Transcript
Speaker: My belief is I didn't want to kind of have that trajectory of decline. I want to live well and then just drop dead. We'd all love to do that.
Speaker: Hypnosis can help you learn how to powerfully use your mind to make your life better. And today we are exploring what you can do about the other powerful influencing factor in your success, balancing your hormones and biochemistry. Dr. Shari Kaplan, medical director and founder of Vitality MD is joining us.
Speaker: Her goal is to find safe solutions to treat hormonal imbalances while modulating genes to reduce the risk of breast cancer and improve vitality. She is also an expert in the good old -fashioned, I lost my libido and I want it back. She's so popular that they call her the queen of the oshot.
Speaker: Hello, everybody. I'm Robbie Spear Miller, the host of the Hypnosis Show podcast. Today, I'm really excited to welcome Dr. Sherry Kaplan. She is a doctor who specializes in helping people with hormones and changes that they go through throughout their lives so that they can be as healthy and energetic as possible. And Dr. Kaplan is actually my doctor. She's helped me a lot with hormonal balance and other things. And I find that a lot of people who come to see us need this kind of help.
Speaker: In hypnosis, we talk about how we're a mind -body, and there are two main things that contribute to how we function, one of which is our body and our biochemistry, and the other is how we look at things and the hypnotic transits we're in. And so when we're helping people with hypnosis, we can help them make changes to their lives and how they interact with life that improve things.
Speaker: But if our biochemistry isn't on board with that, then it can make it difficult to really see the results that are possible. So I wanted to introduce our audience to the other side of things, which is the biochemical component. So welcome, Dr. Sherry Kaplan. Hi, thanks very much for having me on the show. I'm excited. Yeah, thanks for coming. So why don't you start by sharing what got you interested in this whole area yourself?
Speaker: Yeah, so I always joke. It's like what made me go over to the dark side or I call it the light side. So I like was conventionally trained, you know, family practice, women's health. And then I started to have my own perimenopausal issues. And at the time, the WHI, the Women's Health Initiative had come out and sort of was saying that all hormones
Speaker: You know can increase women's risk of breast cancer and stroke and my mom died of breast cancer So I never went on the birth control pill, but I was kind of getting to the point where you know My brain wasn't working. You know a lot of women know about you know in perimenopause and menopause like hot flashes and
Speaker: and night sweats, but they don't appreciate that, you know, mood, weight gain, brain function, energy, all could be affected and that it's not just two to
Speaker: to the three years before menopause but can be as much as 12 to 15. So I needed to kind of go figure things out for myself because I knew that I didn't like the way I felt. So basically I started learning, first I was trying to seek out I guess more of a truth because
Speaker: Here was this large society that everybody listens to that hormones have the same risk, but prior to that study coming out, there was other studies showing that how natural progesterone or bioidentical progesterone was different. There was studies showing that if you use
Speaker: I don't like the word natural because it's not natural, bio -identical or molecularly identical progesterone, and I'll get into that in a second, but they had lower risk and they actually helped with weight, helped with brain function and where the
Speaker: WHI used Provera, which is an altered molecule, and that caused insomnia, weight gain, and more cardiovascular disease. So just to sort of back up a second, because a lot of people use terms and they're misnomers per se, so somebody might say,
Speaker: Well, progesterone's natural, but when you're actually getting it from a pharmacy, it's made up and it's coming from whether it's yam or whatever the soy or whatever the base is.
Speaker: it's altered to look molecularly identical to our natural progesterone, meaning so when you look under a microscope, the molecules look exactly the same. So our body knows how to metabolize that. So the real term should be molecularly identical, but nobody uses it. They use bioidentical. Sometimes they'll use the word natural. But premarin, which is natural to horses, so premarin comes
Speaker: from horses. It's an estrogen that has 100 and I don't know 50 different types of estrogen, not any of which is identical to our own. We don't necessarily have the enzymes to break it down the same way and hence it also increases our risk of breast cancer.
Speaker: So the term natural, biodental, can be confusing for a lot of people. So when I'm sort of talking about biodentical, I'm really talking about molecularly identical. And to go back to how I got into this, so one, it was I started having problems. My mom had died of breast cancer at the age of 44. And here I am in my mid -40s having all these symptoms. And the last thing I want to do is increase my risk.
Speaker: So, I sort of went off to the U .S. to learn about bioidentical hormones, but then I learned about functional medicine or integrative medicine, and it's kind of looking at root causes. And, you know, so the way I kind of, you know, educate patients is, you know,
Speaker: It's not, it's not one thing we do. It's like everything, right? So how we eat, you know, what do I do? It is like, you know, eat, right? Exercise, de -stress, meditate, balance your hormones and replace deficient nutrients.
Speaker: And that altogether makes us healthier. And so that's where that mind body part comes in too, right? So if we don't have the machinery working properly, then the spiritual, mental, physical, you know, psychological, like all of that doesn't work properly.
Speaker: So we take better care of our cars than we do sometimes our body, right? Like a car, we give it the right gas and spark plugs and oil and whatever. We don't pick it based on the colors or the price, I mean the taste or the fad. We do what's required and the same thing for us. So when we're young, we can get away with blue murder because you can not eat right
Speaker: you know, party and do all these things and we still can feel well. But as we age, a lot of these
Speaker: duplication of services that we had to keep us healthy start falling away. And then if you don't have the right nutrients or the right hormones and balance and stuff like that, we often don't feel well. And so originally, you know, people kept calling me the hormone doctor and I was a little ticked off because I was like, I'm so much more than that. But then I realized, well, people have to hang their hat somewhere. And so that's a great gateway for people to come in. But what happened is when they would come in and I would apply,
Speaker: that whole practice, people started feeling better from fibromyalgia, from head injuries, from chronic fatigue, like so many different things. So then it was like, okay, I get to see everybody. And then my newest claim to fame is helping, first it started off as women, but women and men with their sexual health and, you know,
Speaker: One of the biggest complaint I get is, I've lost my libido and I want it back. And it's not just for men and women want that too. And so we do some really cool things at the clinic called the O -Shot, which is PRP in the private area. And what's really amazing, not only does it regenerate down below, but it turns on the head.
Speaker: And how cool is that, right? And we have other technologies that help women with vaginal atrophy or very much dryness or patients who have breast cancer can't use hormones.
Speaker: We have different technologies to help with that and help with stress urinary incontinence. And as a side effect, sex is better. So, you know, woohoo, like, so it's been very exciting to give women and men options that improve their sex life. And given that we just get through COVID and people are isolated,
Speaker: You know, a lot of couples looked at each other and it was like, do I like you anymore? I don't know. And then, you know, well, maybe we want to revisit this part of our life because a lot of times it falls away at the, you know, at the bedside. But, you know, so yeah, it's been really interesting and exciting and I
Speaker: Yeah, awesome. Well, it makes a huge difference to people's lives. And I guess, you know, in generations before us, people just accepted that this is what happened as they got older. And they're discovering that there are things they can do to help us live more vibrant lives, older into our lives, which is amazing.
Speaker: And one piece of this, if we were to back up, is to say that as you are learning these skills and able to offer them to people, you're giving people hope that it's possible for them to stay young and vibrant and full of energy and feel good and healthy as they age.
Speaker: And I know for me when I was in my 40s and my body started to change, I talked to my family doctor who's great. She's an awesome family doctor. And she just said, you know, well, just make sure you're moving your body and eating healthy. And, you know, a lot of the basic things, you know, reduced stress, the basic advice, which is all great advice, but it wasn't enough. And I didn't feel like there was another choice because that's pretty much what she said was available.
Speaker: And so when I started to have more problems, I sought you out for help. And, you know, I'm really happy you were able to help me because it was impacting my life in some pretty major way is that if I hadn't changed, it would have gotten in the way of me being able to do all the things I want to enjoy life. Yeah, no, for sure. And, you know, well, I think there's a lot of backstory to that. So one was that huge study, the WHI that came out, so it scared
Speaker: not only patients but doctors about prescribing hormones and unfortunately doctors are busy and so whatever the newest information comes out and we get often educated by drug reps and then literature and there's some biases that happen and so if this is what you get told and you believe it then
Speaker: you know, then yeah, like I'm not going to prescribe hormones because it's going to increase women's risk of breast cancer and possibly stroke. But when you actually go deeper, and that's what I needed to do because I was like, I can't live my life. My brain's not working. I have no energy. I'm gaining weight. This is not the way I want to live.
Speaker: And did my due diligence and learned the difference about bioidentical hormones versus conventional, and that they have different risks. And why would anybody ever prescribe Pramaran Provera when there's safer choices out there? There's European data, more data keeps coming out. And I think even, and also the way stuff kind of gets swept under the rug almost because there was a
Speaker: So let's say 10 years ago, there was a study from France that looked at, depending on what type of progestin you use, whether it was progesterone versus Provera versus, there's other ones in Europe, your risk of breast cancer was different. And when you used molecularly identical progesterone, the relative risk was one, which means it's either increased, decreased, or the same.
Speaker: Whereas if you use Provera, it was a 1 .56 or 1 .65 relative risk increase. So why would you prescribe the one that increases those risks when you have an alternative available? And then recently, a study came out. So what they did is looked at different progestins, but they didn't actually put micronized progesterone, which is Provera in it.
Speaker: So it was like, so the data again that came out, oh, progestins increase breast cancer. Progestin is a class, but it's, you know, and unfortunately, Health Canada lumps all of them together. So when you even buy Prometrium, which is the bioidentical progesterone, it'll still have the same warning as Provera. So again, there's a lot of
Speaker: fear and scare and misinformation that doctors and patients kind of perpetuate. So, you know, often I'll come in, you know, patients will come in, I'll spend the time educating them so they feel comfortable because if they don't feel comfortable and I'm giving them something, they're always going to be worried. And again, the way our brain works, our body talk, you know, our mind talks to our body and, you know, we don't want that. So I need them to feel comfortable.
Speaker: And then, you know, also I tell them it's not a life decision you're making. It's a try this for three months. And a lot of people are amazed how quickly they feel better. You know, I've had, you know, CEOs of companies when they hit perimenopause that are, you know, incapacitated and off work. And so, again, I never just give hormones, right? So I'm kind of
Speaker: you know, maybe giving them hormones, but usually some nutrients like B vitamins make sure their vitamin D is optimized, their magnesiums at the appropriate levels, their zinc. So it's all of those things because our environment talks to our genes. So we may be born with shitty genes and you do everything right that may turn on and off those bad genes. You might have a better outcome or you
Speaker: can have great genes but have a horrible lifestyle, eating badly, under high amount of stress and whatever. And those things also can cause DNA damage that you don't actually see the longevity from those good genes. So yeah, I think it's really important to do things right, especially as we age. So again, eating right, what does that mean?
Speaker: not eating so much processed food, eating more whole foods, proteins, fruits and veggies kind of things in healthy quantities and making sure because we're all genetically prone to be deficient on certain nutrients and if we don't replace them then again the biochemistry doesn't work and then you don't get the performance or the longevity or the wellness or the vitality at the end. So that's kind of really important and unfortunately
Speaker: You know, we have receptors for every hormone on every cell of the body. It's not just on the uterus or on the breast. And so perimenopause, and even for men, like, you know, andropause, like, has huge shifts in effect on our mood, sleep, well -being, our immune. So when we have our full complement of hormones, we have more stem cells and our ability to repair and regenerate are better.
Speaker: Right? So, you know, it's way more than just about sex or, you know, having hot flashes. It's really about, you know, keeping everything in check. So it affects everything, a lot of things that we wouldn't realize or be aware of. So when you're making the positive changes, you're impacting everything in a positive way.
Speaker: Correct. And again, like a lot of regular docs because we don't get taught all of this in our training. It was things after training that kind of, oh, that opened my mind. And it's really funny because for many years, naturopaths used to say, when in doubt, start with the gut. And you're like, what?
Speaker: Why would anybody do that? But again, there's now a lot of information about the gut -brain connection, right? And if your bacteria in your gut are off or you have inflammation in gut, it causes inflammation in your brain. And so you can have mood problems when you have Crohn's or ulcerative colitis or IBS. There's so many things that the way regular docs think
Speaker: or the way they used to think is antiquated and we need to sort of be more updated in our understanding of health and wellbeing.
Speaker: So what would you recommend for like just an everyday person who might be struggling in some of these ways? What would be a good first step for them to take to take charge of their own health? So let's say they've gone to their doctor, you know, the doctor did what they typically do. Are there things that people can ask their family doctor to do that would help them more or
Speaker: Like, what would be... The problem, too, is like, even if I say, okay, go see your doctor and order your, like, just an example, your B12. Well, everybody's like, oh, your B12's good because the lab says if you're above 250, you're good. But in fact, there's studies showing that if even at 600, which is the higher the upper end of normal,
Speaker: that you can still have B12 deficiency and your bone marrow. There's a lot of, because I do genetic testing in our office, that I've seen that there's a lot of people who have genetic snips or alteration in their genes where they need much higher levels of these to have a fat.
Speaker: If I have to say, if there was one supplement that I could take on a desert island, it would be a B complex. So that often in itself, B complex helps with stress and it's an adaptogen and it helps with a process called methylation, which helps turn on genes and prevent DNA damage. It helps with detox.
Speaker: It helps make neurotransmitters. It helps with fat and carb metabolism. The list just goes on, and that's just one thing. And then, well, if you're in a desert island, hopefully you're getting your vitamin D from the sun, and hopefully you're enjoying being on a beach, and so you're not stressed, and so you're not losing your magnesium. So you can sort of see how an environment can affect us. So that's a good first step. And then if a lot of women are
Speaker: having their perimenopause and menopausal symptoms, then seek out a doctor and some naturopaths who do hormones. Um, so, you know, again, not everybody's created equal, so you have to do your due diligence and figure it out. But starting somewhere is better than nothing is the bottom line. And you know, hormones aren't for everybody, but they can make a huge difference.
Speaker: And like, you know, there's studies now, like, essentially, you're damned if you do and you damned if you don't. And what do I mean by that? So let's say you're perimenopausal and menopausal and having hot flashes and night sweats. Well, there's actually studies now showing that, you know, you can have more cognitive issues because of that. So they've done MRIs on perimenopausal women who aren't treated and found more
Speaker: plaque in the brain or hypodensities that contribute to cognitive decline, meaning losing your marbles.
Speaker: And also when you're having hot flashes, your coronary arteries are opening and closing in. So women have had MIs or arrhythmias because of those alterations. So if you don't treat, you can have a problem. And if you treat, okay, in some people, yes, there might be a cardiac event within the first year, depending on when you start your hormones.
Speaker: Again, we're all genetically different and have different genetic risk in terms of estrogen, how we metabolize our hormones, our medications and stuff.
Speaker: everything we do in life has risk. And so you want to do it in the safest way. So like crossing the street, you can get hit by a car, right? But if you obey the laws, like look at the lights and, you know, look both ways, like you can cross the street safely. And the same thing with hormones, there's risks. But if you do it in the safest way possible, then you can have vitality and longevity.
Speaker: Okay, so what I'm understanding for what you're saying is that even if you just have one or two typical symptoms of perimenopause or menopause like it, so it could be hot flashes, it could be, you know, random feeling of anxiety some people get or having trouble sleeping or waking, that those can be symptoms that are, you know, the root causes that your system is out of whack.
Speaker: and that getting these supplements and in hormonal treatments can help get things back on track. So there might be lots of other things happening in your mind and body that you don't even know about because you're having those one or two symptoms. So what you do is really an art where you're taking a blood test and you're reading the results in a way that's different from how typical doctors are trained.
Speaker: because you're having an eye on this whole area. And so you can make the recommendations for that specific person to help them get things. So it's more individualized. And yes, and I listened to their story, like I've been doing this long enough and done a lot of testing, but I can listen to someone's story and then go, Oh, you're likely deficient in BD and, you know, like whatever, or
Speaker: So it's very interesting. But yeah, like, and the thing is, like a lot of patients in the perimenopause timeframe can have symptoms and not even attribute it to perimenopause. So, you know, one of our first hormones that go out of whack is progesterone. Well, progesterones are natural tranquilizer and sleep aid.
Speaker: So what a woman might present, like you said, might be anxiety, like they might have done well or maybe always had a low grade anxiety and then all of a sudden perimenopause and it just pushes them over the edge and they're like not able to cope and or their sleep like, you know, they're being, you know, waking frequently and whatever. And so if you're in a lighter sleep and your bladder twinkles, you know, twitches, you're like, oh, I have to go pee and then they have to pee frequently. So
Speaker: It becomes a vicious cycle and also then you're having hot flashes on top so your sleep's disrupted. So we repair when we're sleeping.
Speaker: If you're having a few nights here and there where you're not sleeping and you have time to catch up, great. But if this is a regular occurrence, our ability or resilience is decreased. It's like dunking your head underwater. You dunk it once or twice, you're good. But if you keep dunking it and keeping your underwater, you don't have time to come up for a breath. So that affects us. And when we don't sleep, our mood is off, right? We feel like shit.
Speaker: For sure. And people gain weight. Yeah, they gain weight. They're more stressed. Their memory is affected. Their mood. Yeah, everything. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And so for me, when I sought out your help as a business owner and somebody who helps other people, what I recognized was the things that were happening to me were getting in the way of me being able to do those things well.
Speaker: So for me, it was a no brainer to to be willing to pay privately for your services. I know some of it's covered by public health care, but most of it isn't. Hopefully one day it will be because this affects so many people that really, you know, eventually it should be. But how does it work in terms of people coming to see you? And, you know, obviously there is an expense attached to this the way I
Speaker: operate my life and how things are set up. For me, it's like a thousand percent worth it for me. For other people, they might look at it a little differently. So if you can just share a little bit about how that works, then people will know what kind of choices they have.
Speaker: Right. So essentially part of the service is covered under OHIP like I'm in in Ontario and there's a private component. So when I talk like a regular doc that's billable to OHIP, but when I talk like
Speaker: you know, a naturopath, a life coach, talking about functional medicine, anything that's not considered standard, that's billable to the patient and price depending on who you see as a practitioner is different. So I don't want to talk about exact pricing because things are always changing. So when you see a naturopath, you know, that might get covered under naturopathic care if you have
Speaker: extended health coverage. Unfortunately, integrative doctors still aren't necessarily covered through extended health care. But if you have a health care spending account, then my services would be covered under that. But at the end of the day, like, you know, it's not a huge expense, considering how expensive like going to the restaurant is, right. So, you know, the restaurant
Speaker: It's in and out, whereas my services will alter your life and your productivity and your well -being. You have to decide what's important to you.
Speaker: people who see me are from all walks of life. You know, some people who, you know, can be construction workers or, you know, somebody who doesn't have a lot of money, but values their health, and will put the money aside to do it. And then guess what, they feel better, they're able to work, you know, and make more money, right? Where, so it's all about putting things in priority and
Speaker: you know, and quality life, right? I mean, at the end of the day, like, you know, so my belief is I didn't want to kind of have that trajectory of decline.
Speaker: I want to live well and then just drop dead. We'd all love to do that. That would be nice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I totally got it and I agree with you. And then also there are the supplements, you know, people also have to pay out of pocket for things like vitamins. And so there is some expense involved, but I completely agree. This is quality of life. And if you don't have health and quality of life, it's the same thing.
Speaker: shitty cost you less than eating healthy like why the other way around like veggies and you know organic and whatever should be less expensive than buying craft dinner right in order.
Speaker: you know, the Big Mac in the past does and stuff. So yeah, well, this is really about taking responsibility for your life and your health. And so for people who are willing and want to do that, I you know, this is an important thing to know about so that they can take advantage of what's and it's not uncommon for me to see patients who, you know, haven't felt well for three years, even 20 years, especially with fibromyalgia and after like
Speaker: three months, they're hugely improved. And they're like, wow, you know, I haven't felt this good in the last six months, six years or whatever it is. And so it's it's very rewarding. So yeah. Yeah, great. Is there anything else you would like to share with people?
Speaker: I just think, yeah, like, you know, sometimes if you get answers from your family doctor, don't fit with you or feel that there's other alternatives, look for alternatives. And, you know, again, my, you know, new claim to fame is kind of helping people with sexual health, Google the OSHOT. And, you know, I'm known as queen as the OSHOT or doctor. Oh, my God. So why not?
Speaker: You need a little crown. VitalityMD .com. All right, great. So tell people if they would like to get your help, how would they get in touch with you? What would the process be for them to do that? So basically, the best way is so my business is VitalityMD. We're in Toronto on Avenue Road. So VitalityMD .com. Or, you know, the phone number is 416.
Speaker: We have, we're on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube channel. There's a lot of education on my website, so check it out.
Speaker: To find out more about how hypnosis training can help you change your mind to improve your life, visit hypnosistrainingcanada .com. Remember to click the button to subscribe to this podcast. Share the podcast with a friend and please leave us a review so you can help others benefit from the podcast to you. Until next time.
Speaker: You've been listening to The Hypnosis Show with Robbie Spear Miller. Tune in next time to learn more about how you can change your life with hypnosis. And if you are interested in learning more about training opportunities, go to hypnosistrainingcanada .com and schedule a free consultation.
