Your Hormones and HPV: The Connection Your Doctor Isn't Talking About

Hi and welcome to How Humans Heal. I'm Dr. Donnie Wilson, and in this video and episode, I'm going to be talking about what do your menstrual-related hormones like estrogen and progesterone have to do with your risk of high-risk HPV virus. So this is not the first thing or ever a thing that your doctor likely talked about when the doctor talked to you about high-risk HPV virus, which is exactly why I'm making this video, because I'm here to tell you that your ovaries, your Ovarian hormones and your menstrual cycle may be playing a role in whether you're testing positive for HPV virus or not, and whether you're developing abnormal cells or not. I believe that you deserve to have information to help you protect yourself from high-risk HPV virus and to understand that it's not just about exposure to the virus, it's about the environment in your body that could be making you susceptible to the virus. So let's get more into this and into more detail to help you understand. So it's very common for women of, from, you know, in your 20s, 30s, 40s, even in your 50s, to be experiencing various different symptoms related to your menstrual cycle, whether that's classic PMS, could be bloating, fatigue, breast tenderness, irritability, could be once your period starts having a migraine or menstrual cramps or other kinds of crampiness and pain in your pelvic area, as well as potentially heavy bleeding. And fatigue and more that can come during the menstrual cycle. And then there can also be variations in the menstrual cycle. Maybe your cycle is coming too early or too late, or it's irregular in some way, or you're having spotting. All of these are very common things for women to experience, but I'm here to say that it's not something you just have to accept as something you have to deal with for this time period of your life, that actually there's a lot we can do to help solve these menstrual-related symptoms and By solving the menstrual-related symptoms, we can actually help decrease your risk of HPV. Isn't that wonderful? We can solve two things at once, and by solving the menstrual symptoms and the hormone imbalance, we can solve the risk of HPV. Now, a lot of women who are dealing with these symptoms go to the gynecologist, and the doctor ends up prescribing a birth control pill, or if not a synthetic birth control pill, they might be prescribing a hormonal IUD or even a different device that they implant that also. Gives you synthetic hormones to take over for your ovaries, right? Those hormones, those synthetic hormones, essentially turn off your ovaries and take over with synthetic hormones. And when I say synthetic hormones, I mean these are hormones that are created in a laboratory environment, and they don't look exactly the same as what our ovaries make. So they're slightly different, and it's in those slight differences in the hormones That can influence the way you feel. It could cause side effects. It can also cause other risk factors, and and over time, especially birth control pills are known to cause nutrient deficiencies as well as some various risks, including risk of cervical cancer. So I want to make sure you understand that even if say you're taking the birth control pill because you had menstrual related symptoms and you're trying to get out of pain and you know prevent. Heavy bleeding, okay, yes, that could be a reason to go on the pill at least for a period of time. But it's important to understand that research shows that when women are on the birth control pill or any kind of synthetic hormones, including from an IUD, hormonal IUD, that it can increase your risk of testing positive for HPV, high-risk HPV, and it can increase your risk of developing abnormal cells or even cervical cancer. So it's really important to know that at some point You're likely gonna wanna come off the pill so that you don't have to experience this risk, especially if you've been testing positive for HPV, and especially if you've done everything else to try to clear the HPV and it's not going away. Then that's especially when you may be in the situation of saying, oh my gosh, could the birth control pill or the hormonal IUD be playing a role? And I would say it could be. So it's important to understand that there's a lot we can do. First of all, we want to help to help your body to get to a healthier state. Likely, if possible, I like to help you get into a healthier state before you come off the pill. So this way, once you come off the pill, your body's prepared and ready, and your ovaries are ready to come back online and be in a better balance. And then we want to take action to help keep your hormones in balance and optimize your ovary function so that you can have natural hormones being produced in healthy amounts that help you feel good but also help you prevent abnormal cells caused by HPV. Now, this, this conversation can also relate to women who had a partial hysterectomy. Maybe you had your uterus removed and you still have your ovaries. Now your ovaries are producing, still producing estrogen, progesterone, but If there's an imbalance in the estrogen level or the estrogen and progesterone relatively, then that also could still be putting you at risk with HPV. And also, it also relates to women who are perimenopausal who may have variability in their estrogen and progesterone production, and that also can increase risk with HPV. I can't tell you how many women I find who reach out to me who are testing positive for HPV, and it turns out they're in their 40s and their early 50s and they're perimenopausal. And lo and behold, that's when the HPV started showing up because it can relate to changes in your estrogen and progesterone levels. And I also talk to a lot of women in their 50s and 60s. Now they've been through menopause, their estrogen and progesterone have dropped, and that also makes women susceptible to HPV. So it's really— it's not about just having high estrogen. It's about— and it's not just about having synthetic estrogen. It's about synthetic hormones over a long period of time. It's about sometimes high estrogen, or what's referred to as estrogen dominance, although that's not all. That's kind of a term that's used out there. But so you may be thinking you may have estrogen dominance, which means usually we're thinking estrogen higher than progesterone. It could also be that you have low estrogen and progesterone. So it's not just one situation. It's all these different scenarios with menstrual-related hormones, whether synthetic or natural estrogen, progesterone. But if they're out of balance or they're too high or too low, all of these factors can make you more at risk with HPV. So that's why it's so important for me to share with you that as a naturopathic doctor and women's health expert, I can tell you there's so many things we can do to help you to balance your ovarian hormones Estrogen, progesterone, DHEA, testosterone naturally. And really, ultimately, it comes down to addressing the same underlying causes that help you to clear HPV. So we can actually, actually accomplish both at once. We can help balance your hormones and clear HPV at the same time. So let's talk more about that. How does that work? Well, first of all, I want to I recommend doing some testing to understand exactly what's going on in your body. Yes, you could do blood testing, but blood testing for estrogen and progesterone have really relatively low level of helping us get to the bottom of things because it's very common that estrogen and progesterone are going to be in a normal range in blood work. And so then we're just thinking, well, it just looks normal. It's not really helping us. But just because it shows normal in blood work, in a wide range, it doesn't really mean that it's optimal. So what I find and what I use clinically in practice and in my group online programs is I recommend a urine hormone panel because when we measure estrogen and progesterone in urine, we can measure all the metabolites. You see, it's not as simple as just estrogen and progesterone. We need to measure the meta— there's different forms of estrogen. There's actually 3 main forms of estrogen: E1, E2, E3. So we need to measure each of those. We also need to measure how well is your body metabolizing the estrogen. How there's the estrogen needs to go to through the liver through two phases of detoxification, and each of those two phases has multiple different pathway options. And though the what your body is going to do with estrogen down these pathways is very individual to you based on your genetics and based on your environment and your Nutrients and your toxin exposure. So the only way to know really what's going on for your body is to measure what is your estrogen levels, your estrogen metabolites, your estrogen detoxification. So we can actually see what's happening in your body. We don't have to just guess or presume anymore. We had to do that twenty-something years ago. We did have to go based on symptoms, but now we don't have to do that. We can actually do a test. To help us really get clear, and I find this really helps women because then you start to really trust your own body. You start to understand what's going on in your body based on these results, and then you understand what to what steps you can take to create a change. You can then see, oh, is your estrogen actually too high? Or maybe maybe it's not too high. Maybe it's is your is your progesterone too high, or is your progesterone too low? How how is your testosterone metabolism. We can look at all of these factors, and then from that information, we can use diet as well as herbs, nutrients, and other natural substances including peptides to help improve your ovary function so that ultimately, if you have optimal ovary function for as long as they're gonna do their thing, we can help your ovaries to ovulate, to make healthy estrogen and progesterone, and for your liver to metabolize The estrogen as is healthiest way as possible. Also, the gut is important because after the estrogen goes through your liver, it goes through your digestion, and we need it to metabolize there as well, including your gut microbiome balance. So you start to see that all of this matters because if your digestion is off track in your microbiome, or if your nutrient levels are off track, or your detoxification's off track. That's going to influence your risk with HPV. And this is not something you're likely to hear from the standard gynecology office because first of all, they are not likely to test your hormone levels and they're not likely to do a urine hormone panel. These are— this is a specialty lab that's a few hundred dollars depending on exactly which panel we order. And you just— Mm-hmm. With— through my office, we guide you when to collect it, how to send it out. And then when we get the results back, we review 'em with you. This is what I'm thinking of is the Precision Analytical Dutch, what's often called the Dutch panel, but there's other labs as well that we might consider, but that's one of the most common labs that I recommend. And so then we can go through those results. In fact, this is what I teach in my group HPV online program is how to do the urine Dutch panel. What do your results mean and what can you do about it? Because ultimately, by helping you to solve the menstrual hormone imbalances, I'm going to be helping you to feel better and also to clear HPV. Because now you're solving the same things that were making you more likely to have menstrual symptoms and more likely to have HPV. Those are— number one is stress. We know that when we're under stress, which most all of us have some stress, And especially if we're under more stress, maybe you were in a difficult relationship or went through a divorce, or even if you just got married, that's stressful. Maybe you just had a baby. Maybe you had a loss of a loved one in your family. Any kind of stress and trauma is going to influence, right? Our brain picks up on the stress and trauma, and that influences the signaling to our ovaries. Maybe you've even noticed When you're under more stress, maybe your menstrual cycle becomes irregular or your PMS gets worse or your bleeding gets heavier, right? We often as women notice that when we're under more stress, it affects our menstrual cycle. Even now we know that having certain infections, like it's known that having a COVID infection also infects your ovary function. So to understand that the ovaries are responding to our whole environment, And if then we're under stress and it affects our ovaries and that throws off your hormone levels, then that can make you more susceptible to HPV. And the point is not that you're supposed to not have any stress because, of course, we wanna try to reduce our stress, but it's— the point is not about trying to avoid all stress. The point is let's help you recover from the stress. So whatever stress comes along, you get to still be in control. By helping your body to recover from stress. And we can use my stress recovery protocol to help you do that. We can look at your adrenals, we can look at your cortisol, we can look at your adrenaline levels, and we can help you to recover from stress so that the stress doesn't have to affect your ovaries and your menstrual-related hormones. Then we need to look at your gut health. We need to look for leaky gut and food sensitivities because We know that leaky gut and food sensitivities create inflammation that can disrupt your ovaries and your hormone balance and your hormone metabolism. So we need to be testing for food sensitivities and leaky gut. We also need to be, as I mentioned, looking for microbiome imbalances in the gut and vaginally, because it's well established that if you've needed to be on antibiotics or antifungals, if you've had yeast or BV, if you have bloating or digestive issues, then likely there could be microbiome imbalances that then are— could be influencing your menstrual cycle and your menstrual-related symptoms, even with perimenopause and menopause. So we need to be looking at the microbiome and getting it back in balance, which is going to help with the signaling to help balance your hormones and to help you clear HPV. We also need to look for nutrient deficiencies. So many women who are dealing with irregular cycles and heavy bleeding end up having iron deficiency from all the heavy bleeding, and the iron deficiency then can cause more heavy bleeding and more irregular cycles, and it can cause you to be more susceptible to HPV. So we need to do the right tests to identify not just anemia but low ferritin and iron deficiency states so that we can address those effectively and help you to Get out of that vicious cycle of heavy bleeding, iron deficiency, and HPV risk. Ladies, high-risk HPV virus doesn't have to control your life. I'm Dr. Doni, and I've been at the forefront of women's health for over 20 years. I've helped thousands of women to clear HPV naturally with my proven protocol. And this isn't about just managing the virus, it's about eliminating it For good. Join my workshop and take control of your health and your body with an expert guide by your side. Click the button below. Also, blood sugar imbalances. It's well established that when our blood sugar is fluctuating, that affects our menstrual cycle. And the key example of that is with polycystic ovarian syndrome, or what now is called polycystic metabolic syndrome, is simply that the blood sugar levels are imbalanced, or blood sugar is too high, insulin's high, Testosterone's high and the menstrual cycle gets irregular, and that also can be associated with higher risk of HPV. So we need to get your blood sugar balanced, and that's going to make a big difference for everything. As well as toxin exposure. This is such an important opportunity to consider your air, your water, your personal care, anything you're putting on your skin, anything you're drinking, anything you're breathing. Let's get the toxin exposure cleaned up, cleared out, So that your body's not also dealing with toxins, because those toxins can influence your liver detoxification. And as I just mentioned, we need your liver to detoxify estrogen, but if it's overwhelmed with toxins, it's not going to be able to handle the estrogen, and you're going to be more likely to have menstrual-related symptoms. This is especially the case with endometriosis, menstrual cramps, migraines— all can be associated with toxin exposure. So this is another factor we can test for the toxins. We can run a urine panel to see if you've had mold exposure or other toxin exposure, and then I can help you to detoxify so that those toxins are out, including if you have breast implant illness. That can be correlated with toxin exposure, and that can be correlated with menstrual irregularities and HPV risk. And the other area that I want to mention is methylation, because methylation Which has to do with how well your body uses B vitamins, is related to all the things that I just mentioned. Stress, gut health, microbiome, nutrient deficiencies, blood sugar imbalances, and toxins all affect your methylation and how well your body uses B vitamins. And it's well established in research that if you have methylation issues or B vitamin-related issues, you're going to be at increased risk with HPV. And increased risk with menstrual-related symptoms because methylation is essential for metabolizing estrogen. So it all comes back to some of the same things. That means that once we understand these interrelationships, we can, as we address them, we can do it in such a way where we can systematically eliminate the risk for all these different health issues simply by addressing these 8 common susceptibilities. And that's exactly what I guide women to do when I work with women one-on-one in my practice and when I work with women in a group setting such as the Say Goodbye to HPV program. So I wanted to share with you, just today even as I was seeing patients, I talked to 3 women patients who I've been helping, and they reported back to me how much better they've been feeling. One of them had previously Severe PMS and cramping and heavy bleeding. She also had anemia. So she was in that vicious cycle of every month bleeding more, getting more depleted in iron. And then when you're depleted in iron, you bleed more. So it's a vicious cycle. So I helped her to break that cycle. And when she called me today, she said, oh my gosh, I have no more PMS, no more cramping, no more heavy bleeding. And her recent blood work shows her iron levels improved. So it's like she's finally broken the cycle and she knows what to do to maintain going forward so it doesn't get ahead of her ever again. And of course, she also cleared HPV. The second one, she had migraines every month, every month before her period. Here comes the migraine again. And now she's reporting back to me that it's been several months of no migraines. I love that because migraines, I feel like, are the worst. I went through migraines myself. They take you out. You can't do anything else. Believe me, I really understand how much all of these symptoms can impact your health and your day. I've been through it myself and I get it. So when I hear someone who's now not having migraines or not having menstrual cramps, to me, it's like the biggest celebration ever. So that was the second case. And the third case was a woman who was having irregular cycles, like sometimes her cycle's coming early, sometimes late. She was having sleep disruptions and bloating and weight gain. And now that's all gone. Her most recent cycle came at 28 days, right exactly where we want it to come. She's sleeping and she's living her life without being thrown off by her menstrual cycle and not having to worry about HPV anymore. So I want you to know that this is possible for you too. I know that when you've been dealing with these symptoms a long time, you just think, okay, here we go, another month. And you just, you don't, by the time you finally recover from one menstrual cycle, the next one's starting again. And it becomes like such a, A scary thing, you and you don't even have time to think about what you could do in the meantime. And if you've been on a birth control pill or hormonal IUD or other device for regulating your menstrual cycle, it can be scary to feel like you're throwing yourself back into this. So I want you to know that there's so much we can do, and I can take you step by step. It it really has we have to individualize based on your case, your body, your situation. It's not a one size fits all. However. We can use this structure to implement it for all women, all scenarios. I work with, again, women who are menstruating, who are perimenopausal, who are postmenopausal, all different scenarios with women who've had a hysterectomy, women who've, who've, you know, been on birth control pills or other synthetic hormones and wanting to come off of them, women who are wanting to get pregnant, women who are postmenopausal. All of this is possible because even postmenopausally, I can help you to get the right natural hormone balance, right? Once you get to menopause and your hormones drop, and you also have risk of HPV because especially when estrogen drops vaginally, it really increases risk with HPV because now the vaginal cells are vulnerable from having low estrogen. And so whether you— I can help with this all the time, women who even have Have had they're worried, right? For so many years, we were told to be afraid of estrogen. Ultimately, now we know no, it wasn't estrogen that was causing cancer, breast cancer. It was actually the synthetic progestins that was increasing risk of breast cancer. So I want to encourage you: we don't have to be so worried about estrogen, and especially we don't need to be so worried about natural estrogen. So when your estrogen levels drop, which we can We can test for that. We can see that in these urine hormone panels. We can see when your estrogen is going down, and then we can safely use gentle, natural estrogen to reestablish healthy estrogen levels vaginally and potentially hormone therapy for your whole body if necessary postmenopausally. So this means that I can help you whether you're, you know, 20, 30, 40 years old and dealing with menstrual-related symptoms there. No matter what the diagnosis or not diagnosis is, it's possible to help. And even if you had a hysterectomy or even if you're postmenopausal, there's ways I can help. So please know that there are options and it can start with helping to understand what's really going on in your body. So we likely would start with some testing. How has stress been impacting your cortisol and Adrenaline. We want to check your estrogen, progesterone in a urine hormone panel and your liver detoxification of estrogen. Where are we? Then we can see it. Then once we see it, I can guide you exactly what to do to rebalance what's out of balance. Then if you're having digestive issues, or if you're thinking maybe there's a food sensitivity, we're going to do a food sensitivity panel, or maybe we need to do a stool panel to look at your gut microbiome. Yeah. Or vaginal microbiome, and we need to do blood work to identify nutrient deficiencies. But most doctors don't know the right test to order, and some of these tests are considered specialty tests that are not out of a standard doctor's office and sometimes not covered by insurance. But you're so worth it to invest in your health. I'm telling you, like the women who choose to invest in specialty tests to finally understand what's going on in their bodies. And then we finally begin give the right treatment to help your body get back in balance. It's priceless. It's you can't even put a price tag on getting out of pain and and being able to go through your life without cringing every time you realize that your period is starting. So I just want you to really take that to heart and listen and say, wow, if you've been just Feeling miserable every month, and you're dealing with HPV, then please know that these are things that can be solved. It's not going to be solved in the standard gynecology office because it's not what they're trained in, but it is what I'm trained in as a naturopathic doctor and midwife, and been helping women for over 26 years and solving it for myself. This is exactly what I help with. And so if you're wondering how I could help you, then I encourage you to— well, you can always set a time. through my office to talk to my team and set up a time to meet with me. And you could also come to— I offer free masterclasses and a free live workshop where we talk through high-risk HPV and exactly how to understand it fully and understand how to look at these susceptibilities and these tests and think about what you wanna do differently now for your health. Take it back into your own hands, right? Instead of just relying on a doctor in a clinic to determine your health, how about you take it back in your hands and you get to determine your health and your future? And that's when things really start to change. And it gives me goosebumps just to think about the women. I talked to a woman today who she had high-risk HPV and severely abnormal cells. Almost to cancer when she was pregnant. It was during pregnancy, and she contacted me, and I guided her every step of the way so that we could actually help her to address the HPV during pregnancy safely and effectively. Now she has her healthy baby, and she just got her test results back showing negative abnormal cells and negative HPV. So it's like she saved herself from— she has her baby, she prevented a hysterectomy, and she no longer has HPV. It's like goosebumps, goosebumps everywhere. And when I see that and I'm able to help women achieve that, I just think I want more of you to know that it's possible and to really sit and think hard and figure out and figure out how you can choose this for yourself because I'm just telling you, I went through years of pain from dealing with HPV, cramps, migraines. I don't want that for any of you, knowing that it's possible to solve this. So please go down below, find the links, contact my office. Let's get in touch. Let's get you some help and let's resolve this. You shouldn't have to be living your life in pain. And discomfort and misery. It should not be the case. And I'm sorry that it's been that way through the standard medical approach, but please know that it doesn't have to be that way, that there are solutions. And we can use diet, we can use herbs, we can use nutrients, we can use homeopathy, we can use capsules, we can use powders, we can use liquids. These are all things that have— are natural. They have no dependency No side effects. There's ways to do this. And I know it's scary because from probably from what you've been through, it feels scary to try anything new. So I want you to know that we, we have to match your scenario in your case and take it slowly. And I can guide you every step of the way so that you can really build trust in your body and you can learn what it is that your body needed all along. And then going forward, you'll know what to do. You don't need to become reliant on me even. I'll give you the information, then you go forward taking care of yourself into the future. And that's what I'm here to help you to do. So thank you so much for joining me today for How Humans Heal. I hope this gives you some, some sense, some inspiration, some, some hope that something different is possible for you. And I look forward to connecting with you soon. And I hope you join me here at How Humans Heal so you Don't miss the next episode. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to How Humans Heal. If you liked this episode, leave a rating and a review. And for more resources, visit drdoni.com.