Heather Florio’s Aloe Vera Secret: A Game-Changer for Pelvic Pain

Speaker 1:
0:02

Welcome to EndoBattery, where I share my journey with endometriosis and chronic illness, while learning and growing along the way. This podcast is not a substitute for medical advice, but a supportive space to provide community and valuable information so you never have to face this journey alone. We embrace a range of perspectives that may not always align with our own. Believing that open dialogue helps us grow and gain new tools always align with our own. Believing that open dialogue helps us grow and gain new tools. Join me as I share stories of strength, resilience and hope, from personal experiences to expert insights. I'm your host, alana, and this is IndoBattery charging our lives when endometriosis drains us. Welcome back to IndoBattery. Grab your cup of coffee or your cup of tea and join me at the table Today.

Speaker 1:
0:46

I'm thrilled to welcome Heather Florio, the second generation owner and CEO of Desert Harvest. Heather is a leader in innovating sustainable solutions for pelvic and sexual health, and her dedication to this field has earned her recognition as one of the top 50 women in wellness by Authority Magazine and a feature in Forbes' Top Women in Business. With nearly 30 years of Desert Harvest Advancing change through medical research and product innovation, heather has become a trusted pelvic health specialist and sexpert, sharing her expertise on platforms, panels and conferences around the globe. Her passion for supporting those with chronic pelvic health issues is truly inspiring and I cannot wait to hear from her wealth of knowledge.

Speaker 1:
1:29

Thank you, heather, so much for joining me today and taking the time to sit down with me and share your story, and share your background and what you're doing with your company, but also in efforts to help others in their quality of life and in their journey for healing. So thank you so much for joining me. Thanks, solana, for having me. It's my pleasure. Can you give us a background, a little bit, of who you are and what you do? Oh goodness, yeah, it's a big question.

Speaker 2:
1:59

Big question. So I am Heather Florio, the ceo of desert harvest. Desert harvest has been doing pelvic and sexual health products for over 31 years now. We started in 1993. We predominantly focus on women's health because about 75 of our demographic is women, so for us, it's been a part of my life, my entire adult life. We are a family company.

Speaker 2:
2:26

I'm a second generation owner and for me, when I took over in 2012, it really became a mission for me as a woman, as a mother who experienced dealing with chronic uterine fibroids, endometriosis, pcos. It was a journey, a struggle of my own, and so it really became important to me to start to advocate for other women, create products that really, truly actually made a difference for women, above and beyond even our existing product line. At that time, I really wanted to bring in tools for pelvic floor physical therapy, ways in which we could meet the entire needs, because I see the unmet needs, I talk with women every day, and let alone my own struggles, and so for me, this is Desert Harvest has been my journey of my own health journey and my journey of helping others through their own health journeys.

Speaker 1:
3:34

Yeah, it's interesting that you started this, but with the premise of aloe being so healing. Why was it that you and your family gravitated towards this aloe-based product and seeing that as healing?

Speaker 2:
3:48

So that was actually kind of accidental. So our Keystone product that started our company in 1993 was our Super Strength Aloe Vera capsules, our SSAV capsules, and those have not changed in over 31 years. It happened to be by accident. My aunt had the bladder disorder, interstitial cystitis, and for those they don't know what this is. This is debilitatingly painful Imagine having the worst UTI you've ever had but it never goes away. And that is what interstitial cystitis feels like.

Speaker 2:
4:21

It predominantly affects about 75% women, 25% men, and affects about 8 to 12 million people in the United States alone, and so it's very silent, not understood, and you can imagine, back in the 90s many doctors didn't even consider it a valid diagnosis. It was all in your head, as most women's conditions have been at one time or another, and so it very much became for us to try to find something to help her, and came across some random aloe vera product at a natural products conference. My aunt took the entire bottle, but she slept through the night, which for an IC patient they're voiding up to as much as 50 to 80 times a day, and so nocturia sleeping is very difficult to have a continuous night's sleep, and so for her to sleep through the night. We're like wait a second, there's something here. And so we began looking further, because aloe vera naturally has what's called anthraquinones in it. They're latex chemicals that naturally, over time they act as an irritant to the colon and long-term, have been proven to be carcinogenic to the colon, can cause kidney damage, liver damage.

Speaker 2:
5:35

So what you see in the health food stores are meant for short-term use digestive aids and what we were trying to create was something that you take in long-term use digestive aids. And what we were trying to create was something that you take in long-term and, as our double-blind placebo-controlled studies have shown, in high doses. And so we had to figure out how to make it safe for long-term use, and we developed our patented formulation that we still use today, in which we filter out all of those anthraquinones, all the insoluble fiber, all of the excess water. Aloe vera is over 90, almost 98 point something percent water, and so it's very, very concentrated. If you take one of our 180 capsule bottles of our super strength aloe vera, that is roughly 89 full grown aloe, barbadendis, miller leaves that are, like you know, four feet long, and and that takes roughly 89 of those to make one bottle for us.

Speaker 1:
6:35

Wow, how do you produce all of this? This is, this is just my like curious mind thinking where does this come from?

Speaker 2:
6:43

Yeah, and we've you know, obviously learned a lot about aloe through throughout these 31 years. And and now it becomes like second nature for us, because, you know, when we were very early on um, it was sourcing the fields. We wanted to make sure everything. We followed it all the way from field to bottle. So our fields are in Mexico because it's an ideal growing climate, although the hurricanes this past summer did not agree with us.

Speaker 2:
7:13

But the good news is aloe vera is very hardy, so it's already naturally pesticide resistant, so easily organic. And then it's a hydrophilic plant, so it retains its own water like a cactus, and so it doesn't matter how little or how much water it gets, it just kind of changes the color, taste and smell for us. And then we're harvesting it. So as you cut an aloe vera leaf off of a plant, malic acid immediately begins to eat away at the nutrients in the aloe vera. There are over 200 nutrients in the aloe vera plant and 75 of them are active, and so it's very important for us to concentrate and maximize those nutrients, because within six to eight hours of cutting that leaf off, all of the nutrients are dead because malic acid is eating away at it, and so at that point you've got expensive water is all you have, and so it's very important within 20 minutes of cutting off a leaf, where we're in production, processing and preserving the leaves on site at the farm and then finishing our own production in our own production facility.

Speaker 1:
8:23

So how is this beneficial for those who are curious about the properties of aloe and the benefits of aloe? How is this beneficial to those of us in like the endometriosis community or those who deal with chronic pain Because this did start correct me if I'm wrong as a way to help those going through cancer treatments topically?

Speaker 2:
8:43

We do have topicals that do benefit that so like, for instance, when you talk about pelvic pain, the relivium. This is the topical that was developed for cancer patients undergoing radiation treatments. Typically, you get radiation burns undergoing treatment and these aren't your typical burns like a kitchen burn or a sunburn. They're much more complex and so, like we have our aloe vera jelly, which you would typically think of using on a sunburn, you can use it anywhere on the body. You can use it on the vulva, you can refrigerate it for a cooling effect. But we knew that radiation dermatitis needed something a little bit more complex, so we developed the relievium, which has our aloe vera as the number one ingredient, but a whole patented blend of plant botanicals that were chosen for their ability to either be speed healing, be an analgesic, be an anti-inflammatory, help with discoloration of tissue, plus 4% lidocaine for pain.

Speaker 1:
9:40

I love it so much yeah.

Speaker 2:
9:44

So and and so typically, like a normal lidocaine gel that you might get prescribed is one to two hours on average that it lasts. But typically you can only reapply lidocaine every three hours on average because of our aloe vera. So aloe vera also acts as a carrier. You'll find it in all of our supplement lines. You'll find a little bit of aloe vera in any of our skincare supplement products, and the reason is is it's acting as that carrier to make things more systemic. So the lidocaine typically lasts about four to six hours on average. So that is kind of what makes the Relievium unique.

Speaker 2:
10:22

And then we recommend utilizing that on the vulva specifically, or maybe on the vestibule, like before sex, for dilator work, for wand work, anything to get past pain barriers, essentially, and so that sits right there. It is going to be isoosmolar, ph balanced, everything else like that. But what we recommend using in combination with is our Alloglide, which is our FDA cleared medical devices, sexual lubricant and a vaginal moisturizer, and so you can utilize that with vaginal tools of any type or for sex itself. And you might think, oh my gosh, how am I going to use lidocaine during sex? I'm going to numb, I'm not going to feel. But that's not actually the case. All it actually does is it actually extends a man's erection, and so it can help with things like ED. It actually does not desensitize like you would think.

Speaker 1:
11:17

That's fascinating. See, I am a personal fan and you know this. I'm a personal fan of that product specifically and I actually it's one of my favorite products that I've used because I love that lidocaine feature of it. So I really like that product. For those who are curious, from personal experience, it's probably one of my favorite products to use. But what are the benefits of aloe for those walking through chronic illnesses? Because you know, we are exposed and sensitive to a lot of other chemicals. We're exposed and sensitive to what we put in our bodies. We also probably need more of this stuff to help manage our day-to-day lives. And so what are some of the benefits that you're seeing that aloe have help in this space?

Speaker 2:
12:01

So there's a variety of different ways. So you know we talk about the interstitial cystitis. We're actually studying our CBD right now with our aloe vera in combination, so this is again acting as a carrier. So this isn't full spectrum, this isn't broad spectrum. It doesn't have any other endocannabinoids in it.

Speaker 2:
12:23

We focus specifically on CBD and the reason is is we found that it's what was best at isolating different pain mechanisms in our research at McGill University, and so we studied different pain models chronic nerve injury pain had a 56% reduction after 24 hours. Bladder pain had a reduction after 78% reduction after 24 hours, and similar for chemotherapy pain, surgical pain, and so what we're trying to do right now is develop models that will then look at other women's health conditions, such as endometriosis, pcos, uterine fibroids, and see what kind of effect it has on these conditions where we lack treatments, we lack resources, but we sure as heck deal with a lot of pain. And how does this respond to those mechanisms of pain? Because, as anybody probably knows, cbd out on the market cannabis products, things like that, or like it cares, takes care of everything and we know that's not true. We know that in our research we found that muscular pain, joint pain, those types of things didn't really respond well to the CBD that it was specifically for neuropathic type pain Interesting.

Speaker 1:
13:45

That's really fascinating what you just said as far as it being the neuropathic pain is amazing. But then I think about me personally, who has muscular skeletal issues with joints and other things. How do these play and marry together to be beneficial as a whole body component?

Speaker 2:
14:04

Well, that's where you really have to kind of go into. So the Relievium is naturally going to go systemic. Glycocaine has been proven effective on muscular pain externally because it can go through all the layers of the dermis. Interestingly enough, cannabis products cannot. Cannabis is inert Cann cannabis topically? It just sits there on the top of the skin. It is a great moisturizer. But you'll see things like camphor, menthol, arnican, lidocaine, things like that. These are ingredients that have shown to be transdermal and go down and have effects in the muscular tissues and be able to go transdermal. But cannabis, cbd, all that stuff, no, not at all, and that's been proven in our research as well. So for us, when we're looking, the relivium would make the best sense topically. In that sense, if you are looking to address something from a topical perspective, the CBD is going to be your ingestible and ingestible related to that.

Speaker 2:
15:08

And then when you talk the mescal skeletal system, that's where you really need to get into pelvic floor physical therapy, because that actually has your pelvic floor is your hammock to your entire body and so you are literally when you have an injury or pain anywhere in your body, it's going to affect your pelvic floor. So you imagine, like when you get into a car accident or something and everything tenses up. That's what's happening to your pelvic floor when you have pain or injury anywhere else in your body, injury anywhere else in your body. So, for instance, just to give you an example, we have our pelvic easy magic Theravons.

Speaker 2:
15:48

These are pelvic floor tools that can be used at home in conjunction with pelvic floor physical therapy to help release trigger points in muscles, either internally or externally, and those are really help with the hypertonic pelvic floor, because our initial thought is let's go to Kegels, and that is not what you want to do right off the bat. That's why it's always good to go to a pelvic PT, get your musculature evaluated, because if you're hypertonic and you start doing Kegels, you're going to make things worse and, as such, it's just going to get tighter and tighter. Imagine, like a dish rag and you're wringing it out, just going to keep wringing it out. And so you really need to be able to release those pelvic floor muscles. Because, for instance I was going to mention in the UK, all the UK footballers utilize our pelvic ones to get out because an injury at anywhere in their body. It doesn't matter where they do pelvic floor physical therapy, because it gets them out on the field three times faster than if they had not had pelvic floor physical therapy.

Speaker 1:
16:58

I have greatly benefited from that and I always tell people you know we hear in the endometriosis community excision is step one. And I always tell people you know we hear in the endometriosis community no-transcript, because you can't get a good base if you don't start with correcting some of the things that we've been holding on to so tightly. And I will tell you, healing happens much better once you do pelvic floor physical therapy and you ask those who have been in pelvic floor physical therapy forever, maybe then they go have excision and their recovery tends to be a lot faster, kind of regardless of the stage of endo, you know, comparatively to those who don't start it with similar disease. And so I think I really really advocate for those, for people to go into pelvic floor physical therapy, first while you're waiting for your surgery, while you're waiting to be seen, and then on top of that, finding modalities that can be soothing to your system can kind of downregulate your system from being in such a heightened state. So I love the mentality that you guys have in holistic healing as much as possible without diminishing the value of medical healing as well.

Speaker 1:
18:12

You know you and I have talked about this. It has to be a good partnership in holistic and medical. Otherwise the quality of care is probably not as good as it could be, and I've seen that personally in my own life. How do you recommend when people are pre-surgical searching their highest and their lowest to find some symptomatic relief Like what place does aloe play in that?

Speaker 2:
18:35

I would say the biggest thing that would play the biggest role is not necessarily like our aloe vera capsules, unless we're talking about your bladder and interstitial cystitis. Realistically, what is going to make the biggest difference is definitely, you know. You kind of hit the nail on the head and saying you know you did pelvic floor physical therapy before excision surgery. This is should be, the standard of care. So we should be having pelvic floor physical therapy before we give birth. We should be having pelvic floor physical therapy before we have an excision surgery. We should be having pelvic floor physical therapy before we have a hysterectomy. All of these things will make a difference in your quality of life afterwards and the benefits that the surgery should provide. You will have 10 times more benefit of not having after birth pain, not having to deal. You'll recover faster from excision surgery, from hysterectomies. All of these as a result of strengthening your pelvic floor ahead of time to prepare yourself for the trauma that your pelvic floor is about, ready to undergo.

Speaker 2:
19:51

Whether it's any of those three things I'm mentioning childbirth, excision surgery, hysterectomy that is the number one thing that I would recommend we have it. For instance, if you cannot get to pelvic floor physical therapy and you wanted to see what you could do at home, I did co-write a book with a doctor at Duke University called the musculoskeletal mystery how to Solve your Pelvic Floor Symptoms. It's something that's also sold here at Desert Harvest, so that can be an at-home guide for you for how to use the wands, how to feel your musculature and understand it. It's an at-home guide for those that may not be able to get to pelvic floor physical therapy. That then can be used in conjunction with the pelvic wands and in conjunction with the alloglide, with the wands and, if you need to get past pain barrier, utilizing that Relievium in combination to help get past that pain barrier for pain, while also being therapeutic at the same time.

Speaker 1:
20:56

Yeah, I think that's huge. I think we undervalue therapeutic measures of pain relief. You probably see this as well, but the first line of defense for most providers is going to be your NSAIDs, your narcotics things that they understand right, this is what they're trained for. So of course, a lot not all are going to provide you access to these things, but it doesn't really get to the root of what's happening in ways to help alleviate some of that tension and some of that stress and some of that pain. So I really like that approach, because it's not always accessible to go to a pelvic floor PT and actually it's really hard to find a good one. Here in Colorado, where I'm at, there aren't many pelvic floor PTs that understand endometriosis.

Speaker 2:
21:43

And a lot of them have their own specialties. A lot of them have their own specialty, and you have to think that there's only about between 1200 and 1500 pelvic PTs in the entire United States. Compared to the population of women, that's not a lot and, yeah, and we need so so many more pelvic floor physical therapists.

Speaker 1:
22:04

Yeah, so this is actually a call out for all those young PTs we're trying to recruit right now.

Speaker 2:
22:11

Yes, when you're trying to choose your discipline in school pelvic PT is it?

Speaker 1:
22:17

You will never be bored a day in your life. No, no, no, no. I know I was talking to my pelvic floor PT and she's like I'm pretty sure I get to see all the weird cases of things happen and she's like I am always constantly learning and growing and progressing. She goes I see so many different things come through my office and I hear all the stories. So I'm just saying there's room that you will continue to grow within that and you will be a better physical therapist for it. Not that I'm like a recruiting agent, but just saying I think we need more.

Speaker 2:
22:53

Oh, we need so, so, so much more. You know, in the UK we worked with this program to be able to get the national health system to change the standard of care. I wish we could do this here. It's a little easier when you have socialized medicine like this, so that essentially the standard of care is when a pregnant woman goes in and she has, it's like an all-in-one. You go to that first appointment and you get your prenatals and you get all this. It's also you go to the pelvic PT down the hall and you schedule your appointment because that's part of the standard of care and you can have resources for lactation, everything all in one office. So literally you're getting everything that you need in one place.

Speaker 2:
23:38

And that is what I would love to envision here in the United States one day is is that when you go into a women's health clinic or you're going for your gynecology appointment, you're going to deal with your endometriosis, you're going, you have an all in one place in which you can get all of the resources. Now, obviously, you know we're still limited in our understanding. You know you talk about throwing out NSAIDs and whatever. It's because we have a limitation of understanding in the medical community of and when you don't know what to give, you don't know what to do, you don't you know what are you going to do.

Speaker 2:
24:14

You're going to be like here try this birth control or try these insets, and you know, and then if you come back five appointments later and you're still complaining a year later, let's talk excision surgery, and then you know that goes. And then two years later down the road you're back in the office for the exact same thing. Then you're going take it all out hysterectomy, I'm done, I'm done. This is the trajectory so many women end up on, because we don't understand the etiology where endometriosis comes from, and so even the clinicians are limited, and many clinicians won't even recommend pelvic floor physical therapy because it wasn't part of their training. They don't understand.

Speaker 2:
24:58

One of the things that the clinician that I wrote the book with Ingrid Hernandez is, one of the things she really wants to do is and you'll see a section in the book about it is being able to connect all of the disciplines and why we whether it's gastroenterology, anything, why we should all be interconnected and changing the referral source, but that's changing the medical education system and the understanding of new research, new disciplines. This is why clinicians always need to be advancing their education, because there's things that are changing and the standard of care is changing, and sometimes you as the patient has to be your own best advocate to ask for that If your clinician doesn't bring it up, say I want to go to pelvic floor physical therapy, ask for it, demand it.

Speaker 1:
25:50

It's there, yes, and you know what's interesting, and you mentioned the educational piece of this and the understanding and knowledge. We met with a provider who said in OBGYN school, when they were in medical school, they didn't learn how to palpitate. Is that not scary that you have providers who that is their primary focus in women's health and they haven't learned how to do that properly?

Speaker 1:
26:12

That's scary to me, but that's not uncommon, unfortunately, right, and that's where it becomes more complex. And this is where the patient really has the benefit of being able to advocate for themselves. And unfortunately and fortunately, patients are becoming way more savvy in their care and they're demanding way more in their care than what was even five years ago. And so I'm hopeful that maybe we'll start seeing this shift. Maybe we'll start seeing this shift where they're encompassing a whole body approach, where they look at everything that's going on without coming into a pre-bias of what's happening in your body, right? That's also another issue. Is that bias when you walk in the room?

Speaker 1:
26:52

Okay, you're coming for endometriosis, oh, boy, you know, instead of listening to everything and symptoms are getting missed and patients aren't getting complete care because we're not listening to what's happening from head to toe, you know, and that's huge. But also as patients and maybe you can expand on this a little bit more but as patients, we have to put the work in too. We can't rely solely on our doctors and prescriptions. We have to put that work in. When you advocate and you put the work in, have you in your studies, looked at how that affects patient populations?

Speaker 2:
27:26

I have not personally done the research, but I have. I've seen this research introduced at many, many, many medical conferences with where we're looking at changing the standard of care, understanding the standard of care and this. This is across multiple disciplines and it is very important. You know, in one sense we shy away from Dr. Google is not your friend but at the same time, if you can learn to disseminate the information that's on the internet you look at the NIH, you look at those clinical research studies, not someone putting up on their website that something works for this. For instance, I just had someone who, because it was on some associations website that oxalates made a difference, low oxalate diets made a difference for vulvodynia, and this information was put out on this platform and I was like no, no, no, no, no, no. I was like, just because it was said on a website. I said there was a theory in 1991 when a study was done with vulvodynia and many of the patients had oxalates in their urine when we studied it, that we found that we can just say it's an oxalate thing. If you do a low oxalate diet it'll make a difference. But all of the research since 1991 has debunked that theory but yet we still live in this world where this 1991 study is still hanging on and women are thinking that they need to do a low oxalate diet, when they're limiting their diet essentially is what they're doing, and they're limiting maybe some of the nutrition that they need and some of the things that their body does need because of an old study.

Speaker 2:
29:08

Menopause is another great example. The Women's Health Initiative. You know we started this in 1995. In 2002, we dropped it because we were scared to death because there was a few women that had developed cancer while doing the study, that it was related to HRT. And we're going to scare all women away from hormones and we're going to just suffer because, as women, we're just taught to suffer with our conditions because they haven't been researched, we haven't even been included in medical studies till 1993. And so then fast forward to 2019, and we completely debunk that, where the FDA stopped this study in 2002, because we find those women had other factors relating to their genetics, other things like that that led to them getting cancer that had nothing to do with the HRT. And as women now we've been spending this entire generation, from 2002 to 2019. And even now, because women are scared to death.

Speaker 2:
30:10

I talk every day to women scared to death of HRT and it's like no, are you perimenopausal? Are you menopausal? You should be on HRT. You need to talk to your doctor about HRT because then you're going to reduce the incidences where we're soaring in dementia, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis. How do we prevent these things if we're not following something that we were scared away from in 2002? So that idea of accessing medical information and advocating for yourself is critical and critical, and we're given new tools and new ways every day to do that, like, for instance, hrt.

Speaker 2:
30:50

I recommend all of our customers go to myalloycom, because most of the time, if you go to your clinician right now and you're perimetopausal, menopausal, and you go, I think I'm having symptoms I think I need there will still be clinicians that will not prescribe you HRT, hormone replacement therapy. They will be scared. They will tell you just just that you know, don't worry about it. And then, in reality, you need to be able to advocate for yourself. So great companies have come out, like my alloy, where you can literally go on there I think it's forty, nine, ninety, five or something, don't quote me exactly and you go on to their website, you pay for the initial referral fee and you put in all your information.

Speaker 2:
31:31

A clinician reviews all of your information, your clinician reviews all of your information and then they decide what to prescribe you because there's no test for hormones. Our hormones are like they're changing every two seconds. You can't do a test and say you're menopausal it wouldn't happen. So in reality, you just have to review the symptoms and your age, where you're at in life, and determine what you need based on that, and then go on hormone replacement therapy and go to websites like MyAlloi, which allows you to just get, I think for that same $49.95, you can get three months of medication mailed to you and it easy peasy. It comes to your door. You're not arguing with a clinician or being dismissed by a clinician who doesn't understand that you should be taking HRT now, collect information and then advocate for yourself, whether it's finding a way around which there are amazing companies being built for ways around all different kinds of things where us, as women, hit brick walls.

Speaker 1:
32:41

Absolutely, and anytime you're looking at prescribing or doing medications, if you have other providers say vascular doctors or anything like that make sure that you do talk to them about that as well, because there is a correlation with clotting disorders and things like that. So I want to say that it's important to include all of your providers in this decision as well. But finding a good HRT provider is a massive challenge and something that I face even still. Finding someone that I feel like is going to look at me individually and look at my symptoms and a huge feat for me to find someone that would prescribe my testosterone and look at you know all the levels and things like that. But it was just so important that I got on my HRT.

Speaker 1:
33:24

As someone who's gone through surgical menopause at such a young age, it's made a huge difference in my quality of life and I want to say this just for anyone that's listening who maybe has had a hysterectomy or who's had their ovaries removed or whatever. It's important to do this sooner than later, because if you have not, it will feel like your endo is back, because your body is starving for something that it so desperately needs, and I experienced that as someone who had no idea prior to my hysterectomy and oophorectomy that other than estrogen. I knew estrogen, but I didn't know why that that's so important and that's kind of been one of my big passions is post-excision how do we take care of ourselves in each stage that we're in? And that's where that advocating part really comes into play. And something that you mentioned is the vulvodynia. Can you explain that just a little bit to people so they understand it? And it is an important thing that we should be paying attention to as well.

Speaker 2:
34:19

Yeah, so with vulvodynia, this is again very similar to endo, in that we do not know a lot about vulvodynia and so for those that may potentially be diagnosed with it, vulvodynia is going to be like a chronic pain in the vulva area in your genitals. It can be pain. There's no cause. We have no understanding again as to why it happens, and it can be debilitating. Whether it's just from experiencing pain from sitting, of course it's going to flare during administration time, and it's going to flare for a variety of reasons that we actually don't understand, including sex, and so that's where the Relivium comes in and is a big help in a lot of cases for vulvodynia patients.

Speaker 2:
35:10

But because we don't understand it, there are theories constantly going out and, like I mentioned, the low oxalate diet, this is something that again was posited in 1991, still persists to this day, even though it's been debunked time and time and time again that it doesn't make a clear difference for vulvodynia in utilizing a low oxalate diet.

Speaker 2:
35:36

And I'm constantly trying to provide this information because by limiting your diet you can be limiting nutrients, you can be limiting other things that your body may need, and so it's never good to go on a limiting diet that you don't need Right. The oxalates are really related to kidneys and kidney function and kidney stones and, yes, when they pass through your bladder, when they pass through your urethra, they might tear things up and feel awful and your vulvular pain as a result of this, but it's coming from your kidneys and that is where if you had a chronic reason and your urologist told you to go on a low oxalate diet, that makes sense. But then to just go oh, I have vulvodynia, I should go on a low oxalate diet. There's no correlation to that. We understand very little about vulvodynia and it's something where we manage the symptoms, whether they experience it for one week, three months, three years or more.

Speaker 2:
36:38

Just like endometriosis, it really becomes about symptom management because until we do the research to really understand the etiology of these female conditions, mind you, let's go back to the fact that we have not been doing medical studies on women and were not included until 1993. That is not that long ago. We're talking 30 years, of which we just started researching women, and I mean we're just now, with the campaigns for endometriosis and everything, getting the funding to really research it. And for the first time and that's the other problem is this goes into funding, funding for women and women's health conditions. The majority is still funneled away from women's health conditions. There was just recently introduced by Biden a women's health initiative that will redirect and fund dollars and they are really listening to the voices of the clinicians that are treating these women that are seeing these. They're getting a chance to fill out surveys and to provide information and for the first time we're really listening. So if we actually truly start doing research studies, it's never going to work.

Speaker 2:
37:54

We're over a hundred years behind. If we continue with the traditional models of researching healthcare of 30 women here, a hundred women here in, like certain populations, and then we're going to apply this to the entire population of the United united states, then that is not going to be helpful. We have to go around the traditional senses. One of the things I recently did I actually partnered and created a new type. Well, my amazing geniuses, who are not made, created, um, a type of ai. That is a way, and it's called her health and I hope to be launching it here by maybe next year We'll see and it will plug into existing healthcare systems and the figurative idea is that we map data points. So the more data we collect and put into one system as women, the more that can map data points for us that have never been mapped. So if we continue these traditional models, we'll never catch up. So we have to think outside the box. There's great people thinking outside the box besides. You know just myself sitting here trying to figure out how we can pull data from other women and I think we'll get there. It's just innovating and implementing these new ways, these resources. I mean the more data we dump into her health.

Speaker 2:
39:21

And my idea is not to just get women from the United States. I want women from all over the world. So, talking to Health Canada, talking to the national health system in the UK, talking to the resources, partnering with Doctors Without Borders so that we get women from remote areas of the world, because if we have data from all women and we can map data points from all women, then we'll be able to get to the etiology. We have to get to the etiology what caused this? And then we can get to the innovating and the advancing of treatments and discovery and how and preventative actions.

Speaker 2:
40:01

Without that understanding and I can name 20 different right off the top of my head 20 different women's health conditions that we don't even know the etiology of and that women suffer from on a constant basis and we're constantly just suffering and the reason why we're dismissed is because it is easier to deal with the people that come in and have something clear cut and I'm going to send you to surgery. I'm going to give you this drug. You're going to do this. Here's what you're going to do. Go home and do it Versus, I have no idea. You could try this, this and this and see what works for you Right.

Speaker 1:
40:37

How has Desert Harvest? Specifically because you guys have done a lot of research. How have you facilitated that research? Because I think the idea of encompassing every woman from every part is important, but that's not been an easy feat to this point. So how have you guys navigated the research? End of that?

Speaker 2:
40:55

For us. I always say that selling Desert Harvest products funds my passion, which is advancing women's health and women's health research, and so it is very important to me, when I'm looking at different things, to go to the source, to go to the best. Whether it's the best endometriosis doctor in the country that has done the most amount of research, whether we went to McGill because they have the top pain research center in the world, and if anybody is going to advance women's pain research, it's going to be McGill up in Montreal, because they are the best in the country. So I don't limit myself, let's say, just to the United States, but I want to be able to go to the best, because if those are the best, they're going to be the ones that are going to be able to advance things Like. Currently we're doing a study at Wake Forest University with interstitial cystitis patients. We're with Dr Robert Evans. He is one of the best interstitial cystitis doctors in the entire world and so my most important thing is making sure that these are the clinicians that are truly committed to what they are doing and that they are advocating and they are looking to propel forward for women, for themselves, so that then they can have the resources to be able to provide the women that are coming to see them, and so that is kind of the trajectory I always take with research.

Speaker 2:
42:22

We fund most of it ourselves, and that is specifically because we are industry. It's not something a supplement company typically does. They're just capitalistic here take this and I'll take your money, and how many multi-level marketing companies exist out there, you know, specifically to sell supplements, and so it's been very important to me to be very intentional with the ingredients, about the products. We make their purpose, their benefit. I'm not going to make something that's going to have a laundry list of side effects. I'm not going to make something that is not going to benefit women in some way, because I see it all the time. It's a sad state in which I see all these products that have no benefit whatsoever. For instance, bloomberg did a study in 2016, and this is just aloe vera gelase, which you would typically think of using on a sunburn. They did a study in 2016, and this is just aloe vera gelase, which you would typically think of using on a sunburn. They did a study in 2016 and they went into the stores and pulled aloe vera gels off of Walgreens, cvs.

Speaker 2:
43:23

Walmart shelves and they tested them all. There were no measurable levels of aloe vera in any of them, any of them whatsoever. And this is the problem is, you know, I can name aloe vera products that are on the market, plenty of them juices, even capsules that claim to be the same thing that we are have no measurable levels of aloe vera, because I just send some out for independent third party testing occasionally, just because I like to know what people are doing to consumers and stuff like that, and so and it's not the testing that, just you know, that's the problem, it's consumers. We can't go home, buy a product, test it, see if it's really good or not, or do anything. And same thing with the recent scare with what was it?

Speaker 2:
44:08

Cold medicine. You know they did that study over 16 years at the University of Florida. They did that study over 16 years at the University of Florida and they found that it did absolutely nothing. But you know what, when you ask the FDA, they will say we are a safety organization, not an efficacy organization, efficacy meaning that something works, and so they are just making sure that something is safe, so there's no reason not to take it, other than the fact that it does absolutely nothing and these people are just making money off of people who don't feel well and need something to feel better. That's a perfect example with the cold medicine, our environment and our market, and advocating for yourself as a consumer and being able to choose products that you can actually trust is very, very difficult.

Speaker 1:
44:55

It is, it absolutely is, and I can tell you just from personal experience in the aloe piece of this because you know you touched on the different aloe products in the different stores and how this correlates. But as someone who is very sensitive to sun and I live in Colorado, so hello, sunburns like instantly right. How much closer can you get?

Speaker 2:
45:15

to the sun.

Speaker 1:
45:16

Yeah, exactly how much drier? Could we be Right? But I, you know, I went to Hawaii gosh, this is a long time ago, it was before I had kids and I had gotten this terrible sunburn. And I went into this store who sold aloe and they kind of made their own and we were talking to the guy there and he goes you know, what you're getting in the grocery stores and other stores is primarily water and he's like it's not the right kind of aloe that's going to be healing for your skin. And he goes, and not only that, it's full of alcohol which dries your skin, which is counterintuitive to actually healing your skin.

Speaker 1:
45:50

And so we have become so much more aware of what's in those aloe products because we I'm not kidding you. So we got this product for sunburns and it was amazing and I had severe, like almost purple skin and I don't we don't need to talk about my you know lack of judgment in that area, but I will say that I legitimately did not peel. After three days it was healed and it was a bad burn. And that's where quality product makes a huge, huge difference. And I have seen the same thing in the Desert Harvest aloe and that's why I really love the product and you're going to hear me say this again because this is probably one of my favorite products, specifically for those tender skinned people, and I'm super sensitive to products on my skin.

Speaker 1:
46:38

I'm super sensitive to things that I put on my skin. So those with mast cell disorders we often are really sensitive to what we put on our skin. Those with hypermobile disorders EDS we are again we're very sensitive. So aloe for me has been healing and it's given me avenues of healing that I wouldn't have with traditional over-the-counter things. And that's why I find that it's so important that we talk about this topic and why I'm having you on, because for those that struggle in this area, specifically internally and externally, we have to find ways that are healthy and hypoallergenic, that can help us and not be fooled by the labels at the grocery store or the department store. And that's why I think this has been so good to learn about. What does Desert Harvest have coming up next? Because you guys have been doing a lot for a lot of years, but I feel like you're just now getting started into some bigger things.

Speaker 2:
47:39

Oh, yes, yes, we have two very amazing products which should be out either by like the end of the year. I think we're actually going to start taking pre-orders for one of them next month. One is it's called UTI Defense UTI defense, and so your typical over-the-counter that you go to on the market right now is D-mannose. A lot of the times, for recurrent UTIs, you drink your cranberry juice, things like that. That's all D-mannose, which is actually also an aloe vera, mind you, and is an extraction source. But it only binds in research to E coli bacteria, one type of bacteria.

Speaker 2:
48:16

So with the new ingredient that we have discovered and in our new research, we just finished up a UTI study with the organization Live UTI Free and we're really excited to be able to introduce those results because they're being quantified now.

Speaker 2:
48:32

But essentially we were able to show that it binds to three and potentially two more, so a total of five bacterias. So you've just gone from one bacteria with D-mannose to multiple bacterias that showing in research it binds to, and so you're just quadrupling your defense, and so that product and it will literally be called U like U, uti defense, and that will be coming out by the end of the year. And then we also have and this one I'm really excited about we made a new fabric out of aloe vera, and so it was really important to us and I'm sure everybody is seeing with the menstrual products out on the market the chemicals, the PFAS, the issues that we're seeing with the fabrics and the period panties what we're seeing the toxic chemicals and tampons and everything else like that. We wanted to create something different, and we also didn't want them to look like granny panties either. We wanted something that you know, a woman wants to feel a little sexy even though she's in horrible pain at that exact moment.

Speaker 2:
49:36

But we also wanted them to be comfortable, and so we developed what's called Lunation. These will be our new period panties and actually, if you peek on our website at desertharvestcom, you can kind of see a teaser of them, and those will be coming out soon. And we utilized aloe fabric because aloe is naturally antibacterial, antifungal, antimicrobial, and then on top of that we added ginger, because it's naturally deodorizing. We added a ginger fabric and then we also added bamboo fabric, so it's going to wick moisture, and every single batch of lunation underwear that is made will undergo testing to show that no chemical ever touched an inch of fabric in the making of the materials, and that testing will be up on the website for every batch.

Speaker 1:
50:29

Wow, that's incredible. I'm so excited for that. I wish I had those when I had a period.

Speaker 3:
50:35

Yeah, me too Me too I'm like I'm making this product and I'm like well, that's past.

Speaker 1:
50:41

for me it's a little obsolete in my world, but yeah, but hey.

Speaker 2:
50:46

But yeah, my daughter-in-law and my you know, my son's girlfriends and I it doesn't matter who I mentioned to it's an excitement because they know what's out there. They don't trust what's out there and we want to give them something that they can trust, feel good about wearing, and feel good just in the sense of how it looks.

Speaker 1:
51:06

Yeah, absolutely I agree. I think that we need to be a little bit more cautious of that, especially for those of us who are already fighting a lot of chronic illnesses Like we. Just if we can eliminate just a little bit to help our bodies, then this is a really good product. Is this accessible worldwide? Is this only accessible in certain countries? How does that work for Desert Harvest?

Speaker 2:
51:31

So Desert Harvest. We are pretty much available worldwide. There are a few countries we have problems shipping to Africa, a few South American countries and Mexico. Even though our aloe comes from Mexico, it can't go back into Mexico Interesting. Yeah, it's really quite funny, but that's pretty much the limit that we have. Beyond that, we pretty much ship worldwide.

Speaker 1:
51:57

I am so excited to share this with you. But if you are curious about trying Desert Harvest's amazing products whether it's the new products or things like their aloe vera gel or supplements that are gentle and soothing you're in luck, because you can use the code INNOBATTERY10 at checkout and get 10% off all of their products. Whether you're looking for relief, better self-care or just want to treat yourself, this is a chance to experience their incredible healing products for less. So go to DesertHarvestcom and plug in INDOBATTERY10 and get your products today, and then head on over to Instagram and let me know what you think is the best product that you have tried so far. So, again, go to desertharvestcom and plug in Endo Battery 10 and get your discounted products today.

Speaker 1:
52:49

I'm excited for your new products. I'm excited for the work that you're doing and just the passion behind what you're doing. You're not just a company with a product, you're a and just the passion behind what you're doing. You're not just a company with a product, you're a company with a mission, and that's kind of why I wanted to highlight what you guys do. But you're also very knowledgeable in a lot of women's health issues, which I appreciate that, because it's not just focusing on one, because oftentimes we, as women, don't have just one thing going on. We're very complex humans.

Speaker 1:
53:14

You know, yes, our comorbidities about us, we would say yeah, exactly, exactly. But I appreciate the work you're doing and I appreciate everything that you're putting into making future generations better and having things and tools to help them live their lives, allowing ways for women to thrive in life and throughout their life. So thank you for doing that work. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2:
53:41

Thank you, it's a trickle effect. I always say you educate one woman and they educate another. We are a community that pass the information along, so that's my ultimate goal is to educate and inform and pass it along the ultimate goal is to educate and inform, and pass it along.

Speaker 1:
53:59

Yeah, heather, what are some parting words that you would use for those navigating tough journeys of health? Don't give up.

Speaker 2:
54:04

You are your best advocate and find your tribe because you're not alone in the journey. No matter how alone you feel, there are other women out there suffering and you can find that network in that community and address yourself from head to toe. Your mental health, your gut health, your vaginal health everything in your body interconnects. Make sure you're addressing it all. It's okay to say that you're not feeling mentally healthy, because you know when you're in a chronic pain state this takes a toll. So address it all yeah, absolutely it does.

Speaker 1:
54:36

Thank you, he, for everything you're doing and for taking the time to sit down with me today. I just appreciate you spending the time with me and giving us more hope moving forward in our journeys, and the wisdom that you share.

Speaker 2:
54:47

So thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Alana, for having me. This was wonderful.

Speaker 1:
54:51

Yes, Until next time. Continue advocating for you and for those that you love.