EP11: Hormones Are Just Messengers with Dr. Ellora Pollard

Summary

In this episode of Dare to Age Well Now, Angela Belford speaks with Dr. Ellora Pollard, a women's functional health coach, about understanding women's health, particularly focusing on the menstrual cycle, perimenopause, and menopause. They discuss the importance of hormones as messengers in the body, the different phases of the menstrual cycle, and the significance of hormone testing. Dr. Pollard emphasizes the need for women to understand their bodies and the changes they experience as they age, providing insights into how to navigate these transitions effectively.

Connect with Dr. Ellora Pollard https://pittsburghpremierchiropractic.com/

Key Takeaways

• Understanding your menstrual cycle is crucial for health.
• Perimenopause can begin as early as age 35.
• Menopause is defined as one year after the last period.
• Hormones act as messengers between organs.
• Follicle stimulating hormone indicates the transition to menopause.
• Estrogen influences multiple bodily functions.
• Testing hormone levels can provide insights into health.
• Cortisol and insulin levels affect hormone health.
• The Dutch test offers comprehensive hormone analysis.
• Women should be proactive in understanding their health.

Quotes

• "Your ovaries are retiring."
• "Estrogen helps things grow."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Women's Health and Hormones

02:42 Understanding Perimenopause and Menopause

04:50 The Four Phases of the Menstrual Cycle

05:41 Defining Menopause and Perimenopause

07:56 The Role of Hormones as Messengers

09:07 Testing Hormone Levels

12:48 Understanding Estrogen and Its Impact

16:46 Connecting with Dr. Ellora Pollard

Transcript

0:01

Welcome everyone to today's episode of Dare to Age Well Now. I am very excited to be joined today by Alora Pollard. Did I say Pollard? Pollard. Anyway, I love editing too. It's fantastic. And we are going to talk more about understanding how our bodies work. So would you mind introducing yourself, Dr. Alora? everyone. I'm Dr. Olorah. I am a women's functional health coach. I help women understand how their bodies work. It wasn't until grad school that I really had any clue how my body worked. And it really started with understanding how my cycle works. And it kind of blew my mind that I got to the age of 23. And that was when I was finally learning how this thing that happens every single month actually works. and that it can be used as a metric for internal health so that we can tell about what's going on inside of our bodies based on the things that we're seeing outside of our bodies. And so that really inspired me to just keep digging, keep learning and trying to figure out like, what is my body trying to tell me from, you know, what I can see and what I can feel and what's happening on the inside. So that's what I do. That is fantastic. I am kind of a strange backstory. I say all the time that when you are, I had a childhood with a lot of different types of, of lack and trauma. And when you're trying to live and figure out where you're going to live and figure out where you're going to eat, like, not a lot of time to like explain some basics. So it's very encouraging to me to speak with somebody else who's like, no, like those of us with, with their traditional normal childhood air quotes, normal, whatever. Um, also like grad school before we, so that is really reassuring to me to just know that like, I'm not alone and that doesn't make me weird that I don't actually understand how things are working. And so, What I've seen over the last couple of years is that there are many of us that are beginning to experience perimenopause, menopause, and what we don't know what's happening. What is happening in and if you get on the internet, like it is a fire hose of information. It's hard to. to figure out what to listen to. So how do you recommend people begin to thinking about this kind of season of our lives? Yeah, that's a good question. perimenopause can start as early as 35. And I would say like foundationally, just figure out baseline how the system works, learning about the four different phases of the cycle. And then if you are trickling into the perimenopause years, then if you know quote what like normal looks like, then you'll know how... things start to change. And then when you feel those sorts of changes go. And there are lab tests that can be done to help confirm that. One of the easiest tests to help confirm like peri, the beginnings of perimenopause and also menopause is getting a test called follicle stimulating hormone. And follicle stimulating hormone is a hormone that comes from the brain and it goes to the ovaries and it stimulates the follicles in your ovaries in order to help prepare for ovulation. And basically all of your hormones in general are, they're chemical messengers that are just poking one organ from another saying like, hey, do the thing, hey, do the thing. And as we get into perimenopause, your follicle stimulating hormone needs to really poke your ovaries to say, hey, do the thing, hey, do the thing, get ready to ovulate, get ready to ovulate, do the thing. And so as follicle stimulating hormone starts going up and up and up and up, that's an indication that we are transitioning into perimenopause and then eventually. Metapause and then post menopausal so we can't actually check that so talking to a provider who can help you order some blood work is something that you can do in a doctor's office, but outside of that doctor's office just understanding what quote normal looks like and then if you've started to notice some changes about your cycle if you've noticed different length changes That would be an indication to that if you're in that age range and you're starting to notice some different the things you could be approaching change. Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna back it up. We're gonna back up the train. So let's start with, let's start with, can you talk to us about the four stages of our cycle? Because I don't know that I could cite those off the top of my head. I get that. Yeah. So if we want to break it into two halves, we have the follicle phase, which is the first half. And then we have the luteal phase, which is the second half. We can break it down even further. have the first, the day one is the first day that you're actually bleeding. So that would be bleeding phase, phase one. Then we would have uh the part of the pre-ovulatory phase. Then we would have the ovulatory phase and then post-ovulatory phase. So you can kind of like break it down into chunks like that. And there was different hormones that do different things during each time. Okay, thank you. And then let's define perimenopause and menopause. Like, I hear them bantered about, but I don't know that I can clearly define what they are. Yeah. So you'll see this. And again, we talk about being on the internet and seeing a whole bunch of different things. Menopause technically is one year and one day from your last menstrual cycle. And then after that one year and one day, you are now post menopausal. So wait a minute. So that means that the menopause... So the year that you're not having your period is not menopause? It's technically perimenopausal. Yeah, but a lot of people will say that menopause is anything after you've stopped the bleeding. Yeah. that's what I always kind of, that's the way I would have said my grandma would have explained it to me, is going through the change. Right. And so, oh, okay, we've stopped uh one year and one day. So you're only metapausal one day, essentially. Basically. Yep. That's what all that's, that's typically what they'll say. Okay, got all these medical terminology. That is fat. I literally have never heard it said like that. Maybe I haven't spent enough time thinking about this. so then postmenopause is the rest of your life. That's the rest of your life. Yep. Okay, so I love how you talked about that hormones are the... I feel like a seventh grader right now because I'm like, I feel like I should know all this stuff and I don't. So if anybody else is out there going like, I don't really got to that. I hope y'all are not thinking that I'm an idiot and I hope you're thinking, I'm glad I'm not the only one. So um I love how simplified you said hormones are just messengers. and they're going from one organ to the next organ to say, Hey, so it's, it's a little bit like a project manager. Of course that's how I'm thinking about it. Cause it's, you know, the end of work day. I've been in project manager mode all day long. It's like, it's like they assign a task. So one, one hormone secretes the, or one organ sends the message, sends the hormone over to another organ to say, here, do the thing. And okay, I just need a second because then like now hormones like, oh, your hormones being out of balance and out of whack, then that is why it's so critical is because then your organs aren't being able to talk to each other. We have a communication problem. Houston, we have a problem. That's it. That's all it is. I'm sure somebody else has explained it like this, but I love it because that is super simple. So then you mentioned that we could get a blood test that's going to tell us about our follicle stimulating hormone, which by the way, never heard of. ah You're also very encouraging. Thank you. You're very sweet. Um, but cause you hear all about estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, right? Like we hear about those hormones and we hear about you know adrenaline and all of these different things, mechanisms that our body, but there it's so much deeper than that and more comprehensive. So I can get that one test, but what else would I be able to learn about and I have lots of questions. Go ahead. Fire away, we'll take them one at a time, we'll see what we're doing. But yes, all hormone stuff is a communication from one organ or gland or tissue to another one. And then once things start getting a little bit weird, then we can start picking it apart and go, is this a sender issue? Is this a receiver issue? But it is all a communication system within your body. uh But follicle simulating hormone comes from the brain goes to the ovary and says uh to the follicle to create estrogen estrogen is then you know one of the more uh Sexy hormones to talk about online so we hear more about the sex hormones estrogen progesterone all of that but follicle stimulating hormone is one of those precursors before that that gets estrogen to start being produced by the ovary so if your estrogen isn't increasing that won't trigger lute then then it goes from ovary then it goes back to the brain and luteinizing hormone then goes back to the ovary and say okay do the ovulation so we can ignore that it's follicle stimulating hormone saying okay do the get the estrogen going and if the estrogen is not being produced that's when a lot of women will start to feel some of those like classic perimenopause symptoms like brain fog uh Muscle having issues with strength as well. uh Sleep issues is another issue, but that's because estrogen plays a role in all of that in other places and downstream. Okay, so we have estrogen. I feel like I'm about to do a Schoolhouse Rock question. Estrogen does different things. It's not a single task. It is a multi-task hormone. It influences multiple tissues. That's correct. Yes. Okay, and so that because I'm like, wait, how does estrogen and brain fog and sleep and sex drive and all those things like wait, that that seems like a lot for one little hormone to be affecting. Yeah, definitely. And that's absolutely why women experience a plethora of symptoms when their ovaries are starting to go into retirement. And that's really what menopause is, is your ovaries are retiring. That's what it is. Okay, so... uh I have like connections going off in my brain. Like if I had an EEG right now, it'd be like ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. Anyway, so, um, well, there's elements of this that like, I think about how long people used to live, which is not very long. And then now we're living longer. And so, I even know what my question is. I'm just like, huh, what's the, there's a relationship here. So. How do we, um, what, what are, what are some of the first, I don't even know what the question is now. Cause I'm like, okay, so we were entering perimenopause because we're just in that tapering off. And then this is why it's important for us to get hormone tested. How do they know though, like, like if I went in right now and I've never had my estrogen level tested, How do we know what it's supposed to be? uh So there is a range for, the whole thing we'll call the reproductive continuum. There's a range for before puberty, puberty in your fertile years, and then in post menopause, there are levels for estrogen. And within those parameters, if you are too low in your estrogen during your fertile years, then there are things that can be done to help support that. But there is a range of like within normal limits for your blood work. um And it's gonna get a little bit stickier. um I actually like to test estrogen in uh the Dutch test, which is a dried urine test for comprehensive hormone health, because I talk about estrogen like it's one thing, but there's actually different types of estrogen. And so it's the ratios of those estrogens that are also important, especially for women who have a family history of estrogen-based breast cancer or uterine cancer or cervical cancer or any sort of estrogen-based cancer, that we look at the type of estrogen specifically. So honestly, a lot of times when you go to your typical allopathic Western medicine doctor, they're gonna test for like one type of estrogen and they're not gonna get into the ratios of it. But if I test estrogen, it is the ratios that I look at because there's different types of estrogen in. You can kind of call this like the good, the bad and the ugly and estrogen helps things grow. So if you have like the ugly kind of progesterone and you have a lot of it and you have things that are growing, that that's where things can be like a predisposition to estrogen based cancers in those situations. So getting a getting a hormone test is good. I like the Dutch test best when I do my hormone testing, but Kind of tying into something that we talked about earlier, just baseline testing, even just starting out with like a regular, like a regular CBC panel, a comprehensive blood count, because your hormones act in sort of like a hierarchy and your sex hormones are at the top of that pyramid. At the bottom of that period is the cortisol and the insulin, and those have to be happy and healthy before your thyroid hormones can be happy and healthy. and those have to be happy and healthy before then your sex hormones can be happy and healthy. And while we can do things to support those sex hormones of estrogen and progesterone, the best thing that we can do to support those is work on the foundation, the bottom first, making sure your cortisol is happy and healthy, making sure your insulin is really good so that you've got a good healthy blood sugar. So before even bothering to test estrogen, I would test fasting insulin because that'll tell us about blood sugar stuff. And then once that's happy, then I'd test maybe some estrogen stuff, do the Dutch test, that kind of thing. um But follicle stimulating hormone, if you're in perimenopause or you're questioning if you're in perimenopause, I would order that in conjunction with a just regular CBC test and fasting insulin. So I've always wondered what CBC was because you know when I watch ER or any of these medical shows they're always like CBC Chem 7. I'm like I don't know what that is but it sounds so when you said it I was like oh I'm gonna learn oh complete blood wait complete blood count okay. Red blood cells and white blood cell information. Okay, so it's just a just a broad spectrum kind of baseline of what we're looking for. This is fascinating. And I am super excited because my friends are probably not excited because I'm going to nerd out about hormones. And what I love is that this is a primer. So this is an opportunity for us to get connected. You are in a situation where I don't have to be. Wait, how? where can people find you? I hang out on Instagram at doctor.alora and then my website is ladytimelarning.com. So that's the easiest place that people connect with me on those two places. Okay, fantastic. So they can connect with you on those places and they can get those kinds of tests run. Where do you hang out on the planet geographically? Okay, Pittsburgh. Okay. So if I'm in the Pittsburgh area or are you, that's when I can get testing with you. I just want to make sure I'm clear. That would be the easiest. If you were in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, you can come and see me at my office in person. If you're in the state of Pennsylvania, I can come and see, like you can come in virtually and get connected with me. uh Outside of that, some states are a little bit picky with some things, but I can certainly say like, hey, here's a list of things that I would talk to your provider about, about getting ordered. And then I can help walk somebody through teaching them about. what those numbers mean and what more like optimal and functional numbers would mean because I do have some coaching clients that I work with to make those modifiable changes, diet and lifestyle habits that we can coach through and do that. But ordering the blood work can be a little bit picky depending on the state. A Dutch test we can usually get in most states, not all. Okay, so I can work with somebody locally, but then I can, if I want somebody that has a podcast and a website called Lady Time Learning, means that it's going to be more accessible and easier for me to talk to you, then I can follow your podcast, follow you online and be able to get some answers. So if you are looking for answers as you continue to dare to age well now, I hope that you will connect with Dr. Alora Pollard and until next time. Dare to age well now. Bye mouse.