Treating PCOS with Dr. Samina

Hey Cysters, the doors to our four week meal prep and workout course are officially open. We’ve designed this course based off of the gluten and dairy free meals that we eat and the PCOS friendly workouts that we do together. So, you know, they’re delicious and fun. This course is exactly how I was able to lose 30 pounds with PCOS, and we’ve created step-by-step video tutorials to show you how to make the meals and do the workouts.

So it’s super easy to follow enroll today for lifetime access because doors close on Friday, May 15th. Welcome to a Cyster on her. Mister, a podcast where we show you the real behind the scenes of how we bombs the PCOS lifestyle in our marriage, gluten and dairy free. I’m telling your fellow sister and registered dietitian And I’m Sirak husband, engineer,

and PCOS personal trainer. We’re going to make PCOS a little less overwhelming and a lot more fun. Welcome everybody to assist her in her. Mr. Today, we have a special guest on, along with my wife Tallinn. It is dr. Sumina. Hey, thank you so much for joining us, dr. Sumina. She is a naturopathic doctor and she is,

she has seen so many women with PCOS and she’s here to talk to us about PCO S and answer the questions from sisters on Instagram. Welcome dr. Sumina. Do you want to give a quick introduction? Yeah, so I’m dr. Sumina, I’m from Ontario, that’s in Canada. And so basically, um, my specialty or my special interest is working with patients who have PCLs.

And this really stemmed from the fact that I was diagnosed with PCLs over 10 years ago now. And I was actually diagnosed by an acrobatic doctor, um, because my family doctor didn’t really know what was going on. And that was a huge, um, point in my health care, um, because I was able to really understand what was going on in my body in terms of hormones,

and then really using like diet and lifestyle and supplementation. I was able to really, um, manage and balance my hormones, which is why, you know, about letting me into the interest of really learning more and more about women’s health and PCLs, and then really focusing my practice on helping these patients who have PGOs as well. That’s awesome. That’s amazing.

Interesting. Cause it’s very similar to how Tallinn his journey was. She was diagnosed and she, and it’s funny, you were both diagnosed by a naturopathic doctor and honestly it seems like naturopathic doctors are a lot more helpful than like regular doctors when it comes to PCs. Once I switched to a naturopathic doctor, I got answers and solutions, but how long did it take you to figure things out for your body?

Because every woman with PCs is different. It takes time to figure out how to reverse it was I had, I went on birth. I remember it was for acne and the birth control really messed up with my body and my hormones. I felt like I got depressed by being on it. So then I got off and then the doctor put me on an antidepressant because that’s the natural thing to do.

You’re depressed. So you need an antidepressant. So I said, okay. And then I was like, well, let me just see if this passes. And I waited two months and I was still feeling really bad. So then I came back and I was like, okay. Yeah, I think I need the antidepressant. So I went on antidepressants about point and then I knew that something was off because my,

now my cycles are irregular, like super regular, because even before the birth control wasn’t necessarily keeping track a bit, but I knew something was off. Um, but at that point, like I didn’t really care about if my cycle was regular or not. Right. Like I was in my teens at that point. And then, um, yeah, that’s when I went to a naturopathic doctor and she was like,

I think you have this, you have PCOM just based on what you’re presenting with. I had like all the symptoms of high testosterone, like Hersha TISM and acne. And, you know, I didn’t have hair loss, but I had those two big ones and I had irregular cycles. And so, um, that prompted her to do an ultrasound, to like,

say, go to your medical doctor and get ultrasound. Cause natural paths. We can’t in Canada, um, requisition ultrasound. So then got an ultrasound. There was, there was multiple follicles on my ovaries. So they were like, okay, like now you have three out of, you know, the three that we looked for in Rotterdam criteria. And so I think it’s a matter of a,

we have more time, um, B we’re really trained in hormone health, um, and hormones and, um, you know, a family doctors really it’s good at looking at hormones, but what they should be doing maybe is sending these patients to an endocrinologist and maybe they can find out through the endocrinologist because endocrinologist will do a lot of similar testing that we will do,

um, to find out if you have PCOS. But yeah, I feel like it could be just time and the fact that we’re, we’re very trained in hormones. Yeah. That was a lot more like a lot more people specialize in those areas. Whereas maybe before it was more general practice and they weren’t looking at those specific. Exactly. Yeah. Cause if you have irregular cycles,

we’ll just put you on birth control to regulate it. Yeah. Like they used to be the thought that all down will fix everything and then you’ll be back on track. And then, Yeah. So then when you want kids, we’ll just take you off the birth control and your cycle will be perfectly fine. But a lot of these, a lot of these patients are not experiencing that and that’s the issue.

Right. And then they’re coming and they’re being like, why is this happening? Like tell me why. So we have, you know, we have the time to go over their diet to go over their lifestyle, to like figure out those things with them and really get them on a track that actually helps them longterm. Right. Yeah. There’s a lot of skipping over the why when you go to a gynecologist,

there’s, you know, they don’t have the time to like sit there usually and explain exactly why and what’s going on and what you can do and all of these things. Exactly. They just don’t have enough time. How long did it take you to reverse your symptoms? If I, okay. So yeah, I went on birth control honestly, within a year after coming off of birth control.

Cause I went to the naturopath and then got the ultrasound and then basically knew then that year that I had PCOM. So I was lucky I’ve done under the age of 19. Like that’s pretty amazing, especially cause I was like more than 10 years ago, you like skipped over all the drama of like gaining a hundred pounds and like, I don’t know what’s going on,

you know? Yeah. It was huge. Yeah. So I was lucky for sure. That’s good. So what are some of the things that you did for yourself that you now recommend to your patients? Like diet changes? I would say like, you know, it’s interesting. Cause a lot of the patients I see are very different. Um, I’m a lean PCRs patient,

so you know what I would do for myself versus someone who, who is overweight would be totally different. But generally speaking, like, um, I would say the biggest thing for me has been dietary changes, um, which has been like going dairy and gluten free and honestly taking out every piece of sugar in my diet. Um, even to the point where this year I actually started taking out like honey maple syrup and all these things,

I still ended up turning into glucose in your body. And so ever since that too, I’ve noticed my skin is way more clear, um, by even just doing that. So, you know, we always talk about paleo diet. Paleo does have, um, still maple syrup and honey and all those good things, but yeah, those things can even impact you as well.

So Yeah. Shoot sugar is such a big thing too. Like in addition to gluten and dairy, when you like look at how much sugar would just have in a date, cause you don’t consider like all like maple syrup or maybe like something that’s bread. And then like once you like take that out, like you said, like it gets rid of all,

a lot of the inflammatory symptoms like acne or you know, other issues. Yeah. And that’s why like even all of the studies are saying low carbohydrate diet because all these carbohydrates we’re putting into the body, they get broken down into small molecules of glucose and glucose is basically sugar. Right? Yeah. So that’s why we really need to make sure. So yeah,

I would say basically going on a dairy and gluten free diet, taking out a bunch of sugar, um, and then using supplements, um, for me it was it’s very much, um, using botanicals has really helped, um, because I have low estrogen levels and so estrogen, um, and like high testosterone. So like things like salt Palmetto,

um, can really help me, but also like built Herb’s that helped to build estrogen, um, like tribulus and black cohosh. Um, all of those Herb’s kind of like in, you know, synergy together can really help support my body. Um, and then stress management is huge. Like I had a point where I didn’t get a period for like four months when I was writing board exams and that makes sense.

Right. Cause I was like super stressed. Yeah. And I find that too with my patients when they come to me, they’re quite stressed. And so one of the things we’re doing is really focusing on how to build like mindfulness into your day and using yoga. Um, as one of the biggest, um, things to help you actually, someone sent me a study today and it was,

um, yoga three times a week can reduce your testosterone by 29%. Well, yeah, it was mindfulness. Yeah. Relax. So those things are huge, right? Like billing, all of the foundations of how I think are the biggest things. And it takes time. Like it took me time to, to really build those in. But once I did,

I saw huge changes. That’s such a good way to put it, building those in. Would you consider meditation as a, as a mindful, like a thing to do? Oh yeah. Like I would say foundations of health are like diet, exercise, sleep and stress. Right? Like if you really build the foundations around all four of those things and then on top of that,

add supplements or add botanicals if you need it, because those are the things that are lifelong, that are going to help the body regardless. And like stress management like that one really it’s about becoming more mindful in terms of what’s happening in your body. You know, it’s funny. Cause people like to start with supplements. Yeah, yeah. Right away.

Jump into supplements. Cause it’s like the magical, you know, solution, but yeah, there’s a reason it’s called supplement. You have to supplement onto something you’re doing at the same time. Yeah. It’s so true. And like today I had a patient who like we went over, you know, also tells really helping her. It’s getting her to get a cycle every month,

but she’s still struggling with like stress and sleep and you know, she’s still struggling with all these things and it’s like, you know, it’s okay to take of us all to get your cycles regular again. But at the end of the day, you still need to work on those foundations. I think. Yeah. You see the same things. Like even if you’re taking Avast,

the tall, you can reverse your symptoms, but also improving your diet, your lifestyle going gluten and dairy free. Instead, like if you don’t do that, then you kind of stand still. Like you take over as tall, but you don’t really see the progress with your health in reversing symptoms. One the biggest ways to like reduce insulin resistance and start getting yourselves to become more sensitive to insulin from what we see is actually diet.

Um, it actually surpasses something like Metformin and even because the diet is actually where like the first, that’s the first point of contact, you know, in your digestive system and then into your bloodstream, like all those nutrients that you’re putting in, that’s gonna, what’s, what’s really going to change those numbers on blood work. Wow. That’s amazing.

So can you touch on diet a little more and like tell us about some of the research behind gluten and dairy free that you share with your patients and how you help them adapt their diet. So yeah, so diet is huge. The first thing we go over is like a kind of a complete diet diary to see like what they’re eating. Um, and then really explained to them about like basically what we see in terms of dairy is that dairy can be extremely low on glycemic index.

So even if you look at like, um, milk, for example, milk is very low on glycaemic index. So when I say glycaemic index, I’m talking about how high glucose rises after eating a certain food. But when you look at the insulin index, it’s actually extremely high. It’s like almost double or like three times higher on the insulin index.

And that’s huge because you know, when we’re talking about reducing insulin to like help with weight loss and hope with insulin resistance, we really want to make sure that we’re putting in foods that actually are low on insulin index. And that’s something I feel like we don’t necessarily talk about in terms of diabetes and PCLs um, and so that’s, that’s one thing I’m trying to explain to them and showing them the graphs of like,

this is what it looks like. And so they understand for sure. And then, you know, there is some research that we have and uh, one of the studies actually here, I have it here. It was with like 400 women in Iran and it was found that there was actually a direct relationship between milk consumption and the risk of having PCLs,

which is crazy. Right. Cause that’s huge. First of all, it’s a lot of women’s 400 women, a pretty good study. And the relationship that they found was huge. And then even like studies with like low starch and low dairy consumption in like overweight women that have PCOS. Like they saw a reduction in weight loss and fasting insulin and testosterone and insulin resistance.

And that’s huge. Right? So there’s studies that are there and we just, we see the impact. Um, as we’re putting patients on dairy free diet, it’s definitely difficult. Um, a lot of patients there’s different types of patients. Like some patients I’ll ask them like, do you, are you an all or nothing person? Or are you that person who needs to like slowly take it out because they’ve lived with dairy for like maybe 20,

30 years. Right. So it’s kind of really like supporting them on saying, okay, like if you eat dairy every day and maybe decrease it to like every other day, or if you eat dairy, like maybe two to three times a week, then like cut it down to half or like cut it off out altogether. So really depends on where the patient’s at,

like help to support them, to reduce the dairy. Um, but they know that like even sometimes just convincing someone, Hey, go dairy free for the weekend. Or like three days they see a huge difference in their like swelling or like pain and even like their bloating and gas, like all these digestive symptoms improve. So then that gives them motivation and then they come back and they’re like,

I’m telling everyone to go to free partners, not dairy free. Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. So they get motivated. Um, but they there’s, some of them are really resistant. Right. Because they’ve lived with like chai tea that has like milk in there, like every day Drinking milk every night, 10 cups of milk every night. Yeah.

Yeah. It’s crazy. Like I remember when I was younger, my mom used to tell me, Hey, just drink a cup of milk and I’ll help you go to sleep. And I remember doing that when I had trouble sleeping and I’m like, I can’t believe I did that, but I mean, it helped at the time, but yeah. Now I’m like,

I will not, I cannot drink milk at all. Like it just even like when I go to Starbucks or milk for us. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yeah. I said a cup of milk for us would be like death. Yeah. Sometimes when I go and instead of putting coconut milk, they put regular milk. I like die. Oh my gosh,

horrible. It actually tastes so much better with coconut and yeah, it’s here. It’s just about your body getting used to it. And once they see the change and the impact, their, their souls. Yeah. One thing you said that was interesting was the insulin index. I haven’t personally heard that before. Is there like a, like some other foods that we should be aware of that it’s like high on the insulin index that maybe like sisters should avoid,

Um, you know, foods that are high on insulin index would be like similar to like glycaemic index, but the ones that are specifically like low on glycaemic, but high on insulin, those are like dairy products. But yeah. Even if you Google insulin index, like you’ll, you can get a list of like all the foods that are like high,

like low, medium high on insulin index, which is really interesting. Yeah. And that’s one index that we really need to pay attention to, especially because the goal is to bring insulin down so that the body has a, to use fat stores for energy instead of, you know, glycogen in the liver and whatnot. So it’s really important to, you know,

have these big meals, but then also don’t eat in between or like intermittent fasting as well. Especially if you have a high insulin, because that gives insulin a chance to actually calm down, you know? Oh yeah, Totally. Yeah. Yeah. We talked like in the previous episode that like 12 hours, it may be like the perfect range for women with PCOS,

just so like the, it gives enough time for incident to come down, but not too much where, you know, then your blood sugar jobs and you have the opposite effect. Yeah, for sure. I always say 12 hours too, because I think 16 is a little bit too much. And I mean, I think 16 is okay if you’re not doing it every day.

Um, and your insulin is really high, like maybe twice a week, you know, but not every day and 12 is more manageable because you’re basically, you’re basically asleep and then two hours, you know, before and after waking up and going back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you feel like everyone with PCs should be gluten? It should be gluten and dairy free or at least dairy free?

I think definitely dairy free. Every single patient who comes in, who has PCRs asked this. And I always say like, definitely dairy free because, um, dairy can really impact that insulin. And we know insulin is a huge driving factor into many of the symptoms related to DCOS, um, because insulin drives testosterone production and that’s where like all the symptoms happen,

like acne, hair loss, hair growth, um, weight gain. Um, but basically yeah, dairy free for sure. And then, you know, the meal plans that, and the, the way we kind of coach patients is that they should be gluten-free as well only because like, it really is an inflammatory food and patients who actually, most patients actually find that they have like a little bit of a sensitivity to it.

Um, because PCLs has this low underlying, like low grade inflammation. If we remove inflammatory foods, they’re just going to get better inevitably. Right. So like most people can appreciate that and come off of it. No problem. Um, some people, obviously they feel like they don’t have any digestive upset or issues with gluten. And if that’s you,

like, I think it’s fine to keep in a little bit, but I still think like going majority, like gluten free would be your best bet because at the end of the day, like the foods that are filled with gluten are more processed. Right. Um, unless you’re buying like a really nice piece of like sourdough bread or something like that. Um,

and then like if you don’t have a sensitivity to gluten, then maybe on occasion having it, um, yeah. I mean, some of are hard to digest, so it’s like, it’s, it does have it on your intestines. Like any corn based products that are like cheaply made so bad for our digestive system. Sourdough bread has minimal gluten though.

It’s minimal, minimal gluten. I’m really sensitive. I feel like to gluten and even sourdough bread will impact me. Yeah. So, you know, I really think the gluten part is maybe a little bit more, um, case by case, but like there’s no harm going gluten free because then you’re just forced to eat a real food diet, you know,

like you’re forced to eat like good, healthy fats, lots of veggies, good lean protein. And then, you know, um, carbohydrates that aren’t processed. Yeah. I think in too, in many cases you don’t have to maybe strictly go a hundred percent. Gluten-free it’s maybe replacing a lot of those, like really big staples, like bread, for example,

that has so much gluten so much, you know, empty calories sometimes because it’s made, you know, white bread has like no nutrients basically. So like if you replace a lot of those basic fundamentals, maybe like 40, 50% then like it’s really helpful. Yeah. And it always say that, like, if you’re going to have a carbohydrate, you have to have some kind of protein and healthy fat beside it.

Right. Because that’s going to stabilize blood sugar. Um, and that’s the goal, right? We don’t want these like spikes and lows of blood sugar throughout the day. Cause that will impact your insulin as well. Your insulin and glucose in terms of balancing it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Totally, totally. So what are some of the supplements that you recommend moving on from diet?

Yeah, so I think, you know, it really depends on the patient again, but you know, majority of the time, if it’s insulin resistance, we’re using things like my own office at tall beaker and also tall. Um, we’re using berberine. Um, this is a herb like Chinese medicine home. That’s really focusing focused on the gut, um,

and can help. We’ve actually seen in some studies helps with like metabolic syndrome and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, um, helps with cholesterol. It really works in the gut and help support the microbiome in the gut or like even, um, killing some, anything that’s there like a virus or bacteria or anything like that. But what we found actually in the studies that it actually can lower insulin.

And, um, so that’s one herb that I use if someone’s like really insulin resistant, their numbers are extremely high. Um, they don’t have like too many digestive issues cause sometimes bourbon can be more, um, irritating to the gut. Um, we, we tend to go towards like berberine and to really drive the numbers down and help stabilize insulin and glucose.

Um, so yeah, that’s a herb that I really like and then chromium as well. Right. Um, chromium’s really good. Um, as well at really like even just maintaining blood glucose, um, and also just supporting like healthy way and even cholesterol. So, um, yeah, chromium and just like products that have like multiple different types of things in there to help with,

um, insulin resistance, um, you know, like alpha lipoic acid and NSC doses, steam, all these like, um, supplements we’ve seen that can help with insulin resistance. Quercetin is one I’ve heard a lot about. Yeah. And I love NSNO cystine so NSNO cystine is a precursor to glutathione included thyronine is our biggest antioxidant. One of the biggest antioxidants in our body and N-acetylcysteine can really help that patient who has like lots of inflammation,

um, who it actually has been shown to to help reduce testosterone and insulin. So it kind of like hits a bunch of things it’s even helpful to like, um, help with ambulation, like regulating ovulation. So yeah, I really love NSNO cystine cause oftentimes we see a lot of inflammation in PCLs, especially when we do lab work, we see that they’re HS CRP,

this is high sensitivity C reactive protein. This is high. So yeah. So mine was like 10 times higher than it should be. It used to be Used to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s so surprising, right. Because sometimes people don’t have any signs of inflammation. It’s not like you have pain or like, you know, like people won’t even have that,

but then their HSC or P will be extremely high. So, you know, like inside there’s somewhere there’s inflammation, maybe the gut. Right. Um, so it’s really interesting. Did you have any, There was one speaking of, um, CRP. I remember when I found that out on my lab work, I showed it to someone. I think she was a dietician and she was like,

well, you know, it could be that you’re S you had a sick, you were sick, like a cold or something that caused this. I was like, but I don’t have a cool, like I have pay cos she’s like, well, like maybe this is just how your body is, and this is like the weight that you, your body wants to be.

And I’m like, but I’m so uncomfortable. I’m like exploding out of my skin. I feel like this is a terrible feeling of inflammation, you know? And she’s like, but like, maybe that’s just how you are like, but it needs to change. Like Something needs to change. Yeah. So it’s interesting because, because Pecos is a syndrome,

there’s so many moving parts to it. Right. And so like sometimes, um, you know, some people just don’t know all the little connections because there’s so many little things and everybody’s a little bit different, right? Like my HS CRP has never been elevated, but my, at my LH FSH are pretty low, but my estrogen is also low and my testosterone is high.

So it’s like, it’s so interesting. Cause like every single patient comes in is like a unique puzzle that we just kind of have to fit back together. Yeah. Yeah. And Changes over time. Like I had a Dutch test done the complete hormone tests done three years ago and it said I had low testosterone and high estrogen, like estrogen dominance. And that was so different from like way before.

And I think it was like stress related. We were like wedding planning and getting our art, everything was changing, you know? So then I knew exactly what supplements to take and like how to handle the situation. And now I’m curious to see like, what’s going on now. Maybe I’ll take another hormone. Yeah. Because you know, all the lab testing we do,

it’s like a snapshot of like what’s happening in your body right now. Right. And you’re right. It can change stressful situations can really throw things off, especially with insulin resistance. Yeah. Somebody last night, um, messaged me and was like, how does Beyonce do it? Like how does she keep up? You know? She’s like, I’m watching the Coachella performance and it’s just so insane.

How does she not have adrenal fatigue, Everything going, like all the supplements, all the right foods. Because everything, I mean, it can be done. Yeah. I feel like if you come back this year, We actual drugs in there who knows. I feel like I should probably has like a chef a and nanny, like everyone pampering grids so that she’s not like overly stimulated when she’s doing this like crazy routine plus there’s genetics.

Like not everybody has PCU. Everybody has genetics, unfortunately. Yeah. And also like, yeah. Her full time job is to focus on her body. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, we should make our full time, not full time job. Cause we have to work, but like our full time a hobby Yeah. It’s like, you know,

you won’t be able to show up for your family, your friends, your coworkers, anybody, unless you yourself are putting the effort to become healthier in your own body and listen, just like listening to like what your body needs. Right. Just being more aware about it. Because even like with foods, the more aware we become on like how foods affect us can make a huge difference.

Cause I, I’m not going to be like with the patients 24 seven, like asking them like, what’s your digestion? Like after you eat that thing. Right. Like it’s really just like setting them up for how can they be more empowered to make the right choices and decisions and then have that control for the rest of their lives to be like, okay,

actually I think I need to start taking this start exercising or start getting back on track. Like, you know, like just putting the foundations back in A lot of times, it’s just like them seeing the results themselves. As I witnessed, that’s like so powerful to like sustain that permanently. You know? Like for me, like when I, when I was like 18,

I totally like dropped drinking, like stuff. Like Coca-Cola things like that. I learned about sugar and stuff. And like, it was hard at first, but like once you feel better and like, you like don’t even want it, like you’re like disgusted by it. I can, I can never have a Coke. I can’t even imagine taking a sip at this point.

No, I haven’t done it. Like in like five, six years. It’s just like, I don’t know. Yeah. I mean, it was such a fashionable thing at one point, like the nineties and stuff, everyone was drinking Coke, so yeah. And then once you get into that, into that, it’s like hard to realize what it’s affecting,

even gluten and dairy. Like you’re eating it, you’re eating it. You have no idea how it’s going to affect you unless you cut it out for like a month to see. Yeah. I always think of it as like a flame. It’s like we’re feeding the flame and the flame is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then we just have this big flame in our body.

And then eventually like we put water over the flame and it just becomes ashes. And then like, we’re just in this like state of like rebuild. And then anytime you like add a little bit of like gluten or you add a little bit of dairy, you like feed the flame again. And it just like comes back and it just, yeah. And you want to really keep it at that low level,

like nothing’s happening, everything’s just running smoothly because that will actually help you change things and move forward, feel more energy, sleep better, you know, get your digestive system on track. Yeah. The other thing about gluten actually is that it can constantly kick up right. And leaky gut is huge, especially in digestive cases. And cause what gluten does is actually breaks the bonds that hold the small intestinal cells together,

these are called tight junctions. And so what will happen is like the Glen will come in and just like break all the bonds that hold the cells together. So now you have this opening up of cells in the small intestines and now all the molecules come, I kind of get through that or from your food and backend really impact the immune system cause inflammation.

And so it’s, you know, some people have that too. And it’s so it’s important to like, think about all these things because gluten can affect so many different things in the digestive system. Right. So things like how the digestive system works. Yeah. And it can also affect insulin levels as well. Inflammation. Yeah. I mean, there’s even research showing that it like it can lead to joint pain and like back pain and stuff like that.

Cause that’s again, inflammation. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Very interesting. I mean, there’s just so much research On gluten and dairy, but unfortunately they haven’t done specific research on gluten dairy and PCO S and I feel like that’s why in school, they don’t teach dietitians the specifics of this because there’s no re there’s not enough research. You have to have experience.

You have to have PCOS. You have to see all these patients with PCLs for a while. So you can understand the trends that are happening. And, you know, there are a couple of books out there and not even a lot, like literally two that really capture the S picture of what’s going on out there. And aside from that, which is like,

you know, a couple of doctors who wrote books, anecdotal evidence of like what they’ve been seeing with their patients, aside from that, there’s no research specifically on S gluten dairy, the different types of PCs, what effects and stuff like that. So a lot of doctors and dieticians don’t know what the heck is happening, and it’s really annoying. I just really wish people would get on the bandwagon.

I know, I know so many people would benefit from that, but that’s why we’re here to spread the word. Yeah. And really educate women on what their body needs. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And it’s also like, like these days is very hard to follow research studies and like follow at least reputable ones, because like so many are one sided.

Cause it is trying to, you know, figure one thing out. So I feel like going through a doctor’s appearance and their own anecdotal evidence based on their patients is a lot of times more valuable when you can find it Totally. By the time a research study is conducted and approved and launched, and then the curriculum at your school changes and they teach it to the dieticians 10 years will go by.

Yeah. I had to learn all of this through experience and naturopathic doctors who have experience yeah. For heaven sakes. Okay. Okay. Should we go over some of the messages that we’ve received on Instagram story? I asked the sisters what they would ask a naturopathic doctor, you know, if they had a chance and let me go over a few. So one of them from Tara Radcliffe is how did I get S in the first place and how do I resolve the underlying issues that caused it?

That’s a huge question. Um, but I think, you know, one of the biggest things is genetics. Yeah. And then on top of that, I would say is epigenetics, right? Like the environment that you live in can really impact and turn on certain genes in your body that can then create a hormonal imbalance. Um, so basically, you know,

even like stressful situations are stressful times in your life can really change the hormonal picture in your body or like start weight gain, or start insulin resistance. A lot of times that’s where, when patients are coming in, they’re saying like, I like went to university and then like all of a sudden I had all this stress and then like I started getting regular cycles and then,

you know, and then I started growing hair in weird places, and now I have hair loss. And so like, yeah. So I feel like it’s very much like genetics, but then also epigenetics. So like the environment that you’re putting your body in the stress, or, you know, whatnot to really impact it. Oh yeah. After birth control,

you can have PCO S post pill, PCO S Yeah. Yup. And so, you know, it can really, it can really impact you. And so some, I think the second part of the question was like, how do you, how do you treat the underlying cause? Was that the second part? Yes. How do you treat the underlying cause?

So I think honestly the biggest thing in my practice, and I think you would agree, like using a lab work actually to really understand the underlying cause of what’s happening in your body is probably number one, because there can be multiple different things going on. And not, like I said, everyone’s the same. Some people will have certain hormone type or certain hormones low,

and it’s really about figuring out what’s actually happening and then treating that specific issue. Yeah. In terms of supplementation, I, I, lab work is so helpful because you have to know what’s going on before just throwing supplements at it. So that’s why we don’t really recommend like all these supplements all the time. We, we explain them and then if a sister feels like it’s appropriate,

they’ll take it. But most sisters have insulin resistance, so, Oh. Basketball helps most sisters. So that’s one, It’s great for egg quality too. Yeah. So, you know, you might not have insulin resistance or you might have like a little bit of insulin resistance, but if you’re trying to conceive, you know, like it’s still really good for equality.

Totally. Okay. One more question, Christine EY says, how do I know I’m doing the right thing? I don’t feel a lot of a difference day to day. Yeah. So this is a great question. Um, and I honestly feel like sometimes it can be hard if you’re, if you know you’re doing the right thing. Um, but what I can say to that is a,

it’s really important to like, again, go into your body and like, feel like what’s actually happening. Are you getting more energy? Are you less stressed? Um, are you losing weight or even not even numbers, but do you feel like your body composition is changing? Um, and even like, give it time hormones, take time to change.

Like even if it at least three months, you know, to really like, after like give it all your best for three months to change your diet. And really, um, if you’re going to put supplements in, put the supplements and, but then use those three months to really like, focus on how you’re feeling and make sure you exercise too during that time,

because those things will actually impact you even further. But yeah, I feel like, um, if you don’t feel change right away, it’s not an issue I would take, keep at it, wait for three months and maybe then see if you need to adjust or change something. love that. Um, another question. How do I keep my hormones under control?

When I go off birth control? Will I gain weight again? Will I gain weight again? Yeah. Yeah. Everyone’s different. Yeah. How to keep your hormones controlled after the birth control. Okay. So essentially like the birth control, I would say needs at least like three months after that, to really like the N look at your hormones because within the three months,

your cycles could be totally regular. Cause you just came off the birth control, but again, give it three months. And then at that point go and get some laboratory because then you’ll know exactly what’s happening in your body naturally. And then at that point you can kind of figure out what’s going on in terms of a hormonal imbalance and then treat it based on that.

Right. Are there any questions you see here that you want to answer? Ask? Okay. Okay. Uh, let’s see. Okay. I like this one. Um, how is it? Cause I’ve heard this before. How has sleep apnea related to? Have you heard of any relationship between sleep apnea PCs? You see a lot of sleep apnea,

MPS patients. Yeah. And I think the, um, the connection there is the insulin and the glucose. Okay. Lowering that. Yeah. So really focusing on the insulin resistance, We have been recommending CBD lately because it’s really helped with stress, especially during coronavirus and all of this. Um, but one sister actually, she took CBD. She was getting more REM sleep like two hours more REM sleep.

It was incredible That tracker app. And then like, she like showed a screenshot before and after. And it was like 45 minutes compared to two hours and five minutes. Wow. That’s huge. Yeah. But yeah, I think all the questions were like about everything. We pretty much talk to them and stuff. I feel like we covered them. Yeah.

We covered everything. Awesome. Great. I love this podcast honestly, are gonna really enjoy This before we wrap it up. Do you want to share with us a win from one of your patients? I know we’re like putting you on the spot, but can you think of a scenario with a patient that was just like turns out great and yes. Okay.

Let me think of one. I had. Yeah. And then maybe afterwards you can let the sisters know how they can reach you if they ever want your help or anything like that. Awesome. So let me see here, cause I actually pulled out three kind of pieces. So I was thinking about, um, Hmm. It’s so hard to choose so good at doing what I tell to do.

I know we always feel the same way we have like so many great success stories and stuff. We want to tell them all, but only one per week. Only one. So basically, um, okay. I’ll tell this one. Hold on. So she was like, I’m overweight, peace rest patient. She had gone Synthroid. She’s trying to get pregnant.

And um, since there is a fibroid medication and so basically like, um, in March or January of 2018, like kind of in between there, she had like her HBA one C is this hike? How well are you able to process glucose? Over three months was like 6.7. Oh. And then her fasting glucose was 6.2. So it was above the range.

And then her fascinating insight actually. So she just passed it for 12 hours. She went in and she got a blood test was 431, which is huge because you kind of want this to be around 50 and healthy cells. And so, you know, we changed our diet. We put in things like a low carb diet, lots of veggies, lean protein,

gluten, dairy free. She went on I’m and also tall. She did vitamin D um, she went on Burberry and um, she took B12, she did prenatal. And she also did like Quinn’s and cutin so like quite a few supplements, but there was a lot to change and she really wanted to get pregnant. Right. And so, um,

sometimes you have to use these supplements to really help to support the body. But then basically in July of 2018, her HBA one C was now 5.6. So she’s in the healthy range, her fasting glucose, same thing, 5.6. And then her fasting insulin was one 80, so still high, but a huge change for like 431. Right. We started working together,

um, which was huge. And um, she actually ended up doing an IUI and we did acupuncture like almost weekly and she ended up getting pregnant in July. Oh my gosh. How exciting. Yeah. And like, you know, she was at patient who like, they couldn’t start medication for HBA. One C was above this range and she, um,

she was tracking like her blood glucose even like after breakfast and lunch and dinner to like really get her blood sugar down. Um, and focusing on that diet piece. And that’s what really drove the numbers down. I would say like, I think the supplements helped her, but that was a huge thing. Like even just like small things, she would notice that like didn’t necessarily seem like they were bad for her body,

but were spiking her blood sugar. Right. Um, like she would do like chia seed pudding, for example. And like, um, if she put like unsweetened almond milk or like accidentally pull extreme dominance, you’d like see a huge spike. Right? Like she, yeah. So she, she really got to like understand like food and like how to read labels.

And I think that’s huge because those are the things that will actually help you. And if you’re barely really insulin resistant, you know, using like a glucometer is actually really good. Cause it can show you and teach you how your body is reacting to all these foods that you’re eating. Good idea. Is that something you can find like buy on Amazon or anything?

Yeah. So I think the one that I like is called freestyle Libra. It’s an, I have no association with them, but like that one’s pretty cool. Cause they can just stick like, um, it’s just like a sensor and then you can just like tap the machine to it and it, or like the sensor to it. And it just tells you your blood sugar and then you can even,

um, check it on your other, like an app on your phone, which is cool. Yeah. The needle say again, is it a needle or a sense? It’s I think it’s like a tiny, tiny needle that goes into your arm. Yeah. Yeah. That’s really good. It’s very powerful. Like you said, for, for people to witness the results and see what’s happening like right after they eat something.

Yeah. Because they think like, Oh, it’s okay if I just eat this. But then they realize that that actually is impacting their body. Right. And then they see that when they put good healthy carbs with like protein and fat and lots of veggies, they see their blood sugar loss. They’re like more motivated, more convinced that like, yeah,

this is actually what my body is telling me that I need to do. Instead of someone like me just being like, this is what your body needs, listen to me. And if, uh, if anybody wants to find you, how could they reach you so you can help them so that you can help them out. Awesome. Yeah. So I have a website it’s just Semina meetha.com

and then I’m on Instagram as well. And um, yeah, I’m doing a webinar on Monday or Tuesday next Tuesday. So I don’t know when it’s going to go live, but basically, you know, check my website for any like webinars or Instagram and because um, yeah, I’m always trying to just put information out there. Cause that’s what I feel people need.

Right. You just need more guidance and more information and more support and they just need to know like the sisterhood, like you have like to really just get support on what they need to do. Yeah. Yeah. You’re one of our favorite like other PCs accounts and just in general, like health accounts, because you really know how to put the information out there and like make it easy for others to learn from.

So we love having you here on the podcast. Honestly, it was a great interview and we should definitely do this more often. Yeah. I agree. I love chatting with you guys. I love, yeah. I love this. This is great. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Alrighty. Thank you sisters for listening to this episode.

This is, uh, I guess for this one and we’ll be back next week. This episode is brought to you by pure spectrum CBD Ciroc and I have been taking CBD and we are loving. I’m holding the tincture right now. Pauline, can you open your mouth please? Yeah, I’m going to give you a dosage now. Keep it there for 60 seconds while she does that.

Let me tell you the great benefits of CBD for PCO is studies show it reduces cortisol, improves insulin sensitivity, reduces inflammation. You can go to pure spectrum cbd.com now to order and use the code. This sisterhood one word at checkout for 20% off Natale and hold her for 30 seconds longer while the sisters enjoy the show.