Episode 23: Overcome Infertility Naturally with Dr. Melissa Vandermissen

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Season.

I can't wait to see you in there. Hi, I'm Dr. Tabatha, the Functional Gynecologist. I'm a board-certified OB-GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey, and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, Then you've come to the right place. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So welcome. Hi ladies, I'm super excited about today's guest. Her name is Dr. Melissa Vandermissen. She goes by Dr. Melissa. So she's a functional medicine chiropractic physician that specializes in natural fertility treatments. She operates 100% online so that you can work with her no matter where you are across the country. She helps restore your fertility naturally. So she works one-on-one with her clients as well as through her online programs. She's been successful with helping many couples conceive naturally and then go on to have happy, healthy babies. Check her out at thedrmelissa.com because right now she is giving away a free guide called Optimizing Fertility Nutrition Plan. You're definitely going to want to check that out. I just love her. She's a sweetheart, and I know that you're going to really enjoy our conversation today. So here we go.

Hi, Tabatha.

Here we go. All right, Dr. Melissa, well, thanks for joining us. How are you?

I'm doing great today, and you?

I am so excited to have you on. This is awesome, a fellow Michigander. Although I will say, you know, you're in the Upper Peninsula, so that's a little bit more rustic, a little more rugged. You're still getting snow, it sounds like, right?

Yes, we have winter, it seems like most of the year and then summer just flies by because we don't have a lot of warm months.

Yeah, you're a brave woman for living up there. So, yeah, I hooked up with Dr. Melissa through our Mindshare Community and one of our, you know, fellow health practitioners, Rachel Vargas, said, you are just such a ray of light and so amazing. And so I've been stalking you. You didn't realize, but I've been super impressed with everything that you're doing. around fertility and helping women optimize their health. It's so beautiful. So I would love to hear, how did you get into all this? I know that you're a chiropractor by trade, right?

Yes, that is first and foremost. I am a chiropractor, but I did go through a formal functional medicine certification program beyond that.

What made you do that?

So that's the funny part with— oh, not funny, but a lot of people assume that, oh, she's working with fertility or infertility now, she must have struggled with that herself.

Right.

But it was quite the opposite. Um, we had absolutely no issues conceiving, um, thankfully, and we had a beautiful baby girl that has just turned 5 a couple weeks ago. But what happened to me personally is I completely lost my health postpartum. Yes, I was working as a chiropractor full-time. I went back to the office 3 weeks on the day from when I had her, and I don't need to tell you what happened beyond that point.

Yeah.

But yeah, my health just tumbled. I was just so focused on nursing Making sure I had enough milk for her throughout the day while I was at the office working. I forgot about me and my adrenals, my thyroid, my gut health, my sex hormones. Everything just went crazy, haywire. I had always had an interest in functional medicine. I had a colleague that had done some work with me while in college. That was just the push I needed.

Yeah.

Even though I had a newborn at home and I was nursing her and I was working full-time, that was what I needed. I had to pursue the training that I needed to fix myself because I wanted to be able to do it so that I could maintain my own health and know what was going on. So that's how I came into this is it was my postpartum period where I crumbled and I was able to put the pieces back together myself with, with the help of a lot of colleagues. Along the way, and I ended up starting my virtual practice. I can't even tell you exactly how it happened. Everything just fell into place. Like you said, I live in the Upper Peninsula. There's not many people up here at all. So for me to make this work, it was something that I thought would be really cool, and I went with it and have been Just doing this since then. Fertility or infertility world came into my lap almost by accident because I was starting to work with women that were simply dealing with hormonal imbalance. Some of them didn't think they could have children because they were told they couldn't.

Right.

Or have had to have progesterone or medications or hormones to conceive in the past with prior children. And all of a sudden these These women were getting pregnant while working with me. And, you know, nothing is ever by accident in my mind, but I was thinking, okay, there's something here. Um, I'm going to roll with it. And then it just started spreading like wildfire where I had a lot of women seeking help for infertility naturally. Yeah.

Oh, that is so beautiful. I love when people figure out their path and their purpose, you know, through their Painful times. I just think that's so awesome that you leaned in, you worked on yourself, and you figured it all out. Was there any one particular thing that really stood out to you as like, this is what every woman needs to do postpartum to get through and stay healthy so that they don't end up like you did?

Yes, that's also part of it is just really— and even if someone's not dealing with infertility, they're just looking to conceive in the future. I work with them to optimize that preconception period because it's not only about let's try and be healthy so that we don't have to worry about getting pregnant, but we know that the health of that egg, that baby, and their epigenetic programming is happening 90 days before you actually conceive. So we want to make sure that we're taking care of ourselves 3 months before we conceive.

Right.

Because that's gonna help influence baby's long-term health, but also mom's long-term health. If you go into pregnancy as healthy as possible, more than likely you're not going to struggle as much through postpartum because we're going to set you up for success. You're going to know these things. And I work with my women through pregnancy, through postpartum, and we keep them on track. And yeah, they just seem to thrive, thankfully.

That is so wonderful. I wish there were more doctors like you around, you know, especially doing obstetrics for so long, I took care of a lot of unhealthy women, a lot of preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, you know, different hypothyroidism. And if we can just get to them before they get pregnant, what a world of difference we can make. So bravo to you. That's so awesome. And it must feel so rewarding, right? Like you're making women feel better and you're getting them pregnant.

So— Exactly. It's It's so fun to get pregnancy tests texted to my phone or emails.

Aww.

And pictures of babies. And, you know, these— I know these women. I know them one-on-one. I will have them text me sometimes at 10 o'clock at night telling me, my baby's not nursing right, or, I'm having issues with milk supply. That's my job. I'm taking care of them. I don't mind that. That's what I do. So, and I did this myself, so I can also give them personal experience. Sometimes we've got to take the doctor hat off and just be a friend or a fellow mom to these women.

Yeah, for sure. Oh, I love that. Okay, good. So you work with clients virtually. Is it all one-on-one? Is it group programs? Are you doing both?

Majority right now is one-to-one. I do have a 6-week program. Where I do group calls. That is still kind of in the process. Um, I just end up, when I connect with these women before they maybe purchase the program, they end up wanting to work one-on-one, which is great.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause I think a lot of women want the one-on-one, but there are some women that don't necessarily have the time or they would rather do something that is already, you know, done for them. And it's just videos and they can do it on their own time 'cause their schedule's too busy. But yes, I do both.

Okay, that's wonderful. And when you do one-on-one, my understanding is you do testing with them, like hormone testing, gut testing through stool tests. Is that correct?

Yes, and it really depends on what they need. So my plan is not a one-size-fits-all. I don't even have a plan set up with these women until we connect for their initial consult. We go through an in-depth history form that they have done beforehand and then just sometimes talking with them because it's a 60-minute call, sometimes talking to them about different things on their history, or they might just say one random tiny little thing as you're having a conversation and it sparks something. And I'm like, you know what? We're not doing a hormone test to start with. We need to start with a comprehensive gut test, or we need to start with food allergy testing.

Yeah.

Because it's not all, well, your hormones are imbalanced, let's start with the hormones. There might be a completely different cause to why those hormones are imbalanced in the first place. So every, every testing experience, every client has a completely different plan.

Yeah, exactly. I see that all day long in my practice. Women come in thinking they need their hormones tested and that is like the root cause of their issue. And I Tell them that is just a symptom. That's just, you know, your hormones are a bystander that got affected from all of this. There's a deeper issue going on that we need to figure out. So I love that you're taking the functional medicine approach. It's, it's just necessary. You got to fix the root cause, right? It is.

And a lot of times that what I've been finding from just my standpoint, obviously I'm not seeing millions of people, but with my clients, And just, you know, talking to other people and colleagues and reading, stress is probably the number one culprit to, I would say, every female hormone imbalance, infertility obviously being top of the list there. But stress is huge. Physical stress, chemical stress, emotional stress, all those stressors.

Yeah. Will you explain to my listeners, because I get that time and time again, women are like, oh, I'm not stressed. I'm, I'm fine. I'm, you know, doing my day like everybody else. Meanwhile, they haven't stopped to pee or breathe or process their thoughts, but because we're all living that way, they think it's normal. So how do you explain to your clients, like, you are overstressed and this is what's going on?

Well, me personally, I struggled with this.

This was Oh, me too. Hello.

It's, it's been better since I'm 100% virtual now. When I was juggling both, it was, you know, I was not living what I was preaching. So I just, I kind of sit down with them or not obviously sit down with them physically, but through the computer. And we go through their daily schedule. What time are you waking up? How long does it take you to get ready? How many people within your household do you have to get ready? Like if they have children at home, you know, we go through their daily schedule and I talk to them about how often do they have time for themselves? How often are they in silence? How often, you know, it doesn't have to be an intense workout, how often are you getting healthy movement throughout the day or the week? And a lot of times these answers, or the questions to them, they're looking at me like, well, does anyone have time for that?

Exactly.

We too are in a sympathetic state, sympathetic dominant state, when we are not taking time to breathe and taking time to just chill and relax. I mean, right now, a lot of us in the country and in this world are finding out we were really stressed before. Yeah.

Yeah, I almost feel like—

We're stressed right now with everything going on.

We are, but I feel like it's the universe's way of putting us in a timeout. You're overdoing it. You're doing too much. You need to sit at home and chill for a minute. And so I think as soon as we realize that and embrace it, we're gonna all be the better for it, right? Instead of sitting here stressing like, oh, my money situation is gonna be a problem, where am I gonna get my groceries? Like, the universe has this. Just have faith, you know?

Right.

It's gonna work out and just roll with it. So I love that you work on the stress. I think that's super important. What is your favorite thing to de-stress or what's your go-to?

Just making sure every single day they're setting themselves 5 minutes to themselves, just 5 minutes alone. If you have to get up 5 minutes earlier or go to bed 5 minutes later, um, you need 5 minutes of alone time. Preferably in silence, to do whatever the heck you want to do. Just sit and look at yourself or read, write something, prayer, meditate, whatever it is. You need 5 minutes for yourself every single day.

Mm-hmm.

I teach them some just simple deep breathing that off and on throughout the day, whether they're sitting at a desk or at home with kids running around, they've got to just take some deep breaths. And reset themselves into more of a parasympathetic state.

Yeah, isn't that crazy that we have to beg someone to take 5 minutes? But I get it, like, I lived that life. I completely understand. And I remember I was at Revitalize with MindBodyGreen. It's like, you know, a get-together with all these amazing health practitioners and a weekend of You know, breathing exercises and yoga and all of these amazing de-stressing tools. And I had one practitioner say to me, you know, why don't you just get up 20 minutes earlier in the morning before your kids and drink a warm glass of water, have some breathing and some stretching, and maybe you won't be so stressed out through the day. Because I would like literally wait until my kids woke me up and then we're like, rushing around to make lunches, feed breakfast, get the backpacks and get out the door. It's like I was not paying attention to me and my needs. And when she said that, she's like, just set up intention for your day. Like take 5 minutes to think, hey, how do I want this day to go or to look like? Do I want my kids to be happy when they walk out of the house? And then I physically did that for a few days. It It was so life-changing and it was so simple. I couldn't believe it. So yeah, I got my morning set up with my intentions and then I realized I needed to work on my sleep a little more because I was grumpy when I was getting up because I wasn't sleeping well. So I know that that's part of something that you're preaching to these women, right? Like, get your sleep in order.

Yes. I think that all women, cycling women especially, need at least 8 hours of sleep every night, and the goal bedtime is 10 o'clock. Some women say to me, how the heck do you get to bed at 10 o'clock? You've got to make it happen. There's some things that are going to have to wait until tomorrow. There's always tomorrow. Get to bed by 10 o'clock. At least think about getting to bed by 10 o'clock, and then get a good 8 hours if possible on most nights. I know that it's not always doable for everyone. Some people still have young children that are waking them up at times. But again, we need to get sleep. We need to get uninterrupted sleep if possible. Having the room as dark as possible, having it, you know, less than 67 degrees, I think, is the goal temperature. Before bed, if you're on any type of a device, Have blue light blocking glasses on, or have the night mode set on those devices. I think most phones and iPads and computers now have the night mode where it filters out some of that blue light. Unfortunately, TVs do not have that. I'm hoping that that's some type of an app that comes out in the future, but. Just trying to filter out some of that blue light because it affects our melatonin production, and then we're not going to sleep as well. We're going to wake up feeling grumpy and not well rested because of that.

Yeah, I love that. And you're saying 10 o'clock because of our melatonin production, right? We want to stay on our circadian rhythm. We want to go to sleep with the sunset and get up with the sunrise, right?

Yes. Besides, obviously during the winter where I live, the sun, I don't think has been out for a while. It seems like.

I know.

Um, but yes, during the summertime for us, that's the goal is going to bed when the sun goes down and rising when the sun rises. And yes, working with our natural circadian rhythm because that helps our adrenals, which if your adrenals are happy, usually your sex hormones and thyroid Hormones are going to be happy too. But if your adrenals are not happy, nothing's going to be happy.

Yeah. Can you explain that? How, how our adrenal glands affect our sex hormones? Because I think a lot of women don't get that connection.

The adrenals can dictate a lot with sex hormone production when we're in more of a sympathetic state and we have Increased cortisol production, that can actually decrease the thyroid conversion, so our active thyroid hormone. Obviously we've got different thyroid hormones and it has to be activated, and too much cortisol can block that activation so that we get more into a hypothyroid state. That affects the pituitary gland, which can affect our sex hormone. production. But we also know that too much cortisol is literally depleting our progesterone levels. Hello.

Amen.

Too many women with low progesterone nowadays, right?

Yes, I would say probably 8 out of 10 of my women have to go on progesterone. You know, it's just they're stealing all their progesterone to make all that cortisol. It's, it's frustrating. Yes.

There's, there's a lot that happens when we are in that high stress, high sympathetic mode and too much cortisol is rolling out. And if it happens like that for too long, then you're going to end up having too little cortisol because we're messing up the whole feedback between the gland and the brain. So that's something that some women struggle with is now it's hard for them to get their cortisol back up to where it needs to be because they've been in such a chronic stressed state for so long.

Yeah. And that, that's— then you're really far gone. Then it's a lot of work.

Then it's a lot of work and it's a long road. But I have some women that have been on this long road with me since the beginning, and we're years in and they're finally doing much, much better. But you have to maintain and you have to be more careful falling off of— falling off of the wagon, basically. Yeah, exactly.

What is the most common reason clients are seeking you for? Is it because they're adrenal fatigue exhausted type symptoms, or is it mostly for infertility, or are you kind of getting everything?

It started out where I was getting everything because I was new in it and, um, I was just working hormone imbalance for the most part. So I still have several clients that I'm still working with that are in menopausal age or perimenopausal, and some that just are, you know, wanting hormone balance after having children. But right now, most of my newer clients are in that infertility stage right now. Not that I wouldn't take anyone else on, but I just, I really enjoy working with them during that phase. I feel like it's so rewarding to Obviously have the end result be a healthy baby, right?

Yeah, exactly. Do you have any specific diet that you follow with your clients, or is it all individualized?

Mostly individualized. I would say it's more paleo-based.

Okay.

Not that everyone's got to be strict paleo and not have any grains, but that would be the base. diet that I tell everyone, let's at least look at this and let's stick to this for the most part, because I think that's the healthiest. They're getting healthy protein and healthy fats and tons of vegetables and some fruits and nuts and seeds. But again, depending on if we do a food allergy panel on them, what that tells us too.

Right.

Because that can rule out a lot of those so-called healthy foods. Someone can pop up where they have an immune reaction to salmon or eggs or broccoli or Brussels sprouts. And these are things that we know are common fertility foods.

Yeah. You want them to be able to eat those types of foods, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Sometimes not if their body has an immune and inflammatory reaction to them. Right. So then we go to the drawing board and make sure that we're getting a more personalized diet for them.

And when you see women who have like multiple food sensitivities, are you worried about gut health at that point?

Yes. So it's— and it usually is symptom-based. Um, not saying that if someone has no digestive symptoms at all, they can't have these issues. But that's why we do in-depth history and really talk about things and I usually start with a gut test and then go to the food allergy or sensitivity test according to what the gut test tells me. Like, if their secretory IgA levels are really high, we know we have to go on to that allergy test. If they're not, then we usually do not, again, depending on each client. Right.

So what else are we looking for in the stool testing that's going to help us How well they digest and absorb their food, especially their fats.

Again, those inflammatory immune markers, making sure that their bacteria balance is where it needs to be. Infections, that's huge. It's very rare for me to have a stool test come back and not have any type of infection, whether it's bacterial or fungal or parasitic. These are things that are very common. And I think that's a really important thing to unfortunately are common, so that's usually something we need to work on. Or looking at an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase, which is— if it's too high, is not good for us, but also not good if it's too low. So a lot of women that have an elevated enzyme in their gut end up being estrogen dominant because that enzyme is basically phase 3 of Estrogen detoxification. We have too much of that, it shuttles our estrogen that is supposed to be going out through our poop back into our body and can go back into circulation. Hello, estrogen dominance.

Yes, yes. And you're not going to get pregnant that way, and you're going to have heavy, painful periods, painful breast tenderness. You're going to be not a nice person to be around, right? Yes.

And sometimes that is the underlying factor to Something like endometriosis.

Yeah, exactly.

Where, you know, these women are, are dealing with so much, so much pain, and there's not a lot medically that can be done besides just covering up the symptoms. And it might be their gut that's the culprit.

Yeah.

And then you fix that and slowly they're able to get back on track and gain balance. Within their hormones again.

Yeah. Will you just reiterate to my listeners how important your poop really is? Because people don't want to talk to me about it. They, they think, oh my gosh, it's so embarrassing. I'm like, honey, no, this is super important. We need to talk about it. I talk about poop with every patient because it's such a window into what's going on in your hormones and in your body.

It is. And if they can't talk about poop, they shouldn't be having a baby. Because trust me, every single day, several times a day after you have a baby, you are going to be talking about poop. Whether they go to grandma's house or they're at daycare, how many times do they poop? What does their poop look like?

Yes, exactly.

Their life revolves around poop at that point. Oh, just— yeah. So you better get used to talking about poop, right? Exactly.

And then wait till they turn like 8 and that's their favorite word in the world. And you know, it's so funny. Poop, poop, poop.

Oh my gosh. Yes. My daughter's first words. And still, whenever we say, what is this letter? P. P is for poopy. Yeah, that's—

and then they're laughing hysterically for 5 minutes.

Yeah, but yes, it's, it's so important. Um, just like your, your menses, your menstrual cycle, knowing your, your flow, what color the blood is, if you have clots, how long you're bleeding, like These things that are being excreted from our body are giving us so many signs to what's going on.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, I don't think I've ever had a conversation with any client where we don't talk about poop and talk about their menstrual cycle. We're talking about their period. That's just the things that we have to talk about because they give us signs into if we're making improvements. And you know what's really going on.

Yeah, I see so many women whose primary complaint is constipation. You know they're going once or twice a week. I'm like, of course you're absorbing your estrogens back into your bloodstream and recirculating them. I mean, that's an easy fix right there.

It is. If you don't poop every day, you're estrogen dominant.

Yeah.

And I tell every one of my clients that I'd be getting when they tell me. If, like you said, if they're dealing with constipation and they're only going a few times a week, that's absolutely horrible. It doesn't matter if that enzyme on your stool test is elevated or not. If you're not pooping every day, you are— you're estrogen dominant.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, I'm so glad that I'm not the only one preaching this stuff.

No, we talk about poop a lot on our Zoom calls.

That's awesome. Are there any supplements that you use on a regular basis to help women balance their cycle and optimize their fertility before they get pregnant?

Um, there's— I mean, obviously being on a good multivitamin and good prenatal with, um, the proper forms of B vitamins. Um, you know, you never want to be taking the synthetic folic acid or cyanocobalamin. Especially if someone has the MTHFR mutation. But even if you don't have that, you still want to be on a good form of B vitamin built into that, into that multi. Sometimes we do an extra B complex. I do nutrient panels also so we can actually look at all their nutrient status and vitamin status and see what they need to be doing extra of. One of my favorite herbs that I use a lot with my women is Vitex or tea tree.

Yeah.

I find it just so, so helpful. Again, I like to test before using these things because we know that herbs are powerful. They're medicine. A lot of pharmaceuticals are actually synthetic forms of herbs.

Right.

So you don't just want to start taking all these things just because of symptoms or something you read online, but that one usually is very, very helpful. But again, you being a doctor, we know that not all herbs or all supplements are created equal. You need to make sure that you're getting it from a reputable source.

Right.

All of the herbs I use are actually from Australia. I trust their herbs more than any of the herbs here. I feel like the, just the whole process is spot on. So that's where all the herbs come from that my ladies use.

That's awesome. Yeah, I think you need pharmaceutical grade. You need a company that has third-party testing. Yes, that what's in the bottle is actually in the bottle at the dose it says it is.

Please don't buy supplements or anything like that on Amazon.

I know, Amazon, Walgreens, things like that, or the dollar store. God help me.

Um, oh gosh, yes.

Yeah, so No, I love chaste tree as well. I think it's really nice at balancing out your cycle after you make sure that, you know, what you're dealing with is just basic estrogen dominance, right? So—

Yes, yes.

What about a little bit of progesterone support for some, you know, women having infertility issues or recurrent miscarriage? Do you deal with that at all?

I've honestly never Oh, wow. If they're lower with progesterone, we try and deal with the adrenals and get that back on track. And then chaste tree is actually more of a progesterone-supporting herb. So that's why we find it really helpful for women that are estrogen dominant, because it's more of a supportive herb towards progesterone production, and it works toward— it actually helps with communication with the pituitary gland. So it's helping with that whole communication process, that whole feedback that we have. So I have, knock on wood, not had to do anything. I personally, I cannot prescribe anything for women anyway, any hormones or medications. I do have a lot of women that work with their, their, obviously their OB in the process and Thankfully, there's a couple OBs that are local that we have several women in common, and they're very, very accepting and helpful with them doing more of a natural approach with supportive supplements and herbs while they're doing, um, you know, their, their medical stuff at the same time.

That's great. Yeah, I think it's so important to be able to work in conjunction with conventional medicine doctors. You know, they They can do some things, but they have a lot of limitations. I know because I did that for over a decade, you know.

Exactly.

I felt like I didn't have a lot of tools in my toolbox when it came to infertility. You know, I could rule out endometriosis, I could make sure their cavity was clear, they didn't have big fibroids, you know, but that was about it. And that, that was the extent of my training and So learning functional medicine opened up a whole new world for me, and I just feel so blessed that I have tools in my toolkit now to deal with infertility. So I really hope more physicians, you know, get functional medicine training like we have because it's so necessary. I mean, the importance of our gut microbiome and our stress management and our diet, it just— it can't be understated. It can't be stated enough, right?

Exactly. And I think that the Cleveland Clinic now, all of their med students have to go through a functional medicine round.

Yeah.

Before they graduate, which I think is amazing. And it's a start. And I think that, like, medical doctors and those in the medical profession, I think they want it. They just, they've not been able to get it. Once you graduate, you're so overloaded.

Oh yeah.

You don't have time to pursue extra education on your own.

No, you don't. And I honestly didn't know anything about it because you get so consumed in your conventional world that, you know, you're not even exposed to it. You don't even know anything about it. I didn't know about this world of wellness until I had my own back injury. So I love that they are finally getting residents and medical students on board while they're still doing their conventional training, because I think once your eyes are opened, then you can't go back, then you want to read the new science, you want to figure out the root cause. So we definitely need to support that. That's for sure. So tell me, what is your number one recommendation? just to women listening today to optimize their health? Like, one thing that they could do that could be a game changer?

I think, honestly, we— I mean, we talked about the whole stress component, and it's easier said than done, right? Decrease your stress.

Yeah, like you and I trying to juggle our schedule for the past 4 days to find 1 hour to talk to each other. That's That's crazy, but it's that bad. It really is.

I know it is. But being a mama and a doctor, sometimes you're juggling a lot of different things.

Yes. So all you can do is keep trying, right?

Yes. And, you know, just be more forgiving of yourself. And yeah, you've got to set time aside right now. Because you're going to regret it when baby comes and you don't even know what it's like to have the— you just— there's a lot of things that I wish I could say. But yes, try and decrease your stress, take time for yourself, be more forgiving of yourself, and just make some schedule changes now because it'll be so much easier. Later on.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that once you have a baby, you realize you had more time than you thought you did, you know, because then you really don't have any time.

Exactly.

You can't— you're not even going to the bathroom by yourself after that, so.

Nope, I don't remember the last time I did, but it's okay.

I know, it's a good trade-off, right? They're, they're worth it. Okay, so women, if they want to work with you, where they— where can they find you?

My website is thedrmelissa.com. I'm on Facebook and Instagram, Dr. Melissa Vandermissen. Um, and right now, for everyone, I have no idea when this podcast is gonna go live, if we're still gonna be quarantined or not, but, um, I do have my My 5-day mini fertility course that I'm offering for free right now.

Oh, that's awesome.

For everyone out there that needs it, that just needs to kind of hunker down, do a little bit of self-care. Super, super easy things like go buy a bag of Epsom salt or order it on Amazon. Yeah, that's one of the things to do. So yeah, just super simple things.

Awesome.

Just trying to be as helpful as possible for all these women.

I love it. So yeah, definitely check that out because now is the time for self-care. Now we are stuck at home. Now, you know, start exercising, start making those food changes. Don't stay in your pajamas all day. Don't sit on the couch and Netflix your way through 3 weeks. Like, take this opportunity that the universe has given you and do something with it, right? Like, get healthy. Exactly.

Beachbody On Demand. I mean, heck yeah, I always work out from home. I work from home. This is, this is pretty much my normal life. It's harder because I know I'm not supposed to leave.

Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm so glad that we connected. I, I love it. So we're gonna have to hang out in person sometime. But yes, absolutely. Thank Thank you for sharing your wisdom with my guests. You're just a wealth of knowledge, and they definitely need to check you out, Dr. Melissa. So thank you.

Yes, thank you for having me.

You're welcome. Take care.

You too.

Bye.

Bye.

So wasn't she awesome? I love Dr. Melissa. Definitely follow her on Facebook and Instagram, and I'd love it if you'd follow me at Dr. Tabatha Dr. Tabatha, no I's, just A's. And if you're enjoying the Functional Gynecologist Podcast, please hit the subscribe button, share it with all the women that you know, and maybe even give me a 5-star review. That would be awesome. This all helps guarantee that I can keep bringing you this important information and keep supporting you guys. So shoot me out your questions. I would love to shout you out on my Friday question of the week so, so I can better serve you. Now go out and kick some butt and have an amazing week. Show yourself some love and hang in there. Hopefully this stay home will be over soon. Bye guys!