Welcome! I'm Dr. Felice Gersh, a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist and integrative medical doctor. I am the founder and director of the Integrative Medical Group of Irvine in sunny southern California.
My gynecologist brushes testosterone off. So the only opyo have found are the placed that do injection or pellet. I tried the injection and I could not keep it up
Testosterone level was essentially zero. SO THANKFUL had a female physician willing to test & prescribe compounded testosterone for me. Not exaggerating when I say it SAVED MY LIFE. had been having hideous neck and hip pain. Significantly decreased within FOUR DAYS of starting Testosterone supplementation. This is something I NEVER learned in medical school & never would’ve expected. Sheerly by lucking into a physician willing to test & treat am I living my absolute best life at 52. V much a believer in HRT. Considering switching career paths in order to share this gift with other women.
I was on BCP for at least 10 yrs, in 2020 i was 40 years old. I was convinced that covid as a new virus was more than a respiratory and was causing blood clots....so i quit the pill so i wouldn't be at a higher risk for clots. When i quit the pill...within that year i developed extenme hashimotos, high ANA testing, and vertigo. Also my terrible life altering migraines i always had on the pill...over about 2 yrs slowly got better. Im convinced that the pill wrecked me metabollically speaking. Im also convinced that because they thyroid is essentially the director of the metabolic system....that the fake hormones over all those years somehow confused my auto antibodies into wanting to attack my thyroid. Essentially, i believe my autoimmune system switched to attack the portion of my body that would be causing a metabolic intruder per say. Nothing would cure the hashimotos and i eventually had my thyroid removed. Now at 45 im going thru perimenopause hell. Every obgyn pushed low dose birth control. Trust me i want to ease the perimenopausal symptoms...they are pretty bad, but i just cant bring myself to do it...tye debilitating migraines, the blood clot risk...knowing i feel they wrecked my system before maybe even causing autoimmune dz. I feel like i need to push thru this time naturally...its not easy.
Purely amazing explanation Dr!! YOU are a joy to listen to and we are BLESSED to have access to your knowledge and teaching disposition. I am a new subscriber because of this video!! Thank you.
Thank you Dr Gersh, this information is so vital for women! If I haven’t gotten my period in six months, how do I figure out the timing of my cycle to know when to take estradiol and when to take progesterone?
I very much like the concept … but still important to know it is not approved as a screening tool independent from mammography and the global incidence of false positives and negatives still are not clear. But definitely nice no radiation is involved.
I started transdermal estrodial this week..I was prescribed daily progestrone 100mg at night....does anybody else take this but not daily? What is the reccomedation?
If only my doctors knew this when I had periods. I would get migraines mid cycle and at cycle. Sometimes they went on and on and overlapped. Migraine to bad headache and back again. Headache yo-yo!!
I have so many tips and tricks and things that work for me that I would like to share that maybe would help someone else, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to touch on the one thing that crosses over so many people and they have no idea how much of a enormous impact it has and that is to tell everyone here if you're drinking alcohol, stop it completely. Not even one on the weekends, a glass of wine here and there or once a month, just cut it out. I am telling you, your inflammation will go down in ways you can't even believe and it will help in aiding you with weight loss. It'll definitely cut out some of the hot flashes that some people experience. I never had hot flashes but when I would have one glass of red wine the past few years, I would start to get what seemed like them sometimes in middle of the night. I'm a deeply sound sleeper and I never get up in the middle of the night but whenever I would have red wine I would notice I was getting up hot and kicking the covers off in the middle of the night those last few years. I heard Dr. Gersh say in one of her other presentations here on RU-vid that inflammation is heat and so to cut alcohol out of your diet entirely will really help. I was already contemplating 10 years ago, how I'm going to get the money for a facelift eventually and I'm 55 now. After I stopped drinking 2 years ago (and I wasn't a heavy drinker but I was social and I did it on the regular)let me tell you my whole face started to bounce back. It changed shape, my skin on my entire body, everything started to look different. I was typically drinking red wine and probably one glass at least every day or every few days and on the weekends sometimes I would drink a martini or two with vodka and no more alcohol has not only saved tons of money but my vision improved exponentially! I was starting to have a hard time with just getting off two or three pounds that would pop up out of nowhere and that all stop too. A lot of brain fog and laziness, it's just a beneficial thing to do so if there's anyone here who's enjoying your wine because that's just kind of what we've all done as women at this age in society, try to cut it out, it will be benefit you greatly! Also one last tip if you want to improve your cholesterol numbers, drink 1 tbsp of extra-virgin cold pressed organic pure olive oil every morning before you eat or have coffee and right before you go to bed as well. It will put your lab numbers into a state of mystery for your doctors... believe me on this one I've known this for years and I turn so many people on to this trick you wouldn't believe it :) God bless you all on your health Journey and into your futures♥️
What about women with naturally dense breasts by heredity? I've always had dense breasts. Both my mother and my grandmother had extremely dense breasts as do I now and saw them in my mammograms once I stated those. I live a completely healthy lifestyle. My grandma lived to 93 and my mom is currently 92. Now, at 55, I've lived my entire life eating healthy exercising minimally because I don't have any issues with weight and I have no issues with insulin resistance. I even stopped drinking any alcohol in 2022 because I didn't want any extra inflammation in my body or aging my face. Truth be told, I'm kinda a health fanatic. I take supplements, I eat all the foods that people are always told to eat that are anti-inflammatory. I prefer a Mediterranean diet over almost anything else and my doctor says I'm the pillar of Health. He says my lab numbers are in the top 1% of his entire panel. I have 97 HDL, 36 LDL, perfect fasting glucose, thyroid and all of my hormone numbers look right for now. My overall everything is in steller statistics. However my period is just starting to cycle down. I've skipped a few months so I'm heading into menopause and I'm concerned about taking over-the-counter creams where they mix the progesterone and the estriol just to stay ahead of the risks of stroke, heart attack and so forth. Not to mention osteoporosis which I've been diagnosed with already because being that I'm so fit I never exercised and I could still wear a bikini. So now that I know I have osteoporosis, I have to start because it's a matter of my bone health. What would you say are my risk factors if I've always had naturally dense breasts? PS, I see you are in Irvine. My cousins live there and I'm not far from you... I'm near Rancho Cucamonga!
I just recently started HRT at 63 with oral 2mg estradiol, 200 mg progesterone and testosterone cream. Been in menopause for 5 years. I feel good. I have gained 20 lbs in those years. Now 175 lb and 5’6 with Osteopenia. Otherwise I am pretty healthy. My hormone doctor recommended the oral estradiol for the heart benefit that he said the patches and creams don’t deliver. I started weight training and upped my protein and taking AlgaeCal for calcium. But now you have me concerned about the estrone conversion from my oral estradiol. I was told to expect an initial weight from fluid but in time that would dissipate with the testosterone, I think. I have always had dense breasts with no breast cancer in family. Should I be on estradiol patch or cream instead? Why would women in their 60’s want to cycle again and if so, to what age?
The fact that one out of every 1,000 colonoscopies can cause complications (as in a life threatening perforated colon) is enough to discourage me from getting one. A friend who is in her 70s and who has never had one knows someone this happened to and he nearly died from it.
Thank you. Great video - exactly what I’m experiencing right now and it’s a real struggle! Just entered menopause and my gut is really not happy which seems to be impacting my nervous system at night 😢 Will implement your suggestions and look forward to hearing more on the subject.
I’ve heard other doctors say that having periods increases risks for certain cancers while taking progesterone daily epsiclakh in iud form such as mirena reduces many risks including cancers. I am wondering if you can address that topic Dr Gersh. Thank you for your detailed videos. They’re excellent.
Wow! Thank you for this information, Dr Felice! 🫶🏼 A question: Can inflammation due to estradiol deficiency (menopause) be measured with the C-reactive protein test (CRP)?
Insurance especially Medicare won’t pay for doctors like you or your labs so it’s not affordable for most. Doctors like you here in az, if there are any, call themselves functional medicine docs or concierge medicine both types don’t even accept insurance any more because insurance companies / Medicare won’t pay. Medicine in America is not preventative, you are not treated as a whole person but parts to be sent to this specialist and that specialists. You PCP just gets you in and out doesn’t take the time needed to put the pieces together to find solutions but rely on others and then they only deal with their specialty. You can’t even go to get labs done again if you change doses you have to wait 6 months because Medicare will only pay twice a year. So you end up going to the ER when dose is to high. They think that doesn’t cost a pretty penny? So messed up
