Ep. 156: Using DHEA to naturally increase hormones & fertility, with Laura Ducote

DHEA is a bit of a secret weapon when dealing with estrogen and progesterone deficiency. If you're looking to naturally boost your fertility, you need to know about this supplement. But don't begin taking it without guidance! In today's episode, Caitlin talks with a good friend of the show, Nurse Practitioner and FCP, Laura Ducote, about DHEA and the role it can play in improving hormone balance and fertility. 

NOTE: While this episode does briefly refer to marital intimacy and libido, it should be appropriate for most audiences.

Ways to connect and work with Laura:

• Work with Laura as a Fertility Care Practitioner
• Work with Laura as a Nurse Practitioner

Show Notes: 

Ep 31: The NAPRO difference, with Laura Ducote 

Transcript

Caitlin (00:23)
Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. We have a friend of the show here with us today. We've got a previous episode. You have to go a ways back, but I'll make sure to have it linked in the show notes to hear from Laura Decote. She's a nurse practitioner and that first episode she's talking about utilizing restorative reproductive medicine. And now I'm thrilled to say that she is actually a part of our team at Woven Natural Fertility Care, providing pregnancy and postpartum education to women.

But for those of you who don't know her, Laura is a wife, mother of four beautiful children on earth, Creighton model, fertility care practitioner, and of course, family nurse practitioner. Since completing her additional training in Creighton, NAPRO technology, and restorative reproductive medicine, she began serving as a nurse practitioner and natural family planning provider for the last decade, and she is here to chat with us. So Laura, welcome back.

Laura Ducote (01:22)
Thanks Caitlin, I'm excited to be here.

Caitlin (01:25)
excited to have you back and just sort of chat together because you and I will often talk about different topics and I think that listeners would be pretty interested in some of those conversations that we have. Like we'll just start talking about what I see on client charts or something that you've just read about and it's like so interesting and informative and I'm like man, I bet people would want to listen to this. I bet people would want to know.

these little tidbits that we get in our personal conversations. So yeah, so I think it'll be fun just to chat.

Laura Ducote (02:02)
So true. Yeah, the chart's always telling us things.

Caitlin (02:06)
That

is absolutely right. I was thinking about client charts recently and some of the things like the big patterns that I see. one of the big things that keeps coming up is just low hormones. So obviously for anyone listening who does not know, we are both fertility care practitioners. So we see client charts through the Creighton model system all the time. And Creighton is excellent at providing a lot of information.

Laura Ducote (02:20)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Caitlin (02:34)
So even little things that you chart every day that you think, that doesn't really tell us much. For somebody who is trained in it, it actually gives an incredible amount of information. So you may come in thinking,

have regular cycles. I don't know why I have painful periods or I don't know why I'm having trouble conceiving I have regular cycles. But then we start looking at your Creighton chart and we see a lot of other signs.

So you may have low mucus production or the quality of the mucus could be really limited. So you may have a lot of it but it's just kind of low quality or maybe you only have one or two days of the good stuff. You could have a short post-peak phase or a lot of spotting leading up to the period really getting started. Maybe even some brown bleeding at the end of the period.

Delayed ovulation. I don't know. I'm just thinking about things that come up in client charts over and over again and they feel so big. It goes from, I think everything's normal to, my goodness, I'm looking at this chart and Caitlin's pointing out all these things. What does that mean? What stands out to you? When you see those things start showing up on a chart, what does that register for you as you're thinking about clients and patients?

Laura Ducote (03:49)
Yeah.

Yeah, well first I just have to acknowledge that sometimes when we think everything is okay with our body and then somebody tells us that it's not, it can be a little bit overwhelming and like almost like, somebody realized something about me that I didn't even know about myself. Like that can be kind of a strange feeling to take in. And so when we say all of this, you know, we say it with care because, you know, we've learned all of this for a reason.

Caitlin (04:12)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yes.

Laura Ducote (04:30)
And so, you know, when we're looking at those charts and seeing those signs that you just said, I think the first thing that comes to mind is, you know, is there kind of an over, an over exercise or an under eating or a overstress? Is there some sort of stressor on the body that is not allowing the hormones to do what they're designed to do?

And so when someone like us, maybe, or specifically on my end, on the medical end, is questioning those sorts of things, it especially brings up lot of emotions when we're talking about stress. Just naturally. But I think that we do have to recognize that the Lord has given us a great protective mechanism in that our fertility does decline if we're in a very stressful state of life.

because it recognizes this is not a great time to have a baby come into the world if the mother is not well. And so when we want to look at these things, we're looking at how can we make the hormones feel like they are well enough, the body is well enough to produce all the hormones necessary to make these signs on the chart like what we're expecting. So you mentioned estrogen.

And so that's a big one, obviously with the cervical mucus. But then, you know, also the androgens can be another factor there. And sometimes that one is less to do with the stress and sometimes can be more to do with the age. So I don't know if you see that in your client charts as well is like, you know, is connected to just when we're getting kind of higher into our 30s that we just.

Caitlin (06:03)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Laura Ducote (06:27)
start to see some of those things and we maybe just don't know that that can be normal?

Caitlin (06:32)
it's such a good reminder and I love your talking about stress and eating and lifestyle because it's a reminder that we are, and I say this all the time, complex human beings. We are beautifully designed and we kind of live in this culture where we're like, just push through it, whatever it is. You can't eat well, just push through it. You can't sleep well, just push through it.

you can't incorporate the rest that you want to just push through it. It's like, wow, it's kind of a beautiful thing that God has built in these reminders that we are worth the time, worth the rest, worth the nutrition. And even if it's not a total life change, those little things, those little decisions that we do each day can have a huge benefit in the end. And I do see changes on a client's chart when they've

all of those stressors, whether they be physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, because we really do have to address all of those. We see such a difference on the charting in the end. So I do think it's across the board. Although there are lots of ways that we look at increasing those hormones, if we are seeing low hormones, I think you're right, starting with the basics that we think, oh, basic like

Laura Ducote (07:30)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Caitlin (07:52)
unimportant or optional. No, no, no. We mean basic, foundational. We have to first have these things, and then on top of it, we have other options of things we can do.

Laura Ducote (07:59)
Yes, yes.

Mm-hmm.

Right, right, yeah, rest, good nutrition, proper amounts of exercise, all of those things are good. And just as there can be too much of a good thing, it's like we can be really trying to focus on our health and that's what spurs us to be eating.

a very strict diet or to try to be exercising for our health. And sometimes I see that almost like sabotage us in ways if we're doing too much of it. So say we're trying to eat a very restrictive diet, but we're not getting enough calories in, or we're trying to, you know, exercise well, but then we're just really, we're over exercising for what like a female body needs. You know, I think we also have, you know, pretty

Caitlin (08:46)
Hmm.

Laura Ducote (08:58)
pretty rough things out there in social media in terms of what our bodies really are supposed to look like. We do need a decent amount of, you know, healthy body fat percentage as women. Like it's higher than men for sure. And so, you know, I think that those things are for sure important. The other thing that I see though, and that we've talked about before is sometimes the androgen piece. We don't know.

necessarily where that shows up, or we hear about androgens more so in the conversation of like PCOS. So when we're talking more about the low signs of things, we don't really hear as much about that. But that's why I bring up that kind of perimenopause time. Like that is something that's going to decline with age just naturally. I am seeing, unfortunately, I'm seeing it a lot in younger women, younger than we should.

Caitlin (09:32)
Yeah.

Laura Ducote (09:53)
be expecting it to be declining. And that is certainly an area that I have had to do a little bit more research myself, you know, starting to see that. And the main reason that we see those connections on the chart are that testosterone converts into estrogen inside the ovary. And so, you know, as we're teaching women how to chart these estrogenic signs of mucus,

That's where you can actually see some of the signs that are likely to be connected, you all connected with the androgens and the estrogen. So one of the treatments that we see in our practice is using DHEA supplementation because DHEA is an androgen that's primarily made in the adrenals, but it will...

Caitlin (10:30)
Yes.

Laura Ducote (10:49)
it's like a precursor to testosterone. So it will increase testosterone. And then from that conversion process also increase estrogen, which should give you increased cervical mucus, know, more days of fertility on the chart, things like that. But the other thing that I've looked into because I myself have been in a breastfeeding time and been interested in looking at that, or I've had patients that have been

in a breastfeeding time, you typically don't use DHEA during a time of breastfeeding. The only thing that I've really found in terms of being able to naturally boost that DHEA is going back to the things that I was just mentioning and specifically in the exercise component, if you aren't over exercising, if you're just trying to kind of get things balanced for your body, the weight training component.

there is a muscle building component to that

DHEA balance.

Caitlin (11:48)
I have been seeing and hearing so much about the importance of lifting heavy weights for women

we as women benefit when we lift heavy weights, again, not to build, well, to build muscle, but not to build obvious muscle,

our hormones really benefit from this.

And I love that you're giving two options of things that we can do to naturally increase these because low hormones just feels very generic. Like being told, hey, you have low reproductive hormones. That is not very empowering. That's like, okay, well, doesn't feel like there's much I can do about that. So the lifestyle picture as a foundation, the what you eat, the how you nourish your body, the rest that you get.

Laura Ducote (12:30)
Uh-huh.

Caitlin (12:38)
de-stressing, those kind of things. And then you have these options of supplements, which everybody loves a good supplement. So, you know, looking into that or looking into something like

And again, you can find resources out there. I'm eventually going to have a podcast episode. I just don't know when it's going to air about that because I do think it's important. But

DHEA specifically is not one of those supplements that you should just start on your own if you don't know what your hormone levels are. It can be, in fact, I had a client recently that was on a very high dose of DHEA and I asked her, know, hey, did you get that dosage from a medical professional? And she said, no, I just saw it online and heard it was a good thing. And she's taking a very high dosage.

Laura Ducote (13:10)
True.

Caitlin (13:30)
And so I encourage her to let's wait and get some lab work done first because it can not go well if you don't actually need it. So that's pretty important first.

Laura Ducote (13:31)
Hmm.

Yeah, for sure. I have some women that truly are, especially my younger, my younger bodies seem to be very sensitive to

versus maybe my ladies that are more in the perimenopause where that could have been the source that she found, it could have been another source. They sometimes will need a slightly higher dosage, but yeah, it really can vary on what dosage I end up giving people.

And what your base, like your starting point is also really matters for how high do we need to get you into optimal level? Because if we go overboard, we're putting you more into a hyperandrogenic state, which is almost like a PCOS state, which is again, not going to be the route we want to from one extreme to the other.

Caitlin (14:12)
Yeah.

Exactly. It's so individualized. Every single person needs something a little bit different. That's not a failure of the system. That's a beauty of the system that we get to know an individual person and look at her reproductive health in context of her overall life and health and try to address that specifically. And I think that that is so different. That restorative approach is so different than what you find at most OB-GYNs, most

Laura Ducote (14:31)
Mm-hmm

Caitlin (14:57)
reproductive endocrinologists, most IVF clinics, they're called fertility clinics, but I really don't like that term because it's not really restoring and preserving that couple and that woman's fertility. It's sort of just thinking about how can we create a baby? And I just think the woman deserves so much more respect than that. And even in something like...

low hormones. She is going to feel so much better when she gets that support and it should not be dependent. Her treatment should not be dependent on whether or not she's ready to have a baby and like I was talking about earlier push push push to get to that point.

Laura Ducote (15:28)
Yes.

Yes, yes. Because, I mean, really and truly, like, if we have low androgens, you know, our bone health is affected, our, you know, our memory, our cognition, our libido, all of the things. And I mean, for people that have been on a fertility or infertility journey, know, keeping the intimacy not feeling like a chore or just something to do during the fertile window, I'm sure can already be a struggle.

Caitlin (16:05)
you

Laura Ducote (16:10)
And so, you know, when you have these low hormones happening too, you're decreasing the woman's libido, you're not giving the marital intimacy that could be there. You know, there's just so many benefits that even if a child doesn't necessarily come from us replacing these things, well, it's maybe not even the desire at the moment, you know, getting those hormones where they need to be, if she's in the proper phase of life for that.

is just gonna be life-giving. But I do think that it's good to remember though that our bodies do have a natural timeline. And so sometimes in this day and age, like we live in a culture where starting to have a family at age 35 to 45, people trying for their very first child in that window of age can be kind of

normal because it's like they've done their career path and all the

And I do think we have to recognize that our hormones do naturally decline, you know, as we're approaching menopause. And that's not something deficient with our body. Like that's just the way it is

so, you know, we can help and support and augment some of those things if there is a fertility desire. But at the same time, you know, we can't reverse the clock.

Caitlin (17:34)
Yeah.

Laura Ducote (17:35)
So, you know, I think that those things are also good to keep in mind that this is a normal process if we're in that stage of life.

Caitlin (17:43)
Yeah.

Such an important reminder, there's a difference between supporting, restoring, preserving, and manipulating, or forcing something, like trying to create these optimal environments. Well, they're never actually going to be optimal if we're already past that time in life, but we're just trying to take medications to make it happen. So I hear what you're saying.

Laura Ducote (17:55)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Caitlin (18:11)
Well,

I really appreciate you being on and chatting about these things together. I hope we can do more of these just because like I said, I always feel like they're fruitful conversations. And now you're also starting your own thing. So if anyone in the state of Alabama is interested in working with you as a restorative reproductive nurse practitioner, they have a way to do that.

Laura Ducote (18:35)
Yes. Yeah. So I just recently started with my Catholic doctor. and so I have a page on there that has a link to my scheduling page and, and all the things. So I'm excited to be able to see my patients in Alabama in another way now.

Caitlin (18:52)
right. Well listeners, As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.