Tamsen Fadal: You Are Not Going Crazy… Your Hormones Are Changing! (THIS is the GUIDE to Navigate Menopause & Take Back Control of Your Mind, Body & Life)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Over half the population is going to go through menopause,
Yet we don't talk about it at home. We haven't
learned about it at school, we don't talk about it
in the doctor's office. We often feel like our body
is betraying us and we don't know who we are.
She's a powerhouse in women's health. TAM's and Fidel is
the Emmy winning journalist and New York Time best selling
author of How To Menopause, fiercely changing the conversation on

(00:21):
women's health.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Why is menopause still treated as such a taboo topic.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Agism and sexism. We've just kind of said goodbye to
women after the reproductive years. We look at women that
are midlife when we say, wow, their best years are
behind them. And that's kind of what the medical system
has done as well.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
What are the symptoms? What are women experiencing? What are
they going through on a biological and chemical level, but
also on an emotional level as well.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Brain fog was the most debilitating in the symptoms. Mood swings,
weight changes, joint pain, achy skin drying, us all over,
rill of abido.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
What happens to a woman's sex drive during perimenopause?

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Nearly sixty percent of women say that menopause has negatively
he could their sex life, and I would say that
number is even higher. They experience painful sex, There's dryness
that happens all of your body and it didn't feel good.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Why is it doctors still dismiss these symptoms and medical
research is not investing in more.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
The number one health and wellness podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Jay Shetty, Jay Shetty, sly Ja Shetty. Hey everyone, welcome
back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in
the world. Thanks to each and every one of you
that come back every week to listen, learn and grow.
Today's guest is going to talk to us about a
subject that I've been fascinated by for a long long time.

(01:42):
It's something that I have a lot of questions about,
something that I don't know that much about, and something
that every single person we love is going to go through.
Today's guest is Tamsin Fidel, an Emmy Award winning journalist
and the New York Times best selling author of How
To Menopause. She's also the producer the Acclaim documentary The
m Factor and host of The Tamsin Show podcast. If

(02:05):
you haven't subscribed yet, make sure you do. Tamsin has
become a leading voice in the global conversation on midlife
menopause and reinvention and helping women navigate this transition with knowledge,
confidence and community. Please welcome to On Purpose, Tamsin Fidel Tamsin,
thank you so much for being here. I said this

(02:25):
to you off camera. I'm going to say it again.
I'm so excited for this conversation. I feel so much
has been lost when it comes to women's health, men's
understanding of it and the ability for women to take
charge of their health, but also for men to be understanding, supportive,
and recognizing what a big thing it is. And I'm
so grateful that you wrote this book How to Menopause

(02:46):
that I highly recommend everyone gets. But thank you so
much for being here. Truly, thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
I'm so happy to be talking about this because it
is so important for men to hear this conversation.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, I mean, I want to start off by I
have a ton of questions for you, And like usually
when I interview someone, I have some understanding or some
knowledge of the area, I have nothing, which is got
in a great place for me to be in because
I feel like it's going to give a lot of
people the opportunity to learn. And the first question I
wanted to ask you is why is menopause still treated

(03:16):
as such a taboo topic when it comes to everyday
conversation in everyday life.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's such a great question, and I think I have
struggled with it for so long myself. Look, I think
it's wrapped up in a few things. I think it's
wrapped up in agism and sexism. And I also think
this is a time in life where we just kind
of said goodbye to women after the reproductive years. We
look at women that are a midlife and we say, wow,
their best years are behind them. Society has done that
for a very very long time, especially here in the US,

(03:44):
and that's kind of what the medical system has done
as well. So we have put the word menopause in
taboo together for so long, and my goal is to
separate those two things so we're never saying those two
things together.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
It doesn't get the spotlight it deserves when every woman
we know is going to experience it at some point
in their life and talk to us about how long
it lasts, Like, just just break down the break down
the taboo of how long is it going to last?
When does it happen for everyone who's like starting from scratch,
like me, Like, what is it? Like?

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Help somewhere right. I'll tell you what it was really
shocking to me. I spent thirty years in the news business,
and I had never said the word menopause that I
remember on television. Wow, And that tells you a lot.
We talked about all sorts of studies. We talked about
health studies, we talked about diets, we talked about everything.
Menopause and women's health were not the things we discussed.
And that goes to your first question about how taboo

(04:37):
it has been for such a long time. When I
actually found out I was in menopause, I got a
very simple note from my doctor saying, in menopause. Any
questions and no real answers after that. So I started
digging into it to figure out what was going on,
and I quickly learned one billion women across the world
we're going to be in menopause by this year. And
I thought, okay, well, what is it? So we'll break

(05:00):
down really simply because I always think it's the best
way to do it. Perimenopause is that time leading up
to menopause, four to ten years of struggle of hormone changes,
of not knowing exactly what's going on with your body,
of all different type of symptoms, not just hot flashes.
When you hit menopause, that means that you've gone one
year without your period, and then everything after that is postmenopause.

(05:23):
All the symptoms haven't stopped yet. But that could be
a third to half of your life that we're talking about.
So when you think about how long a woman is
going through this transition this next season, and the fact
that we have such little information about it, it was
just shocking to me.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
And talk to me about what are the symptoms, like
what's someone experiencing at this time, because as a man,
we're so disconnected from women's health already. And then this is,
like you said, this is an underspoken about area, like
what are the symptoms, what are women experiencing, what are
they going through on a biological and chemical level, but

(05:58):
also on an emotional level.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Well, I'm glad you said that, because emotional is the
big thing, and I think it gets overlooked quite often
because we talk about hot flashes, and we talk about
irregular periods, and we talk about brain fog, and I
think for me, brain fog was probably the most debilitating
of the symptoms because it gets wrapped up with a
lot of things. I had anxiety, mood swings, a woman
can go through weight changes. When you talk about brain fog.

(06:22):
You could be reading a book and not remember the
plot of the book. You could be having a conversation
like this. I could be sitting here Jay across from you.
Three years ago. I probably wouldn't be able to have
this kind of conversation with you without feeling like, hey,
can I stop and try to remember what I was
talking about. You go through joint pain, you can go
through itchy skin, dryness all over, low libido. So if

(06:43):
you think about one day, you're going along just fine
in life. Right, you're in your thirties, you're doing great.
You're maybe in the height of your career, you're on
your way to wherever you want to be. You're in
a relationship, and you might start to see somebody's symptoms
crop up. You're not sleeping as well anymore, that's a
big one. Need wait around the middle. But you've been
eating the same and really working out. So you wake

(07:05):
up and what I heard over and over from women
when I'm was still researching this is that I don't
feel like myself anymore. I look in the mirror and
I don't recognize myself. And that, to me was one
of the most hurtful things that I could hear because
I understood exactly what they were talking about. One day,
I woke up and I was like, I'm a shell
of who I am and I don't know how to
find the light switch in this room. I just am

(07:26):
in the dark.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
I mean that sounds like truly one of the most difficult,
challenging experiences anyone could go through, and we're saying everyone's
going to go through it for nearly a decade potentially,
And so the fact that every woman we know is
going to go through this, the fact that it's going
to affect them physically, mentally, and emotionally to the point
that it can be deabilitating to how you just spoken about,

(07:51):
what are we seeing a correspondence with when we look
at women's health at this age and when they're going
through this process, how is that affecting their work, their career,
their family and everything else that comes with it, Like,
what's happening when because I think sometimes when we talk
about health, we kind of talk about it in this
silo of like, here's what's happening chemically, here's what's happening
with the hormones. But this is having real life impact.

(08:13):
Is there any correlation between menopause and divorce break? Like,
talk to me about the real life impact of it.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
It's such a good topic because it doesn't just happen
in the doctor's office. You could go to the doctor's
office and have the conversation, but once you leave there,
you have to think about the whole three sixty of it.
And it really is what I get excited to talk
about because I think that we feel very lost during
this time as women. We're in our career and maybe
we're hit with perimenopause and going into menopause, and we

(08:42):
could be showing up to work not being able to
have a conversation. We don't know. How do you go
into your boss and say, hey, I might be in
perimenopause for seven years. I think that for a lot
of women, they're starting to realize that we're normalized in
the conversation. We're definitely not having the silence that we
had before. But it can really impact you at work.
It can show up in a lot of different ways,

(09:04):
and what I've been fighting against is making sure that
it doesn't penalize women either. We don't want that to
hurt women. Women at this point are at the height
of their careers. We want companies to retain women, hold
on to women. They have some of the greatest wisdom
they could ever have during these times and beyond. So
I think it's really important for women to be able
to get a hold and understand what's going on, so
they're not going through this journey just kind of blindly,

(09:27):
which is what's been happening. And then I think when
it comes to relationships, it has a real impact. You know,
we see a lot of divorces happening in the forties,
and I don't think that that's a coincidence. I don't
think it's a coincidence that somebody wakes up all of
a sudden and feels very differently, or maybe they're libidos
low so their partner doesn't understand what's going on, or
all of a sudden, something that didn't bother them a
long time ago. They're snapping like this, and that's what's

(09:50):
really happening out there. I think we're getting to a place,
starting to get to a place where we're starting to
have this conversation more and more. But it's really where
we have to bring everybody into it. It can't just
be women and having this conversation with each other.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
What's a myth about menopause that you think's lasted too
long now people are still holding on to and when
you talk about it, that's their first reaction because you know,
I feel really embarrassed saying this, but I know a
lot of men who'd say, oh, yeah, there was just
this period when my wife was acting out and she
was being a bit crazy and she was a bit mad,
like language like that, And that's one of those myths

(10:25):
that I think people are just like, oh, just during
this phase, like all the kids left home and everything,
just what you know, and it becomes this lifestyle thing.
What are some of the myths you're seeing that you're
coming up against when you're talking about this.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, I mean I've seen so many myths with this.
I think the first myth is that your best years
are behind you, and that's just not true. I really
think that you're coming into a whole new period and
even if you look at some of the data and
the scientific studies out there. We look at women that
are postmenopause and those are some of the best years
that they can have in their life. So that's exciting.
I think another big myth or something that women feel,

(10:58):
and they've said this over and over. I don't feel
like myself and I feel like I'm going crazy. I
feel like something's wrong with me, and I just can't
pinpoint what it is. But I know this isn't me anymore.
And so you know, I start the book saying that
you are not alone and you're not crazy. That is
not what's going on. You've got something happening to you
biologically and that's affecting you in a whole bunch of

(11:19):
different ways. And as soon as you understand that, then
you can take those steps and deal with those symptoms.
And I think it's important also to know that, you know,
everyone doesn't have the symptoms that we talked about. Everybody
goes about this differently, and I think that's what can
make it so confusing to so many women.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
What's happening to the brain and body during perimenopause and menopause, Like,
what's chemically going on?

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, chemically, we're losing estrogen obviously also losing progesterone. And
so when you're going through these hormones, I mean, think
about what we went through when we were in puberty.
Your hormones were all over the place. I think if
perimenopause is kind of this wild ride, it's sort of unexpected.
You don't know what's going to happen, and you definitely
feel that in your head when you've lost that estrogen.
We have estrogen receptors all over our body, and the

(12:02):
brain is no exception. We have them everywhere. And so
I remember when I was going through perimenopause, and I
didn't know I was even going through it because I
didn't have the vocabulary for it. That I would sit
there and I'd read something I couldn't remember it. I
would look at a word I couldn't I knew the word,
I recognized it, I knew, I knew how to say it,
but it wouldn't come out of my mouth. And those
are some scary things that happened, because you think, is

(12:24):
something going on with me? Is this dementia? Is Alzheimer's,
This is something very serious. And so I know a
lot of women who have gone to the doctor saying like,
there's really something wrong with my head. I don't know
what's happening, or they walk into a room and don't
remember why they walked into a room. I talked to
one doctor in the course of doing research for the book,
and she said, I forgot my medical number, which is

(12:46):
something we say like our social Security number. We say
it all the time for years. And I sat there
and I couldn't remember it. And I actually went to
the neurology department and I made them do brain scans
on me. That's how serious it can be.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Wow. Yeah, I mean hit me. When I was at
a Time one hundred health event. And I know Halle Berry,
who you've collaborated with at your events and multiple other places,
I remember her speaking about this, and I know she's
been a big advocate from the celebrity side to talk
about this topic. And she was talking about how she
really believed she was just going to be too fit,

(13:19):
too strong to like yogat out, and you know, she
really believed that she had a workout regime that would
beat menopause and that it wouldn't be a reality for her.
And when she said that there was no way you
could outwork or out yoga or whatever it may be,
that there wasn't a method to avoiding or just pushing
through this. What are some of the lies or things

(13:42):
women have been told growing up that you think have
tripped them up as it as they come into perimenopause
and menopause.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, I think it's so important to realize that. And
Halle Berry has been an incredible voice in normalizing this
conversation and getting out there and having real, honest talks
about what she went through. And I think that's really
helped in so many ways because I think women see
that and go, oh my gosh. If she's going through
that and she can talk about perimenopause and menopause, then
maybe it's okay for me to do the same thing.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
I think that women have been told like, if you
eat it perfectly, if you work out perfectly, if you
do all these things perfectly, you're gonna be okay down
the line. But the truth is, we hit perimenopause and
there are some real long term health concerns that you
have to pay attention to. When it comes to brain health,
when it comes to heart health, when it comes to
bone health, especially the are real serious things. I know

(14:28):
you've had doctor von d Wright talking to you and
she talks about bone health. It's one of the scariest things.
I didn't think about my bones at twenty or thirty,
even forty years old. It wasn't something I was thinking about.
So I think that young women have been misled in
a lot of different ways to think that this is
something that happens to older women and you don't have
to worry about it. We see women coming into perimenopause
and they're late thirties and beyond, and I don't want

(14:51):
them to be afraid. I want them to be really
inspired to get a hold of it, know what's happening,
and be able to handle it so they don't have
these bumps that I think a lot lot of women
have had leading up to this time.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Let's talk about some of those. What are the early
signs of perimenopause that and I know you said there's
lots of different but and everyone has different experiences, but
what would you say the early signs of perimenopause that
you see across women.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, I would say the three big ones that I've
seen across women are a regular periods you're going along
just fine, and then all of a sudden, you have
your period very heavy, or you don't have it at all,
and you don't know what's happening. A lot of times
women will go to the doctor and the doctor will say,
it's just stress, calm down a little bit, it'll be okay,
instead of, hey, you're forty one. You know, do you

(15:36):
have any other these thirty plus symptoms? Maybe it's perimenopause.
The other big one I would say is sleep disruption.
That's huge. I was somebody that used to be able
to sleep all the time. I've heard women that say,
oh my gosh, at three o'clock in the morning, I'm
up and I can't go back to sleep, or I
can't even get to sleep, and that again is something else.
Try to go to work and you'll have five days

(15:56):
like that of not being able to sleep, and then
you start to understand what's going on on. You start
you just don't feel like yourself, and you know. I
think the third one is more of mood changes. There
can be anxiety, there can be rage, there can be depression,
and there's a lot of things like that that happen
during this time. So I think those are the top
three that you see in perimenopause, and the other ones

(16:17):
come along. You know, we've all heard of hot flashes,
we know a lot about weight gain that starts to happen.
But those are three big ones, and I think that
those are three very difficult ones as you're coming up
against those.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
And what's the difference between perimenopause and menopause.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, so perimenopause, you're still getting your period. It's all
the time leading up to menopause. When you hit menopause,
that's that one day after twelve months without your period,
and then you're not getting your period any longer. So
these are still your reproductive years, but you're in perimenopause,
and those can overlap a lot of things. You know,
women can get pregnant in perimenopause. Once you hit menopause,
you're no longer having a cycle, and then everything after

(16:53):
that you're considered menopause, and some people call it postmenopausal.
I just say menopause because it's easier for me to
remember when I do have brain But you know, I
think that it's important to know that perimenopause feels very unpredictable,
it feels very confusing because You've been fine up until then,
and you could be in your late thirties and you're thinking,
I'm too young for this, how could I be dealing

(17:14):
with this? But when those hormonal fluctuations start, you start
seeing some of these changes. And I don't think we
were really ever taught that. You know, you asked earlier,
what are some of the things that young women, you
know they were taught You're going to get your period,
you know, if you decide you want to have children,
you're going to go through your pregnancy, and then we
kind of fall off the map, not only in society
but also in the medical system.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, and then what are the symptoms of menopause?

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Then, so the symptoms of menopause, you can still have
a lot of these symptoms that can go right through
and some start to weigh off a little bit, and
some women can have hot flashes in their eighties, and
it just depends if you decide, you know, how you're
going to treat them, what symptoms are important for you
to treat. Hormone therapy as one of the options that
has been named and deemed by the Menopause Society as
one of the most effective treatments for hot flashes and

(18:00):
vaginal dryness. But I think that it's important to know
what works for you. Not everybody, as we said, is
going to be able to do everything or want to
do everything. So I think it's been important first for
me to go out there and educate women, because I'll
tell you I was clueless. I had no idea what
was happening, and I really felt like I was crazy.
And I would wake up in the morning and think like,

(18:21):
oh my gosh, I got two hours of sleep, and
I've got to go to work. And I'd get to
work and not remember what was going on or remember
where what I was supposed to be doing. And I
hear so many stories of women in different places of work,
or women that are also raising children at the same time,
or taking care of elderly parents, or they're in a relationship,
or they're in a new relationship, so it can be
a little difficult. And I think it's important to know

(18:45):
that menopause is not just for older women. Young women
go through menopause. I consider late thirties a young woman.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
To me, it's just mind boggling how women have been
so resilient and strong to move in a world that
is aware or is not talking about what they're going
through on a daily basis, and just how many relationships
that touches and having so many people in your life
you don't know what you're going through. Like we talk

(19:12):
about I feel in the wellness community around how it
feels to be misunderstood. I mean, this is the deepest
form of feeling misunderstood because you're going through something physically, mentally,
emotionally daily and everyone you meet has no context of
why you're behaving that way. And then you get labeled, oh, well,

(19:34):
you know, she's just going through something or whatever it
may be that that disassociates you from the exact experience.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
The truth is is that you don't even know you're
going through it yourself. Sometimes it's not like you went
into the doctor and they said, hey, at thirty five,
you should start thinking about perimenopause because you might be
going through some of these symptoms right now. We're trying
to teach women to go to the doctor proactively and say, hey,
these are my tensymptoms. Could this be perimenopause? And that

(20:02):
is my hope and dream that one day there will
be this baseline. Like we talk about mammograms, like we
talk about other kind of tests that people are supposed
to get when it comes to health and wellness, that
we say, hey, maybe this is what you're going through.
Maybe it's not stress. Maybe you don't need to just
go home, you know, and take a walk outside. Maybe
it's something more than that, and it's not just you

(20:23):
that's going through this. If we can get to that place,
it would be just a really beautiful place, and I
think it would end a lot of the suffering, because
I don't think women should have to suffer during this time.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
So that's really the first step. And I know in
the book you give a list of thirty four is
it symptoms, yeah, that people experience, and so I guess
the first step is if you feel any of those
thirty four things, going to have the conversation, because chances
are your doctor or someone may not have the conversation
with you proactively if you don't raise it.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
One hundred percent. A lot of doctors aren't trained about this,
and that was the other thing that was so shocking
for me to learn. I think I was somebody who
went to the doctor. This is what the doctor said.
I went home and that's what we did, and what
I realized over time, is that as we looked into
menopause and perimenopause, because of the fact that women's health
has not been a priority past a certain age in midlife,

(21:12):
mostly after about forty years old, a lot of doctors
weren't trained about this into their own admission obgyns their specialty.
Sometimes got a day of training in medical school to
talk about this. If you can imagine all those years
and they've had to go out and learn for themselves.
And so there are a lot of doctors that leave
medical school and don't feel comfortable talking about something like this.

(21:33):
So about seventy five percent of women go in and
are their symptoms are left untreated as a result of that,
and that number is staggering to me.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
That was something I saw as well. I remember at
a conference I was that and you can correct me
if I'm wrong, but there's a number that said something
like only two percent of all medical research goes towards
women's health. Is that right, right? I would never correct
you on that, that's so right, that's right right.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, it's unbelievable. And then if you look at that percentage,
a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of that goes to menopause
in perimenopause. And I don't know about you, but I'd
never heard the word perimenopause until I started saying, if I.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Haven't heard it since I followed you, probably so yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
So I mean I went, wait, what's perimenopause? And so
I think that the more we can say the word
and the more we can get it out there and
it doesn't sound like this scary word. When I first
started talking about it, I was told, you're going to
blow up your career talking about menopause. You're going to
age right out of your career, because that is what
we thought about when we thought about this word. And
so I'm hoping that perimenopause has a little bit of

(22:35):
a lighter context and so that women can say, Okay,
this is the stage I'm in, this is where I'm at.
It's going to be okay, and I know what to
do and I'm not afraid to say the word out.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Loud before we dive into the next moment. Let's hear
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check it out and back to our episode. Before we

(23:28):
get into some of the solutions and what women can do,
what are some of the risks of not managing or
not treating these symptoms. So if you just feel the
symptoms but you didn't think about it, you weren't aware.
They didn't no one read your book, you weren't conscious
of it. What happens? Like, what's the worst that can happen?

Speaker 1 (23:48):
So, you know, I thought when I went into it, okay,
I don't know. I lost my mom to breast cancer,
so I was very scared of doing anything. And I
think that for me, I never had that conversation with
a parent with a mom. Heard that from a lot
of women, But I think one of the big conversations
that we miss in all of this are the long
term health ramifications that could come from that. When we

(24:09):
talk about osteoporosis, one of the big silent killers of women.
When we talk about heart disease, we talk about so
many women dying from heart disease. It's unbelievable when we
look at those numbers. And then we talk about brain health,
we talk about Alzheimer's. More women are diagnosed with Alzheimer's
than men are diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and so we have
so much more research to do on all these things.

(24:29):
But some of those are long term health risks that
we have to at least pay attention to. If there
have been studies at done that say, wow, you have
more hot flashes, there could be a correlation to your
heart health, pay attention to that. And I don't think
those of the conversations we're having enough of, and we're
all learning as we go right now and trying to
get as much information out there as we can. But
those are big risks that I don't want to take

(24:50):
when I'm older. I don't want to live to be
much much older and be suffering during that time because
I didn't know about this time. And it's also when
think of my thirties. In your thirties, that's the best
time to start protecting your bones and paying attention and
having great healthy habits. There's so many things I wish
I had done when I was younger now that I

(25:10):
understand this is a stage I'm going to go through.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
And do women have different ethnicities, does perimenopause affect them differently?

Speaker 1 (25:19):
You know, there are a lot of studies that are
gone on. There is a Swan study that's gone on
for a long time. There is a lot of research
that has shown that Black women have more intense symptoms
of menopause and often can have longer symptoms and start earlier,
and so there's so much more research to done. There
has been a lot of research done in different countries
to look at things. For example, women in Asia get

(25:40):
fewer hot flashes but more joint pain. But the question
is why, And so there's a lot that still has
to be done to look at that and pull this
apart and really say, Okay, we're looking at menopause, but
we've got to start looking at perimenopause. Because these women
went through all of these symptoms for seven to ten years,
So what happened during that time and what was happening
differently we're we're talking about when it comes to environment,

(26:02):
when it comes to food, when it comes to genetics.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
It's so hard because it's so varied, yes, so varied
by ethnicity, by what age it starts, by the symptoms
you feel, and so no wonder people just call it
stress and call it a day. Because it takes so much.
You'd have to be very knowledgeable to actually diagnose it effectively,
I imagine, and to really be able to speak to
what someone needs to do. Well.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
That's the interesting part is you know a lot of
people go, Okay, what's the blood test I can take
to figure out if I'm imperimenopause. But if you think
about this, most doctors say, you don't really need blood tests.
You need to know what your symptoms are, and that's
how you can pretty much diagnose if you're in your
forties or thereabout, and you are not able to sleep
at night, you have a regular periods, you're feeling anxious,
or you're feeling a little bit moody, maybe you're gaining

(26:48):
some weight around the middle. Even though you're not doing
anything differently, you can pretty much rest assured your imperimenopause. Now,
if you're dealing with heart palpitations, you're dealing with much
more intense symptoms, you probably need to make sure it's
not something else. But most of the time that's what
you should start looking at there. And the sad thing
is is that what I've learned from women is the

(27:08):
band aid that a lot of them are given is antidepressants.
A lot of women are given antidepressants right away when
they walk into a doctor's office and say, I'm dealing
with stress, I'm getting some weight, I'm not able to sleep,
And the truth is they might need antidepressants, but they
should also be talking about perimenopause or menopause.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Wow, I mean, I can't imagine. I mean, Hallie tells
that great story of how you know her doctor thought
she had an.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
STD Yeah, it's not unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Well she's crazy. Like when I heard that story, I
was like, Wow, that's one thing. But then to be told, oh,
it's probably depression and you should be on antidepressants. What
does that do to menopause? So if you were given
antidepressants when you had perimenopause, what does that due to
a perimenopause?

Speaker 1 (27:53):
I was given them. That's how I know. Oh wow,
And that's what was so shocking. So I didn't know
I was in perimenopause. I didn't understand all these symptoms.
I just knew I was feeling really off. And then
I finally landed on the floor of my studio at work,
in the bathroom with my heart racing out of control,
sweating profusely, not able to catch my breath, trying to

(28:14):
calm my body down. And I went to the doctor
and I found out I was in menopause, because once
you hit menopause, you can do a blood test because
now you've kind of leveled out there.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
How many years were you struggling without knowing, I.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Was probably struggling about seven years.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
I'd gone through a divorce. A lot of the stress
I attributed to that had hair falling out. I wasn't
able to sleep. I went to a doctor, and I
went to a doctor a couple of different times. And
it's funny I ran across some of my papers recently
that were about four years before I realized I was
in menopause, and it said complains of moodiness and weight gain,
But no one ever said the word perimenopause to me,

(28:50):
I was given lexapro, That's what I was given, and
I was given antidepressants, and so antidepressants, of course can
help with mood, but it's not going to help your
hot flashes, and it's probably not going to help your
or maybe it'll help a little bit in your sleep,
but it's probably not going to help some of the
other things, irregular periods. And so I just think it's
so important for all disciplines, not just obgi ns, to
have this conversation and be aware of it. And I'm

(29:13):
proud of women because I think women are really the
onus is on women right now to stand up and say, hey,
I'm tracking myself. I know what's going on. I've written
down my symptoms. I'm aware, and I think women are
more aware than ever. You know this better than anybody
other health and what's happening in their lives, to walk
in and say, maybe this is perimenopause. Can you tell
me if it is? And can you tell me if

(29:33):
you're comfortable having this conversation with me, and if not,
I need to find another doctor.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Tamsen, what do we do? I know, I'm so glad
that we've talked about just at least to get a
basic understanding of what's going on, the types of symptoms
to look out for. But I can imagine a lot
of women that are listening to this right now who
are already there saying, jem Tree is into that, I've
tried everything, I don't know what to do. Or you've
got women who are coming up to it. Some've already

(29:59):
and said, yeah, go going, Oh gosh, I've seen my mom
go through that, or I've seen my aunt go through that,
or whatever it may be. How can I help them?
What can I do? So where do women start? What
do they need to be doing after they've figured out
their symptoms, they've talked to a doctor about it, what's
the plan, what's the strategy?

Speaker 1 (30:16):
First of all, I don't want women to be afraid.
I don't want younger women to get into this thinking,
oh my gosh, for a third of my life, I'm
going to deal with that. There are some incredible things
that happened during this time. I think menopause gave me purpose.
I can't even believe I say that, but that is
really the truth. I had no idea what was going
on in my life, and I had no idea what
was going to happen after, but I found something really

(30:36):
different in myself. So I want women to not feel
afraid when it comes to what to do, as we
know everybody goes through it differently. But I think the
most important thing is to be able to have that
conversation with a doctor or somebody who specializes in menopause
and can give you some of the options. And there
are some different options. Some women opt for lifestyle changes,
solely lifestyle changes, that's what they want to do. Other

(30:57):
women say, you know what, I need something more. I'm
dealing with brain fog, the hot flashes. I'm having fifteen
of them a day. I can't deal with this anymore.
Hormone therapy is a very viable option for a lot
of women. There was a study that was john in
two thousand and two that scared a lot of women
the Women's Health Initiative. Headlines came out that said estrogen
causes breast cancer. That's essentially what the headlines were. That's

(31:18):
what the media took away from it, and it scared
women to death. About forty four percent of women in
this country were on hormone therapy at the time. Literally
after those headlines came out, it dropped to about four percent,
and we're right around five percent right now. That was
twenty plus years ago, So that's why it's so important
to get this message out. So hormone therapy is one
of those options. If you are eligible for hormone therapy.

(31:41):
There are certain women, certain risk groups that are not.
That's one option. It was very helpful for me. It
was also something I wasn't sure about. I went back
and forth and struggled for a long time whether or
not that was going to be something I did. And
at one point my symptoms got so bad that that
was what I opted to do.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Before we go to the others. What is homeland therapy?
What does it include?

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Hormone therapy is estrogen and progesterone, and both of those
things have been extremely helpful for me with regard to mood,
with regard to sleep, with regard to hot flashes, and
you know, we lose so much estrogen or estrogen doesn't
go like this, It just kind of goes all over
the place and then goes down, and so that has
been very helpful. Estrogen and progesterone. There's also testosterone. If

(32:25):
a woman decides to do that if she's dealing with
a low libido, And for me, that was something that
came about a year later. I wanted to start on
the two.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
I was a.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Little nervous, honestly because I didn't know what was going
on and I'd never done anything like that before. And
then there's also vaginal estrogen with just a fourth component,
which is helpful for painful sex or for low libido.
So those are hormone therapy, menopausal hormone therapy. You can
see it referred to as or hormone replacement therapy.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Are there any side effects to hormone therapy?

Speaker 1 (32:55):
It's been great for me. There's different women that have
different things that you know, they some women feel like
they've been more emotional on it. There's some women that
feel like the patch, if they're on a patch that
has the glue, can be irritating to them. Look, there's
always risk that comes with everything, but according to the
Menopause Society, this is the most effective way to treat
these symptoms. And for some women, these symptoms are debilitating,

(33:19):
life changing and not things that we can say, oh,
get through these years and then you'll be okay. And
I think that's what's happened for a long time. You know,
women in perimenopause don't think that hormone therapy is an
option for them, and it can very well be an option.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
And then what with the other solutions, there's lifestyle choices.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, So lifestyle is so important I think to talk
about because as we see, only four percent of women
really are on hormone therapy. So we look at the
rest and we're saying, what are they doing? Are they
struggling every day? So I look at a couple of things.
I look at sleep as the number one priority. No
matter what. I don't think you can do any of
the other things if you don't get sleep, if you
don't figure out how to prioritize that. And that became

(33:57):
something really important to me. To figure out a bedtime.
I hadn't done that since I was young, but I
really had to figure that out. I had to figure
out a wake up time. I had to figure out
what not to do before going to bed. I started
taking magnesium as a supplement because that was helpful to
me before I was doing hormone therapy. Progesterone eventually really
helped me get a good night's sleep. So sleep was

(34:18):
my number one priority, and that took precedent over everything,
and then after that I looked at some of the
other things. The second thing I really paid attention to
was the protein I was putting in my body. I
grew up as one of the ones that was like,
I'll stay on the treadmill all day long, do my cardio,
and I guess I'll lift some weights, but I don't
really want to do that. Strength training now has risen

(34:39):
to the top of my list. It's really really important
to protect your bone health. Like I had no idea,
and I don't think a lot of women did know
that for a very long time. So that's important to
figure out some type of routine. There's a lot of
women that say, like, all right, I've been working out
for a long time, but I think if you flip
it a little bit and put strength training up there
first to protect your bones, that's really critical. And then

(34:59):
I think the thing if we look at some of
the lifestyle changes that you would take. Obviously we look
at food, and we look at inflammation, and we look
at trying to get control of that, because that is very,
very real, and I didn't know how important that was,
you know, in my twenties and thirties, I'm like, I'll
eat what I want, I'll do what I want, I'll
play how I want to play, and I'll worry about
being older when i'm older. And so I get excited

(35:20):
for women who are in their thirties right now that
can say, all right, I'm going to look at inflammatory foods,
I'm going to try to increase my fiber. I'm going
to try to pay attention to what is causing bloating,
because bloating is a big problem during this time. And
I think also making sure that your balanced to like
I don't get everything right all the time.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
You know.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
I try to establish as many healthy habits as I can,
but I know it's not always going to be perfect.
So you've got to give yourself a little grace. And
I think the final thing would be is stress management,
which I know is easier said than done, but I
think it's really really important. And I think part of
that comes with having somebody to talk to. I think
it's having community, having loved ones understand. I feel very

(36:00):
sad when I look at the decades of women who
felt they didn't have anybody to share this with. They
didn't share it with partners. They didn't share it with families.
Maybe they whispered about it with other women. And we
went to d C at the end of last year
and we sat there with one of the lawmakers who said,
this is the first time that we've uttered the word
menopause out loud in this building. That's unbelievable to me.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
So wait, so that's home monotherapy, lifestyle choice out changes, yes,
And then I would say lifestyle choices, I would say
stress management and community.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
I think community is really important. I don't know that
I really ever understood community, understood friends for a very
long time, understood friendship groups. I didn't understand the importance
of having people that were going through something I was
going through. And when I realized that, it changed everything
for me. I have a core group of women right
now where I can pick up the phone and say hey,

(36:50):
like I am not myself, or wow, I feel terrible,
or you know, this weight is just making me feel different,
or I can't sleep anymore. And so I think that
that's a really important part of this process, and I'm
excited to see how groups are coming together. One of
my friends told me she started the Hotty hotline with
all these women that are going through perimenopause right now

(37:10):
from college, and they're sharing their symptoms and going back
and forth and having a conversation about it, and I
think that's important.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
That's such a great distinction between friends and community. I
love that. I don't think anyone's ever put it that
way before. It's your friends may or may not be
going through the same things as you, but your community
is that chosen group of people that are going through
the same thing, and therefore you can share notes, share
your heart. I mean, I think one of the biggest
challenges that I can say as a man is I

(37:39):
just feel like part of that community or your friend
needs to be a partner. Yes, And it's really hard
as a man when you're completely unaware about this subject.
I want to be educated because the woman I love
most in the world, my wife, is going to go
through this. The other woman that I love most in
the world, my mom, has already been through this, and
I probably wasn't. I was maybe too young to be

(38:01):
helpful or supportive, but I wish I was more understanding.
And then I have a younger sister who's going to
go through this. So when I look at it through
the lens of my life. I'm thinking, Wow, there are
three women in my life that I love so much,
and they're all going to experience this. One of them
has already gone through it, and I probably have no
clue what she struggled with at the time. And you know,
in one sense, it's quite hard to reflect on that.

(38:22):
What do men need to know about menopause?

Speaker 1 (38:25):
I love first of all that you understand all those
touch points in your life, and it's pretty amazing when
you think about it. So I think it's so important
for men to understand what menopause is. I really think
it can be that simple. And I think it's also
really important to understand what to do during this time.
And I never want to say to him, a guy,
you've got to solve all the problems. But I think

(38:45):
awareness is a huge part of it. I think, Hey,
what's going on right now? Is everything okay? You know
what's the hardest part of this for you? Is there
something I can help with? What kind of habits is
your partner or your sister or your mom trying to
take on to help that you can be a part
of that you can jump into. Is it walking in
the morning, Is it trying to go to bed a
little bit earlier? Is it just simply understanding you know,

(39:08):
I think that we've laughed in society about hot flashes
so long. We've always made it seen this hysterical woman
that's trying to cool off, or can't fall asleep, or
she's ragey and upset about everything. That's not the picture
of menopause or perimenopause anymore, Halle Berry, Naomi Watts. You know,
those are the pictures of perimenopause and menopause. So this

(39:30):
is happening to all of us. If we're lucky enough
as women, we're going to go through this stage of life.
So I think it's important for a man to know
what it is, what perimenopause is, understanding how long that
could last, and understanding some of these symptoms, because I
think sometimes the person outside of you can see those
better than you can see them yourself.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah. I think awareness is definitely the starting point. If
you know your partner is going to go through this
between early forties or late thirties onward, to be mindful
of it, to be present for be patient for it.
I think the challenge is we assume that if everyone's
going through it, then it can't be that bad, right.
There's a human trait of just like, oh, everyone's going

(40:10):
through it, Like what's the big deal? That's what I
was asking about. What's the worst that it can get to?
What have you seen the worst case scenario.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
I've seen couples going through divorce not knowing what's going on.
I've seen men not understanding what's happening because perhaps his
partner doesn't want to have sex and has not wanted
to it for a long time, and he doesn't understand it.
I have seen women that get osteoporosis as a result
of this, women who are not treating their heart, women
who have heart issues as a result of this. You know,
I think that we have to pay attention to our health.

(40:41):
And I don't think that knowing that your impaerimenopause doesn't
mean that you're going to prevent heart disease, but you'll
start paying attention to those things. I had never had
heart palpitations before as a result of that, and it
turned out that it was menopause. I wound up seeing
a cardiologist to just understand where my baseline was. And
I think that's really really important because the last thing

(41:01):
that I want women to do is suffer one and
to not be aware of what's happening in their lives
during this time.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
What happens to a woman's sex drive during perimenopause.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, let's talk about that, because listen, you're still getting
your period during perimenopause, and so your hormones can be
all over the place, and sometimes you can really want
to have sex, and sometimes you might not want to
have sex at all. And I think that some of
it's emotional too. You know, I lost my sex drive
completely toward the end of perimenopause, like I had nothing,
and I got remarried at the age of fifty. So
imagine I went into this brand new relationship and was like, yeah,

(41:33):
I have no interest in it anymore. And I think
that my partner, my husband, was like, what happened? Is
it me? What happened? And so I think that that
can really cause some problems. And I think that can
cause unspoken problems, and that's the big issue with a
partner not understanding what's happening. It disappeared like I was
going along, we were dating, everything was great, and then

(41:55):
it disappeared. And that was really why.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Attraction you want intimacy, and I love it.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
I want to kiss you, I want to be with you.
You know you're amazing. I want to be close to you.
But I didn't want to have sex because it was painful,
quite frankly. And that's what a lot of women experience.
They experience painful sex. There's dryness that happens all of
your body, and it didn't feel good, quite frankly. And
I hear women talk about it now openly, But it
wasn't something we were ever told to talk about or

(42:21):
to express, or to sit with somebody. I mean, I
couldn't imagine sitting here talking to you about this three
years ago, five years ago, right, But I think it's
what we have to do so young women understand it,
and so that men understand that something might be going
on with their partner and it might not just be
that she's lost interest.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
And I think that's the take from a man's perspective,
it's like, oh, well, maybe this relationship doesn't exist anymore,
Like there isn't attraction, there isn't a desire for intimacy.
And then if you don't understand that, there could be
this hormonal shift that's causing this desire. I think it's
so interesting, isn't it Like we we grew up thinking
a lot of this is purely mental. I'm not biological.

(43:05):
We do and not hormonal and not chemical in that sense,
it feels like, oh, it's a choice or an attitude,
and some of this is not a choice. You didn't
make a choice to not want to have sex anymore.
Like it was just it was almost like there was
an off switch.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
It was an off switch, and it scared me to death.
It scared me to death because I thought, wow, it's
like this, it do it? And it made me question,
do it? Do I not have desire for him anymore?

Speaker 2 (43:30):
What's going on?

Speaker 1 (43:31):
It scared me?

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, that's a really interesting.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
Yeah, it scared me and I and that's really why
I turned and you know, I started to treat these symptoms,
but I really thought it was something that was going
on with me and I and I was scared to
say it because I didn't even know how to say it.
How do you say, like, hey, I just I don't
want to have sex anymore and I don't know why,
and all of a sudden, it doesn't feel good anymore.
And so I think that those are really tough things

(43:55):
to contend with as a woman, and I think it's
really hard when a partner doesn't know what's happening and
they feel in the door. And so that's why I
love when men want to understand this conversation. They want
to hear about this conversation, and they want to know
what they can do. I want to tell you a
quick story.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
You know.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
I was doing a book signing and it's always women
in the room, you know, And so because I don't
know very many men that are going to be like,
I'm going to go to the how to Menopause book signing.
I can't wait. And so this one man was sitting
there next to who I assumed was his wife, and
he was just watching me, and he didn't really have
a reaction. He wasn't noddings where you feel like, Hey,
is this okay that I'm talking about all these things?

(44:31):
And he came up afterwards and he said, Hi, I
need to ask you a question and I said yes,
And he said, how old is too old to be
learning about this? Or how old is too young to
be learning about this? And I said, women at all
ages should be learning about this. This should be being
taught in school. People should understand this at all ages.
Doctors should be talking about this. One woman going into
the doctor's office, there's no question, and he said, how

(44:54):
important is it for men to understand this? He said,
because I've never even heard any of this, and I
think it's really important. Said it is. He came back
to me and he said, I'm going to take two
of these books and I'm going to give them to
my daughters and their husbands because I'm going to insist
that their husbands read these books. And I was blown away,
and I thought, wow, like one man has now shared

(45:15):
this message with two other men, and that's how the
conversation starts to happen.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
But first, here's a quick word from the brands that
support the show. All right, thank you to our sponsors.
Now let's dive back in. I've been having a lot
of conversations about it with my male friends who were
older than me, whose partners are probably in that space
right now, and just helping them become conscious of how

(45:40):
it could affect them, because it's a human trait again
that when you haven't experienced something, you have no idea
how it impacts someone. And that applies to anything, whether
it's your parents getting divorced, whether it's visiting certain countries
when you were young, whatever it may have been. Like
as humans were bad at knowing how something can affect
someone else. And you know, even even to the point of,

(46:03):
you know, me and my friend were just talking the
other day. We have three friends in our generation who
have cancer right now, and you know, and it's and
you're having this conversation, you're thinking about it, and you
have so many friends who don't understand how hard it
is for that person because you're like, oh, it's stage two,
Oh it's stage one, like you'll be okay. But then
when you really think about it, that word is so loaded,

(46:23):
it's so heavy, it's so hard. Whatever stage it's at,
it's tragic to go through. And I think that's partly
the challenge here as well, that when it comes to menopause.
I'm talking to my male friends about it a lot
because I think looking at it as the source of
some of the struggles in a relationship and the challenges

(46:44):
that they're going through communication challenges with their partner is
helpful to both of them because otherwise, like you said,
you were thinking it was all your fault that there
was something wrong with you and that person, if they're
not understanding, could feel the same way, or it's all
your fault. How did your husband help you? Like, how
did what did that process look like? Because I'm assuming
you want this well versed at the time.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
Either when you talk about that, you talk about cancer,
that's life altering, whatever stage is in just to hear
those words. My husband helped me in a lot of ways.
And it was really interesting. When I got the first,
you know, was told I was in menopause. We were
boarding a plane and I said, oh my gosh, I
just got a note in my patient portal that says, I,
I'm in menopause. I'm too young for menopause. I was

(47:26):
forty eight. The average age is fifty one. I wasn't
too young for menopause. I was just clueless. I just
had no idea and I couldn't believe it. And to me,
I associated that word with old age and like somebody
whose best years were behind them, and I realized it
was anything but. And as I continue to learn, I
would talk to him about it and I'd say, hey, listen,
I found out that like there's not just three symptoms,
there's thirty plus symptoms of menopause, and now they're in

(47:49):
the hundreds. You know, we're counting more and more as
we learn more, we're learning more and more symptoms of menopause.
And then eventually when it came to sex, I had
a real conversation, you know, because I went on my
honeymoon to Hawaii and I had no sex drive. It
was really awful. It was really it felt it felt
emotionally awful for me, but also I felt for him,
and then you know that feeling where you're going, oh

(48:09):
my gosh, what's he's thinking? What she thinking. I had
to have the conversation though with him through the process,
and I was really grateful that he was open to
listening to it. And it wasn't like, hey, you get
that taken care of and then let's talk because of
what's going on. And I talked about it with him
through everything with weight gain, with not being able to
sleep at night, with sleeping on the couch, you know,

(48:30):
for almost a month at one point because I couldn't
fall back to sleep and I was tossing and turning
and tossing and turning, And then eventually decided that hormone
therapy was going to be the choice for me, and
it really changed everything and my lights kind of came
back on and it felt very, very different. But we
go back and we look at that time now, and
I said, gosh, I was a shell of myself, wasn't I?
And he said, you were really different from the girl

(48:51):
I met. You were totally different. And I felt so
sad because I didn't know what to do and I
didn't know what I had done. And that's really what
I want. I wish that every couple's counselor anybody, any coach,
anybody that people are going to for help or advice,
would educate themselves about the changes that happened during this
time in a woman's life, because I think it would

(49:13):
solve so many problems.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
I really would. I feel like there's a lot of
trends inside that are changing, Like women are having children
at an older age. What happens when perimenopause and fertility
kind of you know, overlap those periods that you're experiencing it,
What does that look like.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
We're starting to have that conversation a little bit more,
and I'm excited about it because I think it's important.
I don't think that any of us or I certainly
didn't as just a regular woman. You know, I'm not
a doctor, I'm a journalist. I didn't understand that it
started in these early years. I didn't understand in your
forties you would be dealing with any type of symptoms
of perimenopause because I didn't know the word. But there

(49:52):
have been some women that said, like, I didn't know
the difference between having my child and then all of
a sudden, I was postpartum, and then the crossover between perimenopause,
what was it? What was going on in my life?
I didn't even know what was happening. And then obviously,
in perimenopause, you can still get pregnant, so you know,
some women think that their period's gone away for six months,

(50:14):
then all of a sudden, you know, they realize that
they can still have children, and so then we have children.
You know, they're having children later in life. So there
is definitely, I think, more of that crossover than we've
ever seen before because we're seeing women having children later
in life.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Are there any implications what should people be aware of
if that's what they're going through.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
I think to be aware of the symptoms of both,
because I know there's a lot of women that are like,
I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know if
it was after I had a child that I wasn't
able to get the weight off, or I was feeling
this like very a lot of emotions going on and
not going back to sleep. And some of those same
things that I was dealing with when I was pregnant
in my reproductive years are the same symptoms of perimenopause.

(50:54):
So which is which? And I think that that's where
you really have to have that relationship with your doctor.
I really believe that we've done a dift service to
women because we've kind of said, like here, when you're
in your reproductive years, here's what you obgyn looks like,
and then after that you can go to the doctor
and have your appointments and everything. But there's a real
crossover in those years from thirty five thirty eight years

(51:17):
old to when you hit menopause, and I think you
have to be having both of those conversations at the
same time you could get pregnant. Some of those symptoms
could also be perimenopause.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
If there are a younger women listening right now, how
would you best recommend that they plan for perimenopause. Is
there a way you can plan or prepare.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
If I were a young woman right now, best thing
could be to pay attention to some of the health habits.
You don't have to be perfect. I'd pay attention to
the strength training. I pay attention of how to get
habits to sleep well. Now you can go have a
good time. I promise it's great. Go have a great time,
but pay attention to some of these things that I
think you need to put into place, protein, adding that

(51:57):
to part of what you have going on, and figure
out way to manage stress. I think all those are
so important, and I would also do this. I'd also
get a bone density test, which was nothing I'd ever
heard of before, or anything I thought I should get.
Most women wait till they're sixty years old to get
something like this, but I'd want to know what my
baseline is for my bones because that's really important, and
the last thing you want to do is break one.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Yeah. So it's amazing to me how the habits do help,
like getting good sleep, you're nutrition. These things do matter.
They do matter, just that it's not gonna it's not
going to stop this from happening. Right, it's not going
to cure it. It's not going to cure it, right, Yeah,
you can't avoid it. It won't cure it. But it
will help you. Yeah, it will help you move through it.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
I think it'll help you manage your symptoms. And that's
the most important. You know, perimenopause and menopause, this isn't
a disease. This is a transition that we're going through,
and I think it's really important to know. You know,
I wish that when I were younger, I was thinking
a little bit older. I wish that I was thinking that, oh,
I have time to do all those things. If I
had established some of those habits when I was in

(53:02):
my twenties or my thirties, then it wouldn't have been
so hard in my forties and fifties to try to
figure it all out so quickly. And I think that's
the advantage that younger women have today, and I feel
really inspired by that. I feel really motivated for them
that they're going to get a hold of this. And
I don't think that perimenopause and menopause is going to
look like this in five or ten years.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yeah. I definitely think that, especially all of our listeners.
But there's such a culture now of trying to get
into those healthy habits earlier, and it's good to know
that that will fare people well as they moved through
this transition. What's the impact of the pill and birth
control drugs on perimenopause.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
It's interesting some women have said to me, oh, gosh,
I went to the doctor. They said it was in
perimenopause according to my symptoms, and I was given a
birth control pill. Well, the birth control pill oftentimes is
given because you had a regular periods. If you went
in there saying like my peerers are a regular the
birth control pill is there to kind of regulate those
and so some women will be on that for quite

(54:04):
some time. They'll be eventually weaned off of that if
they're in perimenopause, and then they can start hormone therapy,
and any of the doctors I've talked to say that,
you know, both of those things are possible options depending
on what your symptoms are. If you go into the
doctor and you're saying, hey, i've got hot flashes and
I can't sleep, and my joints hurt right now, and
I'm just feeling a little bit of brain fog, they're

(54:24):
probably not going to give you birth control. They will
start you on a low dose hormone therapy most likely
and tell you to add in those lifestyle practices to
be able to help you. But birth control pill, with
regard to doing anything to perimenopause, I think more often
will help regulate your period.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
You're saying there's not a negative impact between younger women
being on birth control and then how they experience perimenopause.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Not that I know of, except that some women say,
oh wow, I don't know if my period has stopped
or started. I don't know where I am. So a
lot of times, if a woman is a little bit older,
a doctor will oftentimes wean them off of that so
they can figure out kind of where they are in
their cycle. Because again, if you've gone twelve months without
your period, now your menopausal, and then you would be
doing hormone therapy, you wouldn't be doing birth control because

(55:08):
you wouldn't need it any longer.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
What else? There was a funny video I swaw on TikTok.
It was funny, it was comedic, but it was making
a really big point and it was showing how men's
hormones to stay study and how women's hormones go you know, yeah,
and just the amount of cycles that women have to
go through and the experience of it all. And what
have you heard from your community that's given you strength, hope, encouragement.

(55:34):
What have you noticed about people who have transitioned effectively?
What are the success stories almost.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
The success stories of women who have gone into this
stage successfully? Are I feel like myself again. I feel
really bold and I can't wait for this next chapter.
I'm feeling good about my body. And I think what
they feel more than anything else, is knowledgeable and they
feel like, Wow, I know what journey I'm on. I
understand what's happening to me now, and now I can
tackle these different things as they come along. I never

(56:04):
understood that knowledge and community were so important to something
like this, and I think it means everything when a
woman hears, Hey, this is what you're going through versus
Oh my gosh, Could I be dealing with dementia? Could
I be dealing with Alzheimer's? Why is my heart racing
out of control? Why am I getting weight? When you
are in the dark and you don't understand what is
going on, I think that can be the scariest thing happening,

(56:28):
and I think that's what so many women have been
dealing with for so long, which makes me really sad.
I go back and I think about my mother. I
lost my mother to breast cancer when she was fifty
one years old, and she had a surgical menopause, meaning
that as a result of her surgery and chemotherapy, she
went through menopause early. She was forty four years old
when she was diagnosed, so it was pretty early, and

(56:50):
we used to go into restaurants and we'd have to
leave the restaurants because sweat would be literally pouring down
her face, like she couldn't stay there, and her heart
was racing out of control, and she'd be throwing water
on herself and she'd laugh along with the rest of
the family. We'd be like, oh, mom's hot again, hah.
And it wasn't this was years ago. My mom died
in nineteen ninety and it wasn't until maybe three four

(57:12):
years ago when I really started research doing this, I
realized that that was what was my mother was going through.
It made me so sad to go back and say, oh,
my gosh, she was laughing with all of us trying
to play it off, and she was really suffering on
the inside.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
That's the hardest part for me, Yeah, is knowing that
there are so many women that I care about and
that I love that I would have been it would
have been useful if I had this context, that I
could have shared that with them. They would have found
better support and help in their journey, whether it's lifestyle
changes or hormonal support or stress management, as you rightly said,
And I would have been you know, understanding and empathetic

(57:48):
to the change that they were going through. I think
it would change so much. Why is it that despite
everything we've talked about, doctors still dismiss these symptoms and
medical research is not investing more. I just can't wrap
my head around that.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
I can't either, Honestly. I think part of it is societal.
I think part of it is that we think women
in midlife are kind of best years behind them. I
think that sadly, when it comes to research. You know,
we did a lot of research. We do a lot
of research about reproductive years, about what happens when you're older,
even what happens when you're younger, all ends the spectrum,

(58:26):
and then there's this kind of chunk of women and
a time in our lives that were just sort of
we've kind of fall off the radar. We're just not there,
And so that happens when it comes to research. And
then I think with doctors not being educated about it,
you know, it's not the doctor's fault. They're there to help,
that's what they want to do. Doctors have good intention,
but unfortunately if they didn't learn about it. If you've

(58:48):
got a woman coming in there and you've got a
woman saying like, oh, I'm tired, I'm not able to sleep,
I'm gaining weight, you know, a doctor will often be like, Okay,
it's a part of aging, or it's you know, take this,
call me take an antidepressant, or try to get some
more sleep, or practice winding down. And so sadly, you know,
we've got doctors that are dismissing women, Women feeling they

(59:09):
leave a doctor's office and don't know what to do.
And I've heard from so many women every single day, Jay,
I get messages saying, and my doctor told me it
was because of my age, or my doctor said I
couldn't possibly be perimenopause yet, or if your symptoms aren't
bad enough, you don't really need to do anything. And
I think that's the one that bothers me the most.
I really get upset when I hear your symptoms have

(59:32):
to be so much worse for you to do something
about it, because that's not true. It's just not true,
and that there's so much that can be done about this,
and there's so many different ways to help women. And
so my hope is that we start getting this training,
and we start making sure it's mandatory, and we start
making sure that all disciplines, not just obgyn's, learn about

(59:53):
perimenopause and menopause. If you go to your cardiologist, they
should be talking to you about perimenopause and mentopose. We
know doctors can't know everything, but that's where it comes
upon the woman to be educated about this too, And
right now, I think it's the best thing we can do.
We're not going to be able to get a whole
bunch more studies right now in a short amount of time.
We're not going to be able to get tons of

(01:00:14):
money poured into women's health all the time, specifically perimenopause
and menopause, and we're not going to be able to
get all doctors trained. So quickly. But what we can
do is get this message out to all women, young women,
older women, daughters, mothers, sisters, aunts, anybody that could be
going through it or has somebody that they know going
through it, and now especially men.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Yeah, well said, well, I'm happy to be a part
of that and have this conversation because it's what you
said also just about if if you care about someone,
you know, it's so important to be aware of what
they're going to go through. And to me, that's especially
something that is something they can't control, you know, something
that they don't have that influence over.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
I have to say, I'm so grateful to you for
this because I know it's not an easy conversation because
it's like I don't know where do we even strike.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
It's easy talking to you about it. Thank you. Yeah,
You've just given us a masterclass on it. I feel
so much more well versed. I'm so glad that's what
I'm speaking to you, because you make it so simple,
you make it so understandable. I'm glad that people have
the books so they can check the thirty four symptoms.
I'm glad that people have the book so that they
can actually figure out where in the course they are
so that they can turn to the doctor or turn

(01:01:24):
to their partner, find their community. I mean the way
you laid out the three really simple steps people can take,
whether it's lifestyle changes, stress management, or monal therapy. It's
it makes it feel manageable. It doesn't make it feel
like this is something insurmountable. It feels like something that
we can at least grasp and know what we need

(01:01:45):
to do to the next step. So thank you for
being such a great messenger for it and having the
courage to do I'm sure it's hard being you to
as you heard your career was going to go nowhere
if you became the poster child for this, but I
actually think it's going to help so many people who
are unaware, unconscious men or women, and people who are

(01:02:06):
just struggling and suffering with it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
Thank you. You know, I didn't have children of my own,
and I always for a long time I went back
and forth about that, and I realized going through this
and having this conversation and talking to so many young
women about it and trying to help them help their
moms or help them help theirself, I was like, wow,
I do feel like a Mom. Now you know, I
do feel like I'm helping young women, and so I

(01:02:30):
figured out a purpose through menopause. How menopause gave me
a purpose? But you know, it really did change my life.
So it did a lot. It did a lot for me,
let me trust myself more, and it let me realize
that there are some changes and it's never too late.
And I think that's the most important thing of all,
that it's never too late to make these changes. If
you didn't make them in your twenties or thirties, it's
not too late to make those changes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
I love it times in Fidel, thank you so much
for writing this book, How to menopause, Take charge of
your health, reclaim your life, and feel even better than before.
That's my favorite part about it is hearing you say
that we've got to get over this belief that women
are past their best years and your best years are
behind you and you've already lived in And it's that

(01:03:13):
part of feel even better than before. That's a message
that I love so. Thank you so much for in
this book. I highly recommend everyone goes and grabs a copy.
Men included. It's so important for us to be informed,
and I really hope that this serves your relationships, helps
your careers, helps your purpose and your passion, your children,
and ultimately helps yourself. Thank you so much, and thank

(01:03:34):
you Tamson again. Please follow tams and subscribe to our
podcast follower on social media platforms, and we will put
all the links in the bio and in the comment
section for you to follow along. Thank you so much again,
Thamson for joining me. Thank thank you for writing this book.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Thank you so much, just wonderful.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my conversation with
Megan Trainer on breaking generational trauma and how to be
confident from the inside out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
My therapist told me stand in the mirror naked for
five minutes. It was already tough for me to love
my body, but after the C section scar with all
the stretch marks, now I'm looking at myself like I've
been hacked. But day three, when I did it, I
was like, you know what, her thigh is a cue

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Jay Shetty

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