Do you want your doctor to prescribe hormones? Why you don’t want your doctor to prescribe your hormones is a bigger question? You need a specialist to prescribe hormones. Someone who will optimize your hormones for you as an individual. Ricky Brandon from Hormone Balance Centers share his experience about hormones therapy and why it’s important to optimize them not minimize them.
Do not miss these highlights:
05:15 Ricky’s experience with a midwife who had double the experience of the doctor.
12:14 How Ricky and his wife cope with her postpartum depression.
14:09 How Dr. Jones helped Ricky’s wife recover.
18:09 How having low testosterone affected Ricky’s life
19:37 Ricky’s mission of creating a clinic, an environment where they attracted doctors who want to make a difference
21:22 Insurance is a business, it’s limiting people’s belief of what’s possible.
28:48 It is unfortunate how doctors get hung up on this protocol insurance – Our healthcare system is a business.
33:27 The Hippocratic Oath
37:37 Natural hormone versus synthetic or bioidentical hormone.
39:30 Hormones control other hormones in the body. Right hormone balance will extend your life and the quality of your life .
50:13 Calling them patients versus calling them a client.
51:33 Why women need testosterone.
Whether you are recovering from an illness or just looking to maintain your current overall health, schedule a consult with us at Serenity Health Care by calling (262)522-8640 or visit https://www.serenityhealthcarecenter.com
Ricky Brandon is a health and wellness advocate. He and his wife Candy started Hormone Balance Centers because they could not find the high level of care they desired for their own family. After years of searching, thousands of hours in training, research, and trial, and error, he has finally landed on the process and system that mixes traditional medicine with alternative medicine and helps people feel great again and live younger and longer with natural hormone replacement therapy.
Website: https://www.hormonebalancecenters.com
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/Hormone-Balance-Centers-103144779026810
Transcript of Episode 193
Debra Muth 0:02
Welcome to Let’s Talk Wellness. Now, I’m your host, Dr. Deb. This is where we talk about everything wellness, and learn to defy aging, and live our lives on our own terms. Welcome back to Let’s Talk wellness. Now, I’m your host, Dr. Deb and I have with me today, Ricky Brandon. Ricky is a Health and Wellness Advocate. He and his wife, Cindy started hormone balance centers because they could not find the level of care they desired for their own family. And after years of searching 1000s of hours in training, research, trial and error, he has finally landed on a process and a system that mixes traditional medicine with alternative medicine, and helps people feel great again and live longer with natural hormone therapy. So I want to talk to Ricky today because you guys know that I am an advocate for bio identical hormones. And I have been for a very, very long time. I’ve been in this industry 25 years, I’ve used and prescribed bioidentical hormones for that entire time. My love started out in fertility work. And so understanding hormones has been such a gift for me. And helping women look and feel their best has made such a huge difference in my life and the lives of so many people that I work with. And I’m so blessed to have this background and this knowledge. So being able to talk to Ricky today about what they’ve found in the bio identical hormone world. And coming from an advocate perspective, I think is amazing. Because, you know, this is the biggest thing is we have to learn to advocate for ourselves for our own health and well being. And for all of the things that we want in our lives and all of the things that we want our life to be, whether it’s health, whether it’s work life balance, whether it’s finances, whatever that is, that’s where we want that to be. So I’m going to bring Ricky on we’re going to have this conversation without any further ado, let’s get started chatting with him. Have you seen 20 Plus medical doctors only to be told your symptoms are in your head, or you need an antidepressant? We understand your frustrations? Are you tired of feeling sick and tired? Tired of not getting the answers you need to regain your health, tired of not feeling listened to by your doctor at Serenity Health Care Center, we understand and we will help you find the cause of your symptoms. Together we will create a path to health. We specialize in combining the best of conventional and natural medicine to get you back to doing what you love. We have worked with the most complex chronic diseases such as chronic Lyme COVID, long haulers, autoimmune disease, mold, toxicity, and hormonal imbalances. But if you’re not sick, that’s fantastic. We will work with you to maintain your health so that you can prevent illness. give our office a call to see how we can help you regain your health and vitality at 262-522-8640. Or check us out at our website at Serenity health care. center.com. Welcome back to Let’s Talk wellness. Now I’m so glad to have my guest here with me today. And as you guys know, we talked briefly before we brought him on. We’re going to talk all things hormones, which is one of my favorite topics. So welcome to the show.
Ricky Brandon 3:57
Awesome. I’m so excited to be here. And I can’t wait. I can’t wait to have this conversation with you because I love it.
Debra Muth 4:03
I do too. I love it. And I love what you guys are doing and what your mission stands for and why you’re doing the things that you’re doing. So, Ricky, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started and your journey.
Ricky Brandon 4:19
Yeah, so by by trade actually long time ago, I’ll call it my past life, not a literal past life. But the other life I lived I was in the entertainment industry. And I worked for magicians in Las Vegas and it was exciting and all of that. And then I met my wife and we got married and we had our first kid. And while we were having our first kid his name’s Carter, he’s now 16 We we were on the fence of what to do right I kind of dabbled in hormone on not hormones but in natural medicine and herbs and I had lots of friends in the herbal and industry. And, and I had heard that midwives give great care, this is a little different story than the one you’ve read, I’m giving you a little more because I feel prompted to. So I’m gonna do that so. And so we’re about to have our first kid and my wife was worried because she had had back surgery in a snowboarding accident. And she was, she was told that when she had back surgery that she would never carry a child fault, or that she would be on bed rest and all of this stuff. She was also told that her back would have to be fused within five years. And it never was, she just, she just did everything she was supposed to do and took good care of herself. And she never had to have a fuse. Now it’s been 20 something years since then. And she’s still going strong. And we’ve had four kids. But this this first story, right? We’re going to the doctor, the regular doctor, and I’m not anti doctor, so please, nobody get that idea. As I tell these stories doctors save lives. And they’ve saved one of my child’s lives. And so, but we’re going to I heard you get great prenatal care from a midwife. So our plan was go to the midwife for prenatal care, and deliver in the hospital with a doctor, because my wife was scared to have her first baby because of her back. And as we’re going along, I am asking questions, right? Both of us are asking questions. And we go to the doctor, we ask a question. And he would say something like that. Don’t worry about it. That’s my job. And we go away with all this doubt and anxiety, right? Then we’d go to the midwife a couple days later, and I’d ask the same question. And she would take 40 minutes, and teach us. And all of a sudden, our anxiety and fear would go away. Yeah. And the longer we went on, I’m like, Man, the doctor just kind of dismisses us. And the midwife empowers us. And as we got closer, I said to my wife, you know, we asked the midwife Do you think? Do you think she could deliver her baby at home? Do you think we could do that? And she says, Well, yeah. And what about her back? She goes, No problem. And then then we asked how many babies she had delivered. And we asked the doctor, how many babies he had delivered. And the midwife had like, double, double the experience of the doctor. Wow. And then we’re talking to her and she goes, she says that it was awesome. She goes, Look, kids, and she has an older lady, she goes, Look, kids, I, if I lose a baby, I don’t work anymore. If the doctor loses a baby, he has a an insurance claim. And maybe some discomfort going to court or something like that. She goes, I care about you. I’m not anti Doctor, I’m going to be the first one to call a doctor, if we’re in trouble. She goes, but if everything’s going fine, your body was made to deliver babies. And she taught me all of this stuff about about why doctors induce and about how they, what the what the water sack does and why it’s there. And, and all of this stuff. So I found myself the reason the entertainment part is important. All these girls, the showgirls who I worked around, some of them were having their first babies. And within, I don’t know, I would come to work and I would talk about all this stuff that I was learning. And I would have four or 5,6,7 women around me asking me questions about how their bodies work. It was the weirdest thing. It was the strangest thing. And we had a great outcome with that first birth. And then we moved to Utah, we had our second birth and our third birth at home, and our fourth birth was rough. Everything was going great. And the midwife sends her assistant, because you know, we’re all pros by now she’s like, ah, Ricky, you can just start delivering these babies on your own. And the assistant is very nervous. All prenatals looked fine. And the midwife shows up. Like in a panic, she goes, my assistant called me and she checks my wife, she turns to her assistant says, Call 911 My wife’s dilated to about an eighth. And then she turns to my wife and she says, candy, you need to deliver this baby. Now or we’re transferring you for an emergency C section. Oh my god. She was full term. It wasn’t early. It wasn’t anything. And my wife is amazing. She bears down and pushes that baby out at an eight. Oh my gosh. And the midwife takes the baby now where I live. We have volunteer paramedics. Hmm. So they are not. I mean, yeah, they’re they’re volunteer, so they’re not. I forget EMT paramedic, which one is trained more. But yeah. They’re not allowed to intubate or anything like that. My babies Gray, my baby’s not breathing. And she clips the cord. She scoops the baby into the arms, she points at me, she says, Ricky, come with me. And because these volunteers, they’re kind of shaking, and you can tell they don’t know what to do. The midwife, my wife starts getting up, she says, you stay here, placenta yet. My assistants gonna take care of you. We get in the ambulance, the midwife takes over. She’s she’s doing CPR, she’s pumping the bag. And she says, Ricky, you have to pray for this baby. And I say a prayer and resume to the hospital. And, and we’re at the one hospital, they move us to another hospital. And they they put my baby on, on total body cooling. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. But yeah, so and so this is an I’m telling a long story to get to it. There is a point to this, I promise that has to do with hormones. We we go through that my wife is amazing. She shows up to the hospital. And she is taking care of our baby, you know, she’s staying there as much as she can. She’s exhausted, I’m exhausted, we’re exhausted. The doctors saved my baby’s life. He’s perfectly normal. About three days in. I said, nobody’s told me if he’s gonna live or not, right. And the doctor says what’s because we don’t know. And then he gets stable enough where they can change him to a breathing machine, where, where he can get an MRI. And they said, Boy, it’s not a matter of, if he has brain damage. It’s how bad because he went so long without oxygen. And they come back and they use the words, it’s a miracle. He his brain looks better than some perfectly normal births. And of course, he has to go through all the occupational training and stuff. But that time after we got him home, my wife had some postpartum. I’m not serious enough that we went on medication. But she had some real postpartum and some, some beating herself up. Because she thought if I had taken better care of myself, maybe this wouldn’t have happened to my baby. And I start to grow up, you know, I started to grow up and I start to do things like pull over to the side of the road on my way home from work, and cry. Because I’m worried about my wife. I’m worried about my other three kids. Because my wife’s not fully there. Her mom is there, and I love her mom. But her mom was starting to do too much. It was time for my wife to come back. Yeah. And she was kind of using her mom as the safety cushion. And she would put herself in the room a lot and breastfeed and, and so I asked my friend for some advice, and he says, cord, your wife like you courted her when you were dating her? Let her know you love her. And then when the time is right, approach this depression issue. It’s exactly what I did. And one day, it felt right. And we had this hard conversation. I said, Are you depressed? And she said, maybe. And then we started working on it. And we ran into the problem instead of away from the problem. And now then she’s doing pretty good. But still, there’s some hormone imbalance there. And I, I had done some work for a while I did a lot of work for years. For a hormone doctor, who I did his marketing work. I didn’t do medical work for him. I did marketing work for his websites. I videotaped him. So I I heard everything he taught. And I said, Let’s go see Dr. Jones.
Ricky Brandon 14:14
And she says, no, no, I don’t want to burden him. I said, Let’s go see Dr. Jones. She says no, no, I don’t want to do that. Okay. So we start working out and exercising. This is now a couple of years later, we’re exercising we’re working hard. She’s put on a ton of weight. And, and the gut you know, you know, you can’t be a prophet in your own backyard. Dr. Deb, you ever heard that saying you can’t prophet like to your own kids, You’re a dummy but to someone that you know, and, and the guy at the gym says Kandi, I see you’re working hard Ricky’s making progress and you’re not have you ever thought of having your hormones checked? And she she turns to me and she gives me that look like okay called Dr. Jones. We call him. He interviews her. And we get her bloodwork done. She’s on thyroid medication already. He doubles her medication, like insane. He’s like, you’re on way too low. This is not working. Let’s double your medication. She was extremely anemic. Like, he goes, I don’t even know how you’re walking. You’re so anemic. Do you take an iron supplement? And she says, Yeah, I go to my regular doctor. And he just tells me to take an iron supplement. And I do and he goes, Well, it’s not working. He goes, here’s what I want you to do, I want you to change to this supplement. And I want you to take this enzyme because you’re not absorbing it. Like this is on the first meeting. And so she gets on the supplement, she starts taking the enzyme to help digest and do things well. She doubles her thyroid, and then he says, your progesterone is low, but it’s actually within range. He goes, but we don’t treat ranges. Here we treat people. Yeah. And he says, so by the insurance company and everything. You’re within range. This is something we’ll talk about. I’m not anti insurance, but I am okay. And he says so. But you need to be on some progesterone, because your estrogen dominant. And estrogen dominant is going to make you hold on to your weight. It’s going to, you know, once you get the progesterone, you’ll start sleeping better. It’s kind of the happy hormone. And so he gives her this plan. Two weeks later, she’s sleeping better. Like way better. She used to never get up in the morning, I would get up every morning, get the kids off, because she couldn’t. Not that she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. I remember coming home one day and she was so tired and exhausted. She said, Ricky, I’m so thirsty. But I don’t even feel like getting up off the couch to get a glass of water. And, you know, I’m a husband, I want to fix this right? Right now. She’s getting up with me in the morning. She’s cooking breakfast, my kids are like, wow, this is great. And she steps on the scale. And it was only two pounds. But she had been working so hard for so long with no weight loss. She looks at me and she starts crying. And she says, Oh my gosh, Ricky, if that was all it is. I’m going to be so mad, mad because she waited so long
Ricky Brandon 17:44
Then Dr. Jones retired.
Debra Muth 17:48
As all good doctors do at some point.
Ricky Brandon 17:52
And and we looked for other doctors, and no one was on board like Dr. Jones. Nobody was open minded, like Dr. Jones, nobody treated people instead of labs, like Dr. Jones. So after about two years of trying to find someone to help, and I needed help to I was at a point where I was starting to get depressed. And and I didn’t realize low testosterone would do that to a man. You know, I thought testosterone was only for those muscle builders, egocentric types. I was getting to where I didn’t even want to go to work. I had no fight left in me. And I got on testosterone cream. So this is about the same time we’re looking for a doctor I get I find a hormone doctor that we’re kind of, okay, maybe. And he puts me on testosterone cream, I start doing better. I go to my regular doctor, he says what are you taking? You know, the regular question. So I’m taking testosterone. And he says, Oh, you don’t need to be on that. Those quack hormone doctors will give anybody anything. And he says, but I’ll test you. I’m arguing with him, because I’m like this. This literally saved my family. And he’s and he’s he wants to change my wife’s thyroid. He wants to do all of this stuff. I’m like, now this is working. And so he tested me, guess what, even on the cream, my testosterone was still clinically low. Which the range is huge for that. Yeah. So he changes me to an injection. My life has changed. Now I have some energy. I have some fight left in me. And when Dr. Jones retired, and we went through this about two years of it, I called Dr. Jones one day and I said Dr. Jones, because my wife and I were talking so could we do this? Could we open a clinic? And could we create an environment where we attracted doctors who want to make a difference because in all my interviewing of doctors, not all of them but many of them hate their job. Yes. They are not allowed to practice medicine the way they want to, they’re only given 15 minutes. And they’re given quotas, if they’re going to hit their bonuses, which they need, because they’ve now been converted to a salary, because they can’t afford to run a practice on their own. Yeah. And I thought, if I could do it, I’m an entrepreneur, if I could do it, if I could create an environment where these doctors can give them permission, look, spend an hour with someone, if they need an hour and a half talk to them for an hour and a half. They’re paying for it. And that’s what we did. And it’s not emergency care. I mean, it is some people come in here, they feel like they’re in an emergency. But for the doctor, I mean, when’s the last time you went to your doctor and you felt like giving them a hug, and saying thank you, or sending him a Christmas card, because he truly helped you. That’s what happens when you do when you interact with people in this way. Now, I hate I hate that. I hate that I have to charge people. You know, some, some people need to be charged, because they won’t show up unless they are charged. That’s true, if that makes sense. Yeah, but some people desperately need the help. And they think that this stuff is too expensive. I lately have been saying I we need to change the paradigm from insurance because insurance is limiting people’s belief of what’s possible. They think they think that insurance, if insurance approves it, I must need it. If insurance doesn’t approve it, I must not need it. So they think that insurance is some gauge of what’s actually needed and what’s not know it’s a balance of return on investment. And how low can I get someone in this range? Without it actually hurting them? Because the moment it hurts them, then I don’t feel good about myself. I’m doing bad, right? How low so I know I’m occupying, I’m gonna be quiet in a minute let you talk.
Debra Muth 22:06
I promise, you’re good. Go for it.
Ricky Brandon 22:09
I went and got a colonoscopy. And we were talking about my blood pressure before and after the colonoscopy. And she’s like, Oh, your blood pressure really came down? I’m like, of course you’ve got me loaded, right? Yeah. And the girl there said the nurse. She said Did you know they’re looking to change the blood pressure range? They’re looking to go up five by as much as five points. And I said, really? Why? And she turned to me. And she said, can you imagine how much money they will save in blood pressure medication, they’re doing studies to discover that you can go five points higher, and you’re really not going to die at that range, it’s going to be a little higher than that, that you die, and that you have a heart attack and stroke out and all that stuff, right. And I went away just shaking my head. And you realize you have a few experiences like that. And you realize it really is a business insurance is a business and those ranges when you get your bloodwork, those ranges are wide. And they’re not necessarily where your healthiest. Absolutely, and I don’t a regular endocrinologist will only treat you once you get clinically low. My philosophy and our philosophy here. And all the doctors that I hire and nurse practitioners is we will treat you when we will treat you even if you’re not clinically low. We want to get you to high normal or high optimal instead of low normal. I hate that low normal. It’s like It’s like saying, It’s like saying, hey, look, you’re not in poverty yet. So don’t go look for a better job. Wait till you’re totally in poverty, then go look for a better job. You’re at least $100 A year above poverty. So don’t do anything about it. Like that’s a terrible way. I don’t know anyone who wants to live in low normal. I want to live in high optimal. And. Okay, I’ll let you comment on what I’ve said. But then I would I would love to talk about the fear of hormones and why? Yeah, why doctors are afraid of them.
Debra Muth 24:21
That is great. I love everything you’ve said and I can resonate with all of it. My daughter delivered with a midwife, just about a year ago. And she she did that because she had such a traumatizing experience when she delivered her first child in the hospital. And they accused her of being a drug addict. They accused her of all kinds of things. And when she said I’m out here with my child, I’m not staying five days for nothing. They threatened to call social services on her and have her child taken away. And, of course, Mama Bear says, Do you want me to come take care of this? And she’s old enough to say, No, Mom, I got this. I’m a mom, I gotta do this. And I said, Great. When it gets beyond that point, you let me know. And she, and she navigated it very well. But it was so traumatizing to her that she said, I will never deliver in a hospital again. And so she delivered with a midwife, and had an amazing experience all the way through. And like you, unfortunately, her son was born with the cord wrapped around his neck. And he wasn’t breathing when he was born either. Luckily, he didn’t need to be taken to the hospital, they unwrap the cord, everything was good. And it was great. And we’ve all been on pins and needles the same way, like how bad that do damage. And luckily, he’s 10 months old, and he’s wonderful. And he’s walking, and he’s beautiful, and all his landmarks. But, you know, she said to me, I would rather have had that experience with my midwife than with a doctor because she says, I don’t know, what they would have done if I was in the hospital, where they would have swept him off to what they would have injected him with all of these things. Like, I’m grateful that they have that and it’s there. But she’s like I she delivered during the COVID pandemic. And she said, I didn’t want to be part of that. So wonderful experience and super huge shout out to our nurse midwives, because they are amazing women and men. And it’s just amazing to have them you know that.
Ricky Brandon 26:33
I don’t know what it’s called. There’s a goop that they put in baby’s eyes right after they’re born. Yep. And from what I understand, it’s not comfortable, and it burns a bit. And I asked about that goop. And they said, it’s there because of STDs. Right? Yeah. And when the baby comes through the birth canal as those can get in through the eyes. And and so then I asked, okay, so that, that that’s only when it comes through the birth canal. And, and even if the mother has said, I’ve don’t have, you know, have a clean history, a clean sexual history, you still do it? And they say, yes, it’s a matter of protocol. And then I said, What about a C section where the baby does not they go, we still do it? And I go, why? And the answer was, it’s protocols protocol. And I forgot to mention this in the in the deciding to use a midwife, we asked the doctor because my wife was scared about her back. We said, can you be our backup, because we really like you like if something goes wrong, and, and he said, you know, really, if you’re going to choose to go with a midwife, and you end up at the hospital, it’s luck of the draw. I can’t promise it’ll be me. I mean, I might be working that night, but. And then three days later, we got a letter in the mail, discharging us from his care. And he said to us, like, as we left, he said, you know, they don’t really want me to become friends with you, because then it, then it impedes my ability to make judgment. And if I’m basically saying, yeah, if I’m not friends with you, it’s easier for me to follow protocol. Yes. But if I care about if I truly care about you, I might not follow the protocol. Yeah. And therefore, they don’t really want me being friends with you.
Debra Muth 28:34
Right? Because I might do for you what I would do for my wife, then if I’m friends with you, that aka that’s what they’re saying. And it’s really sad. But so many times, that is the truth. And that’s what happens. It’s unfortunate.
Ricky Brandon 28:48
It’s It is unfortunate. So So doctors get hung up on this protocol insurance, and they’ve worked for places that it’s like, yeah, like, Look, you have to follow the protocol. Or it’s going to be your butt on the court stand getting sued, because you didn’t follow protocol, because you didn’t. And the protocol isn’t. The protocol is invented by an insurance company that says this is what we’re willing to do. And this is going to be super conservative and keep us safe all the time. And people aren’t going to die. We hope.
Debra Muth 29:26
And we’re going to save a lot of money. Because I think that’s that’s the thing people have to understand about insurance is Insurance is not there to really help us or protect us or any of that kind of thing. It’s there. It is a business they are there to make money. So their job is to deny anything and everything that could possibly be denied for any little reason. You didn’t dot an eye or cross the T they’re gonna deny it for you. It doesn’t mean that so for those people that are listening, it doesn’t mean that it’s not good for you. It means It’s not in the best interest of the insurance company to pay for it for you.
Ricky Brandon 30:04
Yeah. One of the nurse practitioners who works in our clinic, he said, he said, Boy, I’m sure glad you don’t take insurance. He goes, I’ve had claims that I’ve submitted wrong, like, and I get fined. Yeah. Because I just entered it wrong. Yep. I accident they charge me for putting it in wrong. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a it’s a profit thing.
Debra Muth 30:29
It is, our healthcare system is profits. It is a business. Even though the hospitals are not for profit, people need to keep in mind, the only reason they’re not for profit is because their CEOs make a lot of money. That’s all they say, not for profit. But it is all profit driven. I have colleagues that work for hospitals, and they get their hand slapped, because not all their clients are on statins, or they’re not all taking the vaccinations or having a procedure done. And for every client that is quote, unquote, non compliant, the doctor gets sanctioned by the organization. And so when they’re pushing for you to do all these things, they may not be pushing them, because they’re in your best interest. They’re pushing them because that’s how they get reimbursed. And that’s how they retain their job. Unfortunately,
Ricky Brandon 31:21
It’s kind of weird to think that your doctor is afraid of losing his job. Yeah. And that’s exactly how we all feel. We go into our jobs, and we just okay, I’m just gonna lay low, and do my thing that I’m supposed to do nothing more, nothing less. Because I don’t want any undue notice on me.
Debra Muth 31:41
Yep. Yeah. And I love that you guys advocated for this, and you went back to your doctor that made such a big difference for you and created a place where people could have that we need more of that your clinic, my clinic, they’re very similar this way. We need more people that are willing to think outside the box and willing to look at optimization. You know, when you were talking about the endocrinologist, it made me think of this patient that I saw, Gosh, 20 ish years ago, 10 year old girl gained 100 pounds in six months. And her mom strong family history of thyroid mom said it’s got to be thyroid, but I’ve taken her to the doctor multiple times, they keep telling me it’s normal. I said, Let’s do another test, we get the tests back, the TSH is about eight, it should be conventionally less than five in our world less than two. So we send her off to endocrinology because she’s 10. an endocrinologist says, I’m not going to I’m not going to treat her till her thyroid is over 10 and a half. And I’m looking at the mom. And I’m just like, I don’t know what to tell you. This is ridiculous. So we’re gonna let her gain another 100 pounds, and have this horrible life at 10 years old, because he wants to wait till it’s double the normal range. And we talked about it and I ultimately treated her with my physician that was with me. And within eight weeks, this child went from being sluggish can’t get off the couch and weighing 100 pounds to having 10 pounds of weight loss and feeling like a normal child again. And to me that should this should be criminal that we’re not willing to treat people the way they should be treated. It’s sad.
Ricky Brandon 33:27
That’s that’s the Hippocratic Oath. Right? Right. But you don’t want to harm people that I take an oath not to harm people. I have I have a friend. He’s an ER doctor. He used to own a weight clinic and everyone that came in pretty much was diabetic. And he just said, I can’t put people on Metformin anymore. I can’t do it. And I asked him why. And he says because of my Hippocratic Oath. He goes, this is hurting people. He goes, Yeah, it lowers your sugar levels. But the sugar doesn’t disappear. Where does it go? Well, it gets stored as fat. And if they don’t change their lifestyle, and we give them this crutch, to pretend like they’re getting healthier. They’re not getting healthier. And so he’s totally changed. And now his total focus is, is reducing diet. Reversing. He calls it eating for reversal, reversing diabetes without medicine. Wow. And he has a great success rate.
Debra Muth 34:29
It’s this concept that nobody will change their lifestyle to get healthy. And that’s what unfortunately doctors are taught these days in med school is that nobody will change their lifestyle. They won’t change their eating. They won’t change their exercising, therefore we have to medicate them. And that couldn’t be farther from the truth. At least with the clients that I see. I’m sure the clients that you see everybody’s willing to change their lifestyle if it means they’re healthier and they don’t have to take so much medication.
Ricky Brandon 34:55
Look for some people your hormones are so out of balance like my wife who wanted it Drink of water, if you didn’t feel like getting up to get a drink of water if you walked into the doctor, and he says, Well, you know, you need to eat better and exercise for some of these people that is not on their radar yet, yes, they don’t even feel like walking into the doctor’s office, let alone going and exercising. And so yeah, you got to get things in balance, you got to get them feeling good. So that then they have what it takes to do that they want to do it, they don’t want to be sick. But they don’t have anything that you can’t keep giving from an empty cup.
Debra Muth 35:35
That’s exactly right. Let’s talk about that. So, you know, when people are at that point where they’re so bummed out, but they’re afraid to do things like we were going to get into this conversation, that fear of hormones, I need this a good time to do that, like, people who cannot function can’t do all these wonderful things, you know, change your diet, change your lifestyle, sleep better, they can’t do that their bodies aren’t in a place to do that. We have to build them up to be able to do that. And this is where hormones comes into a great place. And I do have patients that are afraid of hormones from a 30 year old study that was poorly done, that we’re still touting, and we have to D Miss demystify that whole thing. But let’s talk a little bit about this. Why are women so afraid of hormones?
Ricky Brandon 36:26
That’s tough to answer, but I think it’s because all the doctors are afraid of hormones. None of them. None of them went and looked at that study and saw what it really it’s the Women’s Health Initiative. Right. Correct. That study? Yeah. And what the study said was that or what people think the study said yes. Was that estrogen and progesterone cause cancer? Yep. Or increased cancer. And that’s why that’s exactly why someone who, you know, maybe just had a mastectomy because of breast cancer. They get put on estrogen blockers, yes. Which makes their life terrible. Makes them depressed. Weight gain, weight gain, joints hurt. They don’t want to live And so they do that as a matter of protocol, right?
Ricky Brandon 37:16
Because that study what that study really, really. There actually was a retraction on it that said, No, it’s not progesterone. It’s progestins. And it was, you know, the prim Pro or Premarin. That was the mix of the synthetic. Now I want to, I want to talk a little bit about bio identical or natural versus synthetic. No, technically, technically speaking of bioidentical hormone is synthetic because it was made in a lab. Correct. The difference is it is made to exactly match what your body makes, it cannot tell the difference. It is exactly molecularly the same. So let if we’re talking if we’re talking progesterone, the progesterone that’s in birth control, and that’s in all of these prescriptions is Madras oxy progesterone acetate, right? So they add a methyl group and acetate that makes it patentable? And that’s also what makes it cause cancer. Because it’s no longer progesterone, it’s a progestin so that that study really says the Premarin we’re giving everybody causes cancer. Correct. What got misinterpreted is like, here’s, this is the craziest thing. I I have seen study after study after study that says with the right estrogen, progesterone and testosterone for a woman, it will reverse osteoporosis. Yes, that are better than these prescriptions that they’re giving people for osteoporosis
Debra Muth 39:02
That steal bone from one area and deposited as bad bone someplace else, right?
Ricky Brandon 39:07
Yeah, men, men with testosterone. Oh, if you get too much testosterone, you’re gonna have a heart attack. Last I checked my heart is a muscle and the testosterone supports muscle. healthy muscle, right? Man, I’ve seen people’s numbers change I’ve seen I’ve seen diabetes reverse with testosterone.
Debra Muth 39:30
Yes. And that’s the one thing that people don’t talk about is that hormones control other hormones in the body and we don’t want to talk about vitamin D being a hormone and Epson being a hormone and all these hormones that control our weight and our appetite and our cognitive function. We just want to think that we’re using them for hot flashes or night sweats and it could be further from the truth because it will extend your life it will extend your life and the quality of your life.
Ricky Brandon 39:56
Can you imagine if at 70, 80 years old, you’re showing up like a 50 year old? Because you can I’ve seen Yes, you can. And you don’t have to be like, Have you ever seen those? Like you said, like the picture you show, right? Yeah, you’ve seen a 50 year old that looks like an old lady, or an old man. And you see this other 70 year old and you’re like, wow, they seem younger than me. My parents can work circles around me. How do you do it? I don’t know if it’s a different work ethic, but they, you know, they take care of themselves. Yeah, this is, and taking care of yourself doesn’t mean oh, I only drink veggie juice. And I do a 50 mile bike ride every day? No, you can, you know, with the right hormone balance. Now, the age old question is why do the hormones get out of balance? Why? I mean, there’s 100 reasons, right? This is, you shouldn’t look, let me just say it, you shouldn’t be afraid of hormones, as long as you’re dealing with someone who understands them. I have a little bit of a problem with the I don’t know if you know much about them. Or if you use them, maybe you use them to pellets that people are getting injected. Yeah, I don’t use them. I’m curious, why don’t you use them? I don’t use the same reason.
Debra Muth 41:23
I don’t use them. Because I don’t like the fact that I’m injecting something into somebody and I have no control for the next 12 weeks. I don’t like that. And I’ve seen so many people overdosed in using pellets. And once that’s in there, we can’t get it out. It has to just write its course. And it’s expensive. Why Why spend $1,000 on something that I can give somebody the same thing for $40. It doesn’t make any sense. And they have control. And since hormones change moment to moment, day to day, putting a pellet in and having that same delivery dose. No, not my thing.
Ricky Brandon 42:03
Yeah, we’ve had women come in here. They’re they’re raging and they’re getting acne. And what do I do? And I go wait three months, and come see me. And don’t put another pallet in? Yeah, we start people low. And you can, you can move up quickly. If you call me and you go look this, I’m still not sleeping I went, you can take two of those progesterone pills. Or take three pumps of cream or whatever, we can adjust you up or down immediately. And or if you say man, I’m Oh, you’re too high. Take less. Yeah, that’s what I love about the compounded bioidentical natural hormones. And doing it that way.
Debra Muth 42:45
I do too. I love that ability as well. And, you know, back to what you were talking about with the progesterone and the progestin, you know, there was a study done prior to the WIH trial showing that natural progesterone encompasses a breast tumors. So if you had a breast tumor, and you were given natural progesterone, because they did this study, when they were promoting prometrium, to be a patented progesterone and natural progesterone, it would keep the cancerous tumor from spreading, and it would shrink it. And so they knew that when they created prometrium. And what ended up happening is the doctors that were removing breast tumors would say, we’re going to schedule your tumor removal when you’re in the second half of your menstrual cycle when progesterone is at its highest, because we’re going to have less risk of metastases, and it’s going to be shrinking at that point. Wow. And we don’t talk about that publicly, anywhere. Nobody teaches it, nobody to know.
Ricky Brandon 43:43
And you know why? Nobody teaches it. There’s no money, there’s no money in it. And this is, this is why you have to pay for your own health care. And hopefully, there’s people like you and me who try to keep the price down. There’s others who are wolves, who will just charge you like, like they go to a weekend seminar. And they learned they can make a lot of money with pellets. And they just start injecting pellets and they charge a lot for it. Yeah. Now you do have to pay enough for the doctor to be happy.
Debra Muth 44:16
Right? Keep the lights on
Ricky Brandon 44:19
He or she can’t give from an empty cup, either. But you get to call the shots when you’re buying it. Yeah. You know what I mean? You’re hiring them as a professional to consult with and because they know some things you don’t, but ultimately, when have you ever you ever been in a situation where you had to borrow money from someone? Like a relative? I’ve seen people do this. They have to borrow money like from a mother or father or even worse a mother in law or a father in law. And then all of a sudden they start judging all of your purchases. Mm hmm. Right. They say Oh, well do you really need that? Do you really need that? That’s what the insurance company does, yes. You know, do you really need that treatment, I mean, you’re not going to die, you’ll be terribly uncomfortable, but you won’t die. So let’s hold off on that until you’re about to die. Yeah, then we’ll treat it.
Debra Muth 45:15
Because if we we don’t want to admit that we’re under socialized health care, but we have been under socialized health care since Obamacare was put in place. And whether people want to realize it’s rationed care or not, that’s exactly what we’re getting. Because if insurance doesn’t pay for it, and you can’t afford to pay for it, you don’t get the care. And that’s rationed care. And every insurance company tries to get out of paying whatever they can, and their deductibles go higher, there’s a reason for that, too. So when you have to pay for your own care, whether it’s deductible, or not, choose who you want to have care with, do the care, you want to have them.
Ricky Brandon 45:52
And I would just like to caution people, that there are a lot of really clever marketers, you will mark it on your fear that we’ve been talking about everything negative, I would like to talk about something positive. But just this last thing, I would like to say, if you feel pushed into a program, you’re probably being pushed into a program. If it’s really expensive. And it’s a one size fits all program, I would, I would say I’m a little worried you want someone who’s going to sit down with you consult with you, and trust your gut, you know, you know, every woman who comes into here, knows there’s something off with her hormones, but she’s so sick of going to the doctor and he goes, your labs look normal for your age, your labs look normal, and she comes away, I don’t feel normal. And they come in here. Or your place or some they find someone I don’t care who you find interview people, I know you’re tired, I know you’re sick, your whatever. Find someone send your husband on the way to find some whatever. And when you get that gut feeling this person feels like they get me because that’s how you’ll feel when they sit down with you. And they go over your labs. And you actually understand and they go line by line through the labs. And they explained, let me guess you’re not sleeping at night. Let me guess You wake up at three and you can’t go you go to sleep fine. But you wake up at three and you can’t go to sleep. Let me guess the back of your heels on your feet are dry and cracked. Let me and they come away. And they’re like, it was like he was reading my mind. Right? Yes. Or she was. And I say for the first time they come out for the first time they feel validated. And they’re not crazy, because the protocol. The the all too familiar protocol is you keep going to the doctor and saying I feel this way I feel like something’s wrong. While your labs look normal. I keep feeling like something wrong. The next step is to put you on an SSRI or depression medication. Yes, what is your weights? makes you gain weight, and then you become more depressed? Yep. And so what if the problem is estrogen, why not treat the estrogen? Why give me an SSRI? If the problem is progesterone, why not give me progesterone? No, no, because there was this study 30 years ago that said something kind of like that might maybe sort of cause cancer. It doesn’t look like just dispel that fear. We can show you both of us. Dr. Deb and I could show you study after study after study that shows not only is it safe, it’s preventative. It will stop so many other diseases and, and cancers and and and your life will be better. You’ll feel better. You’ll feel normal. You’ll be back who you were again, and it’s awesome. And and yeah, sometimes it takes a little adjusting to get there. It’s not a drug. I mean, you’re not going to take it and all of a sudden feel great like an opioid does. Right? You got to take a little work and we’re balancing here. It’s a little bit of a juggling act to find where you are because we can’t follow the protocols. The protocols said, your normal. Yeah, well, I don’t feel normal. So you might need to be hired, your thyroid might need to be outside of because you just work like that you’re different. You’re a unique individual, that process is stuff different. You might need you might feel great, just in the low normal. I don’t know, you know, you might need.
Debra Muth 49:22
Once you figure it out, though. It’s amazing. Women have such a good intuition over their bodies. If you give them the right tools to understand what it’s doing, they can figure it out. It’s this thought that we can’t we don’t know it. We do know. And once you start tracking numbers and how people feel, it’s not difficult to figure out like oh, you feel best when your estrogen is at this level. You don’t feel so great if it’s five points below that. So our role is to aim to keep you here. Same thing with thyroid same thing with progesterone, I mean it takes I love what you’re saying is that it takes a doctor to listen and talk to you to understand this because it is not a one size fits all.
Ricky Brandon 50:07
And then they’re educating you so you can make the decisions.
Debra Muth 50:11
So you are in control.
Ricky Brandon 50:13
I kind of like to call. I mean, sometimes you slip you call everyone a patient. Yeah, I hate calling people a patient. I like calling them a client, because that puts them in charge. This patient mentality is just telling me what to do, Doc. And you. If I call you a client, you’re paying for this. You have a say in your treatment. And I have one lady that I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s true for her. Like, I can’t prove it scientifically. But in the winter, she changes her T three. Oh, yeah. And her T four, right. So she changes her thyroid medication by season. Yes, we have a title like that. But it’s like that, right?
Debra Muth 50:54
We have so many patients like that. They have a different dose in the spring and fall or summer and winter. And they’ve gotten to know it over the years so much that they just call and they say hey, it’s winter, can I have this different dose and we know it? And you’re right. There’s no scientific backing behind that. Why would that do that? We can’t justify it scientifically.
Ricky Brandon 51:17
But for that person that works. third or fourth visit in they start telling you, you know, Doc, I think I need a little more testosterone. Yep. And yes, women need testosterone, too. You’re not gonna get a mustache, you’re not gonna get a mustache.
Debra Muth 51:30
No, you’re gonna protect your breasts. And I remember the first time I read how testosterone protects the bras, and women with higher testosterone levels are less likely to have breast cancer. And I was blown away by study after study after study in this book that proved that and I’m like, How come nobody’s talking about this? Like, why are we not publicly discussing why women need testosterone for so many reasons besides just breast health, but nobody wants to have these conversations, and it’s sad,
Ricky Brandon 52:00
and dark. Doctors aren’t evil, terrible people. They’re busy people. And they don’t have time to become an expert in this. That’s why you have to go look for someone who is an expert in this if you feel like that’s what you need. Yeah. And I think it’s awesome. Well, I hope I, I hope women have hope. And we didn’t just give a bunch of bummer stories about how terrible the medical industry is. I hope you have hope, to trust your own intuition. And your ability to make a choice in a good doctor, who is going to listen to you and educate you so that you can make good decisions about yourself. There are people like Dr. Deb like Dr. Deb, I don’t think you’re making money hand over fist doing this podcast, you’re doing it because you believe in the messages to get out there. I believe in. That’s what you do. Right? That’s, that makes you happy. And you believe that if you give enough out there to the world, and you teach enough people that somehow your cup is going to be full enough to take care of yourself and your family. But you’re for sure happier.
Debra Muth 53:04
Absolutely. I love doing this. And I love empowering people to have knowledge and to know that there are people all over the country that they can work with, that are going to listen to them, like your clinic, and so many others because we need that there’s there’s a lot of people that need care and not a lot of us. And we need to support one another we need to help one another. Because ultimately it ends up being that the healthier and happier people are in this world, the better off the world becomes as a whole.
Ricky Brandon 53:37
And they start they start teaching their neighbor and convert Exactly. Can I Can I do a shameless plug? Will you?
Debra Muth 53:45
Oh, yes, I will. I will do that I was going to ask you, how do people find you and work with you.
Ricky Brandon 53:51
So the name of our clinic is hormone balance centers plural with an S. So you can go to hormone balance centers.com. But I want to give everybody a book of hopeful stories. We in this book. I have stories of, of birth control. I have stories of people’s lives who have been changed. I have stories of weight loss. And I have an education about how to know the difference between a synthetic hormone Well, a chemical hormone or a bio identical hormone, and the book is free. You can download it online. It’s at free hormone book.com. So you can go to I even have an audio version now. This is not I am not a well seasoned author. These are my stories like the stories we’ve been talking about. And it’s and I give it away. And there is there is more in there but really what I’m really what I hope you leave with the book is hope and confidence to start taking care of your own health and get better again get great again. Because gosh, if you’re if you’re 50 You’ve got a lot more to give to this world. If you’re 60, you still have a lot more to give to this world.
Debra Muth 55:07
Yes. 60s, the new 40. Right. Yeah. And
Ricky Brandon 55:11
hopefully, right. Yes, yes,
Debra Muth 55:13
I hope so, you know, I hope to be doing this well into my 80s. And looking and feeling like I’m 50 at the time, because I just love doing this. And people who love what they do want to be able to do it for as long as they possibly can.
Ricky Brandon 55:29
So I want to ask you something. If we have time, how much time do we have, sir?
Debra Muth 55:32
We’ve got about another five minutes.
Ricky Brandon 55:35
Okay. I want to know, you said you’ve been doing hormones. And, and messing with this for 25 years? Is that what you said at the beginning? This is amazing to me, because 25 years ago, this was not this was this was I mean, it’s becoming pretty popular now. Yeah. But 25 years ago, just like Dr. Jones was in the same boat, he was, I think, here in Utah Valley, he was the second hormone doctor in Utah Valley. Like other than that nobody specialized in horrible hormones like this in by so how did you? I want to hear a little bit of your story. I know, five minutes is not enough. But I want to hear a little bit about that. Like, how did you discover that? And how did you have the, the guts to do it.
Debra Muth 56:19
So I’ve always loved women’s hormones, or women’s health has always been my, my gift and my love. And I started out working in fertility. And so I learned a ton about hormones, because you have to know hormones in order to get someone pregnant. You know, it’s, it’s so easy to get pregnant, but yet, it’s so not. And there’s so many things that go along with why someone doesn’t get pregnant, and you learn about the hormone piece of that. And I worked with an amazing reproductive endocrinologist. And he taught me everything about hormones. And when I left fertility, I started working with menopausal women. And I recognized very early on that all the hormones that played the role in women not getting pregnant, were the same problems women were having when they went into menopause, and that they didn’t have to live like that. And so I started dabbling with progesterone back in the day. That’s what we did. You just started with progesterone, and you didn’t do a lot of anything else. And as I started learning more and more, I got involved with a forum, the anti aging regenerative medicine program, and just opened my eyes to so much about hormones. And I was blessed to join a practice of physicians who were very integrative at that point. The doctor I joined had been doing this type of medicine since the 70s. And so I got to join his practice. And he taught me more about hormones. I taught him about hormones. And from there on the story, it just goes that we just started seeing more and more people at that time. But it, it’s just such a wonderful thing to be able to be a person on the forefront of this and learning it and seeing what we used to do and what we do now. It’s so different, but it’s so amazing at the same time.
Ricky Brandon 58:07
I’m like just knowing knowing what I know, I’ll bet that you saw miracles, even though you said back at that time, we just messed with progesterone. I’ll bet you saw miracles with progesterone.
Debra Muth 58:19
Absolutely. And when I joined my partner’s practice, we used to test we used to allergy test hormones, and I said, Who’s allergic to their own hormones? What are you talking about? He was the only doctor him and two other doctors in the country that allergy tested women for hormones. And he would find that a lot of these women that had menstrual migraines and horrible PMS would have allergies to their own hormones, and you could neutralize them just like you could neutralize for ragweed or pollen or grass or any of that. And within three to six months ago, symptoms would shut off and they’d be able to tolerate hormones for the first time ever. It was amazing. And we’re still one of only five in the country that offer this service.
Ricky Brandon 59:05
That’s amazing. I want to hear more about that later. I’m gonna reach out to you later because I want to know more about that. I just like to say we were talking about I don’t know if we properly addressed the fear of hormones, look, yeah, if hormones were bad, we would take every woman’s ovaries out at age 30 The hormones aren’t bad the way we’ve messed with them and turn them into something different is bad. Those drugs are bad, your natural that are identical to what your body makes are not bad. Your body makes them for a reason. Yeah, because they’re helpful to you. And why did they get low? Why did they get changed? Well, lots of things stress not only just external stress, but internal stress, and diet and other desire meant environment all these things and yes, Sometimes we live in this broken kind of mortal world. And we have to combat that sometimes with outside hormones by putting them in and replacing them. And do do I wish everybody would be perfectly healthy by eating a perfectly clean diet and not needing hormones. And yeah, I wish I wish that were the case. But it’s not the case. We don’t live in a world that I think that’s totally even possible. Yeah. And sometimes, you’re just so sick, and you need something to get over the hump so that you can start taking care of yourself again. And like, I just, I’ve seen miracles, miracles, I have not seen anything bad happen.
Debra Muth 1:00:47
Yeah, I’ll see you there. It’s it’s been a great journey of working with hormones for all these years and only see the better part of things, not the bad parts.
Ricky Brandon 1:00:56
Yeah. Great to be a doctor that people hug and love.
Debra Muth 1:01:00
Oh, my God is wonderful. I love it. And I get to know their families and their grandchildren and their children. And it’s wonderful. Yeah. It’s a wonderful experience. Well, Ricky, thank you so much for being here on the show today, it’s been a fantastic conversation. And you and I could talk all day about this.
Ricky Brandon 1:01:17
So much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Debra Muth 1:01:20
So for those of you who are listening to us while you’re driving, or working out, don’t worry, we will have the link for hormones hormone balance centers.com in the show notes, and you can click over there and check them out on their social pages. We will have all that information for you guys.
Ricky Brandon 1:01:36
Awesome. Thank you so much, Deb. Have a great day.
Debra Muth 1:01:38
Thank you. What a fabulous conversation with Ricky. I hope you guys enjoyed that. I know we did a little bantering back and forth and kind of not positive about the world of health and optimization of health and aging. But hopefully you understand now why your regular doctor will not prescribe for you things that an alternative or an integrative doctor will and that makes all the difference in the world. So if you are a woman or a man, having problems with hormones, want to use hormones, but feel like you need an expert in this industry, which I think everyone should have an expert in this industry. Reach out to Serenity Health Care Center, or reach out to Ricky’s group and make a connection, have a conversation and just decide if this is for you or not. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. So I hope you guys have a fabulous day. Make it worth it today, because every day counts. Hey, it has been really great sharing this time with you guys on the let’s talk wellness now podcast. If this episode has helped you or you feel as though this episode would help someone else we’d love for you to leave us a review, share this podcast and if you don’t want to miss the most exciting episodes we have coming. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Google Play. Until next time, live every day to the fullest
