Transcription
Okay. So today I have the pleasure to be sitting here with Dr. Hertoque, uh, who is a world expo expert in hormone replacement therapy and longevity medicine. And you know, I've been in the aesthetic world and been treating aesthetic patients for some time in Canada now. And it just seems to me that in aesthetics, we are always just treating the symptom, but we're never really looking at the causes. And there are some very common reasons why patients come to see me in the first place. And I'm going to ask Dr. Hatau today just to address some of the underlying reasons why patients would come to me and see me. And one of the, the, the symptoms that patients often have is they come to me and they've got dark circles under their eyes and they say, "Doctor, we've heard you can take a syringe of filler and put it under my eyes and I will look better. The question is, but will you feel better?" And that's where I would like to ask you your opinion on how to proceed.
Well, you know that my opinion is that doctors are healers. They're not just fixing the consequences of something. They're treating the cause. And healers, you need to treat the cause to heal completely from something. And dark circles and eyes is normally due to a lack of cortisol. So when you lack cortisol, the brain, the pituitary gland makes another hormone called ACTH that darkens your skin. But in cortisol deficiency, it darkens uneven and it will be more dark circles on the eyes. But at the same time, the borders of the nails have a little brown border. Uh, the elbows can be more brownish and you have pigment spots that are irregular. They go all together. So people with dark circles have more pigmentation problems. What is surprising is when you give the cortisol, which is a hormone many people are afraid of, but if we don't have it, we're all dead within 24 hours. So it's an essential hormone. When you provide the supplement that they need, uh, it goes away. It doesn't go away from one day to the other. It takes about six months, uh, if you have the right dose and you have, um, you give it sufficiently so it stays the whole day, but it goes away. So you can heal from it. And the advantage is that people with cortisol deficiency, they feel a little bit burned out, they're very stressed, they inflame easily, all consequences of cortisol deficiency. So when you provide the bioidentical cortisol or synthetic derivative in some cases, um, the, it goes away. The, the, all these symptoms, they feel better, they have again energy, they have a life worth living. It's not more survival, it is, uh, really a life they enjoy.
That's, that's fantastic. And so my intentions moving forward is that we want to treat our patients with a more holistic approach. And so we're going to start incorporating, uh, taking a very closer look at cortisol levels in our clients. Another very common patient symptom is we get women who are in their perimenopause. They're in their early 40s and they say, "Doctor, I look at myself in the mirror and my face is starting to sag and I just, I keep doing this. I keep lifting my tissues." And I'm thinking to myself, well, from an aesthetic perspective, how can I fix the symptom? And my go-to would be to use a biostimulator such as calcium hydroxyapatite, or commonly known as Radiesse, or polyactic acid, commonly known as Sculptra. Very well known in our industry. But what about treating the underlying cause? What is happening at that time in a person's life that they can address that will overall improve their health and give them a happier, healthier aging process?
Well, there are two types of problems. Hormone problems or hormone deficiency problems appear from age 30 on. A woman looks more, more like a mother, an older woman actually. Also after pregnancy, she looks more like a mother. It is an older woman actually. And that is due to a lack of female hormones. So from age 30 on or after pregnancy, a woman starts having a deficiency in the two female hormones, estrogen and progesterone. And when you correct that, they look better. They look younger as they were before pregnancy or as they were before age 30. And, uh, so we, um, at the clinic here, we correct those female hormone deficiencies long before the menopause when the hormones start to decline. And then you need to know is that estrogen, the estrogens, that is one of the forms of female hormones, the most potent one, also stimulates growth. And growth is the number one hormone behind the sagging cheeks. So when your cheeks sag, you get on growth, the hormone that, uh, children grow with, that it firms the body, it takes out fat, and the skin gets more elastic, the hair gets thicker, and the person feels better because when you have a growth deficiency, you feel exhausted. You are, you start, even if you sleep 12 hours, you're not totally recovered. It's the recovery hormone. So you get that back. And also with growth hormone, you have a sort of permanent anxiety. You don't know why you're anxious because there's no reason, but you feel anxious. And that goes away when you start taking growth hormone at age 30, 35, or 40, which are the ages usually most people start to take. So there are two types of hormones. The, the female hormones are what you have as problems. Women start losing their femininity. They have a droopy, um, breast. The, the eyes get dry. The hair gets flat, lack of volume. They may even have, uh, upper scalp hair loss. And that all is corrected by taking those female hormones. Including a lot of menstrual cycle problems are improved. Most of them, if not all, are improved by those female hormones. So if a woman has a menstrual cycle problem, she has female hormone imbalances and deficiencies generally, and they have to be corrected. And that will kick up the growth hormone, which will also give a sort of, um, rejuvenation. But it's also good to additionally take the growth hormone. And then you start seeing how people feel not only look better, but feel so much better.
That's, uh, that's definitely something that we have to consider. And, uh, moving forward, any perimenopausal patient now, we feel has to at least answer the questions that would pertain to the deficiency in the hormone and then follow up with the appropriate laboratory tests and then come up with a treatment plan that's included so that it's more of a holistic approach to treatment of the patient. And I think this seems to be an opportunity for aesthetic medicine to take another direction. It seems to me that so many people are seeking fixing the symptom for what they can see when they look at themselves, hoping that the aging process will be stalled. But really, it's how you feel and how you manage your life. And that gets me on to another subject, the holistic approach that you've always taken that's paramount to your practice, which is the mind and the body and the spirit. So maybe you could just capitalize a little bit on that with me.
Sure. Um, again, I start telling that doctors are healers, and that's what they're really good at. They want to cure the person of a problem and not just, uh, try to treat the symptoms or the consequences. And that includes that you, it's not only enough to treat the body, you need also to treat the mind. The mind has to be a positive mindset. Now, many people think they have a positive mindset, and they are, their mind is fixed to fixing problems. When you always look to problems, you get always problems. So you need to fix on what you already have and appreciate it and be happy with it and look at all the positive things in life. Uh, appreciation is something fantastic. Accept what, what happens and be content and happy with what you have and look at improvements and at solutions. And that's much better as a mindset because if, for example, if you are treated and the treatment works very well, but you're looking if there's any problem, you will fix your mind on the problem and you might have a little pain with an injection that was not very painful, but that you emphasize because you are looking at problems. That's not the best word. You really need to look at the improvements first and, and, uh, accessory at what might be as a problem to fix it then, but you have to really have a positive mindset. And then there's also the soul. What is the soul? Well, uh, for me, the world is full of spiritual energy, and that can help with the healing. Now, basically, what I, uh, teach or help patients be aware is that if that spirituality is feeling, it is not thinking. Religion is like a belief system. You believe in something. That's thinking. Uh, spirituality is really feeling. Religion is, um, believing in God. Spirituality is feeling God inside of you and around you. And so, uh, what we teach is that people have to accept all their feelings that they have. The way to overcome a spiritual experience, and everything is a spiritual experience or opportunity. Whatever you do, even a daily task can do that, is to accept the feeling that comes and feel it inside of you. If you do that, after that, the feeling goes away, the fear or the anger or the joy that sometimes people withhold, and you feel good, you feel relaxed, and there's good blood flow because for the physical and medical treatment to work, you need to have good blood flow. If you don't have a good blood flow in some organs because you're contracted because you're straining and keeping feelings inside of you that you don't accept, then the blood flow is not good and you're going to have a problem there. So many people have a problem in the place that actually was contracted with contracted muscles. And, uh, I teach patients to, um, really experience the feeling in those areas, in all the areas of the body, and then the body gets relaxed and the medical treatment can work better. So this is a body, mind, and soul. The person that works well and that is acceptable to anybody, even a person who doesn't believe in an afterlife or whatever, can understand that if his or her body is more relaxed, everything works better. And, uh, I can tell that people often are enthusiastic by this approach because that's why they come for the doctor. They don't come for the dark circles. They come to feel much better and to look much better. And you look much better when you're happy and in accordance with yourself, when you're yourself. So I also teach people not to be like I would like them to be or their parents or family, but to be as they are and just to shine. You're changing the world by shining, not by doing a lot for others.