Episode #2 - Finding Your Way Back To Yourself with BHRT (Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy)

Lyn talks through how when women come to The Happy Hormone Cottage, they get educated & validated. From there women can get tested, get treated, & get better!

"What makes us different is that we want to find & fix the root cause of the hormone issues. We do great testing that involves dried urine strips from Precision Analytical Inc's DUTCH Test that gives us a 15 page report on things like methylation pathways & metabolites." 

***Although our HHC has a telemedicine license to easily service clients in Ohio and Florida, we can also work with clients who live out of state as long as they come and visit us in person annually. Our goal in publishing this podcast nationally is for the educational value contained within. Education is key!***

Transcript

Happy Hormone Cottage Podcast #2

Pam:

[00:00:00] I just don't feel like myself. Are you finding yourself saying this more and more? Are you having trouble staying focused? Are you moody feeling tired? Do you feel sad and you don't know? Why do you feel like you're losing your mind? Guess what? You're not. Your hormones are probably out of whack, more precise.

You are experiencing hormonal imbalance. Hormone imbalance is the number one cause of physical, mental, and emotional changes. Unfortunately, it is often overlooked or dismissed. However, if you address the imbalance, you will start to feel like you again. That is what we are going to talk about today.

Welcome to the Happy Hormone Cottage Podcast. My name is Pam Gross, and we are going to discuss the importance of hormone therapy with the founder and executive director of Happy [00:01:00] Hormone Cottage . Lyn Hogrefe is an expert. On hormone imbalance. She is the author of two books, Own Your Journey and Lifting Up Stories to Inspire Women.

She is referred to as a warrior for Women's Wellness. Welcome, Lyn. 

Lyn:

Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, and I'm not a doctor or nurse practitioner or even medically trained. I just know a lot about this subject for my own journey. Oh my gosh, 17 years ago with the whole hormone issue and back when I began my own journey.

My husband, I think I mentioned in my earlier podcast, he saved my life actually. He was a pharmacist and he knew what would happen if, if I went the regular route standard of care. And so he got me on this whole path of Biodentical, Hormonal placement therapy, and he literally saved me. And when I went back to teaching the following year, I ran circles around women who were decades younger than me and I was 49 and they were in their mid thirties or early thirties.

And I had energy vitality, libido, didn't gain weight, had clear memory, no hot flashes. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm onto something. [00:02:00] It's progesterone and no one knows about it. And so when I finished teaching Inner City, sixth grade, a couple years, I just recognized a need for women to understand their bodies because this is a key point.

Hormone health is not taught in medical school, and so our doctors are amazing people. They know what they know. They don't know what they don't know. That's key. And there also isn't much education on nutrition or supplements. So I've always said we're country of dis-ease in women because our doctors who are amazing people can't guide us in the number one issue of aging women.

And that is hormone imbalance, which I will say is an aging issue. At what age? You ask age 35 and beyond. So that's not real old. A 35 is pretty, a pretty gray age. You're still and your prime and having children and you're young. Should be feeling great, but at the age of 35, hormone receptors begin to deplete.

Again, it's aging and you just begin to not feel your best, or as you said, lose yourself again. So that's where we start. Yeah. [00:03:00] 

Pam:

In the opening, I talked about what happens when hormones are out of balance, and then you start saying things like, I don't feel like. And it sounds to me like that's exactly what happened with you.

Lyn:

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I remember I once read something about hormones and it said that hormones are like a symphony, that it's important that all the instruments be in tune and that if one is missing or quote out of tune, that it affects the others. And I thought that was actually a pretty, pretty good analogy.

Pam:

I love that part. So I'm very excited because you are going to share with us stories about people whose lives have been impacted by your work and you and your company. Happy Hormone Cottage have helped so many women and men. Yes. Uh, because this doesn't just affect. Women, obviously men are probably, It's like trying to get 'em to go to the doctor sometimes.

Lyn:

Yeah. Yeah. . But we want to get back to our, we wanna get our lives back and we want, and we wanna feel like, like ourselves again, we did this in [00:04:00] the last podcast, but let's give a quick kind of overview of the Happy Hormone Cottage. And then we'll dive into the stories themselves. Okay. Yeah. What I really want to start with is the fact that my, my favorite demographic I've noticed after 13 years is the decade of in your forties and by the time you're 42, my favorite age, and then 48, my next favorite age.

You're writing that perimenopause realm of life and perimenopause is when your hormones begin to change and you begin to be aware of them. Oh my God, I actually have hormone. Up until about 40 or 42, you don't really recognize anything different. You know what I mean? And so right about the age of 42, you begin to say, What's wrong with me?

I'm not sleeping. I'm so tired. I'm gaining weight and I'm changing nothing. I'm still eating the same. I'm working out the same. I'm gaining weight mainly around the belly. What's this? What are the, what are these God awful love handles doing on my body now? Sex is pretty much nonexistent and. 42 year olds, life isn't over yet.

We're not dead yet, right? We feel dead. We're not dead yet. And they keep thinking that they're gonna wake up the next day and it's [00:05:00] gonna be better. It's gonna all have passed like covid or a cold, not true. If you do nothing today, it's the best day you're ever gonna have. And I love that quote today, Is it, If you do nothing to feel better, it's the best day you're ever gonna have.

You're not gonna feel better tomorrow or the next day or the next day. That that really brings tears in my eyes because I have such compassion and empathy for. Who are suffering, go to their doctor, and the doctor wants to prescribe Prozac or birth control or Ambien. I said, Home, walk your dog, you'll be dead soon.

It's okay. I've heard it all. I've heard it all. And it just, you either have to laugh or scream because it's just so frustrating, right? And so I opened my cottage as a place to educate women and empower them, get 'em excited and just ex excited about their bodies and that there is help and hope for them.

And we do a great testing and then they come back in for a nurse practitioner. We now have five of them and they go over their big 15 page report about their hormone issues and including cortisol, and then we customize the therapy for each woman. It's one size fits you and one size fits the next person and one size fits her.[00:06:00] 

It's not drugs for the masses. And we compound them in our own onsite compounding lab in Ohio, in Sunnyville, Ohio. And by definition, compounding means therapy for the individual. None of us look alike. We're different ages, hair colors, Sizes well would be, we all be on the same hormone therapy. The answer is we wouldn't.

So customized for each one is key. And then following up, and I think the biggest thing we have to be aware of in this arena is that you have to be patient. The women we're gonna talk about and share stories about, they had to be a little bit. They didn't get to the point of being miserable overnight.

It's not gonna be recovering overnight. But within a few weeks to a few months, they're gonna begin to feel like they've got their lives back, begin to feel like themselves again, that there is hope and they can regain their health. And I think that is just really critical information. Yeah, and you touched upon something there in terms of, you were talking about how this can affect you as a young as 35.

Pam:

It's interesting because I think as we, when we're younger, we think of ourselves as invincible, and we don't eat and drink as [00:07:00] well as we're supposed to. And obviously we sleep too little and we allow stress into our lives. And we think it doesn't really matter because gosh, we're young and we're strong and we're vibrant, but the truth is that the choices that we make today, whether they are good or bad, affect our health and they affect our quality of life.

Lyn:

Absolutely. One of the things that I love about the Happy Hormone Cottage is the fact that two things, one is that, and you mention 'em both. One was the fact that one size doesn't fit all. Because we are all individuals. We are all different. So to take a one size fits all approach, obviously is not gonna.

But the other thing that I really appreciate too is about this, is about improving the quality of one's life and to do it naturally. And I think that's super important. And unfortunately, I think sometimes in. Is that everything has to have a drug attached to it and you don't really need the drug attached to it.

Supplements are great and we just have to find the right balance of those supplements and that's a natural product. Ab, Yeah, and I think of [00:08:00] care is where the rubber meets the road in the terms of just gating symptoms and there's a need for standard of care. Appendicitis, tonsillitis, strep throat. I mean, I'm not nay saying any of that's important.

What makes us a difference, we wanna find and fix the root cause of the hormone issue, the root cause, and when we can actually do great testing that involves dried urine strip testing and the Dutch test that we are really big advocates of. And then we get a 15 page report back on things like methylation pathways and metabolites and all of that.

With the people that are in the know, in this arena of women's health, that can then direct and guide individual therapy. That's where it really is important to find and fix the root cause, and then we begin to feel better and it is all made. We make biodentical therapy with plant-based powders make so the really great base, make it a lotiony creamy texture.

And then we use those creams. I don't, we don't take therapy. We use the creams to refill receptors over time, a few weeks to a few months to begin to feel better and reclaim our life again. At the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do. Yeah. And it doesn't break the [00:09:00] bank. Not, We are really proud of the fact that we are not all that expensive.

We're, we have lots of other hormone facilities in the area and we call all of them every 12 to 18 months, and we are less than half as expensive as anybody else. And I think that says something. And here's the. Everything we do is on site. We control everything from beginning to end and we can keep our prices down.

So if you use progesterone cream, one little HR ticket could last you as long as six months, it's $90. That's not gonna break the bank for most people, I don't believe. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's reasonable. Yeah. You're cutting out the middle man. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way to think. I never thought it must mean a continent.

Pam:

There you are. So, Lynn, let's dive into some of the stories of lives that have been impacted. Sure. One of the things that I noticed on your website was that there was a person who wrote about their struggles, and they asked. Can you fix me? I'm just curious, how do you respond to that? 

Lyn:

I often will chuckle just like that, and I'll say, Absolutely, we can fix you.

You're not complicated, You're just, But that's the way you [00:10:00] feel, I think. Badly question. I mean, the person is right. I just need to be fixed. I know. Can you Yeah, please help me and me on the leg, please. Exactly. Yeah. And and the answer is yes. We can help you. Yeah. We can help identify why you're struggling with this great testing, and then we can customize therapy for you.

Just. So it's not gonna be a birth control pill or antidepressant. No. There's nothing wrong with those if you need those. But that's not what people that are coming to me need typically. They want to be fixed. And yeah, so we, we begin with having a conversation and here's where I think what I do, and I invented these 13 years ago, so.

I'm a little bit proud of that is that I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna go ahead and open up a facility. Make it a strange name. You're not gonna forget love or hate, you're not gonna forget it. Happy Hormone Cottage and women will show up. I'm not gonna charge 'em a Flipp and dime. They're just, we're gonna have, we're gonna, I poured tea.

Me and not a cook, but we, I made little tea. We had little tea, a box of tissue cuz it was gonna be tears. I knew it. And we would just talk and have a conversation. I would spend as much time as each woman needed, and this little teeny was a cottage with tea and tissue, and [00:11:00] I listened. I, they just wanted to be heard.

This was 13 years ago. They just wanted to be heard. They'd been told by their doctor and ob gyn that there's nothing they could do that was just, they had, there was just. They was just a part of life and there was nothing they could do for 'em. And that's nothing has worn as heart and being told there's nothing we can do for you.

Which by the way is not the truth. So they could just to talk and unload and feel like they were in a safe space. And I just listened. I began, I would sometimes hold their hand, Sometimes we would hug. I'd probably cry with them cuz I have a lot of empathy. At the end of the day though, we had a strategy.

Getting them tested, getting treated and getting better and that just took off and women told other women, and we've just snowballed into this huge medical facility now with Hormones 1 0 1 with Lynn free small group Zoom sessions. We have six women coming in together and we talk about what the issues are and how we're going to fix them and how what it's gonna cost and the timeframe with which it will take when you get women together with the same kind of issues.

There is a lot of hope and empathy and validation that there's, [00:12:00] they're, they're not crazy. There is hope for me. You mean I'm not crazy and you can fix me. You're gonna just see them begin to breathe like their shoulders begin to drop. They begin to have more peaceful continents on their faces. They just feel relieved that they're not crazy, they're not dead yet.

They're gonna be happier at some point. It's not gonna take a lifetime to get back to where they need to. 

Pam:

Yeah. And one of the things that I really appreciate that you said is that when you were conveying about, sometimes it's just sitting with people, just letting them be heard. Yeah. And I think one of the things that I really appreciate is that you also understand too, that knowledge, and you have a lot of it, that knowledge needs to be shared.

Lyn:

Yeah. And I think that sometimes we don't feel that way when we go to our practitioner or to our doctor or. And kind like in the beginning when I said that things that we're feeling about just ordinary, you wake up and you're like, Gosh, I'm in a funky mood. Or Certainly tired yet. Well, I went to bed and it seven hours later or whatever, and you [00:13:00] talk with your doctor about these kinds of things.

And unfortunately, as you stated in the very beginning, Is that these aren't things that necessarily are addressed in medical school. So it's not your doctor's fault, but they're overlooked. And again, sometimes they're even dismissed. And I think that's where people are going to find kind of the answers and the home to find the knowledge and to find, tell me that I'm not broken.

And if I am, how we're back to how do you fix me? And that, that the Happy hormone cottage can fix you. And I think that's, I think that's really, really important. And to Doctor's point, 15 minute appointment with copay, there's no time to hear stories and family histories and talk. There just isn't time.

Even if they did know, 15 minutes isn't a lot of time for an appointment to be heard and validated and educated. So my step one, consultations aren't a money. There for me to get women on board to understand their bodies that have a plan of action. And then once they take that plan of action, then they enter our medical facility.

If they [00:14:00] choose to, that's where then they get the help. But a doctor doesn't have time or staffing or it's not, there's no money in his pocket to keep going by just listening to women. Right. So I love my Zoom sessions one on one with Lynn because it actually gives information, education, and empower. To understand and be educated and I don't know everything, so I always begin my sessions on Zoom with my women about my, with my website and my resources or readings page with tons of studies and books and articles because if you Google B H R T.

You're gonna get standard of care rhetoric, which is not the truth. You need to know where to look for the right information, which is our truth. But we, I always give them and I say, Look, I'm not that smart. I can't make this up. You're gonna have to go to these books and read more if you choose to. And here are the resources I recommend to you.

I vetted them for the women. Okay. Which I think is really important. And that was one of the questions that I was gonna ask you was, I know that you do a Zoom session. Yeah. And it's title Hormones 1 0 1 with Lynn. Walk us through how that. Yeah, so women call our number, which I'll talk about later here in the [00:15:00] podcast, and they, they go on my website and they see my beautiful picture above the top, and they can a little banner that it says, Sign up here.

They can click the button and sign up online as well. But, They come in this Zoom session, it's an hour and do them on Wednesdays at one o'clock and three o'clock for an hour and Thursdays at one o'clock and four o'clock. There are typically six women because six women I found is a really great grouping.

Just enough time to share each other's story, and I, with being a sixth grade teacher of inner city, I can handle six at once and not get overwhelmed, and it's just a really great way for them to come in. I begin with my resources and readings webpage. I talk about the tasks of hormones so they know why they're struggling, what hormones are being depleted, which hormones do, which thing, which one causes hot flashes, Brain fog, depression, anxiety, L libidos, sleep issues.

I go over all of those. They know it's not in my head. It's actually in my body, and here's why. What stresses can do, what stress can do, what thyroid issues look like, how we attack those as well. So I educate 'em. I answer questions throughout the whole session. They can raise their hand, they interrupt me.

Nothing scares me. It's just a free for all. As long as they're [00:16:00] happy and they feel like they're heard, and I can educate, they take notes. I always said, I'm gonna grade these at the end, and they all laugh. I taught sixth grade, so roll your eyes, one skin out of your system. When I hold my little six way teacher tools, I'll hold 'em up on the screen, but at the end of the day, it's to help them be heard.

Now they're not crazy. Offer them hope in our strategy. And then at the end, I'll say, Now if you'd like to move forward, great. If not, that's great as well. Let me know what you'd like to do. There's no pressure. I just don't have that heart for the pressure. I just want them to do what's best for them. If they wanna come back for more information, they can, but most women do feel like they wanna go ahead and proceed and I'll send them a Dutch test or we'll get 'em a thyroid panel.

Whatever it is they'd like to, I, It's a call to action. What do you wanna do to get better? Mm-hmm. . And so it's, I think it's a very authentic. Where I just share myself, my story, but I mainly listen and educate and empower the women to take charge of their own journey, um, for the first time ever. 

Pam:

Yeah. One of the things I think your motto at the Happy Hormone Cottage is get tested, get treated, get better.

Absolutely. And I love that. [00:17:00] I, that's just, it's very succinct and tells you exactly how this is going to work. And it's interesting too because you talked about the fact. This can affect, we're back to affecting people who are younger as well as as you get older. Because the truth is we're all aging whether we like it or not.

And some days we don't mind. Other days we do , but we are, we're living longer. And because we are living longer, we also. We don't want it just to be a number. We want it to be a quality of life. Yes. And I think that is, I think that's important. And I remember reading a quote from Betty Foran, I don't know if you know I've heard of, Yes.

Yeah. She was a, she was an icon of the feminist movement. But she once said that aging is not lost youth, but it is a new stage of opportunity and strength. And I thought that was a great quote. 

Lyn:

I love that. And because I think that's exactly what this is. And I think that's how when you're waking up and you've got the brain fog and you've got all that and you're like, Oh my gosh, what is happening to me?

[00:18:00] Is, instead of looking at it as, Oh gosh, I'm not young anymore, The lost youth, that you look at it as an opportunity and a strength, and as such, you have to reach out and find people like you Yeah. Who understand what is going on and will help you to understand those kind of challenges, but more importantly, to get better.

And to restore your health and your quality of life. So, and I think also, I don't want 35 to be the only number. We have women who are in their twenties and up down as low as 18 with things like really heavy cycles and heavy bleeding and clotting and fertility issues, and. I have a lot of women coming in who are 20, 32 young mothers, overwhelmed, high stress, weight gain, l libido, lack of energy.

They're not even anywhere really near 35. And so it, it happens to all women. It's not just 35 and and older. But again, it's an aging issue. And how do you best attack it? And I love this part too, is that millennials today and. Is it Gen X's is what the next generation, Generation X I think they want natural, [00:19:00] they want, they wanna find the truth, they want authenticity.

So we're really popular in that demographic as well. And I also wanted to look at the misconception that when you're finished with menopause, you're done with hormones. Such a non-truth there, cuz hormones are everything and they prevent disease as we age. So once you're through. Hormones protect your brain from dementia.

They protect your heart from heart disease. They protect your bones from osteoporosis. They can help prevent breast cancer. So why would you be done with hormones? You need them the most at that age, cuz you don't have any left basically. Right? You wanna replenish all of the receptors, right? So I just think clean up the confusion is key cuz your doctor isn't gonna tell you about it typically.

And it's where do you get information from other friends, people or other readings. And so I think it's important to clear up the misinformation. And then pay it forward, The women helping women, and that's how we've really done a really great job with growing and getting the word out. Yeah. And it goes back to what I said about knowledge needs to be shared.

Pam:

Yes. And, and I'm, I'm obviously not in my thirties , but it wasn't [00:20:00] something that as I was growing up, that we learned a lot of nutrition and hormones and all of those kind of things. Right. And I think that's the one thing. I have a niece who's in her twentie. She knows much more about how all of those kind of things work and also about the fact that she wants to use natural products.

Uh, yeah, I understand that. Yeah, because unfortunately, I mean, just sit on your couch on any night and watch the TV commercials and it's pretty much one drug. Commercial after another. 

Lyn:

Yes. Yes. And the truth is we don't need all those drugs. What we need is to understand how is our, how our body is working, and then also what's not working and reaching out to the experts like yourself and finding that natural balance.

Yeah. And the natural products that are needed to. Basically bring us back into balance and then we did promise a story. If I can share a story about Linda, one of absolutely my first, even before we opened, Linda called and we were op, She called in July. We opened August 19th, and one of our OBGYNs in the area had referred her to us, A really nice guy who knew that we were gonna help with [00:21:00] hormone issues.

She drove up, she made an appointment to come in and see in my very first client, drove up in an old, noisy gray car. She came in with ripped jeans, a torn sweat. She had unkempt hair. I hate to use the word frumpy, but frumpy. She's about 42. Typical age, my favorite age, and she sat down and I gave her a tissue, poured her a tea.

She started to cry. She said, I, I'm crying when I make my kids lunch in the morning for school. Said, What's wrong with me? It's my kids' lunch. I love them. Why am I crying, making their lunch? I'm tired. I don't sleep. I haven't had sex in forever. I have no energy. What is wrong with me? And she began to cry.

It was a hormone imbalance. Yeah, she was. She didn't have enough progesterone. She was stressed. So we got her tested treat. We remained French. She was one of my, We became a friend of mine. She began to feel better within about three weeks. At three months she was no longer crying, making her children's bologna sandwiches.

She actually went back to work at a part-time job, and we did fix her and it didn't cost an arm and a leg. It didn't take forever, and we gave her hope. She's having sex [00:22:00] again. She's so happy. Her kids are now grown. It was 13 years ago. I felt like we really changed her life for the better, and she'd been on that trajectory.

Who knows what would've happened. She was just really miserable, and it was such a simple, easy answer. Progesterone deficiency, You know what I mean? Yeah. And testing pro. Prove that. So I just love helping women and I just think it's just the best thing I've ever done, even surpassing inner city sixth grade.

Just to be able to change lives and help women feel better about themselves is really, is just the most, I'm just so lucky to have this job. Yeah. I love it. 

Pam:

I think we know why you're referred to as the Warrior for Women's Wellness. . Yeah. . Lynn, I wanna thank you again for your work, and I wanna thank you for your dedication to improving people's lives.

You're showing people that there is hope for them to be quote, normal , and you're spreading the word about the benefits of hormone therapy. It's important for all of us to seek practitioners who are experts like Lynn and the people who work at the Happy Hormone Cottage. More importantly that they're true partners, that they're partners with us who [00:23:00] will provide information and the tools to improve our health.

It's important for everyone to know that Lynn and Happy Hormone Cottage, they will help you navigate through the stereotype of the various attitudes and the misinformation about hormone therapy, good health and happiness. Are within everyone's reach and the Happy Hormone Cottage is how you start the journey to feeling yourself again.

So please contact them@happyhormonecottage.com. Is there another way or some other, 

Lyn:

Yeah, mechanism inform. We have, We have an easy phone number. Okay. That's (513) 444-6343. Okay. Very easy. 5 1 3 4 4 4 6 3 4 3. And that number's on the website as well? Yes. We have a couple different locations. You can do virtual or in person It.

We try to accommodate everyone. 

Pam:

Yeah. And you have a great website. Thank you. It, you really do. It's, it's a great website. I urge everyone to please go and check it out. Read the testimonials, read all the various, She's got some, you've got some great information. Yeah. Thank you. Great information on [00:24:00] there.

And again, thank you Lynn. And everyone, please go to the Happy Hormone Cottage and start feeling like yourself again. 

Lyn:

Thanks so much.