riverside_sheree_& christa - tak... _ apr 11, 2025 001_wild_and well colle
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Sheree Beaumont: [00:00:00] The fifth thing that you can do that is super simple and is one of my. Favorite ways to support detoxification is through sweating it out, through sauna use through your Epsom salt baths.
Those sorts of things are gonna really heat up the body, drag the toxins out of the body, and you're actually sweating it out effectively. So we're eliminating through the skin.
Christa Elza: Yeah, I think all of these are great to be doing all the time, but particularly when we've been exposed to it, I think, it's not something to necessarily be scared of.
Again, it can be safe, but when we have to go through. Some of the extra testing and whether it's a breast MRI or any other MRI on your body and you have to use contrast. These are great tips that you just shared to really support our body through detoxification.
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Christa Elza: Welcome back to another episode of The Wild and Well Collective. [00:01:00] And today I want to talk a little bit about breast imaging and what we need to know about radiation, what we need to know about contrast that we might have to have for MRIs. And then we're gonna talk about what we can do to support the detoxification of those things that we have to expose our body to, or we don't have to.
It's all a personal decision. But some of this is coming from my own personal experience and my own journey with breast health, and it's really dear to my heart right now because I've had to go through a lot of these procedures and it's raised some concern and some questions in my own mind. And so I've dove a little bit into the research around the radiation risks of mammograms and the risks of having contrast with imaging.
I'll start out by saying everybody's body and everybody's case is different. And there's definitely any time in medicine there's always this risk versus benefit [00:02:00] question, right? So it's not to say that we don't need these things because when we think about the risk of not catching something early, that can be devastating, right?
And so it's not that we don't want to do screenings. I full on, encouraged frequent screenings depending on your risk factors, but I think it's always good to be aware. So I wanna start out first with talking about radiation from mammograms. And I think that's commonly a concern. And we know that it's a low dose.
Radiation is measured in something called milli seaberts. And a mammogram, a standard mammogram is 0.4 milli seaberts. And. It'll be described as the amount of radiation that you get in the environment in a, let's say, cross country flight. I've had that literally said to me multiple times, but my mind also goes to cool on a flight with all the radar and all the sun and all of that.
We are exposed to sun, but that's our full body that's exposed to it. [00:03:00] When we have a mammogram, it is that amount, which isn't maybe a ton, but it's also very concentrated just in the breast tissue, right, where they're looking. So the concentration matters also. So in my mind I'm thinking, well, yes, but it's not my whole body.
It's just one little tiny area. Right? So that's something that you wanna think about. I think that it creates questions of like long-term cumulative risks, especially. If you've been diagnosed like I had with dense breast tissue, where you often need to have a diagnostic mammogram, oftentimes you have to have another one.
If you have any testing any kind of biopsies that require radiation as they're doing the biopsy to pinpoint where they're trying to biopsy from, you're looking at maybe five or six or more mammograms during that biopsy. That's a lot of concentrated radiation to the breast tissue and. Again, you're always weighing the cost versus the benefit of something.
Mm-hmm. I mean, in some instances it's very important to have that, but I think it's [00:04:00] important to also be aware of this and to advocate for yourself on what you're willing to do. Okay. I myself have put, put my poor breast through many, many mammograms because of it. And it's also found early cancer in my breast.
So I'm not advocating to not do it, but I do want you to be educated on other options that might depending on your risk level, especially if you are. So, if you're over 50, it is important to have regular mammograms. Every form of diagnostic tool looks at something different. So there is a reason why we have an ultrasound and we have a mammogram.
And sometimes an MRI, they all can have different views and can see different things. An ultrasound is not going to pick up on the same things that a mammogram does, and an MRI sometimes can pick up on different things and blood flow to certain masses in the body. And where an ultrasound or a plain mammogram cannot.
So they all serve a purpose and that's why there's all different [00:05:00] levels of looking at whatever part of the body that we're looking at, right? So there is value in each one of them, but I would say if you are low risk, meaning you're younger, you're healthy, maybe you've even checked your genetics, and you have no genetic risk, you do not have dense breasts.
I would say you could do less frequent screenings, potentially. You could look into things like thermography, where they're looking more heat patterns within the tissue. You could look at maybe ultrasound every other year. This is not medical advice at all because again, everybody's body and everybody's situation is different, but I think that it's good to talk to your own practitioner.
About potentially changing up some of the routine for you.
Sheree Beaumont: I find this so interesting and I think it's a really important take on, quite often we think we're doing the right thing, which again, nonmedical advice and we still recommend getting screening. 'cause thankfully you have, and we've been able to detect this very early and I appreciate you sharing this so openly and so vulnerably because it can be a really [00:06:00] sensitive subject and hopefully something that women who are going through or supporting women that may end up going through this.
Again, I feel supported and have some options, but there's also a really good point that you've brought up that, hey, there is some risk to this. And I don't think that we are ever really educated on. The screening process. So when we think about MRI breast exams, like what is, the truth about these contrast agents?
What even are contrast agents? Can you explain that a little bit more?
Christa Elza: Yeah. So the cool thing about MRIs is that it doesn't require radiation. It's just a magnet. So that part's
Sheree Beaumont: cool. Mm-hmm.
Christa Elza: But, and not every MRI requires contrast, but when we're looking at the breast, it does because we wanna see blood flow without, and then we wanna see it with contrast because the cancerous tumors can absorb.
More of this contrast of what it's designed to do. So you can see any kind of active tumor, active cancer in the breast tissue because it upregulates it faster than other tissues. So that's why we have contrast with it. The contrast is based on it's [00:07:00] gadolinium based and it enhances that image quality.
However, it's a heavy metal and it can't be fully. Released from the body easily. And so, it has been found in brain, in bones and soft tissues even in people with healthy kidneys. So you've got to know that that is detoxified through the kidney. So you wanna keep that in mind when you are having anything with contrast that you wanna avoid things that are also going through the kidney.
So avoiding, Motrin and. Advil and things like that around the time that you do it, because it's just added toxins that your kidneys are gonna have to manage. So it's important to just understand that the FDA does consider it for most people safe, but detoxifying after you've had something like radiation.
Through mammograms, through multiple x-rays, through any kind of contrast for an M MRI study can be really, really helpful to support your body in that because yes, we wanna know, we wanna detect things early, but we also wanna [00:08:00] support our body in the type of testing and the impact of that can have on our body as well.
Sheree Beaumont: Okay. So when it comes to the detoxification side of things, 'cause that's what I'm hearing is gonna be really supportive. Like we go in, we have the scan, we go and have the mammogram. There are a lot of things we can do and we always focus on optimizing our detoxification pathways. And just to reiterate, our body is detoxing all the time.
How effectively. And how much load you're putting into your body each and every day is gonna be different for every individual. And so some of these things that we're about to share are gonna be really key. If you are going for an MRI contrast scan. You do wanna make sure that you're giving your body these key nutrients, you're doing these key things to help flush.
Agents out of the body. So the first one is hydration. We know that our body is 70% water. The more we can flush things out to support our kidneys, adding lemon, we know as a supportive detoxifying agent or your electrolytes right, a lot of the times we can be drinking heaps and heaps of water, but not actually hydrating.
And so the electrolytes help bring the water into the cells and support that better cellular absorption. [00:09:00] That's one thing you can do. The second thing you can do is your glutathione support, so liposomal glutathione, your NAC, broccoli sprouts, all of that support your phase two liver detoxification. So we're hydrating and then we're making sure that phase two, which is often the more slow and sluggish phase of liver detoxification, it has got some additional to support to help.
Bind and drag these out or detox effectively. The binders are the third thing, so one of my favorites would be your activated charcoal. There is a biotoxin binder that I love as well, chlorella pectin, but making sure you take these away from any other foods or medications or even supplements because whilst these do a fantastic job at binding to the toxins and things like the heavy metals, we can also then bind to the key minerals and nutrients that are in our food or our supplements, and then we're rendering them.
It's very counterproductive. The fourth thing you can do is focusing on your mineral re repletion, replenishing your minerals. So when it comes to these. Agents, what we wanna make sure we are [00:10:00] doing, because it depletes things you like, your magnesium, your zinc, and your calcium, popping these trace minerals back in again.
Electrolytes have actually already got some magnesium in it, which might be enough or we may wanna top you up even further. Zinc you are gonna find in things like eggs and red meat from a food source or even your seafood is quite high. But I would suggest having a higher dose supplemented to add in to really, really support replenishing your minerals.
And then calcium, again, we can get this through our foods, but it may be a short term instance where you just pop in it for a space of about a week to really boost your levels up. The fifth thing that you can do that is super simple and is one of my. Favorite ways to support detoxification is through sweating it out, through sauna use through your Epsom salt baths.
Those sorts of things are gonna really heat up the body, drag the toxins out of the body, and you're actually sweating it out effectively. So we're eliminating through the skin.
Christa Elza: Yeah, I think all of these are great to be doing all the time, but particularly when we've been exposed to it, I think, it's not something to necessarily be scared of.
Again, it can be safe, but when we [00:11:00] have to go through. Some of the extra testing and whether it's a breast MRI or any other MRI on your body and you have to use contrast. These are great tips that you just shared to really support our body through detoxification. Radiation. After a mammogram, you can't really undo radiation.
Radiation is, frequency and it can shift and change DNA patterning, so we can't do a ton about, once we've been exposed to it. But things that help support antioxidants it helps to support DNA. It helps to lower inflammation is gonna be adding things like vitamin C, curcumin, green tea, resveratrol, also making sure you're taking a good Omega-3 fatty acid, either supplement or adding good, healthy foods that have, are high in that fish.
Some nuts and seeds are high in omega threes and adding fiber as well. And then just having, making sure that you are doing regular exercise and you're sleeping well. All of those things help your body repair in the cellular realm, right? All the way down to the cells. And so just [00:12:00] doing what you've gotta do to make sure that your body is healthy and safe, and we're catching things early.
But then also supporting your body around that is really where my passion is because glad, I'm glad that we have screening. I'm glad that we have this capability. But I want you to be informed and I wanted to be informed of what is the risk that you're doing. 'cause I think then it's more of an empowered approach to go to your screenings.
It also feels empowering to be able to support your body when you just have to do it. So. Remembering that imaging can be lifesaving. But you just wanna support your body with no matter what screening, what part of your body has to be screened to really get through it on the other side with the least amount of risk possible.
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