Tell What You Really Think Season 01 Episode 04
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Short filmTranscript
00:00it affects half of the world's population for up to a third of their life and yet
00:07for centuries it was rarely talked about or not anymore i think menopause gets a really bad rap
00:15your period menopause is showing three supplements i take to feel great on menopause
00:20this week we are going inside the menopause gold rush i use badge of honor and the new
00:26generation smashing taboos and shouting from the rooftops i'm not afraid of perimenopause anymore
00:35is it finally making up for decades of neglect or just catastrophizing aging bodies women are
00:42being preyed upon by companies that are making products that say they do stuff that they don't
00:49do plus the groundbreaking science that could change everything you can have at least a decade
00:55of delay in menopause and if you do it even earlier than that uh you could potentially
01:01have 30 40 years of delay and technically eliminate menopause if you've done this early enough
01:07come in mark hello i should have checked if you're a handshake or hug person
01:14all right so everybody's got a seat grab a seat sit down now are you actually going to eat because
01:23people get all nervous when they're presented with food joining me tonight author kathy let
01:28actually you're so cute as long as we have you for dessert
01:31and menopause doctor liz raymond i'm the closest so i get the biggest
01:37do you want to know what's on the menu
01:41apart from apparently me fashion entrepreneur julia brown
01:45true fashion because that's one of the things i do well obviously
01:49we can see
01:49journalist and women's health advocate shelly horton okay to say that we give zero fucks
01:57now yes and traditional chinese medicine practitioner anissa ao i think we can help
02:03ourselves um so thank you all for coming
02:07well suddenly you all went all serious didn't you
02:10we're just paying attention to you i just wanted to start with something that i don't think happens
02:13enough on national television i want to hear your menopause symptoms
02:17oh your face your eyes went so wide then do you want to start
02:22well yeah what's up to you where do you want to start kathy well first of all you sweat more
02:27than donald trump doing a sudoku
02:31and that's a surprise isn't it and the other thing i hated was the brain fog i was on the phone
02:37to my sister one day and i was going i've lost my phone i've lost my phone i can't cope without
02:41my phone and she goes what are you on but a doctor i mean we've got proper medical people can
02:48back this up a doctor told me recently that yes when women lose some cut some cognitive ability
02:53during the menopause we just go down to a level where most men are
02:57and she had clinical studies so i thought much better than what about you well mine was
03:06uh a big surprise because i went into perimenopause at 45 but i thought i'd never heard the word
03:15perimenopause before i thought menopause was just for old ladies with gray hair and they had hot flushes
03:20and their periods stopped so i was a fox you know didn't it wasn't even on my radar so my symptoms
03:28were actually pretty horrific perimenopausal depression and i have never had mental health
03:33issues before in my life so i had the depression the anxiety didn't have hot flushes i was just like
03:39three degrees hotter than i'd ever been for a long time and then uh and we are going to have to talk
03:45periods and stuff here but i had an armageddon period where i flooded through my clothes oh my
03:51god and so i went to a gp a female gp who also didn't know anything about perimenopause and she
03:59said oh with this bleeding it might be cancer oh my gosh so i was sent off for an internal ultrasound
04:06and when i got the results back she said great news it's not the big c you just must be stressed
04:11maybe you should take up a hobby oh disgusting um so i then didn't get any help for nine months
04:17till i was at the point where i was circling the drain and considering self-harm it was that bad
04:23and i am very lucky i have an earth angel of a husband and he i got to the point where i wanted
04:29to quit my job i was having trouble getting out of bed and he just sat me down and he said i don't
04:36think there's anything wrong with you but i think there's something wrong with the chemicals in your
04:40brain you haven't been yourself let's go see a doctor together yeah amazing and it makes me want
04:46to cry but it was and that's when i got help julia how was the experience for you well i discovered
04:53that i was perimenopausal because you have to make that distinction right we need to know the word
04:57that's right um during covid but initially i thought i i mistook my perimenopausal symptoms for covid
05:05symptoms oh god so i had uh a hot flush and the night sweats and i also had really bad headaches
05:14so at that time we were only doing telehealth right so i was telling my then gp because i've
05:19been through quite a few um i think it's a thing to know yes uh yes um about my symptoms and he actually
05:26said i think you're actually menopausal a lot of my symptoms were like brain symptoms so even though i
05:34did initially have a hot like a hot flush and a bit of the night sweats as you probably hear from
05:41people it it's not like you just have one set of symptoms and that's it with me it was like seemed
05:47to be after those initial things which i thought were bodily things i've since found out they're all
05:53to do with the brain then it was brain fog which was really bad and it's oh god sorry i don't want to
05:59it's so scary sometimes when you can't and you think am i getting dementia it's so scary when you
06:05as i say the words going down the hallway and it's not got to the door but i was having terrible
06:12time with brain fog the next stage was the intolerance stage where i was just like just so
06:21angry like picking fights and like your amazing angel husband my husband very gently said to me
06:30you're just having a go sorry i don't want to get upset you're having a go at our daughter and
06:35she's done nothing wrong like this isn't like you i think you need to go back and see someone about
06:41this anyway sorry they want to get that's important yeah yeah i'm fine i'm fine i just want to bring in
06:48dr gliss here perimenopause menopause what is it that people should know more about the difference
06:54between them menopause is just one day in your life and it's the day that you have your last menstrual
07:01period and you can't establish that until you've had no periods for 12 months so it's a retrospective
07:06diagnosis is what we call it whereas perimenopause is um the period of time peri in the greek language
07:13or from the greek language um means surrounding so it surrounds the actual day of your menopause and
07:19it goes from when your symptoms start to the year after the menopause so it sort of goes around the
07:27perimenopause and that can last between you know on average four to six years but the actual range is from
07:34zero to 11 years because 20 percent of ladies more than a decade yeah exactly feeling like
07:40shit but not for everybody not for everybody but for a lot of women can i ask there's another part
07:46of this as well which is early menopause which is something you've experienced as well can you talk
07:51about so 10 of ladies will get what's called an early menopause between the age of 40 and 45
07:57i unfortunately experienced the perimenopause you know 40 year old clinical practice working on a board
08:03and um public speaking three young kids renovating house elderly mother corporate husband um so not
08:11much going on then yeah i'm not alone like that this is a typical story for a woman in the midlife
08:17juggling everything we juggle so much we could be in the first place all night yeah exactly exactly
08:22anyway i was in a board meeting and i was speaking and boom i got a biggest first hot flush
08:29sweating couldn't find my words um lost my word fluency and palpitations and i came out of the
08:36boardroom afterwards with a colleague and done me for a few years and he said what went on there
08:42you know you suddenly developed anxiety it looked like and i said i have no idea wow that was incredible
08:48i'd worked in absinconi i'd done um qualifications for the royal college of absinconi and i i was treating
08:55people with menopause this is 12 years ago but i was in denial as well i thought it's stress and i
09:02thought this can't be happening to me anyway i got diagnosed with menopause um early menopause and got
09:07on to treatment and i was lucky but i was well informed at that point anyway can we just establish
09:13you that god is a man yes because these are all the things that women go through first of all you're
09:18taken hostage while your hormones as a teenager when you you know you get your periods once a month then
09:22you've got pregnancy where everything swells to sumo wrestler proportions then you have you know
09:27childbirth where you stretch your vagina the castery what five six kilometers then you have mastitis
09:32then you have the menopause and then just when everything goes quiet you grow a beard
09:37well thank you um i want to bring anissa in here though because anissa you're in your early 50s
09:42i am i'm 53 okay are you experiencing symptoms at the moment no i'm not
09:47and so i kind of represent the other people who actually are breezing through perimenopause i
09:55uh i have noticed some differences within my own menstrual cycle but none of these symptoms that
10:01you ladies are talking about so the fact that you're not experiencing some of the symptoms that
10:07everyone else has here what do you put that down to i have kind of investigated throughout my life
10:12different techniques of how to maintain my own health going into menopause being a chinese
10:18medicine practitioner myself yeah so the focus within chinese medicine is very much about kidney
10:25and liver health and also your energy reserves as you're going into menopause so that's been my focus
10:32going into this i look after my sleep i look after my lifestyle i moderate my stress levels so there's
10:39been techniques that i've used throughout my 40s to deal with stress like i've had the stresses that
10:45you've had we use we use wine yeah the real stuff yes wine's a good one yeah so i would largely say
10:52through natural health how does chinese traditional medicine view this period of your life well the term
10:58second spring is used with menopause so we often think of it as a time where the woman gets to focus on
11:04herself on her passions on her interests menopause is very natural it's just part of life so that's how
11:12we view it rather than seeing it as a pathogen or a disease can i jump in yeah go for it with respect
11:19um yes it's natural but it doesn't mean that people like us need to suffer no absolutely when i have
11:25spoken to world experts about menopause i had a brilliant example from dr kelly casperson who is a
11:32urologist from america and she said we have a bit of a strong push for it's just natural you
11:39can you know put up with it she said if you want it to be natural a natural life everyone hand over
11:44their reading glasses because your eyesight deteriorating is natural but we take care of
11:49our eyes yeah so for me natural doesn't mean we have to suffer and that's so i would say that chinese
11:55medicine would actually endorse that yeah okay yeah everyone's journey and experience is so different
12:01only 20 have severe severe symptoms 20 have no symptoms or extremely mild symptoms whereas 80
12:11of ladies the majority have no mild or moderate symptoms so whilst we represent um the 20 having
12:19severe symptoms i don't want to instill fear into everyone watching you know absolutely but at the
12:25same time i'm sorry but i slipped through the cracks so i'm that 20 and i could easily not be
12:31here so yeah so for sure i'm sure that the pendulum went too far and we educated everybody but there's
12:37a lot of value in in hearing the narratives of the people who've had severe symptoms because
12:43that's what may change isn't it yeah because i've been my mother's generation they talked about
12:48i remember them being in a cardigan coffin in the corner of the kitchen talking about the change you
12:53know as a voldemort was coming i think what's the change everyone was terrified yeah and you know
13:01at least of my generation have helped take at least take the stigma out of menopause yes we talked about
13:07it openly for the first time yes you know now this is amazing that now there's a tv show where we're
13:12addressing it and also that we've got a male host and i want to say how much i love that by the way
13:18you'll be ovulating by the end i may have already started who knows actually i did want to ask about
13:23that did the men in your various lives did they know anything about menopause they didn't know
13:29anything but we had some great empathetic husbands i want more men talking about menopause because it's
13:35not a women's issue it's a society issue yeah it affects workplaces it affects you know your loved
13:41ones your sisters your mothers your you know everyone so therefore we need men as allies in
13:48this and you know we also need them to know about it so they can sometimes spot the symptoms because
13:54when you're in it it's hard to see and i read a novel called hrt husband replacement therapy because
14:00a lot of women leave their husbands while they're going through the menopause because of the lack of
14:05understanding and sympathy and empathy secret women's business doesn't help women yeah we need
14:10to talk about it that's interesting menopause is perhaps surprisingly extremely rare in the animal
14:17kingdom only a handful of species are known to outlive their fertility most of them whales take the
14:24orca scientists believe that by going into menopause female orcas can focus on being good grandmas
14:31you know spoiling me grandkids with fish the first recorded reference we have to menopause comes from
14:37around 350 bce when aristotle wrote that women could expect to go into menopause around their 40th birthday
14:45that is if they lived that long in the 1500s there is a book about witchcraft that claimed that
14:52menopausal women were prone to dark thoughts usually associated with witches and things didn't get better
14:59in a hurry in victorian england menopause was seen to cause insanity and could land you in an asylum
15:05supposed cures included bloodletting and leeching with the 20th century in came the idea that menopause
15:12was a disease that could be cured with drugs and the marketing it seems was targeted just as much to
15:19men to stop their wives becoming and i stress this is a quote dull and unattractive and to make them
15:25quote more pleasant to live with yeah the thing is even late into the 20th century these ideas that
15:33menopause is just in your head yeah that didn't go away the lot of the symptoms are psychological
15:41and not physical is the fact that we are afraid that we are losing our youth that the wrinkles are
15:46coming up that the men won't find us attractive but i think more and more women are finding out that
15:53after all if women are aging men are aging as well i mean you know i see a lot of bald
15:58headed men around the place big tummy because of the beer drinking they're not such a hot side of
16:05themselves and the taboos around menopause yeah they didn't go away either many women in my study they
16:13said their girlfriends weren't all that interested that if they mentioned that um i've had a diagnosis
16:20of menopause that's why you know that's why i've been feeling the way i feel um their friends would
16:27say oh well you know that's nice okay and change the subject why do you think it was stigmatized for
16:35so long i think part of it was that women thought that once they hit the menopause they they had passed
16:40their amuse by date yes that that decided that if you're no longer fecund if you're no longer
16:46fertile what use were you a very low number of women will actually raise the issue in a consult
16:51and that's so sad and i always bring it up and they're so thankful because they and then they'll
16:55say they didn't feel they could ever raise that with somebody can i just mention that liz is a
16:59unicorn exactly so i i feel a lot of medical professionals minimize women's pain and women's
17:07problems and i think part of that problem is that we don't have enough education for gps i understand
17:13that completely can you tell mark how many hours gps study uh menopause because there were headlines
17:20last year that gps in australia only get one hour of training in menopause i'm not sure i'm not sure
17:25that's true i have had many gps tell me they've had zero that has her job and i feel like liz is
17:32like the one doctor on the table let's let's give you a bit of space you don't have to answer every
17:38grievance of the medical industry no but i just want to finish so so shelley yes gps definitely need
17:45to be not dismissing women and and understand the differences for different population groups the
17:51different average ages of menopause all the different possible presentations and be able
17:56to manage if i could i could just say that i think there's the perception of how much training needs
18:04to be done at different stages of your medical career needs to be because i've been asked should
18:09why isn't it in the medical student curriculum as in it is it was when i was there you have to learn
18:14about menopause but what depth you need to learn about things it's just like what depth do you learn
18:20cardiology or obs and gynae so yeah but no i know i get really frustrated because i have lived
18:28experience of having completely appalling appalling behavior by gps saying yeah it's just i think they
18:36i think even and i am not attacking i am just suggesting there is a big please do better please
18:44do better oh yes for sure and that's why this is so fabulous i don't want to have to flip this table
18:48but please don't it's really lovely no so i'm not dismissing that at all i'm acknowledging this
18:54oh no i need a little bit more estrogen right now but this is why the narrative and the voice of
19:02women now of our age and is going to change things and it has changed things after the break
19:09what did you buy so many things in a brown paper bag that's a worry menopause remedies under the
19:15microscope no evidence there's no data not effective women are being preyed upon by companies that are
19:23making products that say they do stuff that they don't do and the great menopause gold rush this stuff
19:30is magic it's like whipped cream for your face why doesn't she monetize it it's if a man did that
19:37he'd be an entrepreneur i just had to come out here and get something off my chest i'm not afraid of
19:46peri menopause anymore menopause is getting a hollywood makeover this stuff is magic it's like
19:56lip cream for your face i use badge of honor it's been described as the menopause gold rush
20:04the global menopause market is said to be worth around 40 billion by the end of the decade but all
20:11of these pills and remedies do they actually work to find out i've enlisted leading endocrinologist
20:18dr susan davis suddenly people have come out of the woodwork and self-proclaimed themselves of being
20:22menopause experts with minimal training and disseminating a lot of misinformation and
20:29creating a lot of confusion and potentially doing harm so i've been shopping oh good what did you buy
20:36so many things in a brown paper bag that's a worry in here is a bunch of products that claim to help
20:43the symptoms of menopause so this one has black cohosh in it okay so black cohosh in their really
20:55most robust studies not effective menopause tea yeah green tea no evidence that licorice root no evidence
21:06ginkgo bilba and cinnamon these are not things rose petals ginger root lavender flowers
21:12there's no evidence any of these they might might taste nice it might be calming but no
21:21so this is menopause skin cream so this is going to restore my skin apparently the main things that
21:28will restore skin and wrinkles is you know retinoic acid and the retinoids and i can't see any of those
21:35listed here this one has something called red clover in it promencil has been around for years
21:43no benefit for vasomata symptoms hot flushes night sweats and the evidence for mood is there's no data
21:50chinese western herbal medicine it's got vitamin d in that's good for you so these are intimate wipes
21:58my goodness they're paraben free that's good right there is no evidence that using wipes for your
22:08vagina is going to improve your vaginal tissue i personally see no place for things like this
22:16i just think it's it's really clever marketing and women are being preyed upon
22:21by by by companies that are making products that say they do stuff that they don't do
22:30and i think that's really wrong for women how have we ended up here that it's become such a contested
22:36space i think it's been a contested space because the medical fraternity dropped the ball american
22:43researchers shut down a major study into hormone replacement because of serious health concerns
22:49hormone replacement therapy or hrt has long been the first line of medical treatment for menopause
22:55symptoms the world's longest and largest clinical trial on hrt was abruptly cut short and the first
23:02headline blast 2002 was hrt increases breast cancer plastered across the world there were more adverse
23:10effects than beneficial effects and when i heard that i was quite frightened as time has passed and
23:16people have gone back and re-analyzed and re-looked at the data there is indeed a small statistically
23:25significant increase in risk of breast cancer with the formulations used in that study with the estrogen
23:32only arm hysterectomized women there was no increased risk of breast cancer but that was published after the
23:38first alarm bells went off and in the 18 years of follow-up what's been seen is basically there's no
23:46increased likelihood of dying from heart disease or breast cancer whether you do or don't take the
23:52hormone therapy in that study in all between 150 and 200 000 australian women went off hrt after the scare
24:01many australian women have turned to alternative treatment we're definitely still experiencing a fallout from
24:07that study and i see that because i see women who are very reluctant to take hormone therapy
24:13because they're scared that there could be dangers in it and equally we are still encountering
24:20practitioners who will not prescribe because they believe it causes breast cancer and that was a fallout from
24:25that study because women were not taking hrt it opened up this big space that could be filled by
24:33over the counter products all right i like to keep things stupid simple three supplements that i think
24:39all women in perimenopause should be taking do you want to know why i feel so good well it's all in this
24:46tiny one-a-day pill i feel like at the moment menopause has been the most visible i can remember in my
24:52lifetime how do you feel about that shift i think it's fantastic to normalize conversation about
24:59life changes but i think there are a lot of people putting out there that menopause is likely to be a
25:07catastrophic experience for the majority of women it is not a catastrophic experience it's a life change
25:13for some women it's a relief if you've been having really heavy bleeding and suddenly you stop bleeding
25:18you've been having menstrual migraines and they stop for many women it's just even a non-event
25:24so it's great to talk about it but let's get the records straight about what's um evidence and
25:29what's not if you want more tips to be healthy on menopause make sure to follow me
25:37in the last year there were three separate women's health organizations that warned against
25:41and i'm going to quote here catastrophizing menopause
25:44who's fuck no see i wonder what shirley thinks no yeah is that i mean is that fair is there
25:51is there a trend at the moment to catastrophize menopause do you think liz it's not being
25:58catastrophized it is that women have a voice and it's a very important it's a very important message
26:05that you know that will empower women change people's lives going forward i feel furious when
26:12people say catastrophizing or we're medicalizing menopause so to me i feel like that that needs to
26:19be anissa sorry one second anissa there's somebody here who's had a very different experience do you
26:25think some of the way menopause is talked about can be unhelpful can make people fearful of something
26:31definitely definitely i do think that if we keep talking about it and i think education is the big
26:37thing yes going into it a lot of women just it just comes upon them and they don't know what to do
26:43there are things that you can do like hrt but there's also things that you can do like natural
26:48medicine but they both need to be done correctly and a toy boy also excellent have you ever prescribed
26:56those lips one hot toy boy i'm i'm not a big believer for herbal medicine and but i am a big
27:08believer for choice yes so as long as whoever's going through their perimenopause has made an educated
27:15choice i'm happy with that i've had acupuncture for my hot flushes and it worked so you know i just
27:21am not big on the herbs there's something else that's changed in the last couple of years around
27:24menopause which is every celebrity under the sun is talking about it and i'm wondering how you feel
27:31that's changed the conversation the celebrities are very much involved in talking about it but also
27:36involved in commercial ventures as well as you've got you know drew barrymore screaming about it on the
27:42top of a roof now literally on her instagram how do you say that dismissively no one i'm not but i
27:48what i'm interested in is how it changes the conversation well it just means there is a conversation
27:54whereas once there wasn't so i don't mind who wants to scream from the rooftops about it because
27:59the more we talk about it the more we take the stigma out of it so it can only be a good thing as
28:03far as i'm concerned as long as they don't when you say they're monetizing it as long as they're not
28:08they don't start promoting some airy fairy the feng shui or aura with this you know this
28:15a jd yeah a gwyneth yeah there's nothing to go all gwyneth on it right but i think that's where
28:22respecting the evidence comes in yeah you know respect the evidence respect the global consensus
28:28on what the best treatment there are a lot of celebrities that are actually giving great
28:33evidence-based information now the other thing about monetizing it so yeah naomi watts has a skin
28:39care range she has a lube called the vag of honor which i love it why doesn't she monetize it it's
28:47if a man did that he'd be an entrepreneur does it change does it does it well does it change the
28:53equation if they're also selling products so i'm curious does anyone else think it does change i think
28:57it depends what they're selling you know if they're selling supplements that are just expensive
29:01we like this is where i get very cranky so it depends on the product then is that what you're
29:06saying yeah yeah and how much medical evidence is that is backing it up so if you're not getting
29:11information the right information from your doctor then you go to your friends and you discuss it with
29:16them and they'll be like well i heard that this this really works for me which has happened to me
29:21so this is the thing yes fair enough there's people trading off it but they're only trading off it
29:26because there's a gap yeah and i my mother was very much the soldier on stiff upper lip she was
29:34labia oh mom's gonna love that i don't think she says that way uh but when she went through it she was
29:45put on hrt and doing really well and then the whi study came out saying it caused breast cancer her
29:52doctor binned the hrt she went straight back into medical menopause and got no help no help at 75
30:00she's still having hot flushes medically she's called a super flusher i think that's the term which
30:05is awful but that is the catastrophic effect of how that whi um study was sort of presented because
30:13it's affected a whole generation of women kathy did you ever try alternative treatments so talk
30:18what can we try i tried something called black kohosh yeah right well yeah i mean and i spent a
30:24fortune on vitamins and things i mean i might as well have just taken all that money put all that
30:28stuff in the bin taking all that money and giving it to a charitable cause i wasted a fortune until i
30:34talked to my girlfriends and they all just like just hrt hrt hrt so um and once i started taking hrt it was
30:42like rocket fuel and all it does is it takes you back to how you used to feel that's all it's doing is
30:47topping up your hormones to where you were before it all everything just evaporated so it's like
30:52that's not to be einstein to work out why that works for you so i would just say to any woman watching
30:58i i mean i'm so sorry i'm just not into the herbal thing it's probably just that my my you know my
31:05mistakes but i would say just get on the hrt as fast as possible get your juices juices back and your joy
31:12and your energy and your zest and just go forth and be fabulous so the fact that i have a clinic
31:17and i see women that are on hrt speaks that it's not the golden bullet that solves every issue
31:26but isn't it important that you are seeing them and it's integrative rather than absolutely
31:31absolutely they can absolutely coexist yeah but i i think there's a point to be made about
31:37um the use of complementary and alternative medicine in the management of menopause and that's
31:41where you as a as a clinician who's um if you're doing a good menopause consult you use a good the
31:50evidence base the best treatment for menopause is um menopause hormone therapy it's the goal it's
31:58evidence-based that's the goal standard but you really look at what herbal supplements um acupuncture
32:05they might have tried or what they want to try but you don't tell them it's going to fix the hot
32:08flushes there's no current evidence but i say to my women so long as it's doing no harm if you want
32:14to have that in your health care sort of treatment plan package um go and have acupuncture go and do
32:22yoga for all the other health benefits that that can bring and you you design it around the lady as an
32:27individual julia what was what's been your experience with hrt i'm actually um so like you say it's not
32:33like a a cure-all like you like you know what i mean like yeah it was for me totally but i think
32:40it's like you say it was like from where like looking at my journal because i kept a journal of
32:45my symptoms and especially with my tolerance level and i think like you say you're allowed to be less
32:51tolerant as you get older that's right it definitely like that thing i told you about my family
32:57it's improved so much that that i do feel balanced so yes overall i just feel i feel myself
33:05shelly how different are you after hormone replacement therapy everything has changed for me
33:11and i i really love what what you said that it's not the golden ticket like for me it wasn't like a
33:18quick fix i had to do some real work particularly because my mental health was so severely damaged
33:23so i it took me years i had to try four different types of hrt to find the right one
33:31and then we introduced some testosterone so it was a real process for me
33:35so i don't want people to think you slap on a patch and everything's great again everyone's experience
33:40is different and that's okay and it takes time to find the right hrt that will treat your symptoms
33:48make you feel well again and we do know that the benefits of hrt far outweigh any any risk
33:53many risks it's good for your bones it's good for your mental health it's it's good for your
33:57i think that that message doesn't get out there enough no there's a lot of fear-mongering around
34:02the negatives of hrt but there's not enough projection about the positives kathy and i will
34:07be buried with our hrt so i actually said so i said the same as you no one's taking my hrt off me
34:17and then i i got to 50 and popped in for my mammogram and boom i was diagnosed with breast
34:23cancer 100 percent eastern positive and it wasn't my hrt that caused that one in seven
34:30australian women will get breast cancer which is why we need to make sure everyone's examining the
34:34breasts and going for the all the screening that's available so then you look at non-hormonal options
34:41and optimize your health yeah across all those facets as best you can and you say you've had
34:46lots of experiences would you ever consider hrt mht i would consider it temporarily i always want to
34:55bring my body back to balance through the methods i know i respect that women have a choice i think
34:59that's a really good thing i just don't think it's the only option no no no no it's definitely not and i
35:07think that's about respecting a patient's perspective their health beliefs their cultural beliefs
35:12and despite being presented with all the evidence you're choosing to manage it in what about the
35:18individual yeah someone might just be in divorce because it's not going to fix your relationship
35:30no no it's a relationship difficulty that's what i'm saying so it can make you feel well and more
35:35likely to swing off the chandelier i've got one question and the one one danger i thought might
35:40be because if you get the gel you put it on your thighs and i thought one day one day my boyfriend
35:46started talking about soft furnishings and he cried at the puppy dog ad and i thought did he lick my
35:52side after i put the gel on could he actually be getting it yes liz can you answer that one for us
36:01that comes into have you ever been asked that question no no i don't think anyone's ever asked
36:06a question on television ever no it's how i counsel my council ladies about how to correctly use the
36:13estrogen gel or if they're taking testosterone for other reasons how to use that and you have to let it
36:19absorb and be dried before someone licks your thighs still to come the controversial procedure
36:32that could spell the end of menopause you could eliminate menopause if you've done this early
36:37enough and if the effect starts to wear off it's theoretically as easy as a topper kind of oh that's
36:43like having botox treatments you know like you'll just keep going back i've got no problem with aging
36:49i just want to age well yeah so don't try and tell me to avoid menopause and life after menopause
36:56and i also think sex gets better and better and better here at the yale school of medicine work is
37:03underway that may just transform how we think about menopause one of the uh sometimes comments you see
37:09that well you know menopause is a natural process why are we fiddling with this well death is a natural
37:14process but a lot of things we do is to avoid that right in the world of fertility science doctor
37:20kutluk octay it's kind of a big deal so i performed the first ovarian transplant with cryopreserved tissue
37:26in 1999 and it works like this he takes ovarian tissue from woman and then puts it in deep freeze
37:34years later it can be defrosted and transplanted to restore fertility and hormone production traditionally
37:41we've developed this procedure for helping cancer patients who would normally lose their fertility
37:48due to cancer treatments but now dr octay wants to use the procedure for an entirely new purpose
37:55to delay menopause if you look at women who naturally have late menopause at age 55 or later
38:02they have less risk of depression cardiovascular diseases diabetes and they actually live longer
38:10so it is possible that if you delay menopause for about 10 years women may live healthier and longer
38:16lives the idea is to take ovarian tissue from a woman in say her 20s or 30s and then re-implant it
38:24before she reaches menopause especially if you do this under age 35 or so you can have at least a decade
38:32of delay in menopause and if you do it even earlier than that uh you could potentially have 30 40 years
38:40of delay and technically eliminate menopause if you've done this early enough and if the effect
38:46starts to wear off it's theoretically as easy as the top up as a matter of that i told this to one of my
38:52patients uh and she said kind of oh that's like having botox treatments you know like you'll just keep
38:57going back but this procedure is not without its critics i'm very supportive of using frozen ovarian
39:04tissue to be replaced in young women after they've been treated for something that wipes out their
39:09ovaries like chemotherapy for example i am not supportive of using it to delay menopause because
39:16we know that the later your menopause is like if you go through menopause at 55 versus 50 that is
39:23associated with a greater risk of breast cancer so i don't believe there's sufficient safety involved
39:32in that process and insufficient thought being given to that actually many women that consider this
39:40procedure are not phased by this and given all the screening methods and etc when you see all the
39:46benefits other benefits you gain from it um you know it's a bit like taking birth control pills there is a
39:53slight increase in breast cancer risk but there are many benefits a woman taking back for decades
39:59so this potentially changes the game completely no it doesn't what if it was an option available to you
40:08i've got no problem with aging i just want to age well yeah so don't try and tell me to avoid
40:14menopause but the thing is is that you're saying it doesn't 100 stop it so you're saying if say for
40:20instance like us you get severe symptoms you really want severe symptoms in your 70s with other things
40:26that you've got going on in your life so we've got to consider that as well liz there's somebody who
40:30went through early menopause does something like this have potential no appeal at all because you just
40:36have to ask why would you choose that it's a surgical procedure and with risk there's no long-term
40:43safety data you know that's been established and we've got very good evidence-based menopause
40:49hormone therapy to treat the symptoms and are we stigmatizing aging yes and i hate the idea of
40:55anti-aging yeah anti-aging crimson i'm pro-aging yeah what's life like post-menopause i think you know
41:03that women can have the most sensational second act because the second active i think women life is in
41:09two acts the trick is surviving the interval which is the menopause which is awful as we've discussed
41:13once you're through that it's the best time of your life no period cramps no pregnancy scares you've
41:18got all that tampon money to spend i mean and you do kind of come into your true self it's quite
41:24liberating isn't it very and it's also because for the first time you've cut the psychological
41:28umbilical cord because your kids have grown up yes so it is a time of liberation yes it takes a lot
41:35of energy to go through a cycle every single month and you get to reinvest the energy that might have
41:40been your period into you yes yes but that's not celebrated in western culture basically once you
41:47can't reproduce in western culture you're sort of surplus to requirements and where in other cultures
41:56they see as you like you say a rebirth and it's like so i think wise one yeah and that's one of the
42:02the problems we need to reframe it in a very positive um it is a liberation it's a time where
42:07we get to be feel empowered about who we are and i also think sex gets better and better and better
42:13too because you believe well please tell me tell me what you really think i can't believe i nicknamed my
42:20box the sahara desert oh well i can't believe i'm even vertical right now because you know you know good
42:27sex is about being comfortable in your skin and being totally relaxed and of course once you've
42:33gone through the menopause and you you know you just you no longer care what people think anymore
42:38just invest in some lube
42:42we don't just lie back and think of canberra no no one sure but i find with my friends what's happening
42:50the women they're on the hrt they suddenly want to take on the world they want to climb everest they
42:54want to go down the amazon they want to you know they want to take up tango dancing in brazil whatever
43:00but when the men retire they want to stay at home and nest i think that's because their testosterone's
43:05dropping and their estrogen's coming up a little bit and women are like i've nested
43:09i've planted four thousand acres of toast i've roasted four million flocks of lamb you know i want
43:17to now go for the first time in my life put myself first and have fun and frivolity with my friends and
43:22there's a big dichotomy in what older men and women want and unless australian men pull up their
43:28psychological socks and keep up with their their wives or their female partners they're going to
43:33find themselves alone so it's a big issue to address i think shelly do you still feel a bit angry that
43:38nobody warned you about the severity of your symptoms uh yes i used to be angry at my mum for not giving me
43:46a heads up and now with hindsight i'm angry for her because she didn't have the help she wasn't
43:53given the tools so now i'm i've got less anger and more empathy and compassion but i want to make sure
44:00that no one else slips through the cracks like i did if you could go back and talk to the younger
44:05version of shelly in fact let's role play it what would you say that's right i'm playing you
44:11what would you say to the younger version of you what would you warn her what would you promise her
44:16first of all i'd give her a big cuddle because it was hard yeah and i would just make sure that she
44:23was educated that she knew what perimenopause was that she knew what the symptoms to look out for
44:28that she had a good health practitioner who was her ally that she didn't um feel alone
44:37i want women to be educated so they don't feel alone and that was my biggest thing i just shrunk
44:44julia what would you tell your younger self um i'd say self-affricate that would that's the biggest
44:53thing i'd say self-affricate i mean and the onus shouldn't be on us it shouldn't be on us
44:59but it's really important that if you're worried about yourself to self-affricate don't don't be
45:05dismissed like me if you don't like what you hear go on to the next one knowledge is power yes yeah so
45:14the earlier that you and and if you're empowered by knowledge it's not such a hard journey because
45:19you will know what to go and ask for you will be very well prepared when you go to your consultation
45:26and it's not as scary as you think it's going to be anissa your experience is very different from
45:31a lot of people here but i'm equally interested in what you would say to the younger version of
45:36yourself entering this this period younger version of myself i actually think i've never been so
45:40comfortable in my skin yeah i think this is a very powerful time for women i think this is a time for
45:46me to shine really yeah you know because i feel comfortable yes when you are going through a
45:52change in your life especially the menopause lean into your female friends just talk just go on a
45:58girl's night out it's much cheaper than therapy and we strip off to our emotional underwear in about 3.6
46:02seconds and tell each other everything we haven't got time for this fellowship we go deep
46:09and it's because we share these it's because god is a bloke and we've shared all these biological
46:15you know upheavals that we cut to the chase very quickly and i find i always say women are each other's
46:21human wonder bras uplifting supportive and making each other look bigger and better
46:25here with him wonder bras today you're an honorary girl at the moment it's not the first time i've been
46:33to sharing that little bit of your glorious second spring with a lot
46:38thank you
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