[00:00:00] Welcome friends to this episode [00:01:00] of The Sink Your Life podcast. Today I’m joined by my friend Stacy Roberts. She’s a PT RN and MSN. With over 30 years of experience helping patients live pain-free while achieving their health goals, she’s a holistic master’s prepared registered nurse. A musculoskeletal specialist, a pelvic and sexual health physiotherapist, and a functional medicine specialist.

She owns the new U Health and Wellness Practice in Wisconsin, combining cutting edge technology, advanced manual therapy and functional medicine to help patients attain optimal health. Many of her patients, including herself, have avoided surgery, drugs, and injections. She’s the author of a a forthcoming book, which we’re gonna be talking about here today on the podcast.

It’s called The Pain-Free Formula, solving the Puzzle of Muscle and Joint Pain Without Surgery, drugs, or Injections. Now this is a subject very near and dear to my heart. My listeners know that I myself have been struggling with chronic migraine pain. Um, and it’s something that I’m, um, kind of traveling with at the moment and, and learning more about.

But this actually comes across my desk a lot with women in my community who are struggling with joint [00:02:00] pains, um, debilitating, you know. Sciatica, like different things that that happen for them, especially in midlife. And a lot of times they’re just sort of dismissed in modern medicine, right? It’s just sort of like, oh, well this is part of the aging process, or this is just part of perimenopause.

Or your Es, your hormones are declining. So I don’t know. Everything goes out the window after 40 and that doesn’t have to be the case. Right? And Stacey’s here to tell us. What we can do instead through a holistic approach. So, Stacy, without further ado, I just wanna welcome you to my show. If you will just tell my listeners more about you.

How did you get into doing what you do? Sounds like you have a wide range of credentials in this space. So tell us more about why chronic pain for you.

Stacey Roberts: Thanks Jenny. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Um, uh, you know, chronic pain, I’ve been an athlete all my life, played in college. Um, you know, and, you know, I’ve had to deal with pain as a result of, of being an athlete.

And then some things kind of stuck over time. And my interest in sports medicine led me to be a physical therapist and then focus on sports medicine and orthopedics to start off with. And then, you know, as my [00:03:00] journey went. Through life and I hit menopause and then I got to kinda know the fertility stuff as well too with my patients and then, you know, pelvic health and sexual health.

So it kind of was just a journey that followed where I was in my life as well too. So, um, but really the catalyst for me to really write the book and start the podcast, um, uh, the book Pain-Free Formula was because I was at a wedding, um, doing, and my son was doing the Polka. So if you know anything about Wisconsin, you really need to learn how to do the polka.

Properly at weddings to have fun. And he was not looking good. So I went out there to, to try to show him how to do the polka. And in the middle of the kinda 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, I heard a big pop in my knee and it was like somebody took a, a fork and just stabbed it right into the side of my knee. And you know, my son’s like, what happened?

’cause I just stopped kind of mid 1, 2, 2. And, uh. I’m like the beer barrel polka just took me out ’cause I couldn’t, basically couldn’t stand, I couldn’t put weight on that. I went to sit down, swelled up like twice [00:04:00] its size. Thankfully I have a device called Soft Wave that I was able to travel back home to and treat, and I, uh, had to be on crutches.

For about three weeks, and then with Soft Wave was able to get off the crutches, but I wanted to know, I, I knew what to do. So I’m a physical therapist. I’ve done this for a, a long time. I knew how to treat it, but I wanted to know what that pop was. I kind of couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t really in a place where a ligament is or meniscus or anything like that.

And I’d had surgery on it, you know, 30 years prior. So I went to, I, I thought I’ll go to the doctor, orthopedic surgeon and have a nice talk with the colleague and, you know, figure out what that was, and then kind of, you know, introduce what I do as well too. So I go to the, uh, I get my MRI and X-ray, go to the doctor’s office and.

Barely put their hands on me and looked at my x-ray and said, you need a total knee replacement. And I was like, W wait. What? I was like, ’cause I didn’t have any pain at all prior to that incident. And you know, in a way I’m really happy I did have that experience because I saw [00:05:00] the arthritis. This extensive arthritis in my knee.

And what that taught me is you don’t have to have pain or significant pain just ’cause you have arthritis. I didn’t have any pain in that knee prior to, so that was the one thing I learned. And the other thing that I learned and kind of knew already from patients, but having the experience myself really set me on this journey was a lot of times they just go to what I think should be the last resort.

Then they also talked about cortisone injection and told me that I could do that. And when I brought up the fact that, well, I don’t wanna do that because that will degenerate my knee more based on the recent, recent research, you know, she kind of went, ah, you’d have to get a hundred cortisone injections in order to do that.

And I was just like, whoa, wait, what is this? What you’re telling all these people? So the, the book and the podcast and uh, you know, the program really came out of my passion for being like. People, you have to, I want you to know this information, you know, so that you like myself, can make an educated decision.

Some people might go down the [00:06:00] surgery route, some people might still wanna do the cortisone or other injections, totally fine, but just have all the information first and know that there are alternatives prior to dealing with that. And then kind of also ballooned into functional medicine as well, because some patients with chronic pain aren’t getting better with just the even.

Even my approach with soft wave and biomechanics. So then we look at hormones, gut health, and optimizing their eating plan to really get rid of that pain and migraines like yours. Yeah. So

good. So good. It’s interesting ’cause I just, um, was asked today by two different women. This is. Just in my brain at the moment about, um, menstrual pain, period pain.

And it’s, that’s a, a unique story for me because the two things that I’ve dealt with in my life is migraine headaches and menstrual pain. Like otherwise, I can’t really complain about anything. I’ve never broken a bone, I’ve never, I’ve never had any other sort of pain, right? That’s just, that’s what I’ve dealt with.

And, um, they were asking me like, well, what, what do you think is best? Like, do you think it’s, uh, is Advil better? Is ale better? You know, they’re, they’re asking me about [00:07:00] these over the counter medicines. So I said, honestly, the, the thing that’s helped me the most. Has been organic raspberry leaf tea. Mm-hmm.

And no one’s talking about organic raspberry leaf tea, like no one’s talking about it. Um, but a heating pad and organic raspberry leaf tea are actually really exceptional ways of eliminating pain for menstrual pain. So I absolutely assume that there are, you know, there’s this world that’s just not being talked about.

Right. When it comes to all different types of, of chronic pain, regardless of whether it’s your head or your joints or your knees. When you were talking about your story, it made me think of my mom. It was in her late seventies and a couple years ago, she hurt her knee, she tore her meniscus, and immediately she’s like, I just wanna have it replaced.

I’m already in my seventies. My mom had her knees replaced. Like, this is just what happens. And I was like, so she did the cortisone injection first and things got worse. And we, we, I saw this sort of all unfold. And even now as we speak, my next door neighbor threw his back out. He’s immediately like, well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna wait for this cortisone shot.

You know, I’m scheduled for two weeks from now, and he’s hobbling around until then. So. This is something that people [00:08:00] are doing. They’re, they’re seeking out, like you said, the last resort first, because they just want relief. And we’re in an instant gratification society where we’re like, I can’t handle this, so I need it fixed right now.

Mm-hmm. What do you do, like, what makes your approach different? You said, you mentioned, you know, food, um, you mentioned sort of like naturopathic approach, which I think some people honestly like roll their eyes at like, oh yeah. Like I’ll just, but I’m telling you guys like. Reducing the inflammation load, understanding your genetics, even understanding like what you uniquely need is so, so key.

I’m learning this the hard way. I mean, my listeners know that I spent 20 years during our INF infertility journey, probably from the age of 18 to to my mid thirties on like folic acid. Before I learned that I was M-T-H-F-R and it was actually doing more harm than good, right? So until we can really bio individualize.

What we uniquely need and what our deficiencies are, and we can eliminate the inflammation that we’re bringing in through the food that we’re eating and the endocrine disruptors that are around us and all those different things. You know, the Advil or the Aleve in the case of the menstrual pain is really just will it help in that [00:09:00] moment?

Yes. Is it helping from a root cause perspective, is it really helping? Not really. So I’d love for you to touch on, you know, what, what are your methods? Like what makes what you do so unique?

Stacey Roberts: Sure, and I’d just like to comment on the Advil and a lead thing. I, you know, we say that it helps in the moment, but it doesn’t really, it, it decreases the pain in the moment and can sometimes take away the pain in the moment, but it doesn’t really help in the moment ’cause it’s decreasing.

Uh, it, if it was an injury specifically, it’s decreasing the healing time or increasing the healing time, um, and can set people up for, you know, developing chronic pain as a result. So the raspberry leaf tea is a awesome, I’m glad that you. Stumbled onto that. I had the same kind of thing with menstrual pain and fish oil was like a godsend for me.

Helped with my moods, you know, PMS as well as menstrual pain, and then kind of to get rid of the rest of the menstrual pain symptoms. It was changing my diet. I needed to get rid of gluten and some other things in order to really get rid of that pain. Where then I got to perimenopause and menopause and I sailed through.

I had absolutely no symptoms, but [00:10:00] to, to speak to what’s different with our program is. We look at things holistically, and to your point, we’re about, I don’t know, 10, maybe 15 years out before we’re looking at genetics first. Right now it’s looked at maybe by, I don’t know, 1%, 5% of practitioners to really kind of get an understanding to personalize medicine.

Truly, truly personalized medicine. I got into Nutrigene genetics. Oh gosh. Back in the. Where are we now? 2025? Probably like back in 2010 to 2015, and it just wasn’t enough there for us to really make decisions about, except for understanding like M-T-H-F-R and things like that. But my hope is that, you know, in 10 years, my clinic.

That will be one of the first things that we are looking at, because now the people that have that information, we do utilize that in, in our program to personalize their supplementation, to make sure that they’re getting what their body needs and even to support their body’s natural ability to heal. So that is part of it, but [00:11:00] probably a smaller part.

’cause being in Wisconsin, people are a little bit like, oh, what? What do you mean food? Or what, what are you talking about? Um, but more people are leaning in. When I talk about how the gut impacts your joint pain, more people are trying to understand, okay, these supplements actually do have research behind it.

For example, like fish oil or turmeric, things like that, that have, um, support for dealing with pain relief. So if you come into my clinic. First thing you’re probably wanting is our soft wave device, which is a device that helps with decreasing that localized inflammation, which is what I did on my knee.

And it worked a amazing, um, because it was a localized injury, a lot of times people have chronic pain. It’s more systemic, systemic inflammation is contributing to that. So we, um, utilize software first and if then. And looking at their biomechanics, the way that they’re moving, we try to take away the, the biomechanical triggers, the physical triggers that might be causing the issue.

Like, for example, for your migraines, we would talk about how are you [00:12:00] sleeping? You know, what’s your pillow like, um, you know, what’s your desk set up like, you know, all those types of things that are physical ways that we can initiate a migraine or neck tension to, um, to cause that from a physical point of view.

But then a lot of times we look at. From there. If soft wave isn’t working by like the third or fourth treatment, if you haven’t gotten 50 to a hundred percent better by then, that’s when we take a look at gut, we take a look at hormones, we look at those things to try to maximize those, um, your gut health and optimize hormone levels, because that also significantly contributes to pain as well.

And you’re right, what happens in the doctor’s office is they go, oh, you’re just in menopause. You know, here, take some Aleve, take some Advil, take some ibuprofen. You know, it’s just a part of aging and it does not have to be.

You’re absolutely right. Absolutely right. And I, I, I think too that a lot of times right now, of course, like hormone health is trending, so people are, are talking about it, right?

They’re following these influencers online. And I still though face women who, [00:13:00] who are still, they still believe that it’s all about being smaller, right? So it’s, so when it comes to exercise and eating, they think they need to eat less. And, and work out harder. So if they are dealing with some sort of joint pain or discomfort, right?

They’re doing all the cardio, they’re doing all the HIIT training and all the elliptical, and I’m thinking to myself, well the, the muscles around whatever is weak there are not strengthening, right? And so it just goes back to show that what I teach, which is dominantly fitness and nutrition around, around hormone health is.

So important. And I think a lot of times, you know, even my mom, she’ll say like, oh, that ship has sailed for me. And I’m like, no, it hasn’t sailed for you. You’re 76. Like pick up the dumbbells, right? Like you can pick up your purse, you can pick up a dumbbell. Um, but we have to, especially my ladies listening who are into your thirties, forties, fifties, like this is such a critical time for making sure that we maintain both muscle.

Strength and that we’re, you know, obviously it’s, it’s, it’s working against time is working against us. So if we can work with our bodies to, to just kind of continue muscle building, even as we age, but also [00:14:00] mobility and the two things are super crucial. So I usually see two, you know, two different ends of the spectrum.

I either see women who are. Super sedentary and they’re like, okay, I need to start working out. And so they go straight to cardio, right? There’s like a skip over. We don’t even need to do the strength training. Or I see women who are so into strength training that there’s no mobility or flexibility added into their plan, and then they’re injured from all the sort of over training of that muscle, muscle endurance building.

And so we need a good balance of both, right? And a lot of people will, they, they know me for cycle sinking, right? They’ve, we, we started this whole brand with sync. So people think it’s all about cycle sinking. It’s not all about cycles sinking. It’s about. Really just working with your physiology, wherever you are in your life and your bioindividuality and understanding your hormone health.

But what I want people to understand is that we need a good mix of both, right? Like my yoga instructor would always say, people that come into my classes are super flexible and they can touch their toes, but they’re not very strong necessarily. Right? And then we would see people in the CrossFit space, um, that I used to teach in, right?

We used to teach women how to [00:15:00] lift weights and we would see people really going ham on that. And they’re not able to touch their toes. There’s no flexibility. So they’re very prone to injury there. So we need a really good mix of both when it comes to our exercise. And then with nutrition, we also need to focus on eating enough.

I see so many women not eating enough. And so A, your body is dealing with inflammation, right? If you’re dealing with pain, there’s inflammation, and then you’re not eating enough. So you’re, in essence, you’re pulling in these stress hormones that really are like already stressed, right? And so we’re just making that worse.

So I’d kind of like to navigate the conversation more toward. This idea of stress and hormones and how this impacts chronic pain because, um, I know from my own experience right now living through chronic migraine, it’s a cycle. It’s a cycle of like, I have a three day migraine. I come out of the three day migraine, and then I’m worried about the next one.

And so then like stress is factoring in. And I know, I mean, I’m being told from all the angles, like work on your nervous system, you know, work on. And so I’m doing those things. I’m going for walks. I’m not over training, I’m doing the breath work. Like I’m trying to, to really like get my mind in a, in a good [00:16:00] place.

But there’s still like when the pain is that intense or the vertigo is that intense, like there’s still this fear and is stress that’s involved in that pain cycle. So I’d love for you to touch on sort of the role of stress with chronic pain, regardless of what that looks like for people. And then we can kind of chat through hormones as well.

Stacey Roberts: Absolutely. I wanted to add something to the, the, the strength and flexibility, um, which I am, I’m just sitting here like nodding my head ferociously because I a hundred percent agree. And there’s the stability aspect of it too. So we want, we, we don’t want just big strong muscles. We want muscles that can make our, you know, hips and knees and shoulders and stuff stable.

So that’s really a, a really good aspect, um, to think about as well too. And then in regards to, um. Exercise just in general. I wanna throw this in there. ’cause people don’t understand this connection. There’s research to show, I talk about gut health a lot and there’s research to show by exercising we’re actually improving our good bacteria in our gut.

You know, that’s without taking a probiotic, without doing anything like that. By decreasing inflammation and optimizing our overall health [00:17:00] exercise improves our microbiome as well too. So it, it has a really holistic effect as well. Um. In regards to stress and hormones, gosh, how much time do we have? Um, ’cause with cortisol, you know, most people think that, uh, high cortisol is a problem, which it is, but very low.

Cortisol can be a problem too. So if your cortisol has been high, high, high for a long period of time, even decades, what the adrenals they’ll finally do is be like, I’m out. You know, and cortisol will drop off and then cortisol at its sweet spot, at its good level where it needs to be balanced is an anti-inflammatory molecule.

When it’s too high, it’s pro-inflammatory. When it’s too low, we lose the protection of the anti-inflammatory aspect of it. So when we’re stressed for long periods of time, that allows inflammation and things to, to bubble up. And when you. You, you’re very similar to a lot of my patients who think, okay, they start thinking about, you know, going out on the weekend.

We have state fair right now going on in Milwaukee, and people are like, well, I can’t go state fair because my knee hurts, or, you know, my, [00:18:00] uh, I can’t walk that far, or whatever it is. And before even doing the activity, instead of thinking, okay, what could I do to prepare myself to be able to walk and go to State Fair, we’re already picturing ourselves not being able to do it right, which then creates more stress.

Right on ourselves. ’cause we can’t spend time with our family, can’t spend time doing what we love to do. So thinking about, um, people, uh, in regards to visualizing even themselves. In the future without pain. Like when I have patients who are sitting, you know, across from me in chronic pain, I know that the physiology of their brain has changed because of the long-term chronic pain, the pain, the brain becomes more hypersensitive to pain.

Uh, it creates those neural connections that are really trying to protect you, so it becomes overprotective. So it keeps us from doing what we want to do because of that fear that you were talking about of of having pain and kind of thinking about, oh my gosh. What about the next episode, and we can break that pattern.

One way to do that is by [00:19:00] just visualizing ourselves in the future, going, okay, I’m gonna walk through state fair or do whatever it is, and I’m gonna see myself without pain. And that seems like, ugh, whatever. But it’s hard to do. A lot of my patients really struggle going, I don’t know. If I ask you if you could see yourself in the future not having migraine and not having these headaches in the future, can you see yourself in the future?

Feeling completely, you know, free of that pain. And a lot of times it’s, it’s frustrating for people to try that. And then even when they’re not doing the activity, like not doing walking, they’ll feel the pain sitting in that chair thinking about themselves in the future. ’cause they’re thinking about themselves having pain and they’ll physically create that pain without doing the activity.

So that’s one way of kinda, you know, changing those neural networks in the brain is remembering. Times where you didn’t have pain in the past, and sometimes it’s even difficult to remember that, but remembering those times and kind of project that out into the future, future and do visualization along with your breathing techniques to really help.

Um, I was just at a [00:20:00] meditation retreat and we did a, a breathing, uh, a breath work that they’re now showing is, um, able to increase the, our own natural opiate opiates that we create in our brain so we can create. Something as strong as morphine in our own body by being able to control our breath, doing meditation techniques and things like that.

So there’s so much that we can do for ourselves, but like you said, we’re conditioned and grew up in a society where we’re conditioned to just grab a pill and take it to get rid of it in the short term. But certainly there’s a huge cortisol stress and just general hormone connection to pain.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I’m, I’m living proof of that right now and I think, you know, cortisol gets a bad rep sometimes, but it’s really there to help us, right? It’s really there to be sort of an anti-inflammatory, inflammatory signal to the, to the body. So, um, yeah, and I can even speak to, and, and I’ve said this before on the podcast, but for me, with the migraines re flaring again in the last, uh, especially the last eight months, you know, we’ve been trying [00:21:00] to, um.

Really work on like, like, like you said, visualization and also just what are the things that aren’t going well. Like, instead of always thinking like, well, I didn’t, I wasn’t able to go do this today because of my migraine, or I wasn’t able to do this because I’ll, I’ll just be honest, like, for anybody listening that does suffer from chronic migraines, there’s, you know, it’s, it’s a really debilitating.

Um, neurological disorder. It’s not just headache, but it, there is this total element with it of feeling like you’re missing out, like feeling like you’re missing out on so much because even just this past weekend when I got hit on Saturday, it was like my husband’s like, just go lay down. And I’m like, I’m sick of laying down.

Like I am so sick of missing out. And it’s, it’s, it’s hard because you’re like. My body can’t sleep anymore, right? Like I’ve had a migraine for three days, I can’t sleep anymore. And so now I’m just frustrated and I’m in pain. But I also don’t wanna go in public ’cause of the noise and the lights and the right.

So just giving this as an example, and so it festers in you this sense of like, oh, another thing I’m missing. Right. Another thing I’m missing, or [00:22:00] what if I miss this next thing? Like what, you know, I’m already thinking about my kids are starting school on Thursday. Will, will I feel okay to take them to school?

Like, will I be able to get them out the door? Will I, you know, so these things start to creep in and then that just creates a stress cycle, right? And so that’s not, that’s not adding any value to my migraine. It’s not helping me get out of it. So. Just like you were saying, it’s interesting because, um, a lot of neurologists, everybody wants to ask the question like, oh, do you have a neurologist?

I found them hugely unhelpful in my life. Um, but in working with the one I have now, ’cause you kind of have to have one if you’re at my stage of, of migraine. Um. You know, they, they’ll say things to me like, oh, you know, well, since yours are so hormonally driven, the good news is right, you’re in your forties, so once you hit menopause, they should go away.

And I’m thinking to myself, but I’ve dealt with them since I was 14. And so how fair is that? Like on my tombstone to say like, this woman suffered for 40 years, but she finally hit menopause and things got better. Right? Like so on one hand you’re like, yes. Can I envision myself in the future not having these fluctuations traveling with my husband, getting back to my [00:23:00] life?

Yes. But there’s also this side of it that’s like depressing. It’s like, wait, like how long am I gonna have to wait for that to happen? And so instead it’s how can I, for me at least, it’s like, how can I find gratitude in. The things that I am able to do, right? Like today, I’m able to do a couple of podcasts ’cause I feel, okay, I’m taking my kids to Trader Joe’s.

We’re gonna have a fun afternoon shopping. Like, so I, I make sure that I verbalize those things and that tonight when I’m in my gratitude journal, that I say like, today was a good day, right? These are all the things that I got to do because then when I do get slammed, if I do get slammed again, I’m like, okay, then this, this is my body’s way of telling me that I got, I gotta lie down, right?

Like, I have to lie down if I, even if I don’t want to. So, um, so number one, you, you guys know that like. I’m an advocate for, there’s always a root cause to what’s going on, right? And so in my case, like it’s almost frustrating that I feel like I’ve tackled things from the nutrition angle. I’ve tackled things from the lifestyle and the breath work angles.

I’ve, I’ve tackled it all, but it seems like my body is just female and it has [00:24:00] highs and lows of hormones that, that my brain doesn’t appreciate apparently those fluctuations. So just trying to navigate that as. As I grow and as I get older. Um, so yeah, so we talked about cortisol, but obviously cortisol is just one leg of the hormone chair.

Right? There are other factors, and this is something that we touched on in our, our pre-call, is this conversation of estrogen even, and sex hormones and the roles that they play in our pain. Um. And gosh, not to keep, keep talking. I feel like I’ve stolen the mic for a second. But for me personally, like in the last few days, I’ve come off of estrogen, so I won’t go into my whole story, but I was using estrogen hormone replacement therapy to see if we could offset the drops in my, my estrogen for a hormonal migraine.

But when I looked back on why have I been suffering so bad for the last eight months, I’m like, well, the only thing I’ve done differently is this estrogen. So maybe the estrogen is actually more of a problem. Right. Um, so my doctors were like pretty much all against me coming off of it. They’re like, your levels look low.

I don’t know, like, this seems like a big risk. By taking the patch off, you’re gonna [00:25:00] be. You’re probably gonna put yourself into like a seven day migraine, right? Like we’re gonna, so I removed the patch on on Saturday. I got a migraine Saturday night into Sunday, and I have felt more myself the last two days than I have felt in eight months.

So I can tell you that for me, it’s kind of the, the backwards of what I was, what I was going for, but I’m figuring it out and I’m figuring. You know, there are things, estrogen and progesterone are neuroprotective, right? Like there are advantages, but there’s also disadvantages for some people. And again, it comes to that bioindividuality.

So I wanna talk about this because even like, uh, I think about my mom who had a hysterectomy and she avoided, she denied all hormone replacement therapy. So she’s never had, she’s in that generation of women who were just like scarred for life with the WHI initiative. Um, and so she has never been on hormone replacement therapy.

And I see so many things in her life, like the knee replacements, like. Memory, right? Things that I’m like, I actually think that hormone replacement therapy could help you in these cases, um, to avoid things like that. We’re seeing connected, right? Alzheimer’s cardiovascular disease. [00:26:00] Um, osteoporosis. So let’s talk a little bit more about the role of hormones in pain, because it is huge and it’s something that people are not talking about.

Stacey Roberts: Absolutely, and, and in that stage of, let’s just talk about perimenopause into menopause. Most people know hot flashes are really common, but not many people know that joint pain is actually more common than hot flashes in some cases during those times. So we know that it’s related to the hormones dropping.

So estrogen, progesterone. Or like you said, neuroprotective, they’re anti-inflammatory when they are at their good levels. So like cortisol, if estrogen is too high, it can be inflammatory, and if it’s too low, you lose your protection. Same, you know, progesterone as well. It’s rare that we have high progesterone unless we’re taking progesterone.

That’s usually one of the lower ones. But in your case, what you, what also people don’t understand is it’s just not about the hormones, it’s about the body. Excuse me. We could do that in the editing, that’d be great. Um, that it’s not just about the hormones it [00:27:00] themselves, but how the body processes those hormones.

So the hormones metabolites. So for example, um, if I made a h if a, a house of Legos, if I call that estrogen, if. Each of the Legos are metabolites of that estrogen. It’s how the body utilizes estrogen. So we’ll either excrete it through the urine feces, or we will also maybe even through sweat, uh, or we will recycle it back into the body from our gut.

So if you are taking estrogen and your levels still look low, then I would say, okay, we need to see how you’re processing that. Estrogen, especially if your symptoms are going up, but your levels are still low. So we wanna see how your body’s doing that. If you have a uh, M-T-H-F-R, there’s probably other things in your methylation cycle of your body that helps your body clear different things in detox that aren’t performing where they should.

So that’s where the focus then should be, in my opinion, to see how your body. Managing that, um, estrogen. And then, uh, that could be the same for progesterone as well too, but at least you know that there’s a hormonal link. So ne the next step is to go, [00:28:00] okay, why so is even the thyroid. So thyroid creates hormones that also helps your liver metabolize estrogen, your gut helps your, um, body metabolize estrogen.

So all those factors really need to be assessed for the person instead of just going, oh, your estrogen’s low, take estrogen, because there’s a whole big hormone cascade that that, that just taking the hormone replacement can really muck around if we don’t take a, a look at. Everything holistically, and I’m not against hormone replacement at all, but I think it like surgery, like injections, sometimes it’s the go-to first versus trying to figure out what the problem is, and then maybe in the end, if nothing else is working naturally or we’re working on that methylation cycle and your body’s detoxification process and then maybe then utilizing it, they’re gonna work better.

’cause your body’s gonna be able to process them better. So again, I think it’s, you’re right, it’s trending right now. So tons of people are going on hormone replacement, but they’re just looking at blood tests to go, okay, that’s low. Take that, [00:29:00] that’s low. Take that uhhuh, that’s take that. Yeah. Versus looking at the whole cascade of hormones.

Right, right. And I’m gonna interrupt you right there because it’s so, what you’re saying is so true and it’s interesting because like I told you. I’ve done like genetics testing. I, I just recently started working with a new consultant and it’s funny because I was, I sent her my oats test, my stool test, my, my genetics test, all my blood labs, my Dutch test, you know, I mean, I’ve got, I’ve done it all.

Like you name it, I’ve done it. Um, it’s like we have all this information, but then when I’m working with my practi, my practitioners, my regular practitioners, they don’t wanna look at all of that. Like, it’s just like, well, okay, like, so we can, yeah, we can do some methylated B vitamins, but. And essentially your estrogen’s low or your progesterone’s low.

So let’s put you on these things. And so this new consultant that I’m working with, which I’m excited to have on the podcast here soon, she’s the first one to address methylation for me. And I knew, I mean, it’s been a question, I have been asking this question. Unfortunately I don’t have, you know, I’m not a doctor so I can only do so much to understand what I’m doing, what I’m dealing with.

’cause we have multiple [00:30:00] genetic SNPs. It’s not just one or two. And so I’ve been trying to figure out what is the best thing for me and. It’s interesting because progesterone was a game changer for me for 13 years, but I was using it at what I would call physiologic doses of 30 milligrams or less of cream.

And in the last five years we’ve had to go up higher on the doses of cream in order for me to get migraine relief. But it’s giving me a lot of dizziness and so I haven’t been able to figure this out and I’ve brought it up to like. Every practitioner I’ve worked with, I mean, these are hormone specialists, like people who’ve, they, they specialize in bio HRT, they specialize in, in these types of things.

And, um, it’s funny because this, this new consultant that I’m working with just sent me a blog article that she wrote, and it was about dizziness with progesterone. And it was about how it, you know, for some women it converts into allopregnanolone. And Allopregnanolone is going to, it has to do with gaba.

You know, I’m not gonna go into that whole thing now, but she sent me this lengthy article and it really just has to do with Glucuronidation, sulfation, all these different methylation types. So she sent me a list of, let’s [00:31:00] take you off of these supplements that your doctors have you on sort of blindly, right?

Like you’re on these methylated B vitamins. I don’t really think they’re doing anything, and your levels are showing high. So let’s actually do these things that will help your body with methylation, and then let’s see what happens. Like, let’s see if we give your body the support it needs, if it’s able to do that, right?

It’s taken me, you guys, like three years and multiple doctors most multiple times of advocating for myself. Me doing home test kits that I’m like, there’s something to this, but I just need the right person to help me. Um, and it’s hard. I mean, these, these journeys are hard. So you can see why someone with a busted knee, someone with chronic migraine, whatever the case, or a low, a low back issue just says, okay doctor, like, give me the cortisone shot.

That just seems a lot easier. Um, and it seems a lot like quicker on the relief, on the relief scale, right? So. I just wanted to interject and say there’s a reason for everything, right? And so when you say to your doctor like, I don’t know, I think this estrogen patch is causing some problems, and they say it shouldn’t ’cause your, your levels are low.

Nope. It definitely was [00:32:00] because I was spending most of my month non-functional, so. Um, yeah, so anyways, you can continue with, with, with hormones.

Stacey Roberts: No, absolutely. I mean, you are like my dream patient to bring that, all that information to me at the beginning instead of me having to recommend all those tests, I would be in heaven because then we’d have a lot of, maybe not all of, but a lot of what we would need to try to figure out and streamline your supplements because that’s the other thing, if you don’t do, let’s say hormone replacement therapy.

Or even if you are, many practitioners will, will, uh, prescribe a ton. Like I’ve had patients come in with bucket full of supplements, right. So, and usually what I’m doing is shaving off at least a third of those, if not a half or even two thirds, depending on what they need because, um, you know, it, again, it, it’s medicalized natural functional medicine because then instead of giving.

You know, 10 different medications you’re giving 25 different supplements to take. [00:33:00] And you know, it, it’s really about streamlining that because nutrients are really important for hormone balance, right? So if going back to your estrogen, progesterone, it’s really, everything’s connected. So if I optimize my gut, I’m gonna optimize my hormones.

If I optimize my hormones, I’m gonna help optimize my gut. If I improve my thyroid, I’m gonna help to optimize my liver. Which helps with the detoxification process. It just goes on and on and how it’s all interconnected. So I think, um, on the messages I’m hearing from you, and you probably say over and over again to your listeners, is.

Gotta find somebody that can help you, you know, interpret that and can help you look at you from a holistic point of view and not just go it, you know, as far as chronic pain goes, oh, well, yeah, you know, physical therapy didn’t work. Um, those exercises didn’t work. Uh, next thing is surgery. Well, does it really need to be, I mean, it, it really depends on that person.

And I’m not against surgery, right? Right. I’ve rec, I’ve, you know, referred people to habit, but there’s much more that can be done prior to making that [00:34:00] leap.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s funny because in, in the, at least in the space that I’m in with chronic migraines, it’s a frustrating cycle because, you know, you, you, let’s say in my case recently, like you end up with an eight day migraine and you’re like, I’ve gotta get this broken.

So you, you go to, let’s say, an emergency room or an urgent care, and you’re like, at this point. I’m gonna throw all the holistic things out the window. We’re just gonna try to get relief, right? So you go there and the first question they ask you is, are you working with a neurologist? I hope you’re working with a neurologist.

Well, I’ve tried 14 different neurologists at this point. 16 different neurologists in the last 15 years. I’ve had neck surgeries, I’ve done Botox, I’ve tried every medication preventative abortive. So yes, I am doing all the things that I need to be doing. So you then you, you think to yourself, yeah, I should probably should revisit that, right?

So let me hire a new neurologist. So you, you get a new neurologist this time, this, and this is my personal story, right? This time I seek out somebody that maybe has a little bit more of a functional background or has a little bit more of a holistic view. Found somebody I finally like, after years of looking right?

That’s [00:35:00] in the neurology space. And I, it’s a, it’s a grain of salt. I know it’s gonna be medications given to me. It’s not gonna be root cause. Meet with her. First question she asks is, are you, what is your ob GYN? Say, if these are hormonal headaches, what is your ob, GYN? Say? Well, my OB, GYN left the practice, so I’m now working with her physician’s assistant, her physician’s assistant, who’s like, could be my child at this point, um, has told me that.

You know, birth control is my only option. Or I guess maybe we could do the marina IUD. But given my history of trying seven different birth control medications in my early twenties, that all resulted in depression, anxiety, hot flashes, and all kinds of issues before the age of 22. I don’t think it’s gonna be a very good option.

So then the ob, GGYN says. Have you seen an endocrinologist? And you’re like, oh, um, no. Okay. Like, I, I guess we’ll knock that off the list. So you see an endocrinologist, right? And they don’t look any, they, they, that you know right away that this isn’t gonna go well. ’cause they don’t look past your TSH, they don’t look at all the other thyroid markers that you’ve had tested that you know, that need to be looked at.

They don’t look at it, right? So [00:36:00] then all of a sudden you’re like, I don’t even think I’m in the right hands here. So next thing you know, you’re in another migraine cycle and you’re like, oh, I gotta go back to the urgent care. I gotta go back, I gotta get this relief. So you go back to the urgent care. And this time you say, I have a neurologist.

I’m working with a neurologist. That neurologist calls the urgent care before you get there to tell them this is what my person needs. She needs high dose magnesium in her fluids, she needs, um, you know, this dosage of this medication and this dosage of this medication. And you get there and you sign the papers to be in the er.

And you get your fluid iv. This is just a personal rant, uh, of a recent story. And they come in and tell you halfway through your fluids now that you’ve paid the ER bill. Oh, by the way, we don’t take any outside advice, so it was nice of your, uh, neurologist to call us and everything, but we don’t, we don’t actually add magnesium to our fluids.

We don’t actually have the medication that she wants you to have. Now you’re paying this ER bill, so we’re gonna give you what we have. Um, but essentially it was like giving me two baby aspirin and sending me on my way. So this is the cycle. That is modern medicine, and for those of you who saw [00:37:00] me post recently in my Instagram, I had a lot of people reach out.

Because I just shared how frustrating it feels, how frustrating it feels to, to feel like nobody really cares about what’s truly going on. But no, no one also knows how to treat it. And you guys, it’s affecting one in four women. Like one in four women are dealing with, with not just one migraine a month.

Like they’re dealing with multiple migraines per month and modern medicine doesn’t know how to treat it. Right. So we could talk about this in, in, in the realm of joint pain. We could talk about this in the realm of low back pain like. And it’s because women are understudied, but it’s also because modern medicine isn’t the siloed world of specialties of like, oh, your head hurts.

Let’s look at your head. Oh, your brain scan’s fine, so you must be fine. I don’t know. It must be all in your head, right? Or they send you to the, the hormone doctors that really have no knowledge of, of hormone therapy or no knowledge of hormones, um, beyond just delivering a baby. I hate to say it, so. All that to say I’m with you in solidarity on, on this mission to help people like FI figure out what’s going on for them.

I agree with what you said early on, that genetics testing should be one of the [00:38:00] first things we do. Um. When I finally got my results back at age 41, I was like, oh my gosh, this would’ve saved me like 30 years of struggle if I had had this early, early, early on. I plan on doing it with my little girls that are just four and eight, so that we can get a good feeling for what they might need as well.

But I think it’s, we’re doing everything backwards. We’re doing everything backwards for that instant gratification. Oh, you’re in pain. We gotta knock that pain. Right? But like what’s actually happening here? What’s causing the inflammation to begin with. So as we wrap this up, I mean, I wanna, we definitely wanna talk on your book and stuff like that, so I wanna make sure we have time for that.

Uh, before we get there though, when it comes to aging as women, what advice would you give? Because I, I assure you that someone listening to this is dealing with frozen shoulder migraine headaches. They’re dealing with this new joint pain that has come on in perimenopause. Right? So what would you say to that person, um, in their quest for, for pain-free living?

Stacey Roberts: So if they are going into perimenopause, like kind of having some of the symptoms coming into it, irregular periods, things like that, uh, preparation, [00:39:00] right? So we’re all, it’s all i, menopause is all over everywhere now people are talking about it, which is great. The majority of that message is, ugh, it’s so hard.

It’s not for the, you know, the week or it’s not. You know, it’s just this terrible time of life versus going, okay, what can I do to prepare so that it isn’t an issue? Right? So getting yourself healthy. Yep. You’re probably gonna have to change some of your eating habits. Probably gonna have to change some of the things that you’re putting in your body.

Might have to decrease alcohol consumption, those types of things that you wanna prepare going into it. Um, if you’re already in it, it’s a matter of stepping back and looking at all the things that we’re talking about today. You know, find somebody like you did, a friend of mine and I were just talking, she has chronic headaches and migraines.

We did food sensitivity testing for her. She’s like, I don’t know. This isn’t gonna help me. I’ve had this for 20 years. She just told me it’s the first time in two weeks that she noticed that she didn’t have a headache and she kind of even forgot about it because she’s so used to having them that and, and not thinking about it, uh, when she has [00:40:00] them to just put it out of her mind so she can function.

So looking at your gut, looking at what you’re eating, even food that are is good. Generally good may not be good for you. And that’s another thing that we can find out in genetic testing or, and more simply with food sensitivity testing of good, reliable food sensitivity tests like the one that I use, the lcat has helped so many women in regards to that.

So I would say preparation is the big thing and changing our attitude on, you mentioned earlier about focusing on what good things you can have, right? Like what’s. Good things that you can do. All the things that you can have versus just focusing on what you can’t. If we’re just afraid of getting hot flashes, if we’re just afraid of having vaginal dryness, if we’re just afraid of all these things that are, you know, gonna be supposedly happening to us in menopause, we’re spending a lot of our energy on things that we, you know, um.

I think we can’t control instead of stopping and going, okay, what can I do to control this and prevent them to the best of my ability, right? And not just suffer in [00:41:00] silence through, and to your point, keep looking. You’ve had 14 or 16, you know, um, uh, practitioners that you’ve gone through. Um, you know, the average is nine for some people who are even diagnosed with something like even endometriosis, right?

Um, those types of of statistics are crazy. We should be able, there should be more people who are looking more holistically. But right now the reality is we do have to look and we do have to find those practitioners that really are somebody that we connect with and somebody that has the same philosophy, um, or at least helps you develop the philosophy that you might be developing as a person who’s just kind of getting into this to optimize their health.

Yeah, that’s what it’s all about, is really just making sure that your values and your philosophy align, right? Like I just want my doctors to respect that. I wanna try natural methods first. I’m not opposed to other things, but like. This is what I believe and this is what I wanna do, right? And so to have somebody that just wants to preach birth control, well, our values aren’t aligning, right?

So it’s, it’s time to move on to the next person. So it [00:42:00] can be a, a very expensive route to, to try to find more, more than one doctor. But there’s also lots of resources. It’s why I’ve created the courses I’ve created. It’s why you’ve written the book that you’ve written, right? Like there are lots of resources out there that are not as costly.

That can still give you a lot of answers when it comes to your health. So yeah. All right, perfect. Well, I wanna make sure that we touch on your book, which is coming out. It’s called The Pain-Free Formula, solving the Puzzle of Muscle and Joint Pain Without Surgery, drugs, or Injections. I love that title.

Um. Yeah, I, I wish that could be, uh, sort of like my, my little subtitle for my life story. I wish it could be Solving My Pain Without, without Mu, without Surgery, uh, drugs or Injections. But, uh, we’ll link up the, the book for you guys on Amazon. Uh, she also is the host of the Pain-Free Formula podcast, so we’ll make sure that we link that up for you as well so you can get more valuable resources there.

And her website is new you health and wellness.com. So share with us. Did I miss anything? Is there anywhere people can find you or is that everything?

Stacey Roberts: No, that’s everything. I mean, we’re on Facebook and Instagram under NewU health and wellness.com, but the website has the mo most [00:43:00] information in blog articles as well.

And then the podcast, the book is already out on Amazon, which is, um, uh, a great, it’s a labor of love and I feel like it’s, it’s, it’s already making a little dent and helping people understand even, you know, why they shouldn’t be on NSAIDs for long term. You know, just understanding what that can potentially do.

Um, that’s really the best ways to get in touch with me for sure.

Great. Perfect. All right, well, we’ll have all of that linked up for you guys in the show notes. All you have to do is swipe up to click on the links. Otherwise, you guys, thanks so much for tuning in. Thank you, Stacy, for your time and your expertise and sharing your story and what you help people with, and I’m hoping people will reach out to you, follow you, grab the book, all the things.

Until next time you guys. We’ll talk soon. Bye-bye. [00:44:00]