Stop Telling Me It’s Just Stress: The Perimenopause Truth

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as

we close out our session today, Dr. McDonald, if there was one thing, and I have to preface this by saying that I wish, I wish when I was in my 20s and early 30s, there was more conversation about what happens to you in perimenopause.

Because the thing that I have really struggled with is that those conversations weren't happening.

That information isn't available.

Yes, we're seeing a lot more of it now.

Some of it great, like you've mentioned, and some of it noise.

But Just educating yourself around what the future holds for you as a woman is actually empowering and it will help you mentally,

right? Well, if you think about it as the mother of a teenage daughter, when she was approaching puberty, the school had events and we went and did a mother's tea and we talked.

We talk our young girls very lovingly through what to expect through puberty.

When you reach the point that you want to start your family, there's a whole industry about what to expect when you are expecting.

I am an OB-GYN.

I still found that book helpful because I was used to looking at this as the doctor, not like, oh, what's happening to me? We do such a great job of preparing our women through these major life transitions, but you get to menopause and it's bupkis.

And again, it kind of fits into that.

As women, we fade away in importance when our reproductive capacity is done.

We aren't good at prioritizing ourselves.

So we're too focused on other things.

The whole thing kind of comes together.

All the holes in the Swiss cheese line up.

And then even people who are educated about this still have an experience in menopause of what on earth is happening to me.

So I agree, this is a call to our culture, do a better job.

There is ancient wisdom around this transition that we need to tap back into.

But if I can give one piece of recommendation for women who are facing this down and like, okay, now what do I do? I want you to go find the Menopause Society.

This is a body, an international body, multidisciplinary.

Every medical specialty that takes care of women in midlife, OBGYN, the internists, the endocrinologists, the bone specialists, the cardiologists, the neurologists, we all come together.