Omaha Functional Medicine and BHRT

Welcome to the Balanced Body Podcast, where Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness in Omaha, talks to us about health, wellness, and balancing hormones.

BalancedBodyMedical.com, check out that website. The only provider to offer the Menopause Method in Nebraska in conjunction with Bright. Excited here to get to your free 15-minute phone consultation with Sherri Griggs. Of course, is the only of the company and at this medical clinic. It offers mainly menopause symptom relief but also bioidentical hormones. And we're talking about so much that could help with so many different diseases and help decrease the chances of getting these types of diseases. So we're here with our expert today. Welcome back to the show today, Sherri Griggs. How are you?

I'm doing great, Jill. How are you?

I'm doing well. Thanks so much. It's exciting to have you back. And you are a master— you have a Master of Science in Adult Primary Care. I know you're really passionate about helping people with health and wellness. And for those new-time listeners, would you mind just telling us a little bit about what you and Balanced Body Health and Wellness actually does?

Absolutely, yes. So our focus is to balance your body. I'm a nurse practitioner and I believe that— excuse me— that if we can help prevent disease, it's much better than waiting until we have an illness and we have to treat the symptoms. So we want to find out what the root cause is, what's going on with your body, how we can try to prevent something from happening, and ways that we can balance you out.

Got it. All right. Well, also I want to point out Balanced Body Medical, also you're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, uh, as well as, uh, I guess they don't call it Twitter anymore. It's now X, right?

Right.

And just to point out, you're in the Omaha, Nebraska area, so are you working only with those there, or do you do virtual work as well?

Well, I do need to see everyone at least once a year, so I need to see you in person. I have a friend who's flying out to see me at the end of this month, and we will get her set up, and then from there she'll have to see me a minimum of at least once a year.

Perfect.

Well, let's start off by talking about, you know, metabolic disorder and what that is specifically. Could you share a little bit of, you know, some of the conditions that make up some of these things that maybe some of our clients are experiencing and not even aware and, you know, we'll get to, of course, the ways you can help them.

Right. So metabolic disorder or metabolic syndrome as it is called, it It has to do with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high fats like your triglycerides or your cholesterol. And sometimes these things start out very slowly. I guess to say, maybe you'll hear, you know, you're borderline diabetic. You need to change what you're eating. You need to change— you need to exercise more often. And maybe you're doing that and your weight is great, but you still have these conditions. Quite frankly, almost all the time you'll see along with that high blood sugar is high cholesterol. So you're thinking, but wait a minute, I'm exercising, I'm eating right, why do I have these conditions? Well, it's hereditary and sadly, once you have those genetics, there's not a lot you can do unless you want to work hard at it and prevent it. I met a gentleman this last weekend at one of the trainings I went to and he's so impressive. He's wonderfully healthy, but he comes from a family with obesity. His brother was 476 pounds and actually ended up dying because of his weight.

Uh-huh.

His grandmother was diabetic.

Uh-huh.

He said, I watched her have toes cut off and feet amputated. And he said, I stand before you today with— he's a perfect weight. He said, I'm not overweight. I'm not diabetic. My cholesterol is great. But he has all the genetics. And it's preventative. So it can be prevented. But what we find traditionally, in traditional medicine, is that we wait until— You have diabetes and we treat you and we watch your hemoglobin A1c, which is a level that looks at what your blood sugars have averaged out over the last 3 months. And we'll check it every year and we'll watch it go up.

Yeah.

And we'll watch it go up until, oh, it hit that, that number and now you're diabetic, here's the medication. But why didn't we just prevent it?

Yeah.

Why is that?

Why do people do— I think a lot of us just rely on the doctor. Oh, I got my checkup. Oh, I did my blood work. I did my yearly. What would you say to someone who says, I go to the doctor regularly every year to get checked. No one told me this.

Well, a lot of times they don't. And, and here's the thing, we're trained as medical providers to take care of your illness. I've heard people say, are the medicine here is Sick medicine. That's what we do. We wait until you're sick. And that's how we're trained. That's how doctors are trained in medical school. That's how I was trained in general, is when you're sick, then we treat it, because that's what you have us for. Preventative is generally not paid for by insurance, though, which always blows my mind, because, you know, it's much less expensive to prevent illness than it is to treat illness. It's much less expensive to prevent somebody from becoming diabetic where there are complications, like you have complications with your eyesight, your circulation. It's much better to prevent that than to wait and have to take care of the complications that come about.

Mm.

So it's not that we or anybody should blame their doctor or their medical provider for not doing anything. That's just not generally how it's done. Now, you will have providers out there that will do that. They will say, hey, look, you are borderline diabetic and I recommend you take this medication to prevent becoming diabetic. And it's a prescription drug. We don't do a lot of training on supplementation. Supplementation can be preventative. In fact, the gentleman that I told you about from this weekend— He has prevented all of his diseases through supplements, supplementation. Supplements are not FDA approved. There are studies. We do have medical studies, evidence-based, which is how we all practice medicine, on supplements, but that would require our providers to have to learn another specialty.

Oh my gosh. Wow. Well, there's so much happening and that goes on and with the body. And it's just really, you know, we want to live our best life and longer life. Why, why should we not? Right?

Right, right. And then sometimes it's hard to find somebody to help you with that. So I, in fact, I just told the patient this morning, we talked about, I said, well, you— she did her blood work with her provider in September, and her provider did all the basics. But we were missing one of the— 2 thyroid levels that we should check. Just because the hormone that stimulates thyroid is normal doesn't mean the actual— the T3 and the T4 that we use, that our cells use, is at an optimal range. And she didn't do a hemoglobin A1c. That's the one I said that is the average of 3 months.

Mm-hmm.

blood sugar was good or her fasting blood sugar was good, but we don't know if she has some spikes that happen after she eats. So as I said to her, if that's the case, if you were to be borderline, obviously, you know, your fasting blood sugar is still normal. There are supplements that you can take that will help your body to keep your blood sugar normal, to help your body to use the insulin. And I told her myself, about 4 years ago, I became actually a type 1, which is autoimmune. Diabetes. And I was able to treat that, again, not FDA approved, but with supplements before I actually had to go on insulin, before the autoimmune process in my body killed enough of the beta cells so I didn't make enough insulin that I had to go on it. But I was actually able to do that with supplements. So if I say, if I can do that as a type 1, then anybody can do it as a type 2. Right. So type 1 meaning your body doesn't make the insulin and type 2 meaning that your body is unable to use it efficiently. So the supplements help your body use it efficiently.

Got it. Got it. Okay. Well, also let's point out the work that you're doing is honestly, it's unique and I just love that you're here, you know, giving us the knowledge that we don't always get from our doctor. And when you hear the term functional medicine, right, and people think, well, functional integrative medicine, that's what my doctor does. Can you explain a little bit more detail what the type of testing you do and can do. And I know we talked a little bit about the metabolic aspect of the high cholesterol, high blood pressure, but what are some of the other things that you can test for?

Well, some of the other things that we can test for, for instance, this patient that left today, we're going to check her cortisol levels. We're going to check them at 4 different times during the day because it sounds like she's having a fall in the early afternoon and she shouldn't. We can also check for food allergies. Are there foods that you're eating that cause inflammation in your body? Now we know there are certain foods that are just naturally inflammatory and those being gluten, dairy, sugar, okay? Those cause inflammation in the body no matter who you are. You don't need to be lactose intolerant for dairy to cause inflammation or to be celiac Uh-huh. Or gluten to cause it for the body. The protein is just too large for our body to digest, so it causes inflammation in the gut. There are tests that we can do to see if you're having a lot of stomach issues, a lot of illness, because our immune system is made in our gut. Is your gut healthy, right? We know that our gut is its own flora of bacteria, but what happens when bad bacteria gets in there and starts take over. And our— I always say our little happy bacteria are not happy anymore because there's a mean bacteria that's overgrowing. So we can test that. We can test to find that out. A lot of our neurotransmitters that have to do with our moods and depression are also made in the gut, and we can test that. So those— that type of testing is completely different than anything—

Uh-huh.

You would see at your doctor's office. And some insurance companies are becoming a little bit more open to those ideas. Some will pay for food allergy testing. In the past, they wouldn't. So as they start to learn that it's better to look at how the body is functioning, functional medicine, how it's functioning and how we can get it to function at its And that it actually saves them money, because sadly it's all about money many times. They're starting to pay for a lot of the testing and helping people out with it, but not all of it. And so that sometimes that can be a deterrent for somebody, the expense, when they find out if their insurance company doesn't cover it. Now your health savings account, you can use that. It is a medical— it's medical care, but generally insurance won't reimburse for it.

Oh my goodness. All right, got it. Well, let's also find out the ways we can contact you and reach you, and would you also be so kind to share the website, phone number, all the above, and we'll take a quick break?

All right. So the website is www.BalancedBodyMedical.com. You can email me info@BalancedBodyMedical.com. You can also call me at 402-833- Again, that's 402-807-5333, or you can find us on Facebook at Balanced Body Health and Wellness.

Welcome back to the show. We're excited to have our guest here talking today about functional medicine, all the benefits that she could provide with her services. And also just want to point out here, Sherri Griggs, we're live with her here today, and she has a lot of knowledge in the field. And again, the company Balanced Body Health and Wellness, it's Balanced Body Medical And we talked about the preventative aspects of, you know, all the things that we could start doing for ourselves and taking these tests that not every doctor does. And clearly you need a specialist to do some of this. Can I just share a little bit of your background for those new-time listeners?

Sure. So my background, actually, I started in 2018 with health coaching. So that very much looks at the whole person. We talk about Our primary food, and primary food is what's going on in your life as far as your home, your work, your health, money, things like that. And from there, I continued to learn more and more about ways that we can prevent illness. I then went back to school and obtained my master's degree in nursing, became a nurse practitioner. I have— I'm part of the Institute of Functional Medicine. Part of A4M is the Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and then BHRT Academy, so Institute of Bioidentical Medicine. So all of those acronyms and all of those people that I study with, I have spent a lot of time just hardcore learning all of these things. There's just— it's so much. And again, you know, like I said, hearing from some of our traditional practitioners saying, I just don't have time to learn another specialty, it is such a— learning preventative medicine and functional medicine.

Wow. Okay, well also, this is, you know, you mentioned back in '96, I think it was, right, you were in the medical field, right?

Yeah.

And you were working and it's amazing that you needed to just decide that you needed to give more help to these patients, that you saw there was a need for this, and not every doctor or nurse was able to do all this. And it's exciting to know that this, you know, inspired you to move on forward with your own business, let alone, uh, what you've done. I mean, it's pretty fascinating. She offers a free consultation service, and again, we talk a lot about the metabolic syndrome. And what about for ladies going through menopause? Uh-huh.

Oh my gosh, right? These poor ladies, hot flashes, night sweats, and the worst part about it is with that comes the anxiety. So, you— not only are you woken up in the middle of the night hot and sweaty, and then you can't go back to sleep because your mind is worrying and racing. And that's part of it, memory loss. Oh my gosh, what was I doing and why did I come into this room, right? We all have that, but it's even worse.

Okay.

Depression, and they just want to treat, you know, somebody just wants to give you medication for depression. There's just, there's so much. I believe we talked about, was it last week we talked about the 36 different symptoms? I don't even know if we got through all of them because there's so much that can happen. And you'll notice the changes, the weight in the middle. You're eating like you've always eaten. You're exercising like you've always exercised. And all of a sudden, it's just changing. Your body's changing on you. And yeah, we can help with that. We can get you balanced out, just find out what's going on. My lady today, I didn't send her out the door with hormones. I sent her out the door so that we can do some testing to make sure that she is balanced before I put hormones in her body.

And you know, you mentioned Women, uh, by the way, and one of the things that I learned from you was the importance of testosterone. You hear the word testosterone, you think it's for guys, right? No, but women need this too. Could you share?

Oh, absolutely. So one of the biggest things for women is muscle, right? If you start to lose muscle, we have— it's called sarcopenia. You start to lose muscle as you lose your testosterone. You also can lose your libido. It does have to do with the pelvic muscles, so you start to experience incontinence. So testosterone is hugely important for women. Now, it doesn't mean every woman will lose their testosterone. Some women don't. In fact, I had a practitioner, a doctor in front of me Saturday saying, I'm 70 years old, my testosterone has never dropped. But her estrogen and her progesterone did.

Amazing.

So yes, but, but other women, it'll start to drop in their 30s. So we're all so different.

Yeah, yeah. And let me ask you, I just— as far as aging is concerned, us ladies who lose collagen very quickly, tell us, um, could hormonal balance help us with like the production or less loss of collagen to help us look better, age less?

Well, estrogen— estrogen is a great anti-inflammatory, and it also helps us to stay lubricated, right? Our body, our skin, our oils. Yes, absolutely. So that's one of the things— you're right— that ages us. We become wrinkled, our skin gets dry. That's from loss of your hormones. So, you know, and here's one of the things that we really talked about this weekend was You know, when there was the study, a lot of people are scared of hormones. In fact, I talked to a lady yesterday that said, I'm scared to take the pill, so I take it every 8, but I still have symptoms. Well, when they did the Women's Health Initiative study in 2002, they used a combined estrogen-progesterone pill or progestin pill, right? And that's where a lot of the problems came from. studies that applying estrogen topically or even subcutaneously with pellets does not cause cancer. It actually helps protect against breast cancer.

Ooh.

And they— in 2018, they released it that they realized that, you know, the way they had done the testing and as they followed women further along, that it's really so protective. You talk about Our skin and our collagen. And how about our bones?

Ah, like someone like me. Yeah, osteopenia. How can we help with— yeah, let me ask you about that because I supposedly have weak bones. What's— go take calcium, they said. Well, what else is there that we could do for that? Because seems there's no answer. They said you got to have osteoporosis before you take that special pill that can help rebuild your bone. But what about for those that are on the verge of that with osteopenia?

And you know what, Jill? You said it exactly the way it is. We'll wait until you get osteoporosis and then we'll help you. So why, why, why wait until you get that? Let's prevent the bone loss. Let's— you obviously, likely are low on estrogen. Because estrogen is what protects us against osteoporosis. It protects our heart.

Uh-huh.

It protects us from heart disease because of the anti-inflammatory effect of it. So imagine if you don't have that anymore. You get the opposite of everything it did for you. So now you're dry, now you're wrinkled, now you have osteopenia, you're losing your bone, right? Now you're getting inflammation in your body. So all of these things that it's done for us. Now— and I'm not talking about trying to keep you alive forever, and you're not going to be like you always were in your 20s and 30s. But when we get older and our vessels harden and we get high blood pressure— We treat it, right? We treat high blood pressure. So when we get older and we start to lose our hormones, why don't we treat that? Why is that any different?

It's true.

That's my big question. Yeah.

Wow. Well, we still have 3 minutes left in the show. What else did you want to share?

So, so yes. So for somebody like yourself, I would recommend a provider, somebody like myself that can help you with that, can look at those levels and look at your family history. See that what you might be, might be looking at, right? So you know you're looking at osteoporosis. You're under 50, correct?

45, getting close.

But here's the deal, Jill, 45, and if you're already losing your bone, you have probably at least another 40 years. What will happen?

Right.

And sometimes those medications that they give us, once you have the osteoporosis, are very hard on your stomach and some people can't take them. So we just don't want to wait until this happens, until you find that they, you know, they learned a long time ago that people don't fall and break their hip, their hip breaks and they fall. Their femur breaks first and then they fall down. So let's prevent— let's strengthen those bones. Let's give you your hormones back that you're losing. And there's no reason. Dr. Rosensweet, Dr. David Rosensweet, he is an expert in this field, and his own mother was on hormones into her 80s. And he has a video that he shows of his mother-in-law He said, if you want to test a woman for sarcopenia, have her sit in a chair and see if she can stand up without using her arms. If she cannot stand up without using her arms, she has sarcopenia, which is loss of muscle, full of fat. He put her on hormones and she could stand up without using her arms after being on hormones for a few months.

Wow.

That is amazing. That is absolute Now, I personally here have an InBody machine, it's called, so I can test. You can see how much of your muscle and how much of your body is fat. My lady today, she was quite surprised. She still has a lot of muscle.

Got it.

Even though she's been out— been without for nearly 10 years, she still had a lot of muscle. So we're going to find out, even though she has some of the other symptoms, the night sweats, The dryness. What do we need to do? What else do we need to do as far as her hormones go? So we're doing a baseline. We're checking her hormones.

Yeah.

We're checking that hemoglobin A1c. We're checking that cortisol. She has a lot of stress. We're looking at the fact we understand— I don't know about you, but I can only do 3 things well at one time.

Yeah.

She's got 3 things. We can't add a 4th for her. We help her. where she's at right now to start to get healthier. So that's what I do.

Well, we appreciate you and your time here, and if you would love to reach out for the consultation, share one more time how we could do so.

Absolutely. Go to my website, www.balancedbodymedical.com. You can click right there and schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation. If you said, I don't even need to talk to you, I know I can need to see you, you can go to that same website and you can schedule your first consultation here in the office. You can reach me by calling me at 402-807-5333 or emailing me info@balancedbodymedical.com.

This has been the Balanced Body Medical Podcast with Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness. If you're looking to find Sherri, go ahead and look for the website balancedbodymedical.com. If you're looking for the business and you want to find Sherri at her office, you can find her at 10815 Elm Street in Rockford Plaza.

Thank you.