Life is Delicious- Mindset Mastery, Midlife Empowerment, Joy, Purpose, Vitality, Inspiration, Women's Health

19: Mastering Menopause: Reclaiming Your Radiance with Dr. Prudence Hall

• Marnie Martin- Midlife Mentor, Empowerment Coach, Happiness Expert, Best Selling Author • Season 1 • Episode 19

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Feeling exhausted, foggy-headed, and wondering where your vitality went? You're not alone, and there's a better answer than "just getting older."

Meet Dr. Prudence Hall, a pioneering gynecologist who transformed her practice when she realized traditional medicine wasn't adequately addressing women's menopausal symptoms. With over four decades of experience helping women reclaim their radiance, Dr. Hall shares her revolutionary approach to hormone health in this enlightening conversation.

Radiance—that special glow emanating from self-confidence, joy, and authentic living—isn't reserved for the young. It's your birthright at every age, especially during midlife when wisdom and experience should be enhancing your life, not diminishing it. Dr. Hall explains how proper hormone balancing addresses the root causes of common complaints like fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, and those notorious hot flashes.

You'll discover why modern women are experiencing menopause earlier than previous generations, how five different hormone systems must work in harmony for optimal health, and why conventional medicine often misses crucial opportunities for treatment. Dr. Hall demystifies bioidentical hormones, explains the essential (and overlooked) role of testosterone for women, and shares practical sleep strategies that support hormone balance.

Most importantly, you'll learn how to reframe menopause not as a crisis of decline but as a potential renaissance—a time to reconnect with your authentic self and step into a vibrant new chapter. Women who optimize their hormones don't just survive midlife; they thrive, often accomplishing extraordinary things once their energy and clarity return.

Ready to stop accepting fatigue and discomfort as "normal aging"? Download Dr. Hall's free book "Radiant Again and Forever" at drprudencehall.com and begin your journey back to vitality. Your radiance is waiting to be reclaimed.

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Speaker 1:

As we all know, life isn't always delicious, and one of the only constants we have in life is that things are always changing. Life can be a beautiful mess of twists and turns and as we grow through each unique season of life, our needs change, our goals change, our priorities change and our responsibilities change. And sometimes, when the really hard stuff shows up, as it inevitably will, we can find ourselves lost and without a clear direction. Sometimes that can happen when we've had a huge life transition, like a divorce or a diagnosis, or we realize that our babies are all grown up and ready to be out on their own. And sometimes it can be a subtle or not so subtle restlessness that tells us we're ready to step into a bigger, bolder, more authentic version of ourself. But one thing is for sure we can't transition into what's next happily until we get really clear about what's weighing us down, what lights us up and what we truly want. When our soul whispers its truth Happy is Not an Accident is a guided journal created to bring you back home to your truest self, to remember who you are and to give you a safe place to explore and reflect on where you've been, where you really want to go and who you want to become now, with deep, inspiring prompts, thought-provoking questions and powerful exercises to help you excavate your most authentic self. Happy Is Not An Accident will be the daily ritual that you look forward to as you step into this next awesome chapter of life. Give yourself the gift of self-reflection and create this beautiful life of yours on purpose and with intention. Get your copy, or one for somebody that you love at lifeisdeliciousca forward slash happy. Hey, beautiful friend, it's Marni, and welcome back to this episode of Life is Delicious. And if this is your first time here, welcome to the Life is Delicious family.

Speaker 1:

Today we are going to be talking about radiance. Radiance is a woman's inner light that shines outward. It's that glow that comes from self-confidence, joy, authenticity and well-being. It's more than just physical beauty. Radiance reflects a vibrant spirit, a kind heart and a presence that uplifts those around her. It's the sparkle in your eyes, the warmth in your smile and the energy that you bring into every room you go into. And radiance has nothing to do with age, appearance or being perfect. It's fueled by self-love, purpose and living a life in alignment with your truth. So today I have a special guest for you. Her name is Dr Prudence Hall. She is the founder of the Hall Center, located in Santa Monica, california. She's been featured on the Oprah Show and Dr Oz. She has so much wisdom to share with us and I'm so grateful to have her here. Welcome to this. Episode of Life is Delicious.

Speaker 1:

Do you ever feel like midlife has you running on an endless hamster wheel of responsibilities while your own dreams just gather dust? Is the crazy chaos of caring for everyone else leaving you exhausted and overwhelmed? And is the hormonal hurricane of menopause threatening to derail your sanity? Are you in desperate need of some self-care, balance and reconnection with your truest self? If so, then I'm so glad you're here.

Speaker 1:

This podcast isn't about surviving midlife. It's about crafting a next chapter overflowing with purpose, joy and delicious possibilities. I'm Marni Martin, a multi-passionate entrepreneur, daughter and a hot midlife mama, literally, and over the last decade I've been through career pivots, a divorce and a survived the empty nest, only to have it fill up again. I spent the next several years traveling miles and miles every month to care for my elderly parents, and my time and attention was so torn in every direction that I lost track of who I was and I found myself in an endless cycle of people pleasing, putting out fires and, frankly, running on empty. I know how it feels to be stuck in chronic overwhelm, stress and chaos, and, trust me, it's not a pretty picture. I decided that it was time to take my own life and health back. I worked hard to reclaim my health through radical self-care practices, recalibrating my nervous system and setting healthy boundaries that allowed me to start living my life on purpose again. I'm here to show you that midlife doesn't have to be a crisis, but instead a beautiful invitation to prioritize yourself again. If you're ready to take back your joie de vivre, then pop in those earbuds and let's go get it.

Speaker 1:

So Dr Prudence Hall started as a traditional gynecological surgeon and then she transitioned her career to focus on regenerative and integrative medicine. She works with both men and women, and she saw a critical need to address debilitating symptoms that a lot of her patients were experiencing that was associated with aging. So she's going to enlighten us today on how we can find ways to actually bring our own radiance back. She's delightful and I love how her own radiance is a testament to what she teaches. So welcome, dr Prudence. I'm so grateful to have you here, marnie. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

I'm delighted to be here.

Speaker 1:

So I wanted to have you on the show because I know you are an expert in menopause and you have a menopause breakthrough program and you've also written a book called Radiant Again and Forever and I talk so much on my podcast about radiance and finding the midlife space where you can actually not just survive or get through or be pain free or manage your hormones, but you can actually thrive and have vitality and just be better than you ever have been. So I know that's one of your specialties, so maybe tell me how you got into being in this particular focus point.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm a gynecologist, I'm an obstetrician and gynecologist, and when I came out of my residency program from USC practicing traditional gynecology and then I realized oh my goodness, my menopausal patients I'm not doing well by them.

Speaker 2:

They're crying and saying it's not helping what I'm doing. So that started me really on a four decade or a little bit more than four decades of learning about women in a way that I hadn't been taught about in my residency. You know, really being able to talk to them and explore who they were and what they needed. And I found out that you know there's tremendous variability in terms of how we respond to medications or to herbs or to life in general. And that really spurred just a complete interest in how can I really help these women who are struggling so much and that Western medicine has failed. So I just started working and learning, and from learning about menopause you know nothing that I had learned in my residency, but learning about all the components that create vitality and sleep and sexuality and all of that Then I started realizing how much the spiritual component and the emotional component was involved in that.

Speaker 1:

So you know, we are a package of many things we women.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we do, and it's amazing how many women are struggling with finding that. So it's such an important thing, and I'm so grateful to practitioners like you that actually focus in on that, because it's really something. Until I kind of got into doing the podcast and delving into the midlife sector, I just didn't realize how many women were struggling with the same thing. What, would you say, is probably the number one thing that people come in to see you? What is the thing they're struggling with most?

Speaker 2:

Well, it depends a little bit on the age of the woman, because I see everyone from teenagers all the way through to 80 or 90 years old, but typically women come in and say I'm tired, something's going on with me. I'm not the same person I used to be. It's frightening. I don't know what's happening, I can't remember things. I've gained 30 pounds. I don't feel like making love. It's really causing a relationship problem, and you know. Then there's things like hot flashes. I just I feel like I'm sweating all the time. Maybe I have, you know, some type of cancer that causes sweating, feeling not like themselves, less optimal, and usually fatigue is really, really important and an important concern of most women, absolutely, I know for me.

Speaker 1:

I struggled a lot and I'm just kind of coming out of the hot flash phase for myself, but I've called myself a hot midlife mama for a while, because it's kind of the literal reality. Well, we want hot mamas.

Speaker 2:

We want hot mamas.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, just not always sweating to death yet for sure. Yeah, it's great to know. So obviously sleep is a huge component. I know that's a big struggle for a lot of my women friends and obviously our hormones really wreak a lot of havoc with our sleep. So how do you go about helping people to find you know their balance?

Speaker 2:

That's just a wonderful question, especially, you know, segueing sleep into that. So when I look at hormones and 80% of my patients are women and about 20% are men I'm looking at five different hormones sets, endocrine glands. I look at the thyroid, the ovarian hormones. I look at the adrenal stress hormones which are located right on top of the kidneys, also the sunshine hormone, which is located in the skin. So the skin is a huge endocrine gland. And I look at the pancreas with its insulin and long-term sugar marker.

Speaker 2:

So I start by saying well, where is this fatigue or lack of vitality, or depression, anxiety, moodiness coming from? And I look at all the different hormones. So, for example, if someone is tired, that definitely happens due to menopause, and menopause is when we lose our ovarian hormones. The ovaries just stop working. So it comes from menopause, enormous fatigue. It comes from low adrenal hormones. So when we're highly stressed and we stay stressed for a certain period of time and it varies from person to person how long the stress has to last three primary hormones cortisol, dhea and pregnenolone they're very, very high and adrenaline too, which is pretty much involved in this too. Then they just start to drop and we go into a burnout state where the adrenal glands can't keep up with the amount of stress we have, so that results in enormous fatigue and also thyroid.

Speaker 2:

40% of thyroid disease is not diagnosed when you just follow the regular reference range that labs say. This is the normal reference range. So a lot of my patients have borderline low thyroid. Thyroid gland is located right in the neck. It runs our metabolism, gives us energy and when that starts to decline we feel very, very tired. So I just analytically look at everything, listen. I listen to what women want. What's the problem? What you know? Where might it be? And I love it, marnie, I've never grown tired of being kind of a detective, a hormone detective, and bringing back this radiance to women which they deserve.

Speaker 1:

Oh, absolutely, and I love that you call it being a hormone detective, because there's so many factors all that have to work together in harmony in order for that vibrancy and feeling good to take place right, that's right.

Speaker 2:

And of course it's lifestyle. I mean, are we not sleeping? I mean in menopause and perimenopause. And, by the way, perimenopause, which is, you know, five, six, seven years before, menopause, starts in our late 30s, and menopause nowadays is about 44 to 48 years old, much younger than it was four decades ago. So in menopause, in the middle of the night our cortisol level rises. That's an adrenal stress, you know, kind of a stress hormone, and then we wake up and we're sweating, we can't go back to sleep.

Speaker 2:

So there's stress inside the body and there's also stressors and things outside of the body that can interrupt our vitality and our energy. So we deal with a lot of stuff. I mean, we're in the middle of so many different things that women are very, very concerned about not only politics but the health of their children. Children are no longer as healthy as they were years and years and years ago and finances are hard. So it's an inside job. It's an outside job and it's a mental job too. How we're able to handle all of these multiple things coming at us. Yeah, and it's interesting that quite often we're able to handle all of these multiple things coming at at us.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's interesting that quite often we're in probably one of the hardest times of our life when we're in that midlife, because a lot of us are in the sandwich generation, so we're not only trying to care for ourself while our body is changing and we have all these new things happening, but we're also trying to take care of our either teenage or almost grown kids or adult children, and then we have aging parents to consider as well, so that just adds on to the pile of all the other stressors. So it's a lot to carry. What do you think would be the main reason that perimenopause is happening so much younger now than it used?

Speaker 2:

to Well, that's a question that many people are investigating, but I think it has to do with toxicity stress. It has to do with the birth control pill. The birth control pill wrecks our hormones. It just plays terrible havoc with our hormones. Some women, after they come off the birth control pill, are not able to reestablish healthy hormones. Most women are after six months to a year to a year and a half. But you know, so many young people are on the birth control pill and that in and of itself causes fatigue. So toxicity stress, inflammation, high sugar for sure we have so many carbohydrates and sugar in our diet.

Speaker 1:

So with a young woman, say, just coming off of her birth control pill and now she's trying to figure this out, what would you advise for trying to balance the hormones? What would be sort of the recipe for that?

Speaker 2:

so I like to start with a very natural approach. So one of the the naturopathic supplements I use is something called pregnancy prep and it helps to affects the pituitary gland, to help the pituitary gland reconnect to the ovary. So the birth control pill kind of cuts the ovary loose and there's no real connection between the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and the ovary. So pregnancy prep reconnects those and helps with a series of herbs. Also increasing fat in our diet and that would be good fat, because hormones come from cholesterol, which is fat basically. So more olive oil and more omega-3.

Speaker 2:

You know a thousand, two thousand milligrams of omega-3. You always want to refrigerate it so it doesn't become rancid. Getting more sleep so getting eight hours of sleep, sometimes eight and a half or even nine hours of sleep, and that takes so much stress off of women. Managing stress is important. So if we can give a little herbal kind of boost to the reconnect sleep, eat more fat we're gonna start making our hormones much more easily. To get back to a pill recovery, I call it post pill recovery time.

Speaker 1:

Wow, I love that your approach is so holistic and not so much drug focused, and it's really I guess we underestimate how much sleep we actually need. We do I?

Speaker 2:

personally sleep no less than eight hours. I generally feel much better than better at nine hours and if I know I'm getting sick which I rarely do, but if I start to feel sick, I'll go to bed for 10 hours and the next day it's gone. So sleep builds our immunity and allows the body to detoxify. I kind of treat it like, well, the cleaning crew is coming up, it's going to detoxify the body. But if we only get five hours of sleep or six hours of sleep, the cleaning crew isn't done, because during the day we're digesting and we're I mean, we're using all these other functions rather than detoxing our liver and our cells. And so sleep is the time for detox and it keeps us looking better and feeling much more vital and avoiding chronic illnesses.

Speaker 1:

I love that analogy with the cleaning crew. That makes a lot of sense, actually, and I guess we didn't. Really we don't think of it that way, but that's the truth, right? You get your janitorial crew in there while you're sleeping.

Speaker 2:

You know we want to sleep, eat maybe three or four hours before you go to sleep. So we're digesting, digesting, you know, doing all that stuff, and then there's not much for the body to do except clean.

Speaker 1:

Right, and so now with, maybe, women that are in the middle of menopause, what's the protocol for that? And I know it's individual, you can't have a blanket approach for everyone, but what would you say is kind of the other thing for them to really focus on? Is it still sleep, or are there other factors that they have to really pay attention?

Speaker 2:

to. Yeah, sleep is essential, obviously, but there are many other factors. So I use a lot of bioidentical hormones and I also use herbs and which refer people for acupuncture, which is also very helpful. But after I've analyzed all the hormones, I have five different ways that I deliver. Bioidentical estrogen and bioidentical hormones are exactly the same hormones, marnie, that you and I make, and probably all of our listeners will have the same ones, unless they're from another planet or something. So I repeat those hormones. Back to youthful levels. So I don't look at the reference range, because I use youthful reference ranges and the reference ranges that the lab uses. Well, whoever walks through to get their labs drawn, that's part of the reference range. And there can be 90 year old women, 80 year old women, women on the birth control pill, who have very, very abnormal hormones. So I've done this for so long and I've taken care of some very, very healthy people that they're in my reference range for health, and so then I, you know, first of all, talk to them. What are your goals? What are your symptoms? Our goal is to get rid of all the symptoms and also to prevent future aging. So usually I'll be replacing estrogen or rebalancing or optimizing estrogen. But I use creams that's one of the things I use Drops, tropes that you put under your tongue, also the patch.

Speaker 2:

You know pharmaceutical companies are not. They know they know a lot in terms of bioidentical hormones. At this point. I think a lot of this outrage from women rightfully so started when in 1940, primarin was created and primarin was what I was taught to do in my residency in 1980, in the early 90s, and that is pregnant horses urine, primarin and it turned out to be a fairly inflammatory hormone because a lot of people are allergic to horses and that's not our same hormones. We don't have horse hormones that are pregnant horse hormones. We have people hormones and are pregnant horse hormones. We have people hormones and not pregnant people hormones. Yeah, that caused a lot of inflammation and it increased dementia, it increased heart disease and when all of this became known, then women became very upset with pharmaceutical companies.

Speaker 2:

I would say you know there's been a huge distrust in medicine that's come in, especially after COVID and the way that was handled Right. So but you know, really some of the most amazing inventions and interventions in medicine has come from the biotech pharmaceutical companies Cures for AIDS. My son had a stage three melanoma. He's cured because of the medications that this one amazing biotech you know, that's like the high-tech company but in the pharmaceutical industry came up with. So you know, they know about the patches bioidentical and you can apply it, the cream you put on your skin twice a day. So I talk to people about their lifestyle and which method they'd like to use best. I also use vaginal inserts as a estrogen and then I add progesterone if needed. Testosterone is very, very important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we don't really talk about testosterone so much for women. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So it's kind of there's a little bit of sadness when I talk about testosterone because it was recently declined by the FDA as a treatment for women. I know I mean, marnie, you can believe something, but you can also know this I 100%, absolutely know that testosterone for women is vital. It builds our bones and our muscles, it helps us become more confident, it creates forward motion in our thinking. So we don't oh, I don't know what to do, and maybe this, maybe that I mean directionality, which is really nice. It runs our sex drives. We can't have orgasms without it. We feel like we're neutered and they decline this vital, wonderful hormone for women.

Speaker 1:

Why do you think that?

Speaker 2:

is Do you have it? Yeah, abe Morgenthaler, who's the father of testosterone therapy, has an incredible team at Harvard and he went before the FDA to say, look, we need to have this approved for women. I mean, the data for men is just ironclad. I was taught in urology in my residence in my medical school rotations that testosterone was the fuel that fed prostate cancer. And now we know that the reason why older men get prostate cancer so frequently is that they don't have enough testosterone. So that paradigm has completely changed. For men, if they have prostate cancer even if it's a Gleason score 9, which is a very aggressive cancer most urologists are now saying, yes, you can go on testosterone because it has those benefits of actually decreasing prostate cancer. So that would decrease the return or the reoccurrence of prostate cancer. There's no reason that I can see why testosterone is not approved for women. I cannot see a single reason.

Speaker 2:

Testosterone is extremely safe. I monitor metabolites of all the hormones. So testosterone breaks down into estrogen tiny little bit and then something called dihydrotestosterone. So it goes like that in the body. The liver breaks it down and DHT, if it gets too high, can cause a little bit of acne. It might cause a little bit of hair growth on the face, it could cause hair thinning. All you have to do, marnie, is just follow the DHT and make sure that it's not getting high, it's not becoming too high and most of the time it's just not for women.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's really fascinating.

Speaker 2:

It's fascinating, you know, women have been disenfranchised and disregarded. I mean, when did women get the right to vote? You know, 80 years ago. I mean it's, this is a way. I mean I don't. I, as a gynecologist, I really support women's dignity and women's need to be able to know when they're going to procreate. Dignity and women's need to be able to know when they're going to procreate. So I support birth control methods. I'm not fond of the pill. You know, it's been disappointing to see, with so many hundreds of women whose hormones I've measured, how radically it changes our hormones. But I love birth control for women and you know the IUD, the Paragard especially, doesn't hurt our hormones. So I don't know why women are being marginalized when we're just, you know, we're the light of the world.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we are, we bring more babies in.

Speaker 2:

We nurture our families, our husbands, our communities, our, our, the universe, and we need energy. Marnie, recently, because I stopped making testosterone because it's a little bit of a witch hunt out there I stopped making it no longer, my compounder no longer makes it, but I temporarily for the first time in 25 years, I was not on testosterone and I started to feel like I'm kind of tired and I'll feel kind of maybe down like never down, but I'm more down and life is more frightening. I was a little bit more frightened and and it's just like I stopped having orgasms. It's like what? What is going on? I must be going through some kind of a crisis and maybe I ignored that, maybe I really was very traumatized by that, which I actually wasn't but and then it's just like holy shoot, after me talking to women for so many years about testosterone here, I'm off it for two weeks and now that I'm back on it, all of that has disappeared.

Speaker 2:

So, hormones really affect our well-being. Testosterone is critical. We got to get in front of that FDA again and let them know how important it is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so could you explain just a little bit more for maybe some of the listeners that don't really know what the term bioidentical actually is and how you go about compounding?

Speaker 2:

those, yes, bioidentical hormones are exactly the same hormones that we make. Mine are the same as yours, it's the same as all women. So when those hormones are given back to women they have to be molecule per molecule exactly the same. So that's called bioidentical. Now the Primarin that was made in the 1940s and was very popular all the way through to 1985, 1990, even probably even now it's ordered quite a bit by gynecologists. But those are not the same hormones that our body makes. So when you use a hormone that's kind of like our hormones but not really, we don't get the same results. So it's like, you know, if you have a glass of milk and then you add chocolate to it. I mean, those are very different things Chocolate milk, you know, or milk. So same thing with the body, non-bioidentical hormones.

Speaker 2:

I used Primarin for about a year when I came out of residency Maybe a little bit longer, when people really said I really, really, really want Primarin. But now I just wouldn't even dream of ordering that because we have so many better things. And when I make it I actually order it from pharmaceutical companies. They make it in their pharmaceutical houses to be FDA approved and it's absolutely pure. I put it into an olive oil base and then we whip it up into a cream. So that's called compounding it, because the estrogen really needs to be put into some kind of base.

Speaker 1:

Pharmaceutical companies do make creams, so it can be available to the body.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so it can be available to the body. Yes, so it can be available to the body. So I don't like the idea of synthetic or bioidentical, because everything is really synthesized.

Speaker 1:

What I'm curious about actually is because I have never been on any bioidentical hormones and I've had some issues, for sure that over the past, you know, I would say year or two for sure. But I've heard also that there's some side effects or there's a lot of bad press that kind of goes around with it. So could you explain sort of the dangers of the bioidentical hormone and what people should look out for if they decide that they want to go that route?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So first of all I'd kind of like to talk about the comparison. So I just want to say that when estrogen is low in menopause, up goes inflammation in the body, up goes stress, the body becomes very stressed and sleepless and anxious, and then up goes high blood sugar, which causes enormous damage in the body, and up goes LDL cholesterol, the bad cholesterol, and all the sub-particles of the bad cholesterol. So when that happens, these cause diseases, lots of diseases heart disease, diabetes, dementia, autoimmune disease, all kinds of cancers. And so when we replace the estrogen, not only do the symptoms go away, but a myriad of chronic diseases of aging goes away. So that's the playground in which we're playing Now.

Speaker 2:

For 30 years, almost 35 years, I was duking it out trying to say, look, hormones are safe, there's no increased breast cancer. I mean, it prevents so many chronic diseases. I mean I was on Oprah and all these things, dr Phil, wonderful, educating and educating, but it wasn't tipping. Everybody kept on saying no, it causes breast cancer and it's it's not good for the body, and there were just kind of these suspicions. I think it was a lot of suspicion, but no real facts, because when you look at the facts, they're so good for us. They lower inflammation, they lower stress, they allow us to sleep, they help our hair to grow and our bodies to be strong and our bones to be strong and muscles to be strong, as well as preventing all the symptoms of menopause. Menopause tipped about five years ago, where people are now saying just like with testosterone for men, where urologists were saying, no, danger, danger, danger, don't use it. Don't use it, it causes prostate cancer. Now they aren't saying that for men. They're saying no, it prevents prostate cancer. But also for women, people are really talking about this in great sources. The New York Times has been very important in terms of really getting the information out there. So I do not think that bioidentical hormones are in replacing and optimizing our hormones back to youthful levels is dangerous.

Speaker 2:

There's no increased risk of breast cancer. There is a tremendous amount of benefit that comes from it. It would really help if somebody if a doctor or a nurse or a naturopathic doctor or anyone who is a prescriber took a really big interest in it and learned how to do it correctly. So in my opinion, you want to use a good source of transdermal skin hormones. You don't want to take pills, because if you take the tablets of estrogen that can increase deep vein thrombosis. That's blood clots in the legs Dangerous situation. If you use cream, there's no increase. I just recently did a AI huge medical search on that and they said no, there is no increased deep brain thrombosis whatsoever. I also did a big perplexity that's an AI very prone to medical information and studies looking to see what the newest thing was on breast cancer no increased risk of breast cancer.

Speaker 2:

It kind of depends on how you give the patient progesterone and how much you give but no increased risk of breast cancers. So women tell me frequently in the first month of taking hormones that they have a pound or two more of weight. It's usually water weight because our cells become dehydrated in menopause, our skin becomes dry and the water that we're drinking is now being retained in the body, which is very important for health. Women also tell me that. Well, you know my sleep is not back to normal yet and I still have occasional hot flashes.

Speaker 2:

Hot flashes, by the way, are one of the easiest things to get rid of. I mean when I was on the Oprah show I've been on it several times the first time Oprah found the worst menopausal patient that she could find. And I talked to Linda. She's still my patient. I talked to Linda. I said okay, linda, how much time do we have to fix you? She said five days. I said, linda, what do you mean five days? We have five days to bring you back to, back to normal. And she said well, it's mainly the hot flashes. I'm soaked 24 seven. I was calling her twice a day to see how her hot flashes are. We got rid of them in five days. She went on that Oprah. She said my hot flashes are gone.

Speaker 2:

But look, I think that I was just being blessed by the heavens that be, because normally it takes quite a while I would say six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks before you really can lower the inflammation.

Speaker 2:

There's so much body pain in menopause, everything hurts.

Speaker 2:

So the inflammation is lowered and you start sleeping more and I have all kinds of sleep protocols for that and it takes time to reverse.

Speaker 2:

You know all the years or the months or the weeks of time that went by when we're going deeper and deeper into menopause.

Speaker 2:

So the best time to get your hormones checked is to get a baseline around age 30, 25, 30. That would be estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, maybe your thyroid, and that could be a good baseline to know where do we need to bring your hormones back to, and then really cannot say that women come to me bleeding Okay, so that's something that I do hear about. So women, when they're on hormones, especially when they start the first three to six months, they can have a return of their period or irregular bleeding and I would say maybe 5% of my patients report that and basically I reassure them, I make sure that we get a pelvic ultrasound on them and if the uterine lining is thick, you know, then we do various things to thin it out and to make sure that it's not a pre-existing cancer that they came into the clinic with before I put them on hormones. But it's all benefits, just amazing benefits for the skin, the hair, the bones, the muscles, disease prevention.

Speaker 1:

So in that five days, what did you do for Linda to actually cure her hot flashes?

Speaker 2:

Well, it was a full court press. Let me tell you it was bioidentical estrogen that I used. Estrogens will stop hot flashes quite quickly usually not in five days, when somebody is soaking their bed and having hot flashes every five minutes. But yeah, estrogen decreases that. I also helped her to sleep. I put her on a combination of magnesium and melatonin and GABA, so the brain was 5-HTP, the brain was much more quiet and she was getting better sleep. So not only did she start to feel like she had more energy, but the hot flashes stopped. I was literally calling her twice a day and helping her to kind of let's raise the estrogen just a little bit. Just a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's amazing, that's for sure Amazing. She's a good girl, yeah.

Speaker 2:

But listen, all hot flashes stop. All hot flashes stop. It's probably one of the easier things, to you know, to get rid of, and I would say depression and mood swings are the second easiest to get rid of. I mean, we're not Prozac deficient, we're estrogen deficient, testosterone deficient, thyroid deficient, adrenal hormone deficient. So those are pretty easy to get rid of too and to correct. Oh, I love that.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for the great information. So tell me about your book that you wrote, Radiant Again and Forever, and what actually spurred you to write that and what's the focal point on it?

Speaker 2:

Well, I wrote this a number of years ago and my dear friend, suzanne Summers, said Prudence, it's time to write your book. And she interviewed me many times and I was on a number of her shows and just love her. I absolutely have loved Suzanne and her husband for many, many years and it's like, oh, suzanne, I'm so busy. And she said, no, you've got to do this Prudence. I said, okay, what do you suggest? She said each chapter is a different hormone deficiency. So you have menopause, you have perimenopause. And I said, okay, so hypothyroidism, low adrenals. And I said, and I think, maybe sexual, a chapter on sexual issues and women's sexuality and how do we bring that back and what helps with our sexuality. And then she said, yeah, yeah, that, of course, that too.

Speaker 2:

Hey, how about writing about breast cancer? And I said, okay, I'll put a chapter in and one of my patients that you know I take care of, many patients who have had breast cancer and so I put a chapter there. And then, at the time that I was writing that, and for probably 15 years before, I personally was in a really expanded state, you know, going into all kinds of performance enhancement, spiritual expansion, different ways of thinking about things. It was a true renaissance, and menopause can be this. It can be a real renaissance of your life, where you connect to yourself and you just want to keep on learning and growing and becoming a new person. It's like the butterfly it's not yet. It's not yet a butterfly, so there's a lot of personal work that needs to be done to become that beautiful creature, and so Suzanne told me to write it and I wrote it.

Speaker 1:

Good for you. That's amazing. And she's written some great books over the years too, so it's nice to have somebody that can encourage you. That's sort of been where you are going.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and she wrote the forward and she gave me ideas for a second book that I really wrote, but I haven't published yet. I have to work a little bit more on it. So it's free. I didn't write a book for money. I wrote the book to educate women and a lot of women see themselves in these different women that I describe in each chapter. So you can get that on my website. It's downloaded to all of my books. Burned in the Palisades Fire. I lost my house in the Palisades Fire. You can get it for free. Listen, it's in the cloud, this book, and you can just download it to your email.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. I love it. We're going to make sure we put all those links to your website in the show notes. Yeah, so tell us a little bit about your menopause breakthrough program and what people can expect if they wanted to participate.

Speaker 2:

Well, it got a little bit delayed because of the fire, but I take 20 people through menopause all at once. Everybody gets their hormones together. I mean, they all get their blood drawn and their hormones drawn and each week it's a 10-week program. Each week we address different issues, so we go over just a myriad of things. Everybody knows what they need to do with their hormones and in order for me to prescribe the hormones, they see my daughter, who's a wonderful hormone expert. Also, she's a naturopathic doctor. They get to see her twice during the program and they know exactly what they need, because I've said, this is what you need, this is what you need, and we're all talking about menopause and the emotions and the. You know how to go forward with this. So it's a really good support group.

Speaker 2:

And then we talk about the thyroid and rebalance that. We talk about the adrenals and how to a whole segment on how to decrease our stress, and there are many different techniques for decreasing stress and measuring stress. So at the end everybody has a handbook. They know what they need to do. My doctor sees them and prescribes those hormones that I've already prescribed for them. I've already recommended that they take. They could also have their own doctor if they prefer to prescribe those hormones that I'm discussing with them, and they all have their own plan. And then there's lifestyle, there's meditation, there's how to get everybody, how to sleep eight hours.

Speaker 2:

It's really quite an encompassing program. What I learned is that women teach other women so beautifully and we're comforting to each other and we pull other stragglers along with us. Come on, are you doing it? Are you doing it? So it's like a sisterhood. For example, when women want to get pregnant and they form a support group and this is much more than a support group we really balance everybody, optimize everybody's hormones. But when you join a support group that's run by a professional fertility doctor, there's 40% better success in pregnancy. Oh, that's amazing, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I totally agree with you about the fact that women and I think it's interesting that when you start to take charge of your own health and you start to do things, people can see it on your face and by the way you show up in the world and how you shine a little bit brighter. And when you do that for yourself, you actually encourage other people to want to do it as well. And women particularly are so great at encouraging each other to want to be a better version of themselves.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we comfort, we support, we encourage. No one is left behind I mean, I think that's Michelle Obama's quote, maybe but truly no one needs to be left in a state of depletion, fatigue, depression, anxiety, sometimes rage and irritability. No woman needs to be left in that state, because this is it's just a phenomenal way of approaching our health, not only through the hormones, but all through lifestyle and through using herbs and supplements and instituting our program. We institute an exercise program that's really easy and smart and doable. You have to just do 12 minutes four times a day, and women lose lots of weight during that period of time too. That's amazing.

Speaker 1:

So as we kind of wrap up here, is there any particular advice that you could actually, maybe just two or three steps that you would encourage women to take to move forward if they're struggling in their hormone journey? What would you suggest that they do for a takeaway?

Speaker 2:

Well, the first thing is to be interested in yourself and to be aware that this time of rapid change and menopause can be reframed into an adventure and can be reframed from suffering and misery really into a tremendous growth possibility and in a positive experience. So I want women to know that they can become, they can lose the weight, they can become vital and sensual and in a beautiful woman, in the unique and perfect way that we are all here. So that's the first thing, just to be aware of that. It's not hopeless, it's a big opportunity. The second thing, because we can really change ourselves and our professions. Well, what women do is just, it's incredible. They've written books, they've started schools, they've climbed mountains, composed, and before menopause they were too tired and discouraged, they couldn't do anything really. Okay, that's the first thing. The second thing is find someone who's really talented with hormones, who knows them. Try your gynecologist and just sort of say what do you think about the hormones? And if they say, well, you don't like those hormones, just don't even go there. Don't try to convince somebody, especially a doctor, because we're very stubborn, unfortunately that hormones are good. But find functional medicine. I'm also a functional medicine doctor, marnie. I did all of Jeff Bland's work and I just love functional medicine. So go to the Institute of Functional Medicine and you can see who's good with hormones. You can also go to naturopathic doctors and some naturopathic doctors are very good with hormones. Others don't know much about them. But you can look Suzanne Sommer's book. She had so many references for good doctors. It's been a few years now since she's written a book but she had all her book, the Sexy Years. I mean she really interviewed tons of people for that.

Speaker 2:

So find a good doctor and make sure that the doctor you know encourage them. Say, well, can we check our thyroid? I mean, if you ask the doctor, well, what hormones do you do? Oh, we give you estrogen and progesterone. Good, that's a start. Say, well, let's check the. Let's check the thyroid this time, the next time, let's check the adrenals. So you can really encourage the doctor to um, to be more expanded in her or his approach, because you can. You can get 50 of the way there just by giving estrogen and progesterone. You're going to get 100 or 99, point whatever. Uh, with all the hormones balanced. And I would recommend the book estrogen matters. It's by a wonderful colleague at usc, which is where I trained at the medical school. Um, he retired now but it's I would say it's a similar book on the safety of of estrogen therapy and bioidentical hormone therapy.

Speaker 2:

You know, know, start sleeping, that would be melatonin, any place from three milligrams to 10 milligrams. I even use 20 milligrams with some women it would be. Also, if that alone didn't work, you could add GABA, gaba, amino butyric acid, g-a-b-a, and that would be about 500 milligrams. And you always start with a low dose and then maybe go a little higher. You add 5-HTP, 5-hydroxytryptophan, because that breaks down into serotonin it makes you feel better and then into melatonin. So that I give to certain people to help them sleep. I call it the sleep cocktail. I also make a great product. I haven't talked about products yet, but my product is Sweet Sleep and it has most of that stuff in it. So Sweet Sleep is over-the-counter. But to really get you to sleep and having a sleep routine where you get ready for sleep an hour before time, you start turning the lights dimmer, you stop watching exciting TV programs, you maybe start reading or just calming the body and you can get ready for bed. It's a gradual process, slipping into the sublime, into the cradle.

Speaker 1:

Well, I certainly have to say that this has been a really enlightening conversation, and I for one am going to do a little bit more research myself and I'll get myself a copy of that book Estrogen Matters, because I think everybody listening to the show could learn a lot about how they can take their own health and their own menopause journey into their own hands by doing a little bit of being a detective for themselves and then finding the right help.

Speaker 2:

Right and radiance is so many different things that come together to just people feel it coming out of you. Women tell me all the time oh, everybody's telling me I look better and I'm so. It's. It's a. It's not only. It's not only how we look, it's really what's coming from us and the love and compassion that we feel. Once we, once we feel like ourselves again, that can yeah, well, that's such an important thing.

Speaker 1:

It matters so much what that we can find when we feel better, then everything in our life gets better, our work gets better, our play gets better, our, our creativity is more, all those things. So it's yeah, it's a huge piece and that's we talk.

Speaker 2:

So much about it because it's fundamental to our happiness. That's absolutely true. And when women are suffering greatly, as they do in menopause, very frequently there's a bitterness that comes across us because we're tired and we're sleepless and we just feel so down and we just feel like we're going to be that way for the rest of our life, which actually is true. If we aren't able to correct our hormones, either through natural sources or bioidentical hormones, which are also natural, lifestyle and herbs, then we do stay the same, because so many women, marnie, tell me oh, I'm through menopause. It's like you have the symptoms and the hormones absolutely show me that you're in deep menopause and you stay this way actually the rest of your life, unless we can optimize and bring your hormones back to youthful levels. So we don't want to spend 40 years of our life in this state where we get more and more tired and sick and we don't know, and it's really classic for women in general to.

Speaker 1:

You know, I think we're taught that our shoulders need to be a bit broader and that we have to carry a little bit more and we need to just suck it up sometimes, and so I think a lot of women do that and they're just like well, I have shoulder pain or I have this kind of pain, but you know, it's fine, I can just deal with it, and I think that's such a you know, not a good way to look at it, because it's very hard to thrive and to be radiant when you're.

Speaker 2:

Even if it's dull, small amounts of pain, it takes away from your joy Absolutely it does and you know pain indicates that something's going on in your body, that your body's inflamed and that you know having inflammation in your body. That's really 90% of cancers have as one of their core causes inflammation.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you again. I've had such a joy talking with you and I'm going to make sure that all of the links to reach out to your website and to find your book online and all of your research for sure that I think it's just amazing. It's been such a joy to talk to you, Marnie.

Speaker 2:

I thank you so much for having me here.

Speaker 1:

Today, dr Prudence Hall has a very special gift for you. She's written a book called Radiant Again and Forever, and it teaches you how to overcome menopause symptoms and restore your radiance to reclaim the life you love. And in her book she offers a new way of experiencing life, a transition away from pain and suffering toward embracing happiness, youthful vitality, confidence and natural beauty. And each chapter of the book has a woman's story and you'll be able to evaluate how your symptoms might be similar to hers, and it'll allow you to literally diagnose yourself, as well as your friends, sisters and mothers, based on what you read. And she's got a free copy of it today. And all you have to do is go to drprudencehallcom and enter your email address and she will send you a free PDF copy for you to read. What a beautiful gift. I hope you go and get a copy of yours. Leave me a comment if you do and let me know how it enriched your life.

Speaker 1:

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I hope it inspired you or motivated you in some way to keep going and to create your very best life. Want to know what to do next? Share this episode with someone that you love who maybe just needs a little more delicious in their life. Join my free Facebook community over at Mindset Mastery for Midlife Women, where like-minded women come together to support and inspire each other and where we get to hang out together and I offer cool bonuses, videos and some extra content. And lastly, don't forget to subscribe so that when new episodes drop, they'll be queued up and ready for you. In case no one has told you today, there's not one person on this planet that is exactly like you, and the world is a better place because you're here. So thank you for being here. I'll be back next week and I hope you'll join me right here on Life is Delicious.