SPEAKER_00: 0:03

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. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today we are very fortunate to have the beautiful Dr. Jen Mann. She is a naturopath in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she is the founder and lead naturopathic doctor at Nova Wellness. So welcome, Dr. Mann. Oh, thank you, Dr. Kelly. So glad to be here. I am very excited to talk to you. Naturopath physicians are so needed and wanted, especially when you're going away from all only allopathic medicine. And so to offer other alternatives and to, I know you specialize at getting to the root cause of issues and things like that. So where are you from? Where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_01: 1:30

Yeah, I grew up outside of Chicago, a northwest suburb. Families from the Midwest. You know, my parents are from Michigan. Then I grew up outside of Chicago and I did my undergrad in Minnesota. So very Midwest roots.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43

Did you want to go somewhere coastal or warmer? What took you to San Francisco?

SPEAKER_01: 1:48

Yeah, so I played water polo in college. Wow. And um in the Midwest, we're not known for water polo, but we we went to play at UC Santa Cruz, a tournament. And if you've ever been to UC Santa Cruz's campus, you'll see the pool is like up above the campus and it looks out the whole beautiful campus and out over the ocean. Wow. I was like in awe and I was like, I need to live here. I didn't double. You could live like this.

SPEAKER_00: 2:17

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01: 2:17

You made that happen. Yeah. Then I was like, I'm gonna make that happen. And then it was that.

SPEAKER_00: 2:23

Well, just give us a little history on before we get into Nova wellness. Just give us a little history on yourself and the health issues you ran across.

SPEAKER_01: 2:34

Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, there's that whole concept or archetype of the wounded healer. And I will say that has been my path. Like my path into medicine was through my own health issues. I had the whole gamut and really had to go through and heal myself. And in that process, really learned how to become a good doctor. But my health issues started when I was probably around 12. I started getting depression. I had painful periods from the first time I had my period. And things just progressed in a downward spiral. There were certain turning points where things got worse. Like after a trip to the Amazon on a study abroad program in college, my gut got really sick there. But before that, I'd had depression, fatigue, kind of a low lethargy. And then things spiraled down after that. And my first attempt, like most people, was to go to conventional medicine. I went on antidepressants. I went to very cognitive behavioral therapy, was just kind of exercising, thought I was eating well, and just kept getting worse and worse and just pushing through more and more and more.

SPEAKER_00: 3:40

So as a teenager, you were already struggling with regular periods and gut issues. And gut issues and eczema. Did you have any family history of those types of issues?

SPEAKER_01: 3:54

Yes, my mom's family has a ton of autoimmunity. Really arthritis, psoriatic arthritis. So there's a lot of that on that side of the family.

SPEAKER_00: 4:04

Tell us a little bit about what conventional medicine offered or didn't offer.

SPEAKER_01: 4:09

Yeah, for myself, you know, and I was very open to it at the time. I wanted it to work. I went on a few different antidepressants. They were not helping. I did do like a cognitive behavioral therapy program through Kaiser at the time that did help. And then I remember trying to get off the antidepressants in my early 20s and getting all the side effects from coming off of them the brain zaps, the depression, the dizziness, being told I was just had vertigo and was making all that up, but I was really having withdrawals from the medications. You know, so I was really trying to make it work. And in a certain way, I was more functional. I wasn't having panic attacks all the time, but I wasn't well.

SPEAKER_00: 4:52

Yeah. So what was the bridge from experiencing all of that to becoming a naturopath?

SPEAKER_01: 4:59

Well, I was doing what a lot of people do, and especially a lot of women do, is just keep pushing through. I was kind of like, well, I guess this is just as good as it gets. I'm gonna make the best of it. I'll take naps whenever I can. I'll I remember being at a concert hall and just taking a nap in the back of the concert hall. You know, just like making do, uh-huh, thinking like this is good enough. And how I got to become a naturopath was actually more of a calling. Like I was studying to become a medical doctor and I was applying and taking the UmCAT. And then my friend was like, you should really go visit a naturopathic medical school. And she lived in Portland, so I went to visit the school there, and I was just like blown away. I was like, Oh, if I could develop medicine, this is what I would create. I thought the philosophy is so beautiful. I love that it believed we are naturally healthy and we just need to bring balance to get back to that. I love that it used nature to heal. I love that it was about prevention and education. I just really fell in love with it.

SPEAKER_00: 6:01

I love on your website how you have it's spirit, body, and mind. And you have that broken down, and we'll probably talk about that later, but it's all of that working together. You can't just take pieces of the body and heal it. It takes all of it together.

SPEAKER_01: 6:19

Yeah, we are an amazing, miraculous unit of all these different dimensions. And to try to just actually, my family from Michigan, they're all mechanics, right? They're all in the car industry. Uh-huh. But, you know, we have a consciousness that's beyond fixing your car. Right. And um, naturopathic medicine just tofs into the magic of that so much. And I love that about it.

SPEAKER_00: 6:44

So, as you were going through school, were you completely relating things you were learning to yourself and your light bulbs were just going off left and right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 6:54

So, my first year of school, you have to go see a naturopath as part of the curriculum. And I saw someone, I told them about everything I've been experiencing, did some more in-depth blood work than what I'd had done other places. My TSH was still normal, but on the upper limit of normal. Uh-huh. And they're like, You might have a thyroid issue. Got my antibodies tested, came back positive for Hashimoto's. And I was like shocked. At that time, I almost tricked myself into thinking everything was okay enough. Uh-huh. Then things started adding up. It's like, oh, that's where part of the depression and the lethargy. And stuff started to make so much more sense.

SPEAKER_00: 7:33

So as you started knowing what needed to be healed in yourself, to walk us through that journey. So you were diagnosed with Hashimoto's.

SPEAKER_01: 7:42

Yes. And then now I had this thing to work with as I was going through school. So as I was going through all my classes, I was relating that to, oh, that relates to autoimmunity. Oh, this piece relates to creating autoimmunity. Oh, that affects the thyroid. Oh, that's part of it. So I'm putting all these pieces together as to like where that came from, the multiple dimensions of it. So it was actually a really, it's kind of that wounded healer thing again, where you use your own journey to help learn and then be able to help other people.

SPEAKER_00: 8:14

So what did you do about your TPO antibodies? Did you look into food sensitivities? What were the next steps?

SPEAKER_01: 8:23

Yeah, you know, and I will say, even in naturopathic medical school, I was told that like this can't be reversed. So I just want people to know that even if you're seeing, no matter who you're seeing, if you know that something else is possible for you to follow that inclination. Uh-huh. Because lots of people, even in alternative medicine, told me I couldn't heal this. Interesting. So I started taking all we learned the foundations. The biggest foundation is food, doing an elimination diet, realizing I had a gluten intolerance. That was the first thing I learned. Yeah. Starting to incorporate it into my life, learning to cook good food, deeply nutritional food, starting to enjoy cooking in that way. There's so many dimensions to each foundational piece.

SPEAKER_00: 9:11

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01: 9:12

But food is a really big one and a great clip to start.

SPEAKER_00: 9:15

Oh, it can be a poison or medicine. It really can. So other than gluten, did you come to realize you had other sensitivities?

SPEAKER_01: 9:26

I did, but it took some time. So it wasn't, it's also like the journey of healing, something that's kind of complex. There's often like layers that you realize bit by bit. So over time, I've realized I do much better on a paleo or even like a keto-style diet without much dairy or beans or legumes or greens. It's just how what my body likes. But it took me years to really figure that out and get there.

SPEAKER_00: 9:53

Do you ascribe to the eat right for your blood type or any of those kind of concepts?

SPEAKER_01: 10:00

I think that what I've found over time, just like there's so many diets out there, there's just as many diets as there are people out there. Right. Yeah. Pulling from different pieces and being like, oh, I do feel better on more meat and vegetables, which is what O positive people blood type also. Right. Like there's a correlation. Yes. But what I've learned clinically for clients is there's no one size fits all. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00: 10:27

But you are an O positive blood type positive. Well, that worked out. That does line up. Yes. So once you learned your food sensitivities and you did your elimination diet, did you reverse your Hashimoto's?

SPEAKER_01: 10:44

That was a first step to start to getting off of antidepressants. Okay. So I started getting really the food in, like food quality, getting some of the food intolerances out. And I started coming off my antidepressant medication. Wonderful. Also told was never possible. Uh-huh. And I cried getting my nutrients up, vitamin D and B vitamins that had been depleted. Uh-huh. So I was much more nourished. I was also very lit up by what I was doing around great people, felt really aligned with what I was studying. So I think the more we can be aligned in our lives, the more we shine too.

SPEAKER_00: 11:24

100%. So tell us a little bit about Nova Wellness. Nova is another word for new. Is that correct? Yeah, exactly. And just tell us how you came to found Nova Wellness.

SPEAKER_01: 11:40

Well, I wanted people to have a place where they could come that was similar to my experience of my own healing. So when I was going through school and I was learning all these pieces and implementing them, and I had this beautiful community of people, people that also loved learning, loved food, loved life around me. And we really made healing enjoyable, interesting, fun, integrated into life. And I really wanted a place where people could go, where they could learn and they could implement and be around other people and feel inspired and feel really truly empowered in their health journey and not have to piece it together and not have to do it in private or shame behind closed doors, but really engage the process in a joyful, pleasurable way.

SPEAKER_00: 12:26

That's fantastic. So walk us through, let's say someone reaches out to your clinic. What's the step-by-step process someone would go through?

SPEAKER_01: 12:36

Mm-hmm. So the first thing we do is want to get to know you more. We want to know what you're about, what you're looking to heal, what you want to create in your life, what vision we're moving towards. So we'll do a discovery call with you. And then I do a deep dive, have you fill out some paperwork, look at your labs, and really talk through what you have going on and build that vision of what you're creating and talk high level of what kind of plan is going to take you there? What do we need to look at? What are all these different elements of your health that are probably playing a role? And how are we going to approach that? So go ahead, looking more globally at you as a human and what's going on in your body.

SPEAKER_00: 13:16

Okay. So in your health assessment, you're asking questions about their family life and their stress level and their activity level and all those things. I'm sure what they're eating, what meds they're taking. So do you have a certain blood panel you like to do on everyone, or is it very specialized to the person? What are some lab testing you do?

SPEAKER_01: 13:44

Yeah, there's certain basic labs that I want to do on everyone. I want a really good thyroid panel with all the different aspects of thyroid. Tell us which levels you look for. Yeah. So with thyroid, we're going to look at TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3, TPO antibodies, antithyroglobulin antibodies, and reverse T3.

SPEAKER_00: 14:07

So it's so much more than just looking at TSH and being told you're normal.

SPEAKER_01: 14:12

Exactly. And even within TSH, we want to see that in a very specific range. If I see someone's TSH creeping up above 2.5, there's likely a thyroid component too.

SPEAKER_00: 14:23

Yes. Yeah. And thyroid ties in so well with menopause. It's sometimes it's hard to figure out is it menopause, is it thyroid? And then so many times it's a combination of both. Okay, so other than thyroid, what else do you like to look for?

SPEAKER_01: 14:41

And then everything's connected to each other, right? So we want to look at blood sugar, hemoglobin A1C, fasting glucose. We want to look at your red blood cells, white blood cells, and all of your organ function through a comprehensive metabolic panel.

SPEAKER_00: 14:57

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01: 14:58

And then nutrient levels, B12, vitamin D.

SPEAKER_00: 15:01

That is such a great place to start. That really mirrors what we do in our clinic as well. So once you get those basics back, then you can start working with your patient on different aspects of what you find. Can you give us an example of what you might do for someone's thyroid?

SPEAKER_01: 15:21

So I think with a thyroid, the first thing is to know is there an autoimmune process going on? That's what the antibodies are going to tell you. If that's the case, you really want to look more globally. You're going to start looking at, again, the food intolerances, the nutrient levels. You also need to look at the gut. You need to look at all the other hormones too. So the more what we call it like terrain theory is the idea the stronger you can get all these different elements of your health, your nutrients, your gut, your detox pathways, your hormones, your stress levels in balance, the stronger the body as a whole is going to be.

SPEAKER_00: 16:00

That is so true. If we could put that on a t-shirt, that's so true. And then, so you remove food intolerances. And then do you do supplementation at that point or nutrient supplementation? What do you do next?

SPEAKER_01: 16:17

So basically, they're coming in, you're coming in, getting your labs, and while we're waiting for those initial blood work results to come back, you're working on your diet, you're trying to figure out your food intolerances, and you're getting some of those foundations in place. You're starting to work on sleep and exercise and meditation and removing toxins from your environment. So you're getting that foundation lined up as we're starting to wait for labs to come back. So after your labs come back, we'll know more about nutrient levels. Most people are B12 or iron or vitamin D deficient.

SPEAKER_00: 16:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:49

Start getting those levels up through supplementation or dietary changes. And then we're doing deeper testing to look at what's going on underneath. So starting to get more detailed hormone testing, like your adrenals and sex hormones. Okay. Starting to look at gut microbiome. So do you do stool testing for the gut? Yeah. A good stool test, functional stool test, and a SIBO test to look at the small intestine.

SPEAKER_00: 17:16

And then once you have those results, then you can direct someone towards the type of supplementation or there's cleanses you can do for parasites. Do you do those kind of things?

SPEAKER_01: 17:30

Exactly. That's when you're really getting in the weeds. Yeah. Really seeing, like, oh, this estrogen or progesterone needs a lot of support. Or you're deeply seeing, like, oh man, that parasite's in there, or that dysbiosis is in there, that imbalance in the microbiome, or man, they don't have any probiotics in their system. Right. In fact, when you're really that's where supplements are super powerful, is because they can get in there and really do some deep work that's hard to do for the average person to do on their own. We just can't see that deeply to know what's going on.

SPEAKER_00: 18:02

It is overwhelming to try to navigate through, like you said, in the weeds, because you can get like your initial blood testing, you get a certain level of knowledge about the patient. And then that tells you which direction to go a level deeper. And then, you know, then you can get into stool testing, food sensitivities, all those things. Do you do any genetic testing?

SPEAKER_01: 18:27

Sometimes if people are getting stuck or they're not moving through other levels of testing you can do. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 18:45

Right, right. You can do so much just by what we've already mentioned.

SPEAKER_01: 18:49

Totally. Plenty. Yes. To take you for a while.

SPEAKER_00: 18:53

So what are three things someone could do today to start feeling more connected to their body and get healthier?

SPEAKER_01: 19:00

Yeah, I think that just that word that you said in that question of connection to your body is so important. And in this culture, we're encouraged to dissociate from our bodies, to ignore our bodies a lot. So there's lots of ways you can start connecting. A simple way might be doing a body scan, just closing your eyes and breathing and noticing your toes and your feet, and then your ankles and your shins and your thighs and your belly and your chest and your arms, just making your way up your body, just to remember, oh, I have a body and it's here.

SPEAKER_00: 19:38

And I'm connected to it and I can acknowledge it. What are some other things?

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

The body scan, what else? A lot of the ways we why we do an elimination diet with people to start first is to start to feel like, oh, this is helping me connect to my body. When I eat this thing, I feel this way. When I don't eat this thing, I feel this way. When I have sugar, this happens. When I have caffeine. This happens. So doing some dietary changes can be a fun way to kind of tap into like, oh, when I eat this thing, my digestion feels like this, and starting to make connections between what you do and how you feel.

SPEAKER_00: 20:14

So do you also, when I'm looking at your circles on your website here, the mind, you know, you have relationship perception, belief systems, stress and regulation, emotions. So when you're asking someone those type of questions, do you have someone on your staff or yourself? Do you help them navigate or recognize at least something maybe going on that's keeping them in a stressed state? And then the corresponding relationship that has to hormones and cortisol and things like that.

SPEAKER_01: 20:51

Yeah. I think we're learning more and more. You cannot separate out your thoughts, your beliefs, your stressors from your physiology. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:01

Yes. And then the spirit side of things, spiritual practice, soul essence. I think all of these are wonderful things that you definitely don't see in an allopathic situation.

SPEAKER_01: 21:15

Not at all. It's separated from that.

SPEAKER_00: 21:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:18

It's treating again the body more as a machine. Something that has all these dimensions to it.

SPEAKER_00: 21:25

But then back to the body, you touch on toxins, infections, gut hormones, nutrients, and genetics. How would you help? Let's talk about hormones for a minute, sex hormones, meaning estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. Talk us through how you would manage someone going through menopause.

SPEAKER_01: 21:46

That's a big one. It is a big one. Oh, it's a huge transition. And what happens in that transition, I think, is a lot of things come up because those hormones are shifting. A lot of things are shifting in the body. Everything from the gut to your nutrient levels to maybe things that weren't coming up before start showing themselves. And so I think it's a big, I don't know if I say reckoning, but maybe. Like what do I really need to do to take care of myself? What do I need to clean up from the decades before so I can move into these next decades feeling really good?

SPEAKER_00: 22:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 22:24

So yeah. So I think doing a holistic assessment and really looking at everything like we talked about from blood sugar to nutrient levels to the gut to how are you sleeping? How are you taking care of yourself? Are you meditating? What's your mindset? In addition to looking at hormones more deeply, when you do that, then the hormonal treatments work so much better.

SPEAKER_00: 22:50

Tell us a little bit about the treatment protocol. What would you do treatment-wise?

SPEAKER_01: 22:56

Yeah, that depends what phase someone's in and what level of intervention you need. So the least invasive treatment to bring the body back into balance. And now we know metapausal changes happen even in our late 30s, through our 40s, through our 50s. It's a decades-long transition. And you'll probably need different things at each phase. When you're earlier on, maybe in your late 30s, early 40s, things like herbs, like for example, Zytex or Maka, can really help to balance the body. When you're getting further into menopause, if you're having a lot of hot flashes and sleep disruptions, you might need something like bioidentical hormone replacement to balance out the big shifts that you're getting.

SPEAKER_00: 23:43

Right, right. I was just thinking about myself personally for a second. You know, when a a woman is in perimenopause or menopause and she's stressed out, her adrenals are very fatigued. You know, a lot of us get we're an empty gas tank and we're still trying to, uh especially this holiday season, females especially, get the privilege of creating the holiday magic, you know, the decorations and the gifts and the food and all these things. And so I just I think about all the hormonal females that this is a an especially taxing time of year. And uh we definitely need all the help we can get. Dr. Mann, tell us a little bit about how to find you at Nova Wellness. Do you have a website, phone number, those type of things?

SPEAKER_01: 24:42

Easiest way is to go to our website. It's nova wellnessmed.com. And you can look around there. We have a blog, we have lots of information on the website. We're also on Instagram. You can find us there too. And if you are local to California and you want to connect one-on-one, you can schedule a free discovery call. We'd be happy to talk to you there.

SPEAKER_00: 25:03

Oh, that's fantastic. I think just being able to ask questions is such a gift for people. And then I see where you can book a consult, but you do need to be in the state of California to be treated at your clinic. Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 25:20

And we do have um often sometimes have free online workshops and things too. So if you are not local, you're welcome to come to workshops like that as well.

SPEAKER_00: 25:27

Okay, wonderful. Is there anything else you would like to say? Because I do believe you are a hormone hero, Dr. Mann. Is there anything else you'd like to leave our listeners with?

SPEAKER_01: 25:38

Yeah, I would say you know when your body feels right. There is inherent knowing, I think, with every woman who's struggling with hormone stuff, to trust yourself to know that when things are right, you will know it. And to seek out help, to seek out guidance, to seek adjustments in your care, to know that it's a process and to keep going until you feel right in you. Yes. To trust that, like above any lab result or what doctor says, and to trust that and keep seeking support until you get there.

SPEAKER_00: 26:14

Yeah. Well, I think you are a beautiful representative of the naturopathic profession. And you've made it very clear and easy to understand what naturopath is, naturopathy, and that for those that are seeking and you know, wanting to get to the root of what's going on in the body and knowing there is so much you can do without taking medications, taking prescriptive anything. You know, there is so much you can do. And we make the mistake, especially in the United States, of toxifying ourselves. Give us a quick rundown of what might be a toxin.

SPEAKER_01: 26:56

Now we just assume that they're everywhere because they're in our food, they're in the clothing I'm wearing, they can be found in personal care products, they're found in the air, like we have fires here. I live in a city, so it's all around. There can be mold in your house. There's so many places where toxins can be found in what you put in your body, on your body. And so I think these days we have to start assuming that we're getting some load of toxins because they're everywhere, and for everyone to learn how to start to detoxify their body and clear them out.

SPEAKER_00: 27:35

Heavy metals are so dangerous. I had a patient a couple of weeks ago that still had mercury fillings in her mouth, and it was causing this a whole host of issues for her. So she's on the schedule to have those removed in January, thank goodness. So it, you know, just even things like that that we think are being put in us to help us, we find out the more we know, the better we do, right? So anything else, Dr. Mann, before I let you go, enjoy your afternoon. Oh, I think we covered a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 28:13

We did, yeah. Really about the process of healing and all the different aspects involved. And to partner if people are struggling, like to partner with a good practitioner that's going to help you walk through because it's not something I think as women too, a lot of times we're like, oh, I should be able to do this all myself because I do everything else in my life all myself. Right. And it's it's not, it's complicated. So myself in my own healing, I partnered with great, amazing doctors as I went through. And so to partner with someone to help you through and make it less overwhelming to really go step by step and know that every step you're taking is bringing you closer to more health and wellness and balance.

SPEAKER_00: 28:55

And is there a website for people that are not in California? How would they go about finding a naturopath physician in their state?

SPEAKER_01: 29:04

Yeah, there is um like a national association, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. Okay. A-A-N-P. So that's a great national directory of people who have been through the training and are licensed, which could be very different than someone just randomly calling themselves a naturopath. They tend to take an online course or something. But you want like a licensed naturopathic doctor.

SPEAKER_00: 29:28

Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Jen. It's been a pleasure. 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're 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 hormoneheroes.org. 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.