Fertility Alert! 2 Shocking Mistakes That Can Hurt Your Chances with Dr. Whiftield

Welcome everyone. Today I have a special guest. Dr. Susan Fox is an expert in helping women and couples enjoy a healthy pregnancy, whether through IVF or natural conception. In her 23 years working with patients and clients, she combines traditional medicine with latest research to improve nutrition, circulation, sleep restoration and emotional stress relief. To make her work accessible, she designed the your Fertile Health program at Health University. Please visit healthuniversity.com to learn more including DIY acupoint stimulation, guided meditations and Jiung exercises for the five phases of the four week menstrual cycle. Dr. Susan is committed to changing the conversation of infertility, currently one in five. And show that healthy moms make healthy babies, which make healthy families, communities and the future. Thank you for joining me. I was recently on your show, so I really appreciate you making time to be on mine. And so we can talk about fertility across all of my different, I guess, people who I, I think it's funny how many people silently stalk me, but we'll take advantage of the stalkers and let them know that they have a place. So for my patients, we've talked about this ad nauseam about fertility and how it can be affected by inflammation, especially chronic inflammation. So maybe, you know, I think you have a great statement. I'll let you put that forth to start this and then we can carry on the conversation. Great.

Well, thank you, thank you so much for having me. And yes, I so enjoyed having you on my podcast, Health University. And I think the listening audience has an interest, at least a percentage has an interest in what we're both having to say. And much of what we have to say is similar. So my claim is that you don't want to get pregnant. And when I say that to someone, they usually go back on their heels, look at me askance and want to run out of the room until I say, what you want is a healthy baby. Because you can have as many healthy, as many positive pregnancy tests as, you know, the cows come home. But if you are struggling, carrying that pregnancy, delivering a healthy baby, having a healthy postpartum, enhancing your healthy family and community and future, then you've missed the mark. And so we need to start before you try to conceive. Yep. Right. Right. Because we see that's where I was going with that.

I was like, I want you to highlight how to start doing this because much like my book writes about, or in the book I wrote, it's about prepping, not reacting to surgery. Because if you react to surgery, you're constantly behind and we can, you know, obvious you're going to talk about the same thing. That's why it's easy for us to chat, because preparing is 9/10 of the battle in this situation, so.

Absolutely, absolutely. And in reading your book, I love your book, the Smart Protocol. And in reading it, I was like, well, this is exactly what I, what I say to folks, you know, we need at least 120 days, the folliculogenesis timeframe within which an egg goes from its primordial pool and begins being influenced by its environment to ovulation and conception. And if we're missing that important window, well, then that egg is potentially swimming in a toxic pool of inflammatory markers, getting the genetic impression of genes that are a little bit askance, whether it be from mom or dad. And so we want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to reduce that toxic load, reduce that inflammatory cascade, and clean up the follicular fluid so the egg can grow healthfully.

So what are the top things in terms of what you see in your clients, from whether it's history or testing or, or what you perceive to be the things that are, from a toxin perspective, contributing the most to what you see in terms of issues with conception that you want to try to clean up in that three to six months prior to ever even try?

Basically, yeah. Yeah, that's a really good question because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where everyone prides themselves on being, you know, really healthy and clean eaters and doing all the right things. And in many ways they are. So I don't, I don't mean to, you know, to, to fault or, you know, point a finger, but there are also things that they're not doing. So for instance, they may be getting up in the morning and chugging back that cup of coffee before they get on Zoom for 10 hours. Then they're running to their high Intensity interval training or their Pilates or yoga class. Then they're going out for that glass of wine with friends, and then they're staying up late at night because they've got work to catch up on and, and then getting to bed at, you know, whatever midnight, one o' clock in the morning with all the blue lights, you know, that are, that are sort of affecting their ability to detoxify and remodel and restore at night.

Not blue backgrounds, just blue light. So I have a, I have a blue background today.

Yeah, just, just blue light. Just blue light. The light. The light that, that has us think it's, it's high noon when it's actually 10pm So I just go through, in many, they're not, they're drinking fluids, they're not hydrating. So we just go through some of the basics. And that's the irony, is that it isn't hard. Well, let me put it this way. It's simple. And in some cases making these lifestyle changes are hard. So if I tell someone, you know, how much water are you getting a day? And they say, well, I get plenty of tea. And I say, well, that's not water. So what about filling up 3 liters of water each day and just giving yourself a visual cue, you know, have I gotten through one by noon? What, one by two or three, one by six or seven? You don't want to be chugging at 11 o' clock at night and then peeing all night.

Did you feel like when you have those interviews and you're talking to people, is it, do you think it's because you mentioned tea And I always think of like, okay, I, I'm, I'm on the kind of Dr. Lustig sugar, you know, issues. Sugar is so addictive that from a, you know, obviously the high fructose corn syrup, you know, all the stuff. So, you know, I drink a lot of black coffee. I don't mind drinking, you know, tea. I just don't put anything in it. So it's, it's one of those things where people just look at me like, I'm very like, how can you do all that? And you know, is it is. Do you think it's a sugar craving? Is that what you see a lot of?

I think it is a, I think it is in some cases a sugar craving that they're masking with their, you know, with their creamer, their oat milk creamer in their, in their lattes. And I really don't have a problem with caffeine. I think that caffeine can be very useful when it's taken at certain times in the day. I personally love my ritual coffee and I don't mean the name ritual, it's my ritual of having coffee. But I want to make sure that I'm having that around, I don't know, 9 o' clock in the morning, not when I first open my eyes. I'm going to start with water to rehydrate. So I think it's a matter of, of again that, that push and this may be a reaction to our local environment where everybody is, you know, on the high tech side of things or being very busy. They really take some undue pride in how busy they are. And so, you know, they. They keep. They keep being that gerbil on the wheel. So we, you know, as I say, we just go through some of the basics and they remember. They remember that, like, yeah, this is how I would feed my child. So maybe this is how I should feed myself in an. In my anticipation of having a child.

Right. The. I mean, it's interesting where we see a lot of people immediately go to caffeine first thing, and if you crave it, I mean, part of the things, you know, you have to give your adenosine receptors a chance to reset because basically we'll. We'll just say about 90 minutes. I. I think, you know, you're being kind. You know, 9am it just. So a lot of people get up and then they're to coffee instead of, to your point, hydrating. So maybe I, you know, underlined to everything philosophically, we talk about independently with our patients. We're talking to making. About making tiny behavioral changes that then will add up to. In. In your point of view, you're trying to get the correct environment or the healthiest environment to conceive. Unless. Unless I'm missing the point.

No, that is the point. Uhhuh. Right.

So, you know, I think that's, you know, we always. We'll say the quiet part out loud. The hardest thing to change is behavior. That's exactly right.

Exactly. 100.

So she's trying to get you to change your morning behaviors, in your nighttime behaviors. And then I guess everything in between.

Modify. We'll say modify. Maybe that's an easier word to hear than change. Because really, again, a lot of. A lot of what everyone is doing is spot on, I would say. You mentioned labs. I do use labs in my private practice, and I make available labs for people who are doing my courses across state lines. So that we can see, are there markers that need some attention? Is there vitamin D low, Are their thyroid antibodies high? That kind of thing. And we'll make recommendations and adjustments accordingly. But for the most part, if we can make these fundamental changes, I mean, I can't tell you how often people who are getting ready for IVF get pregnant because they've made these changes. They've had to go through some kind of, you know, maybe a mold detox or. Or maybe they had, you know, some. Some kind of, you know, medical event or procedure that they want to make sure before they go into IVF that they're ready and, you know, the body wants to heal itself and wants to do what it's being asked to do, but it just needs the right support. So that my point was, was I kind of went on a tangent. Not everybody needs Vitex, not everybody needs vitamin D. Most do. So it's a matter of, you know, finding out what you need supplementing there, using food as medicine so that you're not chugging back a handful of supplements while you're, I don't know, having the same kale salad you've had for the last five days. These are ways in which we can just change our, modify our, our day to day activity to really re. Engage with health that our bodies want to have.

Yeah, you know, I think each of us, you know, faces this problem with inflammation and we are trying to create just more awareness both through our courses and our books and our shows that you know, everybody faces inflammation. You and I both face inflammation. How you choose to, you know, take it on essentially as a function of your personal genetics, your environment, how you eat, how you drink, the air you breathe, how you sleep. And certainly for women in general, certainly I'm sure you're going to touch on this. The things that are put on your skin through skin care, dare I say are dangerous. Meaning that if you're not super careful with your products, you're going to get paraben exposures, you're going to get all sorts of chemicals that you don't want that could ultimately there's a very delicate balance in a woman's endocrine system. Begin with and when you're trying to conceive everything that you can do to put it, you know, in better balance. That's all I ever talk about anyways. Just trying to get better balance about anything. It'll be in your favor and I'm sure you talk to your patients about what they put on their skin and obviously all the other things with food, etc, like you just mentioned. But I, I find products to be a very slippery slope.

Well, they can be again because we, we've just been so enculturated to think that we need, I don't know, 10, especially women, 10 products, you know, to, to. Before we go out the door, we have to, we have to wash our face, we have to put the toner on, we have to put the, the cream, the cream on. Then we put the makeup on. And each of these can be riddled with hundreds of chemicals that are going directly to our eyes, at our nose, at our mouth. We use, we, whatever toothpaste or floss or whatever you're using. You don't want putting, you know, you don't want to be flossing your teeth with petroleum laced thread so that it can glide more easily. You don't want to be using a toothpaste that, that has sort of, you know, all of these additives and chemicals that are going right into that very thin mucosa of your mouth, directly into your bloodstream and so then don't even have the pass at the liver for trying to clean it up. So absolutely it is not just what we eat. But I will say about the what we eat because I'm afraid I might forget, try just pesticide free organic. You know, you don't have to go to the farmer's market each day. Lots of stores now have organic frozen foods, frozen vegetables and fruits. So go for that and go for the, you know, wild caught, free range, grass fed, grass finished, organic, you know, flesh, proteins as well. You don't need to eat as much. So the cost isn't as prohibitive as it might appear when you look at the price per pound in order to get your nutrients. Again. We've been supersizing for so long we think we need to eat, eat a porterhouse steak in order to get the right dosage of protein. And that's not necessarily true. And I say this about the pesticides and the foods because I was interviewing a colleague for a summit that I'm putting on called Best Prep for Pregnancy. It'll come out in January and he reported shared a study that showed umbilical cord blood having four times the toxic load than mother's bloodstream, which this baby is, you know, it doesn't even have barriers yet and is being then exposed to four times the amount of toxic load. So take as much as much of the toxins as you can take away, the better off you'll be. And again, you don't just want to be pregnant, you want a healthy baby.

Yeah, you know, I was going to say I'm a bit more rigid about it. I would say, I think if you give folks too much leeway, they're not going to understand exactly what you want. So for surgery I'll, I mean I'll be, you know, clear about, you know, how I discuss it so that there's no confusion. So the, the, the food aspect. So I get people probably, you know, I just had a patient last week in fact that comes to mind a very, you know, what you would see physically outside in looks like a healthy person in terms of like body weight and physical characteristics. However, if you ask them or interview them about how they feel, what they can do all the signs and symptoms of a pretty advanced chronic inflammatory state, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, problems with their arms and legs, with different types of neurologic symptoms that can be, you know, shocky pain, it can be vibratory symptoms. And those are all very disconcerting to someone, you know, and when someone in their 30s tell me, I swear they say this all the time, they're like, I just thought it was a function of getting old. I'm like, look, you have no idea what old is. 55 personally and 66 personally very well know what nerve pain is. So, you know, when you say those things, we should never have women of childbearing age in that kind of situation. And that's purely, you know, a function of, you know, I look at personal genetics, I was going to, you know, ask you about methylation. How many people you see have problems with fertility based on MTHFR and other methylation pathway issues, as well as problems with VDR and vitamin D synthesis and absorption, et cetera. But when I, when I get those, I just listen to them and I'm like, okay, this is clearly somebody who doesn't genetically detox well. And then we always use the, you know, it's, it's very cliche to use the bucket analogy. Like you can only do so much when your bucket's full and overflows. You become more symptomatic. Which is, I think it's a very simple analogy when you think of it.

And accurate. Yep.

And then, you know, to your point, now I'm, I'm pretty rigid about food. So it costs a lot to eat well, but it costs a lot more to care for yourself when you don't eat well. So the wild caught fish, the non hormone fed, non antibiotic given, you know, animal proteins and you know, I don't discriminate about anybody's diet. I really don't care as long as you're getting enough protein in your diet. Kind of one thing that I, I don't compromise on. So if you're vegan or vegetarian, we use a P based protein in our programs to accommodate that. But you know, whether it's a performance issue as it relates to stamina or, or cognitive issue, focus, all of that boils down to like what you absorb, your, your liver's ability to detox things, which is obviously a genetic trait. You, you know, I say you can't pick your parents and can't outrun a bad diet. So if you can't, you know, work on those things, you're going to have principally a very difficult time. And you know, maybe if you look at people who don't methylate well, do you see a lot of that where they already have some baseline issues? About 40% of the population doesn't methylate well.

So I just, I just presume that they, that they're not right. You know, if they're coming in my door, something's amiss and really, you know it give by the time they're in their early 30s, then methylation is likely. Methylation, detoxification is likely a component if not the very thing. So in terms of their supplementation, of course I require a request, but I think I require that they use you know, a methylated folic acid and mthfr, you know, folic acid so they can actually use it. Because once again this is a person who really needs to make sure that her folate is, is adequate, not high levels of folic acid that she can't use. Needs to make sure that her, that her clotting mechanisms are actually not going, you know, kind of aberrant and off the rails because obviously then she will not be able to hold her pregnancy. So yes, I, and I not. It's not just the liver obviously and I'm sure that you would concur it's the gu. And because you know that's they're working in, in in symphony with, with each other. How well is your microbiome helping to support the, the excretion of these once used need to get out hormones?

Yeah, I'll put it out there. I, I find a lot of people have and we already just like you're making a assumption that they don't methylate. Well pretty much everybody comes to my door doesn't so that's our line is purposefully all methylated. We don't have the non methylated B and absorption to your point is the underlying. I find it interesting that so many companies create so many supplements and there's always the next, you know, best thing. And the problem is if you think about it, there's no one test that I or you or anybody can provide to look at absorption. So you have no idea what somebody can do at the brush border, which is the microscopic level where everything gets absorbed. And so whether it's the fat of collagen, which is somewhat interesting to me or supplementation, which culturally a pill shot drug. What can you give me right now to solve this problem is, is the, the ideology or the psychology of the, of the, you know, like what can I have right now just Give it to me right now and I'll take it. And, you know, I literally had a patient in my office after surgery tell me they gave themselves a shot in the butt. And I said, what? You gave yourself a shot in the butt of what? She's like, I don't know. My naturopath gave it to me. And I'm like, oh, okay.

I hope it was for everybody.

Everybody listening. That's not okay to do.

Right. Including the naturopathic doctors. That's not okay to do. Do not send your patients home with. With a loaded syringe.

Number one, if you want to give a patient of mine something that I operate on, you had better damn well tell me in advance before you ever give it to a patient so that all gets cleared with me. So, one, I was like a little bit baffled that somebody who spends the time and effort to come visit me in Austin and have surgery would do that without even talking to me. So I let them know that's not okay.

Yeah.

Who? And for everybody, listen, the reason is it could potentiate bleeding. So I never know, you know, who's going to have a problem with that. But I take and apply 28 years of experience to avoiding that problem. So I don't have any unregulated supplements, I don't have any unregulated herbs, and certainly nobody gives themselves injections without talking to me of a non prescription, you know, strength, you know, medication or homeopathic remedy, just because it all then falls on our shoulders to, you know, react to whatever's going on. So it was just.

It was an interesting thing to react to the reaction. The potential reaction. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. That. That is stunning. That is funny.

I'm just like. I hardly ever get shocked about anything, but I found that to be shocking. One, that they would do it, and two, they would not know what's in it. Yeah, they just took it for granted. It was okay because it came from their naturopath. And I. Obviously, everybody has good intentions, they're trying to help, and this has been something probably that they'd used or recommended for their patients for other surgical procedures. However, none of that's okay with me.

Right, right. And. And to your point, I mean, I. I actually want to really just amplify that in. In. In saying that in my practice, you know, I'm. If. If someone's going through ivf, I. Ivf, doc, I know pretty much what. Because we. Because we've been in relationship for 23 years, you know, what gets removed prior to, you know, egg retrieval time against to reduce the risk of bleeding, you know, so that, so that they're not wondering who's out there, you know, in the world making recommendations to this patient. Because, yes, it does. It falls on the surgeon and the surgical team to then deal with the ramifications should something be in this patient's, you know, they're unaware of. So, yes, listening audience Please listen to Dr. Hob on this.

Yeah, because you don't know what combination of things from. And I don't want to get too deep in the weeds, but if it's a combination of things that can cause your platelets not to work properly, then it potentiates a situation that can cause bleeding. So I'm super careful with and don't stop supplementation around the time of surgery. And I'm one of the few people that does it. But I have control of what we're doing and it's balanced in a certain way, so I don't feel uncomfortable with doing it. But you're trying to eliminate. So for everybody listening, I've spent the last, you know, several years balancing out how we do supplements prior to and after surgeries so we don't get into situations with too many antioxidants which potentiate bleeding. But most of the dogma is you got to stop everything two weeks before and then resume afterwards. The reason is your platelets need that time to recover. If you've been taking a lot of high dose or multiple antioxidants, which we, we don't do because we understand what's going on and we, we, we want our patients to get the nutrients. So mine are mostly liquid based, so when you put them in your mouth, you absorb them. And this patient I was describing, who, you know, was a young person who's got chronic inflammation, they don't feel well, they have all these symptoms. You know, do you have problems with smelling like cigarette smoke or chemical odors or. And they're like, oh, yeah. So those are people who clearly have problems with glutathione utilization in their livers. And so I was like, okay, we're just going to do a little experiment here for you. So you understand what I mean about this. So you believe what I'm talking about? Yeah, so I've been taking my oral liposomal glutathione for years now. So I just give myself a huge spray of it and I say, you know, this stuff tastes kind of like a, you know, a citrusy, you know, flavor, and if you're experiencing problems, it'll become kind of sharp and Bitter tasting, you know, relatively quickly because it's liposomal, you get it on absorption. And I said, just, you know, try a little spray. And usually people get a little overconfident. They'll take a big spray. And I say, that's not going to go well. So I have water and, you know, a little mint as that's going to combine and as, you know, detoxify in their mouth. So basically, that's what their body craves. That's what they need. Because now their toxin burden is so high their liver can't accommodate any anyway. So it is a, A. I don't use it all the time anymore, but this was just such a shiny example of what was game. It's going to be like a thing to really help that person understand.

Yes.

And it's not a. And for me, it's not a trick. This is what your body craves. It's not, you know, I'm not doing anything weird.

Right.

Just a function of toxicity and what your body tries to do to get rid of those things in combination. And she's like, you know, it becomes a bitter, sharp, you know, taste. And she's like, oh, my gosh. I'm like, yeah. I mean, that's why you don't feel well. Your. Your liver, to your point, in concert with your GI tract, doesn't work well. So your liver is trying to do its job and all the testing does not establish functionality like I was taught. You know, for your liver to start failing from a blood test perspective, you're pretty far down the road of liver health.

Yeah.

It's not, it's not going to be a good road.

Right, right.

Those things.

Right.

You know what we're talking about, you're not going to see on a blood test, you're not going to see elevation in what's called.

That ship has sailed. Yes.

Yeah. So when you see those things, I mean, you got lots of problems. Your liver is a huge organ and it's, it's very efficient in dealing with things. But when it's reached a certain amount of burden like I'm describing, it's, it's, it'll struggle.

Yeah. And so that people aren't left disheartened, the liver can recover and can rebuild and remodel. So don't despair and presume that all is lost. Get started now. And people say, well, when do I start? I'm like, now. Whether or not you're trying to conceive this month, or whether or not you've got three months or six months, in my perfect world, you'd have six months. But if you don't, if you're. If, you know, people are coming to me and they've already met with their reproductive endocrinologist and they're underway, I say, well, let's, you know, start now. I mean, because, yes, we've missed some time, but we haven't missed all the time. You know, again, if you want to have a healthy baby, you can start reducing the toxic load now, and the body will have this incremental exponential recovery throughout pregnancy.

Right. And then habitually, you know, I should go through. I. You know, I'm obviously older now, and our kids are 19 and 16, and we see people with younger kids and all the things that, you know, I think, you know, we can all kind of reflect and say, oh, we would have done this slightly differently. My wife worked really hard to always make sure our kids, you know, had quality, you know, food and liquids and everything. But obviously, we look back and we're like, oh, we could have did this differently, or.

Oh, definitely differently.

And we didn't know that our daughter was. Had gluten sensitivity, you know, non celiac gluten sensitivity. So most of us, I would say, secondary to the modification of grain, certainly have developed this non celiac gluten sensitivity.

So, absolutely.

I don't have celiac disease, but I definitely am sensitive to gluten. And if I have gluten, there's going to be lots of problems with me. And my daughter's worse, so she doesn't have celiac disease, but she has an extreme problem with processing, you know, gluten. So we. We made that switch, I think about eight years ago is.

Yeah, I mean, we didn't. I would say the same doctor, you know, when. When I was, you know, my daughter's 33, rolling into. And, you know, I did the best with. With what I had in terms of my knowledge base at the time, but I can recall thinking that I was being. Being the best mom in the world by giving her a glass of soy milk with her. With her. With her lunch or whatever. And now I just. It makes my stomach turn to think, you know, how much of this. This product that. That I encouraged her to consume. You know, we stayed away from, you know, the. The jelly beans, but she had carrot juice until she practically turned orange.

So, yeah, I think, you know, that's probably a good segue into how we think about this now. And, you know, I got. I was out of 50th. I've been at two 50th birthday parties in the last few days, which is interesting. Now considered an elder, I guess, plus 50. You're an elder.

Yes.

Below that, not so I was trying.

To think 65, you're a senior.

What I offer, you know, to one of them and I think probably the biggest changes are what we're talking about. Like you have to take serious your air quality. So get, you know, a freestanding air filter. Don't consider that you're H Vac in your home is adequate because it's not. I'll just say that now. Right. And there's different types of filters. The Jasper Co company and the Swiss IQ Air company and there's others. You just have to line them up, see what fits you fits your budget fits, your household fits, you know where you live. And that's one thing you can do. 2. Please don't drink out of plastic.

Oh my goodness.

So don't reheat in plastic and don't drink out of plastic.

And I'll just don't have plastic, period. To whatever extent you can still baffle.

Me is somebody will travel from out of the country or out of Texas to visit us, you know, and spend time with us for about a week is usually, you know, the timeframe here. And they'll come in from traveling. It's hard when you travel. You, you gotta be really careful as. And we'll just. I'll focus on women because that's predominantly my client base and yours as well is. Phthalates are extreme hormone disruptors. So if you're trying to get pregnant or if you're trying to get prepared for surgery, you need more balance, less disruption. So phthalates, which are what are in plastics to make them firmer, those leach into the water or when you reheat something, they'll leach into the food, however you want to think about it. So we don't want those. So just like you said, avoid plastics and don't drink out of plastic. So you know, get stainless glass, something like that. I know it's harder to travel, but figure it out.

I don't. Well, although, you know, in most airports now, they, you, you bring your water bottle. You, you know, you bring your stainless water bottle and there, there are, you know, areas to just fill it up once you've gotten through your TSA check. So it's less hard than it. Than it point. I think we just have to relearn how we go about our activities of daily living because it's just habit that has us think that we need to swing by the, the newspaper shop at the, at the, or the, or the coffee shop at the airport and grab that plastic water bottle because we think we need to rehydrate. And you're not rehydrating, you're just filling yourself with plastics.

You know, the airline industry won't like this or the airports, but I like, I don't drink anything at airport and I don't anything airport one because the food quality in an airport is frightening. So for everybody listening like, so when, when you get to food, like I'm a big, you know, I, I eat a lot of protein. So that's so, you know, wild caught fish or the appropriately raised type of poultry with no hormones and, and you know, free range and grass fed, grass finished, you know, meats, if you're going to eat meat, obviously, you know, and fat is not a bad thing. Healthy fats are actually very good for you.

That's imperative in my field. You know, hormones need the fat in order to transport, but they need healthy fats.

But everybody's been told they should have a low fat diet. So, you know, obviously, you know, we haven't talked about insulin resistance and what a problem that is, but if you just had enough healthy fat in your diet and healthy protein in your diet, you probably would actually not or you would convert a type 2 situation, which is adult onset diabetes, or what we were taught, to a insulin situation where you're not resistant, you know, and then, you know, we haven't talked about it, so we'll talk about it as we kind of wrap this up is I prioritize sleep above all else. So if somebody asked me what, you know, behavior modification you can do is you don't need to drink three water, three liters of water a day, and you certainly don't need to do it before you go to bed. So I have people, you know, control and time up things on a 3, 2, 1, and shout out to my friend Reagan for, you know, instilling this in me. He made me think about it more. I did it, but I didn't do it, you know, as, as crisply as I, I need to. So for just a rule of thumb, I tell people to stop eating three hours before bed, stop drinking two hours before bed, and then an hour before bed, get off your random devices. And where you're going to sleep has to be a little bit cooler, quiet without light. So whatever you have to do to make that environment, you need to work on that yourself. And so when somebody tells me, because I always ask these questions and people don't like them like well, how long can you sleep uninterrupted? And they'll tell. Or I'm like, you know, well and if they start hemming and hawing, I'm like do you get up to go to the bathroom? They're like oh yeah, a couple times. I'm like, all right, so if you're a woman and you get up to go to the bathroom, that's like a, you know, I'm 55. That's like an advanced male with benign PPH.

Right.

That's not normal.

Right.

And you can address this. You should not under any circumstances beginning up in the middle of night to go to pee. As a woman of, we'll just say child, married age, that makes no sense to me. There's you, you need to see a urologist to make sure there's not a problem if in fact after you adjust your fluid int like that percent so you know, that's a very like simple thing. And people tell me they get all this great sleep. So the ways that you have to prove this to me is you have to have a wearable like ultra human ring or a whoop strap or something that monitors your sleep or eight sleep or something. So you know, don't tell me you have a clean diet. Don't tell me you have great sleep without proving it because without proof, without data, there is none of that. There's just talk. And it would help us both probably if we had a little bit more to go on. And I'll let you chime in now because those are my like basic things that I have to have.

Yeah. So I, so yes, to your point. My, my, my advice is to you know, finish your liquids by 6 or 7pm because I will even go so far as to say according to the Chinese medicine clock, what time you are beginning your sleep matters. So I, I am recommending in, in bed by 10 or 10:30 so that you're asleep by 11, will sleep through to 7 to get your 8 hours of sleep because again, in that Chinese medicine clock those are the hours where our organs of detoxification are most active. Right. And it just makes sense. So, so yes, definitely finish your fluid so that you're not creating a problem where you're going to have to likely void during the night and wake yourself up. Many of my, my patients in private practice will use an aura ring. Or will you? Because, because it will syn with their cycle app where they're trying to also keep track of their levels of hormones and then some don't use the data and I'm a little bit more, I guess I would say forgiving with that because I'm actually seeing data in terms of their hormonal pathways. So if they don't have a ring and don't want to have a ring or a watch, I'm less inclined to be, be as adamant as you are. But, but here again, what we're trying to do is similar but different. Right? I mean you're, you're putting someone through a surgical procedure and you and your data needs to be collected and carefully analyzed prior to and following mine can be a little bit more organic for lack of a better term. Especially if someone is not trying to, you know, going into an IVF cycle. If they're going into an IVF cycle. I really try to get a little bit more adamant about. Let's, let's see your, your, your data. Let's. Well, you're doing. So that's a, that's a long winded way of saying not a whole lot.

Oh, it's a long, you know, arduous process and recovery from surgery is, is not easy if you have alignment and all these other, you know, processes we're we're talking about and it's always easy to take for granted all of the things we're talking about because their behavior modification and it's not a pill shot drug. It's. I have to change this habit in order to get this outcome which is always, you know, the most complicated, complicated thing for anyone to actually, you know, process and actually execute is a behavior modification. So on that I would like to thank you for joining my show. Do you have any. Oh, please let everybody know how to follow your program and get in touch with you so that they can learn more about your options for helping them.

Yes, great. Thank you. It was really a delight to chat with you and thank you audience for listening in. So you can reach me through my website, healthuniversity co not.com within which there is the youe Fertile Health program that will help you really DIY yourself into better health and better prep for either your IVF or natural conception outcomes. I do have a podcast as well. Well, it's called Health University spelled Y O U Niversity. A little play on words there. And then I can be reached through, you know, the regular socials. You know the handles are at Dr. Susanfox Insta at Health University, YouTube. Pretty easy to find me. So really happy to, you know, help anybody who needs to get a bit, a bit of support because I really really, really want to convey that. That this pandemic, if you will, of infertility affecting one in five women, I believe, or people, I believe, is a. Is a misnomer. It is sub fertility based upon our lifestyles and we can reverse it. And again, don't want to just get pregnant. You want a healthy baby, healthy family, healthy community, healthy future. Really, the buck stops here. It's really on us now.

Awesome. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you very much, Dr. Rob. My pleasure.