Latest / The Dr Louise Newson Podcast / 63 – Hormones, disability and the battle to be taken seriously : Laura Dallison

Transcript

63 – Hormones, disability and the battle to be taken seriously : Laura Dallison · The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

• 0:00
  Laura Dallison's on my podcast today.
• 0:02
  She's talks very openly about what it's like living with a
• 0:05
  physical disability and also having hormonal changes, not
• 0:10
  being listened to, not being believed, not being understood,
• 0:13
  and how hard it was for her to access hormones which have made
• 0:16
  a real difference to both her mental health and her physical
• 0:19
  health. So being an advocate for
• 0:21
  yourself is so important. And we unpick this during the
• 0:24
  episode today. So Laura, thank you so much for
• 0:28
  coming into the studio today because we have done a podcast
• 0:32
  before, but it's probably about three years ago and we did it
• 0:35
  remotely and it actually looked quite different.
• 0:37
  You look, you look very different now, maybe because
• 0:40
  hormones, who knows? You've got a story that I think
• 0:43
  will resonate with a lot of people.
• 0:45
  Well, there's lots of stories that you've got.
• 0:47
  You haven't got just one story, but you've got a journey.
• 0:50
  And I really want to highlight the importance that nobody is
• 0:56
  left out when it comes to the conversation about hormones.
• 1:00
  And there are still quite a few groups of women that are really
• 1:04
  marginalised. And I do think people with a
• 1:06
  physical disability come into one of those groups, sadly.
• 1:10
  So tell me a bit about you. So I had a spinal cord injury in
• 1:15
  2019. I was 42 and prior to that I was
• 1:19
  working full time, but I was also a part time yoga teacher.
• 1:23
  I used to run sort of 50 KA week.
• 1:25
  So I was really, really active, Really active.
• 1:27
  And then suddenly overnight I found myself having had this
• 1:32
  spinal cord injury full in trauma.
• 1:35
  I was paralysed and was told I'd never walk again.
• 1:38
  So I've had to learn to rewalk. I've had intensive rehab and
• 1:43
  that battle and that journey has been incredible with the kind of
• 1:49
  doors that have been opened but doors that have been closed for
• 1:51
  medical practitioners and I'm a medical practitioner myself, so
• 1:54
  it's been even harder to be told by your GP but you're never
• 1:58
  going to walk again and it's just one of those things.
• 2:01
  So I've been on a journey and I have not taken no for an SO.
• 2:05
  You've really had to advocate for yourself, right for the
• 2:07
  start because it was a freak accident that you had that, you
• 2:10
  know, literally overnight, wasn't it?
• 2:12
  As you say, your whole life changed.
• 2:14
  You've got a family. You weren't going to just.
• 2:18
  Yeah, when I had two choices, I either laid on the sofa and went
• 2:21
  this is my life, or I got up and and fighted.
• 2:26
  So I so had a four year old at the time, a three-year old at
• 2:28
  time, sold the pushchair, bought a wheelchair and paid for my
• 2:32
  rehab. I started having symptoms of
• 2:35
  depression, insomnia, incredible joint pain, the brain fog.
• 2:42
  I just put that down too with disability.
• 2:45
  It was around COVID and the brain fog was really bad.
• 2:49
  And I thought, well, maybe I've got long COVID, maybe I've got
• 2:52
  dementia. You know, all these things are
• 2:54
  going through your head. And it was really when I saw
• 2:56
  some of the work that you've done that some of the questions
• 3:00
  was like, hang on a minute, these are the same.
• 3:03
  So I did a little bit of research.
• 3:04
  I went to my GP and my GP just wanted to prescribe me
• 3:07
  antidepressants. Did they not want to talk about
• 3:09
  hormones? No, didn't want to talk about
• 3:11
  hormones. They said I was 42, I was too
• 3:13
  young and I was depressed and I was like, I'm not depressed.
• 3:19
  I was told I'd never walk again. That didn't make me depressed.
• 3:22
  That made me determined. So please don't tell me I'm
• 3:25
  depressed. I know something's not right.
• 3:27
  So I had to self discover. And I am someone who is
• 3:31
  resilient and I push and I don't accept no for an answer.
• 3:35
  But when you're living with a disability, throwing in an
• 3:39
  another medical problem, it's easy to see why people just go,
• 3:43
  yes, I've, I can't fight this anymore.
• 3:46
  So yeah, it's that having to advocate for yourself constantly
• 3:50
  and having to have those arguments with the GPS.
• 3:52
  And, and because I am a clinician, I understood certain
• 3:55
  things so did my own research. And then I was having to go back
• 3:57
  and say, like, this is what I want and This is why I want it.
• 4:01
  And and it's wrong. Women should be heard, not
• 4:05
  spoken down to and not been told that it's in the head.
• 4:09
  And you know, menopause symptoms is, is just life.
• 4:13
  Yes, because the problem is, and I hear it, look, that it's,
• 4:16
  let's normalise the conversation.
• 4:19
  And firstly, I don't know what normal means for a start,
• 4:21
  because we're all different. But actually, that's almost like
• 4:25
  saying, let's trivialise the conversation.
• 4:28
  And, you know, you've got a lot to deal with.
• 4:31
  You've had even more to deal with having, you know, this
• 4:34
  accident, not thinking you'll be able to walk at all.
• 4:37
  But you still use your wheelchair, you still have a
• 4:39
  disability, but you want to be the best version of yourself.
• 4:44
  And then your hormones are changing you.
• 4:46
  And so one of the things that I'm very interested in is the
• 4:49
  role of hormones throughout the body.
• 4:52
  And you know, even if you didn't have any symptoms or many
• 4:55
  symptoms, the role of those hormones for your muscle
• 4:59
  strength, your bone strength is really crucially important
• 5:03
  because you are very fit and you've kept your fitness.
• 5:07
  But we know people get sarcopenia, this loss of muscle
• 5:10
  mass without hormones. Like, you don't want any loss of
• 5:14
  muscle mass when you've got any sort of disability, do you?
• 5:18
  No, even more so you need to know to preserve that.
• 5:22
  And it's giving people the, the information.
• 5:25
  If they choose not to take it, that's absolutely fine.
• 5:28
  But to be told, but it's just an ageing process.
• 5:30
  And it's, it's no different to if someone's got diabetes or
• 5:35
  they've got cardiovascular disease, which is an ageing
• 5:37
  process. Do we not treat someone with
• 5:39
  high blood pressure because well, they're old and it's years
• 5:42
  of wear and tear on their bodies.
• 5:43
  So now get on with it. You know it's it's no different.
• 5:47
  No, there was somebody who was quite high up in the Royal
• 5:49
  College of GPS who wrote on LinkedIn actually that menopause
• 5:53
  is just a natural ageing process.
• 5:56
  And I know she's very anti hormones.
• 5:58
  But you know, I wear glasses to read.
• 6:01
  That is 100% due to my age. I have, you know, and I, I
• 6:06
  choose to wear glasses to, to read and I know soon I'll have
• 6:10
  to wear them all the time. But again, it's, it isn't any
• 6:14
  different because I know there are benefits to my well-being if
• 6:17
  I can read. I, you know, like it's just
• 6:20
  again, but it's a choice thing. But to have this, this down.
• 6:23
  But you know, you had a lot of symptoms and you also were
• 6:27
  getting, so I remember some urinary tract symptoms, weren't
• 6:30
  you? Yeah, so I was having, I was
• 6:33
  under urology for urine tract symptoms, which is LinkedIn with
• 6:38
  a spinal cord injury, my level of injury.
• 6:42
  So I do have a, a bladder that doesn't always understand when I
• 6:48
  need to avoid. So obviously bacteria can build
• 6:50
  up. So I have to go to the toilet to
• 6:53
  make sure I I void properly. So there is always risk of unit
• 6:57
  tract infections. And I just kind of accepted,
• 7:00
  well, another gift that keeps on giving with a spinal cord
• 7:02
  injury. So it wasn't until I had sort of
• 7:06
  conversations with yourself and then looked into it and realised
• 7:08
  actually the link with using is it the, yeah, the, the pessaries
• 7:15
  and it's made. And I can't tell you how
• 7:18
  different it's made it. And it's, it's been so different
• 7:21
  from me that I'm now advocating for it.
• 7:24
  And my mum suffers from Utis again, an ageing thing that just
• 7:29
  people accept. And I was like, go back to the
• 7:32
  doctors and get some hormone replacement treatment.
• 7:35
  And since she's been on, she's had no problems.
• 7:37
  So it's, you know, it's simple things that we just don't talk
• 7:40
  about it and we just accept again that well, women get Utis
• 7:45
  as they get older. But you know, it's if if men had
• 7:50
  Utis and they knew how uncomfortable they are and how
• 7:52
  kind of, you know, you're sort of rolled out in pain and it's
• 7:55
  horrible and, and a simple treatment stops it.
• 7:59
  It's incredible, isn't it? I mean, we've spoken about this
• 8:01
  on other podcasts. My 23 year old uses vaginal
• 8:04
  hormones and she was getting urinary symptoms and it they've
• 8:07
  melted away. But I'm married to a urologist
• 8:10
  and I love him dearly. But I had symptoms for many
• 8:15
  years. Actually, looking back, it was,
• 8:17
  you know, one of the symptoms because it was just there and
• 8:20
  having recurrent urinary tract infections.
• 8:22
  And most people will know what it's like when you're sitting on
• 8:26
  the toilet and it's just so it's, it's just so
• 8:29
  uncomfortable. And there's nothing you can do.
• 8:31
  No, just, I know, I know. And it's just awful.
• 8:34
  And I actually saw in one of my husband's colleagues, A
• 8:37
  urologist who did a cystoscopy on me.
• 8:39
  He did a scan, all of that. But no, I mean, this was about
• 8:43
  15 years, 20 years. So invasive.
• 8:46
  It's so invasive. I didn't think about hormones.
• 8:49
  No one else did think about it. I mean, it's just, it's almost
• 8:53
  so obvious that it's not thought about.
• 8:55
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've since had a friend
• 8:58
  recently who was describing something and I said about
• 9:01
  having the vagina HRT and she was Oh no, I'm not dry down
• 9:05
  below. I don't need that.
• 9:06
  And I was like, just trust me. And I explained it.
• 9:08
  And then she came and I gave her some of my pessaries, which
• 9:11
  probably shouldn't have done, but and literally she's a month
• 9:15
  late. She was like, Oh my God, made
• 9:16
  such a difference. And I think it's so
• 9:19
  stereotypical. What?
• 9:20
  What is dryness? Yeah, of course, yes.
• 9:23
  And it's the taboo. No one wants to talk about
• 9:24
  vagina dryness, do they 'cause? You know, no, not at all.
• 9:27
  But somehow it's easier to talk, I think, about urinary symptoms,
• 9:30
  but a lot of people don't. And, you know, even in urinary
• 9:34
  incontinence as well, and, you know, thinking about people's
• 9:37
  spinal injuries, you know, bladder problems as well as
• 9:41
  bowel problems actually can be a real issue.
• 9:44
  And we've got these hormone receptors throughout our bladder
• 9:49
  and our bowel, our pelvic floor, and also just they help the
• 9:53
  nerves, the physical nerves to work.
• 9:55
  So that sensation of knowing when your bladder needs emptying
• 9:58
  or not, that's going to improve when you've got hormones.
• 10:02
  Same with bowel function as well, and that's often not
• 10:07
  discussed or not thought about. Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:09
  And I think it's just accepted you've got a spinal cord injury,
• 10:12
  it affects your bladder, it affects your bowel and you know,
• 10:15
  accept it. You know, talk about
• 10:16
  catheterisation and and sort of bowel wash outs and bits and
• 10:19
  pieces. And that's, you know,
• 10:21
  historically what people have done and, you know, medicines
• 10:24
  moved on and we need to move on with the times of stuff.
• 10:28
  Absolutely. And I'm very interested in the
• 10:30
  role of hormones in an in a physiological way, so how they
• 10:33
  work in our body. And I was reading some papers
• 10:37
  recently, some of them are written by research called
• 10:39
  Donald Stein in New York. And he's done a lot of work on
• 10:42
  progesterone, especially the natural progesterone, looking at
• 10:46
  people who have had head injuries, so traumatic brain
• 10:49
  injuries, but also transaction of the cord, so trauma to the
• 10:53
  spinal cord showing that people that have progesterone.
• 10:57
  And there's quite a lot of preclinical data in mice as well
• 11:00
  showing that with progesterone, they actually have a better
• 11:04
  repair because one of the things our body naturally does is
• 11:07
  produce progesterone in our brain.
• 11:09
  If you had a brain injury and then there's a huge cascade
• 11:13
  reaction that occurs. It's not just local where the
• 11:15
  trauma is, it gets into the blood and you have all these
• 11:19
  sort of chemicals, these cytokines in the body and this
• 11:22
  oxidative stress. And so especially progesterone
• 11:25
  can calm all that down. Then it can help the nerves to
• 11:29
  regenerate, the muscle to get stronger, all those pathways to
• 11:33
  work a lot better. But it's just been ignored for
• 11:37
  so long. And you know, any work I've done
• 11:40
  with any charities for brain injuries, for physical
• 11:44
  disabilities, no one's thinking about hormones.
• 11:47
  It's almost like it's just been forgotten and I I can't quite
• 11:50
  understand why. Yeah, it's it's it's medicine,
• 11:54
  isn't it? Before an algorithm.
• 11:55
  And when she gets to the bottom of that algorithm, you go, oh,
• 11:58
  not my speciality. Refer on to the next.
• 12:00
  And we don't work holistically, do we?
• 12:02
  I think if we were to work more holistically, it would allow
• 12:05
  those hormone conversations to come in rather than thinking
• 12:08
  that hormone only effects women when they reach sort of 45 to
• 12:12
  50. You know, I, I, I also believe
• 12:15
  there's a, an effect with men with, you know, do they have
• 12:19
  menopause as well? Do do they have a drop of
• 12:21
  detestorone and and how it affects them?
• 12:23
  And I think in 10 years time we'll have the same conversation
• 12:27
  and we will be talking about the male menopause.
• 12:32
  But it all comes back to that hormones.
• 12:33
  Hormones effects everything, doesn't it?
• 12:35
  And I think that is a big problem.
• 12:37
  And it's still happening now that a lot of people think that
• 12:40
  it's a gynaecological problem. And I've just come back from
• 12:44
  America and it really is the OBGYN, you know, the
• 12:47
  gynecologists that run the menopause clinics and everything
• 12:50
  else. And I feel very strongly as a
• 12:52
  general physician, I'm better placed because I'm thinking
• 12:55
  about all the different organs, all the systems, not just the
• 12:59
  gynaecological organs. But it's still difficult because
• 13:02
  you know you've had HRT prescribed for you by one
• 13:05
  clinic, then you were told you had to go and see an NHS
• 13:08
  specialist. So after I had an appointment at
• 13:12
  your clinic, which was amazing, literally had an hour's
• 13:15
  appointment and I came off the appointment, I just burst into
• 13:18
  tears because the first time in, in probably 2 years, I felt
• 13:22
  heard and someone had actually listened and, and I wasn't going
• 13:27
  mad in my head. I mean, I did the brain fog that
• 13:29
  I was experiencing was real. And then she explained the
• 13:33
  clinical side to why things were happening, which all made sense.
• 13:35
  And I'm kind of research based. So I like, I needed to know that
• 13:39
  as well. And then I went back to the GP
• 13:41
  with a letter to say these are the medications that you'd
• 13:43
  suggested. And I and I have a brick wall.
• 13:46
  And the GP was like, no, you don't need any of that.
• 13:48
  We don't prescribe testosterone and we don't agree with that,
• 13:51
  that dosage that's too high for the pedestrian.
• 13:56
  So again, and I was like another battle.
• 13:58
  So I had to be referred to a NHS menopause clinic, which was
• 14:04
  ridiculous because it was, I was taken somebody's place who maybe
• 14:09
  couldn't afford to go privately. And it was, I went on a waiting
• 14:13
  list. It was a six month waiting list.
• 14:15
  And when I went to the clinic it was a phone consultation and I'd
• 14:20
  said that I'd seen been seen in your clinic.
• 14:23
  And he was like, oh, great, yeah.
• 14:24
  Are you happy with the treatment?
• 14:25
  Yeah. Well, I prove it so.
• 14:27
  It was a waste of time. It was a complete waste of time.
• 14:30
  I was probably on the phone for less than 5 minutes and that was
• 14:33
  probably a 20 minute appointment that could have gone to someone
• 14:37
  who really needed it. Thanks so much for listening to
• 14:41
  my podcasts. Did you know that if you prefer
• 14:43
  to watch rather than just listen, my podcasts are
• 14:46
  available on YouTube Every week you'll find full episodes and
• 14:50
  additional educational content on my hormones, menopause, and
• 14:54
  Women's Health, all grounded in science and real clinical
• 14:57
  experience. So if you want to stay up to
• 14:59
  date, revisit episodes, or share them with others who might
• 15:03
  benefit, make sure you subscribe to my YouTube.
• 15:08
  It makes me sad really, because you know, if it was a
• 15:11
  cardiologist recommending a heart drug, the GPS are less
• 15:16
  likely to push back. Yeah, it's a trusted referrer
• 15:18
  and it should be. Yeah, yeah.
• 15:20
  And, and as you say it, it's making a huge difference.
• 15:23
  If you weren't feeling well, of course, you know, go and see
• 15:26
  someone else. But you were feeling well.
• 15:28
  And, and for you to invest in your future health, it's
• 15:31
  crucially important that you said even before your injury,
• 15:34
  you were super fit. You always looked after
• 15:36
  yourself. There's no reason why you can't
• 15:38
  continue to do that. Absolutely, yeah.
• 15:40
  And it's just, again, it's another battle that we have to
• 15:44
  have. And probably what really upsets
• 15:46
  me even more is that you sometimes I've heard people say,
• 15:49
  well, I've booked an appointment to see a female doctor because
• 15:52
  they would understand better, but they get a young female
• 15:57
  Doctor Who doesn't get it and is, you know, that blanket.
• 16:01
  And this is what we were taught in Med school.
• 16:02
  And this is, this is what I'm sticking to.
• 16:05
  I mean, you know, and it's, it's how do we break that mould?
• 16:08
  And how do you think we do? Oh.
• 16:09
  I don't know, I'd be very rich if I could break that mould.
• 16:13
  It's it's talking, isn't it? And it's I'm highlighting and
• 16:16
  it's showing the research and it's women coming forward and
• 16:19
  sharing their stories. Yeah.
• 16:21
  And I think that's where people are listening more, even from
• 16:23
  when we first met. I think it's, you know, as you
• 16:27
  know, I've had various huge knockbacks from different people
• 16:30
  in the medical establishment. But actually the biggest
• 16:35
  difference is women listening and men actually, yeah, but
• 16:38
  working out for each other, like you've advocated for your
• 16:41
  mother, your friend, you've you've shared that information
• 16:45
  and, and a lot of this is choice.
• 16:47
  I think doctors get very hostile sometimes because they think
• 16:51
  everything's very binary. And in medicine, everything is a
• 16:55
  choice, really. Like, and I think, you know, you
• 16:58
  learnt the biggest choice when someone said to you, you know,
• 17:01
  this is it, you can't walk again.
• 17:03
  And you decided to not take that information too literally and to
• 17:07
  see whether there were other choices.
• 17:09
  And if you'd tried all the other avenues and you still weren't
• 17:13
  getting anywhere, well then that's fine.
• 17:15
  And I think that's what's really important.
• 17:17
  But somehow in the NHS and in other healthcare systems
• 17:21
  globally, people think the first healthcare professional, they go
• 17:24
  to the bus stops there and they sort of almost aren't entitled
• 17:28
  to have another choice or another go.
• 17:29
  Yeah, absolutely. And you can understand why
• 17:31
  people end up in the AE departments and AE departments
• 17:33
  are in such crisis because they go to their GP and they don't
• 17:37
  get hurt and then they sit and they fester and they know
• 17:41
  something's not quite right, but they don't know how to access
• 17:44
  the support, they don't know how to access the help.
• 17:46
  So they think I go to A&E. So we then burden another system
• 17:51
  with another problem that should be should have been resolved
• 17:53
  sort of lower down in that in that hierarchy.
• 17:57
  It's, I don't know the answers to unpick it, but if we share
• 18:02
  our stories and we educate. And it was really interesting
• 18:08
  when I was talking about the coming here today and talking in
• 18:11
  the car to my husband about it and my children.
• 18:13
  I've got teenagers, teenage girls, and they were kind of
• 18:17
  listening and, and they were talking about hormone
• 18:21
  replacement and, and stuff that they'd been taught at school.
• 18:24
  And I thought, yeah, that's great.
• 18:25
  They, they are hearing it. So we are changing.
• 18:28
  So I'd like to think that when our Gen. when, when the younger
• 18:31
  generation get to our age now, it will be much easier for them.
• 18:36
  Yeah, I think so, because I think they they're growing up
• 18:38
  listening to a different conversation.
• 18:41
  And there are this lost generation of women and also
• 18:45
  healthcare professionals where they've been sold, if you like,
• 18:48
  well, not literally sold, but they've been given
• 18:50
  misinformation. Yeah.
• 18:51
  And it's very hard to unpick something and it's very hard for
• 18:56
  people to change. Whereas for my daughter's and
• 18:59
  your daughter's generation, they haven't got the past.
• 19:03
  They haven't got the fear. They're just coming at it from a
• 19:06
  very simplistic way. And yeah, I remember years ago,
• 19:09
  my youngest daughter's 14, but she must have been, well, she
• 19:12
  was at Rainbows, so she must have been about 6:00.
• 19:15
  And they were doing some decorating of a, of a bag, just
• 19:19
  a cloth bag. And everyone came out with with
• 19:22
  tinsel and like sparkles and the glue dripping down.
• 19:26
  And I was thinking, Oh no, how am I going to get this in the
• 19:29
  car? And Lucy just had hers in a
• 19:30
  pocket. And I was like, oh, Lucy, did
• 19:32
  you not do anything? She goes, Oh no, have I done a
• 19:35
  bag for you Mummy, to get home. And she divided the bag into
• 19:39
  two. So she put a line down and there
• 19:40
  was a woman. And so there was a half a woman
• 19:43
  each side of this line and 1/2 the woman had a :), there was a
• 19:48
  rainbow, there was sunshine. She was half paid.
• 19:50
  The other half. She had a sad face and there was
• 19:53
  a cloud and and and she'd written HRT on the handles like
• 19:59
  all the way around. And she said this is before and
• 20:01
  after HRT. I love it.
• 20:03
  And I've still got the bag. In fact, I will put it on my
• 20:06
  story of the day of this podcast because it's it was just so
• 20:09
  funny because. They see it how it is.
• 20:11
  And it was, it was around the time that the clinic was
• 20:14
  opening, so there was a lot of refurb in the building.
• 20:16
  So she was constantly coming and just being involved in
• 20:19
  conversations. I've never had that sit down.
• 20:21
  I'm going to talk to you about hormones conversation because
• 20:24
  why would you to a six year old? But she'd picked it up and I
• 20:27
  thought, isn't this interesting? And that's through lovely
• 20:30
  innocent eyes. And, and I, it sort of stuck
• 20:33
  with me because if you don't have this sort of, Oh my gosh,
• 20:38
  HRT causes breast cancer. It's so terrible, then it's
• 20:41
  fine. But then we've almost gone the
• 20:43
  other way because there's all these synthetic hormones that
• 20:47
  would be very easy for your children of mine to access if
• 20:49
  they wanted to take contraception.
• 20:51
  That has far more risks than the hormones, the natural hormones.
• 20:55
  But it's sort of a double standard almost.
• 20:57
  Yeah, that doesn't make sense either.
• 20:59
  No, no, but I think going back on to your daughter, Lucy.
• 21:04
  I know when I talk to my my teenage girls about, you know,
• 21:07
  puberty and periods and contraception and stuff, we tie
• 21:11
  in the same conversation with hormones and with HRT.
• 21:16
  And my I've got a 10 year old and she keeps on asking, She
• 21:19
  said. So when how old are you?
• 21:21
  When your period stops and she's fascinated with, but has nanny
• 21:25
  got her period? And even last night she was
• 21:28
  asking me, she said, your friend Rachel, she's still got her
• 21:33
  period and how old is she? So it's so she's understanding
• 21:37
  that when you get to a certain age that the periods stop and
• 21:41
  then you have your hormone replacement and your symptoms
• 21:43
  that you have when you're in your 40s are very similar to
• 21:47
  your teenagers. So I think a lot of girls, the
• 21:49
  conversations still normalize. They're accepted to have, you
• 21:52
  know, bad moods just before their periods or whatever.
• 21:55
  So thinking about replacing with natural hormones, especially
• 21:58
  progesterone, can make a real difference.
• 22:00
  And I do think for us as parents, we do have a
• 22:03
  responsibility for sharing that, you know, information to our
• 22:07
  children. We've also got responsibility,
• 22:09
  say, for our mothers as well. And it's a transgenerational
• 22:13
  approach, which I think makes the conversation more leaning
• 22:17
  just towards hormones rather than the perimenopause, the
• 22:20
  menopause, PMS. Like all these different definitions, there's
• 22:24
  hormonal changes and what we do about them is really up up to us
• 22:28
  to decide. But we have to have that
• 22:30
  information so we can, you know, make the choices that are right
• 22:33
  for us at the time that are right for us as well.
• 22:35
  Absolutely. And and not to feel that if we
• 22:37
  go to our GP or, or we go to a health professional that they're
• 22:40
  not going to show us the hand and and talk down those symptoms
• 22:45
  because of even those symptoms to one person doesn't seem much
• 22:49
  to another person it really. Has an effect it.
• 22:51
  Could be huge, you know, You know, I get really bad insomnia
• 22:55
  and I know when I forget to take my HRT, it's usually because I
• 22:59
  haven't been using my medication.
• 23:03
  And then I think, right, I'm going to be religious about
• 23:05
  using it now, but not sleeping just it can.
• 23:10
  Be a form of torture. Yeah, and I, I, you know, I wake
• 23:13
  up in the morning and I'm just grumpy and, and I take it out on
• 23:16
  everybody and, and my day starts off bad and then I speak to
• 23:20
  people and they go, oh, yeah, I suffer from insomnia and like,
• 23:22
  well, what do you do? Or it's just one of those
• 23:24
  things. And they're like, no, it
• 23:26
  shouldn't be. No, no, no, no.
• 23:27
  It's say it's torture and you can, there are things that you
• 23:31
  can do, not just accept it. And, and, and that's the thing
• 23:34
  about advocating for yourself as well, I think you know, your
• 23:38
  symptoms when you first went to your doctor could have been
• 23:40
  related to depression, but you knew inherently that they
• 23:43
  weren't. Now you were offered
• 23:45
  antidepressants, which actually are associated with a greater
• 23:48
  risk than the hormones that you take because there are risks of
• 23:52
  osteoporosis, probably dementia, not being able to orgasm.
• 23:57
  There's risks of intolerance, you know, risks of addiction
• 24:01
  with with antidepressants. You don't have that with
• 24:04
  hormones. But then it still boils down to
• 24:06
  choice as well. So almost I feel if doctors
• 24:10
  don't want the conversation about hormones, they should be
• 24:13
  saying it might be a hormones, I'm not going to treat you, but
• 24:16
  go and see someone else rather than speak to the hand or go and
• 24:20
  have something else. And even if those conversations
• 24:23
  were being had, it would be easier for women.
• 24:26
  And actually the, well, I haven't got hot flushes, so it
• 24:29
  can't be, it can't be menopause. And actually I think if you got
• 24:32
  to the point where you've got hot flushes, you've probably got
• 24:35
  every other symptom. And that is the last point well.
• 24:37
  We're all different, haven't we? And, and absolutely right, we
• 24:40
  know from hundreds of thousands of people that monitor their
• 24:43
  symptoms on our Balance app, the commonest symptoms of the brain
• 24:46
  fog, the memory problems, the mood related problems, you know,
• 24:50
  hot flashes don't even go in the top ten.
• 24:52
  Yeah. And and that's, you know it,
• 24:54
  that's fact. And so that's why so many women
• 24:56
  are being misdiagnosed as well. Because they haven't got that,
• 24:59
  yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:00
  So there's a lot we need to do. We need to change it for our
• 25:02
  children, I think. Certainly I think things are
• 25:05
  changing because of knowledge and knowledge is power.
• 25:08
  So three things that you think or three ways really of
• 25:13
  advocating for yourself that have worked for you, but just
• 25:16
  things to recap for the audience, three ways of really
• 25:19
  being a good advocate for yourself.
• 25:21
  Listen to your intuition, because actually if you feel
• 25:24
  it's something's not right, then you're probably right and don't
• 25:29
  just accept if you're told no, live with it.
• 25:33
  Come back in a couple of months. Don't don't be a afraid to say,
• 25:39
  could I have a second opinion? So that's my first tip.
• 25:43
  Second tip is don't be embarrassed by any of the
• 25:46
  symptoms, especially things like, you know, having a dry,
• 25:53
  dry vagina. It's it goes beyond that.
• 25:57
  It's not having a dry vagina. It's the complications of having
• 26:01
  Utis and that. So if you are having Utis or
• 26:04
  something, again, doesn't feel right, go and speak to a
• 26:07
  professional and do your research so that when you do go,
• 26:12
  and there were then there's so many great apps out there and
• 26:15
  books that you can read that you know the balance app and bits
• 26:18
  and pieces get the information and then you'll feel powered
• 26:23
  when you go speak to somebody. That's such great advice.
• 26:26
  So thank you so much and thank you again for coming today.
• 26:28
  It's been really good. Thank.
• 26:29
  You for having me, It's been a pleasure.
• 26:34
  Thanks so much for listening. It would be amazing if you could
• 26:36
  follow me or subscribe because it will really make a difference
• 26:39
  to grow numbers enable this to reach even more people.
• 26:43
  Thanks so much.