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Prepare to have your health questions answered here on Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions

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with Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center in downtown Ventura.

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Now here's Dr. Todd.

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Good afternoon.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, board certified doctor of non-force chiropractic and practitioner

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of functional medicine.

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What is that you say?

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What is functional medicine?

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What's the difference between functional medicine and regular medicine?

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Well, regular medicine, quote unquote, well the medicine that most people get from most

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doctors, traditional allopathic medicine, whichever your favorite term is, is mostly

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based on identifying disease you already have that requires medical care, that requires

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a prescription for a pharmaceutical that you may be dependent on for the rest of your life,

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that requires surgery or a scan or a referral to a specialist.

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So mainstream medical care is there to save your life.

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It's very important.

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We're blessed to have the best medical care system in the world right here in the United

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States of America.

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But you know, waiting until you need medical care isn't always the best idea.

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A lot of people are interested in that.

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That's probably why many of you are listening to this show.

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And so we think of talk about things like, well, alternative medicine or integrative

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medicine, what are all these things mean?

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Well, basically if you don't want to end up dependent on medical therapies that have side

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effects and can be very costly and might even make you worse, might even kill you.

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The figures change every year, but somewhere around a hundred thousand people give or take

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are killed by properly prescribed medication every year.

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So nobody wants that.

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Functional medicine means using more tests.

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It takes more tests.

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It's really easy to diagnose full blown diabetes or liver failure or kidney disease or heart

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attack or a stroke.

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It requires few tests to do that because the results are glaringly obvious and predictable.

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It requires doing more tests to identify things that are not working a hundred percent.

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Places where your immune system or cardiovascular system or digestive system might need a little

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bit support.

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It requires doing a few more tests and a different type of analysis, a different yardstick to

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measure whether or not things are within range or not.

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So the medical ranges, the clinical ranges, the standard ranges on every blood test ordered

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at every hospital or lab core or quest or wherever you can normally get your blood work

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done, those ranges are to determine whether or not you have a diagnosed medical condition.

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If your A1C is above 5.6, you have pre-diabetes.

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If your cholesterol, total cholesterol is above 200, you have hypercholesterolemia and you

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must take a statin drug right now for the rest of your life.

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Well, no you shouldn't.

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That's a bad idea.

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But the point is these broad medical ranges are to identify the presence of a disease

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that is already full blown, that is already a diagnosed condition that you need medical

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care for.

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So there is, and that's an important range to have, it's an important range to use.

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I use it on every single patient, every single test.

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It's right there on the form.

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But there's also a functional range that is not on the standard forms that you only get

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if you go to a practitioner of functional medicine.

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And this functional range is narrower than the medical range.

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It's roughly the middle third of the medical range.

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It's an approximation.

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It varies for your age and the health condition you're in and a few other factors.

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But what does your blood work look like when you're perfectly healthy in your teens and

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in your 20s?

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That's what this functional range represents.

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That's how it's been determined.

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It's been created and tweaked and modified and further developed over the past few decades

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by naturopaths and functional medicine practitioners, alternative health practitioners, whether they're

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MD, chiropractor, acupuncturist, naturopath, anybody that's interested in preventing disease

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and preserving health as opposed to just waiting until you need medical treatment have been

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refining what's been established to be this functional range.

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And it varies from one practitioner to the next even a little bit.

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But there's a pretty general consensus now about what your blood work should look like

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when you're healthy.

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And when you identify things that are outside of this narrower, healthy functional range,

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the range that represents the normal function of your liver, your kidneys, your immune system,

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digestive system, et cetera, then you can usually correct those things with better food,

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with exercise, gentle exercise, and supplements where necessary to replete deficiencies that

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show up on these tests.

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You can also identify things like exposure to toxins that you need to flush out of your

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body or hormone deficiencies, imbalances in your neurotransmitters, infections in your

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gut and elsewhere.

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So there's a whole host of other tests that just are not part of standard medical treatment

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that you get when you go to most doctors that are the realm of practitioners of the practice

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of functional medicine.

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So if you or anyone you love, someone you love is just, you know, they've been told

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is suffering, they've got something that's bothering them, that's been bothering them

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for years, maybe you've seen a dozen doctors and no one's been able to help.

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Well, if you haven't had a functional analysis and proper testing, you probably haven't.

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If you haven't, then there probably is a solution that these other doctors will never find.

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To find something, you must first look for it.

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And most doctors never look for functional deficiencies, for nutrient deficiencies, for

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deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals and enzymes and essential fatty acids and

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amino acids and a whole host of other things that our bodies depend on to function normally.

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We can survive without them, but we cannot thrive without them.

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And these are identifiable through proper testing.

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Last week I talked about patients asking me a question about can I help someone with menstrual

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cramps, severe menstrual cramps.

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And I cited an example of a teenager, a 14-year-old girl who had severe menstrual cramps.

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You know, it's normal to have some cramping on the first two or three days of your cycle.

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It's not normal to have severe cramping and pain for 10 days or two weeks of your cycle,

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which is what she was having.

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And I'm just thinking now of another patient I had who was in her 40s who was still having

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severe cramps, who had had severe cramps on and off.

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Not the whole time, but on and off.

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Never really got rid of it for many, many years, decades.

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You know, 10, 15, 20 years or more, I think, as I recall.

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And she'd been to several different doctors and been prescribed muscle relaxers and painkillers.

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But you never want to be on those things for too long.

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The muscle relaxers make you drowsy and painkillers are addictive, cause all kinds of side effects,

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can damage your liver and your kidneys, et cetera.

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And so what did I do?

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I helped this woman tremendously.

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She had been in pain for so long and I completely eliminated her pain, got it back to, well,

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not completely eliminated, but got it back to where it was within an expected range where

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she had a little bit of pain the first couple of days of the cycle and then felt fine the

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rest of the month.

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And she was just, she thought it was a miracle.

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She literally, she used that word.

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She said, oh my God, it's a miracle.

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So what did I do?

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Well, I identified some spasm in some muscles that were not, not necessary, not in the muscles

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of the uterus is very difficult.

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It's possible, but very difficult to palpate the uterus and not necessary, not comfortable.

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But muscles near the uterus, in the abdomen last week, the teenager that I talked about

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had spasm in the psoas muscles.

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This woman had spasm in the muscles of her back and in the muscles of her intestines.

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And this is something again that most doctors never even check for.

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Doctors are trained to palpate the abdomen to see, for example, if you have internal

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bleeding, if you push hard, you know, just without a lot of skill on an abdomen that

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should be, you know, relatively soft and it's really rock hard.

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Well, that's a sign of a big chunk of clotted blood that's happened after someone has internal

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bleeding from a trauma injury.

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So ER doctors do that all the time as a routine part of an examination where they suspect

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possible internal bleeding.

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But much more delicate, gentle palpation of the abdomen can help identify among other

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things spasm in any muscle in the abdomen, on the surface of the walls of the abdomen,

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deeper in the walls of the intestines and deepest the psoas muscle and some of the other

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deeper muscles like the diaphragm, like the uterus, et cetera.

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But mostly you don't have to go that deep to identify the ones that are problematic

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the most.

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The psoas you do.

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But for example, and I see this all the time, I palpate the abdomen.

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Palpate just means, you know, touch, use a little pressure to feel, identify tension,

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the presence of tension that's more than normal.

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So all of your intestines have an outer wall made of connective tissue that forms the structure

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of that pipe.

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And then they have just inside that a muscular wall that contracts in special ways that like

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a wave like contractions that help move the food through your intestine.

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And then they have other layers that absorb the nutrients from your food and do other

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things as well.

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So anyway, a lot of people are surprised that they have muscles in their intestines.

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But of course, everyone remembers that your intestines do have to push your food through

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your intestines and that is going to require muscles to do it.

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So you can get the quote unquote butterflies in your stomach when people are nervous about

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something and they feel that cramping in their intestines.

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That is literally that that's what you're feeling.

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You're feeling the muscles in your intestines cramping and maybe some other ones as well.

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You might feel some muscles in your back or that psoas muscle I'm always talking about,

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muscles of the abdominal wall.

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But it's really common.

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Most people have had if you've ever had anyone who's had the experience of quote unquote

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butterflies in the stomach or being nervous and feeling kind of a tension or cramping

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or pain in the belly.

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That is literally what it feels like when these muscular walls of your intestines over

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contract or contract instead of in a nice wave like motion like they're designed to

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do to move food through your stomach.

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They just go into a spasm where they sort of flutter or just get stuck on and literally

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just some parts will just contract nearly fully or close to a full contraction and get

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stuck that way.

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And they can get stuck that way for months, for years even.

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And you never really know because no one ever you don't know how to check for that on yourself.

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You could if you knew how to but most people don't know how to do that.

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Most doctors don't know how to do that.

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It requires specialized training and a sensitivity to be able to gently feel whether or not the

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tension in the walls of your intestines is normal.

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And it's easy to demonstrate when I palpate someone's abdomen when I feel for that tension

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I can show you.

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This is what it's supposed to feel like.

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Nice and soft.

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No hard spots.

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Nice and you know it's easy to push in and out there like the Pillsbury Dough Boy or

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whatever.

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And here's another spot that feels quite a bit more firm, quite a bit more tense than

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that other spot.

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Can you feel the difference?

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Oh yeah.

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What's that?

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Well it's spasm in the muscular layer of the intestines.

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So this older woman I think she was about 46, 47 something like that was having severe

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cramps had them for years and it was mainly caused by spasm somewhat from spasm in the

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wall in the inner back muscles but mostly in the walls of her intestines.

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And you know so the menstrual cycle itself can refer pain to the intestines and then

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just the pain itself and the anxiety around the pain and just the feeling horrible can

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cause your muscles in the walls of your intestines to go into spasm.

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So it becomes a vicious circle.

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So you can interrupt that cycle anywhere.

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You can relax the back muscles first but that might not completely relax the small intestine

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muscles or the large intestine muscles.

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It's mainly the small intestine muscles I'm talking about.

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The small intestine fills most of your belly.

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Large intestine is kind of on the edges.

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So you know most of your belly is filled with your small intestine.

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It's about 30 feet long.

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There's a lot of tissue there that can spasm.

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And relaxing that might relax your back.

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Relaxing your back might relax your intestines.

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Often not relaxing your intestines might relax your back.

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It's really best to identify all of the muscles that have tension in them that shouldn't be

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there and then help your body figure out how to relax those muscles on its own.

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So I help your body relax them on the table and then give feedback to your brain that

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enables it to learn how to keep those muscles relaxed.

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And as I mentioned last time anyone that has cramping from any cause in the belly whether

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it's menstrual cramps, muscle spasm, gallbladder issue, putting moist heat, any kind of a heating

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pad on your belly is a great way to relax the tension in muscles in the belly.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley.

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You're listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions to Almost Any Health Challenge.

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We've been talking about menstrual cramps and that brings to mind another really, really

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common problem is that often goes undiagnosed or untreated or at least not treated properly

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as women who have a really heavy menstrual flow.

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So how do you know if your flow is heavy or normal?

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Well, most women ask their friends, their family, mothers, siblings, etc. and have a

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pretty good idea.

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But just in case, it's normal to bleed from anywhere from two to seven days and the average

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woman loses anywhere between one to six tablespoons of menstrual fluid during each period and

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it can vary in color.

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But one reference is if you're using maxi or super pads and have to change them more

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than once an hour and that's a pretty severe cutoff, then that is not an abnormal flow.

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It can cause dangerous loss of blood and you should consult a doctor.

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But most women know if their flow is more than normal and just think that that's normal

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for them and that there's nothing they can do about it.

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Or obviously if, or if it's not so obvious, anytime your flow suddenly becomes more than

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it used to be, then that's something you should definitely get checked out.

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Any menstruating woman who is not supplementing iron in some form or another from supplements

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or food is going to be functionally anemic.

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Well, what does that mean?

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I went to my doctor and I had my blood tested and I was told that I'm fine, I'm not anemic.

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Well, that means nothing because functional anemia is really important.

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I talk about this distinction between mainstream medicine, these broad ranges to identify full

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blown disease versus the narrower functional range to see if your body is actually working

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as it should.

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And this is one of the most important examples of that difference.

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A slight anemia, just a tiny anemia, tiny deviation from the broad range puts a constant

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strain on your heart, a constant mild strain, but a constant strain.

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24-7, 365, your heart has to work harder to pump oxygen, circulate crappy red blood cells

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that are struggling to deliver oxygen to all of your cells because you're not making enough

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new ones in the bone marrow.

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So most men who are not bleeding from hemorrhoids or an ulcer, for example, and women who are

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not menstruating can usually get all the iron we need from food, especially if you eat beef.

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And there's some other foods that you can get iron from like oysters, beef liver is

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really high.

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I'm looking at the National Institutes of Health iron content of selected foods.

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You can look this up on the website, white beans, lentils, spinach, chocolate, kidney

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beans, sardines.

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So fish, fish meat, and some nuts and beans are basically at the top of the list.

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But check this out, the US RDA, the US daily value recommended daily allowance RDA of iron

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is 18 milligrams.

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Well, the top of the list, next the second to the top of the list is oysters, three ounces

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of oysters have eight milligrams, and not many people eat oysters very often.

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White beans, a can of white beans, a cup of white beans, eight milligrams, three ounces

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of liver, five milligrams, lentils, spinach and tofu, three milligrams, and then most

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of the rest of the things are either one or two milligrams per serving.

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And you know, so the servings, if you look at all these things, the servings and the

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amounts that are listed don't add up to 18 milligrams per day for anybody's typical diet.

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So how do they come up?

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How do they make that work?

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Well, the top of the list for recommended foods to get your 18 milligrams of iron every

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day is fortified breakfast cereals.

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Well, that's just a crappy supplement.

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Breakfast cereals are almost always not fit for human consumption.

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There's as many nutrients in the box as there are in that crap carbohydrate sugar laden

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non-food manufactured product that people call food.

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And you know, magically, the US RDA of 18 milligrams is exactly what they put in fortified

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cereals.

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That's definitely not how to get the iron you need.

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So how do you know if you're functionally anemic?

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Simple, just get a CBC.

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Well, actually not.

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So more than a CBC.

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Most doctors, that's not even true.

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Most doctors should, and if you have signs of a cold or a flu, they'll check your CBC.

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If they suspect you have anemia, they'll do a CBC, a complete blood count.

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CBC means complete blood count.

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But you know, a lot of people, most of the time when people bring their blood work into

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me and they've been to their annual physical or had some kind of routine blood work, it's

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very more often than not, maybe 20% of the time, I'm guessing, do they even do a CBC,

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a complete blood count?

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It's like $15 to do a complete blood count.

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It should be done regularly and everyone at least once a year.

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And so if your iron is deficient, then eventually your red blood cell count will go down, your

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hemoglobin will go down, or your hematocrit will go down.

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These are three different ways of measuring the heme, which is the iron part of your red

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blood cells, that is essential for making the oxygen carrying capacity component of

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a red blood cell.

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If you've ever tried to donate blood and they check your hemoglobin, if it's below 12.5,

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they won't allow you to donate blood because you are anemic.

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But even if your red blood cell count, your hematocrit and your hemoglobin are normal,

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you can still be anemic.

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And the only way to know that is if you also test ferritin.

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Ferritin, and you can remember that because ferrous sulfate, for example, is the most

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common type of iron supplement.

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Fe is the abbreviation for iron on the periodic table of the elements in chemistry class.

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And so ferritin is the storage form.

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That's where your body stores iron in your liver and other tissues throughout your body.

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And some of it is in circulation, which is why you can measure it in a blood sample.

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But if you don't know your storage tank, whether your storage tank is full or empty or halfway,

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then you don't know whether you're not anemic.

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So for example, I see this all the time.

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I'll tell people have been, women have been told especially that they're not anemic because

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their red blood cell count hemoglobin and hematocrit are normal.

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And I'll test their ferritin and it's off the charts low.

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It might be 10 or 20.

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And what that means is that your bone marrow is still doing the best it can to crank out

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red blood cells with the limited amount of iron you're giving it.

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Robbing Peter to pay Paul and that's going to come at a cost eventually.

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So it's really important to do a complete blood count and test your ferritin levels

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to see if your storage tank of iron is full or not.

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So as with most vitamins, I recommend people ignore the recommended daily allowances or

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the US government's daily values of vitamins, all those things you see printed on the labels.

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Those are meaningless, useless numbers.

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Those are designed to tell you the minimal amount you need to prevent a severe deficiency

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disease.

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They have nothing to do with the amount required to keep you healthy.

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When someone shows up with anemia on blood tests, the supplement that I give them has

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29 milligrams, which is a lot more than 18 to fix an iron deficiency anemia.

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And I don't know where most people are getting their 18 milligrams of iron when all these

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food sources are so much less than that for foods that people don't even eat that often.

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What's really happening is our bodies are very good at conserving iron.

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If we're not bleeding, our body recycles the iron and we shed very little of it.

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So we need to eat very little on a daily basis.

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But if we are bleeding through menstruation, the main cause, obviously a gunshot wound

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will cause a lot of bleeding.

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But the common ones after menstruation are ulcers in the stomach, some part of the digestive

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tract and hemorrhoids.

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So if any of those things are happening or even if they're not, the only way to tell

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for sure is to do the blood test, including ferritin, the storage form.

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So the frustrating thing is I see women, so many women over the years, who already know

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that they have iron deficiency anemia.

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Maybe they even have been told by their regular doctor, oh, you have iron deficiency.

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You need to take an iron supplement.

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Oh, I can't take iron.

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It causes, it hurts my stomach.

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It causes cramping.

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It causes constipation.

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This is very common because the most common form of iron supplement is ferrous sulfate.

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Nobody should take ferrous sulfate.

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99% of iron supplements on the market are ferrous sulfate.

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If you get a prescription for iron from any regular doctor, it's virtually guaranteed

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to be ferrous sulfate and no one should take that.

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Why?

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Because it causes constipation and cramping.

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The proper form of iron, which has never caused any symptom in any of the hundreds, probably

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over a thousand, maybe a couple of thousand women I've given over the past 30 plus years,

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has ever had any symptoms from taking the bisglycinate form of iron.

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So if you know someone who has iron deficiency, please tell them to get bisglycinate iron.

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It's a chelated form of iron.

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You're probably not going to find it at Costco or Trader Joe's or GNC.

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That's why I recommend you not buy supplements in stores because you get what you pay for

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or people buy those things because they're cheap and they often don't work.

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So if you or anyone you love suspects they might have anemia, get it checked.

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It's really important to know, even if you have a slight anemia because it puts a constant

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mild strain on your heart.

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It can also increase your blood pressure, increase your risk of a stroke or a heart

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attack and it will always contribute to fatigue, tiredness, lack of energy and delayed healing

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to any part of your body.

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It can make it more difficult for any part of your body to get all the oxygen it needs

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all day long and all night long.

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Healing and repairing of that tissue will be delayed, whether it's in your liver, your

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kidneys, your muscles, tendons and ligaments, your skin, especially your joints and your

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nerves because these are the slowest healing tissues in your body.

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If you know anyone who suspects they might have anemia and thinks they cannot take iron,

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shoot me an email, have them give me a call and I'll come up with a solution that will

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work for them.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley sharing with you safe, effective natural solutions to almost any

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health challenge.

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I look forward to the privilege of speaking with you here again next Friday at 2 p.m.

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Have a blessed weekend.

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You've been listening to Safe, Effective Natural Solutions with Dr. Todd Binkley.

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If you have a health question you want discussed on the show, email your health questions to

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drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter.com.

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Take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions for yourself and for your loved

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ones because our health matters.

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Join him next Friday at 4 p.m. for Safe, Effective Natural Solutions right here on 98.3 The

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Word, KDAR.