Perimenopause Treatment: It’s Not Just About Hormones | 103

Oh, Dr, Emilie, I am so excited to talk to you about how you are helping women over 40 Shepherd their way through this glorious transition in life, which can often feel very uncomfortable and an inconvenience. So let's go back to the it has to be me moment when you decided to be a naturopath.

Dr Emilie Wilson: You know, this started. I discovered naturopathic medicine back when I was, I think, 20 years old, and my love of naturopathic medicine was really born in this herbal apothecary. I stepped inside because I loved herbal medicine. I was out in the woods. I was studying plants. I

was, you know, spending a lot of time, probably more time than I should have, in sweat lodges.

And, oh, you and I might have been in a sweat lodge together.

Dr Emilie Wilson: I wasn't really in a place where I could talk to people, but I just I fell in love with herbal medicine, and I loved, like the lore behind it, and the stories and the power and so that really led me into this little herbal shop, which led me to naturopathic medicine. And I

remember thinking I could do this, it. I had always thought about medicine, but I was never interested in it because it seemed so boring and so sterile, right? Like in a bottle white rooms, disinfecting everything. And, you know, we still do the disinfection part and the white rooms. But with naturopathic

medicine, we get to really create a plan for somebody. I don't give the same prescription 100 times a day. I give a different 100 different prescriptions a day, and it's a lot of work, but I love it.

So it's one thing to embrace it and be fascinated by it as a recipient, let's say, because I have, you know, naturopathic medicine really changed my life as a teenager, and really set me on a path of healing. But then to go, I can do this, like you said. So what was it inside of you that went,

Yeah, that's for me. That's mine. I'm claiming that I'm going to heal people.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, you know it always, it really started with that, that when I had the pleasure and the opportunity to sit with the naturopathic doctor, so I got a job in that little apothecary, and the doctor allowed me to come into some patient visits and to see how she was connecting with her

patients, and to see how she was really creating something Special for each person. What it lit me up. Knew even at the time. I mean, I was in my early 20s at that point, and I knew at that point that this was another step on my path. This wasn't the end goal. It was one more thing, and I had no idea what that

meant. And now, as I get older, and I've been practicing for a while, and the culture around medicine and natural medicine is changing so much. I I really feel like now we have this opportunity to open the door to a whole new level of healing, which has a lot more to do with you know, tell me about how you

walk through the world. Tell me about your emotional self, tell me about your spiritual self, because even you know, the herbs can do so much, the supplements can do so much, but what if we can access something even a little bit deeper than that? What if we can bit deeper and so what I love about naturopathic

medicine too is that it's always changing. It's always growing. Or at least for me, it is what

I'm hearing from you, is this through line of listening to the story and getting to the core of what's going on, the root of things. And that is what holistic medicine does in such a beautiful way. So what was the seed of that for you as a human being, of of really looking at

the whole picture and zooming in? Where did that come from, that fascination with that piece of it?

Dr Emilie Wilson: You know, I, I very much identify as a right brain person. So from that right brained place, we really do get to step back and see things from a very broad perspective. And it's just the way that I like to create my awareness of a person, you know, I don't like. We don't exist on the page. We don't

exist in electronic medical records. We exist in the world. And while we'll always only know a piece of each other, the more I can understand about how a woman is walking through the world, the more I can understand where the action. Imbalance might be, because I talk to women all the time about, you

know, the confusion that they have in this world around perimenopause and menopause. I'm sure you do too, right? Yeah, because all we hear, we hear so much noise, so many we're always being sold things, right? Like we're being sold new perimenopause supplements or hormone replacement or whatever

else, and they're they all have a place, but there's a lot of confusion. And so if I can help women identify, maybe where her her imbalances are not her sisters or her mom's or her best friends, but hers. Now we know what might really help her get back into balance, right? So just such a creative process,

it's such a

it is creative. Thank you for acknowledging that healing is creative, and we often don't think of it that way. It is story driven?

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yes, absolutely. And that's what lights me up. It's I want to hear your story. I want to know who are you. How do you identify? Because who you tell me you are might be very different than the woman I see walking in the door or zoom camera.

Oh, that's an important distinction, isn't it? This ability to see women in perimenopause and menopause was born out of your own personal story. So take me inside the decision to specialize in this piece of naturopathic medicine.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, you know, I have throughout my career, specialized in various aspects of the human experience. You know, I started out really focused on mental health, and then I moved more into gut health, and then I discovered the world of hormone health, and

that is connected to gut health and mental health.

Dr Emilie Wilson: It's connected to everything. And I my home, this is where I live, because I get to talk everything now, right? And cardio, metabolic health, I love, to me, it's like when we can help a woman fix her her metabolism. It's like watch pieces of her body just fall right back

into place. It's extraordinary, isn't it? When we look at the statistics that over 93% of people do not fit the criteria for metabolic health, over nine out of 10 people, it's extraordinary. We're in a metabolic health crisis, as we know,

Dr Emilie Wilson: shocking, yeah, and we're not doing I don't like to place blame, but I will say that the world we do not have an adequate solution to the problem. We are missing an adequate an individualized solution,

which you're providing one woman at a time. You know that thing, isn't it? When we see these huge problems that we have, how do we eat the whale one bite at a time? And so you're helping one woman at a time. We're helping one one woman at a time, you know. And as we do that, we heal more and

more people. And there is a domino effect in terms of people embracing this approach, this more holistic one on one, woman to woman, helping women, women, helping women. You know, it is really part of it, and not that there aren't fantastic male doctors, because they're, they're very much are, but

there's something about having been through it yourself, yes, so take me inside of your journey with that. What happened, you know, in your life with with your perimenopause journey, yeah, that feeds into your ability to see women in this in this way, yeah?

Dr Emilie Wilson: So it really began for me. So I had been in the world of hormones, and then it's sort of like my career is defined by my life, you know?

So, oh, isn't that everybody really, if you if you connect the dots, yeah, truly,

Dr Emilie Wilson: so I had lost 40 pounds, I had fixed my hormones, and then I was able to get pregnant and have a baby at 42 Yeah.

Oh, so yours was also a fertility journey.

Dr Emilie Wilson: You know? It wasn't. It was. It was all of the hormone healing that needed to happen beforehand. And honestly, this is where the mental health piece comes in, because my hormones were out of whack, but I was depressed. I was depressed because my hormones and were unwell, my

thyroid was unwell, all of the things and so that healing that got me to the point where I was ready to go out and date and meet somebody you know. So so so this is how our physical health informs and defines our life experience. So, so that's really how it happened. And then, you know, fortunately, I did not

have a hard time getting pregnant, thank goodness. But what happened for me was I had, you know, I had a beautiful pregnancy, and then I was completely unprepared. For postpartum again, had my daughter at 42 and then went through this postpartum journey and came out of it into the

world of perimenopause. So I had and and the way that I have always addressed my own concerns or problems is to try and learn as much as I can about it. And so I learned a lot about the world of postpartum health and about the world of perimenopausal health. And I was like, there are so many there's

so many crossovers. These are not two separate things. These are different stories of the way that our hormones affect us profoundly as women, and they deserve to be heard, and they deserve to be treated in a medical setting, because we don't have to just deal with it.

So yeah, and it's also not just about the sex hormones, that there's over 150 hormones and neurotransmitters and this intricate, beautiful communication system where, if you are not paying attention to it, it's like having a glitchy computer, and you know, there just aren't enough women paying

attention to gut health and blood sugar and metabolic health and how this affects this, this hormone balance situation, at any phase of life, but particularly when our sex hormones are in rapid decline in perimenopause and menopause. So I want to get on to some practical stuff here, because

you have some incredible resources that help women. What are the three biggest things that biggest issues with women, that women come to you with problems in with that they're struggling with in perimenopause? I want to see if it's the same things that the same three things that I would

list, just on a personal note, because I'm fascinated by this.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah. I mean, for me, I see I talk all the time about brain fog, I talk all the time about sleep, and I talk all the time about weight gain.

Oh, thank you. There we go to the same three. It's the same three that the, you know, people come into skinny 60, into our 60 day research with, with the same three. You know, a lot of other issues as well. You know, pre diabetes diagnosis, you know cardiovascular issues. I mean,

there's, you know, inflammation, you know, aches and pains. I mean, there's also, you know, hot flashes, night sweats, etc, but those are the three top ones.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yep, same here?

Do you also get a lot of women coming to you, as you alluded to it before? So I'm going to assume the answer is yes, but, but just to get some more detail around it, this, this feeling of hopelessness that I'm a hostage in my own body, and that it is going to be impossible for me to regain

control of it, and I'm just not going to be able to lose weight and feel fantastic and live my best life over 40, that is all downhill from here. I may as well just succumb to my symptoms. Do you get a lot of women coming in with that, that mentality

Dr Emilie Wilson: all the time, all the time, and it's heartbreaking, because, again, we have just been sort of, I hate to use the word victim, but, but kind of victims of this medical system that allows us, that has told us, you know, this is just life. Deal with it. You know, it's all in your head,

from from male and female doctors. There's so much gaslighting.

Dr Emilie Wilson: It's in just your age. Well. And here's the thing, too. We live in a world, as you mentioned earlier, where where we are sort of normalizing metabolic dysfunction and disease. We are normalizing functional chronic illnesses. And so a woman might be in perimenopause. She might also be

living with some sort of low grade metabolic problem or low grade infection or low grade inflammatory process that she's been able to manage and just deal with and get through her days living with, and then all of a sudden, perimenopause hits. We lose our resilience a little bit. We lose our ability to

bounce back. And so now the problem becomes even more layered. And this isn't every woman by any stretch of the imagination, but I see it often enough that it tells me, yeah, we're looking at a layered problem here. We are not looking at HRT as the golden ticket, or this supplement is the golden

ticket. No, we might need to dig a little deeper.

There is no golden ticket. That's the other thing that, I think is is part of the issue is that everybody's looking for the magic pill, the one thing that's going to make everything fall into place. And it's, as you say, so, much more nuanced, and it is a cohesive plan that fits your body and

your lifestyle and your needs,

Dr Emilie Wilson: yeah, and to go back to what you said earlier, about about healing as storytelling, I think it's actually a journey of self empowerment, right? Because if the things that are going to change the way we feel in our 40s and 50s and beyond you. We've just taken our power back.

We have just transformed our life. And that's what lights me up. Like I'm just getting goose bumps right now, because that's the transformation that I look for in women

when the light goes back on. Yeah, I'm

Dr Emilie Wilson: sure you see it all the time too, in your work

all the time. It is so thrilling to be a part of it. It's such a privilege, this idea that, Oh, I'm a person that can heal myself, my body can heal itself when I put the right mechanisms in place and things that are appropriate for me at this phase of life. And as you said before, there is no one

size fits all. There is no one prescription that you write. There is no one box of strategies that fit every single person. This one size fits all thing is a wonderful marketing approach. And to your point earlier, we are just bombarded with advertisements for the magic pill, I mean, and people

you know want it to be that easy, and when it's not, they get very disappointed. But if you put the work in and you're actually willing to look at the whole story, it's really miraculous. What happens and very quickly,

Dr Emilie Wilson: yes, yes,

isn't it? It's extraordinary. The turnaround when you figure out the pieces of the puzzle, yep.

Dr Emilie Wilson: And then I think the other piece here too is is committing to yourself. You and I are asking women to do big things during a time of life when most of us are already really, really busy. And so now we're saying, let's change your diet. Let's talk about exercise. Let's make sure you're sleeping

more. Hey, stress reduction. What does that look like and and it can be a whole nother level of overwhelm until they decide I'm worth it, I'm I'm ready to feel better, and I'm going to divert some of this energy that I've been so used to giving to everyone else, back to myself, because I'm worth it.

Reclaiming it is a reclamation. Yes, this phase of life and this idea of self care not being narcissistic or selfish, a lot of women feel guilty spending time and money and resources and energy and hope. I would argue that hope, hope and love are the two most valuable currencies. Yeah, on

themselves that it's got to be my children, my husband, my co workers, my church group, my community. You know, we're taught as nurturers that we need to be indentured servants, yes, and that self care is selfishness, and they are not the same thing. So when we invest in our own self care, and

we find that balance of self care and care for others, and that balance of self care and fun, and we realize, you know, and embrace this bio, individual nature of healing, it's so beautiful. So when you're working with a woman, and you meet her, and you start to talk about her story. Where do you

start? You know, in your naturopathic practice, let's talk about some practical stuff, like you've got a wonderful lab guide. Thank you so much for creating that, because I think it's such a wonderful resource. And dear listener, I'll put the link in the show note, because it is a wonderful resource. So

definitely go and get that. What are the labs that we need to get to just get a baseline to just see, okay, here's the lay of the land. This is what's going on in my body right now. What do you recommend? Yeah, I love that.

Dr Emilie Wilson: So when I first started seeing a woman in my practice, it really is informed by her story. But if I were going to cast, you know, a general wide net, I would look at things like thyroid. I would absolutely look at her cardio metabolic health. I would look at inflammatory markers, because

you've already said it too inflammation. It's just such a part of our lives after 40 or the tendency is greater. And then I would look at, there are certain nutrients I like to check too. And because I'm a naturopathic doctor, I have a lot of really big, fancy ways to do that. But generally speaking,

if I look at, I want to do an in depth iron check. I want to do vitamin D, and I want to do vitamin B 12 at the very minimum.

And should we have an advanced thyroid panel that's not part of a standard lab panel?

Dr Emilie Wilson: Everyone should, especially a woman in her 40s, yep, because the thyroid is like so many other things. The thyroid is like blood sugar in that one of the last things to change on a on a lab, on a piece of paper, are the numbers we check the most frequently. As you know, the A,

1c, and the fasting blood glucose are probably going to stay pretty much within range until there's a significant issue. Yeah, but before that, other markers start to change. It's the same thing with thyroid. So if we're only looking at TSH, we're waiting until we see the tip of the

iceberg. We're waiting until we can touch the tip of the iceberg right our little boat. We want to be able to see it far ahead and change course. So, yeah, I'm a big fan of the full thyroid panel.

Yeah, yeah. And because we know that women are predisposed for cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, they're the highest risk category group for fatty liver disease. Now, one in three people has fatty liver and it's only rising just because of the metabolic health crisis that

we've been speaking about. So where do we go from there, once we've got our labs and we look at some of these things, are there more? Do you do a microbiome stool test? You know, some of these other things that that we I mean, everyone should be having a DEXA scan. Or, you know, over the age of 40, not

50, not 60. We should be doing it. You know, in our 40s, what are some of the other tests that you recommend realistically?

Dr Emilie Wilson: Because we live in a world where people are conscious of their health care dollars, I think that these general panels are really good start, and from there, I like to I also, when I work with a woman, I get a ton of information. So our visit starts the moment she fills out her

paperwork and gets it back to me, because I do ask for a lot of information. I want to know as much as possible before we sit down together. So I'm not asking her what her medications are or,

Oh, thank you. I mean, my goodness, what are you asking? What's on your form this?

Dr Emilie Wilson: Oh, so that's it's all the basics. It is. What are your medications? What are your allergies? What is your family history? What is your personal history? You know, medical history. What are your symptoms? I have them do a symptom assessment where we look at everything from what's going

on with your skin to your breath to your sweat to your periods to hair, just I want to get a sense of her physically as much as possible, because that helps me, before we even sit down together, it helps me start to identify possible patterns, possible things that might be happening below the surface, so

that when We sit down together for that precious chunk of time, I can dive right into questions that might, you know, move me forward faster with her, and then I can also create space for her story, the most important part.

And thank you for bringing up the importance of looking at patterns that we're not just looking at numbers, right? We've got to be looking at patterns over time.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yes, and I love that you said that, because, for example, with with hormone blood tests, they're not, again, I'm a functional medicine doctor, so they're not my preferred form. Personally, they can be very helpful, especially when managing bio, identical hormones. But there's

such a wide lab range in what's normal for a

woman, oh yes, and those not and those yardsticks change, the diagnostic criteria changes for god knows what kinds of reasons, sometimes.

Dr Emilie Wilson: And it's fascinating, too, these numbers are, they're, they're, they're not arbitrary, but they're created in that these come from the pool of human samples that that particular lab company has received throughout the course of the year, and they might reference ranges. But who are we

testing? Are we testing a healthy population? Are we testing a sickness? Have we have women and we're just lumping them all together? So we're comparing the hormones of a 20 year old with endometriosis, with the hormones of a 45 year old who's not sleeping and has hot flashes, and we're saying

that both of those are normal. So to your point about patterns, it's super helpful, just like with a DEXA, if we can get this baseline information for you and then track it over time, especially if blood labs are your preferred, you know your preferred form of getting lab results.

So what is your preferred form?

Dr Emilie Wilson: Then you know if money were not an option. And I used to do this, I used to actually have a program, which I initially called reclaim.

You. Oh, we're talking about reclamation, here we go.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, it's been reborn. But throughout the course of the program, I have called it my dream suite of labs, right? So we do, I do extensive blood work, because for a lot of things, blood work is best, you know, especially the cardio metabolic pieces, the.

Thyroid, the blood is the truth serve of the body. It is, it is

Dr Emilie Wilson: no, no, and it's, there's so much going on in the blood itself, yes, and it's sort of it in my mind. My mind went to the immune system. And that's a whole nother conversation. But basically, so we do the blood work, and then we run we do the stool microbiome test, because I think

that's essential, and to be honest with you, that's where I start with a lot of people, because you already know this so so well, but our health starts at the level of the gut.

Yes, I mean, that should be the starting point all the time, but it just isn't.

Dr Emilie Wilson: And I think someday I'm an optimist, but I think someday insurance is going to cover at least some of these tests, probably a stool microbiome test. It'll probably be another 100 years or so, but I hope we get to that point quickly, because it is that

helpful, I mean, and also, not even just the testing look in the toilet bowl after you poop, it is such a great indicator of your health. It's not the only indicator, but a great indicator of what's going on and how things are moving in the body, and if your bowels aren't moving every day,

not a lot else is moving. So okay, so you're doing the microbiome stool test, and I want to ask your opinion about this, because my dietitians and I, we are not in for those mail in test things where they're going to tell you what's wrong with you and then sell you the solution. You're basically

getting put into a sales funnel. There's always going to be, you know, a whole heap of things and then a whole heap of solutions. So it is preferable always to be getting your lab work done in any kind of diagnostic testing done with a qualified practitioner who's going to listen to your whole story. So

when you get the results back from a microbiome stool test. Talk me through how you will discuss those results with with a woman and the and the other labs.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, so, so what I'll usually do is we'll run a little suite of labs. That's number one, and we start there with the healing process. So we start with inside of this program, we start with creating a gut healing protocol. And I, I think maybe twice I've worked with a woman who didn't need a

little bit of like gut cleansing.

Most show me someone that doesn't, I mean, that's a daily practice. That's a daily maintenance. Yeah, it is.

Dr Emilie Wilson: And so we start with that. We start by rebalancing her gut to rebalance everything else. And you know, the gut also can harbor a lot of little chronic infections that slowly zap away our energy, slowly zap away our vitality, slowly put us into a state of inflammation where you know

doctors make you think you're going crazy. In fact, I had a patient who had been having these extreme episodes of dizziness, nausea, feeling like she was going to vomit, feeling extremely anxious, heart palpitations. She went to a cardiologist, she went to her her primary care, who said,

it's, it's anxiety, and prescribed her benzodiazepines. We did, we did a variety of tests, and we found h pylori, which is, I'm sure you're familiar with it. It's a chronic stomach infection. Over half the world, over half the world has this infection, and it had gotten to the point where it was

so inflammatory to her that every time she ate, her vagus nerve was lit on fire, and it made her feel extremely anxious. Benzodiazepines would never have taken care of that she needed. She needed different medication. And so, you know, that's why I think there certainly are women who need a little bit of

support, and then they can kind of pick it up and go to and move on from there. But other women need a little bit more time, attention and digging.

Let's talk about the digging a bit, because that's another source of frustration and confusion. There are so many imbalance disorders diseases that there's a lot of crossover symptoms, particularly when it comes to digestive diseases and auto immune conditions. You were scratching

the surface of the immune health conversation, which yes, to your point, we could have a whole other episode about that. But as. You were saying it's all interconnected. So the digging so we've we've got our labs, we've seen you for an appointment or two, talk me through the importance of that

digging process with a qualified holistic practitioner who's going to keep listening to your story and not gaslighting you.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, and thank you.

No, no, we haven't got the whole picture yet. Let's keep digging together.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah. And thank you for making me come back to my ideal labs list, because I keep getting derailed.

No, it's me derailing you because we just keep firing off. Because there's just so many directions we could go in with this conversation so

Dr Emilie Wilson: and that's why functional medicine is so critical in this world, because sometimes you need PCPs. They just don't have the bandwidth to do this. I think a lot of people might need a doctor who can really, like, hold the fullness of their medical history and their experience, right?

So, oh, that's a beautiful way of saying it, finding a practitioner that can hold the fullness of you and your story. Oh, I love that. Yeah, yeah, okay, let's get back to the let's get back to the labs. I could go up in another tangent right now?

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, you know, I've just talked with enough people that I see that they're not articulating it, but that's exactly what they're looking for. They're looking for somebody they can't hold the pieces themselves. And a cardiologist isn't going to do that. An endocrinologist isn't

going to do that. A GI doctor is not going to do that. They need that functional medicine specialist.

So I want to ask you, before we go back to the labs for a second about this. For somebody that doesn't know what a naturopathic doctor is, how would you describe it? Because, sorry, I've been making the assumption that everyone on Earth knows what that is, but the reality is they don't. So

let's just, let's just do that for just a minute.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Thank you. So here in the US, the way, and I think this is similar in Canada, but I can't speak to other countries, we have very traditional medical training, so it really mirrors that which an MD would go through a medical doctor. And the where it really branches is where MDS start

looking at pharmaceuticals as the components of their toolbox. We really start with diet, lifestyle, herbal therapies, nutraceuticals, which is just a fancy word for supplements.

I don't know why I always laugh when I hear the term nutraceuticals, but thank you for saying it that way, because it's exactly what it is, supplements.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, yeah. It just sounds fancier. And then other things that I also am becoming much more interested in, like this, more emotional, energetic, spiritual side of things. You know, I'm also an acupuncturist, so I have been living in that world of, how's your energy, by the way, for a

long time, but our toolbox is full of things like that. And here in Arizona where I am, I can diagnose and prescribe. I have a pretty wide range of prescriptive rights here in Arizona for medications as well. So really, we have a great toolbox, a great set of tools to help women. So I mean, from a

functional medicine perspective, everybody should have access to a naturopathic doctor. If you ask me,

I would say, I would concur,

I would but, you know, it is that thing, isn't it? Where it's, oh, that's, that's a little bit sort of left hippy dippy. Not sure if I should trust that. I mean, that has obviously shifted greatly in the past, sort of 2025, years, and we are seeing a trend more towards holistic medicine,

thankfully, but there is still that not sure you know. So I just wanted to make sure that that I covered that with you and not making that assumption. So I keep derailing, derailing the point of our conversation, because it is so important for us to know what tests we need to have as women over 40. So I'll

just, I'll just bring us back to that, where we're going to keep digging. So we talked about the gut microbe that we talked about the microbiome stool test. We've talked about some of these important labs. What are some of what are some of the other ones that you recommend?

Dr Emilie Wilson: So I can I just say one quick thing about what you just

please say whatever you want to say. I can't get enough of it.

Dr Emilie Wilson: I'm so thank you, because in this, this is just such a crazy time. In this, the US with with these massive changes in healthcare policy. See. And what do you mean a

government that doesn't believe in science and is putting out false information? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. I mean, trying to tiptoe, don't tiptoe. We can't tiptoe around this. I mean, women need to know that the information that is being put out by the government is

inaccurate.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yes, and that's the thing. So I also live in the world of research. I do a crazy amount of research. I write articles for medical guides. I do medical editing and medical review, so I am always looking at research. And I think it's really important that people understand that there are

functional or naturopathic or medical, you know, natural doctors who have a firm grip on the science behind what works and what doesn't work.

Yes, thank you. It's not some airy fairy. Let's kumbaya together and stick some beads on a tray.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, right, right. And I think it's really important that people know that that there is a path that cuts very cleanly, or maybe that unites very cleanly, both of these worlds, this pharmaceutical based world, and yes, there are benefits there, but there's this other world

that can help so many people who are now just getting by, who don't have to just get by.

And put it, I call it Band Aid medicine, totally so said differently. Would you agree with a statement like this? Maybe I'm going to going to explain what a naturopathic doctor is in a more cynical way than you. So you're going to listen to the whole story and look at diet, lifestyle,

spiritual aspects, things that you're struggling with, all of your lab work, all of the diagnostic testing, the entire story, and come up with a pull out your whole box of tools, not just write me a prescription after taking my blood pressure and sticking me on a scale,

Dr Emilie Wilson: correct? Yeah,

which is what's happening, you know, when a lot of people go to traditional doctors, and not to say that there aren't phenomenal allopathic practitioners, because There absolutely are, but I'm going to choose a functional medicine doctor every day the week and twice on

Sundays to help me navigate my health journey, yeah.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Well, when you have questions, I think the traditional, traditional meaning Western medicine model has its place, yes, especially if you have a broken bone or you need a refill on your diabetes medication. You know that that's reasonable. But again, to go back to this idea of I don't

feel well, I don't fit inside of a diagnosis my doctor. Did they my labs, they're all normal, when really the surface was just barely scratched. Those people who don't feel well, who don't feel like themselves anymore, still need a place to go. They still deserve to feel better. Could you imagine if we all

said, you know, we went to our doctor and said, I'm throwing up. I'm anxious. I My heart is is racing, and I can barely, you know, I'm so anxious I can barely get out of bed, and they prescribed you a benzodiazepine. Of treating the cause, which would you know, the benzo is never going to get to the heart

of the infection, right?

So the minute I walk into a doctor's office and I see a bunch of prescription pads and paraphernalia and pins and posters, I walk right back out again. I did it once when I was overseas, and then I said, What do you guys said, I'm sorry. I deserve better than this. Thank you. Have a nice

day, and I just left good for you. It was just outrageous, you know. And also, too, another red flag for me is just people that just want, want me to take $1,000 worth of supplements after sitting with me for five minutes. That's it. You know, that is another thing that can happen in the functional

medicine space as well. So one thing that I love about you is that that's that's one tool in the toolbox, supplements. It's not the only tool. And supplements can be wonderful too. I don't have an issue with them at all, but it's just again. One thing, it's not the magic pill, oh, gee, take some

glutamine or some digestive enzymes or HRT. I mean, we have so many people I'd love to get your thoughts about this that come in and they are taking HRT, and it's helped with some things, but they haven't addressed their gut health and their metabolic health, and so they're still not feeling great.

And so when we put a lot of different tools together in the right configuration. Magic happens. As you know, I want to, let's go back to the labs for a second, because I just want to make sure that every listener has the information that I have from you, which is so extraordinary. So I was, what

about we're. Dancing around here. Dear listeners, stay with us. We're having a lovely little luncheon together. What are some of the other tests that we need to have? We need to know about.

Dr Emilie Wilson: So from a functional medicine perspective, I also I love to run the Dutch test. And I don't know if you've ever heard about this, it's the one I use. Is called the Dutch plus, which is a combination urine and saliva test.

Yeah, that's the one we recommend as well.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Oh, God, I love it. Because what it does, it does not look at the number, the amount of hormones in your blood. It looks at the amount of hormone metabolites in your urine. So what we understand from that is, how is your body taking the hormones that are available to you and and

processing them. Now we will get a good sense of the relative ratios of a woman's hormones from this test. We're not measuring them in her blood or her, you know, saliva. In the case of some of them, we're not measuring them in her blood. So we can't say this is the same number that we would find in

your blood, but it gives us that shadow of what you know of the ratios of hormones as they might be available, as they would be available, if that makes sense. They also tell us how is her body processing hormones, and this is where biochemistry comes in, because we all have the same, the exact same estrogen,

progesterone, testosterone, DHEA. It looks the same in all of our bodies, but how our body utilizes it is going to be so different. So now we have a metabolic footprint for her hormones, and then we combine that with the, you know, the plus the adrenal, the deep, comprehensive adrenal

assessment, and that tells us, how is stress impacting her hormone levels? What are her adrenal glands doing? How is her body processing all of these hormones, which also informs us, How's her thyroid, how is her cellular metabolism? How is her liver health? You know, all of these things matter so much to

our basic state of wellness.

Yes, and let's talk about why we need to care about estrogen metabolism and the metabolism of our hormones. It's not just about the levels,

Dr Emilie Wilson: no, no, no, it's about what our body does with them. And that's sort of like our programming, you know, it goes back to DNA, but it also goes back to what is the state of our health. A healthy woman with a higher, you know, estrogen level might be able to process that, but if a woman is

metabolically unwell, she's not going to process her estrogen as well. So that's why it's important. It tells us not only the the the ratios of hormones that are available to her, but how is her body utilizing them, we can identify pretty quickly, is this an issue of the liver? Is this an inflammatory issue?

Is this an issue that you know has, in some research, been associated with breast cancer or ovarian cancer? We want to catch that well before we can touch the tip of the iceberg. And that's what these tests do, yeah.

And to your point about some of these other hormones and adrenal health, cortisol, adrenaline, and the relationship between cortisol and oxytocin, and how so many women are so low in oxytocin, and that relationship there. So tell me more about how you're looking at that with women, that

relationship and how we can manage stress. You talked about it before. It's such an important piece of the puzzle.

Dr Emilie Wilson: It's probably the two toughest words for an overwhelmed woman to hear in a medical setting manage stress, right? Okay, well, how do I do that? And I love that you brought up that that link between cortisol and oxytocin, because oxytocin is what it's kind of considered the love

hormone.

It's, oh, it's the love, love, love hormone

that loved your body during orgasm and childbirth and laughing and dancing and connecting. And I just love oxytocin. My friend Dr Anna kobeka calls it. We need to micro dose from the oxytocin buffet every day.

Dr Emilie Wilson: I love that. I love that because, you know, I do also see women in the world of fertility who are really struggling, and I talk about that because they get it's easy to get really stressed. It's easy to get stressed out in perimenopause, because we lose our resilience a little bit, and

the adrenals can't always keep up. So that's part of the high. Cortisol, low oxytocin. But then in fertility, it can be so stressful, because you start monitoring everything and counting everything. You lose your you lose the judge in your relationship, because now you're looking at the calendar

wondering about the next time you're going to have sex, rather than taking a night off and doing something really special for each other or with, you know, and and celebrating your relationship, and you know, all those things that really do bring oxytocin out into our bloodstream. And so back to our

original point here, of of managing stress. They're probably the two of the most essential words that will be spoken inside of a medical setting. But it's going to be a little bit different for everybody, and her path to that is going to look different than anybody else's a single mom of

45 with two kids with special needs has a very different path to managing stress than you know a 58 year old woman who you know her husband, she doesn't have to work, and now her kids are leaving, and she's returning to asking herself questions about her purpose and her passion in life. So those are two very

different paths to stress management, you know.

And again, this is why the getting to know each person individually and what makes them tick and what their life really looks like becomes of paramount importance.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah. I just, yeah, go ahead. I just want to say this that I think I really view my job in that room as creating a safe container for a woman to sit with what it feels like to begin to take control of her life in whatever way she can, to begin to take control of how she feels in whatever way

she can. Nobody's going to go from zero to perfect stress management overnight, but we can, together, usually, find a way to start bringing those levels down right and that's the self empowerment piece. That's the I choose me piece.

Yeah, let's talk about the exercise piece. When you're helping women, you've done, have we missed any, any tests that we need to talk about, that you want to mention? Yeah, because we're just gonna, we're gonna bounce off now, yeah, we, I am getting these tests, and you're getting this

information no matter what.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Dear listener, well, it and it is all in the guide, but I think just to run through it, I also love doing a micronutrient test for women, which really just looks at, let's get a really good sense of this cellular health of your your body at a deeper level, not what's in your blood, what's in

your cells. And then I'll do what's called an organic acids test, which gives us a really good sense of her metabolic capacity. And it's another way of looking at nutrient potential, nutrient deficiencies. And those are really my, my gems of the functional medicine world. There

are a lot of other really cool tests we could run, but those are the those are the gems.

And, yeah, definitely get the guide, because it's fantastic. So we've, we've done these, these baseline tests that you do. We've discussed it with you, and then you're going to help us put together a really comprehensive plan that works for our life right now. So let's talk about

diet and lifestyle, and how you work with women to figure out solutions that are going to fit their life the way it looks today, real life, not on paper, as you say.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah. So a lot of times what I'll do is, after I've gotten all of this information, it helps me identify what are the biggest imbalances in her life that are keeping her from feeling like herself. Because at the end of the day, you said it so beautifully earlier when you

were talking about the women who come into your program on HRT, it helped a little bit, but not it wasn't enough. She's still not herself, and that's because there's no pill in the world. There's no pill, there's no patch, there's no injection in the world that's going to work better than diet, exercise,

stress management, sleeping and drinking enough water, you know. So I always start there, and that can feel really overwhelming for people, if I just list off those five things and say, well, good luck.

Obvious. Yes, this is why I have a job,

Dr Emilie Wilson: because it's well, and that's the thing. It's a it's a process. There's no There's no magic pill. It's just the path back to yourself. And so what I do is, is, once I have a really good understanding of where her imbalance is, I say, Okay, here's your next step, and then after that, here's the

other step, and that's how it goes step wise.

It's such an important point that you're making that sometimes we just don't know what the next step is. And to have someone hold a shiny lantern and say, I'm here, just make the next step. Here's the next step. I'm here, here's the next step. Hold my hand. Here's the next step. And we all

need that. No matter how resourced we are, no matter how knowledgeable we are, we need help with everything. It's not a weakness, it's a strength. There is this misconception that if I somehow can't figure it out by using Dr, Google or chat, GBT or asking my neighbor, then there must be something wrong with me.

I must be weak that I can't figure this out. It's like trying to read the outside label from the inside. It's not possible. Yeah, and to your point in your personal story, you needed help to see it, even though you were a very knowledgeable person, we all have to have this help. But

there is something about the one to one that I don't think can be replaced. It can't be replaced in any way, shape or form. Yeah, and I do think that what separates you apart from so many other functional doctors that I know, is that you've been through it, and so that personal experience. How do you draw from

that, when you're dealing with each woman, to really, really see her? I mean, I think that's the issue. So I mean, certainly in my experience as a coach is that people just want to be seen and they want to be listened to, and they want to be valued, and they want to go, you know what? We'll figure this out. Okay, so

that's not working, okay, let's, let's turn up over the next stone. Okay, okay, and I'm going to stay with you until we figure this out. And that's something you do so beautifully. Thank you.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, for me, I sit with a lot of women, and I hear their stories, and I love to hear these stories and and I hear a lot of things like 2pm hits, and I can't get my head off the desk. I have to go lay down for 1020, 30 minutes. I have to close my eyes. I cannot keep my eyes open. And I know

exactly what that's like. And you know what I had to do? I had to get my blood sugar back in order. Yeah, I let it slip too. I mean, I love chocolate. I love a lot of things, but these are the things I tell people a lot to you know, we lose some of the grace that we had in our 20s and 30s, regarding our ability to

stay up too late and then handle the next day, or to eat junk food or drink too much wine or whatever it is that we love to do. We lose our ability to be resilient to that. And so now, the pieces that we know we should be doing, they're actually really important to do, because we want to be able to

keep showing up in our lives, for ourselves as much as for the people that we love. But we shouldn't forget about ourselves too.

I mean, put your own mask on and then assist others. I mean, you know, the airline industry has done such a huge favor with those little

videos, right? I mean, it really

is a mantra for life, put your own mask on and then assist others. And it's not a selfish act, it's actually an act of love and compassion and generosity for everybody in your life, because we expand our capacity when we're showing up as our full, powerful self, we can give more.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, and I'll tell you, I have now a beautiful little girl, a toddler, who a lot of people call them three majors, and I agree, she's so strong willed, and she her favorite word is No, her favorite thing to do when we're running late is to take her clothes off and run away. Gotta

stop this. And you know, just as a human being, I understand in my own body and my own experience that I'm much better equipped to show up as the kind of mom I want to be in those really hard moments when I've done the things I know I need to do, and it's never going to be perfect. I still stay up too

late. I still don't always eat the way I should eat. I you know, nobody's perfect, and nobody has to it's just. So finding the things that bring us from here to here faster.

Yes, yes. One other thing I want to ask you about is this idea of, well, I'm done now. I figured it out, and this misconception that we are chasing static goals, but actually the fluid, ever changing nature of our bodies and our health and the different stimuli that we're exposed to

every single day that can destabilize the balance and our equilibrium and that it is a daily practice, and the responsive nature of paying attention to the healing process and placing yourself in that state on a regular basis. So what do you see with regards to that as a practitioner,

Dr Emilie Wilson: I think most people don't approach their own health from that perspective.

I think they want to be done. And I always say done is dead. Yeah, you've been done when you're dead. And I don't know about you, but I'm in no hurry to be done, right? Yeah, but the exhaustive nature of it, you know what I mean? Like, instead of, instead of being energized that I get to

know myself more intimately and in a more nuanced way today again, and I get to figure it out, rather than, Oh God, I have to Oh my God, I've got to look at that again, you know, and being depleted and deflated by it, I see that a lot. Do you see that where there's an expectation that you're just

going to figure it all out and then not have to think about it anymore.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Yeah, I see that a lot, because we set external goals. And so women come to me, they have an external goal. They want to lose 20 pounds. They want to get their a 1c down into below pre diabetic range. They want to, you know, whatever it is, they want to get their thyroid back

in balance. But you're right. Any of us can hit a goal, any of us can, but the question is, will we stay there? And to me, the most important word in this process is resilience, right?

Yeah, you don't bring up that word, yeah, I love it. It is and

Dr Emilie Wilson: it's it's about, you know? It sort of speaks to what you were saying earlier about about not being exhausted by the process of trying to feel better. You know? How do we build resilience so that as we are working towards a goal, we're feeling replenished and rested and nourished. That,

to me, is the deepest, best healing that any of us can do, because that's where the self worth piece has come in. That's where you have really taken the time and put in the energy to understand what your body's asking for, to to hear your body's language, to understand it and then translate it through

your actions and your choices in a way that's realistic, because we all live crazy lives, that's just the reality of it, and we can keep putting off ourselves and our desire to feel better, or we can decide, You know what, today I'm going to make one good choice for myself. Maybe it's water. Maybe I just drink more

water today, and that is a huge win.

I could talk to you about this all day long. I always close every episode with the same question, which is, and I'll ask it within the context of this conversation, which is for a woman over 40 who has a dream that she wants to optimize her health and feel fantastic and reclaim her body, but

doesn't feel like she has what it takes to make it happen, or is just so confused about what the next step is. What would you say?

Dr Emilie Wilson: I think my answer could certainly translate to any experience of our lives. What I would say is

there is something inside you. There is something deep inside you.

It's a voice, it's a feeling, it's a knowing, it's maybe a dream you keep having, but there's something true that is being spoken to you from a place deep inside yourself, we're so good at putting our attention elsewhere, but the most powerful thing we can do is press pause and listen to what we have to

say to ourselves. I. Yeah, that's that would be my answer.

And she what was coming up for me, as you were saying that was, we don't have to press pause and listen alone, that we can resource ourselves and put some really great people on our team who can help us listen to the data that we are getting from ourselves, and can help us interpret it and

demystify it and come up with solutions and and help us implement those solutions, which you do so beautifully. So I'll be sending some people to you. Dr, Emilie, that's for sure. Thank you so much for the way that you show up in the world. I'm so grateful.

Dr Emilie Wilson: Oh, thank you, and thank you for allowing me to share this. I love being able to talk about it. I think women need to hear more stories of you know, more positive, healthy, happy stories from the medical world.

Yes to that? Yeah.