The human body has a remarkable capacity to heal itself. Regeneration of new tissue is accomplished by the natural production of stem cells. PRP involves the application of concentrated platelets rich in bio-active proteins, which release growth factors to stimulate cellular regeneration and accelerate tissue repair. The benefits of PRP were initially used in wound healing, dentistry and the treatment of sports injuries, but have now evolved to address many physiological dysfunctions.

A PRP treatment begins with a simple blood draw and can be completed within an hour. Your blood is spun in a unique centrifuge that separates plasma and platelets from the rest of the blood. The plasma, now highly concentrated with platelets, is collected in syringes and injected back into your tissues. Growth factors are released and stimulate stem cells to create new, youthful tissues in a variety of areas. PRP utilizes your own blood so your body will readily accept the treatment without reaction or rejection. PRP procedures are minimally invasive and typically patients experience very little discomfort with no downtime.

At Mint Health, we offer Vaginal PRP as part of a multi-faceted approach for sexual wellness, lichen schlerosis (chronic vulvar inflammation) and incontinence and overactive bladder.  If you are seeing us for one of these health concerns, ask Dr. Buchert if you may benefit from the addition of PRP to your overall regimen.  If “yes,” we’ll give you a pricing handout at the front desk for this special service option.  If you are interested in PRP, but have not yet seen Dr. Buchert, schedule a GYN consult to determine your best overall treatment approach and if this may be an appropriate addition for you.

"I was diagnosed with Estrogen Positive Breast Cancer when I was 33 years old. In addition to chemotherapy and a mastectomy, it was recommended that I have a full hysterectomy. Post the hysterectomy I was unable to take hormones due to my estrogen positive breast cancer. This led me to deal with immediate menopausal symptoms with virtually no choice in relief from the side effects (i.e. medicine/hormone replacement). After 13 years of uncomfortable intercourse, lack of desire, vaginal dryness and occasional urinary leakage I was ready to get my life back and feel like a normal 46 year old. A friend of mine suggested I visit Dr. Buchert and talk to her about my concerns. After my first visit with her, I felt like I finally had safe options that would help me feel normal again. We discussed PRP being an option for me because it could help if not alleviate, most of my symptoms. A few weeks later I had my first PRP injection and it has been a game changer. It has pretty much improved, if not completely alleviated, my symptoms of uncomfortable intercourse, lack of desire, vaginal dryness and occasional urinary leakage! I highly recommend it for any woman!"

Optimizing your hormones is so important for your health – during pre-menopause, menopause, and even at younger ages! If your insulin is high, your thyroid is off, your cortisol is high, your dhea and testosterone are low, and your estrogen and progesterone are out of balance (estrogen dominance is common), you likely aren’t feeling your best. As you get older, assuring that your hormones are in a healthy place (in particular the insulin part!), and determining what you may need to treat/lower and what you may want to replace/increase, becomes even more important. These hormones are all very important in protecting your brain health from dementia, protecting your bones from osteoporosis and fractures, protecting your heart health, and even protecting your breast health.

So, what do we do at Mint for our patients to take getting your hormones in the best place they can be to the next level? How is this different from what you may encounter in a regular GYN approach, or even at a “hormone”, “anti-aging,” or “aesthetic” clinic where HRT is now commonly offered?

To begin, for any patient who has symptoms that could be related to hormone health, we’ll do a full lab evaluation of all the hormones mentioned above and help you interpret the meaning in conjunction with one another. We firmly believe it is not smart to add hormone replacement to your body (like may sometimes occur in “hormone, aging, or aesthetic” clinics) without understanding if you first/also need to lower insulin, improve nutrition, and address inflammation. Starting HRT without giving attention to the above, can create untoward side effects and put you at additional risk for complications, even cancer.

Next, in addition to the standardly prescribed medications that most gynecologists use to treat hormone decline and menopause, we work with women (and men, too!) to review and understand all HRT options to make her best personalized choice. Each person is unique, and there is a wide array of HRT out there from prescriptions, to compounded, to pellet therapy. HRT is not a “one size fits all” situation! You need to know the risks and benefits of those options thoroughly to be able to make an informed decision in collaboration with your provider.

Lastly, in particular when you have symptoms like low energy, declining muscle strength and loss of ability to maintain weight, sub-par mental clarity, trouble sleeping, mood changes, or other health diagnoses or concerns, we firmly believe that addressing hormones is most optimally done within the whole health approach of our Functional Medicine Wellness Intensive.

You don’t have to wait until your 50’s or when you are in complete menopause stage to benefit from a full hormone evaluation and recommendations. As explained above in “Our Approach”, the insulin levels, thyroid, and stress hormones are just as important as the other hormones that women more commonly think of! The better you address your whole health leading into your 50’s and beyond, the better your body will handle (and the less symptoms you will have!) from the major fluctuations and changes that menopause brings for most women!

Heart Math demonstrates something called “Heart Rate Variability (HRV)” and can be a great reflection of the health of your Autonomic Nervous System (“fight or flight” vs “rest and digest”). The health of your ANS is indeed one of the most important underlying root contributors to health or “dis-ease”! Many of us are chronically stuck in “fight or flight,” which is the opposite of what we want for health.

As a first step, you can schedule a consultation with Renee, NP, to determine what your HRV pattern is on Hearth Math. If you do not have an optimal pattern, we recommend that you do a 20 min feedback session daily with HeartMath for 6 weeks to reset, and then as needed. After your initial assessment, you can obtain this device from the HeartMath website to continue yourself. If you don’t want to get your own setup, we are happy to help you with your training practice as space allows. Even just having an assessment and gaining this objective insight into your Autonomic Nervous System and its contribution to your overall health is quite a useful tool!

HeartMath is intended to help you transform stress and increase performance in all areas of your life. The Limbic system of the brain is the part of the brain that manages and sets the tone for our emotional and behavioral responses. The amygdala is a portion of our limbic system that is responsible for processing fearful or threatening situations. This portion of the brain is in direct communication with our heartbeat and our heartbeat is in direct communication with this part of our brain. While our emotions impact the rhythmic pattern of our heartbeats, the rhythm of our heartbeats also impacts our emotional response patterns stored in our limbic system. We now know that this is a two-way street for communicating.

“Neuroplasticity” is our brain and nervous system’s ability to be modified or adapt. Our emotional responses and the rhythms of our heartbeats can be rewired with some training and awareness.

Heartmath provides a research supported approach to helping us adapt to stress in a healthy way and shift our limbic system from being wired to respond from a place of stress, fear or aggression, to a healthier emotional response of gratitude and love.

In addition to our emotional and stress responses shifting to a better “rhythm,” our mood and cognitive functions (memory, concentration, and creativity) can also improve with these changes. Fight-or-flight patterns inhibit executive functioning (our ability to practice flexible thinking and self control) in the higher areas of the brain by shifting energy in the brain away from the frontal cortex (the front part of our brains that control executive functioning).

HeartMath identifies heart rate patterns called coherence waves with a device called the emWave2. EmWave is very different from devices that simply measure heart rate. It measures the subtle beat-to-beat changes in your heart rate on a beat-to-beat basis and displays your heart's rhythmic patterns over time. This is called heart rate variability (HRV) analysis, and it is given in real time while using the device. The emWave is connected to your computer and a sensor on your earlobe to portray your coherence pattern. A smooth crescendo pattern for heart rhythm correlates with positive emotions and stable moods, whereas an erratic jagged rhythm can induce or signify a stressful response and correlate with anger, fear and anxiety. With regular practice of HeartMath technology using the emWave device, a new coherent baseline of rhythmic smooth patterns can be established that optimizes cognitive functions and sets the tone for positive emotional responses. These patterns are indicative of what state our Autonomic Nervous system is in: parasympathetic (rest and digest; smooth rhythmic coherence pattern) or sympathetic (fight-or-flight; jagged disorganized coherence pattern).

HeartMath training isn’t just about teaching you to keep your “feel good” emotions turned on. Unfortunately, past traumas or even just chronic stress from trying to keep up with life in general can get our limbic systems on a hairpin-trigger response for fight-or-flight. Your memory and mental capacity will decline in this state as we previously mentioned, but so will our ability to heal, sleep well, and have healthy hormones and immune systems. In a study of 10,000 people, in just 6-9 weeks of HeartMath training, researchers saw a 46% decrease in anxiety, 60% decrease in depression, and 30% improvement in sleep.

Are you struggling with fatigue, brain fog, or immune system imbalances whether autoimmune, recurrent infections or food intolerances? Or maybe you are battling impaired biotransformation and elimination and your body continuously struggles to keep up with the toxic bombardment of environmental pollution, endocrine disruptors, and heavy metals of the 21st century? Many of us have bodies that are screaming for help!

IV Nutritional therapies are very safe and can be very helpful. Due to digestive limitations, we literally cannot come close to receiving the same benefits from taking vitamins orally to what we can get in an IV. Since the nutrients naturally found in fresh foods are significantly down from fresh foods 100 years ago, micronutrient deficiencies are becoming more of the norm than not. Plus all of the gastrointestinal issues people now suffer with compound our ability to absorb nutrients from foods naturally and even to absorb high quality oral supplements. So sometimes when you are really down in a hole with your health, doing IV vitamin therapies for a time can be a really good way to boost or jumpstart your progress.

Our body’s need for adequate and sometimes robust levels of vitamins and minerals is not to just run faster or have bonus energy in a day. Nor is it to just jump on the “anti-aging bus.” These powerful little items are essential for immune function, for biotransformation & elimination to keep up with environmental pollution exposures, for squelching inflammation, and for making energy.

The primary IV therapies we will offer at Mint Health are Glutathione, Vitamin C (Low & High Dose Vitamin C), and select Vitamins and Minerals like Magnesium & B complex.

(Often included with Vitamins and Minerals, but can be given in high doses)

Price Varies depending on dose

There is a great deal of medical research to support the use of IV Vitamin C therapy for immune support, antioxidant needs, and biotransformation & elimination (detox). It can help decrease functional stress and strain on the body by helping to combat viruses, as well as support the body’s inherent capacity to neutralize and eliminate a wide range of toxicants. Vitamin C enhances the body’s ability to resist infection and can augment the immune system’s ability to neutralize bacterial, viral, and fungal infections. There are many more reasons to consider IV Vitamin C in your treatment plan including aiding in healing, quicker recovery from injury, and improving fatigue. Check out this exciting article on some of the ways IV Vitamin C is being used in some hospitals for supporting patients with COVID-19.

$125-$150 per treatment

Getting a boost of B vitamins and Magnesium can help with any number of health conditions including chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia or muscle pain, asthma, mental health, migraines, cardiovascular health, seasonal allergies and immune support.

$75 per treatment

Glutathione is our body’s superhero detoxing enzyme and is also very impactful in helping modulate the immune system. We can do lab testing to see if you have increased needs for this amazing antioxidant therapy, but we know this enzyme depletes as we age and also depletes from being chronically overused due to our polluted environment. We particularly think of using glutathione therapy for people with food intolerances, immune weakness, neurologic conditions (migraines, MS, Parkinson’s, and Dementia), chemical sensitivities, poor liver function, and known toxicity issues. Oh, and not to forget, this is also a very popular therapy if you have overindulged in alcohol (not to encourage any bad habits 😉).