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Dr. Caitlyn Keates ND, 411 Huronia Road, Unit 4, Barrie, ON (2026)

02/14/2026

Practice Update - Officially on maternity leave

As I step away from clinic to await the arrival of my little boy, I’ve been reflecting a lot on this season both personally and professionally. Working in women’s health, and especially with so many women navigating fertility journeys, pregnancy, and motherhood, has always been deeply meaningful to me. Experiencing this chapter myself has brought an entirely new level of gratitude and perspective.

I feel incredibly blessed for the outpouring of love, well wishes, and advice so many of you, especially mothers, have shared with me. It’s been a beautiful role reversal to move from being the doctor supporting others… to being the one receiving wisdom, reassurance, and encouragement. I truly appreciate this community more than I can express.

To anyone currently on a fertility journey: please don’t lose hope. The path can be emotional, unpredictable, and at times heartbreaking, but your story is still unfolding. I am holding space for you and cheering you on always. 🤍

Thank you for trusting me with your care. It is an honour I never take lightly and look forward to returning too in the near future.

If you have any questions while I am away, please reach out to my admin teams for further locum information.

💙🩵

10/02/2025

✨ Practice Update ✨

With some exciting changes ahead for our family, October will be my last month seeing patients in person . Starting November through February, I’ll be transitioning to virtual visits only. 💻

Then, as of February 19th, I’ll be stepping away to welcome our baby boy into the world and soak up those first precious moments together 💙

While I’m away, beginning October 23rd, the wonderful Dr. Krista Braun, ND will be available for in-person visits. Dr. Braun brings a wealth of experience in women’s health, fertility, menopause, and hormones—and I know she will provide the same compassionate, high-quality care my patients deserve. I feel so grateful knowing you’ll be in such capable hands.

Thank you all for your ongoing support during this exciting season—it truly means the world to me 💕

02/21/2023

An endocrine disruptor (EDC) is a molecule that can act like a naturally occurring hormone in the body—such as the thyroid hormone, estrogen, or androgens. The action can include binding hormone receptors and causing cells to react in ways they are not suppose to.

Sparks notes version, EDCs are chemical compounds that interfere with our hormones. They are often found in personal care products, such as cosmetics, lotions, and soaps.

Because EDCs are in our everyday products, it is nearly impossible to avoid endocrine disruptors entirely, but the goal should be to reduce your overall toxic burden.

5 ways to avoid endocrine disruptors may include:
1️⃣Investing in a good water filter
2️⃣Ban all plastics from your kitchen
3️⃣Buy organic foods when possible
4️⃣Use non-toxic and “clean” cosmetic products
5️⃣Avoid candles and synthetic fragrances and air fresheners

What are some of the ways you try to reduce your EDC exposure?

02/17/2023

Gut Health & Hormone Connection 🔗

We know there is a link between gut health and skin, gut health and mental health and now gut health and hormones. New research is showing that the microbiome plays a big role in estrogen regulation. These studies indicate that poor gut health increases the risk of estrogen-related diseases such as PCOS, endometriosis, and even breast cancer.

We have over 50 identifiable hormones and what is well known currently about gut health and hormones includes:

🫶That 95% of Serotonin is produced and stored in the gut. This is why people with unhealthy microbiomes also often experience feelings of depression and anxiety.

🦋An imbalanced gut microbiome is also one of the causes of Hypothyroidism. Symptoms of this may include chronic fatigue, weight gain, and hair loss.

☀️Vitamin D3, which is a precursor hormone, is not absorbed well by the body if gut health is not optimal. This vitamin is crucial to health on many levels.

❣️Gut health also influences healthy cholesterol levels. These are precursors to maintaining a balance of Progesterone and Estrogen.

So how do we improve our gut health to help out our hormones?
🥗Focus on eating a nutrient dense, anti-inflammatory diet
🔄Consider eating for the different phases of your meanstrual cycle
🍽️Consume probiotic rich foods (or add in a supplement). These are found in foods like yogurt, sauerkraut, kefir, kimchi, and kombucha
🍌Feed the probiotics with prebiotic rich foods. Fibrous vegetables and fruits are the best sources for prebiotics. They are especially high in green bananas, pistachios, asparagus, garlic, onions, oats, quinoa, millet, and chia seeds.
🍬Eliminate sugars and artificial sweeteners, simple carbs and trans fats
🍵Consume polyphenols regularly. These are found in green tea, dark chocolate, and olive oil.
🧘‍♀️Eat in a relaxed & calm environment
🧪Test, don’t guess! There are many laboratory gastrointestinal tests can be done to determine nutrient deficiencies as well as hormonal health.

If you feel like your gut health may be the root cause of your hormonal concerns, let’s take a deeper look!

02/11/2023

How do you feel during your cycle?

Do you find yourself ticking off more of the unbalance hormone side of this post?

A reminder that there is a lot that can be done to support your hormone health.

Book in for a free 15 minute meet & greet if you are unsure whether I can help you out or not.

Booking link in bio. 🖇️

02/08/2023

a little mid week reminder ✨
happy Wednesday ✨

02/05/2023

Who’s one person in your life that keeps you accountable and/or motivated?

Taking action with your health can be scary & challenging. We often would rather not know if something is “wrong” or we get comfortable in the mindset or lifestyle we are living. We have health trauma’s from people in our life that make us dismiss our own. I often congratulate my patients for even booking an appointment because it is a big first step that deserves recognition. But continued motivation to accomplish your health goals outside of my visits with you can often be challenging. We know the term well, compliance.

I always check in with my patients about what their support system looks like in our visits - a “social history”. I help them pick a motivator or two or three when we’re creating goals to help them succeed.

This should be someone who supports you to maintain your commitment and progress towards your desired goal.

This can be a trusted friend, a family member, your partner or an acquaintance. But it should be someone who understands your vision and goals and is committed to helping you achieve them.

Maybe you’ll be the same for them too!

02/03/2023

Oral contraceptives are widely used among many women of reproductive age, and are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in North America.

Typically, oral contraceptive pills (OCP’s) are a combination of both estrogen and progestin. The OCP can be a reasonable prescription due to its 97-99% effectivity at preventing pregnancy, making it a reliable and easy to use method of contraception. It also has the ability to reduce symptoms of dysmenorrhea (painful periods), acne and PMS. Additionally, OCP’s can reduce the risk of endometrial, ovarian and colorectal cancer.

But with every pro there is often a con and in terms of OCP use these can include headaches, mood swings, weight gain, breast tenderness, bloating, nausea, decreased libido, blood clots and increased risk for breast and cervical cancer.

When a patient shares that they are currently taking an OCP I like to screen for these commonly depleted essential vitamins and minerals:
* Folic Acid
* Vitamin B2
* Vitamin B6
* Vitamin B12
* Vitamin C
* Vitamin E
* Selenium
* Magnesium
* Zinc

For appropriate dosing of nutrients as well as assistance if debating coming off the oral contraceptive pill it is always best to work with an ND to control the side effects of discontinuation and to ensure no supplement interactions exist with any other medications you may be taking or medical conditions you currently have.

PMID: 23852908

02/01/2023

Hello February! ✨

I feel like January is such a blue month. The holiday hangover makes it impossible to feel joy. It’s always snowing, cold and dark. Getting back into a routine takes me so much time. And I constantly have to redo my “new years resolutions” to be more realistic than I had originally intended.

It’s been easy for me through the month of January to lose sight of activities that bring me joy. So, here’s to February. A fresh month and a fresh start. ✨

Did anyone else feel like January was a year long?!

01/09/2023

Female hormone panel 💕

In women, hormones play a central role through every phase of life—from the beginning of menarche through childbearing years and into menopause. These hormones shift to meet our body’s needs, but sometimes they can become unbalanced, causing uncomfortable or painful symptoms. Women don’t need to just live with hormonal problems. There are options to help women find relief and significantly improve their quality of life.

The first place I start with is testing.

The basics that we need to all understand begin with:

1️⃣ Women don’t just produce estrogen! These tests outlined in the post include just the standard labs that should be run when you ask your physician for a comprehensive hormone panel.

2️⃣ The day on which the tests are run within your cycle matter! (more on this in a later post)

3️⃣ Just because it is within range does not mean it is optimal! Whoever interprets your hormones should be able to recognize the optimal lab values for those hormones, as well as the appropriate hormone ratios.

The more you understand about your hormones, the more you understand why you feel the way you do and the more encouraged you are to make a change.

All women should be educated about their hormones. It is not normal to have varying PMS symptoms. You should not have to struggle cycle after cycle, be in pain, or experience hot flashes in menopause.

If you do, we should talk. 👩🏼‍⚕️

11/30/2022

Stressed Out? 😰

You can thank Cortisol for that. 😅

Stress is inevitable in life. We experience good stress and bad stress but it’s chronic stress that can be detrimental to our health.

Now, not all stress is bad stress! Acutely stressful situations are beneficial to our body - especially when we are in need of a fight or flight response to activate the right cognitive system or make the correct decision for us to cope correctly, move quickly and response appropriately.

Chronic stress, or the inability to cope with stress for long periods of time are heavily implicated in causing illness. The negative consequences of prolonged stress or elevated cortisol include insomnia, gastrointestinal disorders, anxiety, depression, increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (ex. Hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes), mental illness and cancer to name a few.

In my situation, it is no surprise to me that 9.9 times out of 10 my cancer patients have had prolonged stress in their life. One million new cancer cases occur every year among people aged 20-39 that are partly attributed to stress. And let me tell you… I am in that age demographic and it is STRESSFUL to live right now. Stress has become a hot topic of investigation in cancers such as breast, prostate, gastric, lung and skin cancer and have concluded that chronic stress can induce tumorigenesis and promote cancer development.

How do we manage it?
As mentioned previously, stress is INEVITABLE. It’s how we cope with stress that is going to be of most importance for prevention of disease. We HAVE to experiment with cortisol lowering strategies and do them on a regular as if we need water to survive. These can include:
🧠 mindful meditation
🧠 yoga
🧠 exercise
🧠 breath work
🧠 journaling
🧠 aromatherapy
🧠 hydrotherapy
🧠 support groups
🧠 counselling & CBT
🧠 medications
🧠 supplements (As pictured - there are LOTS that can try to help support cortisol)

I also ALWAYS test my patients AM cortisol in blood work because sometimes even though we don’t feel stressed … we are internally.

What are some of your go to coping strategies to manage stress in your life currently?

PMID: 32974180

11/28/2022

“So I’ve been diagnosed with cancer. When is the best time to see you?”

I get this so often during 15 minute meet & greets.

My answer is, NOW.

A cancer diagnosis is a long, windy road and I want to support your mind, body & soul at every step of the way.

Before treatment starts:
💕 let’s talk through the treatment options you’ve been presented with.
💕 let’s get your diet & lifestyle on the right track to fuel yourself properly
💕 let’s support your immune cells right now while they’re on the front line

During treatment:
💕 let’s manage side effects your experiencing
💕 let’s introduce synergistic agents to prevent tolerance to conventional agents
💕 let’s prep you for optional outcomes to your surgery
💕 let’s discuss diet’s & supplements that are contraindicated during your radiation, surgery, chemo or targeted therapy
💕 let’s get you sleeping - I know you aren’t.
💕 let’s just talk - I know your stressed and scared & don’t want to show that to your support system

Following treatment:
💕 let’s discuss next steps & other options if your conventional plan did not work
💕 let’s alleviate lingering side effects
💕 let’s work through the trauma to prevent PTSD
💕 let’s alleviate doubt & fear of recurrence

Book in for a 15 minute meet or greet if you are unsure how I can help. Booking link in my bio.

Dr. Caitlyn Keates ND

02/14/2026

10/02/2025

02/21/2023

02/17/2023

02/11/2023

02/08/2023

02/05/2023

02/03/2023

02/01/2023

01/09/2023

11/30/2022

11/28/2022

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