Maybe it’s getting thinner or the texture is changing? It can be concerning when the hair you have always had is no longer the same. If you have ever experienced this and you’ve brought it to your hairstylist but have not noticed any results from the expensive products you have been using, give this one a listen. What’s happening with your hair can sometimes be an indicator to what’s going on inside. In this episode, I am chatting with Dr. Amy Brenner, a board-certified gynecologic surgeon who specializes in a holistic approach to health and beauty. In our interview, we discuss the interconnectedness of internal health and external beauty, particularly focusing on hair loss, and its various causes, including hormonal changes, aging and gut health. Learn why your hair (and other parts of you) may be changing and exactly what you can do about .Listen in as Dr. Brenner emphasizes the importance of personalized care and the need for a multimodal approach to treatment. The conversation also touches on the challenges of misinformation in health and wellness, the future of hair loss treatments, and the significance of maintaining a positive outlook on aging.
This is a good one if you’ve been puzzled by your hair lately. I just love Dr. Brenner’s perspective and her approach to health, wellness and beauty and I think you will love her too!
[00:14] This show is dedicated to providing you with insights and practical advice for living a happier, healthier, and more fulfilled life. Experience that special stylist-client bond right here as we dive into conversations with experts in beauty and wellness.
[:
[00:43] Your appointment is now, so have a seat and get ready for transformation.
[:
[01:00] Dr. Brenner is a board-certified gynecologic surgeon in Cincinnati who focuses on treating her patients from a holistic, natural approach.
[:
[01:29] Because as I'm getting a little bit older, I find that the healthier I am, the better I feel—but along with possible cosmetic offerings as well that can enhance and optimize kind of what we're working with on the outside.
[:
[02:06] So I just think it's extremely important for stylists to understand that there are opportunities to better serve their clients and to just really become aware of what those services and offerings might be, when to offer them, and who to recommend.
[:
[02:33] So that's one reason why I wanted to bring on Dr. Brenner because she looks at things from an inside and an outside perspective, and we just kind of want to look at the relationship between what's going on on the inside and how it affects what's going on on the outside.
[:
[02:56] Dr. Amy Brenner: Oh, thank you so much for having me, Sarah. You're absolutely right. We get a lot of referrals from hairstylists because, obviously, you're seeing your hairstylist and sitting in that chair for sometimes a couple of hours, and there's a lot to talk about.
[:
[03:33] But we were just talking about how those two things kind of complement each other and how we can sort of refer to each other based on our own expertise.
[:
[03:47] Sarah Crews: Yeah.
[:
[03:56] I like to make sure I have the wording correct. So if you could just tell us a little bit about you and basically what inspired you to get into what it is that you do now.
[:
[04:28] I did that for 11 years in a big group here in Cincinnati.
[:
[04:51] But I found myself having a lot of symptoms, a lot of mood issues where I had three littler kids at the time.
[:
[05:21] And I had heard patients come in saying they were doing these kinds of hormone treatments. And you know, as an OB-GYN, you would think you're a hormone expert, but you're real.
[:
[05:38] We're just not trained in that area. We do a great job as OB-GYNs in our training of doing surgery, delivering babies, managing vaginal infections, but managing hormones is just not something we're taught.
[:
[06:00] So the tools that I had in my toolbox, and what I see coming into my practice of patients who have been treated by their typical gynecologist, is writing prescriptions for birth control pills, sleeping pills, and antidepressants.
[:
[06:37] First, I fixed myself by kind of balancing all of my hormones, if you will, and then said, I have to do this for a living—there's such a need for this.
[:
[07:29] And it's been really exciting, and we've been able to offer a lot of life-changing therapies for our patients, as you said, to make people first feel good on the inside, and then people want to start looking good on the outside.
[:
[08:07] And one of the things that I noticed about your practice was that it just ran the gamut of all of the things that you can really access in order to enhance the way that you look and the way that you feel.
[:
[08:41] Many times, it could be genetic, I guess, but you know, hair loss is something that a lot of women deal with. There's a lot of different types of hair loss.
[:
[09:01] We can do extensions, there's a lot of different things, but there's a lot that we're limited by and we can't address. So, you know, I was—I probably am at this point right now thinking about it this way because, as I'm 53—yesterday was my birthday.
[:
[09:21] Sarah Crews: Thank you.
[:
[09:30] Can you talk about what role hormones play in hair loss and what some of the other factors could be that clients are seeing in their hair, especially as they age, maybe through pregnancy and then also as they age?
[:
[09:51] So, hopefully you're okay that this podcast is about three or four hours long with all the causes of hair loss.
[:
[10:23] And you mentioned there are a lot of different causes of hair loss. If it's okay with you, so we don't make this an eight-hour podcast—the most common cause of hair loss is androgenic alopecia, which makes it sound like it's testosterone-related, but it's really age-related hair loss, and that's the most common one.
[:
[11:01] Surgery can be a big stress, a car accident, a major life event.
[:
[11:21] And then eventually, like pregnancy hair loss or telogen effluvium, it’ll stop, and that hair will come back. Age-related hair loss is what's really a lot more common—we see it starting around age 40 and up.
[:
[11:56] But we can get into the causes of hair loss.
