The Basics of Menopause with Functional Medicine Nurse Practitioner Jennifer Goldstock

Today's episode is all about Menopause. Jennifer Goldstock, a functional medicine nurse practitioner, brings her wealth of knowledge to the table, exploring the often unspoken challenges women face during menopause. We tackle the nuances of hormone rebalancing and dive into managing symptoms with natural remedies.

Confused and feel lost when it comes to Menopause? This episode promises to provide you with the basics you need so you can start advocating for yourself and getting the proper health care and information you deserve to know.

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:10

Welcome to Ella Go. My name is Lisa. Join me on the journey in having real raw and uncomfortable discussions about fitness, health and everything in between, because, let's be honest, this journey would suck if we don't get our shit together. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Elegoo podcast. My name is Lisa and I am your host. I have to tell you, as I get older and my body is changing, I am becoming more and more confused with the changes that are occurring in my body. Doctors don't really tell you a lot. Maybe they don't even know a lot, and there is so much information out there that I never know what is the truth and what is not. So today we're going to get down to it with my special guest, because, in a world where certain health topics are often swept under the rug, there's someone stepping up to shine a light on what matters most for women in menopause.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Meet Jennifer Goldstock. She is a fearless advocate and educator on those crucial health topics no one seems to talk about or maybe don't know what they're talking about. She is a dedicated functional medicine nurse practitioner, blending her clinical expertise with a passion for holistic health care. With a commitment to personalized patient care, she explores the root causes of health issues, striving to optimize well-being through integrative and evidence-based approaches. Jennifer specializes in bioidentical hormone rebalancing, lyme disease and tick-borne illnesses, as well as functional medicine. She completed her fellowship in anti-aging and regenerative medicine through A4M, the American Academy for Anti-Aging Medicine. She's also the co-founder of Synergy Integrative Health and Wellness. Jennifer's unwavering commitment to all things health and wellness has made her a trusted guide on the journey to optimal health For those ladies who are going through menopause.

Speaker 2: 2:45

This episode is dedicated to you. So, jennifer, I am so glad to have you here, and right before we started recording, I was just telling Jennifer that I know she's going to drop major gems today. I'm looking forward to talking to you and hearing the things that you have to say on the topic that we're going to be talking about. But before we go into that, can you just introduce yourself to the audience and let them know what it is that you do and how did you come about doing this profession?

Speaker 1: 3:16

Oh sure. So I'm a functional medicine nurse practitioner and I'm also a fellowship through A4M, the American Academy for Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine. I've had extensive training through IFM, the Institute for Functional Medicine. I've been practicing functional medicine for about 12 years, although I've been in medicine for a lot longer than that. I was also a flight attendant for 30 years. Wow, I was also a flight attendant for 30 years. Wow. So I was kind of doing both for a good part of that time and I was going to school also while I was a flight attendant.

Speaker 1: 3:52

But I've always had a personal interest in health and wellness and I always felt there was so much lacking in the conventional medical model as far as providing real health and good care to patients. I have a history of working in cancer care and HIV and AIDS in the early 90s. Particularly while working with cancer patients, I saw a lot of things that just didn't make sense to me. You know you're seeing somebody that is fighting a cancer, yet you're giving them foods and drinks. You know, in the infusion suite where they're getting chemo, they're getting ginger ale and cookies and sodas and all kinds of sweet treats. So you're essentially feeding what you're trying to kill at the same time and there's never really been a huge emphasis on nutrition and what foods can help prevent certain cancers and what foods to avoid. So I really dug deep into the functional medicine space, integrative medicine space, and that's where I kind of found that my niche and that's what resonated with me personally and professionally.

Speaker 2: 5:05

So let me ask you this, because I think a lot of people, especially me, I'll see the word, the words functional medicine. What does that even mean? I know right.

Speaker 1: 5:16

So what it actually means is it's not that complicated. It basically functional medicine looks to address the root cause of disease. So if you were to go to your primary care doctor with, let's say, you have migraine headaches, right.

Speaker 1: 5:30

So, all right, you have migraine headaches, so let's give you this drug, and if that drug doesn't work, then we can advance you to this drug. And if that drug doesn't work, then we can give you this drug. Oh well, that drug worked, but there's some side effects to that drug, so let me give you this drug to help with the side effects of that drug. So, functional medicine. When you see a functional medicine provider, we also at times, rely on pharmaceuticals. However, we try to figure out why are you having migraines? What's going on in your body, what type of dysregulation is occurring that is causing those migraines? And then we try to address it from a root cause approach. And so we look at, we do extensive blood work, we look at what's your lifestyle like, what are your nutritional habits, what's your sleep pattern, what are your hormone levels, so all those things to try to figure out root cause of your symptoms and not just trying to find a bandaid to cover them up.

Speaker 2: 6:29

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So if someone wanted to see you, how do they go about doing that? Would they still have their doctor? Would they still get to be able to see their doctor and then see you at the same time, like a side-by-side type of service?

Speaker 1: 6:48

Yes, absolutely so. We always recommend that our patients maintain a relationship with their primary care provider, because we don't really provide primary care. Oftentimes we refer to ourselves as resort practitioners, so we're often the last resort. When patients have been to multiple ologists and are not getting any answers and are not getting any better, they come to see us and some people they just want to have a more in-depth look into. You know what their health trajectory will look like in the next 10, 20, 30 years and they want to make sure that they have the best possible outcome. But, yes, we always recommend that patients maintain a relationship with their primary care provider and also, in the case of I do a lot of bioidentical hormone rebalancing. I require all of my patients to have a relationship with an OBGYN that can do the actual physical exams and can support them that way, and I'm always happy to work with any provider to collaborate in a patient's care. But sometimes we do get some pushback because what we do is not conventional right. Yeah, yes.

Speaker 2: 8:02

Okay. So I found you on Instagram and you were talking about. You have a lot of information on menopause and you know, I'm going to be honest here. Lately we've been hearing like, all of a sudden, menopause is this thing, like as if it never happened before, and now people are trying to be experts and trying to maybe even make more money from their services by becoming these experts. But I'm feeling the information out there is so skewed and it's misinforming people. So that is one of the main reasons why I wanted you to come on here and talk to the ladies that are listening on this podcast. So let's start with the conversation about menopause and the different stages of it, because that's something that's new. That people thought, oh menopause, you have menopause and then that's it. But no, there's different stages to it. So let's talk about that, if you don't mind.

Speaker 1: 9:02

Oh, absolutely so. When you say different stages to menopause, I don't really look at it as different stages. You know, the conventional medical model says if you've been without a menstrual cycle for one year, you're officially in menopause. Well, I look at that a little bit differently, because your hormones don't just sit there and after one year they're like okay, we got two more days and then it's one year and then we can completely stop all processes. That's not how it works. There's that perimenopausal time period that can sometimes last up to 10 years where some women experience extreme hormone dysregulation.

Speaker 1: 9:43

You know, that's when kind of your hormones are trying to figure out what's going on. Your ovaries are saying, okay, are we still going to try to get pregnant one more time, or are we going to? You know, is it time for us to kind of think about our retirement plan? Estrogen progesterone levels fluctuate. Your menstrual cycles can get shorter, they can get longer, they can get heavier.

Speaker 1: 10:04

You can end up having more crime scene periods during those times, Um, you know, you can have periods where you, you know, want to kill your entire family, um, or pack your bags and leave your family, Um it's just a really difficult time for a lot of women leading up to that menopausal time period, um, and unfortunately there's not a lot of support in the medical community for, um, that very significant part of our life. So, um, it's not as cut and dry as you know the different stages, so to speak, but it's more like a kind of trajectory that occurs that's very fluid and needs to be supported a lot more than it is.

Speaker 2: 10:53

So let me ask you this, because you just kind of blew my mind a little bit here. So how would someone know? And does it matter? How would someone know, am I perimenopause, am I menopause? How would they know? And or does it even matter, because that's the process.

Speaker 1: 11:16

So well. How do you know? Oftentimes you look at your symptoms right. Are you more irritable? Are your periods longer? Are they shorter? Are you having some vaginal dryness? Some painful intercourse? Has your libido driven off the cliff? Are you feeling more depressed? Are you feeling more anxious? Are you not sleeping? Are you starting to have hot flashes, night sweats, things like that? Those can all occur during that perimenopausal time period as well. So we can look at blood work, and we always do. We always look at hormone levels.

Speaker 1: 11:50

And we look at certain markers to see kind of where you are in that process. But ultimately your blood work can look completely normal but you're having all these crazy symptoms. So it boils down to do we treat the paper or do we treat the patient?

Speaker 2: 12:05

right.

Speaker 1: 12:05

So if the patient is clinically or symptomatically presenting as a woman that really needs some help whether that's in the form of a microdose of bioidentical hormones or certain herbs or lifestyle factors then we want to make sure that we're providing that support to her, regardless of what her blood work looks like.

Speaker 2: 12:29

Okay, so let's talk about menopause and post menopause. Like what? What is that I know?

Speaker 1: 12:39

it's, it's, it's all just this convoluted, you know, big ocean of confusion. So, in regards to what so? Menopause is like I said when your periods have, you know, when you haven't had a period in one year, then you are officially in menopause. Post menopause you know, there's not really a time frame for that, there's not really a timeframe for that, Um, but it's also a time where a lot of things can go wrong with you know, with a woman's health, the number one cause of death in women is actually heart disease.

Speaker 1: 13:16

It's not breast cancer Like we've been told or made to believe, because there are pink ribbons everywhere and I think most of us know somebody that has been diagnosed with breast cancer. It's a pretty prevalent diagnosis but it's a very survivable diagnosis. But things like heart disease, colon cancer, osteoporosis, insulin resistance, all those things occur in menopause and postmenopausally because we lose that protective benefit of our hormones, particularly estrogen.

Speaker 2: 13:51

Okay, okay. See, this is why I'm talking to you, because these people don't know what they're talking about so with the symptoms, and my goodness, like I don't even think. Like you know, the symptoms are so different for different people and so vast.

Speaker 1: 14:15

They are.

Speaker 2: 14:17

So how can we relieve the symptoms? And I know you mentioned, you know talked about hormone, maybe hormone therapy, and you know what are the types of hormone therapy. But let's talk about ways that someone could relieve symptoms without hormone therapy.

Speaker 1: 14:36

Absolutely so. In that perimenopausal timeframe, when your ovaries are still producing hormones, there are herbs that can help support hormone balance. That can help support hormone balance. So Vitex is one that can help support healthy progesterone levels. We also want to always look at your adrenals, so adaptogenic herbs that can help support your adrenals and that, ultimately, can also help support hormone production during that perimenopausal timeframe.

Speaker 1: 15:12

As far as symptoms go so hot flashes and night sweats, those are often worse with alcohol consumption or excessive sugar consumption. So there are a lot of things that we can do from a dietary, nutritional standpoint that can really help alleviate those symptoms. As far as painful intercourse or vaginal dryness, there are a lot of non-hormone-based lubricants that can be used, but also microdoses of estrogen can be very helpful to support that tissue during that time, to support that tissue during that time. So there are a lot of options, non-hormonally, that are available to women to help support symptoms during that time period. Because a lot of women, you know, are still afraid of hormone therapy for various reasons, but most of them are not based on science.

Speaker 2: 16:12

Yeah, and we're going to talk a little bit more about that. So one of the symptoms that I wanted to talk a little bit more in depth is the weight gain. And I hear that a lot among my friends as well as myself? Why?

Speaker 1: 16:26

does that happen? Yeah, so good question. Because as we lose estrogen, we also become more insulin resistant, right? And as we go through menopause, if we're not supporting ourselves nutritionally, we start to lose muscle. And we also know that muscle is more metabolically active than fat. Right, cortisol increases, so cortisol is your body's stress hormone, but that excess cortisol also can cause us to have that menopause, as I call it.

Speaker 1: 17:03

It's that little pot belly that we get when we've. You know, maybe we've worked out our whole life and we've always had a flat stomach and all of a sudden we're like what in the Sam hell is going on here, right? So there's various reasons for that. Also, estrogen helps to support our thyroid, so thyroid function often can become very sluggish. And nutritionally we have to change our focus in regards to what we eat and how we eat. We want to really prioritize protein in the diet and we want to change our exercise routine. You know if we're used to being like a hamster on a hamster wheel, you know spending hours, I know myself I use. My typical weekend workout routine was go to Orange Theory, then jump over to the gym and lift weights for an hour and then take a spin class, so it was like three hours on a Saturday or a Sunday you can't do that anymore.

Speaker 1: 18:03

You're, you know you're you're that that doesn't work anymore. That spikes cortisol and it's too much of a stress on the body. So we really want to focus on and prioritize things like walking, you know, getting those 10,000, 15,000 steps in a day, and lifting weights really building muscle and lifting heavy weights heavier than we think we can. So, yeah, that menopause, weight gain is no joke.

Speaker 2: 18:34

I know.

Speaker 1: 18:36

No, and I love that you said all you look great. I don't think you have anything to worry about. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 2: 18:42

I love that you mentioned all those things and, I hope, the women who are listening to this, because it's definitely a big adjustment especially for someone who does work out a lot and goes to the gym a lot, and then it's like wait a minute, what's going on? What do you mean? Rest?

Speaker 1: 19:01

But you definitely have to incorporate rest days and you're tired, yeah exactly, exactly, and this is a time in our life where we should be thriving. You know we're at the height of our careers. You know our kids are. You know they're they're deciding on where to go to college and we're supporting them through that process and we've really kind of. You know we're supposed to be at our prime and yet we're really kind of. You know we're supposed to be at our prime and yet we're shoveling shit up a hill because we're so miserable, we don't feel good and we don't have any energy and we're not sleeping great, and it's just not right.

Speaker 1: 19:43

So one of my goals in my practice is to really empower women and to close that gap in medicine for women so that they can demand better care for themselves.

Speaker 2: 19:55

Absolutely, yes, absolutely Okay, let's talk about the hormones. And because I mean, I for one, I well, first I was like nope, that's not going to happen. And then I have friends who are in the science world and they're like, wait, lisa, do you know the research? And then I read the research and now I'm like I'm confused. So let's talk a little bit about, first of all, the background, because you know, the background is hormone therapy causes cancer.

Speaker 1: 20:27

Right, and that is complete BS. Right, and that is complete BS. So that all came from the Women's Health Initiative study that came out in 2002 that claimed that hormones cause cancer. Well, that study, that actual result of that study, was sensationalized by the media and 70% of women around the world stopped hormone therapy immediately, right? Well, that study has been debunked time and time and time again, and 20 years later now that study not only has been debunked, but there have been.

Speaker 1: 21:09

These women were followed and it's also been shown that women that were on estrogen therapy if they were diagnosed with breast cancer had much better outcomes and lower risk of mortality than those women that were not on estrogen therapy that were diagnosed with breast cancer. Wow, so there really is no conclusive study out there that directly correlates hormone replacement with breast cancer. The science just doesn't support it. And there is so much science out there that supports the opposite.

Speaker 1: 21:51

And the one thing and I have it right here that I always tell women if you're at all in doubt and you really, really, really want to educate yourself. This book right here is the Bible of hormone replacement, so it's Estrogen Matters by Dr Abram Blooming. I recommend it for every woman that is considering hormone replacement therapy. It's full of every single research study and I think the majority of women that read that even I've had patients that are breast cancer survivors that have read this book and it really clarifies everything and it debunks the myths and really feeds you the science, which is great because, if you think about it, you know, by 2030, one over 1 billion women are going to be in menopause that's a billion women and right now, only around 4% of women in menopause. That's a billion women and right now, only around 4% of women in menopause are on hormone replacement therapy.

Speaker 2: 22:56

Wow, okay, wow, all right, I definitely got to get that book. Thank you for sharing that with us. Wow, okay. So what type of therapy hormone therapy is out there? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 23:09

So I'll go through kind of both the conventional and the non-conventional. So I prescribe bioidentical hormone therapy and what that means is that the hormones that I use are identical to the hormones that your own body makes. So it's the same molecular structure and it sends a complete signal to the receptors in your body. And you have hormone receptors all over your body. You have estrogen receptors in your brain, your thyroid, your bones, your heart, your lungs, your gut, you name it, they're everywhere, right? So bioidentical hormones then are, like I said, they're molecularly exactly like your own and they send a complete signal. So they are more supportive.

Speaker 1: 24:02

The synthetic hormones, things like premarin, so premarin, if you break down that word. Like Premarin, so Premarin, if you break down that word, premarin is derived from pregnant horse urine, right? So pre, pregnant mare, horse and urine, right? So that, yeah, a lot of women tend to crave hay and oats. I'm kidding, they don't, but that's a total part. But that synthetic hormone and then synthetic progestins also, they send an incomplete signal and in the progestins, particularly progestins versus bioidentical progesterone, progestins have the exact opposite effect of bioidentical progesterone. So when we prescribe bioidentical hormones, we prescribe micro doses. I'm not looking to get you back to reproductive levels when you're menopause. I just want to get you to protective levels and also to a place where you feel good and your symptoms are alleviated.

Speaker 2: 25:08

Wow, I have so many things to ask you. This is awesome. Okay, now is this like over the? Is this like a pill that you cause I heard that there's a pill and then there's something like I don't know if it's like a cream or injectable or something like that. So talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 1: 25:26

Yep. So I don't ever prescribe estrogen orally because when we take estrogen orally it has to pass through the gut and the liver and it can increase your risk of blood clots. So I generally will only prescribe estrogen topically, so either in the form of a cream, a gel or a patch. Progesterone, however, I do give orally, because it has a lot of benefits when given orally and it doesn't increase your risk of blood clots. So when you take progesterone orally it crosses the blood brain barrier and increases GABA, and GABA is a neurotransmitter that can help calm the nervous system, it can help alleviate anxiety and it can help promote sleep. So progesterone I love giving at nighttime or bedtime because it helps women sleep and one of the main symptoms in perimenopause and menopause is insomnia or sleep disturbance right so that's oftentimes one of the first thing women will say to me is like, oh my God, I'm sleeping so much better now and I'm not anxious anymore.

Speaker 1: 26:39

So testosterone, believe it or not, also a very important hormone and, believe it or not, women actually have more testosterone in their bodies than they do estrogen. So about 50% of women in menopause lose testosterone. So, again, we always want to check levels very regularly. But a lot of women really feel so much better when we give them testosterone and that also I personally only give topically. There are providers out there that will use pellets. Pellets are inserted under the skin also bioidentical, and they will release hormones at a steady state anywhere from three to five months. I don't love pellets because I can't control the pellet. Once the pellet is in and those hormones are released, there's nothing you can do about it. They're going to, they're going to go their way. And if it's too much, there's nothing we can do. And if it's too little, um, there's, you know they're very difficult to titrate or you can't really titrate them much at all once they're in.

Speaker 2: 27:47

Okay, so two questions, the first one being, as the women are listening to this, they're thinking oh well, I just thought estrogen. What are all these other things that she's talking about? And does that mean I'm lacking all of those too? And does that mean I need all of those as well?

Speaker 1: 28:10

So that all depends, because we're all different, right, but estrogen and progesterone pretty much are the two main players that drop off in menopause. So I never give estrogen without progesterone. Progesterone balances estrogen. A lot of people think. Well, if you don't have a uterus you don't need progesterone. Not true you have progesterone receptors all over your body as well, including in your breasts. So hormones I kind of go by the Goldilocks theory with hormones right.

Speaker 1: 28:46

Too much is not good, too little is good. Hormones out of balance are not good, but hormones, when they're in balance, are wonderful, and we have to think of hormones like I always say. It's like an orchestra, right, you have all these different instruments playing their part to create a beautiful symphony. But if one instrument is out of tune, it's going to make the symphony not sound the way it's supposed to, right, and it's that way in our bodies as well. We have to make sure that cortisol is balanced, our thyroid hormones are balanced insulin, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and that's when we feel really good and we hit that sweet spot. But sometimes it takes a while to figure out what that sweet spot is, because it's different for every woman.

Speaker 2: 29:32

Okay, how about you mentioned, if it's too much like so, what would be a symptom of too much?

Speaker 1: 29:40

Too much.

Speaker 2: 29:41

Harmful.

Speaker 1: 29:41

Well, I mean so, for instance, too much estrogen, you know you can have some weight gain, breast tenderness, things, you know, kind of the same type of symptoms that you would experience before your period. You know, especially for, you know, women that are estrogen dominant, um mood changes, irritability, things like that.

Speaker 1: 30:01

Okay, Um yeah, testosterone, you get too much testosterone, you can get kind of more of those male pattern symptoms like some hair loss, um, oily skin, acne, um, maybe some irritability, rage, things like that. Okay, so we always want to start low. I generally like to start low and slow. You can always go up. It's a lot, a little more difficult to kind of back down once. Um, when she started a higher dose.

Speaker 2: 30:31

Okay, now I mean people might be thinking, wow, so many hormones for women. What about the men? What did they go through? Do they lose testosterone and do they have hormone therapy?

Speaker 1: 30:45

Yeah, so men lose testosterone and the unfortunate thing is, because of all the xenoestrogens in our environment and all the toxins in our environment, men are presenting with low testosterone levels at much younger ages. But I think with men it's not generally my specialty, but men are much more supported with hormone replacement go figure from an insurance perspective. And I think also with younger men you know men that are like in their 30s with low testosterone levels testosterone replacement itself should never be a first option, especially if they're looking to maintain their fertility. There are other medications that they can take to increase testosterone production versus just taking testosterone exogenously.

Speaker 2: 31:46

Okay, so we're going to switch gears. And before we do that, I want to just Okay, so we're going to switch gears. And before we do that, I want to just. You know, if someone is in the local 518 and they're listening to this and they're like, oh, my God, this is things I need to know and I'm going to need help, so they would reach out. How would they reach out to you?

Speaker 1: 32:05

So they would call my office and speak with my assistant there and she does all of my scheduling for me and she can go through exactly what the process looks like, what the appointment looks like. Yeah, she does all this. She's wonderful. Her name's Julie and she's just great. All my patients love her and she's very helpful and knowledgeable as well and you had.

Speaker 2: 32:31

it was very I think it was a video where you talked about how it was you know better maybe than the traditional breast mammogram and how it's not FDA approved. Talk a little bit about that, because that's the first I've ever heard about it until I saw your post, so let's talk about that.

Speaker 1: 33:05

Yep, so I can't say for sure that it's better, but what I can say is that I've always struggled with mammograms, right, and it's a very tough conversation to have with my patients. Just because, again, breast cancer is such a fear-based cancer and all of us, as women, we would be lying if we didn't think that at some point in our life, or even for some of us in our daily life, you know, we're wondering when our, when our breasts are going to turn on us and try to kill us.

Speaker 2: 33:39

Right.

Speaker 1: 33:39

Um, because there's so much um, you know, the pink ribbons are everywhere and there's a lot more awareness of breast cancer. And we're also like.

Speaker 1: 33:47

I said most of us know somebody personally that has been diagnosed with breast cancer. So mammography is one of those things that, like I said, I've always kind of struggled with. I have had mammograms. I have not had them according to the recommended schedule because for me it was always counterintuitive to take your breasts and smush them between two plates and then shoot a bunch of radiation through them. So I always say, if men had to have testicular screening using that diagnostic annually, how quickly do you think we would have a different tool?

Speaker 2: 34:32

Don't get me started, Right so you know.

Speaker 1: 34:36

And then you look at somebody that has a genetic propensity like a BRCA mutation. Well, the recommendation there is generally every six months. So you have somebody who's genetically predisposed to breast cancer, yet you're exposing that very sensitive tissue to radiation twice a year versus just once a year. That just doesn't sit with me intuitively, much like the cookies and candy in the chemotherapy suites. It's the same type of thing. Why are we using a diagnostic tool that we know radiation causes cancer? Why are we using a diagnostic tool that causes cancer to detect and prevent one of these scans? By the technology and the very detailed diagnostic report that I received, it was amazing.

Speaker 1: 35:56

I walked into this cancer center and they took me up the stairs into this beautiful room where you know they had candles and they, you know, had you lay on your stomach and basically they attach a kind of a pasty with a metal nipple on it to your breast and then you kind of get a boob bath for 10 minutes and they do one breast at a time and you just lay there. It's like a nice dark room. They've got soft spa music playing. A nice dark room. They've got soft spa music playing and, um, they immerse one breast at a time into this kind of water bath and they do all this, this kind of ultrasound type imaging Um, and I actually fell asleep.

Speaker 1: 36:43

It was amazing Um, and you know I got my report back, thankfully, everything was fine, but um, I'll be going back next year for my um, you know, one year follow up and I'm really looking forward to that. The exciting thing is is I know that these imaging centers are going to be popping up um around the country, um in more places. So that's super exciting because I think that um, things like that should be more available. They should be FDA approved um, because I think they're safer and they're just as good, if, in my opinion, not better than um a mammogram.

Speaker 2: 37:27

That's so cool. I listened to what you're saying and I read the post and I was like and I actually immediately went and Googled that facility and I was like how cool is this? And it also angers me a bit because when we think about the FDA approval and the process and, honestly, coming from a little bit from that side of the world, there's so much politics and money involved in all of that and it really angers me because this is something that could be beneficial to somebody, and why not?

Speaker 1: 38:06

Why not Right, right and why not? Why not Right, right? And, like I said, how many decades now have we been subjecting women to this barbaric form of breast cancer detection? This would never stand. Like I said, testicular cancer Okay, sir, come on in. We're going to press your testicles between two metal plates. Now, hold still. Okay, move to the left a little bit. I know it's uncomfortable, but okay, just a couple more images. Are you kidding me right now? They would have a new tool within a year and there would be no man that would line up for his second diagnostic.

Speaker 1: 38:46

It just wouldn't happen.

Speaker 2: 38:50

Yeah, it's so true. It is so true. Unfortunately, it is true, but that is so cool. I urge people to look that up as well, and it's good that hopefully some things will be coming up and more accessible to those who are listening.

Speaker 2: 39:04

Jennifer, I love talking to you. You're like I knew it. I said it when I was talking to someone. Jennifer, I love talking to you. You're like I knew it. I said it when I was talking to someone. I'm like I swear she's going to be like my little encyclopedia, because you have so much information about this and I, you know, I just learned so many things just today in the last 38 minutes that we were talking. So, besides the fact that I asked you, you know, where could somebody find you if they were local in the 518? Where could someone find you on social media?

Speaker 1: 39:33

So I'm on Instagram, jen Goldstock, np, and it's Jen with two N's, so I'm trying to do a little bit more in that space because I'm a technology complete. Um, I'm an idiot when it comes, so I've now hired some folks to help me do that and that's, that's been great. Um, so I, I'm I intend to put a lot more information out there because I think it's valuable and I think women need to be armed with information and science when they see their provider, because it's unfortunate, when women are, they don't feel well.

Speaker 1: 40:16

They have a list this long of symptoms and their doctor says well, you know what, you're just getting older. That's just what happens. Or you know what, let's try. You know, let's try an antidepressant. Those can be helpful. Well, they're not there because they have an antidepressant deficiency.

Speaker 1: 40:36

They're there because they have real issues that could very easily be improved and managed just by spending some extra time with them and figuring out ways that their hormones can be rebalanced. Hormones are life they really are and they direct so much through these signaling systems that really make everything happen in our bodies. And when those hormones drop off, it's mayhem. It's real mayhem.

Speaker 2: 41:23

Yeah, that's real mayhem. You have other things that you have expertise in, and it's not just menopause. So for those of you it's you know who who did listen to the beginning of the podcast episode, and there are some topics that you you would like to reach out to her, that you're having some issues with, that Reach out to her again. It's on the show notes. But again, jennifer, thank you so much for being a part of this.

Speaker 1: 41:47

Thank you so much for having me and I just want you to know that I love the fact that you're all about running. I used to love to run and I used to be a smoker, believe it or not, 20 some years ago. And that's actually how I was able to quit smoking is I took up running.

Speaker 2: 42:01

Wow.

Speaker 1: 42:03

I would have never guessed.

Speaker 2: 42:04

I know right, that's awesome. Well, you're welcome. Thank you so much again for being a part of this, and thank you for everyone for joining us and until next time. Bye For you and I, for you and I.