Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[music]
KATHY: Hi, I’m Dr. Kathy Maupin. I’m the founder and medical director of Biobalance
Health and Biobalance for Women and Men. I’m here with Suzie Ahrens, who is my nurse. She
has been my longest term employee and nurse. You’ve been my nurse forever. And you’ve
seen all the patients that have come through and seen the changes that they have experienced.
And I’m glad that you are here to tell everyone about our patients who have breast cancer,
because you specialize in that. You work for a breast cancer surgeon, and we take care
of many people with breast cancer.
SUSIE: We are really really proud to help people that felt like they didn’t really
have any options; people that really felt like they had to feel bad forever now, because
of their diagnosis, they couldn’t feel physically well anymore because they were completely
depleted of hormones and they just thought they had to accept that part of life now.
And so we’re offering them another option that is making people very very happy.
KATHY: Can you talk about the option because we don’t generally use estrodiol unless
someone decides that they want estrodiol if they have positive receptors on their cancer
for estrogens. So, if they don’t then it’s fine, but if they do, some of them still choose
to take estrodiol in the form of pellets. Which is questionable in the medical community
and we have to have a release. But how about the testosterone? I mean Testosterone, in
my mind, has really saved so many of these women from- like you said- feeling like they
have to feel bad for the rest of their lives.
SUSIE: Right! And it seems like we are having younger and younger ages for diagnosis. You
know, there was a time when we didn’t really hear about breast cancer in young women but
now it is becoming more and more common. So its especially helpful for them that they
don’t have to feel like they don’t have any more choices. Certainly, we do allow them
testosterone which is going to give them libido and energy and relieve their fatigue and help
them feel well. It also, often times, helps with hot flashes and many of them suffer tremendously
with hot flashes, which really disrupts their sleep. They become sleep deprived and then
have a lot of other issues related to those things. So, it’s a great thing to be able
to help them. Some people do get low doses of estrogen. As you mentioned, we kind of
decide that on a per patient situation according to what is happening with each particular
person. If their receptors are negative, obviously, they are not at any higher risk from their
breast cancer to receive estrogen and they can have estrogen and testosterone. Some people
with positive receptors do choose to take low doses. We do manage them with very minimal
doses but enough to help them feel better and more balanced.
KATHY: So, one of the things that has always surprised me about the breast cancer patients
is that they have a lot of depression because of the diagnosis but also because they don’t
have hormones. So when we give them some testosterone, their depression lifts by a lot, in general.
We also don’t have to give them estrogen to solve the dryness problem because the testosterone
takes over with that. And that’s not really discussed in most areas in medicine. They
don’t say, “Oh yeah! You could use something else instead of estrogen to stop the dryness
and stop the painful intercourse.” It saved a lot of their marriages.
SUSIE: Yes, Absolutely. And as you mentioned with the depression, many of our patients
have had such great relief of their depression syndromes once they do have some testosterone.
many times they are able to ween themselves off of whatever their private physicians that’s
prescribed their anti-depressant is able to allow them to discontinue it over time. Which
is another great thing because there’s side effects associated with that too that can
be eliminated with that, and they feel better. So they don’t need their anti-depressants
many times. So, that’s another blessing for them.
KATHY: I find that our patients get off 1-3 drugs by taking the hormone pellets because
of the anti-depressants or sometimes their blood pressure medicine’s when they lose
weight, and various other mood altering medications they can come off of. That’s always a bonus
when we talk price, sometimes the cost which is around $400 every 4 months. Usually they
co-pays for at least that for the medicines we get them off of. So, often times it’s
a wash.
SUSIE: It’s like i tell patients, it’s hard to put a price tag on feeling good. Once
you feel good, the cost just doesn’t factor in as much. We’ve kept prices affordable
and that’s helped a lot of women be able to see us, and that’s been beneficial to
them, too.
KATHY: Well, tell us a little about our skin program- our laser program- because you’ve
been in the ground floor of that. We’ve got our laser doing pixels, we’ve talked
to sarah and some other of our patients that you’ve taken care of. Can you just tell
me the various things that you are able to treat with the various laser heads that we
have?
SUSIE: Yes, certainly the hair removal is a big thing, popular thing, and people are
very pleased to have that option to have their hair removed. That’s always a big thing.
And the different heads allow us to eliminate brown spots, red spots, helps with venus vascular
looking areas, helps even out the skin tone, decreases scars from acne, decreases fine
lines and wrinkles with the pixel. So there’s a nice variety with the different heads. After
we evaluate a persons very specific issues, we can treat those issues accordingly with
each type of head
KATHY: So, we try to fix people on the inside and on the outside as well, because they want
to look as good as they feel. We have a new instrument to use called the Jetpeel that
we’ve just receive but we’ve been training on it, playing with it. And it has the advantage
of giving a fluid normal saline or hiluronic acid below the skin so that it plumps of your
face and lasts for a period of time that might get you to the highschool reunion or might
get you to the next big party. It kind of smooths out the lines, so, we’re looking
forward to that.
SUSIE: Yeah, we’re really excited about that. It gives a more youthful appearance
to the skin and also has fairly immediate results, where other types of treatments it
might take 3-4 different treatments before you notice results, with this, you can notice
it almost immediately. So, we are really excited about watching this.
KATHY: So, all in all, when patients come to our office, they come for hormone replacement
and then we offer the other things that they might need to look their best. So, what would
you like to tell the patients to tell them to make them realize it would be beneficial
to come for pellets; that’s their initial visit, usually. Is there anything that you
would like to tell the normal gal at 40?
SUSIE: Well, I do the new patient intake so i speak with a lot of patients at the very
beginning of the process in the first steps. So, a lot of the things you hear over and
over again, you know, “Everyone has told me I’m normal and that I have to accept
how I feel.” What I would say is that you don’t have to accept feeling bad, especially
if you are still active, you’d still like to continue to be active. You don’t have
to accept that, you can consider this because this gives you another great, wonderful option
that is really exciting to help people feel good. We have wonderful results, so what I
would say to potential new patients is that “it’s time to do something for yourself,
it’s probably been a long time since you’ve done that because women have a tendency to
put it at the bottom of the priority list over time. And it’s hard to push yourself
back into the top, but you deserve it.” I try to encourage people: “Do this for
yourself; it’s worth it, because it will make you feel better and it will make everyone
around you feel better too.”
KATHY: That’s right, that’s great advice, and it makes their husbands happy as well.
SUSIE: Yes it does!
KATHY: Thank you, Susie.
SUSIE: You’re welcome.
KATHY: And if you want more info about biobalance health, visit us on the web at Biobalancehealth.com
or call us at (314) 993-0963.
[music]
Copyright © 2011 BioBalance Health | St. Louis, MO 63141 • 314.993.0963
Produced by Davis Interactive.