Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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Pregnancy Gainz | Why You Shouldn’t Avoid Exercise During Pregnancy

During the first trimester visit, many medical practitioners will tell pregnant women not to lift more than 15 lbs until 6 weeks after the birth of their baby (maybe). I truly believe these practitioners are doing what they think is best, but unfortunately, they are missing the mark for the vast majority of women under their care.

The positive intention here is that there are a handful of women who should not be lifting more than 15 lbs due to an impeding medical condition. I also believe there are a handful of women who do not have sound movement patterns and lifting more than 15 lbs resulted in a preventable injury (prevention being the right coaching not necessarily the lifting itself). So, to reach the widest audience with medical advice, practitioners speak to the lowest common denominator and continue to recommend not lifting more than 15 lbs during pregnancy.

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Hormone Testing

One of the most sought out requests I get is in regards to hormones, especially for women.  More often than not, they have been to 1-2 other providers and not getting answers.  Instead, they get a hormone test and then prescribed a hormone, synthetic or bio identical.  It sounds logical but that approach can do more harm than help, especially long term.  Let me say it upfront, I’m not a fan of hormone replacement.

Why?  Because hormones are messengers of harmony.  You’ve heard the saying, ‘don’t shoot the messenger?’ I look at hormone replacement in the same light.  A hormone just does what it’s told to do.

Hormone Assessment Requires Context

Context #1:  The Nervous System

Every minute of every day, your nervous system is organizing and coordinating what is happening to you or what could potentially happen to you.  This organization will either create pathways to favor your immediate protection.  Or this organization will create pathways to favor your long term legacy.  Here’s the catch.  If you aren’t set up for immediate protection, there’s no reason to plan for your legacy.

I was listening to a podcast once and the guest was some sort of an elite military trained individual.   When in active duty, he had the type of position that he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what he was doing.  The reality that he may become separated from communication or his troop was on the side of probable.  In this podcast, he was giving tips on how to survive the wilderness.

There were 3 things that one needs to survive the wilderness:  Shelter, Food, and Water.  He said the #1 reason why people fail to survive the wilderness and die is that they go seek food and water before establishing shelter.  They are looking to sustain their long term legacy over their immediate protection.

Most of us are no different.  We go and seek that long term legacy by trying to balance hormones.  The problem is that your innate intelligence is over riding your well-intentioned, yet selfish behavior to make sure you have protection right now.

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This all takes place in the nervous system.  Assessing the situation happens in your hypothalamus.  Your hypothalamus then triggers your anterior pituitary to send the appropriate signals to the body in response to what is happening in life at that moment.  The pituitary can talk to your adrenals, your gonads, your thyroid, your liver, and skin (stimulating sun tan, freckles, etc).

If you need immediate protection, your pituitary is going to spend most of its time and energy talking to the adrenals.  This is your stress response.  A stress doesn’t have to be just mental or emotional like fear and worry.  A stress is going to include what areas of life you are deficient and or toxic.  It will be nutrition, movement, thoughts, social, spiritual, chemical, electromagnetic, etc.

The point is that if your brain is setting up signals for your immediate protection, it’s not going to support and waste energy on long term legacy.  Therefore, the signals that go to a woman’s ovaries, FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) and LH (Luteinizing Hormone) get disrupted.  FSH will have a major role in the ovulation of a follicle in the menstrual cycle, producing estrogen.  LH will have a major role in the development of the now empty follicle to the corpus luteum, producing progesterone.

The problem is that traditional hormone testing is a one day spot shot of estrogen and progesterone without giving context as to the deficiencies and toxicities the individual woman is facing.  All the doctor asks for is symptoms.  Symptoms are not sufficient context.

If you are super stressed, your brain will shift your hormone needs to immediate protection opposed to long term legacy.  If you’re running from a bear, your brain could care less about making babies.

Context #2: It’s a Cycle, Not a Day

The text book average menstrual cycle is 28 days.  Within those 28 days, it’s expected to have hormone fluctuations.  The first 1/2 of the cycle (follicular phase day 1-14), should favor estrogen.  Estrogen’s role is to make cells grow.  The second 1/2 of the cycle (luteal phase day 15-28), should favor progesterone.  Progesterone’s role is to make cells mature.

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Therein lies the problem.  How many women, concerned about their hormones, have a text book, consistent 28 day cycle?  How many women, NOT concerned about their hormones, have a text book, consistent 28 day cycle?  There is too much assumption at day 19-21, when a blood test is run, attempting to assess a higher progesterone than estrogen.  The strength of the follicular phase is dependent on the strength of the luteal phase and the strength of the luteal phase is dependent on the strength of the follicular phase.

Assessing the cycle with a one day spot shot is like taking a quote out of context or seeing the retaliation punch from your kid.

The other problem is that most often the hormones are assessed using a blood sample.  Blood isn’t bad but with hormones the serum is a measurement of bound protein.  Basically, it’s the inactive form.  Using saliva will give the free and usable values.  Ask your doctor about using a saliva collection instead of a blood sample.  Also ask about getting samples through the entire 28 days.

DiagnosTechs is a lab that has an 11 sample profile that gives insight into your entire cycle, not just one day.  Besides estrogen and progesterone, it looks at LH, FSH, testosterone, and even DHEA.

Context #3: Lifestyle

Xenoestrogens:  There are going to be many other factors that influence your hormones.  Many of the environmental exposures women encounter, especially in beauty products, as well as plastics and pesticides will mimic estrogens.

Aromatase:  Excess body fat can induce an excess of estrogen by way of an enzyme called aromatase.  This enzyme causes testosterone to be converted to estrogen.  This can apply to males with that spare tire and seeking treating for low T.

Liver:  The liver will have major influence on hormone regulation.  The first influence is the production of cholesterol.  Cholesterol is a major building block of our steroid hormones like estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, DHEA, cortisol, and even Vitamin D.  If the body is going to favor immediate protection over long term legacy, then cholesterol production will be shunted towards the production of cortisol (survival hormone) instead of our sex hormones.

Cholesterol:  Something else to think about.  Could the past 40 year battle against cholesterol be a major contributor to our hormone imbalances today?  After all, heart disease is the #1 killer of both men and women and one of the immediate recommendations is to lower cholesterol.  If there isn’t enough materials to make up our hormones, something has to be sacrificed, right?

Another influence by the liver is the ability to detox.  The liver isn’t just detoxing chemicals, it detoxes hormones.  If that process isn’t supported, then it’s possible the hormones don’t get de-activated and cleared through the body sufficiently.

Posture:  Posture will greatly affect hormones.  If the head is ‘stuck’ on that top vertebrae, this is a stressor as much as eating my 3 year old McRib. With the abundance of sitting, this is a prime routine to lock in your skull, disrupting that nerve communication between brain and body.

The list could go on and on with inflammation, auto-immune, sugar, adrenals, insulin, and many more.  The point is that if you’re going to address a hormone imbalance without causing more harm down the road, then you’re going to have to address and assess many issues that influence your hormone expression.  Got questions? Come find me.  If your question is, “what’s the best hormone replacement therapy?” I will hang up on you.

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DPT Pregnancy Push

I had a conversation with a pregnant patient the other day.  She said her OB was pushing her to get the pertussis vaccine to protect her unborn baby.  She was very reluctant and hesitant but asked me what I thought?

You know what?  It’s doesn’t really matter what I think.  Let’s go to the literature. Here is the Tripedia – DPT Vaccine that I will reference as literature.  You can also get it off the FDA website.

DPT Pregnancy Push

When someone asks if they should get it, especially when it comes to pregnancy and unborn children, they are asking, “is it safe?” I can only answer, “I don’t know…but neither do they?”

This is from the document itself.  I do love that it says NOT to give it to pregnant women, yet OBs across the nation push this on unknowing expectant mothers.  If you’re searching for this statement, it’s on page 6, about 1/2 way down.

Pregnancy Category C Animal reproduction studies have not been conducted with Tripedia vaccine. It is not known whether Tripedia vaccine can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman or can affect reproductive capacity. Tripedia vaccine is NOT indicated for women of child-bearing age.

Maybe you’re not pregnant but your pediatrician is pushing the DPT to your kids and you’re just not sure if it’s safe for the kids.  Again, look to the same literature.  This time, scroll down to page 11.

Adverse events reported during post-approval use of Tripedia vaccine include idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, SIDS, anaphylactic reaction, cellulitis, autism, convulsion/grand mal convulsion, encephalopathy, hypotonia, neuropathy, somnolence and apnea. Events were included in this list because of the seriousness or frequency of reporting.

I want you to key in on the ‘post-approval’ phrase as these are reported by you, the parent, to the VAERS database.  The real study for these vaccines happens when they are unleashed on millions in the general public, where they can’t control for certain factors.

The events were reported due to the seriousness or frequency of reporting.  It’s estimated only 10% of adverse reactions are ever reported.  There are many more reactions that get swept under the table.

Your kid might be fine after getting this shot.  Your kid might not be fine after getting this shot.  It’s your job as a parent to weigh the risks of the chances of getting Diphtheria, Pertussis, or Tetanus vs. the chances of having an adverse reaction like purpura, SIDS, autism, and seizures (notice how they use the word convulsion instead of seizure?).

I personally don’t care if you get shots or not.  What I care about is that you don’t make decisions blindly nor go into these decisions lightly.