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Heeding Your Hormones, Part One: Cortisol

June 19, 2014 by Wendei

Many of you got to meet Dr. Fischer, our naturopathic doctor, at our fabulous 2 year anniversary party in April. Those of you who know me or have gotten referrals from me in the past know that I’m very picky about my health care providers so I only refer out to people I’ve personally used. Dr. Fischer is no exception.

I have gained A LOT of weight over the last few years even though I’m a healthy eater… I knew something wasn’t right and wasn’t looking forward to my 4’11” frame turning into a beach ball. Dr. Fischer did an incredibly thorough lab workup on me and, low and behold, I’m in the throes of peri-menopause and some of my hormones were practically non-existant. I started on supplements and bioidentical (plant based) hormone therapy, and within a couple of weeks I already have more energy and the scale is moving down instead of up for the first time in three years! Dr. Fischer is a science and ingredient geek like me so I really connect with him because he explains how everything works and, as you all know, for me, knowledge is power. Dr. Fischer is giving me back control over my body and I’m so grateful! 

He’s at Peace of Mind every Tuesday and offers consultation, hormone balancing, vitamin injections (I get one every week), IV therapies, and he also happens to be an acupuncturist and can prescribe Chinese herbs. Let me know if you’d like to book an appointment. Naturopaths can be considered primary care providers so if you have PPO insurance, ask him for a detailed bill so you can bill your insurance for reimbursement.
 
Wendei

 

 

by Dr. Jeremy Fischer

We have a variety of different hormones in our bodies. They each play an important role in regulating our health, helping to keep us feeling vibrant, healthy, and youthful.

They are important for maintaining a healthy weight and retaining muscle mass, regulating the female menstrual cycle, maintaining libido and energy, reacting to stress, suppressing inflammation, regulating the immune system, and more. However, due to various factors, such as stress, chronic disease, dietary factors, environmental toxins, physical traumas, as well as due to normal aging, you can have problems with hormones – whether imbalances, or frank deficiencies. Maintaining hormone balance goes a long way in terms of optimizing your health and vitality. Therefore, in this series, I’ll be addressing several key hormones, why they matter, what sorts of problems they might cause, and what you can do about it.

In this first article of the series, I will address cortisol.

Many of you may be familiar with the anti-inflammatory uses of cortisol, also known as hydrocortisone. Cortisol is used as a medicine to suppress inflammation, for example when someone has a painful swollen joint, or when they have an autoimmune disease or allergic reaction that is raging out of control.

When the body is stressed, the adrenal glands release extra cortisol to help maintain fuel for energy production. This is good in the short-term. However if the stressor continues for too long, and your cortisol levels are chronically elevated, this can cause problems, such as an impaired immune system, bone loss, elevated blood sugar and insulin resistance (the precursors to diabetes), impaired memory, infertility, menstrual irregularities, weight gain, insomnia and anxiety. Chronic stress can even cause the adrenal glands to produce excess testosterone in women, causing hirsutism (excess facial hair).

If the stress is intense enough, or lasts long enough, the adrenal glands can become worn out, and unable to create enough hormones– not only cortisol, but also aldosterone, testosterone, DHEA, to name a few. This can show up as depression, weight gain (notice this one shows up with both high AND low cortisol), chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, low blood pressure, etc.

If it sounds like a patient has cortisol irregularities, I may order some lab tests to see what the actual cortisol levels are. It is possible we may order other labs as well, since hormones interact with each other in a complex web of relations. My goal as a naturopathic doctor is to treat the underlying cause of disease. In this case, it means I look at all the potential factors that might be causing cortisol elevation/depression, including lifestyle factors, diet, diseases/infections, stress, etc. Sometimes we can regulate cortisol with lifestyle change alone. Other times, we may need vitamins and other nutrients, acupuncture, herbal medicine, or even prescription cortisol.

I’ll often use a combination approach since life is multifactorial, and therefore our treatments ought to be multifactorial as well. What I mean is that there are often various factors that go into creating a given condition. If we address all the factors and underlying causes, we get better results than just giving a drug that treats just ONE aspect of the condition. For example, when I treat high blood pressure, I don’t just want to make sure the blood pressure goes down. That’s an important goal, but I want to look at all the underlying factors contributing to the high blood pressure. Similarly, with high cortisol, I want to help induce relaxation, support a healthy diet that doesn’t cause cortisol elevations, optimize sleep as sleep issues can also affect cortisol, etc. Also, every patient is a unique individual, and so we adjust the treatment to their particular condition.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for the next installment of Heeding Your Hormones. It’s going to be an interesting one. I’ll be writing about testosterone.

Dr. Fischer is a Naturopathic doctor, practicing at Peace of Mind, in Studio City, CA. His passion is helping people to overcome chronic disease and attain their maximum state of vitality.

Filed Under: Life Enhancing Tips Tagged With: advanced clinical care, Dr. Fischer, hormones, naturopathic medicine

All About Acne: Facts and Myths

June 18, 2014 by Wendei Leave a Comment

I’ve been wanting to start a dialogue about acne for a long time now so let’s get started.

First, there are a lot of myths about acne. We’ve all heard that eating greasy fried foods or chocolate causes acne. We’ve heard that we have to “dry out” acne to cure it or that we shouldn’t use moisturizers. Some of us avoid using all moisturizers and sunscreens because we’re afraid it’s going to cause a break out. All the above are false, but do have some merit and I’ll address them soon.

Fact number one:  Acne is a hereditary condition. That’s right. Even if your mom or dad didn’t have acne, someone in your family had it and you can send them a special thank you for passing it down to you.

Fact number two:  Acne is classified as a disease. Not only is it a disease, but it can’t be cured, only controlled, until your body finally clears it and in most cases it will.

Fact number three:  Acne is caused by many different types of bacteria that irritate the pore (aka follicle). Once this follicle is irritated, dead skin cells build up, sticky oil mixes in with those cells and even more bacteria grows. The result can be blackheads, whiteheads (milia) pimples, cysts or nodules.

Fact number four:  Whether you’re a teen, or an adult struggling with breakouts, I can help you get your acne under control. But it takes commitment. You didn’t get your acne overnight and no matter what anyone tells you, it’s not going to go away overnight. You’ll have to use certain products, eat a certain way, come in more often at the beginning for treatments and acne-specific facials, but you WILL clear up.

Let’s talk about a couple of those myths. Greasy foods don’t cause acne, but salt can aggravate acne and make it worse.  To get technical, it’s actually the iodide in salt. Try using small amounts of sea salt instead if you salt your food.  Avoid most fast foods because they contain a ton of iodized salt. The good news is that you don’t have to give up chocolate.  A little bit of dark chocolate is actually good for you. Dark chocolate is much lower in sugar and actually has antioxidants which take down inflammation. Wait a sec, did she actually say chocolate is GOOD for us? Yep! Just don’t abuse it and the higher percentage of cacao the better. It’s the sugar in chocolate that’s bad for us. I’ve found lots of yummy ways to satisfy my chocolate cravings without the sugar. Maybe I’ll even share some of my recipes down the road.

Today I’ll give you one tip if you are one of the people struggling with acne or even the occasional breakout. Don’t pick! I know you want to, but it actually creates more problems. Instead, grab an ice cube and ice your breakouts. In fact, give your entire face a little ice massage. It can not only help lessen current breakouts but also prevent future episodes by taking down inflammation in the skin. You can use a plain ol’ ice cube, a bag of frozen veggies or fill a Dixie cup with water and keep it in the freezer and peel it down a little each time you use it. Icing at least a couple times a day will make a huge difference – I promise.

Please share this with any of your friends and family that may benefit and post any comments or questions below. As always, thanks for reading!!!

Wendei

 

Filed Under: Life Enhancing Tips Tagged With: acne, advanced clinical care, blackheads, comedome extraction, extractions, peace of mind is a quality of life, replenish & renew your skin, salicylic acid, sebaceous glands, skin care regimen

Peace of Mind is a Quality of Life.

October 25, 2011 by Wendei

We provide a Whole Body Approach to Skin Care with our commitment to educate  and empower our clients to find more joy in every day.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Life Enhancing Tips, Peace of Mind Skin and Body Featured Post Tagged With: advanced clinical care, natural beauty, peace of mind is a quality of life, peace of mind skincare, peaceful offerings, skin care regimen, wendei spale

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Peace of Mind Skin & Body Care in Encino specializes in corrective facials and body care, but don’t be fooled by our amazing result-oriented treatments – we provide an incredibly pampering spa experience with customized aromatherapy blends and amazing massage in a relaxing and welcoming environment as well.

We offer everything from the very basic but pampering deep cleansing facials and hydrating facials to micro phototherapy, LED, micro current, & oxygen infusion facials. We also offer the best acne treatment and micro needling in Encino. We are Los Angeles’ most experienced estheticians.

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