Why These Reformed Pharmacists Ditched Meds for Hormones

We were trained to identify diseases. That's our forte as doctors. We spent most of our training trying to figure out what's going on. So we were not trained to help people stay healthy. That's not a focus. That's never been important in the medical education. All we were trained on is to wait until people get sick. So once they get sick, then it's like, you know, we all come alive. Now let's run tests so as soon as we can identify the disease. Now we know we've been trained to, to give drugs to people. Hello everybody. Welcome Back to the Dr. Joy Kong podcast. And you know, I'm here to help you enhance your health to live more vibrantly and live longer with the most up to date information on biohacking, on exceptional science. So today I'm super excited to invite Sean and Janet Needham to come share with us their journey because they are what I call reformed pharmacists. So there are two pharmacists who don't believe in medications for treating long term diseases. So I think you guys are going to bring really fresh perspectives for all the people who are interested in enhancing their health, whether or not they have any conditions that they're dealing with. So, Sean and Janet, thank you so much for being here.

Well, thank you for having us on your show. It's a pleasure.

Yeah, so we did an interview before and then I was very excited to learn more from you guys because I know you have really interesting perspectives, being educated and, and being proficient at medications and then made your journey in now enhancing people's health using much broader range of tools. So maybe you can introduce your, you yourself just a little bit and then share with us what kind of journey that you've had.

Yeah, well, Jen and I are, we've both been pharmacists for over 30 years, but probably almost 25 years ago. So 27 years ago, we started our pharmacy, Moses Lake Professional Pharmacy. And our goal was to do something different than what was being done in regular retail pharmacy. We had worked in retail pharmacy already. After we got out of school and we were dissatisfied with it, we thought that we could do a better job. And then a few years after owning our pharmacy, we kind of started to realize that, you know, our patients were not getting any better. They were on all these drugs for diabetes, high blood pressure, reflux, you know, you name the disease, there's a drug for it. Right. And they were never getting off of any of them and they were just getting more and more medications. And we finally decided, I'll Let Janet share the exact story. But we finally decided it's like, you know, we've got to do something different to actually help people. We just weren't feeling very rewarded in what we were doing. And it was either we do something different in our practice or we get out of the profession. And Janet can share a story about that specifically.

Yeah, well, that's a drastic change since the all you were trained in were medications. Right. We as doctors were relying on your guys firm belief and help in how we can give people medications. So that's quite a switch because you, I'm sure, were told of how important and powerful these medications were throughout your career.

That's the case. Right. And you know, the switch is not easy because, you know, when you go to school and you invest yourself into learning a profession, especially in medicine, you believe that you're going to make a difference once you graduate and you believe in health, you want to heal people. And so I think that is really what started us shifting is that like Sean mentioned, people were not getting off their medication. Rather, what was happening is more were being added to that. And we were kind of at the beginning where people, when we were training people weren't on as many medications as they are even today. But I think whether you're a physician, whether you're a nurse, a pharmacist, a physical therapist, we all come into the profession to help people, right. Like we want wellness. Our goal is that the patients have a healthy life that not just exist, but thrive. Right. And that picture was really being clouded and changing as we practice more and more. And so the diseases that we thought we were going to help and impact, such as cardiovascular, diabetes, I mean, and the list goes on, was just becoming more and more rampant and worsening. And unfortunately, I had one client who had followed me from the first retail job that I had and knows this, like, to our own business. And Patty called me one morning. And as a pharmacist, you know, we see clients more often and talk to them more often than even their physicians do, just because of our accessibility. But, you know, they're refilling prescriptions so you develop a relationship on more of a personal level, I think, than more than so physicians and nurses do. So Patty called me one day and she said, janet, I want to thank you and Sean for everything you've done for me. I just want you to know that I'm passing away and I don't have much time left and I want to thank you for what you've done for me. And Patty was 50 years old. And she said, janet, I ate myself to death. And it was very powerful from the standpoint of it started impacting me from many ways. One, I never spoke to her about lifestyle changes. Two, I just kept giving her more and more medication that she was taking home. And we never. We never talked about how to change that. Like, how can we change your heart disease? How can we change your diabetes? How can you be empowered? And to me, it was just tragic. 50 years old and you're passing away. And then I started thinking, what part of this is my responsibility? Like, what part of this did I play into and not make a change with her? And so I was like, sean, I can't look at myself in the mirror anymore and go, oh, this is okay. We just keep giving one more medication without any intervention. And I understand people have the choice and the decision to stay on a trajectory if they want to, but what about allowing them a choice, helping them with tools to change their life?

Wow, that's a powerful story. I can't imagine facing a patient that you're facing a tragedy and the reflection of what you could have done. I hope the doctor treating her also had the same reflection. So then what did you do about it? Where would you go?

Well, that's when we decided to make a change in our practice and basically focus more on health and wellness and just, you know, educating people and empowering them to take charge of their own health. And largely, what we do now is an education piece, and we do hormone replacement. We believe hormone replacement. You know, there are many diseases that are out there that hormone replacement can help prevent. Um, it's a part of the puzzle. And we tell people that it's not a fix all, you know, guarantee you still have to sleep right, you still have to eat right, you still have to move all those things. But hormones can help prevent osteoporosis, they can help prevent diabetes, they can help prevent hypertension, you know, by increasing lean body mass, by decreasing visceral fat, all kinds of mechanisms increasing metabolism. So. And as we age, our hormone levels go down. So it's important to have healthy hormone levels as we age to go along with, you know, our lifestyle changes. And that's what we. We do now, educate people on lifestyle changes and hormones.

Yeah. So just curious. When you are seeing patients getting all these medications, how much do you feel that is fundamentally actually reversing their chronic conditions? How often do you actually see these medications actually work in getting people better?

You know, this is a very strong word, but never. Oh, my goodness, you know, I mean, you just think about, think about the diseases that we treat. A good one is reflux. How many people are on Prilosec for 20 years? You know, if you have reflux, if you have any kind of GI issue, in my opinion, it's probably diet related. So even though that drug, for instance, is only indicated FDA approved to be prescribed for six weeks maximum, patients go on them and then they never come off. And it's very difficult to come off of them because the. What happens to your GI tract when you've been deprived of acid in your GI tract? So that's hard to get off them. And I honestly think, Dr. Kong, I think it's by design. I mean, what a great way for a drug company to create a drug that they give you and then it's hard to get off of. It never fixed the problem. The problem was their diet. No different than type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is not a medication deficiency. It's a diet problem. Diabetes mellitus per. Per name alone is a carbohydrate metabolism problem. You don't metabolize carbohydrates well, and it spikes your glucose, whether it's type one or type two. That's true. And the answer is not medications. The answer is to change your diet and especially monitor your carb intake. And probably, if you're a type 2 diabetic, eat very little carbs until you're metabolically healthy and you can tolerate carbs. It's not a medication deficiency. And medication will never, ever reverse your type 2 diabetes. It will lower your glucose, there's no doubt about it. But it's not gonna reverse your type 2 diabetes. Only diet can do that.

And when people say, okay, that's great, so I lowered my glucose, is that maybe that's good enough? Do you.

I'll let Janet speak on that.

Unfortunately, what. What we assume is it's just lowering the glucose. That's kind of what big pharma sold us, right? Like we have numbers that we are chasing with monitors and labs, right? But really what they need to be changing is how their body is sending out the insulin to respond to the glucose. So it's the inflammation that's causing at the root cell cellular level that we need to change. And if we are in inflamed state for whatever reason, whether it's our food, lack of sleep, you know, the stress level in our life, if we don't change those things, then our body's in a state of inflammation and that's what we need to change. Many times when we see labs coming back to us, nobody's even looking at their insulin levels. And we should be. I think that is where we should start. Like, what is prompting this response in our body? It could be dealing with stress in your life, all the cortisol that we are, you know, spiking and then we're not sleeping. I mean, there's many root causes, but we're not looking for that. In fact, we're chasing glucose. And Shawna and I have sat even in group sessions with a doctor and patient, and they were bragging about what their glucose level was in the morning, but yet you could look at the individual and see they were so inflamed. So it's not just chasing the glucose. You have to change the lifestyle or the issue that's causing the inflammation.

I mean, glucose is just a symptom of, of an underlying problem with metabolic health. I mean, a good example of some of the drugs that they use is, you know, there's a drug class that basically to lower the glucose, because that's, that's the goal is to lower the glucose. They have you, it, it goes to your kidneys and it makes you urinate out sugar. Well, that, I mean, that alone is. Should just be a red flag. It's just like you're going to urinate out the sugar. When by definition, diabetes mellitus literally means honey siphon. In Greek, it literally means you are peeing out sugar. Yet we're going to give them drugs to pee out more sugar just to lower that blood glucose number, to check it off the box and make it look good. That's not solving the problem. It is just treating the symptom. The problem is, you know, you've got too much carbohydrates floating around because you're eating too many carbohydrates and your pancreas can't respond anymore. You or your body can't respond. Your pancreas is trying to respond with enough insulin, but you're just, you're insulin resistant, so it's not working.

Yeah, that's a great point. Gosh. So, I mean, we, of course, we were trained to identify diseases, so that's, that's our forte, right. As doctors, we spent most of our training trying to figure out what's going on. So we were not trained to help people stay healthy. That's not a focus. That's never been important. I went to ucla. You would think that, you know, we're on the west coast, we're supposed to be a little bit more Open and more, you know, what's the word? A little bit more integrative sort of that we are less conservative than the East Coast. But, but no, we, we spend very, very little time on actually helping people to be healthy because that just not, not important in the medical education. All we were trained on is to wait until people get sick. So once they get sick, then it's like, you know, we all come alive. Now let's run tests. So as soon as we can identify the disease. Now we know we've been trained to give drugs to people. So once we give drugs, we feel great. Like I have identified what it is. Now I have the drug for you not realizing that it's not solving the problem is maybe give you some markers that you can chase so you can always test and then you can decide, am I going to give the person more or less. If the person's stable, of course they stay on the drug.

Right.

You never take them off it. I've, I've yet to see doctors take people off medication unless there's something really acute, some kind of antibiotics or a course of, of steroid so that they can temporarily calm down the inflammation. But, but majority of the medications, vast majority for any chronic conditions will be there for life. And then of course, no one is getting less medications. Over time they get more and more until they get 20, 30, 40 drugs in the bag that they bring to the doctors. So that's, that's the story, unfortunately. That's how medicine is practiced. And I think a lot of doctors have seen through, just add this huge flaw. So I'm part of a 4am which is so American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine. And that was when I first became more aware of hormones. They very much emphasize that a lot of the aging process and the decline is not, you know, it's not because we're getting older. That's why all the levels and all the hormones are declining is because the hormones, when they're declining, then that really accelerates the aging process. So they're kind of hand in hand. So if you don't address the decline. Yes, I think there are always ways to bring the hormones back to a better level. And I'm sure you guys teach patients on how to do that as well. But at some point you may want to address the hormone deficiency itself because we may not have the enough tools to reverse the causes of the hormone decline. So what are your thoughts on using natural methods to boost hormone levels versus replacing hormone self?

Well, I think lifestyle goes a long ways no matter what Age you are. I mean, here's a good example. As you know, Dr. Kong, low testosterone in young men is maybe epidemic. You know, I mean, there's young men with testosterone levels in their 20s, and they have testosterone levels of 200 to 300. And. And their testosterone levels should be at that age, a thousand. I mean, at least, probably part of that is, is sedentary lifestyle. You know, testosterone is a hormone for vitality. It makes us lively, it makes us want to. Want to move, want to be strong, things like that. And when you're sitting on the couch eating Cheetos, drinking beer, watching college football, your body just says, you know what? This guy, or woman for that matter, because testosterone is important for women also, this guy doesn't need testosterone. So goes into the doctor's office, finds out his testosterone level is really low because he's tired, he feels weak and depressed. Goes into the doctor, finds out his testosterone is low. And, you know, you get him sleeping, well, not up at 4am playing video games, but sleeping at night, you know, moving during the day, lifting heavy things and eating good food. And all of a sudden his testosterone goes up, you know, 2, 300 points. So lifestyle is very important when it comes to that. And even when we age, and I'll let Janet talk about that.

So I think one of the, the problems we see, see in our country, maybe in comparison to other countries, is first we need to get outside. We need to have that exposure to the natural light. I mean, we're organisms, we're humans. We need to have the natural stimulations that should happen on a normal basis. So for younger people, they need to get outside. I mean, there's nothing more a mother can do for her children to, you know, help them and relieve stress and all that in their life and get them sleep. Sleeping is getting outside and moving, right? The stimulation of the vitamin D. But there's more to the receptors, I think, and things in our body that the outdoors gives us. So the release of stress, you know, being part of nature is super important. We don't talk about that with patients. Like Sean mentioned, sleep. Well, that's super important too, because if you're not sleeping, your body's not able to make the hormones that it needs throughout the day. And what, what people don't realize is that hormones are messengers. You know, it's not just for reproduction. They send a message to the cell or a body part that, hey, this function needs to happen. And so there's all these, you know, things that need to happen in unison together. And if we aren't living a more natural, healthy life. Those connections or those messages just don't happen. It's like, you know, if you're sending somebody a message or a text message on their cell phone and their cell phone's turned off, the message not delivered. Right. So I think it really starts at some really basic levels. And when you're in medicine, we aren't talking to our clients about their activities. You know, maybe. Maybe short. But, you know, if you look at most people, when they go into the doctor's office, they're there for maybe seven, 10 minutes and they're checking a box. They're not examining and having the conversation with their clients about what their lifestyle is. So it starts at a really basic level, I believe.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. I think getting outside, it's. It's just not really. The importance is. Is actually really tremendous. That's not emphasized enough. Yeah, doctors are missing the point. In a lot of cases. I know one doctor, a lot of people are suffering from depression, anxiety. Right. And they go in, they think, let's just get. Doctor, please, just give me a pill. And I know this one doctor said, I would not prescribe you any antidepressants until you have walked every day for an hour for a month, and then you come back to me. Lo and behold, almost nobody need an AD present anymore.

So, yeah, yeah, we say all the time that there is no better drug for depression than exercise. I mean, period. And it's even better if you get outside and exercise. So, you know, walk outside for an hour. And there is no drug that is going to treat depression better than that.

Amazing. Yeah. So you. You guys zoomed in, kind of zoned in on hormone replacement. What made you so excited about the. The hormone replacement itself?

I think our patients just started feeling better faster than anything we'd ever done. Um, you know, and we still get calls daily at our pharmacy. Somebody calls and says, hey, you know, thank you for saving my life. And at first, we were really surprised about things like that. Thank you for saving my marriage. But now we just get it all the time. And, you know, we want people to thrive in life, not just survive. We went into pharmacy to help, to, like Janet said, to help people. And we don't want to just give them medicine to keep them sick and just barely, barely alive. We want to make them thrive. And that's what hormones have helped them do. I mean, it gives them more energy, less depression, better sex. It's amazing. It's there. If we had a drug that did all that hormones did. It would be the best selling drug ever. And that's why hormone balancing is so important.

Yeah. And what's the range of hormones that you guys work with?

Oh, so we. We go from, you know, estradiol, estriol, so the estrogens, progesterone, testosterone, dhea, melatonin. Those are, you know, the big things. But, you know, vitamin D is a really. We call it a vitamin, but I feel like it's more of a hormone, the hormone structure which starts the whole cascade with cholesterol, you know, so there's that. And then, you know, of course, we talked about, you know, we don't make insulin, but, you know, we talk to our clients about that hormone as well as cortisol. And then, you know, there's supplements, too, that can help along the way, especially if somebody's has too low of cortisol or too high. So we look at adrenal functions as well.

And thyroid, you know, we almost forgot about that. But thyroid is. Is a very important piece of it.

Mm. Yeah. There's so much nuances even with thyroid hormones. There's a lot of controversy even surrounding iodine. So some doctors absolutely think you need to supplement iodine, and some say you absolutely should not touch it. Do you guys have thoughts on this?

I do.

We just discussed this, like, I think last week or this week with somebody. Yeah.

Well, okay. If you think about the structure of the hormone of thyroid, it requires iodine. It's part of the molecule. Right. So to. To ignore that, I think, is. It's not, you know, that's not valid. But we have to remember, too, that, you know, just like water, too much water is not healthy. Too little is not healthy. So iodine can be very helpful for some clients. Most of us need it. It's a nutrient that we need. But we have to be careful, too. We don't just want to throw iodine without it being in perspective. So I usually recommend that they have a lab on it to make sure that they're not too high or too low, because, again, too much can be just as bad as too little. So what you really are striving to do when you're looking at something like this is what's the optimal level that's healthy and working for that patient, not just assuming that across the board, everybody needs it to be supplemented or nobody needs to be supplemented. You know, we just need to get into that balance. And I think that's. That's the important part of when we get into hormones is you're looking for a balance, you know, what. What's appropriate for that particular person, and it looks different for everybody.

And iodine is a. You know, it. We all need it. We can't live without it, that's for sure. But it's a trace element in us, so we don't need a lot of it. And too much of it. You can actually become iodine resistant. Your thyroid can, and it can decrease thyroid function. And there's some controversy about how you test iodine levels and. And how. How accurate that is. I think it's probably just most important to, you know, use iodized type salt. I think sea salt, um, even though it might not have extra iodine added in it. You know, sea salt does have. I. Seawater has iodine in it from kelp and things like that, sources like that. So I think that's what's important. Just make sure you add plenty of salt to your diet. Not, you know, not excessive amounts, but just salt your. Your food with. With sea salt, and I think you'll be fine.

Mm. Yeah. I did interview one of the guests, Dr. Christensen. Uh, he wrote a book and talking about how the iodine supplementation correlates with the proliferation of thyroid diseases in all these countries that he was looking at, like, every country that every supplement, it seems that. That there's an elevation of thyroid conditions. Um, so that was one of the concerns. But have you guys seen in your practice that when people supplemented iodine, and then they. They did a lot better?

Well, I'll speak for myself. I actually, the first time I went in to a provider for hormones, I was probably about 34, 35, and I actually had a goiter.

Hmm.

And the reason I think that happened to me is because through our training in pharmacy school, we were taught, avoid salt. Avoid at all. Right. So we never salted anything. But yet, if you look at all the foods that are processed and. And put on the shelf, they're loaded with salt, but they're not iodized. Right? They're not. They're in a different form. So the salt we're. We're consuming in processed food is really not healthy for you.

So, you know, they always added iodine into those salts. Right.

Not always in your processed food. I see. And if you are, for example, eating raw food, it's not always in the soil. Right. It's not always in the food sources. So if you are. My point is, is if you are eliminating things and not realizing what you're eliminating is not appropriate, you can. You can actually cause Harm to yourself. Right. Like you can introduce a problem. And so, you know, I did for a short period of time have to supplement and, and that changed the trajectory. It wasn't like, you know, how you saw in pictures and medical school, but you know, that was self inflicted and.

I, I know there's something, I think Jan's been to a, we went to a presentation one time on iodine. I can't remember the guy's name. He did, he wrote a book too. I don't think it was Dr. Christensen. And he talked about the flour, our flour now having bromeline in it. And it actually, then what it does is it replaces iodine in our body. So that's why we need more iodine because the flower has bromeline. And I, I don't know very much to speak on that. It's been a while since I've covered that. But you know, there's something to be said about that too, so.

Right.

It could be a complex picture.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So I think what's important is that you know, you, you, you recognize these things and supplement with iodine. I, you know, I think is, is fine, especially if you do it in, you know, trust a high quality supplement company and, and you know, take their iodine and you'll probably be fine. Um, I don't know. What are your thoughts, Dr. Kong?

Well, I, I, I think like you said, in moderation, a small amount like I like, you know. Seaweed.

Exactly.

Yeah. That's a great source. I think just as you know, in moderation. I think it should be, should be helpful. Just look at the cultures that are eating a lot of seaweed. It's rich in iodine.

Right.

It's not, they're, they, they're not all having thyroid failures. So I, I think a lot of times I, I make my conclusions kind of looking at history and look at how humans have been. Just like this whole sunscreen thing. I'm not a big believer in sunscreen. I don't think the sun is the enemy. I think that UV light, you know, if you have excessive UV expo exposure may be a problem, you may be causing damage. But just going outside and having some sun, you don't need to block it. Just look at all the indigenous cultures that we. There, there's almost no skin cancer. It's because what they eat, what's floating around in their body, around their cells that are protecting them. So it's not, you're, you're barking on up the wrong tree. So I think looking at how Humans have lived and, and looking at what's changed in modern lives. And that could be the problem, not the nature itself.

I'm with you 100%. And we talk about it all the time on our podcast about, you know, think about what, do what our ancestors did. And you know, 100 years ago our ancestors didn't have sunscreen. And I will tell you that we, we, you know, we were indoctrinated in pharmacy school about how important sunscreen was and all that and when we bought into it and it wasn't until probably four or five years ago where we started making some changes about that and not believing it. And as, as you can tell, Janet is, you know, she's Scandinavian, so very fair complected. And she used to have to bathe in sunscreen.

I chose to.

I mean. Yeah, right, right. And then when we changed our diets, she just doesn't sunburn anymore. Now I'll say this, you know, if we go to Hawaii in January and she has not acclimated herself to the sun, she's gonna have to do something to prevent sunburn. So, you know, use zinc oxide or something like that. But I haven't used sunscreen. I used to get sun, I used to get burns on my face and burns on my arms. I just don't anymore. And I haven't used sunscreen in probably two years, two or three years.

Give people pause. If you burn easily in the sun, maybe look at what you put in your body.

Yeah, right.

Nobody's talking about that chemicals you're using on your body.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's such a great point. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about male and female hormones since that's such a, such an important area. And one thing I think may be confusing for people is that when they check their levels. Of course it's funny that even doctors these days still are looking at levels like testosterone in three hundreds and saying you're fine, that's not a problem. And it's. The current medical training is still so behind on what really is. It has been shown to be beneficial to be the ideal and optimal level. So in your recommendation with patients for males, what will be your target of testosterone for optimal health?

That is a great question. So as you kind of suggested, a normal male is 300 to 800. But let's remember what normal is. Normal is these normal sick people that are going into doctor's offices, that's what they call normal. They're not checking a 30 year old male that has a testosterone level of 1200 or 1500, which happens, I know it happens. And they're not supplementing at all. That's probably what normal is. Normal for a 20 year old. 30, 40 years ago was like 2000. So, yeah, what's normal and what's optimal is two different things. So I believe in symptoms and history over, over what a normal level is. And if they had a baseline when they were in their 30s and their normal was 1200, then they're normal. When they're 50, to not have symptoms is 1200. So I would not get worried of a testosterone level 1200, 1500 or even 1800 if they're not having symptoms. And the symptoms would be, you know, acne, oily skin, overly aggressive. Because when you look at what, you know, when we think about what our ancestors did, they had testosterone levels that were a lot higher than ours. So that, that, that's how I would go towards.

Even at a 4am they were teaching us that it should be between 700 to 1100. But I see some of the integrative doctors are aiming for much higher, over a thousand.

So let me say this, Dr. Kong. When I was 39 years old, I got a baseline testosterone level and I was not using any testosterone. My level was 1250, and I have a twin brother, his was the same. So do you think I want to be at 800 when I'm 55 years old?

Almost. So I think what we have to remember is optimal for each individual patient. And also what is our goal? You know, if you have somebody that, for example, is already having bone loss early in life, you know, as a woman per se, or even for a man, for that it's significant, you might want to be a little more aggressive. Right. But at the same time, how is that patient responding? So when Sean's saying, how are they responding, what are their symptoms? Are they getting better, you know, or is it going, you know, in the wrong trajectory? How is the patient's liver function? We have One client, she's 83 years old. There's not hardly an ounce of fat on her. And she's so active. She teaches like five aerobic classes a day to women.

Oh my goodness.

She has a very healthy liver, she's rarely drank, she's, you know, taking care of herself super well. And she eats through her hormones so much faster than most of our clients, you know, and the first time we looked at it, we're like, ah, what's going on here? And then you start realizing how her body is doing things much differently than, let's Say me, right? So we can't put everybody in that box, especially with hormones. You have to realize that we are all made differently and we all have nuances, and that's why it's really important. We were talking about this the other night, not just dabbling when you're doing hormones, but understanding how hormones are actually working in that individual. And so it has to be an individual situation. You know, you can't expect everybody to be the same. For example, one of our practitioners was talking to us about how some people are very sensitive when you start introducing hormones. So perhaps in that individual, you're going to give them small increments of increasing until you get to where you want to go, rather than dumping a whole bunch into them and they're going to feel awful. So it really is individually based on how that patient's responding, whether it's male or female. And, you know, if all these other things we're doing along with the hormones, you know, for example, if we were talking about young men, if we can get them active, we aren't going to dump hormones into somebody that needs to change their lifestyle to get to where we need to go. But if you think about what hormones do, and especially like in women, when we become pregnant, by the end of our pregnancy, the level of, of estrogen and progesterone is significant, as well as even testosterone. So, you know, we, we need to individualize what that person needs rather than really being worried about the reference range of a lab, which usually for most people is probably not a healthy level.

And there are some men, for instance, that they, you know, their Testosterone level is 600 and they do awesome.

Right.

And so every, everybody is just different.

Yeah. What about the concerns about the testicular shrinkage and, and the effect on fertility? That's a huge concern for people.

So first of all, I think, you know, you, you need to be aware of that and you need to counsel patients on that. We're pretty careful. It. In very limited situations. Do we, do we give patients testosterone? Men that testosterone that are younger than 40 for a multitude of reasons. One of them is a fertility reason. But sometimes men that are seeking out Testosterone in their 20s and 30s are just a subset of patients that we just, we, we don't want to take care of because they're using it for, you know, being, you know, getting big in the gym and things like that. And we, we, we mostly use testosterone just to help people get healthy. We don't want them to grow big muscles and be a bodybuilder and things like that we just do it for overall health benefits. So we typically don't take care of patients under 40 that often. We do sometimes because there are some men that definitely need help in those ages. And so it can decrease sperm count and we let them know that. But also we can name off many different people that have went on testosterone and then maybe went off later and still had kids. So. And when it comes to testicular shrinkage, I'm just going to say this, I'm going to say it openly. First of all, as we age, our testicles just get smaller anyways because we stop producing as much testosterone. But I will just say this, I'm just going to be frank about it. I don't think anybody, any, let's just say this, any woman ever cares about testicular shrinkage. I can just put it that way. That's just what I'm gonna say.

Okay, so once they get on, another concern they have is that they're never gonna get off, that they're gonna be on this replacement for life.

It really depends on what direction we're going. Like if we're talking about a younger male, that perhaps if you're using it for a short term, yes, that, that is, you know, you're gonna, it's gonna be stopped and, and go forward. But I don't think your 70 and 80 year old is gonna magically start producing testosterone. And so, you know, there is a point where you have a conversation with men that you know, perhaps lifestyle's not going to be enough to get your levels up to a certain point. So you know, that is, that is a possibility. And for most people, probably until we.

We advance further in regenerative medicine in stem cells, that we actually can completely regenerate tissues of different organs, maybe at that point that could be a distinct possibility. But, but we're not there yet, so.

Not yet.

I mean, a good example I'll use is we do a lot of vaginal estrogen for women and for urinary incontinence, for urinary tract infections, you know, vaginal dryness, vaginal atrophy. And they'll ask, you know, and, and I mean, they're very thankful, very grateful. And you know, a few months later they'll say, I, I am so glad this, this works so well. How long am I going to have to be on this? And I'm like, well, if you don't want your vaginal dryness to come back, your urinary tract infection to come back, your urinary incontinence to Come back, you'll be on this for the rest of your life. You're not going to magically start producing estrogen again at 70 years old. And so we're just honest with them to that. And it's like, what, what is the alternative? You know, antibiotics, the rest of your life drugs to treat the urinary incontinence, rest of your life that have all kinds of side effects or a little bit of vaginal estrogen, that, that should be a no brainer.

Right, right. And the fact that it's replacing the natural signals that your body has lost and that should give people comfort that we're not just giving you something that's an outside source, that artificially we're doing something to you, we're just giving you the tools that your body has lost.

That's right.

And that's a very good point. Because if we're replacing something naturally that your body was able to do, there's more than just one thing that hormone was doing. And one thing that I share with women too is that as we age and we lose our hormones, we actually lose the ph and, and the ability for the organisms on our body that we carry to be in check with one another. And that's one of the reasons they are having reoccurrent infections just for proximity of your, your, your physical body. Right. So when you're younger, your hormones that you were excreting were, were keeping, you know, the hydration and the ph to where your, your body was able to, as well as the organisms that were naturally there to keep things in check. And that changes as we age. So it's not just giving you something foreign, it's actually keeping your own body in a way of being in check. So you know, those are things that we, we forget about, you know, just on the tissue itself, if we are hydrating and it's healthy, then we are avoiding something that we don't want to happen.

Yeah. And so we all know how important estrogen is. What about progesterone? And progesterone actually for both men and women. Right. Can you comment on that?

I think progesterone is like the forgotten hormone, you know, when you learn it traditionally in medical school or in pharmacy school, I can speak for that. You learn women estrogen, women estrogen and oh, and you know, if they have a uterus, progesterone. Right, right. I know you're, you're snickering and, and, and we still have that, you know, your traditional doctors, traditional obgyns, pharmacists, oh, well, you don't need progesterone because you don't have a uterus. And it's like, wait a minute. So progesterone only works in the uterus. But that's the silliness we've been taught. So I think with a lot of the studies, you look way back at the WHI study when you look at, you know, the incidence of cardiovascular disease or breast cancer in that study, you know, part of the problem was, is they use medroxyprogesterone acetate. And big pharma has taught us all in medical school, pharmacy school that, you know, it's like progesterone. Well, it's not. It doesn't work in the bone like progesterone. It doesn't work in the brain like progesterone. So. And progesterone is the first hormone to, to start to decline in women, and that's when they usually start having sleep issues, anxiety issues, and so give them a little bit of nightly progesterone and they sleep like a baby.

I, I agree with Sean. In fact, just to speak to that, when, when we see labs come across for women, especially when they start having problems, that is the first thing on our radar. It is the first thing we want to make sure. It's not always the case, but usually it is, and it is starting much earlier in life. So if you're, we're talking about our young girls cycling and, you know, preparing if they want to have children, if they're having difficulty having children. I mean, it's, it's so misunderstood. In fact, we've had providers that have helped women without spending thousands and thousands of dollars with fertility just by addressing the progesterone level. So from, from early in our life till we age, you know, it is one of those hormones that are super, super important, you know, for our sleep cycle, for our bones, for, you know, so many, keeping our estrogen in balance. And that's a huge one, right? The balance of the hormones in our body. Progesterone is amazing for that. So, you know, if we just talk about one hormone that helps with balancing, that would be that one. You know, it's, it's super amazing for people, and many times we might not even, especially with our peri. We. We don't recommend estradiol or estrogen until they get into menopause. You know, that progesterone is like that forgotten golden nugget, right?

And I think it's mind boggling that we have perfectly good natural progesterone. Yet big pharma, they have to make something different. They have to make something that's different from nature. I mean, that's mind boggling. Like, why, why would you not give the body what it recognizes?

Yeah. And really largely when you go back to the history of that is, you know, when Premarin came out in 1947, it increased the risk of uterine cancer, which we shouldn't be surprised if we know how estrogen works without progesterone. But they couldn't patent pro. They knew how progesterone worked to decrease uterine tissue proliferation. Drug companies knew that. But because progesterone is a natural substance, you can't patent the molecule of progesterone. And so that's how we got Medrox progesterone acetate. And then we're told they're exactly the same. But this is what I tell people. And when I tell an OB GYN this, the bingo light goes on. Progesterone is a hormone of pregnancy. Progesterone, progestation, it's in its name. Right. And what do we use medroxyprogesterone acetate for? Depo Provera is used for birth control. That's how different they are.

And actually, you know, it even goes further than just Depo Provera. There's, you know, all these progestins that so many people lumped together, like in your marina, IUD and birth control.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna probably upset a lot of people saying this, but, you know, we were taught in pharmacy school that birth control was safe and effective. Always safe and effective. Those terms, safe and effective. Right. Which bingo should be scary. But if you think of what we've done, when we use hormones that are synthetic to our body, including progestins and even synthetic estrogens, we actually put ourselves in a, a chemical menopause. We tell our ovaries not to function correctly.

Yeah. And it's scary how many young women really bought into it. And they said, I, I heard this question quite a few times. Oh, I don't want to deal with menstruation. You know, I, I love just so they put themselves, like you said, in, in a perimenopause or in menopause.

And, and think about that. Just like what you're saying Dr. Kong is. And, and I think, I think that comes from the, from the medical establishment when they say, well, you know what? You don't have to deal with menstruation. Get, take these pills and you'll be fine. That's before you're 40, after you're 40, just get a hysterectomy. You don't have to deal with menstruation. You know, that's, that, that's very. What do I want to say? That's, it's, it's.

I can't think of the word generalistic.

No. When it, when they're trying to tell women that it's not very fun to go through. It's, it's a disruption of your, of, of day to day life. It's inconvenient. Menstruation is inconvenient. So we'll just take your body parts out and it'll be more convenient. And then what side effects do you have from, from a hysterectomy? You know, prolapse. You know, obviously if they take out your ovaries, even if they don't take out your ovaries, your ovaries don't function as well because there's less blood flow. They're horrible. You know, taking out body parts just for convenience. And, but that's what we've done to women. You know, give them birth control pills and then hysterectomies and what, what has happened to them gives them depression, gives them anxiety, gives them sleep disturbances, weakens their bones, gives them osteoporosis. But, oh, we've got a drug to treat your osteoporosis. Right. It's horrible.

Right? It's convenient for somebody else.

Exactly.

Well, it, it's really kind of sad when a woman comes in and will ask me what my opinion of having hysterectomy and, or an ablation, that, that's the new thing too. And I'm like, well, why, what, what is the reason behind this procedure? And when they say it's just convenience and just to prevent you from having cancer and, and I'm like, well, why would you want to have a surgery for convenience? Whose convenience is it? Is it yours or is the person performing this procedure? And really, in my training, I really have seen actually more inconveniences caused by these procedures and these surgeries. And nobody ever warns them. And rarely do you have somebody that puts somebody in, you know, a pelvic floor situation before and after these surgeries. So these women that think that this is great, nobody's telling them what's happening down the path, you know, a year or two down the road, which to me is sad because you don't get your money back, right?

And you go, you don't get your body parts back.

So.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your perspectives and it's been such an interesting discussion. Unfortunately, we're running out of time, so how can people. I know you guys have wonderful podcast. Where can people listen to you guys and learn more from you?

So our podcast is Health Solutions with Sean and Janet Needham. If you go, you could Google that. Or if you go to our website, Moses Lake Professional Pharmacy, M L R X Com. It's got all the links you need to connect with our podcast. We stream on YouTube and all the podcast forms. So whatever best to link with them. Our Instagram. Our Health Solutions with Sean and Janet Needham. Instagram is a great way to follow us also.

That's fantastic. Thank you for your work in helping patients in a much more enlightened way. And yeah, we're all in this together in this new wave medicine. I just call it the new medicine. You know, that's. That's what we're in here for. It's going to take a while for the conventional medical community to really wake up to this. But what's funny is that the doctors themselves will get older and get sick and then they're going to realize the limitations of this system and then they're going to come on board. So it's just a matter of time.

That's right. Well, thank you for having us on. It's been an honor and a privilege.

Wonderful. Yeah. And keep up the great work.

Thank you.