Dear Menopause
Are you experiencing changes to your physical, mental and emotional health you find hard to explain?
Have you tried talking to your doctor/partner/employer/best friend and been left feeling unsupported?
In this weekly show, host Sonya Lovell interviews a range of experts and shares the stories of everyday people to help you understand what the hell is going on, why and where you can find support, empowerment and most importantly, a like-minded community.
Dear Menopause
99: Championing Hormonal Health: Julie Dutton's Inspiring Story
Ever wondered how self-advocacy can transform your healthcare journey (and even your GPs), especially during pivotal life transitions like menopause?
Meet Julie Dutton, affectionately dubbed by her GP as "Patient Zero," after her strong advocacy reshaped Dr Ceri Cashell's career when it came to managing her patients' midlife hormone health.
Jules' tale of moving from England to Australia while pregnant, overcoming postnatal depression and then educating her own GP on the importance of understanding perimenopause, offers more than just a narrative—it's a testament to the power of understanding your own body and standing up for yourself in healthcare settings.
During this generously candid conversation, Jules shares stories of her triumphs and challenges in her mental and menstrual health.
We explore the intricate dance between hormones and lifestyle choices as an unexpected ADHD diagnosis is also tied to her hormonal fluctuations like PMDD, PND and Perimenopause, and the decisions Jules has made, such as quitting alcohol for her well-being.
Jules and I discuss why symptom tracking and seeking second opinions are vital tools in navigating hormonal changes.
With a focus on reshaping the narrative around menopause, this episode encourages you to champion your health stories and leverage your relationship with your doctor to drive change in women's healthcare.
Links:
The Balance App by Dr Louise Newson
Confidence in the Menopause Online Course
For more on women's mental health and neurodiversity - Monash University HER Centre
Thank you for listening to my show!
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Welcome to the Dear Menopause podcast. I'm Sona Lovell, your host Now. I've been bringing you conversations with amazing menopause experts for over two years now. If you have missed any of those conversations, now's the time to go back and listen, and you can always share them with anyone you think needs to hear them. This way, more people can find these amazing conversations, needs to hear them. This way, more people can find these amazing conversations. Hi Jules, hi Sona, thank you so much for joining me today on Dear Menopause. I'm excited for a chat with you Now.
Sonya:Anybody that listened to my episode with Ceri Cashell, you'll know Ceri talked talked about a patient that came in and introduced her to learning about testosterone and the sex hormones from a midlife woman's perspective, and it literally changed how she treats her patients today and how she operates in the world of medicine. And today I'm going to introduce you to Jules. Who is that patient? So we call her patient zero, kerry's patient zero. So we call her Patient Zero because Ceri's Patient Zero. But Jules is an incredible advocate for self-care self-advocacy when you're talking to your GPs and she has a really fascinating backstory that I want you all to hear. So, jules, enough about me telling everyone who you are. Why don't you then tell us a little bit about who you are, and then we'll dive into your story as Patient Zero.
Julie:Well, yeah, patient Zero's quite a cool name. Yeah, so I, um, obviously grew up in England. I moved to Australia when I was pregnant with my first boy, actually, so 16 years ago. He just turned 16. I am a registered nurse and I worked for many years over in the UK in cardiothoracic intensive care, looking after people after they'd had heart surgeries and heart attacks and things, and worked my way up through the ranks there, worked all over the place, ended up in London. The houses of parliament and Big Ben used to tell me whether I was late for work or not. So that was quite cool, met lots of fabulous people along the way and, you know, did all things, and then moved to Australia, where life changed for me a lot there, I think, looking through the lens of hindsight, I moved to Australia when I was pregnant with Connor, my big one. I was 32 weeks pregnant or something when I stepped off that plane.
Julie:My husband is Australian, so we lived with his family and he's Australian, um, so we lived with his family, um, and we were really going to sort of live with his family for a few weeks until he managed to get a job and, um, and we move into our own place. He worked in financial services and so he was. He was, you know, guaranteed a job. When he got to Australia and then the GFC happened, so that was actually so he couldn't get a job. We were living with my in-laws, who were amazing, but I didn't want to live with my in-laws. My husband didn't want to live with our in-laws and we got a new baby.
Julie:So I had to go back to work. So I wanted to register. I wanted to get registered as a nurse here. So for me to register as a nurse in Australia, the requirements were that they wanted me to do an English language test, which is ridiculous because I'm English, I did a degree in English. So anyway, I went to go and submit my application, which you have to do in person. I just had a baby. He was in my front and I get to the queue and they're like I said I want to submit my application to do the English language queue and they're like I said, I want to submit my application to do the.
Julie:English language test. And they're like, sorry, you needed to make an appointment to submit your application to do the online test. And I'm like, well, I'm here now, like can't you just submit it? They're like, no, you've got to do it, you've got to make an appointment to submit it. And I think it was just that postpartum desperation to earn money for my family to get me out of this situation. So I just went right, I don't know, and I marched all the way down to wherever it was it was the nursing and midwifery board, I think of New South Wales at the time with my little boy in his pouch. It was hot, I was sweating, I had to stop to breastfeed anyway. And I get into the nurse and midwifery board thing and I said this is ridiculous. I said all I want to do is work as a nurse. Right, I've got agencies want to book me to work a night shift tonight.
Julie:I've got 10, 11 years experience working in intensive care. I was a sister on a really busy intensive care unit in the UK. Why do I have to do an English language test and I have to go through all this thing? Just what is it anyway? They took me into the back room because I was creating so much fuss and, um, they said look what you can do. And they gave me a kind of a little kind of way around this procedure, to this, this protocol, and said look, if you do, xyz, you don't have to do it. Well, I got my nurse registration and worked as a nurse here.
Julie:Um, meanwhile I developed quite nasty post natal depression with him. I didn't sort of realize that it was post natal depression. I just thought that everybody was a bit sad after they had a baby. Um, it got pretty dark at times, um, and I reckon the post natal depression really hit in probably at about nine months nine, ten months, yeah. But I was just like I didn't know, I didn't really have a huge amount of friends over here that I could really talk to. I just thought everybody was tired, everybody had very dark feelings and I thought this was just a normal part of being a mum and I was working and I was doing night shifts and stuff like that. But retrospectively I was actually really quite unwell.
Sonya:Yeah.
Julie:I didn't seek any treatment or any help for that. I had a really good chat with a really good friend of mine and I sort of realized, okay, that's okay and that was kind of enough. Anyway, I carried on working as a nurse. My husband couldn't get a job, so I was just the primary income earner with my little baby in a country that was quite new to me. So it's a lot. There was a lot, and then and then I had my second baby. He was born about two and a half years or so after my first um. He was. He was a plant like we. We actively wanted a baby.
Julie:I still wasn't well. Like retrospectively I was not well and then when I fell pregnant with him I was quite a difficult pregnancy. I was quite sick. I had varicose veins and I had clots in my legs and stuff and had to sort of inject myself with heparin and like I was quite unwell. But I got through that and my world really did sort of collapse a little bit after he was born.
Julie:He was quite a challenging baby. He was a screamer. He was that baby that you hear in the supermarket where you're like that's not mine. He was a supermarket where you're like that's not mine. He was mine anyway. So so that was really challenging. And he got quite sick and ended up in hospital when he was about eight months old with really nasty pneumonia and gastro, and so that was really tough. And then I looked after him through that.
Julie:I was actually sick at the same time with it, with it as well, and anyway, when he it was about two weeks after he came home and I just fell like really hard in a big heap. I was so anxious, I was so, so thin like I look back at pictures now and I was very, very thin. And finally I think I spoke to somebody that made me realize that this wasn't normal to feel like this and it wasn't normal to have these dreams and these, these thoughts. And so I I got some help, I saw a psychologist and I got on some antidepressants and the world was suddenly a much nicer place and a much better place and I was happy.
Julie:After that I felt like really good and I really enjoyed my kids. And that's when I really sort of got into living in Australia and life in Australia started running, got some great group of friends and yeah, and my job was okay and you know. So things were sort of looking up. We bought a house Like it was good and then carried on working as a nurse, and then my number three appeared, so we weren't planning on a third.
Sonya:Not as well planned as number two.
Julie:Anyway. So there we go. So now I have three beautiful boys and he, you know that was our family complete. We're so grateful. They're so healthy, beautiful boys. And I actually saw Kerry at the time and I said, look, I've had the history of postnatal depression. I was looked after so beautifully with my third baby. I saw a psychiatrist, like there was so much help in place for me because I had had postnatal depression.
Sonya:And can I ask you a quick question there? Do you think that's because of your history, so therefore you were looked after a little bit better, or do you think that the, the awareness of postnatal depression had shifted and therefore there was more care?
Julie:anyway, I think because you have a history of some kind of depression, the, the criteria and the kind of um alert scoring warning score is if someone's had a history of depression or postnatal depression, they're going to get like they go down a different pathway right when they're pregnant again and I was. I had all my babies in the in the public system. So I think, because I'd had a history of postnatal depression, instantly I was referred to a social worker who worked through me through the whole pregnancy and so that was fabulous. So I saw a psychiatrist and the social worker was there the whole time, which is beautiful. She actually worked with me on the ward that I worked on at the hospital. So it was great. So it was really nice like the northern beaches of Sydney. It's like living in a tent. Everyone knows each other, we're all connected in some way. So that was beautiful and she was amazing. Actually she made such a difference to me and that pregnancy.
Julie:And then my third boy was born and um and I I spoke to Kerry at the time and and I said look, I think she's like. She said what do you think about antidepressants? Because I'd stopped them during the pregnancy. Um, and she said look, I think probably just giving you history. You want to make life as easy as you possibly can. Go back on them and I went back on them and it was the best decision because I had the most beautiful postpartum experience Like. It was so awesome and fun and he was a fabulous baby. He was a cafe baby, you know. One week you'd sit on your lap and take him anywhere and he'd entertain the crowd and he was fabulous. Was that because I was a more chilled mum and I didn't have any, you know, anxiety?
Sonya:He didn't feed off my energy.
Julie:Yeah, yeah. So who knows, who knows? So that was fabulous. So my menstrual cycle is very regular but I have always struggled with PMT and again, I just thought that was normal. I have quite nasty mood swings and I'm generally quite a positive, happy person. You know, like socializing, but there would be times in my menstrual cycle that I would want to just go and lock myself in. My room felt quite dark and I describe it as like the roller coaster. So you're on the up and you're all happy, and then after you ovulate, you're on the down and it's all kind of terrible. I thought that was normal. Like you know, we don't really talk about our periods that much. You know, we don't talk. We well, my generation probably. You just accept it, right, you get PMT, you just get on with it, whatever. So I was like oh, okay, and then we get to about I'd say it was like the end of 2019, um, just before COVID.
Julie:So, as I mentioned before, I used to do like running. You do half, half marathons and things um, have a bit of a nickname. I used to have a nickname jogging jewels. So there's a few jewels that live around me and I'd be the jogging jewels because I was always running. I run a lot and then I got to sort of I was working. I was like I need to. I'm getting, I'm getting in my 40s, I need to start doing some strength training.
Julie:I'd looked after a lot of women who had nasty fractures and things like that. I need to do some resistance training. I know this is good for my bones, so and I'd got a bit bored of running. So I was like, okay, I'm going to switch to some kind of weight training and some kind of hip kind of style and training. So I joined a gym and I actually got quite good at it. Anyway, I get to the end of 2019 the workouts that I would be really good at. I suddenly was struggling. I was like this is not right. I'm short of breath, I feel really tired, I'm not enjoying it, and I just felt quite flat, like someone had turned the color down on my life and just yeah, I just felt a bit kind of like this isn't great. So I went to Kerry and I said, look, I feel really tired and like, just, still on your antidepressants at this time antidepressants been on those forever, probably will antidepressant.
Julie:It's been on those forever, probably will stay on those. But I was like this isn't. It wasn't anxiety, it wasn't like I'd experienced before, like I wasn't depressed or anything. I didn't feel depressed, just felt really flat and tired and short of breath and of course, because I'm a nurse, I instantly think I've got some kind of terrible disease. Anyway, I've got some kind of terrible disease, right anyway.
Julie:So she goes look, I will do a full set of bloods and we'll see where you're at, like, we'll just check your iron, we'll check your thyroid, we'll check your um vitamin d, we'll check your liver function, we'll check your urine, your kidneys, which is a normal routine blood test. And it came back with low iron. And she goes oh, do you have, you know, heavy periods? Do you bleed, you know? Do you know, do you have any blood in your poo or anything like that?
Julie:I'm like what's a heavy period? Like I don't really know, because again, we don't talk about how much blood we lose. I was like maybe I don't know really. So, anyway, iron came back low, treated with some iron, and I felt better for a while. I also got investigated for a whole heap of other stuff at that time because I didn't know that my periods were heavy. I didn't realize that it was not normal to pass clots and all you know, quite big volumes of blood and need to be near a bathroom for at least a day a month. You know, I didn't know that wasn't normal right.
Sonya:Well, so you were bleeding that heavily in your normal cycle, but had no idea that that was not normal.
Julie:So therefore you were losing a lot of blood through your so it's probably yeah, so it's probably a combination of probably slightly heavier periods the normal, or heavier periods than normal, and my body not maybe not eating to meet the demands of my body.
Julie:Yeah, not fueling. And yeah. So I was like, okay, start, start iron tablets. And I also got invested because I didn't know at that time she's like, look, I'm going to investigate you for and make sure you're you're not bleeding from your gut, you know, make sure you haven't gone out also or rule out any other causes. So over that, over that time, I ended up having blood in my stool so I ended up having to have a colonoscopy, an endoscopy, a CT of my abdomen and everything. And everything came back normal. So that was great. So I was okay for a little while.
Julie:And then, and then COVID hit. Obviously COVID, homeschooling, three boys working from home, that was pretty full on. And I started to just get really angry, really angry with everyone. And my husband will come back from work and he'd lie on the lounge in front of me as I'm cooking dinner and I'm just like I want to just just go away, like I don't want you to be there, you're just lying in, you're lazy. And so I got really angry and you know, and it was easy to sort of fob it off as being COVID, but then I was like no, I'm, I don't feel well.
Julie:And at that time I think my sister-in-law was going through. She'd started having hot flushes and she'd gone to her GP and she's about four years older than me and she'd gone to her GP and she'd been prescribed hormone replacement therapy. I was like, oh, doesn't that give you breast cancer? She goes doesn't that give you breast cancer? Yes, no, those studies are a load of rubbish. Um, I was like, okay, she's got a PhD and she's very intelligent. Um, she's a dentist. And I was like she knows what she's talking about. She will have read the papers to make sure that she's doing the best for her body.
Julie:So then I started sort of going down a rabbit hole of looking at hormone replacement. I was like I think I've got. I think I've got perimenopause. This term perimenopause came into my world in some way, probably from social media or from my own research. I was like, oh, I don't know what this perimenopause is. So here we are 25 years in healthcare, I'd never heard the term perimenopause before, so there's an alarm bell for you there. So anyway, I started going deep down the rabbit hole of understanding what hormones do, how they work our cycles, how hormones affect our brain, how hormones affect our body, how they affect our bones, how they affect our musculoskeletal function, everything. And then I found out there's estrogen receptors all over your body. There's progesterone receptors everywhere. There's testosterone receptors everywhere. But I just started. My whole world just went all of a sudden, so much of my life made sense, and this is just research that you're doing yourself you weren't talking to Kerry about this at this point it was just
Julie:you deep diving down rabbit holes deep, diving down rabbit holes, I found an amazing menopause advocate, louise Newsome, who works out of the UK. This is a few years ago, so she was known, but probably not as famous as she is now in this, in this space. She she had a free online course called the Confidence in Menopause course. So I did that and I was like, oh, this is fabulous, like this is such an amazing resource. And at this time I was still not feeling great and I went back to see Kerry and I said, look, I think she prescribed me hormone replacement therapy by then in the form of transdermal estrogen, so estrogen that you just put on your skin, and then progesterone, yeah, um, but I was still not right with that and I'd I'd sort of gone quite deep and I said my brain is still really foggy, my strength is not where it is, libidos there's none, and I think I think I'm missing testosterone. And she's like, oh, I don't, it's out of my scope, like I, I just don't know much about about that. Um, I said, look, I've been googling on that patient and she knows I'm a nurse, so she's very respectful of her patients and she really does listen to her patients. Um, I said, look, follow this lady. What she says is common sense, kerry, like it's common sense medicine. She offers a fabulous course like, please, just just explore this. I'm going to go and find someone that will prescribe testosterone for me because I feel like I need to try this. And then about three months later, like we live in a small community, I know kerry personally as well and she emailed me, said oh my god, this is a game changer for women's health, jules. And I said I know, and now she's obviously one of the biggest menopause advocates in the country. Really, um, for, for women's health. And now, when you see women's health through the eyes of hormones, so much makes sense and that's exactly how I feel.
Julie:So you know, I found the testosterone. I got the testosterone and felt heaps better and that was. That was the missing link for me. It's not for everyone but it, but it really was for me, for you. So then then I was like I didn't know about this. I've ran into perimenopause. It hit me between the eyes and I'm like, if I don't know about it, you know, I'm educated. I've worked in health care. My gp didn't know about it. Women don't know about this. We need to talk about it. We need to. We need to let people know about the effects of perimenopause. Um, you know, some people are going to sail through it and some people are going to it's going to knock them for six. And I do feel like if you, if you're, if you have the knowledge and you know what's ahead, you can prepare for it and make some really good lifestyle health choices. And so that's where I sit, really. And then there's obviously the other things.
Julie:So, from there, I had the estrogen, I had the testosterone, I had the progesterone, but something's still not right and I still had brain fog. And I've always been sort of high functioning with everything. I run a million miles an hour. Um, I've always done exercise and jogging jewels. You know, I've always juggled lots of balls. I've got three kids, two dogs, busy house life, but I was still dropping balls. I was still my brain wasn't working properly.
Julie:Um, my marriage wasn't good, like I had issues, and we went to see marriage counsellor and it was during the marriage counselling that one of the sessions she said, look, I'd really like you two to go and watch this video. Um, and it was about partners and it was about, um, neurodiversity actually, and she said I'd really like you to watch this video, um, and we'll have a chat about it. Um, it was about people with ADHD, um, and we watched this video together and she'd initially thought, um, maybe it was my husband and um, anyway, we sat and watched this video together and I was like it's not you, it's me, isn't it? And he's like it's you. So all, yeah, it's you. And I was like, yep, all these things just started to make so much sense and so.
Julie:So then I've gone down the neurodiversity route. So I've had postnatal depression, I've had PMT probably PMDD, which is the more severe type of PMT, the premenstrual dysphoric disorder, which is actually quite profound and then now I've got ADHD and I'm like that's interesting, there must be a link with all these things. So it turns out there actually is a link with all these things. So it turns out there actually is a link. So people with neurodiverse conditions, such as ADHD and such as autism, are much more sensitive to the changes and the fluctuations that are experienced in these times, so in puberty, during the menstrual cycle, during pregnancy and now during perimenopause. So I'm like, oh, I'm now almost 50. I'm 48 years old and I finally understand my brain.
Julie:So now I feel very, very passionately about helping people to understand themselves, their bodies, understand their menstrual cycle so that they can live, work around their cycle, and understand and make lifestyle choices and healthy choices about the long term effects of hormones. So, whether that's, you know, during puberty, whether that's during pregnancy or whether that's just during, you know the perimenopause postmenopause stage in life. So we are governed by our hormones. So this journey I've learned so much about how to feel your body correctly, how to sleep properly, how to train for your body, how to work with your hormones rather than work against them, and I just feel like if someone had told me that someone had had the knowledge and the wisdom that I've now got when I was maybe 18, my life probably would look quite different to the way that it looks now. I love my life, but, yeah, there would probably be a lot of things that would have, yeah, been put into place.
Sonya:Trauma, I would imagine.
Julie:Yeah, yeah. So that's where I am really. I just want to help women. I want to help them live a good life during menopause, during perimenopause and postmenopause, so, um, so I've obviously learned a lot about hormone replacement therapy and I've learned a lot about lifestyle choices as well and it's interesting yeah, in this conversation last night that we have to be really educating people that do take hormone therapy that it's not a silver bullet and it's not a panacea and it's not a one stop fix.
Sonya:All when you have to be always tweaking your lifestyle, looking at your nutrition, looking at your exercise, your sleep, your alcohol, your cigarettes, like whatever it is within your you know, your stress management, your relationships. You cannot just think that going onto hormone therapy is going to be a fix. We have to absolutely be doing everything within our wheelhouse to ensure that we are as healthy as possible.
Julie:Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? It's the, you know. The other thing that happened to me is I stopped drinking alcohol about five years ago. Again, this was I was, you know, I was probably just on my way to kind of enter in that perimenopausal thing, but I was like this does not suit me at all. I can't cope with the hangover anxiety. It doesn't make me feel good, I feel disgusting. This is not how I want to live my life. So I just woke up one day I went that's it, I'm done. Yeah, I read a fabulous book and I threw myself into living a sober life, that that's probably the ADHD playing a part there.
Julie:Yeah, and I think again, I've had periods of my life where I've drank, probably too much, on multiple occasions, but that was I was using alcohol to calm my mind very much and I was like this is I probably would have had what's termed as an alcohol use disorder. So two glasses of wine a night, every night, and it wasn't good and it wasn't making me feel good and I was spending way too much time thinking about alcohol and I was like I've got to stop this. This is not good. I do not want to live like this.
Julie:So, yep, woke up one Sunday morning and that was it probably a year of learning about the effects of alcohol on on your body and the risk of cancer. You can do everything in the life. You can train at the gym, you can, you know, never eat a processed piece of food. You can sleep well, but if alcohol is probably the biggest risk to giving you cancer, right. So so alcohol was. I was like this is this is awful, it's so bad for your body, it's such a toxin. And so I went down that road, learned a lot during that process.
Julie:Actually, I learned a lot about myself, and this is probably where the the ADHD came in, because that had been medicating me for years yeah and then suddenly I had to live with my brain and the noise and the you know, the chaos in my head, and so that's when it did, that's when my wheels did start to fall off, actually in terms of perimenopause and things, and that's when the perimenopause symptoms really did start to to take over, and so there was lots of brain fog, there was lots of anxiety.
Julie:There was lots of brain fog, there was lots of anxiety, there was lots of rage, fear of driving. That was a strange one as well, and I, yeah, and I do spend a lot of time on the road. So I just got really, really anxious about getting in the car and driving. And it's actually quite funny because when I had, after I'd had my first boy, I had a fear of driving, which was very strange, and I thought it was because I'd moved my first boy. I had a fear of driving, which was very strange, and I thought it was because I'd moved to Australia. I'd never had a fear of driving. I couldn't care about driving.
Julie:I actually really like driving, I find it very therapeutic, but I was really scared about driving and actually, postpartum with him, I'd have night sweats, I had a lot of palpitations, I'd wake up in the night with you know having horrible you're obviously someone that's super sensitive to to those hormones fluctuations throughout whichever transition you were in at that that time yeah, it's interesting and you sort of see, okay, you obviously have lots of estrogen when you're pregnant and then when that falls off, like you know, night sweats, particularly like through your breasts and back of my knees and legs, would be very different to a normal. You're being hot, yeah, lots of palpitations, and I remember talking to my sister-in-law at the time going, oh my god, I've got loads of palpitations and, um, yeah, she's like I think you might have hyperthyroidism or something you know yeah, yeah, yeah, low estrogen, yeah, all the other things that, yeah, all the other things, yeah, so that was really quite interesting.
Julie:But yeah, that fear of driving vision changes, dry eyes, gum gums that's my, that's my symptom at the moment, really sensitive gums but yeah, there's been a whole heap of crazy symptoms that you know, know that you wouldn't even think were related joint pain, all that kind of stuff and I think, yeah, and that's one of the um, one of the, the top tips for anybody that is starting to experience those changes in their body that are just out of the ordinary, that you know they're not normal, they're not taking notice of those and and you know, journaling is a great way, whether you do it via an actual journaling app or a notebook, or you just do it on your phone, in your calendar, on your notes section.
Sonya:But keep a track of all of those you know kind of seemingly random and unusual symptoms bizarre symptoms yeah, because you know there is when you I kind of call it like it's basically collecting data about yourself and then, when you've got that data, you can look back and you can retrospectively see the patterns and the the um. The fact that it changes isn't random. This is actually happening every couple of months or every month and, oh look, and that's weird it coincided with this happening as well.
Julie:And that's all information that you can then take on to your gp or your your health practitioner when you do need some support and I think that I I think that's a really important point and this is where I really want people to sort of advocate for themselves. If you do fall within that age range of normal perimenopause, sort of 40 to 50 onwards, you can't diagnose from a blood test. So what happens during that time in perimenopause I've heard it taught Kerry might might have said this it's a stuttering of your ovaries, so it's sort of an interruption in the amount of oestrogen that gets released and it's very stop-start. And so I was an intensive care nurse for many, many years and I think of it as like the ventricular fibrillation, so the, when you watch a medical drama and you see that kind of not looking good and the alarms are going on the screen and it's all like um, all higgledy-piggledy on the screen, that's what your ovaries are doing. And then after menopause you get the flatline and I see that perimenopause. There's a fabulous picture that sort of depicts it's not it's not true to life, but it sort of gives a graphical sort of presentation of what perimenopause looks like. And it looks looks like that VF kind of flattening and that's what your ovaries are doing.
Julie:So if you go to your doctor and you have a blood test. You might be having a blood test when you've got a big peak of estrogen, but then a day later or a few hours later, your estrogen is in your boots again. So it's really, really important to keep a symptom diary. Yeah, yep, and it's a really powerful tool. There's a fabulous again, louise newson. There's a fabulous app, the balance app. You can track your symptoms in there and then you can download that and you can take it to your gt and have a conversation and say look, these are my symptoms. You know, this is this is what I would like. So that's really really important.
Julie:And doctors that do like you absolutely a blood test is what I would like. So that's really, really important. And doctors that do like you absolutely, a blood test is fabulous for looking at things like iron deficiency, looking at your vitamin d again, your kidney function, your liver function, your cholesterol, your thyroid and things. But you can't diagnose perimenopause from a blood test. I think that's really, really important. And if a doctor, if a doctor said, oh, your are okay, like they're not the doctor for you at this time, you know you've got to sort of advocate for yourself or you've got to do your own research. There's plenty of people out there, you know, talking about this and yeah, and find a doctor that actually does understand what's going on in that time.
Sonya:Yeah, think it's really, really important to highlight those things that you just talked about, which is the self-advocacy tracking of the symptoms, and if a doctor gives you feedback that just does not sit right with you, it's going against, perhaps, what you're hearing from other people you know, question it and know that you have every right to go and get a second opinion and to find someone else to have that conversation with Jules.
Sonya:thank you so much for this conversation. I'm really grateful to you for opening up and sharing so much of your story with us. I think it's really important that other people hear these stories because we learn so much about ourselves through other people's stories. So super, super grateful to you. If there was three pieces of advice other than what we just summed up, that you would leave anybody listening, with what would they be?
Julie:Again, I think knowledge is power. I really want people to learn about their bodies. We know ourselves, we know what's wrong with us. We know our bodies really well, particularly if you've been through childbirth. You know when something changes. Know your body. If something doesn't feel right and you think it is related to hormones. There's a lot of resources out there. There's some fabulous people talking all about this. So really do your own research, understand your hormones and if you think that's for you, really advocate for that. Another thing is like when you do go to see your doctor you can take someone with you. You know there's a lot of information that's going to be given to you by your doctor. You know we're lucky enough to live in Australia. We're rich in.
Julie:You know Aboriginal culture. I know you're from new zealand, sonia, and you've got the maori culture. A big part of that culture is the storytelling. You know that, passing stories down through generations and the respect that elders get you know so elders are seen as the wise people. They're the ones that you go to for information. They're really respected, valued and, you know, almost sort of idolised in those cultures. And I think to change that narrative of ageing we've got a lot of work to do here. We need to change the way that ageing is viewed. You know we need to change the way that menopausal women are looked at. We're not a gray haired old lady sitting in a corner in a nursing home. You know 48 year old woman who's still got my hair, still got my teeth. You know I'm not not old.
Julie:I've got so much more to give and learn yeah tell your story, learn through other people, um, yeah, and advocate for yourself. I think the other thing I wanted to say is that sharing that experience. Obviously I'm talking about my lived experience because you know I went to my GP, she listened to me, um, and she's changed her practice as a result of our conversation. And I think every time you go to your doctor, particularly if you're in this position, there is a lack of education around menopause care globally. Right, so we're not special in Australia, it is globally.
Julie:Women's health has suffered many, many years lack of research, lack of funding and lack of priority lack of research, lack of funding and lack of priority. So I think, when you go to talk to your GP, a lot of people haven't caught up to speed with the current research and the current way of thinking about women's health. And I think you have the opportunity, as a woman, to go to your GP, to talk to your GP, teach your GP, and then that GP then has such a profound effect on so many other women. So, you know, by us sharing our stories, us advocating for ourselves, we have the opportunity to advocate for all the other women out there. So I think that's really, really important. Don't be afraid to speak up.
Sonya:I am such a fan of all of the work that you are doing to really push this narrative change, to really encourage people to advocate for themselves and encouraging clinicians to go and upskill so that they can support everybody better as well. Thank you so much for your time today.
Julie:Thank you.
