67: Escape the Suffering and Stereotypes of Menopause

by | May 15, 2017 | Podcast

Menopause, alkaline, acidity, Ob-Gyn, feminine, Functional Medicine, Homeopath

“Nothing’s better than maintaining, reviving, reigniting, reuniting in your relationship”

     Dr. Anna Cabeca     

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Dr. Anna Cabeca is a double board-certified Ob-Gyn and Regenerative and Anti-Aging Medicine expert. She empowers women to escape the suffering and stereotypes of menopause, returning her to an energetic body, a clear mind, a connected spirit, and a shining example of feminine love.

In this episode, Dr. Cabeca will help you overcome the miserable feeling of menopause and regain your energy and vitality without the prescription drugs. She will also provide ways to neutralize your body and what symptoms to look for to know when it’s time to take action.

Listen to episode 67 on iTunes here or subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

 

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67: Show Notes


Dr. Veronica Anderson’s Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drveronicaanderson/

https://www.facebook.com/drveronicaanderson/

https://twitter.com/DrVeronicaEyeMD?lang=en

https://www.pinterest.com/drveronicaeyemd/?eq=dr.%20veronica&etslf=14837

https://www.instagram.com/drveronica/?hl=en

 

Time Stamps:

02:01 – Entering menopause

05:32 – Thinking about hormonal changes

08:50 – When you are feeling miserable

17:32 – Neutralizing our body & understanding alkaline vs. acidity

19:50 – Typical symptoms of an acidic body

22:23 – Energy and vitality without the prescription drugs

24:07 – Menopause symptoms internationally

 

Full Transcript:

Female VO: Welcome to the Wellness Revolution Podcast, the radio show all about wellness in your mind, body, spirit, personal growth, sex, and relationships. Stay tuned for weekly interviews featuring guests that have achieved physical, mental, and spiritual health in their lives.

If you’d like to have access to our entire back catalog visit drveronica.com for instant access. Here’s your host, Dr. Veronica.

Dr. Veronica: I’m Dr. Veronica, medical doctor, medical intuitive, bringing you more interesting people and topics so that you can grasp your health. Today, we’re going to talk about a stage in life that we all go through, and this is not just for the women, it’s for the men too. Because we’re on a station that mostly men listen to and so men can drift into the show too. It’s not just about men and sports. It’s also about the women that are next to them.

Why? Because, especially married men know, happy wife equals happy life. But one of the problems in life, especially here in America, is as we age as women we just get out of control. Am I telling the truth to Dwayne over there?

I work with wonderful guys in the studio. Al who produces and has a wonderful voice, and we chuckle a lot. Dwayne, he walks in with his dry statements all the time and could get a laugh out of all of us. And he had a wonderful experience with his family, wedding, and all that type of stuff. But he’s in the age where I know he’s dealing with some crabby women too. He’s got to be.

Because what happens is we go through life and we start cycling. You know us women, we start cycling in the teen years usually. And then our moods go up and down. And then we approach that stage of life where childbearing ends and… I can’t say it on the radio. Age breaks loose. Everything just breaks loose.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, because there are so many strategies that it just doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to be crazy during your cycling years. It’s not just a given. And you don’t have to be ultra, super crazy, spinning head devilish when you get towards the middle of those years. You don’t have to be like that. There are other answers.

And I’m not talking about estrogen patch. I’m not talking oral contraceptives for younger women. There are other ways to balance your body. It starts with eating and sleeping. Eating strategies, sleeping strategies, and there are some wonderful herbs and practices from around the world where women around the world have figured how to keep their heads from spinning without pharmaceuticals. Imagine that, no pharmaceuticals and you can feel better, faster, stronger, and look fabulous, feel good when your midlife and beyond.

You guys know I have a lot of really good friends. This is one of my really good doctor friends. We’ve known each other for a while. She actually does a lot of similar practices that I do. She does telesummits. Sexy Younger You was one of her telesummits. You know you’d want to hear Sexy Younger You.

And also now she has a wonderful menopause program. I said, “You have this wonderful menopause program. I’m bringing it out to people on my mailing list. And so some of you that listened might have gotten some emails about this. But there are some people out there who you don’t have computers, you don’t have emails, and you’re old school. And so here we are on AM radio, listening to the talk. This old school, and I want to make sure that my old school people are able to hear Dr. Anna Cabeca.

Dr. Anna Cabeca is a board certified gynecologist and obstetrician. And is also board certified in anti-aging and restorative medicine, hence, why she can tell you how to be sexy, younger you, even through menopause. So she’s got it going on. So Anna, let’s just get right into it. Welcome to Wellness for the Real World.

Dr. Anna: Oh my gosh, thank you so much Dr. Veronica for having me here. I appreciate it. It’s awesome to be on a sports radio station. I love it.

Dr. Veronica: I love sports, so this is how I ended up, on the sports radio station talking. I go from sports season to the other, and I know there are a lot of other women like that too. And I think that’s also one of the secrets, not just going from sports station to sports station, but doing sports yourself that keeps you younger. And it makes going through mid-life and all these trials and tribulations of hormonal changes more bearable. Is that so when people are physically active?

Dr. Anna: Of course, absolutely. Movement is key. And enthusiasm, just participating in activity you love and enjoy. The community that that strikes up. That’s awesome.

Dr. Veronica: I want to talk about menopause because hormonal changes start well before your menstruation ceases to happen monthly.

Dr. Anna: Oh yes.

Dr. Veronica: When does perimenopause, that means surrounding menopause. Maybe you want to give us some definitions about when we should start thinking about these hormonal changes that are happening. And then we can begin to talk about what we can do, so that when it really ceases we’re not just going absolutely bonkers. Tell us about that. Let’s back up in our lives to when it all begins.

Dr. Anna: Yeah. I had to laugh earlier when you were talking, you said, “Hey, men that are listening, this is important for you too.” Hormonal changes are true for men and women. We do both go through hormonal changes as we get older just by nature, but also by our activities define stress. What we are surrounding ourselves with, what’s our environment look like.

But the perimenopause can really last at the time around menopause 5 to 15 years. Seriously, one to two decades. And so women in their 30’s sometimes are feeling the PMS symptoms, their regular bleeding. Those also can be considered perimenopausal symptoms. You’re not too young to experience that. But the key is, it’s telling you there’s some underlying hormonal imbalance that we have to adjust.

We have to get healthier foods. Certainly exercise movement, mindset, environmental changes, different tweaks that we have to make, maybe some herbs and nutrients, to really optimize our body’s function at the first sign of the symptoms.

But, again, perimenopause 5 to 15 years, menopause is designated as the day, one year after your last period. Many women out there who are listening may say, “Yeah, I went two years and then I had another period. What was that about?” We get caught up in terminology but that can all be in the same bucket as the perimenopause.

And the post-menopause women may have gone through menopause, 5, 10, even 15 years earlier and still struggle with night sweats, and hot flashes, vaginal dryness, incontinence, mood swings, anxiety, depression. And really for all of us, in this hormonal change when our body is under stress like this, one thing I talk about a lot is that cortisol oxytocin association and the disconnect. So burn out, disconnect, struggling relationships, all of that when you look at it can be related to this underlying hormonal imbalance because we know physiology affects our behavior.

Dr. Veronica: I’m sorry. I’m sitting here in shock because there’s sometimes women that I meet, and I’m just like, “I know why your husband wants a girlfriend,” because they’re miserable. I feel bad for them but it doesn’t have to be that way. Just because you’re getting older it doesn’t mean it has to be that way. You got to think about doing something.

Women, if you’re feeling miserable you’re making everybody around you miserable. So if you feel miserable and say, “I’m stressed. I’m miserable. I’m angry. I’m tired.” Everybody around you feels that way. And they just deal with you because they feel like they have no choice. But you do something about it.

Ana, what we can do about this? What do we do when we’re getting this way. I get the complaints that the low libido and the vaginal dryness where people come in and say, “Can you do something about this for me?” Yes. I’m happy you asked. Yes we can. What do you tell us?

Dr. Anna: Absolutely. I think several points. One point you said, and jokingly, the sense of strife within our marriage, men and women disconnecting. I remember a story hearing Alice Armstrong speak about a woman who was complaining that her husband traded her in for a younger model, one with less wrinkles. And she’s not less wrinkled, less resentment.

That’s key. We have to understand us women that our guys just want to make us happy. And if they have failed over and over again and we haven’t been made happy, shared how to make ourselves happy, and that really is internal, then I would say resentment is the symptom of lack of self-care. It is a symptom of lack of self-care.

If you’re resenting your husband, your mate, your partner, your children, your friends, your church group, whatever it may be, it’s a sign of lack of self-care. Because seriously, I think menopause is liberating. And it’s been certainly a journey for me, a rollercoaster ride in so many ways Veronica. It can totally be liberating.

And in fact, I believe we’re designed at this stage in our life to have a heightened state of energized enlightenment and spiritual connection with that inner peace, with that inner joy, to be the ocean not the waves, right? So if you get that visual, or the eye of the storm, right, to have that peace no matter what’s going on around us. Share the joy. Be happy ourselves. And fill that happiness around us.

With the menopause, and I’m enrolling into my program Magic Menopause, because I am so passionate about this. My mom died at 67 undergoing heart surgery. She didn’t need heart surgery, she needed the root cause addressed, inflammation, hormonal imbalance, and adrenal dysregulation, disconnect in the HP axis or adrenal burnout. But that’s call it burnout.

But that’s also when I teach, and as I teach in my webinar there are three main hormones that we have to address. I’m a gynecologist, and especially in age management, we think of testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. But really, no, insulin, cortisol, and oxytocin. Those for me are really key.

So I designed a program that works with nutrition and lifestyle to get our bodies into fat burning mode, making us insulin sensitive, to get our bodies alkaline and pH balanced so we’re not living in acidity and inflammation. Addressing that, and also addressing the hormone cortisol, high states of stress, high acidity. We want to get our circadian rhythm, and you mentioned sleep early on, way back in balance.

And the third is oxytocin. And for that it’s a positive mindset, leading our mind, governing our mind, guarding our mind as we move forward into this new phase of life. To let go of the stereotype that we’re old, or just to accept that we need surgery, or to accept memory loss, or to accept aches and pains, none of that’s acceptable honestly. It’s time to really get into your passion and your purposes.

Dr. Veronica: Anna, give us the exact address, and then I’m going to ask some more questions. Where do we find Magic Menopause if we’re interested in it?

Dr. Anna: Absolutely, magicmenopause.com is perfect. That will take you right now to a little quiz, which is super fun. It takes about one minute to complete. And it just kind of gives you a grade for where you’re at in menopause, perimenopause, post-menopause. I grade you A to F.

And the questions all address to these underlying symptom imbalances. So just taking the quiz is enlightening. You’re like, “I didn’t realize that had to do with my hormones.” Magicmenopause.com make it easy and fun. And that’ll then send you to an invitation to my webinar.

Dr. Veronica: Men, I am thinking about you. You see, I did this show just for you. I’m surrounded by men all the time. I’ve got four sons. I have so many men around me. I feel like I’ve got four sons. I’ve got three sons, two male dogs, a husband. I’m just surrounded by men. When women get a little emotional and off they just withdraw. And they were like, “I don’t want any problems here.”

Men though, I want you to continue to listen, because the same principles that women use to strategize and balance themselves for menopause are also wellness and anti-aging strategies. So if your wife isn’t listening, and she doesn’t listen and get herself together, because this is what I’m here for, so she can get herself together, then you listen. You implement these strategies. And then go get yourself a hot, young thing. Tell her you want her ahead of time. But then don’t stay around misery.

Women, you’re like laughing at me, but nobody deserves to be miserable. Women, you’re here, you’re listening. Do what you got to do to get yourself together so that everybody’s life is happy. I told you, happy wife happy life. And so if you’re not going to be a happy wife, and isn’t his fault, then he should be allowed to go off and get a happy wife. Therefore he’s got to get himself together.

But men, I want you to understand, same principles that help women balance themselves and feel young and youthful, men, you use the same exact strategies. Am I talking the truth Dr. Cabeca?

Dr. Anna: You are so talking the truth. And this is where it’s so key. Because I’ve worked with men and I’ve trained physicians, and working with men’s health as well as sexual health for both men and women. You can’t just treat one half of the puzzle. And it’s so significant.

But as we address those three key hormones, those three key areas it’s the same for men and women. Men have an easier ability to drop weight, get results faster for the most part than women, and have a little bit of leeway there. But men, you guys are leaders of the household. You come home, create a plan. It’s for the benefit of you, your wife, your kids, and their kids, etc. That can change the trajectory of your life. And nothing’s better than maintaining, reviving, re-igniting, and reuniting in your relationship. Nothing is better than that. You’ve got history there.

Those of you who’ve had, or me who had second marriages, or relationships, or whatever, we know that’s the truth. What we can do is get our physiology straight, get to our center of peace and happiness, and believe me it’s the hormonal connection.

So many diets and programs out there have had it all wrong, or have had a piece of the puzzle, right? So whether you followed Weight Watchers, or ketogenic plans, or paleo plans, or bulletproof diet, or the sugar busters, whatever it is, the key combinations that we need to put together is getting into ketosis, fat burning mode, and getting our urinary pH alkaline. Our blood pH won’t change.

So I created test strips. Veronica, you know this, to check our urine. Because we can think we’re doing everything right. We can think the diet, which is one piece of the puzzle, lifestyle, sleep, getting outside, getting appropriate light exposure, etc., are all other pieces to get us into fat burning mode and get us alkaline. But putting it together, if we don’t test we really don’t know.

So urinary testing, and I put out on my website some urinalysis test strips. So just on a daily basis, super cheap for a couple of cents you can check your urine and see what is your body doing. Are you eating enough greens? Are you getting [Unintelligible 00:16:56] enough? Are you meditating, reducing your stress enough? That gives us a clue for what we need.

I know that I’m in the midst of preparing for my webinar. And I’ve been doing live questions and answers. You’re super good at it. I get super nervous. I went into super acidity and so I’m like, I have to alkalinize even more even though my normal routine would typically keep me alkaline, but my stress level didn’t. And I think this is just so beautiful. When realize this it really emphasizes why we have to create the lifestyle of heath.

Dr. Veronica: I got to stop you because you’re talking about being alkaline, getting out of acidity. Making the point that it’s not your blood but it’s your urine, and you can test for this. I tell people, “You got to get alkaline.” “What does that mean? What do I do?”

Give a few tips to people? Because that’s the most common question, what do you mean, what do I do? We’re very reductionist, and they’re listening to a little short strip here. Where do you start? Let’s say, I’m going to go get the strips but I don’t have the strips now. What do I do today as soon as I switch off the radio?

Dr. Anna: That’s a beautiful question, because I’m a very visual person. First I like to compare and contrast acidity and alkalinity. So if we consider acidity like Starbucks, coffee, muffin. We consider Dunkin Donuts acidity, sugar, carbs, can of soda. New York City we’ll consider that acidity. The industrial center, acidity, called the urban jungle. On the opposite side would be the Amazon. That would be high alkalinity, greens, kale, green drinks like my mighty maca green smoothie.

And with also alkalinizing vegetables, basic greens, bone broths, mineral broths is very alkalinizing. If we look at the Amazon versus New York City, so alkaline versus acidity, that kind of gives you the visual. Getting out in nature, getting sun’s rays, seeing sun rises and sun sets without contacts, no barrier optical to that solar panel that god’s given us as our eyes, are ways to right now besides nutrient-lize to get our bodies into an alkaline.

I have this great, little chart that I present in my webinar, that is that visual of alkaline versus acidity lifestyle. That’s the way, get green, think green, think calm and peace. The gift is, and I think especially in menopause, there’s a liberation to be able to tap into that despite what we’re dealing with at the time. It’s really tapping into that inner peace, which I have found just magical.

Dr. Veronica: What are some of the symptoms that people might have if they’re acidic versus alkaline? Is there something that you can say, “You know what, people who are acidic tend to have these cluster of symptoms more than people who are alkaline.” What can you say about that?

Dr. Anna: That’s a great question. First of all at the basic level it’s a high stress burnout disconnect, either way too high cortisol or a very, very log cortisol, so we think about that with acidity, which also leads us into inflammation. So inflammatory symptoms, anything with an “itis”, diverticulitis, arthritis, and difficulty with flood sugar regulation like in diabetes [Unintelligible 00:20:29].

Inflammatory would be symptoms of acidity, but that also leads us into autoimmune disease, cancer, irregular cycles, moodiness, anxiety, agitation, feeling like you’re on the edge, but I’ve totally have been there. Just feeling like I cannot settle down, just anxious, irritable, where did that come from? That’s not true to my nature. But also definitely all the inflammatory symptoms, rheumatoid arthritis, joint pain, ankle pain, swelling, weight loss resistance, hair loss, all of that is related to acidity symptoms.

Dr. Veronica: Let me just boil that down to about three words, fat, sad, pain. If you are pat, sad, and in pain you’ll be acidic. Simple and pure. Dr. Rebecca said a lot of conditions on there but itis, pain, think about that. Weight problems and mood disorders, I think that you’re acidic, yes you are.

And so those people who look right in the mirror, they’re happy, those are people who tend to be. It’s not always true. This is why we love to test things, but you can test yourself, you don’t have to run to the lab. Get some strips, pee on the strip, and see where you are. And then if you’re not alkaline where you ought to be, eat more green, pure and simple.

I know people feel today, and they’re running around and say, “It’s a household term now, bio identical hormone therapy. It’s the know all, end all, be all.” I have friends who they get their office called, can you give me bio identical hormone therapy?” But this is Wellness for the Real World and all of us don’t want to use bio identical hormone therapy. We want energy and vitality without the prescription drugs. What are your tips on that?

Dr. Anna: One thing that I found, I thought I have it altogether and figured out, bio identical hormones figured out, detox diets, etc. But then hitting menopause it was like, “Okay, that’s not working anymore.” I gained 10 pounds, I gained 20 pounds. What the heck? Moody, irritable, brain fog, and I was like, hormones didn’t change, everything changed.

So that’s what took into creating this, or really make the connection between the ketoalkaline, getting into ketosis, fat burning mode, and being alkaline to get this concept together, being ketoalkaline, it was amazing. I was able to lose the weight, get clarity, really have that tremendous energy. But what I found out was that I needed a quarter of the dosage of a hormone therapy twice a week versus every day full dose. That’s the amount of reduction. I probably didn’t need it at all. I just kept it as a crutch.

But that was hugely eye opening for me. But it kind of makes sense. When your body is like sludge or it’s like moving through unhealthy inflammation, leaky cell membranes, etc., we’re not going to use what our body’s producing naturally. But when we quite get that clarity our body functions optimally, believe it or not we need little if any bio identical hormones.

[Unintelligible 00:23:51] especially as we get older to a small does bio identical progesterone cream, you mentioned something like that. And especially if we’ve had PTSD or some type of trauma in the past it’s really beneficial in the perimenopause.

Dr. Veronica: I want to ask, as we’re coming down on the end, women in other countries don’t to have these menopausal symptoms the same way as women here in the United States. I know in places like China. You talk about maca in places like Peru, they just don’t seem to have the severity of it. What’s going on in these other places? Is it the stress level? Is it that they are close to the earth and grounding more? What is it here versus there?

Dr. Anna: I really think they’re more keto-alkaline. Seriously, we get to that picture because if you think about it, and I’ve traveled around the world, one of the things that brought Veronica and I together is our love for travel. And especially Peru and the indigenous cultures it’s like how are they doing it?

I think several things, it’s definitely being out in nature more. That’s going to make us more alkaline. It will help us with our hormone cortisol. And then the community that’s so prevalent in other countries, we get isolated and that’s what gets hormonally imbalanced. We are even more isolated. We isolate ourselves. That relates to your hormone oxytocin. We become disconnected. And that’s going to increase the imbalance of our hormones. Oxytocin is incredibly important.

In my webinar I give my free 10 ways to increase your oxytocin e-guide. So I would encourage everyone to get that for sure. But I think the sense of community, being outside more, having a lifestyle that’s more active. As I traveled around the world the only other place I saw a drive-through was in Australia. And we’re number one in obesity in the world, Australia’s number two.

I think that’s a huge part of it, plus community. I always joke Veronica, I say it’s not the wine [Unintelligible 00:25:53] that’s going to give us a healthy heart, it’s sitting at a table with people you love laughing and enjoying it. That’s the oxytocin image right there. That’s going to do some [Unintelligible 00:26:05]

Dr. Veronica: It really is. I’m so looking forward to my trip this summer to France. My husband’s sister is getting married, so it’s going to be a big three-day affair. But because my brother-in-law to be wanted my husband to be at his bachelor party we’re going a week before and then we’re staying a little bit after, so two weeks in France, drinking wonderful red wine. But not just drinking wonderful red wine, I love going there because it’s just a joy to be around the people.

My French is not very good. I have to get back to my Rosetta Stone so I can say a few more words. It’s not very good. But the love and joy that I can feel and understand from being around those people, I want to live there because my oxytocin is really high. That’s the secret.

Go to magicmenopause.com, join the webinar. These are wonderful secrets on how to manage one of the times of life that we’ve just found difficult here in the United States. Dr. Anna Cabeca, I want to thank you for being on Wellness for the Real World and keep doing your wonderful work. Thank you so much.

Dr. Anna: Thank you.

Female VO: Thank you for listening to the Wellness Revolution Podcast. If you want to hear more on how to bring wellness into your life visit drveronica.com. See you all next week. Take care.

 

 

_______________________________

Medical Intuitive, Functional Medicine Doctor, Functional Medicine New York, ManhattanDr. Veronica Anderson is an MD, Functional Medicine practitioner, Homeopath. and Medical Intuitive. As a national speaker and designer of the Functional Fix and Rejuvenation Journey programs, she helps people who feel like their doctors have failed them. She advocates science-based natural, holistic, and complementary treatments to address the root cause of disease. Dr. Veronica is a highly-sought guest on national television and syndicated radio and hosts her own radio show, Wellness for the REAL World, on FOX Sports 920 AM “the Jersey” on Mondays at 7:00 pm ET.

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