White Fox Talking
Talk About Mental Health & Well-Being… Why Not? Mark ‘Charlie’ Valentine suffered life changing mental illness, before beginning a journey to recovery and wellness; the darkness of PTSD transformed by the light atop mountains and beyond. Mark is now joining forces with Seb Budniak, to make up the ‘White Fox Talking’ team. Through a series of Podcasts and Vlogs, ‘White Fox Talking’ will be bringing you a variety of guests, topics, and inspirational stories relating to improving mental well-being. Find your way back to you! Expect conversation, information, serious discussion and a healthy dose of Yorkshire humour!
White Fox Talking
E64: Navigating Menopause - Catherine Childe's Mission to Embrace Awareness and Break Stigmas
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Have you ever wondered why menopause isn't a standard topic in our educational curriculum? Join us on a journey with Catherine Childe, the Menopausal Teacher, as she takes us through her personal story of transitioning from a teaching career to becoming a beacon of support for women navigating menopause. Catherine courageously shares her struggles with anxiety and vertigo, revealing how these challenges ultimately led her to a new calling. Her experiences highlight not just the need for greater awareness, but also the societal and mental health implications that come with this natural life stage.
Through our conversation, we tackle the stigma and historical misconceptions surrounding menopause. Catherine discusses why so many remain silent about this significant phase, despite its overwhelming impact on over half the population. Unpacking the diverse symptoms and their effects on mental health, we explore the role of hormone replacement therapy and the holistic approaches that can make a difference. Our discussion sheds light on the scarce resources available, questioning why there's not more support for a condition that affects so many women.
Life doesn’t pause for menopause, and we explore how it impacts women juggling personal and professional responsibilities. Catherine shares insights on managing symptoms while maintaining self-worth and confidence. We highlight the importance of workplace support and community awareness, emphasising how open discussions can offer relief. In a world that often overlooks menopause, our conversation is a call to arms for comprehensive education and the dismantling of outdated stigmas. Join us as we aim to empower individuals with knowledge and tools to advocate for their health and well-being.
The Menopausal Teacher (Web)
The Menopausal Teacher (Instagram)
Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast. I'm Matt Charlie-Valentine, and at side of me at the controls is Seb. Hi, charlie, that should do with say Seb Budniak A bit more formal. You can actually pronounce it. Not many people can. Well, I've known you long enough, haven't I? And it's been mentioned a few times lately. Really, why? Well, finalist in the Head Outside Awards and then a community champion in the? It's all about rewards, though, is it? It's not about awards at all, is it really? But it's nice, isn't it? Absolutely? Yeah, and the other thing is it's also nice because it normalizes mental health conversations, I believe, and that's why we're here. We are, yeah. So yeah, the other one was in the favor awards the community champion for white folks talking. So that's cool. I heard they duped you they duped me, yes.
Speaker 1:so ricky and ben invited me down to present an award and then I said I needed to go because I had to drive away the next morning at 6 am. So I said I'm off at nine, half past nine, 25 to 10, five more minutes, and then, yes, I had to get up, walk down the catwalk and receive an award. I've seen a picture. I made the most of the catwalk, I must admit. I must admit, yeah, but that's all very good, but forget all the shenanigans and pats on the back, because we've actually got a guest in. We have got a guest in and who is it?
Speaker 1:It is Catherine Child and Catherine is the menopause teacher. Welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:You're very welcome, very welcome. Could you give, give us and the listeners a brief yeah, as in don't give, don't give everything away a brief insight as to yourself and what you do basically, and how this is sort of what then we'll start from. Give us a starting point to go on from yes, so I am the menopausal teacher.
Speaker 3:I used to be a teacher and I gave up work due to the symptoms of menopause. I had a few years out due to the menopause and the symptoms it caused and then started my own business helping other ladies going through menopause, training workplaces on how to support their staff and just raising awareness.
Speaker 1:Cool. So you mentioned that, which is something we'll want to talk about a little bit later on. But this thing about you left work because of the menopause when was that?
Speaker 3:teaching four and five year olds, so a really busy classroom. I started having a little bit of anxiety, a bit more than normal heavier periods, headaches, not sleeping very well and then I started to lose a lot of confidence. So things that I would have normally done really easily teaching started to become really, really difficult. So things like typing up reports for children, I would over, read, read, read, read over again because I didn't trust myself that I hadn't made any mistakes, or typing emails up It'd take me ages to type emails up. I just felt like I wasn't a very good teacher anymore. I just couldn't seem to have the confidence to do what I used to do and we were given loads of extra things that we needed to do in the classroom and I ended up signing off with stress from work and the doctor signed me off, not really attributing it to menopause, just thinking I was just under a lot of stress because there was a lot of pressure going on in the school. I had three months off work with stress and then took redundancy from a job, thinking I wasn't able to teach anymore, just lost all confidence, all resilience to what I'd been doing for over 10 years, 15 years maybe I did supply for a little bit after that, thinking that would be a bit easier because I didn't have all the paperwork, all the pressures. And then COVID came along and obviously the world stopped. There was no more teaching for me to do at that point in time. During COVID times, things got a lot worse. My symptoms got a lot worse. Again, put it down to COVID pressures of COVID family life. Everybody was really stressed with COVID worrying about what was happening. My symptoms just seemed to get worse and worse till the point it got to. So by this point we're sort of into late 2020, early 2021.
Speaker 3:I woke up with the room spinning, really really bad vertigo, really really dizzy and spent the whole of that year really really dizzy. Simple things, just like hanging washing up on the clothes horse couldn't do that. Emptying the dishwasher couldn't do that. I was just so dizzy, felt really sick with it. That was really damaging for mental health.
Speaker 3:I think the dizziness it was just saw loads of different specialists doctors, nurses, consultants, physios and nobody again mentioned menopause. It was just well, you've got this, you've got that. Loads of different things mentioned. Nobody really pinpointed what it was. It was only then, when it got to Christmas of that year where I just felt absolutely nothing, no joy walking on the shops, just felt absolutely nothing at all. The January of that year, that's when I kind of started to wonder if maybe I thought it was maybe perimenopause, reading a few books a friend had mentioned it to me watching a few programs, and everything started to click into place. Then I'd got this, I'd got this, I'd got this and it all kind of thought actually, yeah, maybe that's what it might be. And then eventually found a nice consultant who said, yeah, it is perimenopause and that's what you've been going through since 2019.
Speaker 1:So we have this word menopause, and I suppose people might be wondering now why, as a mental health-related podcast, we're talking about menopause, and for me it's sort of some of the statistics that I've been reading and looking into and about the amount of depression and I think I've read one in ten people that go through menopause may try to take their own life. We're not talking one in ten people of a certain, we're talking over half the population of the world that way. So one, what is menopause? And then we can get ranty, want for a bit and think this thing about stigma and why we don't know all these things. Why is it not taught in schools? So we just go through what actually is perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause.
Speaker 3:Just back to that statistic. I think that's really important because there are ladies who have tried to take their own life because of such severe symptoms. So it is a thing, some such severe symptoms.
Speaker 1:So it is a thing, you know, some symptoms are so bad that some of these have got to that point, and it's well.
Speaker 1:I've got an extensive list of symptoms that you sent to us, and so we can mention some of them as well, because I think this is this is something that I have come across, not come across. This is something that obviously, I'm aware of and and listen to when I'm doing research on mental health, podcasts and this. This is something that I wanted to talk about anyway, but there just seems to be this sort of cloud around it for some reason. In my opinion, as a middle-aged guy, I'm still hanging on to middle age not old age, you're all right. Just about I'm feeling old age. So what is menopause and what is perimenopause?
Speaker 3:Okay, so three different stages of menopause. So perimenopause is the beginning part of menopause, so that's the time leading up to menopause, so it can last four to ten years. So if you think, if it lasts 10 years, that's a huge chunk out of a lady's working life or just out of their life in general. 10 years is a huge chunk. So that's when your hormone levels are just going all over the place. They're up and down hour by hour, really erratic, and that's what's causing a lot of those sort of more severe symptoms. So then menopause is after you've had 12 months of no period, so you'll have had to go on 12 months without any period at all to be classes actually have gone through the menopause. And then post-menopause is the time after menopause.
Speaker 1:So that's when your levels are either really really low or non-existent and that's when you've you've completed the menopause so, if we put something into perspective, the two biggest I would say the two biggest changes in a human body would be pregnancy and then menopause yeah and it's both on female side and we don't.
Speaker 1:But we tend to talk a lot about male mental health and this. This must you know. It's like you say. Well, like we say, it's half the population of the world or over half, it's, it's 53%. Is it something of female or men, straight? So yeah, should we go on a rant about the stigma?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So why is it so? I've got my opinions, but I'll let you tell me yours, because alarm will go off when I start ranting. So why is this not part of normal education? Because it's something that happens to over half the population.
Speaker 3:I mean, I wasn't taught it in school. I don't know about you two, but it was not mentioned at all in school when I was in school. It is now. I know my son's my eldest has definitely had it.
Speaker 3:Some men have nothing major, but he's had a brief discussion of it, but it certainly wasn't talked about. All I thought was you have hot flush, your periods stop, that's it. And I've got neither of those. So I haven't had hot flush, I've still got periods. So I wouldn't have necessarily known that that's what was happening to me, because I haven't got the typical symptoms of what you would think and what sort of talked about in the media is hot flushes and lack of periods mostly, not all the other list of symptoms that you've perhaps seen even in my where, in my other work, head outdoor instructor, if we, what I tried to do is if we start in a long day's walk, what I'll try to do is address the three p's, which are poo, p and periods.
Speaker 1:And some people just look away because you know if, if, if lady has to go attend to something, when we have to give her a bit of some time, especially out in the wild. But you know, there seems to be this stigma about something that is part of life to over half the population.
Speaker 3:I think it's that old-fashioned view for some that they don't want to talk about periods, and I think for women as well. I think it's still embarrassing.
Speaker 3:I think for me, when I was first going through it, I wouldn't tell anybody because, I'm still relatively young to be going through it I'm only 45 so I think and I started going through at 39. So it's kind of you don't? I didn't want people to know at first because I didn't want people to see me as old and frumpy and sort of less feminine almost. So obviously that's wrong now because I talk to people about it. So obviously you know I have to do that. But you know I'd stand with a friend whispering about it in the school playground because I didn't want anybody else to overhear that we were both going through it the school playground, because I didn't want anybody else to overhear that we were both going through it and this it's from what I've, from what I've been looking into.
Speaker 1:It's not just there's not like a set age is there no. I think I've read the most prevalent time for a female to take their own lives is between 45 and 55, which sort of ties in to the sort of key time for perimenopause and menopause. But this can happen at any well very young age from starting the periods, I suppose.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there have been some really young girls going through it. The usual age is sort of by sort of your mid-40s, you're probably in some form of perimenopause, but obviously it can be earlier or later and last a long time I guess, because everyone's different.
Speaker 2:the symptoms for each individual will be different and they will also have different levels of symptoms, so some might feel it really strongly and some may not feel it at all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, some may be really lucky and just sail through it. Some may have really really severe symptoms where they might not be able to get out of bed on a morning. Some may just manage. But yeah, everybody is different, so my friend wouldn't necessarily be the same as me and vice versa. We'd all have a different experience. We may have some of the similar symptoms but wouldn't feel exactly the same time or exactly the same way. So you can't really compare to somebody else.
Speaker 2:Which, I guess, then makes it also difficult for the medical profession to identify what you are experiencing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, difficult for the medical profession to to identify what you are experiencing. Yeah, yeah, definitely, and I think, because there's so wide range of symptoms as well, and if you don't typically present with a hot flush, like a period, then that makes it because they do everything by the book. Yeah I'm not gonna go there, but it was going on. We probably shouldn't go down that road.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, well I can. I'll be honest. Some of it is and I need to get the word out misogynistic. I can never say it. Say it Misogy, misogynistic. Yeah, and that's who wrote the medical books, isn't it? You know the Western sort of scientists, and unfortunately, at that time, women were second-class citizens anyway. They didn't even have a right to vote.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm sure I've read something that in the Victorian times and I don't know where I've read this, but women were almost treated like they were going mad when they were going through the menopause and some were even sectioned because of menopause years and years back. So that's just.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a dodgy old background we're all living. We're sort of fighting off and trying to. I suppose there's a comparison with the mental health, though, isn't there? As in each mental health case, person is an individual, so my PTSD is different to someone else's PTSD, even though it falls under that same bracket. We've all got different traits, different symptoms and different ways of handling things, and I'm just looking at this, I'll show that to the camera. Rather, there must be 50 different symptoms, and that's just a list of some of them, isn't it that you've sent through there?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And there's the ones like mood swings, irregular swings, irregular periods, fatigue, anxiety, depression, which you know, mental health related. I suppose. If someone's going through a number of these and then he's working as well, then the weight of that and the weight of stress and the weight of everything else going on yeah, I mean you couldn't work with some of those, some of those symptoms like the brain fog and the memory.
Speaker 3:If you're, for example, if you're in sort of a high flying job, you're, you know, working in a big, high office block in London presenting and you forget what you're doing to a corporate client, I mean the pressure of that alone as well would cause, you know, all manner of other symptoms.
Speaker 3:But some of those things you just wouldn't be able to actually, for example, if you prescribe medicines or something and it's a job where you've really got to be accurate and you're forgetting things, some of the jobs that you just wouldn't necessarily be able to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've just got that thing up there. One in ten women in the United Kingdom. So that's the United Kingdom where obviously there is information about. I suppose in other countries there's nothing. In other cultures people do or women do. After you know, go through this and I think that's a key term and it go through it as though it's a battle through. Yeah, and you need to. You know it's your own personal experience. I suppose, like you were saying then, seb, people have got different symptoms, show different symptoms and then in them symptoms, there's a scale.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But there's so many symptoms yeah then the lap overs could be intense with brain fog, but less with fatigue, or but then I think the physical symptoms then can have an impact on your mental health symptoms as well.
Speaker 3:So I have migraines. So you know migraines cause anxiety because you're wondering when your next one's coming and if you get them on a regular basis, you know, then you're trying to work and you're wondering, well you know, am I going to get a migraine? So, like coming here today, I'm thinking, well, I'm going to get migraine when I'm coming here today, and then you're letting somebody down and it's that anxiety that you don't want to let somebody down and you know that plays then.
Speaker 1:So your physical symptoms then start playing to mental health symptoms as well and things like fatigue that can play into mental health symptoms as well, because if you're tired and you're not sleeping, yeah that has an impact on all the symptoms we're just gonna say, because obviously stress is a big, has a big impact on sleep anyway, but then that's going to magnify other symptoms and then magnify, or is it magnify, amplify, amplify and just amplify the situation? Really it's just going to knock on effect, knock on effect so it starts moving into this. It is a serious mental health issue so menopause? So it's when it basically the body's changing and hormones stop being produced by the body yeah, well, the perimenopause when they're all over the place.
Speaker 3:So that's when they're really erratic, so they'll just be going all over the place throughout the month. So it's a little bit like your normal period, but times a million, so your normal PMS. That'll be just amplified in perimenopause. So it could be so much worse than it would have been in a normal period, in a normal lead, not going through the menopause.
Speaker 1:It could be irregular periods. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:But I've not had that. Not every woman has that. A lot of them just still have normal, normal periods, but still have some of the other symptoms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I suppose if someone's, I suppose if someone's still having the normal periods and the medical world, hopefully they are moving through with us because they're watching something earlier about where the clinics are and there's like one north of leeds before you get to scotland. So you're thinking, well, why is?
Speaker 1:there's not a lot of clinics, especially if it's not if it's half the population or over half, then why is this not a bigger thing? Because what I'm trying to think of is the knock-on effect to everything. Really, people finishing work early. So say for yourself, as a skilled teacher, come out of that area and do something else. That means there's all that skill base lost. And we're talking about skill base of people. What 40s could be, 35s could be, you know, mid 30s leaving an industry after they've done all the training, simply because of the symptoms of it's not a condition, is it? It's I don't want to say a natural process, because when you say a natural process, people just say people think, well, it's something you've got to do well, I do use that phrase, but I also say yes, it's natural, but if you are going through it it doesn't feel natural.
Speaker 3:So it is natural, but it doesn't feel like that to somebody who's going through it, even though it is so there are, um, there are treatments, yeah, and I think the big one is hrt, isn't it?
Speaker 1:hormone repair therapy, but there's been. I was listening to something today about the issues with that, with the I can name the study. Are you gonna, you're gonna back me head off women's health initiative? And yeah, and if I get this right, they spent a billion dollars on this I don't know this.
Speaker 3:I don't know the exact figure. I have my own thoughts on that study so, yeah, from what?
Speaker 1:from my learning and you can, and then you can correct me if you want then they just spent a billion dollars on it. But then they mainly did it with people that were already sort of post-menopause and giving them hormone replacement therapy. The problem was it wasn't body-suited, it wasn't body-equal, so these people have already gone through menopause and will maybe add other symptoms anyway, and then the big thing that came out of it was HRT is like a plus 20% chance of breast cancer.
Speaker 3:It scared women.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it scared me when I first was handed it. I mean, I don't know if you've seen, or you've probably seen, inside a bag of it.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:The leaflet is literally you could pull it out. I mean it's really long but it's outdated. The leaflet information in there is outdated. It's based on sort of really old information. But yeah, that study was done on older ladies, ladies who were perhaps already at a more increased risk of other health conditions as well. So it wasn't necessarily a fair study that was done. I think there was a big dropout rate as well people in the study, but it destroyed people's confidence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then, from what I heard, somebody, somebody grabbed the sort of grass, the this, this data, and then went to the press with it without it actually being all verified and looked at, and that's what's so. That could have cost. That's cost lives, and hasn't it?
Speaker 3:could have done, yeah, or quality of life.
Speaker 1:Quality of life, yeah.
Speaker 3:Or relationships as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, damage, Just thinking out of the box here, we've got HRT as a treatment, whatever people think about it. Do you think diet could have an effect on menopause and if it could improve it? Are there any studies for that? Because diet can usually fix a lot of things If you change your diet, because we know Charlie changes his diet and he's looking well now, but do you think that could be replaced, or are there any other treatments?
Speaker 3:I think it's a whole lifestyle, I think that's just for mental health and in general, for your own, everybody's well-being. I think things like diet, sleep, exercise, natural daylight get outside in the daylight, just having that natural light, good sleep hygiene, stress management All of that will obviously stop drinking, stop smoking. You know, none of those things are going to help. If you know, if you're having a bottle of wine on a night, then you can take as much HRT as you want, but it's probably going to be counterproductive. So I think there's loads of other things you can do if you didn't want to go down the hrt route, which some women don't and you don't have to. It's personal choice and it's obviously risk-based as well. But you can certainly try exercise and and all of that and that will help healthy lifestyle measures is not going to harm yeah, I think this.
Speaker 1:then this thing of and I'm not one for taking sort of medical interventions, if I could help it but this thing of a raised risk of something, if you're already smoking 10 a day and you're obese because there's a lot of obese people in this country, and you're obese and you're drinking, then it's not really. You can't really blame the intervention, can you? No, I think you've just said it basically there, that if you practice self-care, and this thing about balanced out, whatever that is.
Speaker 3:We're not getting into that seb today. That's hard to do because, if you know, if you're feeling rubbish, then you want to eat rubbish.
Speaker 1:So it is very difficult when you're going through it to then say you know right, well, I'm not going to have that chocolate tonight because yeah, I suppose there's always that if you're feeling low or anxious or sort of a bit depressed as such, or even tired, fatigued, and you reach out for that sugary ward, then is that five minutes of satisfaction before the drop at the other side. But then do you blame the therapy, do you blame the menopause for mood changes or whatever. Oh, it's a difficult one, isn't it? But there's so much going on, like I say, with the list of symptoms there, it is massive. I did actually watch the thing with Davina today, which was really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and listened to her on a podcast and listened to the Zoe podcast about it and I think they mentioned all about diet and it's just starting. One thing that I was keen on and I can relate to it, because my dad was in a dementia home up until recently and I noticed how many ladies were in there, so only like two guys and probably eight to five. At times it went up and down, but mainly women and apparently after menopause the lack of oestrogen can lead to that, can't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there is some sort of thinking that it could do. Yeah, Alzheimer's dementia.
Speaker 1:Which is not great, is it? But would there be no natural ways of getting the amount of hormones that you wanted from diet Without the HRT?
Speaker 3:I mean, I think there is estrogen in some foods, but it probably wouldn't be enough in comparison to what you would get in HRT. So it's dependent on you, isn't it, whether you want to take that, if the risks outweigh the benefits, your medical history, how you tolerate it as well. It's not everybody tolerates it very well. It's very individualised. You wouldn't necessarily take the same as somebody else. It's all very tailored when you come in.
Speaker 1:You mentioned brain fog and we'd made a joke a bit about me forgetting something. So I've got brain fog, but obviously you've said that you, you know, you've experienced that and you've had to leave your job because of it. So can we just give listeners an insight your personal of what brain fog was or is?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it wasn't just brain fog, but yeah, brain fog is. It's like not being able to remember words you want to say, not being able to remember a sentence that you want to say. You might be saying a sentence and then forget halfway through what you were going to say or what you were saying. It's like word finding. So, like the other night, I was trying to say I need to get the shredder out of the cupboard and I'm going well, I need to get the strimmer out. It's not the strimmer out of the cupboard and it's just little things where you just can't find that word or you forget that word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do that all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Don't look at me. I know I do it. I do it while we're recording, you know. But yeah, I suppose that.
Speaker 3:It's like forgetting where you know, like if I park. So I have huge anxiety that I'm going to forget where I parked my car. If you go to the shopping centre and you park your car, it's like, well, am I going to forget where I parked it? And then not be able to remember where you did mention this that you didn't drive myself.
Speaker 1:So it can impact your life that much, as in you'll be worried about not finding your car again.
Speaker 3:Well, I would be worried about not getting here. Driving anxiety is bad, really bad.
Speaker 1:And I suppose that's individual though.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Everyone has their own.
Speaker 3:Although I have spoken to a lot of ladies who have the same Driving anxiety does seem to be quite a big thing when I've been speaking to other ladies about it.
Speaker 2:Wow. So all these symptoms that must have a huge effect on the families and the husband and must be quite difficult to explain to them what's going on as well. How did you cope with that?
Speaker 3:I don't think very well at first because I didn't know what was going on. I had no idea what was going on with me, and then there was obviously a lot of changes because I'd left my job. So then obviously you lose your financial security when you lose your job, and then obviously COVID as well, so that was like just a double whammy. It was just like a wrecking ball going through my entire life basically and not having any clue why that was happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I suppose coping with M issues anyway is going to give you increased anxiety, low mood.
Speaker 1:So, you're thinking it's possibly stress. So he's thinking it's probably. Look at all these stressful situations. So I know, like personal practice, what I've installed on myself now is that when I'm going it's all getting so much, I'll try and sit down, calm down and look at all these different things. But then if there's something in the background, obviously it's not going to happen to myself. But if there's something in the background that you're not even looking at with menopause, you're not even looking at that and that could be the overriding thing that's exacerbating all these symptoms.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Bloody hell.
Speaker 3:But I think it is, and then because obviously all my children were slightly younger then, they didn't know what was going on. So they just see that you either you've not got as much patience or you're more tired. So, like days out and things you know, you might just have to be sitting down where they're, you know they're going off and having fun, and you're just sat down because you're just too exhausted to be running around. I remember when I first started HRT they were playing football and I thought actually I can stand up here, and this was like the first time that I'd felt maybe I can just run around for a little bit, and I don't think I've had that for a good while, that sort of burst of energy first of all, I don't know if we've covered this.
Speaker 1:How long did it take you to realize, how long did it take you to get treatment, and then how long till you noticed an improvement?
Speaker 3:so I think 2019 it was probably 2022 before I'd got some sort of formal diagnoses and then treatment. And then treatment was very hit and miss for about a year and a half and then it had to be very without going into loads of medical details. It had to be really tailored because of sort of my medical history. Then it was probably about three years, I think.
Speaker 1:Really. Yeah, it's a big thing to carry, isn't it?
Speaker 3:No, maybe not three years actually, or maybe two years yeah.
Speaker 1:But I suppose, for these people, these women, ladies that go through this, and there could be I don't know a lady with an alternate person in another dimension, and there could be either don't know a lady with a alternate person in another dimension, and there could be either end of a scale, yeah, and one may be really struggling, one may not, and one may go through in a short period of time, may go through for years and years and years yeah, yeah so that must be different.
Speaker 1:yeah, I suppose that's, I suppose that's difficult for the medical industry then as well, or the?
Speaker 3:do we say industry, profession, profession, let's say profession, yeah because by industry it's sort of getting to pharmaceuticals, I think it is. But then I also think well, half the population are going to go through this Exactly.
Speaker 1:it's massive.
Speaker 3:So there'll be more awareness. Maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean, without going off on a tangent. You'd think that's a captive market, wouldn't you? So there should be these sort of medical interventions readily available. You know, if we can, if we can vaccine the world four times over instantly, right, let's not go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:So how can we break down the stigma, and is there anything that men can change to support females?
Speaker 1:You're going to open a can of worms here, aren't you? But I think that's why we're here really. So let rip if you want.
Speaker 3:I think it's understanding first. I think it's having that knowledge. So you've got that list of symptoms now you probably wouldn't have thought there was that many symptoms or even known about some of those symptoms. So I think, raising awareness so that you do know that there is some you.
Speaker 3:so I think raising awareness so that you do know that there is some you know, there's different symptoms that you might not know, things on there like sense of smell on there which I would have known about, but that drives me insane, I cannot but the sense of smell.
Speaker 2:Is it better or worse?
Speaker 3:just so heightened, so heightened really yeah, like cooking smells. I just I can't stand.
Speaker 3:Teenage boys bedrooms can't stand that's fair you know it, just it's awful, but it sounds stupid to some people. You know, if you say, well, just, my sense of smell is really, really bad, people think, well, if that's the only thing you've got wrong, then but it's not it, you know, for some it's really, it really bothers you. So it's just you know little things like that. So, having that awareness that there are some unusual symptoms on there and you can be a bit more supportive maybe, I think particularly in the workplace as well, having that, that knowledge of if your colleagues going through it, so you can perhaps be a bit more tolerant, not saying the wrong thing to your colleagues, because there are still some workplaces that do say the wrong things.
Speaker 1:What like MasterChef Topical Possibly? Oh fuck, yeah, yeah, stick that in your pipe. Pbc A term that I've heard is second spring. I don't know if you've heard that where once this process is over and I suppose you alluded to it there when you've noticed the HR, noticed the hrt working, that's actually can, I can actually do this again yeah, I mean, I didn't think I'd ever be able to go back to work.
Speaker 3:When I was really dizzy, before I'd spoken to anybody, I knew what was going on. I thought I'd never be able to go back to work again. I felt so ill.
Speaker 1:I just thought that was that was it now how did that play out on your mental health personally, not just like? You know what I mean. We're trying to round up these symptoms and including depression anxiety. You mentioned anxiety. Would that be because that's going to exacerbate in it by thinking, well, I can't do this now, I can't do that and I think you feel like, well, what purpose?
Speaker 3:because then so I wasn't working, I couldn't go to work half the time, I couldn't do like the household tasks. So it's like, well, what, what was my purpose? Really see, you lose all sense of yourself and all sense of purpose. Then then, and then you're too tired to, you know, go out for the day with children. So then it's like, well, what am I doing? What, what am I doing here now? You just lose all self-worth and you know. And then if you put putting weight on, for example, like some ladies put like loads of weight on and things, so then that's having a knock-on effect on you.
Speaker 1:So your confidence yeah, that's something that stood out. For me is this thing about confidence, because what happens? That when the estrogen levels drop, then fats are metabolized differently and then they also get stored in different places, because obviously guys tend to keep belly fat, but because ladies might become pregnant they don't have belly fat, but once they're not menstruating, then they can keep belly fat.
Speaker 3:I suppose that's a big hit with me, because then I was noticing that I couldn't fasten my clothes up. So then that was at the same time where I wasn't working and I couldn't do the jobs I used to do in the house, so then I couldn't even fasten my clothes up. So then it's just like a whole.
Speaker 2:It's like a never-ending yeah loop yeah negativity yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then I wasn't. I didn't know what was happening, so it wasn't like I could go and say, well, I'll try this treatment, then I'll feel better, because I didn't know what was wrong with me, because I didn't have that awareness so in your opinion, how much would a greater way look at the look at what we're doing with podcasting and that there's when I've looked, you know, and talked about people like doing a podcast.
Speaker 1:You know this podcast is 10 a penny for mental health now and everyone's trying. You know it's the big sort of push through and we mentioned covid. It's after covid. It's this big thing about mental health. Do you think that's how big menopause should be?
Speaker 3:topics about menopause I think so, yeah, yeah, because I don't think everybody knows all the symptoms still. I still think there's a long way to go people to know all the different kind of symptoms I'll be honest.
Speaker 1:If I studied them, that list of symptoms for the week, I won't be able to list them all well, I could name them all now either.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know it's extensive, isn't it? And it starts off with 50 there and then you know this is a list of like 50 symptoms and there's more. But, like I said right at the start, this is a massive thing, isn't it? When you've, you know, it's a massive change In the body, I suppose on a biology side of it. Would this have happened in the past when we didn't live as long? I don't know.
Speaker 3:I think that's the problem, because it's a good question actually.
Speaker 3:I think women have babies later as well. So obviously I've got three children and one of mine is still quite young, so I'm going through it where one of mine is quite young. So I'm still having to be quite, I'm still having to do that parenting, whereas perhaps you wouldn't have done, you know, years ago, because they'd have perhaps left for university and you wouldn't necessarily have to be juggling a young family at the same time as going through with menopause as well. So you've kind of got that added pressure these days because people are having the children later than they used to.
Speaker 1:I suppose the pressures of society with, you know, like you say, studying, getting a good job, getting a good, getting a career, and then having children later, and then this comes, this, you know, then you start with menopause. It's all that big, massive knock-on effects yeah, so throwing elderly family members?
Speaker 2:you know you're trying to juggle yeah, so you started talking about this. How did you start? What are you doing? Who do you reach out to?
Speaker 3:So I kind of tried to utilise some of my degree rather than wasting my teaching degree. So I thought that might be a good thing to do. Try and use some of that that I trained for, but then try and help other ladies so that they don't have to leave their jobs particularly in education as well and they can continue working. If they've got the awareness that I didn't have, they can maybe go and ask for support. The workplaces can provide support, which doesn't have to be anything extensive, just simple measures. Just try and keep those ladies in work, because retirement age is pretty high and if you're getting symptoms at 30, there's no way you're going to be going into your late 60s working like that. So they need some support to help them thrive and get through to retirement age.
Speaker 2:Do you think it helped you talking about it? Because we've had quite a few guests in and it always felt like if they talked about something it'd help them in a way. Do you think it had a similar effect on you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think so. I think having a network of support and people to talk to makes a difference, because even if it's just have a joke about it because it doesn't, it doesn't have to all be serious.
Speaker 2:There are, you know, funny things that happen and you know it doesn't have to all be doom and gloom, you can just have, you know it's funny you should say this because I actually have a question written down and I was like what is the funniest and most surprising misconception about menopause you've encountered?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, I don't know Misconception. I think well, it's not funny, but I think the misconception is the periods. I mean, that's not a funny one, but that is the misconception that your periods stop and a lot of the ladies I've spoke to are still having their periods.
Speaker 3:I could tell you one of my funny stories, if you like. Yeah, if you don't mind. Well, it wasn't funny at the time. So obviously I spoke about migraines, so I have my. I've had migraines since I was about 10 years old, but they got really really bad a couple of year ago. So I was getting like three or four a week, really debilitating. So if I get migraine, the aura, I have to lay down and then it's about four hours until I kind of can get up but I still feel a bit rough. So we were going out for the day. So again, this is how it impacts on families. Well, we're going out for the day.
Speaker 3:It was the cat's first birthday, so the children wanted a party. So we said, right, we'll go look at, so we'll go back, we'll go buy food for the cat to have a tea party. So we set off in the car. Five minutes into the journey I started getting the aura, knew I was going to be ill, but I thought, right, I'll just push through, we'll be fine, take medication, I'll be fine, we'll get. We'll get to the shops, I'll be absolutely fine.
Speaker 3:Got to the shops, I wasn't fine. My head was really, really hurting. So they all went in, got all the food, I thought, okay, I'll be fine when I get home, set off back home. And I wasn't fine. I ended up being sick. Nothing in the car to be sick in, other than shopping bag, fabric shopping bag. I had to vomit in the fabric shopping bag with a hole in, leaked sick all over me, all over the car, yeah. So I mean like I look back on that now. Well, the cat's out waiting for a party. Well, I'm vomiting into a fabric shopping bag but you hole in it with a hole in it.
Speaker 3:But you know, I look back at that and I think, well, you know that it was a funny moment. It wasn't funny at the time because you know it did impact. You know they had to wait for me to be better to have a. You know it was only for the cat, I know. But you know, it's just little things like that where you know it impacts on family life. But I can look back at that now and think, well, it was funny at the time are there any recommended resources or books or websites or support groups that you can recommend?
Speaker 2:how about?
Speaker 1:the menopausal teacher. Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:I think any workplace should have that training.
Speaker 1:Yeah, would be, really useful if you have to cut. If you just mentioned a couple of resources, then we can go through what you actually do with that if you want yeah, I think davina on channel four.
Speaker 3:She's got two brilliant documentaries on there. If you haven't seen those, definitely go watch those. There's so much information there and it addresses the misconceptions as well. I think if you want to use hrt, it talks about that, the risks and benefits. It addresses that misconception on there, so that's really, really good.
Speaker 3:There's a couple of good books as well louise newson, I don't know I think that's the lady was on the zoe, yeah she's got podcasts, she's got books brilliant and naomi potter wrote a book with davina mccall as well, so they're all on to buy as well and this is not just for female, but also for the male population or for everyone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah I'm just thinking that, just going back to you saying that your son, I don't know, is the. Is the education for girls and boys the same or is it? Is it like a separated classroom, like sex education? When I were a kid, guys got lads going there, girls going there I don't actually know, I haven't actually asked him.
Speaker 3:I don't actually know it's an awareness.
Speaker 1:I mean it should be.
Speaker 3:I think it should be.
Speaker 1:They should all be in together right from the very beginning, talking about periods, and I think everybody should be in well, it's likely that well it's, yeah, it's very likely that somebody every person's going to know somebody that's going through menopause.
Speaker 3:Let's try to say yeah we say in training that everybody will be affected by menopause because even if you're not female, you may have a female partner or you'll have a mum, a sister, an auntie, a friend, a daughter colleague. Everybody at some point in their life will come across a female who will be going through the menopause. You having that awareness means that you can help somebody in the future.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I keep going back to, that you won't remember like 70s and 80s British humour where they used to go lady thing, yeah, you know, talk about lady things and then lady of the house might be in a bad mood. Oh, it's a menopause. You know stuff like that. How much has that sort of that attitude held back with education and awareness?
Speaker 3:I think so. I think some teachers don't want to talk about it either. I think if you get handed that sex education element, block not every teacher wants to teach it either.
Speaker 2:I think there's still A lot of work to do.
Speaker 3:There is a lot of work to do. Yeah, I think there is still.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what we're doing here, isn't it? A few, hopefully, stigma, and I still hear it going out to places. I still hear it as well that so the menopausal teacher and what you do with this, you're basically offering this is, this is to business yeah to businesses.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So go to businesses online and just raise awareness about science, symptoms, what they can do in the workplace to help, legal implications if they don't, and things like managers and hr.
Speaker 1:Or just raise awareness just generally for colleagues so they can support each other yeah, I'm gonna ask about that the legal implications of somebody having to leave work because they're having symptoms of their menopause. How does that work out?
Speaker 3:not good for the business if they're found to be, if it's found to be yeah yeah, there's lots of. I don't know if you've googled some, but there's some quite big payouts right for some companies who haven't necessarily done the right thing, like in the hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 1:Oh really, yeah. I mean, it's not a lot of money these days, is it really hundreds of thousands?
Speaker 3:I think they got off lightly with some of the things that they were saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. Yeah, what I thought about was like Davina Cole on her. I think it was on podcast, or even in that episode she was saying how she was going to have to leave her job.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was that it was either take this therapy and I suppose she's in a place where I would imagine private health care and stuff where she can get looked after straight away, whereas somebody from a working class background may be struggling to get onto the system, and she's decided right, listen, I'm going to lose my, I'm going to not be able to work, so she's straight into that. So she's very fortunate that way.
Speaker 3:And that's really sad, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Because if you think how many women?
Speaker 3:can't access that and aren't getting that or given other alternatives to what they need.
Speaker 1:Well, you're very lucky to access a GP appointment, aren't you? Yeah, let alone. But then if someone's, if this is going on and on and on for years and it could be diagnosed as you've got depression here, you've got fatigue here, yeah, you know, I suppose it's that common thing of the hot flushes Until somebody says that then it's probably misdiagnosed. So, yeah, sorry Side track to them from what you're doing. So how does these sessions where you go into these business, how are they received throughout a workforce, a mixed workforce?
Speaker 3:Really well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they've been really well received.
Speaker 1:And is this, I suppose do they come looking to you to come into the business, or do?
Speaker 3:you approach the businesses A bit of both really. Yeah, a bit of both. But, yeah, they've all been really positive. I think they've all really appreciated the knowledge. I think when they see the list of symptoms, they're all audible gasps by the time it gets to the last column, I think.
Speaker 1:Well, that's most of the session done. When you're reading through all the symptoms, yeah, I mean there's half a day there, isn't there.
Speaker 3:The men particularly as well when they see the list. Yeah, I think that's a really big eye-opener, I think.
Speaker 2:Do you think they're like? Hmm, this is happening at home. Yeah, like an eye-opener.
Speaker 3:I think it's really nice because I think some as well, particularly some of the younger males that I've come across, can then take that home if they're still living with the parents. I think they've got that awareness then for the family members as well and I think that's really nice, particularly for the younger males, that they can be a bit more sympathetic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I suppose it's. You were my generation, so I suppose my generation still was. They'd man the F up, you know, for mental health. So if the younger generation is starting to realise this and gain awareness I suppose the older generation that you speak to then it could be a realization rather than a. You know the gaining awareness, but it's also realizations actually I've seen this, so that could you know like a penny dropping basically yeah, yeah, and some have said that to make that they've noticed those kind of things.
Speaker 2:It all comes back to education, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, hopefully that's what we're trying to do here, isn't it? It, like I say, I always go back to the mental health aspect. Mental health aspect. If I can say that, then yeah, it's just that statistic, you know, the one in ten, it's massive, isn't it? Yeah, Because we do already say, is it? You know, one in four people at any one time may be suffering with a mental health issue. So I wonder if that must tie in with this anyway.
Speaker 3:I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a quarter of the population and then 10% of half the population are having suicidal thoughts because of menopause.
Speaker 3:I think the mental health symptoms are probably well they have been for me far worse than any of the physical ones.
Speaker 2:Really, yeah, yeah, I mean, our conversation is quite doom and gloom, isn't it? It's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think everybody needs to have. There is hope definitely. If somebody said to me back in 2021, 2022, you will feel better, I wouldn't have believed them. But I do. I mean, I'm not anywhere near like I used to be, but I'm definitely so much better. Anywhere near like I used to be, but I'm definitely so much better. I can go to work, I'm more happier, I've got a normal family life. So there is hope. There's loads of things out there. There's treatments out there if you want it, or there's all the self-help things that you can do to look after your mental health as well. So just don't give up hope, because there is always hope out. There's always something you can try. There's always something you can do, and if the treatment you take is not working, then you can try something different. And that's what I did. I just tried something a little bit different and it was tweaked and adjusted and everything until it worked for me. So there is definitely hope. So just don't ever give up hope.
Speaker 1:There is yeah, I think. I think again, like we have to emphasize, or hopefully, because we're not. We're not professionals, obviously, but if weise that each person is an individual rather than just being pigeonholed into categories. I've lost my ability to speak, mate, brain fog. No, it's just stupid. Yeah, so if we're not pigeonholing people, we have this umbrella with each section of mental health, but there's crossovers and we talk about being on the scale, don't we? Or different ends of different scales.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the thing. So it is complex whilst also being, I think, if we go, try and get back to a baseline of self-help sorry, self-care because I know that if I go out and have a load of alcohol, then the next day I'm going to feel that shit, yeah, so if I go, out and have a load of alcohol, then the next day I'm going to feel like shit.
Speaker 1:So if I'm having a medical intervention, can I blame that medical intervention? Oh well, it's because I'm doing this. Well, no, it's because I've just had six pints of.
Speaker 2:Guinness or whatever Probably so so yeah, how can people get in touch with you? Where can they find you?
Speaker 3:Social media, yeah, so on Instagram or my website, them at puzzleteachercouk, and all the details are on there. Contact details are on there. Yeah, and just get in touch.
Speaker 1:Well, we will put them on the podcast information.
Speaker 2:Very good.
Speaker 1:Do you remember when I used to say blurb, blurb, yeah, you'd say podcast blurb and I'd say but it's like, oh, no, on that note, do you think you have any last message to anyone, or?
Speaker 3:I think it's just really important. As I said, just don't give up hope because, I was giving up hope. I'd give up all hope when I was feeling dizzy. I'd given up all hope of feeling better again, and I just wish somebody had said no in your 20s, because everybody who's going through it wants to support each other and help each other at that stage of life, when you get to that. Well, I mean straight away.
Speaker 1:There you've got one of the pillars, of one of the five pillars of mental health. Haven't you all got improved or good mental health by community? Yeah, yeah, and that's just that sharing of information which you're doing with your business and hopefully we're doing with a podcast. It's a good start, hopefully. I suppose, if we and again I'll relate it to the mental health side or ptsd side is just, you know, like you say, don't give up hope, but there is, there is lots of information if you look for it, rather than just being told no, we haven't got that or that or no, you can't do that, we'll look somewhere else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's things online. You can get check sheets online as well. So if there's anybody thinking, well, I don't know what it is, you can get these check sheets online as well, so you can take it to your doctor and say this is everything that I'm suffering with, which I didn't even know about, could perimenopause? And at least then you've got it in front of you with your doctor, so they can't say no, no, no, it's, it's this, you've got something. And if you've got brain fog, at least you've got it in front of you.
Speaker 1:You can't, just in case you think, good, good, yeah, that's a top tip, top tip, right, then I think that's been great. Yeah, I suppose it's. This is very similar. So when we had Laura Murphy talking about PME and PMDD and they were like there was people who I know are ladies, women, who were like we didn't know anything about that and the figures were staggering Again with that, the people that are going through that, the percentage of the population that's going through that, that again suffer mental health issues because they're on that top end of the scale with the symptoms yeah so, yeah, all about awareness.
Speaker 1:So again, thank you very much for coming in katherine and giving me thanks. Do apologize that I've left your coveted white folks talking coffee mug at home. It's fine, I'm coming. I have I have brain fog. Yeah, sorry about that, but you will get it. Thank you, katherine. Thank you bye.
