Rescue You From The Rollercoaster of Perimenopause
HELLO, I’M DR KIRSTEY HOLLAND
I have worked with women for more than 20 years; women who are worn out from struggling with health challenges such as gut disorders, anxiety, weight gain and more.
I have developed a methodology that aims to heal, seal and repair the gut, rebalance hormones and rescue metabolic health, so that my patients can be their best and most vibrant selves again.
I am a qualified Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and hold a double degree in acupuncture and herbal medicine. I am a practitioner of Environmental and Nutritional Medicine, Functional Medicine and Naturopathy. I’m a person-centred counsellor and a qualified health coach.
For a comprehensive list of my qualification, click here.
I bring a ‘new’ approach to healthcare – grounded in ancient wisdom. An approach that can be personalised for every woman. Because we are all unique in our own special way.
MY STORY
Why do I do what I do? Because I understand what it’s like to feel disease in the body. You see, I am a recovering food addict. When I was a teenager my parents went through an awful divorce and I was sent away to a boarding school where I relied on food for comfort and love and to stop the pain of loneliness.
I was the girl who used food to calm myself and feel safe. I ate when I felt stressed and constantly tried to restrict my diet, only to then binge.I was told I was fat, felt shame about showing my body, and never felt good enough.
This relationship with my body and food continued for years and the turn point really came for me when I started travelling and studying extensively throughout Africa and Asia, and in particular, India where my fascination with Eastern mysticism and Ayurvedic medicine developed.
In spite of this journey, I continued to battle with and abuse my body through food.I was sad and depressed. I knew that my external representation was due to the internal pain I was feeling but I didn’t know what to do about it.
My obsession to manage my weight and my own personal disillusionment with western medicine led me to study Traditional Chinese medicine and naturopathy in both Australia and in China.
I earned several degrees at a number of institutions across the world relating to health.
This journey of deep learning has today led me to understand that as a woman, our health is intrinsically linked with our own experiences and trauma. I now know that the single most effective way to feel vibrant is to heal, seal and repair the gut, to rebalance your hormones and in the process, rescue your metabolic health.
When we do this we extend our health span, the time we feel healthy and vital during our life. I have been in clinical practice since 2000 having studied and practised alongside some of the best health practitioners around the world – focussing on how to live in a beautifully balanced way that allows us to feel comfortable in our own skin.
I live by the 80/20 rule and use practical tools that are designed to support the stage of life I’m in: peri/menopause. I want you to know it’s possible to integrate your story into your health in a positive way.
It’s possible to come back into balance, live a full and happy life and get off the rollercoaster so you can live a life that’s more harmonious and graceful.
Rescue You From The Rollercoaster of Perimenopause
Heal in the right order
Send me a text if you liked this episode.
Good morning from the Holland Clinic, on a rainy but refreshing day in Melbourne. We understand the many complexities involved in your search for health and vitality, which can feel increasingly daunting as we grow older. Yet, rest assured that you are not alone on this journey; we are here to guide you every step of the way.
Often, as a society, we look for a single magic bullet to solve our health problems, whether it's taking a pill for a headache or seeking the ultimate anti-aging cream. We latch onto the convenience of this 'one thing' that can miraculously fix our issues. This was highlighted during a recent consultation with a client who was questioning why a product marketed to her wasn't working as promised. Indeed, quick fixes can be enticing, but we've found that holistic healing is a more sustainable, long-term approach.
We had another client recently who perfectly illustrates the importance of holistic health. She was prescribed body-identical hormones, crucial to the management of perimenopause symptoms. But the hormones weren't as effective as they could have been because she hadn't made the necessary lifestyle and dietary changes. This illustrates a crucial point: no single treatment or medication works in isolation.
An important transition occurs in women's bodies around the age of 40, akin to a 'non-negotiable renovation'. Suddenly, the dietary and lifestyle habits that previously served us may no longer work. This is why we advocate for gut health, even referring to it as the 'foundation of the house'. Our gut has a profound influence on our hormonal system, acting as a linchpin in the communication network between our gut's microbiome and our body's cells.
The hormones, estradiol and progesterone, are crucial for our bodies to function optimally. To initiate hormonal therapy, having a baseline is pivotal since it enables us to assess improvements and ensure safe detoxification. Then, we need to monitor other hormones including testosterone and DHEA. We can also observe how estrogen metabolizes to prevent going down the potentially dangerous Four Hydroxy pathway.
Next, we need to examine your melatonin levels and your cortisol awakening response. Imbalances here are linked to burnout and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which women in perimenopause often experience. Additionally, it's important to monitor your thyroid function and get ahead of any potential autoimmune disorders.
To navigate your way from fertile years through perimenopause and into menopause successfully, it's crucial to understand and manage these complex hormonal changes properly. It is not just about enhancing your quality of life, but also preventing further health complications down the line.
Ultimately, the Holland Clinic advocates for an holistic approach to health and vitality, with a focus on nutrition and lifestyle modifications. We believe in fasting, but in a supported, manageable way, and always with a focus on you feeling your best. It's not about quick fixes or fad diets. It's about making consistent lifestyle choices that you can sustain for the long term for the sake of your health.
Here at our clinic, we provide an en
The information shared in this podcast does not substitute working with your primary health care provider; it is general in nature and not considered personalised advice.
Visit us online for more information or if you wish to work with Dr Holland.
thehollandclinic.com
For your daily dose of women's health related info and ideas on how to gracefully live through health and wellbeing transitions your body experiences, visit our Instagram
instagram.com/thehollandclinic
Good morning. Oh, it's raining in Melbourne today and um, it's meant to be spring and it's meant to be summer. So, but that's okay, that's okay. I think we need the rain and I'm grateful for it. It does make everything feel new and fresh. I want to tell you about two patients that I saw in clinical practice yesterday. Firstly, number one, we are a society that looks for the one thing, right? So we have a headache, and we're like, you know what, I want to take a Tylenol, wherever you are in the world, a Tylenol, a Panadol, a, you know, a Neurofen for my headache. So we often want the one thing. And I think that there are a lot of companies out there that market to us, particularly women. You know, they mark, they tell us that we need to look younger. They tell us that we, you know, we need to focus on anti aging. And they tell us that there is this one thing that will reduce our menobelly or our perimenopausal belly. Um, and they do very well in sales because we are the society that just wants this one thing that's going to fix it for us. So I had a woman in my clinic yesterday in an initial consultation going, why does this one thing not support, and I'm not laughing at her, I'm just laughing at our mentality and I'm laughing at the marketing and I'm laughing at the belief systems that we've created. You know, she's like, why does this one thing not work? Because they said that it would. Right? So I'm going to get to a story about renovation and I'm also going to get to a story about fertile ground and a garden full of weeds. Um, it's not long, it's just a quick snapshot. And then the other thing is, is that I see women come into my clinic and there are lots of integrative, um, uh, OBGYNs now that are prescribing beautiful, uh, not botanical, body identical progesterone and estrogen. Please remember that there is a hierarchy of healing and then there is a hierarchy of hormonal support in perimenopause, and this is so important. Progesterone goes MIA first. Estrogen needs to be moderated and modulated and supported by progesterone. If you have estrogen without progesterone, it's kind of like leaving the kids at home without a babysitter, right? They're going to be really badly behaved and a whole lot of stuff might go down. I think you're going to feel a lot better if you've got a babysitter in the house and you're away for a couple of days. Um, you're not going to want to just leave your kids at home alone. And that's what it's like when you're taking estrogen without progesterone. Don't forget that estrogen also needs to be detoxifying down the safest pathway possible. Otherwise, you do put yourself at risk for breast cancer. And I'm one of those practitioners that is really cautious when it comes to body identical, um, hormone replacement or menopausal replacement or menopausal supplementation. Dr. Felice Gersh talks about the fact that, um, estradiol and progesterone are life hormones. And they absolutely are. They absolutely are. But you need to have a baseline before you start hormone therapy. So this, this patient that I, this patient that I saw yesterday in the clinic, the two that I'm talking about, the first woman showed that she had this beautiful hormonal prescription, but none of the lifestyle and dietary modifications to support the hormonal prescription. The hormonal prescription was beautiful, but it wasn't working. And this is why. At about 40, right? And it's different for some women. Some women it's about, you know, 35. Some women it's about 43. But around about 40, there is this non negotiable renovation that needs to take place in your body. It is non negotiable. And I know we all kick and scream. And believe me, I did too. I found myself at 43. putting on weight without changing anything. And I just had this moment where I was like, hang on a minute. This is weight loss resistance. This is weight coming on with no change in my diet and lifestyle. So I need to look at the hormones. And then of course I needed to push the dietary and lifestyle modification piece because I didn't want to start stacking on the weight at around 43. So the, the American menopausal society put out research yesterday to show that The gut microbiome is imperative. So we have to start in the gut to accomplish a successful renovation. So when you're going from your fertile years into your menopausal years, there's this roller coaster in the middle called perimenopause. And this is where I'm talking about the fact that the renovation is non negotiable. So you need to renovate. I know you love your house as it is, and I know that you absolutely... You know, love where the bathroom is and where the kitchen is and all of these beautiful things. And you might not actually really have the money to renovate at this point in time, but I'm here to tell you that if you don't, the foundation of your house will go right. So you can try to purchase soft cushions and throws and you can try to repaint, but the foundation needs to be restumped. And this is exactly the case in perimenopause. The dietary and lifestyle modifications that were once working for you do not work for you anymore. And I'm living proof of that, and I have so many colleagues in this space and they talk of exactly the same thing. So like I said, the research is catching up quickly. The American Menopausal Society put out a research article yesterday that showed that perimenopausal women experience leaky gut presentation. So, this is where I come in with my garden analogy. What happens is you induce a leaky gut presentation and you get a whole bunch of weeds in your garden. There is absolutely no point in standing on the other side of the fence and throwing rose seeds. at the weeds in the garden. You have to pull out those weeds. You need to completely, you know, you need to dig up that soil. You need to create beautiful, fertile ground. And then you need to plant those roses. Because there is something called a gut hormonal brain interface. Your microbiome assists your hormones, which are chemical messengers, send beautiful messages, clear messages to every single cell in your body. If you have a dysbiotic gut or weeds in your garden, The communication between your hormonal system and your gut brain interface is going to be very messy, if not dysbiotic and extremely confused. So no matter what you do, if you don't do this in the right order, in the hierarchy of healing, you're not going to have sustainable long term vitality for good. So you're going to be like, I've tried all the things and nothing's working. I've done some gut support and I've done some hormonal support. It's about doing the right thing at the right time in the right order in order to have your hierarchy of healing that is sustainable and It keeps you in that beautiful, vital state for good. So whether you like it or not, the renovation needs to happen in order for you to flourish and transition successfully. And I'm here to tell you that all of your perimenopausal symptoms are brain symptoms. So they are so important. Don't take my word for it. Look at the work of Dr. Lisa Mascone. Look at the work of Dr. Dale Bredesen. Look at the work of Jason Fung, Alessio Fasano. So, like All of the great researchers and incredible doctors in this space will tell you exactly what I'm telling you here. And I'm certainly one of those practice that absolutely loves my patients to Google. So please Google it, educate yourself and know that you need to heal, seal and repair your gut first. Then you need to know exactly what progesterone is doing, what estrogen is doing and how the ratio is working in your body and how that relates to your symptoms. Once you know what progesterone and estrogen are doing, you need to know what D H E A D H E A S and testosterone are doing. Then you need to know how estrogen is metabolizing down the two, the four, or the 16 hydroxy pathway. The four hydroxy pathway is the breast cancer pathway. Do not take estrogen before you know how you detoxify it because you could end up with breast cancer that is induced by. estrogen therapy. So do not go in blind, know your markers, understand where your hormones are at, get a baseline so that you can get to the point where you go, you know what? I've got my baseline. I can see an incredible improvements and I'm feeling fantastic. And I know that I'm detoxifying safely, right? And ensure that you're detoxifying safely first. Before you use the hormone therapy and then make sure that your testosterone and your DHEA is where it should be at because we need testosterone as women for our libidos and our muscle mass sarcopenia is real as is osteoporosis and osteopenia we need to hold on to muscle mass and we need to make sure that our bones are really strong and we absolutely need estradiol for good strong bones brains and hearts you Our cardiovascular system goes a little haywire at this point as well. Every single system in the body is protected by female hormones, progesterone and estradiol. So we need to protect our cardiovascular system. We need to protect our muscles, we need to protect our bones, we need to protect our gut, and we need to protect our brain. Once we know what the, what the androgens are doing, we need to know where your melatonin is at. And then we need to look at your cortisol awakening response. I see low cortisol awakening responses and high cortisol awakening responses all of the time in the clinic, and they mean different things. There is psychological burnout and chronic fatigue syndrome. that women in perimenopause experience due to the fact that their hormones have gone M. I. A. and they now also have thyropause or andropause. And I'm also here to tell you that if you have a high ACE score, adverse childhood events, you're moving from an ovarian production of hormone to an adrenal production of hormone, and your adrenals are already under pressure. And now you go, Hey guys, actually, by the way, now that you've been stressed out and petrified or traumatized most of my life, I actually need you to do the job that the ovaries once did too. So if you don't mind, if you could take that on as well and your, and your adrenals are just like, are you kidding me? Like I cannot even run for my life. I cannot fight for my life. I'm like literally rollover play dead right now. And you want to give me more tasks on my to do list? I just cannot. Right? So your adrenals are just like, no, I'm sorry. I'm on pause. If your adrenals are in pause, your thyroid is struggling. So that's why it is so important to know where your adrenals are at. You need to test your thyroid. And when I say you need to test your thyroid, you need to do a full thyroid panel. It is negligent care for a perimenopausal woman experiencing the symptoms that show that there's potential subclinical hypothyroidism and not receiving thyroid stimulating hormone, TSH. Um, T3, T4, reverse T3 and thyroid antibodies. Because the other thing that tends to happen in perimenopause is an autoimmune presentation. Because our immune systems are modulated by progesterone and estrogen too. So quite often, something that never bothered us in the past suddenly turns into a trigger food and we have an autoimmune presentation. And the question is with an autoimmune presentation is where is it and where else is it? So these are literally the basics in order to be able to transition successfully from your fertile years into perimenopause and menopause and beyond so that you can hold on to your gut function, your muscle function, your bone function, your brain function, and you can supplement your beautiful dietary and lifestyle modifications that are now supporting your final decades. So please. Make sure that you do things in the right order so that you can be vital for good and you don't have to do yo yo diets. In my clinic, it is a diet free zone. I'm a recovering food addict. There is zero restriction and there is zero hunger. And I also teach women how to fast in a supported way. So it really is fasting for beginners. And none of what I ask you to do in my clinic, I have not done myself. And one of the huge pieces of feedback that I receive all of the time from women in our clinic is now that I know what to do, I actually can't believe how easy it is to do it and sustain it. And I can't believe how incredible I feel. And do you know what the really funny thing is? I have women tell me that they feel guilty about feeling this good. Isn't that incredible? And I also think that that has got something to do with us as women. We feel like, you know, it's okay. Like, you know, it's all right. It doesn't matter that I feel shitty or that I feel like I'm always exhausted or tired. I'll just keep going. You know, it's selfish to take care of myself to this extent. Your vitality is osmotic. Once you're feeling incredible, you can fill up and serve your family, your friends, your relatives, and the people that you love from a full cup. And you can do the best job you can. You can be the most incredible mother, the most incredible lover, the most incredible friend, and you can actually fall in love with yourself again. If you're at the point where you don't like yourself, please change that. It is so important. And you know, it's quite difficult to start with self love, right? So just start with forgiveness. Go. You know what? I forgive myself for being human. I forgive myself for self-medicating. I forgive myself for finding myself in this position, but I'm gonna make some better choices and I'm gonna do them today. So please eat three cups of green, one cup of color, and 200 grams of high quality protein per meal. Make sure that you're focusing on your energy levels and your nutrition. Your nutrition is everything. Please move in a way that you love. Hold on to your muscle mass, right? And support yourself. Treat yourself to some collagen. Go to the health food store. Get some really high quality collagen. Have protein first thing in the morning. And be gentle on yourself, right? This is a beautiful, beautiful life we have. We are so blessed to have it. And in Australia, we are safe. You know, we are relatively safe. And there's some terrible things going on in the world. And I just want you to please, Focus on your vitality when your biochemistry is supporting you and you feel as vital as you possibly can, right? You can deal with the stuff that life throws at you. So welcome to being human. Start with forgiveness. This is a judgment free zone. I love you. I love your biochemistry. The one thing that I tell my patients to do is trust me to trust their biochemistry, right? Because so many times women end up in front of me in my clinic, in my practice, and they have lost All faith in their bodies. They don't trust their bodies, they don't trust themselves, and they don't trust their biochemistry because sometimes we feel so SHIT in this space. That we do self medicate with food or booze or alcohol, you know, booze, alcohol, sweets, sugar, you name it, you know, but please focus on your nutrition today and get eight hours sleep. That is the best thing you could do for your health today. Make sure that you're hydrated and move in a way that you love. I love you. Have a beautiful day. Thank you for listening to my rant.
