Here follows the second part of the conversation with the alternative practitioner Ina Asmus-Brütt. If you are just joining us now, you can find the first part here.
Ina Asmus-Brütt: We women are highly sensitive beings and we usually know how we feel and what is good for us and what is not good for us. And I think it’s so important to strengthen that, that’s the be-all and end-all, so that we can simply grow old happily and healthily, otherwise it won’t work.
Susanne Liedtke: Keyword “values”, which values do you take from where?
Ina: First of all, of course, I look at what the patients bring with them. From time to time, they bring values, whether thyroid values, which are always particularly important to me, they are always such a fundamental factor. Then there are also hormone values in the blood, which I also look at. But if all this doesn’t really make sense to me or I think that we should go a little deeper, then I also like to take the saliva hormones, because there I really see the free hormones that are available, which then simply make up the body feeling for the woman, so to speak. And there I am sometimes very surprised even with young women, how low they are with the progesterone and with the estrogen.
Susanne: Explain again the difference for you from the blood values, so hormones from blood values to hormone measurements from saliva.
Ina: So for me, the hormones in the blood are simply in bound form and when I have the saliva, it’s really the ones that are available to me at that moment and there’s often already a big discrepancy, what’s still okay in the blood, but in the saliva I see, the woman is simply in an undersupply. And how I approach this now, whether I say, okay, we have to do more mineral balance here or also proceed homeopathically, I then decide individually.
Susanne: Then you just gave the keyword “thyroid gland”: is this an issue for every woman? Women are clearly more affected by thyroid diseases. I recently attended a lecture by you on the subject of the thyroid gland, can you tell us something about that?
Ina: Yes. The thyroid gland is the superior hormone gland and when estrogen and progesterone decrease in the female area, then there is often a disorder in the thyroid gland or an autoimmune disease, such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which also upsets the hormone system. And often it’s such a starter, in these hormonal changes, that the thyroid just doesn’t give the beat properly anymore. And I have the thyroid values of all patients shown to me, even if they say that my doctor said that they are okay, then usually only the TSH, that is, the higher instance is queried and FT3, FT4, which is actually important for the thyroid gland, is not examined at all,
… let alone that antibodies have been determined. And that’s just a basic requirement, before I even go into the hormone system, I then examine the thyroid gland in the blood.
Susanne: Okay. And tell me… list the values, you said TSH…
Ina: FT3, FT4 and again the TPO, if it goes into hyperfunction, so then into the autoimmune disease of Graves’ disease, then you also take the track antibodies again, but they are usually detected. It’s more about the patients who then have an autoimmune disease in the direction of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
Susanne: But that also means that a hormonal fluctuation or imbalance in the sex hormones is also strongly affected or influenced by the thyroid gland.
Ina: Yes, so there are both possibilities. The adrenal gland also plays a role, but that would be too much to go into now. But when I am under a lot of stress, it is often the case that the adrenal gland also plays a major role. This can also be checked with a hormone saliva test, with a cortisol daily profile. So there are several possibilities to simply check where I stand and what I have to do for my body.
Susanne: And besides thyroid values and hormone values, can you tell us which other micronutrients you look at?
Ina: I always look at vitamin D, because it is important. Then once again the B vitamins, which are also very often in heavy use, and again zinc and selenium are simply also very, very important parameters. Sometimes magnesium, but so… these are the basics that are important in any case when a woman comes with hormonal disorders or with physical conditions.
Susanne: Yes. One question again, when is such a relationship between you and the patient, you say so, when does it go round, when is it good?
Ina: When we work together, that is, when I make suggestions and she also tells me what her wishes are, when it is such a cooperation, that is, when I don’t have the feeling that the patient just wants to give in and I should now give the tablet, so to speak, and then everything is good, but when we find such a consensus, where we work together. That’s what I enjoy so much about my work, that I sometimes get tips from patients and they say, oh my gosh, I’d really like to give that a try.
… maybe like to look again, then I’m not the one who says, I’m the therapist and I decide, but it’s really about me that we have a good cooperation.
Susanne: That is, one could say that you strengthen the patients’ personal responsibility.
Ina: Yes, very much. It is always important to me that they look at what kind of therapy I need, what is important to me, and sometimes I leave the dosage up to my patients. So I give a guideline, but I always say, look how you feel physically and then decide how much you need. And for many patients this is a point where they realize, okay, I’m doing something myself and I don’t have to give in, but I’m involved in the decision-making. This co-decision, that’s so important to me.
Susanne: Yes. So listening into the body and then actively working together.
Ina: Yes. Because I just think that we women are highly sensitive beings and we usually know how we feel and what is good for us and what is not good for us. And I think it’s so important to strengthen that, that’s the be-all and end-all, so that we can simply grow old happily and healthily, otherwise it won’t work.
Susanne: When women come to you between 40 and 50, 55, then yes… we talked about hormones, so the hormones start to go down, but also to fluctuate. Then, yes, in case of very severe symptoms on the way to menopause, hormone therapy is advised, also based on the guidelines, that is then recommended. What is your attitude towards hormone replacement therapy?
Ina: I think hormone replacement therapy is good, as long as it is nature-identical hormones. I also like to work with creams, simply because you don’t necessarily have to take it orally, but you just smear it on thin skin areas, because then the blood circulation or the liver metabolism is outside and it just goes directly into the body and I need low dosages.
So, sometimes I also work in the D4, homeopathic dosage, also with nature-identical hormones and that is often enough for the women that they get again such a small push. It doesn’t always have to be a one percent progesterone or a 0.1 percent estradiol cream, but low dosages are also sufficient.
Susanne: That means, when I come to you relatively early in my phase from 40, then you say… you push the hormone metabolism again with homeopathic potencies….
“… BECAUSE IT IS ALWAYS GOOD TO MENSTRUATE FOR A LONG TIME … THIS IS THE BEST WAY WHERE WE WOMEN CAN DETOXIFY EVERY MONTH.”
Ina: Potencies or even with herbal medicine or homeopathic remedies. So that’s often enough, sometimes it really just needs a little boost, because it’s always good to menstruate for a long time, just to keep the detoxification going. This is the best possibility where we women can detoxify every month and therefore it is also good to use this… yes this possibility. If we don’t have menstruation afterwards, we always have to look at how do we keep our detox going, what can we do. And sometimes bloodletting is also good for many women, simply to give the body the opportunity to release toxins.
Susanne: You mentioned two things, one was detoxification, which I would like to talk to you about, and before that you said that it is important to menstruate for a long time. Many women say, I could do without that, I don’t need it, something like that, but here I hear something different now.
Ina: Yes, exactly. For me it’s really the main detoxification module, so to speak, that I have and it’s such a shame when women just suppress it for themselves. I can understand that when they go on vacation that they say they don’t want to have it, but there you can also with trivial things… just times with a lady’s mantle you can just as well continue the cycle as if you would take a pill now. So there are simple ways to just support the cycle and it also makes us feel good about living with the cycle.
Susanne: On the keyword “detox” I would like to hear, what am I detoxing from?
Ina: Well, today we have a lot to do with environmental toxins, whether it’s heavy metals, whether it’s pesticides, whether it’s antibiotics, which we take in every day and …
… we simply have to deal with greater detoxification blockages today … heavy metals that we have in our mouths for example. And therefore it is a great gift for the women, diseases of the women occur most after menopause, so simply because they then no longer have this detoxification function. So it is always important to look there and really I always congratulate the women and that is also really such a tendency that the women also want to be cyclical again and just no longer resist it so much, but say, no, they just want to feel their normal cycle again. So also many young women who took the pill at the age of 14 and then somehow say, I would like to learn and feel and sense this again.
Susanne: Now you mentioned lady’s mantle earlier, which can have an influence on the cycle, can I also eat a special diet and thus influence my cycle?
Ina: Yes, of course I can simply look at what kind of food I eat during certain phases. If I say, for example, okay, I would like to take progesterone-containing foods, that I say, for example, okay, I take yam root or angelica root, which I can cook in the soup, according to Chinese medicine. So there are many ways to just go through diet as well. For example, estrogen via the pomegranate, that I then take a lot of pomegranate or drink pomegranate juice. These are possibilities that are banal, simple and especially when I notice that my body is getting out of rhythm, I can support this well.
Susanne: So I will buy pomegranate right away. That is, in the first half of the cycle, for example, pomegranate, promote estrogen….
Ina: Support estrogen. In the second half then rather more progesterone promote, so that is for many women just yes, very important, there simply again to support. Yes, you can simply do one or the other.
In the third and last part of the interview with Ina, you will learn how important it is to find a health partner for menopause – be it an alternative practitioner or a doctor – who listens to you and takes your complaints seriously.
You can find more parts of the interview on our YouTube channel:
Part 1: “That’s when complaints like insomnia, heart palpitations, maybe even sweating, irregular menstrual cycle, loss of libido is a big issue. That they just realize they don’t feel comfortable in their skin anymore.”
Part 3: “The biggest problem with women from 45 to their late or mid-60s is that they get pushed incredibly quickly into the track of psychotropic drugs.”
Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash
