The Alimond Show
Welcome to The Alimond Show --join us as we share our entrepreneurial guests' stories, uncover their secrets to success, and explore the unique paths they've taken to build thriving businesses in our community.
In each episode, our host, Aliyah Dastour, sits down with a diverse group of local business owners, from the corner cafe to the boutique shop, from tech startups to family-run enterprises. We peel back the curtain to reveal the trials, triumphs, and transformational moments that have shaped their entrepreneurial journey.
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The Alimond Show
Kimberly Brown Owner of Ember 28
When Kimberly Brown first sat in the mcella chair, little did she know it would spark a business idea that would support countless women through their menopausal journey. In our latest episode, we navigate the oft-misunderstood waters of hormonal health, shedding light on the myriad symptoms that accompany perimenopause. It's a candid exploration of the physical and emotional rollercoaster, from mood swings to body composition shifts. We also discuss how pelvic floor therapy, a treatment Jessica herself experienced firsthand, it offers more than just incontinence relief—it's a gateway into the broader conversation about hormonal fluctuations and women's wellness.
Hormone testing and health education shouldn't be luxuries in women's healthcare—they should be standard. Our conversation takes a critical look at why so many women are left in the dark about their hormonal health, and the repercussions of commonplace yet potentially harmful solutions like birth control pills used as hormone therapy. We advocate for informed choices, from lifestyle adjustments to sleep medicine, and share how a strategic approach to exercise can work wonders. Balancing the growth of a wellness business with the pitfalls of social media, she offers a personal take on the importance of authenticity and the power of connection in the digital age.
In this day and age, healthcare is about options, and in Kimberly's clinic is a testament to that. Wrapping up the episode, we highlight the importance of a holistic view on health, from natural alternatives to hormone therapies to the interconnectedness of gut health and mental well-being. We discuss the empowering shift towards virtual consultations, without losing sight of the irreplaceable value of in-person interactions for building strong patient-provider relationships. Kimberly's clinic mission is clear: to ensure each woman feels heard, understood, and has access to the comprehensive care and personalized treatment she deserves.
If I'm to this way, is it because of hormones and you're like girl, hormones has a lot like has is the reason for a lot of things happening. That was my way of rewarding what you said. Yeah, tell me more.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean so starting around like even mid 30s to late 30s on through until you hit menopause, which is average age in the United States is around 50 to 52, you have what's called perimenopause and that's where things get really interesting and hormones start to change and really can cause a lot of different symptoms that a lot of women just sort of kind of ignore or maybe think are just kind of normal, and they just keep dealing with them and dealing with them until hopefully one day they seek out help. What are these symptoms? It can be a lot of different things, I would say the most common things that I see people come to me are complaints, would be mood changes or a big one, fatigue.
Speaker 1:Move, changes like I'm happier Usually.
Speaker 2:More agitation or anxiety, I would say, is a big one. Even depression, yeah. More just irritability, agitation. Sometimes it's just an increase, like right before maybe their cycle, but it's more exaggerated than normal. They have a hard time controlling like rage, for example, or just little things that didn't bother them become like really frustrating for them and they can't kind of deal with it very easily. Or maybe they're lashing out of the spouse or their kids more frequently than they had in the past. Body composition changes are a big one, difficulty losing weight or maybe having increased body fat in areas that they haven't really had to deal with before. Minstrel cycle changes that's another big common one. So either cycles become irregular or they're heavier in flow. So that's really common. And other ones can be body odor changes, sweating, trouble sleeping, gosh hair loss changes or hair growth in places that you don't really like, or acne You've got like the full list yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a lot, I would say those are probably the most common that I deal with and see.
Speaker 1:How did you get started in this so a?
Speaker 2:few.
Speaker 2:She grew up saying I'm going to be a hormone sexist Not at all Didn't even know hormones were like a thing. I honestly didn't even know that much about my menstrual cycle until way later in life and had been having a menstrual cycle for 20 plus years and didn't really know anything about it until I kind of was forced to. But I opened my business up in early 2021, so January 2021 and actually was doing public floor therapy for women, so that's sort of kind of the gateway into hormones for me. So I struggled with urinary incontinence after I had my first child and was like what the heck? Nobody told me this could happen.
Speaker 1:It's a very popular thing too, it's incredibly common.
Speaker 2:Yeah, delt with it for six years had two other kids. Thankfully it didn't get worse, but after my third I was really over it. Running was a big trigger for me so I wanted to do something about it. But I had a pretty traumatic birth with my daughter and really didn't want anything invasive, definitely wasn't interested in the sling or surgery. There wasn't really a lot of options.
Speaker 2:I love my OB. She was wonderful but she never really asked me about incontinence so I just really didn't know what you could do. And then somebody told me about the mcella chair which I have. It's called mcella, okay, so it's energy therapy. So it's a chair that you sit on and it has magnets at the bottom and it generates high in electromagnetic energy. So it's a really high intense energy. It's similar technology to an MRI, so you can't have like a pacemaker or any metal in your pelvic floor area, but it triggers super maximal contractions to your public floor. So involuntary you just sit there. The chair does all the work. I had never heard of it.
Speaker 2:Somebody that owned a medical spa in Roanoke, where I'm from, roanoke, virginia, had just gotten it and was just telling me about it in conversation because she knew I was a nurse practitioner and I was like, wait a minute, it does what. You just sit on it and it takes your. You stop peeing your pants. And I was like A miracle, I need that. Like I pee my pants. And she was like, no, you don't. I was like, yes, I do Ever since I had my first child. So I tried it out. It works for me. I kept driving back to Roanoke for the treatments and then I was like you know what? I'm just going to open up my own business and offer this. So I bought my own chair and because really before that there was pelvic floor therapy which is great, don't get me wrong. It is wonderful and a lot of people that's a better route. But for some people that really just need to strengthen their muscles, they want some help to kind of boost along their efforts and get results faster and sell as a great treatment choice that's non-invasive. So pelvic floor therapy you know core workout. So it requires some discipline, some consistency that some people can struggle with to get the results, and or surgery. So there's like a bladder sling, for example, or if you have prolapse, you want to try to get that early so that you can avoid getting mesh and like a really heavy surgery. So, yeah, prolapse means like your organs are actually coming or lowering, yeah, yeah, so MCELLA can help.
Speaker 2:Mild to moderate prolapse and stress incontinence those are the main diagnosis for it. So that's how you started, so that's how I started, and I was doing that for a couple of years, or like a year and a half, before I started being like, okay, I want to expand. And I had heard common themes from every woman. You know I have these symptoms, many, what I just mentioned earlier. I can't seem to lose weight, or I'm more irritated all the time, or I have more anxiety, I'm not sleeping well, my body looks different, even though I feel like I'm eating really good, or, you know, I haven't changed anything. And also with your pelvic floor, particularly as we age, your hormones are also key players in that as well and can lead to incontinence. So the main triggers for incontinence are pregnancy, childbirth and actually menopause. So we lose a lot of estrogen and testosterone in our pelvic floor area, muscles, vaginal tissues, and that can also lead to incontinence. So, just researching and trying to make sure that I was giving comprehensive care for pelvic floor, I kind of stumbled into hormones and then put it all together and just kind of went down a whole rabbit hole of like, oh my gosh, there's this whole wonderful world. It's a world of balancing hormones and it can help my patients with incontinence, but it can also help people that are complaining of X, y and Z.
Speaker 2:And then I struggled to early impairment of pause, with a lot of changes. I had really bad anxiety it felt like it came out of nowhere and really intense mood swings before my cycles, like to the point where I thought I wanted to get a divorce. It was bad. Yeah, oh, I felt terrible for him. I could like kind of keep it together for my kids. I would have to like walk out of the room a lot so I wouldn't get frustrated with them. But yeah, he kind of got it all. So, yeah, it was bad. I was like a different person for some of the months and then it would like a switch would go off and it was like I was back to myself, and so I was like it has to be hormonal, because it's not all the time, and it was so bizarre how I would just be this different person, and so I just decided to rehab myself and felt better and was like okay, I'm doing this, wow.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah are such a big.
Speaker 2:They're huge yeah.
Speaker 1:High behavior.
Speaker 2:But I offer really comprehensive care because it's not always just as easy as like doing a test. Okay, you're kind of low here, let's give you a prescription for this. You want to kind of figure out especially women in perimenopause that are still cycling, so they still have hormones, their ovaries are still working. There's often other things going on that has triggered them to get to that, and mine was really just stress, like I think that was the main thing was from. I had to have my uterus removed when I had my daughter, which was stressful.
Speaker 2:Then we moved and we lived with my mother-in-law for a few, for like almost a year, in a three-bedroom townhouse with three children and I was building a house and then the pandemic hit and I had kids at home trying to do schoolwork and I just kept sort of dealing with all of these things and moving forward but not really dealing with my stress. I wasn't doing any stress management other than trying to work out here and there and I think it just kind of blew. My body just was like no more, it was done and it just was a cascade of things. So that sort of was the main trigger.
Speaker 1:Can I first say thank you for being so open and honest about your journey. You don't get that a lot.
Speaker 2:I feel like you have to be. I mean, I want people to realize like everybody's has struggles and you want to just kind of use them and get better. And I mean you can't do that unless you're honest with yourself and be like okay, this is the real problem here. This is what I really need to fix and meet head on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing because other people that are listening to this are going to be like, oh my gosh, that's exactly where I'm at right now, and so to hear like this doesn't have to be your normal, you don't have to divorce your husband, or you don't have to admit yourself into an asylum because you feel like you're going crazy or think that you're depressed. It might be one of those things, but it also could be the fact that we've got some internal biological things going on. That you weren't aware of.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. My biggest goal is really just educating women to make an informed decision. You need to know all the possibilities.
Speaker 1:The doctors are going to say this thing?
Speaker 2:No, they don't. And I can tell you from experience from, like, my close friends having issues and they go to their GYN or their primary care or whatever, and it's like this is what's going on and they're not ever offered hormone testing because they don't really. A lot of conventional providers unfortunately just don't have the education and understanding so they don't offer it. It's not that they're bad or wrong, it's just it's not part of their education and they want to do what they feel like they know best, which I totally understand. But it's frustrating that they won't even be open to hearing a patient be like well, what about this?
Speaker 1:Tell me if this is wrong or right. Sure, I don't think they cut insurance, doesn't?
Speaker 2:cover it either.
Speaker 1:No a lot of times I think a lot of them won't?
Speaker 2:You're right. You're right. So I do do blood testing as one option. I have kind of some, a few tests that I like to work with, but I do do serum testing or blood testing and I will check your hormone levels that way. I check a lot of other things as well and a lot of tests that, again, conventional providers don't typically run. Most of that is usually covered by insurance. I'll put in some diagnosis codes. Usually, if you have pretty good insurance, most of it's covered, or if it's not, it's a really small fee. What they don't cover is a couple other tests that I do that are more like functional style, unfortunately, but I feel like that might be.
Speaker 1:I don't know. That could be completely wrong. That might be why a lot of doctors don't even explore that route.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 2:Even though it could be literally the ticket to solving all of these problems Absolutely, and I think it's also because they don't really know what to do with the results once they get them. And so a lot of my friends are still being offered like birth control pill, for example, as like a hormone therapy, which is completely the opposite. It's terrible. It's an endocrine disruptor. It literally shuts down the whole. You know HPO axis, so you have your ovaries and your hypothalamus communicate together and it just shuts all of that down. So, yeah, you don't have the fluctuating hormone levels, but you have no hormones. So, literally, if I do a test on somebody that's on birth control, it looks like they're in menopause.
Speaker 1:I saw a meme on Instagram that said before marrying your boyfriend, get off your birth control for six months, yes, and then see if you still yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it's yes, it's it changes Transform your body and it really can lead to.
Speaker 2:It can lead to weight gain, it can lead to low libido, really just a Mood changes. I mean there's a lot of not great things. I mean you know it's obviously you don't want to have a baby if you don't have a baby, but there are other options. So again, it's just it comes back to educating women. Hear all of your options. These are what also might be going on with your body. These are, you know, some of the tests that we can do to look at that and then you can make a decision on how you want to Go about it.
Speaker 2:So I work I off, I do a lot of like lifestyle Education. So sometimes it's just a few dietary changes. It doesn't have to be anything major, but sometimes a few tweaks can work that are just better for your body at that point in your life. You know I have a big sleep medicine background, so sleep is a big one that I always address with people and try to make sure that you're sleeping well. And there's lots of tools and tricks that we, you know I can do for that. Exercising you know how are you exercising. Maybe we need to tweak that a little bit. And then there's lots of good supplements that can really support your body. You know we can look for deficiencies and see what you need. Or you may be a good candidate for bio-zeneca hormone treatment, if that's something that you're interested in and you know it looks like you're kind of at the point where you you want to start Supplementing or even replacing what you're losing.
Speaker 1:So how are you currently I see you want to get the word out there how are you currently marketing this business?
Speaker 2:So I'm on Instagram. I'm not the best at social media, really don't like it, but I enjoy. I like social media for I think that it's a great place for people to go and get information and I think it's being used more for that. But there's also an unhealthy side of it that I don't love, so I try not to be on there too much. But having a business, you're sort of just gotta, gotta get out there and then word of mouth really I get. I work mostly by referrals, to be honest, as most of of how my business is.
Speaker 1:I think it's slowly growing, but I think it's because it's such a little known, not little long, but it's, it's still emerging right now, absolutely. So when somebody does hear that this is a treatment option, they're like, oh my god, it's a nap, a lot of. It is a very natural yes changes that you can make. Yep, absolutely to get off of the birth controller. You know, I see absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yes, you weren't educated about. Yes, yes, I've, I've, I've been able to successfully get several patients off birth control that have, you know, figured out another route. Now these are. These are women that were married, but they figured out another route for for birth control, and Just even that made them feel a lot better. But we certainly took it Steps further and made some other changes.
Speaker 1:So I'm sure it helped. Yeah, yeah, maybe you could have somebody on your team that's like love social media, because I could just see so many like which. I'm not on TikTok, but like the. Tiktoks, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:You can be really fun with it.
Speaker 1:Right, you can have so much fun with it and then educate women in a fun way, where you're like, oh my gosh, I need that. I need to go talk or at least explore these different options.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, you can do a lot of fun, what there is and I see it a lot on social media and I'm always like, gosh, I wanna be like that, I wanna be funny like that, I can be funny in conversations. But then you put me on the camera and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna do a fan, yeah, and now I don't.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly Call me if you wanna, right.
Speaker 2:So I mean there are real issues. So many women struggle. I mean there are women out there that don't struggle. I always tell people like, if you feel good, like don't feel, like oh my gosh, something must be wrong with me, because they see it everywhere, like there are definitely women that sail through perimenopause, and relatively easily, and that is awesome. So I mean, if that's you keep rocking it, perimenopause just means the period 10 to 15 years before menopause. Okay, you said that about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know that's okay In the 30s and it's when your hormones start to shift. So typically about 50% of women will lose testosterone and that's kind of on like a steady decline. Then some people don't Everybody loses progesterone. That's the one that typically declines first, and then your estrogen is like on a roller coaster ride, so it Down or up.
Speaker 2:Up and down, Up and down and it has really exaggerated peaks and valleys. So before I mean estrogen always kind of goes up and down I mean all your hormones do but kind of in an expected rhythm and they're sort of stable to a degree. They rise and fall when they're supposed to and it's not too exaggerated and everything's okay. And then during perimenopause things can start to really go array where the estrogen, when it's rising, it's rising way higher than it did before and when it's falling it's falling a lot lower, and same with your progesterone. But typically that'll start really declining and that usually those progesterone and testosterone trigger usually their earlier symptoms.
Speaker 2:But also I look at cortisol. Cortisol is a big one that gets, I think, overlooked, especially if you're on the younger side of perimenopause. And just like I said, cortisol was my main trigger and then it also caused me to have a lower testosterone and lower progesterone. But if I hadn't fixed the cortisol issue I wouldn't have gotten good results on trying to adjust my testosterone and progesterone. So you really want to do comprehensive care. So the adrenal system is heavily involved. I need to be assessed and that's best either through a saliva test or a urine test. But cortisol is a big one that I look at. Insulin is another big one. Insulin is the hormone that's responsible for taking sugar out of your blood and getting it to wear into your cells or your muscles or wherever it needs to go for energy. And then thyroid is another big one that I also look at. And and then, of course, estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.
Speaker 2:So, everybody likes to play together nicely. You know we want everybody playing nice in the sandbox and everybody getting along, which they can do, Got one guy running in the mud. Yeah, one guy gets mad and then everybody gets irritated and everybody's kind of all over the place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And then it's just not. Then you start to have symptoms, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and you want to figure out where the original fire started and kind of go from there, and that's what a lot of these tests helped.
Speaker 1:Yes, you have a good roadmap on what's going on inside.
Speaker 2:Exactly, Gut health is another big thing that's really tied to a lot of symptoms, especially any sort of anxiety, depression. You know, if I have somebody that's on hormones and they're getting pretty good results but not as much as I would like, then I'll definitely suggest looking at gut health. It's really tied to hormone imbalance, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is crazy. I just learned recently, just through some testing and stuff that we've done within my family, of, like you know I have my son had bad migraines, which we linked to gut health.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, pedics are a big one. Brain fog fatigue, yes, swell, though yeah, I know you don't think about that you would have thought of but we did go to. Yeah, that's awesome. Good for you, yeah.
Speaker 1:Good for you Like. Oh my gosh, Imagine had we gone just somewhere you would have different, yeah, yeah. We would have been on medication, drugs, yes, first, whole life. Yep, absolutely 100%.
Speaker 2:Oh, they've labor in the whole sick. Good, that's wonderful to hear. So it's true. I, you know, I feel like it is a little bit more upfront cost than obviously you're likely going to spend that conventional, but it's going to save you so much time and heartache and unnecessary treatments. Yeah, Sometimes, you know, sometimes it's just because it's not. They're still just kind of band-aids and they're not really what you need. And again, it's not because your doctor's terrible or your provider's terrible, it's just it's not in their training or their way of thinking and so they you have to. You know, sometimes you want to go to somebody that thinks a little bit differently.
Speaker 1:Yep. Yeah, I love it so do you have a storefront, do you like? How do you operate so?
Speaker 2:I have. I share space for where my chair is from where the Amsella chair is. It's in Perseval, and I share space with Amanda Dayton, who is wonderful. She is a nurse practitioner. She owns Enhanced Wellness or, I'm sorry, enhanced Beauty and Wellness, and so she primarily does aesthetics. She does, you know your fun.
Speaker 1:Do you have a new building that hasn't opened yet? Yes, okay, and so I see the sign when you go by it, but they have another place right now.
Speaker 2:Yes, so we're on North Hatcher Street in a little white house there and we're kind of busting at the seams. The new place is going to be amazing. It looks like it's going to be, from the outside, incredible.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's going to be really great. I know who's working on it and I know they always do that.
Speaker 2:Yes, so they do. Yeah, she got the best team, so, so, yeah, so that's where I am, and I'm there and I do. I can do some hormone consults in person, but a lot of the hormone stuff I do is virtual. Okay, yeah, that's awesome, yeah, because I find most people are fine with that, especially, you know, post COVID. Everybody sort of just assumes a lot of care can be virtual, yeah, and it can be.
Speaker 2:It can be Some of the press. That's the program Exactly. But I still do like to do in person visits, I think. I mean I love to really get to know my patients and I think you can lose some of that just doing all virtual. Sometimes I meet people at coffee shops. You know it's whatever they want to do really. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if you could give just kind of wrap it up, if you give one message to future prospective patients, what would you say to them If you?
Speaker 2:are feeling something that you don't feel is normal and you've been struggling with it, and don't don't just accept that it's normal or don't just accept like a birth control prescription or an antidepressant. Maybe you do need that, but make sure that you've really explored all options before just either not doing anything about it or taking care that still doesn't just feel right, like if you're not seeing somebody that's really listening to you and giving you time, then keep searching for somebody, whether that's me or another provider that you find, that is willing to do testing and keep searching and that really does offer a lot of options for treatment. You know, maybe you don't feel comfortable with hormones, or you want to try something else before hormones, which is fine, or, but yeah, just keep searching for those answers and that way you can really feel informed about your body, what's going on, so that you can decide how you want to take care of yourself best.
Speaker 1:I love that. Thank you so much for being on today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. This was great. This was great, awesome.