spk_0: 0:01
I am Dr Tabatha, the functional gynecologist. I'm a board certified OBY giant and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey, and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. So if you're struggling hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety and son, you name it, then you come to the right place. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So welcome you're gonna love today's episode of the functional gynecologist. I'm inner viewing. Misty Williams Misty is a 15 year entrepreneur and digital marketing strategist, but she spent years struggling to reclaim her health of vitality after a botched surgery. She had debilitating brain fog, extreme fatigue. Her hormones were imbalance, and then she had a huge, unexplained weight gain. After her doctors told her they didn't have answers outside of medications and surgery, Misty embarked on the arduous path of finding answers to reclaim her energy, brainpower and figure she founded. Healing rosie dot com provides women with the resource is and community to successfully confront the unexpected chronic health issues that are often experienced by high performing women as they age. This is a great resource. And I know that you're gonna love listening to her story and our frank discussion about conventional medicine and how it's failed us as women. So I want you to listen to this episode today and feel empowered and know that there's other women that have your back and we can help you through your health journey. There are answers. There is hope, so enjoy. Well, welcome, Misty to the functional gynecologist. I'm super excited to have you on my podcast today. I want you to share your story because I know you're not only going to give women hope, but you're gonna help give them tools to reclaim their health. You know, I know you created a web site called healing rosie dot com toe help guide women through their health journey. But can you tell us, like, what was the impetus behind this? Because I know my listeners are definitely gonna resonate with your story.
spk_1: 2:38
Yeah, well, I probably have a lot in common with the people in your community, actually, because my journey started with a routine physical where I asked my doctor to check my fertility. I was 35 years old and really interested in being a mom one day. And I hadn't tried up to that point in my life to get pregnant and who I was getting older. So they did a ultrasound to see how everything looked and found that I had a system, my left ovary. It was very large. Cantaloupe sized insist. In fact, the tech was like pushing on my abdomen as they were doing the ultrasound. And, you know, they say, we can't tell you anything. That was great. We're gonna do this to your doctor. So she's pushing, undergoing Do you feel that it was something and I'm just like, What is What does she see This grade? Um, but I did have a cyst on my ovary that was large, and the gynecologist told us that I needed to have it removed the book surgery immediately. It was supposed to be a simple out patient procedure where I go in. It's a 25 minute surgery for them to remove the cyst and stitch me back up, and they sent me home and I would have a follow up visit the following Monday. This is a Thursday That's important. Following Monday, I would have followed visit with my doctor and turns out that once they opened me up, I had endometriosis and my abdomen was covered with scar tissue. So the 25 minute surgery turned into about a 2.5 hour surgery. Um, coming out of that surgery was really, really challenging. I remember feeling like I was in that this is the fall of stupor for a really long time from being under like that, and right sent me home and things seemed fine. First, um, I went probably about 12 hours. Wasn't a little bit of pain, but, you know, they give you meds and stuff. So it wasn't until about the 14 16 hour mark that I started vomiting and I continued to vomit. I couldn't keep down food or water. And, um, this, of course, we're going into the weekend here. So it was Friday. I called and left appointments with the doctor. Didn't hear from anybody Saturday. I'm calling, you know, leaving appointment or leaving messages, not hearing from anybody. Finally, I got a call from an on call on call doctor Saturday night who knew nothing about me or my case and just said If she gets dehydrated, take her to the emergency room. And of course I am a patient to this doesn't happen to me every day. I don't even know what it means to be dehydrated. Like, how do I even know if I'm dehydrated? Right? Looking back, I'm sure I was dehydrated. This is That was over 48 hours without initial liquids that stayed in my body, but but I didn't know it. And so Sunday goes by Monday's go by. And, of course, Monday. I'm supposed to have a follow up appointment with my doctor at 3 30 and at about 4 15 I called the office. I hadn't heard from her, and apparently she went home sick that day. Nobody had told her that I called, um, and so the next day, a Tuesday I showered, got dressed and planted myself in her office at 9 a.m. And the front desk told me that she's not gonna be until 12 30. I should go and come back. And I just told them I wasn't leaving. You know, at this point, I had no faith in trust that anybody in the office gave, you know, two flips about my situation. And about 10 30 the doctor called and asked to have from the phone. Apparently, they've gotten a message to her, and she sent me over to Baptist Hospital to the emergency room where they did a CT skin and discovered that they stitched a part of my small intestine. And that's why I wasn't keeping food or water down. Yeah, for all of that time. So I went in for another surgery, and, um, they admitted me for three days, gave me Ambien to sleep. I remember thinking, why is she giving the Ambien to sleep? So I never had any sleep challenges before in my life. Um, and the reason she gave me Ambien to sleep was that my body had been under a tremendous amount of stress. And so perhaps she anticipated that maybe I would have trouble sleeping. Um, And as it turns out, I had been under a lot of stress. And after I was dismissed from the hospital, she sent me home and I didn't sleep for 144 hours. I went over six days without sleeping a wink. Um, which I don't know, if you've ever gone through that with yourself or any of your patients, Tabatha. But it's torture. I thought I was losing my mind. It was I was laying in bed. I remember one night to just, like, why am I not sleeping and just begging God for sleep? And third night? Same thing. Fourth night. Same thing. Fifth night. I mean, it just was like it was torture, right? Totally Thought I was going crazy. I was emotional and weepy. I couldn't focus worth anything, you know, like, I just It was insane. And, you know, morally, I probably would have called my doctor and asked, like, What do I need to do about this? But because of what I just been through, I didn't feel like my doctor cared. And I didn't feel like anybody in in her office would have done anything to help me anyway. So I I ended up finally on the seventh night falling asleep. Thank God. And, um and that probably is where I really started getting interested in sleep. You know, I think I'm to that point. I took sleep for granted. I was always a great sleeper. Um, but after that, you know, going through that crazy experience. And then on the other side of six days without sleep, I was experiencing unbelievable brain fog like my brain just would not work. I remember sitting on the couch. I had my computer on my lap, was trying to get caught up on work. And, like I'm I could feel my brain processing and the way that it used to process. Except now it seemed like cotton balls were all stuffed in my brain. My thoughts couldn't get through. And of course, I had crazy fatigue and just like my whole body felt off. And so I went back to my primary care doctor and that something clicked like, Well, maybe my primary care doctor will help me out with all of this stuff, you know, like I could tell that something was really, really wrong post surgery and went into my primary care doctor and told her what was going on. And she basically told me that my labs were normal and everything was fine and implied that I was completely just making it all up in my head. You know, maybe you're just becoming a hyper country act from this experience and I just pushed and pushed and pushed, like, How can you say my labs? Your normal things were fine. You just cut me open and removed a body part. So during the surgery, I they also took my left ovary. Um and, of course, did the excision surgery to remove all the material tissue that was implanted all over my abdomen. Like, I mean, not my body's mutating, you know, something is wrong. And she finally said to me, Misty, even if I did run labs, I wouldn't know what they meant and that it's like the floor fell out from under me. Then, like, I just could not believe that I'm talking to someone who is supposed to be a a primary care physician who has spent all these years in med school, and their their job is to help us navigate this health terrain, and they wouldn't know what lapse meant. Like nothing you don't know anything like it. Just It was like it was my first experience as a patient with the conventional medical system, and it was mind blowing, and she finally, at my just utter insistence, sent me to an endocrinologist in her practice, and that endocrinologist said the same thing. You know, your your labs, your normal. I will run some more labs. We will check everything out. She's kind of patronizing me. You know what we're talking? She comes over and starts feeling around on my throat, she says. I think you have modules in your thyroid with take you back for an ultrasound. So she took me back, and sure enough, I did. They were very, very large, and I asked her, You know what causes by word modules? And she said that they don't know what causes thyroid nodule. She could refer me to a surgeon and incidently when I had gone back to the gynecologist after the o g y n after my first, um, surgery and asked her, You know what causes in Dimitriou? Sis, What do I need to do? She said. We don't know what causes in, Dimitrios says. You can google it like a picture on birth control. We can do surgery again if it comes back, though, unlike saying that this this medical system is set up to do surgeries when things get bad, but it's not intended to help me curb things getting bad, like, what do I need to do? Some things don't get bad. Like, right now, my bodies mutating. She came back, you know, referred me to a surgeon. My labs were all normal. Everything's fine. And I'm just at this point, I'm like, I I'm just beside myself. It had been six months since the surgery, and I felt like I was just spiraling down, down, down, down, down. So, you know, I'm one of the fortunate ones that, you know, through gritted tenacity over about an eight year period. I eventually did find doctors to help and protocols to help, and I started learning what I could do for myself as a patient. But, you know, certainly in the beginning of my journey, I felt like I was just running into a dead ends everywhere that I went. And, um, I never went back to that in technologist or that my primary care doctor again or the O b g y n again, like all of them in my mind, really big banished, And I started looking for other doctors, and I had I had a hard time for a while finding someone, but eventually I had doctors running my labs, I found the ancestral health community. I started learning about all the lifestyle stuff that's really important for us to have good health. And two years after, um, my surgery, I had mercury filling and properly drilled for my teeth, which I didn't know was improper. Eso I had a mysterious £45 weight gang, like out of the blue. At this point, I'm like, fully paleo, and I've cleaned up the house and, you know, there's no chemicals anywhere in my home. I have all like, you know, wool rugs, natural fibres everywhere. E M f. Like WiFi is often my house. I got the meters and everything is working out with the trainer, and it's like, How did how my gained £45? And so it was. I've been through some things that are pretty stunning, but along the way I think what I've I learned, I learned way more about the human body than I ever thought I would and how things work for women. Um, but most importantly, I've learned how to advocate for myself, and that's really the ethos of what this community is that we've created together and I say we because certainly it's not just me that's made healing, Rosie what it is. But there's a whole community of women, some of them who were where I was early in my journey, some of them who are where I am now. Yeah, and are committed to supporting other women. But, you know, it's really challenging for us out there doctors, don't they? I I have since learned. And I'm sure you've talked about this another podcast that they did not even use women in mayor studies until the nineties. Women were not even part of studies in medicine until the nineties. So you know where we're in? A. We're in a situation where, as the female perpetuate er of the species, our bodies is extra sensitive to our environment and our environments have become very toxic. And we also have the unfortunate reality of not having medicine, studying what's happening and what the effects are on our bodies beyond the last 20 years. It's kind of crazy s Oh, yeah, it's the Wild West. It weighs. It is,
spk_0: 14:04
and you fit on a lot of things. One thing that's really key is you have such a strong personality and you you're not a quitter. You're very tenacious. And so you kept searching for answers and pushing. And I feel like there's a lot of women who were raised not to be that way and write a little more timid, or they feel like it's disrespectful. Toe question, your doctor. And so that's why I think your group healing Rosie is so important because there's so many women out there who don't feel confident enough to raise their voice and say anything, and so they struggle and suffer in silence. So I love that they can reach out to you. And you can say, Here you go. This is what you need to ask. This is how to do it. You don't have to rough ruffle feathers and be the cowboy that I am. But I now find your way and ask for answers. And if you're not getting an answer, you like, go somewhere else and it's OK, so I think that that's amazing.
spk_1: 15:12
You know, I felt like I was ruffling feathers a lot in the beginning. I don't feel like a ruffle feathers ever now, and I think I think the big difference is finding doctors who are inclined to want to help you in the way that you want to be helped. You know this idea that you're going to take this like what you learn in this amazing functional medicine integrative health space that we're all part of. You're gonna learn this stuff and take it to your doctor and teach him or her is a pipe dream. It is a farce. If the doctors wanted to learn this stuff, they would go learn it. So you're you're not likely to have much luck going to a doctor who's not already open to this way of treating patients and get results from them. So you're gonna have to find another doctor. And I know that's intimidating and it can feel overwhelming. And how do you even go about finding someone? And we could talk a little bit about that if you think that it would be helpful to your audience. But the important thing here is that you know that getting the kind of help that you ultimately need is going to require you having a partner, someone who wants to offer that help and give it to you. And like I certainly was very tenacious and I do have a tenacious personality And listen, if you if you could have convinced doctors to help you who weren't already on this path, I would have done it exactly. It does not work like that. You know it doesn't work that way. We have to find doctors who want to help us already,
spk_0: 16:36
and I can honestly say I was a doctor in the conventional world for over a decade, and it's not necessarily that they don't care. They don't want to help, but they don't have the tools. They have the training that they got in medical school, and if you're lucky, they go to a conference once or twice a year for any updates in their speciality. But there's really no time for them to continue to learn and do research and see what new is on the horizon. So a lot of times you're going to go to your primary doctor and they're not gonna have any idea what you're talking about. If it's coming out of new evidence and new literature because they just don't even have time to even go there, they're just trying to, like, see their patients every 15 minutes and, you know, do with the hospital's recording them to Dio. I know myself. I was an obstetrician, so I'll I cared about was taking a nap. You know, in my right free happen our that I would get a be like OK, man, and try and get some sleep today I'm not going to go cruising pump Med and looking at the research and writing about the gut Microbiome. You know, it was only through my own health painful journey, pain to purpose that I finally stopped and did that. Um, so yeah, what are some tips that you would say to my listeners like, Here's how you can find a functional medicine physician or a health coach or someone to help you navigate this journey.
spk_1: 18:13
Yeah. You know, I think I think there's a couple of prom's to navigating. Well, number one, you really do have to commit yourself toe learning because no doctors with you at home and the number one reason why we get sick because of our lifestyles, and so we have we all have to be committed to learning what about our lifestyles are toxic and what changes we need to make Um, that's right, where a health coach could be really helpful. Um, and just being a student yourself, I mean, we're we've got summits that are happening, like every single week in this space on a variety of topics. And there's so many great practitioners and experts who are prolifically creating content. There's podcasts like yours, And, you know, there's so many ways that we can learn if it's something that we really care about and we want to learn like it's definitely more accessible now than it was even 10 years ago when my journey started. So so that's the first thing is like, you know, there is a part of this that's the responsibility of the patient. It's not. The doctor isn't gonna fix everything, you know. There's certainly some value in in having an awesome doctor and practitioner on your team. There's tremendous value in it, but you know, even they they're going to write you prescription and a protocol maybe, and you still have toe do it. And if your lifestyle is, you know, putting garbage end while you're you're tryingto clean it all up, then it's gonna be a hard, hard row. So s So that's the first thing I would say is that it's everything isn't fixed by a doctor, and I think it's really important that we acknowledge that and and face the reality of that. You know, The second thing is that, um I do think it's a pipe dream that your doctor is gonna fix you entirely. And so you need to have realistic expectations of doctors. Um, and what they're gonna be able to do for you the way that I recommend women in our community find a doctor is, um, is go to your local compounding pharmacy and ask them because the doctors, especially someone like you tabqa, who are writing prescriptions for bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and things like that tend to be definitely more on the functional slash you know, how do we actually support your body and functioning better? So that's a really great way to find I love the doctor. Yeah, and typically the compounding pharmacist. Over time, they get to know these doctors, um, and they'll know who's good, so that's a really great way to do it. Another thing is going to I have them dot org's forward slash find hyphen, a hyphen practitioner and you can put in your area or your zip code. Maybe your area coach, Um, and and then, you know, they'll tell you whose in your area one thing I will say, though, just because someone is in your area and they have the functional medicine label on them does not necessarily mean there a good doctor. Yeah, so you still This is why I think being part of a community like healing rosiest, so helpful. Compare notes like one of the things that happens. A lot of women in our community is they'll go to doctors and the doctors tend to be really conservative, like we want to fix all these symptoms just with diet and lifestyle alone, like they're really slow. Teoh put them on thyroid support. If they need it, or put them on hormone supported, they need it. And I think the tricky part about that, and I'm dealing with this with my cousin right now. She has been working with the functional medicine doctor for a year, and I remember when I first talked to her, saying You're firing is low, given 90 days on this program. But if it's not getting better. You really need him too, right? You that prescription for thyroid support And you know, her doctor's a man, and there's a lot of wonderful male doctors out there, and I definitely don't think that mail dot there's anything wrong with, In fact, all the doctors that treated me like crap in beginning where Women. So, no. So it's it isn't that. But men really don't understand what it's like to be a woman dealing with flabby fog and fatigue. Yeah, that's just the reality. They have no concept of what it's like toe like soldier through your day. Knowing that you have commitments to your family, to your husband, to your kids, you're not gonna let anybody down. So, you know, you put on a brave face and you go through it. But inside you're, like, so wrecked, you know, eso Um, so I was just saying that because it's important that, you know, and I'm in whatever way that it's helpful to have someone give you permission. I'm giving you permission to expect that your doctor is gonna provide a certain kind of support. And if you're not getting it from them, that Dr find another one So she's been working with her doctor for a really long time. He's not providing to support someone else in the community. Reached out because she's like, I'm looking at my labs. I'm not sleeping at night because my progesterone aslo I could see it on my labs and then everything else and my doctor just won't prescribe the progesterone. And she's like, You know, prescribing hormones isn't a long term solution. And here's this is the reality of what it's like is a patient. What it's like is me and is so many women who are probably listening right now. If you're not sleeping, you're not healing, period truth. You cannot sleep at night. You could do that protocol till the cows come home and you are not going to get any better. If your body cannot go into parasympathetic rest, restore repair, you will not get better. And so a major way that we can support our own healing is supporting our hormones and supporting our thyroid. So that will give me a good sleep at night, you know? So So I'm looking for a doctor. When I'm looking for someone. I want someone who is going to be what is probably considered more aggressive in prescribing thyroid and hormone support. Because I know that when I get that support, I can function right and all the protocols I can put the time into meal prep. I can do all the extra stuff for family that I might need to do, you know, ableto function every day. So So that's what I'm looking for in a doctor. You know, there's there are chiropractors who are trained in functional medicine. I really like getting referrals, you know. So the more you can get referrals and get someone else to say this person was amazing. There's a lot of options online. There's programs like Steady and D, where you get basically a primary care doctor concierge medicine, and I think they're they're functional. Medicine program is like 1 99 a month or something, but you get as many appointments as you want unlimited access to your doctor. I mean, there's a lot of programs available now. Many doctors are going to a model similar to that in their clinics to be able to support patients because the health insurance pieces kind of tricky.
spk_0: 24:48
Oh yeah, don't get me started on that.
spk_1: 24:51
Yeah, I know So And, you know, one of the things they say just a little tip on the health insurance front, cause a lot of times finding a really good doctor. It's hard to find to them that are in network for your health insurance. And I really recommend to the women in our community to get the paperwork and file that out of network doctor appointment and get whatever reimbursement you can. But whatever labs that doctor orders in whatever prescriptions would be covered by your insurance, you will still have coverage for those things, and that is way more that's gonna hit your pocketbook a lot harder than finding a doctor in network. You won't run your labs for you and write the prescriptions anyway. Right now, it's right in your then you're stuck in your suffering other ways, so
spk_0: 25:32
that's definitely a great point. I think it's so important that you find a doctor who cares about your quality of life and your ability to function every day. Yes, it is a journey, and you want the best outcome. But you also want to be able to function every day and take care of your kids and do your job and all of that. So sometimes I'll explain to my patients you need thyroid support or hormone support because those organs are under attack. And until we get that attack to calm down, they're not gonna be able to function. And if they're functioning well, you're gonna be ableto fight that attack a lot easier and he'll a lot quicker. So that's right. I completely agree with you. You know, we need to end the suffering. It's not necessary, I e.
spk_1: 26:21
It almost sometimes feels like there's this attitude of like, Well, I did get a little bit of healing. I do feel a little I even did that with my cousin. She's like, Well, I do feel a little better than I didn't like Yeah, but is that your goal? Like, I You're still utterly exhausted all the time and, you know, and when we're tired, you know what that means When retired, it means we're short tempered. It means we don't have the emotional reserves to deal with the stressors of life. So the stressors of life, their impact on this is magnified because you don't handle them well. And all of that impacts our bodies. You know what all of that does that makes our hormones worse, you know, so that there's this spiraling down that's happening. And, you know, we're really hoping that the diet and lifestyle changes all make us better. But, man, it's just the speed is not fast enough. I mean, it's like having a car that just can't move into third gear. You know, you just you're not gonna ever get up that hill. If if the car can't go fast enough that it can outrun the gravitational pull, you know, like that car backwards down the hill.
spk_0: 27:23
Exactly. I know I have so many patients who say when they finally do feel better I didn't know I could feel like this because you've been so miserable for so long. That becomes your norm. And you don't even know what to look forward to anymore. So I cannot street a where people like your cousin, they get stuck and they they start to settle because you lose hope. And,
spk_1: 27:49
yeah, it's boiling the frog slowly to you've kind of forget what it feels like to feel just amazing in your body, you know?
spk_0: 27:56
Yeah, and every woman deserves that. My trade. So you mentioned sleep a few times, and that is, you know, Sochi. I can attest to that as an obstetrician, and I went 15 years without sleeping. And now that I'm no longer delivering babies, I'm getting sleep. And I am healing so much quicker, you know, restore repair. Regenerate. You have a sleep summit coming up that you're part of. Tell me about that Because so important for women.
spk_1: 28:28
Yeah, well, you know, I've had so many struggles with sleep, not only the 144 hours without sleep, but I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine who's a chiropractor a couple months after my surgeries. And the first question he asked me was, How are you sleeping? And my response was, um I mean, fine. I'm getting to bed. I mean, I've never really had trouble sleeping. He said, what time you go to bed? I was like, You probably like 2 a.m. So he's like, What's it like when you wake up a man like, why I'm just waking up. So I'm feeling like, really groggy and, you know, I'm because I'm waking up. I have just been sleeping and he said, All right, no more. 2 a.m. You have got to go to bed. You You're not even You're not even sleep during the time when your body makes hormones. So you've got to get to bed. I want you in bed by nine o'clock. I did that for a while. Now, you know, more like about 10 o'clock. Um what, you bed by nine oclock? And he said When you wake up in the morning, you should feel refreshed and ready to start your day. And I remember going like, that's
spk_0: 29:33
what the heck is that?
spk_1: 29:35
I have had my entire adult life. I had never woken up feeling refreshed, and so I decided I would follow his advice. I was pretty desperate at this point. And, of course, I go to bed at nine o'clock, couldn't fall asleep. It could be six months, six months to shift my sleep so that nine o'clock rolls around and I'm actually getting tired. You know, I would get my second wind about 9 30 That would black propel me to to So my quarters always jacked all over the place, of course. And, um, I started doing cold bats. That actually was, like, kind of the trigger. That really helped me kind of lock in this new pattern and rhythm for sleeping. I would get in about 62 degree water at night for maybe 40 minutes, notes sitting a cold bath. And you know, there's lots of people in our space you talked benefits, a cold therapy. We have Wim Hoff, of course. Who's the extreme version of jumping in tow ice? He's known as the Ice Man, but But, you know, there's lots of people in our space. You talked about it. Dave Asprey talked about it quite a bit. Been Greenfield's talked about quite a bit, you know, We've learned a lot about, you know, the effective cold on recovery in the body on how helpful it is. But it really helped me get my sleep dialed in. And ever since then I've had this fascination with sleep because I was so impacted and I, you know, sort of learning a lot about it. And then, as my after the mercury fillings from properly removed at £45 weight gain, my my hormones all crashed. I did a Genova, um, complete hormone panel, which is kind of like Dutch Test. And it showed that, like all my hormones were zero. My methylation was zero, like everything was totally tanked. And then I started having sleep issues, and I've had sleep issues where progesterone helped initially. And then over time, as I've gotten older, I'm still like right now I'm working with my doctors on my hormones. Still, I've been detoxing medals for the last couple of years and really trying to get all this mercury out, um, of my body. But my hormones just took such a beating from that and on. And so I've dealt with the night sweats and the hot flashes, which is just so miserable. And so estrogen has been my friend, um, during during those seasons. You know, right now I'm basically on hormone support across the board. Um, and it makes a massive difference for my sleep. So sleep is something that, because I've had so many things affect my sleep in my body's ability to sleep Well, um, it's it's something that I've made a point of study myself. I've learned a lot about what helps us to sleep better. I've been wearing amber glasses since 2012. Um, you know, after dark, the amber glasses Go on. And you know, I'm really trying to keep my body trained to go to sleep when I'm supposed to be sleeping. So I developed, um, kind of the idea and the framework for your best sleep ever to help all of us who have struggles around our sleep. And certainly there's a lot more than the hormonal stuff. I mean, people are dealing with sleep apnea, other dealing with physical pain that's keeping them from being able to sleep at night. Structural stuff is keeping them from sleeping blood sugar issues are affecting their ability to sleep well, being in these artificial environments that we live in, impacts are sleep, not understanding like what our bodies need to sleep. Like I just added room darkening curtains and oh, my gosh, that I could not believe After all the improvements I've seen in my sleep, that was unnecessary and even better so you know, this is pretty deep topic. And you know, we didn't only talk about sleep on your best sleep ever. But we also recorded tons of interviews on energy and fatigue and like what causes that. And what do we need to do to get our energy back? So I'm super excited about this this summit that partnered with health talks to put together for not only the healing Rosie community, but you know, the community it large. I want everyone to have the support they need to sleep well, and to hear from the experts on this topic so that they could learn what that might might their unique situation need. You know, Right, Right. And this
spk_0: 33:48
is an online summit so anyone can join correct
spk_1: 33:52
going. That's right up and join. And, um and you can sign up watch during the 16th through the 22nd I believe, is the dates of the summit where you can watch all of the interviews will have probably around six interviews a day, 6 to 7 interviews a day, going live. And then the following week, it'll be on core weekend. So you can, you know, catch interviews that seeing really relevant for you during the during the week. And then, of course, you have the option. If you wanna add these interviews to Health Library, you could do that. Lots and lots of purchase bonuses available. So many people you know are coming around and resonating with the vision for what we want to do with this event and chipping in to make sure people get the resources they need to heal so super exciting,
spk_0: 34:41
but is wonderful. So that link will probably be on healing rosie dot com. And on your Facebook, Um, am I able to put it on my podcast link?
spk_1: 34:51
Yes, you can. Absolutely. You can absolutely create a link yourself to direct people through your link, and, um and if you're a part of the healing Rosie community, we we have graphics plastered everywhere. Perfect. You can definitely find us that way too. But no sign up and come get a great education joined in with the community. We're gonna be doing lots of Ask me anythings with our speakers in that week between the summit airing and the meat on core weeks so that people who watch and participate have the opportunity to get their questions answered, which is, you know, just we did that with the last event that I did the fixer female hormones that I did in 2018 with health talks, and it really adds another dimension to the whole experience because not only do you get the opportunity to learn yourself, but you get extra help in figuring out how to apply this to your unique situation, you know, So the how to is wonderful, too.
spk_0: 35:49
So in the fix for female hormones is still available.
spk_1: 35:53
This right it is. It's still available. I believe the URL is fixed or female hormones dot com. Okay, so yeah, yeah, get out of that out. Nampula got about. There's fewer interviews with that when I think I had around 25 or 30 interviews. Okay, but yeah, I mean, I even doing these summits I learned so much to and just able to incorporate a lot of new distinctions into the programs that we create for the community, because I I want people. I mean, it's it's challenging, navigating this as a lay person. And, you know, the more distinctions and things that I can learn, the easier it is for me to kind of sequence this for members of the community. But I want everybody to get the help and support they need and to feel like they're not alone on this journey. I For years, I felt like I was doing this by myself and it sucked.
spk_0: 36:44
Yeah. Oh, it's so amazing that you're doing this for women. They need someone to hold their hand. They really dio Do you were one on one with people? Or is it all in the group setting?
spk_1: 36:56
It's mostly in the group setting. We have the Facebook group. I do have a program called My Body. My healing that, um, is five modules taking them through. You know, how do you advocate for yourself and find a doctor and work with your insurance companies? And what are the protocols that really work? And let's figure out this hormone thing. And whatever the labs we need to run like, you know, you really want to give people a good education and give him a lot of tools vehicle in control of this journey for themselves. And sometimes in that program, I'll work with people one on one. But you know, mostly it's in the group setting. I really I get emails from time to time, um, from people, and you know, I'll try to be helpful if I can those situations, but what I really love is when people post in the group and then that way, that conversation isn't just me and the person, but a lot of other people get the benefit of seeing this conversation happened. You know, sometimes you don't even realize that what you're struggling with is something that you could get help for. You know, you don't even it's not even, you know, dawning on you that there's another way of going about a problem that you're having. And that's what's really powerful about this community. I mean, the Facebook group, every post gets 2030 comments, you know, because
spk_0: 38:08
people are not just being about everything, you know I'm there and I'm like, Wow, they're talking about Epstein Barr there talking three. They're talking about endometriosis. It's a fabulist, and people are teaching each other.
spk_1: 38:22
They are right. It won. It's a it's. We lift the boats together, and there's so many wonderful women who just like me. But on the journey a long time and over time you learn a lot and you get to the point where it's like, really gratifying to be able to get back and to help your sisters and to give people a hand up, you know, And that's really what my mission was for this community from the very beginning. And it's wonderful that so many women are engaged in this vision with me because there's no way that I could personally support everyone in the way that people are getting support in that community. And it's it's truly a place where we're all doing it together.
spk_0: 39:00
Yes, that I feel the same way. Like I have people who come to Mayo. You're my last hope. I've seen every doctor and there's only one of me and there so many people, right? Help. And so we need to band together it. Just educate the masses and help each other. You know, extend a hand, hold away. And you had mentioned that you have, um, kind of your lab cheat sheet. That's something that I really like that you offer. So tell us about your lab sheet.
spk_1: 39:33
Yeah, well, we had It's the lap tracker. The healing Rosie lab tracker. I've partnered with a couple of really awesome practitioners in our space. Teoh curate the optimal lab values. So what happened for me in my journey? And I kind of touched on it when I was sharing about it earlier is you know, I went to my doctor and I was like, I think we need to run labs and see what's going on. And her response was, you know, finally, you know, even if I did run the labs, I wouldn't know what they meant. So over time I learned that the doctors don't even know what labs to run. Um, and there's also resistance, even though there's a problem. And I saw this with, like, gynecologists and stuff like, How about he run, run all my hormone labs and let's see how everything is doing. And there's, like, resistance. Well, what we don't need to run all your hormone like the standard of care is not to run all growth hormone laps. Okay, that's just the standard of care. So So I if you don't have a lab to show that your thyroid is actually low, the doctor is never gonna be able to prescribe you thyroid support. I suspected I needed support for my thyroid, but I remember going time after time ready? Please run thyroid labs. And they would say you're fireeye Labs were fine. And it wasn't until later there'll in that. First of all, they're running the wrong labs based on science from the 19 sixties. Second of all, they don't they don't even know the labs to run. But then they're also using conventional lab ranges. Which there really disease ranges they're measuring for? Are you in an advanced, busy state? If you are, then we have a protocol to put you on some kind of prescription drug or do a surgery or whatever, right? But if you're if you're what they call subclinical, meeting your your trending toward having blood sugar issues having pre diabetes or you're trending towards some of these things, they're never going to catch it. It's not until you're in a really advanced disease state are you going to get any help from them? And by then it's like, oftentimes, too far gone like it's, you know, how do you really recover? So the lab trucker tells you, Here's the Here's the optimizing labs that you need to run. And here's the optimal values, which are used in functional medicine. Um, and not everyone just, you know, not everyone in function medicine agrees completely on what those optimal ranges should be. But It's a whole lot more useful of a tool than the conventional ranges on Ben. You can see for yourself. You have something you can give your doctor to say. These are the labs. I won't run. You can also go to a Consumer lad company and run the labs yourself. You don't have to go through your doctor to get your labs run, and you can also start making sense of it for yourself because we haven't there what it might mean that they're high, what it might mean that they're low. You know, it's not a super linear thing with lab work were like, You know, If it value is this, then this is the treatment protocol. You kind of combine your labs with your symptoms, and there's a little bit of reading the tea leaves. But as a patient, I am so much more empowered when I know what labs need to be run and I know what the optimal values are. It opens up the conversation so I won't get my labs done before my doctors appointment. I go through myself and then I go into that appointment armed with my questions. Here's what I'm seeing in my labs. Here's what I'm seeing with my symptoms. You know, What do we need to do if there's something I want to pursue? I talked to the doctor about it. Like I I can actually show up for this journey. Otherwise, you're just at the mercy of whatever the doctor says to you, you know, which may or may not address the underlying symptoms that you're dealing with.
spk_0: 42:53
Yeah. So, yeah, I love that I love that makes my job so much easier. Is the physician, I'll tell you that. You know, when your patients a little bit educated and they're ready to have those discussions and so I really appreciate that. Well, I I'm just so happy you shared your story. I just think it's so important for us women. Teoh learn from each other and lift each other up and be on this journey together. So I appreciate what you're doing in this space, and I know thousands of other women do as well. So where can we find you? Remind us again.
spk_1: 43:30
Yeah, well, the website is healing rosie dot com from the website. You know, you confined your weight a lot of the other properties, but on Instagram, where a rosy dot radio and there's a Facebook page Misty Williams Facebook page on. But there's a group on Facebook healing Rosie, and I feel like a lot of the magic happens in the Facebook group. You know, that's where the women are all really coming together to support each other. And, you know, we have a YouTube Channel two and I mean there's there's lots of different properties. I mean, once someone's on the list, you know you'll get links to the the different places so that you can find content that'll that'll support you. But hailing rosie dot com you can find everything there so
spk_0: 44:06
wonderful. Well, I'm so glad you took your pain and created your purpose and your sharing it with all of us. So beautiful. So
spk_1: 44:14
thank you so much. Thank you. It's been a pleasure chatting
spk_0: 44:17
Yuhas. Well, take care.
spk_1: 44:19
All right, We'll see you.
spk_0: 44:21
Okay, ladies, thank you so much for joining me on that awesome episode. I'm sure you loved her like I did. So check her out. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please hit the subscribe button and give me a five star review or whatever review you think is appropriate. I just want to know that you guys are listening and I want to know how you feel about it. If there's something else I can talk about or improve upon, don't hesitate to reach out to me and let me know and share it with everyone you know. We got to get the word out. We gotta support other women and lift each other up. Were in this together and send me your questions. I would love to shut you out on my question of the week every Friday because I want to know what you're concerned about, and I want to help you navigate your health journey and give you the answers that you need. So shoot me your questions. Contact me on Facebook or Instagram and Dr Tabatha. That's three A's T A. B a T H A. No, I or check out my website at www dot back to tabatha dot com. Now go out there and have an amazing week supporting each other and know that you've got this
I am Dr Tabatha, the functional gynecologist. I'm a board certified OBY giant and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey, and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. So if you're struggling hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety and son, you name it, then you come to the right place. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So welcome you're gonna love today's episode of the functional gynecologist. I'm inner viewing. Misty Williams Misty is a 15 year entrepreneur and digital marketing strategist, but she spent years struggling to reclaim her health of vitality after a botched surgery. She had debilitating brain fog, extreme fatigue. Her hormones were imbalance, and then she had a huge, unexplained weight gain. After her doctors told her they didn't have answers outside of medications and surgery, Misty embarked on the arduous path of finding answers to reclaim her energy, brainpower and figure she founded. Healing rosie dot com provides women with the resource is and community to successfully confront the unexpected chronic health issues that are often experienced by high performing women as they age. This is a great resource. And I know that you're gonna love listening to her story and our frank discussion about conventional medicine and how it's failed us as women. So I want you to listen to this episode today and feel empowered and know that there's other women that have your back and we can help you through your health journey. There are answers. There is hope, so enjoy. Well, welcome, Misty to the functional gynecologist. I'm super excited to have you on my podcast today. I want you to share your story because I know you're not only going to give women hope, but you're gonna help give them tools to reclaim their health. You know, I know you created a web site called healing rosie dot com toe help guide women through their health journey. But can you tell us, like, what was the impetus behind this? Because I know my listeners are definitely gonna resonate with your story.
spk_1: 2:38
Yeah, well, I probably have a lot in common with the people in your community, actually, because my journey started with a routine physical where I asked my doctor to check my fertility. I was 35 years old and really interested in being a mom one day. And I hadn't tried up to that point in my life to get pregnant and who I was getting older. So they did a ultrasound to see how everything looked and found that I had a system, my left ovary. It was very large. Cantaloupe sized insist. In fact, the tech was like pushing on my abdomen as they were doing the ultrasound. And, you know, they say, we can't tell you anything. That was great. We're gonna do this to your doctor. So she's pushing, undergoing Do you feel that it was something and I'm just like, What is What does she see This grade? Um, but I did have a cyst on my ovary that was large, and the gynecologist told us that I needed to have it removed the book surgery immediately. It was supposed to be a simple out patient procedure where I go in. It's a 25 minute surgery for them to remove the cyst and stitch me back up, and they sent me home and I would have a follow up visit the following Monday. This is a Thursday That's important. Following Monday, I would have followed visit with my doctor and turns out that once they opened me up, I had endometriosis and my abdomen was covered with scar tissue. So the 25 minute surgery turned into about a 2.5 hour surgery. Um, coming out of that surgery was really, really challenging. I remember feeling like I was in that this is the fall of stupor for a really long time from being under like that, and right sent me home and things seemed fine. First, um, I went probably about 12 hours. Wasn't a little bit of pain, but, you know, they give you meds and stuff. So it wasn't until about the 14 16 hour mark that I started vomiting and I continued to vomit. I couldn't keep down food or water. And, um, this, of course, we're going into the weekend here. So it was Friday. I called and left appointments with the doctor. Didn't hear from anybody Saturday. I'm calling, you know, leaving appointment or leaving messages, not hearing from anybody. Finally, I got a call from an on call on call doctor Saturday night who knew nothing about me or my case and just said If she gets dehydrated, take her to the emergency room. And of course I am a patient to this doesn't happen to me every day. I don't even know what it means to be dehydrated. Like, how do I even know if I'm dehydrated? Right? Looking back, I'm sure I was dehydrated. This is That was over 48 hours without initial liquids that stayed in my body, but but I didn't know it. And so Sunday goes by Monday's go by. And, of course, Monday. I'm supposed to have a follow up appointment with my doctor at 3 30 and at about 4 15 I called the office. I hadn't heard from her, and apparently she went home sick that day. Nobody had told her that I called, um, and so the next day, a Tuesday I showered, got dressed and planted myself in her office at 9 a.m. And the front desk told me that she's not gonna be until 12 30. I should go and come back. And I just told them I wasn't leaving. You know, at this point, I had no faith in trust that anybody in the office gave, you know, two flips about my situation. And about 10 30 the doctor called and asked to have from the phone. Apparently, they've gotten a message to her, and she sent me over to Baptist Hospital to the emergency room where they did a CT skin and discovered that they stitched a part of my small intestine. And that's why I wasn't keeping food or water down. Yeah, for all of that time. So I went in for another surgery, and, um, they admitted me for three days, gave me Ambien to sleep. I remember thinking, why is she giving the Ambien to sleep? So I never had any sleep challenges before in my life. Um, and the reason she gave me Ambien to sleep was that my body had been under a tremendous amount of stress. And so perhaps she anticipated that maybe I would have trouble sleeping. Um, And as it turns out, I had been under a lot of stress. And after I was dismissed from the hospital, she sent me home and I didn't sleep for 144 hours. I went over six days without sleeping a wink. Um, which I don't know, if you've ever gone through that with yourself or any of your patients, Tabatha. But it's torture. I thought I was losing my mind. It was I was laying in bed. I remember one night to just, like, why am I not sleeping and just begging God for sleep? And third night? Same thing. Fourth night. Same thing. Fifth night. I mean, it just was like it was torture, right? Totally Thought I was going crazy. I was emotional and weepy. I couldn't focus worth anything, you know, like, I just It was insane. And, you know, morally, I probably would have called my doctor and asked, like, What do I need to do about this? But because of what I just been through, I didn't feel like my doctor cared. And I didn't feel like anybody in in her office would have done anything to help me anyway. So I I ended up finally on the seventh night falling asleep. Thank God. And, um and that probably is where I really started getting interested in sleep. You know, I think I'm to that point. I took sleep for granted. I was always a great sleeper. Um, but after that, you know, going through that crazy experience. And then on the other side of six days without sleep, I was experiencing unbelievable brain fog like my brain just would not work. I remember sitting on the couch. I had my computer on my lap, was trying to get caught up on work. And, like I'm I could feel my brain processing and the way that it used to process. Except now it seemed like cotton balls were all stuffed in my brain. My thoughts couldn't get through. And of course, I had crazy fatigue and just like my whole body felt off. And so I went back to my primary care doctor and that something clicked like, Well, maybe my primary care doctor will help me out with all of this stuff, you know, like I could tell that something was really, really wrong post surgery and went into my primary care doctor and told her what was going on. And she basically told me that my labs were normal and everything was fine and implied that I was completely just making it all up in my head. You know, maybe you're just becoming a hyper country act from this experience and I just pushed and pushed and pushed, like, How can you say my labs? Your normal things were fine. You just cut me open and removed a body part. So during the surgery, I they also took my left ovary. Um and, of course, did the excision surgery to remove all the material tissue that was implanted all over my abdomen. Like, I mean, not my body's mutating, you know, something is wrong. And she finally said to me, Misty, even if I did run labs, I wouldn't know what they meant and that it's like the floor fell out from under me. Then, like, I just could not believe that I'm talking to someone who is supposed to be a a primary care physician who has spent all these years in med school, and their their job is to help us navigate this health terrain, and they wouldn't know what lapse meant. Like nothing you don't know anything like it. Just It was like it was my first experience as a patient with the conventional medical system, and it was mind blowing, and she finally, at my just utter insistence, sent me to an endocrinologist in her practice, and that endocrinologist said the same thing. You know, your your labs, your normal. I will run some more labs. We will check everything out. She's kind of patronizing me. You know what we're talking? She comes over and starts feeling around on my throat, she says. I think you have modules in your thyroid with take you back for an ultrasound. So she took me back, and sure enough, I did. They were very, very large, and I asked her, You know what causes by word modules? And she said that they don't know what causes thyroid nodule. She could refer me to a surgeon and incidently when I had gone back to the gynecologist after the o g y n after my first, um, surgery and asked her, You know what causes in Dimitriou? Sis, What do I need to do? She said. We don't know what causes in, Dimitrios says. You can google it like a picture on birth control. We can do surgery again if it comes back, though, unlike saying that this this medical system is set up to do surgeries when things get bad, but it's not intended to help me curb things getting bad, like, what do I need to do? Some things don't get bad. Like, right now, my bodies mutating. She came back, you know, referred me to a surgeon. My labs were all normal. Everything's fine. And I'm just at this point, I'm like, I I'm just beside myself. It had been six months since the surgery, and I felt like I was just spiraling down, down, down, down, down. So, you know, I'm one of the fortunate ones that, you know, through gritted tenacity over about an eight year period. I eventually did find doctors to help and protocols to help, and I started learning what I could do for myself as a patient. But, you know, certainly in the beginning of my journey, I felt like I was just running into a dead ends everywhere that I went. And, um, I never went back to that in technologist or that my primary care doctor again or the O b g y n again, like all of them in my mind, really big banished, And I started looking for other doctors, and I had I had a hard time for a while finding someone, but eventually I had doctors running my labs, I found the ancestral health community. I started learning about all the lifestyle stuff that's really important for us to have good health. And two years after, um, my surgery, I had mercury filling and properly drilled for my teeth, which I didn't know was improper. Eso I had a mysterious £45 weight gang, like out of the blue. At this point, I'm like, fully paleo, and I've cleaned up the house and, you know, there's no chemicals anywhere in my home. I have all like, you know, wool rugs, natural fibres everywhere. E M f. Like WiFi is often my house. I got the meters and everything is working out with the trainer, and it's like, How did how my gained £45? And so it was. I've been through some things that are pretty stunning, but along the way I think what I've I learned, I learned way more about the human body than I ever thought I would and how things work for women. Um, but most importantly, I've learned how to advocate for myself, and that's really the ethos of what this community is that we've created together and I say we because certainly it's not just me that's made healing, Rosie what it is. But there's a whole community of women, some of them who were where I was early in my journey, some of them who are where I am now. Yeah, and are committed to supporting other women. But, you know, it's really challenging for us out there doctors, don't they? I I have since learned. And I'm sure you've talked about this another podcast that they did not even use women in mayor studies until the nineties. Women were not even part of studies in medicine until the nineties. So you know where we're in? A. We're in a situation where, as the female perpetuate er of the species, our bodies is extra sensitive to our environment and our environments have become very toxic. And we also have the unfortunate reality of not having medicine, studying what's happening and what the effects are on our bodies beyond the last 20 years. It's kind of crazy s Oh, yeah, it's the Wild West. It weighs. It is,
spk_0: 14:04
and you fit on a lot of things. One thing that's really key is you have such a strong personality and you you're not a quitter. You're very tenacious. And so you kept searching for answers and pushing. And I feel like there's a lot of women who were raised not to be that way and write a little more timid, or they feel like it's disrespectful. Toe question, your doctor. And so that's why I think your group healing Rosie is so important because there's so many women out there who don't feel confident enough to raise their voice and say anything, and so they struggle and suffer in silence. So I love that they can reach out to you. And you can say, Here you go. This is what you need to ask. This is how to do it. You don't have to rough ruffle feathers and be the cowboy that I am. But I now find your way and ask for answers. And if you're not getting an answer, you like, go somewhere else and it's OK, so I think that that's amazing.
spk_1: 15:12
You know, I felt like I was ruffling feathers a lot in the beginning. I don't feel like a ruffle feathers ever now, and I think I think the big difference is finding doctors who are inclined to want to help you in the way that you want to be helped. You know this idea that you're going to take this like what you learn in this amazing functional medicine integrative health space that we're all part of. You're gonna learn this stuff and take it to your doctor and teach him or her is a pipe dream. It is a farce. If the doctors wanted to learn this stuff, they would go learn it. So you're you're not likely to have much luck going to a doctor who's not already open to this way of treating patients and get results from them. So you're gonna have to find another doctor. And I know that's intimidating and it can feel overwhelming. And how do you even go about finding someone? And we could talk a little bit about that if you think that it would be helpful to your audience. But the important thing here is that you know that getting the kind of help that you ultimately need is going to require you having a partner, someone who wants to offer that help and give it to you. And like I certainly was very tenacious and I do have a tenacious personality And listen, if you if you could have convinced doctors to help you who weren't already on this path, I would have done it exactly. It does not work like that. You know it doesn't work that way. We have to find doctors who want to help us already,
spk_0: 16:36
and I can honestly say I was a doctor in the conventional world for over a decade, and it's not necessarily that they don't care. They don't want to help, but they don't have the tools. They have the training that they got in medical school, and if you're lucky, they go to a conference once or twice a year for any updates in their speciality. But there's really no time for them to continue to learn and do research and see what new is on the horizon. So a lot of times you're going to go to your primary doctor and they're not gonna have any idea what you're talking about. If it's coming out of new evidence and new literature because they just don't even have time to even go there, they're just trying to, like, see their patients every 15 minutes and, you know, do with the hospital's recording them to Dio. I know myself. I was an obstetrician, so I'll I cared about was taking a nap. You know, in my right free happen our that I would get a be like OK, man, and try and get some sleep today I'm not going to go cruising pump Med and looking at the research and writing about the gut Microbiome. You know, it was only through my own health painful journey, pain to purpose that I finally stopped and did that. Um, so yeah, what are some tips that you would say to my listeners like, Here's how you can find a functional medicine physician or a health coach or someone to help you navigate this journey.
spk_1: 18:13
Yeah. You know, I think I think there's a couple of prom's to navigating. Well, number one, you really do have to commit yourself toe learning because no doctors with you at home and the number one reason why we get sick because of our lifestyles, and so we have we all have to be committed to learning what about our lifestyles are toxic and what changes we need to make Um, that's right, where a health coach could be really helpful. Um, and just being a student yourself, I mean, we're we've got summits that are happening, like every single week in this space on a variety of topics. And there's so many great practitioners and experts who are prolifically creating content. There's podcasts like yours, And, you know, there's so many ways that we can learn if it's something that we really care about and we want to learn like it's definitely more accessible now than it was even 10 years ago when my journey started. So so that's the first thing is like, you know, there is a part of this that's the responsibility of the patient. It's not. The doctor isn't gonna fix everything, you know. There's certainly some value in in having an awesome doctor and practitioner on your team. There's tremendous value in it, but you know, even they they're going to write you prescription and a protocol maybe, and you still have toe do it. And if your lifestyle is, you know, putting garbage end while you're you're tryingto clean it all up, then it's gonna be a hard, hard row. So s So that's the first thing I would say is that it's everything isn't fixed by a doctor, and I think it's really important that we acknowledge that and and face the reality of that. You know, The second thing is that, um I do think it's a pipe dream that your doctor is gonna fix you entirely. And so you need to have realistic expectations of doctors. Um, and what they're gonna be able to do for you the way that I recommend women in our community find a doctor is, um, is go to your local compounding pharmacy and ask them because the doctors, especially someone like you tabqa, who are writing prescriptions for bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and things like that tend to be definitely more on the functional slash you know, how do we actually support your body and functioning better? So that's a really great way to find I love the doctor. Yeah, and typically the compounding pharmacist. Over time, they get to know these doctors, um, and they'll know who's good, so that's a really great way to do it. Another thing is going to I have them dot org's forward slash find hyphen, a hyphen practitioner and you can put in your area or your zip code. Maybe your area coach, Um, and and then, you know, they'll tell you whose in your area one thing I will say, though, just because someone is in your area and they have the functional medicine label on them does not necessarily mean there a good doctor. Yeah, so you still This is why I think being part of a community like healing rosiest, so helpful. Compare notes like one of the things that happens. A lot of women in our community is they'll go to doctors and the doctors tend to be really conservative, like we want to fix all these symptoms just with diet and lifestyle alone, like they're really slow. Teoh put them on thyroid support. If they need it, or put them on hormone supported, they need it. And I think the tricky part about that, and I'm dealing with this with my cousin right now. She has been working with the functional medicine doctor for a year, and I remember when I first talked to her, saying You're firing is low, given 90 days on this program. But if it's not getting better. You really need him too, right? You that prescription for thyroid support And you know, her doctor's a man, and there's a lot of wonderful male doctors out there, and I definitely don't think that mail dot there's anything wrong with, In fact, all the doctors that treated me like crap in beginning where Women. So, no. So it's it isn't that. But men really don't understand what it's like to be a woman dealing with flabby fog and fatigue. Yeah, that's just the reality. They have no concept of what it's like toe like soldier through your day. Knowing that you have commitments to your family, to your husband, to your kids, you're not gonna let anybody down. So, you know, you put on a brave face and you go through it. But inside you're, like, so wrecked, you know, eso Um, so I was just saying that because it's important that, you know, and I'm in whatever way that it's helpful to have someone give you permission. I'm giving you permission to expect that your doctor is gonna provide a certain kind of support. And if you're not getting it from them, that Dr find another one So she's been working with her doctor for a really long time. He's not providing to support someone else in the community. Reached out because she's like, I'm looking at my labs. I'm not sleeping at night because my progesterone aslo I could see it on my labs and then everything else and my doctor just won't prescribe the progesterone. And she's like, You know, prescribing hormones isn't a long term solution. And here's this is the reality of what it's like is a patient. What it's like is me and is so many women who are probably listening right now. If you're not sleeping, you're not healing, period truth. You cannot sleep at night. You could do that protocol till the cows come home and you are not going to get any better. If your body cannot go into parasympathetic rest, restore repair, you will not get better. And so a major way that we can support our own healing is supporting our hormones and supporting our thyroid. So that will give me a good sleep at night, you know? So So I'm looking for a doctor. When I'm looking for someone. I want someone who is going to be what is probably considered more aggressive in prescribing thyroid and hormone support. Because I know that when I get that support, I can function right and all the protocols I can put the time into meal prep. I can do all the extra stuff for family that I might need to do, you know, ableto function every day. So So that's what I'm looking for in a doctor. You know, there's there are chiropractors who are trained in functional medicine. I really like getting referrals, you know. So the more you can get referrals and get someone else to say this person was amazing. There's a lot of options online. There's programs like Steady and D, where you get basically a primary care doctor concierge medicine, and I think they're they're functional. Medicine program is like 1 99 a month or something, but you get as many appointments as you want unlimited access to your doctor. I mean, there's a lot of programs available now. Many doctors are going to a model similar to that in their clinics to be able to support patients because the health insurance pieces kind of tricky.
spk_0: 24:48
Oh yeah, don't get me started on that.
spk_1: 24:51
Yeah, I know So And, you know, one of the things they say just a little tip on the health insurance front, cause a lot of times finding a really good doctor. It's hard to find to them that are in network for your health insurance. And I really recommend to the women in our community to get the paperwork and file that out of network doctor appointment and get whatever reimbursement you can. But whatever labs that doctor orders in whatever prescriptions would be covered by your insurance, you will still have coverage for those things, and that is way more that's gonna hit your pocketbook a lot harder than finding a doctor in network. You won't run your labs for you and write the prescriptions anyway. Right now, it's right in your then you're stuck in your suffering other ways, so
spk_0: 25:32
that's definitely a great point. I think it's so important that you find a doctor who cares about your quality of life and your ability to function every day. Yes, it is a journey, and you want the best outcome. But you also want to be able to function every day and take care of your kids and do your job and all of that. So sometimes I'll explain to my patients you need thyroid support or hormone support because those organs are under attack. And until we get that attack to calm down, they're not gonna be able to function. And if they're functioning well, you're gonna be ableto fight that attack a lot easier and he'll a lot quicker. So that's right. I completely agree with you. You know, we need to end the suffering. It's not necessary, I e.
spk_1: 26:21
It almost sometimes feels like there's this attitude of like, Well, I did get a little bit of healing. I do feel a little I even did that with my cousin. She's like, Well, I do feel a little better than I didn't like Yeah, but is that your goal? Like, I You're still utterly exhausted all the time and, you know, and when we're tired, you know what that means When retired, it means we're short tempered. It means we don't have the emotional reserves to deal with the stressors of life. So the stressors of life, their impact on this is magnified because you don't handle them well. And all of that impacts our bodies. You know what all of that does that makes our hormones worse, you know, so that there's this spiraling down that's happening. And, you know, we're really hoping that the diet and lifestyle changes all make us better. But, man, it's just the speed is not fast enough. I mean, it's like having a car that just can't move into third gear. You know, you just you're not gonna ever get up that hill. If if the car can't go fast enough that it can outrun the gravitational pull, you know, like that car backwards down the hill.
spk_0: 27:23
Exactly. I know I have so many patients who say when they finally do feel better I didn't know I could feel like this because you've been so miserable for so long. That becomes your norm. And you don't even know what to look forward to anymore. So I cannot street a where people like your cousin, they get stuck and they they start to settle because you lose hope. And,
spk_1: 27:49
yeah, it's boiling the frog slowly to you've kind of forget what it feels like to feel just amazing in your body, you know?
spk_0: 27:56
Yeah, and every woman deserves that. My trade. So you mentioned sleep a few times, and that is, you know, Sochi. I can attest to that as an obstetrician, and I went 15 years without sleeping. And now that I'm no longer delivering babies, I'm getting sleep. And I am healing so much quicker, you know, restore repair. Regenerate. You have a sleep summit coming up that you're part of. Tell me about that Because so important for women.
spk_1: 28:28
Yeah, well, you know, I've had so many struggles with sleep, not only the 144 hours without sleep, but I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine who's a chiropractor a couple months after my surgeries. And the first question he asked me was, How are you sleeping? And my response was, um I mean, fine. I'm getting to bed. I mean, I've never really had trouble sleeping. He said, what time you go to bed? I was like, You probably like 2 a.m. So he's like, What's it like when you wake up a man like, why I'm just waking up. So I'm feeling like, really groggy and, you know, I'm because I'm waking up. I have just been sleeping and he said, All right, no more. 2 a.m. You have got to go to bed. You You're not even You're not even sleep during the time when your body makes hormones. So you've got to get to bed. I want you in bed by nine o'clock. I did that for a while. Now, you know, more like about 10 o'clock. Um what, you bed by nine oclock? And he said When you wake up in the morning, you should feel refreshed and ready to start your day. And I remember going like, that's
spk_0: 29:33
what the heck is that?
spk_1: 29:35
I have had my entire adult life. I had never woken up feeling refreshed, and so I decided I would follow his advice. I was pretty desperate at this point. And, of course, I go to bed at nine o'clock, couldn't fall asleep. It could be six months, six months to shift my sleep so that nine o'clock rolls around and I'm actually getting tired. You know, I would get my second wind about 9 30 That would black propel me to to So my quarters always jacked all over the place, of course. And, um, I started doing cold bats. That actually was, like, kind of the trigger. That really helped me kind of lock in this new pattern and rhythm for sleeping. I would get in about 62 degree water at night for maybe 40 minutes, notes sitting a cold bath. And you know, there's lots of people in our space you talked benefits, a cold therapy. We have Wim Hoff, of course. Who's the extreme version of jumping in tow ice? He's known as the Ice Man, but But, you know, there's lots of people in our space. You talked about it. Dave Asprey talked about it quite a bit. Been Greenfield's talked about quite a bit, you know, We've learned a lot about, you know, the effective cold on recovery in the body on how helpful it is. But it really helped me get my sleep dialed in. And ever since then I've had this fascination with sleep because I was so impacted and I, you know, sort of learning a lot about it. And then, as my after the mercury fillings from properly removed at £45 weight gain, my my hormones all crashed. I did a Genova, um, complete hormone panel, which is kind of like Dutch Test. And it showed that, like all my hormones were zero. My methylation was zero, like everything was totally tanked. And then I started having sleep issues, and I've had sleep issues where progesterone helped initially. And then over time, as I've gotten older, I'm still like right now I'm working with my doctors on my hormones. Still, I've been detoxing medals for the last couple of years and really trying to get all this mercury out, um, of my body. But my hormones just took such a beating from that and on. And so I've dealt with the night sweats and the hot flashes, which is just so miserable. And so estrogen has been my friend, um, during during those seasons. You know, right now I'm basically on hormone support across the board. Um, and it makes a massive difference for my sleep. So sleep is something that, because I've had so many things affect my sleep in my body's ability to sleep Well, um, it's it's something that I've made a point of study myself. I've learned a lot about what helps us to sleep better. I've been wearing amber glasses since 2012. Um, you know, after dark, the amber glasses Go on. And you know, I'm really trying to keep my body trained to go to sleep when I'm supposed to be sleeping. So I developed, um, kind of the idea and the framework for your best sleep ever to help all of us who have struggles around our sleep. And certainly there's a lot more than the hormonal stuff. I mean, people are dealing with sleep apnea, other dealing with physical pain that's keeping them from being able to sleep at night. Structural stuff is keeping them from sleeping blood sugar issues are affecting their ability to sleep well, being in these artificial environments that we live in, impacts are sleep, not understanding like what our bodies need to sleep. Like I just added room darkening curtains and oh, my gosh, that I could not believe After all the improvements I've seen in my sleep, that was unnecessary and even better so you know, this is pretty deep topic. And you know, we didn't only talk about sleep on your best sleep ever. But we also recorded tons of interviews on energy and fatigue and like what causes that. And what do we need to do to get our energy back? So I'm super excited about this this summit that partnered with health talks to put together for not only the healing Rosie community, but you know, the community it large. I want everyone to have the support they need to sleep well, and to hear from the experts on this topic so that they could learn what that might might their unique situation need. You know, Right, Right. And this
spk_0: 33:48
is an online summit so anyone can join correct
spk_1: 33:52
going. That's right up and join. And, um and you can sign up watch during the 16th through the 22nd I believe, is the dates of the summit where you can watch all of the interviews will have probably around six interviews a day, 6 to 7 interviews a day, going live. And then the following week, it'll be on core weekend. So you can, you know, catch interviews that seeing really relevant for you during the during the week. And then, of course, you have the option. If you wanna add these interviews to Health Library, you could do that. Lots and lots of purchase bonuses available. So many people you know are coming around and resonating with the vision for what we want to do with this event and chipping in to make sure people get the resources they need to heal so super exciting,
spk_0: 34:41
but is wonderful. So that link will probably be on healing rosie dot com. And on your Facebook, Um, am I able to put it on my podcast link?
spk_1: 34:51
Yes, you can. Absolutely. You can absolutely create a link yourself to direct people through your link, and, um and if you're a part of the healing Rosie community, we we have graphics plastered everywhere. Perfect. You can definitely find us that way too. But no sign up and come get a great education joined in with the community. We're gonna be doing lots of Ask me anythings with our speakers in that week between the summit airing and the meat on core weeks so that people who watch and participate have the opportunity to get their questions answered, which is, you know, just we did that with the last event that I did the fixer female hormones that I did in 2018 with health talks, and it really adds another dimension to the whole experience because not only do you get the opportunity to learn yourself, but you get extra help in figuring out how to apply this to your unique situation, you know, So the how to is wonderful, too.
spk_0: 35:49
So in the fix for female hormones is still available.
spk_1: 35:53
This right it is. It's still available. I believe the URL is fixed or female hormones dot com. Okay, so yeah, yeah, get out of that out. Nampula got about. There's fewer interviews with that when I think I had around 25 or 30 interviews. Okay, but yeah, I mean, I even doing these summits I learned so much to and just able to incorporate a lot of new distinctions into the programs that we create for the community, because I I want people. I mean, it's it's challenging, navigating this as a lay person. And, you know, the more distinctions and things that I can learn, the easier it is for me to kind of sequence this for members of the community. But I want everybody to get the help and support they need and to feel like they're not alone on this journey. I For years, I felt like I was doing this by myself and it sucked.
spk_0: 36:44
Yeah. Oh, it's so amazing that you're doing this for women. They need someone to hold their hand. They really dio Do you were one on one with people? Or is it all in the group setting?
spk_1: 36:56
It's mostly in the group setting. We have the Facebook group. I do have a program called My Body. My healing that, um, is five modules taking them through. You know, how do you advocate for yourself and find a doctor and work with your insurance companies? And what are the protocols that really work? And let's figure out this hormone thing. And whatever the labs we need to run like, you know, you really want to give people a good education and give him a lot of tools vehicle in control of this journey for themselves. And sometimes in that program, I'll work with people one on one. But you know, mostly it's in the group setting. I really I get emails from time to time, um, from people, and you know, I'll try to be helpful if I can those situations, but what I really love is when people post in the group and then that way, that conversation isn't just me and the person, but a lot of other people get the benefit of seeing this conversation happened. You know, sometimes you don't even realize that what you're struggling with is something that you could get help for. You know, you don't even it's not even, you know, dawning on you that there's another way of going about a problem that you're having. And that's what's really powerful about this community. I mean, the Facebook group, every post gets 2030 comments, you know, because
spk_0: 38:08
people are not just being about everything, you know I'm there and I'm like, Wow, they're talking about Epstein Barr there talking three. They're talking about endometriosis. It's a fabulist, and people are teaching each other.
spk_1: 38:22
They are right. It won. It's a it's. We lift the boats together, and there's so many wonderful women who just like me. But on the journey a long time and over time you learn a lot and you get to the point where it's like, really gratifying to be able to get back and to help your sisters and to give people a hand up, you know, And that's really what my mission was for this community from the very beginning. And it's wonderful that so many women are engaged in this vision with me because there's no way that I could personally support everyone in the way that people are getting support in that community. And it's it's truly a place where we're all doing it together.
spk_0: 39:00
Yes, that I feel the same way. Like I have people who come to Mayo. You're my last hope. I've seen every doctor and there's only one of me and there so many people, right? Help. And so we need to band together it. Just educate the masses and help each other. You know, extend a hand, hold away. And you had mentioned that you have, um, kind of your lab cheat sheet. That's something that I really like that you offer. So tell us about your lab sheet.
spk_1: 39:33
Yeah, well, we had It's the lap tracker. The healing Rosie lab tracker. I've partnered with a couple of really awesome practitioners in our space. Teoh curate the optimal lab values. So what happened for me in my journey? And I kind of touched on it when I was sharing about it earlier is you know, I went to my doctor and I was like, I think we need to run labs and see what's going on. And her response was, you know, finally, you know, even if I did run the labs, I wouldn't know what they meant. So over time I learned that the doctors don't even know what labs to run. Um, and there's also resistance, even though there's a problem. And I saw this with, like, gynecologists and stuff like, How about he run, run all my hormone labs and let's see how everything is doing. And there's, like, resistance. Well, what we don't need to run all your hormone like the standard of care is not to run all growth hormone laps. Okay, that's just the standard of care. So So I if you don't have a lab to show that your thyroid is actually low, the doctor is never gonna be able to prescribe you thyroid support. I suspected I needed support for my thyroid, but I remember going time after time ready? Please run thyroid labs. And they would say you're fireeye Labs were fine. And it wasn't until later there'll in that. First of all, they're running the wrong labs based on science from the 19 sixties. Second of all, they don't they don't even know the labs to run. But then they're also using conventional lab ranges. Which there really disease ranges they're measuring for? Are you in an advanced, busy state? If you are, then we have a protocol to put you on some kind of prescription drug or do a surgery or whatever, right? But if you're if you're what they call subclinical, meeting your your trending toward having blood sugar issues having pre diabetes or you're trending towards some of these things, they're never going to catch it. It's not until you're in a really advanced disease state are you going to get any help from them? And by then it's like, oftentimes, too far gone like it's, you know, how do you really recover? So the lab trucker tells you, Here's the Here's the optimizing labs that you need to run. And here's the optimal values, which are used in functional medicine. Um, and not everyone just, you know, not everyone in function medicine agrees completely on what those optimal ranges should be. But It's a whole lot more useful of a tool than the conventional ranges on Ben. You can see for yourself. You have something you can give your doctor to say. These are the labs. I won't run. You can also go to a Consumer lad company and run the labs yourself. You don't have to go through your doctor to get your labs run, and you can also start making sense of it for yourself because we haven't there what it might mean that they're high, what it might mean that they're low. You know, it's not a super linear thing with lab work were like, You know, If it value is this, then this is the treatment protocol. You kind of combine your labs with your symptoms, and there's a little bit of reading the tea leaves. But as a patient, I am so much more empowered when I know what labs need to be run and I know what the optimal values are. It opens up the conversation so I won't get my labs done before my doctors appointment. I go through myself and then I go into that appointment armed with my questions. Here's what I'm seeing in my labs. Here's what I'm seeing with my symptoms. You know, What do we need to do if there's something I want to pursue? I talked to the doctor about it. Like I I can actually show up for this journey. Otherwise, you're just at the mercy of whatever the doctor says to you, you know, which may or may not address the underlying symptoms that you're dealing with.
spk_0: 42:53
Yeah. So, yeah, I love that I love that makes my job so much easier. Is the physician, I'll tell you that. You know, when your patients a little bit educated and they're ready to have those discussions and so I really appreciate that. Well, I I'm just so happy you shared your story. I just think it's so important for us women. Teoh learn from each other and lift each other up and be on this journey together. So I appreciate what you're doing in this space, and I know thousands of other women do as well. So where can we find you? Remind us again.
spk_1: 43:30
Yeah, well, the website is healing rosie dot com from the website. You know, you confined your weight a lot of the other properties, but on Instagram, where a rosy dot radio and there's a Facebook page Misty Williams Facebook page on. But there's a group on Facebook healing Rosie, and I feel like a lot of the magic happens in the Facebook group. You know, that's where the women are all really coming together to support each other. And, you know, we have a YouTube Channel two and I mean there's there's lots of different properties. I mean, once someone's on the list, you know you'll get links to the the different places so that you can find content that'll that'll support you. But hailing rosie dot com you can find everything there so
spk_0: 44:06
wonderful. Well, I'm so glad you took your pain and created your purpose and your sharing it with all of us. So beautiful. So
spk_1: 44:14
thank you so much. Thank you. It's been a pleasure chatting
spk_0: 44:17
Yuhas. Well, take care.
spk_1: 44:19
All right, We'll see you.
spk_0: 44:21
Okay, ladies, thank you so much for joining me on that awesome episode. I'm sure you loved her like I did. So check her out. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please hit the subscribe button and give me a five star review or whatever review you think is appropriate. I just want to know that you guys are listening and I want to know how you feel about it. If there's something else I can talk about or improve upon, don't hesitate to reach out to me and let me know and share it with everyone you know. We got to get the word out. We gotta support other women and lift each other up. Were in this together and send me your questions. I would love to shut you out on my question of the week every Friday because I want to know what you're concerned about, and I want to help you navigate your health journey and give you the answers that you need. So shoot me your questions. Contact me on Facebook or Instagram and Dr Tabatha. That's three A's T A. B a T H A. No, I or check out my website at www dot back to tabatha dot com. Now go out there and have an amazing week supporting each other and know that you've got this
