Signs Your Hormones Are Imbalanced w/ Dr. Jolene Brighten: Coming Off The Pill, Periods, Medical Gaslighting, IVF & Infertility, Endocrine Disruptors, Seed Cycling & Becoming Your Own Advocate.
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The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Mari has grown her to fitness and nutrition brand. Co-founder of Bloom Nutrition. Forbes 30 under 30 list. A successful entrepreneur. Someone who has lost 90 pounds. Today's guest is Mari Llewellyn. Mari Llewellyn. My friend Mari. Welcome to the pursuit of wellness.

Hi guys, welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. Before we jump into the episode, I am so excited to announce that Bloom Greens are officially restocked on Amazon. We have been out of stock for two weeks and we're back. We're actually currently the number one selling supplement on Amazon within an hour or so of being back, which is crazy. If you order through Prime, you could have your greens as early as tomorrow, so make sure you hop on that. Now for our highly requested guest.

Today, we are joined by Dr. Jolene Brighton. Dr. Brighton is a hormone expert, nutrition scientist, and thought leader in women's medicine. She is board certified in naturopathic endocrinology and a certified sex counselor. She's the author of Is This Normal? and Beyond the Pill. I personally read Beyond the Pill, and that's how I found out about her. It's an incredible book. Dr. Brighton empowers women worldwide to take control of their health,

and their hormones. On this episode, we discuss the short-term and long-term effects of birth control, natural birth control alternatives, why women feel ignored or gaslit by Western doctors, and how to advocate for yourself, periods, what's normal and what isn't,

tangible lifestyle changes we can make to improve our hormones and suggestions for creating a less harmful environment, fertility for both men and women, what seed cycling is and how we can benefit and so much more. I think this conversation brings to light

so many important topics for both men and women so we can all improve our hormonal health, fertility, and overall quality of life. Dr. Brighton was kind enough to give us an exclusive code for the POW community for 10% off everything on her website. So make sure you listen to the end of the episode to catch the code. With that said, please welcome Dr. Brighton to the show.

Okay, POW community, we have a very special guest here today, Dr. Jolene Brighton. She's a hormone expert, author of Beyond the Pill, and her new book, Is This Normal? Dr. Jolene, we are big fans of you here on the team. I truly think that female hormonal issues are an epidemic right now, and having someone like you spearheading this movement is incredible. We have so much to talk about today. So let's start with how you became interested in hormones. Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Because I'm a nerd. So I actually thought I would specialize in gut health. That was going to be my focus. And I have a background, so a degree in chemistry. I loved, like when I got into organic chemistry, I was like, this is how my brain works. Like this, I love. And so I remember sitting in class and the first time I saw like the steroid pathways come up, which...

makes any doctor who isn't in endocrinology hormones usually glaze over. And I was like, yes, I get this. This makes sense. This is so easy. And my classmates being like, this is so ridiculously complicated. I'm like, yeah, the GI tract is definitely a lot easier. So, you know, then I got interested in hormones, but it wasn't really until I had this epiphany where I was sitting in class and I remember just thinking like, gosh, so

So much of women's medicine is done to them. It's not with them. It's not in partnership. I never learned about my body from a doctor or from school or from, I had to go to medical school to understand how my menstrual cycle really worked.

And I was like, it doesn't have to be this way. And in fact, the majority of things that we struggle with, we don't actually need a doctor for. And their solutions aren't great. They're not stellar a lot of the times. And I'm like, what if we could actually teach women about their body, how to work with it, how to identify what's going on and simply intervene before they really do need a doctor?

So I think a lot of women find that when they do go to the doctor and talk about symptoms such as acne, pain, fatigue, cramps, they're told that this is a normal symptom of being a woman. There's almost this narrative that being a woman sucks. This is just what comes with it. Do you agree with that? And why do you think we're being told that?

It's normal. I agree. That is exactly the narrative we get from much of society and many healthcare practitioners as well. So, I mean, it was certainly like, you know, my entire experience of having seven day periods that kept me from going to school. I was in so much pain where it was like, this is normal. Welcome to womanhood. It sucks. You were gifted ovaries. So sorry, you know, hate to break it to you, but your life is just going to be the lesser because of it.

And that is not true. I very much contend that your hormones give you superpowers if you know how to leverage them. And if you have symptoms coming up, it's your body's way of communicating to you that, hey, something is going on. And it's funny that you bring up this like, you know, that's just normal. That's why I named my latest book, Is This Normal? It's the number one thing that women are asking, whether they're Googling or coming to their provider is, is this normal? And they're so often met with, yeah, it's

It's horrible. That's normal. But how can anything that interferes with your ability to show up in life fully yourself or even just engage in daily activities be considered normal? I also almost wonder what are the doctors comparing that to? Yeah. Who else are they seeing? Probably people who don't feel well. Who goes to the doctor?

people who have maybe tried things, but people who are like, okay, I definitely cannot ignore this. A lot of times I hear from patients, they say, I don't even want to go to the doctor. Sometimes I'm like, will they believe me? Will they think this is real? Will they actually be able to help me? Or is this really as bad as I think it is? We tend to second guess ourselves. So who goes to the doctor first?

the person who is really struggling. So if that's all your doctor ever sees, and then school told them that like, these are the problems that women face, this becomes the normal in which they see it through their own lens. But in reality, it's not normal. You shouldn't be in excruciating pain. Having acne that makes you, acne that affects your self-esteem,

This is not normal. And I think that we regard a lot of these things as being like, oh, that's just like a normal state. Or I know someone else who had it or a family member had it. I'll hear this about women who are like, oh, I skip my period all the time. That's normal. Other women in my family do it. I'm like, they probably also have polycystic ovarian syndrome. Let's, you know, work you up for that. Just so we know everyone's clear.

It's clear we don't diagnose anyone until we've actually worked them up, but that's usually what's going on when someone says that. You're telling me you have a family history is what you're telling me, not that this is necessarily normal just because you had an aunt or a sister or someone else who experienced it. Do you have any advice for a woman listening who wants to go to the doctor and have a productive conversation and feel empowered and like their own advocate? Yeah. Number one is track your data.

We know as humans who go to the doctor how they gaslight us. I have certainly been there myself. But we know from the medical research as well. This is a phenomenon that is exclusively for women that your doctor will gaslight you about certain problems. All doctors? No, of course not. But the best way to not second guess yourself, not to doubt yourself, and to communicate in a way that's going to get your doctor's attention is

is by tracking your symptoms and quantifying things. So rather than saying, oh, I have a heavy period, actually saying I'm having to double up on like a super tampon and a pad, and that's only lasting like an hour. By the way, I should mention that until this year, we never had a research study that actually used blood to measure the absorbency of tampons and to help us quantify all of this. They've been using things like saltwater. Like we've all been to the beach. We know saltwater. Is that even comparable? No.

No, because anyone who bleeds, if you've never bled, then you might not be familiar. There is tissue present. There's a lot more that's going on than just a liquid, right? You are shedding the endometrium, the lining of your uterus as well. And so it's not, and it raises the question of,

Have we actually been quantifying heavy bleeding accurately and have too many women been dismissed and too many women fallen through the cracks with all of this? But, you know, back to the point is that you can be saying like, I'm changing, you know, my menstrual cup every couple of hours. That's the kind of thing that's going to get your doctor's attention. I am already taking ibuprofen. It doesn't touch the pain. I'm doing it every six to eight hours and I still have a hot water bottle and I can't leave my house for two days.

That's going to make your doctor pause. Because a lot of times I'll hear from patients who are like, well, I already told my doctor I have heavy periods or I have painful periods. And they said, yeah, that's what it's like. This is not the way things should be. And this is exactly why conditions like endometriosis can take like a decade before somebody actually gets the diagnosis and then starts getting help for it. Let's say the doctor does listen. I feel like oftentimes the solution is the patient.

pill, the magic pill. When did this start becoming the solution and why? Oh, there's like such a interesting history with the pill. A lot of people don't even know that it was developed on the island of Puerto Rico under the guise that it was... Well, here's what everyone should know. Let me back up. So Puerto Rico was facing some of the highest sterilization rates. It

If you had two babies, someone would show up at your house and basically be like, you need to get sterilized now. There was non-consensual sterilization happening so that nobody was consenting or understanding. Sometimes they were told it was reversible. It wasn't. It was irreversible sterilization.

So they brought in the pill and they brought in the pill trials and they're like, this will be the solution for you. You'll no longer have to be forced sterilized and we can use the pill. They did these trials. They didn't tell women that it was an experiment. They didn't even really document and report the deaths that happened. They basically used and abused the women of Puerto Rico.

telling them that they would have this solution. Once they got to a place where they could get it approved, they then made it so expensive that the women of Puerto Rico couldn't afford it. Okay, this is back in the 50s. And by the time we get to the 70s, the Puerto Rican women suffered the highest rate of forced sterilization, of sterilization altogether of anywhere in the world.

And so this is just an important history to understand is that really it was eugenicists and people like Margaret Sanger, who everyone's like, she's like this queen feminist. I'm like, oh, I hate to break it to you. But she totally used brown bodies to bring this medicine to white women and to control the populations of anyone that she saw as undesirable. So that's the history of the pill. And we needed it.

because abortions were happening in unclean ways. Women were dying and women couldn't really take control of their future. So it should have been done better. We have it now. We started graduating college at a higher rate. We started being able to advance in our careers. There's a lot of good that came out of it as well.

But then, you know, so pharmaceutical companies were like, hey, all you have to have is ovaries. You don't have to have a diagnosable condition and we can market you this drug. That's a lot of money. That's like 50% of the population. Then they started to go further with it for treatments of PMS, PMDD. So, yeah.

Yasmin came under a lawsuit because it was approved for PMDD, not PMS, but they went ahead and marketed it anyways. They talk all about this and beyond the pill, but that's really when we saw it start to take hold and become the solution of basically you go to the doctor and all the things that you've already said, you say, okay, I've got anything that would be period problems or lady part problems. And they ask a question. Do you want a baby? Yes.

Yes or no. You say, yes, we're going to work you up. We're going to figure it out. Like, let's get you pregnant. You say, no. They say, here's the pill. If and when you ever want a baby, we'll figure it out then. You ask the question, well, hey, if I want to get pregnant in the future, can I? Eh.

how old are you? You might be 14, 15, maybe in your 20s. And they're going to say, you can get pregnant as soon as you come off. Except the way that we use the pill now, a lot of us are spacing our pregnancies a lot later in life. So I had my first child in my early 30s, my second child at 40. The average woman that's over 35 thinking, oh, I'll just come off the pill and I can get pregnant right away. She's not going to get pregnant right away. And that's not necessarily a pill problem specific

as much as it is related to age or even worse and very common, the medical condition that was underlying this all along that was never treated, never worked up, things like polycystic ovarian syndrome, PCOS and endometriosis, which are,

leading causes of infertility. So she was given the pill. Maybe it made some symptoms better, but it never addressed what was going on. And she had no idea until she comes off the pill. She can't get pregnant after six months to a year of trying. And now she's finding out you've actually had this condition the whole time. I think so many women are experiencing this, myself included. I was on the pill for

on and off for 10 years maybe and came off a year ago, lost my period for a whole year. I want to have kids. And I was panicking. I was like, am I ever going to get my period back? I was going to fertility doctors. Luckily, through a lot of hard work with a naturopath, I did get it back. I know so many women who are either learning about the harmful effects of the pill and wanting to come off or just deciding they're ready to get pregnant and they can't. And infertility rates are through the roof.

I think this is a huge topic at the moment. What is actually happening to our hormones when we take the pill? Yeah. You never get the like behind the scenes, like pull the hood back and like what is actually happening? So...

Nothing. Honestly, nothing is happening with your ovaries while you're on the pill if you're taking it daily and it works. So how the pill works is it stops your brain hormones from communicating to your ovaries. So if the brain never signals to the ovaries, the ovaries never spike estrogen. So you ovulate. Okay, good. We can't get pregnant. But you never get that flow of estrogen up.

and down, you never get the rise of progesterone. You get no progesterone really because the pill has progestin and if you don't ovulate, you don't make progesterone. The only way to progesterone is through ovulation.

And we don't actually know. It's a big void right now in the research. What happens if you start the pill at 14 and you continue until 44 and you never bathed in your own progesterone? We actually don't know. There's a lot of doctors who are like, it's fine and you don't need ovulation. So doctors will also compare us to our male counterparts. And they're like, well, they don't ovulate and you don't ovulate when you're postmenopausal. And so like, it doesn't matter. Right.

We actually don't know. And we do know that progesterone is really crucial for brain health, for bone health, for cardiovascular health. I mean, it plays a lot of roles in our body. So I'm not saying that I know for sure this is bad.

I'm saying I don't know. And that's, I think, a big problem with conversations around the pill is the lack of knowledge that we have, but even more so the inability to acknowledge that it's a question mark. We don't know right now. And that's how a lot of medicine is. And that can feel scary. But it is the reality that we don't know everything. We're constantly learning, constantly evolving.

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A lot of women are talking about how they're coming off the pill and no longer attracted to their partner. So I have a good friend who just ended a relationship because she came off the pill and was like, oh, I don't really...

not vibing with him anymore. Yeah. What is that? I had this experience as well, which is anecdotal. And a lot of these stories are anecdotal, but I feel like we're never going to get the science we need if we don't start listening to women more, believing their stories and just being curious about what is this. So,

I do talk about in Beyond the Pill, this phenomenon that can happen where you are picking up on the scent of your partner and that's telling you a bit about their genetic compatibility. So via this MHC complex that you can pick up on, you basically know like, could we mate together on, you know, a primal level? So...

It's not the end all be all, just so people know. There's more to relationships. So there is some research to show that mate selection can differ. There has been research to show that men are more attracted to women during their ovulatory stage. So there is this appearance component and there is this like what we smell, what we pick up on, what we are just animals at the end of the day.

And there have been several studies showing that while you're on the pill, you may be attracted to men who have more feminine features. Now, this is where like in this modern time, people get really upset because they're like,

how dare you say that's a feminine feature and that's not masculine? And what does that mean? And I'm like, I can only talk about the research. I didn't do the research. But we do know that higher testosterone levels, adequate testosterone, it is going to be associated with more masculine features. So the way the jaw structure is, the way that you appear,

is signaling what your hormones are like. So as I said, women around ovulation, lips are plumper, less fine lines and wrinkles. We look more vibrant. We look...

fertile, so to speak, and attractive. And that's just biology doing what it does and being like, you know, there's the birds that have their beautiful feathers and do their little dance. We have our own thing going on with our hormones. So back to these other studies, what they found is that if you're on the pill, you may be selecting for a mate that has more feminine features, more feminine male features. And if you're off the pill, more masculine features. And so this

This is just, you know, we've got this data. This is not going to be true for everyone, but it does raise the question of, is there something to this? Whether it is the genetic compatibility that we are sensing. And, you know, I talk about in the book how it's like,

Some researchers have said it's like you're attracted to more somebody who's like your cousin while you're on the pill. I know that sounds ick. Oh, my God. But the hypothesis is, is that being on the pill and being on these hormones and not ovulating may make you want to be closer to families. This would be, you know, from like back in the day, living in like caves or on the plains that we would actually want to be with our tribe closer to our people and not exploring other like

other genetic variabilities out there that could potentially be a threat. So there might be a mechanism there to that. So there's been scent tests. There has been like visual cues. There have been all of these things to show us that potentially you may be attracted to somebody while you're on the pill and then no longer be attracted when you come off the pill, which is

pretty scary to us. And I talk about a patient story. I've had many patients who have told me this story. And it's usually like, OK, you're going to think I'm crazy, but let me tell you. And I don't usually tell my patients like, oh, I had that experience as well, because I did. I was on the pill. I actually wasn't on the pill. I had met this guy, wasn't really attracted to him at all. Then I got on the pill, ended up finding myself attracted. My logical self is like,

why? Like you were not into him. Like what is going on now? And then, you know, the rest of myself was like, ah, just go with it kind of thing. And when I came off the pill, I'm like, no, definitely 100% not actually attracted to this person anymore. And so again, that's just anecdotal. And that's my experience. I'm also the person who had like yeast infections and headaches and migraines and

you know, depression and issues with certain formulations of the pill. I still did it for 10 years, though, because I wanted to become a doctor and it was a tool for that, just all the while thinking my body was broken. Speaking of which, if someone wants to prevent pregnancy or even monitor symptoms they may be having, but want to take a more natural route, what do you recommend? Because I've seen women lately using Natural Cycles app with their aura ring. There's a

Yeah, I saw that the second you walked in. I have one too. Oh my God, yeah. So what do you recommend for a natural birth control? Yeah, so it's not going to work for everyone. The best birth control is the one that achieves your goals, works for you and has the least amount of side effects. If you do not do fertility awareness correctly, the side effect is getting pregnant. You've got to be okay with that. And so that's what the aura with natural cycles integration is, is one component of fertility awareness method. So for fertility awareness method to work,

You need not just the temperature, and this is the thing to understand for anyone who wants to do this, same time every day. Understand that if you travel, if you get sick, like these kinds of temperature changes can affect your cycle.

and that data tracking. So we want to look at temperature and we want to look at symptoms. So with fertility awareness method, that's what FAM. So beyond the pill, I talk through FAM. In is this normal? I actually go through like checkpoints of like, am I ovulating? That can help you with FAM. It also can help you get pregnant. And I basically say like, if you want to dodge pregnancy or you want to get pregnant, this is good to know. So looking for fertile cervical mucus,

Am I in the mood? Am I interested in my partner? That's a pretty good sign that we're nearing ovulation. And so we can take these collections of signs that we have that we are going to ovulate along with the temperature data to dial that in and then understand that while you only ovulate one day and you've got 24 hours for sperm and egg to meet, that's it for you.

your uterus will tend. So your anatomy is set up to tend to sperm and keep them alive for about five days. So that means you've got a six-day fertile window. Now, whenever I hear people say like, well, I used FAM and I got pregnant, I ask more questions. And it usually comes down to, I used FAM, but then I used a pull-out method when I knew I was in my fertile window. The pull-out method

It's about 20% failure. So that's huge. That's a lot of people getting pregnant. About, you know, one in five will get pregnant. So you weren't really using FAM. You were actually using the pull-out method with like a little hack to know that you had to pull out during that window. But still, that is not what FAM is. With that, you have to abstain from sex immediately.

in any kind of sex where sperm could be introduced into the vagina. Is This Normal has a whole lot of other things that you can do that are still considered sex and a good time, and you can orgasm or have pleasure. But if you do want to have penetrative sex, you need to use a condom. You need to have a barrier. You need to have some kind of backup method. Otherwise, this is not truly using FAM. So that's just important to know. The other non-hormonal option that we have is the copper IUD.

It's like 99.9% effective, hugely effective. Someone will comment, I got pregnant or I know someone who did. I actually have a colleague of mine that his wife, he's like, we got the ACAPRIOD, like we're done. And then his wife got pregnant and he's like,

Who gets pregnant with the copper IUD? It's always like, you know, Jurassic Park moment where they're like, life finds a way. It does sometimes. So just know that if you're messing around with sperm and you are a fertile individual, every single method has failure rates. And so that's important to be aware of. But so we have the copper IUD, we have fertility awareness method, which I think is just great.

forgetting to know your body, even if you have a copper IUD. And then we have barrier methods. So condoms, diaphragm, if you can get a diaphragm, they're hard to come by these days. But barrier methods are for everyone who's in a new relationship who hasn't had STI testing or is in a non-monogamous relationship as well.

So growing up, I personally never had the period talk, the sex talk. So that created a lot of shame for me when I did eventually get my period. I was embarrassed, confused. I was like stealing tampons from my mom. Smuggling them up your sleeve. Literally, I felt like what's wrong with me? And I was super ashamed even through puberty and that really,

rolled over into my adult life. I really only learned about my cycles within the past year. And I think a lot of women can relate to that. Do you have advice for anyone listening who wants to have a conversation with their daughter, their sister, whoever it may be, and empower that person? Yeah. So that's exactly why I wrote Is This Normal? Is that these questions like that are coming up, these are the things we all should have been taught before we even got our period.

And so what I've told moms, because they asked me like, I have a 10 year old. I think she's going to start a period, you know, in a year or two. So if you see breast buds, odds are periods coming in the next two years. Like, should I just give her your book? No, you should read the book.

You should be the expert in your household. You should take ownership of that knowledge and teach her that. And you can give her the book and you guys can do a little read party. I do know several people who are like, I'm reading your book to my daughter at night as she's going to bed and like we're having conversations. That's a great way to use the tool. But I want you to be the authority in your house.

Why that's important is because if you're not, Google, they're friends. Some random TV show is going to teach them the things that, I mean, the incorrect things a lot of the time that you could have had an opportunity to teach them. And it is a way to build trust so that if something goes wrong, they'll immediately come to you. That's really the goal. I mean, I'm a parent. I'm a parent to boys. And yet, I mean, my boy...

who's 10, he can tell you all about the menstrual cycle. Like he can tell you, he's very body literate about all bodies. And I, my goal is always like, if there is anything, I'm the one to come to, come to me first. Like you're never going to be in trouble. You're not going to be shamed. If I do ever make you feel bad in a response, you tell me, you make me own it. Like we, I'm trying to cultivate that kind of relationship because it's,

In four years, he's going to be 14. And as they become teenagers, that is when it is time to experiment. It is time to try things. They are inherently little scientists. You want them to be in that controlled environment where it's safe. Like they're in the lab doing their experiment instead of a field blowing stuff up.

right? Like, so we've got the controlled environment, not that I'm trying to control him, but that it is, there is a net there to catch him. So if he makes the wrong decision, if he does something that he thought was a wise choice, and in retrospect, it's not, I'm the person that he can come to. And that's what I want to see for parents when it comes to reproductive health, because that is part of sexual health. And if we look to the research that

Out of Amsterdam and Germany, they change their sex ed. It is required. They start with talking about consent at a very young age. They are just very sex positive, body positive, and not shaming. These children are, well, I mean, they're teens. This is how you know I'm old because I'm like these children. I'm like, well, they're young adults, really. Yeah.

They actually delay sex. So their first encounter is delaying. They tend to be monogamous. They report their first time as being fun. They tell their parents about it in the U.S.,

Most of the time you ask somebody about their first time, they regret it. They felt pressured into it. They didn't understand like the nuances. You ask them about sex ed, they're like, banana and condom, period, suck. Like, I don't really know anything about it. And yet we have these countries that have changed everything. We've had an entire cohort who are now young adults go through it.

And less STIs, less teen pregnancies. I mean, all the good stuff that we want. But also back to your question, very positive relationship with their parents when it comes to sex, their reproductive health, their periods, their bodies, all the things that they experience through those pubescent years and into adulthood.

I think I was given the American Girl doll book. Do you remember that one? No, I was never given any, but my parents gave me What to Expect When You're Expecting, which had like this short, and by parents, I mean mom, and by gave me, I mean I found it on my bed one day. And there was like this, like, this is how breasts form. And I'm like, okay, yeah, weird. I don't know where, I'm like in the mirror. I'm like, where am I? And will they get that bit?

big? Or is there, you know, and this is also, I talk about, there's a whole breast chapter in Is This Normal of like growing up in the age of Pam Anderson. And like, honey, you do you, no judges, but like, oh my God, Baywatch, did you mess with my mind? Like, I'm like, oh my God, that? What is, why am I not there? I'm just waiting. Like, when are they coming in? Yeah. My, the book I was given was the same thing. And I love the fact that you're encouraging parents to read it

Because just being given a book as a 12 year old, you're like, yeah, what is this? It makes you feel more weird, if anything. Yeah. So I love that. And I love that you have this new book now. Is this normal? Because I think that's going to be so helpful for so many people. So with 4K,

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I want to talk about coming off the pill. Yeah, yeah. Because I think a lot of people are in that phase right now, myself included, and there's a lot of negative bounce back that comes with coming off. Oh, yeah. What can we do to help with that process? Yeah. You know what's crazy is there's like the negative bounce back in your body and then there's the negative bounce back of anyone you tell. And then there's the negative bounce back of anyone you tell.

where doctors are like, oh, I'll see you when you're pregnant. Or other people are like, this is like, women like fought for this and this is our right. And you are not a feminist unless you're on the pill. And I'm like, this is so weird. Can people just like make their individual choice and it be theirs? And we'd be like,

good job. You made a decision for yourself. How can I support you? So let's talk about coming off the pill because this is the information that I never got when I was on it. When I told my doctor, I wanted to come off of it. Then I don't think a lot of us, I mean, we're just told you'll come off and it'll be fine. And then it's not fine. So, uh,

I have definitely, I'm not saying this lightly, it feels like some pill PTSD. So I'm going through IVF and I shared this on YouTube that I had to go on the pill and I only did it for 10 days.

But my God, my mood completely tanked. I was crying, depressed, but also raging and gaslighting myself, being like, it can't happen this fast. This is just because, and I'm like, I can already hear haters online being like, oh, this is just because you like wrote a book about it. And I'm like doing this to myself. And then I'm like, am I gaslighting myself? And like,

Going through all of this and my husband's like, dude, you got to get off that pill because you are not happy. You are not yourself. And I'm like, thank you. Okay. Like needed to hear that because I was wondering. So and then I developed cystic acne again.

So when I came off the pill initially and everyone can see my skin, I do not struggle with acne. It's beautiful. Thank you. Yes, I do a lot to take care of it, but I came off the pill. I lost my period for the first time in my life. My period had gone missing, aside from being on the pill.

and I developed cystic acne, and it was getting really bad. People had asked me before, like, oh, do you have any pictures from that time? I'm like, literally none. Because why would you take a photo? I would not allow people to take photos. This time around, I've been so open on social media that I just showed people. So I had to go on the pill twice with IVF, and both times, cystic acne along my jawline. And what I was told when I came off the pill,

is that I just had PCOS. So my doctor's like, oh, you had PCOS. I'm like, no. And he's like, yeah, that's why you have acne and your period's gone. I'm like, no, but I never had acne and I always had a period. So no. And I like, and I've done lots of testing. I don't have elevated androgens. I do not have these PCOS pictures. And yet even now with the pill, I experienced those coming off and having that rebound of androgens. So

That is usually why I bring that up. That is one of the top things that will drive women back on the pill because when your skin starts to freak out and you're getting acne, that is so horrific. Like in terms of your self-esteem, in terms of like you start trying everything, you are devoting so much mental energy to it.

And I'm fortunate that being in my 40s now and knowing what I know, I see cystic acne and I'm like, I got you. I know. I know what we're going to do here and we're prepped for that. So yeah.

There's the acne component. There is the missing period. So on average, women will come off the pill and not see their period return for like three months. And that's considered normal. It could take three months. If you have PCOS or you went on the pill because you had irregular periods, we can expect six months until your period comes back. Something like the Depo-Provera shot could be 18 months. So it's just important to know if you want to plan a baby in the future.

And so for me, though, as a doctor, if somebody's period hasn't come back, I'm like, let's just start working on that now. Let's just start working on those components now. So we've got the missing periods. We've got the acne. We've got, you know, new emotions. Or maybe you were depressed on the pill and that continues. So there's a lot of systems that are affected by the pill. It's so funny to me how doctors are like, no, it just affects your reproductive system. I'm like, except your

Your hormones affect every system in your body, but somehow the pill is magical and isolated. It just is baffling to me. No, it could never affect your mood, really, because it actually operates at the brain level and natural cycling hormones affect your mood and you'll prescribe it

when their cyclical mood changes to affect their mood. So, and I just wanna say like, not everybody's experience is going to be the same, but what I experienced, I thought I was alone. I thought I was a freak. I thought there was something wrong with me. When my period did come back, it was so horrific. It was so heavy. I had the wildest PMS.

And I just kept feeling like my doctor isn't helping me. They're not believing me. And it must just be me. Fortunately, I was in naturopathic medical school. I already had a background in nutrition science. I was like, let me hack this. Let me figure this out. And it was once I got into practicing with patients,

that so many women had a similar story. And there were women who would call my office and be like, okay, I want to schedule an appointment because I heard this is the doctor who believes women about their birth control. And I was like, what a bizarre thing. And we would actually have, and we do have like patient intakes that they would say when I'm like, how do you think I can help you? I think you'll actually believe me when I tell you about my birth control experience. And I'm like, the fact that

So many doctors were not believing women and still are not believing women. So what do we do? So I've talked a lot about like, okay, what can happen? And this is what a lot of experts have termed post-birth control syndrome, which is just like this collection of signs and symptoms. Now it can be brand new things or it can be things that you were covering up. So if you had acne, it's coming back. If you had horrible periods, they're coming back. And

unless you do things to prep. So if you went on the pill for symptoms, like 58% of women do, let's give us three months to really prep your body. And that's the whole protocol. Everything is in Beyond the Pill. Some people have been like, "Oh, I have to get your 30-day program now?" I'm like, "No, no, it's all in the book. Literally everything you need, you can do that."

So we want to prep your body for three months. And if you're someone who's like, no, I just started it for pregnancy prevention. I have no problems. I don't think I'll have problems. Let's have you come off and go right into the program. And so what the program encompasses is

looking at the different systems the different ways the pill affects your body and then working on that so number one is if you're gonna stay on the pill get on a prenatal or a multivitamin because you are depleting nutrients by taking that medication it is one of many medications that deplete nutrients out there and

If you're on any of those other medications, your doctor would be like, yes, yeah, if you're on statins, let's take CoQ10. If you're on metformin, let's get you some B12. If you're on the pill, doctors are like, just eat your standard diet. I'm like, the standard American diet, the one that's devoid of nutrients, the one that you have absolutely no education in whatsoever, like send them to a dietician, please, like somebody who's actually an expert in nutrition because it is not you. So nutrient-dense diet, prenatal or multivitamin on top of that.

because it's very hard to out-eat what is happening while you are on the pill. So losing B vitamins like folate, B12, magnesium. You're magnesium deficient. Here come the headaches. Here comes the twitching eye. Here comes painful periods when those come back. So we want to make sure that we're replenishing nutrient stores.

We got to work on the metabolic health. So for some women, they take the pill, they're C-reactive protein. Inflammatory marker goes up. They can be inflamed and it can also affect insulin. So we want to, again, go back to nutrition, eating an anti-inflammatory diet and making sure that we're eating protein, fiber, fat,

at every single meal. There's not a book I have that doesn't talk about that because it's so essential for maintaining our blood sugar. So that's the metabolic component. We've got to take care of gut health.

health and the liver. So these two systems are how we process estrogen we no longer need, whether it's exogenous, so outside of us, or the stuff we make, and then we move it out of our body. Also through via the kidneys. So we got to drink water, but the pill has been shown to mess with our microbiome. And some research has compared it to antibiotics in terms of its ability to disrupt the microbiome.

So that is because, well, you take this pill and it's a big dose of hormones. It's not like a huge dose compared to the early iterations, but it's big enough that it shuts down brain ovarian communication. That has to be processed by the liver and the nutrients that are being depleted, the liver also needs to be able to detoxify. And this is not that like,

oh, you have to do like this radical detox to get the pill out. You have to support the system that is already set up in your body to do that. But even as you digest that pill, absorb it, not all of it is going to end up absorbed. So it's going to make its way to the large intestine. And we have not done extensive research to understand what is the impact of these hormones

and their metabolites on the microbiome that lives there. So we, again, going back to the fiber, we want to consider probiotics. We want to make sure that we are eating in a way that nourishes our gut, supplies our liver with the ability to detox, and is also, you know, going to be something that works with our system. So I say that because if somebody jumps to like 25 grams of fiber right now, that might not work for them.

That's the ideal, the goal, what we want to work towards. But you have to start slow usually. And so while I'm like, eat more cruciferous vegetables, that might be like cook your cruciferous vegetables, make sure that you can get them digestible and working your way up with those so that it's not an abrupt change. I think like, do you have a dog?

Of course. Yeah, of course. We can hear it right now. I'm not a psycho. I have a dog. Yeah. So like I explain to people, like whenever they have pets, I'm like, you know how like you can't just switch your dog's food? Yeah. And they're like, yeah, yeah. Okay. So it's same with you. Like if you've been eating like, you know, three to five grams of fiber every day, I can't just be like, okay,

now I'm going to have you eat nothing but plants. Like, and I, it's always something like people will be like, oh, I went plant-based and I felt awful, but they said that's part of the process. I'm detoxing. I'm like, you switch the system too fast. Like your body needs time to adapt to that. So I've given a few tips, but I want to make sure like if you have questions, cause it's a huge topic and I could,

I mean, I wrote a whole book on it. I could talk a ton about it. But you did. I want to ask you specifically about seed cycling. Oh, yeah. Because I know you speak about this and I've heard mixed reviews. Some people love it. Some people hate it. Why do they hate it? I've just heard people say it didn't do anything for them. And I've kind of been looking into it for myself. Yeah. I'd love to understand...

how it works and how you think it impacts the hormones. Yeah. Okay. So I have been seed cycling forever. Gosh, I think for like 12 years now.

I love seed cycling. It's a great way to be very aware and bring awareness to your cycle, but it's also like bringing in fiber, bringing in nutrients and just working with you where you're at. So whenever people say it didn't work for me, this is why. It is not a cure or a fix or the one thing. It is something that is beneficial that can be an adjunctive therapy that you can bring in

What is seed cycling? Okay. So seed cycling is you're going to track your cycle, eat certain seeds at certain times of the month. So when it comes to menstruation through ovulation, and if you don't have a period or you're like postmenopausal, you know, whatever reason you don't have a period, you go new moon to full moon because the moon cycle is roughly about 29 days. And our cycles are roughly like 20, 29, 30 days, like somewhere in that range. So

What we do is we eat fresh ground flax seeds and we are going to eat pumpkin seeds at the beginning. One to two tablespoons of each. And I say fresh ground, but I honestly just like pre-grind like a week's worth and stick it in the freezer and blend them together and then just do two tablespoons of each so I don't have to think about it. And then once you ovulate, we switch over and that's going to be sesame and sunflower seeds. Now the sesame and the flax seeds both have to be ground together.

because you're not a cow and you can't digest them. And so that's the way we're going to get at those nutrients. And so those are going to provide you nutrients. And I go into detail of the science we have and the science we don't have around this on my website at drbrighton.com. But

at the beginning of your cycle, we're supporting estrogen levels, but we also have fibers in there that are going to make it so that your estrogen is not spiking. People are always like, flaxseed will make my estrogen so high. It will not, in fact, do that. It is all working with your system to help encourage the balance of those.

We're going to get omega-3 fatty acids. We're going to be in minerals and nutrients that are specific to supporting estrogen in the follicular phase and progesterone in the luteal phase. And the whole time we are supporting testosterone levels, which is why I think that is in part why it can help women with PCOS so much. And we actually are seeing new research coming out showing that

And there's been several studies showing that PCOS is one of those conditions that can be affected positively from seed cycling. Now, again, it's not going to be the only thing you do with PCOS, but it is one of the many things that we can employ outside of pharmaceutical

or with pharmaceuticals, which is what I always love is like, let's take the buffet and let's figure out what works for you. But, you know, for example, if you have polycystic ovarian syndrome and you're not exercising and you're not, you know, you don't even have to have a condition. You're not exercising. You're not sleeping. You are, you know, abusing your body in terms of what I call metabolic obscenities, where you're like, I'm

on sugar for breakfast and then like just guzzling black coffee and it's like you're literally cussing at your body and your whole metabolism. Like you can't seed cycle your way out of that. It has to be added in addition. It's just like supplements. Like you can't just out supplement a poor diet and lifestyle. They have to be in addition to the foundation that's already there. So what's

With seed cycling, though, I will say that, like, I say that, and then somebody is going to comment, like, oh, no, but, like, I added that, and then my acne went away. I have had so many patients who are like, I added that, and I got pregnant. And I'm like, that's not supposed to be possible. But they were already doing all of the things. So...

I'm a big fan of seed cycling. It was actually my mentor who taught me about it in medical school so long ago. And he wrote a book about it like 20 plus years ago. His name is Dr. Dixon Tom. And that's where I learned about seed cycling. So because I've talked about it so much, people are like, oh, she created seed cycling. I'm like, no, no.

Like, you are the queen of seed cycling. I do talk about it a lot, and I have been doing it forever. Okay, amazing. I think I want to try that, actually. I've done the ground pumpkin seeds, but I haven't tried the others or in a cycle, so...

good to know. I've heard you say that 90% of women have struggled with hormonal issues at some point in their life. Yeah. Why do you think it's so rampant today? And was it this way 100 years ago? Yeah, I doubt it was this way 100 years ago. I don't have any data to support

that. But why I doubt it is because our food was coming closer from the source. We were eating more whole foods. We were obeying the laws of nature, like get up with the sun and go to bed with the sun. And there was just a lot of things we were doing differently. But life was also harder then. And in this whole evolution of the last 100 years, there wasn't Google and there wasn't

- And there was probably the acceptance that some things were just normal and awful and horrible. So I think that what we face now, we are much more aware of it. And rather than

bowing down to the white coat, which I feel like has been a really like a mantra that's been put through our society of like, if you're a woman, just respect what the white coat says. And I'm like, if you're a woman or a human, be a troublemaker and question everything. Question if it's true for you. Question every single treatment that you are offered and really make sure you're comfortable in understanding that treatment and going forward with it.

So there's the whole piece of like, we are definitely more aware of it now, but never have we ever lived in a more toxic environment as humans.

And this is just something that like, I still am appalled by practitioners who are like, it's really not that bad. Don't scare people about environmental toxins. I'm like, have you not read about forever chemicals? And why the hell in like the 20 years I have spent in health and wellness, does everybody wait until it's so freaking bad? We can't ignore it to be like, okay, maybe we should talk about it. But nobody goes, and maybe we were wrong. Like maybe we were wrong in telling women, like not to worry about what they're putting on their skin. So really,

We've got that component. And let me just say that, like, we knew from animal studies far before we started talking about in humans that these chemicals we have in our home are problematic. So the veterinarians had in their research that dogs were getting Hashimoto's hypothyroidism and cats getting Graves' disease, hyperthyroidism, due to flame retardants.

Okay, those are our canaries in our home. And if people are not familiar with that analogy, you send a canary into a mine to see if it comes back or not. These are our canaries and they are struggling. So these flame retardants that we're getting exposed to are affecting our thyroid. There are the chemicals that we come into contact. I mean, I'm wearing makeup right now.

Have I done my due diligence in researching and trying to get the best? Yes. Does that mean the company didn't sneak it in? No. Does that mean the FDA didn't look the other way on something? Or like, no, like, no, like we do the best we can. But we have to understand that through that, through our water supply, I mean, even through like there was just a train that derailed earlier this year. Like there are all of these ways that our environment is being impacted negatively with chemicals that are endocrine disruptive.

that are known carcinogens, and those absolutely will impact our health as well. And so we've got that, we've got the stress that we are under, we've got the shattering of community,

That is really, I mean, we were talking before we recorded how different it is to be in Europe with children and how children are integrated. In the US, it's like, you know, you need to be an individual. And like you, and then we wonder, like, why am I so isolated and alone? And I'm a communal creature. And yet I am so depressed. And it's like, you know, oh, well, that's just you. No.

No, it's not just us. Like there is definitely something going on in our society as a whole when it comes to our environment, our community, our stress levels, our, you know, fact that we're inundated with light. I told you I'm a city person, but the light pollution is not good for us. And so there are all these variables that have been amplified, even in just our generation's time, although I might be older than you, but even just in our lifetime, that

that are definitely impacting our hormones in a negative way. I think this is so important to talk about. And I know I'm going to get comments and feedback saying I'm fear mongering. I see that all the time. Yeah. But I do think

talking about this and talking about the solution is a step in the right direction and it doesn't have to be scary and I know I I too get the feeling of okay well what can I do right because you know I avoid fragrances in my home but then I come to the office and someone's got a Yankee candle the size of a freaking I don't know flower pot or you take an Uber right and you're like what is that smell air fresheners like you really can't avoid it in some

but we can in our homes. So I want to talk to you about what do you think are the leading culprits of endocrine disruptors in our daily lives and what can we do to correct that? Okay, great. I'm so glad you're going here because I was going to steer you right back if you didn't because we can't just like drop this and be like, dun, dun, dun.

like environmental toxins are the worst. They are. And yet you have the capacity to detoxify these things. So the taking deep breaths every day and making sure that you're drinking plenty of water, making sure that you've got that fiber, you've got your diet dialed in like all

all of these kinds of things I talk about in Beyond the Pill castor oil packs. There are different things you can do to support your body in detoxifying. So that is step one. You do have the ability to detoxify in the way that you care for yourself.

So understand that. Now, the second thing is that there are very simple things that I recommend to everyone that will significantly reduce environmental toxins in your home. And two things are completely free. First thing I tell people to do, take

take off your shoes before you walk into your house. So at the front door, I am always showing people online the pile of shoes that we have. I don't care who you are. I'm telling you to take off your shoes when you come into my house. And my kids are even like, we don't wear shoes. We don't wear shoes because everything is getting tracked in. Right now I'm in Mexico City, which I think is like the most dog friendly country in the world. And so it's just really funny because my kids are like,

oh, there's definitely poop on our shoes. And I'm like, yeah, because there's a lot of dogs, you guys, a lot everywhere. So take off your shoes, open up your windows daily if you can, but at least once a week. Indoor air pollution, that is so significant on our health. In fact, there have been studies showing that our air inside...

is more toxic than the air outside. So, you know, you see, you probably grew up with this. You see this a lot in Europe. I was living in Paris for several months in the winter. It didn't matter. Everybody opens up their windows. You open up your windows, you air out your house. So that's two free things to do that is going to significantly reduce your exposure. Now, the next place I like to go is like, what are we cleaning with?

Start looking at what you're cleaning with and phase out or just throw away right away. Because especially the surfaces that you come into contact when you're naked or when you are in the kitchen, that's going to come into contact with your food. So looking at those surfaces, it doesn't take much. Really, you can do vinegar, baking soda, and get by on cleaning a lot of things. And so that's the kitchen where we start. And then we start looking at how are we storing things?

Glass containers, stainless steel, get away from plastic. Plastic is going to leach into your food, especially if it's acidic at all or if you microwave it. We never want to do that. And this doesn't have to be expensive. People are like, oh, I have to go on Amazon and buy all the glass containers. I'm like, buy mason jars. Honestly, I store so much in mason jars and my children break them and I'm like, eh.

Well, that was like, yeah, that was like 98 cents. I'm not going to cry over that because it wasn't the like $25 glass container. And they look cute. They do. I mean, I lived in Portland for like over 10 years. And so that was like always something when I was drinking out of mason jars, people were like, oh, that's because you're a Portlander. I'm like, is that a

thing. Like, I don't know. I'm like, for me, I'm like, I had an apple tree. I grew all like my own food, like primarily like our produce. And I'm like, we canned food and we did all kinds of stuff. So we always had mason jars. But I'm even like, just buy spaghetti in a glass jar. Oh, God, unless you're Italian, please don't come for me. But

You can just buy that and you can just like take the label off and there you go. You've got a glass jar that you can store stuff in totally free. Well, not totally free, but you were going to throw it out anyways. So really easy ways to start cleaning up the kitchen. And then comes the like one we all dread, which is like personal care products. And I think why we dread it is because when you find things that work

Oh my God, you don't want to hear that it's not good for you. And it is just so expensive. It is so expensive like to buy lotion and hair products. I mean, you name it. And so this is where I say, just take an inventory and take an inventory of everything you have. And whatever's the worst, that's the first that we phase out.

We don't throw it out, we phase it out. 'Cause damn, that conditioner was expensive. Okay, so like phase it out. But what the phase out does is it gives you time to research, to find the next, like what's a better product. And so you can just make a list and say, okay, this is going first, this is where I start my research. Okay, then this one's gonna go, this is where I start my research. You start to run out of something, okay, this is an opportunity to research and find something better.

And then you dollar vote for those better products. And by doing that dollar vote in the United States, you make it so those products become more accessible, more affordable, more available, because ultimately the companies are going to do whatever the consumer is going to buy.

And, you know, this is something that it's been a real trend, I think in the last year where people are like, I go to the French pharmacies and buy my stuff. Y'all, I'll tell you, you are sleeping on the Mexican pharmacies. They got the same stuff coming out of France, directly the same French products. But like in the summer, I just like stocked up

there because everything was like 25% off, like on top of like already discounted prices. So I just want to like say people, if you are in the US, you don't have to go all the way to Paris. You can jump down to Mexico and hit up some of those pharmacies. But

the EU altogether, they don't allow a lot of the endocrine disruptors, the known carcinogens in their products that the US does. So even the same brands, you will find that in the EU, they are going to be, quote, cleaner. What does that really mean? That means less potential to cause harm chemicals in there than what you're finding in the US. There's also better sunscreen. Like in Asia and Europe, they're like,

decades ahead of the U.S. in terms of sunscreen. But that is just something to like look at how consumers are starting to be like, I'd rather go to another country and buy my stuff than buy it here in the U.S. You better believe that these companies are going to start changing. So I remember when I started dating my husband now and organic food, he was like, it's so expensive and so ridiculous. And I'm like,

I know. And yet, like, I'm very conscious of where I put my money. I'm like a college student, like working, like, and still trying to buy organic produce. And I remember telling him, like, if we dollar vote now, you'll see organic food in all of the groceries. Like, it's going to change. And he's like, I don't think that's possible. Here we are now. And he's like, okay, there's something to that. I'm like, yes, like, we are a consumer driven country.

And if we dollar vote, then we can have better outcomes. So that brings me to organic food. And people always ask, like, does it have to be organic? Organic still has chemicals on it. I think that's important to understand. With organic food, the way I think about it is that if we can lessen the pesticide burden on ourselves, that's a win. But if we can also lessen the pesticide burden on farm workers who we know are ending up

with cancer, that reproductive harm is being done. I mean, these are other humans who are part of our society. And so that's what I've always held in my mind as well is like, it's not just about me and my body. It's also about the people who make my food so affordable and possible. And so I don't have to go out and harvest all this stuff myself. And so with

organic. I definitely think the clean 15 dirty dozen is great guidelines. If you are going out to eat friend, just enjoy yourself. Like the best thing you can do for your health is take a note from Parisians and have more pleasure and enjoy yourself and have less stress. Like if you're less stressed when you're eating, your digestion is going to be better. Your detox pathways are going to be better. Everything is going to work better.

And so why I say that is because I think it's really easy to be like, no, but like, I think like our avocado is bad or our banana is bad. And like, I don't know what to order on the menu. And it becomes this whole thing. And it's like, if the majority of time at home, you are doing your best,

Then when you go out, like you get a pass. You get a free pass to just live your life and enjoy yourself. And there's absolutely no trophy. I don't have like facts on this, but I am confident when you die, no one hands out trophies for a perfect live life or for never taking a pharmaceutical or for never having, you know, eaten like this pesticide or use this food or, you know, or this skincare product. Like you're not going to get a trophy.

But what you will get at the end of the life is a big smile when you look back and be like, damn, I lived well. I was really living it. Totally. I think there's so much to say in that. And I've been that person when I learned about, you know, certain pesticides and endocrine disruptors out there. I became obsessed with avoiding them. And that in itself takes away from the wellness journey because you're not in the moment. You're not creating a memory. And I think you're so right for saying that. And for everyone listening, all you can do is your best. Absolutely. And that's...

The point you made about Europe versus America is so valid. I mean, when it comes to our food, skincare, everything, it's pretty shocking. Do you have any specific brands in the U.S. that you lean towards when it comes to cleaning products, deodorant, skincare? I can think of a couple, but I want to hear your thoughts. You know, this is the thing that's always so tricky is because just because you use one product from a brand,

and you found that it was a quality product and it was less in terms of the toxic burden, doesn't mean all of their products are. So I say that because people see that I've used Tarte, I think since Tarte came out,

it's my eyeshadow right now and my mascara but not all of their products are going to be great like if you get really good foundations i have one of their foundations it's on the you know less toxic spectrum but like the other ones are like oh potentially more harmful and it's a great foundation so just know that there are limitations in these things so tart is one anne marie

Skincare, I do like their skincare. I think that there's a wild deodorant. I do like their deodorant. The other thing I like is just doing a solution of essential oils and spraying that. I found that actually reduces like odor. Nothing's stopping me from sweating right now under these lights. Like there's no product. No, it's the way it is. No, I'm not mad about it.

And then when it comes to cleaning products, that's where I'm always like the simpler, the better. Watch out for green washing. So there's a lot of green washing that happens where they're like, we're a green friendly product. And then you read it and you're like, you lie. You lie. Branch Basics is one that I love them. Gosh, they've got like their version of like OxyClean is like an enzyme. Oh my God, what it doesn't get. And like it got period blood out. Like you are like, you're amazing. You passed the test. That's the thing, right? They sponsor the show and I'm...

I love them. And I love the fact that they send various glass bottles and then all you do is mix the powder and the liquid together and it's like super effective. Absolutely. Also love Primally Pure. Oh, yes. Yes. The deodorant. And Tallow. Yeah, I actually have Primally Pure. I loved it in Mexico. I had to travel with the little tiny wild one. I mean, not everybody's going to like animal products on them, but...

So nourishing, especially like I have psoriasis that I have in remission, but it flared when I had my son, which is common. So everyone knows if you have autoimmunity, it's very common to flare postpartum. You didn't do anything wrong. It's just your immune system coming back into action. But their tallow was helpful. And also Quell, which is Q-U-E-L-L. Their zinc barrier works really well for eczema and psoriasis.

And also as a diaper bomb. Yeah. So I'm like, oh, two for one. Oh, we love that. Yeah. How are these endocrine disruptors affecting fertility? Not just in women, because I know men's infertility rates are through the roof as well. Yeah. I feel like it always lands on women. It does. So is somebody going through fertility treatments right now? For people who are like, wait, what? Okay.

I had a baby, my last baby at 40. I got pregnant then at 41 four times and miscarried. I can get pregnant every time I try. Boom, pregnant. I cannot maintain the pregnancy due to the embryos not developing correctly due to genetics. That is why my husband and I opted to go through IVF, which is make the embryos outside of me

which is just like such a weird concept that we do, and test them so that genetically I can pick the viable embryo and not go through the heartache of repeat miscarriages.

So that is why I'm going through IVF and I have just like, seriously, I feel like I've hacked it. We could have a whole episode about like how much I've hacked, like not having side effects, like, you know, recovering all of it. But with that, I think it's so important that we have these advanced reproductive technologies because so many women are struggling. And as you go through this journey, if you are struggling with infertility, you absolutely get the finger pointed at you because you have ovaries.

And in part, that is because you are the seed and the soil. You are the egg and the place where the egg and sperm meet, the embryo develops, and you get a baby. However, as we've understood through the research, I mean, it's always been like, we're just going to look at like the motility and the morphology of the sperm and how many do you have? So motility is like, it's not just like, are they moving? It's like, are they spinning in circles, like in the

corner and you're like, what are you doing, dude? Or are you actually going the direction you should? The morphology, the sperm head has to be correct. If it's not or you've got two, we've got a problem. And that is all that's been looked at. Now we're understanding through

for the research that there's DNA fragmentation to where there can be the male component contributing to genetic issues. And forever it was like, women, you get old and you can't have babies, but we can have babies forever. Research has shown that like there can be

problems the older the sperm is. And so there's all of those components that like, yes, the male factor matters. I mean, it's 50%-ish of the equation. I mean, it takes 50% to put it together, but it's, you know, in terms of getting to a live baby, we are doing a lot more. However, what we are now seeing through the research is a decline in the number of sperm that men have. So the

actual count. And not all of those are going to be good, even if you're the healthiest person. So some estimates say that men today have about 50% of the sperm that their grandfathers did.

And we are seeing more abnormalities. And the big reason why epidemiologists believe this is happening is because of environmental toxins. If we go back to animal data again, we have seen that animals in captivity, so in zoos who are exposed to BPA, for example, in like their pool liners and the water that they're drinking, they have abnormalities in their sperm. They have issues reproducing.

And so this is just important for people to understand is that all of these things do have an impact, which is why it's like, if you are starting to freak out right now, back it up, go back to like what I said before about the things that you can do, because those are the exact things that are gonna help improve fertility as well as looking at like what else could be going on for you. But...

Men are definitely impacted by environmental toxins. So endocrine disruptors, these are things that disrupt your hormones. There is the potential that EMFs are playing a role. So keeping your cell phone in your pocket, laptop on your lap. And then there are the things that we know and we've always known, but it's 2023 and as a doctor, I'm like, am I still telling people they shouldn't smoke? Like, is that still a thing? Yeah, it's still a thing. So like cigarette smoke, high alcohol consumption, people that live in certain states

enjoying a little too much cannabis, that can also be problematic. And so there's a lot of variables that come into this and why there's so much emphasis, I believe right now about the environmental toxins on fertility is because of how it's impacting men. And it's much easier to look at that than it is to look at women. And I know as somebody in my forties going, you know, into these fertility treatments, everything is just like, well, because of your age, because of your age, because of your age.

I have gone through three egg retrievals and I've improved each round with this recent round, us getting eight embryos, which is insane at my age. Like getting four is like amazing.

And that's due to having a healthy hormone lifestyle. Yes, that and like, and I've like talked about this on my YouTube, just the different things and components that I've brought in as I've learned more. And because like IVF is such a trial and error. It is like such a maddening process, I think, because we feel like science and medicine should be like, this is the protocol. And yet everybody responds differently. And there are

things that you can introduce that can absolutely impact outcomes. But I will say my doctor actually, before I flew here just a couple of days ago, he was like, you know, we were talking about like, are we like, what are we going to do going forward? And he's like, listen, like, I just want you to know that you're just really lucky.

oh every time they talk about luck it just like guts me you're just really lucky because at your age like most women don't have as good of outcomes as you and you have so many eggs and like that all is done they're just talking and he's like you're just so lucky i'm like can we just like for a moment thank my 20 something year old self who was studying nutrition and decided to start eating six to nine servings of vegetables a day and like can we just take a moment to like a

appreciate like the lymphatic drainage, the, you know, near infrared and red light therapy I've been doing and all these supplements I'm gagging down and like that my husband's doing all this stuff. And like, like, can we just like pause and just appreciate all of that rather than just being like, oh, you're just lucky because it fills me.

So dismissive of like what I've put into this. But as a woman, like this is what you just hear through the fertility journey is like, oh, you're lucky or it's just the numbers. And it's as if like there's nothing you can do. And I haven't. There's Dr. Laura Shaheen and the egg whisperer. Dr. Amy goes by the egg whisperer. These are two reproductive endocrinologists that I hear talk about.

ad nauseum to some people, I'm here for it, about environmental toxins. They talk about it with their patients. They talk about it with everyone else. They're reproductive endocrinologists. And I think they put out wonderful, wonderful information for people who really want to deep dive on that even further. I think if I took...

anything from this conversation. It's that you can work your way out of an unhealthy hormone situation. I know I've been on that journey personally. I've seen such improvement. You can improve your diet. You can make tweaks in your home environment.

can exercise differently and i love the fact that you gave us so many tangible tools to do so whether someone just wants to feel better while they're having their period or if someone wants to have a baby i think there's so much you can do and so much you can change over time with new habits

To end us off, how would you say we can teach women to embrace womanhood and lean into their cycles and really enjoy being a woman? Oh, yeah. I mean, I really hope Is This Normal does that because I've really poured like three years of my life into helping with that.

I think the biggest thing is that we stop teaching about there's this period and it's awful. And, you know, teaching from just like this also this just reproductive health as well of like period ovulation, be afraid of babies, like, you know, instead coming from the perspective of,

Your hormones are made to give you superpowers. They literally give you superpowers. And when they're not working for you, these are the ways that they can show up. And this is the way that you can support your body. But recognizing that you are in relationship with your body. It's not betraying you. It's not trying to make your life hell. It is trying to compensate and work for you. And just as you were saying, you know, you can work your way out of hormone issues and

Absolutely. You are so resilient. And it isn't until we're no longer able to compensate that we notice symptoms. But all the while, you may have been doing, you know, everything that I did wrong in my early 20s in terms of like, let's not sleep and like, let's, you know, just like get by on a bagel and different things like that.

You know, the things that happened before you had the knowledge, you just have to let that go because as you learn things and you bring them in, you have the capacity to change things for the better. And you may develop those symptoms because of those habits you had, but know that that's just your body saying, I actually would like it if you'd stop.

I would actually need these things instead. And so you have that capacity. So I really think we need to start teaching really all women, no matter your age, really from that perspective of how do your hormones work for you? What are the superpowers that they give you? And how can you support your endocrine system, your hormones, so that you feel your best?

Amazing. Dr. Jolene, where can people find you online? Where can they buy your books? Give us all the info. Books are everywhere. You can find me all over social media at drjolenebrighton. And then my main hub is drbrighton.com. My last name is a little tricky, so it's going to be dr.

B-R-I-G-H-T-E-N.com. And that's where you have a ton of free resources of pretty much any hormone question you could ask. Amazing. And you guys very kindly gave my audience a code so they can use code PURSUIT10 for 10% off everything on Dr. Brighton's website. So thank you so much. And thank you for coming on today. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. Go comment on my last Instagram at Mari Llewellyn with the guest you want to see next. I'll be picking one person from the comments to send our bloom greens to. Make sure you hit follow so you never miss my weekly episodes. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to share and leave a review. See you next week.

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