Fibromyalgia – Don’t Suffer

If you have been told that you have fibromyalgia and think that you have to suffer, you do not. Fibromyalgia is basically a chronic pain syndrome where your muscles feel achy and painful on a daily basis. It stems from many different things. The first step with treating fibromyalgia is to get quality sleep. Adequate sleep helps your body to heal better. This can be done by utilizing Progesterone, melatonin, and a good bed time regimen.

The next step is to work on your diet. Food allergies, especially gluten, have been linked to fibromyalgia. You must work closely with your doctor to eliminate foods that could be triggering your immune system to fight your own body. Then, you want to look for other underlying issues like heavy metal toxicity, Testosterone/Estrogen deficiency, MTHFR deficiency (enzyme in your body), etc. Every person is different in what is causing their symptoms. It may take time but you can get a handle on fibromyalgia and live a quality life.

Estrogen Health

“Estrogen” is generally used to describe the female hormone, but our bodies actually have several different forms of estrogen. The most potent form is estradiol. The other important forms of estrogen are estrone and estriol. Estrogens affect the function of many different tissues in your body–not just those that deal with reproduction. Estrogens play a critical role in building strong bone, protecting the heart, and balancing the mood, among many other functions. Thus it makes sense that estrogens are found in both men and women.

Metabolism of estrogen within your body is complex. Different metabolites are formed and they all vary in their potency. The ultimate effect that estrogen has on your body ultimately depends on how it is metabolized. Improving the metabolism of estrogen can be of benefit to women with a personal or family history of PMS, endometriosis, fibroid tumors, breast/uterine/ovarian cancer, fibrocystic/painful breasts, and even systemic lupus erythematosis.

You can improve your estrogen metabolism by increasing fiber intake and reducing fat intake, increasing your consumption of phytoestrogens (plant estrogens), losing weight, and increasing exercise. In addition, many nutrients can effectively help your body’s estrogen metabolism. These nutrients include indole-3-carbinol, B vitamins, magnesium, limonene, calcium D-glucarate, and isoflavones. Many antioxidants can help as well, such as Vitamins E and Cm, alpha lipoic acid, N-acetylcysteine, and green tea.

Balancing Hormones

4 key things you can to do naturally balance your hormones

1) Eat a well balanced diet full of organic non GMO vegetables and fruit. If you consume dairy products or beef, make sure they are from free range cattle that are free of hormones. Drink a lot of water and minimize alcohol consumption.

2) Avoid hormone disrupting chemicals that are commonly in personal care products. Your skin absorbs what you put on it in about 26 seconds—healthy or not. Avoid mineral oil, animal by-products, dyes, and parabens. Use natural clean products in order to minimize your hormones being disrupted.

3) Minimize stress. Take a deep breath regularly throughout the day. Look up and smile–it is hard to be stressed when you do. Exercise regularly. Ensure that you get 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night. Turn off your phone/computer and take a break from constant information.

4) Supplement your diet with a good multi-vitamin. Vitamins are critically important to your hormone balance, especially Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D. It is difficult these days to get enough vitamins without a supplement, the nutrition in our food supply is not what it used to be.

These measures are important for your overall health. Adding bio-identical hormones to a healthy lifestyle is the key to optimizing your hormones. But, just taking bio-identical hormones does not fix a poor lifestyle—it is important that you take care of your entire body in order for you to live your life to its fullest.

Healthy Sex!

You may believe that a declining sex drive is a normal age related occurance. This is simply not true!! You should be able to maintain a healthy sex drive as you age. A healthy sex drive is important for your mental and physical well being.

Magnesium is a mineral that can help you to enhance your libido (sex drive) naturally. Many foods contain magnesium but the amount of magnesium in our food has diminished (among other vitamins and minerals) due to the depletion of our soil. Get your rbc-magnesium level checked and if it is found to be low, you can supplement your diet with a skin lotion spray that contains 25% magnesium. Use 10 sprays twice a day–it is well absorbed through the skin.

It is important to be sure that you get enough rest and that you exercise regularly–if you are tired the sex drive is lagging too. You need to also look at the quality of your relationship. If you are unhappy with your partner then it is difficult to have a good sexual desire. Work on your communication and see a counselor if you need help with your relationship. Also, if you are unhappy with your own body that can affect your libido. This can be a mental or a physical issue. Work on yourself and the libido can often turn around. Eating a well balanced diet on a regular basis and saying “I like myself” can be powerful hormone boosters. Examine your lifestyle and see if you can find and fix a reason for a lagging libido.

I have found that replacing a low Testosterone level with Testosterone pellets (for men and women) gives a great boost to your sex drive when the natural treatment does not work. These pellets give your body biologically identical (i.e. replaces what your body is missing) Testosterone and help you to have more energy, enhance bone strength, enahance mental functioning, etc along with increasing your sex drive.

The bottom line is that you should not accept a low libido–you should be able to have a healthy sex life (safely of course) no matter what your age is!!

JOIN DR. BLANSCET, D.O. FOR LADIES NIGHT OUT!!!

(A discussion for Women only!!) THIS IS A FREE SEMINAR! SEATING IS LIMITED

SIGN UP TODAY AND RESERVE YOUR SEAT!!!

TOPICS INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO :

• What are Bio-Identical Hormones?
• What symptoms do these hormones help when they are balanced?
• How can hormones help with weight management?

WHEN: Tuesday, January 15th from 5:30 pm to 7 pm.

LOCATION: 29995 Technology Drive, Suite 203 (Conference room)

FORMAT: Open forum—bring your questions!!

Stress, Hormones, And Life

Stress is pretty much an every day occurrence these days. You are bombarded by negative news, financial stress, a life on the constant go, among other things. Your body has an amazing network of hormones that keep you alive and functioning. The problem is that your body was not designed to deal with constant daily stress. Your body was designed to deal with temporary stress (running from a predator, chasing after food, etc) and then be able to have the time to recover.

Living in this world depletes many critical hormones and leads to fatigue, fibromyalgia, insomnia, depression, a lack of well being, loss of libido, hot flashes, weight gain, etc. Our medical system has gotten used to simply treating the symptoms with different medications, rather than treating the underlying hormone imbalance.

Re balancing your estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, cortisol, and thyroid (the major hormones that get imbalanced) requires a holistic approach. Taking bio-identical hormones definately helps you to feel more balanced. In addition there are many lifestyle changes that you can do: getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night, eating a diet rich in organic vegetables/fruits, deep breathing (breathe in to the count of 4 and out for the count of 7), avoiding stressors in your life when possible, and eliminating hormone disruptors. Hormone disruptors come in the form of hormone fed dairy/beef products, and skin care or cosmetics that contain parabens/mineral oil/dyes/etc.

Regaining your optimal balance takes some effort but it is well worth it. Feeling full of life and having the energy and mood to enjoy your life is worth some money and time.

Alternatives to joint replacement

We want to stay active as we age and when your joints go bad, you want it fixed! Traditionally the treatment has been surgical. However now there are some new treatments available.

PRP is platelet rich plasma. This is where your blood is drawn and spun in a special centrifuge inside of a sterile cup, selecting out a high concentration of platelets. Your platelets have a great ability to attract healing properties from your own body to them. When your PRP solution is injected directly into the damaged area (using ultrasound guidance), it is a signal to your body to heal the area.

When you have arthritis, it is best to have PRP added to bone marrow stem cells. A bone marrow sample is taken from your tailbone area and spun in a special centrifuge inside of a sterile cup. These stem cells have the ability to get your joint cells to rebuild. Essentially, using PRP and bone marrow stem cells is using your own body’s cells to get your joints to regrow. There are no artificial substances in your body.

Research has shown that it can take a few months for full effect, but the use of PRP and bone marrow stem cells are a natural alternative to surgery. Insurances are not covering this incredible treatment but hopefully they will realize that it is cheaper and safer than the use of surgery.

Normal vs optimal

People get lab tests every day and often are told their lab results are normal. But what does that really mean? Think about that for a minute: what is normal? Basically, if you look around you normal has become overweight, tired, and ill. So, do you really want to be normal??
The lab values are created by studying a group of people and coming up with a low average number and a high average number. This becomes the range with which is considered normal. Keep in mind that they study the average population, they are not studying people who function optimally. So, when you fall within the normal range on a lab value it simply means that you fall within the range of the average population. This is not necessarily a good thing.

When you look at your lab values it is important to look at your symptoms and correlate them with your lab results. A regenerative medicine doctor specializes in getting you to optimal functioning and optimal lab values. If you do not feel well and you are told “your labs are normal”, I advise that you follow your gut instincts. Your lab values should be optimal, not just normal!

Bioidentical Hormones and Energy

“We age because our hormones decline, our hormones don’t decline because we age.”

Dr. Ron Rothberg M.D.

A primary goal of Regenerative Medicine is to balance one’s hormones. Achieving hormone balance often leads to less chronic inflammation in the body. Chronic inflammation is felt to be the main cause of most of the chronic diseases that we see today, as well as a main cause of aging poorly. Thus, lowering inflammation is regarded as one of the main ways that we can prevent, and even reverse, diseases. Having energy and living with vitality is the goal of Regenerative Medicine and when you have more balanced hormones, you can more easily achieve this goal.

Hormone deficiencies take many forms: varying from a low thyroid, low testosterone, low estrogen, low progesterone, or a cortisol imbalance (adrenal fatigue). Treating mild hormone deficiencies can dramatically improve your quality of life. Balancing these hormones can slow the effects of premature aging and prevent, or even reverse, many chronic diseases.

Exercise, proper nutrition, stress reduction, and the right supplementation all contribute towards balancing your hormones and helping you to age well. Bio-identical hormone replacement is another piece to this puzzle. Due to many factors that are present in today’s world (the two biggest factors being excess stress and the numerous chemical exposures that we have on a daily basis); utilizing bio-identical hormones is becoming a necessity for people who wish to live optimally in today’s “crazy” world.

Andropause–Male menopause

A lack of adequate Testosterone is becoming increasingly more prevalent in today’s world. Over half of the healthy men between the ages of 40-70 years old have a low bio-available Testosterone level.
Low Testosterone can be a predictor of hear disease and it can also affect insulin regulation, bone density, and mental functioning.

Optimal Testosterone levels can improve your mood, increase your energy/strength/endurance, and is also associated with Alzheimer’s prevention and improved heart function. In addition, an optimal Testosterone level improves your body composition by encouraging more lean muscle and reducing fat. It also improves libido (sexual desire) and erectile dysfunction. When patients have an optimal Testosterone level I see less inflammation, less pain overall, less osteoporosis, and less arthritis.

If you are a male and are feeling more tired, have less sexual performance, have less lean muscle, have mood issues, or just know that something is not right; then I highly suggest that you get your Testosterone checked. And, when you get it checked do be sure that it is in the optimal range. Normal ranges are not optimal ranges. There is a wide variation of normal, and the lower range of “normal” is certainly not optimal.