what sensitive and specific.

spk_0:   13:34
I like that you mentioned this because I'm tryingto really drive home. Some points lately about like testing is not created equal, and Justin does not trump symptoms. So when your doctor friend calls and says this guy does not, this isn't consistent with what the test shows. Then start to question the test a little bit or like, yeah, go back and see what's going on

spk_1:   13:53
and the same with Dutch, right? Like sometimes things happen like we've absolutely have practitioners who's called us and said This doesn't really match This doesn't make sense. I'm like, OK, no problem. Hold on. Let me go back to the lab. Let me have him pull it. Let me have a memory look of, you know, the data and let's see if it was on our end or if there's something else going on, because, I mean, it's a it's a lab, it's a lab. And so no matter what, and I agree with you, I tell people, if you're going to use a lab, then you want to make sure you choose the same kind of test every time. So whether even if it's a blood test, if you run a blood test and you run, you choose to run immuno essay, then run it every time when you're comparing apples to apples. So if you're patient Jane Doe, you want to check her progesterone today, November and then three months from now, don't switch to Mass Spec because you may get you may be very confused, right? And so you know, either start with with sensitivity one now and do it again three months or, you know, just be aware you're a no, because then what happens is they call us and they go. You know, these levels don't these levels don't match and like I know it's not. That's

spk_0:   15:00
not the same reference. Range is not even really the same marker, so exactly cool. So stress on this podcast is really a synonym for inflammation. Let's talk about how Cortes L helps or hurts inflammation and how you see that in hormone results.

spk_1:   15:14
Oh my gosh, all the time, especially what's called the court is all awakening response, which is that initially, the 1st 30 minutes of you opening your eyes waking up in the morning, it's that burst of cortisol that's normal. It's it's not. It's not necessarily a stress response is out of fight or flight response. It's an alert response. It's like, Okay, let's get you from conscious or your eyes were open into alert in about 20 to 30 minutes. Now, not everyone feels that way. Some people tell me I need two cups of coffee in about two hours, and then I feel alert while your response is not that great. But what what? That response does help with this lower inflammation in the morning. Cortisol is anti inflammatory to appoint, and so it's like all right, We're gonna lower your inflammation in the morning so that you can get movie and get going and, you know, forage for food and fight things If you need Thio and and really keep inflammation under control and that's just in the morning. But in general, like, let's say you get the flu or the person next to you is sneezing and snot in everywhere your quarters. It is all will increase to hell are. Excuse me, your immune system will increase right to help fight. But then there's there has to be a cutoff switch. There has to be a stop bell once everything is done and cortisol helps to do that, cortisol helps to put the lid on inflammation, to be like Okay, guys like we killed the bug. You're right. She's not gonna get the flu. Now. We saved your So let's let's let's end this process so it could be very anti inflammatory. Now, on the flip side, if you are chronically inflamed, if you're chronically exposed to something like mold, you know, mycotoxin, stuff like that if you have a virus that you don't know about, or maybe you do when you're trying to fight it. You have lots of gut issues. You routinely eat dairy, and you know that you shouldn't. You routinely don't get enough sleep, and you have a lot of stress in your life. And you, I don't like your job. And, you know, um, you get a terrible text message that day. On top of everything else, Cortisol will routinely be up because it's constantly trying to manage the situation. And then his court is all goes up. It can actually be quite damaging two everything. It could be toe everything. That the high court is all you can be really damaging over time. And it doesn't. That's why we need to be so focused on, just as you said, Like reducing inflammation, addressing inflammation and being less stressed. So we don't have that damaging effect of cortisol all the time.

spk_0:   17:33
Yeah, So when we look at this, let's it pretend on a Dutch chest. The cortisol is on kind of fan or a dialling it. I mean, just to visualize as you're listening to this driving on the drive down the road, Look at your speedometer or something. It's on a dial that looks like that. So it could be kind of in the middle, high and low. So if we're having some chronic stress, it might be high. But then also it can get burned out. We can talk about that in a moment, but just to talk about some ways it affects other markers. It can also what deplete g g A and testosterone can talk about that a little bit.

spk_1:   18:04
So actually it could. It'll raise the UK initially So D g A is actually quite protective against cortisol damage in the brain over time, and then it can. But what it can do is it can reduce the ability of your body to put the S on D h e A. So maybe you've gotten your D h e A s tested and blood worker on saliva and urine and you're like I would slow. I must need th e a. Well, actually, you may just not be able to get the S on, So it's moving down other pathways which we can show you on the Dutch test. That high quarters all can affect the way that you are ovulating, make progesterone, and so you may see that you have low progesterone levels on a Dutch test. Your high cortisol and inflammation will affect the way your estrogen goes through detoxification. So your estrogen may actually be going down a path way you don't want. Maybe a more carcinogenic pathway, maybe a pathway that we call proliferated. It makes things grow. So, like it makes women's breasts get bigger and tender PMS time it makes their periods heavier. Claudia, err on dso cortisol can do a lot.

spk_0:   19:03
Uh huh. Okay, we talked about D h e a N D G s. I think that's your favorite hormone, isn't it?

spk_1:   19:09
It is my favorite. Tell

spk_0:   19:12
us a little bit more about what it is, where it's produced on why we should care about that. Because it's not one that people hear about a lot.

spk_1:   19:17
I know. And, well, you hear a lot a lot in like the sort of men's health hormones, cause everyone associates as an androgen like O D. G and testosterone like men need that women we need it to do You ta is primarily made in our Drina glands. It's it's made out of one of the layers in the adrenal gland, and it's really effective in helping us fight against stress. It's really effective at protecting her. Brandon Get his cortisol. It raises something in our brain called BDNF, which is brain derived neurotrophic factor, which is really good for how we lay down the pathways in our brain. How we reduce inflammation, how we cleared, You know, bad stuff that gets up in our brain, how we repair and hell in our brain. It increases a hormone called the Siegel cooling Our Excuse me, a neurotransmitter called a Seagull calling, which is, I think, my favorite neural transmitter. But ASIO calling what I what? I tell people Just a simple analogy. A pseudo Colin is a really, really big neurotransmitter for our nervous system, but it's really helpful in helping us, like, connect the dots. I tell people that, like it's like kind of like bike messengers. You know, when you you increase your aceto Cole and then the bike messengers get to where they need to go faster, there's more of them. And so your brain turns on and you have less brain fog for a lot of people. And so, with the A G A. It's you get all these great benefits on top of the fact that it makes estrogen on top of the fact that it's helpful for vaginal health. It helps with, you know, like dry, painful sex you could be depleted and estrogen you could be depleted in D H E A. I was with energy. It helps with mood. It helps us go through puberty. So it's a really good hormone,

spk_0:   20:54
and does it decreases? We get older.

spk_1:   20:55
It does. It does sadly, yeah, in man and women, it does decreases. We get over our older,

spk_0:   21:02
so it's really helpful. And if people hear that, they might want to just go out and take th e. A s. So then what happens if people do that? And then they get too much?

spk_1:   21:11
Yeah, absolutely. So they get too much or, if they're going down a pathway, what's known as the Five Alfa Pathway, which we test on Dutch test. That's the pathway where you get acne, especially along your jawline hair. Growth in places you don't want Women, male pattern baldness for men and women, women who are getting that receding hairline look on, they can increase anger and irritation, and I'm sure a lot of people who are listening to take an d h E before. Maybe they've taken too much and they're like, Oh, yeah, I mean, my face break out. Maybe really irritated. I'm not doing that again. You probably just push the five Alfa pathway too much. And there's There's also ways we can help get you move you off that pathway or reduce that pathway. And it's also important to know that the doses for women of D G a. R significantly smaller than the doses for men. What happens is a lot of women go to the store and they're like, Oh, look at this 50 milligrams of G g A. And they buy it and that's man sized toast. And then they have loads of acne and I'm like, Yeah, I should have probably maybe looked at more like five milligrams as opposed to 50

spk_0:   22:11
and it changes for age two and women. Obviously

spk_1:   22:13
it does change for age, except I am the moment based on what I'm reading in that I'm sort of in the camp that I feel like even menopausal women, you know, even his women get older. I still want them to have pretty healthy levels of th e A because I think it's that good in the body.

spk_0:   22:32
So you were talking about court is all awakening a response and how If you don't have a good cortisol awakening response, you are gonna feel groggy in the morning. So first off, I want to talk about the different ways that we look at that through testing and because typically you have a couple ways. You look at that with Dutch, you're using saliva through 1/4. All awaken your response, but you're also looking at accord. Is all pattern on ah, different Dutch like on the Dutch complete, which gives you urine. What's the difference between the saliva and the urine patterns that you're seeing in court is all they're

spk_1:   23:00
definitely so the urine pattern is more like a broad sweeping pattern, so it's more you do it. The more in that one you'll urinate on a piece of filter paper, so it's very easy. Just urinate a piece of filter paper in the morning. You'll do it again two hours later. You'll do it again around dinner and then, lastly, before bed. And so you get this sweeping four point look of your day to see if you go up and then come back down again, which is really helpful, you know, for again energy, mid afternoon crashes. I have insomnia. I can't fall asleep. I can't stay asleep. It's great for that. Then what we did is we added in the court is all awakening response, and it has to be done first thing in the morning. It's three collections within within 30 minutes it's of each other. So it's done waking soon as you wake up open, eyes open up in 30 minutes and in 30 minutes after that now the reason we had to do cortisol was because with urine well, first of all, most people probably can't urinate three times in an hour. Maybe I can, but really, what you need is what the court is. All is in the moment. And when you are collecting your urine, the cortisol has been made used, sent to the bladder, right. And then they were sent to the kidney, sent to the bladder and then comes out and nobody wants to get their blood drawn three times and, you know, in an hour and so what we do is we use cotton swabs. Essentially, they're called Sela vets and basically just to make the collections super easy, and it's well researched. And so we do one swab. You just pop in your mouth when your eyes open up in the morning. Get it wet. Put it back in the 2 30 minutes later. Do it again in 30 minutes. Later, dude again. Now we still want to see your pattern through the day, so you'll continue to do the swab around dinner and before bed because we still want to address if you get that afternoon crash and if you can't fall asleep or if you can't stay asleep.

spk_0:   24:45
So cortisol has a natural rhythm. It should rise in the morning and then kind of go down in the evenings. You want to go to bed. So when you're testing, if someone just does some ask for a cortisol test, right? Like let's just go ask for to test this. If we just do this randomly without kind of accounting for the day, what are we with the issue there?

spk_1:   25:05
Well, you miss out on the rhythm, right? So let's say you can't sleep and you go get your quarters all tested at 10 in the morning at your doctor's appointment at the lab, and they're like quarters all. It's fine. I don't know why you can't sleep. It's like, well, your quarters, all 10 in the morning is not helpful. I want to know your cortisol is before you go to bed or I want to know what your quarters all is. You know, at three in the morning, when you wake up and we contest that through, ah, saliva or her urine. And the other thing is, when you test in the blood, your blood is a combination of what's free and what's bound up. So your hormones are like Children. They can't be unattended at any time. So you have these buses that drive your hormones through. You're through your arteries with your circulatory system. And so when you get your blood drawn in, let's say the level is 10. What you don't know is if it's nine buses and one free hormone, and it's the free hormone that binds to receptors and does the things. It's the free at hormone that's the active one. Or if it's the reverse, maybe you have nine free hormones causing havoc and only one bus because it all you know is it's 10 which is not really that helpful, Because you really want to know how much is free. And you really want to know about you know, your total like buses. But you want to know him is to separate answers so you can put the picture together,

spk_0:   26:17
insure cortisol. Short term is anti inflammatory, but long term becomes inflammatory. So what about if people around meds? What kind of meds can people sometimes beyond commonly that are gonna affect results around Test results around cortisol,

spk_1:   26:34
the most common, especially this time of year, are staring harmon on when we think of steroids, we think, Oh, prednisone, prednisone injection, steroid injection. No. You know, they're like, No, I haven't had that. Like what about an inhaler? To use the steroid inhaler, use a stereo nasal spray for your allergies. Do you? As a steri topical cream for your psoriasis? You're Exuma. And then they're like, Oh, my gosh, yes. I use an inhaler every day before I exercise. Are what have you when I go outside? Walk the dog. It's cold. I have cold induced asthma. So I do my inhaler so that the steroids will suppress the brain communication down to the adrenal glands, which will suppress your ability to make cortisol. So when people say of a lot of fatigue, um, you know, trouble thinking our trouble moat with motivation. I have trouble getting going and I find out they're on some sort of steroid. I'm like, Oh, that's the That's the reason your body's not able to make the cortisol now. Other big ones. Opioid opioid pain medication. Very common after surgery. Very common addiction. Quite a quite a problem here in the United States and in other countries as well. But opioid pain medications will will greatly suppress the brain communication down to the adrenals. And then another Big one that I heard about through an endocrinologist is Accutane. I tried annoying, so the medication for acne that people did in their teens and twenties can affect the The hypothalamic sells the brain cells that then tell the pituitary to tell the adrenals to make cortisol and I and the reason I found that out as I had a was consulting on a case of a person who looks like she had complete shutdown of her adrenal glands. It's called Addison's disease, and the endocrinologist said, No, it's not that, but I can't figure out what it is. And turns out this woman was on the acne medication Accutane, the under chronologies Did some research find out that Accutane can have this effect on some people took her off of Accutane, waited a couple of months retested on her court, is all bounced back to normal. And so since I've told people about that, I've had a number of practitioners say to me, Oh my gosh, I took Accutane is a teenager in my twenties and I absolutely have had hormonal issues ever since then I had no idea, you know, and it doesn't affect everybody, and it's not permanent in everybody. But I do like to put the information out there.

spk_0:   28:47
Yeah, those are all tricky medications. So, essentially women, whether you're putting in topical stories on your skin, which helps your body shut down inflammation response essentially right. Could we just kind of cut out the middlemen there and say That's essentially what's happening at saying Stop inflaming right now. We also see that downstream and testing, and so you can feel really just like no energy like you just start to feel lethargic. And so let's say someone uses the short term. How long does it take for them to bounce back? And then what happens if they use it long? These things long term, What does that look like?

spk_1:   29:18
So short term what they qualify in research. A short term is really anything under 30 days. What? I don't qualify a short term is under more like seven days. Most people who are gonna get a short term steroid is usually a seven day prednisone pack. We're gonna need their inhaler for a couple days. We're gonna It's allergy season. So they might need there a nasal spray for, you know, a week or two. And so then I say, if you're going to do any kind of hormonal quarters all testing, you're gonna probably want to wait at least a month, if not two months, to make sure that the brain communication back to your adrenal glands, or even back to your ovaries or back to the testicles is back on line. It's gonna It's gonna take a little bit now for those people who are listening, and they're like, Oh, man, I have rheumatoid arthritis. I have been on prednisone for years and years and years and years and years, or I have really severe asthma, and I have been on a stereo inhaler every single day for years and years and years. Unfortunate never stop. First of all, if you're listening, this never, ever, ever, ever stop your steroid medication without consulting your doctor. For a lot of you, you have to do some sort of step down weaning effect. If you just stop, you could absolutely have what's called it an adrenal crash, and we would never want you to have that. But understand, if you have been on the story medications for a long time, then even when you do the step down effect, it could take you a year or more for your glands, your adrenals to come back online. Unfortunately, if you if you do nothing, if you work with somebody, though, if your work with some sort of holistic or functional practitioner who understands how to get the brain in the adrenals of the brain and the ovaries, the brain and testicles communicating again, then that time frame could be spend way up. And the other thing is Why? Why Why? Why are you Why do you need prednisone for years and years and years? You know what's what is that? The root cause of your rheumatoid arthritis? What is the root cause of your asthma? What is the root cause of your exam or your psoriasis requiring you to use this stuff every day and maybe think of it in a different manner? And let's really try to address that so you don't need to go on these long term steroids.

spk_0:   31:17
Good point. So if people are on some of these meds, which can be a simple as a steroid nasal spray or a toe, which we think about, I mean those get handed out these things over the counter, and so that's going to shut down. Your body's making its own quarters because it's going to say, Hey, I see that I've got enough coming in. I don't need to make any so that could shut down that way. But just really chronic high cortisol or high stress over time could also create that sort of burnout, where or depleted Cortazar metabolites Carl long term cortisol as well. So how does a person feel when that's going on? Like, how does that affect their healing? Um, because it hard for someone to heal when they've got that going on. Does that become, then the

spk_1:   31:59
pressure? Oh, absolutely, Absolutely. They're tired. We often report they have a lot of fatigue, right, Lotte mon. No motivation. Mood issues because they're tired and really struggling there. They have problems. They're sick all the time. So as far as healing goes, you know, trying, trying to get over the flu, trying to get over every single cold that their child brings home or even if they cut themselves, they cut themselves, they scratch themselves. They're, you know, dog scratches them, and it takes a while for them to hell. They, um even even something like they break out on their skin. You know, they they get it, they get acne or pimple on their skin, and it just takes longer to heal. If it takes longer to clear up, then they are used to, and we need cortisol to help facilitate all of that. But if you hit the feedback loop, you've had so much court of us all for so long that now the body goes You know what we're going to shut this down. Then you could be a real problem.

spk_0:   32:58
Yeah, what about before it even gets to that burnout level? But just in general, how does court is all specifically affect? What's going on in the digestive tract?

spk_1:   33:06
That is a really good question. So with court is all that I just attract for a lot of people, if you were in fight or flight, if you're really stressed out, you can go one of two ways, right? People will often report I have constipation and struggled with digestion. I guess I have bloating. I get heartburn. I have constipation so we can slow everything way down, mostly because your body is focused elsewhere. Your focus don't focus on trying to get this fighter flight. Ah, feeling that you've got all the time, All the all the fires that you're trying to put out is your priority and digestion is not it. On the flip side, somebody who's maybe in an acute, stressful situation may feel things speed up, so they may actually say, you know, when I get really stressed out When I was going through that divorce, when I was working on that project at work. I was actually having a lot of loose stools. I was having a lot of diarrhea. And either way you look at it, though you are really affecting your ability to properly absorb nutrients, right to get the vitamins that you need into your body. And then that in turn, causes, um, sort of long term, more other global issues. You know, if you're not absorbing your iron, if you're not observing your vitamin A if you're not absorbing, you know your B vitamins, because you either can't digest food or the food you do digest is you're having a lot of diarrhea. Then it could be really problematic in that regard.

spk_0:   34:24
I'm the way I used a chest, and practice is not necessarily. Some people use it right away as the bass line, and then later, after they don't know a bunch of interventions, I tend to like to just get things going and moving in the right direction in the first place and then look at it because, as you know, it can take a little while to collect it properly. All right time. And so that's kind of my thought process. But one of the red flags for quarters. All metabolize scores will be in a mess Is that things are not progressing at this speed. I would normally like. So this is going a little slower, or it just seems like we kicked some roadblocks. Then I Then once I get hormone information, which, you know, unfortunately, sometimes I wish we could get it right then, right? That would be really nice. But we have to be patient with our bodies and how they cycle. And so what I often find is that Hey, the emergency that the body is trying to deal with right now is just survival. Because when you're burned out, it's like survival mode only. And I'm only gonna tell you what I kind of survive and everything else is, like not priority anymore,

spk_1:   35:18
right? Yep. Even things like population. Right. We talked about digestion, but even like populations, So women who were struggling with, you know, pretty bad PMS like symptoms. Um, heavy periods. What have you? Fertility? Absolutely. And you know that you're burning the candle at both ends and putting fires out all the time. You know the bodies like, look, I have to divert resources and population, is not it? We're trying to survive right now.

spk_0:   35:42
Totally. How about, um, strenuous exercise? How does that affect quarters? All is well, I don't think we mentioned that.

spk_1:   35:48
It does. Absolutely, quite a bit. Yeah. Anything. Starting with exercise over time can lead to that feedback loop where you can actually have a down regulation or a low level of court is all being put out because again, at the body perceives that you're running from the tiger all the time. Your quarters all may initially go up, and then eventually it goes down because it's sort of burn yourself out.

spk_0:   36:08
And you had mentioned some constipation, reflex, etcetera, and one of the other things that contacts cortisol or what's going on in the adrenals escort is all is produced by adrenal glands, which sit on top of the kidneys as we want to just step back and look at like, Okay, where is this coming from? In our body. Um, bacterial imbalances, which are a huge thing. Confer there exacerbate or tax quarters all as well.

spk_1:   36:29
Absolutely. Yeah. Any kind of infection inflammation, no matter where. If it's in the gut on the skin, you know, in the lungs and the Sinuses. Absolutely.

spk_0:   36:37
So let's switch gears, Thio making improvements. Because now that we are seeing this, we're like, Oh, this is a problem, right? And everyone's stress. Oh, that sucks. Um, so let's go back to that quarters awakening In response, people often feel this way like I'm groggy. I need coffee to get out of bed. What are? But there's a lot of really simple lifestyle things that you can do to improve quarters, all awakening response. So

spk_1:   36:57
talk to us about some things

spk_0:   36:58
that people d'oh! For

spk_1:   37:00
light light is my favorite is the It's the easiest free or cheapest thing that you can do so full spectrum light. So if you live in an area that actually gets such, uh, sunlight, which is maybe not where you live or I live right now. But if you live in an area and you wake up in the morning, the first thing you should do is open up your curtains, open up your curtains and get some full spectrum light in, or go outside for 5 10 15 minutes and just get some brightness as you are enjoying your your yard, your property. You know whatever you have, the view around you and that light will help to increase improve your cortisol, awaken your response, which is very driven from the light dark cycle. So if we start out our day with bright light and we end our day with dimmer or dark light or more reddish orange light than we helped to reset your circadian rhythm. Now, if you live in a place where you're like Well, I get up at five in the morning and it's still dark out or you live where I live in Portland, Oregon, where it is currently great and raining. Then you can absolutely just go on Amazon and buy a full spectrum light box or light bulb or a full spectrum alarm clock that wakes you up through a full spectrum, a broad spectrum light and have it on. Have it on about a foot or two away from you. While you are making your car off, you get up in the morning, turn it on your bedside table. Use it when you are, you know, in the bathroom, putting on makeup, set it next to your computer. If you're checking emails first thing and get that full bright sunlight. It's type exposure, and it can really make a difference in training your brain. We get up in the morning and then on the flip side, we go down at night when it's darker.

spk_0:   38:35
Now we can't out supplement lifestyle by any regard. So if you're not sleeping well and stress is really high, I mean, you have to find ways that you can control those like I mean, it really takes an inventory and sitting down and working on that because you can't just I mean, if if you choose to do that like, things will not get better, right? And your body will continue being like, Well, I'm gonna continue working in, um, survival load. So but what are some things that are safe for anyone to be doing besides looking at the light? Are would you go to adapt regions? Are there other things that you think really support this? Yeah.

spk_1:   39:07
Oh, absolutely. So death pigeons are, um, even vitamins that are supportive for the adrenal gland. So adapted adoptions are herbs that really work on the whole system. We call them sort of adrenal support of herbs, but they do work on the immune system. They do work on digestion. They do work on the nervous system. And so they're the most common when everyone probably has heard about it. Something called Asheville, Gonda Asheville Gandhi is an air of etiquette or Indian herb that's generally considered pretty safe. It's safe with hypothyroidism. It is not safe, though. With hyperthyroidism so fast. I really gotta be careful there. But that's probably one of the most common ones we see. Other ones are known as rodeo love. Alou Throw Caucus Holy Basil is probably my absolute favorite. Holy Basil is also known as Tulsi T u L s I. And what I really like about that one is that you can find it is a T, an organic tea blend all over and tons of grocery stores. I personally drink that every day. I tend to drink it in the evening before bed is more about, like Coleman adapted gin, and it's just really helpful when you feel in survival mold burning the candle at both ends and you're exhausted. It could just be very nutritive in that regard. Now, the other helpful thing Vitamin C, your adrenal glands, your HP access uses a lot of vitamin C. Same with B vitamins. Your B 12 you're be five, your B six all very important. So for those people who are maybe not taking supplements, or maybe you're not taking a very good quality supplement, you know, like evaluate your B vitamins and consider taking 250 or 500 milligrams of vitamin C a day and inconsistently and see if that helps make a difference,

spk_0:   40:45
which is a small dose. I mean, it's not super small, but it's like not a giant dose to inter 50 milligrams of vitamin C.

spk_1:   40:51
Well, research is showing that I mean the high dose, the body. The intestines really only absorb about 250 milligrams of vitamin C at a time. So even if somebody's doing, they want to do 1000 or 2000 milligrams of vitamin C's. For example, if they're sick or in a really stressful time, I still advise that they break it up. Don't don't just slam it in in the morning because they're not really gonna absorb all of that vitamin C.

spk_0:   41:13
Well, all this talk about vitamin C and the adrenals makes me think about what's the physiological mechanism. That happens when someone has a lot of stress and then immediately after they get ill, they get sick

spk_1:   41:24
system. I feel exactly, and I think the most common is definitely, you know, like I feel Christmas time or things give. You know, all the college kids come home and they get out of finals and they come home and they immediately get sick. Or people have big projects at work and the project ends. And you've just been in fight or flight, fighter flight, flight or flight. Your quarters always been high. Your adrenaline's been high, and then it stops. And so your body comes to a screeching halt. Your cortisol and adrenaline go down, and now you've lost that anti inflammatory property. And the immune system can not handle whatever you know, flew bugger or thing that's been floating around, and as a result, you get sick, become it because of it. So the height, like we said in the beginning, that high cortisol can be very protective. But as it goes down, then you struggle to hell, or you could become sick more

spk_0:   42:10
often. You know I love Holy Basil or Tulsi as well, and another strategy for getting this in because sometimes it feels a little overwhelming as what is something you already doing in the day? Like are you? Is a smoothie part of your day because you can brew tea appropriately and use that for the liquid in your smoothie. Get herbs in that way as well, which I think is a really gentle, cool suggestion for people to, like brew it up, keep it in the fridge and then be able to just, like, ready to go on demand. And that way you're getting in. Really just like food is medicine stuff.

spk_1:   42:37
Absolutely. And a lot of these herbs are coming in taste Good incomes, powder, you know, like maca come powdered and some of the really good mushrooms. You know, court accepts and ray she mushrooms, which are wonderful for I mean system and nervous system. And you know that the HP adrenal system they can come powder and I tell people, Just mix them in your smoothie. Just just go that way. It's

spk_0:   42:56
fine. I can't help but think of kids on steroids because I work with these kiddos with eczema and, um, I think about the possible rebound effect there now we don't really measure. I mean, I have never measured hormones and any of my Children. I don't think that reference range is there because they're all different areas. So I mean, that's just not something that's gonna be done anyway. But we do know, because I've been in the research a lot lately. We do know that wrapping the skin, which is something times down in Exuma with steroids underneath, it's definitely contraindicated for adrenals. That makes perfect sense because they're really hyper absorbing it. Kids have a, um, a surface area to body mass that's different than adults, so they just absorb things a lot at a higher rate anyway. And I just think about like, man, I wonder what are drowned Downstream effects are here because sometimes there's something called topical steroid withdrawal where people really have that crazy, crazy bad stuff going on when they try to come up of steroids. I just think about how do we support them? But I think we kind of just answered that a little bit. There's a lot of food, is medicine things, and beyond that, I don't know the answers to that, but I'm just kind of musing out loud like, Oh, this makes me sad. And it's a challenging group for sure.

spk_1:   44:09
Oh, absolutely, and especially with kids, because they're so their systems are still developing. And so they're so impressionable. And it puts the more at risk for maybe developing autoimmune or maybe developing Farid issues. Or maybe developing, you know, um, fertility issues, which you don't think about maybe a four year older, a two year old or a six year old. But if you're it's potentially that you could be, they could be setting themselves up for something like that. And if we can do all that we can do to help them so they don't have to be on all these steroids then all the more better for their long term, long, long term health. Yeah, as opposed to an adult, right? An adult who comes in at 45 he says. Okay, now I feel hormonal in my exam is back. It's like, OK, um, you weaken. It's a little different than a four year old or two year old or six month old.

spk_0:   44:57
Yeah, and the guidelines forced her right. So is that they're not supposed to be used long term, but sometimes they do get used long term, or people who get lost to follow up, which is the common Think,

spk_1:   45:05
Yes, I hear that all the time.

spk_0:   45:06
Yeah, and so I think, as providers and his parents and just being aware of, we do need to be a little more vigilant about that. So anyway, just thinking out loud. So, Carrie, what do you do personally to monitor your court is all. You're all your stress response. What are some of your favorite methods? I mean, what I think we talked about, You said, Oh, I drink Tulsi and Holy Basil every night. But what are some things you like to do? Otherwise,

spk_1:   45:29
um, well, perks of the job. And you get to do Dutch testing quite a bit on myself so I can follow what's going on. But I do have an aura ring. Um, the which is spelled o u r a. So some people have, like, the Fitbit watch or something like that. I've never actually had a watch, not a watch person, But I do. I am a ring person. So I used the or bring, which basically is a tracker. So I wear it 24 hours a day, just like you might wear a watch. And it tracks my heart rate variability. My sleep cycle's how well I'm sleeping my steps in a day, and it really helps me stay accountable. To me. It's like me playing my own video game against me on what my stress and what my lifestyle choices are doing to my sleep, to my stress response to my temperature, to my heart rate and things like that. And I I love it because it's immediate feedback. When I sync it to my phone, I can see what I did the day before, whether I chose to, um, you know, like stop eating dinner at five or have a glass of wine or, you know, walk 15,000 steps like, How does that all affect? My body is a hole, and then I can track it

spk_0:   46:36
and he yells at you, Right, so like it really wine and you're not getting sleep. It'll be like, Hey, try this instead.

spk_1:   46:45
Yes, I think a Dutch fest I read because I had, of course, at the conference started a TTE the ungodly hour of seven in the morning. So I had to be there at 5 30 in the morning and when I woke up, my my ordering gave me this thing and I totally got yelled at. I mean, it was like, it seems like you've been really stressed lately. You should, you know, you should take today off, relax. And I was like, Yeah, right. I've been pushing to hardly hard lately. Like you need to try something different. I'm like, Okay, ordering.

spk_0:   47:10
I thrive on accountability. So you talked me into getting one at that moment because I'm like, What? Better? I mean, what better than someone who's actually measuring? And I love how we were talking off air about just a little experiments that you've tried to try to see, like, How does it affect it the next day? And that's that's fun, because awareness is really at the customer at the top or at the like that that drives how we improve.

spk_1:   47:33
Absolutely bio individuality, right? Precision medicine is what everybody is really talking about. For the rather, it's from the practice all the way up into research and pharmacology. Chemotherapy treatment. You know, everyone's like just because you have breast cancer doesn't mean all chemotherapy works. And it's the same for just you know, just because you take Asheville, Gonda doesn't mean it's gonna work for everybody. But if we contract it for you as a person and get the feedback of yes, when I drink holy basil tea at night before bed, my deep sleep goes up. Okay, I'm gonna keep doing that because deep sleep is where all the repair happens. Let's do it. And I like that. And I like that. Like I said earlier, I'm only, um well, I mean, I kind of call like a video game. I'm the only one here like it's not a coach. It's not a person I can fire, you know, like when I get the feedback from or ring, it's not like I could be like, You know what? That was rude. You're fired because it's me. I'm It's like I'm playing against me. I have to get mad at myself. I did it to me. I'm the one that sleep was poor. I'm the one that, you know. My temperature went up for my, you know, portrait variability plummeted. I did something and then either have to accept it like yep, totally did it on purpose. It was worth it, or I need to figure it out.

spk_0:   48:41
Yeah. So for those people that are wondering or worried about kind of wireless signals going back and forth, it only sinks. When you tell it isn't correct.

spk_1:   48:49
You can, and you can keep it in airplane mode. So I keep it in airplane mode when I sleep. And then when you I sink it in the morning to my phone, it has a little docking station that you put on. Then it pulls it out of airplane mode, sinks it with the phone, you download all the data, and then it charges. And so it's really nice. So when people say, Oh, I don't really want that, Yeah, I don't want that m f on my hand all day long. Look, I know you can keep it in airplane mode. Well, if you

spk_0:   49:13
had to give people Ah, your gut reaction like, Oh my gosh, I think I've been overdoing it for a long time, and I think this is explained like this. Opened my eyes to what's going on inside of me and has, you know, inspired me to do better. What do you tell them, like what's something they can start doing today to him? Help improve

spk_1:   49:30
their structure while I say the same two things every time when we've already talked about, which is, get sunlight in the morning and get darkness at night. So get off your phone, get off your computer. Or at least used the M amber colored blue light blocking glasses. Because just if you follow a natural circadian rhythm, it makes all the world, and I'm pretty convinced if you sleep will fix greater than 50% of health problems. But the second thing I always recommend is to increase your oxytocin, which is your love and bonding hormone. That's a very, very quick way to reduce the fighter flight feeling reduced the, you know, feeling that you're burning the candle at both ends. So pet a dog. I had a nice dog and me Or, you know, make sure not allergic to dogs. And if your cat is nice and gives you unconditional love back, then pet your cat instead. That's fine, too, but when you've had an animal and they give you that unconditional love, you immediately immediately. Immediately raise your oxytocin that throws you right into parasympathetic the rest and digest. It pulls you out of the, you know, putting out the fire feeling and do that even just for a couple of minutes a day. It's It's as effective as I think it's effective is like meditation or breathing or during lean or what have you. So

spk_0:   50:41
I love you.

spk_1:   50:42
You're listening, You have an animal. Go pet your animal and people will ask me Well, can I hug my spouse? Or can I hook my kids? And like, absolutely. But sometimes they're distracted and sometimes it's not unconditional. And sometimes they're like you. Mom, stop. Where's you know your animal is usually all about it.

spk_0:   50:57
Yeah, you basically just explain the science of why I was enjoying going to see my chickens every day because they run up to me with such glee. My Children don't really do that. Outside of the chickens run up to me and I was like, I just enjoyed it like it's just so funny today, and I'm obviously increasing Max Rosen or I'll go outside between clients and pick up a chicken and it doesn't try to flap and get away because it's like Oh, to see you again. And so anyway, it's kind of a comical. My whole instagram stories are just like what the chickens were doing today. So anyway, that

spk_1:   51:29
is a stressed dog minus my dog Hank, and passes on instagram account because he brings him down most joy. I mean, my husband and kid are great, but hey, sometimes don't wanna be around me. And sometimes I don't wanna be around them. So I'm like, Well, there goes my artsy toast and I'll pet the dog. Well, you are

spk_0:   51:45
so good a cranking in lots of awesome information into such a short time. I kept looking at the clock. It was like, Oh, I mean, this was so good in just 17 minutes, and here we are Way. So thank you so much for coming on today and talking about stress response. I think it's such a great topic. Applicability. Everyone and their dog, uh, unintended. And hopefully we'll have you back against it. I

spk_1:   52:06
would be honored. I'd love it. Thank you so much. Thank

spk_0:   52:08
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