In this episode, Dr. Ron sits down with Dr. Veronique Desaulniers, better known as Dr. V. She is the Founder of Breast Cancer Conqueror and the 7 Essentials Systems and is the Co-founder of My Breast Friend. Her signature process has empowered thousands of women in over 56 countries. Her mission is to “change lives, one breast at a time.” Dr. V has personally conquered breast cancer twice, giving her an empathetic perspective to understanding other women facing a healing journey.
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Episode Transcript
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Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Well, welcome everyone. This is Dr. Ron Hunninghake from the Riordan Clinic. This is our Real Health podcast, and it’s my pleasure today to have Dr. V, and I am going to take a shot at it, Dr. Veronique Desaulniers. Am I pretty close?
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Pretty close. Veronique Desaulniers, so pretty close.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Veronique. Okay. Desaulniers. Okay. Well, Hunninghake’s my last name, and that’s why they call me Dr. Ron, and I’m sure that’s why you go by Dr. V.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Exactly. Exactly.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Okay. Well, welcome to our show. Yeah, we are very interested in your journey into how to deal with breast cancer naturally. Of course, as our listeners know, and as you know, the cancer epidemic rages on. I sometimes say this is the silent pandemic that most people aren’t as aware of, but it’s just as dangerous. And we know there are people who would like to know how they can number one, prevent breast cancer or any type of cancer for that matter. And number two, specifically, what do they do when they first get diagnosed with breast cancer? Because that is a total life-changing comment that people are receiving more and more these days. That’s a kind of a broad introduction, but I was just wondering if you would just tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Yes, absolutely. So thank you for having me on your show. And I really love all the work that the Riordan Clinic does. It’s just fascinating to see the research and how many people you have really helped in your vitamin C IV research. So my journey began as a chiropractor. I’d been in practice 23 years. I was the wellness warrior, and I thought I was doing everything right. And I was in the shower doing a breast exam, and bam, felt that lump in my left breast that changed the course of my life professionally and personally because I had to ask myself, “How could somebody like me develop breast cancer?” I was under chiropractic care. I took supplements, exercise, home births. You name it. I did it. So I really had to ask myself, “What are the pieces of the puzzle that I was missing that would allow cancer to show up?”
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Because we know that cancer is a symptom. It’s not the cause. Right? And so what was going on in my body that would allow cancer to develop? And that’s when I realized, well, I really needed to go back to the roots of what I was teaching my patients and to apply it to myself. And as I was going through my first healing journey, there were moments, just like any other woman, where I was frustrated and confused, and there was a little bit of fear, sometimes, in the back of my mind, but I knew that if I created a system that I could follow and check off the boxes, that it would remove a lot of the fear, and I would have a track to run on. And that’s how I came about developing the 7 Essentials System. It’s a basic step-by-step guide that if you follow, you never have to fear cancer or any disease, for that matter.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Yeah. So, it’s very interesting. When Dr. Riordan died, I had been with him for about 16 years. And I tried to put together the same sort of thing. And we have the seven precepts of the Riordan Approach, and it’s fascinating to see how we’ve lined up. And I think that’s happening around the country more and more as people are dealing with the viral pandemic, as well as the cancer pandemic. People are waking up and saying, “My gosh, I need to do something out of my own initiative because the medical profession is pretty much stuck in some old ways of thinking about breast cancer prevention that may not be the best for women.” And so I was hoping maybe you would… Let’s start with prevention. What are some of the things that you’re suggesting now for the average woman to do in a preventative mode?
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Well, we are in the October month of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. However, I’ve renamed it to breast health awareness month.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Yes.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Because I think the focus should be on breast health, not on breast cancer. So we know that that pink month really trolls for business for mammography. And mammography, I believe, had its place years ago, but there’s so many other technologies now that could support the findings that they use. And we know there are many studies, an example of one is a 25-year Canadian study done on 90,000 women. And they found that mammography did not reduce breast cancer mortality rate, not even by 1%. And we know that radiation causes cancer, and there’s more and more evidence that radiation compression can actually cause DCIS breast cancer to really start growing.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: So, what are things that you can do? If you choose to get a mammogram, that’s a personal choice. I’m not telling you not to get one, but back it up with an ultrasound, because an ultrasound’s going to give you another picture of what’s going on in the breast tissue, especially if you have dense breasts, because we know that mammography will miss 48% of the tumors in women that have dense breasts. Another choice for prevention and to be able to find a lump is thermography. We know that thermography reads the infrared heat coming off of the body, so it doesn’t diagnose cancer, but it gives us an idea of what’s going on physiologically in the breast tissue. So it’ll show up as inflammation. It’ll show up as red hot. And we know if there’s hormone imbalances or vascularity angiogenesis feeding a tumor, then you’ll be able to see those actual patterns. And again, if you do thermography, back it up with an ultrasound. MRIs are also an alternative for some women.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: We’ve been doing thermography here at the Riordan Clinic for about eight years now. And basically, as you just said, I tell women, “We can’t make a diagnosis, but we can certainly tell you when you need to become more alert and possibly use some of the more invasive modalities as a way of trying to hone in on what’s actually going on.” The other thing about thermography is it also tells us that breast cancer is an inflammatory illness. And when we see a higher amount of heat coming off of a certain area of the breast, that suggests there is some localized inflammation. Again, it’s not a diagnosis, but it helps us begin to think about what we can do in terms of reducing the risk of breast cancer, because there’s so many ways now to begin to lower generalized inflammation within the body by means of diet, supplements, exercise. All kinds of things that you do for your own health is going to help you modulate your inflammatory system in a way that it’s not going to be hurting you. But yeah, we’re big thermography practitioners.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Excellent. Yes. I was certified in 2005, long time ago, but thermography has really improved over the years. Now, in talking about prevention, one of the recommendations, which I believe is not stressed enough, is for women to do a breast self-exam. Now, women have never been taught properly. And there’s a tool that we now have available to us. It’s called My Breast Friend. And this tool was actually invented by the MammaCare Foundation decades ago. It was designed to teach clinicians how to do a proper clinical exam and to be able to find and detect lumps in bumpy breast tissue.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: So the manufacturer of this model asked me to take this to the general public. So we made it look pretty and purple and more attractive for women. It comes with an instructional video and a little booklet, but it teaches you what to look for, how to look for it, by the type of palpation that you use, and where, because a lot of women will just look at their breast tissue, but in reality, they’ve got to go up into the collar bone, into the armpit, underneath, and on the chest bone. So My Breast Friend is a great tool that can really help you to detect things because there’s 364 days of the year between screenings, right? Most women just get screened once a year. And there’s, literally, a cancer called an interval cancer where cancer shows up between that yearly screening. And those tend to be a lot more aggressive and fast growing. So you have the opportunity to detect those.
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Dr. Ron Hunninghake: And, of course, I’m sure you’re always talking to your patients about what they eat because that is probably… I’m looking ahead a little bit on your 7 Essentials Systems, “Let food be your medicine.” That’s actually one of our precepts, as well, that if people are not thinking about what they’re eating and how it’s impacting their overall health, that the terrain… I’m also currently working with Dr. Nasha Winters in a training program, talking about the terrain, since any type of cancer is a metabolic cancer, but Dr. Nasha Winters talks about the breast especially being metabolically sensitive. And so, what are some of the dietary factors that you encourage your patients to think about in terms of prevention?
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: I love Dr. Nasha. Actually, I consulted with her when I was going through my second healing journey, and I love her approach. So, essential number one is, “Let food be your medicine.” And there’s no one-size-fits-all diet. We’re all individuals. So, it’s very important to look at your genetic makeup, your blood type, your digestive system, your metabolic type, to see what works best for you. And as Dr. Nasha says, “Always test. Don’t guess.” Right?
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Right.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Always test and assess. And whether you tend to be on the carnivore side or the plant-based side, just make sure that you’re testing to see how those diets are working for you. But overall, organic as much as possible, 80% raw, lots of vegetables. I say, “Minimal fruit.” And if you’re going to eat meat, make sure that it’s clean, antibiotic, hormone-free, all of that.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Yes. Very good. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer 21 years ago. It was an early stage cancer. And we probably did minimal types of medical stuff. She did have a lumpectomy. Sentinel node was negative. And so, we were able to get away with just radiation and very aggressive IV vitamin C, and then, this radical lifestyle change. But part of what I’m sensing, back at that time, it was early in our marriage. There was a tremendous amount of stress. And I think, as I’ve read more and more about breast cancer and dealt with breast cancer patients, it seems like stress is a major contributing factor to the genesis of breast cancer. And so, could you talk a little bit about that because everyone’s under stress. What do you consider the types of the stresses that are going to be most likely to trigger cancer-type situations?
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Well, I’m glad that you brought that up because that was pretty much… I had a recurrence nine years later. I had breast cancer twice, and it was a time where I was beginning to be the face of breast cancer conqueror. I was coaching women from sunup to sundown, wasn’t sleeping well. My hormones were off. I had issues with my thyroid, cavitation in my mouth. And so, I created the perfect storm for breast cancer to show up again. And so, one of the things that we talk about in our program… Essential number four is to heal the emotional wounds. … Is to always make sure that you bring your body into the relaxation response every single day. Because as you mentioned, we are under stress. Driving down the interstate is stressful and having to wake up and get to work and do things. We’re always being bombarded with so many things.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: If we stay in that sympathetic mode where our foot is on the pedal to the metal, so to speak, we are creating pathways, genetically and chemically, that can literally turn on cancer causing genes-
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Right.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: … and really increase the risk for metastasis and spread. And I’ve seen that in our clients. Those who really take the time to calm their body and their mind every single day and learn to live that lifestyle, their body responds because you cannot heal if you feel like you’re being chased by a saber-tooth tiger. Right? You’ve got to be in that calm mode.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Yeah. So, yes. And exercise, walking, spending time with significant others, slowing down, having heart-to-heart conversations, these kinds of things that develop that connectivity in our lives can also help reduce stress quite a bit. I’m going to hit one other one of, or probably we might even get a couple more in here, but my good friend is Dr. Thomas Levy. And if he’s told me once, he’s told me a hundred times, “With breast cancer, have your patient check their mouth. Go find a biological dentist, or get some kind of cone-beam scan to where you can check for infection or mercury toxicity, root canals. There’s a number of different factors that tie into this because the lymphatics from the mouth drain right into the breasts. And so I was glad to see that you have that as Essential number five.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Yes. Embrace biological dentistry because what you have in your mouth will affect the rest of your body because our teeth are living entities, and they’re connected to all your organs through your acupuncture meridians system.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: That’s right.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: And so, chemically, if you have metal fillings, which are mercury, 50% mercury, mercury is actually what we call a metalloestrogen. It mimics and stimulates estrogen production in the body. And so if you have mercury fillings, those are seeping methylmercury into your body. So, very important to get those removed properly by biological dentists.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Right.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: The root canal is like a dead organ. Like a dead gallbladder, dead appendix, no matter how clean you try to make it, it’s always a site of infection. So very important to get that cleaned out. I mentioned cavitation, not cavity, but cavitation, is an infection in the bone where you’ve had an extraction. It’s never have been cleaned out properly. And it will, literally, be a site of bacteria brewing away and eating away of the bone. And that can be a cause. And I’ve seen it in my situation. Number 14, up here left breast, had a cavitation up there. Then, other areas down here, as well. And we see that in thermography. Right? We can see the inflammation in the mouth and how it’s affecting the breast.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Yeah. The apical abscesses are also a factor that Dr. Levy wrote, the Hidden Epidemic. And so, getting that proper type of x-ray. The standard x-rays don’t always pick these up, and getting the right kind of dentist who’s in line with your thinking and really willing to take a close look at this because I think this is a major factor. And so, just this idea of early detection, you mentioned that as number seven. And so, tell me about your… In a sense, this is kind of a cornerstone of how to deal and how to prevent breast cancer, but how did that play out in your life?
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Well, part of that embracing early detection has also to do with some blood work that we can look at. We talked about screening, physical screening, the self breast exam, but blood work. So if you look for inflammatory markers, for example, C-reactive protein, LDH, ESR, homocystine. If those are high, then chances are you’re producing a lot of inflammation and that you may be producing some cancer cells. Looking at the standard cancer markers, of course, if you’re interested in that. Looking at your vitamin D levels.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Bingo.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Vitamin D levels are so important, to be within that optimal range between 80 and a hundred mgs per mL. And that’s shown us that you can reduce your breast cancer risk by almost 80%-
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Right.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: … just by keeping your vitamin D levels up, and vitamin D’s… It’s not really a vitamin. It’s a steroid hormone, and it literally affects over 200 genes in your body. So very, very key.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: We could probably go on talking for a couple hours on this topic, and I’m very excited about your book. Could you tell the audience about your book?
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Yes. Heal Breast Cancer Naturally. You can find it on Amazon. It’s the 7 Essential Steps to beating breast cancer. It’s the second edition. And it’s basically about my second healing journey and all the things that I learned in my second healing journey and all the things that I applied, each of the steps, and some in-depth research. There’s over 700 research references in the book. So this is evidence-based natural medicine. It’s not just somebody’s opinion.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Yeah. Dr. Riordan’s famous word that I think applies to you very well is the idea that as a doctor and our patients, we are all co-learners. And co-learning is a very empowering way to avoid any kind of disease, but especially cancer, because I think most people have this fear, but I think we need to replace fear with knowledge and with pro action. Be proactive in your efforts. And so, I would like to thank you for your efforts and your willingness to reach out to so many women out there who are quite frightened about this whole circumstance, because the breast cancer epidemic is not slowing down.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: It’s not. It’s not. And when women hear the word breast cancer, what’s the first thing they think of? Right? Bald head, sick, laying in bed. And it doesn’t have to be that way. Our clients around the world are proof of that, as are your patients, that cancer does not have to be a scary word if you understand what it is, what it’s not, and how you can put personally have a large impact on the improvement of your health.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Dr. V, thank you so much for being on our podcast. What a wonderful opportunity to talk with you. And hopefully, we can touch bases again sometime because I really think this is a very important topic for so many women. So, thank you for all the work that you’ve done.
Dr. Veronique Desaulniers: Thank you for sharing my message of hope with your audience, Dr. Ron.
Dr. Ron Hunninghake: Thanks. Bye now.
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Such GREAT info! Thank you so very much. I never realized the connection of teeth and their lymph affecting the rest of the body, esp. our breasts. I appreciate all the hours and hours of research and you sharing that for the rest of us!