Episode 51: Does Your Man Need a Functional Practitioner? with Dr. Tim Jackson

Hey beautiful, it's Dr. Tabatha. I want to share something with you that I believe God is doing right now in women's health. We're in the middle of a massive movement and most people don't even know it. Every single day, 6,000 women in the U.S. enter menopause. That's over 2 million women a year, and by 2030, that's more than 1.2 billion women worldwide. So here's the thing, most of these women feel exhausted, bloated, anxious, disconnected from themselves, and the medical system is Doctors are handing out prescriptions and quick fixes, and no one is helping women heal from the root cause of their issues. That's where Fast to Faith coaches come in. As a certified coach, you'll be equipped to help midlife women balance their hormones, heal their gut, regain their energy, and reconnect their faith, the foundation that so many of us have been missing. And from a business standpoint, woo, this is one of the most lucrative untapped opportunities in the entire health coaching world. The global health coaching industry is expected to reach over $33 billion by 2023, and midlife women are the fastest-growing, highest-spending demographic in that space. Most importantly, these women stay with their coaches. They invest deeply because they are desperate for lasting transformation— body, mind, and spirit. So if you've been feeling that pull and that whisper that you're meant to do more, This is it. Now is the time to rise, to serve, and build a purpose-driven business that not only changes other women's lives but transforms your own in the process. Because when you help one woman heal, you help her family, her marriage, her faith, and her future. That's the ripple effect that we're creating with Fast to Faith. So join me, click the link to come watch this webinar. It might be the one thing that really moves the needle for you in this Next 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 friends. This week I'm mixing it up a little bit. I'm having a male on my show again, another male guest. But he's going to talk about women's health, but more importantly, men's health as well. So my guess is that you women have men in your lives, a lot of you, that probably need a functional practitioner as well. I mean, that's what I'm seeing in my office all the time is women come to me, we start working on you and you're getting balanced, and then you're like, hey, My husband or my boyfriend wants to do this too. Can he do the same thing as I'm doing? But sometimes they have different root issues that they need to deal with. So I suggest they see their own functional practitioner to work on their own individual issues. I mean, there's always the overall generic picture of, yeah, you need to clean up your diet, manage your stress, sleep better, that type of thing. But oftentimes we're dealing with our own individual issues. Maybe we have high toxic burden, maybe we have some mold exposure that's really zapped our energy and prevented us from recovering. Maybe we have some hormonal imbalance we just can't get back into balance. So it's really important that your guy sees someone as well, right? And we want to Start taking care of ourselves and investing in our bodies before we get the diagnoses and all of the problems. So if your body's yelling at you with symptoms like, hey, heartburn, hey, IBS, or insomnia, or, you know, anger, all of those symptoms are warning signs. Your body is yelling at you to stop and pay attention and do something different. So. Definitely check this episode out today. I think you're going to get a lot out of it, whether you're male or female, right? So Dr. Tim and I talk about your gut microbiome and how it impacts your hormones. We talk about mold toxicity. We talk about cortisol production and all those other issues. We talk about breast cancer a little bit in relationship to Hormone shifts. So we kind of just run the full gamut of functional medicine because I think it's important for you to realize that it's never one thing that got you sick or made you feel this way, and it's never one thing that's going to heal you or get you better. So we need to look at the big picture of you. And oftentimes that means having someone else Come in and look at that picture with fresh new eyes in a functional way, with a mindset of, we're going to heal you. We're not going to just keep you from dying. We're not just going to keep you from, you know, getting sicker, or we're not just going to medicate your symptoms. We're actually going to get your body back into balance so that it can do its innate job of healing and— Helping itself. So this is a really good discussion. I hope that you hang out with us for the whole thing. If you can't, just hit pause and come back later. That's the beauty of the podcast, right? And check me out on Dr. Tabatha Facebook, Instagram. My website's drtabatha.com. You can always, um, reach out to me to work with me. That would be great. And I do Renew You Sisterhood. So this is a comprehensive 10-week program Where you are fully immersed with other women and you're going week by week about reclaiming your health, getting freedom from food, becoming a fat burner, which is super cool. And it's going to balance your gut. It's going to get your sleep back on par. It's going to give you tons more energy. And it's going to balance your hormones naturally. So I would love for you to join me at my next Program actually starts October 25th. So, and if it's past the deadline, you know, you can sneak in a few days after the fact. I've had women start a week or two late and they were completely able to still do the work and feel like they were part of the sisterhood. It's a beautiful thing. So if you want to join us, I would love that. The link will be in my show notes. It's at drtabatha.com. It's Renew You Sisterhood. So let's get on with the interview and definitely shoot me out your questions and shout me out on Facebook and Instagram. And I'll have Dr. Tim's links in the show notes as well so that you can connect with him or the man in your life can connect with him if need be too. Awesome. Here we go. Well, welcome, Dr. Tim, to the Functional Gynecologist Podcast.

Thank you, Dr. Tabatha, for having me. I'm looking forward to talking about various functional medicine issues today and hopefully helping your listeners out.

Yeah, I'm really excited for you to share your story and what prompted you to write Beyond Green Allopathy because I think so often practitioners go into health To help people, right? We have good intentions. We have a big heart. We want to take care of people and help people. But then we get entrenched into this medical system and we ourselves may be having issues. And when that medical system fails us, we go looking in another direction, right? Is that what happened to you?

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, you know, I went to undergrad and took all the pre-med requirements and I did well. Ended up having a surgery the winter break before my— or during my senior year. And, uh, it was an 8.5-hour jaw surgery that was totally unnecessary, but they convinced me it was. Um, and, you know, when I woke up from it, came out of the anesthesia, um, you know, I just didn't feel normal. I mean, outside of the pain, I mean, just nothing felt right. And so, uh, you know, I was able to finish school, but I realized that, you know, I was more interested in exercise and nutrition. And so the preceptorships that I'd done at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, the doctors there said, you know, just get a ticket to play the game. So you don't have to get your MD, just, you know, get a degree in a healthcare field. And so when I first started out, you know, functional medicine, I don't think the term was even used around here. But I found a doctor who treated Candida, metals, and a few other issues. But what I also found a lot of was this sort of, let's trade your own 14 medications. Let's trade those out for 14 supplements.

Oh, yeah. The pill for the ill, the supplement for the symptom.

Right, exactly. And so that's obviously not what functional medicine is about. Just to give you an example, a lot of people will say, oh, I want to get off my statin drug. I want to take red yeast rice, not realizing that they're the same thing. And so, you know, I think I wrote Beyond Green Allopathy to kind of get people to start paying attention to multiple root causes, you know, outside of trauma situations and pregnancy. You know, you don't really see—

Yeah.

these single causality issues.

Yeah, it's— chronic disease is a completely different ballgame than your acute issues that you need to go to the ER for, you know, or your primary care doctor. You got an ear infection? Yeah, you probably need antibiotics. You broke your leg? You might need a cast or surgery, right? But when you're talking about developing insulin resistance and diabetes or weight gain and Hashimoto's and Raynaud's syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis, I mean, the list goes on and on. It's endless. These are often a culmination of lifestyle issues with our environmental toxins and are not— Keeping our bodies balanced, right? And so we need to figure out where did all this start and fester and work on that issue as opposed to treating the symptoms, because that gets us nowhere, right?

Right, absolutely. And I think, you know, the one thing I try to tell people to walk away with is that, you know, we do testing and it's not that they have all these separate issues. That they— those issues sort of come together hand in hand. They piggyback on one another. So it's not that A causes A plus B equals C, you know, that sort of mentality. And so, you know, when we can evaluate all the different systems and see which one imbalance is contributing the most, I think that's helpful.

Yeah, and I would love for people to really understand The fact that the reference ranges for the labs that we test on a regular basis in medicine are to diagnose disease. They're not to rule out imbalance or to see that you're on the path to somewhere, right? They are to say, oh, you already went down the path, you parked your car and got out, you are there, you set up tent, you're staying, right?

Right.

Like, you don't want to Get your hemoglobin A1C of 6.5. Hey, you got diabetes. I want to hear it when it's 5.4, and let's get off this path and get rid of this insulin resistance and go back to being balanced, right? That's where I want to have that conversation, but that's not how we're trained in the medical system. So I love that you're doing this important work of functional medicine and like, hey, You got to go down a different path, right?

Right, absolutely. And most of the people that come to me are pretty well-educated in terms of biohacking, self-care type of awareness. But some people need a little nudging or cheering on. But for the most part, I think the whole self-care, revolution is appealing to people because they're empowered. And it's just like with epigenetics, you're the CEO of your own health.

Yeah. Will you explain to my listeners what epigenetics is? Because I think people think genes are their destiny, and it's not.

Yeah. So epigenetics just means beyond genetics. So genetics loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger is the old Environmental medicine saying, but basically, you and I, we, if we were identical twins, we could be raised in very different environments and have very different genetic expressions based on those environmental inputs, psychological and neurological inputs, the types of food we eat, the types of activities. that we engage in. And so basically, epigenetics allows you to turn on or turn off, turn up the volume or turn down the volume on certain genes by eating better, sleeping better, thinking better, exercising better, doing things you love, working out of fear versus out of— or working out of love versus working out of fear. All of those sorts of things.

Yeah, I mean, that's such a huge point. Like, I have so many women who have the BRCA gene mutation, 1 or 2, you know, or a different one for colon cancer or pancreatic. And it's like, I need them to understand that does not mean you're going to get that cancer. You have so much control, and I find it to be empowering information. And that's where I think we were kind of in this scared place for the past couple decades because we had that new information, but we didn't know what to do with it. And so it was fearful. Women— I mean, Angelina Jolie cut off her breasts. I mean, it was—

Mm-hmm.

Reacting out of fear because we thought that our genes were our destiny. And now we're starting to realize and understand that we have so much input into whether or not those genes get activated and expressed. So I love that you bring that point up because it's super important. Just because you have it doesn't mean you're going to get that cancer or that you're not going to get Alzheimer's just because you have the gene. You have to be consuming a lot of sugar to feed it and getting insulin resistance and systemic inflammation.

Right.

I love what you mentioned, food. Like, food is information, right?

Right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, basically everything we do in terms of nutrition is in an effort to add electrons to our mitochondria. And so the mitochondria are basically batteries of the cells, and the better they work, the better we feel, the better all of our systems work. And food is information. And so, you know, it can cause certain genes to get turned on or turned off. You know, having more variety in your diet is obviously very important from the standpoint of giving your immune system a break and a rest, because it was unlikely that our ancestors had access to the same food over and over and over. You know, in very convenient packages. And so, you know, you can do a lot by just changing the way you eat. And, you know, things can piggyback from there, but you can certainly gain a lot of positive momentum.

Yeah. And the variety of food, how important is that for our gut microbiome? You know, they run the show, right?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, with the microbiome, I've been doing gut testing for probably 10 years, and there's good tests and bad tests out there, but you can see the decrease in diversity getting progressively worse. If someone's born via C-section and they're bottle-fed, And they're on prescription antibiotics, and then they're drinking Diet Coke, which has aspartame, which damages the microbiome. They have glyphosate in their food supply, which is damaging the shikimate pathway in the GI tract. But yeah, the gut-brain axis, the brain-gut axis, you know, 80% of the signals go from the gut to the brain, 20% go from the brain to the gut. And so that vagus nerve is sort of constantly surveying the contents of your microbiome.

Yeah. And the person you described, unfortunately, is a very common scenario. I think a large majority of people are born with a low gut diversity from the get-go. And then they're not getting their good immune supply from their mother's breast milk. And then they're eating processed foods Or foods that are damaging and killing off the good beneficial bacteria. And it's just a setup for a lifelong dysbiosis. And unfortunately, that microbiome runs the show. You know, that ecosystem is— they're in charge of everything, and they make our feel-good neurotransmitters, and they keep our hormones balanced, and they do everything. And we don't— Because we can't see them necessarily and the science is so new, I don't think they get the respect they deserve, right?

Yeah, I agree. I say that all the time in terms of people don't really focus on what they can't see, whether it's mold in their environment or EMFs, etc. But going back to the microbiome, I think it's important for women especially to realize that You know, we have microbiomes throughout our entire body, not just in the large intestines. And, you know, women with chronic UTIs, that's usually an example of a multifocal dysbiosis where, you know, pathogens have gotten out of the gut or out of other areas and gotten into the urinary tract. And so, you know, we also have the oral microbiome. And so I pick up on oral cavity infections on stool testing. And, you know, you can certainly do an oral microbiome test, but I usually refer them to dentists for that. And yeah, the microbiome— I have a colleague here who goes to a hormone specialty clinic, and, you know, they had supposedly been balancing her hormones.

Uh-huh.

And I did a gut test on her and her beta-glucuronidase enzyme level was double the top end of the range. And so she was just recycling her estrogens. And so, you know, that goes to show why you can't just isolate hormones. Uh, I mean, yeah, if you take the average American and you put them on hormones, of course they're going to feel better, but it doesn't mean it's, you know, the right thing to do.

Right. It's usually a temporary fix. It's a quick win, but if you don't do that deeper work of fixing the root cause, it's going to go right back to being imbalanced. Unfortunately, in that scenario, you keep taking those estrogens and you're recirculating them because of the bad bacteria that keep taking the garbage tag off those estrogens, sending them back in. You're going to feed breast tissue and end up with breast cancer, right? So super important to figure out the root cause. So you do a lot more with toxins and molds and all of that stuff. Hey, what are your most common complaints that people are coming to you for seeking help?

Usually it's fatigue and/or brain fog. Which is code for us for mitochondrial dysfunction. A lot of times, the mitochondria in the brain— the brain has 9% of the body's mitochondria, but it uses 22% of the body's oxygen. And so you have a few mitochondria doing a lot of work. So the first system that goes offline when the mitochondria don't work Well, is the nervous system. And so one of my mentors calls them mitochondrial buckets. And so when you start repairing the mitochondria, taking better care of them, not all systems will repair at the same time. And so, you know, the neurological system will typically happen first, but the cardiovascular system— I know of a cardiologist who uses VO2 max testing. For cardiac output and things of that nature to measure mitochondrial function. And so, you know, the most common complaints— people may come in with autoimmune disorders and think that it's just genetics or just the gut, and usually there's a stealth pathogen involved. Sometimes there's mold toxicity. Emotional or psychological neglect or trauma. And so, you know, I think a lot of those go hand in hand, and sometimes you have to help people unpack it because, you know, they may not have a good litmus test for what is healthy versus what's not healthy.

Right. Yeah, well, I love that you can help Men, because I only see women. And when I finally get these women feeling better, their men are like, hey, wait, what about me? I want to do some of this work. And they need some guidance. They need a practitioner like you. And so often what I see is men, because they don't have the hormonal shifts and cycling on a regular basis, they seem to be able to abuse their bodies a little bit longer before they have that breaking point like women do. And maybe that's my bias because I don't see men, but I would love for men to get some guidance before they hit their breaking point, you know, like when they start to have blood pressure issues or they start to get the beer belly or God forbid the erectile dysfunction, you know, that kind of thing. So is that somebody that you would work with?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, a lot of the guys who come to me, they may not, uh, list that as their top priority, but, you know, when we start asking more detailed questions, they usually reveal that, you know, there's some level of dysfunction with their hormones, their sleep, their energy. And I tell them, you know, if we can get your sleep better, your mitochondria better, Uh, then we'll look into the hormones, but your hormones will work a lot better naturally if we can fix your sleep, mitochondria, and your nutrition.

Yeah, yeah. What is one of the biggest myths or misconceptions that you see with patients coming in, like just that food doesn't matter or I don't need to sleep, or what do you see in a lot of Yeah, well, so I've gotten quite a few patients who are MDs and they're like, oh, well, Dr.

Tim, during my residency, my body adjusted and I only need 5 hours of sleep. I'm like, you might think that, but that's not healthy and we need to retrain your body. And so I think that's a big one, but also the myth that if you have Low libido, that it's always low testosterone.

Mm-hmm.

It could certainly be low thyroid, low cortisol, high cortisol, estrogen dominance, elevated sex hormone binding globulin. But I think just assuming that it's a testosterone issue, or for example, with lipopolysaccharides from the gut from gram-negative bacteria, They will inhibit— send inhibitory signals to the Leydig cells in the testicles, and so your body decreases its natural endogenous testosterone production.

Right, which makes total sense because if your gut is toxic, your body doesn't want to reproduce. So I see that as a protective mechanism, but we are not acknowledging it and Getting that imbalance, right? So back to the food again.

Yep, there you go. But I will say this, you know, one thing, um, that I hear people say a lot is that, oh, I've done the, let's say, GAPS diet for a year, nothing has changed. And what I tell them is that, you know, once you have a GI infection or dysbiosis, Food can help it, but alone as a monotherapy, it usually won't be successful. And so—

Especially if you're not doing the other work of managing your stress. That's what I see in my patients is the cortisol is continuing to be pumped out. Every time you pump out cortisol, you're pumping out and making more sugar. Then you're pumping out more insulin. You're never going to stop storing fat. You're never going to get that gut balance. You have to do the other pieces. of it. So I feel like that's where people get lost with Dr. Google is they're picking and choosing. If I just do this, this will get me better. When it's a holistic approach, you have to do all of it.

Right. Absolutely. Definitely.

So what are a few things that you recommend from the get-go? Do you always do stool testing or hormone testing?

So the 3 main types of testing that I do, one would be a gut test. I usually start with the GI-MAP. I'm looking into other options now, new tests that have, you know, come to the market. But I do an organic acids test from Great Plains because that one contains oxalates and a few mold markers. And so that kind of gives us a window into their overall metabolic efficiency.

Okay.

And then lastly, I'll do the DUTCH hormone test if it's needed. And, you know, back to what you were saying about the cortisol, there's a good picture. I think it's on the 4th or 5th page of the DUTCH report, and it shows that, you know, stress or anything that causes inflammation will result in HPA dysfunction. So hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal.

Yes. I love the DUTCH test because I feel like patients can understand it with the pictures and the diagram. Like, you can literally see where you are in your cortisol. Like, are you way up here? You're like stressed out to the max, barely, you know, can't— just ripping your hair out. Or are you flatlined and you're not getting out of bed anymore? So I think it's— I think women in particular, well, that's all I see, but I think it validates how they're feeling and it's It's like, okay, now let's get to work and let's do something because I see the actual effects of it. It's not just, oh, you're stressed out. That is so disregarded in our society. It's almost praised to a point, especially for medical people, which is a whole nother topic.

Yeah.

So, yeah, those are my favorite tests as well because I think once you get a good idea of who's running the show in your gut, how it's affecting your hormones, what's your nutritional status, are you being affected by these toxins, then you can do the work.

Right. Yeah. I mean, one thing that we were talking about off camera that I see a lot of is mold toxicity. And it's such a pandemic, like a real pandemic, where you don't have to see it, you don't have to smell it. In order for it to be there. You know, the black mold, the Stachybotrys, certainly that's dangerous, but Aspergillus, Fusarium, a few others you can't see or smell but are still there. And, you know, I've worked with several millionaire patients who get upset when I tell them they have mold because they think I'm implying that their house is dirty, and that has nothing to do with it at all. And, you know, a lot of times homes that are only a year, year and a half old test positive for mold because of, you know, they put the framework up and they didn't come back to the site for a month. And so mycotoxins, you know, disrupt everything from blood flow to the brain to hormonal production. To mitochondrial energy output, etc. And so as long as mycotoxins are present, it makes everything else exponentially more difficult to treat.

Yeah, well, that's such an important point. And, you know, living in Michigan, so often when houses are built here, they get snowed on and the snow sits there and melts, and then spring comes and it gets rained on before all the other stuff is put on. So you're right. I mean, it's a setup for mold to live and thrive, and we don't know it because it's brand new. And then you add all of the chemicals and the plastics evaporating off of those brand new products all through your house. And so often now with air conditioning, the house stays all closed up and you're just bathing in all of this toxin. And you think—

Right.

It couldn't possibly be my brand new beautiful house, and it very well could be.

Yeah, I was just having this conversation on another podcast a couple of weeks ago about the new car smell that people, you know, love to, you know, inhale and, you know, talk about. But I'm like, that's not a good thing to have because, you know, there's a lot of Chemicals going into your body that affect numerous systems in your body.

Yeah, those chemicals are being off-put into the air, you're inhaling them, and so many of them bind to estrogen receptors. I mean, are you seeing more and more men have symptoms of excess estrogen?

Yeah, definitely. And I used to, you know, back in the day, sort of go by, you know, the presence of fat around a man's chest, Or waste. But I've seen bodybuilders who, you know, had single-digit body fat who were very estrogen dominant, you know, from the stress they had put on their bodies. And so, um, you know, estrogen dominance from endocrine disrupting chemicals, BPA, metals, um, and the more— with men, the more inflammation you have. The more testosterone aromatizes into estrogen.

Right.

And so even if there are no direct endocrine disrupting chemicals, just the presence of the inflammation will create estrogen dominance. And then if you have a concomitant gut dysbiosis where you're reabsorbing your estrogens, and that's going to create twice as many problems.

Wow. Yeah, I mean, I can just think of— my guess is men who live alone and don't have wives taking care of them probably eat more food cooked in plastic, right? More processed foods, quick foods. I'm not trying to stereotype, but I think in general that's how it is. And all of that can leach estrogen-like compounds into your body. So I think it's really— I think the work that you're doing is so important because I feel bad I'm leaving all these men out. I'm not taking care of them, but somebody's taking care of them, so that's good.

That's right, that's right.

So do you take care of patients virtually?

Yeah, so I work exclusively virtually, um, and I've done that since way before COVID late 2012, is When I transitioned. And, you know, everyone told me I was crazy then. But yeah, I see people from all over the world. And it's a good thing because where I am locally, like we were discussing, you know, people don't often value— you know, they'll spend $100,000 on a boat, but you ask them to pay $400 for a comprehensive evaluation and they're like, oh my gosh, that's way too much. Right, right.

But I look at it as an investment. You need to invest in the one body that you're given. You know, you don't get to trade it in like you do with your boat or your car, right? That's all you got, so you might as well make the investment, right?

Well, while we're on the topic of hormones, um, the latest recommendation that I heard for women who had had breast cancer was they couldn't have any bias for 5 years. Is that still—

Yeah, that's still the thing. You know, you don't want to be put on estrogen if you've had breast cancer. What— for a long time, the oncologist didn't even want women to have vaginal estrogen cream. You know, that took a lot of conveying and educating to finally get them to come around to realize that that was safe in certain dosages for certain women. Yeah, it's— there's still a lot of fear around that because they think the only driving issue is the estrogen.

So, right, but you know, it could also be— correct me if I'm wrong— it's more of the 4-hydroxyestrone and the cancer-promoting metabolites. So if you have DIM on board and you can metabolize it down the correct pathways and you're methylating correctly Then it's probably less likely.

Exactly. And, you know, for so long the estrogen we were giving to patients was oral estrogen. We, we finally realized that the conjugated equine estrogen from horse urine was bad, but even the natural estradiol in pill form, that darn gut of ours conjugates so much of it into the more You know, cancer-feeding 4-hydroxyestrone. So even before it's getting into our bloodstream, it's getting converted into the bad form. So we really should be staying away from the oral pills. I really recommend— you know, I'm not against hormone balance. A lot of women need it during that transition, but be smart about it. Use a patch that it's not going to get all converted to 4-hydroxy. Make sure your liver's functioning well. Use the DIM so that you're not converting down that bad pathway. There's so many safer ways that women can feel balanced and not, you know, have to be miserable with this diagnosis, you know. And unfortunately, the conventional medical system oftentimes bases everything on fear. So That's where it's important for functional practitioners to stand up and say, hey, we can do this in a better way. You don't have to be miserable just because of your diagnosis. Right?

Right. And is there the same rule for progesterone? Yeah.

Progesterone. Progestins are what I was taught to give as a gynecologist, as medical doctor. We were taught to give birth control pills and hormone replacement. and Depo-Provera and all these synthetic progestins, and the IUDs have synthetic progestin. We were taught that it's all the same as natural progesterone, and that's absolutely not the case. Absolutely, 100%. They act— they almost have the opposite effect. You know, if you give someone progestin, like a Depo shot, they're going to gain weight, be miserable, feel depressed. You give someone progesterone, They're going to feel balanced and happy and sleep well and stop gaining weight. So it's pretty crazy that the medical community has yet to acknowledge that in its entirety, because who wants to eat crow? You know, who wants to be like, we were wrong, we get it? Um, but I have the fortune of seeing both sides. I'm licensed and certified in both So I get it. But you don't have to just take the progestin or the conjugated equine estrogen. There are other ways. And I just, I need women to know that.

Right. Thanks for bringing that up. Are you seeing women younger and younger who are going down the path of hormone deficiency, progesterone steal, that sort of thing? For sure.

Because we are so modernized and we want to do it all, be it all, have it all, you know, we're under this constant state of stress. And what you're referring to, the progesterone steal, cortisol steal— when you're constantly pumping out cortisol, you have to steal that progesterone every time to make that. You get super imbalanced. And so I used to see women who would start to have heavier periods, irregular periods, like 40 45, 47. Now it's like 35, 38. And it's because they are a full-time professional woman running a family, dealing with COVID trying to exercise and do all the things. And that is creating this huge imbalance, right?

Absolutely.

Not to mention the other estrogen-dominant things we talked about, the toxins and stuff. So It's complicated, but there's a way to figure it out. And you just need to see a practitioner like you and I and look at you as an individual, right? You can't piecemeal this together from Dr. Google because I feel like you have to have someone looking at your entire picture. You know, for me, I knew all this stuff, but because it was me, I couldn't figure it out. It's like our mentor JG Virgin says, you can't see the picture if you're inside the frame, right? So trying to heal yourself or do it yourself is not the way to go. You need someone on the outside looking at the picture going, here's what I see. Do you agree? Okay, let's— Get to work.

Right, right, exactly. Yeah. And one other point I would make that is not a visible toxin but is very potent, non-native EMFs, electromagnetic fields, whether it's from Wi-Fi, 5G, electrical wiring that's too concentrated in one area of your house or office, There's an app, and I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but it converts EMF waves into sound waves so you can hear all the EMF waves that are hitting your body.

Interesting.

And right now I tell people the most basic things you can do are to turn off Wi-Fi at night, charge your cell phone outside of the bedroom, I know that they're trying to come out with a tent that can go over your bed for around $500 or $600, but I think production's been on hold because of COVID And then there's a clothing company that our friend from Mindshare, Nick Pinal, he likes, and it's called LAMS. And they have shirts for men and women. They have boxers for men, bras for women. And they have, he said, have shown to be positive mitigators of EMFs in testing in the lab. Wow.

Yeah, that's another thing that people, I think, have a hard time wrapping their brain around because they don't see it necessarily. So I like the idea of being able to hear it, I think that would be helpful. You know, I've had patients where moving their bedroom away from the meter socket or having their meter actually moved has made a difference. Trying— because when you're trying to sleep, you cannot have all that electromagnetic energy going on. We are magnetic beings. I mean, conventional doctors should admit that, right? They order MRIs all the time, which is just a machine that gets your hydrogen atoms to move around and bounce and create an image. So if you believe in MRIs, you should believe that we are electric beings, right?

Right.

So I just think that getting people to understand that that actually has an implication on your health is a bigger thing. But I definitely see it with sleep. So those are really good suggestions for sure.

Definitely. Definitely. Anything else you want to cover?

I think we covered some good stuff. I'm just really excited for my listeners to have somebody to send their men to. I think this is a good plan because men are not immune to these issues, right?

No.

Just because you don't have cycling hormones does not mean you don't have hormones. Insulin is a hormone. Thyroid is a hormone. Testosterone keeps being produced, cortisol. Those all need to be managed. And if you have high toxic burden, mold exposure, poor diet, gut dysbiosis, you need someone to help you balance that, right?

Definitely.

Where can they find you?

Yeah, so my website is healyourbody.org, healyourbody.org, and there's a contact form there and that email will come directly to me.

Awesome. Yeah, I'll put that link in my show notes. Hopefully they will connect with you and talk their husbands into getting taken care of.

Definitely. Definitely.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has been great, Dr. Tim.

Thank you, Dr. Tabatha, for having me on.

Yeah. Best of luck with everything.

All right. Take care.

Bye. Wasn't that great? That was such a good interview. I think it's a good reminder that we need to work on a lot of things to get balanced. It's never just one thing. It's never just your diet. It's never just getting your hormones into balance. It's never just getting rid of the mold in your house or the toxic relationship. It's, it's usually multiple things that have to be addressed, and over time your body will start to balance out and heal. It's such a beautiful thing the way the universe, whatever you believe, created our bodies to have this innate intelligence to be able to get back into balance and sustain health. So, we just need to remove the impedances. We need to remove what is preventing us from getting healthy and feeling good and having energy, right? So, please reach out to Dr. Tim if there's a man in your life who needs help. He works with women too, but I would love to work with you. I definitely feel like a little bit of a unicorn. I have this unique perspective of being a conventional gynecologist for a long, long time and using my pills and surgeries to treat you or to help your symptoms. And now having this whole new toolbox of functional medicine and seeing the benefits of both sometimes and knowing when to balance or how to handle The transition from being on medications and having all these surgeries and still not feeling well to switching over to lifestyle management, diet shift, balancing your gut, doing all of these things to get you well. So yes, I have that unique perspective and I have helped so many women finally feel like themselves again. I think that's what I hear the most is, I finally am starting to feel like me again. I'm remembering who I was. I'm feeling happy. I have drive and motivation. Like, I'm living again, right? Whereas before you might have been surviving. I definitely was in that survival mode for a long, long time, and it took Huge shift in my life, in all areas of my life, to get back to me and to actually living and enjoying life. But you can get there. And because I have been there and I've been through that struggle, I know what it takes. I know how hard it is. And I know what motivates you to get you through. And I know what works and I know what doesn't work. So that's why I feel Uniquely, I don't know, gifted or equipped to help you. So please reach out to me if you feel like you want to work with me, you want that one-on-one guidance, or join my sisterhood and just kind of hit the reset button on life. That's the beautiful thing is if you feel like you don't have any major issues that you necessarily need to the doctor for, but you, I just feel like you're not your best version of yourself and you want to hit the reset button and make yourself the best woman that you know, then that is where you should join my Renew You Sisterhood. You're going to become the woman of your dreams. So please join us. Hit the link in my show notes or go to my website, drtabatha.com. And will you hit the subscribe button? That would be awesome. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Dr. Tabatha, T-A-B-A-T-H-A, no I's. My mom didn't know how to spell. And follow me, let me know your questions. I'm here to serve you. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So go out, have a kick-ass day, ladies.