Hormone Heroes
Testimonials from real people who have experienced bio-identical hormone therapy. Men and women share the symptoms they have experienced and the difference proper hormone replacement has made. Men discuss the advantages of testosterone and women discuss the benefits of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone therapy. The roles of thyroid, adrenal health, insulin resistance, intermittent fasting, and micronutrients are also discussed.
Hormone Heroes
Healing Beyond Bloodwork: How Two NPs Transformed Patient Care
Ever had a doctor tell you "your labs are fine" when you knew something was wrong? You're not alone. This eye-opening conversation with functional medicine practitioners Melissa Donahue and Kristen Kirby reveals the critical health issues hiding beneath "normal" test results.
The journey begins with Kristen's personal struggle—a medical professional herself who faced dismissal from multiple physicians despite debilitating fatigue and brain fog. Her path from frustrated patient to functional medicine practitioner offers hope for anyone caught in the diagnostic wilderness of unexplained symptoms. Through specialized testing, Melissa uncovered Hashimoto's thyroiditis, gut dysfunction, vitamin deficiencies, and chronic viral infections that standard bloodwork missed completely.
Their approach to type 2 diabetes challenges conventional wisdom with remarkable results. "Type 2 diabetes is completely reversible," Melissa explains, detailing how dietary interventions focusing on carbohydrate reduction rather than simple calorie restriction can achieve what medications alone cannot. The practitioners share practical, accessible solutions including supplements like berberine and chromium that research shows rival prescription medications with fewer side effects.
Perhaps most groundbreaking is their work with complex conditions like long COVID. Rather than the "stay home and hope you don't die" approach many experienced during the pandemic, these practitioners developed comprehensive protocols addressing the unique inflammatory patterns and symptoms of each patient. Their integration of treatments like ozone therapy—delivered through various methods including IV, ear, rectal, and vaginal application—demonstrates healing possibilities largely unexplored in conventional medicine.
The conversation culminates in powerful advice: "Advocate for yourself. Don't take 'everything is normal, it's all in your head' as an answer," urges Kristen. For healthcare providers, Melissa adds, "Be curious, go beyond what you've been taught... Everybody doesn't fit in a box."
Ready to transform your understanding of what optimal health truly means? Visit ffrhealth.com or call 765-756-5077 to learn more about functional medicine approaches that could reveal your path to wellness.
Welcome to Hormone Heroes, where I share testimonials from real people who have experienced bioidentical hormone therapy. Men and women share the symptoms they have experienced and the difference proper hormone replacement has made. I'm your host, dr Kelly Hopkins, and I have been in the functional medicine space for over 30 years, with a focus on hormones for 20 years. Please keep in mind this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult with your physician or practitioner for medical advice. Let's get started with today's guest. Hello and welcome to the podcast Today. I'm very, very excited to be talking to my two guests today, mostly because they have extensive experience in functional medicine, but also hormone replacement and then a big emphasis on gut health and diabetes, and so I want to welcome Melissa Donahue. She is a family nurse practitioner. Her practice is called FFR Health in Lafayette, indiana, and our other guest is Kristen Kirby. She is also a family nurse practitioner and she's also a clinical associate professor at Baylor School of Nursing. So welcome both of you. So, melissa, let's start with you. Tell us what FFR Health stands for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so FFR is Fit, Fueled, resolute, and the reason that we chose that name was because my husband and I actually opened our practice and he's a personal trainer. We knew that we needed to help the body be physically fit, fuel it with the right foods and be determined to make that a lifestyle rather than just a fad or something that was short term, and so that's the kind of what we've modeled our practice about.
Speaker 1:That sounds great. And then, kristen, tell us a little bit more about your history. Yeah, so my history.
Speaker 3:I am a family nurse practitioner. I've worked both private practice as well as federally qualified health centers. But after joining Baylor I decided to reach out to Melissa. I was really interested in doing more of the functional medicine, integrative health, more of a wellness model versus the sick model, and so I reached out to her to see if she might be interested in another nurse practitioner. So I do work one day a week with her at the clinic.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then your work with Baylor. Is that then online or?
Speaker 3:It is, it is. So I'm in Lafayette, indiana, as well. So I am with Baylor, their graduate program, the School of Nursing, full-time, and so I teach in our family nurse practitioner program. I teach nurses how to become nurse practitioners, but I do travel down there about four to five times a year, so whether that be to teach in person or to attend graduation with the students or, you know, meetings, things that we have, so usually four or five times a year I'm flying down to Texas to be in person.
Speaker 1:I hope you don't have to go. This time of year it's nice and hot. I'm actually going next week, so tell us how you two know each other Well.
Speaker 3:I was a patient of Melissa's first, so I was looking for someone to be able to get to the bottom of some like my own health issues, and I had gone to doctor after doctor basically being told everything looks normal, all your labs are fine, there's nothing really to be concerned about, kind of it's all in your head. And so I found Melissa and she became my primary care provider, which is why a couple of years later, when I started feeling better, I wanted to be able to do for other people what she had done for me.
Speaker 1:So were you already a nurse practitioner at the time?
Speaker 3:I've been a nurse practitioner since 2008.
Speaker 1:Okay, and do you feel like sharing some of your health issues that you sought Melissa out for Sure, sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had gone to her initially just with a lot of fatigue, brain fog. I assumed maybe my hormones were kind of a mess, maybe perimenopause I wasn't sure. I kind of thought maybe I had some something thyroid going on Again not really sure gut health, just kind of what I feel like these you know 30, 40, 50 year old women tend to all have, and so I had a lot of the same symptoms. I bonded multiple physicians that basically just said your labs are fine, everything is normal, we can't find anything. But then I went to Melissa and you know multiple things were uncovered, including, like Hashimoto's, thyroiditis and some gut health issues and vitamin deficiencies and just things that I really could do something about to live optimal health that no one really uncovered until Melissa uncovered it.
Speaker 1:Fantastic and I know you have a very fine approach with how you treat all your patients, but Kristen in particular. What do you remember seeing about her when you first met?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean a lot of women, myself included, kind of struggle with fatigue and brain fog, and it's usually multifaceted. There's a lot of different things going on, and so it really was just getting the right answers. And so I think a lot of providers don't even know where to start. They're not curious to figure out anything beyond the surface. If it's not something that's already in their wheelhouse to be able to identify and treat, identify and treat, they don't go looking for something else. And so, unfortunately, the answer for a lot of people is yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with you. Maybe you're depressed, right, that seems to be like the thing, and it's really not.
Speaker 2:There's other things underlying, and actually kind of in the beginning of my practice I wasn't familiar with chronic viral illnesses and hormones and other things. I had done a lot of endocrinology, but endocrinology doesn't actually treat like female hormones, which is crazy to me, like they just really don't. And so I was learning. Actually I was learning a lot around the time that Kristen and I met, and so we were kind of able to grow together, and when she was ready to come join our practice, she was a perfect fit. She had that curiosity to know more to dig deeper, to figure out what was the underlying cause, not just what did it look like on the surface. So it was great.
Speaker 1:So I think a lot of people listening will be very interested in hearing how you got to the bottom of her issues. So do you mind walking us through the details?
Speaker 2:So I kind of look at I look at everybody's symptoms. So I take a really really detailed history and that's what functional medicine does, like we're really looking all the way back to even before birth. Sometimes, you know, sometimes it's an issue of you know the illnesses that you had as a child. What is your family history? What toxins have you been exposed to? And those are things that you know. Those are history pieces that I need to be able to get to the bottom of what's going on with someone. And so we always start out with a really really good history, which I think is something that functional medicine really does differently. And then we look at labs. So kind of depending on what kind of symptoms there are, then I would order. So her main complaint was fatigue, right, and so I'm going to order labs that are going to look at what kind of things, what are the most common causes of people being fatigued? And so, at the thyroid, we look at some hormones, we look at vitamin levels, and then you know, once we get that information back, then we start to say, okay, well, we need vitamin D and we need vitamin B12. Maybe we need to do some things to support your thyroid a little bit. Not everybody who has Hashimoto's needs to be on thyroid medicine, and so really, just kind of looking at, you know what kind of things can we do to support your body, to heal it as much as possible, so that your body can do what it's supposed to do in the first place?
Speaker 2:And then at some point along the way I believe it, kristen we also were just like we're doing better, things are feeling better, like we're getting more energy, we're getting more like less brain fog, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:But we just weren't quite there and it seemed like he had already uncovered we're taken care of Right, so they're like they're good, they're stable, those numbers are good, and we're taken care of right, so they're like they're good, they're stable, those numbers are good, and we're seeing some improvement, but not to where we feel like she should have been yet. And so at that point then we did more labs to figure out, you know, is there something else underlying that's causing the symptoms? And that's a fairly common thing which can be kind of frustrating for patients. They're like well, we found all these things, we're trying to fix all these things, and I'm still not 100% Like I thought I would feel 100% by right, found all these things and we fix them, but usually, again, it's multifaceted and so really being able to just say, okay, let's go back to the drawing board, what have we not looked at yet, and then be able to go from there to get the rest of the answers.
Speaker 1:So, kristen, when you went through that first level of testing, can you tell us what the results were and what the treatment was up to this point?
Speaker 3:Yeah, from what I can remember anyways, this has probably been four or five years ago. It's been a while, but yeah, initially it was. I know I had a vitamin, a pretty significant vitamin D deficiency. I had a B12 deficiency, which I also then had the MTHFR gene mutation, where I can't methylate vitamins. That was uncovered, so I was taking all this B12, but not the right.
Speaker 1:So how did you find out about the MTHFR? What kind of testing, melissa?
Speaker 3:had done testing. Yeah, melissa, we just tested it in one of our lab tests, so I did that or she did that testing. So we uncovered the fact that I was taking the wrong B12. So I switched my B12. We did some gut testing, which so then I switched the B12, but then I still wasn't absorbing it well, so I actually ended up having to switch to injectable vitamin B12 so that I could absorb it better. I'm trying to think I did have chronic EBV and we're still kind of in the process of working on that, though the levels have continued to come down, but we're still working on that.
Speaker 1:And tell us what EBV stands for.
Speaker 3:That's the bar virus, so chronic mono, so sorry. And the one thing that's really helped virus, so chronic mono, so sorry and the one thing that's really helped I would say drastically helping me with feeling better, drastically with that is IV ozone. So we've been doing IV ozone. I think I've done 1012 treatments now of that and that's probably what's pushing you over the edge of just feeling so, so much better. So we need to do labs again and see what quantitatively it still looks like. But it doesn't really matter because I feel so much better so I don't care. So let's see. We had chronic mono, some hormone challenges, vitamin deficiencies gut stuff.
Speaker 1:Did you do anything about hormones? Were you perimenopausal?
Speaker 3:Yeah, not initially, I didn't. I just had excess estrogen compared to progesterone, so estrogen dominance. But no, initially I didn't. I just have excess estrogen compared to progesterone, so estrogen dominance. But no, initially I wanted to kind of wait it out, put it on hold. Then, in the fall, I did start some progesterone, only to help reset that balance. And again by the fall, by the end of the fall, I was feeling so much better with it that I stopped the progesterone and I'm good. I'm good now with that, yeah.
Speaker 1:How old are you Kristen? With that? So yeah, how old are you Kristen? 43. I'll be 44 in August, okay, and are your periods still normal, regular, okay, good, I want to circle back in a minute for the IV, ozone.
Speaker 2:I know you guys do a lot of ozone therapy in your clinic, so if I don't remember, remind me to circle back on that, go ahead yes, it's very common for women starting around age 40 to start losing progesterone, and so it's kind of this subtle fade and like women become more anxious, you start not being able to thermoregulate as well, but like the changes are just really subtle a lot of times and so, like at 40, nobody thinks about menopause, and so, especially if your mom or your grandma didn't go through menopause until they were in their 50s, and so I think you know being able to look at that progesterone piece and say, oh, this is why I'm not sleeping great, or you know, whatever but a lot of women do become more in an estrogen dominant state, you know, between that 40 to 50 age mark.
Speaker 1:Definitely so. Kristen, after you said, you did some progesterone, some vitamin therapy, some IV ozone, anything else, what'd you say, melissa?
Speaker 2:Lots of other things. We've done lots of other things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we've done lots of different supplements and I've done some IV infusions like vitamin infusions. Really it's just been kind of tweaking to get exactly exactly what I need. I can't remember every like all the details of all of it. There's been multiple things over the last three or four years to kind of get me where I am now. Yes, Wonderful.
Speaker 1:So, melissa, I know that you have a deep background in diabetes and things like that. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think no one is interested in endocrinology because it's considered like a kind of a boring field and it's also extremely difficult, like I'm sure that Kristen can tell you. From an academic standpoint it is very complicated. And so I was an ER nurse for 15 years, graduating with my NP. I really wanted to go into like cardiology, maybe ER. Just I knew I wanted to do a special Endo was definitely not on my radar. I went for a job interview, actually for an OBGYN position, and they said, well, we've actually already filled that position, but we do have a position in endocrinology if you'd be interested, and I was like, well, let me spend some time there and see if that is something that interests me. I got put with an awesome nurse practitioner down in Indianapolis and I did pretty much all of my clinicals my last semester with her with the intention of like, hey, if I like this, I'm going to go ahead and take this job. And I mean she thought outside the box, her patients loved her, she just she was very forward thinking and I learned so much from her. Her name was Gretchen and so I said you know, I think that I can like this, I think that this is something that I can enjoy.
Speaker 2:Started out in endo, within a couple of months, I was like this is not what I thought it was going to be, and I was very discouraged by the fact that people weren't getting well. I was just adding more medicines. I was not. I didn't feel like I was helping them. They were coming because their primary care doctor told them that they had to and they didn't want to manage their diabetes or whatever. And I remembered a video that I had watched in college. It was a TED Talk by Dr Sarah Hallberg and she seemed like she loved what she did and it was about how we can actually reverse type two diabetes with diet. And it intrigued me and I took a really, really deep dive into diet. I actually became a ketogenic specialist. I'm a certified ketogenic specialist. I don't believe that keto is for everyone, but I think it's right for a lot of people and I think it's a really beneficial thing. That is kind of has a lot of negative press and a lot of people kind of sweeping under the rug and it's just it's not. And so at that point my practice took a shift. People started getting better. I was taking them off their medicines. They were losing weight. They were telling their friends you got to go see Melissa because you want to lose weight, you got to go see Melissa. And so I was like, well, I didn't study weight loss, I studied diet. So I actually went and got obesity medicine certified as well, because not everybody does well with keto, and so I needed to have more tools in my toolbox for people who needed to lose weight but maybe didn't qualify for certain medications or who needed a different type of diet. And so that is like.
Speaker 2:The other half of my background is obesity medicine, and it's very satisfying to help people who literally have tried everything to see them be able to meet their goals and to be able to make sustainable life change where they are not just yo-yoing up and down and trying you know this or that that doesn't work, like they're really able to effectively lose weight because we're not just looking at it from a number on a scale perspective.
Speaker 2:And so then I started to kind of looking at it from a number on a scale perspective, and so then I started to kind of look at everything that I was doing a little bit differently and I learned.
Speaker 2:I started doing my own research, challenged by patients who are coming in and saying, hey, can you run this lab? And I'm like I don't even know what that lab is better yet how to interpret it. Sure, I'll look it up, you know, cause if I'm ordering it I've got to be able to interpret it. And so I was able to really learn a whole nother side of thyroid care that was just being completely ignored by the endocrinology world. And again, my patients were getting better and they were sending their friends and it just, you know, it was just kind of one of those things where it was so different. I loved what I did again because I actually felt like I was helping people again. And then God called us into opening our own practice, and so that has just kind of trickled over into and grown into so many other things now. That's so cool.
Speaker 1:So for someone that's listening, that's not medical. But they have type two diabetes and maybe they're taking metformin or ozempic or wagovi or you know. You see all these commercials and we're inundated with all this stuff. Can you walk someone kind of maybe at a junior high level, like what type two diabetes actually is, how it's caused or what causes it, and then the typical medical route of doing things versus your way of doing things?
Speaker 2:So type two diabetes, the definition is insulin resistance and impaired glucose metabolism. Insulin resistance and impaired glucose metabolism and so it is an inability by your body to use the insulin correctly to be able to get glucose into your cell. Insulin is the key that allows your glucose to get into your cell to be used for energy, and glucose is sugar. Glucose is sugar. Yeah, yeah, okay. So anything that is carbohydrate turns into sugar in your body. So disclaimer not everything, so most carbohydrates. So there are like sugar, alcohols and some other things, but that don't turn into sugar. But for the most part, anything that is carbohydrate turns into sugar in your body, which is a really tough concept for a lot of people to understand. They're like well, I don't eat sugar. Well, you do, you just don't realize that it's sugar, right. So if there's an impairment in the body's ability to use glucose or insulin effectively, then there's something there that's blocking it, right. And so type 2 diabetes is a completely reversible condition, especially if you haven't been on medicine that impairs your pancreas from working, if it hasn't, you know, kind of burnt it out and so far into the disease that you have actually burnt out your pancreas.
Speaker 2:I think that a lot of the medicines that are available for diabetes, or at least some of them, especially the newer ones, are very good tools that can be used to aid in the process of reversing the condition. But if you are only taking the medicine and you are not addressing the lifestyle, you will not reverse your disease. You won't. Type 2 diabetes can be caused by environmental toxins. It can be caused by overeating All of these sugar-sweetened beverages that everybody's consuming. Oh my goodness, you're just killing your liver and your pancreas. It cannot handle it. There's genetic components, it's multifaceted, right, and so there's a lot of different things that can play into this.
Speaker 2:But true, type 2 diabetes is a reversible condition, and so if we can reset the metabolism by decreasing the need for sugar, so decreasing the intake of sugar in your diet so sugar and carbohydrates then we lower your need for insulin and then your body can start using up what it.
Speaker 2:Then we lower your need for insulin and then your body can start using up what it's got kind of extra hanging out, and as you burn that off, you'll burn off your body fat to use that as fuel, and so as that process improves, then I will actually put people in remission.
Speaker 2:So if they have if we get them to an A1C less than 5.7, and Kristen andI do insulin resistance scores. So we actually do kind of the next step up, like not just do you have diabetes, but are you going to get diabetes? And if their insulin resistance score is less than 1.9, and they're able to maintain that with no medication for a year, I will say that they have a history of type two diabetes but it's not an active problem. Just like you can have remission with cancer, you can have remission of something. If there is no evidence that this exists anymore and you are able to maintain it, you know, with the lifestyle changes that you've made, then I will say this does no longer define you. This is a part of your history and not a part of your present.
Speaker 1:So, Melissa, it's very obvious that you have to have a patient willing to make lifestyle changes. I think probably over 50% of people that are type 2 diabetic are just looking for the next pill, the next injection. They don't want to do the hard work required.
Speaker 2:I actually don't know that I agree with that. So because? Because I think that people have been given the wrong tools. So gotcha. A lot of people actually would be willing to make the changes. But when your doctor just says you need to eat less calories and you need to work out, but they give them no guidance of like, what do I do? I don't know how to work out. I've never worked out in my life. I don't know what to eat. How do I count my calories?
Speaker 2:Decreasing calories doesn't reverse type two diabetes. Decreasing carbs does, and unfortunately, our diabetes education in this country actually encourages people to eat carbohydrates, which is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. And that recently, just within the last five years, the ADA actually has adjusted their guidelines and said oh, we probably should be telling people to eat less carbs than what we have been, but they're still not encouraging people to eat the amount of carbs that are actually able to reverse the condition, which is it's just, it's hard, because then people don't know who to believe, they don't know what to believe, they're tired of being lied to, they're tired of being told stuff that didn't help them Right, always putting the blame back on a patient like well, obviously you're not eating right or obviously you're lying about how much sugar you're eating. That's not true. Maybe they don't even know what sugar is. Maybe they don't even know that carbohydrates turn into sugar in their diet, and so you know?
Speaker 2:A lot of it is education. So much of it is just teaching the patient to advocate for themselves and giving them the tools that they need so that they can make an informed decision every time that they sit down at the table, that they can know what is the best exercise for me If I want to lose weight, if I want to control my blood sugars. The time of day matters. What kind of exercise you're doing matters. Do you eat before or after it matters. And but people don't know that because nobody's telling them. They're right, doctor is telling them who doesn't exercise, who smokes and doesn't. You know. They're telling them, yeah, go eat less and exercise more. You know, and it's just not helpful.
Speaker 1:So yeah, sure, so you get to the bottom of their genetics, environmental toxins and lifestyle. Then do you go ahead and use some of the tools, like the GLP-1 medications that formin, berberine, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so in our practice we really respect what the patient wants, and so we have people who come in who say I want no pharmaceuticals, I only want to do like supplements and diet and whatever. I don't want any pharmaceuticals, and we absolutely respect that. So we do everything in our toolbox that we can that helps to. You know, if we're talking about diabetes still, that helps to lower insulin resistance, that cuts cravings. We try to help them learn how to eat in a way that is going to support their metabolism, that's going to burn energy better, or you're going to teach them how to exercise in a way that they can again burn the calories that they want to burn. If you are depriving yourself of food and you're just starving all the time and thinking about food all the time, you will not sustain anything that you have done, and so we have to support those things and we've got lots of tools, we have lots of supplements, we have lots of you know, dietary changes that we can make, and we kind of have to meet the patient where they are. We also have some patients who are like just give me the drugs Like I, of course, yeah, all my diabetes that are just drugs.
Speaker 2:And some start off like that and we're like, okay, here's the drugs, we're going to start to see improvement right now. However, how did you get here in the first place? You're going to be right there again if we don't fix the underlying cause. And so once we have established that relationship with a patient and built the trust to say, hey, I really want what's best for you, not just to see the numbers get better, I want to know that you are getting healthier. What do you have to live a long, healthy life for? Then we can start saying, okay, now that we're seeing some improvement, we're going to sustain this. And we, you know, if we want to, we're going to try to wean off of this medicine. What are we going to do to make sure that you can sustain this lifelong? And that's where we really get into the diet and the supplements and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:So just for some practical advice for somebody that may be listening in Germany, for example what supplements would you suggest?
Speaker 2:would be helpful. Yeah, great success with Berberine. It's actually been studied head to head with metformin and basically equal dosing to metformin. It decreases liver production of sugar, which is a huge thing, because if we can reduce the liver production of sugar you don't need as much insulin and you're not fighting against yourself all the time. So berberine is a huge one. It also helps with some of the inflammatory cardiovascular markers like ApoB and lipoprotein A, which are like more advanced lipid things where metformin doesn't Much lower side effects. So berberine is a great thing. So the mechanism of action of metformin isn't necessarily bad. It's just that a lot of times it's generic and it's made poorly and it doesn't hit the full circle of what it would hit with, like berberine would.
Speaker 2:Chromium is another one. Chromium is excellent for carbohydrate cravings. If you are like all I can think about is sugar, or I just want to go get a piece of bread, then chromium may be really, really helpful at just cutting down those cravings. Some people do great at 200 micrograms a day. Some people have to go all the way up to a thousand. Some people do great at 200 micrograms a day. Some people have to go all the way up to a thousand, and so those are really probably my top two as far as supplements that help with diabetes.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's very helpful and I think it'll speak to someone that's listening. So, kristen, what's your current regimen these days?
Speaker 3:For myself, yeah, let's see current regimen these days For myself. Yeah, let's see Current regimen of supplements I currently take. I do a vitamin B12 injection once a week. Vitamin D I have to think through all my supplements. I take a digestive enzyme because I do not have a gallbladder and so digestive enzyme is excellent to help keep cholesterol levels down, triglycerides, all that, so I take a digestive enzyme there with my meals. I should have prepared for this and brought my supplements in here. What else do I take? Magnesium I take magnesium in the evenings before bed. I take LDN for my Hashimoto's to help with like autoimmune, like inflammatory markers. Tell us what LDN is Low dose naltrexone. Tell us what LDN is Low-dose naltrexone, and so that is used oftentimes with autoimmune processes to help with inflammation and joint pain, and for me it's Hashimoto's. It's to help get that antibody level down. I'm trying to think through my medicine.
Speaker 1:And then describe for those of us that don't know what is Hashimoto's.
Speaker 3:Hashimoto's is an autoimmune thyroid condition, so you can be tested for Hashimoto's a couple of different ways. There's the TPO antibodies as well as the thyroglobulin antibody, and so either one of those if they are positive or higher than normal would indicate that you potentially have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Now your thyroid can still be functioning just normal. Your TSH or T3, t4 can all be normal, but you still can have an underlying autoimmune process beneath there, that where your body's attacking your own thyroid. So for me, that's exactly my case. My thyroid levels are fine, my thyroid function's fine, but there's an autoimmune process kind of behind the scenes that I want to make sure it continues to function well. Therefore, we need to get that autoimmune process at bay.
Speaker 1:Which is a great segue into what causes Hashimoto's and gut health and things like that. Is that anything you were able to get to the bottom of with your own?
Speaker 3:Well, we're still working on that, I mean still working on that in terms of gut health and with your own testing. Well, we're still working on that. I mean still working on that in terms of gut health and Hashimoto's. But yeah, we are continuing to see that TPO antibody continue to decrease over time. It's been maybe two, three years at this point, and we have seen an even bigger jump since the IVO zone as well, so I think that has helped significantly.
Speaker 1:What's your history with gut health? Your own personal history. My own personal history.
Speaker 3:I actually have had IBS or what was you know what? The traditional medicine has coined IBS. Pretty much my life which is like my entire life like, since I was like a kid or a teenager and so at an early like young or high, like teen, 19, 20, 21 year old, I was put on a medication for IBS and never, no one ever really cared why I had it. It was just like, oh, you have IBS here, take this medication. And so again just a deeper dive into the gut microbiome to figure out what in the world? Why do I have IBS? Is there something I can do about fixing that so that I can stop taking the IBS medication? And I don't have that lab pulled up. At the moment I can't even remember what we determined it is. I know I had it and my daughter had the testing as well, but ultimately I was able to go off of the IBS medication once I was able to fix some of the microbiome health.
Speaker 1:Just generally how did you fix your microbiome?
Speaker 3:Well, what we use in the clinic. We work with a specialty lab called Genova Diagnostics and the Genova Diagnostics we have the ability to do. It's a stool test where they send you a kit in the mail and they give you instructions on, you know, collection of stool and how much to put in each tube, and then they do this entire. You know it's a multi-page breakdown and so it breaks it down into kind of five pillars, and so it looks at SIBO leaky gut. It looks at malabsorption, maldigestion. It looks at inflammation markers.
Speaker 3:It looks at infection, parasites whether you know whether it's bacterial, viral parasites, all that and they give you this pretty comprehensive feedback in terms of even your prebiotics, probiotics, all of that. And then they also which great, which you know what I love about them is they offer us 30 minute consultations when we have this massive lab test in front of us. We can consult with the physicians there and they can explain what every single thing means to ensure that we're treating the patient appropriately. They give lots of different examples of things we can use, based on whatever pillar of the patient has. That's abnormal, and so that's what. If I remember right, that's what we did for me in looking at that we use that often for patients.
Speaker 1:Yes, we do a lot of stool testing in our clinic as well. Have you been tested for food sensitivities or anything like that?
Speaker 3:I have not officially been tested for food sensitivities. Right after my son was born, I knew I was sensitive to something. I lost about 60 pounds within about six months and it was not all baby weight and I went to again. Well, this is when, like the beginning of all my health stuff started. I went to multiple physicians. I went to an allergist. They kept telling me nothing was wrong. I kept saying I think it's something I'm eating, I think it's something food related, and so I started food journaling, it on my own. I started food journaling and I actually was able to realize that it was soy, and so I have. I call it an allergy. It's probably more sensitivity, but either way, I have to avoid soy in my diet or else I have major GI upset, which that's now what my daughter has as well.
Speaker 1:So Okay, yeah, so the elimination diet's hard, you know, and it takes some discipline on the part of the patient to figure that out. We do IgG testing, you know, via blood a lot with Allatest and some others, so that would be interesting to find out. Medicine approach because you've got the personal experience, and then the experience with Melissa, that you're helping to create a whole new generation of open-minded and functionally minded nurse practitioners. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:I love it. I will say, as I'm grading our students, soap notes and just different feedback for the students. So often I find myself giving them feedback on have you considered this? Have you looked for vitamin deficiencies? Have you considered whatever? I mean Sewell testing, you know, consider, you know, look up Genova diagnostics, look up. I'm constantly giving them little tidbits of information like that so often. We always do an introduction on every class every semester and I always say you know I work in, you know, like an integrative health, wellness, functional medicine, whatever. Every semester I usually get three to five students who will reach out and say Can I meet with you? I want to know more about this. This is what I want to do. In fact, I have multiple students right now all over the country in their own clinical sites and functional medicine, and so they have a big interest in just treating root cause medicine instead of just slapping a bandaid on something, and so I know a lot of students have a great interest in this field.
Speaker 1:You're in a wonderful position to help promote that. Melissa, I'd like to ask you more about your approach for gut health. Yeah, so just tell me how you go about it. Do you kind of look at everybody or go by symptoms or what's your approach?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think a lot of functional medicine providers kind of start with the gut because the immune system and hormones it is a signaling mechanism for the hormones and everything. I go a little bit more by symptoms. So I actually you know hormones and everything. I go a little bit more by symptoms. So I actually, you know, if that is like an overriding symptom in their history, I start with the gut. If there's something else that I feel just takes precedence, I'll start there instead.
Speaker 2:I think the testing is really important. So we use Genova, we use Vibrant. There's some other labs like specialty labs that we use to just give us more information and I will say, like, gut health is a newer thing. So this is something that the research has probably been there for a while, but we really didn't know a lot about it and it's an evolving field. So we're learning more every day about how the gut affects everything else and so, yeah, you kind of approach it from just a lab standpoint.
Speaker 2:There's some basic supplements that I find are just really beneficial for so many people that a lot of times I'll say, okay, you've got these symptoms, let's just start you on this and see if it helps.
Speaker 2:Let's see how much we can do with just this, and then we can kind of get down to the nitty gritty as far as okay, well, you need these microbiomes coming in or a little extra of some bad bacteria in your gut, so let's work on getting that down. Maybe there's some candida or some molds, just some other things. So, yeah, we have to look at it. I think labs are really helpful to just be able to get us the right answers. But there are some kind of general things that I think that we can do to say okay, let's just see how much better we can get you. Not everybody can afford the testing. It's not covered by insurance usually, and so it can be pretty costly. So sometimes we have to do a little bit of like well, based on your symptoms, I'm going to assume that it's this and let's just try some things.
Speaker 1:So for someone that couldn't afford the testing, what supplements would you suggest?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think an IgG product actually is usually the first thing that I start with, just because it helps with the immune system. So it supports your immune system. It also helps to promote the good bacteria in the gut and it helps to decrease the bad bacteria in the gut as well, as then starting to kind of heal that lining if they have any type of leaky gut, especially if they have any type of autoimmune process long COVID, any type of thing that would be maybe impairing their immune system. That's kind of my first go-to and then, beyond that, you know kind of looking at do you have a gallbladder? Do you need to be on digestive enzymes? Have you ever had issues with yeast or candida? Maybe we need to address that specifically or whatever. So, and then you know, if they've got diarrhea, the add-on things are different than if they have constipation as an ongoing issue.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so, practically speaking, once again, the three of us are medically minded. But what is an IgG product?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's immunoglobulins which helps to. It just helps to support your immune system, and they're derived from different places. Bovine is one option, but we use either Mega IgG from Microbiome or SBI Protect, one of my two favorite go-tos and I find, especially with certain conditions like long COVID or maybe a chronic viral type of illness or just kind of general like I just don't feel great in my gut the SBI Protect usually makes a big difference and we use the IgG products for our chronic viral people too, because it actually works as a great binder to get rid of the like the die off of the viruses.
Speaker 1:So that is with the whole COVID thing. I know you have a lot of experience with dealing with patients that have long-term effects from those types of viruses. Can you give us kind of a walkthrough of a treatment protocol you use for those type patients?
Speaker 2:The symptoms that I see are so varied that it's hard to just say like this is my protocol, because people may have tachycardia, other people have severe brain fog, other people have low iron, other people I mean, they're like their gut is wrecked. Other people, like suddenly develop hypertension and type two diabetes, and so the treatment is really really, really specific based on the symptoms, and so we have a whole panel that we use and I actually developed an algorithm as we were going through. This was all new, like I started our. We started our practice in the middle of COVID Like I literally walked away from a really stable job into I don't know, in the middle of COVID, and so one of the things that was very attractive to us for other people was that we were treating COVID. We weren't just telling people, stay home and hope you don't die, or now you're bad enough, go to the hospital and hope they don't intubate you. We were actually like aggressively treating it from the moment of symptoms or the moment of exposure, and people were staying out of the hospital. We didn't have people going to a hospital and dying and it was awesome, and so that kind of got a lot of people interested in what we were doing and then, as COVID went on, then we had long COVID and so nobody's treating those people either. Or if they are treating them, they're treating them with these study drugs and I'm like it's just, it's missing the point, like we already know a lot of things. We need to be treating the things. So we know COVID causes increased cytokine production, so inflammation in your system, but all of those cytokines are treated differently.
Speaker 2:So if I want to treat a certain one, I've got to use one supplement and if I got another one that's elevated, I'm using another supplement because it affects a different part of the body. I would say like, basically, if somebody comes in and they think that they have long COVID or they have, well, let's just stick to long COVID. The other long viruses are a little bit different. But like, if they're like, yeah, I'm pretty sure I've got long COVID, I order a bunch of labs because I got to have information, because the treatment is so different based on whatever it is we're dealing with, and I start everyone on ivermectin and that's weight-based dosing and I usually have them do that for 30 days. A lot of times I will also have them do a very low dose steroid and the combination of those two things I have found really gets most people about 75% better within the 30 days. And then I have the rest of the information.
Speaker 2:I need to be able to fine tune their treatment and say, okay, we just need to continue with the ivermectin. Or oh look, your iron's low. No wonder you have brain fog. Oh look, your blood sugars are high, or whatever. There's so many things that can be from COVID. Some people have only neurologic effects, some people have only cardiac effects, some people have only respiratory effects, and so you really have to treat it very individually based on whatever the symptoms are. But we've had people come back who had long COVID pulmonary fibrosis that we put on ivermectin for 90 days. They had repeat CAT scans and it's completely gone. The pulmonologist are like what did you do?
Speaker 3:We've also had high fecal calprotectins with people who are currently experiencing COVID or long COVID, like I have COVID right now and I had this GI effects and fecal calprotectins 800, 1,000, where normally we would almost panic and get them into GI ASAP for a colonoscopy. We can put them on six weeks of treatment and have a repeat calprotectin done and it's back to normal. The inflammation is wrecking their gut as well, wow.
Speaker 1:You girls are incredible. That's so awesome.
Speaker 2:It's not the same across the board, but we have so many positive outcomes that, you know, I feel like we're always, you know, trying to learn okay, it didn't work for this person, what else can we do? You know, the overwhelming majority is positive. People get better, yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell me a little bit about what you're doing with ozone therapy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So actually one of my patients came to me and said when are you going to start having IV ozone available? And I was like, well, I can't afford it. I'd love to, but it's a really nice spot but I can't afford it. And she said well, I took my husband to Germany 20 years ago to get ozone when he had prostate cancer. It improved his quality of life and it increased the length of his life. So I got to spend extra time with him and I want you to have, and so she actually helped us get our ozone machine and get a nurse and training and everything. And so IV ozone is.
Speaker 2:Most people have a negative connotation with ozone because we hear all this bad stuff environmentally about it. Well, ozone in the environment is very different than ozone in your body and so we never want to breathe in ozone. We don't want to breathe it in. But actually when you mix it with blood it becomes oxygen and hydrogen peroxide therapy and so we get a high oxygen concentration that helps to decrease inflammation. It promotes healing. And then we get hydrogen peroxide because the O3 doesn't like to be O3. It wants to be O, and so that third molecule is going to do something because it's highly reactive, it doesn't want to be O3. And so it'll actually bind to water in your bud and make H2O2, which is hydrogen peroxide, and then those other two molecules then just become oxygen, and so the blood that we actually re-infuse into your body, we actually use your own blood, is so light in color, it's beautiful, bright red blood instead of dark red blood, and we re-infuse that in and it does a beautiful job of reducing inflammation.
Speaker 2:There are lots and lots of studies I think over 25,000 studies on medical ozone and the benefits. We do IV ozone. We do ear ozone, which is good for chronic ear infections, chronic sinus infections, migraine, tinnitus, anything neurologic. So autism is one of the big things. Neurologic Lyme is another thing that we can do with ear ozone. There's also rectal and vaginal ozone that we do, and rectal and vaginal actually is. Those are very I would say they're very specific treatments but the things that actually are far reaching. So rectal ozone helps more than just things that are happening in the rectum or the pelvis. We're seeing benefits in other areas as well.
Speaker 1:I think that it's obvious that it would help anybody with gut issues, especially lower GI issues, just to be very basic about it, but you're saying it can even help more systemic issues.
Speaker 2:Like the rectum and the vaginal canal are very they're very vascular. It's a mucosal lining, and so the O3 just gets so readily absorbed that you're going to get a really great local effect, but you're also going to get a really great systemic effect. So even if you're trying to heal something else, you know you're going to get more of that effect right there where you're infusing it, but then you're going to get some systemic effect as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Wow, that's incredible. And then how about vaginally? What would that be used for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so actually, let me just give you an example. We have a patient that I actually just knew her she was not a patient of mine and I saw her Facebook post that she was in so much pain all the time. She was literally coming home from work and just curling up in a ball. She had terrible endometriosis, had been told that she could never have children and they actually were planning on doing a complete hysterectomy on her. They had told like there's nothing else we can do for you. This is, this is the option we need to take it all out, knowing like she's never had children but her heart desires to be able to have children.
Speaker 2:But she was in so much pain she was just ready, like, like, whatever, let's do, whatever we got to do. We did, I want to say six weeks of vaginal ozone three times a week, and she actually went and we got an ultrasound done and they ended up just doing a DNC instead of a hysterectomy. She called me later and said for the first time in my life, my ultrasound showed that my fallopian tubes were open. She said, after the first treatment I stopped going home and laying in a ball crying because I was in so much pain, I just like that, and she's got nothing. Like it is amazing, like it's phenomenal, what the potential of these treatments are.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. What about, back to the ear, ozone therapy? What about someone that is struggling with dizziness? Those types of issues, food help yes, okay, very cool. Well, is there anything else in your clinic that we need to talk about? This has been so interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, we actually have. My husband and I knew that we were supposed to treat the whole person, and so we actually have a full gym in our office. We have a pastoral counselor because we can treat the physical side of things but if we're not dealing with the psychological, emotional and spiritual side of things, then we're not treating the whole person. And so we do have a counselor in our office as well. Wow, diabetes education, nutrition counseling.
Speaker 2:We do STEM pod, which is an electrical stimulation device that helps with specific nerve issues, generally pain, so we use it for neuropathy, peripheral neuropathy with diabetes. Carpal tunnel we can use that for resetting. The vagal nerve is actually a big gut issue and there's so many different things that that can be used for. All of our vitamin infusions are kind of specific. We do specific protocols for cancer treatment. We do specific protocols for NAD infusions that help with neuro regeneration, for NAD infusions that help with neuro regeneration, and we just use a lot of supplements as well as nutrition to just their tools. Right, they're all tools that we have in our tool bag to be able to get to optimal health.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, we're always, always, always, always learning. I don't think there's a single day that Kristen and I don't sit there and Allie is our new nurse practitioner, that we don't sit there and say, like I didn't learn anything today, like researching and just you know, learning the next thing, what's going to help, what's going to help our patients? And you know the field of really medicine, but functional medicine, alternative medicine, is growing and some of it's really just going back to the roots, the stuff that we've known forever and has just been kind of shoved under the rug, the herbs and nutritions. You know, we just kind of shoved it under the rug and said, yeah, just eat the normal American diet. Well, we all know that's killing us now, so let's do something about it. You know, and so Right.
Speaker 1:So what is your website, Melissa? So?
Speaker 2:what is your website, melissa? That ffrhealthcom, and we have services on there as well as all the providers and just different things that we do.
Speaker 1:So let me make sure we got all that. It's ffrhealthcom. Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 2:Okay, and then what is your phone number? 765-756-5077.
Speaker 1:So 765-756-5077 for anyone that would like to visit Melissa or Kristen at the FFR Health Clinic. Who knows, you may have someone flying over from England or somewhere who knows Well.
Speaker 3:I think we finally got our. Wait list is down to very low, if not nothing.
Speaker 1:Oh good, good Very long, I'm sure, once the word gets out, because you have a very interesting and unique approach that not very many places offer. So that's wonderful. You guys are, I usually ask, as a hormone hero, but I think I need to expand that for this podcast as a functional medicine hero. Is there any just lasting words that you'd like to give us? Kristen, we'll do you first.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think what I would say to people out there is just advocate for yourself, advocate for yourself, advocate for your health. Don't, if you feel like something is wrong with you, find someone who will listen to you. Don't take that everything is normal, you're fine, it's all in your head. As an answer. You know yourself better than anybody else, so listen to your gut. That's great advice.
Speaker 1:And how about you, Melissa?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was actually going to say the same thing from a provider standpoint. Like, guys, be curious, go beyond what you've been taught, Don't be afraid to spend a little extra time doing some research and expanding your knowledge. Everybody doesn't fit in a box. Our patients don't fit in a box and as health care providers, we have to be willing to say, huh, you don't fit in the box. What can I do different for you? And really listen to your patients. Don't blow people off.
Speaker 2:I think that has been probably the number one thing that we hear in our clinic is ah, somebody finally listened to me. Yes, and you know, we just hear that all the time, and you gave me my life back and so, yeah, I think you know from a patient standpoint, definitely advocating for yourself. You know, for all health care providers, even. You know from providers all the way down to you know even just people working in the offices, so you know all levels. We all need to be curious, we need to listen to our patients, we need to make sure that they are being heard, and sometimes that takes a little bit more work on our part.
Speaker 1:Yes, and a little bit more time. I think the biggest challenge is people would love to advocate for themselves. It's finding someone like you that you're the unique piece to this. I think a lot of people would like to do more for their health and they know that the answers they're getting aren't the right ones, not getting to the root cause of things so well. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time today and you're both very busy, beautiful, educated women, so I just appreciate you guys spending time with me today. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Hormone Heroes. Take a moment to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. While you are there, help us spread the word by leaving a rating and a review. If you would like to share your bioidentical hormone story or need help finding a physician in your area, please email us at drkelly at hormoneheroesorg that's D-R-K-E-L-L-Y. At H-O-R-M-O-N-E-H-E-R-O-E-S dot org. We want you to be a hormone hero.
