15: Dr. Natalie Underberg - Unexplained Infertility Doesn't Exist

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to VaptivaseX. I am so excited about this week's episode. You guys like, I hate to say that one episode is my favorite, but if I was going to this, this is definitely a top contender. This week I'm sitting down with the incredible, super knowledgeable doctor Natalie Underberg. She is a leading functional medicine doctor. She's a women's health expert. And she is the co-founder of her own private practice as well as female formulations, which is a prenatal. They do a bunch of different herbal supplements for women. And I can confirm that they are the real deal. She has helped hundreds and hundreds of women naturally conceive, overcome PCOS, balance their hormones, and heal their chronic gut issues. She's also the creator of the pregnancy, prepochademy, and the PCOS collective. Jempowers women to really take control of their health without feeling funneled into fertility treatments as their only option. In this episode, we talk about why PCOS is often mismanaged and how to truly fix it. What unexplained infertility actually means? Some of the corruption in the fertility industry, why preconception matters more than you think for both men and women? What the ideal fertility diet is and so much more? I learned so much in this episode. Truly, I walked away being like, wow, this actually impacted the way that I'm thinking about my preparing to conceive preconception journey. And I hope it'll do the same for you. Even if you're not trying to get pregnant right now, this is an episode for all women because I'm a big believer that a healthy person is gonna be a healthy pregnant person. And so you might not be even thinking about getting pregnant within the next 5, 10, 15 years, whatever, but at the end of the day, like the keys to unlock a healthy pregnancy are actually the exact same keys that unlock a healthy life. So I hope you guys love this episode as much as I did. If you do, please rate it, review, subscribe to the show, send it to a friend or a family member, your support really does mean the world to me. And with that, welcome Dr. Natalie the show, but first a word from our sponsor. One of the things that I wish I knew sooner in life is that there is definitely more than one way to approach birth control. And for years, I used to remember birth control and while it worked well for me at the time, I didn't realize that there was another option that could really help me understand my body on a deeper level. That's why I'm so excited to share my experience with Natural Cycles, the first FDA-cleared, hormone-free birth control app in a sponsor of this episode. Using the Natural Cycles app has helped me connect with my body's natural rhythms in a whole new way, and it has been extremely empowering to see how much my cycle can tell me. Obviously not just about fertility, but also about my overall health and well-being. So here's how it works. You measure your temperature in the morning with a Bluetooth thermometer or overnight with a compatible wearable, sink the data into the app and the app's algorithm analyzes it, along with your period data and optional ovulation tests to confirm whether you're fertile and whether you're not every single day. It's easy, it's reliable, and it's totally non-invasive. Whether you're avoiding pregnancy or planning for it, Natural Cycles has you covered. If you're curious, head to naturalcycles.com and use code FeelWellByAnna for 15% off in annual subscription and a free Bluetooth thermometer. That's naturalcycles.com code FeelWellByAnna. Natural Cycles is very 18 plus and does not protect against FCI. It's always read and follow the instructions for use. Okay, cool. So if you could just give a little intro to you because you're a fertility naturopath, right? I am a, I'm a chiropractor by license, but a functional medicine certified practitioner. And I've only ever done functional medicine. My husband and I both went to chiropractic school. It's almost like we, you know, never, we never have used it because we did all of our specialized training in functional medicine. We spent probably an extra $50,000 outside of school just training functional medicine. So, so yeah, my background is in very much holistic, like a holistic healthcare. And it just really translated into fertility when I started working with a lot of my PCOS clients. When I realized, oh, this is a huge problem that they're dealing with. So I realized what we were doing naturally was totally kind of helping with these fertility outcomes unintentionally. Yeah. And then I very much realized, okay, there's way more to this picture than just PCOS. It's so much more beyond that. Yeah. And I feel like, I mean, you tell me, but it seems like I don't know if it's just because diagnostics are better, but PCOS has become so much more prevalent than it was even five to 10 years ago. And so you have to wonder, what is causing this? I mean, I have an idea of what I think it is, but it's probably everything, not one thing. Yeah, it is everything. And I will say there's been more awareness around PCOS specifically. In the last five to 10 years, even just with social media, there's more practitioners like myself educating on it. And women are like, DMing us all the time, like, oh my gosh, I think I have this. Like this sounds like me. So the awareness for sure, but then also the uptick and toxicity of our environments, the microplastics, the fragrances, the, you name it, our environments are only getting more toxic by the day. And I think that's making it a lot worse. I know for me, I've talked to a lot of friends of mine who have PCOS and/or hormonal issues. And they're like the last five years, no matter what I do, like, even weight loss resistance is a big one, like, no matter what they do, they can't get the weight off or no matter what they do. They can't get their hormones under control. They can't get their liver under control. Can't get their blood sugar under control. And it's like, it's exacerbated significantly since COVID. That's what you're saying. Yeah, which is wild. Okay, so I kind of want to start at the top because I came across your page and, yeah. Honestly, I feel like you deliver so much value to women around this topic because I think that there are so many women who feel like they're at the end of their rope. And what I mean by that is like, okay, one of my best girlfriends, for example, Natalie, she does everything. Perfect diet, incredible marriage, happy, good job that she's passionate about, all of the things. And she, after, I think about like eight months of trying and she had had one miscarriage, one chemical pregnancy, the doctors were like, well, you have unexplained infertility. And she was like, what does that mean? And they're like, we don't know, right? We don't know what it is, but you are diagnostically having unexplained infertility. And our recommendation is that you go do IUI or IVF. Which is such a cop out in my experience. Unexplained infertility does not exist. It just means that they have not investigated the condition enough or they've not investigated the patient case enough. But there's, I was thinking about this actually, like in preparation for this interview, I'm like, have I ever had a case where I genuinely could not figure it out or did not know why they couldn't get pregnant? And I honestly cannot think of one. The two that came to mind, one is a vegan. And the other one does a lot of neurotoxin, injectables, a lot of good talks. And so that's not something I would ever tell the patient, but in my mind, like deep down, I mean, I talked her about toxic load, of course. In my mind, I'm like, I never wanna say that to someone and make them think like, did I just mean to hurt my fertility? But in my mind, in those few cases that have not actually worked out, I knew deep down what it was. Like, it's like an intuition, but the patient can't undo it. So it's like at that point, like, why would I put that on them? Of like, hey, I think this is really why? It's more of, hey, let's figure out moving forward how we can reduce the toxic load in your body. Because we can't undo what's already been done, and I don't wanna ever wanna make someone feel bad or guilty about what they've done in the past when they didn't know. But that's a big one is Botox fillers, things like that that women just like kind of are not thinking about, it's more like a vanity thing and, you know, a confidence thing, right? Like, you feel better with that stuff, but I think just this is my own intuition. We don't have like any like large studies about this or anything yet. I think we'll know in 20 years, right? We say common sense, our vast science is slow. I think we'll find out in 20 years that Botox absolutely is contributing to infertility. We just don't know yet, but a lot of my female practitioner friends kind of feel the same way. - So is it that the toxic load that you're talking about? You know, again, it's not one thing, it's everything. It's the Botox and the fillers, but it's also the air inside your home that is so toxic. It's the food that you're eating, it's the things that you're thinking, it's the unresolved traumas, all of those things. And is it that our bodies have just gotten so overpowered by all of these toxins that there's no way for our bodies to detox them fast enough? - Yeah, we're inundated with too much in my opinion for our body to handle. - Yeah. - It is not normal. Our bodies were not created to intake this many toxins and have to process this many toxins, which is why when people are like, and it's just a little red di-forty, it's just a little, it's like, yeah, but it's just a little red di-forty on top of the microplastics that you're drinking out of, and the microwave you're cooking your food in, and the water supply that you're drinking, and all of it. It's a toxic accumulation, and 100%, it's not just the Botox, and it's not just this, but it's women who are not living a naturally, you know, non-toxic lifestyle, and then on top of it, they're doing that stuff. And on top of it, their husband is maybe cold plunging and sitting in the sauna all the time, and his health is a factor. I never want to say it's all women, 100% because it is not. Men are 50% of the equation, and 50% of the problem. And I don't know your friend's case at all, but it could very much be in her case that there is a male factor component that's not been properly investigated, and we see that a lot, and couples that come in, and they've been given an unexplained fertility diagnosis, and my husband works with our male patients, and I work with you. with our females. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, our office is literally like we share like a Jack and Jill side of the house. And he's on one end of the hallway and I'm on the other and it's so funny. Sometimes same day we'll see the same couple. He'll be talking to the husband. I'll be talking to the wife. What a dream. Yeah, it's super fun. And so anyways, yeah, we find that, you know, through his work with the men that there is a huge underlying male component, especially in men that have specific specific jobs like fire fighters, electricians, labor workers, military men, my husband is a veteran. Our military men are guinea pigs for vaccines. My husband described when he went into basic training, they would stand in a line like cattle and be injected like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, 15 to 20 vaccines in one day. That is insane. Yes. Yes. They would lie in them up like one right after the other. And he's like, I don't even know what I was getting. There was no informed consent back then. And I don't know if there is now or not, but he's like, I didn't know what I was getting. I didn't know how many I was getting in that day. And like we all felt like crap afterwards, but it wasn't an option. Right. Like you're the property of the military. And a friend of mine also does fertility work or did fertility work down in San Diego near Coronado, where the military base is. And she told me when she saw her practice, it was almost all military spouses. When she first got started and we have seen that too. I think that's a really big component. Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting. And again, like you would look at these people and be like, they are the healthiest people, like eating an animal-based diet, doing all the things. Like, but I also think and this, I hope this doesn't sound weird or conspiratorial, but I said to her today because we were talking about IUI and all the things. And she's like, I'm just pissed. I feel like they haven't done the labs that they need to do. I feel like they haven't pulled, you know, what is my progesterone event? Like Moltox is telling me all of my different hormones throughout my cycle. And I just looked at her and I said, well, yeah, because they need to make money too. And it's not in their interest always to get you pregnant for a shot. I have said this my entire career. The fertility industry, I like to just call the IVF, IVF industry. The fertility industry is a for-profit industry. Yeah. There is zero incentive for them to find a root cause and for them to get you pregnant naturally and or for them to get you pregnant quickly. So in the, I mean, I have an interview with a couple that I did who came to me after several rounds of IVF and they said they felt like a number. They said that they found out via phone call that one of their, one of their transfers didn't go through. And in the same breath of hey, you're not pregnant. It was so when do you want to come back and try again? And they were like, we were still processing. Yeah. The fact that we are not pregnant and that this last transfer didn't work. In the next sentence, you're going to ask us basically when we're going to write you another check. Yeah. Like that, that to them was like the final straw. They were just like, there's no compassion here. There's no like human element here. It is so much like here's our protocol. You're in number, step in line. Oh, also, you also have to do it on our timeline. Yeah. And so it's very much everything is rush, rush, rush, which our bodies don't work that way. That's not how reproductive, like our reproductive system works. And that's not how reproduction works to to feel rushed and stressed and pressured and for it to cost you all this money. And for them to not even look into a reason why. So your friend is 100% she, she probably has discernment. She's probably discerning very correctly in that situation that that is not right. Yeah. And it's it doesn't feel natural to a lot of women. And that's why a lot of women come to me next is they're like, this doesn't feel right in my heart or soul to do this. There has to be another answer. And there is like so. I always like to tell everyone, like there's always another option for you. They will make it seem like there's not. It's not it's just like that I just told someone to see the day. I've been walking through a late stage cancer diagnosis with a close friend of mine who's on the other side of it. God has literally healed her body like they miraculously healed. But it is such a predatory industry as soon as she got her diagnosis on college offices were blowing up her phone fertility clinics are the same way. They're two of the most predatory industries. And the reason why is it's one could take your life and one is creating life. And they know that. Oh, I just got full body shiver bumps. You are completely right. And I and I want to say like I have had cancer myself and it's I saw that. Yeah. And it's a very scary thing to walk through. And I think that like I I do think they're great doctors out there. No question. I think that there's great doctors who work at fertility clinic. No question. But again, these are for-profit industries. And it is well within their interests to make you feel like you are there. They are your last resort. You have to follow the protocol or else you're screwed or either going to die or not have a baby. And in their defense in their defense, I don't think 99% of these doctors have ill intentions at all. I've seen I've seen one percent that do the 99% this is their training. I mean my good friend that went through this her twin sister's best friend was an oncologist specializing in her type of cancer. She had every intention to give her the most accurate information. And even she was like this this prognosis doesn't look good. This outcome doesn't look good. You know, like she needs to do these more aggressive interventions. And that's always that's what they're trained like they're trained if you don't do these interventions, you will not get better because they are not taught about how the body heals. Correct. You know, they're not taught about what the make what makes the body well, which is crazy to me. And so I actually just this clicked for me just the other day. I was on the phone with a friend. And I was like these two industries. Oh my gosh, they're so similar. And they're so predatory because there's nothing more sensitive than human life. And I don't think that these doctors have created that are have that figured out. I think it's pharmaceutical companies absolutely that have insurance companies and insurance companies 100%. But then on the other hand, I've seen fertility specialists be like they'll put out content online that says don't fall for these myths. And it's literally like eating healthy will help your fertility taking antioxidants will help your fertility literally listing off all of the things that we know for a fact help their fertility. And they're like you know what will work as IVF or I UI. And I'm like, are we in the matrix? Like what is this? What is happening right now? And also like you were a smart individual. You made it through medical school. You made it through residency. You made it to whatever. And you haven't sat back and thought to yourself for one second that food can heal the body. I mean what? Quite literally what you're consuming every single day has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on your health. What a novel concept. Yeah. It's hard though because that is a threat to their actual existence and their their livelihood. It is an actual threat to them. Because if that is all they are trained to do then if people no longer need them then they are obsolete. Their industry is obsolete. So they are holding tight like they are white knuckling this concept that IVF is the only option. And I've seen that quite a bit. But what's happening now with even plastic surgeons is you're saying plastic surgeons are coming out and being like okay we were wrong implants probably are making one sick. We're going to help facilitate the ex-plant process and help you detox and their surgeons that are literally like that's their whole specialty now. Yeah and they're making 70 grand of pop on it. They are still making money. But I'm like you know what everyone deserves to make money schooling is so expensive. Like my husband and I have more debt from school than most people have in their mortgage. And so I'm like I get it like you have to make it and if you have to check yourself and make sure am I doing this for the right reasons. And a lot of people are not a lot of people are not doing that. Yeah I completely agree with you and I just think that like there is this it's not innocuous for a woman to try to get pregnant for you know one of my girlfriends. I think eight months trying to get pregnant she had had a miscarriage, an actopic and a chemical and the doctor sat her down and goes well you need to do IVF. Like you are going to hurt yourself if you do not do IVF. And she was like I'm not doing IVF. I'm not even a you're into this right. Like well tell me a second IVF doesn't make the pregnancy any safer or healthier. The our eyes are actually worse. Yes for both you and the baby. There's more risk factors. Yeah so it's just yeah I just think we live in this world now where and this is a hard thing like I understand I think a lot of people want things on their timing and I think like we see this especially people without any religious compass. Yeah we in faith we see something and we're like oh well now's the right time. Guess I'm going to do it and guess I'm going to get that instant gratification and we're constantly being rewarded through tons of different methods of instant gratification and if something doesn't happen right away right on my timing then we're taught to think something is wrong with us. And it's not something is wrong with us. It's we all have things that we need to heal and what if healing these things is is the catalyst of what's going to make you ready for parenthood and to be a better parent. 100% I mean you just basically wrote my whole bio my website bio and that's like 100% yeah what I I tell people this all the time like you the foundation has to be in place and when I educate people on this I of course is on this I literally talk about how the health of your marriage is just as important as the health of your body that's foundational. If your marriage is not in a good place you're not in a good place spiritually if you're not in a good place emotionally if you're not in a good place physically. All of that has to do with fertility outcomes, all of it. And I've seen it. I can tell when I'm on the phone with a couple of their marriages, not in a good place, I already know. Like this is not going to happen. Yeah. So they get this figured out. Yeah. Like 100% of the time. Don't see me see a see a therapist see a place like come back when yeah, you've gotten this ironed out. 100%. Okay. So what are the methods that you do? Someone walks into you. It walks you and says, Hey, I was given this unexplained information. I'm telling you diagnosis. I've had a miscarriage and I've been trying for a year to get pregnant. Hasn't worked. And my doctor is recommending IUI. What is the first thing that you're doing? Yeah. The first thing I'm doing is looking at blood labs on everybody. Everybody gets blood labs. What labs do you do? I do all the basic hormones starting with pregnant alone, which is the most important. No one is looking at pregnant alone. Even my functional medicine counterparts, they're not. No one's looking at pregnant alone. It's basically our mother hormone. It's a precursor hormone to all of our downstream sex hormones. And no one is testing for it. So I've never been heard of this hormone. Yeah. Exactly. And I can always bet my we have like a running joke in my practice when labs come in and I know someone's fertility case. I always say I always tell my assistant, let me guess they're pregnant alone. It's under 20 and she's like, how did you know? I'm like, because every time it is. So pregnant alone is the hormone that makes DHA makes progesterone, makes estrogen. I always tell people it's like trying to bake a loaf of sourdough without any flour. It's not going to happen. So I do pregnant alone. I check. I'm the corrected cycle after ovulation. About a week after ovulation, we check for progesterone, estrogen, DHA, all the inflammatory markers, CRP, sed rate, homocysteine. We look at a full thyroid panel to include thyroid antibodies, iron, ferritin, your story form of iron. Sometimes we check B vitamins. That's just obviously CBC, CMP lipid panel. That's just a basic, that's our most basic workup, which is like probably 10 miles of blood, but it's our most basic workup from there. If someone tells me they're having early pregnancy losses, so like 10 weeks and under, or if they have never gotten a positive pregnancy test, which tells me probably failed implantation. My next step is looking into the health of the vaginal and uterine microbiome. I'm doing testing for that. Now if they come in and they also have other symptoms that lead me more down like maybe an insulin resistance rabbit hole or an inflammation rabbit hole, or if they have a lot of gut issues, I might start with the stool analysis because that almost always is our starting point for a lot of couples is gut infections. Interesting. Yeah. So I myself, I had an actopic pregnancy in 2020 when I was being diagnosed with cancer. I had an IUD at the time, so I think that was definitely causal. But I also think like what you were saying, the vaginal microbiome plays a huge role in that as well as like not just a structure of your tubes, but like inflammation in that area to begin with. And you know the purpose of IUDs is to create scar tissue in the phyloven tubes. How insane is that? Yes. So that is the intentional purpose of an IUD. So that could also be, there could be significant inflammation in scar tissue in the phyloven tubes in general. And that could be why topics are happening. But 100%. If the environment where the embryo needs to be implanted is inflamed in general, it's going to be more difficult for implantation to occur near impossible for some people. So the way that's the uterus, what you're saying is if your uterus is inflamed. Yes. And the implantation will not occur. Correct. If you have endometriitis, which is inflammation of the endometrium caused by a lot of these specific strains of bacteria, which I'm happy to touch on, then that 100% can affect implantation and can increase miscarriage rate, spontaneous abortion rates. It could lead to later term issues in pregnancy too. Spontaneous membrane ruptures, all of that. So that is why in my opinion, every woman should probably, everyone who wants to conceive should have some testing done. But also if you've had a history of chemicals, miscarriages, losses of any kind, 100% that should be first stop in my opinion, in addition to blood work. But yeah, that 100% is what I'm seeing more in the last five years than anything else is infections and inflammation in the uterine microbiome. And what's crazy is the testing that is out there right now is trash. Most people are using these vaginal swab test kits, which I even, I've used them in the past for certain cases like VV and whatnot. They are missing infections upstream in the endometrium. So a vaginal swab does not catch an infection in the endometrium. But would you be symptomatic of this? Like would I feel like, oh, I have VV or something? So most people are completely asymptomatic. They're extremely silent infection. So one minor symptom that women can have sometimes is tail and brown spotting after their period. So if you have like brown mucusy spotting after your period, that can be a sign of an endometrial infection. Some women are completely asymptomatic. Men are often carriers of these infections too. It can be in the seminal fluid or in the semen. And they can be actually passing the infection back and forth, couples. So it almost sounds, I mean, it's not parasitic in nature. It sounds like it's bacterial, right? It's a cell wall deficient bacteria, typically ureoplasma or microplasma. And how do you fix that? So the good news is they can be tricky to treat. Most providers are not prescribing the correct dose of antibiotics or course of antibiotics. And antibiotics in this case are very successful. This is like one scenario where I tell my patients, I'm like, I am the last person to run antibiotics. I tested. I tested positive for ureoplasma myself and I tell people, I took the antibiotics because it is very effective if done and dose correctly. A five day course is not enough. Like that is the problem is a lot of people are having these recurrent infections. Also if a woman tests positive for it, most likely her partner also needs to be treated. And you have to abstain for like two weeks while you're being treated. So an antibiotic, too, prescribed for that, like toxic cycling. Typically, cycling, yeah, that's a typical one. So yeah, that's probably like the most prevalent thing I'm seeing right now is those two. There's also others like gardener out gardener LNs, things like that too, that are different types of pathogenic bacteria. But between 40 and 80% of women carry the ureoplasma species in their body. Now, it's just like HPYLORI in the gut though. We can have HPYLORI and if it's in a normal amount, a healthy amount, it's fine. It's when there's an overgrowth that there becomes an issue. So it's the same thing with these opportunistic strains that we look at in the gut. This usually comes from weakening of the immune system and two little beneficial flora. So I always describe it like weeds in a garden. Let's say you have a beautiful rose garden, but it starts to be overtaken by weeds, right? The roses will eventually probably be crowded out and the weeds will take over. That is the same exact situation with these pathogenic bacteria. They start to take over in the good, beautiful beneficial flora. Just cannot do their job because they're being overtaken and usually it's some kind of stressor or immune suppression that kind of causes this or nothing at all. It could just be, this is typically a sexually transmitted infection, but it could just literally be that it was passed to you via a partner. It's not an STD. It's not a lot of people are like, "Oh my gosh, I feel a certain way." That's Climidia. Exactly. The amount of patients I've had that have gotten their test back and they're like, "Thank God, I don't have Climidia." That's their first answer and I'm like, "I get it, it's fine." But there's nothing to be ashamed about with these bacterial strains. It's just pretty wild too because specific strains of bacteria like ureoplasma or ureoplasma, they can actually adhere or attach to sperm and get into the sperm cell and change the internal structure of the sperm cells and lead to and cause DNA damage within the sperm themselves, causing problems for every sperm parameter from motility to morphology to DNA fragmentation, all of it. So men. Wow. We love them, but they are usually the silent carriers of these infections. Obviously, women too, but let's say a man is who's passing it via sexual transmission, hypothetically speaking, he likely has no symptoms at all whereas some STDs or STIs in men have symptoms and they know right away they'll go to their doctor, they'll get treated. It's almost completely silent in men, just as silent as in women. So it can be passed back and forth. I don't want to put blame on any side. It can be passed back and forth on any side and people don't know. How are men getting this though? Are they getting it from other sexual partners or couldn't they get it from like working out and staying in their shorts for too long? You know what I'm saying? It's not like Candida or yeast. They're getting it from somewhere. It's funny, my husband and I were just having this debate. I'm like, where do you think in the environment men are getting exposed? Because they're genitalia or outside of their body, are they? Are they? So it's a little bit easier in my opinion for a man to pick it up. Men can also have biofilms on their penis, topically. So for a lot of our couples, I will actually use a topical herbal and have them put it on topically so that they do not continue to pass this biofilm back and forth. I know it's crazy. Works very well though. Same exact situation for women with chronic UTIs all connected back to the world. to this. And UTIs, almost always I can fix by putting topical treatment on the husband and then working with a female internally, supporting their vaginal microbiome, testing for these bacterial strains, things like that. And this is why women can oftentimes have recurrent UTIs that are resistant to treatment because they're not looking for the right type of bacteria. And I feel like a lot of women end up getting antibiotic resistance from their UTIs where their doctors are like slinging antibiotics at them and being like, "Oh, you just need a 14th round of antibiotic this year." I had a patient who was on seven rounds of antibiotics last July. Oh my gosh. For UTIs. And none of this stuff was looked for and none of this stuff was evaluated. Her husband was never evaluated. They're now seeing both of us. But I just couldn't believe how many rounds of antibiotics she was on. And I was like, "You do not have an antibiotic deficiency. This is not the problem at this point." Like if seven rounds did not fix your UTI, we need to look into other things. Yeah. And speaking of, speaking of IUDs, I know multiple people who have had, this is disgusting, but like bacteria strands around their IUDs that were getting chronic UTIs and BV and once they had the IUDs pulled resolved. 100% medical procedures, pap smears, any of that. They can, in my opinion, can put you at risk of this stuff. A lot of women have secondary infertility from these strains of bacteria that they somehow contracted in the hospital and their first birth. So I have several patients who we've done like specific testing on and had one normal healthy pregnancy, no problem. And then sometime between their first and second pregnancy or attempting for their second, they contracted this bacteria. So it could be from a hospital setting, from a medical procedure, from an IUD. It's really hard. That's why I am not the first to run to IUI or IVF because there's so much going on in that environment that you are messing with. And there's a lot, in my opinion, that can go wrong as soon as you start to put four objects in the body of any kind. Yeah. Oh, 100%. And I think we assume the best always, but you don't know what some cleanliness standards are. You don't know what the inside of their practice looks like when you're not looking. And I think, again, is there a time and a place for all of these things, obviously. But I also think we are so quick to do it now where it's like, before you go and spend $50,000 on this, like exhaust every last resort. Yeah. That's like, if I could like just plead with any woman before going to IVF, it's like work with someone like myself, you know, like just investigate the root cause. Like, yes, people will say, well, functional medicine is expensive. I promise you, it is less expensive than even two rounds of IU eyes, right? Three months of care of this is the cost of like two IU eyes. So for people who are going through their insurance, sometimes they'll say, well, my insurance covers it, but you're putting your body through all of this trauma. Yeah. Like, investigate if you cannot get pregnant naturally, the next step should be investigating why it's not happening. If all else fails, then IVF is there, right? And there are structural reasons. I mean, I've had friends who their husbands have had structural issues. They could not produce sperm. They had to go in and actually retrieve sperm surgically, totally a time and a place for that. And 100% it's helped my friends grow their families. That is I kid you not less than 5% of couples that need that 95% of couples are being funneled to IVF funneled there for no reason at all, other than the fact that no one has taken an investigation. And there's no medical specialty at all that is out there that prepares women for pregnancy. It is your OB. They do not specialize in fertility and fertility clinics. And that is it. So there's not only you go to your OB and you're like, Hey, like I'm thinking about getting pregnant next year. And they're like, Okay, I guess. Take full a acid. Yeah. Take full a acid. Get off your birth control a week before you want to get pregnant because you're going to sneeze on your husband's penis and get pregnant. Like 100%. It's like they make it seem so easy and like there's no preparation. And I think that like, I mean, I would say and I'm curious what your thoughts are. I think six months to a year is like the minimum you see prepping. Yes. So I've of course called the pregnancy preppy Academy. I created a few years ago because I saw this gap in healthcare. And women were coming to me like, Hey, just got off the bill. I don't know what to do. We want to be pregnant in the next year when we're pregnant in the next six months. What do I do? And I was like, I there's literally nothing else they're teaching women this information. And this includes like in my program, I talk about these bacteria. I talk about testing the vaginal you know, you don't get her in microbiome. I talk about testing for gut health because prevention is key. And if you can figure out these problems a year before you want to start trying, it is so much easier than waiting until you've been trying for a year and then figuring out you already have the issues. So I don't like to like scare people at all. But it's like, it's preventive. Like pregnancy is the most energy demanding role of your life, right? It's going to be the most energy expensive time of your life. Why not make sure that every it's like going on a long road trip and not checking your tires, not checking your oil, not putting gas in your tank and then being like, I don't know why we ran out of gas and got four flat tires. You know what I mean? Yes, absolutely. And I think it is such a nutrient suck. And if you do not have really significant nutrient stores ahead of time, that's where we see women who have terrible nausea, terrible exhaustion because their detox pathways are closed. Their liver has no idea what to do in this scenario. And ultimately, they don't have the nutrient stores to keep up with the output of what it takes to grow a whole human. I think like in an ideal world, pregnancy, my mom always says she's like, pregnancy is the best I ever felt. She's 66 years old and like the most beautiful, vibrant person. And she's always like, it was so beautiful and sexy and like fun. And I was exercising and felt great. And I was glowing. And the reason why is because I was unbelievably healthy going into it. I wasn't, you know, working 12 hour days in front of a computer, getting carpal tunnel in my hands and never seeing the sun and addicted to caffeine and then drinking glass of wine to wine down at night and eating restaurant food all the time and it ended up seeing a lot of this like all of these things like a truly healthy and vibrant woman is going to be healthy and vibrant during pregnancy. 100%. 100%. The women that I know that are healthy like that, they go into pregnancy and have wonderful pregnancies. Yeah. And I mean, you touch in a really big thing that I like to bust myths on. So like you said, going into pregnancy nutrient depleted is not a great place. You want to go in with with nutrient stores. And this is why I think I told you like I would love to talk, touch about the prenatal topic. Yeah, let's talk about it. Because some women do not need prenatals, right? And I'll give an example, some women, most of women with our environment with how depleted the soil is with how depleted nutrients are in general in the food supply. They are going into pregnancy depleted even with a prenatal. That's let's say your average prenatal, right? You actually need most women need a really vibrant prenatal that has very specific amounts of certain nutrients to get them to that place before pregnancy. And that's why I do suggest like if you at all know in the future that you want kids like getting on a quality prenatal now on top of a super nutrient dense diet, it's going to be your best bet. And I'll give an example, I have a friend of mine, she has the most amazing pregnancies like what you just described to be beautiful little boys. And she lives in another country and her husband is like an international chef. All the things she eats a great diet. And she actually did a podcast recently with someone talking about her two different pregnancies. Her first pregnancy, she, I mean, she's always eaten healthy. She's super active, eats very healthy. Her first pregnancy was great. Her second pregnancy, she actually took my prenatal because she kind of wanted to compare. And she said that she felt better in postpartum. She was less tired. She just felt like the transition was easier for her. And I forget exactly all the things that she said, but she said she noticed a significant difference. And I actually used her as an example in my course years ago. I was like, I have a friend. And with how clean and wonderful her diet is, she actually probably would not even need a prenatal. Like, yeah, really wouldn't. But it was really cool. She did it all in her own. She started taking my prenatal. And then now has the comparison of like, I'm someone who eats a perfect diet already. And with the addition of a prenatal, my pregnancy was just even better than the first one. And so I thought that was really, really cool because there are certain nutrients like colon, unless you're pounding like nine to 12 eggs a day, you're not getting what you need from food. And so it's almost impossible to eat enough food to get the amount of nutrients that your body actually needs to prepare for pregnancy and how energy expensive it is and nutrient demand to get it. So that's kind of why like, I have a unique perspective on prenatal. Yeah. And I agree, I think that but like my issue isn't with prenatals. Like, that's not where the rub is for me. My issue is these, okay, I'm just going to say the word these shitty prenatals that he doctors are like best prenatal is whichever one's in whichever is covered by your insurance. And you're like, whatever you can get down and gummy form. Correct. And you're like, but no, because yeah, main stream prenatals, you tell me if I'm in the right direction here, a lot of them are not methylated. They're not absorbable at all. They're the junkiest possible quality of all of these different components that are going in. And they're actually hurting women in the long term because they're causing because fullic acid is such a mess. Yes. I would rather women have MTFR mutations. A lot of women, like truly this can be harmful. So I think that the caveat is you have to get a very high quality prenatal 100%. And that was a, something I saw in the market, even with the practitioner quality, practitioner level prenatal. So not that they were bad. They were lacking a lot. And which is why I formulated my own for four and a half years ago, because I was like, I formulated it just for my patients basically, because I was like, I want my outcomes to be pristine. Like I want my outcomes to be amazing and I want my patients to have the best pregnancies. That's why I formulated my prenatal selfishly for my own patients, because I wanted them to have the best experiences. And then I looked at the ones on the market and I was like, oh my gosh, I would rather someone take nothing at all than take a store bought prenatal or something like ritual, or whatever you can get nature made on the shelf. If you can buy it at Walmart or Target, it's probably not good for you at all. And I know the back end of the supplement manufacturing industry and I will give women some insight on this. The MO of supplement companies is producing the lowest cost product possible. So your margins are super thick and you make bank. Yes, they're looking for like 10 to 15 X margins on R. That's crazy. On R's we have like two X margins. And that is like literally leaving almost nothing for us to take home and that is okay. I tell my manufacturer all the time, I'm like, switch out that nutrient. I want a higher quality version. I do not care if it increases the price. I don't care if I make no money at the end of the month on it. I want the highest quality option. My team, it's frustrating me because I'm like constantly. I'm constantly like, no, I want something better. I want something higher quality. I want something better. I want and most companies out there do not care about you because they're not seeing women face to face like this. If I give someone a junk product, I have to get on zoom and see their face like this and have them tell me I've been throwing up every day. I've been none of my patients have warning sickness. None of my patients feel bad. None of my patients have bad pregnancies. And that's because we're going to ask you, do you think that all of these women, like warning sickness is the norm and for people who aren't watching right now, that's in quotations because I always say I would rather be a serious freak in the world today than be normal by today's standards. Same. So is morning sickness not actually normal? Correct. It is common, very common. It is not normal. Morning sickness should not be a normal thing. Now, twinges of nausea because you do have really like quickly rising levels of estrogen, quickly rising levels of estrogen. Twinges of nausea, okay, twinges of fatigue, okay, you should not be bedridden for 12 weeks and you should not be puking for 12 weeks. That is a sign of a significant mineral deficiency, vitamin deficiency. There's one prenatal on the market. It's actually probably one of the top ones that practitioners and influencers recommend. I'm not going to name names. Every single person I know who's on that has horrible warning sickness. Every person. Even someone who's very intimately connected with the company. I have just noticed. I'm like, there are certain prenatals on the market that I've noticed trends with. And so what I can say, confidently about mine is I'm directly seeing the clinical outcomes with my patients. I can't say that for any supplement company in the market where the owner is also still actively in clinical practice. That is huge to me. Okay. So I want to go back to, like, I know we've gotten into pregnancy and talking more about prenatals, et cetera, but I want to go back to a woman coming to your clinic. She hasn't explained fertility. You're taking those labs. Let's say, you see that bacteria. It pops positive. You give her the antibiotic. What is the protocol from there? Is it dietary changes, lifestyle changes, all of those things? Yep. So just for like legal purposes, I don't prescribe antibiotics. I send them out to like their OB or someone who's going to prescribe for them. So just in case someone's listening, that might just like, you know, ruin my life. I'm not. But no, I send them out. Obviously, I get approval with their primary or their OB for that. And then what I do is I am going in and replenishing. We're doing vaginal probiotics. Sometimes I even do vaginal herbals. We work on their gut health and then always diet from visit one diet and lifestyle are foundational. So we're working on like what led your body to the place where it became a good host for this organism, right? Were you stressed? Were you overworking? What was your diet like? Were you in a pro-inflammatory environment? So we go through all of that. We talk about the liver. We talk about the toxic burden. And we start to kind of like peel the onion from there and figure out kind of what led to this. And it's almost not like anyone's fault ever. But if you're looking at like even the gut, which there's translocation of bacteria, right? We can eat something. We can get food poisoning. We can get a bacteria in the gut. That bacteria can be translocated to the vaginal microbiome or the uterine microbiome. Think about sepsis, right? Like bacteria can be systemic. So a lot of people are like, I don't understand. I have this in my gut. How did I get to my vaginal microbiome? Totally possible. So this is how we can create. This is how we can have an inflammatory system overall that can lead to insulin resistance, inflammation, infertility, all the things you name it metabolic issues can start from just bacteria. But where did that start? Stress, lower stomach acid, right? We need stomach acid. It's kind of like our bodyguard in the gut, right? Like stomach acid helps protect and kill organisms as soon as they come and contact with our body. Without stomach acid, we also can't make enough enzymes. So we are not having these defense mechanisms. We need, or we don't have enough of these defense mechanisms that we need in our body to protect us from these pathogens. And they come in that way, right? So we can also get them orally from foods. We can get them from water, like a water supply in the US, in Mexico, wherever you go. A lot of times people will just simply travel somewhere new and they'll get sick, right? Flying on planes. We're exposed to so much in the air. There's all sorts of things. So that's kind of where we start. Sorry to go on a long tangent. No, I mean, that makes complete sense. But I guess I'm sitting here and I'm listening to all of this and I'm thinking about my friends who I feel like are so healthy. And like, you know, yeah, sure, for all intensive purposes, be able to get pregnant because it's like, you see, this is going to sound bad, but you see like a crack head on the street who's pregnant. I know. I know. Like, why? How? I know. It is, I wrestle. I wrestle with this with God a lot actually because I really hurt for my patients who are going through this. I suffer with them. I feel like because I can't give them the answers all the time. And as believers, we're always like, what would I always go back to? And it's so hard for me to wrestle or ration with someone who's not a believer is like, this is 100% part of God's plan for you. I know. And there's something coming ahead that he can't see. I'm actually sending out an email this week about my husband and I as journey because a last year in my mind, I thought I was ready for pregnancy. And then literally I find out when my closest friends was diagnosed with cancer. And in my mind, I'm like, I'm ready. God knew. God knew the next nine months for you is going to be the hardest time of your life walking through this journey with her. He knew there's no physical way I could have been pregnant. I mean, I had to get on a plane and fly across the country to be with her. I wanted to. I couldn't have done that if I was pregnant. I couldn't have even my husband said he's like, you could not have been pregnant with how emotionally up and down this whole process was. And so just now, I feel like, you know, with her like more acteless healing and all the stuff. And even stuff within our own lives and business, I'm like, just now I'm like getting my head above water. And like God knew that a year and a half ago. Yeah. 100% and I think for some people like this is a hard, this is like the hardest part, right? And some people are going to listen to us talk about this and be like, I roll. Okay. Well, that doesn't, that doesn't make sense to me. And I get that. I get that feeling too. But what I will say is that like if you feel called to faith in any way, I think what you're saying, register is completely because it's really not about our plan. 100%. Yeah. 100%. I think. And there's always like pruning that needs to be done too, you know, and this could be spiritual physical, emotional. And so I always kind of go back to that. And I just think like what is God doing in my life? Where is he pruning me? Right? Like where is he refining me and what needs to be refined before I become a mother or before I'm ready? And I feel like that's always something we have to just ask ourselves, right? And never go down the road of like why me? Like why am I being punished? Like why is this happening to me? I think that's that that's a slippery slope of like you will create so much stress internally. And I know it's hard. But it's the truth. I think it's a, it's a reformulation of like this isn't happening to you. It's happening for you. And you are being called closer to God throughout this journey. And whether you heed that call is up to you. And I think that's the hard thing. I mean, I think about when I got sick with cancer and all the things that came from that, there were so many times where I could have gone into that spiral and I, you know, have a great family and really good parents who would never let me go there. But I think the point is, is like, this could be. Your greatest growing moment if you allow it to be that way. 100% 100% yeah, I mean, and that's what I've seen with my friend who's completely just kicked cancers, but like she has made this her full testimony. Yeah. And it's like you can also do that too. Yeah, it's hard to explain the feeling of infertility to someone, right? And rationalize it with them and get them, you know, because it's something like like women instinctively desire, you know, like instinctively, like a lot of women are like, I just want to be a mother. It's my own calling. It's all I want to do. And so when it's not happening for you, it's really hard to wrap your head around the new timeline. And I think, I think releasing control is a huge piece of that puzzle. Yeah. Because the more that you have your grips on something, the more control you want over it, the harder it is for your body. And the more stress subconsciously that you have internally. And so that's what a lot of a lot of type A, a high achieving women that I see, I work with a lot of like lawyers, doctors, practitioners, business owners. And they're the hardest ones because I have to be like, everything in your life, you have achieved. And you have, I mean, even with myself, it's like, I got the degree, I got a thing, I started the business. And so it's like, you would, you would assume that this next thing is going to be easy because you've always been an achiever, you've always achieved in being able to get something. This is the one thing that you can't control as a woman. And it's really hard. And also, I think that women have to take the pressure off too because still there's only, we only know this much about male fertility, a very small amount. There is so much to male fertility that we still unpacked. I still have not unpacked. And that we're going to find out, I think in the next few years. And so a lot of these experiences I have found have like refined couples quite a bit because it's actually made the husband like open up quite a bit more, talk about more issues. A lot of these fertility journeys have actually brought out health issues like people didn't know they had. And so, my girlfriends, she didn't know that she had terrible black mold exposure. Yes. So, I don't know, I don't think you know this, but my husband and I were really ill with mold, like very, my husband was like borderline on his deathbed with my God illness seven years ago, which is a big part of our story. But 100% mold, there's a huge mold in fertility connection because mycotoxins impact the brain, they impact every aspect of the body. They cause neuroinflammation. My husband actually had similar, he did brain scans, similar patterns to someone with a TVI. So, neuroinflammation in the brain, the brain is where we produce, insukrete a lot of our hormones that we need to signal to the ovaries. So a lot of our pituitary hormones, if we have a lot of neuroinflammation, those immediately start to shut down. And so that's what I actually, when I run labs on people, I look at their lab patterns. And if I see really, really low pituitary hormones or even low thyroid hormones, I start to think where's the mold exposure coming in and we do a lot of mold testing because of that. And because we've walked through it, we can both spot it really, really quickly. But that's about maybe 15% of our patient base that comes in is people who don't even know their sick with mold. And we kind of figured out based on their symptoms. And some people even think we're crazy at first. Oh, I'm sure, especially if you've never heard of that before. So this is kind of a hard left turn, but what do you think about women? I feel like progesterone is such a hot topic right now. I see women that are using either topical or suppository progesterone regardless of their fertility status. If they're like, I want to get pregnant, there's no downside. What do you think about that? I don't love that. I love progesterone for the right person. I do not love taking anything just because, just because it's safe, right? And in most cases, I would tell women, let's figure out why your body is not making enough progesterone on its own. Let's figure out that process first. Let's see if we can support that. Increasing vitamin C, increasing vitamin B6, increasing magnesium. These are all the things your body needs to make progesterone, checking pregnant alone. If you don't have enough of the precursor hormone, you're not going to make the downstream hormone progesterone. So that's a big one. So stress is one of the biggest factors in progesterone production. So if you are living in a chronically stressed state, if you are overworking, if you are running yourself a ragged, if you're not sleeping, if you're not resting, progesterone is going to take a hit. So in the few cases I do like progesterone is like the cases of severe PMDD that can be really helpful, but also doing things like 5HTP and taking GABA can be really helpful in those cases instead of progesterone. But if all else fails, progesterone is really helpful. In pregnancy or in women with a history of recurrent miscarriage, I'm a huge fan of just early and often using progesterone. Let's just go ahead and get you on some progesterone. So once you get that positive pregnancy test, it's like, okay, yeah, why not? Yes, that's my thought, 100%. And I've talked to so many midwives about this and even holistic OBS and they're the same exact thought process. So I just make your pregnancy symptoms worse, not usually, not usually for some. If you're using it appropriately. Correct. If you're using it appropriately, it shouldn't. Some women are ultra sensitive to anything, like anything they take. They're ultra sensitive to it. And that could be a genetic variation or genetic snip. That's potentially causing that. But I would say very rarely the most normal symptom or side effect, I should say progesterone, it's just a little sleepiness. Like they might feel a little more tired, which is, I wish I could feel that sleep through the night. Yeah, I was. I'm in. Yes. Yeah, progesterone is like super calming for the brain. It's our calming hormone. So it does help women who are like pretty chronically anxious. It helps them quite a bit. If you're already super low-key and super like sleepy, might make it a little bit worse. So yeah, that's that's kind of my thought. Did I answer that? Yeah. So you like it for pregnancy for the right, for the right cases. Yeah. So what about another weird question? What do you tell your clients when it comes to timing of sex? So I get a lot of women being like, should I, first of all, is what is the window for how long sperm can live? You know, is it five days? Is it two days? I would guess it depends on the person. Yep. Should we have sex leading up to ovulation or day of ovulation or day after ovulation? What does that look like? Yep. So there's a lot of variables to this. So semen quality and motility can impact this to like certain men, longer periods of abstinence actually harms their fertility, right? Well, actually, in all men almost. What I tell couples in my program is that A, for like reduced risk of prostate cancer, things like that. More frequent abaculations are actually better for men, healthier for men. Especially if you're trying to get pregnant. If you're only having sex around your fertile window and then you're not having sex in other parts of your cycle, that's actually going to damage your husband's sperm. If you're trying to get pregnant, every other day is a safe bet. You do not have to have sex multiple times a day. You don't have to have to have sex every day you can. But the day before ovulation is actually the highest probability of conception. A lot of times people like depending on if they're trying to like get a certain gender or whatever they'll, you know, people swear by. I think that's real. The Shettles method. Yeah. People swear by it. They're too swear by it. Into the, you know, if they want to boy, they'll have sex, day of conception or whatever it might be. Day of ovulation, right? Day of day of day of ovulation. Yes. Like on their peak day. Yeah. I think there's something probably to that for sure. Yeah. But ultimately a lot of people that come to me are like, I don't care what it is. I just want to be pregnant. Yeah. And so my suggestion is sex every other day in your fertile window or anytime you see cervical fluid. So if you're not seeing healthy cervical mucus, that's a problem. We got to fix that. But every other day is totally sufficient in that period. And that cervical mucus should look like egg white, right? Yeah. And egg white is that usually peaking. So like you're seeing cervical music, music, seeing cervical mucus. Is that day of ovulation usually or is it leading up to it? It can be anytime in your fertile window, which for some women could be day 12 to 16. For some women could be day 13 to 18. Really different. It's usually about a five day window where you can see that nice, healthy cervical fluid. In any time in that window, you can conceive. So some people, they let's say they ovulate on day 14, but they might have actually conceived on day 11. And that sperm can live in a healthy environment for five days. So there are women that I know that have had, oh, babies from like having sex on day eight of their cycle. And they ovulated early that month because we are not ovulating robots. We do not ovulate always on the same day every month. Such a myth. If you're listening, there's not, there's no guarantee that you're going to ovulate on day 14 or even day 15 of your cycle. It could be day 12, could be day 18, could be day 16, could be day 14. So if you're trying to avoid, that's a big thing. Like you need to be aware of when you're ovulating. If you're trying to conceive, being really in tune with your body and in your fertile cues, like cervical fluid, it's going to be really helpful. So I always say, if you see cervical fluid at all, go ahead and try to conceive. It's going to be 24 to 48 hours. And how do you, if you feel like that cervical fluid isn't looking sufficient? What do you think are the best mechanisms to increase cervical fluid? I know some people are taking like mucinex now, which, right? No, I use NAC for that. So NAC has basically to mucolytic, just like mucinex without all the side effects and nasty ingredients. NAC is one of my favorite supplements. There's such good research on it. We carried in our supplement line for that reason because it increases pregnancy outcomes. It helps with cervical fluid. It helps with ovulation. It helps with insulin resistance. It helps with all the things. And so you're literally killing like seven birds with one stone with NAC. So it's in one of my many. my prenatal bundles, like I always sell anyone. If you're in the pre-conception phase, you're wanting to be pregnant, get on NAC. Like it's literally like a fertility super supplement in my opinion, and it will help to increase cervical fluid. - Wow. - Which, yeah. - I've never heard that. I've heard of people using NAC, this sounds weird, but I've heard of people using NAC to detox from the COVID vaccine or from other vaccine protocols. - Maybe just some NAD. - Maybe NAD. Yeah, NAC is the precursor to glutathione, so it's a master antioxidant. So a lot of people use it for mold protocols, very immune supportive. - Okay. - So NAC, I was using a lot during COVID with patients who were sick. That's, it was like in my go-to COVID protocol. - Interesting. - So for like an acute infection, absolutely love it. Yeah. - Can you take that evergreen though? Like let's say you're thinking of getting pregnant any year, can you start that now? - Yeah, 100%. - 100%. You can. Some people, if you're really insulin sensitive, like if you have lower insulin, you just might need to be careful that your blood sugar is not dropping too low. You're not having like little hypoglycemic episodes 'cause it can impact blood sugar positively, but if you're already or more hypoglycemic, you just have to be careful with that. - Speaking of blood sugar, what role does that play in all of this? - Yeah. A huge role. - Yeah, I can imagine. - Blood sugar fluctuations, whether it be high or low fluctuations, can impact fertility. So if you're running hypoglycemic all the time, meaning your blood sugar is low, that can absolutely impact fertility, hormones, stress. If your blood sugar is low, the body to compensate is gonna make cortisol. So if you're waking up between two and four a.m. in the middle of the night, this could be a blood sugar issue. So if your blood sugar is too high, and you develop insulin resistance, or your glucose is just chronically, like a little bit more elevated than it should be, this actually kicks off an inflammatory cascade and creates inflammation in the body, systemic inflammation. And this inflammatory environment can cause infertility. It can also cause PCOS symptoms, it can cause excess facial hair, it can cause acne, it can lead to bloating, like all the things, because what's gonna happen is this inflammatory cascade is just gonna kick off, and it's gonna be a ripple effect of side effects or symptoms I should say. So yeah, blood sugar absolutely has a huge impact on the body and the brain, both high and low. - So would you say that for a lot of women who have PCOS, you solve the blood sugar issue, you solve the PCOS? - Yeah, I would say that's a huge component. 70% of people with PCOS or women with PCOS have an insulin resistance variable to their case. So if you get the blood sugar under control, then you 100% are gonna knock out 70% of your symptoms most likely. So yeah, that's a huge component. - Yep. And so what do you recommend for that, putting on a glucose monitor and changing your diet? - You don't have to wear a CGM to do it. You can, if you're curious like me, I wear a CGM a few times a year, you can. But 100% changing your diet, eating a little bit of a leaner diet, of course, can help, a lower carbohydrate diet can help, but also movement. So you can use movement as insulin. So the most strategic thing you can do, even beyond like reducing carbs and things like that and sugars is taking a 10 minute walk after your meal. That is gonna reduce the glucose spike more than anything. I used to call it the PCOS dog walk, 'cause that was my brand. Yeah, that a 10 minute walk after your meal and resistance training, it's gonna be super, super helpful for PCOS, more than anything. And then obviously like NAC is fantastic for women with PCOS as well. So if you also have PCOS and you're dealing with fertility struggles or you're not ovulating as consistently as you want, NAC is also gonna be amazing for you too. So an Opsetal, NAC, Burberry, we have a glucose support formula that's a mixture of different herbs. - Wow, brilliant. - Like brilliant and cinnamon and things like that that really helps with insulin sensitivity. So even if you just need it short term. So like I even when I'm in certain phases of like life where I'm really stressed, my blood sugar starts to get a little wonky and I have to like bring that stuff back in with dinner or with a couple meals a day. And then it like kind of levels out. But we can like with women, for women with PCOS, we can always go through these phases where we're prone to leaning into that insulin resistance. And so I have to be really intimate with it, which is why we're a CGM a couple times a year just to see where I'm at. I go through phases where I have hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia and I have to be really careful to keep them right in a healthy balance. Yeah, that's blood sugar is huge. It's probably one of the biggest things I talk about with people, which makes a lot of sense. I mean, it seems like it impacts literally every single facet of your health. So when you're trying to get someone pregnant, what does an ideal day of eating look like? Like what are the foods that you're like, you should definitely put these in your diet if you're trying to get pregnant? Yes. So A, animal-based all the ways where I'm recommending women to start and front loading your protein. So getting 30 grams of protein at minimum with breakfast and lunch minimum, 'cause to hit that ideally 100 gram a day target, depending on how much you weigh, obviously, you need to front load your protein. This to me, I talked to my patients, I'm like, eat a steak for breakfast steak, hard boiled eggs or regular eggs, whatever it might be, and some sort of antioxidant with it. So this could be blueberries, raspberries, pomegranates, whatever you prefer. I love to bring in fruits around ovulation. I love to bring in citrus fruits. So like kiwis and oranges for vitamine. - Just see. - Okay. - So it's funny, I actually fruit cycle. I love that. Like people seed cycle, I will say go my fruit. And then you also wanna pair your vitamin C and antioxidant rich foods with your proteins that have iron, because it's gonna help with iron absorption. So if I'm gonna have a big juicy steak, I'm gonna pair it with an orange or a kiwi or some blueberries for vitamin C. - Okay. - I'm also not going to take my prenatal around something that has a bunch of iron in it, because calcium can nib it iron absorption. So I would wanna take that away from those super iron rich foods to give my body time to absorb the iron and then give my body time to absorb the calcium separately. So that's intentionally why I've left iron out of my prenatals. Just as an example, for lunch, once again, something really high in protein, you can bring in fiber, you can do some veggies. I'm not anti-vegetable by any means. It just depends on what you like, but the biggest thing is gonna be the staple on your plate needs to be protein. And I'm not like a chicken girly. I'm like give me like a red meat. I love a grass-fed beef bowl of any kinds, all bulk prep either grass-fed burgers or grass-fed beef and just throw veggies on it, pickles, butter lettuce, whatever it might be and just load it up. - Yeah. - So I try to get like red meat in one to two times a day, at least. I talk to women who are only getting red meat once to twice a week. - Isn't that wild? - I can't even imagine. I can't imagine. - I can't imagine. - Yeah, I'm usually two times a day. - Yeah, same. Same. And then honestly, sometimes three times a day, 'cause I'm thinking about my meals today and probably I'll be red meat. I did make some chicken salad. So dinner can be something lighter if you want heavier in protein, of course, too. And then if you were gonna have movement in your day which hopefully you are, I just try to structure my carbon take around when I know I'm gonna be most active. So if I'm about to sit down and see five hours of patience, probably not gonna eat a high carb lunch, I might wait till dinner where my husband can go for a walk after dinner. And kind of like get my glucose a little bit more stable that way and utilize those glycogen stores in my muscles and kind of recruit that excess glucose within my bloodstream. So that's kind of what I would suggest. And then I'm just trying to think of other things and I'm thinking of what's on my pantry right now. So Brazil nuts. So Brazil nuts are actually great for progesterone and selenium, of course. So if you Brazil nuts a day can really help with that with thyroid function. Stables in my pantry almost always are gonna be nuts and seeds of some kind for omegas. - Yep. - And then I cannot ever hit my protein goals without a protein powder. So I just do straight up beef, grass-ed beef powder. - Yeah. - I think you like the equipment. - Which is what I love. - I love it. - You too. - I can live without it. Right before I got on here with 40 grams of protein 'cause I'm like, I need that. So yeah, I shoot for pretty high protein and then high antioxidants and then cooling with as much as you possibly can. So eggs every single day between two and three in my diet. I'll do eggs for breakfast and then like an egg salad first snack. I'll just mix in some mustard and make a little egg salad and just eat it. So yeah, that's huge for me. And then broths, any kind of broth, I'm always making, not always. Often making some kind of a broth or drinking or using some kind of a broth for gut healing. My husband is really, really well with soups and broth. So we do a lot of that. And then anything that I can bulk prep. So I do a lot of meatballs with grass-ed beef or I do the antestral blends. - So bad. - I'm all about, I'm totally fine with consuming organ meats. I am not actually a fan of consuming organ supplements. I don't know if you know that about. Tell me more, I'm so curious. - Yeah. So it is naturally normal to consume organ blends or consume organs on a weekly basis. Maybe once or twice a week if you think about our ancestors, right? It is actually not normal to consume them on a daily basis. And this is where we run into issues with copper. So copper, excess copper, which can be found in a lot of organ supplements across the market. Excess copper can increase histamine, can increase estrogen, can cause morning sickness for women. So a lot of women consuming organ blends have more severe morning sickness, actually pull them off of them. Copper can increase inflammation, it can increase psychiatric issues. So postpartum anxiety depression gets a frenia, you name it. If you look into copper toxicity, just look into the symptoms of it. And then if you also look at like liver king and these guys consuming tons of liver. She's having a meltdown. Meltdowns, they go into like psychosis and it is too much of these heavy metals and vitamin A. We can also get too much of vitamin A. So I think it's okay to add a little bit of to your food. If you want to open up a capsule, use it in a recipe, whatever, but taking tons of organ lines every day. But do you think that there's a component of infertility that's caused by vitamin A deficiency? I see it very rarely. Really? Yeah. So a lot of these theories that I've seen over the last over the years, copper deficiency, vitamin A deficiency, there's other certain theories out there. There's just not a lot of validity to it. Like when I'm running the labs, I'm not seeing this. Yeah. There's a lot of micronutrient panels on people. I'm seeing more excess copper and excess metals and things like that. A lot of low iron. I'm seeing a lot of low iron. Interesting. That is almost always an absorption issue. But I would rather you get iron from food all day long. So like the grass fed beef and things like that. I'd rather you get iron that way. But I'm just not seeing it. I'm not seeing as much as people think. No, that's interesting. I feel like that's something that a lot of people in the crunchy world have like warmed on to. I know. I mean, I think there's a million different ways to let the cookie crumble, but it's an interesting take to say like, we probably don't need these every day. Maybe a couple times a week. Yeah. Do you feel the same about like, for example, a cod liver oil or something like that? That's really high in vitamin A. Yeah. I think cod liver oil has a time and a place. Absolutely. My friend that I was telling you about that has the two fantastic pregnancies. She loves it. Yeah. Every day, but if I were to want to get some extra vitamin A, I would do it that way. But would I do it every day? No, that's the hard part. So if you think about how often we're recommended to eat salmon or fish in our diet, it's a few times a week. That's how I take my omegas too. Smart. So if I'm dealing with a lot of acute inflammation, I would take them every day because it can be really helpful for bringing down inflammation. But also regular omegas are not as high in vitamin A than a cod liver oil. So there are more reported cases in my opinion of vitamin A toxicity and copper toxicity than deficiency. And a lot of my practitioner friends, we've talked to about this over the years and I've asked them, I'm like, are you guys seeing this? And I'm like, no, I'm not. So we're seeing way more of the estrogen dominant side in the histamine issues, which histamine is more of what I'm worried about, especially with how homes are being built and how prevalent mold is. I'm worried about copper driving histamine in people and I've seen that a lot in the histamine. And we didn't even touch on this. Oh my gosh, the histamine and morning sickness component is huge. So it was histamines are really high. That is going to drive morning sickness and copper is going to increase histamines, going to drive morning sickness. So what are other symptoms of high histamines? So after you eat a meal, if your nose gets runny or if you get a little sleepy or drowsy, that can be a big one. I'm going to have my husband. He also, this is so weird, but whenever he drinks alcohol, he breaks out with like, hives on his back. And I think it's a histamine situation. Could be histamine for sure or just liver alcohol metabolism issue. So try giving him molybdenum when he drinks and see if that helps. Okay. I'm just going to tell him not to drink. Yeah, I was going to say like literally maybe once a month, probably not even that, but every time. Yeah. I'm like, you have the rash again? Yeah, I have not had alcohol like in any sort of excess and years and years and years, but whatever I did drink in my early 20s, I would always have the most severe like adverse reactions from it like rashes, hives, all the things. I was like, my body just does not do well. I cannot metabolize it. Like it just, I think my liver is just like dealing with so much extra stuff that I just can't do it. Totally. But yeah, that's, that's a big one is feeling sleepy or drowsy after meals, having your nose run. Maybe your eyes get itchy. It's the same way it almost feels like allergies, but on a smaller scale, not as obvious. Sure. Interesting. Okay. I have two more questions for you. What do you feel like the biggest myths or misconceptions are when it comes to fertility and getting pregnant? Yeah. Well, I think we touched on a couple of them, but I think the biggest one is that it's all on the woman. That's a big myth. Even conventional fertility clinics are focusing very, very heavily on the woman. What we now know is that it's 50/50 completely. It's right down the middle. 40/40. 40% on, 40% female, 40% male, 20% unknown statistically. In my mind, it's 50/50. Right. Because there's always a reason for that unknown. Some other myths start that if you go down the, the, some sort of IVF or IUI route that it's going to work, right? There's going to be a desired outcome that happens. What people don't know is the fertility rates are actually, the outcomes are way overinflated. The success rates are closer to 25 to 28%. How, how can they overinflate those? They can manipulate the numbers and I actually learned this through a holistic fertility surgeon. So she is actually who like, I mean, I suspected it, but she was like, they're overinflating numbers and this is how they're doing it. What they're doing is they're, I believe, and someone correct, can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I believe what they're doing is they're giving the outcome per couple, not per round. So they can say, oh, yeah, this couple conceived, but it took nine rounds or nine transfers. To have this happen, they're not giving the success rates per transfer. So that's really important too. So the six, the out the likelihood of a transfer working is really closer to 25 to 26%. So with how expensive that we know it is, couples need to know the outcomes. They're much lower than they say. And also if you think about this, like if you go back to what we talked about earlier, and you have these issues with chronic infections or chronic dysbiosis in the gut or vaginal microbiomes or even the seminal microbiome, seminal fluid, even if you take those same products and you're trying to create an embryo with those same exact products and put them into the same environment, the outcomes are going to be the same because the environment is still inflamed. The environment that needs to grow the baby is still inflamed. So I should say you should nurture the baby. I mean, that environment is the most, the uterine microbiome is the most important environment. And if that is critically inflamed, if it's on fire, you're throwing a baby into a fire. It literally doesn't make sense. And that is why these treatments and advanced reproductive technologies are just not as effective because they're not looking into this stuff. And that is something to big myth. Which is, I mean, I feel like we've said this at this point, but it's just so crazy that you can go to a clinic and be like, hey, I'll write you a check and you do this for me and they're not taking into account all of the things that we've just talked about when it's like, all things considered, this is low hanging fruit. Like yeah, it might cost you a few grand, but that's nothing in comparison to what it's going to cost you to do IVF and then store your eggs for years and years to come or store your embryos. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 100%. It doesn't really make sense. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think about it? Do you feel like are some surprising factors aside from the one that we just talked about that impact fertility that people often overlook? Do you feel like parasites play a big part here or no? They could. They could. I feel like parasites are overhived a little bit. I mean, we run people through parasite cleanses when indicated all the time if they're symptomatic absolutely. I think it's a part of it for sure. I think people look at parasites like a root cause in my opinion and they're not a total root cause, right? Like they could be part of the problem and I know people who have like had life changing results from it and we should absolutely address it when necessary. What I would say there hasn't been one case ever in my career where parasites were the whole issue. If that says anything. It says a lot and don't you think I mean a lot of these things are not root cause because it's like at the end of the day, even the bacterial conversation that we're having, it's like a healthy body would be able to find something like that off, a healthy terrain. Yeah. I mean, obviously it were up against a lot now. Yeah. There's so many toxins that we were exposed to now that we weren't in the past, but like you would think like there's deeper down. Yes, we can like address these things. We can take supplements. We can do all of this. But at the end of the day, you have to address what's going on in the terrain and from a deeper capacity. A hundred percent. Yeah. But you know what I think is not talked about enough is EMFs and and radiation exposure and like being exposed to technology like way more than our ancestors were. I mean, if you were looking at fertility rates now versus 50 years ago, it's drastically lower. But we also didn't have technology back then. Yeah. And that's a big one. People are looking at pesticides. So looking at glyphosate, which we should right. We should look at all that. And also our parents were not glued to their phones when they were trying to get pregnant. They didn't work with laptops on their lap. They didn't have a phone right here all day long, right? Or for women's like, literally like if you're it's right over. over your ovaries. We're going to be next to it. 100% like my biggest piece of advice is like keep your devices on airplane mode as much as you physically can. Yeah. I don't even have a lamp on my nightstand. I try not to keep anything plugged in. Yeah. Because I've had a building biologist come through our house and test every single thing. And so I think that's a really big one that people don't think about too is environmental toxins coming from technology, phones, Wi-Fi routers, all of that. I think that can absolutely impact sperm. 100%. We know what can impact sperm. I think it can impact eggs as well too and fertility in women. Yeah. I completely agree. Do you feel like there's anything missing that we need to fill a gap on? Gosh. I feel like as soon as we get off of here, I'm going to remember something I would tell you another one. No, we'll do another one. Yeah. But no. Now that I can think of, I think my biggest maybe takeaway or piece of advice to someone is don't accept unexplained and just continue to find someone who will dig deeper with you. And get labs done. Basic for basic labs or running a fertility clinics are not enough. And I can send you if this would be helpful. Yeah. I can send you a link that you can like link in the show notes to my exact preconception panel for people. Absolutely. That would be amazing. And exactly what I run on my patients and they can make sure like how they had those labs done or not. Yeah. And make sure that that's, you know, being evaluated. But push and dig deeper for further evaluation. That's like my biggest piece of advice and don't underestimate the the health of your vaginal and unirin microbiome. Yeah. 100%. And when you order these labs, so do you work with people virtually or only in person? I work with people all virtually. Thank you so much. I think this is going to be so helpful for so many people. I hope so. And honestly, like my DMs are open. So like if someone's listening to this and they have a question or they're like something is not adding up, I cannot give direct medical advice to my DMs. But if you were like, I need some guidance like on what's my next step? Where do I go? Can you help me send me a DM? I'm happy to answer general questions. Oh, you're the best. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So nice chatting with you. Likewise.