E201: Your Perimenopause Survival Guide: What Your Symptoms Really Mean And The MOST Effective (and Surprising) Fixes with Dr. Malaika Woods

Why does your period suddenly feel like a monthly punishment? If you’re in your 40s (or getting close) and noticing unexplained symptoms—from belly fat to burnout—you could be in perimenopause without realizing it. Worse? Common habits, like that nightly glass of wine, might unnecessarily complicate things.

What if your PMS, irregular periods, or sudden weight gain aren’t just "part of getting older," but signs your hormones are crying for balance? 

In this episode, board-certified OB/GYN and functional medicine expert Malaika Woods reveals:

• Signs of estrogen dominance that may explain your worsening PMS
• The blood sugar-hormone connection sabotaging your energy and waistline
• Why "normal" labs don’t mean optimal, and the tests you should request.

Play now to understand your hormones—so you can fix what’s truly fixable and start thriving (even in perimenopause).

P.S. Not in perimenopause? This episode is packed with insights to boost fertility, ease PMS, and combat hormonal acne, giving you the knowledge you need before the rollercoaster begins.

NEED HELP FIXING YOUR HORMONES? CHECK OUT MY RESOURCES:
Hormone Imbalance Quiz - Find out which of the top 3 hormone imbalances affects you most!
Join Nourish Your Hormones Coaching for the step-by-step and my eyes on YOUR hormones for the next 4 months

CONNECT WITH DR. MALAIKA:
The Natural Hormone Fix FB Community
Website
IG: @malaikawoodsmd

Rate the podcast 5 stars and DM me RATING on IG @leishadrews for $20 off the Restored mini-course on blood sugar balance, a key factor in hormone health!

Use code HHPODCAST for $50 off Nourish Your Hormones

LET’S CONNECT!
IG: @leishadrews
My story + more hormone resources

Don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode, and leave a review. Your support helps us reach more women looking for answers.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too!
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Transcript

[00:00:00] Leisha: If you're curious what it looks like to thrive during perimenopause, whether you are in perimenopause right now, or if you are headed that direction, I brought an expert on the show this week, Dr. Woods, who is a board certified O-B-G-Y-N and functional medicine expert, we are talking about how to understand exactly what is normal and what is not during perimenopause so that you can have the best experience possible.

[00:00:07] Leisha: Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have a really special guest, Dr. Woods. She is a board certified O-B-G-Y-N, and she works with women in perimenopause and menopause with functional medicine techniques and hormone replacement therapy. I cannot tell you how many requests I've gotten for episodes on perimenopause and menopause, and that's not something that I focus on here a lot because I do work specifically with younger women and.

Everyone really needs resources, and so I'm really excited to have Dr. Woods on today because this is exactly her specialty. She has a lot to share with us. If this is not you, and you typically listen to the podcast, you're like, I'm not in perimenopause yet. This might be great to listen to because you might not be super far away, but also send this to your mom, send this to your aunt, send this to someone who does need it, because we all need more information to make those.

Really informed decisions when we get to those stages of life. So Dr. Woods welcome. I would love for you to just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you, your family, your passions, and then we'll dive into perimenopause.  

[00:01:09] Malaika: Thank you so much for having me, a little bit about myself. I'm again board certified obgyn, so I'm one of those who, decided I wanted to be a doctor back in eighth grade. I wanted to deliver babies and I just had that idea from a really cool honors biology class. We got to, had this really old crotchety.

Former like veteran guy Mr. Fluke, I remember, but when we got to the life sciences, I just thought it was amazing and I just had this idea it would be neat to deliver babies. So that's what put me on this track. And then just fast forward to, a year out from having my second kid, I'm in a busy OBGYN practice delivering lots of babies, but.

Realizing that I needed to make some personal changes, I was like 240 pounds. I needed to lose weight. I was seeing 30, 35 people a day being told I needed to see more. So I knew I needed a change in my job life as well. And so I started exploring some different things. First I explored weight loss for myself.

I got board certified in obesity medicine, lost 60 pounds over a couple years. I left that stressful job and started my own, and then I learned about functional medicine and bioidentical hormones, and that is really the umbrella under which I do everything else that I do now. So that's what has taken me from where I was now.

Now passions. I love to sing. I love gospel music. I have been the wedding singer for lots of friends and family, the funeral singer also. And my secret passion Leisha is I wanna one day write a book that gets turned into a movie.  

[00:02:40] Leisha: Oh my gosh. I love that. I love that you didn't stop with, I wanna write a book. It's I want a book, write a book that turns into a movie

[00:02:47] Malaika: Yes, because I love those books that get turned into movies. 'cause then I'll, even if I see the movie first, I'll go back and read the book.

[00:02:54] Leisha: I love that. Okay, so you're not talking about a book on gynecology then.

[00:02:59] Malaika: Oh no, I'm talking about fiction.

[00:03:01] Leisha: I'm excited for that. Keep me posted.

[00:03:03] Malaika: Okay. I will.  

[00:03:05] Leisha: I would love to just start with an overview on perimenopause. Like I said, we haven't had very many episodes on that, I think there's a lot of mixed information out there on when perimenopause starts, how you know that you're in it.

I know a lot of women might assume they're in perimenopause before they are, and I know it's not a certain age either. So could you give us some ideas of what the factors are that kind of qualify for perimenopause? What does that even mean to someone who's like, I don't know the difference between perimenopause and menopause and all of the things.

[00:03:38] Malaika: Absolutely. So in order to define perimenopause, which means around the menopause, first we have to define menopause. menopause is defined as. As a whole year without a period, the average age of menopause is 51. Now that gets tricky because some women end up with a hysterectomy and so , they're surgically menopausal.

If they maintain their ovaries, then they may still go through menopause around the average age of 51. So perimenopause then is. A period of time leading up to the menopause. And the reason why it's so confusing Leisha is because there is no exact definition. Typically perimenopause happens in the forties especially the mid forties to late forties and into the early fifties, and what the symptoms that women are usually noticing is due to declining hormones.  

So it may be hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, pain with intercourse, mood swings gaining weight. A lot of women grab that midsection and say, I don't know where this belly fat came from. It wasn't here, 12 18 months ago. Those hormonal shifts are usually the culprit behind those perimenopausal symptoms.

[00:04:52] Leisha: Just to clarify, this is gonna be decreases in both estrogen and progesterone typically. And   

[00:04:58] Malaika: And testosterone? 

[00:05:00] Leisha: anti testosterone, and then I know something that can happen. Is that cycles start to get more irregular, is that kind of a late sign of perimenopause versus an early sign?

[00:05:11] Malaika: I would say that is a late sign.

[00:05:13] Leisha: So that's closer to menopause actually 

occurring within those last couple of years, typically, where the cycles become more irregular.

[00:05:21] Malaika: That is correct. So as you get closer to the full on menopause, oftentimes those periods will start to space out.

[00:05:28] Leisha: What would you say to someone who say like 35, 37, they're having irregular periods and someone tells them they're in perimenopause. Would you consider that too early? I.

[00:05:39] Malaika: In most cases, yes, I would. There are some labs, Leisha, that you know that a young woman could To have an idea. One of those is the FSH, the follicle stimulating hormone. And typically if it's under 10, that's someone who's got good ovarian reserve and not likely menopausal based on the standard lab.

If it's greater than say 26, you can maybe start considering whether they are perimenopause and in fact, a 30 5-year-old would be considered going into like premature ovarian failure, like it's so young that it's not even considered perimenopause. It's a whole different entity. I will also say, Leisha, that for the young woman who thinks she may be perimenopausal, I often say watch out for what I call the menopause pretenders.  

So there are other things that may be attributing to those symptoms. Let's take night sweats, for example. Menopause tenderer is gonna be, alcohol is a big one because if you have alcohol at night, you know you're gonna initially get a. Rise in your blood sugar, then you're gonna get a drop in your blood sugar.

And when your body's trying to bring that blood sugar back up, you may sweat and you may wake up in the middle of the night. And similarly, sugar in and of itself is also a menopause pretender. So sometimes it's things like that that are actually the root cause of a younger woman thinking that she may be perimenopausal.

[00:07:01] Leisha: That definitely makes sense that it's . These other causes, blood sugar imbalances, and I would assume even like adrenal and thyroid, insufficiencies, digestive issues, all of those things can play a role in not being able to use and metabolize alcohol or sugar in the way that they used to be able to do.  

[00:07:18] Malaika: Absolutely.

[00:07:19] Leisha: I know that when someone comes in with perimenopause symptoms that you have a process that you go through to help determine. Where their body is actually at in the process and what some of the factors are that are causing them symptoms. So for example, for those who are listening and they're in their mid forties and they're like, oh, I'm definitely having some weight gain.

I'm having some different mood swings. Maybe my periods are a little different than they were then tell me kind of where you start with that process and what some of the factors are that you can use to improve symptoms, even if they are in that age range.

[00:07:58] Malaika: Yeah, absolutely. So I begin with a. Complete history, and I like to begin with a comprehensive lab panel as well. I don't like to just guess about the hormones. I like to actually look at their values and the hormones I'm talking about. First of all, the ones that we think mostly related to perimenopause, which is your estrogen, progesterone, testosterone.

I also like DHEA. Which is a precursor to testosterone. It also plays a role in like your adrenal function and your cortisol levels. And then I always get a comprehensive thyroid panel. I was listening to one of your previous podcasts. I know you were talking about that. And that is super important because all of these hormone levels can start to decline and not work as efficiently as they did when a woman was younger.  

I also look at inflammation markers And really taking the functional medicine approach to hormone optimization where you're considering multiple inputs that can play a role. And I think this is important for your younger women who, again, they're not necessarily perimenopausal, but they're noticing some shifts in their body.  

So there are certain pillars that I think are important to optimize. I think about if a woman is. In a hammock, right? And if these pillars are keeping her off the ground, so one pillar is nutrition, one pillar is sleep, one pillar is inflammation. Another pillar can be some of those hormones.

If you can get a lot of those pillars optimized, you can keep that woman, elevated. Whereas a lot of times when I see them, everything's down. we're working on a lot of different areas, but that is how even. Women who are truly perimenopausal, they can transition easier through that if they have those other pillars in place, versus if they're eating horrible, they're not sleeping, they're stressed out, that is only going to make it harder to transition through that time.

[00:09:53] Leisha: I love that point. So I would love to just clarify again, for women who are coming into this stage or already in this stage, is it possible to go through and actually stop having your period to go through? Through the full menopause process, including perimenopause without having a lot of symptoms.

[00:10:11] Malaika: It is, I would say it's probably rare and what we would always advise a woman to maybe get a sense of what her journey may be like. It's always good to either talk to your mother or talk to your sisters who are older. I. Oftentimes you may mimic how they went through it. So some women will go through this entire perimenopause menopause and have very minimal symptoms.

Other women will go through this and have very severe symptoms, and it's really quite a wide range. And the other thing I should say too, Leisha, is that. 51, even though that is the definition or that the definition is that the average age of menopause is 51 and that's when your periods stop. It doesn't mean that the symptoms necessarily stop at 51.  

So women can have hot flashes and night sweats late into their fifties, even potentially into their early sixties. But again, that's where all those other factors will play a role in making it a little bit easier even, outside of hormone replacement.

[00:11:13] Leisha: Will you just get a little bit nerdy about hot flashes, because I know that's something that everyone. I dunno. I feel like that's the most menopause symptom that everyone's heard about, that they're like, my mom said this was horrible. , Why do you have hot flashes in menopause?

[00:11:27] Malaika: That is a really good question. And part of it we may not know, it's the declining estrogen, I'll tell you that is the culprit primarily. And it is a we call it a vasomotor symptom. So it's just like your body is releasing heat , because of what's happening with the blood vessels.

And I'm probably not explaining this to the letter but. The way women describe it, which is quite interesting. Some of them describe it as like an internal heat that just starts to rise and top out. Some women, they wake up drenched at night or they're sweating and then they throw the cover off and then they're freezing cold.

That is often how they explain it, but they explain it more so like an internal heat, and it is called, again, a vasomotor symptom because it's a vascular phenomenon that's happening at that time.

[00:12:15] Leisha: Okay, so the main trigger is the low estrogen, and then. As you go through perimenopause, menopause and switch from your ovaries being the primary production of hormones to your adrenals being the primary production, at some point, it evens out and your body starts to be used to those levels of hormones, but essentially it's like a slow.

Is that correct? And that's where hormone replacement therapy often comes in. So I'd love to hear what that process looks like and why Some people essentially need it and some don't.  

[00:12:49] Malaika: I would say. When a woman is considering whether or not she wants or needs bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, some of it is a quality of life issue. So for some people, if their symptoms are mild, if they have other, like I said, other pillars in place as far as nutrition, sleep, exercise, et cetera.

They may not feel the need for hormone replacement because it's an easier transition for other women. Maybe they don't have those pillars in place, or perhaps they do, but they're still having. Symptoms that are significant enough to really affect their quality of life. So that is one major factor as far as deciding whether or not someone wants to do hormone replacement therapy.

And I do need to say this too, about hormone replacement therapy and I've we have really good data to support the idea that. Hormones really have long-term benefit. So it's not just about the relief of hot flashes and night sweats. And actually over my shoulder, there's a book here called Estrogen Matters, and it's written by a physician Dr.

Rem blooming, B-L-U-M-I-N-G. He's actually a cancer doctor, if I'm not mistaken, and he decided to go down the rabbit hole of estrogen. Is it good or bad? Because his wife was. He was trying to figure out, is this a good or is this bad? Because over the last 20 plus years, there's been a lot of misinformation and controversy about estrogen.

I think that we have now come to a better understanding of kind of what that data is. I'll just share a few of the benefits of hormone replacement therapy. In this book and in other studies, it talks about the fact that women on hormone replacement will see a 30% reduction in colon cancer, a 30% approximate reduction in osteoporosis, which is very important because if you know anyone who's ever broken a hip, you know whether a parent or a grandparent.

Their health overall can decline quite rapidly, 30 to 50% reduction in Alzheimer's and dementia, and about a 30 to 50% reduction in heart disease. When you think about probably some of the leading causes of death and morbidity in women, a lot of that. Can be reduced actually with hormone replacement.

So I do approach hormone replacement from the stance that it can be very beneficial, to most people.

[00:15:18] Leisha: That definitely makes sense. So walk us through what the difference is in, you're a functional medicine doctor, you're doing bioidentical hormone replacement, versus you can also get hormone replacement that I believe is more synthetic. Is that correct?  

[00:15:33] Malaika: Yes, so bioidentical basically means it has the same chemical structure as the hormone your body naturally produces. It doesn't mean that it was like, derived from the earth. Okay? It may have been, formulated in a lab, but having the same chemical structure does make a difference, and a lot of the traditional gynecologists are using.

Bioidentical hormones as well that are commercially prepared, so you would get them at irregular pharmacy. And then some of us who are bioidentical hormone replacement specialists, we use a lot of compounded, and one of the differences in the compound, we have different formulations that we can use and we can really tailor the dose very specific to individual women.  

Let me give you an example of a synthetic versus bioidentical hormone and how it can be different because sometimes in the traditional world, they have been slow to latch onto the idea that there really is a difference. If we take the progesterone, for example, like bioidentical progesterone versus a synthetic, which is technically a progestin, the synthetic is medroxyprogesterone acetate.

So in this big study that was done 20 plus years ago where they were looking at hormone replacement, they found that the increased risk of heart attack, breast cancer and stroke was with a synthetic progestin. Also, if we take it to your younger women who, let's say if they ever did birth control, that Depo-Provera, it's medroxyprogesterone acetate as well, and one of the label warnings in that birth control is that.

It could exacerbate depression it could worsen the mood. Whereas when we look at the bioidentical progesterone, it actually improves the mood. It has a calming effect. And so you see a difference as far as even the result in the body looking at a bioidentical versus a synthetic.  

[00:17:26] Leisha: That definitely makes sense. when someone, , I think this is probably gonna qualify for all ages, essentially, when a woman who's still cycling hears that she's low in progesterone or woman who's in menopause, I know there's a lot of progesterone that you can buy, like over the counter prove progesterone, or there's some different like progesterone oils online.

What are your thoughts on those versus something that's prescribed by a physician?  

[00:17:49] Malaika: Of course I come with my own bias. So the one thing that I would say that would be of a concern is just that some of these things that are over the counter, just making sure. About the quality in the sense of are you actually getting the amount that it says on the label and

What is on the label is that actually in it? So sometimes it goes vice versa, meaning there could be another ingredient that's not on the label in some of these kind of over the counter supplements and then sometimes what they say that is on the label is not in the supplement.

Now I love essential oils and so I'm definitely pro essential oils but just sometimes with the supplements. And this goes with any supplement Leisha. It's about getting good quality. And sometimes you can't necessarily get that from the big box stores. You have to be careful. And there has been, report after report even on Amazon.

Sometimes there are fraudulent sellers, so they may be pretending to be the company. I would say at least get it from the original company and not get it from a secondary wholesaler.  

[00:18:57] Leisha: The obvious benefit to working with a functional practitioner, if you're. In the place where you feel like hormone replacement therapy is, what you need is you're going to have your levels tested. You're going to be given a dosage that's appropriate for you, given instructions that are appropriate versus like it's a little more throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Not to say that you couldn't see some improvement if the quality was good, but you're a little more in the wild West, I would assume.

[00:19:23] Malaika: A little bit. And I do have patients who come to see me and they tell me that they've used some over the counter things and they've seen some improvement. And sometimes it's just that they need a little bit more. And then at that point, the bottle says take, five drops and you.

Taken your five drops and you've hit a wall still. That's where sometimes the prescription comes in because we know how much we can go up and we're gonna be monitoring and measuring along the way.  

[00:19:48] Leisha: It sounds like the benefit. With bioidentical hormones, really creating that symptom relief is the goal. But your point that you made that I think is really important is that when the pillars are in place of nutrition and gut health and stress relief. And replenishing your body after babies is a huge one that I talk about.

Having those things in place, you are going to be less likely to have a lot of symptoms and less likely to need, I would assume, even higher dosages of medication or bioidentical hormones versus if you have some of those things in place. So Being able to just take a step back, sometimes I think we can get really crunchy where we're like medication hormones, never.

We can say that's what everybody needs in menopause. It's like there's, you're probably too far on one side or the other. Either way, something in the middle is probably more true that maybe you do need to work on your nutrition and your blood sugar balance, and those things are gonna help your adrenals make more appropriate levels of hormones as they take over and.

You also may because of all the stressors that you've had, because of the quality of our food, because of all of those things, maybe there's gonna be a little bit of both. A question that I got recently that I'll just pose to you because I'm sure that the woman who asked me is not the only one wondering is she was on bioidentical progesterone, in her luteal phase for the last couple of years, and the provider that she was working with.

Is no longer able to prescribe it for her. But she was essentially really stressed out because she is like, I was told I have to just keep taking this and now I don't know what's gonna happen to me if I stop and I don't have someone to provide it right now. And I would just love to hear your, hear your thoughts on that situation.

But also once you start on HRT, does that mean you're on it forever or is usually they're more of a treatment plan with a certain amount of time?  

[00:21:37] Malaika: First back to your point about, the main goal of HRT being symptom relief, that is one of the primary goals. But like I mentioned early on, there's a lot of health benefits long term to the hormone replacement as well. For the woman who had a doctor prescribe something and then that doctor's no longer able to prescribe it, I would just go out and search for a new provider.

A lot of doctors. Will be okay with continuing a prescription that another physician has started versus if they started it themselves. So if someone comes in to a new doctor and say, Hey, I'm on this, can you refill it? They may find that reasonable. And I think most traditional gynecologists are okay with using some progesterone.  

And then to your question of. When women start on hormone replacement, do they need to stay on it? They don't need to stay on it. It's really just a question of do they want to stay on it, because oftentimes they're feeling so good as far as energy, sleep, libido, mental clarity, some of the things that we see that they choose to stay on it if they decide to come off of it.

And then this goes back to the pillars again, Leisha, for those who have those pillars, and let's say again, they come to see me at first and everything's down. And then we're working on nutrition, sleep, stress, and hormones. There may be a time where they say, okay, let me take away the hormones because I've got all these other things optimized.

And there's a percentage of women that do that, and they do it successfully. And then there are other women who say, I feel really great on the hormones and I want to continue.

[00:23:11] Leisha: That definitely makes sense and I love that again. Balance of perspective, because I think it's so easy, especially for women and especially with our hormones not because we're feeling hormonal necessarily, but just because it's this big piece of us. It's really easy to feel once you find something that works, like that's the only thing, or there's only one answer, right?

It's just like this kind of all or nothing mentality. I really appreciate, again, bringing in a little more perspective where it's like, maybe this is something you need. Maybe you do need it for a long time or maybe you don't need it for as long because you found some other root causes and some changes and things like that.

I would love to just go into one more small, this isn't a small topic, but just a quick little side note on this. I know that you do work with women and weight loss in perimenopause. In menopause. I know this is a huge concern, a huge topic. Could you just give us a little bit of insight into what are some of the things.

Cause weight gain, maybe. What are some of the big things to look into if you're struggling with weight gain and you're like, I'm eating healthy, I'm exercising. What in the world is happening? Just maybe throw a few bones out for the women who are in that space that they know where to go or where to reach you or those kind of things.

[00:24:20] Malaika: I would say, let's talk about some of the things that are probably overlooked, because we all know that traditionally when you're struggling with weight. The advice is eat less and exercise more. And unfortunately that's not enough for most people. I would say one of the big overlooked root causes of weight issues is inflammation, because if you think about it, wherever that root cause inflammation is, regardless of that, if you're inflamed, your body tries to protect you from that, and it hides some of those inflammatory byproducts.

In your fatty tissue. it's gonna be harder for you to really burn and get rid of that fat if it's inflamed. And if we take that idea a little bit further, what are some of the root causes of the inflammation? Definitely gut health can be a part of that. Stress is inflammatory as well. Then we look at the diet and not just, a lot of times people get stuck on, which diet am I going to follow? But just really understanding which foods can be inflammatory as well. Another place that I think is often overlooked that I think about is, thyroid optimization. And so the way I look at it, Leisha, is. What are the dials?

Can I turn in your favor as far as improving your metabolism? Another one that is often overlooked is just the impact of not getting enough sleep. And some studies show the best example is the night shift workers. I. They have such a harder time losing weight, and it's likely because their cortisol is off.

They're not in their normal circadian rhythm, and that's just a window into how lack of sleep or adequate sleep can impact your weight loss. I think those are some of the ones that people overlook. And then if I were to talk about which hormones play a role. Typically what's happening for women in their mid forties, in that perimenopausal range, they may be developing something called estrogen dominance.

And this is where, both estrogen and progesterone are declining in the mid forties, but progesterone will decline faster. So you in essence, get an estrogen dominant state. An estrogen dominant state is also a fat storing state. So those are some of the things that people may not be thinking about as far as potential root causes of weight issues.

[00:26:45] Leisha: Right, and those are all huge categories that you just talked about. I think. Probably almost. If I was just gonna make up numbers, I would think 90% of people would fall in one or many of those categories. it's not just, I think, like you said, things get overlooked really easily and so you're not stuck with where you are.

There's a lot of answers to get. Will you talk about thyroid for just a minute? How the thyroid affects weight gain, just on a basic level for those who don't really understand and also . What I typically see is that thyroid is not well tested, and how to know if your thyroid has been well tested, because many people will ask them about their thyroid and they'll say, oh yeah, my thyroid was fine, but there weren't a lot of numbers really checked.

[00:27:26] Malaika: Absolutely. So the thyroid is really important. I say it's a little small but mighty organ 'cause it's teeny tiny. You can barely feel it, on the front of your windpipe or your trachea. But almost every cell type in your body actually has a receptor and a need for thyroid. So not only is it a major driver for energy and metabolism, but there's even studies to show that your thyroid affects your mood.

And in reverse. There's studies to show that I. People who have depressive symptoms, if they get their thyroid numbers optimized, they act, their mood gets better. So it plays a role in a lot of different areas. Now, testing for the thyroid this is unfortunately very insufficient in the traditional world.  

Oftentimes when you go to your doc and you say, I'm gaining weight. I'm cold all the time. I'm constipating my hair thinning, you've got all the symptoms and you ask to get your thyroid levels checked. Oftentimes you come back with maybe one or two labs, the TSH. The thyroid stimulating hormone, which is not actually your thyroid hormones.  

So the thyroid stimulating hormone, the common one that's checked is actually produced in the pituitary in the brain, and that is the signal that says. Does the body need more thyroid hormone or not? So then the individual thyroid numbers are T four and T three. You wanna get the free and you wanna get the total.

You'd also like to get reverse T three, which is what I call the break when your T three is. The gas and sometimes the reason why you have low energy and your thyroid labs are quote unquote normal is because you have too much reverse T three. And then I also like to look at antibodies, thyroid globulin antibody, thyroid proxies, antibody to assess for any Hashimoto's disease.

I'll also say this too, Leisha, when it comes to the thyroid, and I think this is where functional medicine shines out. Far out beyond what the traditional world can do is this idea that normal is not optimal, but optimal is best. So I don't care about anybody having normal labs, and you probably don't care about having normal labs if you feel horrible, right?

And so the other thing that I say is that the lab tells part of the story, Leisha, but you, the individual patient tells the other part of the story. So you could have a quote unquote normal T three, but it's on the very low end of normal. And you tell me your energy level is a two out of 10. We're not satisfied with that.

We wanna optimize that number because how could that improve your energy and then also your metabolism. And I know women and are frustrated with this because in the traditional world, they'll check a TSH and a T four usually, and that's it.

[00:30:08] Leisha: Right, and that's where I try to explain, I worked in the hospital for a long time and what we're looking at, especially in the hospital, but also in many doctor's offices, we're looking for, do you need medication or do you need hospitalization, essentially, like that's what we're looking at with labs.

And , if your thyroid isn't off the charts yet on one side or the other. You don't need medication yet. It's not maybe gonna be covered by insurance. It's not warranted in the protocols, it's not standard of care. So you're fine. That's where I love what you just said, that if it's not optimal, then that's where you're not gonna be feeling great.

Unfortunately, the traditional model of care and what insurance covers doesn't often cover this. And so I hope that will change at some point because it does make it unaccessible for a lot of people, but I think this is where I love podcasting and I love having these conversations with experts,

so many people who maybe wouldn't be able to make an appointment with you are getting some of your wisdom. So I really appreciate your time and just sharing this. I would love to just wrap up with where can they find you for more information? I know you have all the resources, you work with clients, you work with other health practitioners, so tell us a little bit about that and we'll include all of that and then show notes too.

[00:31:19] Malaika: Absolutely. So probably the best way to reach me is that I do have a private Facebook community called The Natural Hormone Fix. The Natural Hormone Fix, and I go live about every week in there. So I talk about all things related to hormones. I talk about things related to functional medicine, gut health, all of it.  

it's a free resource for anybody. For those who would like to work with me, potentially one-on-one. I'm able to work with those who live in Kansas. And California at this time, and my website is Dr. Woods wellness.com. And then my Instagram is Malika Woods, md.

[00:31:55] Leisha: Awesome. Thank you so much Dr. Woods. I really appreciate. This.

[00:31:59] Malaika: Thank you for having me.