Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / Ep.228: ‘Menopause: Bone Health & Muscle Mass' with special guests Christine Bird & Jo McEwan

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Ep.228: ‘Menopause: Bone Health & Muscle Mass' with special guests Christine Bird & Jo McEwan · The STA Clinician Podcast

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You're listening to the Sports Therapy Association podcast, putting evidence
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back into soft tissue therapy.
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Music.
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And we're live. Hey people, welcome to episode 228 of the Sports Therapy Association
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podcast. My name is Matt Phillips, creator of RUNCHECKLive.com.
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And as always, this episode is being recorded live at eight o'clock on a Tuesday
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evening on the Sports Therapy Association YouTube channel and Facebook page.
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In this part two of our focused on women's health month entitled Menopause,
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Bone Health and Muscle Mass, I will very shortly be joined by special guests
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Christine Bird and Joe McEwan, co-founders of Menopause Movement.
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But first of all, a big thank you to my guest in part one last week,
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who is Siobhan Donovan, aka the booby physio, who gave us a fantastically informative
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hour on avoiding the booby traps of breast weight management.
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And we've had some amazing feedback for that. And it's lovely.
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There was a definite peak, a perk, you may say, in feedback for that.
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It was a topic which touched a lot of people, both male and female,
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and something which is, yeah, I think the nicest thing I received was it was
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exactly what we need in this current age, enough taboos about things like this.
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Half of our patients are female or something like that, which is exactly why
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we're doing it and exactly why we're talking about it. So thank you,
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everybody who did send us feedback.
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If you do want to listen to that, you can find it on obviously all popular podcast
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apps. If you want to watch it, you can find it on YouTube.
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But yeah, it was a fantastic hour with Siobhan discussing how the impact that
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breast weight management can have on the physical,
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psychological and social health of women and girls, and how we,
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most importantly, as soft tissue therapists can play a valuable part in helping
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reduce the myths and misconceptions out there.
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For more info on that topic and for much more, then check out posturefittingphysio.com,
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including details on the Gals Against Gravity community and the Posture Fitting course.
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Right then, back to tonight in part two. If you have joined us live,
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let's just say hello to people who have joined us live.
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Gary Benson is in here. If you do join live, then what I can do is I can bring
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your comments and questions back up onto the screen.
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And it's a great way to let people
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know where you are in the world and network a little bit so i encourage you to
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leave questions and comments if you want to i'm going
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to say hello to cecily who is in the room as well hey
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cecily how are you doing mike kathory nick sorry about the pronunciation on
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that how you're doing thanks for i'll settle for a second there we go uh tracy
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marsh thanks for joining us nikki mansfield is in here becky carroll is in here
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says good evening folks it's been a while since i've been able to make the live
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session and it looks like a smasher excellent good you've come to a Perfect time, Nicky.
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Perfect time. But do make sure, sorry, Becky, do make sure that you catch up
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with the others, okay, because you're a little bit behind. Good to see you.
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Louise Asher, that's what I'm going to settle with tonight. It says, good evening, all.
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Really looking forward to this episode. Great to meet Christine and Joe at the Expo last year.
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Yes, definitely. A lot of you did meet the wonderful Christine and Joe at the Expo.
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And this is where we had a chat and said we need to do a whole month on women's
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health. And this is the fruit of our chat and discussion. So here we y'all.
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Right then so feel free to ask questions if you had joined
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us live if you listen to the podcast and thank you very much you can ask
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questions as well obviously not live but just put them
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in the youtube's the best place go to youtube and put them in
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the comment section in youtube and we will get back to you i do monitor
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it and if there's questions we can't answer then we will contact our guests
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and they may even jump on an answer or we will get an answer for you so sit
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back relax and enjoy part two of women's focus on women's health which is called
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menopause bone health and muscle Bass with special guest Christine Bird and Joe McEwen,
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co-founders of Menopause Movement.
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Joe and Christian, how are you? Hi there. Hello, how are you?
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Very well. Thank you much for joining us. Good to see you again.
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I was just saying, it feels much longer than two months since we stood in the
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NEC and chatted. It feels like half a year. I don't know why that is.
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Yeah, it does feel like a long time ago. Nice to see Louise
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again who we met I remember meeting you it's true
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yeah I know a lot of our people who give up their evenings to join us live they're
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the people who just come every Tuesday and don't miss a thing so fantastic um
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so thanks very much for joining us um for part two of our focus on women's health
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some as somebody's always mentioned you were at therapy expo last year was it
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the first time you've been to therapy expo can't be cool,
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I really enjoyed it. And I think it was a great audience. Fantastic questions.
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So we'll be back next year.
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This year, Christine. This year. It's November.
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It is, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And in fact, it was so, we loved it so much that
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we've kind of booked a stand and we've got Christine on the agenda.
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So it was just a great experience for us.
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Oh, wonderful. That's great to hear that. That'd be really nice.
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I'm sure the people of TherapyX will be very happy to hear that.
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Sir Glenn, I've got to just bring this up. I love having a sir in the house.
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So Glenn Murphy, MBE, has joined us this evening. Thank you,
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sir, Glenn. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us.
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The calibre we have here on the show. Right. So there we go.
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So for people who don't know you, I'm hoping out of the 2,000 or so downloads,
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there are some people who don't know anything about you. So I always say,
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otherwise, this is a waste of time.
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So for people who aren't aware of the great work you do, could you give us a
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little discussion between you two about how you came to be and how menopause
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movement and why menopause movement came to be?
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Christine, how did we meet? You and your rubber chicken.
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Oh. I suppose it was. Yes, I was talking at a public event. I suppose I'm a
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pelvic health physio, women's health physio, and years ago, no one was talking about the menopause.
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It wasn't popularized yet like it is now. Not for everyone, but there's luckily
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enough a lot more talk about it.
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So when the menopause took me by surprise, I thought I'd better do some research.
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And when I started doing that, I started talking about a few people and
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started speaking at public events with gynecologists and
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nutritionists and one day joe
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and ann were the audience and they ran positive pause
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which is a public resource for women into the menopause
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and yeah i talked about pelvic floors
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about how to have a perfect poo to leak or not
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to leak when you exercise and sort of all the things about
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vulvas and vaginas and joe and
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ann seemed to be fascinated by it and they organized their
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own events invited me and the kind of rest
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is history and joe you might want to fill in a bit what happened through
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lockdown and yeah well I'm not one
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to be silenced but when I first met Christine and heard
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her talk I was literally blown away
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and silenced and I'm not meant to give away what happens with the rubber chicken
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but she demonstrates kind of what happens to the pelvic floor and it was just
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like and the data and everything behind it and so she presented it really nicely
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and a really friendly sort of like this is going to happen to one into the population
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And at that point, I'm going one in two of the population.
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But never fear. There's so much that 85% of this can be improved, reversed.
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And I just went, hang on. This is going to happen to one in two of the population.
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Population. I wanted women, sorry, in menopause.
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And a lot of them won't talk about it because it's too personal,
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too embarrassing. And she's going, in 85% of cases, it can be reversed, improved.
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And I thought that was shocking.
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We used to organize training days, very, very long story short,
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which involved, we used to make a really nice day for women who were going through
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menopause or perimenopause of women.
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And we'd have nutritionists, psychologists, gynecologists. we
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could not give the tickets so christine was one of our speakers
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we couldn't give the tickets away we used to give them a
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really nice day no cold village halls nice venues
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great food comedians and christine
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said you know what you're putting on something that is like cpd
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level so we then christine was
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on the education committee and still is of her professional
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body the pogp so she took
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us she put the proposal together we got commissioned for that
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we were going to do an academic study day based on
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because our course is essentially all of
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our collaborators kind of who would have done this day
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with us christine we got commissioned we went to this big in-person event march
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2020 something came along if any of us can remember what that was so after pottering
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in the garden cancelling it looking at our sourdough look going what we were
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going to do now we realised that we actually had.
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We've got the day ready we're very lucky because our
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third partner's family are in tv production so
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we were able to put our course take it completely online but
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it was only for pelvic health professionals
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wasn't it christine physios and we
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had to say no to so many other people who
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were contacting us contract it ran out we went we've got this course and christine
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is our bloke christine's trumpet because she won't do it for you she's not only
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a sort of a health professional so she's got that um pelvic physio background
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but she is also she's like a phenomenal one woman.
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Exercising mad woman olympic what are you christine age age group some age group
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out an age group triathlete triathlete so she does and she's sort of done training
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for an iron man this year.
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So Christine is like, she walks the walk and talks the talk.
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And from that, we developed this course to bridge the gap between health and
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fitness, because Christine's always said, you're going to see so many people in the treatment room.
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It's everybody else who is working out there with these women who are going through men, of course.
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And now more than ever, women are kind of going, right, I need to be doing X, Y, and Z.
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They know it. They've been told, but they don't know how to do it.
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So we've developed this online course for health and fitness
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pros we thought it would be 50 50 but it
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has turned out this it's consistently 85
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sports and fitness pros who are
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taking our course and we've developed an advanced course and it's 100 percent
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of our participants in the advanced course or you have to do the core course
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do the advanced course so there is there's a hunger out there there's a desire
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to be really well informed because you You know, you want a great client base.
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You want to know about the changing body. And that's where I'm non-clinical.
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So I'm going to, you know, oopsie-daisy. I flew in excitement. My headphone fell out.
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So, Christina, is there anything I've missed out there? I mean.
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No, and I think, you know, obviously we sell business to business.
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But then if you think of all the women out there, and it's a big,
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and a really important factor is that 75% of women in menopause will experience
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symptoms and 25% of them will be extreme.
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And there are about 30 million, about one third of women that are either experiencing
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or approaching the menopause. So also for all of us.
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Health and fitness professionals there's so many people women to treat and train out there,
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and i always think it doesn't really matter if you're a partner a male
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trainer or a therapist or a female or a house
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rabbit at some points you will either go through the menopause
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or you will stand beside someone or a loved one that's
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going through it and maybe in the thick of it as
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as well and that's why we need decent support to
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reduce the struggle that some women experience because
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it's not all bad you know it's definitely light at the
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end of the tunnel i think it's interesting how
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you pointed out that like once upon a time and
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i don't i think this is part of the problem it was considered as something you'd
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only talk to a gp about or maybe a physio and there's
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women in so many different contexts of life where maybe they've got a
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better relationship and i think soft tissue therapy is a great
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example of this if you're already taking your clothes in front of someone and you're lying
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face down allowing them to get that body contact and there's that trust
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and you're filling out having this longer subjective and you're
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an hour with them and that's kind of this is why i love having people
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like you on the show it's the perfect place where these conversations can unravel
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be unpeeled and and talk about ways which could change someone's life absolutely
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and for that reason apart from the core and advanced course for therapists like
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that we're also now developing a menopause mot which will have come with the tracker and a.
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The therapist, then to send to people. So we don't all have to keep reinventing the wheel.
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Although it's not a protocol, because it's actually not one size fits all.
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Every woman experienced menopause very differently, but it's still guidance
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to make it easier for the therapist to ask all the right questions and also
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to be able to audit the difference.
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So this is hopefully something we're launching in the summer.
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And I think for sports therapists,
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a sort of a set MOC model, I'm hoping,
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and we're obviously really looking forward to hearing the feedback it's
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just a guidance really to start this work
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because really we'd like all women to have a menopause moot excellent
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i'm just going to bring this up for people who aren't looking at the screen or
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listening to the podcast and you can't see the shots but i've got a shot here
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i'll put on full screen for those of you who have joined us live so we're talking
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about the website menopausemovements.co and that's got so much information on
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there it's got access to loads of free information which is lovely the blog
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there is wonderfully laid out so much information you can read and swat up on,
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give yourself more confidence.
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I think that's one of the problems, isn't it? If you're not confident,
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then you're less likely to ask the questions.
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You're thinking, oh, they're going to share something, trying to know the answers
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to. So there's a great free blog there.
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And then you've got details of courses as well and e-learning courses and all
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sorts of stuff, which is accessible to you all.
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Given that our listeners are non-allied health professionals,
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we've got sports therapists, sports massage therapists, sports rehab specialists.
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Just to check, is the courses and the things and the content you offer,
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is it more physiocentric or is it kind of available and
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for everybody it's absolutely available and if anything we produced
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it to not just be physiocentric because that already existed in our professional
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body and we had so many requests of non-physios and also very much to bridge
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the gap between the fitness exercise and sports world and the therapy world
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because i think i've been in clinical practice for so long if we keep all our
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information between the treatment and walls is just not good enough.
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And we got to work with some people there.
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And that's also the idea of providing the training as evidence-based,
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quite practical and no nonsense.
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Because especially now, I think that all the influencers out there.
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Women are often made to believe that if they don't follow the advice of the
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influencers and they lose a bit of lean muscle mass, they might suddenly turn
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into a Teletubby. And that's also not the case.
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It's just practical, no-nonsense advice that doesn't send women into a rabbit hole of panic.
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Excellent. Really healthy to hear. And obviously, we're not saying that in some
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cases, people that you see will need to be referred to physios or pelvic health
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specialists or maybe GPs or whatever, or consultants.
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But for the patient, and this is how it's always supposed to be,
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patient-centered care is about providing that circle of all different types
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of healthcare professionals, isn't it?
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Absolutely. For the need of the patient, not just because you've got the certificate on the wall.
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Brilliant. Okay, thank you for that. Amazing. People are already commenting
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on here. Cecily Hislop says, I've already had a gawp at the website.
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Of course you have, Cecily.
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And Louise Asher says, yes, please, menopause MOT.
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I've got a lot of people joining us tonight. I'm in this topic,
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obviously, interests an awful lot of people.
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And tonight in particular, we're talking about menopause, bone health and muscle mass.
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So let's start off, let's get knee deep in that.
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So is it a topic which you find women or patients as well as therapists are not that aware of?
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Well, I think I'm sure you're a sports therapist, probably more so than a lot
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of physios, because sometimes I think physios miss out on some of the rehab,
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more holistic rehab concepts.
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But muscle mass definitely does become more important
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into the menopause because estrogen so our
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main female reproductive hormone declines into
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the menopause it fluctuates like crazy to start with and
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then we we continue at a very low level and basically estrogen is an anabolic
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steroid so it helps our rebuilding our restoring so without that we do really
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need to bring in new stimulus to to maintain that lean muscle mass which can
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be strength training interval training bits of nutrition, sleep.
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But again, it's also not that women don't lift very, very heavy.
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Shit, it doesn't mean they are going to turn into a Teletubby.
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I kind of always want to go back to that again. There's lots of different ways of doing this.
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And some women start at a very different place than other women as well.
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And the way the women that really start to exercise will probably have initially
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more benefit than the women that are already performance-minded and exercise a lot.
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But there's one small study that I absolutely love. And some of you might have
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seen the MRIs going past on Instagram as well.
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But basically the authors of that study claim that muscle mass will save your life.
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And I don't know if you've seen, but I can put a link in the show notes after the show.
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And so basically for a muscle fiber, when you're sedentary, without sufficient
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stress, muscle fibers die, leading to loss of muscle mass.
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It's as simple as that. So what this study did, they looked at fitter older
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athletes and half them are women and they were all in the menopause who exercise
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hard four to five times a week.
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And on the whole, we often associate aging with the loss of lean muscle mass and strength.
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But most of those studies actually look at relatively sedentary adults.
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So that always leaves the question whether these changes are really associated
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with menopause, with aging, or is it kind of disused atrophy?
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Is it sedentary behavior?
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And when they compared the intermuscular fat, subcutane fat of middle-aged athletes,
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elderly athletes, and the elderly sedentary person, the
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difference was absolutely staggering so the 40 year
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old triathlete compared with 70 year
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old triathlete in terms of intermuscular fat and
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subcutane fat were very similar and still
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had a lot of lean muscle mass as the relatively sedentary
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person had so much intermuscular fat and
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this was the same for the women as well and if
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you then consider that women already have accelerated lean muscle
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mass decline and being sedentary
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that's the bit that we want to change really and
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what really makes me sad at times is it is still
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a societal acceptance that women are fragile like a little fragile old lady
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behind a simmer frame with no bum in her trousers is still accepted and we really
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want to change that so it's sarcopenia it's atrophy real atrophy of the glutes
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and aging is inevitable,
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but fragility absolutely is defensible and I suppose menopause movement vision
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is very much on having lots of 80,
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90 year olds walking around with bumps in their trousers upright and not behind
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a cinema frame. That's what makes us very happy.
19:11
Fantastic. Now, I love that. Aging is inevitable, but fragility is defensible.
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That's a great message. Especially in women. There is still societal acceptance
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that's okay. And it's not okay, because we want women to feel powerful into
19:27
the menopause and beyond, of course.
19:31
Excellent. So sticking on the subject of muscle for the moment,
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then, let's imagine that somebody has
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come to clinic yeah what should
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because it's not necessarily an age thing is it i think
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this is one of the mistakes therapists make as well but what are some of the red flags
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or and questions that therapists should be asking to see whether the symptoms
19:53
that are being presented to them could be connected with perimenopause or menopause
19:57
what should you be looking out for in terms of muscle mass in terms of muscle
20:01
mass i think one of the early symptoms on the menopause are musculoskeletal,
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especially multiple joint problems.
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And I think women often confuse that. And of course, that often goes together
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with fear of exercising and fear of exercise and often leads to reduced exercising
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and not necessarily to modifying exercise, what we would like women to do.
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So I think that's probably one of the first points to look out for.
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If women get multiple joint problems, it's probably an early sign to perimenopause
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and then do less exercise because of fear of injury. And that fear of injury
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is real because estrogen is a natural anti-inflammatory.
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So they are more likely to have more joint problems. There's often sleep disruption as well.
20:43
And of course, if you've got less estrogen, if you've got less anabolic steroids,
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you need a little bit more sleep for that extra recovery.
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But that's often disrupted into the menopause. So it is quite a balancing act
20:55
in that perimenopausal period when everything goes up and down.
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And I think that's when women really benefit from some guidance to have the
21:04
confidence to keep that lean muscle mass going.
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And, of course, then when big muscles pull on bones, bones are reactive.
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That's what keeps our bone health.
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But in terms of questions to look out for in terms of bone health,
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it's very much going back to women's history as well.
21:22
Because basically we peak in our bone health when we're about 30.
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So any of us over 30 here, we're slowly listening to this.
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We're slowly losing bone mass while we're listening to this.
21:33
And that's actually something we want to reverse as much as possible.
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With some impact with some strength sort of enough to keep that bone structure going and,
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we've got blogs on this on our website as well that are
21:45
worth checking out what sort of questions to ask what women need screening
21:48
we feel very strongly that a lot of women probably all
21:52
women over 65 need bone unless they're on hrt
21:55
if they're not probably need bone mass screening we would like it to become
21:59
like a you know mammogram you have your breast checked but you also have your
22:03
bone health checked because osteoporosis is for a lot of women's life the most
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devastating condition they can have in terms of independent living in terms of mobility.
22:14
Etc so it can really have such an impact in terms of the level of disability
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and that starts really in your 20s that's when you want to put your money in
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the bank in your bone bank really and then so it's not something okay it's the
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first three years of the perimenopause you get an accelerated a decline.
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But the more you got in the bank beforehand, we always look at it as an overdraft.
22:36
You really want to kind of not be in the red at the start of the menopause.
22:41
There's so much to it, isn't there? And it differs so much on the population
22:46
of the people you're seeing, because I guess from what you've said with an athlete coming in.
22:52
Symptoms could be disguised considerably because they think that the tendinopathies
22:56
they're getting, for example, could be related to the fact that they're training really hard.
23:00
So as a therapist, you've got to spot and see whether, hold on,
23:03
is this all down to load or could this be something else going on there?
23:06
So yeah, you've got to ask the other questions that could be kind of red flags.
23:10
I think Matt, that's a really good example as well, because like a couple of
23:13
months ago, I treated a lady that is a really good runner.
23:17
She's still racing age group 5Ks pretty fast. And she had a DEXA scan and she
23:23
was absolutely devastated.
23:25
She's always been fit. She's always done impact and she had very low bone density.
23:28
But then if you sort of ask her she had all the risks
23:31
she had an eating disorder when she was younger she always
23:34
had low was relatively low weights and
23:38
all the movements she did was very linear so although
23:41
the impact was great it was always in one direction so
23:45
she really needs to kind of diversify what she does do more plyometric jump
23:50
up and down forward backwards add some strength training it's taken her quite
23:54
a long time to kind of really change her routine of just wanting to put her
23:58
trainers on and going running out the door and that she can't get away with anymore.
24:03
But actually, I met her running in a park the other day, and she said she's
24:06
still not doing her plyometrics. She just wants to go out for a linear run, and that's it.
24:09
But she's absolutely fallen in love with strength training, and that's kind of good enough.
24:13
You know, no one kind of ticks all the boxes.
24:17
Brilliant. Okay, so it's almost, I'm just trying to think, for our listeners,
24:21
there's so much information there, depending on, there's so many things I want
24:24
to make sure that we cover.
24:25
So, okay, so for example, repeat injuries and injuries not getting better,
24:29
you've really got to pause and think, right what have i
24:32
missed here because you might have had a quick intro and not done the subjective as
24:35
much as you could so the basic questions you've got to ask to see whether there
24:39
are symptoms or signs of it let's let's concentrate on the early menopause because
24:42
you might have missed it because they're younger you automatically think that
24:45
oh they're not 50 or 45 50 yet it's not going to be that what are some things
24:49
which if you delve deep enough or just ask a few basic questions could.
24:53
Uncover the fact that this 30 if yeah 30 year
24:56
old 35 year old female running in front of you is actually
24:59
got early symptoms of menopause yeah and 10 of women have
25:02
an early menopause so before the age of
25:06
45 luckily enough before the age of 40 becomes
25:09
a bit more rare but always something look out for of course facial
25:12
motor symptoms like the ones that
25:15
we probably all think about like hot flushes and night
25:18
sweats but then a lot of women we treat will say i've always
25:21
had night sweats so it's not always so clear either and
25:25
also when if you've gone through pregnancy and you've been
25:27
breastfeeding breastfeeding is very similar to menopause as
25:31
well and what we also see more and more that women have
25:33
babies later at age they almost go from breastfeeding into
25:37
very smoothly into the perimenopause and
25:40
it's actually not dissimilar because eastern and
25:43
after your pregnancy when eastern is very high it drops off the
25:46
cliff and until you get your cycles back when you
25:49
stop breastfeeding you know effectively your body
25:52
is quite similar to a post-menopausal women and if you're already leading all
25:56
of that yeah so if you go into your 40s you know you kind of could smoothly
26:01
go from one into into another and that often gets missed as well and very confusing
26:07
for women if that was if that was put to to a woman like.
26:12
Are you having symptoms now the same as when you were breastfeeding or stopped
26:15
breastfeeding early on? Would that be enough of a trigger to go,
26:17
yes, it's actually like that?
26:18
Is that a question which is worth asking? It could be in terms of low mood and anxiety. Okay.
26:23
And it often breaks my heart that we're still not looking at that.
26:26
Women that really suffer from low mood and anxiety postnatally are much more
26:32
likely to have similar symptoms than menopause.
26:34
And because we can treat it in the menopause, women often
26:37
suffer for months and months and years and years well
26:40
actually we could already have picked up that they may
26:43
struggle and may need support that's why we
26:45
want to end up with our training as well that we're all more aware and
26:48
start sign a lot of it's about signposting too and
26:52
then the women obviously you signpost to different people different
26:55
options some women might take up certain things now people
26:58
patients often ask me are you for against hrt
27:02
and always say yes yes right
27:06
we'll get on the subject of hrt in a second i just wanted to check joe's been
27:10
sitting there nodding away no more so at times and so yeah joe what have you
27:15
been nodding there with and what would you like to kind of talk about as well
27:19
i think one of the things that christine just touched upon was the impact of
27:24
mental health and i think.
27:26
That that women having children later in
27:29
life and that that combination that
27:32
perfect storm almost you know they've just had the baby they've stopped
27:34
breastfeeding enter perimenopause knocking at
27:37
the door and they can't not let it in because it is going
27:40
to come but they're not you know women are
27:43
not prepared and too often the professionals.
27:46
That they consult are not prepared so it is all about raising
27:50
the awareness knowing what those flags are knowing what
27:53
questions to ask knowing how to how to
27:56
get people you know like i think you said
27:59
earlier matt that you know they're in that they're in that therapeutic
28:02
space they are it is an
28:04
opportunity for them to with the right questioning with
28:07
that right awareness from that professional who is.
28:10
Treating them to to be able to coax that
28:13
information out of them and to know is there's no
28:16
there are no medals for this there are no like you just have
28:19
to power through it you really don't have to power
28:22
through it and there are so many options um you'll
28:25
hear we say it's so much so often it's individual it's
28:28
unique to everyone we will no woman will
28:31
have the same you look for a combination that can be the
28:34
same but the impact isn't going to be the same on your body on your
28:37
relationships on your working life i mean it just is
28:41
it's multifactorial and it impacts on on
28:44
so many areas of your life but there's so much that
28:47
can be done and that's what we're all about going look you
28:49
know we're not like throwing everything out with babies out
28:53
with bath waters mixing my metaphors there we're going right what
28:56
could be done here you know if it is bone
28:59
mass do you get your dexascan do you what do you know do
29:02
if you've got your pelvic floor christine's very very
29:04
favorite topic if you've got a week you know issues with your pelvic floor what
29:08
are you going to do about it you don't have to have a prolapse you can or if
29:12
you are going to have a product it's manageable and i think it's remove it's
29:17
empowering women to be able to speak up for themselves and to know that the
29:21
person that they're going to talk to has some awareness of it.
29:24
And you guys, I think, are very, very, very well-placed to have those conversations.
29:31
I'm glad you mentioned relationships. There's a question here that Becky's asked.
29:34
She says, are there any resources you could recommend for specifically men to read? There are them.
29:39
I think I've been nodding my head at that one. Because this is the other thing, isn't it?
29:43
Because the men might need some support with it as well, which I'm sure most
29:47
men will be going, yes, we need some support because it is a tricky time for
29:50
partners, especially if you don't understand it. The women often don't know
29:53
what they're going through at the moment.
29:54
That is changing. I think there's much more awareness. Like when Christine and
29:58
I would have been going through with this, you know, I remember the doctor saying
30:00
perimenopause and I went, what do you know what perimenopause mean?
30:03
I've never even heard the word that long ago, I shan't go into detail but it
30:09
does impact on relationships because you know, if you're anxious and you know,
30:13
these sort of insomnia view this,
30:16
it creeps in the night terrors between one and three prime times perimenopausal women in the morning,
30:22
not one, three in the afternoon, that's just terror of trying to get through your working day,
30:26
I'm talking it you've been woken up, you had a
30:29
you've you're you're just in a state of of absolute
30:32
anxiety and you're probably not joining the
30:35
dots that you're thinking well it's you know work my relationship the
30:38
kids my parents etc because you know something you're here it's the sandwich
30:42
generation but potentially on the other side of that bed there's a partner who's
30:48
thinking oh my god the duvet is off the duvet is on and I'm not clichéing on
30:52
that because hot as someone who has night sweats they're deeply unpleasant and you're boiling hot.
30:58
Duvet is off, wakes your partner up, your partner's got to go to work,
31:01
your partner's thinking, this woman, she's just like, she's changed.
31:06
You know, it's like we all have to kind of find a new normal.
31:10
So for partners, I don't think there's anything specific. We have another website called Positive Paws.
31:15
Very good. Yeah, and I was going to mention that, Jo. I think your Positive
31:18
Paws website, which is for the general public, is such a good resource.
31:23
Which was that, sorry? Positivepaws.org.
31:26
Oh, no, positiveforce.co.uk. Sorry. But we started off, thank you for that,
31:33
Christy, because we started, we were going to have a men's room on there and
31:36
then we went, do you know what?
31:38
You know, let's just find out the symptoms. There's everybody,
31:41
you know, if you see your partner's, you know, increasingly anxious or this
31:44
is just a change in mood, a change in attitude, you know,
31:48
there's so many things that you just think something's not
31:51
quite right and knowing that and having that awareness and
31:54
knowing average age is 51 but it isn't
31:57
that sort of menopause and actually just to
32:00
clarify for anyone who doesn't know this menopause is
32:03
just one day in a woman's life it is the 12 months to
32:06
the date of a woman's last period so the terminology we don't even use the right
32:10
terminology hairy menopause is the critical one the critical stages and that's
32:16
when women and the professionals aren't always joining the dots because i'm
32:21
really glad that you raised early menopause and younger women.
32:24
Because we all get, oh, it happens to sort of grey-haired women sitting in fans.
32:28
That's another media like misrepresentation. You know, lots of,
32:32
I'm really in favour of celebrities bringing their fans.
32:36
Situations to the fore because we live in a celebrity-obsessed society and if
32:41
people can go oh Damina McCall,
32:43
Zoe Ball, they're sort of women that they can relate to and
32:46
there are younger women whose names I can't think
32:49
who are talking about their early or their
32:52
surgical menopause and that's something
32:55
that women won't want to share that they you know for many
32:58
reasons it's incredibly personal it's private it's
33:01
often linked with the loss of fertility fertility is linked with
33:04
aging it's it's it's a
33:07
pretty complex subject however there's lots
33:11
that we can do to not to sort of normalize.
33:14
It really and to bring it into a phase of women's reproductive
33:18
lives so in terms of specific guidance
33:21
I think somebody did mention menopausing you know yes
33:24
most resources are relevant to
33:28
men if they think my partner is of a
33:30
certain age and I think I
33:33
would like to know more and we do workplace training actually
33:36
and it's the men who ask most of the questions it's
33:39
interesting though isn't it because i would have been seen dead with a book with davina
33:42
mccall's picture on the cover because i'm a man and i'm hetero and
33:45
i've just got that much testosterone in me but i'm being a little bit sarcastic
33:48
but it's if we want men to know about it then it kind of
33:51
it needs to be packaged rightly or wrongfully
33:54
in a way which men are going to sit and read about
33:57
it as opposed to sitting there with a picture davina on the
33:59
front so i don't know I appreciate what Nikki says it's a
34:02
great book and if if guy it's a bit like I don't know reading cosmopolitan
34:05
as a young child I got a lot to learn about women quite
34:09
well looking through but no one
34:11
would ever see me with my cosmopolitan it would be no one's asking
34:15
you to read it publicly go on your phone you know
34:18
you can read these things you know it's true actually and as Christine said
34:21
positive porn you know we got we cover every symptom we cover treatment we talk
34:26
about supporting and actually it is important to have because you know there's
34:30
relationships where it can break down um there's a high rate of suicide in menopause all.
34:38
All these things can be mitigated, reduced, or they can be improved.
34:43
Because, you know, I think if, you know, I think the mental health is a massive issue for women.
34:49
And I think the more partners know about that, you know, I think often people
34:53
can, you know, you come out of this post-menopause and suddenly women may have
34:59
changed jobs, left their jobs. And it's not all bad.
35:02
Giving their partner the heave-ho and gone, oh, that was good. It was all right.
35:06
All kind of afterwards gone that didn't need to happen so there's
35:09
such a misunderstanding for for um for
35:12
men and our partners in general great question
35:16
nikki yeah and and communication isn't it
35:19
it's about men talking to men as well that's one of the big problems if
35:22
you're suffering with problems with your wife because she's going through this
35:24
and yet you meet your friend male friend just go everything right yeah fine
35:27
mate yeah watch football and don't talk about it that's part of the problem
35:30
if you actually said i'm going through this with my wife and i really feel really
35:33
vulnerable and i and how to help and I feel like I'm not really serving as a
35:36
husband anymore bam conversation other guy goes oh me as well what do we do
35:39
about it have you read Davina McCall something like that.
35:43
Or talking to other men like I think you're saying what you're
35:45
saying is really because that's what you know we say we know there's
35:48
so much about community and that's one of our menopause movement mantras
35:52
that you know we're working with and sports and
35:55
fitness professionals who work with women one-to-one and in
35:57
groups and there's all that data about saying you come
36:01
together you know you walk together you go to the pub together
36:04
you do this you know you just the more you talk the.
36:07
More you normalize it oh
36:10
cecily's got a husband she's doing very well my husband's coping
36:13
quite well with inane repetitive questions and brain fog and that
36:16
was before the menopause wasn't it cecily or oh no i was going
36:19
to suggest that's because he was used to it but yes my really
36:22
nice statistics about brain fog that when
36:26
they test women into the menopause they definitely have
36:28
reduced a word recall and memory
36:31
right but then if they compare it to men of
36:34
the same age even when we drop significantly it's still
36:37
better than the average of men oh really
36:40
that's really quite interesting i think but of
36:43
course in the workplace we perceive it as oh my god
36:46
i can't remember there's a recall well well men possibly this
36:49
is probably stereotyping i've got quite used to just talking
36:52
around it and not beating themselves up about it so
36:56
again i think the brain fog is real and our brains go
36:59
through a brain change because menopause happens in the brain too
37:02
and at the same time if they test it our
37:05
work recall and memory is still so pretty good
37:08
the brain basically rewires and there's some really interesting research that's
37:13
been going on and it's about you know then everything sort of just reconnects
37:18
and post you know that nurturing element and we're kind of going off track here
37:22
but you know women biologically those hormones are there to keep us fertile,
37:27
to keep us caring, nurturing,
37:30
well, those reproductive hormones have gone.
37:32
So actually, that need when someone says, where's my shirt? Be blinded.
37:36
There's the iron, you know, there's the fridge, there's the,
37:39
there's the microwave, you know, people go, this isn't the person I marry or this isn't my mother.
37:44
They've really changed. And it's like, this is kind of like,
37:48
you know, women actually come out of it so much stronger.
37:51
And that is something, you know, that doesn't, it's about, I think it goes with
37:56
the weak bottoms that, you know, Christine's talking about.
37:58
We're supposed to lose our bottoms and lose our sorts of, I don't know,
38:02
our capabilities and just be, you know, and we're just not.
38:06
We didn't need to do that. There are some benefits in losing some of our oxytocin,
38:10
oxypocin as well, our love hormone, because we just don't give a shit anymore. Yes.
38:17
So I'm waiting for the benefit. Oh, you mean for women? Okay.
38:21
Because that can be not much of a benefit for men. You're not going to help
38:25
the relationship, is it? We just don't give a shit anymore.
38:28
You can have sex with their partners and then they're not going to get pregnant.
38:31
There you go. There's a benefit. it there we go i'm looking for the silver
38:34
lining actually that was going to be my question next because we're
38:37
talking about how there is
38:40
a loss of lots of things and bone and muscle mass and and forgetting things
38:48
in brain fog are you forgetting if it's a serious comment i am oh i've been
38:51
i'll take off my mom i blame her but how do you how do you no that's fine how
38:57
do you put a positive spin on it for clients?
39:00
Because soft tissue therapists in particular, if they open up these conversations,
39:03
then often it can end in tears.
39:06
And many, many soft tissue therapists have had to learn, what do I do?
39:09
Do I lead them by themselves?
39:10
How do you put a positive spin on menopause? Because it does seem at the moment
39:13
we're saying it's deal with it. Everything starts breaking down and generating.
39:17
What are some of the, how do you champion it
39:20
a little bit and turn into more of a power rather than just something
39:23
we've got to deal with and it's just going to get worse from now on yeah i
39:26
think there's some lovely theories about that as well
39:28
and a lot of it is with sort of loss of some those hormones
39:32
we we get a brain change so that
39:34
reset of the brain is a little bit complex we have
39:37
that in pregnancy in pregnancy happens as well that
39:40
really we go into a little bit of a mama bear brain when we're
39:44
pregnant and that's why we have brain fog as well because you
39:47
know our caring part of the brain grows
39:50
and we have an almost opposite reset of our
39:53
brain into the menopause there's some lovely
39:56
like one of them is the grandmother hypothesis and
39:59
that's not so much about biological grandparents but
40:02
in a way because we don't care so much anymore what people think of us oxytocin
40:07
goes down anyway with aging that's not just a menopausal thing that we are actually
40:12
much more in a place of empathy and not worrying about ourselves but worrying
40:17
about you know kind of being more of a mentor looking after our grandchildren while,
40:23
All the younger ones can still produce beautiful children or whatever,
40:27
you know, who genetically probably in a better place to be than we are on through
40:31
in our 50s, 60s, 70s, but we play on another role for that next generation.
40:37
So that's what they call the grandmother hypothesis. Very much in,
40:41
you know, it takes a village to bring up a child.
40:45
Very good. As a community, there is a real role for women to play that,
40:49
you know, when they're less worried about themselves and building their nests,
40:52
that they play much more of a mentoring.
40:55
And a lot of women we talk to, it can be such a time of reinventing themselves
41:00
and having a reset. It doesn't mean it's an easy time.
41:03
No. I think it struggles. Christine if
41:06
I can come in on the struggles because I think sometimes too often we
41:09
all focus on the struggles and we know that there's for
41:12
every four women one in four women will have absolutely
41:16
no obvious symptoms at all
41:19
but that doesn't mean and this is really important for you
41:22
guys to remember that it isn't having an
41:25
impact on their hearts on their brains and on and
41:28
women who are breathing through it and women can be
41:31
very unsupported of themselves and each other because
41:34
like oh i'm not going through menopause they are whether they
41:37
but they may not be having we all focus too much
41:40
on the hot flushes and the grumpiness and this and that
41:43
so that's really important to know one in four will
41:46
have no obvious symptoms but their their body is going through it so they that
41:51
needs to be accepted 250 i'm going to go and change my figures here we've got
41:56
two out of the three out of the four no 50 there we go it's like a it's like
42:01
a continuum will have symptoms.
42:04
That get you know some of them will be it starts to build up
42:07
and then by the time you get to that last 25 or
42:11
one in four they have the debilitating symptoms and
42:14
they're the stories that kind of get the focus and
42:17
get everybody you know it's all over the sort of daily mail or
42:20
what tiktok or whatever women go to go oh you
42:23
know having this break not to denigrate
42:26
any of their experience but too often we focus
42:29
on that far end and we we you
42:33
need to remember what is going on for because as christian's
42:36
talked about those hormones that have
42:39
kept the bones strong healthy and the
42:42
brain healthy and protected as estrogen gives us.
42:45
That protective factor it's waning so you
42:49
there are then things that you do to build it
42:52
so that's why we're talking about building strength building
42:55
help it helps build your bones build your muscles it
42:58
helps with your mental health and it helps with how
43:01
you feel so yes it's a
43:04
it all can be a bit of a
43:06
churn but there are so many
43:09
things that women can do and it will benefit um their
43:13
their life outcomes full stop if they sort of start
43:15
to get i mean i'm a great example aren't i christie christians are
43:18
triathlete i am the reluctant kind of
43:21
oh my do I have to exercise but I
43:24
know I do cardio and I really enjoy it
43:27
now I do strength I've always been really good about
43:30
my diet but if you know if you're sitting there kind of having a you know drinking
43:35
too much eating processed food you need there are so many fairly low-hanging
43:42
fruit changes that you can make in terms of being informed about you know we
43:47
all read oh you need to eat more legumes, nuts, berries,
43:50
but you need to sort of explain to them why this will help.
43:54
If you're going to eat a lot of fried food, yeah, it's going to give you your
43:57
heart issues, blah, blah, blah, energy, possibly make your hot sweats,
44:01
eat your heart flushes worse. So.
44:04
It's it's about education who
44:07
was it one of the politicians said oh tony blair i think education education
44:10
education everybody needs to be educated the
44:13
women themselves professionals who work with them and
44:16
their partners so but it is very
44:19
much as christine said it can be the start of something
44:22
and it's almost that if not now when are people
44:25
going to make those changes menopause is a little
44:28
bit of a it's a little bit of an opportunity
44:31
to reset and I think we we should frame it
44:34
as that and go yep you've got there now
44:37
what are you going to do to be in the best health
44:41
post-menopause especially in in the world
44:44
that we're living in and in the you know your GP you
44:47
get 10 minutes with them it's I think somebody's just
44:49
asked a question about the GPs why is it so difficult to
44:52
get htf's of the nhsdp's contraception pills
44:55
i think that would very much becky depend on who
44:59
your gp is most gp practices
45:02
now should have a menopause trained gp if you're not happy with them ask to
45:07
see another one because get familiarize yourself with the nice guidelines which
45:12
will tell there's a patient version of the nice guidelines which again we'll
45:15
send you a link to read it And also my stagons have just been updated.
45:20
Oh, Christine, I thought it passed. I'm sorry, because I forgot.
45:23
Yeah, I know, but I think it's so important.
45:25
And I was so helpful also, because I've got to bring up one point before we
45:29
run out of time, bring in filth of vaginal and bladder health as well.
45:34
And especially in terms of topical local vaginal estrogen.
45:39
Because what is a really big mouthful, but genital unary syndrome of the menopause,
45:45
gsm is so miserable you know
45:48
sex can be painful can be dry but also sitting
45:51
might be painful you can't sit on your bike seat anymore it can be itchy it
45:56
can be painful and it's so treatable with pelvic floor muscle training and local
46:01
topical vaginal estrogen and even if women are reluctant to take systemic hrt
46:06
so for your whole system which has some very small side effects,
46:11
local topical issue in hasn't and what joe
46:15
i was really helpful that joe was talking about even if you don't
46:17
have symptoms menopause still impacts your body and often by the time the symptoms
46:22
come out like osteoporosis the boat sailed many years ago and the same with
46:27
vulva and vaginal atrophy as well it might start when you're 41 but you might
46:31
not get symptoms until you're about 50 60 and you get urinary tract infections
46:35
and all those things that women.
46:38
Suffer with and don't always get prescribed hormone replacement,
46:42
which is so effective and so safe as well in terms of the topical local one.
46:47
And I like to think that GPs are getting much better at prescribing HRT,
46:51
but bringing in the guidelines and showing the guidelines, I think it's a really
46:55
good step forward because that's their guidelines.
46:58
That's telling them what they are able to prescribe.
47:01
So, you know, the patient brings it in. I mean, I know they all hate Dr.
47:04
Google, but this is the nice guidelines. And there is a patient's version,
47:09
very readable, and it sort of recommends that you, and this is something you
47:12
could share with your clients or patients, that you basically bring a checklist
47:17
in and say, this is what I'm experiencing, this is the impact.
47:20
Because you're going in, they've got a 10, 20-minute appointment.
47:23
You need to have some sort of resolution.
47:25
And I think Louise said there's a three-month waiting list. I think that's down
47:29
to the restrictions on the service It's an aging population.
47:34
People like Davina bringing this out. And so people are now looking for help
47:38
where previously they possibly didn't.
47:41
I think it's a bit of a, I don't know, when something's a victim of its own success, maybe.
47:47
Some of this publicity. You have to keep knocking on doors.
47:49
Yeah, yeah. Essentially, if you all keep knocking on doors and putting pressure
47:52
on, hopefully it will change. But it is frustrating that exodus is so poor.
47:57
The question, can I just ask about the topical oestrogen?
48:01
That's now available. You don't need to wait for your GPD. They can talk, people can talk.
48:07
You can buy it off the counter, over the counter as well. You're over 50. Yeah.
48:12
I wanted to, I wonder, it doesn't do it justice, but I wanted to spend five
48:15
minutes just to talk about HRT, which we touched on earlier on.
48:20
It's not for everybody, but it can be a saviour for some people.
48:23
Again, how are women supposed to decide whether it is going to be something
48:28
suitable for them or not?
48:30
I think the hardest thing about this is there's no black and white answer to this.
48:35
And it's often for women more a philosophical decision as well.
48:39
Of course, the medical world sometimes looks more at pure symptoms.
48:43
And of course, what we look at more is really optimising women's health,
48:47
as in thriving rather than surviving. I know that's becoming a bit of a cliche,
48:51
but it still really matters.
48:54
And the benefits of HRT outweighs the risk for most women, but not for all women.
49:01
So I think it's a really important discussion to have with your GP.
49:05
The British Menopause Society has got a directory of people that registered with them.
49:11
And if there's someone in your local area, and also if people can afford it,
49:14
But it's often very helpful to have one consultation with a private practitioner.
49:19
And after that, they can put a prescription.
49:23
Now there is a pathway back into the NHS as well. And if you can afford that
49:27
one prescription, I think it's so worth your while.
49:30
You take your car for an MOT.
49:32
I think this is. And then they can look at all the benefits and explain it for you.
49:37
And most certainly in terms of bone health, HRT, if you've got any risk factors,
49:41
is the most effective prevention for osteoporosis plus the other benefits you get from it.
49:49
Well, I'm liking Becky's actually said that, you know, people are talking,
49:53
their clients are coming to them with patients and saying they're so disheartened
49:57
with the support they're getting.
49:58
So Becky's actually said she's going to have the nice guidelines in her toolbox.
50:03
And that's it. We need to be just saying, here is the information and this is
50:07
the information that your GP, it's a non-negotiable with them because this is
50:12
what has been agreed and this is their prescribing tools and it's not all about HRT.
50:17
They will talk about diet and lifestyle and exercise.
50:21
It is the first port of call. They don't just say you need to take HRT.
50:25
It should be an informed discussion, shouldn't it, Christine?
50:29
And those factors should be considered,
50:31
And people will be going in with completely different backgrounds as to their lifestyle.
50:37
Yeah, because I really don't want women to think either. They really miss out.
50:41
I work with women who have such a good outcome in their menopause journey that
50:46
mainly do it with sleep, exercise, and reasonable food.
50:50
So HRT is not the only outcome either, but is beneficial for most and effective for most women.
50:57
So there's just lots of different ways to
51:00
to make this journey i like
51:03
the i like what you said about keep knocking at the door because i mean
51:06
i don't know if the nhs is getting better sarah suggests
51:09
that she says so glad i went private my gp was useless back
51:12
to the nhs now and they have improved i think it might depend on
51:15
where you are and your local the actual practitioners
51:18
and how many staff they've gone and stuff but i think knocking
51:21
on the door is important and what you mentioned yeah having those nice
51:24
guidelines and giving confidence to your clients
51:27
to go to the doctor and knock another couple of times because some.
51:30
People just these days it's always the nice people they
51:33
don't want to bother you know so it's
51:36
a shame where you can guarantee the people who like think that life deserves
51:39
them everything they'll be knocking and knocking and knocking you know just to get
51:42
something so it is i think again we've got
51:45
a wonderful honor as as
51:48
as kind of healthcare practitioners and and
51:51
complimentary or whatever you want to call yourself to give confidence to your
51:54
clients and say you know take this bit of paper have a little read keep knocking
51:57
you know just big up the gp say they do want to help you
52:00
they're busy but they really can help you with this and it's
52:03
going to give them a lot of gratitude so and also to say
52:05
to your clients to be prepared for those you know just don't
52:08
go in going i feel a bit this go this isn't what's happening and then that's
52:12
going to be a really productive meeting so whatever they've talked to about
52:16
on when they're with you guys go right capture that take it to your gp you know.
52:22
It's great that you're in here with me and you're sort of you're empowering
52:26
them and sort of giving them the confidence.
52:28
And and that reassurance that they will be listened to and
52:31
of course not all gps are great but they've been we're not
52:34
in the we're not in the business of gp knocking and if
52:37
you're not happy with what you got you get then you do
52:40
need to ask for a second opinion and i know that can be easier said
52:43
than done but you know very cool
52:46
this hour is just shot by we're gonna have to have a part two
52:49
somewhere it's ridiculous i can't believe it's already 8 55 there's
52:52
so much more we could talk about i do like and
52:55
i think again it's a bit of a cliche but i think it's really applicable in this
52:58
case it's just starting the next chapter of life i think that's always a really
53:01
healthy kind of way of looking at it isn't it life's full of chapters some are
53:05
sad some are happy some are full of romance some are full of death it's just
53:08
a chapter you know and it's just what makes up life so i think that's quite useful right,
53:13
Amazing questions, people. Thank you so much for people who joined us live.
53:16
So if people have, obviously, they'd love to listen to you and they want some
53:20
guidance from you, the website, which you mentioned before, menopausemovement.co
53:25
has got loads of information on there.
53:27
Tell us a little bit about the courses and things that people can do with you
53:30
as clinicians. What have you got out there?
53:34
Christine? Yeah, okay. Yeah, so we've got the core course, which has a combination,
53:38
Again, it's all multidisciplinary.
53:40
So we've got a gynecologist, a nutritionist, a dietician, a psychologist.
53:46
Myself talking about pelvic floors, bladder, prolapse, et cetera,
53:50
and also a strength and conditioning part. And that's the core, really.
53:54
Then we really felt the need to develop the advanced. And I just chip in.
53:58
Currently, you get four SIMS for CPD points, which we're hoping is going to
54:03
go to eight, but it is four currently.
54:05
And the advanced course we just got our sim
54:08
spa accreditation as well which is which is
54:11
great four and a half yeah and that
54:14
one goes much deeper in terms of rehab and strength
54:16
conditioning so i think so for your membership that's
54:20
a really relevant course because we didn't dive in deep
54:23
enough in terms of the evidence base around it and
54:26
what makes it different in the menopause to your your
54:29
other your other clients and then like
54:32
the really exciting development at the moment is the mot which
54:35
comes with the tracker with all the right questions the screening which
54:39
hopefully all make the process much easier for
54:42
therapists to put into place and and opens
54:45
doors for for women as well so that's being
54:48
developed or something yeah so it will definitely come out this year so the
54:51
next couple of months we're quite a long way down but we haven't put a date
54:55
on it yet but anyone who subscribes if you go to our website and subscribe to
55:00
our newsletter So then you will get all the information when that comes out,
55:04
and I hope within the next couple of months.
55:06
But I'm always a bit optimistic, and Joe will tell me too.
55:10
That's a wonderful partnership.
55:13
I'm actually called the negative Nelly, and I'll go, maybe there'll be a bit of a reality check here.
55:19
I know it's not fun, but it's not cool.
55:22
But we'll get there. But I think we're really excited about how this is going
55:26
to develop, and it's sort of the missing piece of the jigsaw,
55:29
really, especially when
55:31
in that sort of setting that you guys are in, where you will be able to,
55:36
you know, with these resources, these screening tools, get a bit further into
55:40
what's going on and come up with a plan with your client.
55:45
I'm coming to see what Gary is just saying, that he'd be happy to assist with
55:49
accrediting CPD, because obviously for the fitness professionals, we've got the SimSpa.
55:55
For all the hbc people like the physios it is
55:58
sort of quite sort of set but we'd
56:00
be really interested to talking to gary about very much
56:04
so i realized as i said cpd i thought oh that's
56:07
simple that's fitness it's not my world i'm i'm but thanks gary thank you yes
56:14
and what about following you obviously the website we said menopause movement.co
56:19
facebook active on there instagram We're menopausemovement.co.
56:24
We've got Anne as our creative partner. Anne runs that.
56:27
And, yeah, we've got Facebook as well. So hello at menopausemovement.co is a
56:33
really good way to get hold of us. And it is .co.
56:36
It is .co. It's interesting, isn't it?
56:39
Instagram is probably our best social media platform, and that's Menopause Movement.
56:43
And we'd love to see you all there and comment, because really it's all about
56:47
feedback and developing.
56:49
Brilliant. What everyone needs out there. And we do do webinars and we've got
56:53
one coming up with elite athletes, but we haven't got a date on that yet. So watch this space.
56:58
It's hopefully going to be an Olympian menopausal experience.
57:01
But that's all we can say because we've not actually tied it down.
57:06
Because, you know, elite athletes go through menopause.
57:10
It's not just all about, you know, as you will know. And that's,
57:13
I think, will be really interesting for us.
57:16
For your followers. So we'll send that on to you.
57:21
Fantastic. Yeah. We'll keep everyone up to date with that. If you listen to
57:23
the podcast and you want to be part of this conversation, then like I said before, do use YouTube.
57:27
I mean, go to these places and follow our guests on social media.
57:31
But if it's specific to this, then go to YouTube and put something in the comments there.
57:34
I'd love that to get used a little bit more as well. Because the great thing
57:36
about YouTube is it just stays alive forever as opposed to Facebook, which disappears.
57:39
It'll be there or come up in Google results. Every question you put there
57:42
and every answer will help and fuel information to
57:45
other people so do use youtube if you want to right
57:49
there we go thank you so much there's i've
57:51
got people in the live lounges demanding a part two
57:54
now so we'll have to have a chat about that and and but
57:58
it's been a wonderful yeah and captured so many different topics
58:01
and to do with menopause so thank you so much for that thank
58:04
you and thanks for the
58:07
good questions and comments as well thank you to everyone for
58:10
yeah for your comment for sharing what you've been through you know
58:13
it's going to continue it's going to continue fortunately
58:16
not with your two lovely sales but we're going to continue the whole focus on
58:19
women's health next week we get to this can be episode 229 we are going to spend
58:24
an hour with michelle lyons which a lot of our listeners will be aware of and
58:29
know michelle is going to be focusing on pregnancy related back and pelvic pain
58:34
which is going to be exceptional i know you two know michelle very well It's
58:37
going to be a lovely hour as well.
58:39
So I encourage you, listeners of the podcast, I'd really encourage you if you can.
58:42
I know some people work, but if you are free on a Tuesday at 8 o'clock,
58:46
then come along like our listeners here and share your experiences,
58:50
particularly with topics like this, because it's so...
58:53
All my guests say it's so nice to see people enthused and asking great questions.
58:57
So if you're one of those people who's got questions and it affects you,
59:00
then come along and join us for that.
59:02
And then the week after, which is going to be February the 25th,
59:06
and that will be episode 230, we have special guest Dr. Gemma Parry.
59:11
Some of you will know from Therapy Expo again last year, who's a performance
59:15
specialist and research associate at the University of Bath.
59:18
I said Bath there, my wife would be so proud of me.
59:20
University of Bath. And she's been talking about developing female athletes, women and not small men.
59:25
So really focusing there on helping young women, girls, older women who are
59:30
athletes and looking at the research and how far we have come from the days
59:35
when all research was done by men and therefore talked about men.
59:37
It's getting better, but maybe not good enough, but we are getting better.
59:40
But you definitely got to consider the athletes in front of you and realize
59:43
a whole different set of circumstances when it comes to diagnosing and looking
59:47
what could be potential reasons for the symptoms being presented.
59:50
So do join us for one of those if you fancy. If you can't join us,
59:53
then I'm not having a go at you,
59:54
but I will have a go at you if you don't leave us a review and a rating.
59:59
And I have got all your IPAs addresses and all that, so I can find you, and I will.
1:00:02
So we have about 2,000 downloads a month. We've got about 50 reviews. What's that about?
1:00:07
1,500 people a month are just not listening to me. So if you're listening to
1:00:09
the podcast, please leave a review. Thank you.
1:00:14
There we go. Right. On that note, thanks everyone who joined just
1:00:17
live yeah nicky matt it's such a lovely community it's so
1:00:20
i love these so much nicky manswell says brilliant chat room activity this
1:00:23
evening loving you ladies too and you fellas too of
1:00:26
course thanks for being there and thank
1:00:29
you for your lovely comments we haven't been able to respond to them but
1:00:32
please do follow us and we will be in touch and yeah thank
1:00:35
you so much and we'll be back matt we'll be back
1:00:38
we'll be back somebody else wants that fantastic
1:00:41
yeah now we'll look forward to that right we
1:00:45
will be back next tuesday if you can join us as always eight o'clock on either
1:00:49
youtube sports therapy association youtube channel or if not on facebook just
1:00:52
once again thank you to joe mcguyen and christian bird of menopause movement.co
1:00:57
and yeah thanks everyone take care and hope you see brilliant thank you.
1:01:03
Music.