Transcript of Episode 37: Hormone Testing and Solutions
With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Warren Phillips, David Asarnow and Merily Pompa.
Warren: We're live! Cellular Healing TV, episode—what is it, Dr. Pompa? Episode—
Dr. Pompa: Thirty-seven?
Warren: Thirty-seven. Welcome to the call today. We're on a really hot topic. We have Dr. Pompa's wife, Merily Pompa, who is the queen of the hormone havoc talks and information when it comes to makeups.
Dr. Pompa: Hormone havoc.
Warren: Just havoc. She's going to bring some wisdom and enlightenment. Part of her journey with the reason she is the hormone queen is because she's walked through it with Dr. Pompa over the years. Her mummy—her mummy—her mother, my aunt, actually—mummy! Oh jeez, you can tell I'm from Pittsburgh already, right? That's a Pittsburgh word. That goes back to the episode earlier, Cellular Healing TV Episode 36, where we went over accents and the different southern dialects in South Carolina, so make sure you watch that. That was actually on the immune system and Ebola, so go back and watch that Healing episode. Let's get into this topic, Dr. Pompa and Merily. Thanks for joining us today. Hormones and testing and how to do the right tests, how to balance your hormones, and how long does it take. Some of these questions, and what do you do. Let's get into it today.
Dr. Pompa: Yeah, I wanted Merily to be here. Gosh, many of you have read R5. If you haven't, go to “Article Archive,” DrPompa, and read it. We talk about methylation, and how methylation affects many outcomes, good and bad, in our body. Really, we need methylation to protect our DNA. Without enough, you start to trigger and turn on bad stuff, whether it's a thyroid condition or any hormone condition. Without methylation, you end up building up toxic hormones. We had Merily on, I think, one of the previous shows, and she talked a little bit about it. Just recently, we just got one of her posttests on her hormones. This is a test that we've talked a lot about. It's the test that you've heard me say saved Suzanne Somers's life and it saved my wife's life. It would've saved her mother's life. Your aunt, mommy, however we want to—
Merily: Mommy.
Dr. Pompa: Mommy. We'll go with mommy.
Warren: Back into that one.
Dr. Pompa: Mommy's life, too. It saved this mommy's life for sure, no doubt about it. I used to call my mother mommy. I'm just going to take some of your embarrassment away.
Merily: He said mummy.
Dr. Pompa: That was a Pittsburgh thing.
Merily: Yeah, but he said mummy.
Dr. Pompa: I said mummy, too. We're all from Pittsburgh, so we say funny things like slippy. It's very slippy outside today. Actually, not today, but it will be as soon as it snows. Anyways, this test is a 24-hour hormone test. This is the most accurate one test. Look, saliva brings some benefit, even blood can bring some benefit to hormones and certain hormones. As a general, all-around test, this test, I believe, gives you the most bang for your buck, most information, to say. I believe some of the most life saving information, because it looks at these toxic estrogen metabolites, which are really the cancer causers. Merily, when we first did this test on you, you had the two biggest problems. I'm going to go through that and show them what you had going on. You body has phase one and phase two estrogen metabolism, meaning how it gets rid of these toxic estrogen metabolites. We know that if you don't get rid of them, it puts you at great risk for breast cancer, uterine cancer—really, any hormone dysregulation problem, most of which end up in cancer. This is why I believe this test is so darn important. It also gives you a real view of—see all those arrows. It gives you a massive view of the whole hormone pathway. Just in a nutshell, if you start up here, this would really start with cholesterol. From cholesterol, you make these hormones, which turn into progesterone. You can see cholesterol, the bad cholesterol, LDL, is really the big precursor to all of these hormones. Then down here, we can assess your adrenal output, which, your adrenal output was terrible on some of these past tests. She's not improved greatly. Then of course, over here, your male hormones, which—well, that can determine sex drive and just how you recover, etc. Down here are all these estrogen metabolites that can turn toxic on you and go into cancer. That just shows you how this really flows out and how it can impact so many different parts of your health. Then, this is a graph that shows two parts of estrogen metabolism. This is phase one, where we look at a ratio, good and bad estrogen. You don't get this from blood. If you're over here way in the red, like you were in the very beginning—and she's crept across to where she's now in the safe zone—then the methylation pathway, which when people are way over here, which she started with basically a zero. Now she's moving right on the edge of being okay.
Merily: I had more red than green. Now I have more green than red.
Dr. Pompa: Anyways, the bottom line is that when we see that—she was a great risk for cancer on both of those accounts. Then one more thing I want to show you, and then I'm going to have open conversation. This is another big problem, is we see oftentimes, especially my wife being in perimenopause, that we just have estrogen over here in the red, and just you don't feel well. Now her estrogen has moved into the green, which is really good. That means she feels better. Down here, I want to show you this. When, see these reds—my wife was red in here, and this is a very toxic estrogen. She was all the way under the red. Now she's in the green. Over here with the 4-Hydroxy she was all the way in the red, and now she's in the green. That is the transition. Now, the questions that you would ask is, “Great. How did she feel before, and how does she feel now?” I think that's a good question.
Merily: That's a significant question.
Dr. Pompa: I think a better question is, how long did it take? Her test is so much better. Before, when we first—how long ago was it that we did your first test?
Merily: It was right after my mom died.
Dr. Pompa: Right after her mom died.
Merily: I always do tests after somebody falls apart. I did your toxic metals test when you fell apart. I never would've suspected that I had the issues going on that I did. I didn't have mercury but having lead, I learned, because I wanted to take the test you took. Then, of course, when my mom wasn't cooperating with your recommendations because you were worried about this stuff, I ended up taking this test, because I wanted to know if I was headed that way. I was shocked at how—
Dr. Pompa: Which test did you do first? The metal test?
Merily: That was ten years ago.
Dr. Pompa: I'm going to show you a metal test, and there's significance to this. I'm covering the name. This is not my wife's test. As a matter of fact, this person has a massive lead issue. My wife's was worse. My wife was all the way across the page. As a matter of fact, it would be somewhere out here.
Merily: I was the third highest. I'm still, today, the third—you wonder why ten years later, I still do rounds of chelation.
Dr. Pompa: I don't want to focus too much on this, but she had major hormone issues back then, despite eating perfect, despite exercising and doing a lot of good things. We knew that something was going on. We'd seen her lead that was off the chart, and then running this hormone test, really was her lead that really caused the hormone disruption. As the lead has come out, the hormones have gotten better. I think that's one of the major takeaways. Most practitioners, number one, don't run the right hormone tests. The ones that do, they'll simply just give bioidentical hormones based on this test. That can be useful, as crutches, but ultimately, it doesn't work long term. Matter of fact, I always say, it's like shouting at our kids. In the beginning, it works. Then it starts losing its effectiveness. You've been through that. You've been on many bioidentical hormones that we've used.
Merily: Shouting at the kids.
Dr. Pompa: Yes, shouting at the kids. Matter of fact, that's what caused some shouting at the kids. On point. However, the bioidentical hormones would help, and then they wouldn't, and then they'd make you more irritable. We won't go there. Ultimately, really, and we said this, Warren, at the beginning of the show, ultimately we saw this progression of each test getting better, each hormone test getting better, really, as the lead came out. We built up her methylation. The test definitely gave us ideas. We supported her adrenals. When we saw your adrenals completely tank, we put more into supporting the adrenals. Ultimately, until the lead started dropping down, the test wasn't getting better.
Merily: I haven't taken an adrenal product in months, so there was no reflection, on this test, of any support. That was encouraging.
Dr. Pompa: Yeah, exactly. No doubt about it. Remember, her emotional stress in the first test was fine. You didn't have a lot of emotional stress then. It was just completely all chemical stress. Remember, the body doesn't know the difference of physical, chemical, or emotional stress. I think the emotional stress came. You still had a chemical component, aka lead in her case. That's when the adrenals really tanked. It's typically the perfect storm of stressors, and we saw that. Her one test, her adrenals got worse as the emotional stress came.
Merily: When it came, oh yeah.
Dr. Pompa: Yeah, right, as the emotional stress came. Then, of course, it fell through the hormones. The bottom line is R1, you have to remove the source, or R5, methylation.
Warren: Your computer's shaking, just so you know.
Dr. Pompa: Oh, really? Okay, yeah.
Merily: He's pounding on the desk.
Dr. Pompa: Yeah, I was pounding on the desk, getting all excited.
Warren: I thought it was an earthquake happening in Park City, Utah, but I guess—
Dr. Pompa: Sometimes it could be, in fact, a dog underneath the desk.
Merily: It's Remy. She's belly up.
Dr. Pompa: This time it wasn't. Anyways, so my wife definitely, at times when her adrenals were terrible on this test, had an inability to adapt to stress normally. Adrenal products didn't help her a lot. It helped some, I would say. Would you say?
Merily: Yeah. I did well working upstream with my adrenals, I think. More pituitary—
Dr. Pompa: Yeah, the pituitary product, Warren, called Gb from Systemic, when she would take it, she would just sleep way deeper.
Merily: I liked Seriphos.
Dr. Pompa: Seriphos was the other product that we showed on a past show, how to support the adrenals. don't recall what the name of that show was, but I think if—
Warren: I think it was on adrenal fatigue, I believe.
Dr. Pompa: The part Seriphos definitely helped her. So did Gb. Once again, a lot of people take a lot of adrenal products, but it really is downstream. She went into the pituitary and really addressed that. The Seriphos helps protect from producing too much cortisol. Those two things made a big difference. Ultimately, though, I'd have to stress again, you have to remove the stressors.
Merily: I've been working hard at all of that from much upstream. Even the emotional stress, even though we've gone through a lot of emotional stress, there's still wounds from it that I've been working on. I can honestly say I really attribute just my faith and trust in what God has been up to to really right my heart. In that process, I think there's a lot of things that spill over.
Dr. Pompa: Yeah. Actually, let's talk about that. I think that it is appropriate. I talk a lot about chemical stresses. We all know that emotional stresses can bring a certain effect on our hormones and how we adapt to stress and our health in general.
Warren: Too true.
Dr. Pompa: Warren, you've watched Merily go through counseling from her childhood. I'll let her speak to it, but as I've watched my wife change, getting the lead out of her, physically change, it was amazing. I watched her hormones change on tests and in a lot of other ways. Watching her heal from a lot of the wounds that she had as a child and realizing that that was affecting her health. I believe it was one of your mother's big sources. Yeah, your mother had lead, your mother had these things that you had that you inherited, but again, your mother had some anger things that she never, ever, ever got out of her life, and I believe, in my heart, that always leads to cancer. If you read the story and R5 article, her mom did end up dying of cancer, and my wife was heading down the same road. That's why I say this test saved my wife's life. Talk about that, because I think you feel comfortable to talk about some of the wounds that you had as a child and how that affected you later.
Warren: It's removing the cause, right?
Dr. Pompa: It is.
Merily: Yeah, I think for me—not that I'm one to wallow in self-pity, but we've been through a lot of things that we didn't sign up for. I didn't necessarily—I only interpreted it in my head as God is sovereign, and he wants to produce something through our lives that he knows what we're going to sign up for and what we're not. Oftentimes, he will bring those things. He has one goal in mind, and that's to enrich us and make us more useful and, simultaneously, heal us from the things that are within that we didn't have any control over, aka our childhood. As these things began happening in my life, and as I began embracing them and feeling chosen and special and privileged and honored and able to glorify God, I also started to have to cohabit my body with my heart that was not responding like my head. I was definitely not liking when stressors, because of those things, would impact how I had to interpret the challenges within my life. It was hard. I had to come face-to-face—I had to stop justifying why I was doing certain things in my behavior patterns or my resentment or bitterness or certain things. I had to say that you know what, I have a choice. If I believe what I know in my head is true, then I've got to surrender old patterns of behavior and the way I'm looking at things and say, “What does God want to do with me, and how is he going to bring that about?” As I have begun, obviously, I did have to seek the counsel of a professional. It wasn't easy for me to be ready for that. Honestly, my husband pushed me, and Warren, you pushed me there. I remember even Rebecca and Danny pushing me there. I was resistant.
Dr. Pompa: You were, yeah. You didn't—just to bring it to a total understanding, she had abandonment issues from the time she was a kid. She always would say to me, “I never met my father, really. He left when I was—” how old?
Merily: One.
Dr. Pompa: “—one.” I don't miss him at all. I was like, no, that's not normal, because you grew up knowing you didn't have a father. It creates abandonment issues, which then later create certain patterns of behavior as an adult. As a child, a teenager—
Merily: Protection.
Dr. Pompa: Protection. I always saw Merily as very, very protected. Put up a very good front, but very protected. It created certain behaviors that became hard in our marriage.
Merily: It's hard to be corrected when you're protecting yourself all the time. I would always think I'm better. I always had a reason for why I did certain things, and it didn't matter that you saw—again, honestly and fairly, this is still a fair reality, you as my husband have a vested interest in my behavior being a certain way. I did resist a lot. I know you have my back, but you also have a selfish motive, too. That's peace and all thing working well.
Dr. Pompa: That's ultimately what I wanted. The bottom line was—because I don't want to get too far off track here—the bottom line is that affected her health as part of it.
Warren: Massively, yeah.
Dr. Pompa: Ultimately, it was healing that and a lot of the—I'm going to lose battery here in a second, so if you could give me that cord under there—it was getting through—she's getting a cord because it came out of my—the dog knocks it out. It was getting through that, it was healing from that, that also had a massive impact on her hormones. It had a massive impact on the healing and who she is today. It's not just physical. Yeah, she got the lead out. She had to get through that and some of the behavior patterns that really had occurred from those wounds as a child. We see that. There's people that I see that are very, very wounded physically, and have a lot of physical manifestations. It can be a combination of physiology, emotional stuff, wounds as a child, and then it manifests into a hormonal test like this.
Warren: I know that in the past, Dr. Pompa, sitting down with consults with you, a lot of times you'd be very honest with the patient as you assessed them. You wouldn't even take them on as a client or coach them until they seek professional help for their obvious wounds that were spilling out in the consult and blaming. You knew that you wouldn't be able to help them, because it was too much of an interference. Again, we're not, as health coaches, equipped to deal with some of those bigger issues. It is critical and important—if you're getting angry at every turn, you're smashing your adrenals at every turn.
Dr. Pompa: We create identities that we get attached to.
Merily: Look what I came up with.
Dr. Pompa: She's under the desk.
Warren: Down with the cord, up with the puppy.
Dr. Pompa: We create identities, oftentimes, that we don't want to get rid of, honestly, because they're protections. Those identities are working against us in every way: physically, emotionally, in relationships. Honestly, we feel like if we lose that identity, then who are we. I see that in patients, Warren. I've been much better at screening people, because a lot of times, if they're not willing to let go of their identity of sickness, I've learned that you just can't simply help those people. Believe it or not, they would never understand that in that moment, but their sickness becomes something that gains them attention and just an identity of who they are. Many people struggle with that. Again, nobody watching this is going to raise their hands and say, “That's me,” but pray about it, those who are watching us. Has your sickness become an identity? I know in your conscious mind you're saying, “My gosh, this ruining my life, my relationships, and there's nothing more I want is to be well.” Yet, there's the unconscious mind, oftentimes, is hanging onto a certain sickness because the greater fear is not knowing who you are outside of your sickness. I know that's a really huge subject. Again, just understanding wounds and life, emotions, abandonment, abuse. Any of these things can affect a hormone test.
Merily: Unmet expectations.
Dr. Pompa: Unmet expectations. You name it, it can affect a hormone test.
Warren: This is science, guys, just so you know. You can quote some of the science behind that. This isn't—I think you mentioned on the last show, what's the name of that book that's very clear on how your emotions affect hormones and health? Robert—
Merily: Mellilo?
Warren: No.
Dr. Pompa: I don't know. Maybe it was Bruce Lipton's work?
Warren: Yeah, Bruce Lipton's work. Yeah.
Merily: “The Biology of Belief.”
Dr. Pompa: Yeah, “The Biology of Belief.” We have thoughts. If you're angry, every thought drives cellular inflammation, for better or for worse. Good thoughts can down regulate cellular inflammation, whereas bad thoughts, angry thoughts, can obviously up regulate cellular inflammation. Therefore, as you know, as the cell inflames, the hormone receptors get blunted. Then you see a negative test. Warren, tell them where to go to get this test under “Shopping Cart,” because that' what people are going to say. “I want that test.” Where can they go? We make it available through DirectLabs on our site.
Warren: Yeah, let me go to our website, and I'll just walk it through myself. You go to DrPompa.com—Dr, POM like the water, P-O-M-P-A, Pa, which is what I call my dad. That's just another inside—just to bring it full circle with how I name my parents. After you go there, you would go to DrPompa.com. Then I would go to “Shop”—
Dr. Pompa: It's the last one.
Warren: Underneath “Other Products” under “Shop.” If you would scroll straight down from “Shop,” it would be “Discount Lab Testing.” Then you would click there, and there is a great discount by going through there. Then that will bring you to the site. Then you would click the “Order Tests.”
Dr. Pompa: When you order a test, do not get the drop downs. Everyone gets caught up in the drop downs, so I make people take notes, “Do not click drop downs,” because it sucks you in, and then I get a load of emails, and so does the staff. Avoid the drop down. When you click “Order Tests,” that is the page. Scroll down.
Warren: Let me tell you what drop downs are. When you scroll over it, when you put your mouse over “Order Tests,” it's going to say, “Direct Access Imaging,” “Specialty Labs.” Don't click either of those. Just click right on the original big blue square, “Order Tests.” Then, when you do that, you'll be able to see the HCF Advanced Female Hormone Panel and then the discounted pricing there, to be able to do that. You can do that. Then there's also the male version of that. I think they can order the same test, right? The same test kit can do that. Then there's also the male version of that. I think they can order the same test, right? Is it the same test kit? No, it says HCF Male Hormone Panel, which is down a little further. The HCF Advanced Female Hormone Panel.
Dr. Pompa: It should be about $673.00 for the test. Is that what it says there?
Warren: The advanced—
Dr. Pompa: No, they don't want the advanced. They just want the regular. That's why I was asking.
Warren: Oh, see I'm not even doing this right. The HCF Male Hormone Panel is $693.00, which is a great rate, by the way. That's the practitioner cost, if you go in—because I just ran the test. Then they have the HCF Female Hormone Panel, which is $673.00.
Dr. Pompa: That's it, $673.00. That's what I always tell people, is, “You'll know by the price it's the right one.” Yeah, that's the one you want. Worth every stinking penny. If this test was $10,000.00, would it be worth it? It would.
Warren: My wife has just done two of them herself. That's one other question, I know, that we have on here. We have, actually, two minutes left and wrap up, but a lot of questions we do get—this, and especially with my wife— ‘Is this a great test to take before I get pregnant,” or “Can I learn a lot about my inability go get pregnant from a test like this?”
Dr. Pompa: Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, we're looking at all the hormones in a very accurate way. Pregnancy has a massive draw on your hormones. It becomes very stressful. A lot of the people that I deal with, they were fine. They felt fine. Then they get pregnant, and now they're not. If hormones get to a certain level and stressed, it can trigger autoimmune. Then all of a sudden, it's like, “I was pregnant. Now I can't lose weight,” or “I was pregnant. After that was my fatigue started.” So much of these odd symptoms start after pregnancy, and it's because—
Merily: Mine did.
Dr. Pompa: Yeah. It's because of the stress. Again, when you look at a test like this, you can literally predict, “Uh-oh, this is not going to go well.” Each pregnancy, someone gets more and more sick, to where the bottom ends up falling out, and it wasn't by accident.
Merily: Then there's the one client that just got pregnant working with you.
Warren: I know, right? Yeah…
Dr. Pompa: Yeah, exactly.
Merily: A little caught off guard?
Dr. Pompa: For years trying to get pregnant, years. As soon as we started starting the cellular work and some of the detox, she got pregnant just like that.
Merily: Not the first time.
Dr. Pompa: Yeah, not the first time that's happened, but the first time she had been pregnant. Of course, we shifted gears. Yeah, that's exactly right. When you work upstream, you can alter the hormones that quickly. This test is a lifesaver. Again, leaving people on this note. It's not just about throwing more hormones at people. It's about fixing the cell to get well. You have to remove the source. Yeah, we've watched my wife's tests get better, but ultimately, it was removing the stressors, was removing the lead—but the test gives us the areas that we needed to support her in that, that she didn't develop cancer or another massive hormone problem. We protected her while removed the source, and that's the take-home message today.
Merily: It is consistent effort over time.
Dr. Pompa: Yeah, it is.
Merily: There is no better feeling than knowing that you've worked hard and stayed the course, despite the challenges within it. It's given indicators toward other things, too. Just knowing that at the end of the day, God wants us to be loved. He wants us to be healthy. It doesn't come easy. We live in an environment that we honestly don't have control over. Not just our emotions sometimes, but even our physical experiences and exposures to things. It's encouraging to know that there are solutions, but they're not easy.
Warren: Yeah, it's a journey. I know that until I removed the interference, Merily, of my mercury and lead things, I couldn't even emotionally think about getting counseling. I was so sick on that end, yet I still have my wounds. You've been counseling me there. “You'll go to the next level. You'll be a better husband, a better business owner, a better friend, as you work through some of the emotional toxicity that you have.” I had to remove a lot of the—my biggest issue was the mercury from my previous work. It's neat that both work hand-in-hand. When we got sick, we didn't choose it. I didn't choose to be exposed to heavy metals, and it destroyed my life for five years. However, on the other side of that, great things can happen. That's the hope—like the great things in your life, Merily. You're a better mom, you're a better friend. Our conversations are wonderful. You've inspired me to be a better person. It's neat. You can start giving back.
Merily: The encouragement within that—honestly, it's there's something calm within you. When you're in turmoil and you're struggling with different things, no matter whether they're thrown at you or they're voluntarily contracted, whatever it is—when you know that your heart and your life is taking a different turn, and you're surrendering and trusting and working on all of these things, then you look back, and there's just something in your spirit that just is settled. There is no amount of money, there is no amount of work, that is not worth that feeling of knowing that within, you have less anxiousness about your circumstances or about your life or about where it's going. It is so satisfying. I continue to take that without the excitement of—I'm an excited person, but I definitely have an edge to me that's gone.
Warren: Yes, you're free!
Dr. Pompa: Remove the interference. I've got to go do another call.
Warren: See you next week, guys. Thanks for being on the call. Share the message. CellularHealing.tv. We love and appreciate all of our viewers. Bye-bye.
Merily: Bye.
