Thanks for tuning in to the Armor Men’s Health Hour Podcast today, where we bring you the latest and greatest in urology care and the best urology humor out there.
In this segment, Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee are joined by special guests from River Place OB-GYN, Dr. John Thoppil and Women's Health Nurse Practitioner Dana Wicker. While the Armor Men's Health Hour is focused on men's health (obviously), we also like to cover crucial aspects of women's health, both for our female listeners and for our male listners who have wives, daughters, mothers, sisters, etc., so they can be well-informed about health issues that may impact their female loved ones. In this segment, Dr. Mistry, Dr. Thoppil, and Dana discuss why an OB-GYN is such an important health provider for all women after they begin their periods. Although many women are so busy that they look for corners to cut on their health, an annual visit to your OB-GYN should NOT be one of them! Annual exams are an opportunity for your providers to screen for many women's health issues and remind you when additional tests might be needed--everything from pap smears to colonoscopies to mammograms and more. At River Place OB-GYN, you can schedule your first appointment online at https://www.riverplaceobg.com/. Give them a call or visit online today to take control of your health, ladies!
Dr. Mistry is a board-certified urologist and has been treating patients in the Austin and Greater Williamson County area since he started his private practice in 2007.
We enjoy hearing from you! Email us at armormenshealth@gmail.com and we’ll answer your question in an upcoming episode!
Round Rock Office 970 Hester’s Crossing Road Suite 101 Round Rock, TX 78681
South Austin Office 6501 South Congress Suite 1-103 Austin, TX 78745
Lakeline Office 12505 Hymeadow Drive Suite 2C Austin, TX 78750
Dripping Springs Office 170 Benney Lane Suite 202 Dripping Springs, TX 78620
Speaker 1:
Welcome back to the Armor Men's Health Hour with Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee.
Dr. Mistry:
Hello and welcome to the Armor Men's Health Hour. This is Dr. Mistry, your host, along with my wonderful, incredibly intelligent...oh, wait. She's not here today. Oh, I got Donna here.
Donna Lee:
That's so funny.
Dr. Mistry:
Donna Lee.
Donna Lee:
Hello everybody. We're going to be insulting Dr. Mistry for the next 11 minutes.
Dr. Mistry:
I could feel that was coming, so I just wanted to make sure I got my digs in now.
Donna Lee:
[Inaudible] You're welcome, then. Thank you.
Dr. Mistry:
I'm a board certified urologist.
Donna Lee:
...mean, mean.
Dr. Mistry:
This is a men's health show. This show is brought to you by the urology practice started in 2007 in a little old town called Round Rock, Texas.
Donna Lee:
That's where you have all that gray happening.
Dr. Mistry:
You know, that was unnecessary. Dr. Mystery is my real name.
Donna Lee:
M-I-S-T-R-Y.
Dr. Mistry:
And this show really focuses on men's health topics, but also topics that men should really know about.
Donna Lee:
That's right. About their womens.
Dr. Mistry:
About their women, sometimes.
Donna Lee:
Yeah. We have those segments called"That's What She Said."
Dr. Mistry:
That's right. And, and, and you should know what's going on with your wife every so often.
Donna Lee:
Or at least know where to find things.
Dr. Mistry:
Or what she's ignoring. Where to find things?
Donna Lee:
Yeah.
Dr. Mistry:
We'll draw you maps.
Donna Lee:
We talk a lot about the G spot, but then Dustin in our clinic said it doesn't exist. So we know how his wife's feeling.
Dr. Mistry:
I know. I think Dustin's wife's like,"Well, you still can't find it."
Donna Lee:
Wow.
Dr. Mistry:
How do people get ahold of us? How do people make appointments with us?
Donna Lee:
That's right. You can call us during the week at(512) 238-0762. Our website's armormenshealth.com. You can send your questions to armormenshealth@gmail.com, where we will answer them anonymously and our podcasts. We are number two, most amazing sexual health podcast, the second most interesting men's health podcast, and we have a really cool prostate health podcast, according to feedspot.com our friends at Feed Spot.
Dr. Mistry:
That's right. Thank you, uncle, for making us so high on your Feed Spot.
Donna Lee:
Thanks, mom!
Dr. Mistry:
Thanks, mom. Today. We have two awesome guests. We have guests from River Place OB-GYN. The founder of River Place OB-GYN, a good friend of mine from a long time, is Dr. John Thoppil and then his nurse practitioner, Ms. Dana Wicker. Thank you guys for joining us today.
Donna Lee:
Welcome.
Dana Wicker:
Happy to be here.
Dr. Thoppil:
Very happy to be here.
Dr. Mistry:
Here. So, John and Dana, Dana, how long have you been a practicing OB-GYN?
Dana Wicker:
I have been in women's health for 18 years, and I've been here replaced with Dr. Thoppil for the last year. We've worked together for a long time before that.
Dr. Mistry:
Well, that's awesome. And John, how long have you been in practice?
Dr. Thoppil:
So we started this in 2013, but I finished residency in 2005. So Air Force for some time, and then one of your docs at Scott and White for a brief minute, until we're both smart enough to leave and started this whole thing in 2013.
Dr. Mistry:
Very good. We often talk about the big monster that is the galactic empire, Baylor Scott and White often on this show. But the highlight of your career in fact, is the going to medical school with me.
Dr. Thoppil:
That's true. It's like, like I said earlier, you started out ahead of me and then somehow you ended up in my class.
Dr. Mistry:
I was, I was on the five-year plan, which is great.
Donna Lee:
Partying. Or did you get, you were held back?
Dr. Mistry:
I did a Howard Hughes medical fellowship, and I did prostate cancer research. You keep it to yourself.
Donna Lee:
I figured.
Dr. Mistry:
So what I really have become very interested about during the pandemic and just in general, and looking at my own wife and how she has managed her own health is how much she's ignored it. And so it makes me think, what are kind of some tips and tricks that you guys have for men to know about what women should be getting done as part of their routine health as they're aging. So Dana, if you're younger, let's say you're under the age of 18, are there routine things that adolescents and young children generally should be getting done from a OB-GYN or general health screening?
Dana Wicker:
Yes. Once, once a woman has had her period, we recommend coming into the OB-GYN office. We can work closely with their pediatrician if there's need to have, you know, concurrent care with pediatricians. But there's immunizations that are important, and having just a general checkup in their teen years can help to develop a relationship where she feels comfortable coming to us with any problems or concerns. Management of painful periods, very heavy periods, or contraception are common appointments that we have in the teen years.
Dr. Mistry:
Are pap smears something that you generally do, like starting off from, from...
Dana Wicker:
Not until age 21.
Dr. Mistry:
Okay.
Dana Wicker:
So the fear that most young women have of having a pap smear is pretty unfounded. We don't do that at first appointments.
Dr. Mistry:
Well that's good to know.
Donna Lee:
That makes sense.
Dr. Mistry:
And then John, I think of like the, and correct me if I'm wrong, I consider the next stage in like kind of the life-cycle are going to be those years before you're trying to have a child, which I would have said in the past is up to the age of 25. But now I mean, many of the people that I start seeing are starting to don't even start thinking about until 33 to 35. Well, what are some of their screenings considerations?
Dr. Thoppil:
Yeah. So I think for most younger women, we are their primary care doc that's right. So they're seeing us for everything. So it might be their flu, a cold. But from a preventative standpoint, you know, we do start cervical cancer screening at 21. Guidelines have changed, that's not done every year, but you still see patients every year. You know? So there's still, you know, the routine screening for ovarian cancer, for example, is still based on physical exam. Breast cancer screening at younger ages is still physical exam. So those things happen every year, even if you're not getting a pap smear every year. So a lot of people get confused because they, once we stopped doing paps every year with HPV testing, they thought they didn't have to come in every year. The annual exam and a pap smear are not the same exact thing, even though people in their head think of them synonymously. I think the other big misconception is a lot of times I hear people say,"I don't need to go to the OB-GYN cause I'm not having babies," right? If you're a woman, you know, we're women's health experts. Having a baby is one aspect, fertility is one aspect, not having a baby is another aspect--we help with that too. But just throughout the entire life-cycle, we are the women's health experts. So, you know, gynecology is, is women's health, right? It's not just the obstetric side. Sometimes people get fixated on that.
Dr. Mistry:
I think that's really important because it is true. If a busy mother out there is going to go see one doctor, they're probably going to go see their OB-GYN and not make an appointment with their family practitioner and, and other things. That next stage is where I think a lot of people start missing out, and I could be wrong again. But I feel like when these people get busy with their careers or having families or their parents aren't paying for their insurance anymore, they start missing out on some, on some basic medical, preventative type things. If you were advising somebody who say in their late thirties or forties, what kinds of big highlights do you want to make sure they don't, they don't miss every year?
Dana Wicker:
Well coming in to see us, we help you to decide which parts are missing. So what I always tell patients is just come in yearly and it's our job to help remind you if it's time for a pap. But oftentimes we don't see underlying medical conditions pop up until pregnancy. So we would rather see those if you are borderline hypertensive or maybe you're pre-diabetic, let's go ahead and get ahead of those things before pregnancy, so that you are at optimal health during pregnancy.
Dr. Mistry:
That's a great piece of advice because the time to deal with these is before you get pregnant, because once you're pregnant--now, some of the medicines are off, off the table, you're get scared for not, not only yourself, but also your baby. And that holistic type of care is something that we preach all the time for men, but for women you can see it being even more important for them to address. And so then John, as people get older, and let's say they're not having children anymore, and they're going through menopause, what are some of the important, like preventative treatment OB-GYN related and non OB-GYN related kind of thing.
Dr. Thoppil:
Sure. So of course breast cancer screening is important, right? You know, most major medical societies recommend mammography starting at 40 on, but if you're high risk, that screening might be different. Genetic susceptibility to various cancers, right? If you have a family history, we help you figure out, you know, should you be screened for genetic mutations? A physical exam is still an important part of, you know, clinical breast exam, ovarian cancer screening. We, for many of our patients, are helping them decide on what the right colon screening treatment is. Are you eligible for Cologuard or do you need colonoscopy? You know, those type of things. But of course, you know, you mentioned menopause and you can't talk about menopause without talking about hormones, right? And so, you know, most women will have a symptomatic menopause with hot flashes, vaginal dryness, brain fog, bone loss. And I think there is, you know, from the women's health trial, which you're very familiar with 20 years ago, a lot of people got scared off about the risk of hormones. And there's a lot of benefits with hormones too, as, as in your practice, I know you, you manage a lot of identical hormones, just like we do. For the right individual, it can be the right therapy that really helps mitigate symptoms and might actually improve cardiovascular health, you know, starting at a younger age.
Dr. Mistry:
I, if I, if I can just kind of reiterate that point. Many years ago, there was a study done that made a lot of women feel like they were going to get breast cancer if they had hormone replacement therapy. But those studies did not in fact show that. They showed that if you started hormones within 10 years of going through menopause, whether it be surgical or medical menopause, that your risk of cardiovascular disease and breast cancer goes down. And that's, it's, I'm so glad that you, you, that, that you've mentioned it, because so many people get scared off from doing routine, what I think is very healthy hormone replacement if you're a woman, because of this perception that their parents had or their mother, or, you know, their, somebody had given it to them, and it scared off a lot of OB-GYNs to do hormone replacement.
Dr. Thoppil:
Yeah. I think that's fair. It's just talking about the right individual. There are certainly people that have contra-indications, right? Sometimes we'll see that the opposite, too, somebody come in that shouldn't be on. But the vast majority of healthy 50 year olds, newly menopausal are outstanding candidates for hormone placement for as long as they have symptoms.
Dr. Mistry:
So, access to an OB-GYN I think is something that, you know, because everybody seems so busy, how do people call you to make an appointment?
Dr. Thoppil:
Yeah. So, you know, for us, we try to make it easy to you. Of course, our office(512) 473-8300. But our website, you can book directly with us as new patients. So that's riverplaceobgyn.com. You can get in with our nurse practitioners who are both outstanding or Dr. Shepherd or I. We're always seeing new patients, anybody ever needs to get in. We, you know, we'll, we'll find a way to get you in if you need to be seen ASAP.
Dr. Mistry:
Well, I can't thank you both enough for joining us and giving kind of the guys who listen to the show and the wives that are stuck in the car with them so much important information. You guys are excellent providers. I'm, I'm such a big fan of the kind of care you guys provide and the kind of care you take. So, definitely River Place OB-GYN is a, is a favorite of ours. So thank you so much for joining us. Donna, how do people get hold of us?
Donna Lee:
That's right. You call us at(512) 238-0762. Our Armor Men's Health website is armormenshealth.com. And our email address is armormenshealth@gmail.com. Listen to our podcasts, wherever you listen to free podcasts. They're amazing. And they're just for you. Thank you!
Speaker 1:
The Armor Men's Health Hour will be right back. If you have questions for Dr. Mistry, email him at armormens health@gmail.com.