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The Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast
Bringing all things health and wellness to Tampa Bay, FL from your very own family and obesity medicine physician, Dr. Kerry Reller, MD, MS. We will discuss general medical topics, weight management, and local spots and events focusing on health, wellness, and nutrition in an interview and solo-cast format. Published weekly.
The Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast
E118: Ditch the Pill—Dr. Monica Minjeur on Healing Hormones & Cycles Naturally
Welcome to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast with Dr. Kerry Reller! This week, I’m joined by Dr. Monica Minjeur, a physician and founder of Radiant Clinic who specializes in helping women restore natural menstrual cycles and improve fertility—without birth control. In this episode, we explore how cycle tracking offers powerful insights into hormone health, why irregular periods are often a sign of deeper issues like PCOS, thyroid dysfunction, or cortisol imbalance, and how Dr. Minjeur helps patients address root causes instead of masking symptoms. Tune in to learn how to take control of your cycle, hormones, and overall health—naturally.
Dr. Monica Minjeur is the founder and CEO of Radiant Clinic in Cedar Rapids, IA. The mission of Radiant Clinic is to restore natural menstrual cycles to improve health and promote fertility. As a board-certified family medicine physician, Dr. Minjeur specializes in testing and treatment for irregular or painful periods, PCOS, recurrent miscarriages, infertility, postpartum depression, PMS/PMDD and other gynecological conditions. She is a member of the International Institute of Restorative Reproductive Medicine and has completed additional medical training in NeoFertility, NaPro Technology, and FEMM Medical Management. Dr. Minjeur is passionate about providing education for using fertility awareness methods to get to the root cause of menstrual-related concerns and improve the health of the women she serves.
0:00 – Welcome & Introduction
1:03 – What Dr. Monica Minjeur Does
1:56 – How a Family Member Inspired Her Career Path
4:28 – The Power of Cycle Tracking
7:35 – How She Starts Evaluations & Teaches Charting
12:23 – Insulin Resistance & Glucose Tolerance Testing
14:02 – Understanding Cortisol & Chronic Stress
18:54 – Thyroid Dysfunction & Its Hidden Signs
25:27 – How to Track Your Cycle with Cervical Mucus
30:56 – Patient Success Stories & Her Unique Practice Model
Connect with Dr. Monica Minjeur
Instagram: radiantclinic_ (https://www.instagram.com/radiantclinic_/)
Website: radiantclinic.com
Facebook: Radiant Clinic (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092406047321)
Podcast: “Cycle Wisdom” (https://radiantclinic.com/podcast)
Email: hello@radiantclinic.com
Connect with Dr. Reller
Podcast website: https://gethealthytbpodcast.buzzsprou...
My linktree: linktr.ee/kerryrellermd
LinkedIn: /kerryrellermd
Facebook: /clearwaterfamilymedicine
Instagram: /clearwaterfamilymedicine
Tiktok: /kerryrellermd
Clearwater Family Medicine and Allergy Website: https://sites.google.com/view/clearwa...
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All right. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kerry Reller, and today we have a very special guest, Dr. Monica Minjeur. Welcome to the podcast.
Monica:Thanks. I'm so excited to be chatting with your audience today.
Kerry:Yeah, we are excited and thrilled to hear everything that you have to say today. And basically you're gonna bring us your expertise, which is what I love when everybody does.'cause I learn so much from all of my guests. So I'm excited to get my extra, you know, continuing medical education today. So basically tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Monica:Yeah, so again, as you mentioned, I'm Dr. Monica Minjeur. I am a physician in the Iowa area. But I do offer telehealth services throughout lots of different states. And my clinic is Radiant Clinic and our mission there is, is to help women with restoring natural menstrual cycles. In order to improve their overall health, but also to help enhance fertility. So about half of the patients we work with are people who are having irregularities with their menstrual cycle, or maybe they wanna get off birth control or stay off birth control. And then the other half are people who are trying to conceive who maybe have been told that IVF is their only option, but maybe they don't wanna go that way or they wanna look for the more natural ways in order to be able to try and conceive. And so we help in that way as well.
Kerry:Awesome. So before we get into all of that, why don't you tell me a little bit how you basically got into this kind of specific part of medicine?
Monica:Yeah, so when I was in residency, actually, I had a family member who was on birth control for heavy periods and she was about 22 years old at the time, I think, and she actually suffered a blood clot, and that was really scary for me, thinking somebody who was about my age that could have such a serious side effects from birth control for, you know, and she wasn't on it to try and prevent pregnancy. She was just on it to try and deal with these heavy periods. And so I got thinking to myself, okay, if I'm going to be a doctor that goes out and prescribes these medications, I'm gonna have to deal with these side effects. And I didn't love that option. The other thing for her is that after she had that blood clot, she couldn't be on birth control anymore. And basically they told her We don't have another option as far as how to treat your heavy periods. And I just thought that was. Really not acceptable. So what I did is during my residency I actually sought out some additional training and so went to some courses and some additional restorative reproductive medicine training in order to be able to learn other alternatives and other ways to be able to treat menstrual cycle irregularities as well as fertility concerns in a more natural way. And so actually throughout my entire medical career, I've never prescribed birth control for any reason, because I've been able to utilize these other methods instead in order to be able to manage heavy periods or PCOS or help women through a diagnosis of endometriosis or infertility in a way that addresses root cause healing. So we look to find what's causing these symptoms, correct those things, and then be able to hopefully keep them off of birth control. Manage their symptoms in a way that helps improve their menstrual cycles, but also their overall health while avoiding potential side effects. So really inspiration from a, a fairly close family member and really just kind of catapulted into what can I do, how can I do better? And so this is, this has been a part of what I've done for my entire medical career.
Kerry:I think, I mean, I really like this topic really because I struggle with one, like a patient comes in and wanting to, you know, maybe start birth control or whatever reason, or they're having irregular cycles for whatever reason, and I'm like, man, if we do this, they're like never gonna come off of it. And there's so many other things that you know, could be done instead. So it's real, it's really difficult for me to do that starting thing too. So I think it's amazing that you're doing what you're doing and I can't wait to hear more about it. So why don't you kind of tell us a little bit, I don't know, the menstrual cycle, fertility awareness? Like where, where would you like to start, I guess?
Monica:Yeah, so I think the first piece is that we always are teaching women how to track their cycles, how to chart what's going on. Your body has biomarkers that it gives you on a regular basis as a menstruating woman that says, Hey, this is what's going on. This is where you're at in this cycle. And so. Primarily there's, there's few different methods that we utilize, but primarily one of the biomarkers we look at is cervical mucus or cervical discharge. And that is a very, very, very accurate marker as far as when you are fertile, as well as when you are ovulating. And so through learning these observation methods with. Working with one of our instructors, they're able to help you to determine, okay, when is it possible for me to get pregnant if I'm trying to get pregnant? Also, when is it that I need to avoid intercourse if I'm trying to avoid a pregnancy, but more importantly than fertility even is to say, okay, is my ovulation time, normal? Is my period normal, right? And so I think a lot of women are told, well, you've got an irregular period, or things are kind of strange with it, so let's just go on birth control. That'll fix everything. And the reality is we look at the menstrual cycle and specifically at your ovulation as another vital sign. So when you come to the doctor's office, we check your blood pressure, we check your heart rate, we check your temperature. In my world, we check what's going on with your cycles, what's going on with that ovulation because it is. Such a crucial marker that shows me what's going on at a deeper level, specifically from hormone health, adrenal health, stress levels, some of those other pieces. And what we see is, is that for women who are not ovulating regularly or are not cycling regularly, it oftentimes will clue us into a bigger issue under the surface that we need to address. And that's really the focus is. Empowering women to say what is normal, what's not normal? How can I track that on a regular basis, and then be able to pair that with the medical side of things. So then you'd come to me, I look at that charting and I say, okay, here's what's normal. Here's what's not normal. Order certain targeted lab testing in order to. Be able to dig a little bit deeper and then say, okay, how are we going to get things back to what should be normal? And so that's obviously very high level overview. There's, you know, there's a lot more that goes into it. But I think just that awareness, the fact that you can track your cycles, that you can figure out when am I fertile, when am I not? And realizing for a lot of women that they don't realize you can't get pregnant every single day of your cycle. There's actually a fairly small window For most women, that's somewhere around five to eight days. And so if you're trying to avoid a pregnancy, we tell people there's other creative things you can do during that time. Avoiding intercourse during that time will help you very effectively be able to avoid a pregnancy and gives us this insight into what's going on from your overall health standpoint. And so that's the part that we utilize in order to kind of figure out what's going on, play detective and get to that root cause if there are any abnormalities.
Kerry:Okay, that sounds perfect. But what, what if a person walking into you and they're having irregular periods and they don't wanna be on any medication or anything like that, how do you start with them? How do you work it up? How do you train'em to do the cycle tracking and
Monica:Yeah, so we kind of do simultaneous where we are seeing them for medical evaluation and they're working with one of our charting instructors. So if you're working with the charting instructor, they're talking you through, these are the signs that you wanna watch for, here's how to track your cycle. Here's, you know, either an app or here's a paper on how we're going to write that out. So then that way we have a really clear indication of what's going on from day to day? I liken it sometimes to like a food diary. So if people are keeping track of everything they eat on a regular basis or if they're tracking their exercise, it's kind of that same ideas where you're tracking what's going on with those biomarkers. And then, like I mentioned, we're also doing that medical evaluation at the same time. So for most women, that's going to involve getting some labs done. And oftentimes people come to me and they say, well, I've already had my labs done, or They've told me everything is normal. And typically when I look at what's been done and then I look at, okay, what still needs to be done? People have gotten maybe 10 to 15% of the things that need that additional evaluation. So we do a really deep dive, not only when it comes to your primary female hormones, but we also are looking at things like thyroid. So thyroid is a very, very underdiagnosed condition in women, you don't necessarily have to have. You know, full-blown thyroid failure in order to have problems with thyroid function. And so we look at that. We look at your adrenal glands, so your stress hormones, as well as how all of your glands are going on in producing your male hormones. So things like testosterone and DHEA. And then we also are gonna peek into your vitamin deficiencies, see what else is kind of going on, as well as that ovulation function. So. All of that can be done through lab work. And if we are having you evaluate what's going on with your cycle, oftentimes we're timing it to your cycle directly. Now, if you're having irregular cycles, then we just draw a one-time lab and we say, okay, let's, let's kind of figure it out and sort it out from here. The other piece that we oftentimes will do is an ultrasound to get checked and see is there something going on with your anatomy that may be wrong? So is there a fibroid? Do you have significant number of cysts on your ovaries. You know, looking for things like PCOS or other dysfunctions that may be causing those irregular periods, because sometimes it's not hormones, sometimes there's something anatomic that's going on, and really just looking at that big picture. So once we get all of those results back, it helps us to determine, first of all, what's your diagnosis? Because most women come in, they don't know what's going on, they've been told, well, you just have weird cycles. Go on birth control. And so really being able to focus in and rather than just saying, well, you've got weird cycles. We say, okay, you've got a diagnosis of thyroid dysfunction and PCOS and cortisol deficiency. You know, really naming each of those pieces because that helps us to target what's going on in your situation. How do we work towards getting things back on track? And so just trying to think of an example. So for irregular cycles, one of the common things we find is polycystic ovary syndrome. And for many women, they have different layers of that. So one piece of that might be that you have insulin resistance, which means that your body doesn't regulate your blood sugar. It's appropriately, and in many women, this can cause weight gain. Facial hair growth, acne lots of unpleasant symptoms. And so the target is, well, we don't wanna just say, put you on birth control to cover up the symptoms. But if we trace it back and we say, okay, you're somebody who has insulin resistance, then we talk about treating the insulin resistance. Right. So we're, we're talking about where are the lifestyle changes that can be made? Are there particular supplements or food groups that we wanna make sure that we're getting enough of? Are there prescription strength medications that can help with that insulin resistance? And so in the end, we're treating the root cause of that PCOS rather than just saying, well, here's birth control to cover up the symptoms. Because in the long run, PCOS doesn't go away. And unfortunately, even if you're not worried about trying to get pregnant at this moment in time, at some point in time, some women do want to be able to get pregnant, and then they come off birth control and the problems were never fixed. Or maybe you're past your time of having kids and you still have PCOS. If we haven't addressed the things like insulin resistance and weight troubles, then we're struggling significantly with an increased risk of weight gain, diabetes, heart disease. All of these things that go covered up if we're just doing this bandaid approach of birth control. So really the intention is fix that underlying problem, but first find out what it is, you know, because so many women don't even know what it is that they're dealing with and why their cycles are irregular or why they have certain symptoms. And so that really has to be the first step, is get a good diagnosis and then do tailored treatment based on exactly what your symptoms are showing.
Kerry:So are you drawing like a fasting insulin? Because I find that some patients especially haven't really had any other abnormalities in their labs at this point in time, especially when it's so early on. I.
Monica:Yeah, so we actually do, in most of our patients, we do a full glucose tolerance test, and it's a modified test in that we are actually drawing blood sugar and insulin. So we do that when they're fasting, and then they would drink the sugary drink and then every 30 minutes for the next two hours. We draw your labs every 30 minutes and check the blood sugar and insulin because interestingly enough, some people can have a totally normal blood sugar, a totally normal fasting insulin, but as soon as they go and eat or drink that sugary substance all of a sudden things spike and we see, hey, your body might do okay at rest, but as soon as you eat something, that's when the rollercoaster really starts. So we typically are checking that oral glucose tolerance test with insulin levels because insulin will start to be abnormal even before that blood sugar will start to shift. And so a lot of people rely on, oh, my blood sugar's normal, or my A1C is normal. We find that this insulin starts to go crazy even before that. And so if we can catch it before it gets to that point of blood sugar shifting, we typically have much better success with not needing to be on diabetic medications down the road.
Kerry:Yeah, absolutely. It, I haven't done it in that method with every 30 minutes, but that's definitely a good thing. You're gonna catch a lot more patients that would be, you know, already having some insulin resistance and then obviously affecting their cycles. Yeah.
Monica:Yep. Absolutely.
Kerry:about the cortisol deficiency you were mentioning?
Monica:Yeah, so cortisol is an interesting thing in that you can check cortisol every five minutes over the course of an hour, and it's gonna be vastly different. So the cortisol tests we do, we just do the lab tests now. There's lots of information out there as far as what's the best test. Salivary or urine or blood. And in our case, we're checking just a lab test and we're looking for two things. The first is obviously if your cortisol is really, really high, that tells me there's some acute stress that's going on in your body. But the other one that we find pretty commonly is actually your cortisol levels are too low. Now. It's an interesting phenomenon and I'll. Oftentimes women will tell me, well, I'm stressed all the time. How is my cortisol low? And our bodies are really good at trying to protect us. And so when your cortisol runs too high for too long, your body will actually try and downregulate. And so it will actually work to decrease those cortisol levels. And so oftentimes we. Find that your cortisol levels are really low when we check'em first thing in the morning and that tells me, yeah, there's been some chronic stress that happens. Now, the other thing with cortisol is that it gets this bad rap that, you know, cortisol is a terrible thing. The reality is our bodies need cortisol. They need cortisol to get up and get going in the morning, to have that energy to kind of shake off the morning fatigue, but they also need to be able to have a cortisol response when there are stressful situations that happen, whether that's emotional stress or illness. We need to be able to have that cortisol spike. And so if your body isn't producing enough cortisol, we need to be aware of that to say, okay, how do we fix that? How do we work on managing the chronic stressors in your body? The other is that your body, if it doesn't have enough cortisol, it will start to steal byproducts from other parts of your adrenal glands, which are above your kidneys. That's where cortisol is primarily produced. So DHEA is another one of those areas that we're checking, and oftentimes if your cortisol is too low, it will start to steal from DHEA. If we start to not have as much D-H-E-A-D-H-E-A is responsible for production of testosterone and estrogen, which obviously are two very important hormones in our bodies. And so if we see we've had this chronic stress, oftentimes I also find DHEA levels are low. Testosterone and estrogen are low, and so it adds to this whole pyramid of symptoms where we have lots of fatigue, ovulation defects, bleeding issues, migraines, all sorts of. You know, really awful things that all stems from this cortisol. So again, it's about finding where is the root cause, how do we fix it? And cortisol is one of the more challenging things in order to be able to improve. There's not just a magic pill that we're like, here, take some cortisol.'cause then we, you know, give you this huge adrenaline storage, which is not what we want. So that's where we talk a lot as far as lifestyle changes, making sure how are we doing as far as getting adequate sleep? What are we doing to reduce your stress? How are we trying to manage? What's happening at that, at that molecular level of the adrenal glands in order to be able to restore what's going on from the cortisol standpoint. But that one is, it is very, very common. We find that one often, and as you can imagine, if your body's under chronic stress. You're not gonna wanna ovulate regularly. Cycles can be irregular. We find all sorts of dysfunction that happens with that. I find this one a lot in our couples we're working with that are struggling with infertility. Because if your body is stressed, it's not gonna be in a healthy enough point to be able to go on and have a successful pregnancy. So really important that we check that one. And like I said, that's probably one of the more common ones. I find that. People are not looking into, and even if you're seeing specialists, oftentimes it's one that gets missed a lot of times,
Kerry:So you're checking a fasting morning cortisol level, and you're saying the low cortisol is the concerning thing because it's actually elevated cortisol throughout the day, but low morning cortisol when it's
Monica:Correct. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I do. Yeah. I usually tell people if your cortisol level is really high, first thing in the morning, like excessively high, it's probably because you've been like chased by a T-Rex, or you know, you got a car wreck on the way to get your labs drawn, that acute cortisol spike, we don't see that often, but when we see that it's too low, that's telling me your body is not responding well to that stimuli because it should be, you know, somewhere between 10 to 20 1st thing in the morning. And so if you come in and your cortisol level is four or five, then I get concerned that there's been some chronic stress going on that needs to be addressed.
Kerry:And there's not really any use of doing a cortisol like later in the day Then.
Monica:Yeah. You know, cortisol levels actually drop off quite a bit during the day. Now there are reference ranges that you can check that for. But for my purposes we're checking fasting blood work for most things anyways. So I'd rather we just do a one time blood draw rather than make you go back four or five times throughout the day. So, yeah.
Kerry:Very interesting. So well, I think that we've got the cortisol piece, the insulin resistance piece. Was there another piece that
Monica:Yeah, I think, I think thyroid dysfunction is the other one that we find commonly. Most people, if they have any sort of irregularity with their cycles or with their fertility. Most of the time they've had just a standard blood test to look for thyroid dysfunction. So this is known as like a TSH is the most common test. Sometimes a free T four is also checked. And you know, when we check those two things, that's looking at your thyroid gland. But what people oftentimes are missing is what happens in your body after your thyroid gland produces that thyroid hormone. Because your body has to take that at that thyroid hormone and convert it into the active form that can actually bind to your cells. And that's where we find a lot of dysfunction is that the thyroid gland might be okay. Your brain might be sending the right signals to your thyroid gland, but if your body can't take that thyroid hormone and convert it to an active form to attach to the cells. Then it seems like you've got thyroid symptoms without having a thyroid dysfunction, and so that part gets a little bit more challenging in order to diagnose as well. Again, it's a blood test fairly easy to pick up on when we're looking for the right things, but it is not something that is commonly checked at most doctors' offices. And when we look to say, okay, how do we correct this? How do we fix this? Sometimes it's medications, but again, more often it's these lifestyle changes. So gut health becomes a huge deal when it comes to this. If we have people that are dealing with gut sensitivity or allergies or not able to absorb certain nutrients through their gut. That can play a huge role as far as this thyroid conversion disorder. The other piece we pay attention to is, is liver and kidney dysfunction can cause issues with this thyroid conversion. And so really we do a deep dive and say, okay, where can we make sure that we're absorbing our nutrients? Well, do we need to look at gut healing protocols in order to absorb these nutrients? And then in a lot of cases we see that stress also plays a role. So that's our. Big broken record is unfortunately just trying to turn the stress down, but stress will also negatively impact your ability to bind that thyroid hormone to the cells that you need. And thyroid receptor cells are throughout your entire body, your brain, your skin, your reproductive tract, your. Gut everything. And so when thyroid function is not working well, you can have, where you have all the thyroid symptoms, but you don't actually have a problem with your thyroid gland. And so that's where, that's the other big area that we often find. And unfortunately, thyroid dysfunction is eight times more common in women than it is in men. We don't exactly know all the details as to the why of that, but. Certainly we find that often, and then autoimmune disease can also play a huge role. So many people who know of thyroid dysfunction have heard of Hashimoto's Disease or Graves disease, and those are particular autoimmune types of thyroid dysfunction that can cause lots of inflammation and other autoimmune dysfunction. Which can then lead to things like painful periods, heavy irregular periods, fertility troubles, and so really addressing that thyroid function is, is super important as well. And like I mentioned, unfortunately, a lot of conventional docs are just checking those basics, which is fine in many cases, but if you're still having troubles and if you're still having symptoms of thyroid dysfunction, even if you've been told your numbers are normal, it may be time to get a deeper dive and look into that thyroid function a little bit more.
Kerry:And so you mentioned lifestyle changes, but what about treating with thyroid replacement, does that help improve things?
Monica:Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think the biggest thing that's important is to know what thyroid dysfunction you're treating. So there's two different primary sources of thyroid hormone that you can actually get prescribed. One is T four, which is produced primarily from the thyroid gland, and then the other is t three. And that's typically the active form that your body converts to, to bind to the cells. And so when we are replacing thyroid hormones, if your numbers are too low or perhaps we've gone through all the lifestyle stuff and things are still a hot mess then we'll look and say, okay, where do we need to try some prescription strength medications? But again, really important to know, do you need T four? Do you need T three? Sometimes people need a little bit of both and really being able to balance what that looks like to get things back on track. So it's not just as simple as here, just take the thyroid pill and see you later and you're gonna be on it the rest of your life. In our world we try to say, can we be on this for a short term while we restore what's going on with your thyroid function? And then hopefully we try it. We always do a trial to say, can we come off of it? And about half. Of the time we're able to come back off of it after we've restored those lifestyle changes. The other half of the time. Sometimes we're just not able to, your body's not ready. Or sometimes people tell me, I feel so good, please don't take me off of this. And in which case we say, okay, we'll, we'll make sure that we're monitoring this and, and it is safe to stay on longer term because thyroid health has huge implications, not just from menstrual health, but for. Overall health, osteoporosis and brain health and dementia and all sorts of things. So really important, again, to be addressing these things that our body is telling us, Hey, there's something going on that can impact things well beyond even your menstrual cycle years.
Kerry:Yeah, I, I definitely have had patients say, please don't take me off of
Monica:Yeah.
Kerry:I mean many, I, I mean, it's good that you do have the trial off of it because I didn't, you know, I don't often see that. Most people, once you're on the thyroid medicine, it's kind of like, it's long
Monica:Yeah. Yeah, and and I think a lot of that comes in that a lot of times people aren't addressing those lifestyle changes or they think that. It's not gonna be enough to change things, and in some cases it's not. But certainly, it's always worth a try, right? Especially if you have somebody who's highly motivated to not take medications. We always talk about, okay, are there things that we can do to try and help give your body a break? And again, like I mentioned, gut healing ends up. Being a huge recurring theme we find, and if we can address that, then there are times that we're able to come off of it. And people really like that. But like I said, sometimes we're not, and that's okay. But it, it's also about that lifestyle change. You know, unfortunately I know this doesn't apply to you, but a lot of conventional doctors just say, here, take this pill. See you later. And you know, they're out the door without taking the time to give that education as to why, how can we do better? How can we help you to. Get more healthy and actually heal rather than just say, okay, now you're saddled with this prescription drug for the rest of your life.
Kerry:Yeah. I mean a lot of them have no idea which reason that they're on a medication for in the
Monica:Right, right. Exactly. Exactly.
Kerry:So can you walk us through the process of cycle charting and like everything that you need to monitor while you're doing that?
Monica:Yeah, so there's different methods have different things that you monitor, but most of the ones that we utilize first of all, there are methods that are scientifically backed, meaning they have research studies that have been done. They have journal articles that have been published, and so there are different methods out there. So I always caution people, first of all, you can't just download any random app and just. Start tracking that way, that's not going to be highly effective. So the methods that we utilize, there's a few different methods we teach in our clinic. Neo fertility is one of them. Creon model Fem. And then there are a few other methods too that are scientifically backed, like Marquette method. And really the primary thing that we're looking at for most of these is going to be tracking that cervical mucus observations. So what our instructors will do is they'll talk with you about how do you make those observations. And for most women, this, first of all, this is not an internal exam. You're not having to do, you know, 10 minutes worth of observations every day. But it's just that awareness when you are going to the bathroom. So when you take your toilet tissue and when you wipe. Are you noticing? Do things feel slippery? Does it feel dry? And then on the toilet tissue, are you seeing any mucus on that tissue? A lot of people are familiar with, they know, okay, do it, does it seem like egg whites, right? So is it clear? Is it stretchy? That's really the fertile type of mucus that indicates you're in that fertile window. And then we also say, okay, are you at a time where. Things are not slippery. Everything is dry. There's no mucus on the tissue. That's not a fertile time, and that's just the general basics of it. But cervical mucus is really the most common observation that we would are teaching with all of these methods because it is the most predictive when we correlate it to lab changes as well as ultrasound changes to see when does that egg actually release to show that ovulation has occurred. Some of the other methods also add in some other layers. So oftentimes people will have heard about basal body temperature tracking. So checking your temperature first thing every morning and recording what that looks like. After you ovulate your temperature actually shifts upwards by about 0.2 degrees or more. And that indicates that ovulation has occurred. So that is a feature that some of these methods will utilize. And then the third that people hear about is gonna be the urinary LH monitoring. And so this is looking for a luteinizing hormone surge with a urine test. So that'll be the things like the urine strips or there's some different monitors out there that check for those things. And you know, that has been an added layer for some people. I usually tell people that method alone is not typically going to be super accurate. We see that shift only about 70 to 75% of the time. And so when we utilize urinary strips, we're usually adding that on top of a cervical mucus method because that is the most indicative of what's going on. And so when we're tracking and looking at these signs, and like I said, for some people it's just one sign, some it's two or three. But when we track these things over time, we start to see first of all patterns of what's going on to say, Hey, what's. The bigger picture here, but even from cycle to cycle, you're able to tell today, am I fertile? Yes or no? Okay, the next day, am I fertile? Yes or no? So you really have that power to know every single day, where am I at in my cycle? And this becomes really powerful, not only for being able to figure out, you know, if I'm trying to avoid pregnancy or if I'm trying to conceive, but it also becomes really predictive as far as, Hey, when is my next period gonna happen? Or, Hey, I'm noticing I'm having certain symptoms. Can I track that in relationship with what's going on with my cycles? And so that's the other piece of charting or tracking is, is that it helps us to identify if I'm somebody who has migraines, for example, are, are my migraines always happening? You know, in that two to three days leading up to my period, are they always happening around the time that I ovulate? Then that helps us be able to determine from a medical standpoint, where do we need to put our attention? Where do we need to focus on where these symptoms are in order to be able to manage them and figure out what's going on? And so that's where it becomes really powerful is, is to line it up with what are the symptoms I'm experiencing? When do I anticipate my period is going to come? Are there things that I can do when I know my period is coming so that I can be more prepared? Whether that's. You know, just having supplies along with me, or whether that's starting certain medications or supplements or making sure that I'm being really good about my water intake or my sleep during those times. All of those things help to give you power over saying, okay, I know what's going on with my body, rather than just, this is something that's happening to me and my hormones are trying to kill me. So really the focus again is on that empowerment, on that education. And I think if nothing else today, I want your listeners to know that there is a way to be able to track your cycles. And no matter what phase of life you're in, you know whether you are in perimenopause and things are getting a little weird. Whether you are postpartum or breastfeeding, or don't have cycles at all, there are different methods that can help support you through any of these stages to help us figure out from a medical standpoint what is going on.
Kerry:This is very, very interesting.'cause I mean, when I was trying to get pregnant with my first, we kind of did some of these similar things and I think it was very helpful and even as a busy resident, like with the stress levels high, it, you know, it was helpful to know you know, what's really going on. I mean, our bodies are amazing and they're giving us signs and symptoms and we just need to listen to them sometimes.
Monica:Yes. Yes, absolutely.
Kerry:Do you have like a favorite case or story that you wanna share? With the listeners?
Monica:I do I have, I have lots of favorite cases, but there's some of my favorites involve people that have tried all the things and they come to me and they're kind of desperate or they've been told, like I. We don't have anything else for you, and we're able to kinda figure out what's going on and, and have good outcomes. So one of my favorite cases from a few years ago actually was a patient of mine who came to me and she had very irregular cycles. She had a diagnosis of PCOS, so polycystic ovary syndrome, which oftentimes comes with irregular cycles, but they had been trying to get pregnant for about four years. And they saw their OB doctor and they actually went through 15 rounds of IUI or intrauterine insemination. They did have one pregnancy, but it ended in miscarriage about three weeks later. And so after these 15 rounds of IUI, the OB doctor was like, look, I can't do anything else. You need to go for IVF. So this couple, God bless'em, they scraped together every penny they had to be able to afford IVF. They went through four rounds of IVF and still did not have a successful pregnancy. And by this point in time, they were about six or seven years into trying. And they were at a point where they just said, you know what, just maybe this is not in the cards for us. And a friend of hers actually referred her onto me to say, Hey, have you thought about this? Have you tried this? What are, what's the options here? And so she came to see me. We got her. Started with tracking her cycles. We did full lab evaluation, figured out what was going on, not only from the standpoint of her PCOS, but she actually also had some thyroid dysfunction. She had ovulation dysfunction, meaning she wasn't ovulating regularly and her hormone levels were really, really low. And so we worked together over the course of the next eight to nine months and she actually was able to achieve a pregnancy spontaneously. No IVF, no IUI. Just by fixing those root causes. Now we did end up, we also follow along during pregnancy because we know that sometimes people that have a hard time getting pregnant have a hard time staying pregnant, and she had had that miscarriage before, so we continued to provide ongoing hormone support throughout that pregnancy. And she was able to go on and have a full term healthy baby boy, and he is about. Four years old right now. And the best part of this story is that once we had cracked the code, she came to me actually about two years ago and said, I think we wanna have another baby. And so we knew what was going on, we knew what needed to be done, and we got there much quicker that next time around. So about three months later was able to spontaneously conceive again. And then went on to have a full term, actually a little baby girl the second time around. So, you know, it's, it's really amazing when people are told like, Hey, there's no other options. And in her case. They had tried all of what conventional medicine had told them. And we were able to say, now look back up. Like let's go back to square one. Get the diagnosis right, treat what's going on. And then we were able to kind of back away and say, you know what? Go ahead. Go, go and conceive on your own. And she did twice. So I, I just think that's really, I. Amazing to be able to work with people in that way, to give hope and to say, you know, we don't always figure it out I can't always promise that there is a baby at the end of it. But at the end of the day, we were able to figure out what's going on, get her health in a better place, and then she went on to have not only a healthy pregnancy, but she is much more healthy now because we were addressing those underlying PCOS factors. So that's probably my favorite. Story of all of my patients that I've seen. But there are, you know, multiple stories that are like that where people have been told, Hey, you don't have any other options. This is, this is all we have left. And, and then we go, wait a second, hold the phone. Let's, let's dig a little deeper and see if we can figure out what's going on.
Kerry:That is amazing. That is super amazing. I had a patient who who had already come to me, but she had done like IVF for her first pregnancy, and then I think the later on was just, you know, find out to have a thyroid problem and you know, at once treating that like they have five kids now. Right.
Monica:sometimes it can be that straightforward. It's just you have to know what to look for and, and treat it.
Kerry:yeah. Do you have anywhere it like, is not about fertility, like any great stories about just, you know, fixing the menstrual cycle and Yeah. Share.
Monica:Yeah, absolutely. So my other favorite thing that I work with is I work with a lot of teenagers who have irregular cycles, and unfortunately, a lot of times they're suffering pretty significantly from irregular cycles, heavy periods. And so there's a young lady I worked with recently. She was I think she was about 16 when she came to see me. And she had been put on birth control because she had really terrible migraines. And so we worked together to say, okay, how do we look at trying to transition off of birth control? Because in her case, she actually had a significant worsening of depression and actually suicidal thoughts after being put on birth control. So she knew she wanted to be off of it, but she obviously didn't wanna suffer with the irregular cycles and with the migraines. And so we worked together to get a good transition plan to get her off of birth control, and then we were able to say, okay, let's evaluate, see the lab, see what's going on. And really what we ended up finding at the end of the day, first of all, she had significant what we call a luteal phase defect, which means her progesterone levels were very, very, very low. Which is a common finding that we see with menstrual migraines is that if your estrogen is running, even if your estrogen is normal, if your progesterone is too low, it creates this estrogen dominant situation Where it can really trigger these menstrual migraines. And so we did find that in her case. And so the reality is we ended up switching her to just taking bioidentical progesterone during the time of her cycle that she naturally should be having progesterone where she wasn't, her levels were too low, and that actually. Completely eliminated the menstrual migraines. We were able to keep her off of birth control and then we worked together after we had been on the prescription meds for a while to say, okay, where can we make the lifestyle changes in order to try and keep, keep these levels up, maintain those levels. And she's now probably 21 years old and has not been on progesterone for two or three years and has not had menstrual migraines because we work to solve those root cause issues. She talks to me and reminds me sometimes and she says, what if I had never found you, I'd still be on birth control and still be miserable? And you know, I think, I think really just offering people that hope of there are other options. And so when you're told birth control is your only choice, I promise you there is always at least three other options that we can look at to say, how do we manage your symptoms? How do we control things from a better way? In order to be able to get you off of birth control, avoid those side effects, but most importantly, solve that root cause issue because it can have other significant impacts on your health for the long run.
Kerry:amazing story. I feel like. In the general medical arena with insurance and whatnot. It's very difficult because some of these conversations and workups, you know, may be very long and you know, to really get down to the root cause. So you have a different approach. So why don't you share us about your practice.
Monica:Yeah, so our practice is different in that we have a lot more focus on education and a lot more time spent. And so part of the way that we do that is we actually don't work within the insurance model. And the reason for that is, is unfortunately, insurance oftentimes will dictate how long we can spend with you, what should actually be prescribed, what we should do. And so by working outside of that insurance model, it allows us to have that time to be able to spend with you not only on education. So for example, our charting instructors will spend a full hour session with people each time they meet with them. And over the course of a year, you get somewhere between seven to 10 hours worth of education on how to track and chart your cycle and that will help carry you through the rest of your charting days. Medical appointments with me are typically also a full hour long. Again, we're digging deep. We're looking into all of your symptoms, we're giving education, and then we're talking about what works best for you. Right? So I come in with a plan that I say, here's what I think we could try. Here's your options, and then we work together to say, okay, I'm okay with this, or maybe you don't wanna try that thing. What are our options and choices for that? And part of the way that we do that is, is that we have everything spaced out into a monthly medical package or a fertility package, depending upon what our, what your goals are. But the idea is letting you see, hey, this is what might cost is on a monthly basis, and then you have full access to us. So some people know this as like a concierge medicine or direct specialty care or boutique medicine, and that's really how it works is that way you have all of the access you need to us need to get to us. You know, whether that's through an appointment or follow up with our nursing staff. And one of the great things we've been able to do though, in order to still utilize insurance in some cases, as we can still run your labs through insurance. We can still run your medications through insurance. So wherever we can, we can still utilize insurance. But it does allow us that freedom to be able to spend a ton of time with you, really dig deep and solve those root cause problems. The other question I get asked a lot when it comes to this is, well, how long do I have to work with you to fix what's going on? Right? And so for some people it's a couple of months. For some people it's a year or two. It really depends on your situation. Oftentimes we can get things pretty stable when it comes to medical management of a problem. For sure within a year, oftentimes less than that. And then we say, okay, here's the game plan going forward. We're gonna just touch base once a year and make sure that everything is still going as planned. Or if things change or your intentions change, or you're noticing something different, you come back and see us sooner. But the idea is solve that root cause problem so it's not an ongoing issue for the rest of your menstrual cycle days, and be able to get to that base of it, fix that problem, and then get you on your way.
Kerry:Nice. I love, I love what you're doing. I think you're definitely helping lots and lots of patients and I'm. Know that you're making a big difference, so I appreciate everything you're doing and how can people find you if they wanna work with you or their, you know, daughter, whatever wants to work with you too.
Monica:Yeah. Yeah. So we always tell people, even if this doesn't apply to you, you know somebody in your world who needs this, whether that's your daughter or your granddaughter, your friend, your somebody at your church or your business. And so there's two best ways to find us. The first would be through our website, which is radiant clinic.com. On our website, you're able to book a free discovery call with me. And so if you have somebody who, or you want to be able to say, get on the phone with me, talk through, is this the right fit for me? All of that information, we can talk through that. That's a free, free consultation call with me. There's tons of information on our website as far as our pricing, our packages, our structure. Then the other best way to kind of hear more about what we do or if you have a particular concern that you're like, I wonder if she manages this, would be our podcast. So I have a podcast called the cycle Wisdom, like your Menstrual Cycle. So Cycle Wisdom podcast. And I typically put out pretty short episodes, 15 to 20 minutes, but you can scroll through and see what's there that applies to you. So if you're struggling with PCOS. Or maybe you've had recurrent miscarriages or irregular cycles, you can find an episode that will apply to you. So you can hear more about what our approach is, how we would manage that situation and figure out, is this the right fit for me? Is this something I'd like to pursue? And just as a, as a side note on our website, we also list the other states that we're available in. So Florida is one of those states that we are able to provide medical care in. But all of our charting instructors and health and hormone coaches can help counsel and educate people in any state. They're not bound by medical license. But as far as medical licensure, I do currently have eight states that I have a medical license in, and Florida is one of them. So I'd love the opportunity to be able to chat with you, and if I'm not the right fit, I'll at least put you in the right direction.
Kerry:Awesome. Well, thank you so much. We will put all that information in the show notes and thank you for being an awesome guest today, Dr. Minjeur. And yeah, I mean everybody stay tuned next week and thank you again.
Monica:Thank you.
