Mari Fong: Living with Depression & Hormone Imbalance Recovery with Dr. Gary Donovitz (Founder, BioTE)

Mari Fong is interviewed by musician Kat Jensen on living with depression and hormone balance recovery with Dr. Gary Donovitz, founder of BioTE, a customize bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.  We begin the 3rd season of the CHECK YOUR HEAD Podcast with your host Mari Fong sharing how hormone imbalance and stress were triggers for bouts of depression and anxiety throughout her life.  After finding the right antidepressant and hormone pellet therapy, Fong finally recovers and appreciates life more than ever. Musician Kat Jensen interviews.

Next, we have international speaker, author and 20 year researcher on bioidentical hormone therapy, Dr. Gary Donovitz. A board-certified OBGYN, Dr. Donovitz shares the risks and benefits of hormone optimization, how hormones can affect our mental and physical health, and the difference with BioTE, a customized hormone pellet therapy for both men and women.
 
“Be brave, ask for help, and be persistent in finding the mental help that you need.” For free and affordable solutions for mental health and addiction recovery, visit: http://checkyourheadpodcast.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to the Check Your Head podcast, the podcast where notable musicians and experts share their stories and solutions for mental health and wellness. I'm your host, Mari Fong, a music journalist and life coach for musicians, and welcome to the third season of the Check Your Head podcast. And Happy New Year to all my Check Your Head superheroes. I start this year with cautious optimism. This pandemic is proving to be unpredictable in so many ways, yet I do believe we'll get a handle on it with medical help. So in the meantime, I ask all of you to please protect yourself, to mask up and to get the vaccine, two things that have been proven to protect our health against COVID. And if you're still deciding on which risk to take, my bet is going to be on taking the vaccine versus getting sick with COVID. I'm happy to say that I'm fully vaccinated, I've got my booster, and still mask up when I go out. So let me send my love and care to everyone who's been grieving or stressed out during this pandemic. I totally understand and do believe life will get better in 2022. So let's hang tough and get through this together. I do have a few announcements, first with good news. The Check Your Head podcast was nominated for a Golden Crane Award from the Asian American Podcast Association for Best Mental Health Podcast, and although we didn't win this time, it did feel good to be recognized. Also, if you'd like to give us a belated Christmas gift, write us a review on Spotify, which now has podcast ratings. Or visit us at checkerheadpodcast.com, scroll down our homepage, and find the big red button that says, Thank you for giving us your review. There you can easily rate and review us. My gift to you is to give you Checkerhead Podcast's Naked Interviews on YouTube, naked meaning unedited, expanded versions of our Zoom interviews with your favorite musicians and mental health experts. Try us on YouTube. I think you'll like it. Now to our featured guests. I can admit on getting nervous before an interview, but by far this one was the most nerve-wracking of them all, because this one is about my story of depression and anxiety, along with my solutions for recovery. It was my youngest daughter who encouraged me to tell my story, and my first thought was, I don't really want to, but my second thought was, maybe my story could help others, and if musicians are brave enough to be open and honest on this podcast, I can do the same. For me, my depression and anxiety was due to hormonal changes in combination with stress, discovering this only after having to play detective with my health, which was really a tough journey that I'll share with you today. As a side note, before you try any solutions for yourself, please talk to your doctor first to get their advice and medical guidance. Next, our featured expert is the founder of BioT, a customized bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Dr. Gary Donovitz is a board-certified OBGYN and has also spent 20 years doing research and study on bioidentical hormone therapy, authoring two books on the subject. Dr. Donovitz will talk about the benefits and risks of hormone therapy and how optimizing your hormones can affect your mental and physical health, and how hormone pellet therapy works in patients just like me. But first, let's welcome my friend and musician, Kat Jensen, who will be interviewing me as I tell you my story. Today we have a really special guest. interview for you because what we're going to do is we are going to turn the microphone around and we are going to talk to Mari Fong. who has been a pioneer in this area of mental health for musicians. And she'd like to share some of her story with us. And I don't know about you, but I'm really excited to hear what she has to say. So I'm going to give it up for her. And here you go, Mari. Tell us a little bit more about you and what has gone on and how you came from the past and how you've brought your talent and your strength and hope to this wonderful podcast we have going on today. We both talked about our experiences with mental health in the past, and we've commiserated on things like depression and anxiety. And I went through my own experience with depression throughout my life, different periods. And this last time that it happened, which kind of occurred during my change of life during menopause, I didn't really realize that there was a correlation, but it was really bad. It was really severe. And so I kind of had to play detective on what was going on with me because nothing really, you know, there was no tragic emotional change in my life. Like situational type of thing. Like if your dog dies or something, you automatically think, yeah, I'm going to be sad. But there wasn't anything that you could pick out. Exactly. Sometimes we associate depression or anxiety with But we don't necessarily think of the physical conditions or what might be happening with stress that can cause and trigger depression. And I was actually very happy in my life at the time. I was working at Sirius XM Radio and I was producing this show for kind of a hero of mine, Neil Strauss. He wrote The Dirt and books like The Game. And he's done a lot of rock biographies. But on the other hand, I put so much into this job, I didn't realize I was on adrenaline all the time. And it took a toll on my mental health. Over time, that can get draining. I mean, you must have started to feel it at some point. Did you just start questioning what was causing all of the feelings? You knew you were busy, but there had to be an exhaustion underneath there. There was, but I didn't realize it because to me it was excitement. But when I look back, I could see how during menopause, you go through a lot of symptoms that you may not even be thinking about because you may not even realize you're going through this change of life. But I remember sometimes waking up and just dragging, feeling like my feet weighed 50 pounds. It was hard just to walk, not wanting to talk with people. I'm just being really fatigued. And these feelings would come and go. But as I approached menopause, it just got worse. And as I added in this stress, which I looked at as excitement, I fell into a depression. It kind of crashed in on me. And it's almost like a computer where you unplug the computer and everything goes black. That's kind of how I felt. I mean, one day I was okay, and then the next day I was not. And nothing was working. I wasn't able to think straight. I wasn't able to put together sentences to write an email. I couldn't get out of bed. I lost all my pleasure centers and everything because I know when I'm depressed, I can't eat and everything goes haywire. Yeah, exactly. And that's it. We were talking about this where... You tend to lose all your positive, happy emotions and you're left with bad emotions, sadness and guilt and feelings of worthlessness, just really negative emotions. And it was a space that I really wasn't familiar with because if you ask my friends and my family, you'll see that most of them would describe me as somebody who's positive and energetic and It's encouraging. You are. I mean, you are usually really fun to be around. I mean, I know you personally. So I can imagine that when you saw this change in yourself, it must have really been catastrophic for you to think about what is causing this. You're just feeling all these feelings. It's like, where the hell did that come from? Exactly. And let me tell you, it was devastating for me because Here I was in a job that I really enjoyed, and I couldn't do it anymore. I physically and mentally could not do it, even if I tried. And here I was confused. I was scared. But I had to resign from my position. And it's hard to explain why, because when you're in depression, it's hard to even put words together. So I think people on the other end were confused as well. They were concerned about me. But I had to take a step back and really find out what was going on with me. Yeah, and they don't always know what to say, too. The same with family. That's the time when we need the most support. But then families and people you work with probably just don't know what to say about it. It's a really odd place to be. How did your family take it? I mean, did you talk to them about it? What was your next step as far as, you know, You're dealing with this depression and you're not thinking straight. You know, with depression, you just kind of want to hide away. You don't even really want to talk about it. But the thing is, is that if you are just pretty much laid up in bed, you know, not even wanting to eat and just having the energy just to, you know, go to and from the bathroom. I think the first person I talked to was my oldest daughter. She was coming from college back home and I told her that I was depressed. And she didn't know what to make of it. You know, and neither did I. It's also people around you trying to figure out how can they help and what can they do. So it was kind of a learning experience for all of us. But first, I went to doctors and psychiatrists. I took tests. I tried to figure out what was going on. And nobody really had an answer. Did you ever get that? Well, just fuck up or, you know. What do you have to be depressed about? You have a great job. You're cute. You have this. You have that. And it's almost like if they can minimize it a little bit, maybe you'll just kind of, boom, snap out of it and it'll all be okay. But it doesn't work like that. No, it's a condition. And this condition causes you to think a certain way. It causes you to have unhealthy thoughts, thoughts that you may not even recognize yourself. I mean, I had never thought this way before. But when I look back, we were talking about how I had to piece together what was going on with me. Because when I want to talk with doctors and take tests and talk to therapists, no one had talked about the effects of menopause and hormonal change as something that could trigger a mental condition. And on top of that, I had psoriasis. Which is an autoimmune disease. Psoriasis is not just a skin condition. It actually has to do with your immune system and your immunity and how you fight things off. So it's part of you. And as I was going through this journey, I realized... I always thought it was just kind of a rash that was annoying to me. But as I got older, this psoriasis, it was completely flaring up during this time. I mean... I was having a rash that was so severe. I've read now that people with psoriasis often have depression because that whole flare-up can affect the chemicals in our brain. That could have been part of it, the stress. What I found out later was the hormonal change. The funny thing is I kind of got tipped off after talking to some of the people on the podcast about who talked about premenstrual dysphoric disorder. And that's where you go into severe depression during your menstrual cycle. Right. And it can happen in puberty too. It's anytime your hormones can go up and down. And these are pivotal times in our lives where hormones might be out of balance for whatever reason. And it can be a trigger. Right. So boys and girls both go through puberty. emotional roller coasters for men and women. But for women, we also have postpartum depression, things like that, that is documented and scientifically researched. There is a correlation there. And it happened to me when I was in college. That was the first time I really dipped into a bad depression. And that one lasted about seven months. And again, it was a time where I was going through a lot of stress. I was... graduating college. I was the president of a business organization. Too much going on. It never really affected me until then. And when I graduated, I dipped into like a seven-month depression. Gosh, that is really rough, it sounds like. And especially at that tender age and you're probably thinking to yourself, what's going on? Why do I feel like that? I'm sure you probably thought about just burnout, but there's something beyond burnout because anytime you have a low mood like this, it goes past two or three weeks, you start wondering what else could be on top of this. You know, even when people say burnout, what does that mean exactly? And I remember when The last semester of college, just driving to school and just feeling so fatigued that I just wanted to let go of the wheel. And I wouldn't care what would happen. Just thoughts like that. And I finally told my parents what I was going through. I couldn't sleep well. Again, I wasn't eating. And my mom said, what do you have to be depressed about? What's wrong with your life? You have everything going for you, Mari. What's going on? It just makes you feel more guilty and more confused. Exactly. And the thing is, depression doesn't always correlate with what's going on in your life unless it's a situational depression. Yeah, like your dog died, like we said. That's true. What happened with your family? Did they start to become more supportive over time or? At that first time it happened, my parents didn't know what was going on. And they took me to a psychiatrist because I asked them to. And he prescribed an antidepressant for me. And that actually worked. The first one they tried worked for me. And within two weeks. That's great. Oh, my gosh. It was really a lifesaver. And after that happened, I told myself, I'm never going to go through that again. As if I can control it. Yeah, you're right. Like we have any choice over the matter. Right. But most of my life, I was fine. There were times where stress was part of my life, but it never got to the point of depression. I'd gone through divorce. I had gone through life changes, job changes, and all kinds of things. But I never got into another depression. Until I hit menopause. Depression's one of those fun little friends that might not show up all the time, but can come back and give a little bit more to you. It hangs around and waits in the background. And then when your hormone level dips, there's a possibility of a trigger again. So menopause hits. Why don't you tell us more about that? Well, you know, I didn't realize losing weight estrogen, progesterone, all of those healthy hormones, testosterone, they kind of have this harmonious thing that happens in your body that makes your body worth at peak levels. It controls your sleep. It controls your energy. It controls your ability to concentrate and focus. It even controls your weight, metabolism, all of those things. And when you go through menopause or For males, it's andropause. You start losing all those hormones that are meant to protect your body. Males can dip in testosterone levels too, which can have a very similar effect to what you're speaking about because hormones are in all of our bodies. The first time it happened with the depression, it lasted about a year and a half. And I had gone to so many psychiatrists, therapists, psychologists, Nobody mentioned menopause or hormonal changes as a trigger to depression. I know stress was part of it because I was working very hard during that time. But I think we also don't realize that as we go through our lives, our bodies react to stress differently. I mean, I was getting older and I didn't realize that my body couldn't take certain things as it used to. Well, and then you get levels of cortisol that gets brought into your bloodstream because that's a stress hormone. And, oh, fun, cortisol, it helps you gain weight, helps you be irritable, helps you do all the depressive, horrible things that you don't want to do. And, yeah, that's another fun thing to deal with. Well, also, the cortisol can... affect your body making the good hormones like estrogen and testosterone. Those good hormones get pushed to the side when you've got all this cortisol being made. And that's where you get the imbalance. And that's why stress is something that we all really have to control because no matter what age you are, that can really throw you for a loop. We all have cortisol and But it was meant for a specific reason. Like, for instance, if a bear is chasing you and you need a fight or flight to get out of the way and be safe, but it's supposed to be there only in a short period of time. If it's in your body for a long period of time, you're pituitary and you're When you have too much of that happening, you almost get a burnout of the others because now your body can't continue to fight. It's over-manufacturing cortisol to try and save us from the bear. But instead, we're not getting the hormones that we need to just live a daily life, and this imbalance takes over. It is terrifying to feel all of these feelings and not know why it's happening. It's adrenal fatigue. And I was reading that it can take a year and a half for you to recover from that. And it was a really tough, scary battle because when you are depressed, oftentimes anxiety comes along with it. And I had anxiety that went off the charts. I was scared of things that doesn't even make sense to me. Like I would get scared of driving the car because I was afraid I was going to get lost and not be able to find my way back. It doesn't make any sense. But still, I had that fear. When I was trying different medications, there were side effects that made me feel like my skin was crawling. And I was like, oh my gosh, there's bugs underneath me. I was really thinking some strange things during that time. And that's why sometimes meds might be needed for this sort of a thing. But sometimes you have to try several different ones before you get the correct cocktail, so to speak, that's going to calm the anxiety and that's going to help us think a little bit straighter. So you may not have the experience like you did the first time where within two weeks you got a positive response. So it takes patience sometimes to find the right balance. The tough thing too about depression is that it makes you feel like things are hopeless. The condition makes you feel that way. And even though logically you think this doesn't make sense, it's very believable when it's happening to you. So to try a medication and to wait two to four weeks for it to start working and then realizing it's not is It takes a lot of persistence because every day when you wake up in a depression and you feel your heart sink and say, oh gosh, I'm feeling like this again. I've got to get through another day. It's tough because I could barely even get off the couch during this time. And I did feel worthless because I couldn't do anything. And the thing is, I could not physically or mentally do anything. And I felt like I was just in this catatonic stake and that I could never get out of it. Depression feels like falling into a well, like a dark well. Yeah. For me, I know that sometimes suicidal ideation throws its little head in there, too. Like, well, you're just not worth it, so... Might as well do everybody a favor. I mean, it's not uncommon for these thoughts to just intrusively come right into your mind. And that gets to be a scary place. And so being able to recognize that depression and these thoughts don't make sense and say, okay, my head's lying to me and it's telling me all this stuff. That's the only way to talk yourself through it. I have to talk myself through it. That's the thing that is scary about depression is that thoughts will come into your brain that are frightening, like suicidal ideation, which is part of the condition. I always say that because I want people to know that this disorder is causing you to have these thoughts. Exactly. They feel like your thoughts, but logically you have to tell yourself that this condition is is causing you to have these thoughts. You talk about suicidal ideation. I would look at the top of a building and I would think, if I jumped off that building, would I be able to survive that? You know, you have these thoughts and you don't want to have these thoughts, but you have to fight against those thoughts because they're not yours. Like you said, depression and anxiety is lying to you. when you start realizing or understanding this kind of a thing, it almost feels like you're fighting for your own life every day. You're just trying to survive it. And that's what it does feel like. It's like you're fighting for your life. You're fighting for your life and you're going against the tide of it. And I was saying how I lost my appetite. I was 130 pounds yesterday. When I fell into my depression and at my lowest, and this was me forcing myself to eat every day because I was fighting for my life, although I wasn't hungry, which is really hard for people to understand to have to eat something when you're not hungry. It's not easy. I mean, I was shoveling food in my mouth. I couldn't really even taste it, but I dropped down to 93 pounds. I was terrified. I really was. And thankfully, at that time, things turned around for me. I found an antidepressant that worked for me. And when I got healthy, I changed my lifestyle. I got super healthy. I ate healthy. I exercised. I did all those things that people say to have a healthy life. And see, so the proof is out there. It can work. And it does work. It's just a matter of getting yourself to some health. There is hope. There is light at the end of this tunnel. You have to try so many different things to see what works for you. And that's the persistence part. I also went to a support group. And that was really hard when you're in the midst of a depression, anxiety, because... The last thing you want to do is see people, strangers. Oh, yeah. Because another thing that comes with this is the fact that you want to basically isolate. And isolating is the worst thing that you can do. If you start isolating, then your head's really going to be out to get you. Well, that's the hard part is that when you isolate, you feel like isolating. But when you do, and the entire day is spent just by yourself, you end up hating that. Because you've done nothing. You've done nothing. You haven't even tried. And the opposite, going to see people is so frightening. It's almost like going there naked for some reason. It's so scary. And I remember just breaking down and crying, but also meeting people that understood what I was going through. And there were flashes of connection there. And I think one of the hardest things about mood disorder is that it disconnects you from people. You can't even feel the emotion of love and care and compassion and all those good emotions. You're completely disconnected. And that is hard. And so that understanding, it was a little bit of a breakthrough. And it makes you feel better. It does. Yeah. For me, it was just gaining my motivation. It's being able to be vulnerable. It's being able to say, you know, I feel like shit right now, but I'm going to show up, you know, I'll get my body there. Maybe my brain's not all the way here, but I'm going to try and get my body there and we'll see what happens. But that's when the miracles start to happen is if you could just get your body there first and have a little trust that it can get better a little at a time because it can and it does. We see that it does. Yeah, and one thing that really, I just felt relief when I got there because the first thing the leader said was, you do not have to say anything. If you don't want to participate, you could just sit and watch and listen. Because that's the last thing, again, that you want to do is participate. Don't talk to me. I don't want to talk to anyone. Right. But slowly you do open up. So anyways, what happened, the first time I got sick, I got better, but I made a mistake that a lot of people do, which is I'm good now. I'm going to taper off my medication. And I tapered off. And you know what? I was fine for a year and a half, but then it happened again. And I was down for the count for another year and a half. See, the depression is in the background going, oh, she thinks she's got me beat. And it's like doing push-ups and working out in the corner, just waiting for you to be a little vulnerable or stressed out again. It's there. So you have to constantly know that it's in the background. This is something that you're going to deal with probably a few times within your life. Some people may only deal with it once, twice. But some people have doubts of it several times in their life. But once you get to know that little crappy bastards in the back doing push-ups, you can become strong enough to see when it starts creeping in. You get to know yourself better mentally and physically. Because there's little signs and symptoms, but you got to listen. That's what I've learned. And when you're under stress, you've got to back it up. and take breaks and do all that maintenance that's so important. But yeah, the second time it happened, it still took a year and a half for me to get better. And I went back on the medication. And this time around, I thought maybe it was a hormonal thing. But this time I verified it. When I took a lab test for my hormones, I found that they were much below average. So I decided to try this bio tea, which is bioidentical hormone therapy using pellets that are inserted and they kind of dissolve throughout about four months. I tried patches. I tried creams. I tried some oral medications. But the thing is, is that the levels of hormone fluctuates and it's not customized to your body. I do a lab test beforehand. and find out where my levels are. And then they customize how much they're going to give me to last for about four months. Yeah, that's great. Because I think that a lot of women especially have heard of hormone therapy. And much of that hormone therapy is derived from animals. And basically what I'm getting from you is this is a much more customized delivery system, there would be a lot more accuracy. Since you've tried other types, do you think that this feels more accurate to what your needs have been? Yes, I do feel like it's much more fit to my body. And I'm very sensitive to medication. So I like to know that it's customized for me. And it's also bioidentical. So it's plant-based. It's not from horses or anything like that. It's more fit to what your body naturally makes. And let me tell you, the first thing that I noticed was that I had more energy. I can focus and concentrate a lot better. You know how you get this mental fog when you go through these hormonal changes? My sex drive. Yeah, all right. So much better. Let's get to the meat and potatoes on this one. How's sex now? We all want to know. The hormones left and with that left all of my sexual desire. And it was upsetting to me because all of the good feels weren't there anymore. Yes, like losing a part of yourself or your identity. When you have sexual desire for the opposite sex or whoever you have Desired for. You put your makeup on. You dress up. You start to flirt. You do these things naturally. And I didn't care anymore. Yeah, it's like flatlining, right? I'm going to get a cat now. It's like one of the joys of life is taken away from you. And, you know, so my God, that was amazing. I mean, the fact that I could sleep again. When you're depressed, your sleep goes out the window. I was not able to sleep at all. I could not understand it. I was tired as heck, but I could not go to sleep. I could not get a good night's sleep. To get a good night's sleep, oh my gosh, it's everything. It repairs your body. It repairs your mind. If you have a bad night's sleep, I don't care how old or who you are, you're going to be irritable. You're going to be grumpy. Plus, you look like shit, ladies. Let's just get to the bottom line. I talked with Dr. Donovitz, who created BioT, and he said that actually the sex drive that the men saw with their wives after they got the pellets They were convinced. They were like, wow, this has really helped our relationship. And so it made them look into testosterone replacement. That's great too. See? Yes. So there is hormonal replacement for men as well. Because men don't talk about andropause. We don't talk about that. But there is a change that happens. So there's relief for men as well. That is so important. We need to be honest about it. I know I make big jokes about it, but sex is a part of life and it holds the key to releasing a lot of good feelings, a lot of endorphins in the brain, and it can keep you in a positive mood and you're fulfilling some of those natural needs. We need to be healthy as humans all the way from the inside of our brains to the out. I really felt like I was dying during that time when my hormones were exiting out of my body. I felt like I was being put in the front line of a war without any protection, without any artillery. Since I have this regimen now, I take my antidepressant. I take estrogen and testosterone that I do with BioT. I take oral progesterone. I take vitamins that I know I'm deficient in. Vitamin C for immunity, D is really good for mental stability. I do a B-complex that gives me energy. B-complex gives you energy, but it also gives you a mental calmness when you go through obstacles in life. So I do take supplements along with it, but it's been, I think we're going on four years, five years, and I have been steady, stable, happy, and content. And they say just continue to do what works. What about diet? Because since 2020, I know for a fact, a lot of you were like me and we just started binging on like sugar and cakes, ice cream, booze, whatever it is we like. And did you have to do much modifying on your diet along with this to see, you know, a change? I'm just wondering what the diet correlation could be. If I have an addiction, it's sugar. Sugar and salty snacks, just like everybody else. We're dealing with this pandemic stress and everything else that's going on in our lives, all these changes that we start to try to medicate with all of these things that we love, right? But what I'm doing now is I'm doing like a 5-2 diet where, you know, you've heard of fasting. I've had intermittent fasting. And so basically 5-2 is two days you do 500 calories, which is not very much. That's your fast days. But the other five days, you can eat whatever you want, whatever time you want. And that's what I loved about it. Yeah. That doesn't sound too bad. Sounds doable. Yeah. So that's what I'm doing. And I'm just cooking a lot more. And as far as maintenance, we talk about our toolkit, just trying to be outdoors and I do a quick bike ride every day, like 15, 20 minutes. You know, just these things that can really be good for our spirit. We've got to remember to do every day. Take breaks. Just have mental health as a priority in your life. I want to ask you real quickly, too, because I wanted to touch on this. I know that you play piano and you're a musician, but what inspired you to want to work with crazy people like me you know like what inspired you to want to work with musicians and to to help the group of us I mean for me music was sort of a drug for a while and it was something to help me get my feelings out but this is why we try to do some of this stuff and I want to know what got you there I've always loved music like a lot of people love music but You know, what's funny is I actually got into writing about music because I had a friend of mine who was in a band. And they were trying to get press and promotion. And we were really good friends. And I wanted to do something to help get the word out on this band. So I decided to write a review and send it to a local newspaper. And they liked it. And so they said, we could have you come on board and write about music. And I thought, Why not do that? I wasn't getting paid at the time. Free shows. And then I got to talk with musicians that I admired. I realized I had a natural curiosity and that I wanted to bring out their stories so that they can connect better with their fans. And I started to feel like a conduit in that sense. And as I was growing up, I had people tell me that they felt very comfortable talking with me and telling me things and trusting me in some way. And I'm hoping that is what happens when I interview musicians because I absolutely love it. I absolutely love. We love it. We love it because you're great at it. You know what you've done is you've been able to bring us together. And I think in the great words of Jon Bon Jovi, you know, we're all the same. Only the names have changed, right? Because we all tick. We're all doing this in the world together. But if we can bring it to everyone so that they can not feel so alone about it and get some help or realize that it's okay. It's okay. And you're doing that for us. Well, thank you so much. And let me tell you, I admire completely what musicians bring to this world. It is healing. It's so personal. Music is, it's been a part of my life that I will always cherish and have gratitude for. I think we're both on the same page, just knowing how difficult it is going through a mood disorder, but getting to the other side and just wanting to give others hope through storytelling, through sharing solutions. People can get through this and we don't want to lose any more lives. And if we can improve lives, let's do it. Thank you for your music too. Thank you. I'm glad I have it to share. Thank you so much, Kat. Thank you. Next up, we have an internationally recognized speaker, leader, researcher, and advocate of hormone optimization, Dr. Gary Donovitz. Dr. Donovitz is also the founder of BioT, a revolutionary bioidentical hormone pellet therapy program which has shown mental and physical health benefits. Dr. Donovitz has trained over 6,000 medical practitioners across the country on BioT and is also the author of the books Age Healthier, Live Happier, and Testosterone Matters More. Now let's hear expert Dr. Gary Donovitz share his knowledge and advice. Thank you so much, Dr. Donovitz, for BioT. And I wanted to start off By what I hear sometimes from other women about hormone replacement therapy, based on an old study that was done in 2002 by the Women's Health Initiative, showing that synthetic hormone therapy can cause things like breast cancer, actually increase the chances of that when used during or after menopause. Can you tell me why using bioidentical hormones is different?

SPEAKER_00: 41:19

Sure. So synthetic hormones are usually from an animal. In the one study that you mentioned, the Women's Health Initiative, both hormones in that study, Premarin and Prempro, both come from the urine of a horse. And that hormone that's in both of those products, women have never made. So you have a synthetic hormone that your body's never seen, and it has many more side effects and many less benefits. Bioidentical hormones are typically plant-based, meaning they come from a plant, usually soy. And what we do is we take the hormone that your ovary made, like estrogen, like progesterone, like testosterone, and we create that same hormone and then put it back into your body, whether it's a cream or whether it's a patch or a pill or a pellet. And at BioT, we favor pellets because we get better blood levels, more consistent blood levels. But at least your body is seeing the same hormone that it saw for its whole life. And the problem is so many people wait till menopause to start thinking about hormones. The average age in the Women's Health Initiative is 63. would shock you to know that most women start losing testosterone, which is the hormone they make the most of their whole life, at age 25. So for 40 years, they've been losing a hormone that they needed. Then they started losing estrogen at menopause, and then people didn't replace it for some 10 years later. And of course, they had issues, not just because they started late, but because they used synthetic hormones.

SPEAKER_01: 42:59

Yes. So that is a big difference. And when I was going through menopause, I was getting hot flashes and night sweats that made it very hard to sleep. I was getting tired, brain fog, gaining weight. I mean, there were so many different conditions that could happen when your hormones are off. And one thing that is actually a quote taken from your book called Age Healthier, Live Happier. Avoiding Overmedication with Natural Hormone Balance. But one of the quotes says, the state of our health is directly related to the state of our hormones. Can you tell us more about what you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00: 43:41

So many people actually get their problems or their symptoms band-aided by medications, not just hormones, but other things like antidepressants or fad diets or diet pills or sleeping pills. And we take a pill for everything that has a problem, but we never get to the root problem. And the root cause for a number of the symptoms that women experience, both in that premenstrual dysphoric disorder that you mentioned and depression and menopause is actually an imbalance in your hormones. So what we believe at BioT and what I talk about in the book Age Healthier Live Happier is how do we optimize, not just replace. And I think that's probably something I'll talk about today because lots of people have hormone replacement therapy, just taking hormones, but they don't individualize that therapy. They don't optimize their own hormones. But when your hormones are optimized, you sleep better. You have less depression, less anxiety, less weight gain. And that brain fog that you talked about, that poor memory, focus, and concentration is much better when your hormones are optimized. And so therein lies the problem. The root problem is the hormone imbalance, not the fact that you were Prozac deficient or deficient in Ambien or deficient in diet pills. We have a situation where our hormones are not balanced. And because we're low on some hormones, and we could even be low on some and high on others, then our bodies react in such a way that we may gain weight. We may have brain fog. We may not sleep well. And all of that can lead to depression, anxiety, and all the things you talked about.

SPEAKER_01: 45:27

One thing that I felt while I was going through this change was that all of these hormones that were protecting my body and also causing it to work efficiently were just starting to diminish. And I felt the physical and the mental effects of that. After menopause, things like heart disease can skyrocket in incidence because of the loss of estrogen. So there are other medical conditions that also can be tied to hormones. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00: 46:00

That's correct. And in fact, breast cancer is the same. We just published a study in April showing a 40% reduction in breast cancer in optimizing a woman's hormones with testosterone, with or without estrogen. So estrogen is not the bad guy, as many people have heard. Testosterone is not the bad guy. And in fact, together, they were able to lower the incidence of breast cancer. We're able to actually prevent osteoporosis. We're able to reduce your chances for Alzheimer's. And as you mentioned, once we lose estrogen at the menopause, one in three women are going to die from cardiovascular disease. It is the number one killer for women. So the question is, how can we prevent heart disease We've got to get there early and we've got to stop the plaque formation that starts way earlier in life than most people believe. It's not something that starts when you're 50. It started when you were 20 or 10. And so it's a case of getting there early, optimizing your hormones early, and preventing the cardiovascular disease. Once the estrogen starts falling in menopause, we're in a much better position to reduce heart attacks, to reduce stroke, to reduce plaque formation, which is going to make that second half of your life better. Because we can make people live a long time, Maury, but the question is, Are they going to be in a position where they feel their best? Or are they going to have a hip fracture and a heart attack and their brain's going to be gone and demented? Because that's not a great way to age. So how could you age better and stave off some of those diseases that you talked about? And I think that's what BioT tries to do.

SPEAKER_01: 47:46

Yes, I actually am ready for my next pellet insertion for BioT. The first things that I usually notice is that my sleep gets really and start to get muscle aches and brain fog. But can you tell us, you were talking about the personalization that BioT has. Can we talk about how BioT is different from other bioidentical hormone replacement therapies?

SPEAKER_00: 48:12

Sure. So in the Women's Health Initiative, you saw people had taken Premarin if they didn't need progesterone or PremPro, but there's no individualization. Since here's a pill, take this pill and hopefully it'll make you feel better. We actually look at your hormones. We look at your testosterone level. We look at your estrogen level. We look at your thyroid level. And we decide from there what would be appropriate for you. So as an individual, we can optimize the hormones that you need and not just make it a one-size-fits-all approach. If you do that, where it's one size fits all, your side effects will be higher, your benefits will be lower, and the worst part is people won't stay on the therapy. So you see people start this hormone replacement therapy like Premarin and PremPro, half of the people stop in the first year. We have 80% or better retention long-term, meaning people stay on pellet therapy as you have because they feel better, because it's easy, and four months, most women women are going to get their pellets about three times a year. So it's not something you have to do every day. Most men are going to do it about every five months, so twice a year. And that's a lot easier than taking 104 shots if you're a male or taking a pill every day or rubbing creams on twice a day that are going to give you very high levels of these hormones and in some cases make you feel worse, not better.

SPEAKER_01: 49:42

Well, you know, you actually mentioned Some of the things that I've tried previous, which are creams and patches. And the first time I was treated for like night sweats, which were really bad, I was given a birth control pill, which is a hormonal based. And I realized that took care of it within minutes. a day or two. I was amazed. And so that led me to investigate more about bioidentical hormones and how it could be done more naturally. And one thing about BioT is that it's a small little pellet, right? Like less than the size of a grain of rice that's inserted under your skin. And it slowly melts throughout the time period.

SPEAKER_00: 50:32

So it doesn't so much melt as it dissolves over time. And the nice thing is it's completely gone. So some people confuse pellet implants with implants like Norplant where they're loaded with hormones, but you have to take them out after so many years. You don't take out pellets. They completely dissolve or melt, as you say, and they're gone. And then you get your next insertion four months later. That's a nice thing because you don't have to keep taking things out. The pellets will dissolve and you're getting the right amount of pellets because we have different doses of pellets. We have different doses of testosterone, different doses of estrogen. So you get just what you need, not maybe what somebody else needs. And then the male pellets are different than the female pellets. So we're able to individualize for men as well as women.

SPEAKER_01: 51:24

I used to be in the pharmaceutical industry. You know, doctors always want to know about studies and scientific research. Can you bring us up to date on some of the scientific research and studies that have been done on bioidenticals and the benefits to the body?

SPEAKER_00: 51:38

Sure. So pellet therapy has actually been around for 80 years. A lot of people think it's new, but it's not. It was used back in the late 40s, and it was used for the symptoms of menopause, particularly in women who had a hysterectomy. and others. And it has been used now in five continents and millions of women. There's been multiple studies on the bioidentical hormones. And what we do know is that testosterone is very important. My second book that you haven't mentioned, which was Testosterone Matters More, is because it does matter more than estrogen. It covers more of the symptoms of the premenopause, more of the symptoms of the menopause than does estrogen. There was a great study 30 years ago that looked at testosterone, it looked at estrogen, it looked at a combination of the two, and then it looked at placebo, just basically a sugar pill. What they found was testosterone was better for the majority of the symptoms than any of the other hormones. And in fact, placebo and estrogen were the worst. We also published a study about, oh, six months ago, and that study looked at 1.2 million pellet procedures, 1.2 million, the largest study ever done with less than 1% complications. Now that's amazing because if you get the dose right and you get the procedure right and you have less than 1% complications, it makes it a great thing for women and for men so that they will stay on the therapy. And there was very few side effects and very few secondary reactions and all of those reported in that study.

SPEAKER_01: 53:18

I really haven't noticed anything any side effects with the therapy. Just the importance of knowing exactly where your levels are is so important because if you have too much or too little of something, again, it can affect you mentally or physically. One thing I noticed is that there's so many chemicals in the body. How does stress and the overactivation of our adrenal glands affect our hormones?

SPEAKER_00: 53:44

So what happens when you're under stress is the body makes a lot of cortisol, which is a stress hormone. It can adversely affect your immune system, which you don't really want to do right now, particularly with COVID out there and the variants of COVID. So you want to keep your immune system at its best, which is what we do at BioT, both with our hormone therapy and our vitamin program. We keep your immune system boosted. Having said that, when you're under stress, the adrenal gland is producing all these hormones at the detriment of other hormones. Or if you're low on, say, testosterone, the adrenal gland can make testosterone. But if it makes testosterone, it does so at the expense of other hormones it's supposed to be making. You hear about adrenal fatigue, if you will. And so now the adrenal gland is running behind on its production of important hormones and yet is trying to keep up with the body. So if we optimize the testosterone, the adrenal gland can recover. If we get rid of the stress, we don't overproduce cortisol and adversely affect our immune system. If we get rid of the stress, we don't adversely affect our thyroid, which can also be affected by the stress. So if thyroid is affected, that's going to affect your immune system. That's going to affect your brain function. That's going to also affect your energy level and how you feel. So we want to keep your thyroid optimized and do something to get rid of the stress The testosterone optimization program actually lowers your anxiety. In fact, people feel much calmer on that, which is kind of the start to getting off of some of these antidepressants. We get 50% of people off of their antidepressants because we feel like it does rob you of that quality of life that you're looking for. It does rob you of the highs and the lows so you feel everything blunted, but that's not the best way to go through life. And if we can get you off your antidepressants, and have you feel better and have less stress, your body is functioning at an optimal level.

SPEAKER_01: 55:54

Yeah, the reason I ask that is when I look back at my own history, and a lot of people that come on the podcast also mention this, is that stress, which can also be positive stress, maybe people are overworking or they're not taking time to exercise, things like that, not sleeping properly. There's so many different kinds of stress that can really trigger stress. mental, physical response. And I found also as I got older that my tolerance for stress really got much lower after I went through menopause, which is something that nobody talks about. Nobody talks about all these effects that happen. It also happens with men, right? Men have changes in their testosterone and different levels in their body as they get older.

SPEAKER_00: 56:44

So men go through andropause, which is very similar to your menopause. They lose hormones. And as they lose hormones, their anxiety levels go up. They don't sleep as well. Their amount of depression goes very high. Your hormone levels can absolutely affect how you feel from depression, PTSD, and anxiety. Men and women.

SPEAKER_01: 57:08

As I learn more about mental health and triggers, also anxiety, time periods in people's lives that mental health starts to falter. For instance, in puberty, usually during adolescence, people first start having symptoms of depression or anxiety. We all know about postpartum depression and, of course, menopause, but these are times where hormones are fluctuating, which, again, can really affect our mental health. One thing you mentioned is nutraceuticals, which is like vitamin supplements or Can you talk more about that?

SPEAKER_00: 57:44

Sure. So we use a number of nutraceuticals or vitamins. One of the biggest ones is what's called A, D, and K. It's vitamin A, vitamin D, and vitamin K2. It's very important for heart health. It's very important for bone health. But the vitamin D levels that we achieve because of our product actually boost your immune system. We also have one that helps metabolize the hormones that we're giving. We actually have a product called DIMM, and that product will actually help disperse those hormones and eliminate those hormones from your body in a very safe way. We also believe that gut health or the health of your gastrointestinal tract, very important for your immune system. And we have a probiotic, not just what you'd get in yogurt, but a real probiotic that actually can establish a very good, healthy amount of bacteria, the right bacteria in your GI tract. So we have that. We also have a B-complex vitamin that will increase your energy levels. So many people need energy to start exercising. They need energy to do their jobs and they felt really fatigued, particularly in this pandemic where they've been locked up in their house. And this is a way through our pellet therapy, through our nutraceuticals, through our B-complex, that we can get an immediate increase in energy levels, which is also really good.

SPEAKER_01: 59:10

Yeah, I definitely can attest to a B-complex that not only gives me energy, but also keeps me mentally calm during those challenging times. But Just to let our listeners know the things that are included with BioT. We're talking about estrogen, testosterone. I take oral progesterone and armor thyroid. And then I also take vitamins that can work with this whole symphony of hormone replacement.

SPEAKER_00: 59:42

That's exactly what we do. We optimize the hormones. If you need progesterone, we optimize. You absolutely believe in oral or pills. We use all bioidentical progesterone so that it works just like the other bioidentical hormones and it is safe. You don't have to worry about blood clots. You don't have to worry about the other problems that synthetic progesterone. And so the bioidentical progesterone that we use is really the best that you can get, which I'm sure that's what you're on. So that's a really good testament for what we do. The vitamins then support the cells of the body so they're ready for these hormones. And then the symphony really comes together, as you said, because you have the right vitamins with the right hormones that's right for you. And we have other vitamins that we use in people who have autoimmune problems or people who have joint pains. That way we can take into account what your symptoms are and individualize the therapy for you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:42

That's interesting because I have psoriasis, which is an autoimmune disease. And while I was going through my really bad bout of depression, it was flaring up a lot. So I'm glad that there's that kind of personalization that you can give to the patient. I've also read that BioT... and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy can have positive effects on other conditions such as diabetes. Can you tell me what's on the horizon for bioidentical hormone replacement therapy?

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:13

We're actually looking at that now. We have known for years that in men, the people, especially how many diabetics there are in the world, 650 million, as your hormones fall, your chances for diabetes go up. As your chances for diabetes go up, your chances for heart disease go up. So we can prevent diabetes to be great. What we know now is testosterone is the insulin sensitizer. It is one of the products that's out there that actually lowers your chances for diabetes. No one's ever looked at that actually in women. And we're actually studying that right now because it would be great to know that if in women who got their hormones optimized, we could lower their chances for diabetes just as their male counterparts. part. So we are looking at that and we're looking at starting hormone therapy earlier so we don't have to deal with the ravage of osteoporosis and hip fractures and the drugs that cause so many side effects to treat osteoporosis. What about preventing osteoporosis? So we have that on the horizon.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:21

That's really exciting. I just think there's so much that can be learned from hormones and how it affects our body and how we can affect that medically in a positive way, not only for mental health, but for physical health. But is there anything else you would like to say about BioT, Dr. Donovitz, or about mental health in general?

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:41

I'd like everybody to know that we've trained now 6,000 practitioners. We're the largest in the world doing what we do. We're in nearly 50 states, Mexico, Puerto Rico. It's not something you have to travel a long way for. And all of our practitioners are certified. They've been trained in the BioT method. They know how to optimize your hormones. They know what symptoms to look for. And they can take care of you and do a really good job at making you feel your best no matter what your age. And I really appreciate your time, Mark.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:10

Thank you so much. I'm going to be getting my BioT pellets this week.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:15

A

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:18

big thank you to our expert, Dr. Gary Donovitz, and to musician Kat Jensen. For more information on BioT and Dr. Gary Donovitz, visit BioT.com. Follow BioT on their socials at BioT Medical. And for free and affordable mental health and addiction recovery, visit us at CheckerheadPodcast.com. If you'd like to participate in our birthday fundraisers on Facebook or Instagram, email us at checkyourheadpodcast at gmail.com. So until next time, be brave, ask for help, and be persistent in finding the mental health that you need. Check Your Head Podcast is kindly supported and partnered with Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, DBSA San Gabriel Valley, Earshot Media, and Lemon Tree Studios in Los Angeles. Visit checkyourheadpodcast.com where we have over 100 solutions for mental health. Be our friends on social media at Check Your Head Podcast. Watch us on YouTube and support us with a kind donation on checkyourheadpodcast.com. Check Your Head Podcast is sponsored by a 501c3 nonprofit with all donations being tax deductible. Thank you for your support and thank you for listening.