How Birth Control Hijacks Your Hormones (and What to Do) with Danielle Kepics, PA-C

This week on The Less Stressed Life Podcast, I’m joined by the one and only Danielle Kepics, who you might remember from our hair loss episode not long ago. Danielle is a certified fertility educator, functional medicine practitioner, former mental health therapist, and all-around powerhouse in women's health.

In this juicy and eye-opening conversation, we’re talking all about hormonal birth control and the things most women are never told. Danielle shares her own story of being put on the pill before she was even sexually active, how it impacted her mood and health for years, and the lightbulb moment that changed everything. If you’ve ever wondered how the pill affects your body beyond preventing pregnancy, this one is for you. Danielle brings the fire and the fun while dropping truth bombs that every woman needs to hear. You are going to love this one.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• What your period is really telling you about your health
• Why the pill does not regulate hormones or give you a real cycle
• How birth control impacts mood, anxiety, and nutrient levels
• The connection between IUDs, the vagus nerve, and mental health
• Why some women feel completely different (or even pick different partners) after stopping the pill
• What you can do to support your body when coming off hormonal birth control

Check out Danielle's other episode: #399 Ultimate Guide to Hair Loss

ABOUT GUEST:
Danielle Kepics, PA-C, is a functional health practitioner, certified fertility educator, mental health therapist, nutrition coach, and former personal trainer — earning her the title of "unicorn" in women’s health. After a decade in conventional medicine, she founded Empowered Mind + Body and now helps women optimize their health through lifestyle and clinical deep dives. Danielle is also the co-founder of Unconventional Collaborative, a mastermind for health pros. Outside of work, she's an adventure-loving Enneagram 8w7, passionate about movement, connection, and living authentically. 

WHERE TO FIND:
Website: https://www.empoweredmindbody.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielle.kepics

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife

WORK WITH CHRISTA:
I've streamlined my proven method to help you get to the REAL root of eczema and food sensitivities—without the overwhelm. Join the program at christabiegler.com before doors close!

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: birth control pill was the treatment heavy on the air quotes for everything, for ovarian cysts, for bleeding, for, migraines for depression, for acne, and it's not called the acne pill.

[00:00:09] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: It's linked to liver cancer and we're letting people take this medication without giving them that information. Like most women, when they go on the birth control pill, it's, oh, you might get a blood clot if your calf hurts go to your doctor.

[00:00:20] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm your host, Christa Biegler, and I'm going to guess we have at least one thing in common that we're both in pursuit of a less stress life. On the show, I'll be interviewing experts and sharing clinical pearls from my years of practice to support high performing health savvy women in pursuit of abundance and a less stressed life.

[00:00:50] Christa Biegler, RD: One of my beliefs is that we always have options for getting the results we want. So let's see what's out there together.

[00:01:08] Christa Biegler, RD: All right. Today on the less stressed life I have back Danielle Kepics, and if you remember, she was here talking about hair loss not very long ago. She has a unique background for which, she's become known as a unicorn in the women's health space as a. Certified fertility educator, master's level mental health therapist, a certified nutrition coach, and in a prior life, spent five years as a personal trainer.

[00:01:31] Christa Biegler, RD: After 10 years of practicing conventional medicine, she shifted her focus and pursued in certification as an FDNP where she now helps women in some men optimize their health and lifestyle through deep dives into their health. But I think I missed it here again, she's also a pa, welcome back, Danielle. 

[00:01:45] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Welcome back. Welcome. I won't sing for people. I just, 

[00:01:48] Christa Biegler, RD: yeah, it's good. I. I can't remember what happened after our last interview, but I was like, Hey, why don't you, I think I was finding some Danielle rants on birth control and I was thinking, I don't know if we really covered that topic for a minute, so let's just go ahead and talk about birth control today because you feel.

[00:02:05] Christa Biegler, RD: It's always fun to ask people what are either you excited about or what is like annoying you right now, because that's where that's good stuff.

[00:02:12] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes, it is. It's good.

[00:02:14] Christa Biegler, RD: It's good stuff. So let's talk about, we are coming from let's see what, 10 years actually practicing in conventional medicine.

[00:02:21] Christa Biegler, RD: And so almost, yeah, I'm sure you saw some things and on that note, it doesn't feel like you could be old enough to have gone through that and then be where you are now. That's what I like to think about with my age too. I'm like, does it feel like it could be that long?

[00:02:34] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes.

[00:02:34] Christa Biegler, RD: I always like to start with a personal story, so I'm curious if you also have a personal story with birth control.

[00:02:40] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Whether it's what you saw for patients and maybe you wanna weave it all together a little bit as well. What you saw conventionally. I. 

[00:02:46] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Totally. I'm an open book, so I don't know who I was talking to about this, but I was thinking back to when I went to college, it was like you went to the gynecologist to get put on birth control because you were going to college.

[00:02:57] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And I'm like, I didn't even have sex until I was 21. Like I was not sexually active. And for some reason it was still like this oh, when you go to college you get put on the pill, which is just so messed up in my opinion, which was my first experience with the birth control pill. And I think it did have, listen, thank God I wasn't having sex because I definitely wasn't taking it correctly. Like your girl's missing doses, it was not being done right. I was like taking multiple pills, like on missed dose anyways. And

[00:03:23] Christa Biegler, RD: so you were told that you should go on and in college, so you did.

[00:03:25] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. Yeah. 

[00:03:26] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Like it was just.

[00:03:27] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah, I didn't know any better. My mom died when I was 16, so my aunt took me and it was just like the thing that she felt, it was a messed up situation, obviously. My brain was like, not in a place to be like 

[00:03:39] Christa Biegler, RD: making decisions like that.

[00:03:40] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. 

[00:03:41] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah, totally.

[00:03:42] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And I know a lot of women who have an also similar story to that. Some of these people they were like 15 being put on birth control just because that's like what you do with a teenager. And I'm like, is it, that's weird. So I don't have a lot of memories of that.

[00:03:56] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I do think that it did mess with my emotional state quite a bit, just remembering the volatility of college, just of my emotional state and how I felt. But I would say the more prominent experience that I had, and that was more influential in me and who I became, and the practitioner that I became for other women came when I had a copper IUD and then I was like, huh?

[00:04:17] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Like, why should I bleed when I don't have to let me get the marina? Just like such a messed up mindset, just viewing your period is inconvenient when it's like this sign of health and. The copper IUD has its own set of issues that I'm, I'm happy to talk about and get into, but I ended up getting a marina IUD and fast forward years later, this was, I think I had the, got the copper IUD

[00:04:43] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: God, it was like probably right before I went to PA school. So 10, 12, 13 years ago, and then I swapped over while I was in PA school to the marina. And I remember in 2018, I had gone through this period. I was always this girl who. Really fed herself well. Like people would always comment on how much food I eat, and this is related, I realize I'm skipping around a little bit here.

[00:05:05] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: It's the luteal phase. It does it to your brain.

[00:05:07] Christa Biegler, RD: Yes, I understand. 

[00:05:09] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I was always this girl who just I ate all this food. The guys would even be like, you eat so much food. And I was always super fit and super lean and I was probably eating 4,000 calories a day. It was. Obscene. I would eat anything in sight and then, I was in the CrossFit scene, I was really competitive.

[00:05:23] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And so that was when macro counting was really big. And listen, when you're a type A person you are the person who's gonna get an eating disorder from macros. Which is a whole other rabbit hole I realized. But I became that person of very orthorexic, very disordered. And this had led me down the rabbit hole to like.

[00:05:40] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Find certain people when things were going awry with me of like I was gaining weight on the same amount of food. I was losing my appetite. I wasn't pooping well. always been someone who like wakes up and I just go straight to the toilet and I poop. And that's, and it just wasn't happening.

[00:05:53] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So I'm like, this is not normal. I'm not hungry. And my thyroid was completely downregulated. So I started like doing some research and some reading and things on my own and I found Jolene Brighton, who, if you guys don't know who Jolene is, she is the author of Beyond the Pill. She's really. A trailblazer in women's health, go look her up.

[00:06:09] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: She's great. And so I read Beyond the Pill and I was like, I thought to myself, huh. This woman seems really smart and this makes a lot of sense to me. And this is, circa before, like social media became very polarizing and people were yelling at each other and all of these things and the good old days.

[00:06:27] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And I just felt like

[00:06:27] Christa Biegler, RD: you're just posting pictures of our food 

[00:06:29] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: TBT with the latte day but I was like, this makes so much sense. And I was like, I gotta get this thing outta me and. So it was like the next month and I had, my IUD removed and I'm just doing all of this reading and I'm like, why was I not taught this in PA school?

[00:06:44] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I was outraged. I was so mad. About all of this, that like, all of these side effects of birth control that, no one hears about. And listen, I know that no, PA school can teach everything, right? It's you're in a classroom for one year and it's drinking water from a fire hose.

[00:07:00] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: But, birth control pill was the treatment heavy on the air quotes for everything, for ovarian cysts, for bleeding, for, migraines for depression, for acne, and it's not called the acne pill. I just put a post up about this, or I scheduled one or something. It just, I started thinking about all the things that practitioners give women the birth control pill for.

[00:07:18] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: We are literally shutting down. They're hormones. And I'm like, never in a million years would we ever see a medical treatment that shut down a man's testosterone that we gave him for every single complaint. And it just blew my brains all over the wall in not a good way. And that was really the moment.

[00:07:35] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And then I found more people, like Nicole Jardi and Sarah Hill, and all of these women who are doing all this amazing work and are still doing all this amazing work. And I was like. It just made so much sense to me, and I didn't even know what functional medicine was at that point, and there was no fight between conventional and functional medicine.

[00:07:52] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: But I was just using my own brain and doing critical thought and I was like, this just all makes so much sense and why was I not taught this? And that to me was like really where everything started to come together for me. And I really started, I've got a whole bookshelf over here of 72 bajillion books that I've read on varying topics.

[00:08:09] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: But I just. Deep dove and I just could not believe the things that were not talked about in doctor's offices blew my foot.

[00:08:18] Christa Biegler, RD: You started having some symptoms, right? You were not pooping well, and like you were aware sometimes the symptoms aren't loud enough for people to actually, it would be easy for you to be going through PA school and just be like I'm stressed.

[00:08:29] Christa Biegler, RD: And

[00:08:30] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: this was 

[00:08:31] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: after PA school and that was like, this is after. Yeah. And this was more related to like my undereating, like I don't necessarily know if. I had symptoms on birth control. I can tell you I wasn't cycling on the marina because it took six months for me to even have a period. And I was undereating.

[00:08:46] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So there were multiple factors to that. Like I will say, like I can't, I personally can't tie that apart, but I work with a lot of women who I'm like, you're not cycling like this is they like to say oh, you still cycle, like almost all the time on the marina. Women don't. In my experience with the women that I work with, but I do think there were some things, especially emotionally, that I wasn't feeling because I was on the birth control pill. Like it just made me more numb. I. I think,

[00:09:09] Christa Biegler, RD: yeah. 

[00:09:10] Christa Biegler, RD: I actually forgot. As you're, as I hear your story, I have a lot of memories flooding back to me. So I've interviewed Jolene and Nicole.

[00:09:16] Christa Biegler, RD: And we've talked about some different things, I don't know if we've talked about it from the perspective of the fifth vital sign and you brought up, yeah. Oh, our period is a sign of health, but very often it is viewed as a sign of inconvenience until we want to have a menstrual cycle because we want to reproduce Right.

[00:09:34] Christa Biegler, RD: Some people, and I know I don't think you have reproduced yet, right? No. And so you are ahead of this curve where it's I'm looking at my period as a sign of health. So I'm having these memories, ectomy and I had, I repressed this memory of the few months that I used birth control in my life.

[00:09:48] Christa Biegler, RD: It was a very short amount of time which I'm thankful for, but because I didn't know what I didn't know at the time, which is pretty much everyone with everything. Yeah. And and I can't even remember the exact reason. Who knows why? All the reasons why I was put on that. But I just remember my mood.

[00:10:05] Christa Biegler, RD: I was not okay emotionally and mood wise. And I remember because it was a short amount of time, I just forgot about it until you brought up the mood thing. I was like, oh, yes. And then I remember the one I was on later seeing probably one of those ads on TV where they were suing because people.

[00:10:21] Christa Biegler, RD: Did crazy things, like lost their brain on that one. I was like, awesome. That's very exciting. So there's a lot of potential. I think the conversation then takes us to side effects. Maybe let's talk about yeah, why it's not, why is it given I think probably the people listening to this know this, but let's just maybe start with the beginning, which is why are we giving this out as a treatment for all of these different conditions?

[00:10:49] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I wish I knew the answer to that. Like I think it's because it's convenient and we don't have answers and we're not deep diving in conventional medicine. So like when someone comes in with acne, oh, this is a hormonal, I love how like everything's a hormonal problem, but we don't ever wanna test hormones because we can't do that and they don't matter.

[00:11:06] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I say this all the time and I just actually interviewed Stacy Whitman and she said the same thing about dentistry that I have said about medicine. This is an institutional level problem.

[00:11:13] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Like we are not taught. That there is a deeper problem with ovarian cysts and headaches and migraines and acne and fibroids or heavy bleeding or missing periods, right?

[00:11:25] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So we could do a whole entire podcast on. Female athletes, especially in the college and high school years, who lose their period, who are put on the pill to have a quote unquote period.

[00:11:35] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah.

[00:11:35] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: The rage that you will get out of me in that conversation there are not enough bleeps in just not like it blows my mind. Because you're not having a true period on the birth control pill. And I think that's something that a lot of women don't know and they need to know because they've created this medication that shows oh, you're shedding your, you're having a period.

[00:11:52] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I. But to have a true period, you actually have to ovulate and that's the mechanism of action of any birth control pill is it shuts down ovulation, right? So it's like we're not having a period, we're having a withdrawal bleed here. 

[00:12:03] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. 

[00:12:04] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: We're not taught about liver like a having a sluggish liver or, toxin buildup

[00:12:09] Christa Biegler, RD: it makes sense. I'm gonna use a parallel here of something that's annoying for me also. And I think it's just depends on how, and I think there's a different, it's, we'll just also say that there's different strokes for different folks because

[00:12:22] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Sure.

[00:12:22] Christa Biegler, RD: Sometimes people don't really wanna know, like for me, when I see a low B12, it.

[00:12:27] Christa Biegler, RD: Drives me crazy because I'm like, that's not the only, that just tells you that your digestive function or your protein assimilation or even intake is not good. There's a, there's several pieces that can break down, or if your iron is low that's pretty basic, right? We practice like elementary students instead of like high school or college students, is how I liken it is that, oh, if you just give a thing a nutrient for a deficiency and you're not looking at where that deficiency came from, and it's very similar if you're looking at, if you're gonna give a birth control pill to shut down hormones in case it's acne that might be hormonal.

[00:13:03] Christa Biegler, RD: That's really lazy because we don't know how to do. Yep. Something related to hormones. And that's the thing is like female hormones have some complexity in that. There's an up and down throughout the month, and so there's a little bit to learn and learning takes some time cycles, effort, takes some time, takes some effort.

[00:13:22] Christa Biegler, RD: So it is very logical that we would not do what takes effort as a human race. Or as an industry 'cause there's obviously no profit to educating your clients and having less clients throughout the day. It doesn't fit in our model of seeing 25 people a day. And to be honest, my heart breaks for practitioners who do have to see 25 people per day.

[00:13:41] Christa Biegler, RD: And I think it's useful. I think people listen to podcasts. Already know this. I always think, and I think you and I are the same, where our clients just know they want better, right?

[00:13:53] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah.

[00:13:53] Christa Biegler, RD: And so that's why they're seeking better because they can't get it, coming in to see their provider and my heartbreak for the provider.

[00:13:58] Christa Biegler, RD: 'cause I think most providers generally don't want to be practicing that way. We saw a kind of a mass exodus the last five years. Of course.

[00:14:05] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes.

[00:14:05] Christa Biegler, RD: From practicing that way. But I don't know. Don't see the shift. 'cause it's like when you see fewer clients, the price goes up and the price is already.

[00:14:14] Christa Biegler, RD: To be perfectly honest, like the way the insurance model is, it's already stupid anyway, so it's, yes, it's like nothing. The math doesn't math anywhere. So it makes sense that, and so what this takes us back to is right now our option is we can blame the industry wide thing. And our option is we can regain control by taking ownership of the situation.

[00:14:34] Christa Biegler, RD: And I think this is actually a theme I'm on this month with the podcast is I think we outsource things. We were just talking about finance stuff right before this, but I think that health and finance are, have parallels in that we outsource. For me, that was a lesson. It was like, oh, I was trying to outsource this thing that I actually had to understand just at some level on my own too.

[00:14:55] Christa Biegler, RD: Sorry, I had to learn. Something. And that's kinda how we're okay to learn 'cause we're lifelong learners. But some people are frustrated by the concept of having to learn. Maybe initially maybe we change our mind. But I mentioned this out loud because sometimes the way in which we go through health stuff, how our energy toward it gives us those particular results at that time.

[00:15:16] Christa Biegler, RD: I hope that is helpful or useful, but I just share that because we can be frustrated. And then the next option is I can just take ownership of it. And fortunately, something really cool is you read this book and all of a sudden it opened up this whole new world for you,

[00:15:29] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: whole new world.

[00:15:30] Christa Biegler, RD: And it's so cool to see that happen. In fact, your story reminded me of my older teenage daughter last year. Somehow she started reading my women's health books at age 19, and she was like. Oh my gosh, why do people not know this? And it was actually super interesting and cool. It was like, I could have tried to tell her this stuff until I'm blue in the face, and yet she had to find the things that resonated with her and come.

[00:15:57] Christa Biegler, RD: Should have come to it on her own a little bit as well. And I think that's what happens to us is like inspiration or desperation usually.

[00:16:04] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Ooh,

[00:16:04] Christa Biegler, RD: some desperation piece, right?

[00:16:06] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes.

[00:16:06] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay, let's talk about that mental health piece. 

[00:16:09] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah,

[00:16:09] Christa Biegler, RD: let's talk about some of the stuff that happens when you're on the pill.

[00:16:12] Christa Biegler, RD: 'cause I know that's part of the outrage. So you just mentioned like it doesn't regulate the cycle. That's a lie. We're not ovulating on the birth control pill.

[00:16:19] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Correct.

[00:16:20] Christa Biegler, RD: Birth control. We're suppressing hormones. So we're suppressing ovulation. Correct. So it's a withdrawal bleed and

[00:16:24] Christa Biegler, RD: I don't think we're at a point where everyone knows that. So let's just keep repeating it, right?

[00:16:28] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. Agreed. 

[00:16:29] Christa Biegler, RD: Not there.

[00:16:29] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Agreed.

[00:16:29] Christa Biegler, RD: We're not there yet. 

[00:16:30] Christa Biegler, RD: Yet, so that's okay. birth control doesn't regulate the cycle. That's a myth. Let's talk about birth control and mental health.

[00:16:35] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes.

[00:16:35] Christa Biegler, RD: What happens there, and this is really, you're an interesting person to ask this too. I know, because she, me from a mental health background, which is interesting to me, and I've never asked you about before. And so you can weave that in there too. Tell me what happened there. But birth control and mental health.

[00:16:48] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah, I mean there's so many studies, right? Showing that. First of all, more women actually commit suicide in their luteal phase. Birth control Or I guess birth control wouldn't matter, but actually in their luteal phase than their follicular phase. So we know that hormones play a massive role in mental health.

[00:17:04] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I think there was even, it was it the Danish study that showed that especially teenagers with IUDs were the most susceptible to having mental health issues on these IUDs? And I believe that the IUDs were the biggest culprits. But they're linked to anxiety and depression.

[00:17:18] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: There's, there, there's many systemic reviews, large scale, observational studies, meta-analyses, whatever. There's a lot of them out there. And beyond that just experientially, the women that I've worked with who are like. I had no idea how depressed I was. My anxiety went away. And the lesser known thing that I think people don't realize is how IUDs affect your vagus nerve.

[00:17:39] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: 'Cause your vagus nerve runs from your brain to your cervix. And the first time that I read this, my mind was blown. And I have talked to so many women who they're like, the instant I got my IUD taken out, my anxiety vanished. And I was like, excuse me, what? I remember the first person who told me about this.

[00:17:56] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I was like, this is bs. And then I started digging into it and I was like, this is not bs. This is actually, this is back in 20 17, 20 18 when I'm learning about all this stuff.

[00:18:05] Christa Biegler, RD: So interest. 

[00:18:06] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah,

[00:18:06] Christa Biegler, RD: so interesting. Like the design of the vagus nerve going from the brain to the cervix.

[00:18:10] Christa Biegler, RD: I did not know that. I wonder what God was thinking when he did that. I can make some, I can make some R-rated comments related to that. Not really.

[00:18:19] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes.

[00:18:20] Christa Biegler, RD: But whereas does that mean stimulation to. Reproductive organs is helpful for stim in the vagus nerve. I don't know. It's upside down.

[00:18:28] Christa Biegler, RD: I don't know. I'm just like wondering why

[00:18:30] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I've never thought about that

[00:18:31] Christa Biegler, RD: cervix. I'm just intrigued oh I, why, I wonder why it goes there. Interesting. Never. This is my first time I knew that because Yeah, 

[00:18:40] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: yeah. Yeah. Crazy. But then if we even just think about PMS and PMDD, right? Which was, which is separate from the birth control pill, that's an issue with progesterone levels, with gaba. Like we know that our hormones impact our brain function. There are so many women that I work with who they are non-functional for two weeks out of the month when they start with me because of how bad their PMS or PMDD is. Hormones definitely played.

[00:19:03] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: That's tough. Play a huge role. And the birth control pill, it just, oh it people's worlds. 

[00:19:10] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. I'm 

[00:19:11] Christa Biegler, RD: thinking, I was thinking, I think we should go next to nutrients impacted by hormones. 'cause that's the normal path I would walk down when looking at.

[00:19:21] Christa Biegler, RD: Mental health is like what nutrients do you not have to make neurotransmitters, et cetera. Because, and we talked earlier, so we know that the birth control pill impacts microbiota. We know it impacts certain nutrients. We know it impacts liver function. But let's talk about specifically nutrients or nutrients.

[00:19:37] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. B vitamins for sure. 

[00:19:39] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: B vitamins are play a huge role in neurotransmitter development. And B vitamins are 100% depleted by the birth control pill. We know this, we have studies to show it. There is a podcast out there with Carrie Jones and Kate Henry that I give to, I don't know every single client that I see where they talk about the link between food and mental health.

[00:19:57] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So really great additional resource if people are looking for like specifics on that. But yeah, the birth control pill depletes all of our B vitamins. And I will tell you, I run a number of micronutrient. A good number of micronutrient tests on people. My women are all low intracellularly on, and I wouldn't even say like super, super low, but they're all on that low end one specifically which plays a big role in mood.

[00:20:19] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: But yes, I. And think about what decades on this does to people, right?

[00:20:23] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:20:23] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And so how many women actually know that are on birth control? Like maybe they're act, using it appropriately. They need to be on it. Whatever. Like I don't judge people for their choices.

[00:20:31] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I just want people to be informed. How many doctors are out there telling women like, Hey, you need to take a really good high quality, be complex while you're on this. Sure. I'm sure there's some out there, but I'm also willing to bet that it's few and far between.

[00:20:42] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. 

[00:20:43] Christa Biegler, RD: B vitamins also huge for liver detoxification.

[00:20:46] Christa Biegler, RD: Yep. And then any kind of medication, actually anything you put in your mouth or on your skin or you inhale would have to be cleared by your drainage and detoxification systems that does not belong in your body. And so there's a, I always say this is a very nutrient independent process, so the B vitamins are part of that nutrient independent process, but because of the nature of birth control being, we call this a xeno biotic, right? Or i'm sorry. 

[00:21:09] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Xenoestrogen.

[00:21:09] Christa Biegler, RD: Xenoestrogen,

[00:21:10] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I guess maybe synthetic estrogen. 

[00:21:12] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. So it's a medication that your body's gotta process. All medications are, you would maybe know this better than I would, but all medications are supposed to be studied for their metabolism through the liver.

[00:21:21] Christa Biegler, RD: Yes. Sometimes we do not study them next to other medications. Then people are stacked on things. Anyone who's worked in conventional medicine has seen patients on 10 plus meds. For sure. It's, 

[00:21:30] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: It's so common. People think No, but it's common. And here's the other thing too, like you bring up the liver.

[00:21:36] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Birth control is a class one liver carcinogen. 

[00:21:38] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. What is up with that?

[00:21:40] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: on what fucking planet are we telling about this?

[00:21:44] Christa Biegler, RD: What does that 

[00:21:44] Christa Biegler, RD: mean exactly? 

[00:21:46] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: It means that it's been linked to cause liver cancer, 

[00:21:49] Christa Biegler, RD: As a number one cause, like class one versus class three. I dunno the difference.

[00:21:53] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I would have to look up exactly what the difference was to that. I can't. I dunno. I'm like I'm happy to look it up while we're chatting. But there are definitely links between liver cancer and even just like liver tumors too. I know people who have had like hemangiomas or like benign liver tumors, but it's like, why is something growing where it shouldn't?

[00:22:10] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Like how is that benign? Like I've never really understood

[00:22:13] Christa Biegler, RD: that's so many feelings about that topic.

[00:22:18] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: But yeah, it's linked to liver cancer and we're just like, we're letting people take this medication without giving them that information. Like most women, when they go on the birth control pill, it's, oh, you might get a blood clot if your calf hurts go to your doctor.

[00:22:31] Christa Biegler, RD: That's also, 

[00:22:31] Christa Biegler, RD: also immediately fatal, by the way, immediately fatal.

[00:22:36] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: That's fine. Yeah.

[00:22:38] Christa Biegler, RD: Until certain things happen to people that you know or love or work with or whatever, sometimes it doesn't hit you the same, but just anytime someone brings up a blood clot, I'm like.

[00:22:47] Christa Biegler, RD: Pretty important. Yep. I would call that real high of importance. I see class one carcinogen mean it's class one versus class three is just strength of evidence. So class one is like a hundred absolutely strong convincing evidence that this substance causes cancer.

[00:23:00] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Why are women not being told this?

[00:23:02] Christa Biegler, RD: Like examples is tobacco, asbestos, formaldehyde, and processed meats 

[00:23:07] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: like birth control's, right in there with all that shit. And we're just like throwing women on it for things that are the part that outrages me is these are so preventable. Things, right? This heavy bleeding that women are having.

[00:23:18] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So many women who come to me, it's like they're drinking a bunch of alcohol, or they're not eating enough food, or they're nutrient deficient, or they have raging gut issues that like we run a GI map and in six months their diarrhea is gone and their periods are managed.

[00:23:29] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Or they have a magnesium deficiency. These things are. So yes, it's gonna cost you extra money to like work with someone to fix these problems, but the cost of the problems of being on birth control long term. Like I get it and I get that everyone can't afford to work with us one-on-one.

[00:23:45] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And also we're all out there.

[00:23:46] Christa Biegler, RD: You can buy 

[00:23:46] Christa Biegler, RD: a book for $10 as well.

[00:23:47] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. You 

[00:23:48] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: can buy a book, you can listen to a podcast for free. I am a huge believer in, there's always something that people can do like magnesium, listen, not medical advice, but many people can be dumping grams of magnesium into themself and you are not gonna be.

[00:24:01] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, for sure.

[00:24:02] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I don't suggest I'm exaggerating, but I've had that, women who are vomiting and throwing up magnesium, omegas and Vitamin E. Gone. But those are the people who spend years and decades on birth control suppressing their natural bodily processes. There is no other medication out there that suppresses a bodily function that is supposed to be happening, and that is not talked about enough.

[00:24:25] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And I will not shut up about it until the end of time. 

[00:24:28] Christa Biegler, RD: No, I think that's good. I think it's really, I think you could just have an entire business around that. I help people who've been injured by birth control. You probably won't get many people in prevention unfortunately, on that end. And I don't know.

[00:24:40] Christa Biegler, RD: I'd like to believe sometimes I can't really tell if I just am in like a bit of an echo chamber where I'm like, okay, we're making progress in this area or are we not? I feel like we are because we haven't,

[00:24:51] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I feel like we are, so I this. 

[00:24:53] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I saw this post and I don't know, she was some random girl who was talking about her experience about her ob, GYN, and there were women, like not creators.

[00:25:01] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Not like practitioners in the comments going, girl, this isn't right. Like your periods, your vitals. There were women in the comments like hyping her up this is wrong. See somebody else like tagging people that I like other health and wellness practitioners in the comments. And I'm like, God bless, so there are moments of hope that I see this and I'm like, people are waking up. I think the last five years have been very pivotal in that and people just like asking more questions and being aware of certain things. And then I see things certain people. Certain gynecologists posting things on the internet.

[00:25:34] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I will not use names that I'm just like, oh, we are we're not going anywhere. Like they're just I feel like I'm on like this.

[00:25:40] Christa Biegler, RD: Pendulum.

[00:25:41] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. Like a I'm I whiplash. 

[00:25:43] Christa Biegler, RD: No I can understand that and I think, yeah, I like to wear rose colored glasses if I can.

[00:25:47] Christa Biegler, RD: And I was just thinking about, I was speaking to my local high school students, which is so funny because, they used to make me sweat. 'cause kids like high school kids, middle school kids are a little more eager. High school kids will somewhat heckle you and cross their arms and you're inre out.

[00:26:03] Christa Biegler, RD: So anyway I accepted an invitation to speak to my high school last month and I think I was asked because it was national attrition month. I wasn't really given the context, I was just making assumptions and I was like, yeah, I wanna talk about breath work. And so I went and I did, and we talked about I just made sure to ask them lots of questions and engage them.

[00:26:21] Christa Biegler, RD: But what I was encouraged by was that they knew I got good answers about like mouth breathing and nose breathing. And I was like, if you, unless you are a and I, you love this topic, unless you're this Instagram generation getting this inform, like, how do kids know that? At that point I'm just impressed.

[00:26:38] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm like, this is a good thing.

[00:26:39] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah.

[00:26:39] Christa Biegler, RD: And actually next time they invite me back, you think they'll let me talk about birth control? It seems a little hot topic, but they're teaching my middle. Like 12-year-old is getting, was tested on the reproductive system of males and females like a couple of months ago.

[00:26:51] Christa Biegler, RD: So I think we're probably, I think it would probably be okay to talk about birth control. I'll now, I'm gonna put this one in my pocket as a good topic because there's a lot here and I will say. That there's a lot of opportunity for us in our roles. Two of my favorite topics are some of our stress hormones, adrenals, and like subclinical thyroid stuff, which is how you started this conversation.

[00:27:14] Christa Biegler, RD: And one of my other favorite topics is drainage and detoxification. And it's just because these are part one and part two of my major health crises and stories. And also, you're not gonna go to the doctor and be like, will you test my liver?

[00:27:25] Christa Biegler, RD: They're gonna maybe test like a couple dollar enzymes, but usually that's not gonna be, personally, I don't think it's gonna be off unless there's something really awry and there's a lot more symptoms and issues that can be happening before your blood work is off. And so I bring this up because I think,

[00:27:39] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: oh, so important to know.

[00:27:40] Christa Biegler, RD: I just think it's yeah let's improve our knowledge around this because we know we have work to do. When it's I think I need to test my hormones and what kind of detox could I do? It's oh man, let's get into let's talk about this a little bit bigger. Let's talk about it from a more helpful perspective and would be my comment there.

[00:28:00] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay, so here's what we've talked about so far. We talked about how birth control doesn't regulate the cycle. And we talked about how it's down regulating hormones and how you're not ovulating and you have a pill bleed. We talked about class one's carcinogen for liver cancer, which is does blow my mind.

[00:28:13] Christa Biegler, RD: Something else that blew my mind was the vagus nerve running from the brain to the cervix, which is just interesting. So with the vagus nervous load down, anything bad could happen. Basically it's I would say if you had to give reasons, we've done entire podcasts and the vagus nerve digestion would be a huge piece.

[00:28:28] Christa Biegler, RD: If the vagus nerve is sluggish, that's the one that like comes to mind for me. Yeah. But also nervous system would be affected. Is there anything you wanna mention about if this isn't impacting the vagus nerve, here is some other possible down stream negatives, mental health as well. 

[00:28:41] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. I would want people to think of it like shutting down PA Pacific Highway one, like the vagus nerve impact.

[00:28:47] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: It touches everything. 

[00:28:49] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:49] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: That's good 

[00:28:50] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: point. So they have those. I don't know if you're, 

[00:28:54] Christa Biegler, RD: we should have done more of Daniel analogies here so far. 

[00:28:56] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I have a lot of them.

[00:28:57] Christa Biegler, RD: As I 

[00:28:58] Christa Biegler, RD: continue, please interrupt me and you just insert your analogies

[00:29:01] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: a hundred 

[00:29:01] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: percent. But yeah, I would just think of it like shutting down a major highway vessel.

[00:29:05] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Like everything is gonna be impacted from that level up. Digestion. Yes. A major one. Mental health, like you mentioned, sleep, stress management. Even just the way that we respond to our daily lives, I think this is something that we don't think about with the impact of the vagus nerve and like your, the tone of your vagal nerve as people like to say, but like the hyper vigilance that people feel and how that affects you because of what's going on with that vagus nerve and then how that affects it.

[00:29:34] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Just all stacks, like I just. When people are hyper, the anxiety level that people feel when their vagus nerve is not responding correctly or you're hypervigilant all stacks on one another.

[00:29:44] Christa Biegler, RD: There's something else that you brought up in our notes about birth control changing, who we're attracted to.

[00:29:49] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. Yeah, this in the stripper conversation is like one of my favorite things to talk about with birth control. Have you read your brain on birth control? Do you know Sarah Hill? Sarah Hill is a PhD researcher at Vanderbilt, Texas. I don't know I don't wanna say, but she has a new book coming out in September.

[00:30:05] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: She's a wonderful women's health researcher. And she wrote the book your Brain on Birth Control. So what the research that she found that she placed in her book. When women came off of birth control, some of them hated their partners didn't like the way that they smelled, didn't like the way they acted, divorced after 20 years, like the birth, we found that literally the birth control pill was changing who we were attracted to.

[00:30:27] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Because it changes the way that you smell too, and your pheromones and all of this which is where the stripper study comes in. I love,

[00:30:34] Christa Biegler, RD: I don't 

[00:30:34] Christa Biegler, RD: know, the stripper study, so go ahead.

[00:30:35] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I love 

[00:30:36] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: telling people about the stripper study who don't know about it. This was, I also learned about this through Sarah Hill, who, again, just amazing resource and like doing all of the good Lord's work in women's health.

[00:30:46] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: But she talked about this study in her book, and I'm paraphrasing here, so no one hold a fire to my feet. But they basically studied strippers and ones who were on the birth control pill. Ones who were not on the birth control pill, and in their follicular phase either and in, in their ovulatory window or in their luteal phase.

[00:31:04] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Guess which strippers made the most money? 

[00:31:07] Christa Biegler, RD: Ovulation. 

[00:31:08] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Ding dong. Yep. That is just because it's why men are more attracted to us. It's why they wanna have sex with us more. It's why you wanna have sex more during your ovulatory phase. 'cause that's when you're fertile. Whether you wanna have kids or not.

[00:31:19] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Listen, I never want children, but it's just a fact of life when you ovulate, your sex drive is higher. And so they found that these men, they were making more money and they were being tipped more. 'cause men were more attracted to that. So the. To the strippers who were ovulating. And I actually Nicole had posted something recently about sex workers or strippers or something, and there were actually some strippers or sex workers or somebody who chimed in the comment saying this is true.

[00:31:42] Christa Biegler, RD: Interesting. 

[00:31:43] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So I was like, this is so interesting. 

[00:31:45] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. So we went through several things. Actually, there are a couple more things I wanna cover. Yeah. We talked about nutrient deficiencies. We talked about how there's extra stress on the liver and how it disrupts the microbiota, which it's, there's a lot of things that disrupt microbiome, like living with people who have crappy microbiomes can disrupt your, I'm sorry.

[00:32:00] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes.

[00:32:01] Christa Biegler, RD: But you sprinkled this in a little bit and I probably should have started with more of this. I'd like to hear a couple, any, like other stories and maybe you've. We've exhausted some of them, but I highly doubt it. Any other stories from women or clients that have come off of birth control or anything that like, comes to your mind?

[00:32:16] Christa Biegler, RD: I just, I like stories a lot. 

[00:32:18] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah, I have a really good one. So this was actually someone who I knew came to me. She was on a birth control pill, but wanted to get an IUD and just for the, convenience of it. She didn't wanna be worried about taking a pill at the same time she was sexually active, like whatever.

[00:32:32] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: She had learned a lot from me. And she started out of nowhere having UTIs out of nowhere, and she went through three courses of antibiotics in six months. And she's Danielle, I have no idea like what is going on? And I went through, asked her a couple of questions, what's changed, blah, blah, blah.

[00:32:48] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And she's this started happening when I had my IUD placed. Long story short, she saw a nephrologist, which is a kidney doctor or maybe she had been to urology and then nephrology, they ran some tests on her. I don't know if they did like a UA scope on her or if they had done just like a CT scan.

[00:33:03] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: But they said that she had some physiologic abnormality with her ureter and that's why she was getting UTIs. And I told her, I said, listen to me. I said, maybe you do, but you are 21 years old and you've never had a UTI in your life before you put that IUD in your body, I would 100% take that thing out and go back on your, the birth control pill that you were on and see if it goes away.

[00:33:21] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Before I would let somebody cut into me. I'll give you one guess as to what happened. She never had it. Oh, no. She took her IUD out. Never had a TI ever again. 

[00:33:29] Christa Biegler, RD: Oh yeah. We were coming to put the mechanism up why this happened.

[00:33:32] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah.

[00:33:32] Christa Biegler, RD: Sorry. Yeah. I'm just like, oh

[00:33:33] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: no, 

[00:33:33] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: no, you're good. So people also don't know that birth control UTIs, they can also increase your chance for vaginal infections. They can change the pH, the, your vaginal microbiome. And she never had a uti. She never had another UTI ever, again, even still to this day, I will still ask her. Have you had another UTI? Nope. 

[00:33:51] Christa Biegler, RD: No. Very interesting. 

[00:33:52] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So that is one that sticks out to me.

[00:33:54] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: My women who, I mentioned earlier the women who are like vomiting and throwing up from pain and things like that, and getting them on magnesium, vitamin E and a good quality Omega. Gone. Like those things really stick out to me. Women who have been through, they've had heavy, painful periods for their whole life and have never been.

[00:34:12] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: They were put on the birth control pill and they come off trying to conceive and it's has anybody ever possibly talked to you about endo? And they're having like, fertility issues. Those situations stick out to me. Fertility issues also really stick out to me.

[00:34:24] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I know they say it doesn't cause fertility issues, but I believe I don't wanna like misspeak about this, but I feel like in real food for fertility, Lisa and Lily talked a little bit about prolonged like a delayed return to fertility that we are starting to see in the studies. But those situations really stick out to me because we have a fertility crisis in this country.

[00:34:45] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Why are, like, I just don't understand why it's like. We put

[00:34:50] Christa Biegler, RD: we have 

[00:34:50] Christa Biegler, RD: to be reactive 

[00:34:51] Christa Biegler, RD: first.

[00:34:52] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: We shut down these systems for women for 5, 10, 15, 20 years. And then when they don't get pregnant right away, we're like, oh, don't worry about it. Nothing's wrong. It wasn't the birth control pill. Like you just severed that connection for decades, and you're telling me that shit's gonna go back online like nothing ever happened.

[00:35:12] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: We're gonna go from nothing to 5G Internet with no sputtering in between of a OL dial up. It just, I don't need a double blind placebo controlled study to tell me that the birth control is messing with women's fertility. That's just opinion. That's my experience. But I just

[00:35:31] Christa Biegler, RD: kinda 

[00:35:31] Christa Biegler, RD: logical, I think it's logical.

[00:35:33] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Listen, I think it's a it's. Deductive reasoning, 

[00:35:36] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: right? 

[00:35:37] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. And I wanna talk about wild, right? 

[00:35:38] Christa Biegler, RD: I wanna talk about, I think there's been sprinkled in things, but I wanna make sure we're like giving people a short list. But I wanna actually offer I wanna talk about the mechanisms of why Omega vitamin E and magnesium could have helped the people that are in severe stuff.

[00:35:51] Christa Biegler, RD: And so I think about it. I think there's. I think here's the thing with nutrients one nutrient does a lot of things.

[00:35:57] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes.

[00:35:57] Christa Biegler, RD: So I'm gonna mention a couple things that Daniel May, jump in and be like, also this and this. So for me, the omega threes, so omega threes get used up in the inflammatory process and I.

[00:36:05] Christa Biegler, RD: I have some theories around this. I'm trying to remember where all of this came from, but basically, long story short, when they're clotting with periods, I have seen doing omegas, like we'll literally wipe this away maybe because it's reducing prostaglandins. Yes, maybe it's compensating for the inflammatory process.

[00:36:23] Christa Biegler, RD: So that's part of that, to me, with the vitamin E. Vitamin E is like a little magic, a magic man to me as well. But I feel like in this scenario, it's the. Progesterone mimicking effect potentially, as well as also the cell membranes along with the omegas. And then the magnesium lastly, is like not only calling the nervous system, it's calling mu like muscle contractions, which are a big thing with periods.

[00:36:44] Christa Biegler, RD: And then also phase two detoxification. So those are like, I wanted to bring this up because it's like why do those things help? So those are some of my reasons. Do you have anything you wanna add to that? 

[00:36:52] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Those are my big ones.

[00:36:54] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay, cool. 

[00:36:55] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. 

[00:36:55] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I have nothing to add, check done. 

[00:36:57] Christa Biegler, RD: Cool. And so I bring that up because I think it's a good segue into what can we do?

[00:37:02] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. I think when people are coming off birth control pills, there's several things. Then I think we've covered this like somewhere along the lines, once upon a time in the podcast, but not probably, like we can cover it from different angles more often. And so the first thing that we can do, I think it's totally acceptable

[00:37:17] Christa Biegler, RD: to replete B vitamins. Okay. You get B vitamins in the diet from organs and you get it also from carbohydrates. And we also have restricted carbohydrates, but you also need to be able to digest them, to be honest. And grains. So there's just some big sources of B vitamins. And so I think, if you've, if you're in a situation where you have a deficient like.

[00:37:37] Christa Biegler, RD: Where logically this is deficient. I think it's okay. Yeah. And I especially think B'S and C's are okay to supplement. 

[00:37:43] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: You pee out the extra, it's not you're gonna

[00:37:44] Christa Biegler, RD: Exactly.

[00:37:44] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: You're really not gonna overdo it. 

[00:37:46] Christa Biegler, RD: And they're big for making energy. Like I don't see a downside to this. Yes. To be honest.

[00:37:51] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And like 

[00:37:51] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I said,

[00:37:51] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I don't know how many micronutrient panels I've ran at this point, but most women are on the lower end anyway. Most of my women having period issues are on a be complex.

[00:38:00] Christa Biegler, RD: And here's another point. There's definitely research around different amounts of certain B vitamins or different things.

[00:38:05] Christa Biegler, RD: So if you, if first you're not successful, it's okay. Try something different. I wanna offer that because something, a wall I don't like is I tried that and I was like, let me understand how you tried it. Because what I recommend for Omega intake is substantially more than what a normal human would take because it's safe and it's effective because I prefer response.

[00:38:25] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. Two to three 

[00:38:25] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: grams 

[00:38:26] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: at least.

[00:38:26] Christa Biegler, RD: Yes. At least.

[00:38:27] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: At least. It's what 

[00:38:28] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: after that, it gets like usually real expensive for people. It gets exactly. They get annoyed.

[00:38:32] Christa Biegler, RD: It's expensive 

[00:38:32] Christa Biegler, RD: And that's a really good dose. That's a really good dose. But the reality is most people are taking 500. 

[00:38:37] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah.

[00:38:37] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And it's not enough. It's because, 

[00:38:39] Christa Biegler, RD: no, you're not gonna notice anything from 500 just saying No. And I understand and that's actually, it's why I don't come out the gate swinging with omegas. Not 'cause I don't love them, but just because there's a lot of stuff I'm managing with people and so I like to cycle things in and out in order to conserve.

[00:38:53] Christa Biegler, RD: Supplement, supplement burden cost, which is the same thing as supplement burden, but also it's related to what your body's dealing with as well. Totally like what you're putting in. And so it is just, it's just a phase. I have processes of I'm teaching people things in phases and I get to it eventually and I think it's wonderful, but just, just trying to manage all of the, I always come in with the expectation that like, multiple systems are broken, and so how do I get them?

[00:39:17] Christa Biegler, RD: Unbroken back online as easily as possible for the client. And so that looks like maneuvering some things around over time. So anyway okay, so you can do B vitamins.

[00:39:27] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah,

[00:39:27] Christa Biegler, RD: we also know the microbiomes compromise. So you could take a probiotic.

[00:39:30] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. Oh.

[00:39:31] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So don't know what approach you take.

[00:39:32] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I like to run a GI Maps on people before I just, 

[00:39:36] Christa Biegler, RD: I usually do, that's a whole question. I can talk about what I do, but continue. 

[00:39:40] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah, for me I take a more targeted approach at it. You can also do like intravaginal, like vaginal probiotics as well. The vi vaginal microbiome becomes compromised.

[00:39:50] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: But the. Probiotic and digestive system for me. Ugh. I don't know. I interested to hear what you do too. I'm just like I've changed, I've, 

[00:39:59] Christa Biegler, RD: I've changed. And so I'm talking about this from a perspective of what you can DIY first and 

[00:40:05] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Are you using like a Saccharomyces bilar or something like that?

[00:40:08] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Like for,

[00:40:08] Christa Biegler, RD: let me, yeah. Address this piece and then I'll come to the next piece because I think it's like B vitamins, which when you're DIYing it, I don't really care. I'm not super, I'm not really super worried about you hurting yourself with a probiotic. Yes. 

[00:40:19] Christa Biegler, RD: To be honest.

[00:40:20] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Totally. It's a matter of, it's not gonna hurt anything unless it's sibo. 

[00:40:23] Christa Biegler, RD: It's a broad topic. Yeah, it's a broad topic, but I'm not really worried about you hurting yourself.

[00:40:27] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Fair.

[00:40:27] Christa Biegler, RD: If anything, worst case scenario, you might be on histamine producing strains, but second. Part of the process of learning yourself is experimenting.

[00:40:34] Christa Biegler, RD: So you can DIY some things first because for me to do a GI map, I require supervised process, like of recommendations. Same because if you're not gonna supervise the recommendations, then the client is not gonna. It's just human behavior. You have to take into account human behavior

[00:40:52] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: and agreed.

[00:40:53] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: If someone's 

[00:40:53] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: like looking for things to do on their own. I think like taking a probiotic for a couple of months is like not a bad thing to do. It's very, yeah. Yeah. It's really low cost, potentially high yield. Yes. Agreed. If we're di IY. 

[00:41:03] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. And Pels. Great. Totally love that.

[00:41:06] Christa Biegler, RD: Any strain marked for vaginal health is fine. Honestly, I don't really care if you're DIY in it 'cause I have specific things I like to do in practice that I think really work well. I love spores. I love some, I love and I don't really care when you add probiotics for me also, it's similar to Omegas.

[00:41:21] Christa Biegler, RD: I don't come out swinging with probiotics. Definitely when I'm working with clients. 'cause I'm taking a more targeted approach. And that said. If you're DIYing it and you already know it screws with your microbiome. I will throw in probiotics now 'cause I'm not gonna run GI maps on myself constantly either.

[00:41:35] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. And I, it's okay with me 'cause I, yeah I take a more symptom based approach at this point in practice just because of after looking at tons and tests, you're like, okay, I see this and sometimes I, yes. And also yeah. Yep. All those 

[00:41:47] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: agreed.

[00:41:48] Christa Biegler, RD: So B vitamins, probiotics for me though, and so I say that 'cause I think the microbiome is.

[00:41:54] Christa Biegler, RD: Got all kinds of stuff that can be going on, and that's okay. And I think you can still throw in a probiotic and just see what happens and try something else if you want. 

[00:42:00] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah.

[00:42:01] Christa Biegler, RD: That said, like for me with liver health, I'm like, for me probably,

[00:42:05] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: oh my God,

[00:42:06] Christa Biegler, RD: for me, that one lights me up where I'm like yeah, how could I describe that?

[00:42:10] Christa Biegler, RD: Because people. Sometimes ask me things like this in past and I was like, I am trying to figure out how I would summarize that easily. Maybe take liver is how I would maybe summarize it easily from a DIY perspective. 'Cause at least then it's food. Just because there's so many details because I work with skin and the skin is a landfill it's a safe landfill for the body.

[00:42:30] Christa Biegler, RD: If you take. Things, if you take the wrong things for detox, you can create skin problems stuff. And then do you think people like that? No, they hate that. So do not. My life revolves around like trying not to let that happen as much as possible.

[00:42:43] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes.

[00:42:44] Christa Biegler, RD: With humans. And so that's why for me, I'm like, oh, the supporting the liver, put less garbage in.

[00:42:49] Christa Biegler, RD: Let's do that. But since your liver's already stressed let's see here. You could take liver. Okay. Let's do that one. Because I'm like, what could you DIY on your own? That feels really like I always, when I'm making DIY recommendations, I like to choose things where you like, yeah. You can't really cause a lot of harm with that

[00:43:05] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Caster 

[00:43:05] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Oil is another one that I will like, gravitate towards for people.

[00:43:08] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Like unless you're pregnant, like yeah. And don't ingest it. Yeah. Yeah. Castile Magnesium is another one. Yep. That, for the liver, like the, even, you could even argue just like drinking water for your bile flow.

[00:43:21] Christa Biegler, RD: Yep.

[00:43:21] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Like something as simple as that. E even, if you're having heavy, like painful periods too, like being hydrated, like I.

[00:43:29] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: That middle layer is the myometrium, like that affects that.

[00:43:32] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. No, 

[00:43:33] Christa Biegler, RD: that's a, I think that's a great point. And I think for me, drainage and detoxification is, I think I still love the microbiome, don't get me wrong. And I think everyone's on the same page now. 'cause it's been popular for literally 20 years.

[00:43:46] Christa Biegler, RD: I. Do you remember it being like 2008 or oh nine or something like that? And I was on a plane and I was sitting next to a microbiome researcher from one big Ivy League school. And I remember having a conversation with him asking him when he thought things took off and got popular.

[00:44:01] Christa Biegler, RD: 'cause I remember doing like a, my, a senior paper on probiotics or something in 2008. Yeah. And I remember him telling me that they really got. Like the up, like they really took off around 2005.

[00:44:13] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Wow.

[00:44:13] Christa Biegler, RD: So we're 20 years later, which is if things have been hanging out in the research for a long time, we've been talking about 'em, now they're in practice.

[00:44:20] Christa Biegler, RD: So now everyone's on the same page that said, we got some ways to go with the adrenal, thyroid and liver, in my opinion. And and I think it will take some time because we have all these, you have all kinds of consumer microbiome tests and whatever, and I still think that the majority of practitioners have no idea what to do with that.

[00:44:36] Christa Biegler, RD: And I don't really I'm just saying that as my opinion that I think is fact and I, it's like neutral. Like I don't really care that you don't know what to do with it. I'm just saying the fact that there's a lot of testing out there tells me that we're people believe that it's probably important, like more people believe it or understand it than don't.

[00:44:52] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes.

[00:44:53] Christa Biegler, RD: At this point is the rose colored glasses I'm looking through? And that said, I don't think that there's good. I personally don't think there's like some one single singular conclusive test that's gonna tell you everything you need to know about your detoxification.

[00:45:06] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: No,

[00:45:06] Christa Biegler, RD: it's like a whole shit load of stuff, it's hard for me to separate.

[00:45:09] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. And a lot of it's 

[00:45:10] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: like the information that the person gives you too like the information that we get during sessions with you, the information that we get from our intake forms, like that tells me so much about like a person's daily life with the products they're using, 

[00:45:22] Christa Biegler, RD: and sometimes, and I will say like on the outset, so that's the, in the inputs and on the outputs, like how my body is metabolizing and utilizing things and how I'm doing personally is a little bit unique to the human. I know you're gonna throw tomatoes at the screen here. But like I tell my clients all the time, we start to learn ourselves and that's where you get magic, where you like are unlocking yourself and setting yourself free from having to see everyone forever.

[00:45:45] Christa Biegler, RD: Because for me, if I can't get out of bed in the morning and I'm sluggish for the math, doesn't math, like I'm getting enough sleep, but I'm, I. Dragging in the morning. My circadian rhythm habits are on, like I got the other stuff there and I'm drain sluggish. I know that for me, that's a drainage detox symptom for me personally.

[00:46:04] Christa Biegler, RD: So my lower energy in the morning or throughout the day, but really especially in the morning, is a drainage detox thing. And what I'm. Looking better, then I have more, I like jump out of bed with more energy and that's not the first thing on the list technically, but it's like for me and also just to wrap this for me, every month my period, the week before my period in my lal face, how I'm tolerating my coffee that week.

[00:46:25] Christa Biegler, RD: Is it causing anything for me? Is it making better race?

[00:46:28] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Oh, interesting.

[00:46:28] Christa Biegler, RD: Oh, I talk to my clients about this all the time. I'm like, Ooh, guess what? I found this week, drank some shitty coffee and then my heart was racing. It's like

[00:46:36] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: interesting.

[00:46:36] Christa Biegler, RD: It's that tells me, and then if I add some drainage and detoxification support, I can literally drink the same crappy coffee the next day without the symptoms.

[00:46:43] Christa Biegler, RD: I've tested this multiple times.

[00:46:45] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So 

[00:46:45] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Interesting. Is it. I'm just thinking about, I'm gonna be thinking about that one for a minute. That's interesting. I'm sensitive. I believe it. That's so interesting.

[00:46:53] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm sensitive 

[00:46:53] Christa Biegler, RD: to mycotoxins, so I know I,

[00:46:55] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: okay. That's what I was 

[00:46:55] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: thinking. Yep. So I was like, is this a mycotoxin?

[00:46:58] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. Going on here. '

[00:46:59] Christa Biegler, RD: cause I I real quick backstory is that I'm like a, I'm a coffee snob at this point in life, but when I was not, and I didn't know anything in college there was several things and I had lots of blood sugar stuff too. That was like subtle. Right where I like, I gotta have snacks or whatever, but if I had, I remember driving back to college like five hours away with someone and I remember, I don't remember what I drank, but it was like this super high and then this super crash and that is how I would respond to coffee in general.

[00:47:28] Christa Biegler, RD: Or some other ones I'd have was like, I'd get really tired after drinking coffee, which is obviously the opposite effect. So with that, that high and that crash, I thought oh, I'm genetically not processing caffeine. That's actually not true. I've checked my genetics of all the crappy genetics I have, I can process caffeine.

[00:47:46] Christa Biegler, RD: It's just that I have such crappy liver genes. I. And then I had a mycotoxin exposure. Who knows for how long? I think multiple times over my younger life based on symptoms and like when they start to show up. And so when you have that, it lives inside of you and getting it completely kicked out is, I think really hard, to be honest.

[00:48:07] Christa Biegler, RD: I think it's like you, it's like you're emptying that bucket. And I also think we get exposed to stuff in our daily life.

[00:48:12] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Oh.

[00:48:14] Christa Biegler, RD: If I would drink, I remember after my skin my, my significant skin flare of 20 but somewhere between 20 15, 20 16 ish. Even a year or two later, if I was on vacation drinking too much crappy coffee, I would have a little tingle around my eye and I was like, whoa, better watch it.

[00:48:32] Christa Biegler, RD: So I, I have a lot of opinions, man, about how I'm like, I'm like a. A drug dog for mycotoxins coffee. I was just gonna say 

[00:48:39] Christa Biegler, RD: that I was literally to say that I can 

[00:48:41] Christa Biegler, RD: tell, I can tell you if the coffee has mycotoxins based on my symptoms within a week if my bo stinks or whatever, I was like, this coffee is has something And is are mycotoxins the only issue with coffee?

[00:48:50] Christa Biegler, RD: Probably not. They probably could be chemical laden. I no longer have the impulse, the uncontrollably impulses to ever consume Starbucks or caribou or whatever anymore. Like I just, I have no desire because I've been bit,

[00:49:03] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: yeah, I've been bit, I get that been bit,

[00:49:05] Christa Biegler, RD: I feel like garbage if I can consume it.

[00:49:08] Christa Biegler, RD: Oh. And that's okay with me. It's like I don't, yeah. I don't need your message. 

[00:49:11] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: No I feel the same way. I've, this is like going down a rabbit hole, but I was talking to my friend Brooke, , who is a dietician, and I told her like two years ago, I started really having a different blood sugar response to like cakes and cookies specifically.

[00:49:27] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And I don't eat a ton of this stuff. Like I'm a healthy person. I eat a lot of fruit, all the things. I wanna treat every once in a while and I can do dark chocolate and I can do salt and vinegar chips, and. When I hike Sour Patch kids and before workouts and I have no problems, you put something that is like a brownie in front of me, I feel like absolute garbage.

[00:49:47] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And I'm like, this is a perimenopause thing. Like I'm not having cycle changes yet. Now we're like venturing into a different realm, but like I can tell you that my blood sugar is being affected and I've seen it on A CGM and I like cannot get the brain fog to go away for two hours. It's awful.

[00:50:03] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So I'm like, I don't, a totally different thing, but I that when you say you know that feeling and you have it, I'm like, oh, yes. I understand. 

[00:50:10] Christa Biegler, RD: I know. You're becoming the expert of your own body and there's gonna be iterations of it. And I noticed sometimes when clients, we were talking before we hit record that I had recently reformed.

[00:50:21] Christa Biegler, RD: Mad at how I was serving clients. 'cause I was trying to correct some like little nuance things that I was noticing. And one of, the things that I mentioned was occasionally clients would be frustrated. They didn't know everything I knew in a handful of months, like they would express that. And I was like, that's an interesting frustration that you have.

[00:50:37] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes.

[00:50:37] Christa Biegler, RD: And I believe it stemmed to this sort of belief that people can sometimes have that when I get over this thing, then I will never have a problem again, and then I'll just be fine forever. And and it's not exactly the same issue, but I like to tell people, it's like when you had this thing happen, once you have all the.

[00:50:55] Christa Biegler, RD: Things, the factors that could have it happen again.

[00:50:58] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah.

[00:50:58] Christa Biegler, RD: So I'm trying to teach you how to not have it again. Yeah. And so if you don't wanna know how to not have it again, please do not book a call to work with me, because I like if you don't wanna understand yourself, like I'm not your girl.

[00:51:10] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Same.

[00:51:11] Christa Biegler, RD: I want you to understand, I know we're,

[00:51:12] Christa Biegler, RD: pretty similar in those ways, but I just share that because you're becoming the expert of your body and as am I, as is every listener, if you want to be. Yeah. And when you look at it with that angle, then it's cool, I, then I can look forward to my menstrual cycle to be like, and this one, which started yesterday, was like, oh.

[00:51:33] Christa Biegler, RD: I did not find my husband annoying this week. 

[00:51:37] Christa Biegler, RD: Interesting.

[00:51:37] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Everyone could breathe and chew and I didn't wanna kill anyone. 

[00:51:41] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. And it was fun. It was like, cool. But I took, and by the way, I took so much drainage support 'cause I was like short, I shortened I picked up a cold traveling for Easter 'cause I did all the things wrong.

[00:51:52] Christa Biegler, RD: Didn't get enough sleep. Like all the things that would create that, 'cause I like to analyze why everything happens. And

[00:51:58] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: oh, same

[00:51:58] Christa Biegler, RD: so I'm like trying to make it as short as possible by taking all the things. And then I got loosey goosey after two days. I was like, oh, I'm over it two days.

[00:52:05] Christa Biegler, RD: And then I had a little bit of postnasal drip, so I was taking tons of drainage support, which is gonna impact liver as well as I was taking like asus and I have a cabinet of crap that I'm just trying to use up. And so

[00:52:16] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: we all do.

[00:52:17] Christa Biegler, RD: Yes. Wonderful. And so I was taking I was almost gonna tell my team, I'm like, here's all the things that I took 'cause it to some people, I can be an aggressive person.

[00:52:25] Christa Biegler, RD: And I was like, and it was great. It was wonderful. I cleared up any crap I had going on and I cleared the way for those hormones exiting. And every, everyone was better for it, the end. So I look at, I look at my period every month as what's the measurement of this month?

[00:52:41] Christa Biegler, RD: How was, thanks.

[00:52:42] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: It's your monthly report card and you don't get that when you're on birth control just to wrap that back in. You don't get it. Yeah.

[00:52:47] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. 

[00:52:47] Christa Biegler, RD: And I have to say we have to be willing to take the bad too at some points because we sometimes don't like our report card when it's not good.

[00:52:55] Christa Biegler, RD: It pisses us off. And then we're all,

[00:52:56] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I've had 

[00:52:56] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: some of those. Yes.

[00:52:58] Christa Biegler, RD: Me too. Me too. And and what's funny about that is don't we all look at our month? And we're like, I didn't think I was very stressed. I didn't know that I was, whatever. And it's obviously I was, that's a huge piece of it.

[00:53:08] Christa Biegler, RD: Depending, estrogen can go get caught about five places, I would say. Stress is one place. Caffeine is another place. Phase two nutrients is another place. Lots of places. Lots of places. But anyway. Okay, Daniel, we're jabbering on and it was very fun. Any last thoughts that you would wanna share with someone related to birth control?

[00:53:27] Christa Biegler, RD: Coming off birth control? And then where can people find you online? 

[00:53:30] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. I would say my biggest thoughts about birth control is being formed. Like just ask questions, be curious about it. Read Jolene Brighton's book seriously. I also have a birth control masterclass if people want to access that,

[00:53:41] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I go through a lot of things about birth control and the side effects that your doctor just doesn't have time to go through. I'm not against birth control. Like I get a lot of hate when I talk about this stuff and listen, like I am for people making whatever decisions that they feel are best for themselves, but with informed consent.

[00:53:56] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And I just feel like that is very lacking. So go get informed. Continue to learn and be your own best advocate and learn about your body and what's best for you. That's my overarching message about birth control. People can find me. I hang out on Instagram and come slide in my dms.

[00:54:11] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Tell me about your birth control experiences. I'm [email protected]. K-E-P-I-C-S is the last name. People have trouble with that, so that's why I spell it. And yeah, this has been fun. 

[00:54:21] Christa Biegler, RD: It has been fun. And you can go listen to Daniel's episode on hair loss. Hair loss last month if you enjoyed this one.

[00:54:27] Christa Biegler, RD: So thanks so much for coming back to talk about birth control today. 

[00:54:30] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Thanks Christa.