Hi, I'm Dr. Mandy Dietz and you're listening to The Behind the Brace podcast. Each week I'll be sharing conversations and resources to help families and providers navigate the world of scoliosis. This is your place to find hope for a better solution so that you can live your best life.
Welcome back. This week we have a guest on our podcast that I'm super excited to introduce. Today we have Dr. Tara Harding, the founder of Simple You Wellness. She's a doctorate prepared family nurse practitioner that specializes in hormone health for men, women and children, and integrative women's care.
She's passionate about helping patients move beyond being told everything is normal, and instead uncover the root causes of symptoms like fatigue, weight changes, mood swings, and cycle irregularities. She brings extensive clinical experience, a personalized approach, and a shared dedication to helping patients feel like themselves Again, her clinic is leading the way in transforming how hormone health is addressed, and she empowers patients to be heard, understood, and truly cared for.
Welcome.
Hey, thank you.
Yes, thanks for coming on today. So I'm super excited to have you here because there's a big conversation happening in the scoliosis world that it doesn't have a ton of research behind it, but we know that it's affecting patients that have scoliosis. And as I do more of this work, I've got patients that come in my office, they have questions, and it's not within my, it's not within my specialty.
Specialty. Yes, yes. And I know about it, but it's not something that I have dedicated my career too. Right? So, this is within your wheelhouse. Yeah. So thanks for
coming on. Yeah. You know, I'd like to just shout out patients, right? Like, I think sometimes patients have to get a degree. You know, we always joke about Dr. Google, but what do patients do when they're left with no answers? You go to one side of medicine and they're told. Everything's fine. Nothing to do here. You can't fix that. You can't change that. That won't help that. That's not FDA approved. And then you go to the other side of the spectrum and it's like, here, take a bazillion things.
I'm gonna cure you overnight and give me this timeframe, this money and everything will be fixed. Right? So patients are really put in a hard spot. From every avenue of healthcare, whether they're young adolescents, um, young women, young men, I mean, really. We could go on and on about that, but it's really hard when you're met with a diagnosis and you get a diagnosis, right, such as scoliosis.
Mm-hmm. And it's like, now what? Yeah. Now what do we do? What do we do here now?
No, it's hard. Um, in the conversations that I have with patients. You know? Okay. So we all probably do it, even though we say don't do it. But you get a diagnosis and what do you do? You Google it.
I encourage it. Right, right. I'm gonna say it.
I encourage it. Let's go to the socials. Go. There's great content out there nowadays, right? From good resources and bad resources, but there's a lot out there.
Yeah. You have to discern the difference. You do, right? You do. So if you have a hard time discerning the difference between resources that are Yeah.
Reputable and resources that are not, sometimes you fall in this crack that can be pretty dangerous. Very. And expensive. And expensive and waste a lot of time. Yep. Actually, so, so that's really, that's why I wanted to have you on and talk about this today, because what I'm finding is, um, so there's this piece of it where patients come in, they're diagnosed with the scoliosis, whether they're a juvenile, adolescent, their kids, right.
They're growing, or maybe even they're adults and they've had scoliosis for a really long time. And they find all of this information, and we do know that there are certain things that come along with that diagnosis. Like for example, just like a quick rundown, right? So we know that kids that are diagnosed with scoliosis, it typically, uh, it tends to show up between the ages of 10 and 14.
It's typically right before or during puberty. There are a lot of changes going on. We know there are some link to hormones, but. We haven't, nobody's been able to really nail it down. Yeah, exactly. We know that oftentimes there are other things that are, that affect that, whether that's like vitamin D levels or sometimes, um, people have been talking, they'll come in and they'll talk about, um, copper levels that are too high or they'll talk about, um, just a lot of different things that we know that oftentimes those patients might struggle with.
But at the same time, there's not really anything in the research or in the science piece of it to say. You know, okay. Like if you have this problem, like say you have this hormone problem or this vitamin D or whatever it might be. We don't know that that for sure makes you have scoliosis, but we do know that patients that have scoliosis oftentimes have those things that are problems.
Yeah. So then what do we do with that?
Well, if we had a magic wand, we'd have better research and funding for research. Right, right. So we can't, patients have to be very careful about where they're getting their information from. Like you said, is it research back? Like what is there to show that this claim is going to work?
What we do know, as you mentioned, some very key times, 10 to 14 puberty. Hormones are rapidly changing during that time. Nutrients, vitamins, supplements, rapidly changing during that time. So it would make sense that bone formation situations would arise during that time. Right. And genetics, mm-hmm. Go hand in hand.
So not everyone has information of their genetics, but if you do, it's again looking at is there someone in the family that has this diagnosis or other hormonal issues as they progressed in life? And looking back on that. Estrogen, testosterone, thyroid, insulin, cortisol. When people hear hormones, they think like estrogen, like that's the first thing that comes to their head.
Maybe progesterone, maybe testosterone. We're lucky. Thyroid, insulin, cortisol. There's all these different hormones and most we're lucky if we, if patients come in and they've had one or two looked at, never is the full picture being looked at. Then we look at iron, nutrients, vitamin D, magnesium. Let's not forget about gut.
You can take all the things in the world, all of the, whether it's even in a prescription or a supplement, and if your gut health isn't working or not on point, how are you gonna absorb all of that? And is there an absorption issue that's, you know, tailing back to some of these things too. People forget.
Providers, let's just say providers sometimes forget to look at the whole picture and that pivotal time where you're seeing this happen, there is a cascade, rapid cascade of things going on that we could interject and help with. We have to look at them as a whole picture though, right? We have to do the appropriate workup.
These, these children aren't getting in a workup. They're going in. Bringing forward maybe a symptom or a concern and it's being dismissed, or they're not even getting adequate lab levels drawn to look at vitamin D levels, look at nutrient levels, look at their hormones, talk about their periods if they're a female, right?
Like these things just aren't happening, so how can we intervene appropriately to help maybe slow down that process or intervene in that process if they're not even getting a full workup. The conversation's even happening at their provider's office to offer that as an option too.
And the other piece of that too, is that sometimes it's the other way where, you know, maybe they go to a medical provider and they're not getting the workup, so then they're not doing anything.
But I've also had families where they go somewhere and sometimes it's states away. Right. So we're in North Dakota. Yeah, we're rural, right. That we don't have access to a ton of things, but sometimes I've heard where they go to a facility. They get zero workup, but they get handed a box of whatever supplements or this or that, and it's, you know, $900 a month and woo.
Red flakes. You know what I mean though? Yeah. So then they're just taking things, and maybe it's not harmful to them necessarily, but at the same time, is it addressing what is actually needing to be addressed? Like are we wasting time, resources, money, traveling on things that maybe we don't need that specific piece?
So how do we test so we actually know specifically what one patient needs compared to the other patient, so that we're actually doing. What's best for them in that scenario at that time.
So, oh my gosh, I got cringey when you were saying all that. So let's back it up. The thing I'll hear too is like, you are too young, so let's just talk about adolescents for now.
You are never too young for a workup. Like it's never too young to look at your thyroid, your vitamin D, your PCOS, and IH like we're never too young to start looking at these things. I don't believe you should be taking something unless you know your body needs it. That to me is so much red flag right there.
Like that seems, I don't know. Can I just say like a money making, like red flag? Money making red flag right there. But let's back up even further. Like we talked about, patients are so desperate, like right, they want to just get answers, they wanna feel better, they'll do anything. It's just a supplement, right?
What's the big deal? What's the big deal with that? The big deals if you don't need it, it could spiral into something more further, like maybe not necessarily bone health, but you might get some other symptoms or things that are a direct sub. Supplements aren't necessarily a hundred percent safe if you don't need them either, right?
I use this example's not for pediatrics, but there's an over the counter, um, hormone supplement, DHEA. If you take that and don't need that, dear Lord, things will happen. But let's talk about the financials of that, right. What if you could do a home test from your home? You don't need to travel for that.
There's a lot of home test things available nowadays where patients can take the control right into their hands themself from the comfort of their home, and do some basic testing. Take that information into a provider and say, help me interpret this and help me navigate what my results show. I don't think you should be just taking a supplement.
'cause it's supplement and it's safe and it's been, you know, marketed by a, b, and C for, it'll, it'll fix this in a direct time. That seems like scary, bad marketing. Right? But, but I wanna validate to patients too, like, you're desperate. Like you're, you want, you want to feel better or you wanna do good for your, your children and you'll do anything for them, right.
Grow a team. This is where the team approach has to come into place and not relying on one person. You have to have a whole team taking care of you or your children. Especially in cases like with scoliosis, we have to have a team. We cannot rely on one person with great marketing. It sounds like good props to them, but like we have to have a whole team approach and not rely on one person, one magic box, one magic kit, one magic way.
The body is a very intricate system. The head's not rolling around over here to the spine, over here, to the toes over here. We have to work together as a team to look at that whole body of what's going on during that time.
It's really interesting too, because we talk about team approach a lot, like on, on this podcast.
Mm-hmm. We've talked about it a lot, but the thing that this hit my radar actually just recently this year, because the team that we usually talk about is we're talking about like a spinal specialist. So whether they're. They have a brace at our, our office, or they're doing scoliosis rehab at our office.
Or maybe we've got an orthopedic surgeon on board or a neurosurgeon on board if we've got neuromuscular stuff going on, right? And we talk about mental health, so we talk about counselors and how do we process this and how do we do this? And you know, just all of these things. Um. But I didn't really realize, or maybe it was in my head, and I just didn't realize how apparent it was until I started having these families coming in.
And then they're talking about this piece where, you know, they'll go to the pe, their pediatrician, and they're kind of just left with. You know, well let them deal with the spinal stuff and you know, their well-check is good, so don't worry about that piece of it. And then they're kind of left with not a ton of resources and they, they feel a little uneasy, but they really don't know what to do.
And so I hear you talk about like, okay, we can take these tests from home. And then I have people say like, okay, we can take these tests from home. They're like, we don't know what tests to do. Yeah. We don't know. How do we order that? What do we, and then they, they get overwhelmed. Yeah. And then, and then they see this, um.
This something online. Yep, yep. That offers them something and it might be a very long distance away, and it might be this very involved process and they see that and it appears as though it's the answer, but then it's also missing a ton of pieces and they don't get that coordination of care necessarily with their team.
So that's why I'm so excited. That you are here. I was gonna say,
maybe we should just slip in a hormone expert into this team at this, this point. We'll take care of the testing. Don't do that on your own anymore. Like Right. God, her those days. But like bring it in if you have one.
And that's what's so exciting about having you here with your clinic because you guys.
Touch a lot of different pieces. Yeah. And can be that other piece of it to really make a cohesive team.
Absolutely. We're I just, I don't know. We blend eastern and western, we believe in both sides. We believe the patient, but we believe in extensive additional testing. Right. No matter what age you are, like, I don't care if you're a baby, a lactating mom or a adolescent, like your body is telling you something when symptoms are happening.
It, it is your whole body. Every hormones actually impact every organ in your body. That includes tendons, ligaments, bones, like, I mean like everything in our body. So. I often question myself at night when I'm laying awake. Why are providers so hesitant to like acknowledge that or maybe say, Hmm, maybe there's a hormone issue or a thyroid issue going on in this adolescent that we could address and change now and and change the progression of that child's health, overall health, including bones, hormones, impact bone growth information, and osteoblasts and all of that.
Like why is that such like a hard thing to understand? It sounds to me like, like hormones have been, you know, excluded from this conversation when they're really, you know, kind of a important part of bone formation. I don't know.
So we, we talk about it. Yeah. In a sense of, you know, so we've always kind of known that.
So we talk about it in, in two realms really. Yeah. And this is the conversation we have, but we also don't like, we're limited, right. So you can only specialize in one thing. Yeah. Thank you for that, by the way. Right. Because there's some
people who think they can do like. 500 things, right? All in one. And really just be a master of none.
Just be a master of none. I like that. Like, like stay in your lane please, please. But that's the thing. It's like,
so to do a really good job, like at my office, okay, so we work with scoliosis, we work with these patients to do a really good job. And most people who know me locally, I, you know, I was running a chiropractic clinic, I was also doing a scoliosis clinic.
And the farther you get into it and the more that you do, you just realize that. You can't do, you can't be good at all of the things. Absolutely. And if you really wanna serve your patients, and if you really want to provide the best care that you can, you just have to dive into the one realm. Right. And then as we come, come back to that, that's where.
You know, we find this place where we know, we know that hormones come into this, but the conversation we have is limited because we don't have, we don't have all of the resources or the tools. Yep. So we can tell. Families that we know that during puberty, that's where it's the highest amount of progression happens.
So the onset of their menstrual cycle? Yep. Within that first like 18 to 24 months, that's when we see the fastest progression. That's also when kids are growing the fastest and we see the most progression in their scoliosis. But the other piece of it that actually nobody tends to talk about is women.
Postmenopausal women. Ooh, perimenopause.
Bless the women,
right? So if we have, say we've got a scoliosis, and even if it's relatively stable throughout their adult life, when they start to hit menopause, we see fast progression in those patients as well. And then it comes back to that hormone piece. Hormone piece, and it's not very well understood necessarily.
And this is where, so from my perspective, I have to say. When we look at a scoliosis patient, we do x-rays, we do very specific exams, we do evaluations. Um, we base our treatment recommendations off of where they're at based off of, um, the clinical guidelines, the research that's provided, evidence-based care.
So we are giving those recommendations. It's not this off the cuff. We're just going to wing in Pinterest
medicine. That's what I call it. Like everyone thinks I just do Pinterest medicine over here. Yes. I'm like, everything is research based that way. You do. Right. Everything.
Uh, but that's the piece where it's like, okay, so for those patients that are looking for this piece, yes.
This is where you come in.
Yes. And I think you like, bless the pediatricians. There's a time and place for them, but this is hormone health is not their specialty. Right. That's why we have to have patients. Really expand their mindset or the OB GYN and the menopause people. Right? That is not always their, you would think, right?
Man, ob, GYN, that's their specialty. It's not, like you said, the, there's just so much going on. There's, it's such a busy field. Keep them, keep these, keep these people on your team, but grow your team to include a true hormone expert that can really dive in. Because menopause is the time where, man, that rapid drop in estrogen, boom, there goes the bone health, right?
Mm-hmm. And that's not, it's like, oh, once you're an osteoporosis, that's done. Here's your, here's your, you know, prescription medicine. That won't actually help much here. But, you know, we'll talk hormones, man. Can I just say it like, put someone on estradiol, progesterone, testosterone as a female, and you can really, really stop that progression.
You gotta catch it right away. Don't wait till you're, you can still bring it in 10 years later. But what if, what if we had a new way of thinking? What if hormones bioidentical were actually safe and could help preserve bone and preserve our quality of life and not wait till a fracture happens? You know, for that, what if that'd be amazing.
And I, there's, there's research, like you said, everything we do is research based. This is not just made up with nothing to back it. And we know too, the two times you're talking about are the most pivotal hormone changes in a woman's life, like the two most pivotal changes. And yes, there is something you can do in those moments to help it.
It's not just Yep, not nothing you can do. Here's your birth control. You know, that's what the teens are usually met with. Here's your birth control or nothing. Mm-hmm. And then here's women. Yep. Menopause is just the way it is, you know? May, here's your unopposed estrogen. You know, if you're gonna get estrogens different than Estrodiol, that's a whole different podcast for a different day.
But, um, you are given one option at that age and one option at that age, and that's all they know. And so really we are trying to change that at both spectrums in our clinic. And I'll just say there's plenty of evidence to back it can help bone, bone, bone support during that time too. And changing the conversations.
Changing the conversations, yes. That we're having. Just even
open it up so that we can have those conversations. Yes. Uh, what I see in clinic is, and this is where. This is where we struggle because, uh, what I see in clinic is I have women that come in that either didn't know that they have a, had a scoliosis.
Oh. Because think back, okay, so think back 40 years. Like sometimes they, when get diagnosed, you knowm as you
say that I'm in my high school locker room getting a scoliosis check from the county health nurse. Yes. Like I can just see it. My, my gym, gym t-shirts off. Bend over. Mm-hmm. Got boom, boom. Done. Check, carry on to Ed.
And I'm like, that's it. I thought I could be outta fiad longer here. Right. That's what came to my head as you said that. Do you know they don't even do that anymore? Thank gosh. Thank gosh those are, I actually got sent fun fact I got sent off to the next level. I don't know what that Yeah. To James. You know, I was in a small town.
Ashley got sent to Jamestown to, I don't know what, like the higher up, uh, public health nurse. I don't know what she was, but I had to go get a second check 'cause I think she maybe thought I had it to this day. I mean, do I trust her? Maybe I should have you check me. We can. Maybe I still haven't.
So that's, that's the hard thing.
Okay. Yeah. So I mean, this is a whole nother topic, but, but at the same time, right? So we're not catching it. No. Back then definitely, definitely we struggled, but even now, today, they don't check for it. Oftentimes I've got patients in full braces, like pre-surgical, they go to a sports physical. They don't even.
They don't even mention it. Yeah.
I worked with healthcare for 10 years, I could say that. Oh my goodness. Yeah. We don't, we don't, but, and, and duck, you know,
like not, I really do believe that all healthcare professionals are very well intentioned, blessed. They are, they are. There's so much, there's so much going on.
There's so much
changing. Right. How do they keep up? I, I don't, that's why I am like. I, I want us all to come together and just say, Hey, you know, I can't keep up with the updated stuff, the research stuff. I can't do it all. You know, here's someone that can do this. Here's someone that can do this. Like,
yeah,
people, healthcare providers need to change their mindset too, to be more inclusive and be like, Hey, you need a team.
I can't do it all for you. Um, why don't you go, I don't know what they do or who they are over there, but you know, go check 'em out. Go, go see, go, see what's going on over there. Take this piece, take this piece and go take this piece from me. Yeah, that's not. A bad thing to say, I can't do it all. You can't.
No. You're the first. Like I, it's impossible. It's impossible to do it all like it just is, and I don't want to do it all. And other providers need to change that narrative in their office because it starts there sometimes too.
I think that that's true. And oftentimes, um. There's not even sometimes time to have those conversations.
No. In those appointments, you don't see
30 people a day in those settings. Like how, how you're in and out
and it's a whole thing. That's
impossible.
Yeah. Um, so what, what ends up happening? We digress a little bit. Yeah. Gross. So, but what ends up, ends up happening is, is oftentimes these women, forties, fifties, yep.
Either they didn't know they had a scoliosis or. When they were done growing, they're 18. They're not a pediatric patient anymore. They're like, okay, well you're done growing, so you're good. Don't worry about it. Like you're fine. Um, off you go. And so they never have another evaluation. What we know now is that if you have a scoliosis that is 30 degrees or above, when you are done growing, the likelihood of progression through your adult life is higher up to a a degree per year of life.
So if you think about it, so you've got a 35 degree scoliosis. When you're a senior in high school, you never know have another evaluation and all of a sudden you're 47 years old and you're like, man, I don't know where this back pain is coming from. And then they pop into my office. They're like, oh yeah.
Well, I had scoliosis when I was a kid. They told me I was done growing. Don't worry about it. And we take an x-ray and now we're looking at a 65 degree scoliosis. And then guess what happens with that? So. And anybody who's dealing with this, they already know what happens. But for people who don't deal with this or question it, what to question it right now, do I Right?
They're like, gosh, I don't know. I've never had my scoliosis checked on since I was in the gym locker room. Right? What ends up happening is, so now they've got this 60, 65, sometimes I've had people with like 75 degree thoracic curves and they're in their fifties or sixties. They're having all these problems, they're having pain.
They go to the doctor and they say, well, it's not unstable. Surgery is going to be worse for you than not. So, you know, we can try
an injection. Is that what they throw out? I dunno. So,
well, sometimes a lot. Sometimes they'll say like physical therapy. Yeah. Or sometimes they'll say, you know, something like that.
Do your, um, symptom management. If that doesn't work, then they send them to the pain management people. Right. So it's whether it's injections or. You know, pain medication or, um, you know, people who are looking for answers typically that they're doing, like cupping, dry needling, soft wave. Like they go down this hole of whole road, all the things, whole road.
Yep. Right. And, and then. Ultimately, like I have these patients line up in my office and they're like, okay, well for the last three years I've been doing dry needling and cupping and PT and soft wave and um, these, uh, b vitamin injections. And I've been doing, you know, like filling in all of these boxes of like just trying to management this because they're not a candidate for surgery.
It's not bad enough, but they also can't clean their shower. Oh. Or pick up their grandkids or empty their dishwasher. And typically what happens is we see that like as you go into like perimenopause, menopause, you get this, this big progression.
Yep. So like, where's the hormones all time? I'm gonna cringe it over here.
Where's the
hormones? And that's just, you know, that's the conversation that on my side, I don't have tools for that. So my question to you is, yep. For those patients. What?
Do you have an appointment? An [email protected] right? But I wanna know like what's right. What would you tell them? I would tell them that we know from research, right?
Like, 'cause that's the thing here, is that when, when those hormone shifts start to change, it impacts your collagen levels, like osteopenia, osteoporosis, that's the diag. That's probably what they're hitting when they see you, right? Yes. And they're told, well, here's your bisphosphonates. Let's look at the research behind those.
Let's just drop it there. But there's a rapid change in estrogen, progesterone, even testosterone, women. We need to have more conversations about testosterone. But that breakdown accelerates. What if we could intercept and slow that acceleration and integrate all those things they mentioned. Great. But I was the whole time like you're missing a hormone piece.
Perimenopause happens 10 to 15 years before menopause. It's a real thing. Many women are told that that's not a real thing. It's a trending topic and that's not it. Estrogen protects bone density. It keeps your collagen and ligaments flexible. It actually helps modulate inflammation. So we've got to control cortisol during that time too, 'cause that bugger will intercept.
And, and cause such chaos in that time too. And then when it, when you have that rapid drop happen and that menopause point too, now the bone thins, now the ligament stiffen and you're, you're probably seeing this in your office, muscle fatigue more easily, like chronic pain. It was better. And now it's flaring, right?
Mm-hmm. That's hormones. That is cortisol. That is thyroid, progesterone. Okay. Let's talk. I wonder how people listening are sleeping good at night if we're not sleeping good at night. Mm. Your body's not going into that moment. It needs to recover and heal. There's actually a lot of. Hormone things happening during that time.
You're sleeping, you're having dreamland. There's a lot of cool things happening in your body during that time. And if, and recovery happening. And if you are not sleeping, that's not happening. So perimenopause, often progesterone, we can bring in bioidentical progesterone during that time, um, because it also is declining.
It's more of a gradual decline during that time too. And it, and we have insomnia during that time, but tissue healing, we know that's very important here is tissue healing. And progesterone is key to tissue healing. Um, when I always tell patients you're not stressed out. Your cortisol though, like, let's talk about what's really happening in that time.
The stupid analogy of like the bear Chas ness in the woods. The bear in 2025 is notifications on your phone, the organizations you're involved and the kids, the husband, the spouse, the work, da da da da da da, like social media. It's just forever. You are being like totally lit up. Your body is constantly in a state of hyper awareness and that cortisol is very, I don't know that I've seen somebody when we've tested their cortisol ever be like.
Bingo. Spot on here. Nothing to work with with this. So we talk about the three best friends a lot, hormones, insulin, cortisol. I've added in a few more besties on the block. Um, iron deficiency anemia in women. The thyroid like, oh, thyroid level's normal. I've been told my thyroid's normal. I've been told my thyroid's normal.
Do you know, you wanna know how many people have normal when they bring those in. Like zero have normal thyroid levels according to our research that we follow in training the thyroid. Especially in this midlife time for women, it, it overlaps with menopausal symptoms, right? Like fatigue, hair loss, weight gain, again, joint pain, flexibility, all that stuff too.
But even the slightest imbalance can further muscle weakness and bone changes with the thyroid. So again, it, it's coming back to having somebody who specializes in this area. Do their workup on you. You still get to keep everybody else. We are very, very team orientated. We are never like, oh, get rid of them.
You know, like, have somebody else that's has the time, gives you more than 15 minutes in the office, gives you the lab workup that's appropriate to look at these. And really sits and looks at that piece of the puzzle that it sounds is very missing, very much so missing in this area, and not relying on just, you know, wait till it's what, what if we can, you know, treat dysfunction, not disease, like let's stop it at the dysfunctional state and not wait till it hits that disease point, especially in that perimenopause, menopause.
There's so many, there's so many things that can be done. And again, we go into vitamin D, that's like we could do a whole podcast from. Mm-hmm. And vitamin D, the ranges even at our local labs are really, really different. Um, many will come and say they were in toxic levels, they stopped taking it, and their levels are like 80 and winter's approaching that is not toxic.
That is just not toxic. Um, they're not taking, they're, oh, they're just taking calcium. No vitamin D with it. Um, the protein intake is not high enough. You know, they're, they're hardly getting even half of the protein intake that they in, we're not doing strength training and muscle resistance training, which is hugely researched nowadays to show can really support bone health, right?
Like that goes back to bone health. Iron, don't get me started on that. I want everyone to go grab their lab levels if they've ever had iron levels drawn and look at those ranges. It's like six to 300 is literally a ferritin range on there. And if they go in to provider with every symptom of iron deficiency and those levels are not in the red, they are not treated.
And that is unacceptable in our eyes. So we are bringing in iron levels and ferritin, looking at the ferritin and the iron. The gut health of that, right? Are you, is your gut healthy enough to take these oral, uh, supplements? Do we have to do some infusions for a hot second before we go back to that? Right?
So it's not just one thing when it comes out, it's nutrients, it's gut, it's hormones, it's everything. And that all ties back. I mean, your bones are literally attached to all of this. You don't have to wait till you have a 75 degree. I think that's what you said, angle change, right? Yeah. Like we can do so much.
What if you have undiagnosed PCOS? There's, there's diseases that cause hormone disruption from teens through throughout your twenties and thirties too. Like what if we could intervene and control your insulin levels that are creating, um, inflammation? What if we could intervene and control your progesterone?
You're not making enough progesterone. You need some extra progesterone in your luteal phase. Like what if we could support that your whole decades before? You, they enter at that perimenopause, menopause and help really intervene and support their body and catch these things sooner instead of having them come in, uh, menopause with these issues.
Right.
So when you were talking about. The gut health and the supplements. Mm-hmm. So I have this vivid memory, vivid memory from clinic. This was quite a long time ago. Um, we were taking x-rays and I was like, what in the world? What is on these x-rays? Like what is that? Like? I could not quite figure out what was all over this lumbar pelvic x-ray.
So I go back, we're just talking to the patient. Um, it was their Centrum supplements. Oh, yes. Like, you know, those enteric coated like, like filler full? Yes. Just full of fillers. Bad. So like literally scattered buying supplements. Yeah, eating them. Passing them Exactly how they ate them. And so we had to have the conversation of like, okay, look at your X-ray, but.
The supplements you're taking are coming out exactly how you put them in your body. Like they're doing you no good. Just stop buying them.
Yeah. So there's, there's, let's do a PSA hot second on that. Oh boy. Not all supplements are created equal. They actually found supplements on Amazon tested to not even contain, not to throw Amazon on their bus, but like, we're gonna, they're not containing what they're claiming they contain.
So working with a provider who actually understand what is, what is a high quality supplement. Vitamin D. C multivitamin. Mm-hmm. Centrum, you made me cringe when you said that. Like, everyone go throw your Centrum away. I don't care. They can contact me. I don't take one for the team.
I'll never forget that.
Nope, nope. Like that is not, that is, that's been shown to be full of fillers. You can read the back of the label. It's like that is not a high quality supplement. So I think the overwhelm comes for patient. Well, what do I take then? Well, I trust this really good company that's selling me this box of.
Amazing supplements that's gonna help me. But do you need all of that? Is that what you need? Is that what you need for everybody? BODY is different. Everyone is so individual, and just like the tides change, so do your hormones. Like you might only need that for so long and not three months, six months, nine months, not 24 months or three years later, you're on the same thing.
Like, did you get a recheck? Did you still need that? What happens after programs end? You know, like. Where is that ongoing support once you buy these magical cure all you know, situations. Where what next? What what again, you should, our goal is that you walk away eventually and you're so in tune with your body that you just know when this happens, it's this, when this happens, it's this, or I need to go see them again.
I have no clue what's going on. Let's recheck that again and you just kind of change your, your mindset that our bodies are forever changing. You know, stressors happen. Um, you know, college happens for these teens, right? High school happens. College happens. Then they enter the workforce like they're, and then they have a traumatic thing happen.
A loss happens. Uh, an illness happens. Like when these things happen, our hormones are changing. So we need to know, oh, this is a, this is a symptom. Symptoms are signals of dysfunction. Let's catch 'em and go in. Not just dismiss them, brush 'em under the rug for a decade, and then be like, I'm, I'm in a black hole.
Now what? You know? Really flipping the script to listen to our body and trust it. You're with your body 24 7, not a healthcare provider. You know, what's that? This isn't right. My hair falling out. I know it looks like I have a lot of hair, but I'm telling you my hair's falling out and not being told by dermatology.
That your vein, like that's happened in our office, like not having to go get hair extensions because your hair's falling out. No one's believing you or that. Chronic pain in women is dismissed so many times as mental health anxiety. Go see the psychiatrist, you know, for this chronic pain situation. And it's like you're learning more about scoliosis and hearing from you.
It's like, ah. Like, I've had a very well known female in my office be like, I was sitting in the, in the waiting room of the mental health place. Like why am I here? I literally have a heart rate of 130 right now. I have a physical symptom that's being dismissed as bad anxiety and panic attacks. I can tell you my hair's falling out.
I have tachycardia and I got sent to mental health, like knock it off. That's a great place. I am so for mental health, but it's, and right, like what? It's that and mm-hmm. And, and, and it's. There's physical symptoms and mental health. Let's touch both of them please. Like, let's not just do one and dismiss the other.
That's not being a real thing
in this conversation. If I could like put a laser beam into, mm-hmm. Here's this conversation, it would be women in their twenties and thirties because, so what ends up happening? So we talk about like mm-hmm. You know, osteopenia, osteoporosis, all those things. So this is what happens.
So we miss it and, and I'm gonna, okay, we're gonna back up. I'm gonna give a disclaimer. So. From a scoliosis perspective. What this does not mean is like, okay, you go, you do all these things and all of a sudden your congenital curve, right, is magically fixed, right? No, that doesn't happen. You just
said it congenital, right?
Like, or,
or say even say you've got a 40 degree curve and. You do all of these things, where's the promise and the expectation, right? So we're not promising that you do all of these things and all of a sudden your scoliosis resolves spontaneously. Right. Right. Or that all of a sudden it 100% is, is gone better magically, you know?
Right. Forever. We have to have reasonable expectations. Yes. But when we look at a person as a whole and their health, this is what I can tell you. When patients come into my office, say, I've got two separate patients. If I've got a patient that works, shift work. They don't exercise, they're drinking 40 to 60 ounces of caffeine, whether that's, um, red Bulls, monsters, coffee, bubblers, whatever, fill in the, fill in the blank, right?
Yeah. Um, they're not eating well. They're stressed out. They've got kids at home. Like all of those pieces, right? Yeah. And then, so I've got a patient who. Some of this is not changeable, right? So say you work at a hospital and you're doing shift work, right? You can't change that, but how do you support your life?
But then there's this other piece where you've got somebody who's sleeping well and they can exercise and their diet is healthy and they're doing these things. If they had the same situation, the patient who has better overall general health is going to do better with any treatment that we give them.
Obviously, because their body can respond to it better, they can adapt to it better. All of those things. So just kind of a disclaimer that what we're talking about isn't just this magical, like, Nope, fix it button, cure that. Like, okay, you no longer have to deal with your scoliosis. Go do this and I'll make it all better.
Right. But the thing that really is, is so sad for me that I just, it tugs at my heart when these patients come in is because. They're told like, don't worry about it. Go on, do your life. It won't affect pregnancies. It won't affect, and And that's true, right? Yeah. Like, okay, you can have scoliosis and you can have a family.
You can have pregnancies, you can have normal childbirth. You can do all these things. You can still run, you're races, you can go work out, you can do CrossFit, you can do all of those things. But they kind of have given an idea of like, okay, you're done. Like you don't have to worry about it. And then. All of a sudden in their forties and fifties, they come in and now we have osteopenia, we have osteoporosis.
That limits what I can do to help them because we can't, we can't put like a hard force into a scoliosis, like say a lumbar or scoliosis that is degenerative, that has some lassis. So like if a bone is shifting off a bone and we've got disc issues and they've got osteopenia, or maybe the beginning of osteoporosis.
There are a lot of things that I can no longer do with that patient. And so now it also, so now they're limited surgically, they're also limited in the realm of what I can help them with and we can still help them. So I never wanna say it's not, um. There's still hope. Like yes, we have managed lots of patients that have increased quality of life, but it still does limit that.
So if I'm, like, if we could have this conversation with people in their twenties and their thirties, and if they could just understand that they have more tools and if they can be proactive and get ahead of it, it opens up doors that they, they don't even know that they need yet.
You're, you're like talking about what, what if.
Teens knew that they could do that. What if, what if we started at the teens and like educate the teen girls on this stuff and so that as they progress through life and, and they, they know this stuff. Like how empowering is it to like, think teens and 20 year olds could know this so that when they get to that point in life, it's d it looks different than it did for us and our moms and grandmas like a whole different.
Mindset. But you can actually change that process somewhat too, right? Like that's what you're saying too, is like to know that there's more out there than what they've been told. It's like, and to not fall for, I don't know, can I just say it like hard? It's hard. If it looks hard, too good to be true. It is too good to be true.
I don't know. Like it, it, and just to validate that time too, right? Like. We get it. Like you're, you're wanting to fix this and do everything possible, but you don't have to travel for it. You don't gotta go. There's more than one person that can do what that person. Is doing. Mm-hmm. I like a better way to put it, like, you don't have to go all the way across the country.
You can get that right in your backyard if you find the right team that knows what they're doing with that
and the coordination of it, like you said, yeah, let me take this piece. Yes, I'll take this piece. Yes. And how do we work together? Yeah. Right. Absolutely. I often time, I, I have pa lots of patients where.
Like they see their chiropractor, they come see me for their scoliosis care. And then we've got other providers that are, are on board. And the more we have of that, yep. The better these patients will do, the better outcomes we'll have. And, and sometimes it's not, um. I wanna say too, not every patient that comes in the door gets the thing.
Right. Right. It's not like the, the new thing where everybody gets the same thing sounds very individualized like it should be. Right. 'cause sometimes it doesn't fit. Right.
Right. And we adjust and pivot, like you said, that shift work person's gonna need a whole different plan than the non shift work person.
Mm-hmm. But it's doable.
Right?
It's doable. You're not just out because you do shift work. There's a lot that can be done to work around that lifestyle for you.
And we talk a lot about like what's the top priority, right? So what can we do right now that will get you the farthest, the fastest? And where do we prioritize our time, our effort, and our money?
Yep. And where are the non-negotiables? Because if we've got a kid who's 10 years old, like say they're 10 or 11 and they're coming in and they've got a. 40 degree curve. Their priority is gonna be a whole lot different than say like, I've got a, an eight or 9-year-old that comes in and their curve is at 15 degrees.
Like, we're gonna treat that different just like we would treat somebody in their thirties or forties. Different and
Absolutely. And that's
where we've gotta have the people. And so that's why I'm so thankful that you guys are here. Yeah. And a lot of people don't even know that. Don't that, like, don't, we've got these people.
Yeah. Here,
I always joke about our office, like if they, if people, some people have heard of us, that's like, wow, what is this? Unicorn. I'm like, there's a clinic like mine in every corner, in every major city. Fun fact, like what I do, we are just very up to date. We are constantly chasing the latest changes, especially in hormone health specifically.
No matter are you went through fertility, are you a teen getting your period? Are you entering perimenopause, menopause, men's health, like we are up to date on that. What is, what is the research showing? What are some options to help optimize you? You don't have to go on an airplane nowadays. And, and there's telemedicine, right?
Like that's the beauty of telemedicine. And our practice has telemedicine too, but many places offer telemedicine. You don't have to tra, you shouldn't have to travel much nowadays to get really high end care and unique other options. Like I feel like I'm not that unique, but I feel like I have to say that because what we do is so different in the area.
Is unique, but really it's just a different view and a different angle and specializing in hormones.
Is there anything after our conversations today that we didn't talk about that you would want people to know or you feel like would be pertinent to or topic today?
Yeah, I feel like we could probably have like a 10 part series, you and I on stuff, but.
Hormones are a real thing. I don't care what your age is. Um, we know hormones are forever changing. So whether you're a pediatric, a teen, a young female, young male, perimenopause is real. The the standard of care for menopause has changed. It is here. So if you are a patient, I don't care, male, female, teen, pediatric, whatever, you do not feel good.
You're not getting answers. You don't feel heard. You want a different option. You wanna get a couple different opinions. You have the right to do that. You, you might have been told that this is the only way. There's more than one way, right? Medicine is an art too. We forget that it's not a one size fits all plan, and you are in control of your body.
Nobody, no healthcare provider should be navigating that for you. You should feel good and confident and walk out of that appointment feeling heard, but really good with your plan. And if you do, that's amazing. That's what it should feel like. And if you don't, there's other options out there. There just is, um, in 2025 a time recording this.
Hopefully people will be listening this 10 years from now still. But there's rapid changes happening. We are nerds in my office. You can find me at a conference probably every month and my staff as well. And we are just gonna be able to help walk you through those changes. And because patients are getting that stuff online.
We talked about that earlier, right? So the point is don't become Dr. Google. Go out there, look what's going on. But you're on social media, you're on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, podcast, YouTube. Great. There's a lot of great providers putting information out there, especially about hormones and advancements and stuff like that.
Patients are catching up with that. Providers are not. So if there's a different road you wanna take as a patient, no matter what your diagnosis is, take it you, you're in control.
Thank you so much for coming today. I can't tell you how much we appreciate having Oh, yeah. You guys here, you're welcome. In our community and to help, um, we are going to link some.
Different links to my clinic and Dr. Tara Harding's Clinic so that you have access and you've got some resources. So, uh, look on our podcast, you can find, uh, her podcast as well. So we'll include all of that. And as always, if you have any questions, reach out to us. Thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you for having me. Yes.
Thanks for spending time with me today. If you could leave a review before you go, that would help us reach more people that need this message. To learn more about the services and resources that we have available, visit us at behindthebrace.com.. This show is produced by RAYMA Team Media. To learn more about how they can help you with your podcast, visit raymateam.com.
