Latest / The Menopause Resource Hub Podcast / Mind blank at your GP? How to prepare for your menopause appointment
Transcript
- Episode 2 How to get taken seriously: You've been waiting for weeks for your appointment. You've been thinking about it in the shower, in the car at 3 AM. You walk into the doctor's appointment, you sit down, and the doctor says, What can I bring you today? And your mind goes blank. Because what do you say? You might go, I'm not stopped feeling great. Or you might just say all the things in a moment. And then ten minutes later you're back in your car and you're thinking, I didn't even say that and I didn't say that. if that's you, then that's what this episode is for. I'm Sharon Ludlow and I am the founder of Menopause Resource Hub. I'm not the doctor, but I am the woman in the car who doesn't remember what she just said in the doctor's appointment. I want to talk to you about this subject so that the next time you have an appointment you actually feel heard and you know what to book, you know what to bring, you know what to say, and really what to do if it doesn't go well that first time. In the first episode I told you about the doctor who was googling my symptoms in front of me. I didn't really tell you about what happened before because I had been getting regular checkups for years. Well like we all do. Blood tests, maybe some mammograms. We've all gone down the path of just general health, right? And observation. But after all this had happened to me, I thought, you know, not once did Anyone bring up perimenopause or menopause to me. Even though I was now well and truly into my 40s, starting to hit 50, nobody talked to me about that subject. So when the symptoms started for me, I didn't necessarily connect them. I put it down to getting older, like it was stressful. Maybe it's just life for women. By the time I actually got to see someone, I'd had symptoms for months. And I just poured out all the things to this poor GP, everything all at once, in no particular order. And I get it now that I've been on this side and talked to so many of them. The person on the other side of the desk has to be able to take everything you've said, filter it through the clinical lens, and come back with something that helps you. In a few minutes. And that's a real skill. It's a difficult task for anyone because as women, we're living the symptoms. From their side, they need the facts. What I've understood is that if we prepare a little bit before we go, it's going to help the whole thing and bridge that gap. I've learned that nobody is going to bring this up. We have to be advocates for our own health. Our health is Involved in our whole life holistically. It's not a separate department while we do other things because it impacts everything. We need to be the ones that gain our knowledge. We to advocate for it and to understand it as best we can. I think that we have to work out how to be ready for that appointment to get the most out of it. The first thing I want to talk about is how you would book this menopause appointment with a GP. The first thing is when you call the clinic, you need to ask for a menopause health assessment. You need to say those words. There's an actual Medicare item that has been made for that now. It's a dedicated appointment of at least 20 minutes and it has to be in person. It can't be TallyHealth because think about it, a a standard appointment that was just built for a sore throat, it's not constructed to be able to help in the same context. And If the clinic doesn't know what you're talking about, then really that's tells you something and you should just go and find another clinic. So you've you you book your appointment and then how do you prepare now? What do you bring? You need to sit down and start with your symptoms. All of them. Every single one, even if you think it's not really relevant or you don't know how it's relevant. Write down what is going on in your body. Like obviously some women can just rattle it off. Some of us need a bit of time to put two and two together. You might be making dinner and you suddenly think, yeah, last week I put the keys in the fridge. Or I've been getting cramps in my legs in the middle of the night. That's odd. I don't know if it's related or not. Write it down. The point isn't for you to diagnose yourself here. You're observing your symptoms, you're observing things going on in and you're writing it down in one single place. It just helps build that picture for the doctor. Because it's their job to be able to look at all of those things. The next thing is have a look at all those symptoms and maybe make a note or think about when did it happen? How long ago? Was it today? Was it three weeks ago? Did it start a year ago? Start to kind of jot down from your memory the timeline. Of what might have happened because it helps build context for the doctor. If you've already thought about it, because sitting in a chair while the doctor's waiting for you, it wastes time. So you've got your symptoms, you've thought about the context of when they've started. And the extra little bit that is really powerful when you're in the room is the context of how it is affecting your life. It could be a sli affecting your sleep, your work. Your relationships, your mood, the rage that comes out of nowhere that no one talks about. Write that down. What is the impact in your life about these different things that are going on? Because when it's on paper, it's much harder for someone to tell you that it's just stress. You you're not saying you don't feel great. You're showing them that it actually costs you something. But so I think context helps. The fact that you've thought it through, you've got a context, you've got the impact, and then write down your questions. Those things that are actually in your mind about these things, write down. Maybe zero it down to like three. These top questions that you have that you need a specific answer for in that first appointment. I see a lot of conversations in Facebook groups and different areas where women are talking to one another because they're not getting the answers from GPs. They've been very disappointed with their healthcare progress and they're going to one another for advice on symptoms, on medications, on all sorts of things, which can be really lovely and a little bit scary because in our frustration of not getting the right answers, we can end up in a spot of difficulty potentially. So I'm not saying it's all bad. I'm just saying that us preparing for that way forward is more positive for us. We're advocating for ourselves now. Bring your questions and bring your thought-through experience so far. What is going on and how is it affecting you? And this is what I want to know about it. So that you can just lead from your notes when you're in the room. You can hand them over. You can read it as a summary before the conversation even goes anywhere. And while they're talking, you should be writing down your own answers. Write it down. Ask if you can even record it on your phone so you don't forget. Because let's face it, as soon as you walk out the room, you think, they said something about what vitamin was it again? We can forget. Ask them, I want to write it down. Can I record our conversation for my private use? Because when you start to accumulate your own record, you can keep notes of what's going on and the impact, how it's changing you, if it's helped or not. You these notes then can be used for anyone, even if you end up going to a different provider or maybe something completely different. You have a record of what you've done and what they've suggested and a path forward. It really is part of your personal advocacy and knowledge. Because those cross notes Even when I've been speaking to some of these providers, they're saying it's really beneficial as a naturopath that they've come they know they've got the notes from the doctor. The naturopath then shares their notes with the the doctor in return. So that everybody is on the same page about these things. And it's not just medical people talking to one another. You don't want to remove yourself from that process. The unfortunate part is that not all appointments are gonna go well. sometimes you're gonna feel dismissed. There have been women that'll go in and say, Is it perimenopause? And they're told, No, you're too young. Or no, your periods haven't stopped, therefore it's not anything to do with it. Which is not right. And the more we get knowledge of these things, the more we can kind of speak up in that situation. But if that happens, it's not the end of it. So I want to give you permission. If you need permission, go to a different clinic. Go to a different doctor. Maybe even try a different kind of medical practitioner. Feeling unheard doesn't mean that you should not be heard. You should not allow yourself to feel dismissed, especially if those symptoms are real and they are building up and you do need answers. You just might have to try a few doors to get there. And hopefully, with what is being built with the menopause resource hub, we can streamline that for you. So that you don't end up wasting time on these other people who aren't focused on what you need for the stage of your life. In the next episode, I'm gonna be sharing the conversation I had. She's a specialist GP in the menopause space. And even when I was speaking with her, I brought up all this preparation for an appointment and she said, that is really fantastic. If s if more people came like that, that would be really great. And I have created the appointment ready workshop, which is sitting on the Metopause Resource Hub. It is free and there's a a video where I will talk you through it and I give you some downloads. You can either just do the free download. It has a symptom tracker, it has an impact statement, you can keep it on your phone, you can download it and print it, you can keep the records of it. So the link will be in the show notes to that. But Dr. Deya Is the GP who will be coming after this episode. And she has served women in the gynecology area, in menopause, in specialist GP framework for many years. And it's really lovely to hear from her how she looks after people in our space and what she recommends. She's on the other side of the desk and she'll tell you what actually helps her to help you. So I'll see you in the next episode.