Transcript

Hello and welcome back to the Hormone Hub Podcast. I’m your host, Kylie Pinwill, and today we are gonna talk about the unspoken side of menopause. [00:01:00] So, yep, all the things that no one tells us. No one’s talking about but is very real for so many women. So, you know, and I think opening up this conversation normalizes what

women are going through and you know, the more that women start to realize that this is part of it, they’re not going crazy, they’re certainly not alone. And there’s also, a lot of support out there as well. 

So when it comes to menopause, some of the physical symptoms that, we’re familiar with, that we tend to associate menopause with would be, you know, hot flushes or hot flashes, vaginal changes, weight gain, mood swings.

So we tend to sort of have this picture of what a, crazy menopausal woman looks like. But what I wanna talk about is, some of the not so well known things. Of course there’s many varying factors that impacts your experience of menopause. And you know, when I’m talking menopause, I’m also talking [00:02:00] perimenopause as well.

Some of the varying factors include, your general level of health and wellbeing. So you’ve gotta get those foundations right? So good nutrition, good lifestyle, manage your stress, all of those things that I talk about all the time. But if you’ve had a previous history of anxiety and depression, if you’ve had, diagnosed, chronic conditions that you are managing, it’s all going to impact your, general level of wellbeing.

Certainly lifestyle choices, like I said, and whether you’ve had a natural menopause or a surgical or chemotherapy induced menopause, and I don’t think this is talked about enough either. So no two women are the same and we’re all going to experience, different menopausal symptoms.

30% of us will sail through menopause. With no symptoms you know, a period will just disappear. About 40% of women will experience sort of mild to moderate [00:03:00] symptoms. Things are gonna be annoying. You are gonna notice it. And then about 30% of women are going to have, severe symptoms that are gonna impact the quality of your day-to-day life.

And certainly, women who’ve had induced menopause either by a hysterectomy, so surgical menopause or as a result of chemotherapy treatment, you might find that your symptoms are more severe because you are put into a sudden menopause. So it’s a bigger shock on your body and certainly if it’s appropriate for you, there’s lots of

Bioidentical, h r t options, that are worth speaking to your doctor about, but that isn’t appropriate for everyone. Particularly if you’ve got, a history of hormonal cancers and things like that, it might just not be an option for you. So again, this is where we go back to, what we can control.

So we can control our nutrition, our lifestyle, our mindset to get those foundations right, and that’s gonna support you as much as you can. If we [00:04:00] have a look at some of the common physical symptoms, things like hot flushes. So even these, and I said we were gonna talk about the ones that weren’t necessarily talked about very often, but it’s just sort of worth mentioning that the cause of hot flushes, isn’t completely understood.

 It seems that lower estrogen levels affect the part of the brain that provide the thermostat for body temperature. And there’s a lot of studies that show that stress anxiety can influence the frequency of, and the intensity of hot flushes. And definitely there’s certain foods. Also alcohol is a big one that can have an impact as well.

They generally sort of start that chest area spread to the upper chest, neck and face, but it can happen over the whole body as well. Now even women within that can experience hot flushes differently. Some of them, some women will have mild and quick hot flushes. Others can have one a day or more than 20 [00:05:00] a day.

Other women get night sweats like either on top of, or instead of their hot flushes where they literally wake up in a puddle. It can happen a couple of times for some women and for others it can last for years. Other common symptoms are, fatigue and tiredness, which I talk about all the time, not sleeping.

So that insomnia and wakefulness. Weight gain is a big one. , I’ve done episodes and episodes on that, aches and pains, so we get that sort of low level of inflammation, bloating and constipation as well. It definitely impacts our digestive system. So I think it’s safe to say that, menopause can be 

a whole body experience. Now jumping into some of the lesser known symptoms. So the things that I get asked, on a fairly regular basis. It’s actually not all that uncommon, but we are just not talking about it. One of them is like crawling sort of like dry or an itchy skin.

So you’ve got these [00:06:00] crawling sensation. Now definitely what they know is, you know, that lower level of estrogen can influence our perception of touch. So that means that we can be extra sensitive to touch or even numb to touch at some time. It’s sort of like a nervous system response.

Another side effect or a symptom that we’re not talking enough about is the impact that headaches and migraines can have on many women. Now, generally, this is sort of worse in perimenopause, sort of in that lead up to menopause. For some women it persists, post menopause as well.

So what happens we get a buildup of estrogen and, our body naturally has a decline in progesterone. So it’s that imbalance of the ratio of, estrogen to progesterone. So what we wanna do is make sure that, our liver is working well to clear that excess estrogen, but also [00:07:00] we wanna support our body’s natural production of progesterone as well.

So again, that’s something with clients I would do through nutrition first. Always stress management a hundred percent. And then, have a look at, do we need supplements in this case? We look at sleep and also food sensitivities, which is interesting. So some of the nutrients we look at here are, definitely magnesium, and increasing your dose.

You’re getting a big therapeutic dose from kind of ovulation through until your period starts. B vitamins are really important at this time, and also curcumin, so that’s a natural anti-inflammatory. So you can sort of take these without too many side effects. Now for some women, they might not be responsive to this.

And definitely, a bioidentical form of progesterone is indicated for those migraines as well. So don’t be afraid to, ask your doctor, put your hand [00:08:00] up, be an advocate for your own health. 

Kylie: Now the next one I wanted to talk about is sore breasts. So, for some women it can be like, when they’re pregnant, back to pregnancy days.

Some women experience tenderness. It can be [00:09:00] burning or soreness. And this can be right through perimenopause and also into menopause, particularly if you’re on H R T. For other women it can be a stabbing, sharp or a throbbing pain. It can be just in one breast. It can be in both breasts.

We tend to worry immediately with any symptoms concerning our breasts, and definitely that’s a natural response. So I encourage you, try not to panic. Just because you have, suddenly breast pain and tenderness, it’s rarely an early sign of breast cancer.

But definitely, if you are worried, always, always speak to a doctor and especially if you find a lump, if there’s any change in the appearance of your breast or nipples or any sort of nipple discharge. Always get it checked out, but generally that sudden pain doesn’t necessarily mean, it’s not a one-way ticket to breast cancer either.

Now for some women, you know, that breast pain, that breast tenderness goes away after menopause. But like I said, h r t can [00:10:00] continue that hormone stimulation, so that’s why some women post menopause can have that, breast pain as well. Now there is a bit we can do here, so definitely there’s lifestyle changes to help relieve that

discomfort. One of them is having a look at your salt consumption and also drinking more water. So even if you are mildly dehydrated, that can trigger fluid retention, which may worsen the breast pain. I also get, women’s sort of describing how 

their boobs have exploded as well. That would be my first port of call, as you know, are you drinking enough water? Avoiding caffeine can also help to reduce tenderness and, taking stock of how much body fat you actually have because it’s

 reducing body fat. And I’m not talking kilos on the scales, overall body fat because, the more, body fat we have, cuz we tend to carry estrogen in our body fat and the breasts are like [00:11:00] first port of call for where estrogen will lay down body fat. Be mindful, but also take stock, is that something that you need to address?

 Iodine certainly can be a treatment in perimenopause, that’s appropriate for some women, but definitely not if you have Graves disease or anything like that. It’s not a one size fits all, but it’s definitely a treatment consideration that I would consider for, my clients. But, after having the chat and ideally having iodine levels tested,

now I wanna make special mention of urinary, vaginal and vulval changes. So this is definitely something that is very common and we are not talking enough about it. And ladies, I do not want you to suffer in silence. I’m trying to nail down a couple of guest expert speakers to come in and go into more depth in this.

Definitely low estrogen causes changes to our vulval vagina also, Our bladder as well. We can experience genital [00:12:00] dryness, so both vaginal and vulva dryness. It can feel like burning, it can feel irritation. A lot of women notice that it impacts their sexual function, so with a lack of lubrication, discomfort or pain wearing jeans.

Impaired vaginal function or loss of vaginal elasticity. So if you’ve, like I said, feel uncomfortable wearing jeans or tight pants or, things just don’t feel comfortable. It’s always worth getting that checked out. UTIs and the interesting thing with thrush and UTIs, so thrush tends to come in perimenopause.

So if we think that, thrush loves estrogen. They kind of go together. That high sort of levels of circulating estrogen tends to be more common in perimenopause. So thrush, that’s what we see then, then post, menopause, when your estrogen levels have dropped, that’s where we tend [00:13:00] to see more.

Vaginal, what’s it called? There’s my perimenopause brain losing my words again. We see urinary urgency, pain, recurrent urinary tract infections, bacterial vaginosis. That’s what I was trying to think of. You know, we tend to see bv, post menopause. That’s where, talking to women getting a good history, their signs, their symptoms, not everyone knows that they’re in menopause because if you’ve got on the pill or an I U D and all of a sudden, you are getting UTIs or you’ve, been swabbed and it’s bacterial vaginosis .

That’s a sign, a good sign that you’re in menopause. So it’s just good to be aware of that as well. Certainly pelvic floor prolapse, leaking, this is all caused by that drop in estrogen, which affects the ligaments that hold our uterus, our cervix, our vagina, our bowels, our kidneys in place.

Those ligaments sort of lose [00:14:00] their elasticity with the change in hormones. So definitely worth, if you’ve got any concerns, to go and see a pelvic floor physio. We did have a great episode we had Kath Que, who is a pelvic floor physio, come on the podcast a month or so, maybe a couple of months ago.

So certainly Google my podcast, Google, pelvic floor and Kath’s interview will come up if you wanna find out more about that. Now, the next one I wanted to talk about was, how menopause can affect our mood. Okay. So we can definitely feel low, we can feel more depressed and feel the experience and changes in mood.

Definitely through menopause and when your hormones are fluctuating so it’s important to kind of step back and think, menopause doesn’t cause depression. But certainly if you’ve had, a history of depression before, you sort of hit perimenopause, menopause, [00:15:00] or if you’ve had a history of PMS, postnatal depression, PMD or PMDD, you might, or you more likely to be more sensitive to the hormonal changes that are going on.

I just wanna say like there’s absolutely no shame in taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications where there is appropriate and definitely, it’s certainly warranted. But I also, on the flip side of that, wanna say that these are often commonly prescribed as a first port of call.

So, women know that something’s not right. You are not coping with things as well as you used to or things that would never have bothered you before are now bothering you and you’re getting upset. You know, you might have increased anxiety over things.

You might be worrying more, you might just feel overwhelmed by life. Often, go off to the doctor, nothing’s wrong, oh, well here you go. And you handed a script. Which is fine if you feel that it’s [00:16:00] actually depression, but I speak to a lot of women and you know, they kind of know within themselves that it’s, it’s not actually depression.

Remember that like a lot of medications can mask or numb the problems and also cause more side effects. So what’s really interesting is. Statistics show an increase in people suffering from depression. So it’s a hundred percent, that’s not a question. And then parallel to this, the use of antidepressants has increased by nearly 400% over the last two decades.

So you would think, and this is a Harvard study by the way, so the number of patients diagnosed with depression, increases by approximately 20% per year. So if medication alone was the answer to depression, and you know, antidepressant uses increased by 400%. Then the numbers of people suffering depression should be going down, not up.

Okay? So there’s a lot of, it means there’s a lot of [00:17:00] people out there on antidepressants who actually aren’t depressed. All right. So, and like I said, I’m not, antidepressants, anti-anxiety is a hundred percent warranted, but it’s, it shouldn’t be a bandaid and it shouldn’t be just, here’s a script to shut you up so you don’t come back, sort of thing.

 I want you to sort of, Get better at learning to recognize stress, and the effect that it has on your body. So when we get better at managing our stress, leaning into, how we’re actually feeling and trying to sort of discern, I guess, are we just low or is it something more?

So then, this is something that I, talk about all the time, but definitely, we are more susceptible during this time of, of course. It’s part of the emotional sort of bundle. It’s common to have low, flat, or even swinging kind of moods.

So [00:18:00] if you are feeling more irritable and I also think are we just more irritable or do we have just less tolerance for what’s going on? So something, sometimes I think that’s me. I’m just, tolerance level zero, depending on the day. Of course. Anyway, so I hope you’ve found that helpful.

So they’re just, you look and I could talk for hours on, a hundred other symptoms, that we are just not talking enough about, but hopefully that gives you a starting point so you can, sort of recognize some of those things that might be happening for you and you can go, yeah, okay.

That’s, I recognize that, and come up with an action plan of what to do as well. I always recommend, start with the basics. Good nutrition, lifestyle, habits, mindset. They’re the three foundations that we need to work on. Alright, my love’s much love, see you in the next episode.