Bioidentical Hormones, Hormone Imbalance, and the 90/10 Rule of Healing

In this episode of the Gutsy Health Podcast, Juanique Grover is joined by Dr. Brian Rodgers and hormone consultant Tauscha Johanson to unpack what most people misunderstand about hormone health—especially when it comes to bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT).

They dive into the symptoms women often ignore or get gaslit over, explain how BHRT works, and discuss why quality of life—not just lab results—should guide your decisions.

The conversation also highlights how sex hormones don’t function in isolation. If your thyroid, adrenals, or mitochondria are under stress, your hormones will be too. This episode is practical and empowering, especially for women who are tired of hearing “everything looks normal” when they clearly don’t feel normal.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone) influence nearly every system in the body
• Why bioidentical hormones are easier to metabolize than synthetic versions
• The role of thyroid, adrenals, liver, and mitochondria in hormone therapy success
• Common symptoms of hormone imbalance: low libido, brain fog, fatigue, mood swings
• Delivery methods compared: pellets, creams, patches, and injections
• Why the Women’s Health Initiative study created fear around HRT—and what newer research shows
• How functional testing provides a deeper look than standard hormone labs
• The “90/10 rule” of healing: why lifestyle still drives the majority of results
• Why BHRT isn’t about vanity but about restoring vitality and quality of life
• The importance of early support—don’t wait until you’re in full burnout

Key Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction to hormone health
03:44 – Common signs of hormone imbalance
07:20 – What are bioidentical hormones?
10:32 – Delivery methods: pellets vs creams vs patches
13:49 – Why thyroid health must be addressed first
17:11 – The Women’s Health Initiative study and misconceptions
21:58 – Who is (and isn’t) a good candidate for BHRT
26:35 – Functional testing vs standard hormone panels
30:42 – The 90/10 rule of healing
34:50 – Hormone optimization and quality of life
40:12 – Closing thoughts: how to advocate for your own health

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Enroll in the Gutsy Health Academy – now open! → https://www.mygutsyhealth.com/gutsyhealthacademy

Closing:
If you’re exploring bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) or struggling with symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, mood swings, or low libido, this episode will help you understand what your body truly needs before hormones can work.

Healing starts with the foundations. When your gut, liver, thyroid, adrenals, and mitochondria are supported, BHRT can be an empowering tool—not a band-aid.

Enrollment for the Gutsy Health Academy is now open. If you want a clear, step-by-step roadmap to balance hormones and restore energy, join us today and start your healing journey.

🔗 Gutsy Health Academy

Transcript

Juanique Grover (00:01)
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Gutsy Health Podcast. I have my fave, Dr. Rodgers on the podcast with us. And then I have Tauscha Johanson is ⁓ a hormone consultant for Provo Health. She is helping us with training as far as furthering our training with hormones, ⁓ training our staff, giving us resources.

Brian Rodgers,DO (00:12)
Thank

Juanique Grover (00:24)
⁓ She is a wealth of knowledge because she's not only just ⁓ a consultant, but she's an educator and she's extremely passionate about hormone and hormone replacement therapy. And so we are going to continue our discussion on hormones. The past two podcasts, we've been kind of building up to where we are today. So if you jump into this episode, I think that you'll still learn a lot. But if you listen to the first episode on hormones and then last week's episode on hormones,

Brian Rodgers,DO (00:29)
you

Juanique Grover (00:51)
you will get a lot more out of this episode. So the first episode on hormones was supporting all the other systems because hormones do not work in isolation. They work with everything else in your body. And if you optimize those areas, then you are essentially optimizing your hormones. Last week, we spoke about the different types of hormones. So it's like of like hormone 101 and like hormone replacement therapy 101. And today we're just going to be diving in a little bit deeper into that. And so

Tauscha, welcome to the podcast. I have a few questions for you because you are the person who, when I met with you, you said to me, remind me your exact words, but you were like, my gosh, you are so lucky to have Dr. Rodgers on your team. How do you know about Dr. Rodgers?

Tauscha Johanson (01:38)
I think those were my catch words,

Johnny. my goodness. Dr. Rodgers is an expert in the field. So one of the challenges that we have in our ⁓ Western allopathic medical system is providers don't receive education and training on hormones. They just don't. It's not part of their curriculum. ⁓ Even as a terminally-degraded physician,

Dr. Rodgers probably just got a couple hours in his medical school and probably nothing in his residency. ⁓ It's an unfortunate thing. We're working to change that in the country today. So there are these priceless gems out there. There are these physicians and these providers that have sought out extra training.

They've done the work, they've done extra courses, they've paid for the training, they've gotten certified in advanced hormone replacement therapy. And Dr. Rodgers is one of those people and we have to honor him for that. We have to acknowledge that. But the other reason you're just so lucky is he's just such a good guy, right? He's just such a good guy. You would want to go to him and you would want to bring all your family to him.

Juanique Grover (02:32)
Mm-hmm.

Right? It's true.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Totally. He's a great guy with a splash of sarcasm. Occasionally that sarcasm comes out and I literally die. It's so funny because you're not expecting it, right? You're like, he's this sweet guy and then Liz Ike, this big splash of sarcasm comes out and it's really funny. So today we're going to be going more into bioidentical hormone.

Brian Rodgers,DO (03:01)
You're very kind.

Tauscha Johanson (03:17)
Yeah.

Juanique Grover (03:24)
We're going to go into what is good, better, best in each case and scenario. So now we're going to be giving you like a bioidentical hormone replacement therapy 101 today on this podcast. first, Tauscha, let's talk about the political climate of hormones right now. Go ahead. Yes.

Brian Rodgers,DO (03:43)
Let me interrupt here. Okay, before

Tauscha talks about the political climate today, she talked about my training in medical school in residency. During residency, I actually did learn about hormones. During residency when I started it, they were still using hormones for women to help them out. They were giving ⁓ Provera and...

Juanique Grover (03:57)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Rodgers,DO (04:11)
Premarin and those types of medicines to help people with their hot flashes and stuff then the women's health initiative study came out around that time and The government said everybody's got to stop So all these women in menopause started going through hot flashes feeling miserable Started getting brain fog couldn't sleep. Well gaining weight all these other problems ⁓

Juanique Grover (04:15)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brian Rodgers,DO (04:39)
And then they found out that these women were starting to get more heart attacks, get more Alzheimer's disease. Osteoporosis continued to increase because of this study. What this study said is, in certain instances, ⁓ if you take ⁓ progesterone and estrogen, you may increase your risk of breast cancer and some other risks. And they stopped everything.

Juanique Grover (04:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Unbelievable.

Brian Rodgers,DO (05:08)
But the thing is when they did this study, they did it on a fake progesterone. It wasn't progesterone, it was a progestin. It was progesterone-like. And it didn't cover everything that progesterone does. And we find that that particular medicine causes an increased risk of breast cancer. It had nothing to do with any of the other stuff. In fact, there was a little sidearm study that if people did estrogen,

Juanique Grover (05:18)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Rodgers,DO (05:35)
their cancer risk even went down a little bit. So they didn't look at the study correctly. They didn't look at their numbers ⁓ and they made decisions upon one type of estrogen, oral estrogen, oral provera or fake progesterone. It messed everything up. I could talk for hours about this, but that's kind of it. The government changed everything based on one study that wasn't read.

Juanique Grover (05:46)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Rodgers,DO (06:04)
And was hormones that were not at the right dose, not given the right way, and not individualized. So now we're in a different political climate. Tauscha was just at a meeting for that. And she's, what did you hear?

Juanique Grover (06:14)
What's

Tauscha Johanson (06:22)
So first, let me honor everything. The way the Women's Health Initiative rolled out in the early 2000s was really a tragedy. In the year following that, 91,610 more women died from a cardiovascular event than had ever on record died. So all of these things that Dr. Rodgers is saying, like the study was started because

Juanique Grover (06:32)
Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Tauscha Johanson (06:49)
we knew, like we were seeing in the real world that hormone replacement therapy was protective for women. So we were like, we're going to look at this and show that it really is. And then it was stopped prematurely. And to Dr. Rodgers point, it was the progestin arm along with a synthetic estrogen that showed an issue in increased risk for breast cancer. What's ironic is the arm that had the synthetic estrogen alone,

No Wrist actually showed protection. But it took so long to roll it out. It was in 2020, the exact same authors of this study. So they took 20 years almost to look at the data. We got to look at this again. And they released their findings in JAMA, Journal of American Medical Association. And this is what they said. Oops, we got it wrong.

Juanique Grover (07:22)
Well...

Wow.

How many women had to suffer though for 20 years? Do you know what I mean? I'm so glad that I went through menopause during that time. Like I'm so glad because millions of women lost their quality of life, lost their bodies, lost their mental health, like lost so much, so much.

Tauscha Johanson (07:51)
So, let's do this.

Brian Rodgers,DO (07:52)
Millions!

Tauscha Johanson (08:07)
So I'm gonna just reinforce very personally what you just said. The reason I am like on fire and passionate about this is because that particular study had a direct impact on my mom. And I'm gonna tell you what happened. Her hormone replacement therapy was withdrawn and she had a cardiac event and breast cancer and she's in active dementia right now.

Juanique Grover (08:21)
No

Wow. Wow.

Unbelievable.

Tauscha Johanson (08:35)
And it's been, what is that? We're now almost 25 years since that. And I've seen it all play out. now I, and I talked to Dr. Rodgers about this. I ask him all the time, Hey, would you treat my 83 year old mom with hormones? Because she has been one of the victims in the fallout of the, and really let's just say what this is. This was a propagation of misinformation. ⁓

Juanique Grover (08:41)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tauscha Johanson (09:05)
but it has created this dogma and these stigmas that continue to persist. And so there's this fear for women around hormone replacement therapy just because of these things they've heard. But we're in a new day and this is what's really exciting. ⁓ Dr. Rodgers was talking about the political climate. We have a brand new FDA commissioner, Dr. Marty McCary, and he's ⁓

Brian Rodgers,DO (09:05)
you ⁓

Tauscha Johanson (09:34)
As the commissioner, he's looking at the health of the nation and where he can have the greatest impact to improve the health of our nation. And he has identified this segment of menopausal women because he's recognizing how this misinformation has prevented. It took the hormone replacement therapy from the level that it was at and reduced it to 4 % of that original level. Like women are just not

Juanique Grover (10:00)
Mm.

Tauscha Johanson (10:03)
using hormone replacement therapy. But here's what we know. And Dr. Rodgers said this, we know hormone replacement therapy relieves the symptoms that he was talking about. The hot flashes, the night sweats, the insomnia, the weight gain, the muscle aches and pains, all of these things. We know it does that part. But what Dr. Marty McCary is calling for, and he organized

a panel discussion at the FDA and invited a panel of experts. I listened to every single minute of that. It was fascinating. It was inspiring. It was empowering. What we know is yes, we get symptom relief, but even more importantly, there's 25 years worth of data. There's more than that. We have 50 years worth of data that shows, yes, this does. It reduces a woman's risk for heart disease by 50%. It reduces her risk

Brian Rodgers,DO (11:00)
⁓

Tauscha Johanson (11:01)
for osteoporosis

by 50%. It reduces her risk for bone fractures. Obviously, if we're reducing our risk for osteoporosis, it reduces her risk for cognitive decline and Alzheimer's by 62%. These are huge. So if we have millions, 50 million women in this menopause state, the immediate difference that Dr. Marty McCary can make is he can say,

Juanique Grover (11:03)
Okay.

It's wild.

Tauscha Johanson (11:30)
We gotta change this narrative. We gotta change the dogmas. We gotta eliminate the fear. We gotta tell the truth, bust the myths, kill the misinformation, and we gotta get women back on hormone replacement therapy. That's where I come into the picture. That's my mission, and I'm personally motivated. There lot of reasons on that.

Juanique Grover (11:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Well, and one thing too that they were talking about at those hearings was ⁓ the black box warning for women on hormone, right? And I think specifically testosterone. You know, but what I learned from Dr. Rodgers last week is that women actually produce more testosterone than estrogen, but we're always talking about estrogen, progesterone, estrogen, progesterone, and we're never ever talking about testosterone for women, which blew

Tauscha Johanson (11:59)
Mm-hmm.

Juanique Grover (12:18)
my freaking mind. I can't believe I didn't know that. That's why I'm not the hormone expert. I didn't need to know that. That's why we have Dr. Rodgers. I'm glad that these conversations are happening. There's been a lot of brainwashing that we have to undo, a lot of damage that we have to undo, a lot of people that we have to educate ⁓ and bring them back to the light side. But there's someone that I follow and respect immensely online. Her name is Dr. Maria Claire. I don't know if you know her, but she's a menopause doctor. ⁓

She basically says the same thing that you say. She's like, I wasn't taught anything about hormones. If someone had hormonal issues, you just put them on birth control and you go about your merry way. And she's like, and then I started going through menopause and then I started going into the research and then blah, blah, blah, blah. And now she's like this leading menopause expert with 3 million followers. But something really struck me where I was like, hmm, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that. Where she was going through the different types of hormones.

and hormone replacement therapies and different types of like herbs and supplements and whatnot. And when she came up on pellets, she was like, I hate pellets. And I'm like, that's interesting. So I went to the comments and I saw tons of people were like, hey, I've been on pellet therapy and it's changed my life. Like nothing else worked. This was the game changer for me. You know, so everyone's pretty divided, right? And so I think for this episode today, I want to kind of clear the air because I think pellet therapy,

when done with the proper practitioner, because remember guys, last week we spoke about hormone replacement therapy being an art form, right? Not all artists are created equal. Not all hormone doctors are created equal because they have training and then they have practice. And Dr. Rodgers, you have like 20 years worth of hormone replacement therapy. You said you could do this in your sleep. Like this is so easy for you. But there's so many doctors and nurse practitioners that will really F up your body. Like,

to the max. And I gave a story about that last week. And I won't reiterate that because it's a really sad story. But ⁓ there's doctors that do it well, doctors that don't do it well. And then ⁓ there are people that just respond differently to different therapies or there's just so many conflicting opinions that I want to clear the air in this podcast today. If you finish the podcast, you'll know when you walk into your doctor's office, you'll be like, I want to advocate for this.

Brian Rodgers,DO (14:34)
Well, what?

Juanique Grover (14:42)
and then you'll be able to give your doctor reasons why. So what were you gonna say, Dr. Rodgers?

Brian Rodgers,DO (14:44)
Alright, what

I'd like to do to answer your question is first go over the types of ways to deliver hormones and then and why there are so many people who are saying ⁓ Negative things about pellets because I figured that answer out. It's pretty easy But I'll get to that in just a second. The easiest way to get hormones into your body is through the mouth Progesterone is often done through the mouth works well and one side effect of progesterone by mouth

is it helps you sleep. Good side effect. But estrogen, testosterone by mouth, not so good because they go through the intestines, then all the blood from the intestines goes to the liver, they get metabolized into other different metabolites, so they're no longer the active testosterone and estrogen, and that can potentially lead to cancer or other problems. We could go into far more detail, but that's the...

Juanique Grover (15:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brian Rodgers,DO (15:44)
gist of it. You can do trochies underneath your tongue of estrogen and progesterone. And yes, most of it goes into the mucus and gets through the bloodstream. But there is a portion that still goes down in the intestine, goes to the liver, and can possibly cause those problems. You can do patches of at least estrogen. ⁓ And if you have a good compounding pharmacy, you can do other things through patches. But the problem with patches

Is they they fall off look at the weather outside and all the sweating people are doing those patches don't stick or people get rashes from those patches and The other thing with patches the same with creams is you can only get the levels up So high you can't get them high enough to help prevent the Alzheimer's disease prevent the heart attacks and strokes help the osteoporosis and so patches and creams

Juanique Grover (16:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brian Rodgers,DO (16:42)
can help relieve the symptoms of the hot flashes and such, but they can't get to the levels that we want to get to. And so I know I'm going through really quickly and I could go through hours talking about each of these things. But the last thing is pellets. Pellets are inserted underneath the skin at a certain dose. And then they release for months.

Juanique Grover (16:51)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Rodgers,DO (17:11)
at a steady state. So you have a steady state of hormones for months. You don't have to think about taking them. You don't have to worry about applying something every day. You'd put it in and you forget about it for months. The reason why people don't like hormones is there were so many bad hormone providers. When I started doing hormone pellets in Utah years ago, a lot of people said, I don't want to do pellets, they're terrible.

Juanique Grover (17:25)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Rodgers,DO (17:41)
I tried it once and I felt horrible and that's because these providers were giving these high high doses and making people feel miserable There were a few giving too low doses that weren't doing any good either, but most were giving too high The key about hormones is balance and these guys were not thinking about balance They were just thinking about driving and driving and driving That's not just testosterone. I've seen progesterone given

Juanique Grover (17:45)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Brian Rodgers,DO (18:12)
Four or five times the amount of progesterone that you should be giving and people felt miserable because there wasn't this balance Tauscha you you've been training this for a while. Do you have anything else to say?

Tauscha Johanson (18:26)
do, and I'm loving all of the things. We have options, right, in the modality that we deliver hormones. And for the reasons that Dr. Rodgers just discussed, there are pitfalls and limitations of each of those modalities. The 45 % almost have...

Brian Rodgers,DO (18:45)
I like though that you said options

because not one therapy is best for everybody. You have to have options. I agree.

Tauscha Johanson (18:52)
Absolutely.

And a good hormone doctor where, as Jannick said, where he has the art and the science, right? They will figure out the right combination of options for you. But one of the things that I think we should note is 45%, almost half of all people are not

good absorbers and they simply will not absorb a topical whether it's in a patch or a cream or a gel or something. so that modality in and of itself has a huge limitation when it comes to that. And remember we talked about two sides of the coin. We talked about symptom relief, but in order to get the protection that is the real value here, we have to get levels.

Juanique Grover (19:23)
⁓ yep.

Tauscha Johanson (19:47)
to a certain point, right? ⁓ Using a subcutaneous pellet, we bypass the liver so we don't affect clotting factors, we don't put a patient at risk for any of that. We actually ensure we get the levels up. My favorite ⁓ thing about subcutaneous pellets is they actually mimic the way the endocrine system delivers hormones.

They try to do exactly what your body would do naturally. So we place this pellet in the subcutaneous tissue and the subcutaneous tissue is very vascular and we're depending on blood circulating around that pellet. We're counting on that happening. As the blood circulates around that pellet, there's little macrophages in our blood and they're chomping off at the pellet and they're picking up

that hormone and delivering it to the rest of the body. Let me show you how this is beautiful endocrine mimicry. Our hormones might be made in our ovaries or our adrenal gland, but the signal needs to get to... Yeah, or the testes for men. Yes, 100%. The signal needs to get to the brain. So those hormones are manufactured in a different area and then they need to travel through the body, through the bloodstream.

Brian Rodgers,DO (20:59)
or testes.

Tauscha Johanson (21:14)
to get to the brain to actually activate the right receptors. The thing about a pellet is it was made the same for 80 years. It wasn't until two years ago that we had, and this has actually been going on for about five, six, seven years, but we actually have some innovation in the field of subcutaneous pellet therapy. And we have a new pellet that actually has a patent

Dr. Rodgers is familiar with this. It's why he's opted to use this pellet. It works a little different. It makes sure that when we lay that pellet down in the subcutaneous tissue, there's not a huge dump of hormone, right? That's the thing that other providers were like, I hate that's dangerous for my patient. They get side effects. ⁓ Yeah, we just don't, we just fixed that.

Brian Rodgers,DO (22:01)
Mm-hmm.

Tauscha Johanson (22:14)
We just formulated and manufactured it different, eliminated that particular element, did a couple other things different. So again, today the pellets that Dr. Rodgers will use and that he has access to, they allow him to create a reservoir in the body that is available on demand. When a patient is under stress, or maybe they're working out, maybe they're just under stress.

of a workout that they created for themselves and their heart is beating faster, they need more hormone. That's the way the body works. The pellet, the reservoir is there for them and it just works on demand. It's actually beautiful endocrine mammary. It's great for patients and we know we get the levels up to the level that we need for the protection against cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's.

all of those things.

Brian Rodgers,DO (23:13)
Absolutely one other one other thing that you said About the pellets and I just want to re-emphasize this is that the pellets are the most bio identical way of providing hormone The ovaries and the testes the blood supply goes around them to take the hormone to the rest of the body That doesn't happen through the skin that doesn't happen through pills doesn't happen through anything else. It doesn't even happen through shots ⁓

Juanique Grover (23:13)
You know what's interesting? Go ahead.

Brian Rodgers,DO (23:40)
And I just love that these are so bioidentical.

Tauscha Johanson (23:46)
sure you guys have talked about this and stop me, Jonique, if you have, but we should define what bioidentical means. It means it is identical chemically to what we manufacture in our body. It is human identical. The body can't tell the difference. It means it attaches to the receptor in the exact same way that the hormones that we make attach.

we should compare and contrast bioidentical or human identical. We can make synthetic that are exactly identical. Okay, we can do that. We have the ability to do that. In the pellet, the human identical or bioidentical hormone is actually sourced from a natural source. It's from a wild yam plant, but we should compare.

human identical to synthetic. Synthetics that are not bioidentical, they're not an exact match. They don't fit in the receptor in exactly the same way. They don't activate the receptor in exactly the same way. We might get partial activation. We might get some symptom relief, but we do not get physiologically equal activation using a synthetic hormone.

versus a bio-identical exact match.

Brian Rodgers,DO (25:14)
Let me

give you a good example for men. Men like to use injectable testosterone. But it's not exactly bioidentical. Testosterone at room temperature is a solid. And you can't inject a solid. It doesn't work. So in order to make it a shot, they add a molecule like cypionate, ethionate, or other things.

Juanique Grover (25:34)
interesting.

Brian Rodgers,DO (25:41)
And the body has to deal with that synthetic molecule. And in men, what does that do? It increases ⁓ their risk for elevated hemoglobin and such. ⁓ It causes weird variations of the testosterone so that they may have rage. It doesn't feel the same as regular testosterone. And so synthetic and bioidentical act very differently in the body.

Juanique Grover (25:55)
Interesting.

Very interesting. And so it matters. It really does matter. And what I'm learning from both of you right now is there is a bad way to take hormone, a good, a better, and a best, right? And so it just depends on, again, the consultation, your needs. ⁓ Obviously, if you can go with best, go with best, guys. But I want to talk a little... We've spoken about bi identical. We spoke about the different types. ⁓ I want to go back to the criticism that pellets had because

Dr. Maria Claire, her criticism about it was like too expensive. And I'm like, I'm sorry, but let's talk about expense here, right? Like most people that can cry poverty will go on a Disney trip at some time in their life, maybe several times. And let's talk about like the price of a Disney trip, thousands upon thousands of dollars, especially if you have children, right? And people will do that at the drop of a hat. They won't blink about that. They won't blink about getting their nails done or their hair done. ⁓

Some people will like look at all these college kids that have really nice cars, right? Like they're as broke as can be, but they drive a really nice car or they have a really nice phone or they have the latest phone or the latest technology, but they have like $50 in their bank account. It all comes down to what you prioritize, what is important to you. So here's a great example. I am a great example. I don't buy expensive clothes. I don't buy expensive purses. I don't

even care for expensive cars. My husband loves expensive cars. ⁓ And that's why I drive what I drive because he picked it. I was like, just get me a six-year-old car that's like 30 grand with like a $400 car payment a month. ⁓ But that's who I am. But I will pay thousands of dollars for motor mediation. I will pay tens of thousands of dollars for a whole house filtration system without blinking. My husband walked in the other day, I'm like, honey,

We need for water filtration system for our whole house." And he was like, okay, because he knows who I am, right? Like he laughs every time I bring supplements home, like hundreds of dollars of supplements. And he's like, yeah, that's on brand, you know, because what I value is the best health for myself, for my children, feeling good in my body, having energy, having clarity of mind. I watched someone have their health taken away from them violently for years. And then my health was taken away, unfortunately.

and I've been clawing myself back to myself for the past three years. And I value feeling good in this meat suit so much that I don't put a dollar amount on it. I'm like, do I need to go get stem cell? Great. I will go and I will find money from somewhere. If I have to get like a HELOC on my house or if to borrow it from someone or put it on credit cards, I will do that. And I won't think twice about it because I value it so much. So now let's go back to pellets. Let's go back to women and let's compare men.

Brian Rodgers,DO (29:08)
Okay,

let me jump in here quick. Yes.

Juanique Grover (29:09)
Because I, hold on, I want to finish this one point.

If it were men that were being said, hey, we're going to decrease your muscle mass, we're going to decrease your libido, and you have to pay X amount of dollars to get that back. They would spend it like that. They're like, what? I'm not going to have my sex drive. I'm not going to have my muscle. There is no price point that you will give me that I'll say no to this. But when it comes to women, we were like,

You're going to lose your memory. You're going to lose your libido, your muscle mass. We're going to be like, uh, okay. Do you know what I mean? And that's actually just not okay. Right? And so now let's look at pellet. I did the math. If you did pellet therapy, because let's say, because it's the Rolls Royce, it's the most, and I put in air quotes, expensive. You're looking at about $3.50 a day. Do you really devalue yourself that much?

where you're like, this is too expensive for me. $3.50 to protect your brain, to protect your heart, to protect your organs, to protect your mental health, to protect your marriage, to protect your self-esteem. $3.50 a day. Are you really gonna turn your nose up at that? Really, do you devalue yourself that much? Tauscha, go ahead. Or Dr. Rodgers.

Brian Rodgers,DO (30:17)
All right, let me, well hang on, let me just jump in here real

quick. What you're saying is you get what you pay for. And pellets are the most effective way at reducing the Alzheimer's, decreasing the osteoporosis, and reducing the heart disease and such. But Tauscha, don't you have something to say about how expensive pellets are?

Juanique Grover (30:29)
Mm-hmm.

Tauscha Johanson (30:44)
Well, I do. So I got, have a personal story. You need to know, I started suffering symptoms in my mid thirties and these were a threat to my career. They were a threat to my family, my relationships, my marriage. And I literally thought I was losing my mind. And of course, when I went to the doctor,

They told me my labs looked normal. But then I ended up five years later or so having to have a hysterectomy. So I want you to know, and I was too young for menopause at that time, right? So I needed hormone replacement therapy. I actually couldn't tolerate the synthetic that the OB-GYN who removed my uterus and ovaries prescribed for me. And she was frustrated. She threw up her hands and she said, I don't know what to do with you.

It's okay, I took matters into my own hands and I sought out a provider who could give me the bioidentical. I knew I needed human identical. So here's the thing. For 15 years, I was on several different modalities and I was paying out of pocket, out of my own pocket. My insurance was not covering this, but I needed it to be me.

I needed it to feel good and bring me back to being me. So I had three topical creams, a troche, as Dr. Rodgers mentioned, and an oral medication. And I was setting alarms during the day to take all my medication at the same time. And I was doing my thing out of pocket, what I was paying for three topicals, a troche and an oral, no different than what I pay for pellets.

Juanique Grover (32:20)
That's crazy.

Tauscha Johanson (32:34)
Just so you know, same cost, same out of pocket for me. But when I get a subcutaneous pellet, and thankfully I have been upgraded over the last two and a half years, and I was able to get rid of my three creams and my trochee and my oral, what I get when I get a pellet is I get the pellet inserted and I don't have to spend, I don't have to have alarms set. I don't have to spend all that time during the day. So I'm literally trading cost for cost.

Juanique Grover (32:58)
Mm-hmm.

Tauscha Johanson (33:04)
but I'm getting something that's mimicking my endocrine system to give me what I need at the levels that allow me to be the best me.

Juanique Grover (33:14)
And it's wildly convenient. Whereas the other one was extremely inconvenient, right? Like you don't have to think about it. Like it just does its work without you giving a second thought. You know, when it comes to topicals, when it comes to vaginal creams, you know, when it comes to all those things, like let's say you put your estrogen vaginally in and then like, and then you want to be intimate. You can't, right? Because then that's estrogen all over your husband, which isn't good. Or if you have estrogen creams, like your kids can't touch you.

right, for a period of time. Like there's huge inconveniences with with

Tauscha Johanson (33:45)
One of, so

yes, I agree with the inconvenience, but one of the topics that came up at the FDA panel discussion recently, and I noted this because I'm a believer in pellets, data was presented and it was stated emphatically, vaginal estrogen does not become systemic. It works locally.

on the vaginal tissue, but it doesn't get into the bloodstream to get your brain to reduce your beta amyloid plaques or, you know, ⁓ affect your ⁓ plucking in your arteries. It's only active locally. So you're right. We have to be concerned about transference, but we're not getting the full benefit with that.

Juanique Grover (34:33)
Right.

So it sounds like if you, let's say you have, you're getting older and you start to get chronic UTIs, right? Your doctor might say, well, let's just do a vaginal estrogen to help with the pH and to decrease your UTI ⁓ occurrence, right? So now we're fixing one problem, but we're not fixing the ongoing longer problem of degeneration of your brain, of your, you know, the plucking in your arteries, the osteoporosis.

It's just working in that area and it's not systemic. Whereas, let's say the pellet, let's say I'm getting chronic UTIs, right? You put a pellet in me, now it's helping with the UTIs, it's helping with vaginal tissue and pH, it's helping my brain, helping my arteries, helping my bones, helping all the cells. Like you said, it's systemic. It checks all the boxes. So what I'm hearing, and correct me if I'm wrong, are certain orals, topicals,

⁓ trokies. They all check some boxes, but not all the boxes. Whereas pellet checks all the boxes, correct? From A to Z, it checks the boxes. It's bioidentical. It's systemic. It works on all the other tissues. It hits all your tissues. It hits all your cells. It doesn't have to get metabolized by the liver and increase your risk for inflammation and cancer. It's literally what your body would create. And again, lot of now,

Now, I kind of want to switch topics because there are a lot of women, especially in the health circles, who are like, well, I want to boost my hormones naturally. What supplement can I take? And that's where my answer, and maybe you guys will have a different answer, but I'm like, genetically speaking, biologically speaking, we are designed to turn our hormones off at a certain age. And there's no amount of supplement that you can take to stop that process. So

Brian Rodgers,DO (36:28)
Right.

Juanique Grover (36:29)
Do you have different opinion on that? And what is the perfect age for women to start considering bioidentical hormone?

Brian Rodgers,DO (36:38)
Okay, first of all, if someone is young, like I have a man who's 18 to 20, 25, who's trying to improve his hormones and still wants to have children, he's a good candidate for supplements to attempt to try to make them work. Also young women in that age, same thing, but our bodies are designed to have our hormones go down after the age of 40.

Tauscha Johanson (36:38)
I love this question.

Brian Rodgers,DO (37:05)
Some people it happens younger in their 30s. I've seen that happen. ⁓ And as their hormones go down, there's no amount of supplementation that can change that fact. We're programmed to do so. We have perimenopause, andropause, menopause, all those things lower our hormone. You can give them supplements, but the adrenal glands, the ovaries and the testes just won't make enough to make a difference. ⁓

And so that's what I see. I forget the second part of your question. So Tauscha, you had an answer.

Tauscha Johanson (37:39)
Yeah. Well, I want to also acknowledge, and I think this will hit home and resonate with you, Jeanique. We are living in a world full of endocrine disruptors, right? It's not just that naturally our production, yes, naturally our production does decline over time. And actually what we know is that starts at about age 30. So Dr. Rodgers mentioned age 40. The decline starts to happen at age 30.

Juanique Grover (37:51)
Mm-hmm.

Tauscha Johanson (38:09)
For men, it's a very slow decline. They lose one to 5 % or so of their testosterone production per year starting at about age 30. So they just kind of roll down this gentle hill. For women, it's dramatically different. Starting at age 30, they lose 50 % of their testosterone year over year. That means if I had this much this year,

Juanique Grover (38:36)
amazing.

Tauscha Johanson (38:38)
Next year I have this much and next year I have this much. You can see it does not take us very long to get to levels where we are experiencing the symptoms of the deficit, but that's not it. Our estrogen takes a sharp decline and starts to fall starting at age 30 or after baby number two. let's be clear, we live in Utah, we have children here. We love our children and we have multiple children. So that could have happened.

Brian Rodgers,DO (38:38)
you

Tauscha Johanson (39:08)
even earlier because after baby number two your hormones start to decline. So yes it happens naturally but in this world full of pesticides and radiation and all of these different things that are bombarding our body not to mention the lifestyle choices that we make in this country in terms of our diet and you know

Are we playing video games or, I mean, I could go, and I won't go off on this, but we're in a double whammy. It's gonna happen naturally. Holy cow, the world is accelerating that for us. So we are experiencing those symptoms.

Juanique Grover (39:42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brian Rodgers,DO (39:48)
And

And just in agreement with you, I have seen a number of women after that second child or so where their hormones just became unbalanced. I was able to give them hormones and those people who chose to have more children were able to safely do so when they had pellets, as long as we follow a few simple rules.

Juanique Grover (40:12)
I love that. It's interesting because I shared the story last week and if you haven't listened to the podcast, I'm going to just quickly share it again. I was joking with my best friend where I said, you know, I would watch these reels and these TikToks where women are joking. It's a funny TikTok where they're like me and my follicular phase and they're all lovey with their husband and then me and my luteal phase where they're like, don't touch me. And I laughed because I told her, like, I could not relate.

those rails because I never experienced that. I would never know unless I was tracking when I was going to start my period because I didn't have pains. I didn't have mood swings. I was always just happy-go-lucky. And I said, just the past three months, there are three days where I want to eat everyone alive. And I was like, my hormones are shifting and I need a pellet. I need Dr. Rodgers to do my blood work because I'm like, something's off. I'm like, something is off in me. so

⁓ And I've been feeling that and you Satasha, your second child, as soon as Theo popped out, was like, my hormones are different. Like everything feels so different in me where I'm like, you know, like I won't share details, but I'm just like, can't like, I don't feel like my old self again and I miss her and I miss all of the like vivaciousness and you know, inspiration and you know, like I miss my testosterone that was like, let's go seize the day. Now it's just like, ⁓

Brian Rodgers,DO (41:19)
you

Juanique Grover (41:38)
Let me go do it looking like a slug because I have to, not because I want to or get to. So, if we want our lives back, right? Because we can. I love Tauscha, you taught me this saying, suffering is optional, right? It could be $3.50 a day where we can feel like ourselves again, which is less than a Starbucks drink or less than a bottle of water in some places in California, or we can suffer and we can have this natural decline.

Let me share a conversation I had with a family member of mine. She was like, hey, what are your thoughts on bioidentical hormones? And I was like, well, do you want increased risk of dementia when you're older? Alzheimer's. Like, do you want increased heart attack? You know, do you want osteoporosis when you're older? Do you want more energy? And all of the answers were so obvious. I'm like, do bioidentical. Like, there's no if, ands or buts. Like, you are in your 40s. You should be doing it.

If you're in your 30s and you're having hormonal imbalances, you should be doing it. If you're in your 20s, go do the supplements. Or talk with Dr. Rodgers and he'll tell you. I'm not going to tell you what to do. But again, suffering is optional. For $3.50 a day, you could feel like your best self.

Tauscha Johanson (42:54)
I do love that we're talking about.

Brian Rodgers,DO (42:54)
Or if you've had two children, talk about doing pellets. Yes.

Juanique Grover (42:57)
Or if you had two children,

million percent.

Tauscha Johanson (43:02)
do love that we're talking about quality of life because what we know is that men typically have a shorter lifespan than women, but they experience much higher quality of life during that. We live longer, but we're living through menopause and the quality of our life goes down during that time significantly. And there's really good documented research on that. So that hashtag that you're talking about that I put on everything suffering is optional.

Our medicine is better today. There's lots of data to back up what we're talking about and women don't have to suffer today. They should be vibrant. They should continue to be their best selves. I was kind of mentioning to you a study and this is not new data but it was a study done at Yale about 10 years ago and they looked at

They were retrospectively looking at insurance claims from women who worked at Fortune 500 companies over the course of a year. And their findings were, they were incredible to me. So they had two groups of women. These women were all about age 56. They had one group of women that was experiencing hot flashes, one group of women that was not. Dr. Rodgers, that group of women experiencing hot flashes, you think they were being treated?

Brian Rodgers,DO (44:29)
Absolutely not.

Tauscha Johanson (44:30)
No,

so this was the group that was not being treated. This group that was experiencing hot flashes that was not receiving any treatment for their symptoms had an additional $400 million spend in their healthcare dollars in that one year. They had 1.5 million more healthcare visits, but there's more.

This, they had ⁓ reduced productivity at work. So what we know is women who are actively going through menopause, they are so fearful. They know something's going on. So they start checking and rechecking. They slow down on their jobs. They're second guessing themselves. It's like having a monkey on your back all the time. It's heavy. Ladies, if you're listening to this, men, if you're listening,

to this and you're feeling that fatigue and you get up and go just got up and went you're sick and tired of being sick and tired it can end today. Suffering is optional. We know better. Our medicine is better and there are providers like Dr. Rodgers on the scene at Provo Health who can help you.

Juanique Grover (45:47)
And again, if your husbands are like, hey, I'm uncomfortable with this pillot therapy of $3.50 a day, just tell them that it's going to make you less crabby and increase your libido and your husband will be all about it. They'll be like, where do I sign up? Because they value that kind of stuff. And again, if you were to tell your husband, hey, you're going to lose your muscle mass and your libido, but

like it's going to cost X amount of dollars to get it back. They would spend anything for that, right? So let's man up women. Let's embody our own masculinity. Let's man up and do the things and take care of ourselves because you are a hundred percent worth it. If you don't feel like you are, we have a values issue and I can't unpack your values issue on this podcast that takes someone like Britt Lefkoe who's a belief coach to help you unpack that. But please unpack it. If you don't value yourself and don't think you are worth

that money and that time. ⁓ Okay. I want to talk about what we're doing at Provo Health right now because ⁓ we are doing, now is the perfect time to bring you and your spouse in for consultations because we're doing a book one consultation and get your spouse in for free or a family member, like a sister or a best friend or someone. I highly recommend couples coming in. Dr. Rodgers loves treating couples.

And so because you both get your best selves back again, right? You both get balanced. So when you schedule a consultation, a hormone consultation with Dr. Rodgers, you get to bring your spouse in for free. Like this is the deal of the century. Save $300 right there. All right. So call Provo Health. We're also going to be doing something. It's not up yet, but if you go to provohealth.com forward slash hormones, you get to fill out a symptom questionnaire, which will ask you about your hormones and your hormone imbalances.

Brian Rodgers,DO (47:25)
That's pretty good.

Juanique Grover (47:40)
When you click submit, a staff member will call you and then we can schedule you to get your blood draw and do your consultation with Dr. Rodgers. So try that. When you listen to this podcast, if you're listening to this podcast a month out after it was released, that website will be up and ready where we have that automation or just call the clinic at 801-318-9343. All right. And just come on in, get treated.

Again, suffering is optional. ⁓ If you are in your 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s and even 80s, Dr. Rodgers, my dad and my parents are going to come in to see you. ⁓ But please take care of your bodies. All right. I was listening to an interview with ⁓ Neil deGrasse Tyson and he was sharing some numbers which were really interesting. I think we like to glorify the old days and be like, back in the day we had all organic food and blah, blah, blah. And he created a really good, he said a really good point.

He said in the 1700s, half the people that were born died and they lived to about, like old age was 30. And then the 1800s, old age was 35, same thing. Like half the people died, old age was 35, right? They died with all their hormones. We are dying without our hormones, right? And as we've established in past podcasts, you can live without hormone. It's just not quality. And I deeply believe

that everyone is entitled to a high quality life. Like you are entitled to a life that you love living. All right. And it's hard to do that when your hormones are low. So yes, you can live without hormone replacement therapy. Absolutely. You can function. Not well, but you can. And if that is what is important to you, amazing. But I truly, truly, truly, again, I'm going to reiterate this.

We all deserve a life that we love to live. A life full of like vibrance, excitement, like motivation, right? Like every day I desire for people to wake up and be like, ⁓ my gosh, I am alive. I'm still alive. I still get to live this beautiful human existence in this incredible magical meat suit that we call the human body, right? If you're not waking up in awe every day, ask yourself why and how can you support your body?

to support you and your brain and your mental health to wake up in awe every day. right. Dr. Rodgers, is there anything you want to say before we wrap up this podcast other than everyone should come and see you? Because they should.

Brian Rodgers,DO (50:18)
Well, thank

you for saying that. No, just remember that the to hormones is balance and you need to find an experienced provider who has been doing this a long time who knows how to balance things.

Juanique Grover (50:32)
I love that. love, Tauscha, how about you?

Tauscha Johanson (50:35)
I'm just

going to reiterate the message that I think is so powerful. Our medicine is better today. Suffering is optional.

Juanique Grover (50:45)
It really is. ⁓ If you are out of state and you still want to consult with Dr. Rodgers, he can still do consultations with you. He obviously can't do pellet insertions or actually, my gosh, I have to share something because someone shared this on Instagram and I want to share it with you guys. ⁓ It was our sirs ⁓ talk that we spoke about. Rodgers, let me get to it. Hold on. Okay. So.

Brian Rodgers,DO (51:06)
Mm-hmm.

Juanique Grover (51:12)
People were asking, you and I did a SIRS IGTV Live ⁓ and someone asked for people that are out of state that are looking for help, what are their options? Which doctors should they go to? And the Barefoot coach, I don't know what your first name is, but you are a wealth of knowledge. I see you post on stuff all the time and I'm so grateful. She said here, for out of state patients, seeing Dr. Rodgers virtually like me, if your PCP is hesitant about prescribing the recommended prescriptions like mine,

There's an app you can download called Push Health. You put in the request from Dr. Rodgers and a doctor from your state will decide if they want to accept your request. If they do, they send the script straight to your pharmacy. It takes about 24 to 48 hours. That's how I was able to get the wild call prescription. How cool is that? So if you are still wanting a consultation on hormones and you're like, I don't know what the best path for hormones is for me, but I trust Dr. Rodgers,

do the consultation and the labs with him, he will tell you and then you can do something like that, where you go to that website called, what was it called again? My brain. Kai cut that out. You put the, what was the website called? Thank you. But I can't, I don't know why I can't find it here. yeah. So go to the app called Push Health.

Tauscha Johanson (52:28)
Push help. Push help.

Juanique Grover (52:40)
and a doctor will prescribe that for you. right? So, and same thing for SIRS. If you are dealing with SIRS guys, consult with the best, talk with Dr. Rodgers. And I know this is a hormone podcast, but Dr. Rodgers, you're a hormone and a SIRS expert. I think we attract a lot of SIRS people that have lost hope in healing. And so come and meet with Dr. Rodgers, do the virtual consultation, blood work virtually with him.

and there is a way for you to get treatment without him actually prescribing it for you. So Dr. Rodgers, Tauscha, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Listeners, thank you for being here. Also, this is your reminder that the Getzy Academy enrollment is officially open. So go to mygetzyhealth.com forward slash getzyacademy. If you want to enroll in this last cohort that I'm going to be teaching for a while, you want ⁓ incredible coaches like Gina Warfel, Britt Levco,

Brian Rodgers,DO (53:13)
Hmm.

Juanique Grover (53:36)
Dr. Rodgers, we're even going to have you come and talk to the cohort occasionally. We are going to have Kelly Clark, who is a cooking ⁓ nutritionist and cooking coach. And you can do one-on-ones with her if you feel stuck in the kitchen. If you want access to all of my classes that will not only teach you how to become an empowered self-healer, but let's be honest, you could become a health coach after this. Like the coursework is phenomenal, if I do say so myself. Gina and I have been working on it for the past four years.

and it is down to the most beautiful art. This is truly a course where soul meets science. And I said something in my stories or one of my posts earlier this week where I was like, a healing revolution requires a spiritual revolution, right? Because you don't just heal from the cellular level up, it's like an energetic level up. And so you have to change so much about yourself. You have to change...

your beliefs about yourself, your limiting beliefs, which we touched on a little bit in this podcast just a smidge. I don't have several hours to unpack all of that with these guys here, but we unpack these things in the Gutsy Academy. Why? Because it's so important to heal from the energetic belief level up. And so is this a course based on science? A bajillion percent. Is this a course based on limiting beliefs and unraveling those? A bajillion percent.

This is truly where healing actually starts to happen because we're taking into account everything and then we help you integrate the information and tailor it to your personal healing journey. So if you are ready to have this be your healing era and if you're tired of spending tons of money and talking to lots of doctors that aren't helping you, ⁓ maybe it's time for the Get'sy Academy. So join. ⁓ Listeners, thank you for being here. We'll catch you next week.

And Dr. Rodgers, Tauscha, thanks again. ⁓ And have a wonderful week, you guys. Okay.