EPISODE SUMMARY:

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Nicole Smith to unpack PCOS through both clinical science and lived experience. We explore how PCOS often develops years before diagnosis, why so many women are dismissed despite clear symptoms, and how PCOS is not just an ovarian condition, but one that starts in the brain. We walk through early warning signs, the most important testing to consider, and why intuition, history, and data all matter when treating PCOS properly. This conversation is a powerful reminder that PCOS is not a life sentence and with the right approach, the body can absolutely heal.

ABOUT DR. JANE’S PRACTICE:

Dr. Jane is a Naturopathic Doctor and a Natural Fertility Expert. She and her team of expert practitioners help couples navigate infertility for 1+ years, get to the root cause of their struggles, heal, and bring healthy babies home.

After having a family member struggle with infertility and experiencing a miscarriage herself, Dr. Jane realized how little support and education women receive. She is on a mission to change that. Since 2020, she has dedicated her practice to fertility, where she and her practitioners work with couples 1:1, running functional lab work, customizing treatment plans and providing her couples with the support they need to get pregnant, have a stress free pregnancy and a healthy baby.

Learn more about Dr. Jane’s practice: www.drjanelevesque.com/practice

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CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction to PCOS and Personal Stories

03:12 Understanding PCOS Symptoms and Diagnosis

05:47 The Role of Blood Sugar and Hormones in PCOS

09:09 The Importance of Family History in PCOS

12:06 Testing and Understanding PCOS

15:02 The Connection Between Brain and PCOS

18:07 Gut Health and PCOS Management

19:56 Exploring the Gut-Brain Connection

21:53 Understanding PCOS Through Testing

23:56 The Importance of Comprehensive Lab Testing

25:43 Stressors and Their Impact on PCOS

29:55 Treatment Approaches for PCOS

34:07 Empowering Women Through Knowledge

37:52 Final Thoughts on PCOS Awareness

TAKEAWAYS:

PCOS can manifest from a young age and often goes undiagnosed.

Listening to your body and intuition is crucial for health.

Symptoms of PCOS can vary widely among individuals.

Testing is essential for understanding and managing PCOS.

The connection between brain health and PCOS is significant.

Women should be proactive in seeking answers about their health.

Nutritional support and supplements can aid in managing PCOS.

Understanding family history can provide insights into PCOS.

Empowerment through knowledge is key in managing PCOS.

PCOS is not a life sentence; there are ways to manage and improve health.

ABOUT NATURAL FERTILITY:

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If you’ve struggling with infertility, pregnancy loss, women’s health issues or just want to be proactive and prepare yourself for the next big chapter in your life… this show is for you.

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Individualized care is essential for effective treatment of chronic fertility issues.

Hi guys, welcome to another episode of Natural Fertility with Dr. Jane. And today I'm back with Dr. Nicole and we're both wearing green. If you're watching this, we didn't plan on it. We're just like, you too, okay.

Hi everyone. Yes.

This is my like Christmas tree color and so in my mind we're still in Christmas tree season I can wear it.

Yeah, if people are listening to this in like March, this is Christmas tree season. It's like, I'm a big fan of Christmas. I start early all year long. Yeah. All right. Today we wanted to talk to you guys about PCOS and I'm super excited because Nicole, mean, I don't want to talk to you, talk to people about your story.

Yeah

all year long is Christmas season.

We'll do the scientific, but I want to really draw an example from a real human, AKA you.

Yeah, absolutely. I am, no, I'm excited because I do, the more that, you know, PCOS has come up with clients and I share my story more and more with them and just letting them know like pieces that I've gone through. And so wanting to kind of walk through it, but essentially I had PCOS since I was young, right? It doesn't just come out of the blue. Never, no.

Were you properly diagnosed? Okay, that's what I wanted to, because a lot of people walking around with PCOS, I have a case that I just took right now and I'm like, have you been diagnosed? And she's like, no, I don't think so. And I'm like, you're like a walking PCOS case, like it's crazy.

Yeah, yeah, I was never diagnosed. I, when I was in college was probably like when I think back, that's the time that it was the most prominent to me. Cause my cycles were all over the place. I often miss cycles. I had Candida infections like every other week. And there was just so many different things that were going on. And at the same time, like I was a division one athlete. I was an eating great. I was training like 6 a.m. lift and then running in the afternoon. Like it was very intensive.

And so I didn't realize what I was doing to my body. I never did hormonal birth control. Well, I shouldn't say that I did it when I was young and then was pulled off it after like a month or two. And so I didn't necessarily have that factor, was great. was grateful for, but I assumed that not having that was why my cycles were just the way that they were. Right. And I wasn't told any differently. And so.

And fast forward many years, I didn't actually figure out I had PCOS until after I had my son. And that was when I really started seeing some of the pieces and realizing what PCOS is and essentially that I had it.

You did a lot of prep work to get pregnant with your son too, right?

I did a lot of prep work and I didn't necessarily do it with the intention of I'm going to be trying to get pregnant, but that I knew something within my body needed support and that I do want to have kids in the future. And so there was just this intuition. And then that increased. so leading up to getting pregnant, it was like, I was already doing testing. I was already doing supplements. I was, you know, on a vibration plate. I was doing saunas. I was doing red light therapy.

know, chiropractic regularly, like there were so many things I was putting into play just because I wanted to be on that highest version of myself. And so when I had, you know, my right partner and we were going to try for a child that had happened and unfortunately that did play out nicely for us because of all the work leading up to it, which is wild too to think about. Cause I'm like, how did I try?

you know, back in the time where those cycles were crazy and the Candida infections were showing up, it's like, I would not have been able to conceive. And, you know, there definitely were times in my life in that chapter where it's like, yeah, like I could see where there could have been a possibility, but it wouldn't have happened because of what my body was going through.

Yeah, for sure. I think there's a couple of things you touched on that female intuition that something is wrong. And then you go to the doctor and you're just told, no, everything is normal. And so it's like, it's important to listen to that voice. It's super important because you are right. And we have a broken system. So we need to fix that system. And the way that we're going to fix it is by voicing our concerns.

Mm-hmm.

Let's talk about all the symptoms of PCOS, if you will, like different kind of brackets of, because you never got an official diagnosis, but like, you know that this is what it is. What should women be looking out for? And if like you're listening right now and you're like, maybe I have PCOS, how do I know? I want to give them like the symptoms and then we'll go down into the labs and then we'll go down into like the root cause.

Yeah, that's all.

Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. And to just kind of close out on the comment of following that intuition, I have had a provider tell me that I uterine cancer when I didn't. And so that was an experience. And then another one was like, oh, it's just the yeast infections. And it turned out I was allergic to the antifungals. And so was having reactions. And that's what she ended up saying that I had cancer because I was having allergic reactions to flucanazole.

Wow.

That's crazy.

Really, it's like, just don't, you have to ask the questions and you have to keep figuring it out sometimes, because the answers you get just aren't always accurate. But as far as symptoms go, there's a lot of different symptoms that can categorize PCOS. And so one of the diagnostic tools is really looking at if there's multiple cysts around the ovaries. However, that's not the only way to diagnose PCOS. It was a little bit more,

of a standardized way of analyzing or detecting it, but now there's other things that come into play. And so for me specifically, it's like I've had the blood sugar dysregulation signs that have been screaming since I was a child and just nobody picked up on them. had that, I want to say hormonal acne, like along the jawline, but that really came into play later in life for me versus earlier in life.

Mm.

And there was a lot that I had done that we'll kind of touch upon that had triggered some of that cascade. There was...

And for blood sugar, did you have high blood sugar or low blood sugar? Because I've had PCOS with patients with both and we always assume it's high blood sugar, but I had a patient where she didn't have cysts. She wasn't ovulating because there was, it was almost like a POI. like.

lack of ovarian function period versus the multiple cysts. And her blood sugar was really low. And so you're like, oh, her blood sugar is balanced. But then when we put the CGM on, was like this. And so her lows would be really low. And so then the highs would be high too. But because the lows were so low, would just kind of show as like, oh, your blood sugar is fine. But she couldn't regulate it properly. So there was a lot of symptoms there.

Yeah, so that was kind of similar to me. I had the lower blood sugar and even when I was young, like I remember with playing sports, like I always felt off or I felt dizzy or I felt lightheaded. And so, but as far as like labs go, the blood sugar numbers always looked pretty good, but it was always like, your blood sugar is nice and low. Your blood pressure is nice and low. You know, you're under the weight scale that you should be in and like, so you're good. You're super healthy. But I really wasn't. There was just a lot of depletion that was happening there.

The other thing that no one really picked up on is I always had the fibrocystic breast changes. so leading up to my period, was like the breast tenderness was really intense and I could feel where like things were swollen. Like you can feel the cyst and it wasn't really picked up upon until early in my pregnancy, I ended up having mastitis.

Hmm.

And a lot of times like you don't get mastitis unless it's postpartum because the ducts get clogged. But for me, was just kind of leading up. It was right when I should have had my period, but didn't because I was pregnant. And then I ended up with the mastitis and one of the cysts was so... Yeah, it was pretty early. It was small, pretty early. And then in my second trimester, I got it really bad and it happened very, very quickly.

Still like right at the beginning of your pregnancy. Wow.

within hours, like I was in the ER because it was just spreading all over the right side of my body. Fortunately, at that time, I worked in a clinic as a chiropractor and one of the patients was an internist. And so we like went in the back room and she took a look and she was like, this might be an infected abscess. Like you need to go to the ER. And it turned out like it was just an inflamed cyst.

you know, and then that provider in the ER, like we did a lot of digging of just my health and she was one of the first people who were like, you've had this going on since you were really young. And so it opened up my eyes to a lot of different things about women's health that just constantly get missed. And even for me as a chiropractor who worked primarily with women and children, it was like, here's a big piece of the puzzle that nobody talks about.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, think what's the, what's the, I don't want to say like there's the diagnostic of the LH and FSH ratio is no longer a diagnostic because there's a lot of women with normal LH FSH like one to one ratio and they don't have PCOS. The polycystic covariance syndrome, believe the poly, the cysts on the ovaries, I believe is still a diagnostic. And then androgen excess.

and usually insulin resistance. So you don't have to have both, but you can have one or the other. I believe those are like the three criteria and you need to have two out of the three. Do you remember if that's correct?

Yeah, yeah, it's

You're pretty on point. And so there's the hyper androgenism and so, or like a biochemical hyper androgenism. And so essentially like you'll see elevated total testosterone. You'll see, the free androgen index is going to be elevated and then bioavailable testosterone. The other one is going to be like the ovulatory dysfunction. And so kind of like I was talking about with their regular cycle. So oftentimes you'll have, missed menses, or you will have a cycle where it's like, you're going into like, I had some that.

ranged 30 days and then I had some that were 40 or 50 days in length. And so you'll see that variation happen. And also then there's the polycystic ovaries that comes into play as well. And you'll see that a lot of times with an elevated AMH level.

Yeah, for sure. There you go. What I will say though, there's women who will have 28 day cycles, but they're not ovulating. And so it's...

Mm-hmm.

Here's what I would, those are the criteria, the diagnostic criteria that the conventional system is looking for. But in terms of like us and what we're gonna do and where we're gonna dig further, we're never gonna ignore the diagnostic criteria, absolutely. But there's a difference between that you have PCOS and you don't have PCOS and for the conventional system, it's like it's a pretty white and black.

Yeah, there's no gray area, whereas for us, we can see the development and the progression of PCOS and say, we can stop this by doing X, Y, and Z, or we can say, you don't have it yet. And then three years later, you do have it now. And one of the things that I always love educating patients about is like cardiovascular disease doesn't develop overnight. Like cancer doesn't develop overnight. PCOS doesn't develop overnight. And so if all of the sudden you've got a diagnosis, well, we actually

is

Yes.

do, know, as natural fertility experts is we'll go and we'll look at how far back that did the disease process actually start. And you can have women who have had regular cycles every 28 days, no issues, but because they never tested their ovulation because they weren't trying to conceive, they weren't ovulating. So it wasn't a real psycho is like the body still has the programming and it's doing the shedding, but there isn't that LH peak. isn't that estrogen peak and drop. And then there's no progesterone.

Mm-hmm.

rise in that second half of the cycle. And so where I was going is like the second step of like how we actually look to see the progression of PCOS and what kind it is and how bad it is, is testing. The testing is what will tell us if you are ovulating or not. If you have really high androgen excess, what is your level of inflammation? What is your blood sugar? And then, you know, further down.

Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I love too, so in a recent training I had been looking at, because I'm always just looking to read and learn more about PCOS, and it talked a lot about the connection between mom and daughter. And so you can take a good look at your mom and back then, like they may not have had the diagnostics or mom wasn't very vocal, but you can start to see like I noticed things about my mother where I'm like she

Mm-hmm.

she would have no idea. Like if I asked her, she would be like, I don't even know what PCLS is, but I can guarantee you she has it and it started pretty early on with her. so getting to see that kind of family line aspect of it. And so it goes along with like what you were saying when we look back and we start trying to figure out, how long, how far back does this disease process go for that person, but also for that family line.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And I mean, that's why we're here too, because like.

We have children now, but also we look at our mom and we go, or our parents period and we go, how much of this could be prevented? You know, it's like, was one of the reasons I decided to be an ashram bath is when my grandma got really sick. I was like, how much of this could have been prevented? And it's like most of it, you know, if not all of it, it's just, the brainwashing and the, don't like calling it brainwashing because it just feels so negative, but like people stopped believing in their bodies because they go to the doctor and then the doctor is like,

Mm-hmm.

It's totally normal your labs are normal and they've tested like 10 markers and you're like how am I normal or healthy like I remember when my grandma was on her deathbed they would be like her stuff looks good and I'm like just look at her Just look at her. Like what are you? How are you making this connection that everything is good? You know, she's got bags under eyes. She's under bounds overweight. Her heart isn't working. She's all puffy and inflamed It's like she's good. I'm like what? You guys this is terrible medicine anyway

I'm

Let's talk about some of the testing. So if you're okay with it, let me kind of break it down for people how far back we need to go and assess PCOS. And so something that I've been learning from Dr. Leah Hedgeman in her integrative gynecology course is really understanding the root cause of these diseases. Because if you want to truly treat them, we need to understand what's going on in the body, how far back it goes, understanding the history. And we know that there is this androgen excess.

inflammation and blood sugar dysregulation. And so then the question is, why does that happen? It's, well, the theca cells within your ovaries are hyper stimulated by the LH hormone, the luteinizing hormone, and it's producing androgens. And so then the question becomes, well, why is the luteinizing hormone so elevated and why is it hyper stimulating these theca cells in the ovaries that's making, and like that excess androgen is what essentially prevents the follicle

from growing fully. So you have a bunch of follicles that are stimulated instead of a dominant follicle. And so then, you know, it's your it there's not enough like I say there's not enough maturity in the egg. There's not enough genetic information in the egg that it either can't ovulate or when it does ovulate, it's it's too small. So if I look at it on the ultrasound, it never got beyond 15 millimeters, if that in most women with PCOS will just have many, many, follicles. So that is a sign.

of the inflammation, the insulin, the androgen. So then we're talking, let's, okay, high androgens, that's because the theca cells are producing it, the theca cells are being stimulated by this LH hormone. Why is this LH elevated? Because they've gone out a tropin-releasing hormone. You know, again, we're talking about the pituitary, we're talking about the brain, that has higher pulsations than quote unquote normal. So higher pulsations causes higher LH, causes higher androgens, causes higher inflammation.

That's really like, was so many aha moments for me there because it's like PCOS starts in the brain. It is absolutely the disease of the ovaries, but it starts in the brain. And so that really lays a foundation of what are the tests that we're going to do to help us truly understand what's going on for this woman. So then we're not just trying to manage the androgens and the inflammation and supporting ovulation.

but we're actually going up the whole chain and addressing the whole person.

Yeah, absolutely. And it is, you know, it's always wild to just kind of sit and listen, right? And so like, love listening to you talk about the science behind it. I'm like, God, you couple that with a girl in college in high school, just over training, under eating the stress of the sports, trying to get scholarships for athletics. And it's like, yeah, no wonder she fell apart. Right. And then, so it's, it's just crazy. And the testing.

Mm-hmm.

I love that we have it. I wish that there were more young women aware of it. And I do think that they are becoming more aware, but it's like we need to get women tested very early on. So then there can be more preventative measures taken. As far as testing goes, if we dive right in. So one of the things that is really important, of course, the blood work. And so taking a look at your hormone levels,

As we've said in the past, like we wanna look at them before and after ovulation to really see what those markers look like. But there's also the gut microbiome is going to be extremely important. And so when it comes to PCOS women, they compared to healthy women, you're a lot more susceptible to different types of bacteria and that bacteria overgrowing and to having higher amounts of inflammation. And that's just gonna wreak havoc on your entire system. And so.

Kind like what Dr. James was saying, you know, it starts in the brain, but there's this communication that happens between the brain and the gut and the hormone output in the body, right? And so it's also going to feed into what your immune system is doing in the whole communication. And so it's like that relationship needs to be really strong and healthy. And so if you don't look at the gut microbiome, then you're missing a massive piece of information that can help you start to regulate or take care of your body.

Yep, absolutely. think like for me when I and I actually have my lab review with my PCOS patient later this week and so the tests that are the bare minimum I would say.

is like the blood work, day two, three, and then day 19 and 23. And I do try to get the women to track ovulation, but a lot of the times they'll be like, I didn't really get anything. And I'm like, that's okay, just still tested because that already answers my questions, but I wanna know how low that progesterone is so then we know how much we need to supplement. So day two to three, day 19 to 23, I always look at methylation.

I'm sorry.

We as like in the fertility space, think Dr. Leah Hedgeman has been beating that into the fertility space and we're very much listening that yes, like everybody needs to understand their methylation because it's how the body repairs. It's how the body makes hormones, detoxes, all that stuff.

Mm-hmm.

then we're looking at the gut because like you said, that gut brain connection is not denied. Like it's undeniable. And it's also if there is an infection that's immune system up regulation, that's nutrient depletion, that's inflammation we have, and even blood sugar dysregulation, we have to look at it. depending on each case, I will look at the vaginal microbiome. So this particular case that I'm thinking about, she has HPV and they basically were like, let's just see.

wait for six months and then we'll retest again, or maybe this is just something your body's working through. She also had some instances of when she was younger, of her like her first sexual experience wasn't great. So.

I always think about that, that we as women will carry it in our microbiome if there is still a wound and a hurt from it. So for her, I tested vaginal microbiome. I think it is for most women going to be really beneficial because the worst thing that happens is there's nothing there, you know, and you're like, great, I can rule that out. I don't have to worry about it. And then the that's the best thing, sorry, that can happen. The worst thing is like, okay, like there's actually this stuff going on and then we can address that infection.

because those infections can go up into the uterine lining and of course, implanted by the gut. A nutrient panel, like I really like a good nutrient panel because then we can see what nutrients exactly you're missing. Is chromium really low for you because of the blood sugar dysregulation? What about molybdenum because you have higher estrogen and then the COAMT gene isn't good so the sulfur byproducts get... So the more testing that we can do for PCOS, and mean,

truly for anybody, more pieces that you can put together and make personalized protocols. I would say those are the basics basics, and I know they're not very basic, but an Indo Inside plus or a Dutch.

to see how the hormones break down would be my other one because this is where you could actually, and I don't know if you want to talk about your experience with a Dutch, where you can actually catch early PCOS. If you're not sure, that's what's happening for you.

Yeah, absolutely. I do like the Dutch and the Endo Insight. I have been the more that we've ran the Endo Insight, the more that I'm falling in love with it. And, but it was the Dutch test that I had run. And so that was one where I ran it before I really knew or understood what it was. And the practitioners that I had available to me at the time.

And it's so funny because I look at it now and it's like I can't help but just laugh because I'm like how did they tell me that this was okay? And there are things that are like in the red because they are so low and these practitioners were like this looks pretty good. You're doing great. And then I remember sitting with you Dr. Jane and showing it to you and you were like this is PCOS like this is classic and I'm like, yep sounds about right.

I was like, you have PCOS? And you're like, I think so. I was like, okay, you have PCOS.

Yeah. Yeah, I was like, I'm pretty sure I just never had the diagnosis, like an actual diagnosis. But, you know, at this point in my life, I'm like, I know I have it. I don't need the diet. I don't need someone to just tell me like, it's there. And, but there was a lot with that too. That we were kind of talking about earlier, where it was like, I had these things show up, I had providers tell me it all looked good.

I was still very new in practice and still trying to learn and didn't know too much about the labs and the protocols and like the importance, right? And so we think supplements, they're natural, they're not medication. And so we're good to go. But the damage that I did because I just assumed things would be good for me was awful. And so there was a lot of, you have a line that you've said quite a bit, Dr. Jane, that I absolutely love where it's like,

your lab results are as good as the person who interprets them. And that sticks with me so much because of that experience where it was like, I was told all of this was good. I knew something was off in my body. I started taking all these random PCOS supplements and I created absolute chaos in my system to have to come back from. But that being said, to kind of circle back to where we were is like these tests are really, really beneficial, but you don't want to just run them and then assume that you know.

what they're saying or assume that the little paragraph descriptions that tell you a little bit is enough information because it's just not. And so when you have all these other lab tests put together, then you can start to see the whole picture of what's going on and what needs to be supported and not do like, don't do what I did. I did a lab and then I waited and then I did another lab. And it's like, you just need all the information if you really want to know. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

took like three years and then you had to do all of them together anyways.

Yeah, I had to do it all over, which was good. It was good to get that fresh perspective and see all my data new. But that same like, gosh, but that's, I think you talked to any practitioner and part of the reason we sit in the seat we sit in is because we learned and we learned the hard way. And so then we're like, how do we make the system better so that other people don't have to learn with the same run around that we've been learning with.

Yep, absolutely. you know, the question that's like, do you have to run all these tests is like, Nope, you can just run one. And then when we interpret that we'll say, well, you probably need this piece of information and then you'll run that one and then, okay. And then I probably need, and so I like, it's such a struggle for me to answer that question. Cause it's like, I get it. Not everybody can spend three, four or five grand on a bunch of lab testing, but

If you just spend the 500 or the 700 and then you wait and then you spend another five or 700 and then you wait and then another 300 and then you wait. It's like all of that time has passed and now the information has become relevant or for some cases, like it has just created a bit of a mess. And so, um, yeah, it's hard cause I know we can't all do it at the same time, but the reason that we say it is because that's the thing that's going to

Yeah.

Short-term it's a bigger investment long-term it saves you a lot of time energy money emotional turmoil all of that jazz

Yeah, and it's like, to an extent, you can't really put a dollar value on what that time costs. And when it comes to the female, especially women over 35, over 40, it's like that time is extremely valuable. You don't have all the time to just be able to spend poking around here or there and seeing what happens.

totally.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think the, so if I take it back to, I only the PCOS starts in the brain, what does that mean? It's like, well, that means we need to assess all of the stressors.

Mm-hmm.

And so stressors could be physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. We need to understand them. Physical is really easy to assess, believe it or not. It's expensive, but it's easy because you're just looking at the data. You're looking at what's going on in the gut and the vaginal microbiome, methylation, nutrient panels, environmental toxic load. If that's something that, you know, we're worried about, then it's, that's a huge stressor on the body. Then we sit down and we talk. like you were like, and I was an athlete and you

usually around puberty is when that GNRH pulse, the gonadotropin releasing hormone pulse sets. So women with POI or PCOS will usually have issues with that pulse and that pulse is much too fast. And then when it's too fast, it's dysregulated. And then that causes issues, know, disconnection between the ovaries and the brain and all of that kind of stuff, the cascade that we were talking about. So you have to then look at when

Mm-hmm.

sitting down with a patient with PCOS, I'm always like what happened, know, give me your birth control history so you didn't have that. Great. Let's talk about teenage years. When did you go into puberty? What was life like? What were you doing? And then I want to know how much were you training? What were you eating? Did you have eating disorders? Did you move? Were you bullied? Did you have a bad experience? And whether that's something that's very traumatic or you know just big T little

as Dr. Gabor Mati talks about it. And then I'll go back further, okay, what about the zero to seven? Was there a lot of stress? Was there a lot of illness? there, because those are all kind of these like accumulation points that the body is like, and now this is another hit and then another hit and then another hit. And then during puberty, it all kind of tends to really shift because there's such a big change in the brain for, I mean, both the male and the female, but it's, we have to understand that.

Mm-hmm.

we can start to unpack it. Every couple that I sit with, they always go like, I didn't realize you were going to go so much into the mental and emotional component of it. I thought you were just going to talk about symptoms. And I'm like, symptoms are there because of the other stuff. If I didn't talk about the other stuff, you'll never get that physical body addressed the way that you want it to.

Yeah.

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, always, the eyes always widen during initial consults when the question of like, we're talking about those early years in life and it's like, how is your home environment? How is your relationship with your family? You what was going on at that time? And it's like, you always see the head tilt a little or the eyes get wide and it's like, but it's very valuable information.

What is that important?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. mean, I think it's so much more valuable now having kids because I just watch what they see, right? And it's like they see our environment. And so the kids that are

Mm-hmm.

obese at 14 or 15. That was a very different environment than a kids that are fit and healthy. But then also the kid that's like has to perform has to, and it's like, I mean, I see those women still now where she's pregnant and she has a hard time slowing down. She's like, I have to earn and I have to do this. And I'm like, what do you do you? I'm like, I'm pretty sure your husband makes enough money. Why do you have to earn? If I don't contribute, then I'm

I'm not contributing anything. It's like you're building a baby for God's sake. We swung too far the other way where it's like, I'm a strong independent woman. It's like, yeah, but he can't make a baby, so you gotta chill out. Yeah, and then let's touch a little bit on treatment and how we approach it to wrap it all up.

down.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, definitely when it comes to treatment, like the testing is gonna be really important. There are different supplements that can be really good for helping to support the blood sugar and needs. so like Dr. Jane mentioned, the nutrient panel, that's a really great way to get very specific about what exactly you need. And then in most cases, it's like vitamin D is gonna be something that you need. You might need vitamin E, you might need, like if you're thinking about

Actually, Dr. Elissa and us, we're all talking about it recently, but like the nutrients that go into the thyroid, like it's going to be very similar because that thyroid function is really important. And some women, anicetal is really great and others I may not recommend it. And so just trying to get a gauge on where you're at. Magnesium is going to be important. And so there's that component of like doing it in multiple steps, but making sure like the methylation we talked about is very important. We want to make sure that we support it.

And so if your body doesn't know how to produce enough energy or doesn't know how to naturally detox, then all these other things, and this is a big piece of what had happened to me in the past, is like I threw all these things at my body that it wasn't ready to handle because it didn't have that foundation. And so looking at that and understanding like, okay, I need B vitamins, but I don't just need a generic B vitamin, I need B2 or I need B3. And so then you can get really specific on how those conversions are happening. So

Mm-hmm.

taking a really good look at that ubiquitin all across the board is going to be very, important. And I know

progesterone support of any kind usually too. I just think about, by the way, if you're taking HRT, you need to be on an ubiquinol. that's, people don't know that it's for mitochondria function needs to be optimal if you're going to have HRT. so ubiquinol is a big component of that. And I think so many people are taking progesterone, but then don't have the actual proper support in their...

Business.

practitioners are just pushing higher doses of progesterone where it's like, and then the person is reacting and it's like, no, stop doing that. It's, we have to teach the body how to use the progesterone instead of just like, let me hammer it with more progesterone. There's no such thing as too much. And it's like, yes, but also no.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. The other big piece of treatment is going to be nervous system and making sure like you're getting enough sleep. Your body needs sleep. It needs that opportunity to restore and having that nervous system that knows how to shut off and shut down. kind of like you were talking about the pregnant client who like she just can't slow down. It's like you need to learn how to slow down and how to create that space, especially if you're struggling with fertility.

Yeah. And I mean, I don't know if this is surprising to most people, but like we have, we support clients through pregnancy and then postpartum and beyond. And you know, I have one of my couples who wants to come back for baby number two. And it's always like so exciting because you got to see them go through that first cycle. now, okay, can we do it better? And not from a, like, there was some things that we learned. There's things that I learned. She learned about herself. He learned about himself and her.

how can we make this experience better. It's not just about being pregnant.

like pregnancy is the very beginning of your child's journey. And I think that, you know, as a mother, I can always speak about, and I know that you relate to this as well, Nicole, of like how stressful it is when your child is unhealthy or like is going is in and on well, and you don't know how to help them and you feel out of control. It is even more stressful when pregnancy is complicated, like the woman that, you know, I have to

I have to put her on progesterone in the second trimester because she's low and now I'm worried about neurological development. And it's like, that's a difficult conversation to have, but it's important because we don't want to have surprises. It's like, surprises are great, not in clinic. It's, I always say like, we're not just treating PCOS. We are helping you understand how your body works.

So you feel empowered. You can take control of your symptoms. And then it's about building generational health. had like a really proud mama moment on, on the weekend where my daughter was really like, Owie, my ear hurts. And she was crying and like sniffling and all of this stuff. And this is my second born, my youngest. She's had Tylenol like twice in her life. Whereas my first born had it a lot more because I just didn't know what to do, you know? And I'd be

like, I just need her to sleep, so let me put and I'm like, it's full moon. She it's parasites. She just started school back up. I got out my pyr rental. I had some amendazole that's like pinworm, you know, like

a good parasite cleanse. got her some vitamin C, I got her some zinc, and I gave her a little piece of like melatonin theanine mix. And she passed out and woke up the next day being like, mom, feel amazing. And I'm like, yes, like this is what it's about. Like it's about knowing what to do in the moment when your child needs you. And it's like, I couldn't do that before because I wasn't in tune and I didn't know that information. And so like now my mission is to like, why we're all here.

you

is like, can we reduce the need for extensive pharmaceuticals that are damaging? Can we actually like teach women how to take care of themselves? So then, because we're the caretakers of the family, you know? That was a rant, but...

I just like, don't want people to think that, it's just PCOS and then once I'm pregnant, things are good. It's like, some people, but usually, because they've done so much work beforehand. Otherwise, it's not that good. It's hard.

Yeah. Well, I can tell you from experience, even doing so much work beforehand, it's still a lot of work afterwards. And, you know, it's like I did so much and I still crashed postpartum in ways that I really, you know, wish I hadn't. so

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, it's like, you don't know what you don't know, right? Like you don't know. And then every the same, like my postpartum was not good. I didn't know I had postpartum depression until I had my second. And I was like, wait a minute. I think that was postpartum depression. I honestly, I was just like.

Yeah, yeah.

I didn't, I just pushed through. And then with my second, was like, I don't feel anxious. I'm not crying. I'm not, oh, cause every, with everybody else, was with my first, it was just like, that's normal. You're overwhelmed. You're a new mother. It's like, no, this is postpartum depression and anxiety.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, anything else that we forgot to mention about PCOS that's important to know.

no, I think the only closing thought I have is like, if you think you have it, look into it. If a lot of what we said has kind of resonated and you're like, that sounds like me. Definitely look into it. Don't be afraid to be told that you have PCOS. That doesn't mean that you're doomed. It just helps you navigate the things that you need to do.

into how to help your body, right? And so like I said, I don't need someone to give me an official on script diagnosis, but I was able to piece it together and figure it out. And so now we know how we need to support me and don't be afraid of being able to change and to transform and to come out of it very different and very knowledgeable and very in tune.

Yeah, I love that.

It's just because you have PCOS doesn't mean there's nothing that you can do about it. There is a genetic component, but the environment plays such a big role. And then really understanding your full history, understanding what's going on in your body. The body is so amazing. Like I have just seen such incredible things. And of course, experienced it myself. It's you. I promise you, you're not different. I promise you that your biology is the same as my biology as famous Dr. Nicole's and there's genetic.

differences 100 % but the actual biology is still there so we can the body has its wisdom we can remind it and it can heal thanks so much for being here you guys and we'll see you next week

Absolutely.

Bye everyone.