114: Women’s Health and Mold Toxicity w/ Dr. Carrie Jones

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to today's show. If you're one of the 130 million people that are dealing with Sirs Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, or other conditions that are impacted by mold on a daily basis, and you need to learn how to eliminate that exposure, then you're in the right place. My name is Brian Carr, and you're listening to Mold Finders Radio.

Hey, everyone. What's going on? Really excited for today. I've been trying to talk to this person for a long time. She doesn't know it. I've kind of been, like, creeping on her Instagram and she had no idea that it was happening. And then finally, it's like when you're in school and you kind of get your friend to, like, introduce you to the other friend, and then all of a sudden, you're, like, talking to that person. That's what happened here. So not to creep you out to start, but, hey, super excited to be talking to you. Everybody, this is Dr. Kerry Jones. Kerry has going.

And now we've decided we're best friends. So we went from creeper mode all the way through to straight up best friends. So this is great.

This is a lesson to learn. Teach your kids this. Let them listen to this. You creep on someone, you get a soft introduction, you'd be cool. And now they don't know how creepy you were.

I love it. Anyway, Kerry. Doctor, I don't know how you want to.

Carrie. Oh, Carrie. I'm informal.

Got it. So. So Carrie's the. She's the head of medical education at RUPA Health, which is this really cool platform. And so I will not explain it. I'll let her explain who she is, and then we'll kind of get into stuff. So tell everybody who you are.

I am a women's health and hormone doctor, which is what I'm super excited to talk about today. I known since I was very young that women's health and hormones is what I wanted to go into and actually say this a lot. I was. Despite the lack of accent, I grew up in Kentucky. And so in my formative years, when you have health class and science class, it was taught by my high school football coach. So you can imagine how that went. And then when I got into medical school, I realized so many things. I didn't know about biology, physiology, even as being a woman, like somebody who has a period and all this stuff. And so when I graduated, my patients were like, I didn't know that. I'm like, did you know this about Estrogen or do you know this about progesterone? Do you know this about your hormones? They're like, had no idea. I would have women, menopausal women who've had children like Carrie. I don't know how I got pregnant. I just did and had kids, and here we are, and I didn't know. So it became real passionate for me to stay in this field of women's health and hormones because there's a lot of misinformation out there on what it is, what it means, what's happening. And now I am the head of medical education at RUPA Health, which is a platform for practitioners to basically order all of their functional, conventional, and functional testing on one place. So it's kind of like Amazon for lab testing for doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, PAs.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

So is it a place that consumers can go or they have to have a doctor?

Not yet. You have to have a doctor. Yeah. You have to have a doctor. Door. Yep. Most of this lab work, a lot of this specialty lab work, you have to have a practitioner of some sort license of somehow to order it for you. But I know we're going to talk about this. I'm very excited to talk about because I know people listening go, oh, well, I've had lab work. I had, you know, I had a whole. I. I had, quote, a full lab workup, and I'm fine. Like, ah, but you don't feel fine. I bet you didn't.

Is that we're gonna. I'm probably gonna, like, make this connection multiple times. So, like, you know, most people listen to this, obviously there's a health component. That's why they're even thinking about mold. Listen, people that aren't feeling it don't care, right? So, like, usually there's a health component. That's why they're there. But know a lot and have heard me ramble on a lot about all the house stuff. And the biggest thing is kind of what you just said, right? Like, oh, we had somebody come in. They did X, Y and Z. There was no problem. Ultimately, it just, like, it pushes their timeline back, like two or three or four or five years, sometimes longer. There's. I mean, there's just all these things. So, like, really understanding, like, what makes up, like, a comprehensive testing panel on what you're looking at, like, that stuff's all super important. So I will say this before we get into it. I'm not a woman. I don't have women's hormones. But I know that a lot of women even More so than men are impacted by this and obviously a lot quicker than men are in different cases. And the majority of my listeners, I don't know if people know this or not, but it's mainly women that listen to me. They don't see me a lot. So it's got to be my, my voice.

Your podcast voice?

Yeah, it's a turn on podcast voice and then everybody likes it. But anyway, so I'm going to be asking questions like I don't know what the hell's going on. And so some people listening might know some of this stuff, but I feel like if we kind of start from like that point, I'm like, hey, you're talking to somebody who doesn't know this stuff. We could kind of like connect the dots throughout and hopefully sort of like, you know, just kind of make sense of all this stuff. So I'm going to start, I'm going to start at the beginning. I feel like we've all heard of hormones and we kind of have an idea of what that means kind of, I'm in the kind of field, like, I get it, there's hormones. If they're out of whack, that's not good. That's kind of my understanding. I know Hashimoto's messes with your thyroid, which messes with your hormones. This is the extent of my understanding of hormones, really. So before we dive into more specific things, why don't we just do like a quick 101 on like, what are hormones? Why are they important? Why is this a thing that we're even worried about?

Well, the good thing is that everybody has hormones. So, you know, not just women. And as you know, hormonal, quote, afflictions affect everybody. So even though women's health and hormones is my area, I did a fair number of men's health in my career just because there are a lot of men in women's lives. And so they would say, my father, my husband, my partner, my brother, my son are having all these very similar symptoms. Could it be their hormones and can you help them? So even though the majority of our listeners are female, I bet they have somebody in their life that when I get to the end of this, they're going to go, oh yeah, he's got problems too. It's related. So I will predominantly talk about women, but obviously men could be affected. But a hormone is essentially, we call it a chemical messenger. It's a text message. It's a text message that comes from your brain to start and then goes down to what Are called your glands. So you have ovaries, you have adrenal gland, you have a thyroid gland. Well, you don't have ovaries, but testicles. Right. Like you have.

I should have jumped in. Right.

I was waiting and you didn't.

My bad.

So, glands. So then the text message goes down to the glands, and then a different hormone, a different text message goes out. So whether it's thyroid hormone, it's testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, insulin, growth hormone, we have a ton. We have tons of hormones, lots of hormones. And those hormones then bind to receptors, kind of like a key in a lock, so to speak, and activate. They do the thing. They turn something on, they turn something off in your body. So when we hear somebody say, oh, it's my hormones. Oh, I'm feeling so hormonal. I liked my hormones tested.

My.

What they actually mean are their male and female reproductive hormones. Testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, maybe something else called cortisol and dhea. Even though in the medical field, the word hormones is very large. We forget insulin. Oh, my gosh. Insulin's a hormone that has to do with blood sugar. Right? It does. Growth hormone has the word hormone attached to it. But we don't think of those. Prolactin when you're breastfeeding. Totally a hormone. But when we say we're hormonal, we're thinking sort of the key players.

In our reproductive hormones.

Got it. So basically, most of us don't know what we're talking about. And so it's talking with someone like you or learning from someone like you of trying to kind of connect how you're feeling to that. It could potentially be like a hormone issue that's beyond, like, the reproductive ones. That kind of what we're talking about here.

Yeah. And the reproductive ones are easier to figure out, Especially if you are a cycling woman, you get a period. Because usually she will say, I feel hormonal one week of the month or two weeks of the month, or my periods are terrible, or my PMS is awful, or I'm trying to get pregnant and I don't know if I release the egg, which is called ovulation. So that's very easy for us practitioners to hone right in and go, oh, you are talking about these hormones. Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. Whereas broader hormone symptoms. I'm tired, I have brain fog, I get headaches, I get even. Even anything related with fertility, skin stuff. My hair is falling out, I'm depressed, I have panic attacks. All of these are much More broader symptoms that still can be related to dysfunctional hormones, but they can be related to lots of things, as you know. Right. And so those do require some more workup to see what's going on. And just because it may be hormonally related doesn't mean that the hormone is the end all, be all. Something is causing those hormones to react.

Right. And as I'm hearing you list out these symptoms, and you said it, like, it's not just hormones that trigger this stuff. But this is all. I mean, I've literally had clients that said every single one of these things that was happening to them. And obviously, there's a. There's an environmental factor that I focus on. Right. So we know there's stuff going on in the house is triggering that. So then the question comes up, and maybe we'll skip. We'll do this now. So then the question comes up is if.

If we're trying to find, obviously, like, the root of what it is. I think that's like, this whole, like, phrase, root cause is obviously, like, the biggest thing that flies around everywhere. And it's fine. Like, it's completely valid. I think it kind of gives some sort of vis concept of, like, what we're trying to do. But it's also this term that's thrown around so much. And then it's like, okay, so now we have environment. We have hormones. We have this, we have that, we have that, we have that. And how do you sort of maneuver your way through all of that stuff? And is there, like a hierarchy of things or a tiered way that you're supposed to go through those things? And obviously it's different, but, like, do you always start environment? Do you always start somewhere else? Like, where do you start? Like, this process? Because brain fog can be a bunch.

Of stuff that causes a bunch of stuff. Yes. So I always. I've been saying this. I love saying this. So hormones are dramatic. They're like, you know, they're like Mariah Carey. So they're. They're extremist. They're the first to react or the last to recover, but they're reacting to something. So when somebody says, carrie, I feel hormonal. Can you test my hormones? Absolutely. We can test your hormones. I test the hormones. I'm like, yep, you. You were right. You know, your body, you're definitely. Your hormones are quote, off. There's dysfunction here in your hormones from what I expected. But the hormones being off are not the end of it. That's not where the rabbit trail stops. We have to keep going. Why are your hormones off? Are they off because your environment, or is it off because of mold in the house? And that's setting off your immune system and setting off the way that you create hormones. Is it because of viruses? Is it because of stress? Is it because of, you know, inflammation, for other reasons? You keep eating foods, you know you shouldn't eat, but it continues to irritate the lining of your stomach and your intestines, and that domino effect affects your hormones. Right? So it's. So now we get into this. The importance. Just like you talking about somebody's environment in their house. And tell me everything about your house, when you got it, moved in, water damage, et cetera, et cetera. I'm asking the same questions, but from a health standpoint. When did you get these symptoms? How long? Where are they related to, et cetera, et cetera? So I can figure out which rabbit hole I need to go down. For example, brain fog. Somebody says, I'm starting to get brain fog. But they're 52 years old, and I say, did you used to have brain fog? Oh, no. Super sharp. Not a problem. It was great. I'm like, when did you notice changing? When I was going through menopause, when I was losing the hormone estrogen, I started to get brain fog. I'm like, all right, while it could be mold, it could be virus, it could be stress, it could be other things. Absolutely. I know that's a massive contributor to there. On the flip side, if somebody is 32 and they say, my brain fog is terrible, and it started when I moved into this house. It started when I was going through a massively terrible divorce. My stress was a 10 out of 10. And I noticed that my. My brain wasn't as well as it could be. It started because I never really recovered from COVID Like, I still have lingering symptoms. Right. These are when I'm just like you. I'm counting back to figure out where do I need to go if it started when they moved into a new house or apartment or whatever. I'm not like, oh, it's got to be estrogen. I'm like, oh, it's, you know, like, we have to be with this. With this rabbit trail. And as you said, with root cause. Root cause, singular, is just never.

It. It's.

It's always root causes.

It's.

It's a multiple factor. So it is. I understand people want to find the root cause. I mean, I work for a root cause company, but we know it's like a spiderweb if you pluck one end of the web, the whole thing is going to vibrate. And it's the same thing in your body. Like, multiple factors come in to build you as a spider web, and therefore, they can affect you, your whole system, inside and out. It's never just one thing.

Wouldn't it be nice it was just one thing.

If we came with a manual, that's what I would just like, like, like, oh, how old are you? Let me just flip to that page and figure out.

Got it.

All right, here's what we're going to do.

Oh, my gosh. I'm now wishing I had that for my kids.

The how to manual. I know. I think a lot of people. Definitely a lot of people.

I said today. You're acting like this every other day. What is it?

I know. I don't know what to do. You can just, like, you can just flip to Tuesday. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Hydrated. Haven't eaten. Got it. Let's. Let's fix this.

You just want to be a superhero. I get it. Okay. That's. That's what it is today. My bad. She's in superhero mode. My oldest right now. It's hilarious. She's, like, running around the house with a cape and a mask on, and she's, like, fighting crime and, like, doing all these things. It's very funny. Good for her.

Start her young. Nice.

I know, I know.

Okay, so there's all these things that impact hormones, Right? So we're not going to have time to get into, like, everything, obviously. So it's a mold show. It's an environment show. Let's focus on that stuff.

Makes sense.

It's a mold show. Whoever grows up, like, I'm going to have a mold show. Nobody.

But that wasn't on your second grade, which you're going to be when you grow up.

Definitely was not what I went to school for.

Anyways. So environmental impact on the body, how that triggers a hormone issue. I know there's, like, multiple ways this happens. It's not like, one way it happens, but, like, you want to maybe kind of go into a couple of, like, the main ways it might happen.

Yeah, I'll actually hit the two big ones. So when you make a hormone, because it's a text message, it starts in the brain, and all of our hormones, all of our reproductive hormones, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, they are actually then made in our cells in an organelle called our mitochondria, which we all learned in school. Is. Is there cellular powerhouse that's the first step it goes. So from the brain, we get a signal from the brain down to, let's say, the ovary to make estrogen. So our mitochondria kicks off that step. So let's take mo, let's you now live and you've moved into your house, you did an air quality test, it was fine. But as we know, that's crap. So it turns out you. There's like tons of mold damage in the crawl space and it just got missed. What that mold does is it triggers an immune response in the body. It's. It can be low grade for some people and it can be high grade for other people who act like canaries in the coal mine. Either way, it's an immune response. So when you have an immune response, it's going to trigger all these immune system text messages. It's going to trigger your stress, text messages, cortisol, adrenaline, which is epinephrine, these all feed up to the brain and go, you know, she seems like she's got a lot of immune system stuff going on. There's a lot of stress happening. We're not really sure what's going on. Let's not make estrogen as much this month or let's not make progesterone as much this month. So the brain's like totally cool because her having balanced hormones is not important for survival. The immune system is important for survival. Cortisol is important for survival. Glucose is important. Survival. Making sure you have progesterone not important for survival. So the brain's like, got it, Not a problem. I will shift the way she makes hormones this month, resulting in hormonal symptoms. That's from the brain. Now the mold itself, the mold of mycotoxin itself we know is damaging to the mitochondria. So hormones, I always say, are, you know, they're dramatic. They're like Mariah Carey. Mitochondria are fragile. They're fragile. They're super ridiculously important. But the stupid things are like bubbles, like they pop super easily. So you now have mold and mycotoxins impacting the way your mitochondria do and don't function. So totally affects the way you make hormones. If the mold, mycotoxins have affected the mitochondria, not only are you not going to make ATP, which is our cellular powerhouse energy, so now you're tired. You're not really going to make hormones the way that you should. So it's going to cause you to feel hormonal. So what most people Notice though, right away is I feel hormonal, I'm tired, my periods are weird, my PMS sucks, I can't get an erection, my libido's down. What's the deal? But we backtrack and go, oh, moldy house mold and mycotoxin. This is what's affecting you.

That might be the best explanation I've heard of all of that.

If you looked at my eyes or just looking down, I'm just taking notes the whole time so I could learn from that stuff. I'm getting a one on one from the person to get this on. Sorry, everybody's getting one on one. I just get to ask questions.

This is cool.

I'm just rethinking through this. So the two main ways, and the one I think everybody knows more of is the whole mitochondria piece. I think that one's just easier to understand. You have mitochondria, they're your energy source. It messes up your energy source. It doesn't work as effectively causes problems. Now you can't, you know, create all the things you need to do the thing about how, which completely makes sense. But like your brain is like, oh, there's a stressor over here. So I'm going to reallocate resources over here to handle that thing. And in doing that, it doesn't put the resources that you kind of need over somewhere else. Yep. Makes complete sense.

Yep. I read an analogy. It's not my analogy, it's my. One of my mentors, Dr. Tom Williams, he did a presentation and he said, think of a highway. Your car is going down the highway and your emergency services have to use the same highway. So when there's an accident, the fire truck and the police and highway patrol are coming down. Everybody has to get out of the way, stop, and get out of the way. Because the same resources use the highway. It's the same. You did exactly what you said. If you have an immune issue, stressor something in the body, it's your resources don't get split, they get reallocated. Save the body at the expense of less important things. A classic example is hair loss.

Oh, wow.

Right. In men and women, because they, especially women, they will say, I'm losing hair all over my head. Why am I like, make it stop. Make it grow back. Hair on our head is not critical to living. Absolutely. Big fan of hair on the head. I have a lot of it. I inherited a few things from my dad. Beautiful. Hair on the head is one of them. I'd prefer to keep It. But when I'm stressed out, when I'm sick, after I've been sick, resources have to get allocated. Growing my hair is not important to survival. So stress is a big reason for that. All over hair loss, when you sort of shed like a. Like a. Like a lab or a golden retriever, right? It just like poofs out. Like, it's. That's a big reason until the body shifts back that.

Yours is a little different. So men's a little bit different sometimes, but with that all over stress, hair loss, that's a big. That's again, resources have to get allocated. Ovulation is not a priority. Hair growth is not a priority. Skin care is not a priority. So people will say, I look older, I don't heal as fast, or I'm breaking out more, I get bruised easier. Like, what the heck? I'm like, oh, resources are getting allocated. It's not the only reason, but it's a big one, especially lately.

Wow, that's awesome. That's super cool.

Unless you're living it. Then it's not awesome. Then you're like, dang it.

No, that's true. Sometimes I get excited about things like, oh, that's so awesome.

The nerd part, right? The nerd, yeah. The nerd part is like, oh, that's amazing. And then you're like, oh, wait, not to the person going through it.

Yeah. But actually, I mean, you know, on the other side, some of this stuff, I mean, it sucks. Obviously. I had my own story. People have heard it, right. I've had my own things. Definitely not to, like, the extreme that a lot of people deal with, but enough to where, like, I have ongoing skin things that trigger when I get, you know, there's, like, stuff I'm working through to.

We all claim weaknesses too. So, like, for example, if skin is your weakness, sinuses are my weakness. So if other people. It's their lungs they get. Their asthma gets triggered. Other people, it's joints. They're like, all of a sudden, my. My, you know, hip flares up or my knees flare up. So people listening may also notice if they get. If they're. They've remediated mold, they've worked through mold, but then they go stay in a hotel that's moldy, and they're like, crap. My symptoms are coming back. You know, like, for me, it might be sinuses. Like, all of a sudden I get a sinus. I'm like, dang it. I worked through this. But it's at the weak point in the body, and that's right where the mold and the mycotoxins go. For you it might be skin. For somebody else, it might be their knee pain, you know, et cetera. And, and, but we also see it for hormones. So somebody will say, I went and stayed at, you know, I work from home. I went and stayed at an Airbnb. I didn't realize how moldy it was and it really screwed up my hormones. I had migraines, you know, my periods were heavy. Like I realized, I thought I had it figured out, but my body went right back to the weak point.

When that happens. Tangent. And let's say you leave the Airbnb because you're only there for a short period of time. I'm sure people is different, but like what's the bounce back look like if you've kind of handled the initial thing and you just sort of get like a re hit like that.

And honestly, everybody's different. So I've heard everything from. It set me back a couple months to thankfully it's been a while. I've done a lot of work that my body was able to bounce back right away. And that's the most encouraging when somebody says, you know, we stayed at an Airbnb in Florida for a week and I, you know, knew it was mold, felt like crap by the end. But we left and by the next week I was much better again because all I had to do was just leave the area. Whereas other people who are still working through their healing process, it obviously unfortunately can set them back, but the goal is to bounce back quickly. The goal is for the always, always for the body to be able to just did the resiliency to be able to go, I got you.

Yeah. So optimize that reaction. That happens. Right? So yeah, that makes sense.

I don't know why I just got analogy of a hangover as my reaction of something. It's like, oh, like you drink, you have a hangover for a day, then you're fine the next day.

It's like right and right. Exactly, exactly. It's kind of the same.

Yeah. You know why? Because now that I, you know, kids and I. You don't drink anymore. If I have two drinks, I'm like, why? Why? I feel like crap. Like I should just like, like 20 year old me would be laughing at me now, but 40 year old me, it's like, it's a different world right now.

Sometimes I talk to my liver, sometimes I have a like stern conversation with my liver. Like, you're better than this. Like, we can go To a wedding and have two drinks. Thank you very much. You're better than this. And my liver is like, nope, not anymore.

Like pregame talks.

Like, listen, tonight, all right, we got.

To bring our A game tonight, right? So. And so is getting married. There's going to be champagne. There's going to be shots. We are going to be a part of. All right?

Anyways, even if we just want, like a drink, right? Like two drinks. I'm like, I just would like a second glass of wine. Wine, please. At this wedding? No.

Okay, so that was all good. So let me. So let's kind of go in. So we've talked about how there's kind of different ways that this stuff works. And it's like, okay, so hormones aren't the primary thing, and they're a symptom. We're trying to figure out what the root with the primary thing is. How do we get to that point? There's a million tests out there. So let me kind of put this in. Two questions. What is the equivalent of the indoor air quality air sample in your room.

On your end of things? And then secondarily, what would you do to actually do that, the right way to achieve the goal that people think they're getting with that type of sample?

People go to the doctor, doesn't matter, male or female, I don't care. And they say, I want my hormones tested. Can you test my hormones, please? And so what happens conventionally most of the time is that their doctor or primary care will run what's called a cbc, which is a complete blood count, red and white blood cells. They will run a metabolic panel, which is like your kidney, liver, glucose, some electrolytes, and if you're fasting and depending on your age and when it's been, they'll run a cholesterol. And that's it. That's what they will run. I have seen it time and time and time and time again. And those three markers are helpful. I'd like to know your red and white blood cells. I'd like to know your glucose. I hope your liver is okay. And, you know, cholesterol is great, but it doesn't honestly tell me very much about your literal hormones. What are your hormones doing? Even thyroid. There's no thyroid marker in that. Vitamin D is a hormone. There's no vitamin D test in that. Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, none of that in that group. So that's the equivalent to me. When they bring me their lab work and say my red and white blood cells are normal, I'M like, that's great, but it's not your hormones. The other thing I do find a struggle with to be an equivalent is timing. So in, in men, men make testosterone through the night and it should be highest in the morning. So when men say to me, I got my blood drawn at four in the afternoon, because that's when my appointment was, I'm like, well, that's great. But that doesn't tell me your potential to make testosterone. You should have gotten it before 9am in the morning. Women are on a cycle. So when, let's say they do go see a great primary care, who chooses to run their some hormones on them, which is wonderful because they're in the clinic that day, in the lab, they will just run their hormones. And sometimes it's the wrong timing of the cycle. For example, the hormone progesterone only comes out half the month. The other half, it's very, very, very, very low. It should be the second half of the cycle, which is what we call this, the part of the cycle right before her period. It should be quite elevated. Progesterone should be. So if somebody said, I got my hormones tested, I'm told my progesterone is near zero. I have to look at the timing. Well, where were you in your cycle? Because if it's day one, day seven, day four, it should be that low, that's normal. So they should have tested you after the fact. And so that's like mistake number two is getting the timing wrong in males or females.

So when. So that timing is consistent, obviously all the time. Right. In theory. So, so if you're doing the second one with women, is there when should, should you be in the middle? Should you be one, should you be other? Or do you have different scales, like comparison points based on where they are in their cycle to then compare on that?

So assuming she has a, let's say a regular site, a typical ish cycle is like 28 days long, roughly. And so let's say she's like, yep, every month. When I track it, I get it every month, once a month. So ideally she will test her hormones in what we call the second. So five to seven days after ovulation, or to make it super generically easy, lab test companies will say, test on day 19, 20 or 21 of your cycle. Day one is the first day of your period, first day you Bleed, that's day one. Just count forward 19, 20 or 21 days and then test then. So if you're at your doctor's office and you're on your period and your doctor says, all right, let's test your hormones. Say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm on my period. I want to count forward and get tested at the right time. If somebody listening to this is like, well, I'm menopausal. I haven't had a period in years, it doesn't matter. You can test your hormones whenever because you don't got it. And men contest whenever day of the month. Obviously, it's the time of day that matters for men.

Got it. So they should be doing in the morning.

Yeah.

These things sound so simple and easy. Like, it's like, why.

A lot of it's convenience because you're already at the doctor's office or your primary care, you know, your nurse practitioner or PA or whatever. And so they're like, I have you. Let's just test you. Because what happens, as we know, is people get distracted. They have lives, they have families, they have worked. So to actually get out of the house again, go to the doctor or go to the lab draw station at 8am can be hard. Counting forward 19 days, and you're like, well, dang it, I'm on vacation in 19 days. So then you have to wait another month. So I understand the convenience factor. It's. But now you've had a blood draw, and it's not that it's not accurate, it's just not as helpful. And I want it to be as helpful as possible. And I would hate this twice, right? Like, if I get lab work and I'm like, I need you to do this again. You know, people are like, I hate blood draws. I'm like, I know, sorry.

Yeah.

So I had Covid a couple weeks ago for the first time, and I went and did. Yeah, hooray. And I went and did the antibody thing. And the person. This is just a fun fact story for those of you who haven't heard, because I haven't told anybody. So I did that. And the person doing my blood draw, like, couldn't get my veins, basically.

And I was so drained and so just worn out from obviously what was going on. I passed out in the chair from the, from just like, yeah, the, the. The pain and then the, like, the. Just all the energy that goes out when you're like, whatever. And then I like, pass out in the chair. Wake up, like eight nurses, like, screaming at me, what's going on? Are you okay?

Wake up. You breathing?

Like, like, oh, my gosh, yes.

Response is real.

Yeah, it'd be better if they just got the Vein that would have been better than this wouldn't have happened.

Anyway.

Which is funny, because I can see, like, when you hold your hand up, you look like you have good veins, at least.

I'm super. Yeah. For those on video, I'm, like, super easy. So here's what I've been told about this. That nobody cares. What I've been told about this is that my veins are so, so easy to get to. That actually, when they try to push them, they move.

Yeah.

Yeah. They, like, roll over. So, like, it's super easy to find it. And then trying to get into it. It's like the slippery thing that keeps, like, moving out of the way, or that's what I'm told.

So the other thing with blood draws, I always tell people is to be very hydrated. So when you're sick, obviously, oftentimes you don't drink as much fluid as you should. Or depending on the kind of illness you had, if you've sweat a lot, vomited a lot, diarrhea, et cetera, like, you're very dehydrated. And so then you go get. You get your blood drawn. And.

The lack of hydration makes it much harder for those phlebotomists to find your vein. So hydrate before you go.

It's good to know I didn't eat. I didn't die. Like, I could barely move. I don't even know how I got there. I got in the car and drove 20 minutes away. I don't even know how it happened. And then I, like, pass out in the chair.

Not your finest day. Not your finest day.

Yeah. Do I need to come get you? I'm like. I mean, kind of okay now, but, like, you can't be in the car with me. So, like, what's like, what do we. You know? And then the whole house gets it anyways. It's just like, there's no hi. There's no evading. She should just come to get me.

Right, Right. Exactly. Exactly.

Anyways, sure. Everybody's really excited about that.

So actually. But with. I will say with COVID and, like, we are seen speaking of hormones. And even though it's not mold, we are seeing, like, a lot of women who had Covid. Any virus, it doesn't matter. It could have been the flu when we got the flu two years ago. Upper respiratory infections that can affect your hormones because, again, the body's diverting resources. So you're sick, fighting a fight. So it's totally possible your next cycle or two or three are not your A game. Cycle because the body had to divert resources and now is recovering. Other women didn't notice the thing. They were like, nope. My nothing changed. But a lot of women noticed a difference in their next couple of cycles after getting infected. Just because it's the nature of the game when you're sick.

Yeah. I've actually heard from a couple of people that I know were like, after they got it, it was like one in particular, it was like the heaviest, worst it's ever been. And it was like real. And the pain was more excessive than like everything was just like on overdrive. Yeah. And they were like, I literally just got over two weeks, week and a half of this awful. Like, and now this is literally the worst that this has been in my entire life. Like, when does it stop? But I mean, it makes sense.

Not fair, fun. It's a diversion of resources, you know, and then the resources come back or they split out again. And it does get better. Patients that call me and say, I was sick, my period sucks. Like, is this my new normal? I'm like, probably not. Probably not. This is probably the adjustment period. Some women, especially those with long, long exposure. So either long Covid. Long exposure to mold, et cetera, it is their quote, new normal until it gets. We work it up and work it out. But just the initial acute doesn't surprise me.

Got it, Got it.

All right, so let's talk about. We've kind of done some of these things that I was writing down initially. So.

We talked about kind of let's do this at the end because this will kind of. So before this, I, um. Hormone replacement therapy.

I'm just curious. So like, we're talking.

We'Re talking about there's reasons that your hormones are acting up. They're getting, you know, there's things that are going on. Right. So simply just. And you tell me if I'm wrong. I'm literally just like guessing. So just pumping in more of the hormone to try to refill it. It's like air in a tire, I would imagine, Right. I got a hole in the tire. I could keep pumping air in the tire. The holes are still going to come out tire. So like, does this turn into like this long term sort of subscription plan to hormone replacement because you haven't fixed the problem?

Well, it depends on the hormone that you're using and the reason that you're using it. So for example, when we talk about hormone replacement therapy, remember, like thyroid hormone medication is. Falls under the umbrella of hormone medication, hormone replacement therapy. So it could be thyroid it could be you need insulin injection. That's hormone replacement therapy, estrogen replacement, testosterone replacement, dhea, progesterone. We have a lot of hormones that the body can be replaced with. Some of it, you absolutely need it. If you are a type 1 diabetic and you need insulin, take insulin, like put air in the tire every day, this is going to be a problem. But for other people. Sometimes I just use it as a band aid, because sometimes I just need the hormone to give you the oomph and give you the energy and help reduce your symptoms so that making the changes is easier. Like life is easier by using the hormones. Is it the end all, be all? No, again, it's a band aid. But it can definitely sometimes make life so much better. The third scenario is, yeah, you definitely need those hormones. I mean, I, you know, I have. As women get older, if they go through menopause and their body is just not making even menopausal levels, appropriate levels of hormones, and they're starting to develop pretty significant menopausal symptoms. We know the loss of estrogen is associated with problems with the brain, problems with blood sugar, insulin, problems with the heart, so joints. So it's like you may be a candidate for estrogen replacement. Men, men who have exposures, men who've had maybe chemo or radiation, men who have.

Trying to think of other big ones, even like exposures to heavy metals. And it's affecting the way that they make testosterone. They may need testosterone replacement forever. It maybe they may have had been worked up all around and they can't. Nobody can figure out why their testosterone's low. Or they can, but they can't correct the cause. The damage is done, like chemo and radiation in the history. So it's like, look, you need testosterone, it's okay, It's. Let's just keep putting air on the tires. So when it comes to hormone replacement therapy, I am totally a fan of it, but I do recognize it is a big umbrella and it depends on the person and the reason that it's low in the first place. So I take a lot of that into account.

Yeah, that makes sense. You know, and obviously blanket statements are not. You can't just look at them like that. But you see things where, like, you shouldn't be doing hormone replacement therapy, you should be doing X, Y or z. So just kind of understand there's a time and place for certain things. And I mean, it makes sense, right?

Like this is going to say most of the time when we hear the word hormone replacement therapy, we, most of the time women mean estrogen. So they're like, oh, I'm afraid of hormone replacement therapy. Hormone replacement therapy causes cancer. Like, well what, what you actually are talking about is estrogen. That's because like I said, like thyroid falls under it, Insulin replacement falls under, like a lot of things fall under this umbrella. But when they're concerned and scared, estrogen is the hormone that they're concerned about the most.

Why, why would they be concerned that that would cause cancer?

Because of the estrogen related cancer. So estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, uterine cancer, cervical cancer can be linked to estrogen, the hormone estrogen gone rogue. But what I remind women are first of all, estrogen related cancers are not the number one killer of women. It's cardiovascular disease, it's heart disease. A loss of estrogen accelerates that, it contributes to that. Second, cancer is complicated, way complicated. Just like anything in the body. You cannot blame it on one thing. You cannot say estrogen is the single cause of this cancer. There's no way.

Especially with all the research coming out about.

Environmental impact on our tissue, environment in our tissue. So let's say breast tissue, our tissue in our breast is its own environment. If it's clogged and dirty and full of chemicals, etc. Then it's going to be the perfect environment, the perfect storm for cancer creation. Could estrogen gone rogue fuel the fire? Sure. But it's not the single handed reason for estrogen, which I know is hard for a lot of women because we were taught years ago because of a particular study called the WHI trial, that it is estrogen, Estrogen single handedly is the reason for cancer. And now fast forward many years later, we know that's not true. It's not single handedly the most common reason for the reason for cancer.

Yeah, it's so hard with older studies that then foundations have been built off of that and then it gets, you know, oh, we learned something new. It's been 30 years. Well, how about that? Like we learned something new. Just kidding though, because we all grew up learning this and now like so it's like changing a habit or something. It's like so hard to do, which is like unfortunate, you know, to get to that point. This reminded me of something you mentioned earlier, before we started talking, but you were talking about research that has come out that's linked mold and mycotoxins to hormone dysfunction. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah, and I call them the brave researchers because similar to this vein of like research that's changed in 30 years. It used to be people, researchers were afraid to say anything about the environment or chemicals, mold or mycotoxin, because they would get immediately slammed by conventional medicine or, you know, let's say, like big pharma, et cetera, et cetera, to be like, that's not true. That's not possible. And now we are seeing it more and more, especially in the fertility research, that mold and mycotoxin is being linked as a reason for fertility issues. Either the creation of sperm, the healthy creation of sperm, or. Or the ability to ovulate and release an egg because to, you know, like, the sperm have to meet the egg. So you commonly see it in fertility research. Now what I tell people is, even though the word fertility is in that study, you can take the word fertility out and just say hormone dysfunction, hormone dysfunction in him or hormone dysfunction in her. Mold and mycotoxins ultimately is affecting them because I don't. I surely don't want to get pregnant. I am not looking to get pregnant. I don't want fertility to be a thing about me. But I do know mold and mycotoxin will screw up my ability to release the egg and therefore make hormones out the other end. So when I'm reading these studies, I'm also just broadly going, oh, mold and mycotoxin totally affecting male and female hormone production. Got it.

Is this kind of what we were talking about then earlier, like, the. The way that mold is impacting the body and in turn impacting hormones? Is that kind of the stuff that's in those studies, basically, that you're referring to?

Yep. I mean, they're linking. They're going. They're talking about mold. They're talking about environmental toxins or toxicants, right? Chemicals, medications, stress, childhood trauma. Like, they're really starting to list out, eyes wide open, people. It's like, it's big. It's big. That affects hormones. And I'm just in the field of hormones. So this is the literature that I'm reading. But you can imagine, like the heart disease literature, the Alzheimer's literature, the joint literature, like the, you know, our bones and stuff. Like, that's literature I just kind of breeze over, like, I touch on. But it's. I don't have time to dig into all of it. But those cardiovascular heart doctors are probably like, ah, crap. Like, they're. All of this is worsening our vessels, right? It's worsening our. The health of our heart, our mitochondria. The mitochondria in our heart Alzheimer's disease. I mean, my gosh, we there. The amount of people being diagnosed with Alzheimer's is just skyrocketing, unfortunately. And now we know, like, there's just so much contributing to it, everything from trauma to chemicals to mold, mycotoxins to glucose regulation. I mean, it's just.

Scary. But I'm glad the researchers are being braver to say, turn over this stone. Check for this, address it.

Yeah, it's. I. A long time ago, I like, came up with this concept that I called the. The. The New Truth Adoption model. And I, like, made this whole thing about it actually. Like, I think episode two of the podcast is me talking about it that long ago. But it was. It was the idea that, like, whenever there's a change and like, oh, this is kind of what the accepted truth is, and this is how long it takes for us to kind of be like, oh, like what we knew way back here is actually different than that. Right? And it was like, like I use cigarettes as an as. Like the analog as the example, like going through. I think I had to look back. I think it's like 30 or 40 years or something from when we are 30 years from when we literally had research that said this causes cancer, this is a problem to when something was actually done about it at, like a realistic, like, legislation type of level, not just some people, you know, trying to help, you know, and like the mold piece specifically, because that's what I was comparing it to. We're in like, such the early stage of that, you know, like, there's been. There's been kind of like the crazy guy with the idea who first connected the dots way back when. And then the next stage is all of the other smart people that are out there essentially validating it and having research and proving that it's a thing. Like, this is not a crazy idea anymore. This is a real thing. Like, that's where we are. There's still. There needs to be some sort of acknowledgment from some sort of, like, larger governmental thing. Then there needs to be legislation that's put into place that's actually forcing people to do things for their own good, to protect them and talk about legislation all we want. That's not the point of it. But it's forcing people is not actually what I wanted. Like, it's going to come out wrong. But basically, like, understanding we have research is driving something. We're making, like, cognitive, you know, we're making decisions based on that to try to make the world a better place. Kind of things. Right. I don't even know if that's ever going to happen on this front from everybody that it impacts.

But it's hard in all of medicine. I mean, even just from the fertility standpoint. My patients would ask me all the time, why didn't my OB GYN or why didn't my fertility doctor, what? You know, why didn't they bring this up? And, you know, one thing, one is maybe they just didn't know, which is totally fair. They have five to eight minutes with each patient. Like, that's hard. I get that. But the other thing is, especially in the world of fertility, is that they have fertility services. So it's like, why would they work you up for all these things when they're just going to send you to ivf, right? They're just going to do, you know, COMIT and iui, and I'm really glad we have those available. But I also feel really bad for the patients who the system has failed them and, like, none of this other stuff has worked them up. So maybe they have gotten pregnant, but it still didn't address their thyroid problem or the glucose insulin issue or, you know, mold chemicals, histamine, mast cells, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so they're right back to where they were, but this time worse because they just had a baby and they're breastfeeding. And that takes its toll. And so I'm like, oh, my gosh. It's. I. It's.

We. There's ivf. Fertility services is just, it's just the quick fix. Oh, you can't get pregnant. We'll just handle everything. We'll just, just spend 30 grand, come IVF, and we got you. And so I had so many what I would call, like, patients who either didn't choose to go that route financially, couldn't afford it, or unfortunately, it failed them. They couldn't get pregnant. And so they were like, back in my office saying, what do I do? And rabbit holes, rocks, right? I'm like, I'm looking, digging into all of this, and every time they're like, why didn't my doctor look at this? I don't know. Ask them. And. But with mold, it's very. It's very. It's a very. On a very similar trajectory. You know, until we get more and more unfortunately failed, will things not change?

Yeah, I mean, the good news on that front is just like, from where things were just five years ago to now, just, like, the understanding of it, it's like, exponential than, like, what it was before. So, I mean, I mean, it really used to be like, I almost felt like it was this underground thing that like, you couldn't even say out loud. And like, you know, and now you have a platform, you talk about it. People aren't like throwing rocks at your house or anything. So I feel like at least we're getting to the point where it's okay to be talking about it, but, you know, it's not anywhere where it needs to be. So. So let's talk about. So you're at RUPA Health, right? So you're essentially this.

Resource for practitioners to go to, to be able to kind of get different types of testing for different things.

So.

If, if a doctor is coming in here and they're seeing kind of some of these basic hormone things, right, that you're talking about, where, where do they start, Right? Like if somebody is like, hey, my doctor ran those three things that you talked about and everything was fine. And I want to go back to them and tell them, hey, do X, Y and Z. Try to figure some stuff out. Where. What are they asking their doctor?

So if it's actually hormones that you want to know about, then be very. Then ask for the hormones. So if you're like, I'd like to know my thyroid, but I'd like to know all of my thyroid. So I would like to know the. What we call more of a complete thyroid panel, TSH which stands for Thyroid Stimulating Hormone. And then the two actual hormones, free T4, free T3. If Hashimoto's, which you mentioned way in the very beginning, those are the thyroid antibodies. So you could say, I'd like TSH I would like to free T4, free T3 and the thyroid antibodies. Please scream me for Hashimoto's. Maybe somebody in their family has it. Maybe they've read a symptom error question or questionnaire and realize they have all the symptoms. So being very specific, if somebody says, you know, there's a man who's like, I'd like to know testosterone. What's my testosterone? Make sure you ask for a complete testosterone. You want total testosterone, free testosterone. You also want your thyroid checked because low thyroid is a common reason for low testosterone in men. You want to check what's called a binding protein, sex hormone binding globulin. You also want to look at other hormones like estrogen, estradiol and DHEA s. What I'm seeing a lot in men's health is that these clinics will only hyperfocus on a total testosterone and make all Their decisions based on that. And you can't, like I said in the beginning, it's like a spiderweb. You have to look at the broader picture. For her, I'm looking for, I run testosterone on her as well. I also run dheas on her as well. Because oftentimes women are like, I'm tired, my libido is low. Either it's muscle, I can't gain muscle, or I feel squishy, I'm gaining weight. Testosterone and DHEA can play a role in that. But I'm also looking at her main estrogen, which is called estradiol progesterone.

At that particular time, part of her cycle, that will at least give her her hormone lab work. So then she can decide and see with her practitioner, hopefully, is something off, you know, like which of these hormones is off. And then what I love is that when people go, I'm putting this on my fridge. I was right. I knew it. This is wrong. This is completely dysfunctional. Now I can do something about it. So the doing something about it then does require a bigger conversation as to, to why is the practitioner, do you feel like her hormones or his hormones are off? Do you feel like you need to be doing mold, mycotin toxin testing in the body? Do you feel like you need to be doing some sort of intestinal gut microbiome, poop in a cup for science type of stool test? Do you feel right, like you feel like you need to be checking them for chemicals and toxicants? Like, is. So you're. Is it foods? Do you know they. Are they openly telling you like, well, I know I shouldn't be eating these things, but I eat them anyway. It's like, well, maybe we should food allergy test you and see what's going on and, you know, evaluate your gut microbiome. So based on their big history, then I may go into additional specialty testing.

Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. First step, do I have a problem? Second step, let's try to figure out what's causing the problem. Right?

Exactly, Exactly.

It makes total sense.

Well, this was really helpful for me. Hopefully for people we geeked out. Yeah, I know. I love doing this stuff. Anything that you feel like that we should have said that. We didn't say anything you want to throw out there.

Well, I was going to say the other one, cortisol, which we didn't mention as much. Cortisol is our stress hormone. It's super important. It gets a bad rap. But we need cortisol for blood sugar regulation. We need cortisol to help with our immune system and inflammation. But when we have chronic low grade irritation like mold and mycotoxins in the home, it's going to affect cortisol. So initially cortisol, what we see is it tends to go up which can make sleep a problem. It can cause weight gain around the belly, it can make anxiety worse, it can cause relate. With hair loss and brain fog, your memory is not as sharp. And then over time cortisol will drop down. There's a feedback loop. And so the body's like, it's a lot of cortisol and will start to slow down its production. So sometimes people will say, oh my gosh. In my mold and mycotoxin journey, my cortisol is super low. Like I bet it was high. But you've been dealing with this for so long, over time it goes down. So don't forget cortisol and stress is part of your whole journey because it plays a role into inflammation, immune system recovery, everything.

Awesome.

Cool. So I saw on your guys site that you have education things that are going on. We do sources and stuff. So if people want to dive more into me asking questions when I don't totally know what I'm asking and they have specific questions that they know what they're wanting to know. Where do they find that stuff, what types of things are there? How do people access this stuff? It'd be cool for people.

Absolutely. So there's a couple of different options. It's rupahealth.com if you're an actual, if you're a practitioner. All of our education is geared for practitioners. We're a practitioner based company so we have free live classes. We have paid boot camps that really help dive into these subjects and dive into these, these testing directly and then everything on social media that we do either at Rupa Health or on my social media, which is Dr. KerryJones. So Dr. Carrie Jones. That is free. So we have a lot of information between social media and our blog that are in depth, sort of a functional medicine or integrative or natural holistic approach to. So you may not be a practitioner and can access the classes but you can get a whole lot of written information to learn more and just how to ask your practitioner if you're like what were those thyroid tests? She said again we have an entire blog post about them. Ted, you can print off and taken and save this. I want this. Can you order me this?

And then under the doctor under their breath is gonna be like, oh, it's.

One of These people I know exactly well. And I do. I do say this too. I always say, you can, you can you. It's totally okay to have multiple people on your healthcare team. So I love my primary care. She's great. She is not at all interested in what I do or how I do it. But for a primary career, you know, I hurt myself or I'm sick or I need something, like, she's great, she's there. So I have somebody else who handles my integrative, functional, holistic type of things, and that's okay. I just have multiple people on my team. So I often will get the pushback from people that go, my doctor won't order that for me. I'm like, we'll keep them. If you like them, just find somebody else, add to your healthcare team. It's totally okay.

Yeah, you know, that's like such a great, a great point. I have the same thing. I have different people for different things. And then even on my side of things, of what we do, there's different people that do. There's the assessment, there's the remediation piece. There's like different people that come in. There's, hey, what do I put back in my house? It's not going to be super toxic when I put it in to help guide on the rebuild and all that stuff. So there's a team that you build around there too?

Yeah.

Awesome. Well, I think this was fun and I think that we just became best friends.

I think so too. This is great. We should hang out more often.

I know. Like, just away from each other, just staring at computer screens. Right, Cool. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate it. Hopefully everybody found interesting. I did, at least. Usually if I find it interesting, most people are kind of okay with it, so I think that's okay. Cool, everybody. See you later.

So that's it for today's show, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment, subscribe and give a rating. Wherever you get your podcasts, it'll help spread the word to those who really need it the most.

Sam.