Episode 18: Interview with Dr. Shannyn Pearce
Would you like to be able to provide optimal support for your body through peri and post menopause? Did you know there are optimal ways to test for proper hormone and adrenal function? In today's episode Dr. Shannyn Pearce, a functional medicine doctor, reveals all!!
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Show Notes:
In this enlightening episode, we dive into women's health with Dr. Shannyn, discussing the importance of personalized health strategies, testing, understanding perimenopause/post-menopause symptoms, and calcium absorption.
Personalized Health Strategies: Dr. Shannyn stresses that many women require guidance to navigate their health. Personalized strategies based on specific tests eliminate guesswork, provide clarity and yield effective results.
Importance of Testing: There's a profound emphasis on affordable health testing that offers concrete, actionable data. The guest laments the underutilization of such tests in mainstream medicine and pledges to make these resources more accessible.
Understanding Perimenopause/Post-menopause: It's crucial to understand and address the symptoms associated with these phases proactively. These symptoms are signals of physiological changes that require attention.
Calcium Absorption: The guest debunks a common myth regarding calcium deficiency in post-menopausal women. She clarifies that the issue often lies in the body's ability to absorb and utilize calcium effectively, influenced by factors such as estrogen balance, inflammation control, and vitamin D, sodium and potassium levels.
Learning Resources & Offers: Dr. Shannyn offers a $50 off coupon for the Dutch test, a comprehensive hormone test. This offer includes an appointment with a doctor to help interpret the test results.
Key Takeaways:
Guidance is Essential: Women often need guidance to navigate through their unique health needs and challenges. Having personalized health strategies minimizes confusion and improves results.
Power of Testing: Health testing provides concrete data that helps in tailoring health strategies, minimizing guesswork and frustration.
Addressing Menopause Symptoms: Perimenopause and post-menopause symptoms should not be dismissed. They are signs of physiological changes that need attention for smoother transition.
Calcium Absorption vs. Deficiency: Post-menopausal women are often not deficient in calcium. The issue lies more in the body's ability to absorb and utilize calcium effectively, affected by various factors.
Resources & Offers: The guest provides an offer for the Dutch test, allowing women to gain a comprehensive understanding of their hormonal balance, along with professional interpretation of the results.
Transcript:
Hello everyone and welcome back to Better Than a Pill Today I am so excited to have Dr. Shannyn Pearce on as a guest, and Dr. Shannon is a functional medicine doctor, and today we're going to be talking about proper hormone and adrenal testing so that you can learn how to best support your body through pre peri and menopause.
So welcome Dr. Shannyn.
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I love your mission to help women stay functional and move their bodies, and I'm just such a fan of everything you do, so I'm happy to be here.
Oh, thank you. And I love your mission too, to change women's healthcare through proper testing, stress management, and individualized health plans.
That is awesome. It's needed badly. A hundred percent, which is why we're here. Start off by maybe telling the listeners a little bit about yourself and your story and what got you involved with your mission?
Yeah, so I feel like anyone who has a big mission, it all comes out of personal struggle, right? We typically have a story that has been the catalyst to where we got, and that's me.
I feel like I have lived my whole life sick. I was actually diagnosed with fibromyalgia when I was eight years old because they couldn't figure out why I had chronic pain and why I had migraines and all of these things. At the time my family was very, you know, most families back then went to the doctor, doctor said, take a pill.
My mom didn't know any better, so we did. I was on 10 different prescription medications before I was a teenager, just trying to minimize symptoms, and none of it worked. In fact, I kept getting worse, not better. So even from an early age, I started getting really interested in thinking like there has to be something else that I'm missing.
So I actually really got into fitness and I got into nutrition, and I actually went to chiropractic school and I was like, this is my mission. Like teach well. And all of that was great and I love all of that, right? There's a time and a place where all of that, they're foundational. But even doing all of that, I still never felt great.
I felt ok. I was better, but I never felt really healthy. And then I met my husband in chiropractic school and we graduated and we opened our wellness center and we were busy. I got pregnant with my first child, postpartum full health. I mean, I truly could not get to bed. I still get goosebumps telling this story, and it's 10 years.
I Thought I was dying, like actually thought I was dying. So exhausted, in so much pain, couldn't get out of bed, couldn't function, couldn't pick up my newborn child for the first several hours during the day. Because my hands were in so much pain. We were running every test that we knew of. I was doing all of the things.
And in that experience, I struggled for years before I really found what I was.
I'm the healthiest sick person I know.
And I couldn't find answers. And through that I started thinking like, if it's this hard for me and I have access to some of the best doctors in the world and I can't get well, like what these women go through, when they don't feel good, when they know something's wrong and we're being told. You're a new mom, it's menopause.
You're, you know, you're getting older. Like all the crap that we're told, that is not true any of the time. But even me, I was running into that and from there I realized like, holy crap, somebody's gotta change. We've gotta figure this out. And that's where I got really invested in functional medicine and learning about testing and learning about pathways and getting certified all and found my own answers.
But it wasn't until I really learned how to properly test not only hormones and adrenals, but immune system function, inflammatory markers that we don't typically have. My actual root cause answers like what was making me feel that way and correct those. I can truly say I've only ever felt well for 10 years of my life and it's this last 10.
So I am getting healthier as I get older, but it all was because I was missing those big answers and I think for a lot of people, especially women, That's what it comes down to. You're not just eating bad, you're not just not doing enough exercise. You're not crazy, you're not lazy. Like there is usually a physiological answer.
There's a reason your body's expressing symptoms, and if you find that reason or multiple reasons and correct them properly, I fully believe Vibrant Health is on the other side of that. But unfortunately most women, myself included, just didn't know where to look or what to do. So we just assume it's normal.
And that's really where my mission came in is like whether they choose to go the holistic route or not. I think every woman deserves to know she has options, that there is a choice that's not just hormones, medications, birth control, and then leave it to her to choose which way she prefers, but. I need to know those options.
Absolutely. And, and that is a blessing and it's so good to hear because, you know, go to the doctor, go to our gynecologist, and things start going a little haywire. Like for me right now, it's perimenopause and, and, and then, you know, I went in to see the doctor and she's like, well, um, we could give you, um, some form of estrogen.
I'm like, whoa, wait a second. Are we gonna talk about this and kind of tell me what's going on? First I wanna understand, and so there's these questions that go through my mind, like what is going on, isn't, are there steps that we can maybe look at before doing that? And, and then that's what kind of spurred my mind and that direction.
I'm sure I'm not alone. I'm sure people listening to hear, you know, today have gone through that or you know, even in, you know, we're talking about all things menopause as well. So I am so curious to hear. More about this, what our options are. And so forth.
So like, you know, for example, I know we're talking about the adrenals, but what, tell me, what are the adrenals, why are they important and what do they do?
Yes, that's such an important topic. The adrenals have so many different jobs, but let's back it up for a second cuz here's what I think a lot of women don't know and I am a full believer that every single woman at every age and every phase from the time she starts her period till she is her cycles of life.
Should know what your hormones look like because they change in every phase. And I believe if we knew that in each phase, like when a girl first starts her period before we wanna get pregnant postpartum perimenopause, if we knew what our own hormone patterns look like throughout life and we properly supported them, there would be a dramatic decrease in hormone issues in cancers and autoimmune disease.
Because truly your hormones are linked to all of that, which were rarely told. But for women, especially since your demographic is probably thinking about perimenopause and transitioning, let's talk a lot about why hormones and adrenals impact that specifically. So what's important to understand is there are a couple of places that primarily make our sex hormones, right.
There's lots of different places, but the three main places that make our estrogen and our progesterone and our testosterone. One is your ovaries and your uterus. So when you're a cycling female, you're getting the majority of your hormones from your ovaries and your uterus. Two are your adrenal glands.
They actually create D H E A and other hormones that cascade down and make your estrogen and your progesterone and your different hormones. So we get a lot of that from our adrenal glands. The third place is our fat cells. Fat cells are beautiful, productive genders for hormones. So especially going through perimenopause and menopause, one of the top complaints I hear is, I don't know what happened.
I didn't change anything, but I have like 20 pounds that came out of nowhere. One of the reasons for that is if you're starting to transition out of making hormones from your ovaries and your uterus, but if you already have deficient adrenal glands, guess what? The only places left that you're making hormones from.
Fat [00:08:00] cells, right? So your body decides if I put on more fat cells, I'm actually gonna balance her hormones. And this is a brilliant thing, but it makes it really hard for women in perimenopause and postmenopause to lose weight because it's more of an issue with your hormones and your adrenals, which by that phase of life, most doctors are telling you, oh, you don't have test your hormones anymore.
You're almost in menopause. Why do you care? It's incredibly important to know what those look like in all phases of life, because sufficient levels of estrogen and progesterone protect us from heart disease. They protect us from dementia and Alzheimer's, like giving us longevity. They help skin elasticity, like there's so many reasons you need healthy levels of hormones at all ages.
But the difference is you have to know how to properly test them because it should be different in different phases of life, right? But to your point, you go into this doctor and the very first thing you're told is you should try some estrogen. Wait a minute. Couldn't we have done things like over time to get me to the point where I didn't require a major intervention like that?
Now, that's what I'm passionate about, but not that it's ever too late, right? At any phase, no matter where you are, it's never too far gone. You can always start your hormones. But in perimenopause and post menopause, the most effective way to do that is by bouncing your adrenal glands because that is the area you're not gonna get back a ton of hormone production from your over uterus.
You're not in that phase of life anymore. Your adrenals. We can fix your adrenals, we can get them back to tiptop shape, working order, giving you great hormone balance naturally before you have to go and actually take any synthetics or even bioidenticals. Always try and start with your own physiology first.
So because the adrenal glands not only produce hormones, but a lot of our hormones are directly related to our stress response, right? Cortisol gets released from the adrenal glands and that can drain different hormones. But things people don't realize your adrenal glands do. They help regulate your blood sugars, which can be a part of a reason why we get hormone imbalance if those are off.
They help strengthen your immune system function. Immune issues and inflammation can be a root cause of why your hormones are off and your adrenal glands can help govern that. They help regulate blood pressure and stress and they do so many beautiful jobs, yet we never think about making sure they're healthy before we transition through that menopause phase.
So ladies, if that's the season of life you're in, start thinking adrenal. That's the first thing you really wanna make sure is working well. And then you can add more natural things for hormone support if needed. Very interesting. Yeah. So you don't really hear a lot about the adrenals at all. In fact, I am so curious to know what you recommend in forms of testing?
Cause I'm, you know, how do we test for these? Do we get blood work or what? What do we do? No, you don't get blood bars. That's my soapbox. Blood testing is the least effective way to test hormones and adrenals because you miss so many pieces of your puzzle, especially if you're somebody who wants to take a more [00:11:00] natural route.
So for example, if you were to just go for a blood draw of your hormones, First of all, if you're in perimenopause or you're not really sure where you are in your cycle, not knowing where you are on a blood draw is gonna dramatically change what those ranges are supposed to be. So you get a blood draw back and you're in normal range.
The range is anywhere from a 16 year old cycling female to a 60 year old postmenopausal woman like you don't like. Sure you're in the middle of there somewhere, but it doesn't give you great information for where you should be. Physiologically problem number one. Number two, you miss when you just get a one point snapshot in the blood.
You miss what's called your metabolites, and I believe truly for me, this is what saved my life, is if I would've just went and I had some hormone labs done, and it always showed that my estrogen was low, I didn't feel right about taking estrogen. I wanted better answers if I would've just seen low estrogen on my blood and form estrogen.
Estrogen just because my number was low. I believe I would've ended up with cancer because when you test properly, and I'll tell you my favorite test in a second, you get to see pathways. If you really want to balance your hormones naturally, you have to know what your pathways look like. And I always believe the body is doing the right thing at the right time.
It's always trying to protect you from something. The question has to be, what is that something? Right? If a number is off, there's a reason instead of just trying to artificially get my estrogen up. Looking at these pathways I found for myself, my root cause answer was one of my, uh, it's called a metabolite, which is like a byproduct of your estrogen after it gets used up.
One of those metabolites is incredibly inflammatory and is linked to most of the estrogen dominant cancers. My body was storing almost all of my estrogen in that one very dangerous pathway. Come to find out from proper testing, which means my body, my brain was being super smart. It was saying, holy crap, when she has estrogen, it [00:13:00] all gets stored here with massive inflammation and the potential to cause DNA damage.
She's not gonna stop making estrogen, so what can we do? And my body went up, self-regulated, and made my estrogen lower. Risk, right? If your estrogen was lower. So if I've relieved Estro. That would've made things a whole lot worse, and I believe that's where we get into a lot of trouble with hormone replacement.
So even if you are someone who's a fan of hormone replacement and bioidenticals, you at least need to know you have the appropriate pathway where that is safe for you. Because for me, even though my levels were low, that was not a safe option for me. I had to work on my pathways and find other more natural alternatives, which I prefer anyways.
But when you see those pathways, that's when you actually get your answers for what you need to do. That's not just a temporary fix. That's what we're missing in blood so much we prefer saliva. I much prefer dried urine. The test I use, and I can give you links to these as well, the links to these tests, it's called the Dutch test.
It's a dried urine sample. You take it if you're cycling at very specific times of your cycle, you map it over 24 hours, so you get multiple different snapshots of what your hormones and your adrenals are doing. But most importantly, what you don't get from even saliva or blood, we get to see those metabolites, and that's really where you'll find most of your answers.
We also get to see neurotransmitters. So if you have mood issues or fatigue issues or anxiety or depression, we get to see a neurotransmitter panel. There's inflammatory panels, there's vitamin deficiencies at check four. It is my favorite, like a total body endocrine snapshot of just what's. And what do we do from there to really start balancing and not just artificially trying to get a number to move on blood work.
So by far, that's my favorite test. And I fully believe every woman on the face of the planet needs a Dutch test at least once in her life. I do mine every two years, like clockwork. Cause I always wanna see how it's changing. I adapt my routine based on what my body's doing in that season. That's one of the things I do for prevention.
Wow.
Wow. So I have never heard of that. Never. Never. Good. And so, with this test, you're saying that we can look at both the adrenal function as well as all the hormones and what hormones would be included in that. And then it sounds like there's more to it, path pathways, metabolites, and it just shows you everything you need to know.
All the things, um, including so on blood work, you only get your surface level hormones. People will say estrogen is like a single hormone. Technically estrogen is like an umbrella statement. We have nine different types of estrogen. They only test for two or maybe three in blood on the Dutch test you, and that's where those metabolites come in.
You get to see all of those, all of your testosterones plus your testosterone breakdowns. There's more than just one type. You get to see your D, your progesterone, your cortisol, all of those things you. Everything. It's such a beautiful test and it's so necessary and it's this, do it. All drop links here.
You can order it directly from their lab. It's a home kit. It comes at home. It's just like paper samples that you use multiple times during the day. There's a kind of time that you have to do it. You do it at home, you let it dry, you send it back to the lab. They typically release results. Their testing process is about two weeks.
Cause it's pretty detailed, but it's worth the wait to get a really good test. We got the results released. I work virtually with women all over the world, so we do virtual tests, read with people from everywhere to go over the results and make a plan from there. But it's so accessible, it's so easy to do and it will give you way more information than any other testing you've ever done.
Dr. Shannon, this is great. What information does this test take? You mentioned that we should take it, let's say if we're perimenopause, um, at a certain time in our cycle. How so? You know, it can become a little bit unpredictable. How do you even know, like when you're, when to take it if you're not sure when you're gonna have your period?
If you have it at all consistently, the ideal window is day 19 through 22. So on your first day of bleeding, you start counting and then you count out 19 to 22 days. That's the most reliable. Some women are like, haven't had a cycle in three months. I know where I'm gonna be. We will typically do ovulation testing for a couple of weeks.
If you get a positive, you wanna test about three to five days after ovulation. That's the ideal window. But most perimenopausal women are ovulating. So at that point you treat it as post menopause and you can take it at any time. But we do a little bit of work for a couple weeks to see if you are ovulating, are you not?
Is there a better window for you? And then if there's no ovulation, then those recommendations don't really matter anymore cause you're [00:18:00] not having those spikes and those declines. Okay. And I know some of our listeners today are in postmenopausal, and so you're saying that this is a test that they should be doing to the Dutch test?
Yeah. I think I need to do a whole series on just that. Postmenopausal women need hormones. A lot of times we start thinking like, oh, I don't have any hormones, or I'm not supposed to have hormones cause I'm post menopause. For not only just vaginal dryness and atrophy, it's becoming much more aware that it needs good hormone balance, but truly for brain function, for anti-aging, having proper levels and ratios of progesterone and estrogen are very neural protective.
Um, it helps with arthritis, it helps inflammation. It's actually the number one heart disease risk for women. Deficient estrogen postmenopausal. So if you wanna protect your heart, just having good, healthy levels of estrogen are important for that. What I love about the Dutch test too, and you know what's funny, I don't, for the Dutch test test commission, I don't at all, they need to.
But there are ranges. They have it so clearly outlined that there is a postmenopausal range. What's healthy for you to be in that you need? There's a per menopausal range. There's a cycling female range, and it's all laid out like a little speedometer. So it's so easy for you to identify, am I in the right phase for the stage of life that I'm in?
Because yes, somebody in their sixties doesn't want the same hormones as someone in their thirties, but you still need hormone balance. Every woman at every age still needs balanced hormones. See, and so you mentioned too, there are nine different types of estrogen, nine different types. Some protective, some inflammatory, and what a beautiful gift it is to even know that, do I tend to make more inflammatory estrogens and can I do something to correct that now before it becomes more problematic versus, no, my metabolisms of estrogens are pretty good.
I don't have to be as worried. Again, nothing's a guarantee, but the more information you have to make choices about your health, we would see a dramatic shift in just the statistics that are happening in women's healthcare. Very interesting. And in your experience, so once this test is given, and I know people are gonna be, it's gonna be individualized obviously, depending on where, what, what age the woman is and, and so forth.
But do you see, um, a lot of people then taking estrogen or going back to that point, like, what do you do? Or if you're low in a certain hormone, what do you do? What, what, what is the, what do you do from there? Like after the test? So phases of life will become really important at that point. If a woman is still cycling and usually 45 or under, it's rare that I have to choose even a bioidentical or a true hormone.
Typically, just fixing physiology, figuring out why the hormone was imbalanced. A lot of your hormones are converted through the liver, so if there is any things like insulin resistance or liver dysfunction, that's a big main cause. Correcting the adrenal glands, helping them manage stress, getting good movement in their body, like all of those things.
Typically that paired with some, my choices are typically homeopathics. We do a lot of herbal remedies, most cycling females, that's all it will take. I say all, it'll take its work, right? It's not like you take a couple things and fix them. You have to put some effort in, but a lot of times we can correct that without having to go to true hormone replacement of any kind.
If a woman has already transitioned through menopause or has had a hysterectomy, there are times that there are some beautiful plant-based bioidenticals that are very safe as long as you know your pathways. Again, I wouldn't have been a candidate for that. My pathways weren't healthy enough, but if you see your pathways and those look pretty clear and you really are just very deficient, there are some really good options that you can add for that.
I am never a fan of synthetic hormone replacement, the estrogen creams and those things, that's not my choice. I have some women who come to me already on those and their desire is to maybe find a more natural alternative or see what they can switch. That's fine too. Um, but there are certain times that it will require some heavier support, but that's gonna be person specific.
What is it about the estrogen cream that you're not a fan of? Lots. So if. Times I So about holistic ingredients and everything, you need to read your creams just like you would your food and your vitamins. And a lot of times there's like co-glycol in there and there's dyes and colors in addition to the synthetic.
For a postmenopausal woman is very similar to birth control for a younger woman, which I'm also not a fan on, that could be a whole other show as well, but anytime you give your body a synthetic hormone, it will signal similar things in the brain, but they're not metabolized the same way as your true hormone, which is why they say bioidenticals are safer.
Still not a riskless option. But when you have a synthetic, it's not metabolized the same. It gets stuck in tissues differently. It's not having the same kinda downward effect on the other hormones that it's supposed to. So you may get a temporary relief, but really it's very hard on your body to metabolize a synthetic hormone.
So with a bioidentical is what you're saying? They are a plant-based form of hormone. There are several different versions of plant-based
ones. Quality standards around their ingredients and use the least amount possible based on patterns that you know are right for your body. So some people might need just a very little bit of support. Some women might need a little bit more, but that means we also have to double down on extra adrenal support so her body can use it appropriately.
Rarely is just starting a hormone cream or pellets or even an oral. Just that is almost never the answer, right? There's always multiple pieces if you really wanna take care of your body holistically, right? It's the same with movement and stretching and pain. I wish I could give you the one thing that will fix everything.
It doesn't normally work that way, and especially when it comes to hormones. If you are going to take any type of replacement, you better make sure all of your pathways and your liver and your adrenals are working really well to be able to handle the burden of being given a whole lot of. Yes, that makes sense.
It's not just one thing, it's we're looking at the whole picture and you know, over the years I'll have women come to me and, you know, whether they're postmenopausal or per menopausal to do movement teaching because it's helpful. They were, that's one good thing they may have been told by their doctor
and, and then I realized by myself and breathing. There's more to it, right? The movement is just not the answer. Right? A hundred percent. And so this is what, it's just fascinating to me to understand, first of all, there are options. A, you know, great. And, and, and then two, that there are solutions. And in your experience, you're seeing women being helped, through different means than our traditional medicine is showing us.
Estrogen or whatever they may be giving us, and
yeah.
Menopause is supposed to be a beautiful transition that actually takes some of the burden of cycling off your body, right? It's supposed to be this time of like, you don't, don't have to plan around that anymore, and you transition into menopause. There's a lot of cultures that transition quite seamlessly, right?
They don't have the mood issues and the hot flashes and the weight gain and the things that we're experiencing in our culture, and most of that is because your hormones decrease dramatically through perimenopause and menopause. Most women because of stressful lifestyles and chemicals and birth control and all of these things that we don't properly regulate in our first five decades, we're transitioning into menopause already in a depleted state.
So when you're already depleted, you have low functioning adrenal glands. Most women have some type of. Thyroid condition, whether it's diagnosed or not, some low-functioning thyroid paired with already weak hormones, and then you go through this transition where they get even lower. It feels very dramatic.
Some women struggle with crazy symptoms going through menopause. But it's because of a previous imbalance that now that has become more dramatic. So the ideal situation is in perimenopause, if you can fix things, then you're gonna have a much easier time transitioning through. But even if you're part way through or all the way through and still struggling with different symptoms, it's never too late.
And watching a woman. Be able to gain back just that vibrant health that she has. Energy again, like the way she looks and feels in her body at any age is so beautiful, but it really does take that combination, right? Nutrition's a factor. Movement's a factor. Proper testing is a factor I think most people are missing.
Having the right strategy protocol for you and for a lot of these women, they need someone to help guide them through it. Just like I'm sure you find people with movement if they don't really know where to start. What should I do? How do I do any of this? So having some of that guidance takes away a lot of the confusion and makes it feel so much more doable, which is where I feel like the women I work with get really poor results.
Is. They just know exactly what they need to be doing for their body without having to guess and try a bunch of different things until something works. And that's one of the most powerful things about testing is you can try 15 different things and be really frustrated and really disappointed that it's not working for you.
Maybe it just wasn't the right thing. And testing helps us minimize that guesswork, which is really nice. Oh yeah. And, and the fact that it is, I like the fact that there is a lab, a test where you can get concrete data that's real to me, that sits well and, and the fact that mainstream medicine doesn't know about this blows my mind.
It's like, I thought that if they would just run this test, and it's not compared to some of the tests they run that are phenomenally expensive, like this would be a very affordable thing for them to piece into healthcare that could help women. And truly, that's my legacy project, right? I want the world to know that these things are available to them.
They deserve to know it, and whether mainstream media or mainstream medical system and media adopts that, or I'm kind of thinking that. Probably have to create my own kind of insurance, medical situation that provides more of this stuff for people. So if they won't come along, that's fine. I'll do it myself.
We just gotta get this in the hands of as many women who need it. So it's important. It's, and you know, we don't really even talk enough about what actually is going on. For example, what can we expect when we enter perimenopause or post menopause? Because, you know, just in my personal experience, I, I'm, I consider myself pretty healthy.
I, you know, live whole, you know, try to move, I, you know, practice what I preach. But I had some recent symptoms where, first off, I couldn't calm my nervous system down. No matter what movement or breath work I was doing, it was like, what is going on? That was one thing that I had never experienced and, and then I was having the irregular cycle, so I correlated this could be connected.
And then the other thing was the, insomnia that hit me like, oh my goodness, you mean I'm not.
Right. I was like, so I'm sure I'm not alone. And in talking aloud, like do you know others, even clients I've had or other women they've shared with me, yes, you're in perimenopause, but nobody talks about these things ever. And it's like, okay, so great. Now what? Right. But even so much so that, yes, those are all very common, right?
And they're not even talked about enough. But even all of that shouldn't really be happening if we had ideal balance moving into it, right? So those are all triggers that not only are you transitioning, but there's gotta be something physiological that you need to get on top of now so that the rest of this process is so much smoother for you, right?
Nervous is wired, respond, anything that is real. A dramatic decrease in hormones when not well supported by the adrenal glands is a dramatic change to the body, which is a real threat, right? That's what happens when people get sick. That's what happens in trauma. We have those big crashes, so your brain hears those perimenopausal changes as, oh my gosh, we're in danger.
You better not sleep. You gotta be on high alert. You're gonna have this anxious feeling, you're gonna have these other symptoms that aren't normal for you. Because it's trying to get your attention. I mean, that's the entire philosophy of post healthcare is your body's just always trying to get your attention.
We just need to know what to do from there, which is what's missing, right? And that's exactly where testing comes in. And feeling all these things, not sure why. Let's go find out why, and then I bet you just a couple of tweaks for you would make a dramatic difference. I'm so glad you're here today.
Fine. But I can talk about this all day. So, you know, one of the things also that has been, on my mind is what about calcium levels with women as we're going into this phase? So yeah, calcium's incredibly important. But women postmenopausally, it's rare that you're actually deficient in your intake of calcium.
So one of the things I almost never recommend to somebody is to start a calcium supplement. It's your body's ability to then take and drive calcium into the bones, and the main three factors for that one. Estrogen balance and calcium. Estrogen is one of the things that if your body's trying to get more of it, it'll leach calcium from the bones to try and get it circulating to actually have more hormone balance.
So having deficient hormones is gonna leach some of that calcium from your bones. So balance your hormones. You worry less about that. Inflammation is always right. It's gonna block your body from absorbing your nutrients in all capacity. Keeping your inflammation low, you're a whole lot less about bone density.
And then really making sure that you're keeping some of your other levels for calcium that get in the bones. You need vitamin D. I like to pair vitamin D with K one and k2. You need to make sure your sodium and potassium channels are open. Those are the things more women are deficient in than true calcium because a lot of our foods are pretty calcium rich.
We're deficient in all of these other things more often. So even the newer research is showing just supplementing with calcium. It actually starts to get stuck in the arteries, the tissues, the kidneys, and can be more problematic if you're not pairing it with enough of the co-nutrients that you really need.
And in my experience, those are the things that are the real problem. You need help getting calcium into the bones. Interesting. Yes, I have read about that with, you know, heart issues and so forth. So I was curious about that. Cuz all we hear is, um, take a calcium supplement, you know, and that's all we know.
So that's great. You know, that's, that's important to know. So it's not just the calcium, there are other factors involved here. Getting it in the bones, but also making sure your body's not pulling it outta the bone because there's other things going on. Those are the two reasons people truly get osteopenia.
And any of the bone softening type things over time is typically a combination of those two issues. Right. And I know I have osteopenia just for, you know, and I, but that was, I had it in my twenties, which is, can be common with blue haired, blonde eyed women and so forth. So, you know. Very interesting. Know more about your own physiology to support it better.
And then we all have some weaknesses or some places that will need additional support, knowing that allows you to make those choices. Awesome. Well, this has been great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. So much valuable information about everything, hormones, adrenals, uh, I know I learned a lot today and I'm sure everybody else has too.
So if you want to learn more about Dr. Shannyn's work, You can find her on Instagram and TikTok, Dr. Shanyn dc and we're also gonna be including the links to the Dutch test in the description of this episode, I'll get from Dr. Shannyn as well, so thank yes. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I'll also provide for you and your listeners a 50 off coupon for the Dutch test.
So if anyone does wanna go ahead and get it, I'll provide a discount for that and links to all the information that goes along with that. But I believe it's worth every penny for the information you get from that test. And also the Dutch test includes a test review appointment with either myself or one of my doctors.
So you'll have someone help you read it as well. Because when you see it, it's a lot of information. You're gonna want somebody to interpret it for you. And so that's included with any of the testing that you'll get through that link. Well, thank you so much. You guys heard that a $50 off coupon and you get an interpretation.
I know that that is awesome. Thank you so much Dr. Shannyn. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. All right, everyone. Remember we do new episodes every week on Wednesday and I look forward to having you join me then.
