Sex With Emily - Menopause Myths Your Doctor Still Believes

Starting point is 00:00:03 The first thing I tell women is that you don't get through menopause, you go into menopause, and you never leave. Because that is the third stage of our life, where we enter into a hormone-deficient state. So my philosophy is, why would you ever deprive yourself of these beautiful substances that keep you youthful and help reduce your risk of chronic illness? You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily, and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. Okay, so when you hear the words pelvic floor, what comes to mind? A visit to the

Starting point is 00:00:39 OBGYN, maybe. The truth is, the pelvic floor is a hidden superstar of sexual pleasure for vulva and penis owners. We all have a pelvic floor, but the problem is we don't always know how to take care of it. Well, that changes today because you're about to hear from the pelvic floor expert herself, Dr. Patricia Wallace. On this episode, I talked to Dr. Wallace about living your best life in your best body, and how focusing on the pelvic floor helps unlock our feel-good potential. We discussed the intricacies of orgasm, because guess what? When you strengthen your pelvic floor, your muscles contractions get more intense and tiny muscles you did even know you had to start amplifying your pleasure. We also heal pain and prolapse through pelvic floor rehab. Involve owners

Starting point is 00:01:24 will find a lot of relief hearing Dr. Welles discuss aging and hormones. Turns out you can nurture your hormonal health well into menopause without scary side effects. Leave it to a doctor to put our minds and our volvils and our penises at ease. All right, everyone, enjoy this episode. Okay, so let's talk about one of my favorite ways to upgrade your solo or part of play. It is the Hera by Jeju. It's a sleek, powerful rabbit vibrator that's basically the best of both worlds. It's incredible for internal stimulation and those rumbly, mind-blowing clitter vibes Jeju is known for. Here's what I love. The external ears are powered by the same motor as the Mimi, which you've heard me rave about before. I love the Mimi. And the internal arm delivers deep satisfying vibrations right to your G-spot.

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Starting point is 00:03:47 and the scent alone just sets the mood. So whether it's foreplay, massage, or just a little moment of connection after a long day, this is your reminder that pleasure starts with touch. And common confidentials massage butter makes it effortless. Get 15% on. off your order with my code, sex with Emily at checkout. That's sex with Emily for 15% off at Common Confidential.com. That's common confidential.com. Dr. Patricia Wallace is dedicated to restoring pelvic health and women's wellness with the goal of supporting women living their best life, regardless of age or condition. Her focus on women's wellness includes comprehensive and integrative treatment for pelvic disorders, pelvic flore dysfunction, sexual health, menopause, and

Starting point is 00:04:35 bioidentical hormone therapy, including biotech, pellet hormone replacement therapy. You can find more about her at pelvichealthwellness.com, and our Instagram is pelvic health wellness. Dr. Wallace, I'm so excited to be here in your office today. Thank you for having me because this is such a huge challenge for so many. I know you work with men as well, right, but it's mostly women. But we all have pelvic floors. And we all sometimes have challenges with our pelvic floors over time or especially I know for women, childbirth, hormone changes as we get older. So talk to me about pelvic health and wellness. Why is it important? So thank you so much for being

Starting point is 00:05:14 here. I can't even tell you what an honor it is to meet you, by the way. This is my practice. This is my dream. This is my baby. And I have so many amazing ideas of how to continue to develop education, awareness, and inspire women to live their best lives in their best bodies. So my field is called Eurogynecology or female pelvic medicine reconstructive surgery. And that field as an entity, as a specialty, takes care of all pelvic floor disorder. So what is a pelvic floor? Yeah. What is a pelvic floor disorder?

Starting point is 00:05:49 Right. So we all have pelvic floors. You said it already. Yes, we do. Yeah. And the pelvic floor is an underachiever because none of us really know what it is. So it is made up of the muscles that hold our trunk, our legs, our bones, everything together. It's basically the foundation of your core.

Starting point is 00:06:07 And it's interesting, I didn't really understand this until maybe the last five years that our core is made up of our abdominal wall, our back muscles, our glutes, and our pelvic floor. And men and women have the same exact pelvic floor. We have all the same muscles. And these muscles help us with our truncle stability. They help us stay continent. They help us have good sex. And so it's unfortunate that not many people are aware of their pelvic floors. Right, exactly, until there's a problem with it.

Starting point is 00:06:36 Until there's a problem. And so that leads you to pelvic floor disorders. Okay, so let's talk about that. So someone comes to your office. What's going to bring them here? So I see women age 16 to 100. My oldest patient is 100, and she's a spitfire. She's so amazing.

Starting point is 00:06:49 She's amazing. But what usually gets women into my practice, And actually, on average, women see five different doctors and maybe wait six years before they come to a practice like mine. Amazing. The first thing that brings women to the practice is recurrent bladder infections because women have sex and we get bladder infections all the time. All the time. And so I have little tips and tricks that I told women all the time about how to do that. Okay, can we just?

Starting point is 00:07:14 Like massive biohacks. I kind of want to go there right now. We can go there. Okay, just really, are they quick hacks? Quick, quick, quick. Because I get that question all the time. All the time. Why do I keep getting a UTI? Why? Why do I keep getting, why do we do that?

Starting point is 00:07:25 Well, it's mechanical. It just pushes stuff around and things get shoved in our urethra and our bladder is receptive to bacteria. And so all the basic tips that we know about or some women actually don't know. You know, you have to void after intercourse. Yeah, pee after sex. Or really, any sort of play, you have to get the urine out. Right. And then certainly maybe rinsing the area. These are little tips and tricks. But my biohack is taking a supplement called de Manos. Have you heard of that? No. So D-Manos is a sugar that travels through the body undigested, lands in the bladder, makes the walls slippery, and the bugs stick to the sugar, and then they wash away.

Starting point is 00:08:01 Oh, so that helps from women who are getting repeated bladder infections. And so I put women on that all the time. Got it. So those are the 16, maybe the younger women coming to see you. Yeah, actually. So women young, sexual as a trigger, but then you hit menopause. Hermones go down. Estrogen reduces in the vaginal area if they're not taking supplements. and then we have that secondary peak in life of recurrent UTIs in menopause.

Starting point is 00:08:24 And I see so many women who then avoid intimacy in all shapes and sizes because they're worried about bladder infections because they're so painful. Wow. I have heard that they're getting UTIs again. And again, this is because of the loss of hormones, estrogen. Which puts their ureth at risk. Exactly. Okay.

Starting point is 00:08:41 So, I mean, doesn't it ever amaze you that there's women that more than half the population is going to go through menopause? And something about paramedopause to menopause, it could be like a 10-year transition. And yet, we know nothing. We do. It's still shrouded in mystery. It's still you call the transition or the changeover. But this is why I'm doing this show because I get so many questions about this all the time.

Starting point is 00:09:02 What do I do? I'm going through paramedopause. Is it paramedopause? My partner's going through it. She doesn't want to have sex. There's pain all the things. And so I feel like you get that every single day. Every day.

Starting point is 00:09:11 What would you say? Like, a woman comes in. Like, let's talk about that. A woman who's like, I think it's parimenopause. what's your first step? So the first thing I tell women is that you don't get through menopause, you go into menopause and you never leave. Because that is the third stage of our life, where we enter into a hormone-deficient

Starting point is 00:09:29 state. So my philosophy is, why would you ever deprive yourself of these beautiful substances that keep you youthful and help reduce your risk of chronic illness? So the whole concept of transitioning into menopause, menopause just means one year, no bleeding. And then you're postmenopause, but I use them interchangeably. And the 10 years leading up to it is the peri menopause where we start to have mood changes and our cycles go crazy. And our sex drive drops precipitously in like our 30s because testosterone is just going down,

Starting point is 00:10:01 down, down. And so once we hit that wall, everything gets low. And my really goal is to educate women before that so they know and prepare for this stage of life and help them have better vitality and longevity. And it is about hormones, which is unfortunate because it has a bad rap from 20 years ago when there was the study that sort of scared everybody off of hormones, and that study is really not very applicable these days. I talk about the study that said that you shouldn't take hormones because it's going to cause

Starting point is 00:10:29 breast cancer. Correct. Okay. The women's health initiative. Women's health initiative that said that. So, yeah, there's a lot of women's like, well, I can't take hormones. Because I hear from women of all ages who are having hormone challenges. It could be from the birth control pill.

Starting point is 00:10:40 Right. It could be from other medications. there's just so many things that we just didn't understand about hormones, and we're starting to understand now. So you start with them testing the hormones first? I do. So we have a comprehensive questionnaire, and I'm always asking women about their life goals, their body goals, their wellness goals. So most women want to lose weight. Everybody's afraid of cancer, but what people don't know is that we die more of heart disease. So I'm like, we just need to make a plan for your wellness for the rest of your life. And then we talk about their sexual wellness. So how we're, how we're

Starting point is 00:11:12 is your orgasm? And I ask all the time, how's your orgasm? Is it clitoral? Is it vaginal? Because I'm learning so much even at this stage of my life of how to access those things. What did I say? 80% of women can't have a vaginal orgasm. That is tried and true even in my practice, like the answer. But here's an interesting fact. 80% of women can't do a pelvic floor contraction. And so I think they're related. And that's why I think chair works for that. Oh, they can't do the, they can't do the kegles squeeze. They can't. And I think it's related to your ability to tap into the vaginal orgasm. I know that the guest you had said it was technically like the G-spot, lower clitoral orgasm,

Starting point is 00:11:47 but I still think there's a higher up vaginal orgasm. Okay, wait, talk about this. Let's talk about the machine then. Yeah. So this is like basically an orgasmic machine. Well, I mean, everybody wants to call it an orgasm chair. What I would say is that my experience with women, and I check women every single day, is that one, we don't have body awareness on how to identify muscles in our abdomen,

Starting point is 00:12:06 in our pelvic floor. They can't do a kegel or pelvic contraction. And so I send women to pelvic floor physical therapy to learn technique and breath because we don't do the right breath, right? And it's funny when I go around for BTL, the first thing I do at the beginning of my lecture is I teach the entire audience how to do proper yogi breathing with a pelvic floor contraction. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, Dr. Wallace is going to walk us all through how everyone, yes, even you listening, can do a cagle. Can we do that? Let's do it. Okay, let's do it.

Starting point is 00:12:47 Oh, this is important. It's so fun. So I've learned this from the physical therapist. So the first thing you want to do is make your feet flat on the floor. Okay. And then kind of scoot your triangle, your perineum, a little bit more forward on the chair. So you can kind of feel it. So you can rock back and forth on your sit-offs and hands are on your knees.

Starting point is 00:13:06 And then let's just do a couple of breaths before we work on the pelvic floor. So in yoga, we breathe in and we puff our belly up. Okay. And as we exhale, pull your belly button in and you're doing it perfectly. Let's do it again. And then exhale. Now I want you to think a little bit about your perineum. And when you exhale this time, notice if it lifts.

Starting point is 00:13:25 Paranium, let's just explain it for the list first. So parame is the space, the triangle that's between your sit bones. So imagine like the front of your pubic bone back to your tailbone. And you just want to sit forward a little bit. And one of the tricks, the physical therapist says they roll up a towel and you sit on it so you can feel it. But you can feel it pretty good if you just kind of sit forward. And all genders can be doing this right now. Men and women have the same pelvic floors.

Starting point is 00:13:47 And so the men in the audience have to do it too. I hear them breathing and doing it. Yeah, they're like, we have cattle. We can do it. So we're going to inhale and puff up our bellies. And as you exhale, you feel your pelvic floor, lift up a little bit off the chair. It's like a little natural elevator. And do it again.

Starting point is 00:14:01 Yes. And then exhale. And you can really pull it up if you practice. But it's so opposite. When you're breathing out, you're lifting it up. It's the opposite of what you think. It is. Well, that's why it's so tricky.

Starting point is 00:14:14 It takes a beat. So that's kind of how you can locate it. And a lot of times we do it. We do it. We're just like pulling in and squeezing our butt cheeks. Okay. So you have found that women that aren't able to do that, because I always say it's your pee stopping muscles. Right, which we don't want people to do it while they pee because it's not good for your bladder.

Starting point is 00:14:30 But you can do it just to check it. Right, just a check. I always say it's the pee, because just so you guys know what we're talking about in the vicinity, it's your pee stopping muscles. Like, let's say someone's knocking on the bathroom door and you're peeing and you're like, oh, I got to stop. It's those muscles. That's your, but it still can be hard to identify and to make sure you're doing it right. Right. So now you have this emcella chair.

Starting point is 00:14:50 This chair blew my mind that you could stand a chair fully clothed and it does your cagles correctly. It does. Well, it does them for you. For you. And, you know, my discussion with women is, first of all, we can't do enough to ever get strong. And who wants to stick a vaginal weight in there and walk around and try to do bodybuilding when we're just trying to even get shapely in our arms and the rest of our body? So I'm just like, I have no time for that.

Starting point is 00:15:14 I did it once. I wore it around to a meeting and that fell out. It's embarrassing. Exactly. That's a problem. It rolls out your pants and onto the floor. It's embarrassing. So the chair, the M-Cellah chair, M meaning electromagnetic, cella meaning chair in Greek, delivers

Starting point is 00:15:29 supermaximal pelvic floor contractions, and it actually gets the entire pelvic floor. Okay. So even when we're doing or practicing those, we can't recruit all of those muscles, and it's made up of a bowl of muscles of very fancy names, right, of the pelvic floor muscles. And so it actually does about 12,000. thousand of those in a 28-minute session. Okay. And first I was like, well, I don't know if that's a good thing.

Starting point is 00:15:53 Right. Like, do you ever, can you do 12,000 in a lifetime? No, right, right. And so that's what I, to women, like, even one session, you do more than you would ever do. Okay. But what happens is, just like any muscle that you fatigue, you get bodybuilding of your pelvic floor. And so after you've done the base of six sessions, which is what they figured out, gives you that predictable result.

Starting point is 00:16:11 Okay. And there's MRI data to show that the muscles are thicker and lifted. So they've actually done scientific studies, which I think is amazing. That's just the anatomic changes. Okay. So what are the other changes? They looked at quality of life questionnaires that reduces incontinence. Which is sneezing and peeing.

Starting point is 00:16:32 Sneezing and peeing or you've got to go to the bathroom and I'm leaking before I get there. But the last studies that they've done in the male studies are about to be published too is that women have an improvement in all. five domains across the female sexual function index. So lubrication, arousal, desire even, satisfaction and orgasm, just from the six sessions on the chair. You're serious? Yeah. That's incredible.

Starting point is 00:16:54 So you're saying the women that were previously not even able to do this cudgel squeeze correctly after six sessions. They had satisfaction, if you were. It's more satisfaction than before. So whether they can actually physically recruit their own muscles and have that mind-body awareness has not been actually looked at because that's hard to impact. You know, I can give women hormones, send them to physical therapy, give them vibrators, and they're not going to get all five domains increased on that.

Starting point is 00:17:19 And then for men, what are men saying? Well, so they're studying that. So I don't actually know the results. But they're looking at orgasm and men. I'm hoping there's going to be some data on erectile dysfunction. But I think that all men who have post-prostectomy, 95% of men, have urinary incontinence. So men need to get in here and sit on this right away. Because no man wants to go into a physical therapy office and start doing kegol.

Starting point is 00:17:42 No, you can't even tell me. First you had to explain to him that he can do cagulls and it's all the thing. We've already lost some at that point. That's a lady thing. Okay, exactly. So more, so let's go back to, we were talking about, when we were talking about orgasms, when we're coming in, you're helping them with that, and you're helping them with hormones. So you test the hormones.

Starting point is 00:17:54 I just, I mean, literally I get this every day. What do I do? Is it perimenopause? I always say get your hormones text first. Right. And then you get your hormones checked and then you look for, like, couldn't most women at a certain point or men need some hormones? True.

Starting point is 00:18:08 And so hormones encompasses a lot of things. We always think of hormones as estrogen or testosterone. But thyroid optimization is so important. So I've done a lot of studying about how to functionally improve that. And then our adrenal glands, because that helps with our metabolism and our energy. Okay. And so I look at all of those. And there's lots of different ways to test hormones. I happen to be someone who looks at blood levels versus saliva levels. And there's so many different. And there's lots of different ways. And if your doctor is an expert in that area, then you go with that. Okay. But I will say, unfortunately, that conventional doctors, conventional providers, are not going to treat someone whose lab values fall within the parentheses of the lab. And when you look at functional medicine, you have to look at the optimal range of hormones. And so my goal is to continue to help people be in the optimal range. And depending on their age, women after 30 can take testosterone because all of us are low. And the challenge is that we don't have an FDA-approved form of testosterone for women.

Starting point is 00:19:07 So all of us who take care of women are treating off-label. but it's fully accepted. And the ranges that we get women in are outside the lab parentheses, which some people would look and go, oh my gosh, your testosterone is too high. Well, we're not giving them sex change levels. We're giving them levels to feel awesome and build muscle and have a really good sex drive.

Starting point is 00:19:29 Okay, so you're finding that once you replace the hormones and a lot of their, and it's also, it's estrogen, testosterone, progesterone. Depending on the age. Depending on their age and what they need, that you feel, how does their sexual functioning change? Like, what is the differences that you see? So it's interesting because I will say that women lay a little bit older, like 40s to 60s, they see a bigger bump when you give them testosterone than someone who's younger. Okay.

Starting point is 00:19:52 Right. Because it's not all about testosterone and desire. I mean, there's so many things that you know, right? Right. A lot goes into it. I mean, it's life and it's body image and it's, do I like my partner? Do I like myself? Right.

Starting point is 00:20:05 So it's not that everyone needs hormones, but is there any, like, basic advice you have? just like how you said you had your hacks for like UTIs. Like what are the first steps for women who are thinking that it's perimenopause, let's say? So definitely don't stop asking questions if your provider like shuts you down. Like keep going because if you don't feel right, if you don't feel good, I can't tell you how many women come to me and like, my doctor says my labs are normal. I'm like, well, they may be normal, but maybe we can optimize you with supplements. Supplements are important too. Right? Maybe we can look at blood flow. Let's do some.

Starting point is 00:20:38 enhancers sexually if we need to do that, just even for sensation. What's an enhancer sexually? Well, there's like so many different things that we can do, right? I mean, there's like, that's another hack, right? So there's this, there's this spray that you can do under your tongue, not down there, that has L. Arginine and Norvaline in it. I've heard about this. Which feeds into the nitric oxide pathway. And there have been studies that Viagra doesn't really work in women. Right. But this kind of feeds that blood flow arousal kind of component. Right away. Is it immediate? Well, so it's supposed to be a daily supplement just like anything else. But I tell women you can probably take it like a couple hours before if you know you're going to be intimate because I feel like there's a little surge.

Starting point is 00:21:15 A surge, okay. So there's like little hacks like that. I think we need this. And I think we have to normalize the fact that every woman's going to go through some change in their sex drive and their desire and their bodies. So I hear what I hear a lot, which is sad and it makes me sad for women is that, you know, I feel bad for my husband because I just don't really want to have sex anymore. I'm like, Don't you feel bad for you? Because having a good orgasm and good sex is like amazing. And let's figure out how we can tap into that. Yeah. It's like we have orgasm amnesia. When we don't have it, we forget that we liked it. We're like, no, you like sex. Remember? Don't you want that too? It sounds like that's what you're saying to them. It's true, but you know, you get to talk to so many different people. And in sort of the regular population,

Starting point is 00:21:57 a lot of people haven't really ever even had the amazing orgasm. And some women are relying on their partners to give them orgasm. And I'm like, You need to watch sex with Emily because you're responsible for your own pleasure. You're responsible for your own orgasm. And then you can share with your partner what you need, orgasmically. And I'm trying to educate women younger now. So I'm seeing like sort of the postpartum population. And I teach a...

Starting point is 00:22:19 Let's talk about that postpartum. Right. That's a whole other thing. And we teach a class here. And we teach to couples who are pregnant. And I'm like, this is what's going to happen to your pelvic floor, but this is what we can do afterwards. And by the way, it's two and now it's three.

Starting point is 00:22:32 How do you get back to you and you as a couple? And so we normalize what it's like to be sexually active during pregnancy, what it's going to be like in that fifth trimester, fourth trimester after transitioning back to a normal intimate life. And what happens with your hormones are really low, you have no sex drive, everything hurts, you might have a scar now. And how do you get back to that? Well, this is what we have to normalize this as well, because most of when we have postpartum depression and we just don't like, oh, I had, people have to come out and admit it. I would think that every woman would have something, like after, because your hormones are going to change. So wouldn't you have some kind of depression or mood change afterwards? It's common to have some sort of transition. But I will say that it's natural that the hormones

Starting point is 00:23:17 are down and we're breastfeeding and that serves a purpose to nourish the baby and not get pregnant again. Honestly, I know we're getting so many questions too from people saying, pregnant sex, can you talk about it? What happens? So if a couple comes in, what do you tell someone's going to happen. Let's say during, what kind of sex should they look for during pregnancy? I mean, if you have no risk factors, you can have any kind of sex you want during pregnancy. And there's so much blood flow down there that you might have like the best sex of your lives. You know, again, normalizing that. Positions are obviously like side lays a really good one because the belly gets in the way and it's not comfortable to be on your back.

Starting point is 00:23:52 Exactly. When you have this big belly eventually. And then postpartum, depending on childbirth, you know, you just have to wait until things are somewhat healed because everybody has, it is still somewhat traumatic. It is traumatic. Well, that's the other thing. I think that doctors, a lot of them tell women, you're going to be great in six weeks, and they're not, and then they start feeling depressed. Yeah. How many women are really ready at six weeks? It's not really realistic. No, it's not. It really isn't. I would say like three months is probably realistic. So exactly. After the break, Dr. Wallace and I set the story straight at how childbirth really affects the mother's body. So what would you say to women who say, like, I have some friends who are like, I don't know if I want a baby,

Starting point is 00:24:34 because I'm afraid of what's going to happen to my body. Yeah. I mean, You know, I'm a Eurogynaecologist, and I had three vaginal births. Okay. The data says that that causes incontinence, prolapse, et cetera, et cetera. But it's interesting. I'll see women who've had six babies and nothing is falling down and everything is perfect. Okay. And some women will have two babies and things are relaxed.

Starting point is 00:24:53 Okay. So you have to control the birth and not have a huge baby. And the bottom line is hopefully now. What do we not have a huge baby? How do you control that? Well, OBGYNs will keep track of the size of the babies. So you have a C-section or something. Right, which is not as readily.

Starting point is 00:25:07 And we don't want to do prophylactic C-sections because that's a big surgery. Yeah, yeah, okay. And you know, you're making scars and you have risk factors associated with that. So I would say that it's a miracle of life. It's a natural thing. But guess what? You don't have to wait to your 55 to address and prevent some of the issues that I take care of later in life.

Starting point is 00:25:26 So what happens? So what could people do right now to take care of that after they are having prolapse? Would you put them on the chair? You'd have some of the other, like, I know you've the quarter floor program. So I would even say before that, pressures on the pelvic floor, marathon runners, crossfitters, used to be a marathon runner. Volleyball players. Okay.

Starting point is 00:25:44 Right? So everybody's pounding is putting pressure on their pelvic floor. Educating women who are younger, even in their 20s. Like you need to strengthen your pelvic floor. Like the millennials, they just need to know what they need to do. I'm like, you need to have a strong abs. Why do I need to have a strong pelvic floor? So you don't pee your pants later on in life.

Starting point is 00:26:01 Just sit on the chair, you know, that sort of thing. Yeah. Be aware of your muscles. And in our 30s, when women maybe have babies, maybe not, or are starting to have different changes in their bodies. So I think it's important to know that you have to have strength in your core. And you don't have to wait till you're leaking or till you're having orgasmic dysfunction or lack of sensation with sex or you have a lower back issue. And, oh, by the way, I need to strengthen my core for that too. Because a lower back can be related to weak everything.

Starting point is 00:26:32 Weak belly, weak pelvic floor. Yeah, exactly. Okay. A lot of women are going to go to their gynecologists. Right. And their gynecologists might say, take a nightidepressant or here's some synthetic hormones, but they don't have as much of the range. And a lot of women have to go pay out of pocket. Right. Right. Because a lot of it isn't covered by insurance. Right. But that's, I'm just trying to. And then I think it's 2021 and there are more resources now and more women are talking about it. But I'm just thinking like, keep. So keep asking questions. You might have to go to four or five or six doctors. Exactly. And here's the challenge. I think that a lot of women understand. that insurance pays for illness, but it doesn't pay for wellness. And so I think that now that we're getting information out there, and women realize, like, my body doesn't feel normal, I don't feel normal, they're going to keep seeking answers until they get the right answers. And so being

Starting point is 00:27:22 your own advocate is so important. And if your provider, your OBGYN, your family medicine, doctor is not running hormones, but you need full blood panels, running, you know, getting your hormones checked, your testosterone, your estrogen, your progesterone, your DHA, which is your adrenal gland, and your thyroid. So many people are suboptimal on their thyroid, and that alone can help with your body composition, your energy. And you may not need any hormone supplementation rather than replacement. Because what I tell all of my patients is that we just outlive our endocrine glands. We're living 30 more years than we used to 200 years ago. And we just haven't caught up. So whether it's the testes for testosterone, or the

Starting point is 00:28:01 ovaries for testosterone and estrogen or the thyroid or the adrenal glands, we're going to need some sort of supplementation if you want to feel like a normal person. Okay. And it's safe. And it's safe. Yeah. This is just the information we have to get out here. We absolutely have to get out there.

Starting point is 00:28:15 So what about, is there anything else with medications or anything that you find that people are coming in for that might be affecting their ability to have sexual pleasure or to have orgasm? Right. And you've probably talked about this too, but it's true. So many women just today I saw a patient and she's like, she cannot take estrogen. because she has a blood clotting disorder. Okay. Even though if you go through the skin, it's safer, but, you know, you just kind of have to be

Starting point is 00:28:39 mindful of certain considerations. And so she was put on an antidepressant, an SSRI, which we know notoriously not only reduces sex drive, but blunt orgasm. And so does the birth control pill in certain ages of women. And so medications are a big one, hypertensive medication, even migraine medication. And so you're kind of working around those medications in trying to restore someone's sexual health. Okay. Some of the practice, we talked about the chair.

Starting point is 00:29:10 But what about the quarter floor? Cord of floor. Can you just tell me real quick about that? So I'm a big advocate of being strong. Like I think strong is beautiful. I like to lift weights. I've lived weights since I was 15. But, you know, when I was a cheerleader in high school and they decided that the football coach was going to take all the cheerleaders into the football weight room,

Starting point is 00:29:29 and we all started lifting weights with the football players. So we could be strong. And so I have never put down my weights. And so my biggest thing for my patients who are concerned about their body composition is you have to have muscle on your body. You don't have to be a bodybuilder and your body is going to shape the way it's going to shape. I had to embrace my thighs at some point in my life and my butt. And everybody's like, what are you doing to your arms? And I'm like, that's the one part I've never am sculpted.

Starting point is 00:29:52 But the bottom line is that when you have a strong core, it's more than just looking good in your clothes or your bathing. suit, it's important for your back. It helps with balance as we age. It helps with our continents. So core to floor to me is strengthening your abdominal wall, strengthening your back, strengthening your glutes, and strengthening your pelvic floor. And I am so blessed to be able to have three of the devices that BTL offers that are cordifloor devices. So the M-Sull gets the pelvic floor, but it also recruits the lower abs a little bit and the glutes, right? And you've sat on it before. I sat on the chair several times. Isn't it an interesting?

Starting point is 00:30:30 I might want to stay in the chair. I know. I sit on it once a week and I chart sometimes on the internet. It's hilarious. I've got like two computers. I love it. But, you know, the magnetic energy delivered to wherever you deliver that energy typically is going to build muscle.

Starting point is 00:30:44 And if you activate the radio frequency, which is the heat, it's going to reduce fat and tighten the skin. And I think when I first was looking at, for example, M-Sculpt, the original one, there wasn't the radio frequency. like, you need to burn fat before I'm going to get that device because I can build all the muscle I can in someone, but they're not going to see it. Right. And so I think that now that we have consistent scientific studies that show both effects.

Starting point is 00:31:11 That's incredible. So I think it's just been an amazing for me way to present to patients why it's important to be strong cordifloor for pelvic and sexual health. I mean, there's a lot of aesthetic benefits. Great. Yes. six-pack. But you know what? If you're strong, you are sexy from the inside out. And I love that. I feel confident. Yeah, exactly. I love that it's inside out. It is true because when you have that

Starting point is 00:31:35 stronger core, you just walk straight or your feel more comfortable in your body, your posture, everything. It does make a difference. It helps. I did it to help with my back pain, which I had for a long time. It's kind of miraculous. And I teach hot yoga at a studio locally. And I have some yogis that have come in and they're like, they always sit out the ab portion of class. And then they came in and do the M-cellet and the M-sculpt and they're like, well, now I know where my abs are. So they're going to do their abs. So it's almost like a forward motivator as well, even if you're not someone who's into exercise. Okay. Because you start to feel and notice parts of your body that you probably never were aware of before. Okay. And you can see that. And you don't have to be an avid

Starting point is 00:32:16 exercise. You can be someone who really has limited mobility, but just needs to build a little bit of strength. So it's just fascinating. I think the sky's the limit for the application of cordifloor strengthening. Okay. It's really important. I mean, I wish I knew all of this. So I love that you have this advice of people of all ages right now. Like if you're running marathons or you're lifting weights too heavily in your 20s, I guess when you're young, you think, oh, well, this will never happen to me or you just think about it. And then it hits us. It hits us. That's it. That's great. Well, this is so helpful. Thank you so much. I so appreciate you. Dr. Wallace, I have to ask you the five questions that we ask all of our guests. Oh, my gosh.

Starting point is 00:32:52 Ready? They're super quick. I know. They're quicky questions as we call them. Let's hope I know these. You will. Quickly. Okay. What's your biggest turn on? Hmm. Probably when someone goes out of their way to do something for me because I'm an acts of service person. Oh, okay. What's your biggest turn off? Can it be physical? Anything. Like dirty fingernails? Yes, yes, totally. That's totally legit.

Starting point is 00:33:17 What makes good sex? I think communication, yeah, between partners, for sure. Something you would tell your younger self about sex and relationships. Oh, wow. Probably that you are technically responsible for your own pleasure and that you would want to, that I would want to educate myself as much as possible now, right? Right. Right. Number one sex tip. Oh, I am such, oh, one of my other biohacks is Oshott, CBD arousal oil. I love it. Oh, okay. Did you know. I love it. So I would say use that externally.

Starting point is 00:33:55 CBD arousal oil. Yeah. O shot. Okay. Got it. All right. My favorite. Oh, my God. Good. Thank you so much. Thank you so helpful. I appreciate you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to Sex with Emily. And if you love the show, please like, subscribe, and leave a review wherever you get your podcast. And hey, share this with a friend or a partner. It might just spark something. It usually does. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and X. It's all at Sex with Emily. Oh, and I've been told I give really good email. So sign up at Sex Withemly.com for free guides and articles and more ways to

Starting point is 00:34:37 prioritize your pleasure.

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