#203 The 6 Connections Between HPV and Menstrual Health Issues

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions. Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Hi and welcome to how humans heal. I'm Dr. Donnie Wilson and in this episode I'm going to be talking about menstrual related health issues and how they're connected to testing positive for the high risk HPV virus strains. So this is a really important conversation because a lot of times when it comes to testing positive for HPV virus, women are left with not enough information and their doctors are not providing that information. The doctors are doing what they're trained to do, which is important, and address abnormal cells. And that's an important piece of this. However, what's happening is women then are left in a state of fear and not knowing what they can do to prevent those abnormal cells and to prevent cancer in the long run. So I want to be here to really stand up for women and say, let's think this through, let's be detectives and understand why isn that you're testing positive for HPV at this point in your life? Because when it comes down to it, most all of us are being exposed to high risk types of HPV. The research shows 80% of us by age 50 are exposed to high risk types of HPV, whether we have been in a single relationship for more than 40 years or for women who've been in more than one relationship with more than one sexual partner. So it's not just about having multiple sexual partners partners and it's not just about being exposed to the virus. It's about how your body is able to protect you from the virus or not. And so that's what I do as a naturopathic doctor, clinical nutritionist and midwife for over 23 years, helping women to solve both menstrual related issues and perimenopause and menopause, alongside helping women to solve HPV and prevent cervical cancer, vaginal cancer and other cancers associated with hpv. And because I've had this close up view and this magnifying glass on this issue for so many years, I've been able to identify connections that you likely are not hearing about in the gynecologist's office and you might not be hearing about in other videos or things you might be hearing online. A lot of times what women hear about is how they could take a natural substance, let's say, such as a mushroom extract like AHCC or green tea or Dim, to address the abnormal cells and try to get that virus to leave them alone. And those are definitely good tools to use. Absolutely. We want to be able to support your immune system and protect you. And there's research on those natural substances and I do use them in my protocol. But what I've seen over the years is that for many cases, that's not enough. That even when women are taking HCC and green tea and dim, for example, that they're still testing positive for HPV and they're still getting abnormal cells. And so I've had to go beyond that and say what's really going on here? And look for the root causes for each individual. And what I've seen is it's not all the same. There are many possible susceptible causes for hpv. Why a certain individual may be more susceptible than another individual. And I've covered those susceptibilities in others of my videos. So if you'd like to learn more, I encourage you to watch more of the How Humans Heal episodes. So in this episode I want to focus on this susceptibilities associated with menstrual related health issues and really imbalances in hormones and things that women experience with their menstrual cycle. How is that related? Because I think some of you might be wondering, hey, if I'm experiencing, for example, pms, menstrual cramps, heavy bleeding, perimenopausal symptoms or postmenopausal symptoms, any of these kind of menstrual related symptoms that women experience, does that have something to do with hpv? And I'm here to say yes, they are related. And I'm going to go through the six connections that I've identified. There we go. Six connections I've identified that connect menstrual symptoms to hpv. So I want to point something out first, which is that many women are on the birth control pill or maybe have a hormonal iud, and that those are known to increase the risk of HPV already. Right? So we, it's well established this is something your gynecologist may have even told you or hopefully told you. Is that what when you're on a birth control pill, synthetic hormones, or using an IUD that has a hormonal IUD like a marina, that they are known to increase risk of HPV and cervical dysplasia or abnormal cells on the cervix. So already that's a connection, right? And then once women realize that, they think, okay, well, then I want to come off of the birth control pill or synthetic hormones and. But they're afraid because maybe they've had a history of endometriosis or menstrual cramps or heavy bleeding or irregular cycles. And so I do a lot of helping women to get their cycles back on track. So I really want to first off reassure you and let you know that there is help with menstrual related symptoms, whether it's pain, bleeding, irregular cycles, perimenopausal symptoms, postmenopausal symptoms. There are ways we can help using everything from diet changes, nutrients, herbs, natural hormones to help you to not have to be in pain and discomfort at any age, from menstrual related symptoms. Okay? So please know that there's so much we can do to help. And what ends up happening is as I help women to address their, their menstrual related symptoms, the HPV risk goes down and they now are testing negative for HPV and they no longer have menstrual cramps or menstrual issues. And so it's amazing. That's one of the ways it tells me that they're interconnected. So let's look at those six ways that they're interconnected. And you may be experiencing more than one of those six, by the way, but I'd like to run through them so you can see and start to think about, is this me? Do I need more information to figure this out so that you too can solve both HPV and your menstrual related symptoms without having to increase your risk either way, you should not have to increase your risk of HPV and you should not have to increase your risk of any other health issues by doing this. Okay, so the first one is what I call estrogen and progesterone imbalances. And because a lot of women say to me, is it all because of high estrogen? And I have to say, no, it's not all about high estrogen, because having low estrogen also increases risk of hpv. So it's about having an imbalance. What we really want is we want estrogen and progesterone to be in a nice balance with each other. And so there's, and that's what happens with a healthy menstrual cycle, is we have estrogen being produced and then the second Two weeks of the cycle, progesterone is being produced, and they're in balance with each other. And so when there's. Where there's an imbalance, if progesterone's low and estrogen's high, that's an imbalance. Or with perimenopause, sometimes it's the same. Low progesterone, high estrogen. But as perimenopause continues into menopause now, they are both low and. And there's a lot of women who end up testing positive for HPV at that point when their hormones drop. So it's about understanding that imbalance and testing for it, first of all. And when you do a blood test, it's not going to usually show it like, so your gynecologist might have done an estradiol and progesterone blood test, and it might show that it's in the range, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's actually in balance. What I find is really, we need to do a urine hormone panel. I prefer the one by precision analytical, or what's known as the Dutch panel at this point in time is giving us the clearest answers as to where's your estrogen? And not just one type of estrogen, but all three types of estrogen, estriol, estradiol, and estrone. And where's your progesterone? And are they in balance with each other? If not, if there's some imbalance or if they're even both too high or both too low, we need to address those, because that shift away from optimal when it comes to those hormones can make us susceptible to infections of other kinds, too, by the way, we can be more susceptible to yeast and bacterial infections as well as HPV and other infections. So it's really important to see what you can do to get your hormones back in balance and without having to rely on a birth control pill that increases your risk of HPV more. Okay, so there are ways to address this. And again, that urine hormone panel is the one that gives us the best information, including when you're peri and postmenopausal. Then we can help to bring those hormones back into optimal using bioidentical hormones that do not carry the cancer risk. Of course, we have to individualize to each person, and that's really important. Part of all of this is to know your body and work with a practitioner who can individualize your care and your treatment. Okay. The second way they're connected has to do with estrogen detoxification. You see Estrogen is a hormone that has to go through our liver before it goes out through our digestion and into the stool. So, so progesterone doesn't have to take that path, but estrogens do. And so what happens is when estrogen gets to the liver, the liver has basically three choices or three options that the way it's going to process estrogen in the first phase of liver detoxification, and that's partially determined by genetics. We think that there's some percentage chance that your liver is going to send estrogen down a healthy pathway of detoxification or maybe a more sending it to more toxic form of estrogen. Yes, your liver could possibly turn estrogen into toxic estrogen. And if there's a high percentage of toxic estrogen being produced in the liver, that can increase risk of menstrual related symptoms as well as things like breast cancer association and higher likelihood of HPV testing positive. So we want to know how's your liver detoxifying estrogen, how's that phase one detoxification going? And that can also be checked on that precision analytical urine hormone panel. So when we do that panel, we're getting a couple pieces of information. We're finding out where are your hormones and how well is your liver detoxifying? The second part of liver detoxification is something called methylation. And methylation is where the estrogen goes on its second phase of going from a, a partially detoxified form into a form that can be excreted from the body. And there's several nutrients that are required to support that detoxification in phase two, including the B vitamins, methylated B vitamins, as well as magnesium and choline. And these are often nutrients that women don't have enough of. And it just so happens that when women don't have enough B vitamins, magnesium and choline, they also increase risk of high risk HPV and abnormal cells on the cervix. So if there's methylation issues in the liver, then we're not processing estrogen well. And that can cause menstrual related symptoms, especially I would say more common to have pms, pmdd, breast tenderness, as well as menstrual cramps and migraines when there's an issue with methylation. So if these are symptoms you're having with your menstrual cycle or perimenopause, again, if you're having migraines, if you're having menstrual cramps, if you're having PMS or pmdd, where your mood is fluctuating, our breast tenderness is happening premenstrually or even perimenopausally. Then there we need to be looking at your methylation function, which is how well your body's using B vitamins to help detoxify estrogen. And if there needs help there, then that's something we can do. In fact, that's another area that I specialize in, is in optimizing methylation. And this also comes back to some potential gene variations. One is mthfr, which has to do with activating folic acid into folate and also comt, which has to do with not only processing estrogen but also processing adrenaline. And so by we can look at your genetics and we can see is that an issue for your body potentially based on your genetics. And then we can look at the precision analytical to see how well is your liver methylation process working to detoxify estrogen. Okay, so that's a third way that this is all connected. And the more we help with methylation, the more we help with the menstrual symptoms and the more we decrease the risk of hpv. Did you recently get an abnormal Pap smear result and test positive for hpv? Then I'm glad to connect with you. I'm a naturopathic doctor and midwife and I specialize in helping women to address abnormal Pap smears and get HPV to negative. And I would love to invite you to join me for a free online workshop. It's going to be a one day, two and a half hour workshop. I'd love for you to come and, and this way I can teach you what your PEP results mean and what are the steps you can take to help heal your cervix and get rid of HPV instead of just wait and see if it gets worse. So I look forward to seeing you at the workshop. Okay. The fourth area it has to do with, I'm thinking the easiest way to describe this is with heavy bleeding. Those of you who experience heavy bleeding with your menstrual cycle or with perimenopause, if you're having a lot of bleeding with your period. Now, a lot of times women assume that it's normal to have heavy bleeding and potentially normal to have cramping. And I'm here to say that you do not, you should not have to experience cramping and heavy bleeding. There are solutions, there is help. And it doesn't have to just be relying on a birth control pill or pain medications. There are ways using diet changes Herbs, nutrients. I help women every day to help get their cycle on track, decrease their menstrual cramps and decrease the bleeding. Because what happens is when women have heavy bleeding during their periods, they become anemic. They're much more likely to become anemic, right, because they're losing blood and they become iron deficient, but potentially also deficient in the B vitamins. Because when we're making blood, it uses iron and B vitamins, especially folate and B12. So if we become anemic now, we're, we're. Our body's having to use as much iron and B12 and folate as it can to keep trying to make more red blood cells. And when that's happening, our body's not as well able to protect our, ourselves from HPV virus. When our iron is low, our immune system is down. When Our folate and B12 are low, our bodies are not as able to make healthy cells on the cervix. So we become more susceptible to HPV and abnormal cells. So I encourage you, if you've been having heavy periods, to find out if you're anemic or maybe you're not anemic, but you have low iron or low ferritin, as well as potentially low B12 and folate. The tests in the blood work often don't show this because a lot of practitioners don't know the right test to do. So we need to be measuring ferritin, homocysteine and methylmalonic acid to really get the right information. And if you don't have a practitioner to help you with that, then please reach out to my office. I can help you with all of these tests that I'm mentioning so that you get the right information that's going to help you solve this. If we don't have the right test so we don't have the right information, then we're not able to solve it. And we're going to be left in this place of fear and not knowing what else to do. And please know that this is. These are not things that are usually done in the standard medical system. Unfortunately, the standard medical system is, is not looking at how to prevent. They're not looking at these connections in these root causes, and they're often not running these tests. They don't usually offer the urine hormone panel, and they don't usually order homocysteine and methylmalonic acid unless you request it. So those you can request, you can get those done from a regular lab, but you have to ask for it. And you have to get your practitioner to order it for you. Okay? So that's this connection. And one thing I always like to point out is when you are having heavy bleeding and you have anemia, you would think your body would bleed less, but what actually happens is you bleed more. So people who have heavy bleeding and anemia end up becoming more anemic because the human body will bleed more. And so the bleeding just gets worse and worse and worse. And you can become very, very depleted and even need iron infusions if your iron is that low. So please, please know that you do not have to keep dealing with that, that there are ways. And yes, a lot of women and a lot of gynecologists will then do what's called an ablation, which will stop the uterus from bleeding, but they still need to address the nutrient deficiencies. So even if you have an ablation, please, let's make sure we address the hormone imbalances and the nutrient deficiencies that were there from before. And for those of you who want to try to avoid an ablation and you want to. Maybe you're trying to go towards fertility, or maybe you just want to be able to do this naturally, then know that there are ways to help get your menstrual cycle to not be so heavy. Okay? So the fifth way that they're connected is the example of endometriosis and adenomyosis. Probably more likely you've heard of endometriosis, which is often associated with severe menstrual pain, and maybe not just during the menstrual cycle. Sometimes women experience pain other times of the month or with ovulation. And it could be not just pain in the uterus, but pain in the digestion or in the back in different places. And women, you know, where you usually identify it is you do imaging or even a surgery called a laparoscopy to be able to identify the endometriosis. Endometriosis, as far as we understand from research in the past couple decades, is there's multiple different causes behind endometriosis, some of which we've already talked about, such as imbalance, estrogen and progesterone, such as imbalance in the detoxification of estrogen and methylation issues. Also, endometriosis is associated with imbalance, is in the digestion and the gut bacteria. So if you have. If you have leaky gut, imbalanced gut bacteria, which you would have to do a food sensitivity panel and a DNA analysis of your gut bacteria to know for sure, then we're going to want to address your gut health, heal your digestion, and in that way, we're helping to turn off and prevent endometriosis. Also, endometriosis is associated with toxin exposure from everything from plastics, mold, toxins and other toxins in the environment have been associated with increased risk of endometriosis. So if you've been diagnosed with endometriosis or adenomyosis, then I would definitely recommend we do some testing for toxin exposure, because once we identify which toxins you've been exposed to, then I can help you to get those toxins safely out of your body so that we can again decrease your pain and decrease the endometriosis and at the same time decrease hpv. Because what I find is that HPV is also associated with imbalanced gut bacteria, leaky gut, and toxin exposure. They all also increase risk of hpv. So if you have endometriosis and HPV, know that they likely have a common cause. And by addressing that common cause, we take care of both the endometriosis and the HPV at the same time. The sixth connection is with pcos, polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is a quite commonly diagnosed situation, which may or may not involve ovarian cysts, even though it's called polycystic ovarian syndrome. PCOS is more consistently associated with imbalance is in blood sugar and insulin function. What research again over the last couple decades has shown is that when women have higher blood sugar levels and lower insulin function, so their insulin level is actually usually higher because the body's trying to get it to work better, then they have higher likelihood of pcos. And they also see that when women take medications used for insulin function, such as metformin, that it reduces the symptoms of pcos. So we, it's not always the case, but in a large number of women who are diagnosed with pcos, a lot of the underlying cause has to do with their metabolism in, in terms of insulin function and blood sugar levels, which then affect ovary function. And what I find is when women have blood sugar issues and insulin function issues, they also tend to be. That also tends to be associated with hpv. So again, with all of these, it doesn't mean that you're absolutely going to be positive for hpv. Right? Someone with endometriosis doesn't necessarily going to have high hpv or, or someone with PCOS isn't always going to be testing positive for hpv. But what I'm saying is if you have both, if you have, you have Menstrual cramps and HPV if you have perimenopausal symptoms and HPV if you have PCOS and hpv, the cause is likely related between the two. And as we with pcos, as we address the insulin function and blood sugar levels, the PCOS improves and HPV goes away. Okay? So I always love to look for things where we can address one common cause and solve multiple symptoms at the same time or multiple health issues at the same time. Now, one final connection that I want to make before we wrap up this session has to do with the adrenal glands and stress and cortisol. Because really, if we're being detectives and we're digging deep underneath to find root causes of all of these things, what we're going to find is deep down underneath all of these is going to bring us back to the effects of stress. Ultimately, stress exposure for women from, whether it's psycho emotional stress from present or from the past, or even stress from injuries or infections or or other stresses in your life, they all are going to cause a stress response in a human body. That's a human stress response that involves cortisol and adrenaline. What can happen is when we're under stress, ongoing, over and over, really could be from being a mom, being a grandmom, being being a caretaker, having a job, running a business. The things we do as women end up having an effect of stress in our bodies. And that can cause imbalances of cortisol and adrenaline, meaning we might have too high or too low cortisol and adrenaline. And when that happens, when cortisol is either too high or too low, then it can disrupt estrogen levels, it can disrupt liver function and detoxification. It can make you more susceptible to nutrient deficiencies such as iron and B vitamins. It can disrupt your methylation and how well your body uses your B vitamins. It can also disrupt your gut health and your gut biome, and it can disrupt your blood sugar and insulin. So always with all six of these, I encourage you to constantly come back to, say, asking yourself, where's my cortisol level now? And where's my adrenaline level? And to know that, we need to do specific testing. Again, not commonly done in the standard medical office or standard lab. We need to be checking cortisol at four different times a day. Morning, midday, evening, bedtime. I most often do that in a saliva sample, but it can also be done in urine. We also need to measure adrenaline in the urine, and I prefer to also measure neurotransmitters in the urine. So we can really see for once how stress has affected you as a human being. Because once we see how stress has affected you, then we can give you specific help to recover. If cortisol's high, we can use the nutrients and herbs that help bring it to optimal, that bring it back down. If cortisol is too low, we use different herbs and nutrients to bring it back up to optimal. And then as we do that now we're healing you from the stress. We're helping you actually not just manage your stress, but recover from stress. Because now we're actually bringing your cortisols to optimal, your adrenaline to optimal and you're learning what it is that you need to do now in your life to maintain and help you keep up and be resilient to stress to to maintain a healthy gut health, healthy hormone levels, healthy detoxification and methylation and so and avoid toxins or help your body detoxify in an effective daily way so that you can protect yourself from these health issues. You can reduce your likelihood of menstrual symptoms, perimenopausal symptoms, postmenopausal symptoms, and decrease your risk of HPV and HPV related cancer. So thank you so much for listening in. I hope this helps connect the dots for you and help you really understand your body better and what's underlying for you to address. And please know that you can always reach out to me in my office and to get access to the testing that I mentioned and the help to solve this. I offer both one on one support with me directly and practitioners I've trained as well as group support in online programs that I've developed. So please know the help is available and that it's actually coming from this very thought through strategic protocol to help you understand your body and what it's needed, likely all along and likely what it's going to need going forward to help you staying healthy and enjoying yourself in your life. So thanks again so much for joining me for How Humans Heal. Please do like and subscribe and join me for the next episode. I'd love to hear from you. Any other topics that you'd like me to cover and I look forward to seeing you next time.

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