Janelle and Andrea take on menopause. Doctors may not have the answers, but women’s collective wisdom does. Can we embrace this time as a sacred life cycle and an opportunity for rebirth? Can we share our stories more? Hear a transparent dialogue about symptoms, frustrations and what worked for us. Includes a nod to Anita Diamant’s book “The Red Tent”, a quote by Ursula K LeGuin, the podcast We Are More Than Menopause and Isabella Rossellini’s article about getting denied by Hollywood after age 45. You’ll hear:
-Why Janelle & Andrea are having the best sex of their life now
-How HRT worked for Andrea
-Why we need not be at war with our body
-How Estradiol cream solved sandpapery, painful sex for Janelle
-Why a Diva Cup is economical and environmentally better
TRANSCRIPT:
Janelle: Hi, friend.
Andrea: Hi, friend. It's so good to see you again. Yes! I missed you.
Janelle: I missed you, too. March as it was a busy season, Bravehearts, um, because I just celebrated my 50th Golden Jubilee, my birthday. I threw myself a big party. It was themed, and I was the queen of the cosmic sun.
Andrea: Yeah, your outfit was stunning and like nothing you've ever worn before.
Janelle: No, no, that's what happens when you hire a costume designer to make you an outfit.
Andrea: Sophie did it all?
Janelle: Yeah, essentially Bravehearts just to give you an image and I'll post eventually on Instagram I had a spear crown on my head and then I had an outfit to match it So I had a spear crown for my body and a spear crown for my head. That's what I asked for
Andrea: Spirit crumb for your body. Yes, love it. Yes, it was quite ceremonial, full of ritual, full of intention, full of love. And, yeah, I had a beautiful time.
Janelle: So good to have you there. And it was also the Initiation. Oh my god, like a landing of the goddess temple. there was a lot Kind of getting seeded to birth into something new for which the goddess temple is where we record the podcast. so yeah, it's Monday, the weekend is just ending. And it feels like a new chapter is starting.
Andrea: It does.
Janelle: And so it seems appropriate. we're talking about my 50th. And now let's talk about menopause.
Andrea: Perimenopause. I have to tell you, I, Janelle's been wanting to do this episode forever, and I'm just like, I don't want to. I don't want to talk about it. It's boring. It's annoying. It's hard. And, of course, that's all the more reason that we need to talk about it.
Janelle: That's why I'm like, that's exactly what we have to talk about it because we don't often talk about it as women. And so then we're like left navigating this topic alone.
Andrea: Yeah. And I've even noticed recently, someone threw out perimenopause, in a social setting, and then I was like, yeah, I can talk about that. And I think there is something to that, being more open. It makes me think of a time at choir , this is back when you were joining the choir, and someone, I won't say who, just announced to the whole group of maybe 20 people, Hey, I need a tampon. Does anyone have one? I mean, it surprised me, it didn't shock me, but I was just like, that's so great that she just put it out there, right? It's like, no embarrassment. There are men, who fucking cares?
Janelle: Right. Our cycle is part of life.
Andrea: Yeah. And the ease with which she said it was just like, uh, brought me so much joy. Yeah. Yeah. And ease too. So let's bring it in to the mainstream.
Janelle: Yes. So we're going to bring in ease and joy into this conversation about menopause today. So not long after we committed to this episode, I read a quote from Ursula K. Le Guin, and she said, The woman who is willing to make that change must become pregnant with herself at last. She must bear herself, her third self, her old age, with travail, And alone, not many will help her with that birth. And right now I am in the transition of perimenopause. I'm not too menopause yet, but I am navigating this path that is sometimes predictable and adaptable and other times very surprising. And dysregulating.
And in reading this quote as someone who's actually menopause, so grateful. That the tide, at least in my circles is turning that we're not doing it alone in the goddess temple. We actually have, I have a space called the red tent where we honor all the different phases of the woman's cycle, mental cycle on a monthly basis.
And then also on here's puberty and then child rearing and fertility and then menopause. And as we've talked about sisterhood in other episodes, there's something even with like the rituals of the, of my weekend, right? There was a night then we had the women gather together. That feels so potent and nourishing the feeling of not being alone and the feeling of sisterhood is amplifying the feeling of aliveness I have.
And the stage and the stages is menopausal. I'm entering the crown,
Andrea: Yeah. And I am, I feel fortunate. Did I have many women helping me through this and then I'm not alone and it feels like we're all in it together. you talk a little bit more about the red tent for people who may not know that reference?
Janelle: Yes, it's a book by Barbara King solver that everybody should
Andrea: It's actually by Anita Diamant.
Janelle: Thank you.
Andrea: I mean we both read it probably 20 years ago. Exactly, yeah, it's still on my shelf, but it was an amazing book when I read
Janelle: Yes. And totally incredible. And the red tent is the concept that in historic cultures around the world that when a woman was bleeding, she would not be allowed in the main part of the village. She would bleed in the red tent. And so for about two weeks a month, the women would be all together depending on where they were in their cycle there was an area where only women were allowed to go
Andrea: Yeah, and you know I've heard both angles on this that like, oh they're banished, they can't participate, they're over in this place bleeding. And then the other side is no, we get to go gather and come together.
Janelle: And share our wisdom to the different ages through the different generations.
Andrea: Right, from a, you know, a 65 year old to a 15 year old, who are all going through their moon cycle. So much wisdom is passed down while you're doing the laundry In this stream over the rocks so much wisdom is passed down when you're all the women are just gathered in the tent. And this is a great reminder for me, as was the ceremony we had this weekend, because I don't want to be at war with my body. But in the beginning, when this starts,
Janelle: Let's just say that again because that doesn't pertain just to menopause, That's actually a really big statement
Andrea: Yes, great point, I said, ultimately, I don't want to be at war with my body. I want to be at one with my body. I want to love my body.
Janelle: As it is
Andrea: Yeah, as it is. Whatever's going through, whatever size it gets, whatever pain I'm feeling. I think in the beginning when I started perimenopause, I was, in a sense, because I didn't know what to do. It caught me off guard. It felt really early for me. I started at 42, like you did, I think. And I was like, what's going on? no, it's been very similar for a very long time. Like I never get up in the middle of the night. I can sleep all the way through the night. Just many of these habits and routines that suddenly were disrupted and you know, I was like, what the fuck? I don't think I had anyone preparing me for that. Did you?
Janelle: No.
Andrea: Didn't think to ask my mom.
Janelle: My mom? She went to menopause at 42 because of cancer and her treatments, and so it was forced upon her. medically, essentially, and then she passed away by the time. I was going in it. So yeah, no, no wisdom passed down to me.
Andrea: I think the point here, initially want to make is that I want to love my body again and be in rhythm with it. And I will say early on the lack of control, the lack of solutions, lack of wisdom, things I just wasn't able to find was troubling. And I felt defeated at a point like what is going on? When is this going to be over? I could not sink into it because I didn't feel like I had the right levers or the right information.
Okay, so just a brief, , backing up, what we really want to do here is reframe menopause and moon cycles and all the cycles , in a woman's body. Somehow, these periods, I said period, of our life have been traditionally framed by society, right, as an overall pain in the ass. And of course, I get that.
Yes, it is a pain in the ass when you bleed every month. you know, it takes management, and there's, maybe there's pain, and there's blood. It's an annoying thing to deal with. And I'd love to think about them differently. And this is what I did for my daughter when she started menstruating was had a moon party, right?
So we could honor the process instead of being annoyed by it. Yeah. And so what if they were an exciting rite of passage, right? what if we could honor menopause and be in sync with our body instead of at war with it and Allison and Pam from the great podcast. We are more than menopause. I was interviewed on it.
I know six eight months ago Mentioned that they like the word pause As part of menopause, because it is a great reminder that it is, in fact, a time to pause and reflect and take stock of your life.
Janelle: Yeah, I actually feel like a very natural. It's a natural cycle of Oh, Who we were, As women, childbearing, that is coming to an end, so everything becomes redefined when we're no longer solely in relation to our children as like the definition of our existence.
Andrea: Hmm, say that one more time, one more time. I don't actually have a biological child, but that moving from the phase of being like a fertile woman into a non fertile woman, like there is an identity there that our that I feel from culture is because it's the whole idea. Isabella Rossellini just did a great article in New York times couple of weeks ago about how at 45 she was dismissed by Lancome, for being too old.
Janelle: And that was how many years ago, but that was really a marker of that. That used to be the case that anyone, women basically just at the edge of perimenopause or menopause were now like, okay, now you no longer count. You are disregarded. And, certainly in celebrity culture that they that's a well known fact that women over the age of 45 have a very difficult time getting jobs that's changing now. for me, I was well into perimenopause by the time I even heard of periods being called moon cycles. like you, I was like, Oh, like my periods, the thing that happens every month. It's the thing to deal with, to like, manage to control. The most progressive thing I did was that I used a keeper, which is now called the diva cup. That is a reusable menstrual cup. and I use that just to navigate the time of the month. There's no honoring of that. no thinking it was a time that my cycle was sacred.
Andrea: So a diva cup is a reusable menstrual cup, I've never used one of these. hmm.
Janelle: And it can be used for 12 hours at a time. So I started using one back in 1997. Like I was right out of college and I just gotten quicken and I was like doing my like weekly budget and I calculated how much tampons were going to cost me over time, over the time of my cycle. And I was super annoyed. And I was reading Ms. Magazine, it was in the back of Ms. Magazine, like classified section, like get a keeper. It was 35 and it literally lasted me a decade.
Andrea: Okay, I gotta dig into this a little bit, like, what's it look like? I don't even understand.
Janelle: Made out of latex and it's like a little oblong shaped cup with a little stem on it in a way. It almost looks like a tulip. so you like, fold it up, put it in. It kept hold your blood. It doesn't absorb it. It contains it like a cup, right? The blood flows into the diva cup. And then you just like squeeze it gently and pull it out. And then you empty the blood into the toilet.
Andrea: Fascinating.
Janelle: Tampons make the blood go away. you don't really interact with it very much. The keeper, there was definitely an interaction. Sometimes it would spill in my hand, and so then I would be covered in menstrual blood. so I did have a connection to my blood that way. But I just, I just do want to point out that so for my entire cycle, pretty much I spent 120, instead of whatever it is now, 20 bucks per, you know, for tampons for a box of them. And so there is also a financial aspect to, to that, that I was like, Oh, someone's taking advantage of. capitalism was taking advantage of the fact that I had this cycle and I didn't want, I was definitely in that, like no one else is going to profit off of my body in this way.
Andrea: Oh, wow. That is so, so very, what is that? Very conscious of you. Okay, not to mention the environmental impact of throwing away the tampons and applicators. Those are plastic. Okay, so let me just think about this for a second. Like, would I enjoy doing this I like the idea of honoring the blood. That's coming out of me. I think at that time, you know when I was in college, I would have been like No, i'm not doing that. it's just too messy or Especially when you're at a party or you need it You know what? I mean, that seems like it might be a little inconvenient.
Janelle: Yeah. But I will say, I'll say this as someone who also when I first got my period, learned how to use tampons, the women that I'm surrounded with now, community of women that I'm in right now, moon cycles is a thing. Women often don't even use tampons. They use period panties.
Andrea: My daughter has those too.
Janelle: Yeah, and then they also will, collect their blood and pour it into the plants or to the trees and give it back to nature. And then also like recognize, Oh, I'm very tender. I'm really sensitive around this time of the month because they're very much in touch with it. And so then they won't plan to come to an event or they'll be gentle with themselves. So there is this, what I to see is this like honoring of their body through their womb,
Andrea: Okay Really interesting. I'm like thinking about The fact that I don't have my period anymore because I have an IUD which is so handy And it's part of why I love the IUD is because I I never get my period.
Janelle: Which is also makes it interesting because this way we actually don't know if you're in menopause. You say you're in perimenopause,
Andrea: Correct, and I spoke recently with my DPC OB GYN about this. DPC is direct primary care so I just I pay it's like insurance, but I pay her every month to be on call and to to handle my prescriptions and She said oh no, there's no way you're on menopause yet we could test for it, but there's no point. I’m 48, I started perimenopause when I was 42, you started perimenopause when you were 42, and you're 50!
Janelle: Right? And I've been in, I've been in menopause for five years.
Andrea: Exactly! So I'm like, well, it is possible that I am in menopause. So this just brings up another question, I'm not sure if I should go get the test, or not, But the point I was making too, is just that I don't get periods, and so, am I missing a chance to honor my body? Bye! Is it just so convenient that I don't have to deal with any of it every month? just something to weigh.
Janelle: And I think what it's also highlighting is there is no one way to do menopause. There's no one way to do menstrual cycles. There's just such a myriad of, things that are out there. And so for some people in IUD causes them to like bleed more heavily in your case, it took it away. And some people The tampon is great For some people, they prefer the period panties funny enough, like back to polyamory. It's not that we're advocates for poly. It's just that knowing is a choice besides monogamy. And for me I didn't know anything other than like tampons and pads. And then I figured out the keeper for menstrual cycles. I didn't know that there was a sacredness option to it. I didn't know all the stuff that we're talking about. and so it's just like, Hey, there is another way For people.
Andrea: So, you went into paramenopause at 42 in 2016. So, tell me about that.
Janelle: it felt very sudden. There was a two week period. Um, where I felt I cried more than I had in my entire lifetime. Where I'm just like, you know, walking down the street, crying, just like burst into spontaneous tears. And there was a moment that sticks out. My boyfriend at the time had a robotics conference in Chicago, where I had a friend. So I came along and decided to spend a day, one day at the conference to check it out. imagine a convention center, Full of like equipment and machinery. And suddenly I was angry, upset, and crying inside this huge convention. And I have no recollection as to why. I don't know if we'd had a disagreement or not. That doesn't feel likely. It actually feels like this, like spontaneous, like he said one thing, and I just like had a spontaneous reaction and whatever it was. I know it did not warrant an outburst of tears, but what I remember is that he took my hand and we walked around through the conference and we walked into one of the breakout sessions and the person who was managing the door looked at our class tans and said, Oh, isn't that cute? And I remember being embarrassed and frustrated and I'm wondering, like, who the fuck am I? Am I crazy, crying at a conference? has its own set of symptoms. which is different than menopause. They may be overlapping, but they're two distinctive parts of the cycle and it's own variety and range from women to women.
Andrea: Yeah, and this is so funny because I had really no idea about perimenopause. I didn't know that there would be this period before. And even when people spoke of it, when I learned of it, I thought, oh, it's like the six month lead up. Yeah. Like, okay. It's like been eight years, almost eight years for me. And I'm I think still in perimenopause. Of course we don't really know. so when that happened, did you know you were in perimenopause or what did you do? Did you go see your gynecologist?
Janelle: Well, I had had fertility treatment when I was 37, and the doctor told me at the time that I was at the end of my reproductive cycle. So I didn't actually complete the fertility treatments because my eggs my eggs were pretty dusty. so she couldn't say when I would go exactly into menopause, but she said it would be on the early side. So I knew to look out for it and I knew, but I don't know why that I knew that sporadic bleeding meant the start of perimenopause. And I wasn't on an IUD and I wasn't on birth control. so I knew I was in a, I was, my cycle was just gonna change as it changed.
Andrea: Yeah. And then what, what symptoms did you have?
Janelle: I had hot flashes. I had the sudden crying. Um, And I had the feeling like I was crazy, which was the worst. And none of these were, it wasn't like 24 seven all of the time. I know hot flashes would come and go throughout the day. The sudden crying, was also spontaneous. And the feeling like I was crazy, it was spontaneous.
Andrea: you tell me more about feeling like you're crazy?
Janelle: You use the word dysregulated before it was like, I knew myself. And then suddenly I didn't I wasn't someone who would go to a conference and burst out into tears in public. I had never been that person. there was this feeling of like, I couldn't trust myself because I didn't know how, like, with the emotional outbursts that were coming through and my, you know, like my sudden, like anger that I would. Say, and then was my anger justified? So could I trust myself in my anger and my outrage at my partner who I'm yelling at? That's the feeling of going crazy.
Andrea: So what I'm hearing, it's like, you just, you did not feel in control of your own, um, Emotions, body reactions.
Janelle: Right. Like I was someone who went through life pretty grounded and suddenly I am not
Andrea: that's just so maddening. is why they used to put, women away. They're like, she's lost it. We're just going to go hide her in an asylum. okay. So what worked, how did you tackle these issues? Where did you go
Janelle: Well, one thing I'll say is that,
Andrea: Tinctura?
Janelle: You also don't know, like, here's the symptoms, but just like you said, you don't know if you're urinated it for eight years, perimenopause currently, I have a friend who was in it for 15, I think, I was in it for four, but you don't know, and the symptoms actually change throughout. It’s not like, okay, I started with hot flashes and then I had hot flashes for all four years, like sometimes I would have them and then sometimes they'd go away. For a couple of months and think, okay, great, I'm done. And then they'd come back. And so the inconsistency was daily and then also on like longer periods of time.
Because my mom had premenopausal breast cancer. I was always advised to not take, HRT, hormones. so I was only doing natural supplements. So hot flashes were annoying, but I cut out caffeine totally. And that helps, and to this day, I don't drink caffeine. I also, during that time, drastically reduced my alcohol intake, because I did find that wine also had an impact. I did have women friends who I could talk to, who had already gone through menopause, for supplement suggestions, to help with the rollercoaster of emotions. I remember taking at one point about 17 different supplements from a friend who had, a Chinese medicine doctor and I was like, just give them to give them all to me.
And I'm just going to take them all. they definitely helped for a while. But ultimately, I think that the The feeling , of feeling crazy just passed, and as you mentioned, I was only in perimenopause for four years. I had my last period March 11th, 2019, which meant. In March 2020, I was officially in menopause I don't know if Braveheart is, if you know this, the definition of being in menopause means that you have not had your period for 12 months.
So for me getting to the milestone of menopause was a celebration. And I did think, and it ended up being true for me, and I know this is not true for a lot of women, is that I was like, okay.
At least I'll be done with perimenopause and like whatever comes in menopause, like the symptoms and all of that. At least I have been done with this phase. So there was a celebration of the milestone. Mm-Hmm. But also I really just felt like, okay, the, the symptoms will have be different now.
Andrea: That's when I was reading your story and thinking about it, I'm like, Oh, well, great. So all done. Sounds so neat and tidy.
Janelle: In 2020, I had heard. of honoring our cycles and, the feminine cycles of menstruation and menopause. And so I got myself dressed took myself out by myself to a five star restaurant, even have a photo and just treated myself as an honoring of like, okay, I'm in menopause. Here I am in this stage of life and then funny enough this was March 12th is when Denver got locked down for COVID like literally the next day
Andrea: Totally. Yeah, I'm inspired. I'm like, yeah, okay. Nice. so then what was menopause like? Or what's the next stage?
Janelle: My menopausal symptoms have been less severe and really I would almost say I didn't have very many symptoms at all in menopause like it did kind of drop away like it felt like my hormones Just evened out. And it wasn't until three years into menopause where I had a sudden, unbelievable dryness that was so painful during sex. felt like sandpaper, and it felt like it happened overnight. Although, admittedly, I hadn't been having a lot of sex, and then I was having it, and then the dryness occurred. It was so incredibly painful, I went to the gyne, and they did an ultrasound, and they couldn't really say, like, what happened, or, she couldn't say that it looks really dry, or, like, it literally felt like I had a wound, like, a cut, and I was Like weeping.
I was like, you know how like a wound when like is healing, it can weep liquid. That's what it felt like was that my like vagina was weeping this like wound. but they couldn't see anything on the ultrasound. And so they just said, well, it sounds like maybe you've got dryness. So we're going to prescribe estradiol,
So this was a vaginal insert cream. I just need to take one gram, which is a very small amount, inserted twice a week. literally within 24 hours, I felt better. And I could have sex again. I mean, it was really, it was that drastic, and As I said earlier in the podcast that because my mom had premenopausal cancer, like I had been really advised against taking hormones.
And I know we'll talk about with you a little bit, but by this point now, however many years later, eight years later from when I started it, it was like, Oh no, I feel comfortable knowing. There's no study that shows that there's an increase of cancer from taking one gram of estradiol twice a week.
Andrea: That's awesome. And I just want to reflect on a couple of things you said. One, you got something that worked immediately, which is amazing and even hard to believe, like, I'm like, wow. And then it kept working.
Janelle: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea: Do you still take it? also what I hear is when you went, the guy was like, God, I really don't know what this is. I don't want to like, put words in her mouth, but that was her response.
Janelle: Well, it was that there is nothing like I was like, I feel like I have a cut inside me and I have this like liquid coming out of me. And they're like, we don't see anything to cause that.
Andrea: this is what's surprising that I keep running into is like, it seems to me like if they had been educated, which I know medical schools don't talk a lot about menopause, I've learned this now, that they would have been like, oh yeah, that's totally a typical menopause feeling. Here's the estradiol.
Not like, oh, where's the wound? Wow, we don't see anything. Like, I guess you thought maybe there was a, you know, maybe there was a sore in there and maybe there was like a cut, which makes sense. But I guess, did you feel heard, and did you feel like, they knew what they were talking about when you went in?
Janelle: I did. I only went in one time and I left with the thing I needed. I actually didn't see my doctor cause this was like an urgent thing. So I just saw the woman who did the ultrasound, who was, My age or older in menopause and it was her sharing her story Of the same thing, which is that she had gone through menopause and five years later suddenly couldn't have sex because it was so dry, but it took her a really long time to figure out what it was. So really, it was just the woman sharing her story that gave me the insight into what was happening to me.
Andrea: It's like the proof of the red tent, yes, we get to come together and share okay. Fascinating. The estradiol meant that the dryness went away, and so then how was sex? Like, and how has sex been in menopause?
Janelle: a great question. And separate from menopause. I have done a tremendous amount of work around my pleasure and my sexuality, which is impacting why I can say that the sex I'm having now is the best sex of my life. because mostly I know myself so much better. I'm aware of my emotions and my desires and I speak to them. All of that has had such a huge impact on my confidence.
And so while I absolutely think that the physical symptoms of menopause, as I just explained, can have a huge impact on our sex lives. I also believe that for me working on emotional intimacy, pleasure, understanding my desires and caring less of how other people think all of these things work to my advantage.
And I believe to all of our advantages, About when it comes to enjoying life and sex more this doesn't have to do with the lover I am with as much as it has to do with a lover I have become.
Andrea: Oh, so well said. recently I was, having intimate relations, and I was like, oh yeah. I'm like, Ugh, I have to tell Janelle. Of course she was fucking right. I'm like, I resisted this so much. This idea that the pleasure is within me. Right? And I see you speaking to this in a sense because when you know yourself, when you know your body, when you know what works for you, what doesn't, when you know what feels good, when you have mastered that, you are really the master of your own pleasure. And you can. Have immense pleasure with only your own hand.
Janelle: Or with a lover. It's not that like it just means that I can navigate and communicate, you know, like just the other day I was with a lover and I was like, I don't want penetration today. Doesn't mean I don't want to ever want penetration just to that day. I knew I didn't want And so I was able to say that. And so we had pleasure in other ways.
Andrea: Yeah, and you can, it can be with yourself or with a lover, obviously, but it's just knowing what you want. after a recent experience, someone said to me, Oh, you really know what you want, don't you? And I thought, Oh yeah, I do. you know, that was just a telltale sign of like,
Janelle: Of freedom and liberation. That is the telltale sign right there is knowing what you want and being able to speak to it. I believe is the foundation to our freedom and liberation.
Andrea: It's true.
Janelle: This is what I whispered into my little nugget of food at the ritual.
Andrea: Which was one of the best things about the ritual, by the way.
Janelle: So what about you? What about your perimenopause?
Andrea: So perimenopause started in 2017 at age 42. The hot flashes just started one day and they were miserable. they were not picky. I would get them at night, I would get them at another day, any time really. I would just start peeling off my clothing. And it just, it shifted the way that I dressed, it shifted, the way I like to sleep, did shift my life.
I just always was going through them, they were so familiar to me. And I'm talking like, sometimes like every 30 minutes, all day. some days would be really intense, and then I wouldn't have it for a few days. I tried many things, supplements from Vitamin Cottage, supplements from Amazon, massages, acupuncture, oral estradiol, taking cold showers, fans, sleeping with the window open.
I tried cutting out what I call the five fuck me foods, sugar, gluten, dairy, caffeine, alcohol. I did them one at a time. tried to do them all together, but I could never succeed in cutting out all of them because That was just so much of a loss of pleasure for me in like taste, and so nothing ever really worked and this was just a time of heightened frustration I just was really at my wits end about the hot flashes.
Janelle: I remember I had such compassion for you.
Andrea: Do you remember it? Like yeah, it's like so funny Like I don't like to know you then. Yes, I did.
Janelle: Cause it wasn't, it really wasn't that long ago. It was in the past couple of years because you haven't been on the HRT for very long.
Andrea: No, that's true. That's true I mean I had them yeah, and this these that's the thing bravehearts like this wasn't like a year This was five years. on and on and on You And I remember asking my doctor about hormone replacement therapy at the time. And she dissuaded me saying it was dangerous, it carried a risk of breast cancer, strokes, and blood clots. And a friend of mine at the time, a long time physician, who I deeply respected in her craft, told me the same thing. going so far as to call it quackery.
Janelle: That hormone replacement therapy was quackery.
Andrea: Yes, and, I'm sure there's a nuance to this, , because there's different types, and I think it's possible there's something out there that is maybe not as tested or not as proven. And I can't. I cannot speak to
Janelle: But I get what you're saying, I'd heard the same thing. There was just so much ways of discerning what was misinformation and what was real information to be able to say, okay, this is true or not true. so in my case with my history, my family history, I was like, I'm just going to say no across the board. And I also found someone who talked about bioidentical hormones
Andrea: Yes. And what did they say about that?
Janelle: At the time I had one person who was like, it's amazing. And then I had another person who was like, there's no proof of that. So back to, there are no answers.
Andrea: Yeah, that is exact, and I remember now it was the bioidentical hormones that a friend of mine tried. That's what I mentioned to my doctor friend. She was very much against the bioidenticals. And then my friend who had the bioidenticals, her guy messed it up somehow and didn't give her the right balance of hormones so then she was bleeding for months.
Janelle: Once again, back to there's like one person can have great success and the next person doesn't and there doesn't seem to be any easy answers.
Andrea: Yeah. So it turns out, you know, there was a study in 2002 which showed that HRT had more detrimental than beneficial effects. And that sent women into a panic and discouraged doctors from prescribing them. multiple studies have shown since that that study was flawed, there was misconceptions about the research regarding causation versus correlation, health risks HRT, but the risk for women up to age 59 is incredibly low.
Janelle: We are clearly not medical professionals or even doctors. Non medical professionals who have answers to this. Yeah. So like, don't try Anything without like consulting the resources that you trust. We're just giving you like, hey You're not alone in feeling like this is a more a or a morass of Clusterfuck of information.
Andrea: Use this as an inspiration or a springboard to like Google something or ask your guide about something. So eventually I tried the estrogen patch in 2023 and found a physician that supported HRT and my life had changed. No hot flashes.
Janelle: It took a tech actually took a while. Yeah,
Andrea: It took three months. at first there was nothing, nothing, nothing, no change.
Janelle: so yeah, just Want everyone to hear that too, is that when you're, we're talking about our hormones, right? Like the changes don't happen immediately but then, in your case, it took three months from this. That's a lot of patients and money to make. Is this working? Is this not all of that? But yay, let's clap, let's clap for Andrea for finding something that worked. Right.
Andrea: It was a long, long journey. then my sleep became a bigger problem. Yeah. one celebration, but the hot flashes affected my sleep, but I also suddenly I couldn't get to sleep. This is very new for me. this lasted many years. I just didn't get good sleep. You know, sometimes I'd be great and then I'd have five days of just poor sleep and you know, whatever you find out then you're like, Oh, I see lots of people have insomnia in the world.
Like I've just been living in a really happy sleep world for a long time. eventually I tried THC gummies in 2021, that worked really well and I'm currently still using those and constantly having to play with them. The dose, I get a tolerance built up with them and then they don't work anymore.
Right now I've got a vape that I use and it's really fast working. It's great, except I have to get just the right amount so that it works, but that I don't get incredibly high. Last three nights I've just been super, super high for two hours before I go to sleep. You have medical marijuana card because this is affecting your health and your sleep and your sleep affects your health.
I took progesterone for a while. My sleep returned and then it stopped working one day. So sleep is an ongoing battle for me and I have a lot of gratitude in that I did not experience weight gain yet. I've not had pain during sex yet or brain fog or just these kind of strange emotional outbursts.
So, so none of that is good. And I want to be grateful for that. Of course I haven't gone through actual menopause yet and maybe that's what it'll happen. We'll see. But I guess over the years, I just read more and more articles and experienced more and more frustration with the medical profession around this because there's just so many times that the different doctors I have gone to clearly do not know what to tell me. Like they don't know what's going on. I feel like they give me vague answers. it feels like there's, there's this general lack of wisdom in traditional About women's health and that that has been really frustrating and I I see this cycle that occurs where I go To the doctor or I go see a a naturopath or I go see someone Try to glean more information about what's going on with me. They give me a few things I go home nothing quite works. Nothing lines up then I start googling which is incredibly dangerous when it comes to health because you go down this rabbit hole basically came away after an hour of Google and be like, I think there's a blood clot in my lung.
Like literally. I kind of went into this like hypochondriac kind of like spin. And that's not healthy either, and there's two things that happen when you go to the doctor and the, and someone says, They're vague, they're not sure, and then you find something else out, and I bring it back to her, and I said, Well, I read da da da, and she's like, Yeah, that's true, and I was like, Why didn't you tell me that last time?
I'm frustrated there, but then I think there's also something else that happens where We have to remember that everyone's different and there's just no way for the doctor to say like anything for sure. They're always saying, yep, that might work. Yep, that happens sometimes. I've never seen that before, but yes, that's possible.
And so, you know, it's frustrating and it's no one's, no one's to blame. It's just because we're all different.
Janelle: And there hasn't been a lot of Resources spent to studying women's health in menopause. And yeah, I hear you. There's a term called patient advocate. And when it comes to menopause, I really believe that we have to be our own advocate because the doctors don't have all the answers, even with the best intentions. Right. They don't have all the answers.
Andrea: And I mean, my dream scenario is like, I explain my symptoms and from The doctor I get compassion and overshare brief explanation of paramenopause brief explanation of menopause, little bit of background, list of potential solutions that might work for me, supplements, diet changes, hormones, anxiety reduction, It's just a quick list. Maybe there's a handout she could have given me, right? Access to a group of women to discuss, debate, and problem solve these issues on our own.
I wish this existed, like I almost wish I had a circle of women across the last five years that I could come to and be like, okay, this is happening. What happened when you had this happen to you? What did you do? You know, and just sharing.
Janelle: Bravehearts, does this exist already? I feel some woman, somewhere, has created a women's circle for menopause. tell us, cause we don't know
Andrea: And I think too, it's a symptom of health care today that I get 20 minutes right with someone I don't get an hour and we're just really looking at that time when we're so frustrated with our health of like, you know, curiosity, encouragement, let me know what's working. Let me know what's not working. I'm happy to help just a little more care, would have felt so good at that time.
And then also questions about, okay, don't you think you should ask me about like, who had cancer, and what my breast cancer risks are, and if I have an IUD in, and how old am I, and what did I experience before, just, I guess I'm just looking for a deeper experience of healthcare that maybe doesn't exist right now.
That's been disappointing, and then all we can do is take it into our own hands and give it a shot.
Janelle: I feel like with that, let's take a breath.
Andrea: Sure.
Janelle: Putting out there in the world that, yeah, that healthcare, and women's health in particular, will also go through a transformation, where, Yeah, that it doesn't like it does today this ideal scenario right that you just described your dream scenario. that it does get to exist that curiosity, encouragement, time, spaciousness and collective wisdom of community, right? It's not that you're actually not saying that the doctor has to know everything. You're actually really say the top of your list was compassion.
Andrea: Absolutely.
Janelle: Curiosity incarnate. You weren't like, give me all the answers on a on a piece of paper. And the recognition that yeah, wisdom can be shared through groups and through women, by doing what we're doing today on this podcast, which is talking about the topics that we've been told are unacceptable to talk
Andrea: Yeah, and on that note, I'm feeling too that In a sense, there should be, like a therapy component to this stage of life, And helping people. Get comfortable with the uncertainty, with the pain, with the discomfort, and know that this is a marathon. if this might be over in 2 years, it might be over in 8 years, or 15 years!
Like, you're a friend. And just, really, some tools. Would be great around sinking into that instead of just like I want it to be over when it's going to be over and I didn't have I wasn't conscious and kind of working on myself from a personal growth perspective when I first got this I've learned now to be more uncomfortable with the uncertainty and to trust but then I really wasn't
Janelle: And then also that. actually menopause has been existing as long as women have been existing and that there's a sacredness to it as well, that this is like this shedding, that there is a tremendous amount of freedom for women who are entering this stage of life. If we can look at it, that there's nothing wrong with us.
Andrea: Yeah
Janelle: A stage of life, a biological stage of life that impacts. Our emotions impacts our relationships. It impacts our view of ourselves. impacts our role in society. And that yes, there's an uncomfortable transition, but it's like anything like childbirth is uncomfortable, but there's like, there's something on the other side of it, there's something during the journey and also on the other side that is worth driving for.
Andrea: Hmm, it just takes us right back to the quote by Ursula Gwynn in the beginning which is women Who are willing to make this change must become pregnant with themselves, And I feel like I'm birthing myself again. , I have birthed a child and now it's time to birth myself into this next phase of life.
Janelle: I see you doing that.
Andrea: Thank you, friend.
Janelle: Well, Bravehearts, another episode where we have no answers, just sharing our experiences and wishing you grace and compassion , on your journey through perimenopause and menopause, wherever you are. And I'll also just shout, make this shout out is the women who are not in perimenopause and for the young girls who are just starting puberty, the acknowledgment that it's a life cycle, perimenopause and menopause are part of the life cycle of being a woman.
So if we get to talk about it to our 15 year olds, then they're not surprised at 42, even if their symptoms are different, even all the things. So the more we're talking about it with all ages of women, I feel like is.
Andrea: Yeah, and I hope my 14 year old, she's seeing me go through this, right? She knows I have hot flashes. She knows that I have trouble sleeping. And that's just educating her in many bits about life later.
Janelle: And she's also seeing you, because I'm seeing you, feel incredibly alive, incredibly vibrant. You have not like withered up and died as like an old woman on your front porch in a rocking chair, just waiting for life to go by.
Andrea: Right.
Janelle: I guess you're not sleeping and you're having hot flashes and you are still a vibrant contributing member of society.
Andrea: Yeah, absolutely. that's huge. Thank you for celebrating that. I appreciate it. All right. Check us out. Bravehearts at permission to be human dot live. We're both available for coaching anytime. We appreciate all of you. We love you and we'll see you next time.
Janelle: Bye!
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