How Carrie Got Her Energy and Vitality Back!
Dr. Hotze visits with guest, Carrie, a mother of two. After the birth of her second child, she felt exhausted all the time with no energy, poor sleep, and the inability to focus. Moms, it’s not normal to feel unhealthy and tired all the time. Watch as Carrie shares her testimonial of how she got her energy, vitality and life back!
Podcast Highlights:
4:08: …I’m just used to having energy and sustaining my energy and just being like, go, go, go. And even after my first child, I didn’t have that much of a change within stamina. It was my second child where my body just hit the air brakes.
6:00: But I was also a part-time mommy, and eventually what started happening is I just couldn’t catch up. I was exhausted. I started becoming very obsessive about my sleep, about my routine. I was becoming to where I didn’t want to do anything outside of the box, just in case I got too tired, or I wasn’t around for nap time, and it started to control my life.
6:27: So I had went to the normal doctor and I had explained this is what’s going on. This is what my symptoms are and I was quickly dismissed and they were like, you’re a mom. You have two kids and you not only are a mom, but you’re a mom at a later stage, this is how you’re supposed to feel. Just sleep when you can.
7:22: …the blood work came back and I was really hoping for something. And they’re like, you’re normal, everything’s normal. This is just how moms feel.
8:25: It was difficult. The biggest struggle I had was the guilt of not feeling present with my kids.
9:21: I can tell you the first two years of my youngest daughter’s life, I was constantly with like a cold or a flu or just some sort of like sickness of not having my full immunities.
12:26: Nobody’s in control of your health or anyone’s health, except for you. You’re in charge of your own health. The government’s is not in charge of your health. Your doctor’s not in charge of your health and your insurance company’s not in charge of your health.
13:45: I was doubting if I was making the right decisions because you have so many opinions out there when it comes to your health, which you’re right, it’s my health and I need to do what’s right for me. And the minute you guys started opening up and talking about Christ and how he made us, and this is…like immediately, I’m like, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. Thank you, God, for putting me here.
14:38: She spent time with me. I think she had just had her child. She was just so patient and so empathetic and so understanding and not just like nodding to nod or taking notes to take notes, but she actually had a connection with me that was more than just ‘you’re a patient.’
17:46: How I feel now? I don’t need naps every day. I don’t obsess over “I have to get to bed at this time and I have to sleep for this amount of hours so that I can be this productive.” I sustain my mental focus, of course I’m a dog trainer, I have to be present with dogs. I have to be present with clients. I don’t have to just kind of be there and fake it anymore when my brain is everywhere. I feel so much more grounded and present.
18:49: I feel just as good at 10 o’clock in the morning as I feel at five o’clock in the evening. And when I sleep, I sleep, sleep and it’s fantastic.
20:02: You have your energy back. You have your vitality back and you’re enthusiastic about life, which is the way everybody ought to live their life. I don’t care if you’re 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, you ought to be brimming with energy.
21:28: Dr. Steven Hotze: We gave you some natural progesterone to help balance out your cycles. How are your cycles doing now? Carrie Wooddell: Completely regular.
22:06: …moms need to know that you don’t have to feel horrible. That it’s not normal that you have to feel horrible. I was convinced for a while like, okay, this is what everyone’s telling me I should feel like. Not true.
Podcast Transcription:
Stacey Bandfield: Thank you for joining us today at Dr. Hotze’s Wellness Revolution. I’m Stacey Bandfield here with Dr. Steven Hotze, founder of the Hotze Health & Wellness Center. We have another great success story for you today, Carrie Wooddell, long time guest, and she is going to explain how after her second child, how she was starting to experience a lot of symptoms, including fatigue, and how she got her life back. Dr. Hotze.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Thanks so much, Stacey, and thank each one of you for joining us today on Dr. Hotze’s Wellness Revolution. We have a wonderful guest today. A guest who made a decision, oh, about a little over two years ago, she decided that she wanted to take charge of her life. And I believe she made a great decision by coming here. She’s all the way from Seminole, Florida, and her name is Carrie Wooddell. And Carrie made a decision that she wanted to get in charge of her life and take her life back at the age of about 38.
Carrie Wooddell: Yes.
Dr. Steven Hotze: And so she came over here and I believe she made a great decision because I believe that she and everybody really needs to have a physician and a staff of professionals who have the know-how, wherewithal, and the expertise to coach them onto a path of health and wellness naturally so as you mature you have energy, vitality, and you’re enthusiastic about life. So Carrie made a great decision in coming in and she’s going to share her story with you.
So Carrie, thank you for joining us. Now you have a very interesting life. You came all the way here from Seminole, Florida, but tell us about your life over there. What do you do in Seminole, Florida? What do you and your husband do? What kind of work are you all in?
Carrie Wooddell: Right. So we’re professional dog trainers. We own The Dog House, LLC, over here in Tampa Bay, Florida, and we also, we breed chocolate labs and I used to compete in a mondioring, which is like a protection dog sport. So we’re super active people and lots to do with dogs.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Well, let me ask you a question about dog protection. You don’t train Labradors for dog protection, do you?
Carrie Wooddell: No. So after I had my kids, my business model shifted from training personal protection dogs and more like police type of work.
Dr. Steven Hotze: What kind of dogs would have those been?
Carrie Wooddell: Belgian Malinois.
Dr. Steven Hotze: I’m sorry.
Carrie Wooddell: They’re called Belgian Malinois. Yes, so they’re like the Ferrari of the dogs.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Okay.
Carrie Wooddell: Yes. So, and after I had kids, my lifestyle changed and the Labrador Retriever fitted more of what we were going with. The family companion.
Dr. Steven Hotze: There you go and they are wonderful family dogs. I mean the labs. My lab is, if he sees a burglar or anybody strange in our house, he goes up, he’ll give a bark if they’re at the front door. As soon as he goes up, he smiles at them and rolls over on his back. He wants them to rub their belly so there’s no chance that he could ever protect us against anybody, anytime, anywhere. I told my wife that I need to get a good Doberman Pinscher to protect me because my dog Winston would just lay down and he’d throw his hands up in the air and give in to any burglar that ever came to our house.
Carrie Wooddell: Maybe trip the burglar and then you could hear it.
Dr. Steven Hotze: If he did what? Kiss the burglar?
Carrie Wooddell: No. Trip it. Like maybe he would trip over Winston.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Oh goodness. Well, listen. I’m so glad you came on today because I think you really have a fascinating story. So tell us what your situation is. You’ve been married, you have a couple of children, and how old are your children now?
Carrie Wooddell: My children are six and four. I’ve always been just an active person. I’ve trained dogs my entire life so I’m just used to having energy and sustaining my energy and just being like, go, go, go. And even after my first child, I didn’t have that much of a change within stamina. It was my second child where my body just hit the air brakes.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Okay. And you were how old when you had your second baby?
Carrie Wooddell: I was 36, almost 37 years old, when I had my second child.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Okay. So obviously you were more mature at that time and this is a very common occurrence we see in women, particularly as they mature. When they’re younger, they usually bounce back pretty quick, when girl are in their teens or twenties and have kids. And then when you get into your thirties, your well over halfway through your menstrual life, and so inevitably there are some significant hormonal changes that occur after women have children in midlife, say somewhere around 35, plus or minus a few years, that’s when they begin to complain that gee, I felt like a million dollars then I had my last baby and it just took the wind out of my sails and I never got any wind back in my sails. So tell us, after you had your second child, what kind of symptoms did you experience that you feel like were adversely affecting you?
Carrie Wooddell: Right. So after I had my second child, it was obviously just a life change of having two toddlers, and of course you feel tired. I mean, you’re not getting sleep. I was nursing, which that was very strenuous for my body. I was still a part-time still owning my business, which we all know you never really fully shut off from that.
But I was also a part-time mommy, and eventually what started happening is I just couldn’t catch up. I was exhausted. I started becoming very obsessive about my sleep, about my routine. I was becoming to where I didn’t want to do anything outside of the box, just in case I got too tired, or I wasn’t around for nap time, and it started to control my life.
So I had went to the normal doctor and I had explained this is what’s going on. This is what my symptoms are and I was quickly dismissed and they were like, you’re a mom. You have two kids and you not only are a mom, but you’re a mom at a later stage, this is how you’re supposed to feel. Just sleep when you can.
And I left there just feeling really sad and kind of hopeless of like, okay, well, how long am I going to feel like this? And I’m such a strong personality where I was like, okay, Carrie, you’re being weak. Stop complaining. Stop being weak. You’re going to figure this out. It’s going to get better.
Dr. Steven Hotze: And did it? On its own, did it get better?
Carrie Wooddell: It did not get better. I went in again and at that point they did blood work and the blood work came back and I was really hoping for something. And they’re like, you’re normal, everything’s normal. This is just how moms feel. You’ll figure it out. And that was the second time I had gone to the doctor and also, it was the second time I went to my OB-GYN instead of my practitioner, because I was hoping maybe a female perspective would be able to understand. And she did mention, “let’s get you on some sort of birth control and some hormones so that you could get regulated in that way and then hopefully everything else will come into play” but I was really against that.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Okay. Now, Carrie, you were having problems with sleep. You were having problems with your overall energy level. Were you having any problems with irregular menstrual cycles?
Carrie Wooddell: I was. They were super irregular.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Okay. How was your mental focus and your mental thought process? Your ability to really focus on things mentally?
Carrie Wooddell: It was difficult. The biggest struggle I had was the guilt of not feeling present with my kids.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Not feeling, oh, you felt guilty because you just didn’t couldn’t be present with them. What do you mean?
Carrie Wooddell: Like present in the sense of like, when I was working, I wanted to be able to focus on working. When I was a mom, I wanted to focus on being a mom and I felt like it was just a big tangled mess.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Okay. So any other problems? You have any gastrointestinal problems, bowel problems, any constipation? Did you have anything like that? Any joint, muscle aches and pains?
Carrie Wooddell: No.
Dr. Steven Hotze: None of those. And how about, did you have any hair loss at all?
Carrie Wooddell: I did not.
Dr. Steven Hotze: How about cold sensitivity? Cold hands? Cold feet?
Carrie Wooddell: No cold sensitivity. I can tell you the first two years of my youngest daughter’s life, I was constantly with like a cold or a flu or just some sort of like sickness of not having my full immunities.
Dr. Steven Hotze: I got you. And so you saw your physician and he basically dismissed and said, “Hey, learn to live with it for crying out loud. All the women your age after they have babies feel this way. You’ll have to learn to live with it.” basically.
Carrie Wooddell: Yes.
Dr. Steven Hotze: And he didn’t read my book obviously, Hormones, Health, and Happiness, which I don’t know why these OB-GYNs won’t read that book and just practice what we’ve been doing here since 19, with female hormones really since ‘96, and thyroid hormone since ‘92. Okay. So you’re having this problem. How in the world did you end up coming here to the Hotze Health & Wellness Center all the way from Seminole, Florida?
Carrie Wooddell: All the way. So my father-in-law had used you guys’ services. He sang your praises and he convinced his brother, which is my uncle, to also use your services. And my uncle, he’s pretty set in his ways, so when he used your services and he was like, “that’s the way to go, you have to do it” I was still a little apprehensive because I was like, okay, you guys are guys, a lot of these issues I’m having are female issues and mommy issues.
10:54: And finally, I was at my wit’s end of just feeling exhausted, and I told my husband, “I want to try anything. I don’t want to continue to feel like this anymore.” And so my husband was like, “absolutely.” He was very onboard with it because the OB-GYN at this point had suggested birth control, and my husband swears I’m like crazy on birth control. So he was like, “I will do anything just so you don’t go on birth control.”
Dr. Steven Hotze: Well, that’s very interesting that trying to regulate your periods, put you on birth control, when that can be easily controlled with natural bioidentical hormones. So it’s not at all uncommon for women as they mature for the periods to begin to change, particularly after they have children later in life. And that’s because the ovaries don’t work like they used to work when you were younger, and the periods become irregular and they begin to get heavier.
And then they go from three to five days to five to seven days, seven to nine days, you get breakthrough bleeding, clotting, cramping, mood swings, the whole nine yards. And then you end up going to your OB-GYN and they go “Well, I’ll just throw you on some birth control pills.” The next thing you know, you feel like you’re crazier than a bedbug or your husband thinks you’re crazier than a bed bug.
So your husband said, “go, go to the Hotze Health & Wellness Center.” So you decided, you made a choice. Nobody’s in control of your health or anyone’s health, except for you. You’re in charge of your own health. The government’s is not in charge of your health. Your doctor’s not in charge of your health and your insurance company’s not in charge of your health. Your husband’s not in charge of your health or your spouse is not in charge of your health. You and you alone are in charge of your health.
And so Carrie, I commend you because you decided to take charge of your health. So you came all the way to Houston. You had heard about the experience that your father and uncle had had here. Tell me what it was like when you came in. What did you notice different about our center here at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center than any other place you’d been before that handled medical issues?
Carrie Wooddell: My first impression is I was just like this place, and remember I own my own facility with dog training, so my standard when I walk through, is for my clients just to feel like they walk in and we’re family and we’re connected and we’re on the same page and we have… It was just so inviting. You guys are super organized. You’re super professional. Very friendly. And so, yeah, I walked right in and that was my first impression.
And then I was very…I was doubting if I was making the right decisions because you have so many opinions out there when it comes to your health, which you’re right, it’s my health and I need to do what’s right for me. And the minute you guys started opening up and talking about Christ and how he made us, and this is…like immediately, I’m like, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. Thank you, God, for putting me here.
Dr. Steven Hotze: I’m so glad. So I guess you saw Dr. Ellsworth, didn’t you?
Carrie Wooddell: No. I saw Dr. Angelica.
Dr. Steven Hotze: You saw Angelica. Good. And so you had an opportunity to sit down and go through your experience with her. And did she spend time with you?
Carrie Wooddell: Yes. She sat down. She spent time with me. I think she had just had her child. She was just so patient and so empathetic and so understanding and not just like nodding to nod or taking notes to take notes, but she actually had a connection with me that was more than just ‘you’re a patient.’ What’s your problem? Here’s a solution. Go. It wasn’t like that at all.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Well, what our goal here at our center is this, is that we decided several years ago, back in 1996, to get out of the medical business, medical practice, and to enter the hospitality industry where we help people. We believe that people deserve to have a wonderful experience when they come into our center. And within that context, we provide medical care. So we don’t call our patients, patients. We call them guests. And like a guest in a home, it’s very special.
They become our friends and we enjoy them the rest of our lives and they enjoy us, and we enjoy giving them the opportunity to get on this path to health and wellness that they want to get on. Our role is simply, I like to view it like we’re coaches, health coaches, just like you would have a piano teacher as a coach, or a speech coach, or an athletic coach, or workout coach or whatever you want to learn and you’re going to have to have somebody coach you.
The coaches make the recommendations, but remember the athlete is the one that has to do all the hard work. If you’re a piano player, you have to practice your scales to get any good. If you’re an athlete, you have to follow the directions. If you’re lifting weights, you have to follow the directions of your coach. Coach isn’t going to do the work. We don’t do the work. We simply make recommendations for you to get on a path of health and wellness naturally and it was up to you to make the decision to do it.
So I know that Angelica had made some recommendations. She encouraged you to get off the birth control pills, which you did, and put you on some progesterone, put you on good vitamin and mineral supplementation. I noticed that at this time we didn’t put you on any thyroid at all.
Carrie Wooddell: Correct. Yes, because naturally it’s just everything’s been evening itself out.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Right. Okay. So you came in, in September 2019. How are you doing now? How are things going? How have things been going? How long did it take you to start feeling an improvement?
Carrie Wooddell: Yes. And yes. And to comment on what you said, you’re right. You can have the best coach in the world, but if you’re not going to listen, what’s the point. And we decided, my husband and I, if we’re going to do it, I’m going to do it a hundred percent, including the yeast-free diet and the whole cleanse in the beginning. We followed you guys to a tee. I still follow you guys to a tee because I wanted to make sure I did everything in my power and I really believed in you guys’ program.
How I feel now? I don’t need naps every day. I don’t obsess over “I have to get to bed at this time and I have to sleep for this amount of hours so that I can be this productive.” I sustain my mental focus, of course I’m a dog trainer, I have to be present with dogs. I have to be present with clients. I don’t have to just kind of be there and fake it anymore when my brain is everywhere. I feel so much more grounded and present.
And I feel like I know my body so well now, like I know when my plate is…am I too filled because of like stress that I’m adding on, or I know when I need to just like sit down, meditate for 10 minutes, close my eyes, and then kind of rejuvenate, rather than just going from one coffee to the next coffee or whatever. I have one cup of iced coffee in the morning. That’s it and I feel just as good at 10 o’clock in the morning as I feel at five o’clock in the evening. And when I sleep, I sleep, sleep and it’s fantastic.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Well, so on a scale of zero to ten, ten being the best you’ve ever imagined feeling in your life, or ever felt in your life, and zero being where you were when you came in, how would you rate yourself now on a scale of zero to ten?
Carrie Wooddell: Definitely like eight and nine. My youngest still wakes up overnight, maybe two or three nights a week, so when she sleeps through the night, I’ll be like 9.9.
Dr. Steven Hotze: I know how that is. We had eight children. So you can imagine my wife did a sterling job. Imagine raising eight. I look back and go like, how in the world did she do that? Literally she did it. I made the money and she had to raise the kids. That was a full-time job and she did great. Janie’s wonderful on that.
Well, so this has been a great, great experience for you because now you’re on the path of health and wellness naturally. You have your energy back. You have your vitality back and you’re enthusiastic about life, which is the way everybody ought to live their life. I don’t care if you’re 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, you ought to be brimming with energy. As a matter of fact, there’s a verse in the Bible that says that Moses, when he died on Mount Nebo at 120 years of age, it said, “and he died and he had sparkle in his eyes and he was full of vim and vigor.” Go look it up. I think it’s in Exodus 34, one of the books there.
But anyway, so there’s no reason in the world you shouldn’t, if you’re alive, you shouldn’t feel alive. And by goodness, by golly, Carrie, you’re a young woman. You wait till you get to be my age. You’re going to look back and say, well, those 40 year old girls, they sure look young. So you’re about the age of my youngest daughters, and I have five daughters, so I’ve got two around your age. So you ought to be brimming with energy now. And I’m so glad that you made that decision and made that choice to come in and get yourself on a path of health and wellness.
It was fairly straight forward program. We encouraged you on a good, healthy, yeast-free eating program, which is very simply, it’s like a keto eating program, where we eliminate the simple carbs and sugars for a period of a month, two months, three months, cut those out, and get on some medication to clean yeast out of the system. Secondly, put you on some hormones when indicated, which we did. We gave you some natural progesterone to help balance out your cycles. How are your cycles doing now?
Carrie Wooddell: Completely regular.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Hello.
Carrie Wooddell: Yes.
Dr. Steven Hotze: And then we put you on a little bit of cortisol to support the adrenal gland. And we put you on some vitamins and minerals to help you detox and also help you produce energy in your cells. And you’re getting some exercise and that’s pretty much the program and you’re doing really well. And it’s not rocket science. These are four simple steps and you simply followed them. So kudos to you, Miss Carrie, and congratulations, you win a gold medal.
Carrie Wooddell: Thank you. And it’s just like moms, moms need to know that you don’t have to feel horrible. That it’s not normal that you have to feel horrible. I was convinced for a while like, okay, this is what everyone’s telling me I should feel like. Not true.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Conventional doctors don’t know how to help people get healthy and well naturally so they feel full of energy, vitality, and enthusiasm for life. They can mask symptoms with a bunch of drugs, but they can’t help you get well naturally, because they’re not trying to do that. That’s what we do different at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center. So I want to thank you for giving us the privilege of serving you here, Carrie. And I want to thank you also for your wonderful story, because I know that there are literally thousands of women out there that can identify with the way you felt, and who really do need to get themselves on a path of health and wellness naturally by taking charge of their health. So thanks so much for joining us. God bless you. And I look forward to seeing you next time you make your visit to Houston. Thank you so much and I wish you every success in life.
Carrie Wooddell: All right. Thank you.
Stacey Bandfield: And if you want to find out more information about getting healthy and well naturally, just give us a call at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center at (281) 698-8698. That’s (281) 698-8698. Thank you for joining us today at Dr. Hotze’s Wellness Revolution
