202-SYNCPodcast_NormalNotOptimalFINAL

[00:00:00] Jenny Swisher: ​

[00:00:58] Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to this episode of the Sync Your Life podcast. Today, we’re diving into this idea that normal is not optimal. You’ve heard me say it here on the podcast a thousand times, and I certainly preach it a lot in my Sync Digital course, but I want to do a deep dive today on this topic and why I am so dang passionate about it.

[00:01:16] Jenny Swisher: I’ll start by sharing a little bit of my story. Many of you know that what brought me to hormone health was a very unfortunate journey in dealing with chronic migraine in my twenties. I came off of oral contraceptives at the age of 22 after seven years on a low dose birth control pill, and my headaches went to hell in a handbasket.

[00:01:33] Jenny Swisher: My husband and I had just married, and here I was dealing with daily pain that left me taking disability from my dream career and really struggling. It took 14 different primary care doctors, OBGYNs, neurologists, spinal specialists, and headache clinics before I finally resorted to functional medicine.

[00:01:51] Jenny Swisher: You name it, I tried it. Acupuncture, yoga, chiropractic, and not a single person ever mentioned my hormones. In fact, when I would say things to my OBGYN about my history with headaches around my period and how they now seem to just be all the time, her exact words were, well, they can’t be hormonal if they’re 24 7.

[00:02:10] Jenny Swisher: Your labs are all normal. Normal. I had literally a dozen doctors tell me I was normal. Yet, I couldn’t function. I was in debilitating pain, living my life with the blinds closed, carrying painkillers in my pocket, and frequenting the urgent cares for relief. I did not feel normal. It was on a walk with my friend, Jen, where I finally broke down in tears, and I told her that this just had to be it for me.

[00:02:35] Jenny Swisher: I would just start taking the painkiller every day, and I would just deal. I would live my life on meds. She said some words to me that would point me toward my life’s purpose. Now, I look back on it and it was such a foreshadow into my life’s purpose. She said, you are your own best doctor. You can’t give up.

[00:02:53] Jenny Swisher: She gave me the name and number for a local functional medicine doctor who specialized in women’s hormones. And I promised her I’d try just one more doctor. Before I met with this doctor, she ordered labs for me that no one had ordered before.

[00:03:05] Jenny Swisher: Not just blood work, but urine testing and saliva testing. Here, I had had every brain scan known to man, and she was testing my urine? This was different. We did food sensitivity testing, Dutch testing, and more because she saw my urgent need for relief. In my first appointment with her, she said, well, your sex hormones are basically in the tank, probably due to birth control.

[00:03:27] Jenny Swisher: Your estrogen is too high, your liver isn’t methylating it well, and your progesterone is too low, so you are living in a constant state of estrogen dominance. She started me on some estrogen detox supplements, bioidentical progesterone cream, and within three months, my headaches had drastically improved.

[00:03:43] Jenny Swisher: I remember telling my OBGYN months later how my quality of life had been dramatically improved, and she said, that’s so interesting. You’re the picture of health. So I really doubt hormones were really the issue, given that your labs were normal. Normal. What? I even got a similar response from my neurologist and a similar response from my primary care doctor.

[00:04:05] Jenny Swisher: This began my journey into functional medicine and the powers of it, which eventually led to me becoming a health coach, personal trainer, nutritionist, and now integrative health practitioner. When my husband and I wound up in a fertility clinic five years after the chronic migraine saga, I was in a better place of understanding my body and I knew that normal was not optimal.

[00:04:25] Jenny Swisher: I knew what questions to ask. I knew how to self advocate. And yet, I still felt part of what I now call modern medicine’s pharmaceutical focus. And now, three years after the launch of my course, 200 podcast episodes into this podcast, a single day doesn’t go by that I don’t hear from another woman, Well, my labs are all normal, but I feel off.

[00:04:46] Jenny Swisher: And I continually have to explain that normal is not always optimal. and that understanding a root cause approach is simply different than how most modern medicine, primary care doctors, and OBGYNs are trained. So, let me explain. In perimenopause, progesterone, which is known as your female fertility hormone, which supports a pregnancy and it should also rise after ovulation each month in an ideal cycle, begins to decline long before we see estrogen decline.

[00:05:12] Jenny Swisher: For most women, progesterone declines 7 to 10 years before menopause. Women around the age of 40, sometimes younger, sometimes older, they wind up telling their doctors that they feel off. Brain fog, trouble sleeping, anxiety, headaches, irregular cycles. These are a few symptoms we hear of often. So the doctor sends them down the hall after their appointment for a quick blood draw.

[00:05:33] Jenny Swisher: They pay no attention to the time of their cycle when the test is being done. And the labs get drawn, and a couple days later they receive a message in their online chart saying, Well, all your labs are normal. AKA you cray. Is that not how we feel? Let me explain. Normal lab ranges are determined by the total pool of people having the lab done.

[00:05:54] Jenny Swisher: That means that healthy and unhealthy people are in that total normal range. So you might see, if you look closely enough, where normal lab ranges typically range from, let’s say, 0. 2 to 150. And I don’t know about you, but I want to be optimal. I don’t want to just fall in that wide range. I don’t want to just be told that I’m a living, breathing human being and that my body isn’t yet on fire.

[00:06:16] Jenny Swisher: You see, that’s the difference between functional and traditional medicine. When you’re working with a functional medicine doctor, they’re looking for root cause, where a traditional medicine doctor is looking at your symptoms. I hate to make this too stereotypical, but I like to use this analogy of the fire in the basement.

[00:06:31] Jenny Swisher: Traditional medicine will look at your labs and say, Well, everything’s in the normal range. Your house isn’t on fire yet. Where a functional medicine doctor will actually look at your lab ranges and they’ll look at everything whether it’s blood, urine, saliva, etc. and they’ll say, You know what? We see some matches near some newspaper in the basement.

[00:06:47] Jenny Swisher: We think this house is about to be on fire. That’s the difference, my friends. So, to boot, progesterone and estradiol numbers are often examined as siloed numbers. Progesterone falls in normal range, estrogen falls in normal range, and most doctors just say, Yep, you’re normal, and they move on. Most doctors aren’t trained to look at the ratio between the two, or to pay attention to the time in your cycle when the labs were done.

[00:07:11] Jenny Swisher: So here’s a free tip for you. Your sex hormones should be tested 7 10 days before your next period, which is likely around 7 days after ovulation for you. Hopefully you’re tracking ovulation. If you’re listening to this podcast, you know the importance of ovulation as a fifth vital sign to our overall health.

[00:07:26] Jenny Swisher: That’s when progesterone is peaking in your cycle is around a week after ovulation. But again, most doctors are paying no attention to that. So if your doctor is simply sending you down the hall for lab work and they’re not paying attention to the timing of your cycle and they’re not looking at that ratio between estradiol and progesterone, it might be time for a new doctor.

[00:07:45] Jenny Swisher: Similarly, we see this happening too with thyroid. I just did an episode on thyroid testing, which I’ll make sure that I link up for you in the show notes. But the same thing here is true. Your thyroid is the thermostat of your endocrine system, yet most doctors are only testing your TSH, which is your thyroid stimulating hormone.

[00:08:02] Jenny Swisher: Once again, the normal range is a wide range where we know as functional practitioners, Once again, the normal range is a wide range where we know as functional practitioners that optimal is actually very different and much more specific. In fact, according to Dr. Sarah Gottfried, quote, According to American Thyroid Association, a standard range of TSH levels should be between 0.

[00:08:23] Jenny Swisher: 4 to 4. 0. However, in my experience, people with normal thyroid function have a TSH of 0. 3 to 1. 5, so my goal is less than 2 in most of my patients. So how many women are leaving their doctor’s appointments feeling crazy because their labs technically fall in normal ranges? Yet, in reality, they are nowhere near optimal, they could be dealing with low progesterone issues that can be easily supported during perimenopause, or they have an over or underactive thyroid and now they feel crazy.

[00:08:54] Jenny Swisher: Normal is not optimal, my friends, and this is where self advocacy becomes the focus. You must become hormone literate about your own body and understand your unique physiology. You should know when you ovulate, your cycle health, the fundamentals of hormone balance, and how you’re doing with those nutritional and lifestyle factors so that you can ask the right questions, so that you can advocate for the right testing, and so that you can get your maximum energy back.

[00:09:20] Jenny Swisher: If I had a dollar for every woman who comes into my course who believes that she’s just gone crazy, I would be able to single handedly change healthcare in this country. In the last few months, I’ve been able to partner with Dr. Paige Gutile of Signature Primary Care and Wellness. for virtual health consults with women.

[00:09:37] Jenny Swisher: We’ve been able to change the paradigm and help these women navigate their health concerns. Issues like brain fog, anxiety, trouble sleeping, headaches, low libido, and even feeling like they’re going crazy. And we’re doing it through a different lens. Starting in January, we will open our doors to women outside of my SYNC digital course.

[00:09:54] Jenny Swisher: Prior to that, this opportunity has only been available for my course takers, but we are ready to spread this message and help even more women find their maximum energy. So you can stay tuned here to the podcast or you can follow me on social media for those details as they emerge. But if you’re feeling off my friend, trust that gut feeling.

[00:10:12] Jenny Swisher: Women have an intuition that is rarely wrong. The time is now to tap into it. To look under the hood. To get a better understanding of your body. To find functional wellness and to get your life back. Someone once told me that when you change a woman, you change a family. Wow. Let that sink in. What if mom was energetic again?

[00:10:33] Jenny Swisher: What if mom was happy again? What if mom was sleeping again? What if mom was feeling alive again? That is my wish for you this holiday season. You don’t need the purse or the scarf. You need you back. They need you back. Normal is not optimal. I am so passionate about this topic, my friends, because literally a day does not go by where I don’t hear from a woman complaining about the fact that she feels so terrible or her energy is low, but yet her doctors are all telling her she’s normal.

[00:11:03] Jenny Swisher: This is not a slam toward modern medicine whatsoever. It’s just been my experience and the experience of dozens upon dozens of other women that I teach and coach. So it’s time for us to get out there now and spread this message. If you would be willing to share this out with your friends or tell a friend, I would be so appreciative.

[00:11:19] Jenny Swisher: Also, make sure you subscribe that you take a listen each week to the podcast as we dive into more and more topics like this related to women’s hormone health and more. I always like to say I treat the whole woman, right? Not just your hormones, but your, your personal development, your relationships, everything about your life.

[00:11:35] Jenny Swisher: But here’s the deal. If you’re just going about your life living normal, what could your life be like if you were really living optimal? And that’s how I want to leave you today. Thank you so much. My friends, as always, until next time, we’ll talk soon. Bye bye.