HouseCall: No Saliva, Interstitial Cystitis, Immediate Gas, Reading HRV, Low HRV, Dyspareunia/Vaginal Atrophy

Welcome back to our weekend Cabral HouseCall shows!

This is where we answer our community’s wellness, weight loss, and anti-aging questions to help people get back on track!

Check out today’s questions:

Whitney: Hi Dr. Cabral, I have had a strange condition for several years that no one and no doctor can solve. In 2017, I had breast implants placed due to breast abnormalities from breast feeding. Three months after surgery, I stopped producing my own saliva. ENT placed me on pilocarpine to initiate saliva production. Fast forward two years, I moved into a house with black mold. The environment in my mouth/nose became extremely sticky and glue – like. The only relief I get from this is taking an anti fungal lozenge, clomitrazole. I am taking an astonishing 600 lozenges a month that are coupled with the 200 pilocarpine pills a month. *side note* was also exposed to heavy metals (unknown type) in 2018. ANY info on this or ways I could improve would be greatly appreciated. It’s getting worse, and the needs for these prescriptions are becoming increasingly alarming and monetarily taxing. submitted earlier,  I also had an explant/ capsulectomy this past March 2021 due to concerns that my breast implants were causing my lack of saliva and sticky glue like issues. It has not eased and possibly gotten worse. I’m also blowing my nose up to 100 times a day with black debri coming out. Was on itraconazole in 2020 for six months due to possible systemic fungal infection. Just trying to give you as many facts as possible so you can help me figure out this miserable and horrible puzzle. Thank you so much, Dr Cabral!!!!

Christina: Hi there. I have suffered with interstitial cystitis since 2018. I am a 31 year old woman who is a school teacher and mother of 2. I am hoping you can answer what good supplements are great for IC also what is the root cause? Thank you!

Anonymous: When someone has bad smelling flatulence almost immediately (within 5-10 mins) after eating processed foods (bakery sweets for example), what could be going on for it to occur so fast?

Karim: Hi Dr Cabral! Thank you for showing up everyday for your community. You are extraordinary. I recently bought an Oura ring and I’m trying to understand it as much as I can. The main reason that I bought it was to track my sleep and HRV. I wear a fitbit at the same time and the sleep data in my fitbit is very different to the oura ring (fitbit always says less deep & rem sleep funnily enough) so not sure which one to trust. I’m guessing the oura ring? haha My second question is about HRV. And yes, I did listen to conversations with Dr Cabral on this topic but I’m just having a hard time understanding where to look at. Since the HRV is based on the previous night, whenever I see a lower HRV, what day do I need to look at? Would it be the factors (lack of sleep, poor diet, stress, etc) on the previous day? Sorry, I know my question is a little confusing and I hope it makes sense. I just want to know what period I need to look at when trying to identify why my HRV was lower than usual. This will allow me to work on it better by figuring out what specific factor caused this decrease.

Karim: Sorry I forgot to ask you in my previous question if a lower HRV is always a bad thing? Is it true that when your HRV drops, it indicates that one branch of your autonomic nervous system (ANS) is becoming more dominant, either your rest-and-digest or fight-or-flight side? So actually, if my PNS increases, my HRV will drop and so it’s actually a good thing right? If that’s the case, I’m confused as to why everyone is focusing on increasing HRV…

Anonymous: What can help with dyspareunia – a symptom of vulvar and vaginal atrophy, due to menopause. My wife had a hysterectomy years ago. She is using a prescription product- Intrarosa Prasterone , but this gives her headaches and other negative symptoms.