Suffering is Optional: Harmonize Your Hormones and Feel Like Yourself Again, with Dr. Lorraine Maita

I saw those other women come to me, and they'd say, I want what she has.

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Hello, and welcome back to the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. We have a very special guest today. Ed Lavitan has joined us and. And we have Dr. Lorraine Maida, who we love personally and know personally and are just delighted to have here. Dr. Ma is a hormone harmonizer. She's a detox expert. Right up our alley. Right. She specializes in helping you, the listener, have boundless energy, stable moods, a lean body, sharp, clear mind, and balanced hormones so you can feel like yourself again. Who would want that? So welcome. Lorene, we're so happy you're here.

I'm happy to be here because I want to get the word out. So many people don't think that there's help out there. They don't even know what's going on in their minds and bodies.

They can't remember what's going on in their minds because we all have brain fog. Yeah.

Sometimes it's better when you don't remember, but they do know.

Some of my teenage things I'm happy not to remember, but yeah.

Yeah.

So let's just talk first about what's the difference between bioidentical and synthetic hormones? Can we sort of drill into that? Unpack that first?

There's a difference between hormones and bioidentical hormones and the roots and all that stuff. And I think it's. It'll be really great to kind of talk through what. What are the different choices so that people really, if they do decide, they can actually think they can really make an educated decision as opposed to, oh, my doctor's doing this. And it's okay, because I think a lot of things people do may not be the best. Let's suboptimal.

Sure. Well, I use the analogy, is a trans fat the same as an omega 3 fat? No, it's been changed. Your body wasn't developed to detox a synthetic hormone. So if, you know, do you want horse urine or do you want the same bioidentical. The same exact chemical structure that your body makes? That's what a bioidentical hormone is. So it's familiar to Your body. Your body's like, oh, I know what to do with this. This is exactly. We play nice together. The synthetic hormones, like the synthetic estrogen, just, you know, think of the estrogen receptor like a bell. It's sending a signal. Like the hormone goes and rings the bel. Okay. Your estrogen as your bioidentical, rings the bell. It's nice. Open the door. That's fine. The synthetic, it's just like. It stays there, it stays on the receptor, and it just keeps stimulating and stimulating and it doesn't really turn off as easily. So that's the difference between. With estrogen, there's not as many studies, because what came on, the difference between bioidentical estrogen and the synthetic estrogen. But there's a lot with progesterone, and unfortunately, the press always calls progestins, which are synthetics, progesterone. So progesterone does not cause clots. Synthetics do. Progesterone does not cause gallbladder sludging. Synthetics do. Progesterone relaxes the coronary arteries. The synthetics constrict the coronary artery, so you get less blood flow. There's big differences. And the risk of cancer, that's really what they postulate, is that the cancer risk is not from estrogen, it's from progestins. When you look at the studies, because they didn't do that many studies on the bioidenticals until recently. But when you're looking at those studies, the risk of cancer is so much lower than it is with the synthetics.

I mean, the ironic thing about the 2002 Women's Health Initiative is that if you actually had symptoms that were bothering you, you couldn't participate in the study. They excluded you from the study if you had symptoms. So I was like, well, I mean, sure, people want to help their bones and their heart, but, like, most people aren't walking in saying, protect my brain. They're saying, I am not sleeping and I can't focus and I'm having hot flashes and I have sandpaper vagina. That's what they're saying. They're not saying, protect, protect the things I can't see and decrease my colon cancer risk. They're not saying that.

No.

So that was really challenge. I was like, wait, they excluded the women who really are the ones who are going to take it.

Right. And they waited too long. The studies show that under the age of 60 and within 10 years of menopause, that's when you get the most benefits. Because after that, you've already lost your bone. Your brain is already fried, Your arteries are already clogged.

Oh, my God, what a bad picture is bad.

You know, so it's, you know, you can still have some benefit. But I, I say it's like 50, 50. When women come to me in their 80s, like, look, if they're having trouble with their brain, it does help them. They do, they do notice a difference. And, you know, I tell them you may not get all the. Wow. You may not get all those benefits because it's, it's harder to turn around the ship than it is to prevent it. So that if you start early, the earlier you start, the better.

You know, I have a patient who's 59 years old and still has her regular periods.

Yeah, I've. I see some. Yeah.

And we've just. Her, her FSH just got over 10. I've been monitoring her. It just got over 10. It was 11. I was like, well, you're on your way, but you're not there yet. But so I was saying to her, like, you know, for you, I wouldn't wait too long to start your hormones because you're already sick too, but you have some time because you, you still have the natural impact of what you had. I was just like, oh, my God. She said, my mom did it too.

Wow. And do you balance her with. With progesterone? Because estrogen, you know, people don't realize that even in menopause you're making estrogen, but you're making it in your fat and adrenal glands. So that's why I say women not on hormones can get cancer. Where's it coming from? It's coming from the toxins. It's this type of estrogen you make in your fat and adrenal glands is not the feel good estrogen that is going to get rid of the hot flashes, make you sexy and juic. It's not, it's not. So, you know, they're, they're under the impression like estrogen. Oh, no, no, no. But they're making it, they're making it anyway.

Yeah, yeah. And. Well, first of all, I want to just make sure you, you referenced horse urine. So I want to make. So for everybody, it's premarin pregnant mares hormones. So it's literally pregnant horse hormones.

Yes. Pregnant mare.

The, the other challenge with synthetic versus bioidentical. With synthetic, everybody, it's a one size fits all or two sizes fits all. With bioidentical, we can actually measure and get you to what's what is considered a healthy postmenopausal range. Not a 20 year old range, but a healthy post menopausal range.

Yeah. You know, people don't realize you can't measure Premarin. There's no measure for that. You can't measure Provera, the synthetic progestin. You don't know if somebody's imbalance. You don't, you know that. You just know by the symptoms. And, you know, women don't. And, you know, that's what I observed when I had that woman come down to me like telling me you have to do something. And I knew nothing really at that time. I mean, I could save your life in the emergency room, but, you know, I couldn't stop the flashing. It was so funny. But, you know, I learned a lot from that. And you know, it's, there's so many nuances to hormones. And also what people don't realize is they, you know, I have a lot of doctors that won't make, make women get off their estrogen when they go through surgery. Well, oral estrogen causes clots. So the way you give the hormone makes a difference. If you give estrogen through the skin like I usually give it in a patch or sometimes when someone's allergic to the glue, I'll do a cream. The risk of clots is negligible. No one can say never in medicine because there's always. But there's not a risk of clots. So giving it early, giving it through the skin and making sure it's bioidentical, I mean, ding, ding, ding, it's the winning formula. Because when I saw those other women come to me and they'd say, because I would recommend the bioidenticals. And then they'd say, I want what she has. And you know, because the people on Prempro were the ones who were gaining weight. They were the breast tenderness, they were always spotting and you know, that's not pleasant, especially in the summer, wearing white. So it was an eye opener for me. You know, I was a young newbie and innocent about these issues, but they were serious. They were serious. And, you know, I wanted to see women succeed because during those days there were only six in a company of 120,000. You know, and I know I, when I was promoted, I'd walk into a room with a cmn. It was intimidating.

Have you ever had patients who can't tolerate any form of hormones?

It happens once in a while, but if they let me clean their gut, if I get their bowels, movement If I get their gallbladder working properly and I get them balanced properly, they can. But I have had some that gave up because they didn't want to. They didn't want to either do the testing or they think everything's normal and they just don't want to take the time. But I have had people who, you know, one woman in particular, I remember, she. She was constipated since childhood. Since childhood. And when I saw her and I saw her over zoom, I could see the big red rash on her face and she bleeding all the time, and she just couldn't stop. And it was interfering with her life and it was so often, and she was tired and she couldn't sleep and she was constipated. So when I, I got everything going well, I detoxed her first and then she. She had more energy, she slept better. But, you know, she did need hormones and it took a while, but once I got her bowels moving, life changed. The clouds parted, the sun came through. She felt fantastic. But in the beginning, she had a lot of breast tenderness. And she. The periods were still a little bit irregular, but she's doing great now. And she goes, I feel good.

Good. You know, I mean, it sounds similar to what we do because essentially, often when you're starting with us, we're sending you to nutrition to start to level up on your food, because there's that gap of time where we're doing the testing and you're waiting for, like, let's get going on something. So people start to level up their food and they feel so much better coming back in six weeks just with food because it's so foundational. Hey, I looked at the dosing of the patch. You know, the lowest patch is the.025 milligrams, and it's 25 micrograms. 25 micrograms is about the dose of what we give women who take the pill. You know, there's a 20, the 25, and the 30 microgram pill. I always, in my brain had this thought that the hormones we're giving women for menopause are so much lower than what we give them in their reproductive years, but they're not. They're similar. Do you, have you ever thought about that? And do you have any comments on that? And it's okay if you haven't, but I'm just like, wow.

No, no, I do know that that is the, the, the dose that can be effective for cardiovascular health. I mean, some women need higher doses. I mean, I actually have a woman on two Patches. But it's rare. It's very, very rare. Most people, I start them there, but it's, it's, it's. The delivery system is very different.

And yeah, with oral, that's true.

Yeah, it's very different.

And it's synthetic, so, yeah, it acts differently.

Yeah, I was like, it's, it, it occurred to me, like, oh, wait, the.

Dosing here, you can't really compare that. But that's why I go by blood levels. But you can't measure blood levels of synthetics.

Now, speaking of that, there are people that I get that put on there. We cannot bring their, I cannot bring their estrogen up through blood for whatever reason. And their estrogen can go up a little bit, but their estradiol will. No, go. Go up. It's a small subset.

Does their progesterone go up? Yeah, just not the estradiol.

Just not estradiol.

And I just, I have, I have a few like that too.

So do you keep treating, like, do you keep raising the estrogen or are you treating to symptoms?

I treat to symptoms, but I do, I measure in blood and in saliva and urine.

Yeah, that's what I've been doing.

Because it's always somewhere in the middle. Where's it going? Right, where's it going? You know, because some of these, these hormones are lipophilic. So some people just stays. But they, they do get. It's going somewhere.

Right. And their symptoms improve.

Yeah. So if the symptoms improve, I measure two ways and, and two, three ways really, and see where it's going. And I, I have had the same problem. And, you know, like one woman just kept, you know, wanting more and more and more and more and more. And, you know, even the pharmacy called me and said, look, you know, I said, I'm actually doing this to teach her something because her hot flashes are from stress. Her hot flash, she would literally start talking about something and her whole face would get red, but she was fine otherwise. So her hot flashes were not. Because her hormone levels were perfect. Her hot flashes were brought on by.

Stress, which is super common.

Right. And that's why sometimes I have to measure several ways to and go to symptoms. And you can't always go by hot flashes. The diet makes a big difference in hot flashes, too.

So how, what percent of people are you like, I'm not going. I mean, essentially you basically say to everyone, I'm not coming near you until you detox. And you've alluded to the, the gut and the toxins. So how long does that Take for people.

I do a very abbreviated version because I can tell people you can do anything for two weeks. I have my nutrition coach work with them. She prepares them for a week, tells them what to expect, what things to buy. I give them a shake to heal the gut and calm the immune system down. I give them some herbals to detoxify the liver, and I have them eliminate. I call them the troublesome 10. The 10 most troublesome trigger foods that can cause inflammation. And I have them do it for two weeks. First week, maybe people don't like me so much. You know, they're like, oh, a little bit irritable. But by the second week, they're like, oh, I feel better. I'm losing weight. I have more energy. I mean, that woman, her rash went away. She was sleeping better, she had more energy, and she. She felt a lot better. And I. I have that experience with people often. And then one woman said to me, you know what? This is the first time I felt good in years. In years. And I want to enjoy this for a while before then I add something else that's new. So she's going to come back for the hormones in a little bit. But, you know, she has her honeymoon period now, but she feels. She feels great. So I do a very abbreviated version. And then a lot of people feel so good that they choose to continue it, and we add the foods back in to not limit the foods, because it takes at least two weeks. I mean, somebody who's really ill, I like to go longer. But to convince people to do it, I say, anybody can do it for two weeks. And they can, and they do, and they're grateful. And, you know, one woman took two years for her to do it, because that was before I was strict. And she would come and she'd say, you know, but my hands hurt. Finally, like, she loved to play golf, and she couldn't grab the golf club anymore, her hands hurt so much, and she would. She would get a pain in her right side all the time. So I said, will you finally do the detox? Well, she did it, and she said, I feel so good. Why didn't you convince me to do it sooner?

Right. Definitely your fault.

Totally.

Well, I'll take. I don't care. As long as they feel good, I'll take the blame. I don't care.

All right, so the real question is, where can people find you? Where can people find that information? You've got so much to teach.

I have a lot of blogs, too. For 15 years, I've been blogging so it's the feelgoodagaininstitute.com be sure it's the Feel Good Again Institute. And you know, you can feel free to take the femalehormonequist.com. it's free. It's on my website. You'll figure out which hormone is the most important to work on and you'll get some education and advice. And I'm like, get the word out. Don't suffer in silence. Don't be drugged or dismissed. It's oftentimes your hormones and the toxins.

Yes, Lorraine, you said it beautifully. Don't be drugged or dismissed. And suffering is optional. So you know where we'll put the show notes that'll have the feelgood again? Institute.com. so we'll put that in the show notes and a Lorene, thank you for being here. This was awesome.

Thank you.

So much fun. You guys are the best. I listened to you and I listened to your summit and I just enjoyed it so much. And the two of you together are great, you know, magic, you know, but you're, you're both, you're great alone. But I'll tell you, there's a little magic there, you know.

Yeah. So thank you for being here and thanks to the listeners for joining us for another episode of the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. Our guest today is Dr. Lorraine Maida. And, and our fearless leader Ed joined us too, which is like awesome because we haven't seen him in a while. So thanks for being here.

Thanks.

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