Pod Insights Dumb Blonde Dr. Cordovez: Bunnie's Dr. on Sleep, Obesity, & Medicine About this episode Throwback Thursday (Originally aired: 6/9/25)
This week, Bunnie brings on her personal doctor and friend, Dr. Leah Cordovez - a calm, no-BS physician who blends science and nature to actually know her patients. They talk about Dr. C’s wild journey from Panama to private practice, what it’s like treating Bunnie’s weekly “emergencies,” and why the bond between doctor and patient matters more than we think. Dr. C also answers your questions about sleep, endometriosis, weight, poop (yes, really), and how to actually feel better without shame, shortcuts, or guesswork.
Dr. Cordovez: Be Well https://bewellihp.com/who-we-are/
Watch Full Episodes & More: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@Dumbblondepod
Transcript 10,016 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Bunny XO.
0:00 Speaker 01 She was a Vegas queen.
0:02 Speaker 00 Bunny XO.
0:10 Bunnie XO? Is this thing on?
0:12 Speaker 03 Um, we can totally keep our relationship private.
0:15 Bunnie XO? No, do you want to or no?
0:16 Speaker 03 No, no, I'm fine.
0:17 Bunnie XO? Okay.
0:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, but I don't want to like out you two.
0:19 Bunnie XO? No, I wanted to brag to everybody. What are you kidding? You fucking put up with my shit all the time. Like.
0:26 Speaker 03 What shit? No, there's no shit.
0:27 Bunnie XO? I literally have a crisis every fucking week.
0:30 Speaker 03 Oh, my God.
0:31 Bunnie XO? Every week I'm texting this woman.
0:33 Speaker 03 No, but your crisis.
0:33 Bunnie XO? I'm like, what is happening? I have a new one.
0:35 Speaker 03 No.
0:36 Bunnie XO? I have a new one I haven't even texted you about. I freaking have like this pain in my left side. This is gonna be graphic. I'm sorry, but. Have you, are you recording? Yep. Oh, are you? Okay. No, no, do it. We can do it on, no, we can do it on the podcast. Cause I have no shame. Alright, so I was just about to tell you guys my ailment, but let me welcome my favorite human in the world. Dr. Leah Cordovez, but I call her Dr. C. And this woman I'm telling you is just a gift from God. And I, once you guys hear her story and actually get to like, hear her speak today on the podcast, you guys are gonna fall in love with her just as much as I am. Dr. C, thank you for being here.
1:15 Speaker 03 Thank you for having me. It's so cool.
1:17 Bunnie XO? Dude, I'm happy to have you here. You just have always had the best energy.
1:21 Speaker 03 Thank you.
1:22 Bunnie XO? It's, it's amazing. So I was just going into why I love you so much too, is because I literally call you every week with a crisis. You're, you're like my personal doctor.
1:32 Speaker 03 I love it.
1:33 Bunnie XO? Anytime I have an ailment, which is every day, I literally text this woman freaking out. I'm like, do I need a CAT scan? Do I need to do this? What's happened? Like last week, my eye, that was a crazy thing that was going on with my eye. And she healed it. It was fine. And she always is so calm. You're so calm. Like when I call you freaking out, you're just like, no, this is how you gotta do it. Let's do this. Don't freak out. Everything's fine. So, yeah.
2:00 Speaker 03 Well, calm, it doesn't come easy, but it comes with time. And all of the things that you send me are super easy. It's so much better to just call me. Don't, don't even worry about freaking out. I've seen everything at least 10 times.
2:13 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
2:13 Speaker 03 So it makes it easy.
2:14 Bunnie XO? Yeah. So I was just telling you about my new ailment. So while you're here, let's talk about it.
2:18 Speaker 03 What you got?
2:19 Bunnie XO? I keep having this pain on my left hand side when I orgasm. When I poop and sometimes when I pee, it like, and I, I've Googled it and they said it's diverticulitis.
2:31 Speaker 03 Okay.
2:32 Bunnie XO? And I'm like freaking out now because you know how I am. I try to fix things.
2:37 Speaker 03 So just at rest, it doesn't hurt?
2:39 Bunnie XO? No, at rest, it doesn't hurt. But if I'm pushing out or if my muscles are spasming, it hurts.
2:45 Speaker 03 So that means that something moving in there has to, has to move to, so something has to move in there to irritate it. Which means it's probably something that's inflamed, a ligament, a muscle. It might be a little bit of an ovarian cyst, but something is irritated in there.
3:01 Bunnie XO? Up here this high?
3:02 Speaker 03 It could be.
3:03 Bunnie XO? Wow.
3:03 Speaker 03 Your hip flexor can be up that high. But if it's something that comes and goes, and I tell everybody this, the bad, bad things come and stay.
3:13 Bunnie XO? Oh.
3:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, they're not gonna come, say, hi, I'll be back next week. If it's really bad, it's gonna come and stay. Diverticulitis doesn't let you go.
3:22 Bunnie XO? Okay.
3:22 Speaker 03 Until you do something about it. So.
3:24 Bunnie XO? See what I'm saying? She always calms me down.
3:26 Speaker 03 I would say, I would say it's something inflamed and if it persists a long, long time or it gets worse or it lasts longer, it starts happening at rest, then that's when I'd, I'd want to see you and maybe think about an ultrasound or a scan.
3:39 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
3:39 Speaker 03 But nothing is as good as somebody who knows you.
3:43 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
3:43 Speaker 03 And I think that helps it be calm. I know you. I know how healthy you are and it's easy for me to, no, it's not that. And, but it's not diverticulitis. It ain't.
3:54 Bunnie XO? I love it. She looks at my blood work too. This woman knows the roadmap to my soul. So.
3:58 Speaker 03 Well, it's easy to work with Dani, right?
4:00 Bunnie XO? Yeah. And you, so you, how do you and Dani know each other? Because all of you guys know Dani, who comes on the podcast. You guys absolutely love her. She is friends with Dani also. How do you guys know each other?
4:11 Speaker 03 Well, we're colleagues. So she's a, an integrative nurse practitioner and I am a, a doctor who did internal medicine. So I trained in the Western internal medicine system and I did a two-year fellowship in integrative medicine.
4:24 Bunnie XO? Wow.
4:25 Speaker 03 So what that means is I can, I can bring the science and the nature into whatever needs to be done to make you better. So. Danny does a lot of integrative and I do a mixture of both.
4:39 Bunnie XO? Yes.
4:39 Speaker 03 So we're similar, but just a little different.
4:42 Bunnie XO? I love that. It's like, yeah, it's like your own little flair on it. I dig it so much. So my husband was telling me that you have a really cool story and I told him I wanted to be wowed on the podcast. So he gave me like little bits and pieces of it, but I want to hear your story. Like where did you come from? Why did you get into medicine? All that jazz.
5:00 Speaker 03 Yeah. So I, I'm from Panama.
5:03 Bunnie XO? Okay.
5:04 Speaker 03 And I don't think I've ever known anything else. It's always been, I've always known that I was going to be a doctor. But life in Panama was not easy.
5:16 Speaker 03 There was, there was not a lot of opportunities. So I had to keep taking turns and, and changing directions to do what I needed to do. We ended up in, uh, we moved from Panama to a little town called Mount Pleasant, which is about 30 or 40 miles from here. And, um, and then I went to Vanderbilt for school. After that, I decided I'm going to go back home and, and practice. Anybody who knows me knows I've said this a million times. I was going to practice on a mountain and get paid in mangoes. But then I got married and I ended up here in Nashville. It just has always felt like
5:54 Speaker 03 the thing that I had to do, it was never easy, but whatever direction life took me, I, I went with it until I could get back on track.
6:06 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
6:06 Speaker 03 Um, and so I ended up working at St. Thomas for a lot of years and it just, just, I just couldn't figure out what was missing from my practice. And it ends up that it's the time and the relationship with your patient. It's not possible for someone to call you and say, hey, my right side or my left side hurts and, um, and then be able to think through what it could be unless you know that patient. So then I, um, I decided to leave, uh, the practice of medicine at St. Thomas. And I opened up my little practice where I can spend as much time as I need to, to get to know my patient. And that is, that practicing medicine calmly is so cool.
6:49 Bunnie XO? I love that. So let's circle back because you breeze over so much. So you grew up in Panama and you, even as a child, you just knew that you wanted to help people.
6:58 Speaker 03 Always, always. While all the other little girls were playing with Barbies.
7:04 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
7:04 Speaker 03 Um, I had a little box of Band-Aids and I would
7:10 Speaker 03 I would go to watch the boys play soccer, just waiting for one of them to fall. And then I'd, uh, I'd put Band-Aids and hydrogen peroxide and, uh, that was my thing. Always, always, always.
7:23 Bunnie XO? So like a nurturer from the start. Was there anything that happened to you in your childhood that maybe pushed you in that direction? Or do you think maybe it was like from a past life that you were like a medicine woman or something?
7:33 Speaker 03 You know, uh, I want to believe in, in a past life, I, I had some sort of magic.
7:41 Bunnie XO? I believe you did, for sure. I'm, I'm so into that. And listen, I just did, you can do your past lives. I don't know if you guys know this, but you can do your past lives and your soul contracts on ChatGPT now.
7:52 Speaker 03 Are you kidding?
7:53 Bunnie XO? Yes, we need to do yours. And I would love to see it because I was, I was a healer in a lot of my past lives. I was also a hooker in one. I was also like a military person. Like it's crazy, but when you go back in your past lives, you start seeing this and you're just like, this makes so much sense as to why I have been the way I've been my entire life.
8:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
8:13 Bunnie XO? So I would be curious to see if maybe you were like a medicine woman and maybe one of your past lives.
8:18 Speaker 03 I hope so.
8:19 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
8:19 Speaker 03 I hope so.
8:20 Bunnie XO? Cause you're like a medicine woman now.
8:21 Speaker 03 It feels so natural. It feels so natural. Yeah. I love it.
8:27 Bunnie XO? I love it. So how do you get, how do you go to school, medical school in Panama? How does that happen?
8:34 Speaker 03 Well, it wasn't easy.
8:35 Bunnie XO? Okay.
8:35 Speaker 03 It wasn't easy. Um, I remember I was a little bit lost. So, so it was, there was a
8:43 Speaker 03 a big event, uh, that happened my senior year in college and just didn't have the money to, to re-enroll. And I was kind of rolling around, what am I going to do? I'm never going to get this done. This is going to be horrible. I did that, uh, for a while, just trying to find my way. I audited classes while I took the MCATs and I just kept spinning my wheels. Um.
9:08 Speaker 03 But somebody I met in Miami when I was 21 years old, which by the way is a whole nother story.
9:15 Bunnie XO? Oh yeah, Miami back in the days was lit, dude.
9:18 Speaker 03 Oh my God, it was lit. So good. Somebody in Miami said, why don't you just go to medical school in Panama? And I said, what? Okay. So I found the number, I called and I said, how much does it cost to go to medical school? And they said $19. A what? $19 a semester. Seriously? Can I, like, can it, where do I apply? Sign me up. So.
9:40 Bunnie XO? Is it the same type of medical school that you would have in the US?
9:44 Speaker 03 It's a little bit harder.
9:46 Bunnie XO? Wow.
9:46 Speaker 03 Yes. So it's six years instead of four years.
9:49 Bunnie XO? Wow.
9:50 Speaker 03 And, and 2,500 people, at least the year that I applied, 2,500 people took the psychological aptitude test. And if you pass that, then you could take the, the entrance exam. So 2,500 people applied. 130 people got in and 30 of us graduated. So it's no frickin joke. But I, I applied, I applied, I got in, I moved to Panama and I lived with a friend. And of course, everybody said, it's not going to work. You're not going to be able to do it. It's, it's, you're wasting your time going there. But I knew that that's what I had to do.
10:35 Speaker 03 And nothing, nothing, this distracted me for sure, but nothing could take that. It wasn't okay to do anything else.
10:45 Bunnie XO? Yeah. It was just etched in your soul.
10:47 Speaker 03 Etched in my soul. So I lived wherever I had to live.
10:53 Bunnie XO? Yes. Survival mode.
10:55 Speaker 03 Survival mode for six years and, and, and, and finished.
11:02 Bunnie XO? Wow. So all six years, just.
11:06 Speaker 03 Trying to make it.
11:07 Bunnie XO? Grueling and then you finally graduate.
11:09 Speaker 03 Yeah.
11:10 Bunnie XO? What happens after you graduate? Do you just instantly get into a practice? Cause I heard you say that you were going to get paid by mangoes.
11:16 Speaker 03 That's what I wanted. That's what mangoes and chickens. Yeah.
11:19 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
11:19 Speaker 03 Um, so.
11:21 Bunnie XO? I love that. You're like, I'm a doctor, just pay me a mangoes and chicken.
11:24 Speaker 03 Creamy's and mangoes.
11:25 Bunnie XO? I love that.
11:25 Speaker 03 Yeah. Not the green ones. Um, the, the space between my first and second semester of the last year of medical school, I came to visit my mother here and I met the man who would be my husband.
11:43 Bunnie XO? And Is your family from Panama?
11:45 Speaker 03 Yes.
11:46 Bunnie XO? And then your mom moved here?
11:47 Speaker 03 Yes.
11:47 Bunnie XO? Okay, gotcha.
11:48 Speaker 03 Yes. My father is still there. I have siblings there, aunts and uncles. I have a brother and sister here, but it was, it was love. And he tried living there, didn't work. We moved back and that lasted 11 years.
12:09 Bunnie XO? Oh.
12:10 Speaker 03 Yeah. No, it's great.
12:12 Bunnie XO? No, I love that. 11 years is a good run, man.
12:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:15 Bunnie XO? It's a good run.
12:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:16 Bunnie XO? So was he a doctor too?
12:18 Speaker 03 No.
12:18 Bunnie XO? No, okay. So you moved to the US. What was it like doing medicine in Panama and then coming here to do medicine? Was it kind of like a culture shock a little bit?
12:27 Speaker 03 It was a little bit of a culture shock. I was amazed at how much sooner things get taken care of here. So by the time a patient comes to the doctor in Panama, it is super far gone. So
12:41 Bunnie XO? Oh, no.
12:42 Speaker 03 Yeah. Breast cancers were, yeah, were super advanced. It's, it's just not a culture where, where self-care
12:52 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
12:53 Speaker 03 is a priority, maybe because there's just not that, not the, not the availability, not the money. I worked at the, at the public hospital, so it was, it was pretty rough. So when I came here, I thought, girl, that's nothing.
13:07 Bunnie XO? Right.
13:09 Speaker 03 I've seen it so many times. Yeah. So, but we also had stuff that, that you don't see here, right? So pancreatitis here is usually from alcohol use and pancreatitis there is from a scorpion bite. So, yeah, so I was always just a little off on my, on my diagnostic skills and we couldn't
13:28 Bunnie XO? You're like, you've been bit by a scorpion.
13:30 Speaker 03 Right.
13:31 Bunnie XO? Out here.
13:32 Speaker 03 Exactly. And yeah, I was off for about six months until I, until I caught on that we had changed latitudes. That, yeah, the, the tropical diseases that didn't exist here, that was a, that was a switch and parasites are, are so, so common there, not so common here. Um, just big differences like that. But in a third world country, in a, in a, a system where medicine is taught clinically, you have to put your hands on the patient, listen, feel,
14:09 Speaker 03 percuss, you have to figure out what's going on before you order any imaging. So that was incredibly valuable. That was really cool to bring with me.
14:20 Bunnie XO? Wow.
14:21 Speaker 03 Yeah. Before we could order an x-ray, you had to know how high up the fluid was in what lung.
14:26 Bunnie XO? Wow.
14:27 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah.
14:28 Bunnie XO? So that just made you like precision sharp whenever you got here.
14:31 Speaker 03 Yeah.
14:32 Bunnie XO? Yeah. Cause you just know what to look for.
14:33 Speaker 03 Yeah. That helps a lot.
14:35 Bunnie XO? So.
14:35 Speaker 03 Yeah.
14:36 Bunnie XO? Um, take me on this journey of starting your own practice because you said that you worked at St. Thomas, which is actually a great hospital.
14:44 Speaker 03 Super good.
14:44 Bunnie XO? Anytime I had like heart problems or anything like that, I would always go to St. Thomas and they always did such a great, when I, they misdiagnosed me with a fricking brain aneurysm last year.
14:52 Speaker 03 Yeah.
14:53 Bunnie XO? Yeah. It was wild. St. Thomas is actually, aren't they the ones who the, the, the, what is it called vascular surgeon there was like, you do not have a brain aneurysm. And then I got a second opinion too. And he was like, you do not have a brain aneurysm. And I was just like, oh my God, thank you. But yeah, St. Thomas is like a prestigious hospital. And what did you do there? So were you like emergency medicine?
15:15 Speaker 03 So I, when I came from Panama, so even if you've done a residency in another country, you have to do another one here.
15:23 Bunnie XO? Yikes.
15:24 Speaker 03 So when I came from Panama, uh, uh, I applied to several residencies and, um, and, and the one at Baptist, it used to be Baptist St. Thomas was the, was the best fit for me. Um, so I did a, a residency there and residencies are generally July 1st through June 30th.
15:44 Speaker 03 At the end of my residency year, I didn't feel like I knew enough. So I did a chief residency year. And, and by the time that year was over, on June 30th was my last day as chief. July 1st at nine o'clock, I was in the office. Ready to see a patient.
16:02 Bunnie XO? So during a residency, you can't have patients or you're under somebody?
16:06 Speaker 03 You're under somebody. So it's the residency, the clinic at the, with the residents. But once you go from being a resident to being and attending. You get paid three or four times more. And
16:19 Bunnie XO? Not mangoes and chicken.
16:20 Speaker 03 All you. That's right. That's a lot of freaking mangoes. Yeah, that's a lot. You get a lot more mangoes. But it's all you. It's all, you can't turn around and go, what do you think this is? It's all you and I could not wait. So, yeah.
16:37 Bunnie XO? I love the tenacity that you have.
16:39 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah. It always had to happen, Bunny. Like it always had to happen. There was no. There was no compromising. It just had to happen.
16:49 Bunnie XO? I love that. Yeah. So when you finally get to see your first patient, what's the diagnosis? What, what happened?
16:55 Speaker 03 Listen, I still, like, I feel like if I could look that chart up and apologize to him.
17:03 Bunnie XO? No.
17:03 Speaker 03 This is a horrible story. I don't think I should say it.
17:06 Bunnie XO? We can always cut it if you want to do it.
17:08 Speaker 03 Listen.
17:08 Bunnie XO? Because you gotta tell it now.
17:10 Speaker 03 Okay, I gotta tell it. Okay. So internist, so internal medicine is everything you can't cut out. Right? So blood pressure, diabetes, thyroid, anything you can't cut out is what I take care of. So most of my patients are either high blood pressure or diabetes or thyroid. On the first day of my, of my first gig,
17:35 Speaker 03 I was seeing other doctors' patients that were being put on my schedule just overflow.
17:40 Bunnie XO? Right.
17:41 Speaker 03 While I built up my clinic.
17:44 Speaker 03 Notoriously, internists are horrible at rashes.
17:48 Bunnie XO? Oh.
17:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, horrible at rashes. So the very first patient, bless his sweet soul.
17:54 Bunnie XO? No.
17:55 Speaker 03 Was a rash.
17:56 Bunnie XO? Oh.
17:57 Speaker 03 And where's the rash?
18:00 Speaker 03 Right. My very first patient with his sweet wife.
18:04 Bunnie XO? Oh, no.
18:05 Speaker 03 Came for help with a rash on his, um, on his glands. And, um,
18:14 Bunnie XO? His what? His glands?
18:16 Speaker 03 It's the, you know, the, his penis.
18:18 Bunnie XO? Okay, okay, gotcha. I didn't know. I thought it was butthole. I instantly went for, I instantly went for butthole.
18:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. No, I wish it was the butthole. It would have felt better, like, with him facing the other way.
18:28 Bunnie XO? Right.
18:28 Speaker 03 You know?
18:30 Bunnie XO? I don't gotta look you in the eye, buddy.
18:31 Speaker 03 I know that he could see it in my face when I went, ah, uh,
18:38 Speaker 03 yeah. And today I have the maturity to say, eh, I don't know. But that day, uh, I just, um,
18:52 Bunnie XO? Did we ever figure out what the rash was?
18:54 Speaker 03 Uh, well, I gave him a little cream.
18:56 Bunnie XO? Oh, I love cream.
18:57 Speaker 03 And it got better.
18:58 Bunnie XO? Oh, good.
18:59 Speaker 03 So I can't, I cannot say that I knew exactly what that was.
19:03 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
19:03 Speaker 03 Uh, but it was the most, it was the hardest.
19:08 Bunnie XO? God's got a sense of humor, right?
19:09 Speaker 03 Yes, yes. It was, it was the one thing I probably could never have solved.
19:13 Bunnie XO? Oh.
19:14 Speaker 03 On the first day of my first job.
19:16 Bunnie XO? Why was it? Was it, can I, can I ask? Was it like herpes? Or was it like a heat rash? Or was it like, you just, it was like fell under an umbrella of just rash?
19:24 Speaker 03 It was, it was, it was, listen, I would not have even, if I had that somewhere on my body, I would probably not have gone to the doctor.
19:33 Bunnie XO? Oh, okay.
19:34 Speaker 03 It was such a subtle, tiny little rash.
19:38 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
19:38 Speaker 03 That, I mean, I, I cannot imagine what my face was like when I was like.
19:42 Bunnie XO? His wife probably made him go. She's probably like, you're fucking around. We're going to the doctor. You know what I'm saying? That's why she was there with him.
19:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. Maybe they, they, they both seemed super sweet.
19:52 Bunnie XO? Oh.
19:52 Speaker 03 They were a super sweet couple, but it, I don't know.
19:56 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
19:57 Speaker 03 Uh, I still don't know. I've never seen anything like it again. And, uh, and it got better. Yeah.
20:01 Bunnie XO? I love that. She's like, I gave him cream, it cleared up.
20:04 Speaker 03 Cleared up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:06 Bunnie XO? So take me on the journey of leaving St. Thomas and opening your own practice. That's gotta be a scary job.
20:14 Speaker 03 It was. Well, I did not know. I didn't know how hard it was gonna be, or else I wouldn't have done it.
20:19 Bunnie XO? Oh shit.
20:19 Speaker 03 It was so, so complicated. So it started because every patient became really important to me. And, and I find myself, I found myself, no, hold on, you're too complicated. You get the spot right before lunch. Or you're too complicated, you get the spot the last one of the day. And I ended up working through lunch, staying an extra hour. So my difficult patients, I would take time away from myself or my kids to take care of. And so it started rumbling in my mind, how can I, how can I deliver this differently? Because what I need to do is form that bond. I think the bond is so therapeutic.
21:03 Speaker 03 I cannot practice medicine unless we have established that I love you, I respect you, I'm gonna take care of you and you're safe.
21:10 Bunnie XO? No.
21:12 Speaker 03 It was hard. It was really hard to do. And so that it's another point in my life where I couldn't not do it.
21:21 Bunnie XO? Right. It was just something inside of you was like, you have to do this.
21:25 Speaker 03 You have to do it. You have to do it. So I don't remember, it took a lot of years to finally be okay with saying to the ton of patients that I was taking care of that I had to go. It, it kept me a long time.
21:42 Bunnie XO? And did some of them follow you?
21:44 Speaker 03 Yes. Yes. Yes. It's wonderful that, that some of them could. And the ones that didn't, I still truly love. And I, and I recently realized that I don't think that they know how important they are to me. Because when somebody says, hey, remember me? Of course, like of course, how's your mom? How's your grandma? What happened to your son? So of course, it was just too much. So we went into private practice the year that COVID hit.
22:17 Bunnie XO? Oh goodness.
22:19 Speaker 03 Uh, and thank goodness that we were able to see COVID athletes because that kind of carried us. Yeah, for a while there, every athlete that had COVID had to be, had to have a cardiac clearance.
22:31 Bunnie XO? Right.
22:32 Speaker 03 So that kept us alive.
22:34 Bunnie XO? Wow.
22:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, for a while.
22:36 Bunnie XO? But it's because you're following your heart and you're leading with love that God always takes care of you every jump that you take.
22:42 Speaker 03 100%.
22:44 Bunnie XO? Yeah, you can see it.
22:45 Speaker 03 100%. Even on the days that are so dark and scary, I know that something good will come with the dawn. I know that something good will come. Yeah, I, I know it, I feel it. I know that my days are just trying to spread that love and, um, and, and create those bonds that we're supposed to have. I think that this time on earth is for us to be able to touch each other, smell each other, taste really good food, drink really good drinks and, and have fun in a physical way. But fundamentally, we are here to love one another.
23:29 Bunnie XO? Yep.
23:29 Speaker 03 So why people would waste any time being assholes?
23:32 Bunnie XO? Yeah, I don't understand.
23:34 Speaker 03 Yeah, I don't understand that.
23:35 Bunnie XO? I literally was just lecturing one of my friends the other day because she just, every time she texts me, it's about some drama. And I'm like, stop polluting your life. You have this life to live and not forever. Like just.
23:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:46 Bunnie XO? Fucking have fun.
23:48 Speaker 03 Correct.
23:48 Bunnie XO? Spread joy.
23:49 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:50 Bunnie XO? Be fucking happy. Like it's, it's not that hard to choose happiness every day.
23:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:55 Bunnie XO? So tell me what your practice does now? Cause you said that you take, you know, m- modern medicine and mix it with integrative medicine.
24:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:04 Bunnie XO? For the listeners at home, what exactly does that entail?
24:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, so really you cannot practice medicine, or at least my type of medicine, without truly knowing the patient. So we sit down and we talk about how are you sleeping? What are you eating? How do you feel? And we get beyond, um, just the basic labs. So. I have a wonderful, wonderful new patient that he was having trouble controlling his cholesterol. He had been everywhere on every medicine, was getting energy treatments for it and cholesterol and triglycerides were still super high. Well, we, we talked, we talked about his family history. We did some investigating. I put a glucose monitor on him. He's got insulin resistance,
24:51 Speaker 03 which was drive, which was driving high cholesterol. Fixing that, fix the cholesterol. So I've heard Danny say, and everyone has heard Danny say, things that are caused by lifestyle can be solved by lifestyle. Every once in a while you need medicine, but most of the time, if you can fix it with change in your life, change your life.
25:12 Bunnie XO? Yes. I fully 100% believe in that. Yeah. Any ailment I've ever had has been from a food I was eating or not working out enough or not sleeping. So I, you know me, I'm like, I will not take medicine unless I have to. She prescribed me some eye drops the other day and I fricking found some Reddit group that like was dedicated. It's called the Flocksies. It was dedicated to fricking this type of, and I was like, I love you. I'm not putting this in my eye. And she's like, it's fine. Don't do it.
25:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, no problem. That's the other thing that I, without a, a relationship, a two-way relationship, you would not have been able to tell me, hey, let's do erythromycin instead of Cipro. Because it doesn't, it doesn't bother me. We could have used either one, but for you to say, let's do that, fine. Yeah. It's not me, it's you.
26:03 Bunnie XO? Oh, yeah. One thing I'm gonna do is advocate.
26:05 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yes. And you should. Everyone should. Everyone should. But.
26:11 Bunnie XO? I preach that on the, from the mountaintops on this podcast is anything, doesn't matter if it's medical, lifestyle, anything, always advocate for yourself, always speak up.
26:22 Speaker 03 Always, always, always.
26:23 Bunnie XO? You're gonna find your people. You'll find your tribe and they'll listen to you.
26:26 Speaker 03 Yes, that's right. That's right. So, so once you get down to what, what is going on with this person? Somebody whose asthma I couldn't get under control, I would not have known. She's exposed to car fumes because in the mornings she worked at the, at the daycare, greeting the children. So she was out there under the carport.
26:47 Bunnie XO? Wow.
26:48 Speaker 03 So fixing that fixed her asthma and.
26:52 Speaker 03 So much, so much easier. So that's integrative medicine is not just jumping to the medicine, although you did need a little bit.
26:59 Bunnie XO? I did. Something was really wrong with my damn eye.
27:03 Speaker 03 But fixing what's causing it is, is just as important as giving a medicine.
27:09 Bunnie XO? Yeah, absolutely.
27:11 Speaker 03 Yeah. So that's my flavor is mixing, um, what can we do with what can I give you? Or what other supplements can we use and, and that works? But I now have obesity medicine.
27:23 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
27:23 Speaker 03 That I love.
27:25 Bunnie XO? Which is, is it like a peptide or what is it?
27:28 Speaker 03 No, it's medicine for, uh, for obesity.
27:31 Bunnie XO? Okay.
27:31 Speaker 03 So being fat is not fun, right?
27:34 Bunnie XO? Right, right.
27:34 Speaker 03 Um, and it's not easy to change your weight or your metabolic set point. Um, that unlocking that is key. If I could, if I could shout something from the mountaintops is start with loving where you are, what you've got, because if you hate it, you're not going to take care of it.
27:56 Bunnie XO? Well, and that, and you also feed your mind negative, you know, what your mind feels the body will follow. And I truly am a huge believer in that.
28:04 Speaker 03 Percent, 100%, 100%.
28:07 Bunnie XO? So what is this obesity medicine called?
28:09 Speaker 03 So, so I wish I could do more of it, but it is basically people come in and say, I'm having trouble losing weight.
28:15 Bunnie XO? Right.
28:16 Speaker 03 Then we sit down and we talk, what's going on? How are you eating? How are you sleeping? How are you moving? And I, I really enjoyed doing, studying for the, for obesity medicine because there were so many things that I did not know were caused by just how much adipose tissue, just how much fat is around. So things like exchanging oxygen in your lungs is a little bit more complicated when there's, when there's more fat than lean muscle. Capillaries don't get good blood flow when there's more fat than muscle. So I remember telling my trainers, man, I feel like I'm going to pass out.
28:54 Bunnie XO? Oh.
28:55 Speaker 03 And, and my trainers would say, keep on going.
28:57 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
28:59 Speaker 03 Uh, but it is 2025 and it's time for people to know that you don't have to suffer to make changes that will make you healthier and leaner.
29:09 Bunnie XO? Right.
29:09 Speaker 03 Because strong is fucking beautiful.
29:12 Bunnie XO? Yeah, absolutely.
29:14 Speaker 03 It's not thin. It's not a size of pants. It is strength. Um, emotional strength and physical strength and that that's what I want to create more of. Before I leave this world.
29:26 Bunnie XO? Yes. So the obesity thing that you have, is it just like food counseling or does it? And then you figure out for each patient, it's different, like one patient you would give like trisepotide, another patient, what's something else? Like, what's a protocol that you would give three different patients?
29:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's such a great question. I don't think we have a protocol because everybody gets their own, their own thing. But there's something for everybody.
29:53 Bunnie XO? Okay, what about like a, like a forty five year old perimenopausal woman who can't lose the last five pounds?
30:01 Speaker 03 Oh, my God. First of all, the um, practicing obesity medicine in twenty twenty five, I said before, is unlike anything we have ever seen. So these injections, whatever your thoughts are about them, they are potent in the, in the gut, in the brain, and in those areas that control hunger, cravings and satiety. We have never had a medicine that shuts off those messages like, like, like these do.
30:36 Speaker 03 There's a lot of genetics and a lot of hormones involved in, in, in what you crave and how much you eat and how much calories you burn. It is not calories in, calories out. So a forty five year old, and even from forty to fifty, that perimenopause, your brain starts getting messages that your ovaries, the hormones that your ovaries produce, your brain starts getting messages about storing adipose tissue in your midsection. So as our estrogen sputters, we tend to create a little bit more fat deposits in the midsection. Have you noticed? Yeah.
31:19 Speaker 03 So with that, with that type of person, we would probably track macros, keep the estrogen, testosterone as, as stable as possible. Not over exercise because what we want to do is tell your body that it's safe to release those fat stores. So your body will protect you by, by hanging on to them, but it's safe to release. So kind, gentle exercise and don't poke the insulin bear with carbs.
31:52 Bunnie XO? How do you feel about weightlifting?
31:54 Speaker 03 I feel amazing.
31:55 Bunnie XO? Yeah. Cause doesn't weightlifting spike insulin also though, too?
32:00 Speaker 03 So weightlifting, it can do different things to different people, but the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn just sleeping.
32:09 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
32:10 Speaker 03 So, and the more muscle you have, the more muscle you will have as you get older. So by the time you're 50, you start losing 2% of muscle mass a year unless you're doing something about it. So I feel amazing about weightlifting.
32:26 Bunnie XO? Right.
32:27 Speaker 03 And if there's an excuse why you're not doing it,
32:31 Speaker 03 get over it.
32:32 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
32:32 Speaker 03 Yeah.
32:32 Bunnie XO? Do it. No, I love it. I weightlift, I weightlift five times a week now. Like I'm on it. So I have a Patreon community that is obsessed with all things medical. Lay down, son. And we're gonna go over there and take some questions from them, if that's okay with you.
32:51 Speaker 03 Let's do it. Let's go.
32:52 Bunnie XO? Let's do it. Alright, so the first question that we have for you is from Shannon. And she said, "I struggle so much with my stage four endometriosis to where I'm worried I'll not be able to continue working. Do you have any advice at this point? Would be great, as many of us women struggle with endo and it seems no one is talking about it."
33:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, this is, this is, endometriosis is an inflammatory. What's causing pain is inflammation of these little tiny deposits. So every time a woman menstruation has a period, the ovule should go into the fallopian tube and drop through the vagina as part of your period. In people that have endometriosis, the ovule has fallen outside so that there's little pieces of tissue that are hormone receptive, just either stuck to your colon or to your bladder, somewhere they've landed in your pelvis.
33:52 Speaker 03 Every single month, when they get the trigger from the estrogen and progesterone surges, they start swelling up and getting inflamed. So the pain from endometriosis comes from inflammation. Anything you can do, there's medicines, there's surgery, and I'm not a GYN, but anything you can do to decrease the inflammation will help with the pain. Calcium and magnesium before periods help with the inflammation of the endometriosis. And sugar is no good.
34:24 Bunnie XO? Yes.
34:24 Speaker 03 Sugar is the devil, so it goes, I love it. I love that devil. But it doesn't serve us well when it increases inflammation. So gluten is super inflammatory, sugar is super inflammatory, alcohol, because it's mostly, sugars are super inflammatory. So if you wanted to try to mitigate that pain, just for shits and giggles, see what happens when you decrease your sugar, just maybe the two weeks before your period.
34:52 Bunnie XO? I haven't had sugar in two and a half years, and it's been a game changer.
34:57 Speaker 03 Right.
34:57 Bunnie XO? For my body.
34:58 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:58 Bunnie XO? Game changer for my body and for my mental health.
35:00 Speaker 03 Yep.
35:00 Bunnie XO? My anxiety used to be at a 22, my anxiety's at a 2 now. If I start having a panic attack, I can control it. Like, it's, it's been a godsend. I don't think people realize how bad sugar just wreaks havoc on your body.
35:14 Speaker 03 For sure. Because when you don't have, when you, when you have it a lot and you don't have it, you go into withdrawals and it feels horrible.
35:22 Bunnie XO? It's like a drug addiction.
35:23 Speaker 03 Horrible, awful. But once you get through those first three days and you become a, I really don't eat sugar.
35:31 Speaker 03 How long has it been since I've eaten? So I'm not at a year yet.
35:34 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
35:35 Speaker 03 But I decided, okay, sugar is just not my friend. And you're totally right. My mood is a lot more steady. Things don't hurt like they used to. I can sleep so much better. Yeah.
35:48 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
35:48 Speaker 03 And sugar, everything has sugar.
35:50 Bunnie XO? Let's talk about sleep for a second.
35:51 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
35:52 Bunnie XO? So I know a lot of people like love to sleep. And I mean, as a teenager, you can sleep like the dead. As you get older, that sleep pattern changes. Why does that sleep pattern change? Why are some women waking up at four o'clock in the morning, not being able to go back to bed at, until 6:00 AM, 7:00 AM again, having that broken sleep? And how can we fix that?
36:16 Speaker 03 Well, we were designed to be, to sleep kind of in two stages. So, um, so as teenagers, we would wake up a little bit and then go right back to sleep. And then as we get older, we wake up and we start thinking that plant.
36:32 Speaker 03 Plant in the front, man, it's just getting too much sun. And then you start going through the rolodex of all the things to worry about. That's number one is get a hold of that train that wants to take you to worrying about stuff in the middle of the night that you can't do anything about.
36:48 Bunnie XO? Right.
36:50 Speaker 03 Number one. Number two, it's a lot, a lot of it's related to hormones. And then as we age, you just don't need as much sleep. And it's related to how many cycles of REM. But, um.
37:03 Bunnie XO? So you don't need as much sleep.
37:04 Speaker 03 You don't need as much sleep. Correct.
37:06 Bunnie XO? Okay.
37:06 Speaker 03 That's why your grandma gets up at four.
37:09 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
37:09 Speaker 03 Yeah. But she's asleep by six.
37:12 Bunnie XO? Right.
37:12 Speaker 03 Yeah.
37:14 Bunnie XO? But is grandma still getting eight hours in though?
37:16 Speaker 03 No.
37:17 Bunnie XO? No.
37:18 Speaker 03 Her body simply doesn't need eight hours.
37:20 Bunnie XO? So as we get older, how much sleep do you think we need?
37:23 Speaker 03 About five. I like, I think the magic, and this, this is. Individual.
37:29 Bunnie XO? Right.
37:29 Speaker 03 But the magic number is five because you can go into enough REM cycles to reset your brain and it's only during sleep that you can erase everything from the day before.
37:42 Bunnie XO? Wow.
37:43 Speaker 03 Otherwise, if you're, if you're not sleeping and you're not resting, your brain remembers the car that almost hit you at the Kroger parking lot and things that have no, no business in today are still in there. So rest, especially, especially really good, deep sleep clears your brain, prepares you for learning, and that's when you heal wounds.
38:08 Bunnie XO? Yeah, that's amazing way to look at it. I'm like absorbing it because that's so real.
38:12 Speaker 03 Yeah.
38:12 Bunnie XO? Because I get probably about six hours of sleep a night and I've, there's some days that I wake up at five hours and I'm like ready to rock and roll.
38:19 Speaker 03 Great.
38:19 Bunnie XO? But then I tell myself, I'm like, should I get three more hours? You know, because everybody says you need to get eight to 10 hours of sleep. And I'm like, who has, first of all, who has the time? Secondly, like, yeah, sometimes I don't want to sleep eight to 10 hours.
38:30 Speaker 03 Yeah. And if you could give yourself a gift, it's if you, if you could give yourself the gift of sleep, give it to yourself on the front end. So go to sleep early.
38:37 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
38:38 Speaker 03 Uh, rather than staying asleep longer.
38:41 Bunnie XO? Later.
38:41 Speaker 03 Because the quality, quality stuff that heals you is at the beginning of the night.
38:46 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
38:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
38:46 Bunnie XO? Wow. Okay. I didn't know that. And I have been trying to make myself go to sleep early and I just, I just can't do it. But, okay. So here's another question from Gina.
38:55 Speaker 03 Okay.
38:55 Bunnie XO? She said, do you have any home remedies for H. pylori when antibiotics don't work?
39:02 Speaker 03 Hmm. What a great question. So I do not. I do not. That's, that's the short answer. But H. pylori is a bacteria. And then there's a little bit of, of controversy about this, whether it's a bacteria that's always in your gut, that doesn't cause any problems and it lives happily with the others. But the, the general consensus in medicine is H. pylori can cause ulcers and those ulcers can cause gastric cancer. So in general, we want to get rid of H. pylori. The gold standard for diagnosing H. pylori is either a stool antigen or a breath test. If you're diagnosing H. pylori in blood, then you're getting a false positive because once you've had it.
39:48 Speaker 03 And you treat it, you will always have the antibodies. So if you took the medicine for H. pylori, you eradicated it, but you're checking your blood to see if it's still there, then you're always going to be positive, but the H. pylori is not actually there.
40:02 Bunnie XO? Wow.
40:03 Speaker 03 So before you do any, any home remedies, make sure that what you're, what you're seeing is not just the antibodies, because just like anybody who's ever had mono, you're going to see mono antibodies and not necessarily the mono infection.
40:17 Bunnie XO? So they would need to take a stool sample?
40:19 Speaker 03 Yes, a stool sample or a breath test.
40:21 Bunnie XO? Okay.
40:22 Speaker 03 And advocate for yourself.
40:23 Bunnie XO? Yes.
40:24 Speaker 03 Tell your doctor, hey, I really want to know whether it's just the antibody or whether I have a reinfection.
40:30 Bunnie XO? Hmm.
40:31 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
40:31 Bunnie XO? I'm telling you, there's nothing more humbling than pooping in a lunch cart.
40:36 Speaker 03 Correct.
40:36 Bunnie XO? In the hot dog. The hot dog container.
40:39 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:39 Bunnie XO? You never, just feel so humbled.
40:42 Speaker 03 Yes.
40:43 Bunnie XO? To just stand in a bathroom, holding a log.
40:45 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:46 Bunnie XO? Yeah, it's crazy.
40:46 Speaker 03 There's few things.
40:47 Bunnie XO? Yeah, a few things. I don't, and everybody always wants to do those and I'm like, can we not?
40:51 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:52 Bunnie XO? I just don't, but you know what, they're necessary, so you guys, please do it.
40:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:56 Bunnie XO? Um, Brandy wants to know, how do you stop perimenopause itching? I've heard this so much from women that say that.
41:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
41:06 Bunnie XO? They get like the worst itching.
41:08 Speaker 03 You mean vaginal itching?
41:10 Bunnie XO? I'm not sure. I've heard people say that it's on their skin, in their ears, like, but does it happen in the vagina too?
41:17 Speaker 03 Oh my gosh, yeah, that's where I mostly, that's where, that's where most of the itching occurs.
41:23 Bunnie XO? New fear unlocked.
41:24 Speaker 03 Yeah.
41:25 Bunnie XO? Holy fucking shitballs.
41:26 Speaker 03 I'm here for you.
41:27 Bunnie XO? Okay.
41:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, no.
41:28 Bunnie XO? I'm going to be dragging my hootenanny on the fucking carpet like a dog.
41:31 Speaker 03 Yeah. Um, so.
41:33 Bunnie XO? It's going to be wrong.
41:35 Speaker 03 During perimenopause, there's so many estrogen and progesterone surges, it can, there's receptors for estrogen everywhere, your skin, your brain, your, your organs and your vagina. So when your levels are sputtering, things change. So in that case, I would, and there's not a real easy way to diagnose perimenopause, except to look at the constellation of symptoms and they're super.
42:09 Speaker 03 Super quiet. So you don't really know your perimenopausal until you've felt crazy for two years.
42:15 Bunnie XO? Wow.
42:16 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah. Or one of your kids has mom.
42:20 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
42:21 Speaker 03 Or a Keith Sweat song didn't hit like it used to.
42:23 Bunnie XO? Right.
42:24 Speaker 03 You lose, you lose, you lose patience, you lose libido, you lose motivation and you don't really know that this is happening. So if you're itching and anything else is happening, then be on the lookout for menopause symptoms that you can control and go talk to somebody about it. You could do things like black cohosh, you could do, you could try plant sterols that could, that could mimic, or you could just get on a hormone.
42:59 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
43:00 Speaker 03 Which we know are safe.
43:01 Bunnie XO? Yeah. Do you suggest HRT for women who are perimenopausal and menopausal?
43:09 Speaker 03 If that's right for you.
43:11 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
43:11 Speaker 03 If that's right for the patient, then I don't, I don't have a single solitary problem. And when I go, I want a little bit of Jill.
43:22 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
43:22 Speaker 03 Make sure I have some on. It just, there's just so many receptors that estrogen is so important for.
43:29 Bunnie XO? I love estrogen.
43:30 Speaker 03 I love estrogen.
43:31 Bunnie XO? Yeah. Yeah. When I was going through my IVF stems, my body was loving the estrogen. Hated the progesterone, loved the estrogen though.
43:38 Speaker 03 Yeah.
43:39 Bunnie XO? My estrogen levels were like over like 1500, I think. And I was, I felt great.
43:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
43:45 Bunnie XO? I was fucking thriving.
43:46 Speaker 03 Yeah. No itching?
43:47 Bunnie XO? No itching.
43:48 Speaker 03 No itching.
43:48 Bunnie XO? No itching. I don't ever have any itching. I haven't had itching yet, thank God. But you know, listen, I've heard, I sympathize with these women who have to go through all of that. Um, so another one of our Patreon members wants to know, pooping, how to poop? I eat fruits and veggies all the time and I still cannot poop. I'm, is it because I don't eat meat? Help. Constipated from Missouri.
44:15 Speaker 03 Um, no, it is not because you don't eat meat.
44:19 Bunnie XO? Yeah, meat clogs some people up.
44:21 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, meat can slow transit. You would be surprised at how much fiber fruit doesn't have.
44:28 Bunnie XO? Right, right. Lot of sugar.
44:30 Speaker 03 Right, exactly. And you think, oh my God, this apple, I'm eating fiber. It's got three grams of fiber. You need about thirty five to forty.
44:36 Bunnie XO? And thirty grams of carbs.
44:39 Speaker 03 Right, exactly. Fucking delicious. Yeah, exactly. But it's, uh, so I would say maybe do, um, maybe do an audit of how much fiber you're actually getting and see if you can work up to thirty five grams slowly. Slowly, because if you do it all at once, it's going to cause horrible bloating and cramping. But I bet you're not getting as much as you think you are. Number one. Number two, um, make sure you're drinking plenty of water because all of that stuff has to be, um, has to be liquid. Your colon will continue to draw water from whatever is in it if you are in a under hydrated state.
45:18 Speaker 03 So if you're not well hydrated, you're going to be constipated. And add, you can add stuff like, uh, psyllium husk to your salad. Add extra fiber when you can. Um, I would do a lot of things. Exercise helps.
45:35 Bunnie XO? Magnesium.
45:36 Speaker 03 Magnesium.
45:37 Bunnie XO? Magnesium glycinate, man. If you ever have an issue with it, just pile that stuff on as much as you can take it, I think.
45:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you, and if glycinate doesn't work, citrate or oxide will make you go.
45:50 Bunnie XO? Really?
45:51 Speaker 03 For sure. Yeah.
45:53 Bunnie XO? Okay.
45:53 Speaker 03 If you take it at night.
45:54 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
45:54 Speaker 03 It helps your brain relax. And in the morning, the first thing you do is go to the bathroom.
45:57 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
45:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
45:58 Bunnie XO? I love that.
45:59 Speaker 03 I love it.
45:59 Bunnie XO? Hey, we're all gonna be pooping, ladies and gentlemen.
46:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
46:02 Bunnie XO? Although my pooping has gotten so much better.
46:04 Speaker 03 Good.
46:04 Bunnie XO? But I'm also, I've also prioritized fiber. I'm getting like ten to twenty grams of fiber a meal.
46:09 Speaker 03 It keeps you full.
46:10 Bunnie XO? Oh, yeah, it keeps you full and the bloating is real. Like, there was, the other day, I was like, I can't eat another one of my meals because I just feel like a freaking hot air balloon. Like, your tummy just gets so freaking swollen. I hate it. What are your thoughts on stem cells and, um, stem cell therapy?
46:27 Speaker 03 Okay, I love.
46:28 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
46:28 Speaker 03 I love.
46:29 Bunnie XO? My husband does it. I'm scared.
46:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
46:31 Bunnie XO? You know me, I'm scared to put anything in my body.
46:33 Speaker 03 Well, again, it's, it's gotta be the right person for the right reason. So there's things that stem cells are amazing at. So stem cells are baby cells that don't know what they want to be when they grow up.
46:45 Bunnie XO? Oh.
46:46 Speaker 03 Right. So, and when you get them from umbilical cord, they really have no idea what they want to be. So if you put those cells into a spinal cord, or if you put those cells into a place where the other cells around it say, hey, let's be muscle cells, or hey, let's be, turn into this kind of cell, or why don't you turn into one of the cells that makes fluid for this joint?
47:12 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
47:13 Speaker 03 Baby stem cells can do anything, but the stem cells that we're, that are legal right now in the United States are stem cells that are drawn from, from our body. And my stem cells are 56 years old. So they already know what they want to be. It doesn't matter what you want me to be. You know, it's harder for, it's harder for older or, or my own stem cells to want to turn into what we want them to be. So I love stem cells, but I really love stem cells from umbilical cord.
47:45 Bunnie XO? Right. Is that like adren- is that like adrenochrome? What is adrenochrome?
47:50 Speaker 03 I don't know.
47:51 Bunnie XO? Is that baby blood that everybody talks about taking is like the fountain of youth?
47:55 Speaker 03 Oh, I don't know. Is that the placenta stuff that they?
47:58 Bunnie XO? I'm not sure. I don't know. I hear people talk about it all the time. So how do you get all these baby stem cells? So are all stem cells baby, or are they a mixture?
48:09 Speaker 03 So the stem cells here in the States are, I think they're harvested from your, from your own, but in order to get the umbilical cord stem cells, you have to go out of the country. So places like Panama, Mexico.
48:24 Bunnie XO? I feel like all the good shit is not allowed in the US.
48:27 Speaker 03 For, yes, for a while.
48:29 Bunnie XO? Yeah, it's like they don't want us to be our best versions of ourselves.
48:34 Speaker 03 And they, and they don't make it affordable.
48:36 Bunnie XO? Yeah. And then, yeah, exactly. And then if it does come, it's friggin astronomical. Jen wants to know, is there a way to lower your blood pressure without prescription medicine?
48:46 Speaker 03 Oh, my gosh. Yes. Yes, there's a million ways to lower your blood pressure. First of all, look at what's going on in your life. Smoking, alcohol, bad sleep,
49:00 Speaker 03 horrible diet. So please remember that. Frito Lay has a neuroscientist that helps come up with these recipes. These things are meant to be addicting. That's why you can't eat just one chip.
49:16 Speaker 03 A can of Lipton soup has your day's supply of sodium. Sodium will raise your blood pressure. So if you have a tendency towards hypertension or family history, especially African American and Latinos, we're super salt sensitive. So cutting out the salt is number one. Secondly, magnesium. Magnesium lowers blood pressure like a champ. So a little bit of magnesium at night, you'll go to the bathroom in the morning.
49:44 Bunnie XO? Yes.
49:45 Speaker 03 And your blood pressure. It is, it is a super win. Magnesium also decreases stress. So holding, like, holding in tension all day long.
49:57 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
49:58 Speaker 03 Is bound to.
49:59 Bunnie XO? Raise your blood pressure.
49:59 Speaker 03 Absolutely.
50:00 Bunnie XO? Just even like having a stress on your mind can raise your blood pressure.
50:04 Speaker 03 Beats decrease blood pressure.
50:09 Speaker 03 Exercise decreases blood pressure and meditating, even if it's five minutes at a time, decreases blood pressure. There's a lot you can do to decrease blood pressure, but you have to want to do it. It's not something that anybody else is gonna want for you.
50:24 Bunnie XO? I would, I would just say first and foremost, diet change. Cause that a ten, nine times out of ten, it's something you're eating that's triggering it.
50:32 Speaker 03 Yep.
50:32 Bunnie XO? Yeah. Cause there was a time where I went through where my blood pressure was skyrocketing and then it would tank and it was from eating fucking rice. Rice would send me into like these, I still can't eat rice to this day because it does that to me. Friggin insane, right?
50:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's so great that you found that.
50:49 Bunnie XO? I know, and nobody else could find it. Not even Danny. And I literally had to just sit there and be like, what is happening? Mimi had to drive me to the hospital so many fucking times because we didn't know what was happening. Like, my fingers would turn blue. Like, it was crazy. And it was all from fucking rice. Jasmine rice. Like, who would have thought?
51:06 Speaker 03 I would not have thought that.
51:08 Bunnie XO? Um, Tiffany says, "Thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. I had a hysterectomy nine years ago, but kept one ovary because I didn't want to go on hormones. Recently, I had a little blood after urinating, but there wasn't any pain at all. It was fresh blood. So I called and went to the doctor. She did a urine test. It was positive for trace. I just went back today and another urine test. What can cause small amounts of blood in the urine without any infection or pain after a hysterectomy?"
51:39 Speaker 03 Um, the hysterectomy was nine years ago.
51:41 Bunnie XO? Yes.
51:42 Speaker 03 And, um, and there's one ovary. Do we know how old?
51:46 Bunnie XO? Uh, no.
51:48 Speaker 03 It's okay. It's okay. Um, so your uterus and your ovary are unrelated to your bladder. It sounds like, so the urinary tract and the, and the, and the parts that make the baby are not connected at all. So this would be completely unrelated to your hysterectomy, unless, unless your ovary has stopped producing hormones and now you're in a perimenopausal state and you've got vaginal dryness. Um, and that can bleed a little bit, just because it becomes so delicate and friable. But it's, if I had to guess, um, I think she had a
52:30 Speaker 03 little bit of cystitis or a little bit of inflammation of that, of the, that little sphincter where the urine comes out. Um, and that could cause it. Just a little irritation of the urethra or a little bit of cystitis. And if you drink too much water before a urinating, uh, before a urinalysis, it's gonna look like it's clean.
52:50 Bunnie XO? Right.
52:51 Speaker 03 Cause you're gonna dilute that.
52:52 Bunnie XO? Wow, so maybe next time she gets tested, don't drink a ton of water.
52:55 Speaker 03 That's right.
52:56 Bunnie XO? Just to be sure.
52:57 Speaker 03 That's right.
52:58 Bunnie XO? Perfect. Can we talk about mammograms?
53:00 Speaker 03 Yes.
53:01 Bunnie XO? Because I got my first mammogram about two years ago, but I have been reading all of these horror stories about mammograms and what they do to you and what they do to the breast tissue. Do, what are your thoughts on mammograms?
53:17 Speaker 03 So, um, generally good.
53:21 Bunnie XO? Yes.
53:21 Speaker 03 Uh, generally good. I, um, you know, it's recommended that, uh, we have mammograms three to five years. And the reason why they recommended that is because by the time you find a breast cancer, even if it's this size, we can still take care of it and you have the same, um, the mortality rate is about the same, but I want to find it when it's super small. So my personal preference is 12 to 18 months. The technology that we're using for mammograms is so much better. You don't have to do the squeeze. You know, it used to be like, put your breast in the door. Yeah. Put your breast in the door and squeeze it. Right. Uh, yeah. Now the squeeze is not as bad.
54:06 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
54:07 Speaker 03 Because the, because the images are so much better, but.
54:11 Bunnie XO? I, I've seen the lay down ones too, that you can do.
54:13 Speaker 03 The ones where you.
54:14 Bunnie XO? Lay down and you're like, yeah, I'm gonna find one of those out here.
54:17 Speaker 03 Those are, are you talking about an MRI?
54:19 Bunnie XO? No, it's a mammogram.
54:21 Speaker 03 Oh, so cool. I haven't done that yet.
54:22 Bunnie XO? Yeah, I'll have to send it to you.
54:23 Speaker 03 Uh, but I would say unless you have a super compelling reason not to, and I can't think of one.
54:31 Bunnie XO? Right.
54:32 Speaker 03 Um, do it if not for yourself, for the people that you love, because breast cancer is. Something people shouldn't die of.
54:42 Bunnie XO? Right.
54:42 Speaker 03 We can find it so easy. So if you, if you're gonna squish your breasts and there's other times in your lives when your breasts get squished.
54:50 Bunnie XO? Right.
54:50 Speaker 03 If you're gonna squish your breasts for 15 seconds.
54:53 Bunnie XO? Yeah.
54:54 Speaker 03 Let it be for something useful.
54:56 Bunnie XO? For sure. I think that, I think a lot of people are saying that the radiation is what's bad.
55:01 Speaker 03 The jury is out on that too. I, I'm okay with taking my chances about the radiation. It's not that much, long transatlantic flights get some radiation too, and you don't see people not doing those. So in this case, I just kind of leave it to, to God that I'm gonna give myself a little bit of radiation so that I can be here for my daughters and their kids.
55:28 Bunnie XO? All right, fine. I'll go get my mammogram next week.
55:30 Speaker 03 Do it.
55:31 Bunnie XO? I've been putting it off and I'm trying to have every excuse, but I'll do it for sure. All right, let's do one more question. Um, let's see. Elizabeth said, I had shingles really bad almost two years ago. I've had high anxiety, dreams and nightmares every single night since. Seriously, every night. Cortisol levels have been tested and we're fine. Help.
55:53 Speaker 03 Wow, that is, that is super interesting. If the shingles were bad enough that you had a PTSD reaction to, to the shingles, then that's something that is, that, and listen, we're getting out there, but that's why my practice is fun, right? Because I can incorporate this.
56:13 Bunnie XO? But it's so real, because I was gonna say the same thing. Maybe it was traumatizing for you.
56:17 Speaker 03 100%. If that pain took you to a place that you had never been before, then perhaps it keeps trying to get out and it's during sleep that you, that you take things that you experienced and put them in the spot where you, you, you just remember them. So that's why EMDR is so good for soldiers, because it takes reliving an experience and it tosses it over to the side of the brain where you just remember it. I would be super curious to hear more about that shingles experience and see if that's something that we can, that we can help process. I can't help wondering that her body doesn't feel safe.
57:00 Bunnie XO? Right, yeah.
57:02 Speaker 03 Because shingles is no joke.
57:04 Bunnie XO? Yeah, absolutely. I believe that 100%.
57:07 Speaker 03 Yeah.
57:07 Bunnie XO? Dr. C, thank you so much for coming. Why don't you tell everybody where your practice is and what your website is and if they want to book with you and come and meet you and, you know, just join your practice like I have. I literally am never letting you go.
57:20 Speaker 03 Oh.
57:21 Bunnie XO? Tell them where to go.
57:22 Speaker 03 Well, I'm in Franklin. I'm right on the corner of Brentwood and Franklin. It's called Be Well Integrative Health and our website is bewellihp.com.
57:33 Bunnie XO? Okay.
57:34 Speaker 03 And if I am not the right fit, if, if my model of practice isn't the right thing to, for you, drop me a line. Let us help you get you to the right person because you deserve to be cared for by someone who cares about you. Yes.
57:51 Bunnie XO? I just love your spirit.
57:52 Speaker 03 Oh, I'm grateful. Thank you.
57:54 Bunnie XO? You're just literally, you're like my husband. You guys are just earth angels.
57:56 Speaker 03 Oh, thank you.
57:57 Bunnie XO? We're so, we're lucky to have you.
57:59 Speaker 03 Thank you. Thank you.
58:00 Bunnie XO? I appreciate you and thank you so much for coming.
58:02 Speaker 03 Yeah, thanks. Thank you so much.
58:03 Bunnie XO? Yay. Thank you guys for tuning into another episode of Don't Blonde. I'll see you guys next week. Bye.
Previous Delilah: The Untold Story Behind Radio's Most Comforting Voice Next Ask, Tell, Confess: This One Had Us Gagging Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated