Dr. Willow Brown and Leah Piper sit down with Sexpert Dr. Daved Rosensweet who is a pioneer in bioidentical hormone therapy and founder of the Institute for Bioidentical Hormone Balance. He has helped over 500,000 women and men navigate menopause and andropause through natural hormone optimization.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
EPISODE LINKS
Leah & Willow's King & Queen of Hearts Intimacy Toolkit is on sale. Use Coupon Code KINGANDQUEEN10 for 10% off. https://www.sexreimagined.com/the-king-and-queen-of-hearts
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Dr. Willow Brown and Leah Piper sit down with Sexpert Dr. Daved Rosensweet who is a pioneer in bioidentical hormone therapy and founder of the Institute for Bioidentical Hormone Balance. He has helped over 500,000 women and men navigate menopause and andropause through natural hormone optimization.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
EPISODE LINKS
Leah & Willow's King & Queen of Hearts Intimacy Toolkit is on sale. Use Coupon Code KINGANDQUEEN10 for 10% off. https://www.sexreimagined.com/the-king-and-queen-of-hearts
Awaken Arousal Oil Lubricant "I had a 3-minute orgasm and then a 5-minute orgasm." - Beth https://exploreforia.com/awaken-so?irclickid=wyXW6byI5xyNWouwIoQAUS1GUkAx4m1JsS6bSc0&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=Impact&utm_campaign=Sex%20Reimagined&utm_c
SxR Hotline | SxR Website | YouTube | TikTok | Pinterest | Instagram | Dr. Willow's Website | Leah's Website
I'm Dr. Willow Brown, your Taoist expert at Sex Reimagined.
Leah:And I'm Leah Piper, your Tantra expert at Sex Reimagined.
Dr. Willow:And today we interviewed the one and only Daved, Dr. Rosensweet, Dr. Daved Rosensweet. He's the founder of the Institute of Bioidentical Medicine and the menopause method. Um, really cool guy and, uh, incredible practitioner and just actually a very beautiful human, very beautiful soul, I felt. And just very extensive education, loves helping women, has helped hundreds of thousands of women around the globe and teaches and educates other, uh, practitioners to help women with their hormones as well. Um, he did write an incredible book, which he gave us for free. So be sure to listen for that book. Um, cause you're gonna learn so much about your own body and your own hormones and how they all function.
Leah:look, if you are in your thirties this is an important episode for you to listen to. If you are in your forties, this is an important episode for you to listen to. If you're in your fifties or sixties or seventies, look, it's never too late, you want to tune in and get involved in this conversation because it's important to our vitality, to our sexuality and to our feeling of strength and youthful. Blah, blah, blah. Youthfulness, youthfulness, youthfulness. Alright, tune in and you know what to do.
Dr. Willow:Turn on and fall in love with Dr. Daved Rosensweet.
SxR Announcer:Welcome to the Sex Reimagined Podcast, where sex is shame free and pleasure forward. Let's get into the show.
Dr. Willow:All right, welcome. We're so excited to be here with Daved Rosensweet. Dr. Rosensweet, welcome to the Sex Reimagined podcast. And I am curious how this conversation is going to go today because Dr. Rosensweet is a bioidentical hormone expert. And I, as a functional medicine and Chinese medicine doctor, tend to be on such a holistic side of the perspective on how to handle hormones that I actually don't even recommend bioidenticals, unless it's as like jumper cables to get things going again, but not long term. So I'm so excited to be here with you, Dr. Rosensweet, and just to learn more about your method. And learn more about how you have helped so many hundreds of thousands of women. I mean, that really is the name of the game. That's the end goal, is that women feel better in their bodies and in their lives. Um, and I know that you do it very, very safely and ethically. So I'm excited to have you here. Welcome.
Dr. Rosensweet:Thank you very much, Willow and Leah. Nice to be here.
Leah:Yeah, and I'm excited because this is going to be like a spectator sport for me because I'm somewhere in the middle. I mean, Willow knows me enough that it's like pulling teeth to get me to take a supplement. So, um, it'll be interesting to see as we are both in our mid 40s and headed into our journey into being perimenopausal in the near future. And so this is such a timely topic, as I was just spent probably an hour and a half this morning speaking with a girlfriend who is postmenopausal and having some of her own issues. So I'd love to drop that in both of your laps to see what kind of, um, how you might help her solve her problem. And the other thing I'm kind of curious about is we've already started talking about women, but do you also treat men and their hormones?
Dr. Rosensweet:Yes, for sure.
Leah:Okay. Um, and would you say that your practice is like 50 50 or is it dominant in one gender?
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, the main thing that I do these days is train and mentor physicians and nurse practitioners to treat women and men in menopause and andropause with compound and bioidentical hormones.
Leah:Cool.
Dr. Willow:So I'm curious, Dr. Rosensweet, in your work with people, do you, do you look at their nutrition? Do you look at their diet? Do you, do you look at herbs as an option for them in bringing their hormones into balance before going to bioidenticals or, um, or do you go straight to the bioidenticals?
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, a little background. Um, I graduated in 1968 from medical school. I loved medical school. But, even as a senior, yeah, even as a senior, I loved it. It was like a temple. It was a synagogue for me.
Dr. Willow:Oh, that's so
Dr. Rosensweet:And, uh, it was hard, but it was
Dr. Willow:True physician then. Love it. Yes.
Dr. Rosensweet:And yet as a senior, I started asking, well, gee, how do you help people heal? And I got very interested in nutrition. The very first thing I pulled out of the University of Michigan library was the Yellow Emperor's book
Dr. Willow:Oh, okay.
Dr. Rosensweet:Chinese medicine.
Dr. Willow:Awesome. Oh
Dr. Rosensweet:great. And so right out of the gate, I was exploring nutrition, toxicity, exercise, emotions, life. And, uh, it, the more I did, the more I thought that one's life and living was very good for health. And then all the obstacles that we have to that emotional, mental, choosing. All the, well, one way to put it is conditioning that we bring to it leads to life habits, health habits that really dismantle health. And the elephant in the room is poor nutrition. So I was hired by the state of New Mexico to write on nutrition, to try and do a practical manual that says way into it.
Dr. Willow:Okay, good.
Dr. Rosensweet:and I, and then along comes the need for my own healing. And so, uh, I've, 45 years, I've been deeply devoted to really unraveling, bringing to the surface, and healing emotional impediments. Mental. Choice. Perception. Relational.
Dr. Willow:Right. Wonderful. So you are coming from this very holistic point of view. I love that.
Dr. Rosensweet:Absolutely, absolutely, and...
Leah:Share a little bit about your healing journey?
Dr. Rosensweet:Yes. I love medicine. But the main thing that I wanted to do in this lifetime, having observed my parents, is I wanted to be married and be happily married and have kids. And I thought because as a teenager, uh, I loved life, I grew up in a very, very precious and special household. But when I was about 13 and I discovered girls, I went, whoa, whoa. This is a much different universe than anything. This is what I want.
Leah:Right on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rosensweet:To be in love and, uh, and be married like my parents and have kids.
Leah:That's so sweet.
Dr. Rosensweet:Doctors nice.
Leah:Mm hmm.
Dr. Willow:But you want, that was the thing you
Dr. Rosensweet:That's the, that was my dream and I did get married at 28 and had a child and, you know, we were ill equipped. I was certainly ill equipped. I was carrying way too much emotional and mental hurdles, detriments, conditioning. I think you've been down this pathway. And, uh, and by five years into it our marriage dismantled and I thought, well, okay, must be the wrong woman. And then I went into a second relationship and within a couple of years, I was repeating the exact same, um, and I saw it. And, uh, when she walked and she meant it, I, I really had a major, major breakdown in
Leah:Yeah. A reckonin.
Dr. Rosensweet:Yeah, I do not know how to love.
Dr. Willow:Mmm. So powerful and so deep to have that moment in life. So what did you do from that?
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, just to add to the, um, intensity of it, when I realized that I had broken the second relationship and it was primarily me.
Leah:Mm. Yeah.
Dr. Rosensweet:these were two wonderful women,
Leah:Mm hmm.
Dr. Rosensweet:and I, I, I broke down into a primal scream, spontaneous. This is, this is. I was like 35.
Dr. Willow:Wow.
Dr. Rosensweet:And I had never heard of such a thing and I was in a closet doing this, and about three and a half hours later I was in lying on the floor in sweat and going, oh my God, I know where this pain is coming from. I was, I was given love and I myself dismantled it and I realized that I was a man who didn't know how to love.
Dr. Willow:Mmm.
Dr. Rosensweet:And I saw the depth of it.
Dr. Willow:Wow.
Dr. Rosensweet:I saw the depth of the beliefs, the emotions, and, um, and I committed at that time that I don't know if I was ever going to be able to succeed at it because I saw that it was severe, it wasn't mild. Even though I was a, you know, I was a nice young man with a great upbringing and a good doctor, uh, way too much impediments. As women, you've probably met up with some,
Dr. Willow:We've met some men like that.
Leah:We've had our share. Mm
Dr. Willow:What do you attribute that not knowing how to love to, was it not being able to receive love, or was it not being able to be vulnerable or open your heart? What was at the root of it?
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, there's three,
Dr. Willow:All three of those
Leah:Yeah, those are good ones, right? Mm hmm.
Dr. Rosensweet:It's a, I think the depth of diminished consciousness, insufficient consciousness goes way, way back. Not necessarily confined to this particular lifetime. And I came to earth with a lot of gifts and I'm a human being and, uh, it's such a blessing, but I came to earth with a lot of old, old dysfunctional thoughts and perceptions and funneled interactions through that perception. And, you know, what I'm saying is it ran silent and it ran deep. And it was lifetimes old. And the great fortune I had is when I did make that commitment to heal, I started meeting up with teachers and guides who really were able to assist me and give me tools. And so I set to work and I put far, far more time and energy and money into that process than medical school. And, uh, and it really gave me a, uh, you know, decades into it, it really gave me insight into well what's causing illness? And what do you need to do? What does commitment to heal really mean?
Leah:Right.
Dr. Rosensweet:And, uh, and yes, nutrition really matters, but the nutritional choices are based on these contorted emotions. and You know, I think, I think I won't exercise today because I'm feeling a little down rather than, hey, I feel I'm, that's getting me out there, you
Leah:right? Or I'm feeling a little down. I should go exercise, right?
Dr. Rosensweet:and I should do
Leah:yeah, because that's the medicine, right?
Dr. Rosensweet:Yeah.
Leah:So curious, like, during that journey of, you know, investing in this kind of personal growth and this emotional health, this learning how to love, what, was there a book or a course or a teacher or a mentor that really impacted you?
Dr. Rosensweet:Because I was so deeply committed, I had the great fortune as the universe unfolded, so to speak, to the right time, meet the right teachers, and there was a series of them. And they've occurred over many, many years, and there's people who know things, and you've probably encountered things yourself, who know a lot about the emotions, know a lot about the mind, know a lot about consciousness, and so there's a long list of them. And some of them were very, very important to me and some of the most important things that happened was I received tools that I could deploy in my life to work with my own emotions in my own mind, etc. And so it's been quite a journey that that particular vector, but I want to return to the medicine.
Dr. Willow:Yeah. I'm
Dr. Rosensweet:I've always loved medicine.
Dr. Willow:if it enhanced your medical, you know, training to actually then open up to this whole emotional and spiritual, it sounds like, side of life.
Dr. Rosensweet:Absolutely. And I met up with it everywhere. I delivered babies at home for a long time and I'm no longer doing that. I don't think it's a safe thing to do, but, uh, I saw it in the marriages. I saw, oh, what's the, what, which pregnancies and labors are tough?
Leah:Mm hmm.
Dr. Rosensweet:um, they're not married. They didn't plan the baby. Uh, it's not universal, but I, I started seeing what I was living.
Dr. Willow:Yeah.
Dr. Rosensweet:And experiencing and, you know, and then it comes down to what constitutes health, what matters for health. You know this, this is bread and butter for you. It matters what we eat and breathe. It matters that we detoxify from The um, many exposures that we have. It matters that we exercise, exercise, exercise. And the elephant in the room that really dismantles the biology is the dysfunctional response to the stress of life. And the biochemistry that gets triggered there, the fight or flight biology, and it really throws off these most powerful biochemicals in our body.
Dr. Willow:Mm hmm. yeah, I always like to say, like, hormones are like sensitive little babies, and if you take really good care of them, they're gonna, you know, respond well. And if you give them just a little bit of crap, they're gonna respond to that as well. They're very sensitive, these biochemicals.
Dr. Rosensweet:And they're very powerful, too, they are, they're the most powerful biochemicals in our body. And I never really guided my career around, as I was going into midlife, one of my midlife women patients, uh, who I knew was brilliant, and she had actually retired in her 40s, think about that, what it takes to do that.
Dr. Willow:She was a smart cookie.
Leah:Smart.
Dr. Rosensweet:She came storming into my office one day and, uh, this is before office hours and came up to my desk and angry, you know. Don't think you know me. I'm telling you, I'm falling apart and I'm going crazy. And don't get, don't give me this or that. I'm telling you this is serious. And I knew her well enough to believe her but it was so out of character. And serendipitously, I don't think that's the way the world works though. But serendipitously, I'd been speaking to the world expert on progesterone a couple of weeks earlier, and this is in the early 1990s. And I gave her some progesterone topical cream and three weeks later I got a letter from her saying I can't believe this stuff. I'm totally myself again,
Dr. Willow:mm.
Dr. Rosensweet:And you know 86% of women Midlife, 14% no, 80% yes, get mild, moderate, or severely life stopping symptoms.
Dr. Willow:Mm hmm. Absolutely.
Dr. Rosensweet:the hormone depletion. These ovarian hormones are so strong. And they matter for the brain, and the arteries, and the bones.
Dr. Willow:And your emotions. Yeah.
Leah:And sex! And sex! You know?
Dr. Willow:Yeah, your desire, your
Leah:Yes! Like, ah! Oh. Okay. Wow.
Dr. Rosensweet:And, uh, I had never seen such a dramatic response to anything I'd ever given. You in the health field, you know that by the time someone consults with you, there's a lot of water under the bridge. It can be a slow moving train to help someone really restore from a significant illness. This was so dramatic, but I wasn't guiding my career, but she wound up referring to me. And, uh, before I knew it, I had an office full of menopause women.
Dr. Willow:Ah, so that's how the, that's how the menopause train came
Dr. Rosensweet:That's how it happened.
Dr. Willow:It just swept you up.
Dr. Rosensweet:And eventually, although I was, I was so deeply into holistic medicine, functional medicine, I couldn't wrap my arms around the whole field anymore. There was just, you know, there was the experts in the brain and dementia. And there was experts in the gut, and you know, and these things matter so much. And the expert in the cardiovascular, and I tried to keep containing it all, I couldn't. And I made a decision, okay, I'm going to specialize. Instead of being an all inclusive doctor, which is an illusion, I'm going to get good at one thing. I'm going to get good at one thing. And it was the best decision I ever made, and, you know,
Dr. Willow:That's fantastic.
Dr. Rosensweet:Commitment attracts wonders.
Dr. Willow:Mm
Leah:Did you make it? Well, I guess you made a choice because of that friend needing support and then, you know Recommending people at first. I was like, did you have to make a choice? Like do you miss the brain stuff? Do you miss the gut stuff, but it sounds like it chose you. Hormones chose you
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, I also responded to the call, and it's not like I don't respect these other important projects to do, but I like to refer it to people who are, that's their
Dr. Willow:Who are the
Dr. Rosensweet:You want to straighten out the intestinal tract, you got a piece of work to
Leah:Yeah. Yeah,
Dr. Willow:A big one for
Dr. Rosensweet:Yeah, so it's not like we don't include that, but part of it was so much was, um, there, there's such dramatic results from replenishing hormones that I got attracted to it because of its effectiveness and because of the leverage and I'm, I've been very fortunate to attract quite a team and we were deeply mission driven. We, we think that this planet desperately needs more feminine energy. And
Dr. Willow:Well, cheers to that. We couldn't agree more with you on that. So, tell us about your method. Like, let's say a woman comes to you and, and she's like, okay, yeah, I'm definitely in perimenopause. My libido's in the toilet. I have my, you know, labia are starting to shrivel up. I'm super irritable all the time. Everyone's driving me crazy and I can't seem
Leah:have hot
Dr. Willow:find piece inside of my mind. Yeah. Hot flashes, night sweats, the whole nine yards, brain fog. Um, what's your, what's your process? What do you take them through? What's the journey?
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, you're naming some very, uh, familiar and, and, uh, uh, symptoms that disable women. And the process is always the same, uh, and we've developed over the years, uh, a lot of different moving parts to the process to streamline it and to be able to leverage to get into working with millions of women and men. So, so, but we have an initial questionnaire that is extremely thorough and has a heavy emphasis on, uh, on, on female hormones. And um, You know, I read through that questionnaire, and I'm talking to my patient, and the next steps become super clear right away.
Leah:Oh, is that right?
Dr. Rosensweet:And, and you get an idea, okay, you got an idea of what to do, and then you deploy that idea, and you see how well it pans out. But in the world of hormones, it's pretty straightforward. Um, and, and yet, each woman is such an individual. There's such a wide variation, woman to woman.
Dr. Willow:It depends on what's happening in their lives too, with work and partnership and kids and
Dr. Rosensweet:It does.
Dr. Willow:Yeah.
Dr. Rosensweet:That's huge. And you try and overcome, you try and do better living through biochemistry to help someone overcome life's stressful things, and nature will not allow that. And you know that very well. It's gonna, it's like whack a mole. Okay, well, I'll support you with hormones, and then the marriage is breaking down. Yeah,
Dr. Willow:Right. One thing after another.
Dr. Rosensweet:Before going into that, biology can achieve a lot. It's a lot easier, I see, for women to make the courageous decisions, and men, too. And to have the, uh, oomph to improve their health and improve their lives when the bottom is being supported because without those biochemicals you don't move very well. You're not very motivated. You're not thinking very clearly. I mean, some of the most common symptoms of menopause is a cognitive decline. Women are just not functioning at the same level of, and the mood, the moods can go. Chronic anxiety, when there's no real reason for the anxiety, they're not used to anxiety. And the drive from the loss of the androgens, loss of testosterone, the motivation that a woman can have to make 50 decisions in a day, important ones, it can just wither away without someone really knowing it. So, you asked about the procedure.
Dr. Willow:Yeah. Process.
Dr. Rosensweet:So we had that first consultation, and it's very apparent to me, I know what's happened. These are, like a young woman at 20 is at the absolute peak of her hormone output of her ovary. And she declines. Same with men. 20, plus or minus a couple years. Decline. And in the 30s, that decline becomes significant. Not all women feel that decline, but it is significant.
Dr. Willow:Yeah.
Leah:they do feel it, what are they noticing? Like, what's the symptoms of the declne?
Dr. Willow:That we just kind of rattled off, like
Leah:Oh, you still might have more mood swings.
Dr. Rosensweet:There was some additional ones. Um, mood, anxiety, depression. These are, these are the biochemicals of well being. And without them, you start getting into anxiety states. Young women can have that if don't
Leah:No one ever mentions this that in your that you are a little ornery and anxious and, oh, it might be because your estrogen levels have been lowered. Like, that never gets brought up. That never gets brought up with a therapist. That never gets brought up in conversations with your girlfriends. Your doctor doesn't mention that. I think that's really interesting that,
Dr. Willow:gets brought up if you're talking to Dr. Rosensweet, he knows all
Leah:yeah. But how many 30 year olds do you talk to?
Dr. Willow:yeah, that's a good question. Probably
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, you know, it's such an important thing because in my lifetime, I've seen the explosion of benzodiazepines, Xanax and stuff. And I was talking to one of our board members, a woman who's been working with hormones at the PhD level for 40 years. And we know that these women are not ovulating properly or they've had a progesterone decline. You give them progesterone, they're back on the horse, feeling
Leah:great. Yeah, because you know, when we feel depressed and anxious, what we do is we self attack. What's wrong with me? What's wrong with my life? What's wrong with my decisions? And we go through this whole ordeal when we could just say, Oh, my hormones need to be checked out. Like that could bring so much understanding, relief, and also minimize the drama of the of wherever that, that feeling of depression starts to talk back to us in a negative way.
Dr. Willow:Yeah. You know,
Leah:So thanks for bringing that up. I think that's,
Dr. Rosensweet:It's so complex, um, we've grown up in an era where these microscopic poisons, uh, and what do they do?
Leah:Right, the plastics in the
Dr. Rosensweet:What do the herbicides,
Dr. Willow:in the air, in the plastic water bottles, in the soap,
Dr. Rosensweet:what does that do? Well, wouldn't you know, it interferes with the hormone receptors. That's what it binds
Leah:That's the biggest danger, isn't it? With the, with the toxins that we can't see. It's, it's really of, it attacks the hormones before anything else?
Dr. Rosensweet:The receptors, yeah, it binds to the receptor sites. And
Dr. Willow:that's why I think it's so important to clean the liver at least once a year. You know, at least once a year, because that's a filter for all of your blood. It's gonna, it's gonna clean out all of those xenoestrogens that we're constantly getting input with. Hopefully, yeah, if it's a good cleanse.
Dr. Rosensweet:And, you know, really minimizing exposure. You know that so, so much. It's just the exposure is so huge. So that's a complexity that's thrown in why in this day and age there's more of that anxiety and depression than I think, and it's there for different reasons. And then one could make the case that nature is pushing, is pressing on the human race through the leaders, which it's, it's the feminine that's leading in this regard, to, My God, I'm anxious all the time. I feel shame. There's something wrong with me. Gee, elephant in the room, maybe I should learn a lot about shame and acquire some information and tools and support to deal with shame. So it's a little complex, because if you, I learned, uh, somewhere along the line to respect who's sitting in front of me, and if they're saying, I'm feeling really bad about myself. And it's, I feel shame, if they're really clear on it. I don't immediately say, well, we'll give you some hormones and that's going to take care of it for you. I go, oh, okay, someone's talking to me. They're telling me I feel shame. That's what they chose to say. So it's, you know, it's a multifaceted approach, as I'm sure you use. You want to, you don't want to quiet down the very signal that someone's getting that it's finally time in life to deal with the part of myself that is, feels shame.
Dr. Willow:Right. Right. That's great that you're really meeting them where they're at.
Dr. Rosensweet:But the bottom line is those hormone declines are very significant. They, and you asked earlier, Leah, um, sleep disturbance. You start getting low in estrogen and you start waking up in the middle of the night and the mind is racing and you can't go back to sleep or you can't fall asleep because you got low progesterone or you're getting pain on intercourse and your relationship's starting to get wobbly there. Or, you know, there's a multitude of symptoms. The hot flashes, women do, you know, are strong, they do well with hot flashes during the day, but not at night. When it starts interfering with sleep, and you lose a few nights sleep, or get interrupted sleep, it's life
Dr. Willow:stopping. fog ten
Leah:Yes.
Dr. Willow:worse.
Dr. Rosensweet:and the brain fog's got its own origins, because there's a zillion receptor sites for estrogen in the brain. And for progesterone, And you start losing your estrogen, and it's one of the most common complaints,
Dr. Willow:Absolutely. That's, it's such a challenging one. I mean, anyone who's had COVID knows that like the brain fog part of that, that is so hard to overcome. And so that's kind of the, it's kind of that constant feeling when you're going through perimenopause into menopause that like, I can't, I just can't think I can't come up with words. Like, it's just.
Leah:Yeah, recall is really challenged.
Dr. Willow:My understanding is, um, you know, once the, once the ovaries kind of take their final bow and stop doing all the producing of these incredible hormones that the adrenal glands take over and, no. Okay. Let's hear what you got to say about that. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Rosensweet:I mean, the adrenal glands are still producing testosterone. And testosterone can convert to estradiol, and you're getting a tiny bit of progesterone, but it's almost like a drop in the ocean. And I, I know this for certain because we do 24 hour urine hormone testing, and I have for 25 years, so we see the adrenal hormones, and we see the ovarian and testicular hormones. And when a woman goes into menopause her estrogen tanks.
Dr. Willow:Absolutely. But they're still bringing some of those hormones forward. And if somebody is heading into perimenopause with, with burnt out adrenals with really deficient adrenal energy, then they're really going to tank like Those hormones in their bloodstreams, they're really not going to be, um, swimming.
Dr. Rosensweet:In, in my practice, and I'm just speaking from my practice, um, the primary thing I see is the, the drastic things that happen from the loss of the ovaries or the testicles. We see adrenal varying degrees of an adrenal that is actually increasing its production, but that's pretty rare. People usually don't have the umph anymore. More what we see is probably what you see is a declined adrenal. It's been stressed, but that adrenal, because we need cortisone to live, cortisol to live, it gets priority. It will be preserved. And so I'd say 10% of the women that I see, they have significant diminishing of the corticosteroids. But I'm dealing also with the motivated, most motivated, proactive, health conscious women on the planet. I'm not dealing with the populations I've dealt with in the past, clinic populations. So it could be a whole different story. Um, In dealing with that population, which is under, you know, multiply stress time 100,000 and much worse. So you might see, uh, depending on who you're seeing a severity of adrenal loss inability to do it. That's much more severe than I've been seeing.
Dr. Willow:Mm-hmm. Okay, so, so at what point do you do the testing? So they've, they've filled out the questionnaire, they've come in, they're sitting in front of you, you meet with them, you connect with them as a person, give them resources and tools from there, and then, um, at that point do you start to prescribe different styles of, um, of hormone replacement therapy? Is it, you know, pellets, creams, or do you do testing first, or how do, what's the next step?
Leah:Yeah, like, yeah, you, and could you say a little bit more about, you're getting the test and you're reading it, and what is it showing you, and how can a patient understand what's happening with
Dr. Rosensweet:their levels? Excellent questions. Um, for one thing, by the time a woman goes, makes an appointment for a consultation. Or a man. It's usually, the duress is piled up, so it's not necessarily as early in the process as we would like. My dream would be to, uh, see women in their early thirties. and prepare them and be able to interact with them then, but that doesn't happen.
Leah:Okay.
Dr. Rosensweet:And I'm dealing with it.
Dr. Willow:No, that is the best time, ladies, to start preparing is in your mid to late 30's.
Dr. Rosensweet:You know, it's like all of us sometimes it takes some strong medicine to make us want to go after what we need to do. And so by the time I see women and men there's been significant decline. So right out of the gate, well, it doesn't work to test that. That's very important to know. How did I learn it? I tested women in the perimenopause.
Leah:A
Dr. Rosensweet:women is in perimenopause and her hormones have been declining and her, her being realizes this and her brain, her hypothalamus and her pituitary is going, this is a little too low. And it has stimulating hormones that can be excreted from the pituitary gland to stimulate those ovaries. And they work. You get a little burst of FSH and LH, the ovaries revive a bit. In fact.
Dr. Willow:Okay.
Dr. Rosensweet:They can be so stimulated that a woman can have higher estrogen levels than she had when she was younger. But for a very short duration.
Leah:Mmm.
Dr. Willow:It's like a push, like a quick push.
Leah:Does that make her
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, always possible for a variety of reasons.
Dr. Willow:Can.
Leah:Okay. Alright. Fingers crossed.
Dr. Rosensweet:but it doesn't sustain. So, in a young woman, when you follow the estrogen level throughout the course of her menstrual month, you see these nice smooth curves, and then finally she menstruates again and starts over. In the perimenopause, it's lower, you get a burst, you get higher. Can't sustain, goes lower, higher, burst, lower. So it's very erratic.
Leah:Kind of like her mood swings.
Dr. Rosensweet:But overall, the sum total is not enough estrogen, not enough progesterone.
Dr. Willow:Hence the erratic emotions
Dr. Rosensweet:The mistake you can make is testing a woman in the perimenopause. Like for example, I did this when I first started out. Woman's having hot flashes, waking up in the middle of the night. Mood, mood disturbance. I know she's low in estrogen and progesterone, just by her age. So if you go to test a woman who's in the perimenopause with that erratic, you can get misleading results. So I remember sitting in front of a patient who's having hot flashes, night sweats, mood disturbance. I tested her and she's looking at her test results and it shows high estrogen. And I say, well, I want to teach you, I want to treat you with estrogen because I know you're low. And she looked at me like I was out of my mind.
Dr. Willow:She's like, but it says hi. Yeah.
Dr. Rosensweet:So we do testing for various things, but we always 100% test women that we're treating at about the three or four or five month mark. My favorite time to test is when a woman says, Oh my God, I feel myself again.
Dr. Willow:Mmm, after she's been taking some bioidenticals for a while. Okay.
Leah:Yeah, what do you mean by the third or fifth month? What does that mean? She hasn't had a period in three months or?
Dr. Willow:Of seeing them. Of seeing him.
Leah:okay.
Dr. Rosensweet:yeah, because, you know, by the time a woman seeks hormone replenishment, she's 10, 20, 30 years into hormone decline. So we move slowly to help her get back up and overcome the multiple internal adjustments. So it takes about three to four months. to really dial it into
Leah:so once she's already on a
Dr. Rosensweet:And we gauge that by a simple statement, I feel great. And it happens almost all the time.
Leah:Now,
Dr. Rosensweet:we test 100% of the women with 24 hour urine hormone testing. And it turns out that's very important because a woman can alleviate symptoms but not have sufficient estrogen to protect her bones and her vagina. And if she does not have that, she does not have sufficient to protect her brain.
Leah:Okay.
Dr. Rosensweet:So, and, or she can be on too much. She can have so much estrogen that she's overstimulating breast glandular tissue. So we, we like the, uh, not too little and not too much, so we eventually confirm that with testing 100% of the women.
Leah:And so, you understand that not too little, not too much is based on how she's feeling.
Dr. Rosensweet:No.
Leah:Oh, okay. That's based on that big test you were just referring
Dr. Rosensweet:it's guideline, the, the, how she's feeling tells me she's really oscillated back towards a good zone for herself. But we did a study. Only 25% of women are actually in the optimal zone. They can, a woman can say, I feel a lot better. But she can still have insufficient estrogen that ultimately is going to lead to bone loss and vaginal atrophy. It's that big a deal.
Leah:So, at what point are you starting a protocol of bioidentical hormones in the beginning? Like, for me, I'm 44. When do I start? I mean, obviously if I'm, if I knew in my late thirties, mid thirties, I would have called you and said, give me a plan. But now I'm 44. I didn't do that. And I called my doctor last year and I said, look, I want to know what my baseline is. Can we test my hormones? I'm worried about, you know, my menopausal experience. And she goes, it makes no sense to do that. That's not going to do anything because your hormones are changing hour to hour, day to day. We can't get an honest result for you doing that. Which left me feeling really impotent. Then it's like, okay, well then what do I do? But what do I do now? Is it impossible to know what my baseline is at this age? How do I know if I want bioidentical hormones, what the best, where do we start with, uh, I'm guessing the amount of hormones you use. So help me, help me.
Dr. Rosensweet:I love this perspective. And one thing you could do, and you all could offer this on your website if you want, is a free copy of my book, Happy Healthy Hormones.
Leah:Great. We will, we will put that
Dr. Rosensweet:Yeah, and, and that came about because when I started out there was so little known. This has been a very neglected field. Every field of medicine has got,
Leah:Men, you get all those, all that funding for your penises. We want funding for ours. That's just my my
Dr. Rosensweet:well, yes,
Leah:my broadcast out to whoever makes those things happen. So back to what you were
Dr. Rosensweet:and, uh, so one of the things that I, I knew a certain amount, but I, I, I figured I'm gonna have to figure this out woman by woman. And so I would help a woman understand a certain amount of it, give her the hormones, start low, Gradually increase, and I was so correct, and one of the things I learned was about the,
Leah:Well, at what point do you give her the
Dr. Rosensweet:when she shows up in my office,
Dr. Willow:Right
Leah:you would give me hormones today.
Dr. Rosensweet:well I would, I, the very first thing I would do,
Dr. Willow:you take out the questionnaire.
Dr. Rosensweet:exactly, I want details, but at 44, there may or may not be details, but it sounds like there is.
Leah:There's some brain fog happening.
Dr. Rosensweet:you go.
Leah:And there's really mostly just fear. Like, am I going to be one of the wackadoos that just is like a hot mess? I don't want to be that. I don't want to piss off everyone because I'm so damn moody.
Dr. Willow:Liver cleanse, honey. do a liver cleanse.
Leah:definitely do a liver cleanse. But
Dr. Willow:I've been trying to get Leah to do a liver cleanse since I've known her.
Leah:I, you know, you hear horror stories. She has. I did a lot of
Dr. Willow:It's not that
Leah:in my 30s. I
Dr. Rosensweet:So one good thing is it's a wonderful time to learn some things
Leah:I'll stop being a
Dr. Rosensweet:baby. Because part of what's disconcerting is something's going on or you're concerned something's going on and you don't know what it is. And so I wrote that book so women would know. This is what's going on. This is what's going on. And then,
Dr. Willow:Yeah, I'm
Dr. Rosensweet:I want to assure you that you're starting at a perfect age. You know, I meet up with women who are 20 years into menopause, never had hormones. The losses are enormous. Muscle, muscle loss.
Dr. Willow:bone loss and brain loss. and muscle loss. That's why weight lifting is so important around age, in your early 40s.
Dr. Rosensweet:what gets women and men into assisted living facilities? Loss of muscle and loss of bone and loss of cognition. 80 90% of folks, as a physician, I see people of all ages. So you'll wish that you could start with someone in their 40s. 50s is great. 60s is pretty good. So, just know, Leah, you're gonna do fine. And the first thing to do, and here's your main job, and I don't know what state you're in, but you go shopping for someone who loves this field and knows what they're doing and has taken, because when people don't, when providers are like all of us, you know, they don't necessarily know what they don't know. So what was told to you about testing was incorrect. What was incorrect was you were starting to be concerned, so what do you do as a health care provider? You listen. And you pay attention. And what we would learn about you is there's probably reason for concern, but so much is revealed just by asking you a lot of questions. And what would I learn?
Leah:Mm
Dr. Rosensweet:I would learn that you were hormonal deficient because you weren't at the level you were at 20. And so, how early do we start them? Well, it's a woman by woman decision. But I want to go back to your main job and the job of every woman. It's to follow that interest of yours and go shopping and find someone in your state who has a special interest in treating women in menopause with hormones. With compounded bioidentical hormones.'cause they're gonna be the, they're gonna be the smartest. And you wanna find someone you really like and you really trust. Who knows a lot. That's your job.
Leah:Okay, so interview and do your due diligence when looking for, uh,
Dr. Rosensweet:And if you, there's different ways to do that. There's two main ways to do it. You can contact us.'cause we've, I've, I spend most of my time training folks. So what state are you
Leah:California.
Dr. Rosensweet:Oh yeah. Well we got California providers, naturopaths. Medical doctors that are excellent, they're in our training program. And that's your job, is to find one that you're specially compatible with. And go on the journey with them. And they know how to go on the journey. And you check it out. See if it feels right to you. See if they feel right to
Leah:How much should I bring to the forefront my family members who've been through menopause and their experience. Is there any reason to believe that their experience might be similar? Something that I might expect? For instance, my mom went into menopause a little bit younger than the average woman. She had a pretty easygoing menopause. My aunt had a, really, just struggled. It was, she just was in hell forever, it seemed like. So, is there any reason to think that, um, the women in your family may hold a clue to your experience?
Dr. Rosensweet:I, I wanna, I wanna help you keep your eye on the prize.
Leah:Mm hmm.
Dr. Rosensweet:You got one job.
Leah:Redirect.
Dr. Rosensweet:Read, read my book because you'll learn a lot. And you'll decide whether you like it or not. Whether it's your cup of tea or not.
Leah:hmm.
Dr. Rosensweet:But the second thing is to find that provider because you're going to need a partnership. For one thing, you're going to need someone to prescribe the hormones. And we're talking about a physician or a nurse practitioner. So you want to find that person. It doesn't matter so much what went on in your family because every woman and every man goes through it. There's no exceptions.
Leah:Now my understanding too is that it's really important if you're going to go the bioidentical route that you start taking hormones in perimenopause versus waiting until menopause, that if you wait until after, in menopause, it's kind of like you're missing the boat a little bit and there's a lot of catch up to do. Is that true?
Dr. Rosensweet:It's ideal, we say, whenever a woman comes around to it. I've had success with two women, one of them was my mother, the other was my mother in law, who started taking hormones in their late 80s. Never had hormones. My mother in law, when she got out of rehab because she was using a walker because she lost most of her muscle, and fell and fractured her hip and her, her, her humerus and her pelvis.
Leah:mm.
Dr. Rosensweet:She hadn't, and we gave her testosterone and within three months, we have a video of her sitting on a low couch, arms upstretched, standing up without the use of her hands.
Leah:Wow.
Dr. Rosensweet:And so this was after three months, so it's never too late. But it's ideal to start early. It's like anything else in medicine, or life. You know, you start early, you're better off.
Leah:Alright, that's encouraging.
Dr. Willow:Yeah, it's so it's so interesting from from my training and from where where I've come from, which has, like I said, been the most holistic side of things, right? So I've learned, like hormones are little messengers, they run through your bloodstream, they're going to run up to the pituitary and hypothalamus, those master glands in the brain, and they're gonna say to the brain, hey, I've already got enough hormone, we've already got enough estrogen or we've got enough progesterone because it's coming in exogenously. It's coming in through the skin or through pellets or however it's coming in, and so then those master glands in the brain will tell the downstream glands like, hey, we don't need to produce that as much, we don't need to produce as much estrogen or progesterone, so ovaries you can take a nap. Like, let's say at the age that I'm at, 43, I'm still having regular periods. Sure, my, my, um, hormones have declined. But, so I have been trained, and what I, what I also give my patients to use is to really look at their, their diet, their lifestyle, their sexual practices. Um, and to, to start by really cleaning the blood, like clean the liver, that's my kind of first step, right? And then getting those glands activated by taking protomorphogens or glandulars to get those glands turned on so that they're doing the work for as long as possible, which is very much the opposite of what you're saying.
Leah:And what are those, Willow? What's glandulars, and what was the other thing you said?
Dr. Willow:So protomorphogens and glandulars, it's like we don't, in our culture, we don't eat a lot of liver, we don't eat a lot of heart, we don't eat a lot of pituitary glands. You know, we don't eat those things anymore. So, um, these are supplements that you can take that are basically like eating those glands that feed and nourish those glands. And I have seen miracles happen. I have seen women get pregnant who medical doctors told them, absolutely no way will you get pregnant naturally. And they have through, through diet and through these protomorphogens and glandulars and, and also meditation and all the pieces that, that you're on board with, Dr. Rosensweet. Now, what's interesting for me at this age and this time in my life is I definitely know my progesterone levels are declining and I'm seeing the symptoms of it. And, um,
Leah:What are the symptoms?
Dr. Willow:Oh, I'm, I'm getting like, kind of warm at night, um, you know, my
Leah:Okay. The usual.
Dr. Willow:libido's fine, but you know, there's a couple little things, I can tell. And I also know when I take a lot of chastree, which is an herb that helps your natural progesterone in your body to, to produce more, when I take a lot of it, I don't see those symptoms as much. So, in my mind, and in my education there's this, um, there's this idea that I should continue to take, um, as long as possible the herbs and the food and the nutrition. Only as of late have I even entertained the idea of, of doing progesterone exogenously, so that's, it's very timely that we're having this conversation, so I'd love to just hear your take on all of
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, there's a fundamental concept that you brought up there, and it's best illustrated, um, with the thyroid gland. For example, hypothyroidism, a thyroid gland not putting out optimal levels of thyroid hormone, is epidemic in the United States, and there's a lot of reasons for it all over the world. And if, a provider then treats someone with hypothyroidism, With the right amount of thyroid, that's one thing. But if they use a little bit too much the mechanism you described comes into play. Their brain realizes, Whoa, too much thyroid around here. What can I do? I can have them throw up the pill so they're not taking it. No, that doesn't work. Or I can shut down the thyroid gland. But it's all that's pilot error. Anyone who's really highly skilled with thyroid would never do that. Would never shut down that thyroid gland. They would take the thyroid glands capable of putting out a certain amount and in this case, not enough. So you replenish to augment that. But you don't give someone too much or exactly what you described will happen. It's different with the ovaries. They're going to go on out.
Dr. Willow:Okay.
Dr. Rosensweet:and how do we,
Dr. Willow:Yeah, they're going out whether you
Dr. Rosensweet:yeah, they, they just do. And our, our approach to things isn't, okay they're going out a little bit. Well, let's just take them over and just flood the system and shut down the pituitary drive of the ovary. No way. The, the art and it's not hard by the way, it's not hard at all to make up that deficit. To where you can sleep, to where you're not waking up with feeling warm and having a racing mind. And that's actually an estrogen deficiency. Now, if you have an estrogen deficiency, you can be certain you've got a progesterone deficiency, so you're spot on with that. So, you're talking about a very important concept. We're not there to overwhelm the gland. In fact, let's say, in general, that This is the range for healthy young menstruating women. It's a range. Some women, they just need a certain amount of estrogen. It's pretty low. They regularly menstruate. They're fertile. They can have babies, carry pregnancies to term. Whereas other women need a lot more estrogen. They need three times that amount, actually. And that's the, that's how individual women are.
Leah:What about the testosterone levels in a woman during this time?
Dr. Rosensweet:They're extremely important. They decline as well. Testosterone is imperative to retain muscle mass.
Leah:Okay.
Dr. Rosensweet:Who would, who would ever want to not celebrate exercise to the highest order? And you, you, you gotta, you know, it's, you don't use it, you lose it. And you lose it. You're gonna lose it. But, but what happens to old people, and a gerontologist taught us this in medical school, he said, um, you know, you medical students, you know a thousand diagnoses. Let me tell you what's happening to old people. They lose their muscle. They can't stand and walk with stability. They fall on their osteoporotic hips, and they die. You want to do something for them? Help them with their muscle. And like I was saying earlier,
Leah:ding.
Dr. Rosensweet:because I've seen people at all ages, And I've, you know, I, I spent time with my mother for eight years as she went from assisted living to a nursing home. The majority of the folks who are in there are from, they're for sarcopenia and cognitive decline. And in order, so we always feel like the greatest service that we do for women is replenish that testosterone because you have twice as much testosterone as a young woman as you have estradiol, the most potent of the estrogens. It is not a male hormone. It is a human hormone, and it's inherited of women, and it always declines. Now, there's some rare instances where, as the estrogens decline in the perimenopause, the testosterone, some of it coming from the adrenal increases to compensate. Because testosterone is converted into estradiol. That's where a woman gets her estradiol. But it doesn't last. And though I used to see it occasionally 30 years ago, I am very, very rarely seeing a woman in the perimenopause who's got adequate testosterone these days. It really speaks to a demographic shift here in health. And how do I know? If a woman's getting FLAB here, or her libido, or decision making, Um, certainty is down, or she can't squat, like I always say to a, you know, a patient, stand up for me without using your hands. And, you know, you will see so much sarcopenia in the perimenopause. So, combination, combination is imperative. Testosterone plus exercise, it's imperative.
Leah:Okay. I've got a question, but I want to pause before I just start raining more questions on you. If there's willow, if there's anything you want to jump in there with.
Dr. Willow:No, I'm just, um, yeah, go ahead.
Leah:Okay. Alright, so. Let's talk about the, all the sexual consequences of this and how, so, okay, I'm going to start with one story. Which is, I've got a friend who is, I know, I, I probably went through menopause maybe, six years ago or more. And she's took a time away from being very sexual but she's back to being sexual again. And it seems like for the last couple of years at least, she can't have sex without getting a terrible UTI. When there's a condom involved. And it hurts, right? So this is a common complaint. Especially the tissues being thin. There can be bleeding. It can just be painful. It's not very orgasmic. Penetration is very difficult. And this chronic UTI, even though she does all the preventative stuff up front, uh, Willow, you've mentioned a few things that women can do to help prevent UTIs. She's on all of that protocol. And it is still, she's not having any luck. She's even started to do the bioidentical hormones. I think they're still trying to get that figured out. But they're, I mean, just the other night she was in tears going, is it, do I just give up? I'm starting to lose hope that I'm going to be able to have penetrative sex again in my future. Like am I done with that part of my life? You know, I'm never going to have a hard one up the middle. If I said, I don't think so. So I'm really glad that you're on today. What's been your experience with women who really felt like, Man, my, my yoni is shutting down. It's shrinking. And especially the UTI
Dr. Rosensweet:Good news.
Leah:Alright.
Dr. Rosensweet:It's healable at the 100% level. Because the cause is extremely well understood. Estrogen is, it's a powerful hormone and it does so many things. And as a woman's hormones decline and her estrogen declines, this is going on simultaneously with the vagina. She's losing vaginal health. And when you look under a microscope, you see a condition called vaginal atrophy, which used to be thick and moist. It gets thin and the cell's nature changes. It's a hundred percent.
Leah:And is it because it's losing collagen or, I
Dr. Rosensweet:losing its surface, epithelium. it's it needs estrogen to have a healthy vagina. Let me put it that simply. You must have adequate estrogen. So, 100% of the women go into some form of vaginal atrophy. And the ones who are having intercourse are the ones who really know about it. The first thing that happens is they start using lubrication. And they didn't need lubrication when they were in their 20s. That moment of when they started using lubrication, they were already experiencing significant levels of estrogen decline. And the great news is, it's totally healable. Maybe not to restore a youthful nature of the vagina, but totally without pain. Some women continue to need lubrications, others don't.
Leah:Well, lubrication aside...
Dr. Willow:also some great, there's some great suppositories and things on the market now that are non hormonal that can really replenish and rebuild that tissue as Well, as what you're
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, I'm going to disagree.
Dr. Willow:yeah, go for it.
Dr. Rosensweet:I'm going to offer a different opinion. I say without the estrogen, I'd like to know what those are and how much experience you've had in those.
Dr. Willow:Yeah, and I'm not saying necessarily without the estrogen, but the suppositories themselves are without the estrogen, which is not to say that women aren't additionally taking estrogen. Although I was speaking to a woman the other day who has a company, we're going to be interviewing her, and I didn't get the intel on whether or not, you know, they were additionally using estrogen either through a cream or through pellet or something like that, but the suppository itself was, to, was really supportive of replenishing those tissues. So
Leah:Do you know what's in this repository?
Dr. Willow:I can, um, I'll look it up for you. We're going to have a whole interview with
Dr. Rosensweet:But I want to give you a... I want to give you a view.
Dr. Willow:Okay. Let's hear it
Leah:us.
Dr. Rosensweet:That vaginal atrophy is from low estrogen.
Dr. Willow:Yeah. Oh, I agree with you that that's what's happening.
Dr. Rosensweet:And you can do all kinds of work around... You're going to use all kinds of work around, but what the body wants is the estrogen and the estrogen works. And she's starting with bio identical hormones to the degree of vaginal atrophy that she has. I think in terms of three to nine months recovery of that vagina. When she's applying the estrogen to her skin, which I'm hoping she's doing. Now, what we do in instances like your friend is that we will also, uh, suggest that a woman takes some of the estrogen intravaginally. For example, what we did many, many years ago is we invented and patented, uh, certified organic oil
Leah:Massage oil?
Dr. Rosensweet:The estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone.
Leah:internally?
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, it's jojoba. It's pure jojoba. And we've got, we have three patents on it, so you can't put hormones in it without violating the patent. But what we suggest with these topicals is that a woman bring her general body levels up. And twice a day we have her take estrogen. We put a couple drops on the forearm and you rub the forearm together. But a woman who's having the situation that your friend is will say, yeah, take an extra drop or two at night.
Leah:Uh huh. Put it on the vulva?
Dr. Rosensweet:Put it on your finger, insert it in your vagina, rub it around your vulva and do that. She won't have to do that local application for more, at most, three months.
Dr. Willow:And then it will come back and she won't have to keep going with it. Maybe, maybe like several years later. But if the estrogen internally is doing the work, then she shouldn't have to.
Dr. Rosensweet:It will. The estrogen internally will, as you say, that will take over. Now, you continue to take the
Dr. Willow:estrogen. That's like a little jumper cable trick. Right. Yeah. Yeah. yeah.
Dr. Rosensweet:That's right. Exactly.
Dr. Willow:Mm
Dr. Rosensweet:Exactly.
Leah:yeah. So like, yeah, the topical oil is just a, it's a starter. It's a jump starter.
Dr. Rosensweet:Exactly.
Leah:Okay. Interesting. Interesting. And so what about the UTI connection? Is there a correlation
Dr. Rosensweet:connected. It's 100% connected.
Leah:there something going on with the urethra? Is it thinning? Is it
Dr. Rosensweet:we'll see the, yes, exactly. That's precisely what's going on. The urethra, which is a tube, just for your audience, that drains the urine from the bladder out. But the urethra ends in the vagina. And the place where the urethra joins the vagina is called the urethral meatus.
Leah:Mm hmm.
Dr. Rosensweet:It's the opening, and that's part of the vagina. So recurrent UTIs are almost 100% a function of the vaginal atrophy that's also occurring to the urethral meatus, and it gets very tender and very easily injured by penetration.
Leah:get UTI and you feel sick and it's just the pits.
Dr. Rosensweet:But it will stop in almost every, you never say always in medicine, you never say, Oh, 100% of the time, you never say that. But in 98% of the women, all they have to do is, is restore the health of the vagina and the urethral meatus will be part of that restoration. Now, women who've had a lot of Uh, kids and large headed kids often, they can do some stretching in there that also can contribute to loss of urine, urinary incontinence, but what you're describing is vaginal atrophy affecting the urethral meatus, which is part of the vagina.
Leah:you think that the use of condoms is creating an added complication or a reason for the UTIs to be that much more problematic? Or is that not a coincidence? Or is it just a coincidence?
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to hold my breath here because I'm such a fan of condoms.
Dr. Willow:I would say it's contributing. Yeah.
Dr. Rosensweet:Going to say it.
Leah:Tell the truth, even though we are also a fan of condoms.
Dr. Rosensweet:Yeah, but with, you know, lubrication and my favorite is coconut, organic coconut oil or our organic johobo oil. That's what we use with adequate lubrication and don't, don't hesitate to slather it on. Mm hmm. And if the condom is
Leah:she's a sex educator, so she's, um, very pro lubricant. Um, and
Dr. Rosensweet:Yeah, good. Now, some of these lubricants are irritating,
Dr. Willow:lubricants on the condoms can be irritating, too. So, I mean, it also depends on what kind of condoms. You know, the sheepskin, the skin, the S K Y N might be better for her. But, yeah, ideally she would be with a partner she didn't have to use them with.
Leah:Yes, she would, yeah. thank you for, for
Dr. Willow:Yeah, so I feel like we could talk to Dr. Rosensweet for probably like 25 more episodes because there's
Leah:Yeah.
Dr. Willow:to cover here.
Leah:There is. So, so as we sort of wrap up, I've got one question that we probably should have asked in the very beginning, which is, what are bioidentical hormones? Because some people may not even know what that means as compared to
Dr. Rosensweet:Yeah,
Leah:or replenishment.
Dr. Rosensweet:Replenishing hormones has been known to be going on for about a thousand years. Yeah, the Chinese aristocrats set up these outhouses to collect urine of young women. And they also set up,
Dr. Willow:And then they drank it.
Dr. Rosensweet:no, not exactly, That was somebody, that was a different
Leah:ha.
Dr. Willow:Chinese culture.
Dr. Rosensweet:And they collected in a separate outhouse the urine of young men. And they dried it out and the aristocrats took it. And that's why the 24 hour urine hormone test works, because there's hormones in the urine. And so that was the original. And then in the 40s, the pharmaceutical industry had the idea that women could use estrogen, so they chose the horse, the pregnant mare. They catheterized pregnant mares, collected the urine, dried it out, and came out with the most popular and profitable drug in the history of, uh, up till that time. Premarin, pregnant mare urine. So they're taking that. Now, that's bioidentical for the horse. Same estrogens as the horse but 50% of them the human female has never seen. In the process of doing the birth control pill actually, that the plant world had a precursor. Yams have it. Soy has it.
Leah:Was going to ask you about the
Dr. Rosensweet:yam... Soy has it. That's called diastionin. And if you take that diastionin and you carefully process it, you can turn diastionin right out of the plants. In fact, the pharmaceutical industry owns soy fields. Because they're getting their own. And you can process it and make pure estradiol, same molecule that used to come out of your ovary. Or is coming, excuse me, not used to, still coming out of your ovary. Pure testosterone, pure DHEA, pure estriol, pure progesterone, same molecule. So there's many, many ways that hormones have been replenished, but bioidentical means you, you're using the same molecule that came out of your ovary. And it's derived from plants.
Leah:Okay.
Dr. Willow:I'm curious, okay, one more final question before we wrap up. It's a little different. I know, God, it's always hard to wrap these things up. Um,
Leah:I know.
Dr. Willow:so this 24 hour urine test, what you're getting with that, let's say, me, for example, still having regular cycle, yes, it's not, you know, it's not the hormone level it used to be, but it's still doing the up and down, and when I do a saliva panel where I'm you know, spitting into a tube every two or three days and then sending that in. I'm, I'm looking at what's going on with the levels and the hormone throughout the entire month versus the 24 hour snapshot of the urine. So I want to understand a little bit more why that works so well.
Dr. Rosensweet:Well, so, none of these methods are perfect. And, just like in the medicine that you're practicing, there's a multitude of factors that we address to understand what's going on and to get ideas about what to do. But testing is an important part of it. The testing that was considered the gold standard in the 1960s, when some of the original work was done, was the 24 hour urine hormone test by G. C. Mass Spec, it's called. And, because all of the hormones and what happens to the hormones when they get processed, show up in the urine. Saliva can be decent to measure hormone levels of cortisol and DHEA. in someone you are not treating with cortisol and DHEA. But once you go to treat a woman or a man, to me, I'm going to give you my best shot. Saliva absolutely does not work. Now, it's not just an opinion. Our group ran tests. We had individual women and individual men send in split specimens on the same day. Send in a salivary hormone, 24 hour urine hormone to two different laboratories, blood test, and a five point urine collection, and compare the results. And the salivas were just, they don't work. I'm going to give you my best shot. People might want to disagree with me, but I'm going to give you my best shot. And I found it out in the trenches. I was treating these women and I started out with salivary tests and the results I was getting didn't make any sense whatsoever.
Dr. Willow:Now, were these women already on hormone replacement therapy? Okay, so what you're saying is they really need to be clean and not on anything in order to get a good read with the salivary test.
Dr. Rosensweet:But, like I said, in the situation that you're in, I would not recommend testing you at all. That doesn't mean we couldn't learn a lot about you And if you choose to read my book, you will learn a lot about you. You will see, in living technicolor. Because the homos are so powerful, the lack of them has these effects
Dr. Willow:Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rosensweet:all women. Yeah,
Dr. Willow:fascinating, I know.
Leah:What an exciting industry. And thank you so much for, um, doing the work that you do. We will have, Dr. Rosensweet's, links for his website. Now you can go to his website and you will see his book and there's a link to go to Amazon to go purchase it. But doggone it He's giving us the book for free. So click on the link in the show notes.
Dr. Rosensweet:a PDF copy of it
Leah:And if you want the hard copy, you can still get it on Amazon. But we are e readers, yes.
Dr. Willow:Perfect. Easy peasy. Print it out, grab a highlighter, get a pen, get old school, study this stuff. You know, I just want to say in closing, like I just, I really appreciate, um, getting to know you and your method and your understanding and your education. And it's very intriguing to me, you know, from, from the education and training that I've had to just kind of dive into your pool of training and education. And, you know, I'm, I'm now my, my curiosity is peaked. I mean, I love to understand all aspects and sides of, of endocrinology. So, um, I'm excited to read your book and also potentially come a little bit, learn a little bit more with you as the years go by. Yeah.
Dr. Rosensweet:All right. And we do have professional training programs. it's also a special gift for me. For number one, to hang out with the two of you. You're not doing this by accident. And there's a richness to who you are. And I can imagine the benefit to who you influence. So I experienced that. So it's very mutual. I'd like you to know that.
Dr. Willow:Thank you so much. Such a pleasure to sit with you today.
Leah:It's Such a pleasure And of course I got one more, which is... Do you have a prerequisite for your professional courses for people who are taking kind of the professional track?
Dr. Rosensweet:no,
Leah:Well, there you go out there.
Dr. Willow:Oh, that's great.
Leah:Yeah.
Dr. Rosensweet:but I'd be honored if you, if you all wanna have more questions at another time, just let Corina know.
Dr. Willow:Okay.
Dr. Rosensweet:I'd be
Leah:do.
Dr. Rosensweet:back. Act,
Dr. Willow:Yeah.
Leah:Alright, y'all
Dr. Willow:everyone. Much love. Thank you, Dr.
Leah:love, love, love. love,
SxR Announcer:Now, our favorite part, the dish.
Leah:Okay. It's dish time.
Dr. Willow:All right. Let's dish on Dr. Rosensweet. You know, it was so interesting as we were coming into this interview. I was just checking his workout and looking at his bio and I was like, Oh, God, here we go. It's like, I'm going to be having the exact opposite opinion of him in almost all regards. But I was so happily surprised when we got off on such a good foot of like the holisticness that he brings to this. Like, okay, I still may only have, you know, may have the training that I have of like, I have a very, very special functional medicine teacher who explains things in a very, very specific way. And it's a little bit hard to reiterate, but when she explains the function of the body, it makes so much sense and it does go um, in some controversial aspects to what a lot of medical doctors see. Um, that said, you know, he's been in practice, he's been running labs, he's been doing these tests. And so has my, you know, teacher. But, um, it's not to negate anything. You know, I think all of it is valuable and I think it's also following your own intuition, you know. Like, but I still have a resistance. Like, I don't want to start putting stuff in my body. I don't want to get Botox. You know, I don't want to, I don't want to enhance myself. I want to stay as natural as possible, as long as possible. As long
Leah:why is that important to you? I'm curious. Like, why is that a strong value for you?
Dr. Willow:I think, well, partially I think because of my training, you know, being in the, in the Eastern medical field. And then I've always just thought that we have all the medicine we need inside of us. You know, I think cultivating orgasmic energy, I mean, that's something he just doesn't know about. Okay, maybe he does inside of his own, you know, sexual practices in his own life. But you and I have been studying what it means to draw orgasmic energy up into your pituitary and your hypothalamus and your pineal gland. And we know the value of that because we've been doing it for ourselves for so long. So, you know, there's, um, I don't know.
Leah:There's a dedication and there's a discipline of utilizing the cultivation of these natural things with which you can dedicate yourself to youth and regeneration as you get older. So you're not aging as fast as your contemporaries because you're being mindful, present, and you've done your due diligence to know, what are the things that are going to increase the aging process? And what are the things that are going to decrease the aging process, which is why the, the youth and regeneration industry is, you know, billions of dollars. And, and people pursue it because we want to be young and healthy and we want to feel vital. Um, and you know, for someone like me who likes shortcuts, discipline, discipline is just not in my makeup.
Dr. Willow:And I think that's such a big part of it too. It's like, it depends on who you are. And, and I would say, you know, the example that he gave was like this high powered woman who, uh, No, she, she retired at 43,
Leah:right.
Dr. Willow:42. Right. I'm like, okay, she's coming in to perimenopause with burnt out adrenals, like so many women across the globe, right? Because we don't value the yin. We don't value doing nothing. We don't value just being. It's not something that our culture ingrains in us. It's all about what did you get done? What did you produce and how much did you, you know,
Leah:yeah, create and yeah, output.
Dr. Willow:Exactly. So there's, I think culturally we're really heading into this metamorphic time and our lives as women with a lot against us. It's like we're pushing a boulder up a hill already. And so that's why going to, um, shortcut, quick fixes and, you know, like bioidenticals and, and other things. And also saying that I want to also say, I, of course, bone density and muscle tone. And absolutely that is the function of estrogen in your body. And so when it declines, you know, if you've got incredible adrenals, I see people, cause I do see people sail through it. I do know other Chinese medicine practitioners who eat really healthy and do eat liver and do eat those things, you know? And so they do sail
Leah:Yeah, that
Dr. Willow:that time with no wrinkles, you know? So I do know that it's possible to do it as, um, absolutely holistically as. As possible, not adding things to your body, and we also live in a world where if you're a mom, and you've got a job, and you've got a husband, and you've got bills, and you've got all that stuff over you that you've got to take care of, you know, you might, you might just want to take some, take some
Leah:Well, and it may not all be stress related, right? I mean, it could be genetic related that you, you know, that I don't know. I do know that When he was talking about like, okay, needing lubricant in your 20s, because this is, this is kind of a thing that comes up on occasion. Women feel bad if they think they need lubricant. And I've always thought that was just ridiculous. Like, I used more, I used lube in my 20s
Dr. Willow:Oh, yeah.
Leah:about it. I didn't realize that there might be a connection to estrogen levels declining as a result. And then I thought, well, I was also ejaculating quite a bit in my twenties, and that is very astringent and washes away a lot of the mucosity of natural lubrication. So I don't know which came first, my progesterone going down or
Dr. Willow:You're Amrita?
Leah:My amrita stripping my natural, um, mucosity. Isn't that a great word? Mu
Dr. Willow:Mucosity.
Leah:ty. Um,
Dr. Willow:say it, honey.
Leah:I thought, I thought his sort of take on the adrenals was interesting. That, um, he didn't agree that the adrenals are that significant to the production of estrogen.
Dr. Willow:They definitely produce a lot less the ovaries are going to be the opera singer at the front of the stage, and once they take their final bow, you're going to have, like, you know, a pretty good singer come on stage.
Leah:Now, I do know someone who sailed through menopause, didn't really feel like she had any symptoms, but she was also on sports, uh, testosterone.
Dr. Willow:Okay, so she was on exogenous hormones. If she was on exogenous, any
Leah:All bets are off, there's no, no comparison.
Dr. Willow:So that's not fully
Leah:I also thought bioidentical hormones were your own hormones that they like take out of your body and then they do something to it and then they give it back.
Dr. Willow:No,
Leah:been totally wrong about
Dr. Willow:Yeah. And, and what I've learned about bioidentical hormones, like what he was saying, it comes from wild yam. Right. And so it's got this already thing inside of it. That's, that's synonymous to the, the chemicals that come out of your body. Um, but my, my education, my teacher taught me, you know, you have to change the molecule of a bioidentical 18 times. It has the structure has to change 18 times in order for it to be bio identical to your body. And I do love my teacher, you know, but I, I'm, I'm influenceable. And I'm like, I'm curious about Dr. Rosensweet's and methods and stuff. And especially as I'm heading toward perimenopause, there's all kinds of things that I know to do that I do do like weightlifting, super important. Yes. As you're heading in and not eating a bunch of sugar and keeping your caffeine levels down. And, you know, keeping your, all the pizzas, right. And,
Leah:Sunblock. Sunblock help?
Dr. Willow:Actually, I'm more of the, the non-sunblock, you know, that's just me. So, but I, I also don't want to, um, miss the boat on keeping myself healthy because of one education, you know, one form of education. So that's why I'm excited to really look into his stuff and maybe I'll even do his training.
Leah:Well, that's great. You know, I kind of because I had a roommate who was a compound pharmacist. So, um, she was, she makes different all sorts of stuff and was telling me like when bioidentical hormones, it seemed like it got, they got really popular. Um, and the use of them, maybe the technology, you know, improved or something. So I kind of always set myself up in my mind. I had a story going, um, Well, that's what I'll do. And then being in these groups, right? Where women come in, we're at, they're at my Tantra seminar and they're telling their stories, they're sharing their stories of woe. And one of the stories of woe is always a woman who's struggling with her vaginal tissue, her comfort, how painful sex is, things atrophying. And it seemed like the ongoing answer in the class would, someone would always say bioidentical
Dr. Willow:on bioidenticals. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it it is a it is a very magical fix.
Leah:Yeah, he did make it sound very magical, didn't it?
Dr. Willow:Yeah, it is and it I mean when women start taking testosterone when they're like god I haven't wanted to have sex in five years and they start taking a little testosterone. They're like a whoo hoo, honey Let's go, you know. It's it's a pretty big game changer because hormones are powerful powerful drugs
Leah:yeah, they're like altered. Yeah, they
Dr. Willow:are. They alter. I mean, think about if you're high on dopamine or you're high on oxytocin, like you're in an altered state. And so, you know, when, when we're, when we're in our fertility years and we've got these higher levels of estrogen, progesterone, we're high on them all the time where sometimes we're high.
Leah:we don't have
Dr. Willow:low. Yeah. But then, then they go away. And we're like, Oh, you know, it's kind of like the lights go out. So it can, and it can be very confusing. And, and like you said, there can be so much self criticism and blame, like that, I'm not this enough or that enough. So it's, um, I'm excited to read his book and I would love to just fill out his questionnaire too. Just
Leah:Just to see what, what's on there. Yeah, I, I had that thought too. Okay, my last thing I want to get clarification from you is I couldn't quite, I didn't feel like I was getting a clear answer. So maybe you picked up something I didn't, but it was like, Okay i, now that he said all the things I, I can say with pretty good confidence. Yeah, I can feel my levels now going down. I can see some of the symptoms. Um, so when do I start taking the medicine? I mean, obviously you have to see a doctor
Dr. Willow:Right, right
Leah:I thought it was, you got to wait until you stop having periods or, or
Dr. Willow:Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. Yeah.
Leah:can do them now.
Dr. Willow:you could do them now. Aren't you still taking birth control?
Leah:Yes.
Dr. Willow:Okay, so you're still on exogenous hormones, so that's, you know, so if you wanted to start taking bioidenticals, which are still exogenous hormones, you would want to, um, in my opinion, you would want to get off the birth control first. Because you're already adding estrogen to your body, so you'd want to, you'd want to get off of that, then you'd do a liver cleanse to clean the slate. And then you would, um, and then you could add some bioidenticals. Or, probably, in his opinion, you would just, um, switch over.
Leah:Okay. So if you would, if you like this episode, would you please let us know? I'm, I'm in talks with another gynecologist who's specializing in, um, endocrinology. Yes. And, uh, it would be interesting to have another perspective. So if this is fascinating to
Dr. Willow:We should really have my teacher on, too.
Leah:Yes, a thousand
Dr. Willow:have my teacher
Leah:Yeah, because that's probably even what people don't know even more.
Dr. Willow:That's definitely, yeah.
Leah:All right, y'all. Have a beautiful day.
Dr. Willow:Ciao, ciao.
SxR Announcer:Thanks for tuning in. Leah Piper is a tantric sex master coach and a positive psychology facilitator. Dr. Willow Brown is both a Chinese and functional medicine doctor and a Taoist sexology teacher. Don't forget, your comments, likes, subscribes, and suggestions matter. Let's realize this new world together.