95. Restorative or Just Routine?: How to Know the Difference

You’ve likely heard the term “restorative reproductive medicine,” especially if you’ve been following our podcast or searching for real answers to your menstrual or fertility challenges. But what does “restorative” really mean—and how do you know if the care you're receiving actually qualifies?

In this episode, Dr. Monica Minjeur walks you through the 5 core principles of truly restorative care—starting with Ebony’s powerful story of transformation after years of painful periods, short cycles, failed fertility treatments, and dismissal from the medical system. You’ll learn how restorative medicine uncovers root causes, works with your body, and uses personalized monitoring to bring lasting healing—not just temporary symptom relief.

We’ll cover:

·       Why many medical systems default to the pill or IVF

·       What makes restorative care fundamentally different

·       The role of hormone timing, ovulation support, and full-body diagnosis

·       Why education and empowerment are at the center of healing

·       And how to tell if your current care is missing the mark

If you’ve ever felt dismissed, told “everything is normal,” or left with more questions than answers—this episode is for you.

✨ Ready to experience care that actually restores your cycles and improves your health?
 Book a discovery call with our team at RadiantClinic.com to begin your healing journey today.

Transcript

0:02

Welcome back to Cycle Wisdom, where we empower women to restore natural menstrual cycles, to improve health and promote fertility. I'm your host, Dr. Monica Minjeur, and I'm so glad you're listening with us today. If you've been listening to our podcast at all or been reading the news recently, you've probably heard of the term restorative reproductive medicine, but what does restorative actually mean? Is it just a buzzword? Or does it point to a fundamentally different way of approaching your health and fertility? How do you know if how you're being treated is truly restorative? Today we're going to break down what makes a medical approach restorative, and how it might be the missing piece in your journey, whether you are navigating menstrual health concerns or navigating fertility. So let's get started today with a story about Ebony. Now, Ebony came to me as a 34-year-old and she was teaching high school. She had painful periods, irregular cycles, and years of trying to conceive with no success. When she was 18 years old, she was put on hormonal birth control for her menstrual cramps, and she stayed on it for over a decade because as she told me, it was the only thing that let me be functional when my periods happened. When Ebony stopped the birth control pill in order to try and conceive her symptoms returned with a vengeance. Only this time she had new problems. She still had the terrible cramps, but she had very short cycles and was having a period about every three weeks. Her mood was low and she was still not able to get pregnant. Even though she had been told that when she stopped the pill, she would likely be able to conceive right away again. She was confused and frustrated and really, really fed up with the system. Her OB doctor told her that her labs were normal and she was eventually started on Clomid, an ovulation stimulation medication without any additional monitoring. She ovulated but she didn't get pregnant, and each round left her feeling more bloated, more anxious, and less hopeful. After six medicated cycles, her OB doctor told her, there's nothing else we can do. And referred her on to IVF. Now Ebony and her husband did not want to go through IVF, and there was a significant financial concern there, and so they found our clinic instead. Yeah, we utilized our restorative reproductive medicine approach and started with the basics of cycle charting, lab evaluation, and getting an established diagnosis to help Ebony's menstrual cycle symptoms. Among other things, we identified a luteal phase defect, which means that her lab levels were lower than they should be in order to try and conceive after she had ovulated. Her thyroid levels were subclinical and we treated all of the different factors that we found through that approach with ongoing monitoring, personalizing her lifestyle changes and supplementations, as well as targeting prescription strength medications to appropriate times in her cycle, our focus was on healing her menstrual cycles. Correcting the underlying inflammation and ovulation defects, and within four months, Ebony found that she was cycling regularly, ovulating consistently, and her menstrual symptoms were significantly improved. She told us I didn't know that medicine could actually work with my body. She was able to get pregnant, and she said, more importantly than getting pregnant, I'm grateful. I finally feel healthy. Ebony left our care empowered knowing that the next step of her journey, no matter what that takes, would be able to be one that she understood and was able to navigate with grace and understanding. Working alongside the medical professionals that were able to help restore her health. So what makes a medical approach truly restorative? We hear that this term is being utilized quite frequently and a lot of doctors that are saying they're doing restorative approaches don't really understand what that term means, or they think that they understand, but aren't really seeking out the full healing. That comes along with restorative reproductive medicine. So if you've ever questioned, these are a few things that we're gonna talk about today that look to make sure that you understand this is a restorative approach versus one that is maybe just trying to mask the symptoms. So the first thing that identifies restorative care is that it seeks the underlying cause, not just relief of symptoms. Oftentimes in conventional medical care, we hear phrases like, well, let's just try birth control and see if that helps. Or you can always do IVF later if this doesn't work out, or worst of all, it's probably just stress. Maybe you should try reducing your stress levels. Now, these phrases don't necessarily come from a place of ill intent, but they're often the result of a medical system that's been taught to treat symptoms as endpoints. The difference with restorative reproductive medicine is that we ask why at every step of the way, why is your cycle irregular? Why are your hormone levels not what they should be? Why are you having a hard time trying to conceive? We dig deeper using that timed hormone testing, ultrasound tracking, evaluation of charting patterns, and looking at full body lab evaluations. In Ebony's case, painful periods aren't just a normal part of being a woman. Infertility isn't always unexplained, and most importantly, we want to make sure that we are not treating symptoms in isolation. We follow it like a trail back to the source and correct that underlying cause in order to produce long-term impacts of healing and relief. Number two, restorative medicine works with the body, not against it. We work to support the body's own design rather than trying to override it. So instead of just shutting down ovulation or trying to create a regular cycle or force things to happen with your hormones, such as birth control, does we aim to support ovulation by helping to improve follicle development, perhaps enhancing hormone function or correcting underlying imbalances that are metabolic or anatomic in nature. So for example, if you're not ovulating consistently, we don't just jump to egg retrieval or hyperstimulation. We support your body in ways to help improve that ovulation event. If your progesterone levels are low after ovulation, we supplement it with either bioidentical progesterone and discuss other natural ways to help improve your body's progesterone response. This helps to give your body the support it needs during that critical time without exposing you to excess hormones that wouldn't normally be functioning at different parts of your cycle. If you have painful periods and we find endometriosis, we don't suppress your cycle. We look at understanding how inflammation and immune dysfunction and hormone balance may be contributing, and we address those layers while we await getting definitive treatment. Typically with surgical excision. This medical model honors the natural rhythms of a woman's body and works together to optimize things, not just to silence them, suppress them, or cover them up. The third thing that makes a medical approach truly restorative is that it involves personalized, ongoing monitoring, and this is a major difference. In many traditional models, you may be given a medication and asked to return in two or four or six months if it isn't getting the intended consequence. On the flip side, in restorative reproductive medicine, we track your body's real-time responses using our fertility awareness charting. We're able to monitor cervical mucus cycle length, ovulation timing, and see those patterns change over time. We typically can recheck those mid luteal phase hormone labs. So again, about a week after you've ovulated, we want to assess progesterone, estradiol, and other relevant markers to make sure that our treatments are having the intended consequence. And then if you are trying to conceive, we also are checking follicular ultrasounds as we discussed in last week's episode number 94, talking about ovulation medications. We use those ultrasounds to confirm ovulation, to measure the follicle size and to ensure that there's an appropriate response to medications. Again, this helps us to have faster adjustments in care, shifting the dosages, changing what we need to in order to make sure that your treatment is optimized. We decrease our risk for over-treating and help to improve outcomes because we're treating what's actually happening in real time. And most importantly, this allows for an increased understanding of your own cycle so that you become empowered to understand what's going on, how to track those changes over time, and to be able to identify if something is not going as planned. Other things that make a medical approach restorative include the ability to recognize the whole person. Your reproductive health and your reproductive organs don't just exist in a vacuum. We've seen many cases where a woman's infertility or her cycle irregularity is being addressed just based on what's happening with the ovaries. But we know through restorative approaches that it's about so much more. For example, thyroid dysfunction is a very common thing we find. There may be labs that seem to be quote unquote normal on paper with the labs, but they may be too high for optimal ovulation and miscarriage prevention. Metabolic dysfunction is another big thing that we address. Insulin resistance often comes up even without having full-blown PCOS, but those subtle shifts in blood sugar and insulin issues can disrupt hormone production and ovulation. And so it's important to make sure that we're addressing that from a big picture because that also helps to improve long-term health. Adrenal stressors or cortisol dysfunction can also have significant impacts when there is chronic stress. In episode number 87, I talk all about adrenal hormones and how that plays a huge role when it comes to suppression of your hypothalamus, which is really important when it comes to hormone production. Adrenal stress or cortisol dysfunction can also cause irregular cycles and body-wide inflammation. So this is really important to address, again, not just from the menstrual cycle or fertility concerns, but from an overall health perspective. And finally, nutrient deficiencies or gut health issues can play a huge role when it comes to hormone production, as well as clearance of hormones that are in excess. Poor digestion and poor ability to absorb those nutrients can play a huge role when it comes to the management of balancing normal hormone levels. With restorative reproductive medicine, we integrate all of these factors into the picture. We never just hand you a prescription. I work to create a foundation of health that supports fertility cycles as well as your energy, your mood, overall wellbeing, and prioritizing long-term health. And then the final thing that makes a medical approach truly restorative is the focus on prioritizing education and empowerment. One of the most powerful aspects of what we do in restorative reproductive medicine is that our patients leave understanding more about their bodies and their menstrual cycles and their fertility than they ever did before. Through charting instruction, we learn what cervical mucus means. We teach women to identify ovulation and a fertile window based on their own chart, and we start to recognize the signs that your body is giving you when it needs support before something terrible happens, like your periods turn off altogether, or before you start to have cycles that are happening every one to two weeks. I strongly believe that informed and empowered patients are able to make better medical decisions. They're able to partner with healthcare professionals who care and who want to help improve their overall quality of life, and that's why we work closely with our trained instructors who guide you in learning your charting. We work with our health coaches and our dieticians to help and provide that whole body picture of helping you to understand why things are going on with your cycle. This is not just data for a medical professional to interpret it's knowledge that puts you in the driver's seat of your health journey. Unfortunately, many women have had their menstrual concerns dismissed or minimized or told it's all in your head, or that's just a normal part of being a woman. Being empowered on what is normal, what is not normal, and how to clearly articulate those concerns helps you to regain a sense of control. That is life changing. And finally, I would just like to put in a little plug, because one of the most common questions that I get asked is, why have I never heard of this before? Why hasn't my own doctor told me about this? Unfortunately, most medical schools don't teach fertility awareness. Restorative, reproductive medical care is not a part of standard curriculum in medical schools or in residency programs. And the nuances of menstrual cycle diagnostics are oftentimes summed up with saying, if it is irregular, place somebody on the pill. Another concern is that restorative care takes time. It takes time to review charts, to tailor medications, and to educate patients. That's why in our practice, the minimum length of time we would see you is 30 minutes, and most of our visits are 60 minute appointments. It's not possible to provide this level of care in a quick 10 to 15 minute appointment in most cases. And so for many physicians that are out there practicing with a fairly strict time schedule, it is nearly impossible to provide this level of care within their current model. Many doctors are under the insurance-based model, and this requires them to follow standardized pathways, and it may not allow for that individualized root cause exploration. So for example, if you want to order a lab test, it may not be covered by a patient's insurance. And some patients are not able to pay for that out of pocket. And so over time, this creates an ongoing system where we can't get the right evaluation, we can't get the right treatment, and there's not the correct amount of time in order to be able to provide that level of care. I. And finally, there's a need for additional certification. Most physicians that practice restorative reproductive medicine pursue postgraduate or specialized training through programs like neo fertility or fem or Creighton model, or being involved with organizations like the International Institute for Restorative Reproductive Medicine, or Facts about Fertility in order to learn these methods. It takes additional time. It's not just something we're taught in medical school, and so unfortunately it does create an access issue for many patients. Now the good thing is there are so many physicians like myself that are able to offer telehealth services and virtual services all across the country and in some cases across the world. And so being able to access a fertility awareness charting instructor as well as a restorative reproductive medicine healthcare professional is becoming more and more accessible. If you've ever felt like you're being offered a quick fix instead of real answers, you are not alone. Too often women and couples are told their labs are normal. Their pain or menstrual symptoms are just a part of being a woman or that IVF is their only option after standardized medications have failed, but your body deserves more. At Radiant Clinic, we practice restorative reproductive medicine because I believe healing is possible and because I have seen it change lives. Whether you're struggling with infertility, irregular cycles, or hormone symptoms that no one has explained, we are here to listen, to investigate, and to walk together with you along this journey. Imagine if your doctor didn't dismiss your symptoms, but actually worked with your body to restore natural cycles to improve health and promote your fertility. If you're ready to work with our elite team of healthcare professionals, go to our website, radiant clinic.com to schedule a free discovery call and learn more about our package based pricing for comprehensive care. We are currently able to see people for in-person appointments in our Cedar Rapids, Iowa Clinic, or can arrange for a telehealth visit if you live in many different states across the us. Check out our website for current states that we can serve medical clients and let us know if your state is not listed to see if we can still cover you there as we are constantly expanding our reach, please note that our fertility educators are able to take care of clients no matter where they live. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please share this podcast with someone in your life who would benefit from our services. Remember to subscribe to this podcast for more empowering content that I look forward to sharing with you on our next episode of Cycle Wisdom.