 Hello everybody. Thank you for joining us again. I've been gone for just a bit. I was I was out in LA doing some photos for upcoming projects that we've got going on. So stay tuned for that. Just a little housekeeping before we get started. If you would like to read more on blog topics on hormones, aluminum, toxicity, mold, Lyme disease, you name it. You can go to my website, end of the blog. Everything there is free. It's just jillcarnahan.com. If you haven't already signed up for my newsletter, you can do that as well in the top right corner. You can also find products that we sometimes mention at drjilhealth.com and of course those will be listed on the side for reference. Today though, I have an awesome guest. We have been in the same circles and friends for quite a few years and I'm so excited. We're both local Boulderites and it's funny here we are locally in the same town and yet it's hard to see one another on a regular basis. So I count this as a treat to get to catch up with you in the public eye and just have a chat and talk about your new book, which I'm super excited about. You guys, if you are struggling yourself, your loved one, your wife, your daughter, your mother on hormone balance, we're going to talk about that today. Everything you wanted to know about overcoming estrogen dominance. This is a huge topic that's getting more and more prevalent and we'll talk about some of the reasons why we're seeing more and more of this than we ever have before. So stay tuned. I promise this will be enjoyable. Let me introduce my guest. Magdalena is the founder of Hormones Balance, an online community dedicated to helping women rebalance their hormones naturally. Magdalena is a certified nutrition coach, herbalist and published best-selling cookbook author and we'll be sure and give links to all of her products and books because they are fantastic. She is also a speaker and educator. She has a long history of hormonal challenges. So often these things come from her own experiences. I'm no different. Her health crisis was the direct result of a highly stressful lifestyle and advertising, starting with graves and Hashimoto's autoimmune conditions that caused thyroid failure to adrenal issues and estrogen dominance. And we'll probably touch on all those things today a little bit. Today she's in full remission, lives a symptom-free life and teaches women how to find their sacred hormone balance with her books, online programs and education. So welcome Magdalena. Thank you for joining me. Thank you so much for having me. I just always so delightful to see you. You too. I love what you're doing and as I always start with my interviews, I love to hear you just in your bio, we had little bits and pieces of your journey, but I'd love to hear a little bit about the story that led you here and your own personal experience. Yeah. So we oftentimes tell our story from the time we were diagnosed with something, right? And definitely a pivotal moment for me was in 2008 when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease and I was in China and I felt like my life was falling apart and I wasn't recognizing myself in so many ways. But really, when I think about it, I've had a lot of stuff going on way, way earlier than that. And so being not a breastfed baby, I ended up in a hospital with pneumonia in the first month already put in a bunch of antibiotics. And ever since that, and then I wasn't a breastfed baby because my mom bought into the 1970s, you know, spiel by milk companies that their milk was more nutritious than her own. And she didn't want to have a saggy boobies. And so, you know, that was a 1970s thing, right? And, you know, I'm not blaming her at all. It was just a thing. But, you know, my sister, for example, and so, you know, I had always a lot of allergies, eczema, so remember as a kid, covered in eczema here, a lot of fit sensitivities, which later became acne, adult acne, I was covered in acne in my 20s. It was all in the phase, but also on my chest, I had acne on my back, I had acne on my butt. Not many women have cystic acne on their ass, but I did, you know? And I think the pivotal moment came when really that all the skin stuff was coming up. And, you know, as a 20-year-old, you know, it's like one of those things that's one thing you want to do something about it, because it's so visually, you know, debilitating in a way, right? And especially this is in a prime of your day-eating life and you want to look fabulous. And I didn't, I never even own a shirt with an open back or front, God forbid. And I grew up in a tropical country, mind you, where you're just like in t-shirts all the time and bikinis all the time. And I couldn't wear them because I was just, it was just too embarrassed, right? So it was like a simple, I think Yahoo was the search back then, you know, that I discovered that gluten maybe was potentially causing a problem. And then I did eliminate gluten and made a big difference. And then not only did my skin clear, but also then my PMS got better, my migraines went away, I had touched migraines and I couldn't even move my eyes and I'd be like in a totally dark room, you know. So so many things were happening. And you know, it's kind of like when you go, when I see a doctor, when I was in my 20s, they'll say, I'm in perfect health. I was a super athlete. I was very good in school, right? But you know, nobody was questioning the fact that when I was in school, I was, I'll be absent for the first two days of my period because I was in a fetal position on the floor with two types of painkillers on each side of my bed, right? And my parents knew I wasn't trying to skip school because I was a good student. I actually liked school, but it was just because I was so debilitated, you know, but we didn't talk about things like that, right? Back then. And you know, and then in my 30s, I'll never forget, like my life was going really well, I started working more in the regional space because I grew up in Asia. And so from Malaysia, where I was, I grew up and spent most of my life, I started traveling to like Taiwan and Hong Kong and China and Indonesia and Singapore. You know, and suddenly my life just became so international and I was so fascinated by that. And, you know, it started defining you as a person and I was getting a lot of value and validation from it. And I still remember driving with, at that time, boyfriend was like this new big love of my life. And, and I'm, you know, we were sitting in a car and I'm like, you know, I think I have these lumps on my breasts. Right. And you know, and it's like, we didn't have the amount of information we have today. I mean, this is like 20 years ago, right? And so the first obviously the thing you think about is that you've got cancer and, you know, all of that, right? So, you know, fast forward, I mean, 2008 Hashimoto's was a real wake up moment for me, when I realized living in China in a stressful job, you know, with toxic clients, working on their agenda in living in China, where I had no control about the food, water and air that I was, you know, inhaling and eating and drinking and being constantly on the road. And, you know, this whole thing about being on the on flights and stuff, right? I mean, my friends used to call me and say, I'm not going to ask you, how are you? I'm going to ask you, where the hell are you? And it was like so fun is like, you know, Magdalena as the person's like, but what I think, you know, what I realized now, and it was becoming apparent that you live on airport food, you live on hotel food, you live on plastic water and plastic bottles, right? You have very little quality time and an air to inhale. And so I think, you know, my body just started shutting down and the mood swings became horrendous. I compromised very severely a number of my relationships with colleagues and friends. Because of the mood swings I was getting, I didn't realize it was all part of estrogen dominance. My breast lambs came back. The fatigue was so horrendous, it was, you know, the thyroid fatigue is like a fatigue. Right. So, you know, and that's when I quit my job. And I went to nutrition school, I moved to the United States. And then I set up my own business, you know, 12 years ago to really start helping women with their hormonal stuff. And just to, you know, and share that what I've learned, you know, something that you can really reverse with a whole number of different things, nutrition, lifestyle choices, and not to be, never perceive hormones as a given and coming from that from the place of victimhood, but really take charge of things. Love, love, love that you shared that because it gives, I'm sure there's people listening that have gone through that. They're like, yeah, that's me. What do I do? Heavy painful periods, breast tenderness, etc. And really, it's so interesting, Magdalena. One of the things why I'm so passionate about what you're doing and wanted to have you on is as many of you know, I at 25 years old was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. And this has everything to do with this topic. And what you would say is well, oh, maybe there's this hormonal issue. Well, at the root, one of the things that we're going to talk about today is toxicity because estrogen is a natural substance, but it needs to be detoxified by our liver and our detox system. And now that I know my story better than I've looked into it as a detective, I grew up on a farm with lots of pesticides and chemicals. And you talked about flying and the, you know, planes nowadays are often sprayed with pesticides. You get all that exposure. And then if you're not eating organic and making choices there, and again, I'll let you go into this more, but just on my story, I realized the estrogen dominance came number one from genetics, but number two from my exposures as a child. And I really even believe now to have an aggressive breast cancer form a lump at 25. I probably had in utero exposures from my mother from some of these chemicals that started the process of these cells that were rapidly dividing because estrogen is a growth stimulator. So what it'll do is cause these cells, especially breast tissue to divide and grow. And so then that process of those cells getting more and more aggressively dividing probably happened at five, 10, 15 years old and then developed into a full-blown cancer at 25. So this thing was way, way, way happening a lot earlier. And then you throw in again, we'll talk briefly because there's a lot of different genetics around this where if you don't detoxify in certain pathways, you're going to be more prone to accumulation of estrogen, which is this estrogen dominance. So it's so relevant. I don't want to take away from your story, but I want to just tell our listeners that my breast cancer was a direct result of estrogen dominance. And for many... So you had an estrogen receptor positive breast cancer? Well, let me tell you, this is interesting. I was ERP or negative. So estrogen receptor, progesterum receptor negative, HER2, new positive, which is kind of the kiss of death. I've said this before, but I was in a group of 12 women under the age of 40 in Chicago being treated. I'm the only one still living. So I mean, that's a testimony to the miracle of my life. But what's interesting, if you think of ERP or negative, you're like, oh, it's not estrogen receptor positive or progesterum receptor positive. But here's what happens. A normal breast cell has estrogen progesterum receptors. As it gets more angry and more abnormal and more aggressive, it loses the receptors. So this initially would have started out as an estrogen receptor positive, but because it was so aggressive and so abnormal, it became... They actually lose their receptors, but it doesn't mean that estrogen wasn't the driver in the beginning. And I still remember when... So just for total disclosure, I am your patient. And one of the things that I remember you said to me when I came for your first visit with you, you looked at my genetics, because I brought a whole bunch of printouts, and you said to me, have you ever had breast cancer? And I remember thinking, wow, that's... And what I didn't connect, which is so silly. I don't know how that happened, but because you looked at my genetics, it's like... And then I realized when I walked out of your office, I realized, hold on a second, we have deaths of estrogenic cancer both sides of my family. In fact, we have an ongoing joke in a family saying that no women in our family holds onto their uterus after 50. And so my father's sister just passed away eight months ago from uterine cancer. We have ovarian cancer, breast cancer on both sides of the family. So anyway, I'm 48 today, and I'm very, very determined and pretty positive. I'm going to hold onto my uterus until 50 and beyond. And it's probably with the same reason as you. I'm highly predispositions, and yet I'm going to do everything I can for those genes not to get to love it. And with the information that you're going to talk about today, this is one of those things that literally... So I have no judgment on anyone who decides to have prophylactic mastectomy. I understand that you're cancer. So there is... If you've done that, you have a high risk, more power to you, because everybody has to make these choices, right? I have had breast cancer, the most aggressive form you could possibly have. I still actually have my own natural breast. And a lot of people wouldn't. They would have had a prophylactic mastectomy. But I believe so strongly in the information we're going to talk about, and my own journey in the same pathway of the information you're bringing in your book, the fact that we do have control over some of these things. And again, no judgment, because everybody has to have their own path. But I feel so strongly, even in the face of a cancer that should have taken my life, that I can still live in a way that I can have healthy breast and not develop breast cancer later on. I still actually have taken that risk. I had lumpectomy. I had multiple surgeries. Don't get me wrong. I've got lots of scars. But even so, to me, that's a really big deal that I trust enough in what we're talking about, the information that I didn't jump to a bilateral mastectomy because of that. And I think the other thing about mastectomies is the fact that you're not addressing the real cause of the problem, right? You can have your breasts removed. But what about your uterus? What about your ovaries? What about your lung cancer and nonsmokers now is one of those cancers that develops. It's also can be due to estrogen dominance, right? Absolutely. And men, so you guys, if you're men listening or your husbands or whatever you're thinking, this is only to do with women. No, no, no, no, no. A lot of the problems in men, the metabolic issues are related to this high estrogen. It really does a terrible number on male hormones. So we clearly know your story. I was going to ask why you wrote the book. I'm assuming that's the main reason. But is there any more you want to talk about why you wrote this book? You know, I mean, it's predominant. I started putting protocols together for me. And just to see what are the options and how my body responds to it. And then I later realized that there are some things that my body doesn't respond to at all. And like things like maybe Cursatin or NAC, I'm not getting the kind of benefit from it, but other women could. And so that's, you know, and then I started combining it with a lot of recipes because a lot of people go, okay, I understand you're talking about these, you know, 12 superfus that help you detoxify your mastrogens. There's like food for the liver, food for the gut. But then how do I, do you have recipes, right? And so turning that into recipes then that was the second part of the project. So yeah, it's definitely a place of passion. That's for sure. And you obviously, for me, it's funny. I do do, I do recipes on the website, but I am not a chef. I'm like an intuitive cook, so I don't use recipes. But sometimes that comes, you know, but I know you are so good in the kitchen. Let's talk first about like three ways that women can take control of their hormone health. And then I want to talk about foods and things that, you know, we might have opportunity to eat and change that could help us with hormones. Do you think, if I can just make a suggestion, do you think we could start off with talking about what are the symptoms of estrogen dominance? Because I've just touched on some of them, but I didn't have all of them. And I'm going to put a real carrot out. I just remembered, we've got to give away of your book today. Hold that up. So we are going to give away a copy of this. You can actually go now. I'll remind you in a few minutes and if you stay tuned towards the end, we'll ask a question of something we covered. If you give us the right answer, you'll be entered. The only thing you have to do is go to Dr. Jill Carnahan on Instagram and give me a follow there. And then we'll ask later for your answer. And if you answer here, I will contact you and announce the winner after we're done. Now, this is only for a live audience. So if you're watching this recorded on YouTube or the podcast, sorry, you're out of luck, but I'll tell you where you can find her book. Okay. So let's talk about symptoms of estrogen dominance. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, we've talked a lot about the period stuff, right? But what a lot of women don't realize is that, you know, I think we are so conditioned to believe that just because you're a woman, you've got to have a painful period. You've got to be debilitated. You've got to be biting off everybody's hands the day or two before your period. And I want to assure you that once your hormones are in balance and check, and especially when it comes to estrogen dominance, it doesn't have to be that way. Your period is going to come and go. Obviously, you're going to feel some changes because that's inevitable. Your hormones are going through a bit of a craziness, but it can be a pretty uneventful event, right? So epsom periods, very heavy periods, sporadic periods, periods that just come and go whenever they want, right? Spotting in the middle of your cycle can be one form of estrogen dominance. That's when your progesterone might be low. You know, and then a lot of women with infertility, especially in a first trimester, I mean, that estrogen dominance could play a big role in that I can't tell you how many women have followed the protocols. And I don't work with fertility and pregnancy, but there's a lot of accidental pregnancies that have been like women have given up on trying to get pregnant when they follow the protocols, right? Rebalancing their estrogen dominance. The one that I'm really very concerned about just with the traditional medical treatment of it is fibroids. So so many women have fibroids. In fact, when I was reading that, when I was getting ready, when I was researching for the book, 75% of African American women will have a fibro one point in her life. Occasional women is just slightly lower at 65%. And you know, the usual treatments, unfortunately, oftentimes it resorts to being a total hysterectomy, right? And also some other procedures. The problem is that most of the time the fibroids are going to grow back, right? Endometrosis, which is one of the most painful conditions a young woman can experience, especially in her reproductive years, is it can be debilitating. And I had a housemate who ended up having an induced menopause in each 28 just to manage her pain. And she was a supermodel and she just couldn't function with endometrosis, right? Completely reversible, completely manageable. You know, interestingly, so the cancers we talked about estrogen, receptor positive breast cancer, ovarian uterine cancer, thyroid cancer, interestingly, and thyroid nodules can also be due to the access of estrogen in women, right? Let me just pause really quickly and tell you something that will blow your mind if you're listening. You know, I just said at breast cancer 25, guess what, my sister, same environment, same mother, had thyroid cancer at 28. So again, there's no doubt in my mind that the chemical estrogen like chemical exposure, we call them endocrine disruptors, long word for they cause an estrogen like feeling for the body. It's like a, you know, the receptors feel like there's extra estrogen. There's no doubt it's connected. So I love that you mentioned that. I actually did not know. I knew there was endocrine disruptors that could relate to that, but not specifically estrogen dominance and both breast and thyroid cancer. Yeah, yeah, totally. You know, in lung cancer, like I mentioned, non smokers is one of the biggest reasons is estrogen dominance. But also let's not forget that almost every woman in her life has has a man in some way or form, whether it's a brother or a partner or husband, prostate issues in man, including prostate cancer can also be due to estrogen dominance are really quite fascinating. You know, one of the things that estrogen dominance is a couple of different types of estrogen dominance. And if you tend to be low on progesterone, then things like hot flashes, having problems to go to sleep, fall asleep, stay asleep, suddenly having a lot of anxiety attacks and mood swings can also be due to estrogen dominance. As you can see, it's a pretty long list that almost every woman in our lives in some way or another really experiences that estrogen dominance. Let me also not forget that hair loss oftentimes is due to low thyroid problem or thyroid issues, low thyroid function. However, I had mine was due to estrogen dominance. When I corrected that my hair stopped falling out, right? Let me also mention one more melasma. Another thing that a lot of women will start using a lot of whitening products really damaging the surface of their skin and their dermis. And really, it really is you can't really fix it. So the brown spotting like around your chins above your lips oftentimes is around your eyes here. That brown spotting melasma is very much fueled by estrogen dominance. Correct your estrogen dominance and the melasma go away. Skincare stuff alone is not going to do all that magic. So yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, I'm sure I'm forgetting some other ones, but those I would say lumpy breasts, fibrocystic breasts, very painful breasts. I mean, we have women in our community who say that for two weeks out of a month, they can't even do any sports because it's like, oh, just don't touch my boobies. You know, it's like, it's off limits, right? Again, it doesn't have to be that way. Yeah. Oh, so you have covered such the gamma. And again, I don't think there's a woman listening who hasn't had either sisters themselves, mother and who hasn't experienced some of these things. I mean, like how many, you know, I'm on this Facebook group and they were just talking about botoxing and how many women are getting botox in order to deal with their migraines and headaches. Well, guess what? One of it, it doesn't have to, there's many reasons for headaches, but one of it, it's also could be due to estrogen dominance, excess astrogens compared to progesterone that can be caused, especially when you see it with your cycle changing before your period, when you're ovulating, you've got a migraine, stop plotting that to see, you know, is that, is that could be, could hormones, the one causing your headaches and migraines? Now, one of the things that's news to me, but I've seen it a lot recently and I've talked and write about it is mass cell activation. I believe there's a component for estrogen dominance with that as well. So one more thing to add to the list that makes it worse when you have estrogen dominance. Okay. So let's talk about, first of all, kind of how can women take control and then let's go to solutions with food and herbs and things that you have. Yeah. So, you know, I think two big things. One is to address the astrogens that are coming from external sources, right? And then look at it at the astrogens that your body is creating is, is, is producing and how we break them down. And so can I just maybe say the first thing is that let's not demonize estrogen because the term estrogen I think has got is a double such, double, you know, site is a two sides to it, right? One is that, yes, it's, it's great as a term. So finally we have, you know, something to put all these symptoms into. But on the other hand is also demonizes estrogen. So a lot of women get really freaked out when, for example, I talk about things like flex seed and they say, well, there's so much of estrogen and flex seed. You're crazy. I really, I am already estrogen dominance, right? So I just want to make sure that we understand that the estrogen is absolutely necessary. You and I would not be sitting here today having this conversation or you would not be listening to us talking and be cohesive about it if you didn't have sufficient estrogen. Really for the brain. For memory, right? I mean, women who are low on estrogen, what happens, right? You walk into a room, it's like, where are my keys? They break their bones. That's one of the first things we do with dementia, bread is in protocol early on to Alzheimer's is what's your estrogen level because that's critical brain function. And one of the first two questions of you had hot flashes, night sweats, memory issues, insomnia, because those are all critical things. So on the reverse, when you have sufficient estrogen, you don't have all of those, right? So just want to make sure they, the really the two things is happening with estrogen dominance is how you break down the estrogens and the ratio of estrogen to as progesterite, right? And so, so we can maybe circle back to that later, but addressing the estrogen, the xenolestrogens, the external astrogens coming in from external sources is a pretty easy thing to do, right? And so being a lot more conscientious about the kind of skincare products you're using, right? Meaning going just really organic, going clean, don't, you know, I've got a whole list of things to look out for in the book, but it doesn't have to be very complicated. Generally, if you see something advertised in a magazine on television, you can rest assured that this is a brand that is loaded with synthetic astrogens. You want to stay away from that as much as you can, shop for skincare products, including perfumes in health food stores, use true essential oils, anything that contains, for example, the word fragrance in it, you know, it's a phallate, which is a zenoastrogen, really harmful for the body. And so, you know, this one thing, the other thing is, unfortunately, a lot of the meats that come from what we call conventionally raised animals, which I think is just an absolutely awful name for conventionally grown because it's like, what does it tell us about our humanity, right? But, you know, it's just, you know, if you have a budget, just reduce the amount of meat you are eating, but make sure you're getting it from farm, from farmed animals from from a true farm that comes from your neighborhood, if possible, somewhere near you that has been grass fat, grass finished, those are the some of the, you know, better options that we can, we can really choose for ourselves, eating organic food. People react to the food that their food ate. So, for example, if you have a cow that's fed conventional corn that has roundup and glyphosate and residues on it, you can actually see a patient react to the corn or the additives to the corn or the residues on the corn from the beef that they're eating. So, this is very relevant, not only for a toxic load standpoint, from a glyphosate roundup standpoint, but also if you have a corn or grain allergy, there's so many reasons and the estrogen dominance. So, totally agree with you. And it's actually kind of hard to find grass-fed grass finished. And I always say, you've probably said this before too, do we want to pay the hospital or the farmer, because eventually you're going to pay one way or the other. So, I find like premium on food is so worth it long term. And you can pick and choose. Like you said, there's some things you'd want to do organic for sure and some they don't matter so much. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And let's also not forget that animals are given growth hormones and antibiotics, right? And you know, to think that that doesn't get passed on to us is pretty naive. So, in an organic food, you know, there is a there's again a list in my book, or you can also find it on the EWG website, Environmental Working Group, the Dirty Thousand and the Clean 15, right? Of what's like really bye-bye organic. So, all of that can really make a very big difference and offload the toxic load right away. You know, I just want to mention perfume and like the air fresheners, because it's something that I think as we start traveling a little bit more now, the countries are opening up. You know, we're going to be getting into more transportation and such. One of the things that drives me crazy is like getting into, you know, like a Lyft or Uber, right? Right? And then the air freshener. And I'm just like, you, you, I'm just feeling bad for the for the guy or the girl who's driving, right? And then I'll say to them, look, I'm just allergic. Can you please remove this? Right. Please, please, please. If you ever use any air fresheners, other than containing essential oils, check away that stuff. Don't even give to anyone because that stuff is really toxic. So, I just want to comment because 80% of our environmental toxic load is our air quality. So, this actually really matters, guys, if you're listening, I can't tell you who I walk, like you said, walk in the car with the plug-ins. Don't use them. You can just drip essential oil in a warmer. You can use a diffuser. Essential oils are amazing. They're super safe. So, I totally agree. And I just, that's a pet peeve of mine too, so I want to mention. And, you know, only essential oils. I mean, I also say look out for perfumes. A lot of women find it very hard when they clean up their lives to give up their high street, you know, without naming any specific brands. But, you know, anything that you see in the big stores and airports, etc. I mean, unfortunately, these brands are loaded with, and where do we spray them? I mean, think about it. You spray it here. You spray it right here. And guess what? This is your thyroid. Right. This is where you put your progesterone. All your hormone creams go here. Why? Quick absorption. Highly absorbable. I just want to say another really quick incident. So, after the breast cancer, I realized all of these things that I cleaned up only use essential oils for perfumes. There's some great brands, like you said, health food stores online, but usually the health food stores tend to, I won't name any names. You guys know where to find them. But what I was going to say is I did that for years. And just the last couple years, I had a couple designer perfumes and I got a gift. I was like, I'm fine. I can start trying this. And I actually measure things frequently on myself. And I measured my phthalates in the urine. Guess what? All of a sudden, like 10 times normal after a year or so. And same thing. I was trying to get them. So if you must use your designer perfume, at least spray your clothing, not your skin. I just think that's so practical. So then I retested after stopping and it went down. So for me, I was like, wow, this is so true. I have this astronomical level that went up after a year. And it's not even daily for me. It might be on the weekend once or twice. So it really does make a difference. Yeah. And the good news about phthalates also is they do come out of the body pretty quickly. So that's that. As long as you do it once in a while and then back off. But really, there's so many beautiful essential oil manufacturers now, designers who design beautiful perfumes, that it's just becoming easier and easier. So that's what we do externally. Cleaning products is another one. I got a lot of really great recipes in the book. Water. Someone asked about hair dye and any comments on hair dye? And they're asking about testing, but we'll go to that next. Yeah. I think hair dye is a bit of a tricky one, right? Because it is so many women just can't live without it. If you've got dark hair, I think hair print is a super safe and clean brand. But you know, I think it's like we both pick our battles. If it's really important to you and you've cut out all the other toxins out of your life to your best ability, you know, we dye our hair every three, four months. I think that's still a little bit more acceptable, unless you have a severe allergy. I agree. I've been like, I mean, there's no, we could live perfectly, but we always have to make choices and it kind of depends on what matters to you. So I couldn't agree with you. Yeah. So testing, let's talk a little bit about testing and then we'll go to treatments. Do you want to take on the testing part? Because I mean, you are the goddess of that. So testing can be done with multiple different ways. I find there's different methods that are, so if someone asked about blood testing, so yes, we can do serum labs through any typical lab core quest, your hospital lab. And often I do those because they're easy to do through insurance. We can get a set point in time. I'll do morning cortisol, DHAS, that's the one that is measurable in the blood, estradiol. You can check estrone and estriol, which are the other two forms of estrogen. Estrone tends to be predominant postmenopausal, estradiol through most of our reproductive life. And estriol is more prominent in pregnancy and kind of tends to be end of the line caboose. So it's a little safer form if like someone is at breast cancer or needs a replacement form, vaginally, that tends to be a real safe form to use. You can also check free and total testosterone and then progesterone. Now you can also check some of the way up precursors. I always check cortisol, cortisol, believe it or not, I'm sorry, not cortisol, cholesterol. Cholesterol is way up high in the chain. So guess what? If you have some risk of heart disease or for some reason your doctor puts you on a statin and your total cholesterol goes down to 120 or your LDL goes down to like 60, you're not going to make hormones very well. So you have to, sometimes people have to take that risk because they've had a heart attack, totally appropriate, but you do have to balance because lowering that cholesterol too low will massively affect hormone production. So I check lipids, pregnant alone, you can check in the blood as well. So blood is one way. Now a couple things about blood, if you're using transdermal hormones or some form that's going through your skin, which I'll let you talk about this too, Magdalena, but definitely one of the most natural ways to get it into your body, most physiologic versus oral. We have to get higher doses. It affects the liver first past metabolism and is a little bit more risk of toxicity in the oral form. So I always try to start with transdermal types of forms. And when you're doing transdermal, you won't see the rises in the blood. It kind of bypasses the blood. Sometimes you'll see a little bit, but if someone's on transdermal and you're wanting to measure, you might not catch that they're too high. So the other forms that I prefer are urine and saliva. Saliva used to be my go-to, still love it, but I actually now prefer the urine test. There's a company, there's no paid promo here, but this is my primary one that I use is Dutch hormones through precision analytics. So you can ask your doctor about that. What I like is it does all the metabolites. So we can literally map out what you're doing with your hormones. And one of the things we like to see is four hydroxy estrogens, which are super bad damages of a DNA. They're the most aggressive. For years after my cancer, even I had very high four hydroxy levels. And I was always trying to, we'll talk about some ways to bring that down. What you want to do, this is getting a little biochemical, but in case you're interested, that four hydroxy goes with methylation and another gene called COMT, and it goes to two hydroxy. And you want to make sure you're, you can make four hydroxy, but you want to make sure you're going through the full cycle to getting it to a detoxable form, which is more that two hydroxy. So two hydroxy tends to be protective. Four hydroxy, if it stays there and gets blocked from converting is not so good. And the Dutch hormones I like because it tests all of these levels and we can see what's happening. Yeah, totally. I also like the fact that I have melatonin now on it too. So you can, a lot of women have that. Each 12 glutathione, melatonin, and then two markers that are related to dopamine and norepinephrine. So you get this other little mini-test there in your urine. And the way that that's done is it strips of paper, you pee on at certain times of the day, so easy. You dry the strips, send the strips in, the whole package is like an envelope size. So it makes it really easy to. And if you're doing that, your doctor should tell you, but most of the time we're testing during luteophase, which is around a 19, 20 or 21 of your cycle. If you have shorter cycles, you can move that up a little bit. No. So treatment, let's talk about what do we do to talk about treatment, right? So you know how we talked about astrogens that are coming from the outside, but let's talk about how we can help the body to break down astrogens a little bit more efficiently, right? So something that is so fascinating yet, I feel like, you know, that's part of the reason why I wrote the book, because I was angry. Like, why are we not talking about it, right? Like, angry in a good way. Like anger can be good energy that pushes, propels you in the right direction, right? And I was like, one of the biggest discoveries was 10 years ago when I was diagnosed with astrogen dominance was like, why is nobody talking about the fact that the liver plays such a vital role in helping us to break down astrogens? And so, so there's some really wonderful things that we can do to support our liver. The first thing is, you know, as an herbalist, I'll say something we say, it was an herbalism, the liver loves bitters, right? So think of adding any kind of foods that have bitter quality. I mean, they can be digestive bitters, you know, like those ones that you buy in a, in a health food store that you like drip it into your mouth, and it can be quite potent. And that they tend to have, you know, they're built to be very bitter and, and they can really, I mean, your liver is going to respond to that beautifully. But you can also be a little bit more gentle and start incorporating a lot of food vegetables that have bitter quality. So those would be like some of my absolute favorites will be things like arugula. So, you know, toss away that goddamn salad. I mean, the lettuce, I mean, lettuce is full of water, it's nutritionally really weak. It tastes doesn't taste like much. So we tend to put a lot of, you know, dressings into it and overload that with sugar. So think, consider doing something at arugula. Kale, you know, on is, has got better qualities to it. Dandelion leaves. If you can add that to your salad, you don't have to eat the dandelion, but just chopping it up and adding that to a salad is just a wonderful, just a great addition. Radishes and turnips that we are right now in the season is in spring. Radishes are all coming up now. They're beautiful and fresh. Just having them, you know, chopping them up and putting them into a salad on having on the side of the, of your plate with your whole dish, sprinkling them with just a little bit of salt and having some good quality olive oil. That's all you need, you know, to incorporate, right? So those are just like some really simple foods. If you love herbs per se, digestive bitters, like I said, are wonderful, especially those ones that contain things like brood or crude, dandelion root, artichoke, you know, it's just wonderful. Endographics, which has got a lot of popularity because of COVID. It's, under graphics in India is called the mother of all bitters. And it truly is like a dirty bitter. It's a pretty disgusting bitter, but boy, I mean, that's, you know, it's like a little bit, you know, when you get a food massage and when they do it, it's like, but then you feel so amazing afterwards. I feel like Endographics is like the benefit comes later, but not while doing it. And having that, you know, having them in the form of teas, infusions. And so, for example, if you walk into a health food store, that's most of them now have some kind of a liver support tea. And so just, you know, having that before or after a meal can just really be wonderful. When I say supporting the liver, really the mechanism behind it is that there's a couple of things. The first thing that happens is that when you introduce any better quality to the body, the first thing that happens is you start salivating a lot more, right? Salivar contains enzymes. There's the first line of breaking down the carbohydrates in the food, right? Then as it comes down, your stomach starts producing a lot more digestive juices, which is what you want, right? Because your food is going to be broken down is going to, your body is going to be able to extract a lot more nutrients from the food you're eating. Then the pancreas and your small intestine is going to start producing a lot of different enzymes to break the food down even further. And then the bile gets produced significantly when you introduce bitters. And the significance, a lot of people know the bile as being something that helps us emulsify fats and help you digest fats. For those of you who had your goldbladder removed, you may, you know, you may, you may know this, right? That it's like you've got to have other the support of you really careful how much fat you're consuming, because otherwise you're going to have the runs. And so that's what's fascinating is that bitters can stimulate bowel production. And so it's not just for emulsifying fats. And to your point about like cholesterol, how unnecessary it is for us to really be able to, to, to utilize that. But it's also what a lot of people don't realize is that bile also binds up those dirty astrogens that we, that we want them to be bound up. And so, and then it goes to the liver and the liver, you have a number of different pathways. And guess what your methylation pathway, salvation pathway, glucurination pathway, are all responsible for clearing you of astrogens. So think of it this way, like imagine you're standing on the side of a river and you have this river flowing, and there's the bank right in the middle of it, right. And so, and then you see that the bank separates the stream to a clean stream and a dirty stream. And that's exactly what happens with our hormones, except that the bank is the liver. And so the liver is going to help you separate them out to a clean astrogens, which is what gives you that sharp mind, great strong bones, nice quality skin, you know, good sleep, etc. And then the dirty astrogens, which are causing a lot of the symptoms we talked about. So just doing that for your liver, I mean, can be profoundly changing. You know, and I would just mention one more thing, externally, I love doing castor oil packs on the liver as well, sleeping with them, not that our two here and there, but like actually sleeping with them. You know, I think that just that is just so much help that you can bring it to your body right away. I'm a huge fan of castor oil to coffee and Amazon castor oil. I'm the one MD who will talk about both of you guys for me. The other thing I thought as you're talking is what you probably know, if you've listened to me and do these interviews, because a lot of you have Lyme and mold and some very complex illnesses, mass selectivation. But what's very interesting is what we're talking about here is detoxification. And astrogens go through the body like a drug or chemical. So when it's the same path as mold, it's the same path as other toxic chemicals. So it may be confusing because like, well, estrogen is good. Why is it in this pathway? That's a bad pathway. It's not a bad pathway, but our body treats it the same as a toxin. And that's why if it's excessive, it's so if you're toxically overloaded from mold, that's a whole nother topic. But just briefly, that increases an enzyme called aromatase, which makes more astrogens out of your precursors. So you're going to be, I would say almost guaranteed if you've had a significant mold exposure to be estrogen dominant, that's part of the picture. And then the same way we did a toxin mold with bitters, with binders, with the support of what Magdalena talked about these phases in the liver phase two, which is sulfation, glucuronidation, all these fancy names. And we'll talk about specific, there's a few nutrients like dim and calcium deglucidate that help aid those processes. So the neat thing is, if you are focused on detox for some of the reason, besides getting your bath and body products clean, you're going to be treating excess estrogen as well. So when we go through detoxification in general, we're also usually addressing estrogen as long as we're taking care of the liver, the bile, all these things we're talking about. You know, one thing I just want to mention, because I forgot to say that during when we talked about symptoms is that estrogen and the bile at the gallbladder have a really interesting relationship where estrogen dominance can cause the hardening of the bile, causing the buildup of gallstones. So estrogen dominance could result, there could be a lot of other reasons, including food sensitivities, maybe some genetic component, but estrogen dominance can contribute towards a person losing a gallbladder. However, you can also have someone who never had estrogen dominance has had a gallbladder removed, right? And then develops estrogen dominance six months, one year later. And I posted once about that and we had so many women come on and say, I can't believe this. I never made the, I never connected the dots that after my gallbladder was removed, that's when I started having a really fibrousistic breast, right? And so again, it's because the bile is just not as widely available anymore for us to, for it to bind up those astrogens and probably combine with, you know, poor gut health. Exactly. We've got just a few minutes left, but if you're still listening, I want to give you an opportunity to win Magdalena's book. Here's what you're going to do. I'm going to make it really simple. I just thought through this one. Let's make this simple. I want you to go to Instagram and it's Dr. Jill Carnahan. You need to follow me there and send me a message with overcoming estrogen dominance in the subject. That's simple. You don't need to answer a question. You just need to follow instructions, overcoming estrogen dominance in the subject line. We'll keep this open for 24 hours and I'll pick a winner and I'll contact you and we will ship you the book free of charge as long as you're within the US. So put your, go to Instagram, follow me there, put a message. You can private message me. We'll go through those. We'll pick a winner and you'll get a copy of the book. So if you'd like to do that, super simple, overcoming estrogen dominance in the title. Okay. So in our last couple minutes here, we've talked a little bit about treatments, anything else you'd recommend, maybe even lifestyle things. We talked about like chemicals and stuff. What else are we missing that's important here? You know, I mean, I think the, speaking of lifestyle, I think sleep is something that is hugely underestimated and it can sometimes be very frustrating because we can have low progesterone that's causing sleeplessness. There's a lot of other reasons that women have sleeping problems, but if progesterone is one of the reasons, then we're not sleeping and then it makes estrogen dominance worse. And so I have a whole chapter that's dedicated to sleep in the book and I would encourage anyone, whether it's through my book, whether it's through your resources or anywhere else, really get to the bottom of it, figure out, is it magnesium deficiencies, your progesterone? Is it the blue light that you are looking at? Is it alcohol you're drinking? Is it the coffee that you're having too late in the day? Whatever is the reasons why you're not sleeping? And I feel like it's especially, you know, I don't know about you, but ever since I turned 45, my sleep has never been the same. I'm a lot more sensitive, you know, to things, especially blue light and alcohol, I find is what kills my sleep. I use the aura ring to help me manage and monitor my sleep, right? And, you know, my deep sleep is down in the ditch when I drink alcohol or coffee. But that's my, sorry, when I look at the screen and drink alcohol. So, but that's my thing. So really figuring out that I think that part of the puzzle is going to be so hugely transformative. I just finished reading Why We Sleep by Matthew Willis. Yes, great book. Fascinating and a scary book all at the same time, right? But yeah, fixing that, I think it's going to be a lot of our ladies. And I love what you said. I want to encourage you guys, be a detective in your own health. That's what I'm always doing is trying to hack my health and figure out what is causing what. So whether you get an aura ring or whether you get a Fitbit or Apple Watch or something that tracks your sleep, I think that's a great first step. Because then like for me, I can literally, if I do my PMF mat or if I drink coffee too late, I can see the exact result of that night's sleep. And it's such good feedback because then you can try something different the next night. And I just encourage you, everybody's different. So look and see what things are affecting you and then try to make some changes and see if it affects the outcome. Because sleep, I couldn't agree more if there's one thing that's foundational to overall health that the probably number one thing I would say is sleep. So totally agree. So where can people, I know you've got programs, I want to know where can people find you? What else do you have for resources? Obviously your book. Tell us about where we can find more information on the book on your. So overcoming estrogen dominance is now available on Amazon. If you're in the US, if you're overseas, go to overcoming estrogen dominance.com and we do ship it internationally. Expensive, but you get the book, you know, so sometimes this that's what matters. And, you know, I think the just thing is Instagram is hormone balance on Facebook is hormones, but then that's hormones balance. And so if you just look up my name, you will find us there. Awesome. What a pleasure to talk to you, Magdalena. Love what you're doing for the world. And thank you for bringing us great information. I will be sure if you're watching this on any of the platforms, you will see the links down below for her website for the book for overcoming estrogen. And don't forget, if you didn't private message me on Instagram and follow, you get an opportunity to win a copy of her book in the next 24 hours. So please go there do that. And we will see you all very soon. Thanks again, Magdalena. Thanks so much for having me.