Tina Salicco Jackson [00:00:00]: I also look back and I couldn't produce milk for my both my kids. And now I'm saying, you know, I'm sure that contributed. And the research that I'm reading shows that it could. And then I think when I was providing them milk, because I did nurse with my first for 13 months, he didn't have a single bottle except when I had low milk supply. And I remember sobbing while giving him formula in a bottle for like a day while I was power pumping to bring up my supply. But I think about what toxins I was passing in those moments too. So for the women that say I love my implants, sometimes you have to make hard choices. And do you love your implants or do you really want to have a healthy baby?

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:00:42]: Pregnancy is a natural process. So if it's not happening or if it's not sticking, something is missing. After having a family member go through infertility and experiencing a miscarriage myself, I realized how little support and education women have around infertility. I want to Change that. I'm Dr. Jane Levesque. I'm a naturopathic doctor and a natural fertility expert. Tune in every Tuesday at 9am for insightful case studies, expert interviews, and practical tips on how you can optimize fertility naturally. If you've been struggling with infertility, pregnancy loss, women's health issues, or you just want to be proactive and prepare yourself for the next big chapter in your life, this show is for you. Hi, Tina. Thanks so much for being here.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:01:26]: Thank you. Excited to be here.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:01:28]: I am so excited to have another practitioner on board. So I'm going to give you a minute to properly introduce yourself. But we talked about this through the entire interview process where being a practitioner can be so lonely. You're just, especially in the virtual world, like you're not sitting in a clinic talking and elaborating on different cases, collaborating, all of that. So I'm really excited to have someone on board because, you know, two heads is better than one and to actually be able to talk through some patient cases is really cool. So I'm excited to have you.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:01:58]: Yeah, you're doing amazing work. So I'm really honored to be here and to definitely collaborate and help more people.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:02:05]: Tell everybody who you are and, you know, your credentials, if you will, and some of the background in how you got here today and why we're deciding to specialize in fertility.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:02:15]: Yeah, for sure. So I am Tina and I am a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner, which is a mouthful, but basically what that means is we really Try to optimize the body for disease prevention through a number of different ways, including functional lab work and nutrition and lifestyle pieces. My specialty in there is also trauma, so I'm trauma informed. My very vast background did have me working in mental health for a long time. I worked at a maximum secure psychiatric facility. And I was pretty appalled at the fact that we're not really touching on the traumas that the men that are living there experienced. And then from there I moved into the plant medicine space. And that is where I learned connections between mind, body, and past experiences. And that was very profound for me. It connected a lot of the pieces to my own puzzle in my fertility, as well as with issues that I had in terms of relationship with food that was not very good. And that is why I am standing here today with the credentials that I have.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:03:28]: Yeah. And one of the reasons that I picked you, because I think we had a lot of chats about that during the interview process. And something that I'm really passionate about is like, figuring out the patterns. I think by the time we get to the place where you have a diagnosis of infertility, you don't realize that diagnosis. First of all, I want people to start looking at it as it is a disease. And so if you have heart disease, you would never say something like, oh, I'm just going to go ahead and figure this out on my own. You would go and get help. And we take that very seriously. But for whatever reason, fertility is this taboo topic to talk about. And there's a lot of shame, a lot of emotions, and a lot of trauma that's wrapped up in it. And so first of all is like, hey, let's start treating it as a disease, because it is. And second of all, now I want to understand when did it actually start developing? You know, and so with your experience with. You're coming from a pretty heavy lifting, but a heavy personal training background as well, and weight loss. You know, talk to us about the traumas that you're seeing when it comes to weight loss. And then what are some things that you're expecting to see or even maybe you've already started seeing when it comes to fertility and the traumas that we hold on to.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:04:36]: Yeah, for sure. I mean, in the weight loss space, there's so much trauma around sexual molestation as a child, and just this comparison as a child as well, that was part of my own story. You know, that comparison among siblings and just how food is spoken about as a child at the dinner table. There's lots of Traumas there that I'm seeing. And then this story of not being worthy enough to take the time as a woman to meal prep or go to the gym. I worked with many women who, even in their current relationship with their husband, their husband didn't want them going to the gym. And then we have to ease out. Okay, how did this man become your husband? What stories from your childhood caused you to go in that direction? So there's lots there. And then when it comes to the fertility space, I think that metabolic disease is very much tied to infertility. And your whole thing is we want to bring healthy babies home, and we want to continue to maintain that. There was a really profound moment for me, and I struggled with it myself in that if you don't play with your children, where did that stem from? If getting on the floor and playing with your kids is difficult, that came from your childhood. And I think back, and I don't really remember playing on the floor with my own parents. And, you know, if we want to continue to raise healthy babies, getting pregnant is the first step, but we need to end that generational trauma so that we can have a really healthy population.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:06:20]: Yeah. And I think it's different. Like, when you say, you know, why didn't my parents. I don't remember my parents playing, you know, on the floor, sitting on the floor with me. And to me, there's a couple things that come to mind. Like, okay, was there a physical obstruction? Like, you didn't physically couldn't get on the floor and you weren't comfortable. Because I think that is an issue for a lot of people now, especially as they're having babies older and like, oh, my knees hurt and I'm, you know, my hips hurt, and I can't really sit on this. Then there is the component of distraction. Like, we're just tied to these little devices that we carry everywhere. And they basically now make sending that message that the device is more important than the baby. And then there is like, for me, it was like, I can't sit down, because then if I'm sit down, then I'm doing nothing. And if I'm doing nothing, then I'm not productive. And if I'm not productive, then I'm not worth anything. You know, and like, that whole where there's no way I could have said that to myself before because you're just like, well, no, I just like to keep busy. Yes.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:07:20]: And busyness is as much of a behavioral addiction as an eating disorder. And I think we are, a lot of us As a society are addicted to being busy.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:07:31]: Yep. And it's like you're wearing it as a badge of honor.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:07:34]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:07:37]: Which for fertility, unfortunately is. Or fortunately, I think is the exact opposite space that you need to be in in order to be able to conceive and have a healthy pregnancy and then a healthy postpartum period as well.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:07:52]: And being okay with that stillness. Because with a newborn at home, that was a hard lesson for me to learn. Where I was like, I have so much to do, but the baby was like, no, no, you just need to be still right now.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:08:07]: Yeah. For like the first three months. And it sounds like three months is not that long. Like it's a decade and it's an eternity when. Yeah, I had very similar experience as well. I didn't know what to do with my first.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:08:18]: Yeah, yeah. It was challenging for sure.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:08:22]: Yeah. With trauma training, you also did some work with Gaber Gabor, mate. I know he says, tell me what's are some things that you took away from his training and just in the work that you've done with your clients.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:08:38]: So training under Gabor was fascinating as anybody who knows him can imagine. And he really does believe that the majority of our manifestations of disease in adulthood stem from this trauma as a child. And that doesn't have to be. He refers to big T and small T trauma. So the big T traumas are, you know, the sexual abuse and things like that. But trauma is not the event itself, he explains, it's the wound that it leaves behind, which is a really good thing because we can't change the event, but we can heal the wound. So it's never too late to heal our traumas. And the small T traumas are the things that as a child you perceived as traumatic. So you didn't have to be in a war torn country to have trauma. And that's why I believe that truly all of us as children stored energy or didn't clear energy from some event in our life. And unless we get curious and become aware of that and work through it, we carry that and we pass that along to our own children. So that was really just like it.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:09:49]: Was passed on to us, right?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:09:51]: Yeah, exactly. And I think we're getting better as a society at working through that compared to our parents, but we're still not all the way there. So that was a big one for me with him. And a second huge principle I think that differentiates him from traditional therapy or psychiatry is he really speaks truth. So we all have our stories and we all very much believe them. But he doesn't believe that a therapist or a coach who says, yes, your story is true is doing any service to the person. And he believes that will keep that person in the same cycle. Because our perception of what happened is our truth, but that not may not necessarily be the truth. And he believes that we need to show that to our clients. And if it triggers them, then they need to get curious as to what triggered them, so.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:10:54]: Because that's the wound, right?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:10:56]: Exactly. So he's not scared to trigger people.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:10:59]: Well, that's what we're looking for. Give him the good stuff.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:11:03]: And he has a motto. I don't remember what it is, but it was, you know, where there's that trigger, there's something to work through. So we have to get curious about why we've been triggered. And that's really hard for most people to do when they feel triggered. It is blame game. And they don't see that it's something in them. It's very much, you did something to me. It's not. There is something happening inside of me.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:11:28]: Do you know what I've actually noticed a lot in my practice is that, like, my patients don't want to blame their parents. They're like, I don't want to blame them. And it's not. I don't. I love them dearly. And so there is this, like, protective. Where to me, I'm like, I love my parents. It's not about loving them or not loving them, but what is the perception of what happened? And, you know, why are you the way that you are? And can we heal and can we change that? I don't know if you've noticed that as well.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:11:56]: Yep. Huge. And one of the things Gabor actually says is when somebody gives you unsolicited information, like, I bet you've never asked, or maybe you have, but your patients do. You love your parents, but oftentimes they'll say, I love my parents without even being asked that question. And Gabor says when it's unsolicited information, there is something there.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:12:18]: Yeah, because you're trying to protect them and you don't want to, and you're trying to protect yourself for sure. Yeah. This is what, like, my wish, so, you know, to bring on yourself and even, like, another practitioner on board to, like, help couples struggling with infertility to conceive, you know, and bring these healthy babies home. But what I really want to do is I want to shake up the fertility space and create a very different standard. Not even for the conventional system, Because I feel like that's pretty easy to do. Like, if you just listen to your patients and do any amount of testing, it's like that surpasses anything the conventional system does. But in the holistic system and how we approach it, and I think, like, trauma, mental and emotional, like, looking holistically at the whole thing is how we're gonna do it. I'm curious, how do you bring it into practice? Because our people. A lot of the times my people are not coming to me and, like, this is the trauma that I have, because they don't expect that, to be honest. Right. They just think that I'm gonna run some labs and look at their poop and look at their. All this stuff. And then we started getting into the spiritual journey, of which I think is like, the journey that needs to happen for a lot of women around fertility and bringing a soul into this world. How do you bring it in? Like, you know, how does it sneak its way in?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:13:39]: Yeah, I think I'm good at looking at clues in those intake forms that are very focused on the physical, because people have no problem being like, I don't poop, I don't sleep. So to give an example, I have one client who weight loss resistance, but she seemed to lose weight, no problem. When she was teaching internationally out of the country, I was like, that's interesting. So what's happening here? And that one little flag that I saw led us down this path of she's caring for her mom, who has mental health issues, and this has been her whole childhood. And fascinating. When you leave the country and you're not having to care for your mom, the weight seems to fall off because the stresses fall.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:14:22]: Right. There's no more stress.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:14:24]: So I think it's looking for those little clues in those intake forms where people have no problem revealing all of their physical ailments. And then the breakthroughs happen in the silence. So when I'm with a client, it is really calling out a little thing that I noticed, and then opening up that space and holding a safe space and a safe container for them to feel and reveal things. And that seems to be an innate ability that I have, is people really with me open up often without me having to poke at them.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:14:59]: Yeah. And do you feel like that's because you've done all the work and you know what you're looking for?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:15:05]: Possibly, yeah. And it's just always been something for me, from when I was little and working, you know, with children on the spectrum, I could always figure out how to communicate with them in different ways than my peers. And maybe that's just what I've been born to do. And that's my calling.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:15:26]: Totally. Yep.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:15:26]: I don't know what exactly it is, but Max Secure Psych Facility as well. I had men that, when I was off on weekends, they were getting code whites and chemical restraints. And when I was there, they're like, we just need cutouts of you here, because when you're here, we're okay.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:15:43]: And you were just bridging the gap for them between. It's like, why were they on the chemical? They just didn't feel heard or what was going on there. Yeah.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:15:52]: Again, it's all communication. And I just feel like they can be speaking English, but they're speaking, you know, it's more than the words that are coming out of their mouth.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:16:04]: Reading between the lines.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:16:06]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:16:09]: Tell me, what are you excited to do in terms of the fertility space? And even I believe you've already seen some fertility clients as well.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:16:16]: Yeah, I think it's that. I mean, I want these couples to get pregnant, and I also want them to realize that there is so much more past that. And I think I'm really excited. You know, you speak to having this holistic approach and really shaking up the fertility space, and I think that's what we're going to do. It's going to be, yeah, let's get pregnant, but let's do what's necessary after to make sure that these babies are having the best lives. And that was something we saw, again, a lot with the men in Max Secure psych facilities. Resources are being spent too late. Why aren't we preventing these men from getting there? And that's what I'm excited to do with you and with these families, for sure.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:17:02]: Yeah. The resources being spent too late or on the wrong things. I think, like, I just made a post about this because I'll get people all the time. Like, I just spent all my money on ivf. I can't afford functional lab testing. I can't afford. And to me, it's like you can't afford not to do it, you know, like. And if I can prevent women from jumping into these invasive procedures, even if it's covered by insurance, because at the end of the day, you're increasing your risk of any kind of cancer. You're increasing risk for complications during pregnancies, complications for the baby after. And I think most people are not talking about those risks now. I've taken people through IVF and the way that we do it like, I have a client. And right now she's responding so beautifully, and it's like the lowest possible dose. And the docs were giving us such a hard time. They're like, nope, she needs to be on this dose. And I'm like, she doesn't. I know she doesn't need to be. So she's basically going rogue and just decreasing the dose herself because otherwise she's going to go into overstimulation. She also has an IVF consultant that, like, agreed, but she's responding so beautifully, and she has so many follicles at 40 years old, and they're. You know, it's like, there's a way to do this that's well and that allows you to plan for your future family. So if she wants to have two kids instead of one, we're setting that up for her, even though she's 40 years old. And, you know, being realistic about the timeline, but, you know, the, hey, nothing you can do about it. You're just gonna dump 20 grand or just IVF is covered, so you don't have to worry about it. But then your body is destroyed. Like, that's hard to see, you know?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:18:43]: Yeah. And you see that all the time. I mean, you'll see that even GLP1s are all the thing now, and hormone replacement therapy, and there's a time and a place. However, if the body is optimized, you can microdose a GLP1 and avoid all the negative symptoms, and you can do hormone replacement therapy at the lowest dose and benefit immensely because your body is a healthy host.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:19:08]: It's receptive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are some things that I don't want to say, like supplements, but, like, Selcor was a company that you found. Tell me how they kind of changed the way that you've practiced.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:19:20]: Yeah. So Selcor saved me my mental health, my physical health. I did mention I had a very unhealthy relationship with food that was many, many, many years. I didn't know about the functional space. They kept telling me my thyroid was fine, but now I know they were probably just checking tsh, which is a brain hormone.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:19:39]: So do you mind sharing what was the food? Was it like overeating or undereating or both?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:19:45]: Yeah. So I was officially diagnosed at six months pregnant with my second son as having anorexia. Unspecified. So just a lot of control over my food. I was eating under a thousand calories for at least 10 years, and I normalized it. I thought I was fine. I was in the fitness world. And I was like, yeah, everybody's doing this.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:20:08]: Everybody's doing this. Yeah, I feel great.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:20:11]: So I'm really happy to say, like, I am on the other side of that. It's amazing. But, you know, I had to deal with that for a long time and. Sorry, I'm blanking on the question.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:20:25]: Selcor saved you.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:20:26]: Yes, Selcor saved me. So I realized that my eating disorder was exacerbated by physical bloating. I could not put water into my stomach without bloating. And it wasn't until I got into the plant medicine space where I was like, this isn't all in my head. I just really don't want to be bloated. Like, this is a cycle. So I ended up going through the functional health space, and I ran labs, and I was a mess. I had two parasites. My hormones, all sex hormones, were in the tank. My cortisol was in the tank, my diurnal pattern. So the cortisol pattern through the day was haywire. And I finally had. I understood what was going on, and I attempted a different parasite protocol, and it did nothing for me. And then I started on cellcore. I did their foundational protocol, and I saw things come out of my body that were traumatizing, but also, it was. I felt so much lighter physically.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:21:32]: It was just mentally, emotionally, all of it. Everything, all of it.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:21:35]: The bloating went away, and now I can enjoy, you know, birthday cake with my kids that I was skipping before. And I'm happily reverse dieting. I've gone up to 1500 calories after being under a thousand for ten years. And just. It really did save me.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:21:53]: Yep. For sure. I think the functional lab testing is huge because it gives you. I was in the fitness space as well for a long time. And I don't want to say, like, I saw the bodybuilding community, and I was just like, I don't want to do that. Like, I don't want to eat the broccoli and the chicken for it. Like, that's not. I love how they look, but that's. Something inside of me was like, no, don't go. And then I found CrossFit, and, you know, that was a huge outlet for me, and fitness defined me for a long time. Like, it was funny that, you know, my naturopath at that time called me out on it, and he was like, don't exercise for two weeks. And I was like, what? There's no. But I was up for the challenge because I knew the trigger was there. And I knew I had to do something. So, like, I'll tell my patients all the time when I catch. Because when they're over exercising, over doing something, it's like, hey, you're going to be sloppy for a week. Like, you're not going to pick up a dish. You're not. What? I can't do that. And it's like, why not? You can do anything for a week. And the same with exercise, you know, it's like, just not care. It's good to release that. Anyways, the point being is sometimes the fittest people, the people that look the fittest and the healthiest are not actually so unhealthy. And there's very subtle signs. Like, I see them now, but that's not something that I saw before because I used to admire that community and I would be like, oh my God, they look amazing. That. Whereas now I see the sunken eyes, I see the depletion, you know, the lack of glow, like the anxiety, if you will. And so the labs kind of reveal all of that for you, you know?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:23:31]: Yeah, absolutely. And then when you have an awareness. I was looking at a photo a couple weeks ago because of the fitness industry, I did have breast implants put in and I had those removed. Now a year ago, just a week ago, hit my one year mark and I was looking back at photos a couple weeks ago of a dog of mine and just like you said, I had black under my eyes and I was like, oh my goodness, what was.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:23:59]: Wrong with my face?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:24:01]: Yeah, like toxic load, you know, and that was definitely contributing to all the results that I saw in those labs. And I'm so thankful I did those because I wouldn't have known.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:24:11]: Yeah. What was it like to have them removed?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:24:15]: I love my body so much more without them. I mean, my recovery was fantastic. And I think that's because I had done cell core.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:24:25]: Sure, you've done lots of work. Yep.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:24:27]: But I feel so much healthier and just so at home in my body. Like, way better. Yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:24:35]: Yep, yep. What about. Because I do. I have a couple patients with breast implants before. Any advice in terms of. Because, you know, I had a patient who was like, I really love my breast implants. Like, I don't want to remove them. And there was this. It's like, it's a hurdle, you know, of. Like, is it really that bad?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:24:55]: Mm. Yeah. And for me, I had. I mean, I didn't think I had any symptoms. Looking back, I can correlate. Wow. My bloating kind of started around the time That I had my implants put in. That sucks. But I didn't correlate anything I was dealing with to my implants. So there are things that you may not even be correlating or realizing that are related to those. I also look back and I couldn't produce milk for my both my kids. And now I'm saying, you know, I'm sure that contributed. And the research that I'm reading shows that it could. And then I think when I was providing them milk, because I did nurse with my first for 13 months, he didn't have a single bottle except when I had low milk supply. And I remember sobbing while giving him formula in a bottle for like a day while I was power pumping to bring up my supply. But I think about what toxins I was passing to them in those moments too. So for the women that say, I love my implants, sometimes you have to make hard choices. And do you love your implants or do you really want to have a healthy baby?

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:26:02]: Yep. What do you like? Well, it's just hard, you know, I think it's a hard choice in the beauty industry. I think every woman, including myself, at some point in time thought about unless you had really large breasts, but like in some point in time you thought about getting breast implants, you know.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:26:20]: Yeah. And for the women that do have them, you have to change them every 10 years. That's a huge stress on a body. And if, you know, if you are a mom that's going to take you out of parenting for a week at a time to heal and all of that, you know, so it's a hard choice. And I empathize with the women that are dealing with that choice and don't want to give them up. But also think about what the purpose of them.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:26:49]: I mean, I don't know if they're told that you're supposed to remove that or like replace them every 10 years. Nobody is talking about them.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:26:54]: I was never told. I was never told. You're supposed to change them every 10 years, which is why some women have literally had six surgeries because they've had them for so long, which I can't imagine going to do that surgery every 10 years.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:27:09]: So where did you learn that?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:27:11]: I learned that when I was deciding.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:27:13]: To take them out from like the doctor. That's hilarious because they don't say anything like that. I know women who are like, I'm going on 15 years or whatever. So basically what happens when they're in there for an extra five to 10 years is that where the mold issues come in. Is that where the leakage? Possibly, yeah.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:27:34]: And just, you know, things thin. I don't know the exact specifications around it, but you are supposed to change them every 10 years. And to know also because you did mention women. Mine looked fine. The surgeon did not think I had any issues with my implants. There's something called capsular contractor, which is basically an immune response to a foreign object. We did not suspect that I had. That my breasts were still soft. I had no pain when we went in. I actually had capsular contractor on one side. So my immune system was fighting the implant, and there was no visible signs to that.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:28:11]: Do you know if you noticed anything in the blood work?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:28:15]: No. I mean, my blood work always looked normal. So.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:28:20]: Yeah. Yeah, It's a crazy rabbit hole. And like I said, I have a couple patients. Maybe they're listening, but just, you know, it's not something that I need that I say, like, you need to get out right away, but it is a seed that I want to plant for you. Because stories like yours, even another one of my friends and colleagues, she was like, she didn't have any issues, and she's a nutritionist. The same story is like, I just know it's time. But after about a month of removing them, she's like, I felt like I could take a deep breath again. And she just, like, did not realize she couldn't take a deep breath.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:28:57]: Wow.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:28:58]: And it's like, that's huge, right? Like, you look at all the research for breathing. And then she was like, I just felt this weight, and it didn't come right away. It took about a month. After she recovered, maybe six weeks. And then she was like, oh, my God, I can breathe again. And she just didn't even know that she couldn't.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:29:16]: Yeah. And I think, nuts it is. And I think, you know, I don't want. Because sometimes we can feel let down. It's the same in the plant medicine space where you hear all these miracle stories of, like, I had my breast implants taken out and I felt so amazing. And that may not happen for you, but think about the breakthrough that can happen when you can learn to love.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:29:36]: Your body as is.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:29:38]: Like I said, I didn't love my body most of my life, and now without them, I love it. So I think, you know, maybe there's that breakthrough of just this sure self love, this unconditional self love, too.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:29:52]: I think that something like, as you get older, it's easier. Like I always say, I don't want to be 20, you know, and like some of my team, like my marketing team and the. Even some of the fertility success, like they're in their 20s and I'm like, I think it's so fantastic for you, but I would never trade places. I would just not because of the uncertainty, not being comfortable in yourself. Like, there's your influence. So much easier by everything, literally. And I think it's sad when we don't take that growth and we try to stay young, because in reality, you know, like, my mom will still struggle with weight and still talk about her weight as this thing. Like, I remember her talking about it when I was a teenager, you know, and it's like, God, mom, like, you're still really worried about this thing, you know, And I guess unless you work through it, it will continue to stay part of you.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:30:50]: Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:30:51]: It's hard work, but you can work through it.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:30:52]: Yeah. I always say, you know, being sick is hard, being healthy is hard. Choose your hard and you just gotta work through it sometimes.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:31:01]: Yeah, for sure. There is a couple things that you talked about with the breast implant that triggers some questions, but now I forget them. What I did want to ask you, though, is just kind of your approach as well to a case from, you know, I think you talked like inflammation and getting rid. The format that you follow. Tell us a bit about that.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:31:22]: Yeah, so for me, it's always laying the foundation first. So we want to look at really building that foundation. So ensuring that adrenals are sufficient and that, you know, the immune system is strong. And we want to do that. Decreasing those lifestyle stressors, ensure that you're fueling your body enough with the right things, getting in that exercise, because that is such a huge reliever of stress. And it's something that really is for you. It's not for your husband, it's not for your boss, it's for you. So I start there on laying that foundation. Sleep, Sleep is paramount. And then we start to look at, okay, what's happening with pathogens and toxins. What do we need to do here to decrease and eliminate those? I would never start there because if we don't have that strong foundation and you add more stress on the body, not ideal. So it's really that foundation, those lifestyle pieces, teasing out the things that are impacting you negatively, whether that be toxic relationships or work environment and things like that, and then getting into the pathogens and the toxins and all of that.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:32:42]: Yeah, I kind of say. Right. We follow the Selcor roadmap of, hey, you want to increase drainage and increase energy. Because I think most people underestimate how much work it is for the body to get rid of stuff. And it got used to having all this stuff. So then you need to bring everything up before you ask it to do more work. And then, you know, the parasites, the mold, yeast, fungus, bacteria, viral infections, all of that jazz is going to play a big role.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:33:12]: Yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:33:13]: Decreasing the load on the immune system and bringing more energy into the body long term.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:33:17]: Yeah. And I think that's why my recovery from my breast implants was so easy, because I had done Selcor foundational before. So I got rid of those parasites and all of those stressors, and I cleared detox pathways so that my body could handle something else. Like a surgery like that.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:33:33]: Yep, for sure. And it's huge. Right. Like, even when I talk about ivf, like, it's a big thing to go through. And when you have drainage pathways that are open and your liver is working well and your nutrients are there, like, you know, I said with one of my patients, she's responding so well, and she's almost like, but I should do the frozen transfer. And I'm like, not. If you, like, things look good, you could go for it, you know, And I think most people don't realize that it could be just really simple. And you do make the decisions as everything progresses, because if things look good, then we can make it happen. And if they don't, you can always pull back. But when the body is ready and primed, it's really easy.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:34:11]: Yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:34:13]: Relatively easy.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:34:15]: Yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:34:17]: Yeah. Anything else that you people need to know about you?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:34:22]: I really love holding space for people and making it feel safe, and I really love nutrition and fitness, so that would be something that, you know, I feel comfortable with. Beyond that, I think learning from Gabor and wanting to help people as much as possible, I do think it's important to realize that I'm going to stretch you in ways that might feel uncomfortable, but I think that's where growth happens, and I think it's very important.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:34:55]: Yeah. One of my visions, if you will, for us as a team, is to, like, draw out, because, you know, I'll meet couples every day who feel like they're alone in their struggles, and they also feel that this diagnosis was out of the blue and they have no idea. And then as soon as I draw out that timeline, and I'll usually do that on the initial consultations, I'll do that during the fertility 101 office hours. I had somebody come in, and she's just, like, frazzled. I'm like, okay, let's just. And all this going on. And all this going on, and it's been three years. And I'm like, okay, so it's really good to understand that history, but I'm going to go ahead and draw that timeline out for the last 35 years. And then it's just like stressor after stressor after stressor after stressor after stressor, including, like, really stressful birth for the mom, really stressful pregnancy. And it's like, do you think that there is a chance that you have no idea what a regulated nervous system feels like? There is a chance. You know? And so my hope is that we can draw out this timeline for people. And to me, I'm like, as practitioners, we need to be really good at predicting what happens. Yeah. And so then we can predict that. And even with education, you know, with Dr. Leah and seeing how she looks at cases. But, like, we take people through pregnancy because if you're a fertility specialist that doesn't know how pregnancy works, it's like prepping someone for a journey you have no idea about. Like, how could you do that? You know?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:36:24]: Yeah. And it doesn't end at pregnancy or at, like, getting pregnant. There's so much.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:36:30]: Well, even with your children now, how much stuff are you doing with them and healing them?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:36:35]: Yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:36:35]: Is that like, aren't you doing things on a regular basis and releasing. Like, I know with my girl, my eldest, especially because I didn't do anything. It's like releasing all the. Forgiving myself for not knowing what I didn't know.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:36:50]: Yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:36:51]: And seeing how it's showing up in her and then how I now need to support her liver and her inflammatory pathways and her methylation pathways, because I just didn't know any better.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:37:01]: Yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:37:01]: And it's like, that's a constant reflection in your face. You know, I have that with my.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:37:07]: Son because we did tonsillitis and adenoids. And now I look back and I'm like, I could have avoided this. And it will look at me every day. And I have to support him in other ways now.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:37:20]: Yep. Yeah. And that's okay because you have the tools. That's kind of how I. You know, being a mother is very confronting. And I think even the fertility journey can be very confronting because it's like, every month you're getting a period and your body's not doing what it's supposed to be doing. And so it's, you know, just that. I don't want to say mirror, but like, it's just confronting to be like, why can't I? And the easy thing to say is like, oh, well, I'll rely on this external source to do it, AKA I'll just go through ivf. But in reality, it's not working for a lot of people. You know, listen, not the people that I'm meeting because there isn't enough substance. And I think if we can change it to this. Healing your trauma, going on this spiritual journey, if you will, with your partner, while healing your body physically. It's. And it's not a thing that's taking years. You don't have to take. A lot of. You don't have years. Right. But in six months, if you dive right in, you can have incredible changes.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:38:18]: You know, I talk about self love and how great is that? Six months were you have to practice loving your body when you feel like it's not serving you.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:38:28]: Yeah, that's so hard to do.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:38:31]: Yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:38:31]: I had a patient actually talk about that with weight loss resistance. It's like, hey, me six months ago would kill to be in this position, but because I'm not, you know, at my final weight loss goal yet. You're coming from a place of lack versus, like, hey, I've already lost 20 pounds or already lost 30 pounds. And it's like, six months ago, I would have killed to be here.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:38:52]: Yeah, yeah. It's that always that, you know, that more, more, more instead of present.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:38:59]: Yeah. So I'm really excited to have you, Tina, here and we will have another practitioner join us as well. But I'm excited to have you bring this kind of trauma and even fitness. I know it's really underestimated, but I have a client right now who had a terrible labor and ended up, like, tearing and then needed a C section because the baby got stuck in her pill. Like, and I don't want to say it could have been prevented, but I'm like, this is what I've been talking about to you for the last year. Like, she did so well with all the other pillars, but exercise was like, I'm walking every day. And I'm like, no, I need you lifting weights. Like, especially if you're a little petite woman or you're struggling with, like, any mitochondrial issues, which everybody with fertility is struggling with. You need to put muscle mass on your system. And she is now, like, you know, hired a trainer in doing that because she realized it the quote unquote hard way, but, like, her body just couldn't do it. And she had a very healthy baby. Like, she's 120 pounds, not pregnant, and she had like an eight, nine pound baby who was just, just really healthy. But it's like, there's no way she could have pushed him out because she just didn't have the stamina or the strength in her muscle and her skeletal structure and anything to be able to do that. And, you know, unfortunate. Like, now I'll try to get her on the podcast again. It's harder when they have the baby.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:40:30]: Right.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:40:31]: But now she's just like, I understand what you were telling me. And I think a lot of people underestimate the fitness, the role that it has in our overall health.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:40:39]: I will say that my deliveries were fast, easy. My second one I had at home. When he came out, I looked at the midwives and I was like, well, that was easy. And I says, no woman ever.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:40:53]: Yeah.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:40:53]: The midwife was like, you would say that. But with that second baby, my water broke in the middle of a deadlift at the gym.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:41:02]: There you go. Yep. So it was like, all right, quit lifting weights. It's time for me to come out.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:41:08]: Yeah. And it really, I do think, and you know, I bounced back after my deliveries. I didn't tear for any of them.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:41:14]: They were really easy.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:41:16]: And I think my physicality really made that possible for sure.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:41:21]: I mean, it's not just the looks is I think what we're chasing the 20s, in the 30s, you understand everything that it does for you. And then I think in like the 40s and 50s, decades, like it's a non negotiable. Yeah. It has to be, you know. Yeah. Otherwise you're losing function.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:41:38]: Yeah. And, you know, women over the age of 65 due to sarcopenia, if they break a hip, the mortality rate within a year after breaking a hip skyrocket.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:41:48]: It's huge. Yeah. And that building doesn't start in the 60s, that starts in the 20s. Because by when do we start losing menopause? Right. Perimenopause, you're starting to lose estrogen levels. And like for most women now, that is around, I'd say 35 is when it's starting to happen. Late 30s for sure. 40s. Yes. This is something that I learned from Dr. Leah in terms of how to calculate when your perimenopausal symptoms start. So depending on when your mom went through menopause, so if she went through at 50, you're going to have perimenopausal symptoms 10, but more likely 15 years before you hit menopause. So if she went through menopause at 50, at 35, you're going to start noticing the decline in hormones. You're not going to notice the huge, like, hot flashes and all of that. But I personally started to notice, like, huh, my muscle doesn't stay on. Like, it's not as strong and puffy as it used to be. Right. Like a little bit more fatigue. Oh, I am noticing a bit more of that bloat and a bit of that belly gain, weight gain. Even though I haven't really changed anything. It's like those are really subtle changes.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:43:01]: Yeah. Or, you know, you walk into a room and forget what you walked in there for.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:43:06]: That always happens, doesn't it? Have I normalized that?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:43:10]: Yes, you've normalized it.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:43:11]: Yeah. What am I here for again? I think that's because I have so many things to do. But yeah, for sure. That's a big one because it's like estrogen is declining and libido and, you know, God knows how many women don't even know what a good libido is.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:43:27]: A lot of women have no idea.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:43:29]: Yeah, yeah. And when you're struggling with infertility, that's always like, I'm always talking about that. It's like, if you don't even want to do the thing that's designed to have the baby, it's like, that's a problem.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:43:40]: Right.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:43:41]: That's like intuition, your own body telling you that it doesn't want it can't do it.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:43:46]: Right.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:43:47]: And so timing, it doesn't make it easier for the body. Obviously, we still try to create intimacy in different areas, but, like, we need to bring hormones on, we need to bring heal trauma, we need to do whatever because like I said, if your body is not even giving you the signal, that's a huge sign that it's not ready.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:44:04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:44:08]: So I'm excited to have you bring the metabolic piece as well, because I think it's important and it's underrated.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:44:13]: Very much so.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:44:14]: Yeah. How it plays a role in the fertility and in overall health versus just like the bodybuilding world, where it's nice to look nice.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:44:24]: And then carrying a baby, if you already have excess weight and you're metabolically unwell to carry that baby afterwards, it just presents so much more risk.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:44:35]: Yeah, for sure. And I don't talk about, like, bouncing back, but that's the ability to bounce back. Is that metabolism working well and be able to handle the hormonal shifts. And I do see a lot of women who have normalized that because we don't want to shame women. It's not about shaming them and saying, like, oh, you should bounce back and not. But if you're not bouncing back, that is a sign of poor metabolism and liver function and, you know, the system not coming back to its normal. Just like if you have a miscarriage and your body doesn't recognize it and then you have to get medical help. That tells me a lot about your immune system function and your drainage capacities and all of that. And so it's not that it just happened. It's like. No, no. It tells me that there's something in the process. And, you know, we've just normalized a lot of that stuff.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:45:28]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And having suffered from a miscarriage like that, and I had implants at the time, what was happening with my immune system?

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:45:39]: Huge. So tell me about your miscarriage, if you don't mind. Was it before you had both of your kids or in between?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:45:45]: It was before, yeah. And it was six weeks, I want to say, of absolute nightmare where it was. They labeled it a missed miscarriage, and it was just so long. And then I was told to go to Emerge, and that Emerge would do a DNC if I told them I was in so much pain. Emerge sent me home with some medication and had me complete the process at home.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:46:13]: Really? Did you have an ectopic or just a regular pregnancy?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:46:17]: Regular.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:46:18]: Okay. That's crazy.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:46:20]: It was awful. And I said, you know, I did not want to know about my next pregnancy until second trimester because it was so horrible.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:46:29]: Yeah. Which is obviously not a way to do it. But when we have these traumatic experiences, it's. We want to protect ourselves. Yeah. It breaks my heart. I mean, I don't want to say, like, a loss is a loss, but when I had my miscarriage, that was a big, like, oh, man. There's no help here. Like, women are going through this incredibly vulnerable experience, and they're being told that there's nothing that can be done, and they don't.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:46:59]: Yeah. There was no support. None whatsoever.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:47:04]: Yeah. And it sounds like you actually needed some medical intervention, which. There's a time and place for it. That's what makes me so upset. It's like, if the conventional system is there, why aren't they doing anything? That's why you're here. Do the thing.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:47:17]: Yeah, No, I remember I called the doctor from the washroom at the school I was teaching at, and they said, oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:47:27]: Was it. The doctor said then, mm, okay, great.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:47:32]: Yeah. And Like I had no idea what to do at that point in my life.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:47:38]: That's it. Talking about, you know, being even early 30s versus late 30s. And now like I tell all my patients and like, you need to speak up, you need to advocate, you need to. Because it's just not, I don't want to say it's not an option, but we can prevent so many things and so many issues by being able to speak up.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:48:00]: Yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:48:01]: And sometimes like it's a difference between holding on to a baby and not holding on to a baby or having a serious infection or not having a serious infection, you know, and that's the goal, is to get that knowledge and information out so people can start advocating for themselves and we can start changing the industry a little bit.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:48:16]: Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:48:18]: What I was going to say. I don't know if you've noticed this, but like I notice now women who are like, I don't have a lot of couples that see me in their, like in their 20s, but I have one couple now and she's never been on birth control, which is incredible because I don't need anybody who's in their 30s who doesn't have a history of like 5, 10, 15 plus years on being on birth control. So that's how I know the industry is changing and our voice is being heard, ladies. Like we are making a change in it because I'm seeing more 20 year olds now who have never been on birth control. But there's not, you know, every 30 year old I've met has used it and 40 year olds for sure. Yeah.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:49:06]: So I'm noticing that as well in the menstruation space, less use of toxic stuff, more use of like cups and organic underwear. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:49:18]: And like the thongs are going out of style and full bum underwear and cotton. Sorry, dudes. But just. Well, honestly, like yesterday we were on a fertility one on one call and she has in the vaginal microbiome. It's like a strain that's associated with fecal matter. And I'm like, okay, so if you don't have anal sex, like how is this in here? And so the song is one of those. Yes, like wiping hygiene and that I think is important. But the thong. And this is what I heard from my Viva Rome, I believe. And she's huge in the women. She's a midwife and obgyn, very big in the women's health space. She's like a thong is like just this bridge for the bacteria to travel back and forth and because they're so close together. It's very easy for that to happen. And I'm just like. And that is when I stop wearing thongs, they will be. That's it. There will be no bridge that the bacteria can travel to and from. And to be honest, I notice a huge difference in, like, personal. But even for some of my patients who had, like, chronic yeast infections and all of that, where for me, I take so much stuff, I feel like I don't have the chronic and I'm on top of it. But I just noticed general, like, huh. It just feels better. I couldn't even explain to you. It's like, I don't feel like I have as much discharge or the discharge is healthier, whatever. You just kind of get used to it. But for some of my patients who have chronic yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, all of that, just by switching your underwear made a big difference. And then the yoga pants is the other one. Because it's like, if you're not breathing all day.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:50:57]: Right.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:50:57]: You know, Anyways. Yeah, some clinical curls for everybody. Buy the boy shorts. Buy the boy shorts. They're worth it. Yeah. I think, honestly, to tie it with, like, the beauty industry and what. I've always been a little bit of a rebel against it in a say where, hey, I don't want to do stuff that. Who am I doing it for? You know, because to me, it's like I went through my makeup phase, and I went through that. And then once I found my partner, I was like, I'm good. Like, I don't have anybody to impress anymore because I attracted the. You know, the person. But before that, that's when I considered all the breast implants and all the eyelashes and all this other stuff that came. But my husband, we just recorded a podcast, and he's just like, I don't look at any of that stuff. Like, I don't notice the eyelashes or the. You know, and so it's like, who is feeding us this information? And, like, the thongs and the tight pants and the blides. Like, what if we just embraced our own beauty and wore things that we felt comfortable in and therefore confident in? And that's what drove the beauty industry.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:52:03]: You know, My husband's the same. He prefers me running shoes, hair up in a bun and, like, gym stuff.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:52:11]: Yeah, because that's. Is that how you meant?

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:52:14]: Yeah, at the gym.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:52:15]: That's it. Yeah.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:52:16]: He doesn't need the makeup. He doesn't need any of that. And I don't wear it. Like, I did it in my 20s, but yep, yeah, yeah, don't need it, don't want it.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:52:24]: Yeah, that's it. So we're going to shake it up in many different ways. We'll probably do lots more podcasts as you get your hands on some more cases, and we'll discuss. And that's kind of the point is to just help people share what we're seeing in practice and what's working and how we're approaching it and just giving people hope and realistic expectations and, you know, tangible things that they could be doing to help support them in their journey. And then obviously, if we can help them, then they can apply to work with us and, you know, let's work on it together.

Tina Salicco Jackson [00:52:56]: Yeah, absolutely. I look forward to meeting all those applications.

Dr. Jane Levesque [00:53:00]: All right, thanks so much for being here, you guys, and we'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. To read the full show notes of this episode, including summary, timestamps, guest quotes, and any resources that were mentioned on the episode, visit drjanelevesque.com podcast and if you're getting value from these episodes, I'd love it if you took 2 minutes to share it with a friend. Rate and leave me a review at Rate this podcast. The reviews will help with the discoverability of the show. And who knows, I might share your review on my next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. And let's make your fertility journey your healing journey.