Live Stream with Sam and Kristen – Women and Hormone Therapy

Sam and Kristen discuss how and why Hormone Replacement Therapy is important for Women. Kristen explains the relationship between Testosterone, Estrogen, Progesterone, and Estradiol. They answer live questions from viewers!

Transcript
[00:00:00.060] – Sam Ridgeway
To watch it, but setting up my meaning for custom streaming service is already going to give me a second, I want to make sure that every one of our venues is up and running before we start this, and I think that’s a done deal. So my name is Sam Ridgeway. I own Viking Alternative Medicine and we’re here with Kristen and we’re going to talk about hormones today. So that’s interesting to a lot of people. At least it should be.

[00:00:27.650] – Sam Ridgeway
And by the time we’re finished, I think you can have a far better understanding of the importance and why we need to talk about these things. So before we start, though.

[00:00:38.270] – Sam Ridgeway
I like to have it where people know who they’re talking to. So, Kristen, why don’t you start off with what your qualifications are, why should people listen to you about hormones?

[00:00:52.980] – Kristen Letendre
Well, I’ve been a physician assistant. I graduated in 2010 twenty, and then I did a surgical residency for a few years, then I went into medicine for a few years, and then I stopped for a little bit because I had my children and then I went into hormone replacement.

[00:01:10.740] – Kristen Letendre
And I’ve been doing that for the last few years. I’m also a personal trainer, so I know a lot about fitness, diet and exercise. And hormones are really, in my opinion, the key to everything.

[00:01:25.920] – Sam Ridgeway
Right, perfect. So, I mean, you’ve seen like hundreds, if not thousands of patients right over the course of doing this. Yes, over the past few years or so, so, I mean, the reason I mention that is because a lot of people don’t know that this stuff isn’t taught in medical school like you, you don’t learn this in medical school.

[00:01:45.490] – Sam Ridgeway
This is something you have to come out. You kind of have to learn as you do it, as you see it, as you talk to people, as you find out what works and what doesn’t work, listening to other people in the field mentoring you to get to where you are today, it’s not just something that you read out of a textbook. So that’s kind of what I want to get across to people, because you can’t just go into, like a primary care and have them really understand.

[00:02:07.330] – Sam Ridgeway
Hormones, it just doesn’t happen. You need to specialize in this and you need to have done it over and over and over for years before you get good at it. So that’s kind of why I wanted to throw those credentials up. But so let’s just start the whole thing off with maybe an explanation about how about how hormones work in general.

[00:02:25.700] – Kristen Letendre
OK, well, you know, from last time I am a visual person, I like to relate things to relatable things that people can understand.

[00:02:34.730] – Kristen Letendre
That’s how I learned. So this is my spider web and this is my spider. So when a spider makes web his or her web, he takes they take pride in it. They make sure it’s stable. Every piece has to be lined up a certain way because this is their source of nutrition. This is how they stay healthy. This is where they catch their food. So it’s very important that it’s stable. Same thing goes for our hormone Webs, in our body, everything has to be stable and it’s not easy to do.

[00:03:13.610] – Kristen Letendre
Every piece has to be perfectly balanced because if it’s off a little bit, then something’s going to be off in your body. So the main things to be concerned with are insulin, testosterone, progesterone, cortisol, your estrogens and your diet. Diet is key. So if you don’t stabilize this. And have it balanced, you’re basically going to be on a hamster wheel, running around, getting nowhere. You can try this, you can try that, but it’s just going to keep going.

[00:03:52.890] – Kristen Letendre
So I just want to talk a little bit about the labs.

[00:03:56.850] – Sam Ridgeway
You know, when I see a lot of that, I see a lot of that. I see a lot of that.

[00:04:01.980] – Sam Ridgeway
Here’s one of the things that we see a lot of. Are people going to the gym trying to do things right. Personal trainers, the rest of that stuff. And they never make any progress. And they sit there like, why I’m working my butt off, I’m doing all the right things. And they never make any progress whatsoever. And I think people need to understand exactly what you said, which is perfect. I love the props, by the way, but if you don’t have these hormones in alignment, you’re going to do that hamster wheel and everybody knows what we’re talking about.

[00:04:32.380] – Sam Ridgeway
You just continue to do the same thing over and over. You never get anywhere. So I just wanted to say that because a lot of people in that position right now. Doing the same stuff, working hard, but not getting results, and this is exactly why . I’m so sorry about that.

[00:04:46.140] – Kristen Letendre
Yeah, that’s what I know. And it’s not easy to do. Having said that, it’s not it’s not a quick fix. It doesn’t happen overnight. So who to check your basic labs, obviously, and Estrogen, estradiol level, testosterone level, you can do a free or a total testosterone free is what your body actually has access to a sex hormone binding globulin. Everyone has a different number based on your metabolism, your genetics, your diet. So whatever that number is, it’s the glue for the hormones that will also tells you how much is available to you or how much is stuck to it that you don’t have available.

[00:05:26.970] – Kristen Letendre
Cortisol is another one to check because cortisol is your stress hormone. I’ll get into that in a little bit. But when your stress hormones go up, your sex hormones go down and then FSH and L.H. are very big also because those are basically- I said this last time. Think the commanding officer is in your brain. They give the orders. So no one, especially for a woman, it can tell you where you are, whether you are premenopausal, postmenopausal, perimenopausal.

[00:05:59.460] – Kristen Letendre
So that’s one aspect of it. And then the other aspect is if you’re FSH just like your TSH, which is for your thyroid, it’s stimulating. So if it’s high, they’re giving orders, they’re saying, hello, wake up, where are my hormones? I’m not getting any. So that means you’re deficient in something. Either estrogen or your testosterone is low, your thyroid is low. It’s not getting enough. So. And if they are.

[00:06:29.930] – Kristen Letendre
Low, you’re getting enough or may be getting too much, and you can also be if your FSH is low, you could be estrogen dominant. So all of these things kind of give us a little picture and they’re important to get in the lab values.

[00:06:48.170] – Sam Ridgeway
And so those are for both men and women, right? I mean, it doesn’t really matter what gender you are. No, that holds true for both.

[00:06:54.690] – Kristen Letendre
And initially getting it FSH and L.H. are very important. You don’t necessarily need them, you know, once you continue with the hormone replacement, unless you have to check something. But initially to get that big picture, they are helpful.

[00:07:12.650] – Sam Ridgeway
OK, so those are the hormones themselves, right? And so now you want to move on to the diet portion and how diet affects your hormones.

[00:07:24.520] – Kristen Letendre
Yes.

[00:07:25.230] – Sam Ridgeway
Let’s talk a little bit about that

[00:07:26.500] – Kristen Letendre
diet plays a big role, and I don’t think people realize how it affects your hormones besides just what you’re putting in your mouth, if it’s good or bad for you.

[00:07:35.590] – Kristen Letendre
So let’s say someone has a diet high in refined sugars. So I don’t mind. May I just wrote everything down and make sure I tell you guys everything. Refined sugars, carbs, high fat. Now, let’s not take this to extremes. I’m not saying you can never have carbs. You can never have sweets, because there will be people out there that will say that. I’m not saying that. But if it is extreme, you’re causing internal stress to your body.

[00:07:59.740] – Kristen Letendre
So your insulin levels are going up and down. What happens when you’re stressed? Your cortisol level goes up? So now internally you’re causing your cortisol levels to go up. Progesterone is the calming hormone. It likes to calm everything down. So progesterone, when it sees cortisol is out of control, it goes over and says, OK, calm down, cortisol, calm down. And it converts to cortisol. So now you’re low in progesterone because you converted to cortisol that can lead to estrogen dominance.

[00:08:31.150] – Kristen Letendre
And your insulin unnaturally released by all this crazy dieting or bad foods, gives you a constant hunger and sugar craving. So again. We’re on the wheel. And men can also have, in a sense, Estragon dominance, so that can affect your brain, balance your serotonin levels, give you mood swings, sleep disturbances, weight gain. Women can put themselves into early menopause because of this pattern. If your diet is off, if you have an internal stress from the insulin, if you’re having external stress from whatever’s going on your life, your cortisol is going up, your insulin, you’re getting insulin resistance and you’re throwing off your hormones.

[00:09:23.520] – Kristen Letendre
If you eat a lot of carbs excessively and you gain weight, you get fat, especially abdominal fat. Estrogen is stored in your abdominal fat. So then you’re getting again the whole breakdown. Now you have higher estrogen and low progesterone because remember, it’s converting to cortisol. So not only are you maybe getting estrogen dominance, you’re having unopposed estrogen. That estrogen is higher and you basically have no progesterone. Now you’re putting yourself at possible risk for breast cancer.

[00:09:56.580] – Kristen Letendre
So diet is so, so important. And then you have women and men. But let’s just use women as an example. Let’s say they don’t convert estrogen. They’re not estrogen converters because your body naturally converts testosterone, testosterone to estrogen. And even when you take hormone replacement, it converts testosterone to estrogen. So if your body is not doing that, for whatever reason, low body fat genetics. You’re going to have high estrogen levels, high testosterone levels, excuse me, maybe even too much testosterone and no estrogen conversion.

[00:10:35.780] – Kristen Letendre
So now these women need a biased cream or estrogen replacement because that testosterone is not converting. So do you think this is easy? This is not easy what we do, and this is why no one can just pick up and say, I’m going to start doing this. It’s very complicated.

[00:10:56.630] – Sam Ridgeway
Right, right, well, you know, I think we’re far enough into it, let me just put this up here for a second, because if you need to ,if you want to ask questions, you can actually ask questions right now.

[00:11:08.600] – Sam Ridgeway
Live questions, I’ll see you here, I’ll ask Kristen what they are, but it’s livelikeaviking.com/chat, so livelikeaviking.com/chat. And then you can ask live questions. We’ll ask Kristen and we’ll get those answered for you. But you so why don’t we just go on with what are some of the issues maybe that men and women are facing regarding hormones and how do you fix them?

[00:11:31.190] – Sam Ridgeway
Maybe you have some like examples of of some case studies or something. I think you said so we talk about that for a second. Yeah.

[00:11:39.320] – Kristen Letendre
So let’s say you have, for example, a twenty five year old female. She has increased abdominal fat, facial hair periods off, could be very irritable, emotional. She doesn’t know what’s going on. She can have PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome. So she has a regular ovulation. She could have some cysts, multiple cyst on her ovaries. And that’s causing her FSH and L.H. to be off balance. Now because her whole system is off balance. She can also be getting insulin resistance, which we talked about.

[00:12:16.760] – Kristen Letendre
She has estrogen stored in her fat cells in her abdomen. Now her insulin is going off. Now she’s craving, craving more carbs. She’s getting excess abdominal fat. She stressed her cortisol is going up her progesterone is going down. They usually give them progesterone. Now she has a gut inflammation. She doesn’t want to exercise. She’s not sleeping. Well, that’s a big mess. She’s unbalanced. Let’s say you have a forty two year old man who has the testosterone of a seventy two year old.

[00:12:46.580] – Kristen Letendre
Why? Why is it if he’s stressed from outside stresses, whether it’s family issues, work related, financial or whatever it is, and his cortisol is going up?

[00:12:59.600] – Kristen Letendre
Like I said before, the sex hormones are going down and let’s say that outside stress is causing him to stress eat. So now he’s eating all the carbs, all the sugar. He’s depressed. He’s trying to make himself feel better. Now he’s getting internal cortisol, increase internal stress because his insulin is going up and down. So the high cortisol level, this is interesting, leads to a higher aromatase activity. Now, when that happens, it means testosterone is converted to estrogen.

[00:13:32.780] – Kristen Letendre
But he already has low testosterone because his cortisol is up. So that means whatever little testosterone he has, he’s just converting it to estrogen, converting. It’s getting heavy on his abdomen, retaining more fat. So that is also a vicious cycle. That’s why it’s so important. You have to fix and find out what the functional problem is, because, yes, testosterone will help him. But if he is really has he’s a high estrogen converter because of all of this stress it is going to be a hard time to balance him out.

[00:14:05.650] – Sam Ridgeway
OK, so, yeah, and and that happens all the time that people come to us with low testosterone and then just that incredibly elevated estrogen and and that’s the thing that’s going on. I mean, it’s almost like a death spiral. They just continue to get into it. It just gets worse and worse or worse, more abdominal fat, more estrogen more conversion or aromatase.

[00:14:27.730] – Sam Ridgeway
I mean, all of those things that go together, it’s it’s just so I mean, that’s why I preach all the time. This stuff sounds like it’s some new fangled idea, like holistic type, and it’s not it’s it’s extremely effective. It’s it’s not that it’s easy by any stretch of the imagination, as you’ve already shown, it’s not easy. But if you get with somebody who knows what they’re talking about, who knows what they’re doing, is seeing this over and over, it’s relatively easy for them to bring you back into balance once they see your labs, hear what’s going on in your life, to hear how you’re feeling, all of those things going together, like, OK, here’s what I want to try first, those hormones back into balance.

[00:15:09.740] – Sam Ridgeway
It’s I mean, you’re never going to be 20 again, but you feel like – like you actually have energy. Your metabolism works again. You don’t gain five pounds just looking at a Big Mac. You can exercise. You put on lean muscle mass and get toned and look good. All of these things happen over hormones. And that’s as simple as it is that I just don’t know why more people aren’t doing this because it’s so effective and we change lives, thousands of people all the time.

[00:15:40.820] – Sam Ridgeway
And it’s just more and more and more and more all the time. So anyway, I just have to say that because it’s just perplexing to me why more people don’t say, OK, I had these issues, I’m going to go in and get this thing fixed, but was so moving on. How do you know what protocol is right for a patient and.

[00:15:58.960] – Kristen Letendre
OK, well. Get my props, you know, I love my props, so.

[00:16:07.120] – Kristen Letendre
Let’s say this, these are all little receptors, right, and they they need testosterone, they need hormone replacement. To answer your question, you don’t – you don’t – know how much they need because everyone is different. And the number on the bloodwork only tells you so much. It has to do with their metabolism, their stress level. All of this plays a role. So. There’s something called down regulation of the receptors, and what that means is you reduce the cell sensitivity to a molecule if you give it too much. So they’re almost going to need more and more and more to get just a little effect. So slow and low is always the best way to go because. So you could see this. You give a little bit know. OK. Oh, I start to feel better. But you know what, I feel OK, but not great. All right, we’ll give you a little more. Oh, you know what, I feel better.

[00:17:13.660] – Kristen Letendre
OK, but you know what, maybe you need a little more. We’ll give you a little more. Ding, ding, ding. You hit you hit the sweet spot. That’s it. I feel great. OK, good. Rather than.- We give you too much all at once. You’re going to feel phenomenal for a little bit and then all of a sudden your receptors aren’t as reactive and you’re not going to feel that great. You’re going to start to get symptoms.

[00:17:41.960] – Kristen Letendre
You’re going to feel like you did before because it’s too much for your body to handle. So it’s always better to start slow. They’re going to listen. You normally felt like this for a few years, so this slowly creeps up on you.

[00:17:57.060] – Kristen Letendre
It’s not going to get fixed like this, so you give a little, you give a little, we see how are you doing with follow up? OK, then we hit your sweet, sweet spot rather than we overload you. You like I said, you feel fantastic, but then you don’t feel good if you want to feel overloaded. Trust me, I think Joey at the gym could probably help you out. So go talk to him. But that’s not what we do here.

[00:18:23.780] – Sam Ridgeway
Right in that whole entire I mean, you just have to come into this thing understanding that it’s a process, like you said, you didn’t get there in a week, you’re not going to get out of it in a week. But also, like you said, if we go in and just dump a bunch of testosterone or whatever on top of you, and those receptors become immune and we need to continue to do more and more and more and more.

[00:18:45.640] – Sam Ridgeway
I mean, then that those other things are all right. So now we have other issues from that that we need to fix. So just that’s one of the things you have to understand is it’s not that some people like, oh, I know. Just start off here. We’re going to see where you go and then we’ll add on to it as we go along until we find that perfect spot, which is far better in the long run than, as you said, dumping a whole bunch of stuff in there, finding out it was too much and then trying to back it out.

[00:19:11.500] – Sam Ridgeway
Now, you got a problem, right? But the other way isn’t a problem. The other way is just continuing to modify. That dose until you get it to where it’s like it’s just perfect. Like you’re in that sweet spot, like you said. So I love that. I love that approach. It’s just people have to understand that this is what we’re doing.

[00:19:27.880] – Sam Ridgeway
We’re trying to get you to that place in the most expeditious way while not causing a whole bunch of other symptoms to. Believe me, you’re not going to want.

[00:19:37.400] – Kristen Letendre
Right, exactly.

[00:19:40.540] – Sam Ridgeway
Right. So what so what’s the best way to treat a patient overall and maybe explain something to that you shouldn’t like?

[00:19:49.150] – Kristen Letendre
Yeah, well, on that road for a minute, I’m going to give you examples like from a medical traditional medical perspective and then a hormone replacement perspective. Now my little choice. So let’s say. You go into your medical doctor and again, I’m not saying that you don’t need these things, so let’s not get crazy. I’m just saying you always have to treat the functional problem before overloading people with things that could be fixed with just fixing that problem.

[00:20:25.980] – Kristen Letendre
So let’s say a patient goes into the doctor and says, oh, I’m so depressed, anxious, I’m not sleeping. I have no motivation. Maybe his hormones are off, but instead the doctor says, here’s an antidepressant, OK, maybe the depression is better, maybe the anxiety is a little better. You know what, though? Now my libido is in good. My erections aren’t good because antidepressants can do that. All right. No problem.

[00:20:53.960] – Kristen Letendre
Here’s something else, OK? Now, that’s better. Now what?

[00:20:59.270] – Kristen Letendre
My joints are bothering me.

[00:21:00.890] – Kristen Letendre
I’m so achy because I didn’t fix the first problem. That was the hormones. All right.

[00:21:07.040] – Kristen Letendre
No problem Here is an anti inflammatory. OK, now you know what? My stomach is killing me. It’s I have acid. It’s burning. All right. We’ll give you a proton pump inhibitor about that and what’s going to happen.

[00:21:24.930] – Kristen Letendre
Just so many things you can stack on top of each other before it stops working. So that’s one. Now let’s talk about the in hormone world. So your hormones are off balance, like we said before, OK, we’re going to give you a lot of hormone replacement. All right, I feel good, but now you know what, my libidos aren’t great, my erections aren’t good. All right, we’ll give you some Cialis or Viagra. And again, I’m not saying that everyone doesn’t need it, but you might not need it if your hormones are off balance.

[00:22:02.990] – Kristen Letendre
So we give you that. OK, you know what? Now that’s better, but now I’m having, like, hair loss acne because the dose of testosterone over a hormone replacement is too high. All right. No problem. We’ll give you some finasteride and we’ll give you some antibiotics for your acne. OK, well, you know what? Now I’m having bloating, bad breast sensitivity. OK, you know what? We’ll give you an estrogen blocker or increase.

[00:22:31.550] – Kristen Letendre
That estrogen blocker, again, that’s only going to work for so long. You’re not fixing the problem. You’re just band aiding everything. So, in my opinion, fix the problem and you won’t have a problem.

[00:22:49.300] – Sam Ridgeway
That’s right, and that’s the process like we talk about, that’s a process and has to be done slowly, methodically and then but once you get to that sweet spot, it’s like amazing, like it is definitely worth the wait when you get to the point in your life to where you feel amazing again and all of your bodily functions are working in harmony again, including your metabolism, including your cognitive abilities, the ability to remember things, pull information out, sleep at night.

[00:23:18.050] – Sam Ridgeway
I mean, just sleep on top of it where you wake up in the morning and you’re refreshed. I mean, that improves your life just just by itself. So all of these things are definitely worth waiting for and all of these things have to do with hormones. I mean, that’s that’s that’s huge. We have to get that across. The hormones are the ones that the messengers for all of these things.

[00:23:38.390] – Sam Ridgeway
Yeah, but let’s just talk, I guess we should going toward the end. Let’s talk about maybe another peptide that might help the balancing of hormones. What what you got on the peptide front? Well, what is it like? Let’s just talk about what is a peptide to begin with.

[00:23:58.030] – Kristen Letendre
It’s a combination of amino acids. What one of them that I think is amazing is BPC 157. Your gut, as everyone has been saying for years, gut is really a central focus, which is why diet and everything plays a role. Your gut gut health is very important. So BPC 157 is a chain of fifteen amino acids and it’s derived from the protective proteins in the gut. It’s referred to as the the body protein compound or the body protection compounds.

[00:24:33.670] – Kristen Letendre
And a lot of people use it for musculoskeletal repair. If you have some injury is tendons, nerve repair. And it also though, there’s a lot of things, a lot of other things I should say that it does it can really help your intestines. There is a brain gut access that certain 95 percent of serotonin, which is the feel good hormone, is stored in your gut. So if that gut is off balance, that brain gut access is the pathway is interrupted.

[00:25:09.480] – Kristen Letendre
So you’re going to feel depression, anxiety, a decreased motivation. Dopamine is also affected, which is the pleasure hormone. So BPC 157. Besides helping musculoskeletal repairs also helps to create better gut health and restore that brain gut access which can help with your mood. And there’s another thing I wanted to talk about. Serotonin syndrome. That is when your serotonin levels are just destroy the receptors, that you’re not getting enough. This can be caused by medications like migraines.

[00:25:50.010] – Kristen Letendre
What else? Pain meds, depression, antidepressants, Robitussin, D.M. can cause it. And also outside drugs like ecstasy, cocaine. So serotonin syndrome could be a problem where you have increased heart rate, you don’t feel good. Nausea, vomiting, blood pressure going up. And that could be because your gut and your brain access aren’t in sync. So BPC is incredible for, like I said, not only musculoskeletal healing of injuries, nerve damage, but also just overall gut health to restore another one of your hormone balances.

[00:26:33.090] – Sam Ridgeway
Yeah, you know, and I as we talked about, I take BPC every day, so I kind of microdose it and if I have a surgery or something, I need to heal, then I step it up on the BPC and I also throw in some TB 500 on top of that together. And every time I’ve done that, every time my wife has done that, we’ve gone back to the doctor and it’s the same story over and over again.

[00:26:56.760] – Sam Ridgeway
You are healing incredibly quickly like it is mind blowing really fast, how fast, how fast you’re healing.

[00:27:05.640] – Sam Ridgeway
And what they attribute it to is they’re like, oh, but, you know, you eat right and you exercise and that kind of thing. So and I don’t really tell them that it is BPC 157 and TB500 because then they always say, is that stuff even legal? And, you know, that kind of thing. But there have been so many people with injuries that have been helped with BPC and TB on top of it, that it is an amazing compound.

[00:27:28.440] – Sam Ridgeway
So if you’re if you’re out there and you have any nagging injuries- you can’t promise it’s going to fix it. I mean, and it also depends on the severity. I mean, if you’re down in your arms, hanging off of your shoulder, you know, it’s not going to fix it. But if you have a nagging injury, muscle tears, if you have some joint pain from, like, I don’t know, just a rip or something in in the cartilage or things like that.

[00:27:55.470] – Sam Ridgeway
This thing does absolute wonders. And then going beyond that even goes, like you said, mental health, because that serotonin, that’s what makes you feel good. That’s that’s the thing when you’re feeling on top of the world, that’s what it is. And whether that isn’t being produced you’re going to be depressed, like that’s just going to be your life, you’re going to be just depressed all the time. So anyway, BPC, as you said, can help aid the production of that serotonin.

[00:28:20.310] – Sam Ridgeway
That dopamine, to get you feeling like that again, gets you feeling like. Right. So those are important, extremely important things. So I get some questions is if if someone goes on hormone therapy, how long would it be before they should start expecting results?

[00:28:37.290] – Kristen Letendre
You can’t say because it depends on what their balanced problem was to begin with and what level they have to reach, usually patients after like four, six weeks definitely feel something, whether they’re at their optimal sweet spot, maybe not, but they’ll have better energy.

[00:28:59.310] – Kristen Letendre
They’ll be sleeping better. Slowly, they’ll start to see positive changes.

[00:29:05.970] – Sam Ridgeway
OK, and let’s see how much this hormone therapy cost, and that’s going to vary as well. I mean, you could you could talk about that on your side or I could talk about that on my side.

[00:29:14.910] – Sam Ridgeway
But that’s going to vary depending on what you need and how much you need and you know, what different types of medications, you know, I mean, all of these things are a factor. But I can come in and say. For the average person around one hundred and fifty dollars a month, like somewhere around in that area, women are saying maybe a little bit less sometimes. So it’s under two hundred dollars for most people a month, which is usually doable.

[00:29:46.600] – Sam Ridgeway
You know, that’s that’s something that most people can handle. And there is no insurance.

[00:29:53.770] – Sam Ridgeway
But we do not do the insurance thing because a lot of times insurance companies claim it’s an elective thing, which I don’t know why, but they do. And we would be fine doing nothing but fighting with – I’d have to hire 10 people with insurance companies. I’m not doing it. It’s cash that ‘s it. You might turn into your insurance company.

[00:30:06.980] – Sam Ridgeway
Fine. But anyway, so that’s about what it cost. So it’s actually very like reasonably priced to go on hormone therapy. So how do you get started? How do you get started on hormone therapy or at least talking about it? Can I just call and speak to somebody to see if it’s right for me?

[00:30:30.870] – Kristen Letendre
You can I mean, we have free consultations, we we kind of can’t say if it’s right for you if we don’t have labs.

[00:30:38.490] – Kristen Letendre
So we would need a set of labs because that is one piece of the puzzle. It’s not the complete one, but it is one. But, yeah, we have free consultations. They can sign up with Viking, fill out their intake form and just give us a set of labs that we need and then we can discuss it to see if we think it would help them.

[00:30:57.540] – Sam Ridgeway
Perfect. Yeah. So the so the process kind of is you go to Vikingalternative,com, you’re going to see a new patient form. There’s an entire get started tab up there. It guides you through the process for basically fill out the new patient form. We need to know a little bit about you. You would go get labs, either you can get labs on your own or you can come to us and we can provide a lab requisition for you.

[00:31:16.620] – Sam Ridgeway
You go to LabCorp locally and get those labs taking care of they go right into your patient chart. Easy for you to do. Usually the next day, two days at most, and you schedule your consultation. You do that online as well. You talk to one of our medical providers, one like Kristen, and then they determine what the proper treatment would be for you. And about seven to ten business days after that is when your package shows up on your doorstep and there you are. Refills are pretty easy.

[00:31:42.670] – Sam Ridgeway
Go right on the website. Click the refill button, fill out a small form and then you get a refill. If you need different medications, come back and talk to medical provider. If they find it’s necessary to do what they want to say is we are not a Chinese drug buffet. Like you do not call us up and tell us what you’re going to get. You call us – you tell us what’s going on in your life and we will tell you what you’re going to get.

[00:32:04.260] – Sam Ridgeway
That’s how this thing works. I just there are too many people that think they’re running the show and we’re not the clinic for you. If that’s the way you’re thinking. You tell us what’s going on in your life. We will propose a recommendation to a recommended protocol. And then that’s the one that you’re going to get. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll modify it and tweak it and get it to where it is. Right. But that, again, is a process.

[00:32:27.780] – Sam Ridgeway
And that needs to be it needs to be respected as a process. So that’s kind of the way I felt.

[00:32:33.810] – Kristen Letendre
If I patients like that, if we are serious, we are truly trying to help you and balance you out. We’re not looking for that. If people like that, like, what do you think is a stop and shop? You can take a little bit of this. No, that’s not how this works.

[00:32:47.700] – Sam Ridgeway
Right, and then one more question, we’ll do one more question will take off is this for both for both men and women. Right. Like a lot of people think of hormone therapy and they think of testosterone replacement therapy, which kind of throws it over into the man’s world.

[00:33:02.610] – Sam Ridgeway
Right. Kind of leaving the women out. But as we’ve found, as my wife has found out, hormone therapy as far as libido, as far as menopause, as far as weight loss and the ability to lose weight, water retention, not retainting all of that water, irritability, all of these things, because I think we already understand that TRT in the men’s world. Got that. But I think what needs to come out a little bit more is that hormone side for women that the part how this can help women.

[00:33:32.760] – Sam Ridgeway
They spent all of that money all the time on these quick fix things that they know isn’t going to work, but yet they continue to do it. So I guess we need to get the word out that this is extremely important for women and can fix a lot of issues going on. So once you just give a few before we go, give a few examples of what women may be going through that hormone therapy could fix.

[00:33:59.990] – Kristen Letendre
Well, when women reach that perimenopausal -menopausal age, they have they could have estrogen dominance or just a higher estrogen level to a lower progesterone level or not enough estrogen, which testosterone plays a role in the conversion.

[00:34:19.130] – Kristen Letendre
And women have testosterone, too. That’s what people have to understand. Like just like men. You say men. Oh, progesterone and progesterone. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. And it affects you. You have progesterone. You have estrogen, just like women have testosterone. The ratios are very different. But, well, both of you have all three hormones and they all have to be balanced in your body. So if a woman is off – the main thing for a woman with testosterone is their libido, if they have low libido, that’s usually that their estrogen is low and testosterone is low.

[00:34:55.250] – Kristen Letendre
And a lot of women that have been on birth control pills, it kills their libido and their testosterone. Their SHBG is way up high, which is holding on to any testosterone that they have. And they have very little sex drive. So that is one example of how women are affected besides the weight gain, the abdominal bloating, the emotions when their hormones are off, when they go through this menopausal lovely stage in our lives.

[00:35:24.640] – Sam Ridgeway
Well, that sounds like pretty good birth control making you not want to, so maybe that’s the way you go.

[00:35:30.140] – Kristen Letendre
Yeah, maybe. But anyway.

[00:35:32.450] – Sam Ridgeway
All right, Kristen. Well, I mean, we will. That’s enough questions. I wanted to keep this about 30 minutes, so I wanted to get to too long. But you’ve brought up a lot of good information. I think you’ve explained things extremely well. I love your props and I appreciate you coming on and taking your time to do all of this. So thank you so much, everybody. Thanks for watching.

[00:35:50.530] – Sam Ridgeway
And that’s a wrap. Viking alternative.com