Empowering Your Health Through Hormonal Wisdom

This episode of the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast unpacks my personal experiences and addresses the often-ignored reality that many women face as they age. From the frustrating lack of support from healthcare professionals to the unexpected physical transformations, we dive deep into the importance of recognizing and managing these changes to lead an active, pain-free life.

We'll also explore the critical need for self-advocacy in women's health. Discover why finding a healthcare provider who truly listens is essential, and learn about the potential benefits of hormone replacement therapy, supplements, and probiotics in managing symptoms. We spotlight Dr. Mary Claire Haver and her influential work. This episode is all about empowering you to navigate your health journey confidently and ensuring you receive the care you deserve.

Correction: Dr Mary Claire Haver's book is called "The New Menopause" and her website is called "'Pause Life"

Mary Claire Haver's website: https://maryclairewellness.com/

Mary Claire's New Book: https://a.co/d/7up3guQ


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Podcast Disclaimer:

The Pain-Free Podcast is presented solely for general information, education, and entertainment purposes. Any information presented in this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional diagnosis. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. As always, users should not disregard or delay obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition that they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones. I am a certified personal trainer and I'm here to help you achieve your fitness goals without pain. In each episode, I'll share tips and strategies that will help you stay safe and pain-free while you're working out. I'll also interview experts in the field of fitness and pain management. So if you're ready to learn how to stay active and pain-free, then subscribe to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast today. Hi everyone and welcome to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones.

Speaker 1: 0:39

Today's topic, as I spin the wheel, is hormones and fitness. So if you are a gentleman, this may not be what you want to hear, or maybe it is because I'll make you a better partner out in the world, but I've been having a lot of conversations about females and as they age and dealing with the hormonal changes, and also allowing the people in our lives to not be terrorized by crazy people who are so pissed off because their body is changing in ways that nobody ever has this information for you. I mean, the good thing is that now you do have the internet and so you can get information, but I don't know. I guess I'll start off by telling you a little story. So when I was 40, I was still having some issues migraining and all that kind of stuff but something funky started happening. I had my daughter at 32. So, to just give you a point of reference, around 40, like something shifted with my migraines and I wasn't quite sure what was happening. And there was like this onset of nausea and then just little symptoms here and there, but nothing I could put a finger on. Of course, I went to the doctor and they're like take a pill for this, take a pill for that. Started experiencing joint pain and muscle soreness and just things that I had never experienced before. And one of the other things that happened was my period got heavy, like not little heavy, heavy like I can't believe that I can't get through the day or through an hour without having to change myself because of the fact that I'm bleeding through. And so I was. You know, I tried to ask my friends and you know not too many people were either having the discussion or they were younger than me and had no idea what I was talking about. And so I kind of just suffered through this. And so, you know, as our bodies do right, you start to deplete things the more you're hemorrhaging to death and I didn't.

Speaker 1: 2:56

You know, I tried to have conversations and I had a very interesting nurse practitioner who was like you know, well, you're a woman of a certain age, and I was pretty much like fuck you, lady, like seriously, I'm only 40 years old, like what's the issue? And she kind of blew me off. And I had another gynecologist that was like yeah, well, sorry, yeah, sometimes people have painful periods and nobody could say anything or explain to me why. I mean, I've always cramped, I've always had issues, you know, with a heavier, you know where your back hurts, like the PMSE, kind of things. But there was never any conversation about like oh, how do I deal with this shift. And they just blew me off because they're like, well, you're too young and you know, my mother had had a tubal ligation. I can't, I think I was like nine years old and something shifted in her body and then she never had another period again, and so which is fantastic, because what ends up happening is that, as I'm a teenager, right, she's going through the effects of menopause or perimenopause, and so she's psycho, I'm psycho and you know, god bless my father for dealing with the, both of us being crazy people and I always wonder, like what's the plan that you have the universe, that you have women going through menopause or perimenopause while their children are teenagers. It's like it's some bad joke because, you know, whoever doesn't have a hormonal imbalance in the house is like what the hell is going on here.

Speaker 1: 4:30

Anyway, I got off track a little bit. So I'm hemorrhaging and everybody's telling me that it's my imagination or it's just my body. Things kind of change, right. Nobody is talking about hormones, nobody's talking about the concept of perimenopause, and so then I start experiencing all these other symptoms that start going in there. So I already have the horrendous cramping that goes along with it. I'm starting to have heart rate irregularities.

Speaker 1: 5:02

I'm noticing that I don't remember things as well. I am starting to have joint pain, like lower back pain and foot pain and, you know, finger pain and all weird kind of stuff. Of course, I end up with, like you know, a chin on my or chin, a hair on my chin, and I'm like what the hell is that, you know? And obviously it had friends that ended up showing up later. Uh, my skin got really dry, so dry that you know I was like well, I got to kick up my water intake and that wasn't really working, because then I'm paying a ton. And so then I needed to introduce, you know, vitamin E and start changing the different creams.

Speaker 1: 5:43

My nail started splitting in a very unusual way, you know, not splitting like not catching it on something and breaking, but more like splitting, like layers were pulling off, and I couldn't understand. I thought it was because I was wearing nail polish, because I like to wear clear nail polish, and I stopped wearing the clear nail polish and then did all the things, like you know, put special creams on my nails to try to bring them back, and that wasn't working. My body odor changed All of a sudden. My deodorant stopped working, and I'm all okay. You know what's going on, that I'm starting to get stinky, you know, after a brief workout, um, or even just being at work, like why, why am I stinky now? Um, so there's all these things that are happening and uh, oh, yeah, I forgot to add in the weight gain, you know, especially around the gut, and I don't know. You know, I don't know who to talk to about this, because I'm trying to talk to all these medical professionals and everybody's ignoring me and telling me that I'm too young.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Finally, I would say probably two years before COVID, I get a doctor because my gynecologist retired or something like that. So I ended up getting a new person and she's like, oh my God, you're suffering. And I was like, holy shit, you noticed, you know. And so she was the first person who said you know, you need an IUD because we have to get this bleeding under control. Because of the fact that you are, you have nothing left right. She was like your heart rate is high because of the fact that you are, you have nothing left right. She was like your heart rate is high because of the fact that you have no reserves in your blood to actually give you energy to walk up a flight of stairs or walk across the room. And at the time I was eating carnivore and she said you know, if you weren't eating carnivore, you'd probably be in the ED receiving some kind of iron infusion because of the fact that my iron levels were almost non-existent.

Speaker 1: 7:39

And that brings in a whole other host of issues that has to do with, you know, organ function and all the other stuff. Remember, I'm just talking about my own experience. I am not a doctor and if you have questions you can always, you know, email your doctor and if you don't like them, get another one, so, anyway. So then that started, you know, when I stopped bleeding like I was dying, and that gave me a little bit more energy, but all these other things were still there. But I wasn't really having, you know, the whole conversation with her in terms of you know, all these other symptoms, because I didn't think they were related. I thought it was something different and you know, so again, you know, trying to like self-diagnose instead of just walking in with a list and saying here are the 5,000 frigging things that I'm suffering from and so I need your help.

Speaker 1: 8:33

Now, what does this do? As an athlete? It destroyed me. You know, before the IUD I couldn't swim, you know, because generally there's a thing, like you know, when we go swimming, you know, everything kind of shuts down and then once you get out of the pool, then everything starts back up, and that was not happening. So I was like I'm not getting in the pool, know, cuz I'm in a pool, but I was like I don't want to track sharks, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 9:00

So, sorry, I cracked myself up sometimes anyway, but I didn't want to embarrass myself and you know, plus, I had no energy. Like the week before my period I had no energy, and then the week of my period I had no energy. So literally, that's two weeks out of the month that I'm unable to work out, which is my mental health release and my self-care because of the fact that I'm dying, and I could do what I needed to do to just make it through the day and that's about it. And so the IUD helped and it reduced some stuff. And then I started talking to friends and they're like oh, I have that, oh, I have that, and I'm going what the fuck? All my friends are suffering from the same thing, but none of us are having conversations. So I started having conversations with people and then there's different things, right. So the IUD is great for controlling it.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Some take progesterone pills. Some of the IUDs have progesterone in them, so you don't have to take the pill. Then there's patches, right, because you know, taking estradiol yes, that's how you say it. You know, my friend says that's what keeps her from killing her husband. So there's all kinds of reasons for these kinds of things. But I, you know, of course, at this point now, you know, I'm 50, I'm going to be 55, uh, today and uh I'm going to be I'm recording it on Thursday. Friday is my birthday, yay, go me. Um, anyway. So but now I have things kind of dialed in and but it took me 15 years to get my shit together because I wasn't choosing the right practitioners to help me move forward.

Speaker 1: 10:43

And there is a doctor on TikTok and she's on Instagram and whatever. Her name is Mary Claire Haver, and she did a video the other day that I sent to a girlfriend of mine because she my girlfriend's 39 years old and she's starting to experience all these things and everybody she talks to tells her she's too young to experience these things, and everybody she talks to tells her she's too young to experience these things. And so I shared the video with Mary Claire Haver and what she says is that the average age for menopause in the you look at the exact sorry, most people, I guess in the world are 50 to 51. In the United States, menopause years are 45 to 55. So if you back that up seven to 10 years, that means that a person could start experiencing perimenopause at the age of 35.

Speaker 1: 11:47

Now this is when doctors don't want to talk to you, right, because you're too young, and my thing is that if you notice a change, if you, you know, notice that your periods are getting heavier. If you're noticing that your nails are having an issue or that your sleep is disturbed, you know you were once fine and you could sleep okay, and then now you're a disaster because you can't sleep through the night. If you are having joint pain, if you're noticing things hurt, you know, don't chalk it up to arthritis, and that's the reason why this is happening, especially if you're not on any kind of hormone replacement, because of the fact that those things are also signs, right, because the drop in estrogen just is like the drop in everything else in your system, and so you need support and there are supplements you could take, there are hormone replacement that you could take. You need to start taking probiotics. You know we all should be taking probiotics because we're just not producing enough, I think, things in our stomach to help break down food appropriately, right, and you know that's why people are gassy, like we do all these things to cover up symptoms, but we don't address the origin of the symptoms, right? So, yes, you could take a Rolade or Tums or whatever, or you could take a probiotic or a prebiotic and address the issue before it even starts. That way, you can continue eating in a healthy manner.

Speaker 1: 13:15

For me, again, it's like I don't want anybody to have to experience these things in this manner, just because of the fact that it's just extremely frustrating. You know, and by the time your kids are teenagers, right, you're dealing with their behaviors and you're hopefully getting to the tail end of it, cause they're going to go start living their lives. Why should you be miserable? And I let it go on too long for me, um, you know, I finally, after the initial doctor that I had that gave me the IUD, she left and then I got another doctor, who is fucking amazing, and she ran down all the risks and we had conversations and she talked about things that she wanted me to do to make sure that I was going to be healthy and I was supporting myself. We have very good conversations. She has no issue talking for 45 minutes with me to answer my questions, and that's the kind of provider that you want, um, you know. So I am taking all the things right.

Speaker 1: 14:17

I'm on the patch, um, which has helped a lot, because before I got that fricking patch, it would be literally 30 degrees and I would be standing outside in a t-shirt and you could see the steam coming off my body and I couldn't sleep, I couldn't, you know, function. Because, I'll tell you, when you're hot like that, it's like, you know, satan burning through you. You can't concentrate, you know, cause you're sitting there and you're like, oh shit, here it comes and you could feel it. Some people feel that rolling up through their neck and they start where their neck is red and then their ears are red and then they start to sweat and you know, then you're preoccupied with all that and you're not able to live your life. Um, and it really affected me athletically as well, just because of the fact that I didn't have the energy that I wanted to have to participate in the activities. My recovery was shit because of the fact that I just couldn't, you know, function and you know she describes it as chaos and I'm like no shit, you know, and it's very chaotic.

Speaker 1: 15:23

So if you're of the age of 35 or so, it's, and you start noticing some changes, start having some conversations and again I'll go back to you need to find a particular, a practitioner that aligns with you and, um, I even did this with doctors? Um, because I didn't know you could fire your doctor, and nobody ever told me. You know, there's always been this thing of like, respect the doctor because they have the white coat. They've done this and you know whatever. And what I have found is that not every doctor you know keeps up to date on the current science. You're a doctor, I'm sorry, but the reality is is that you're not a chick and you don't understand what the female body is doing and whatever.

Speaker 1: 16:10

And so it's important for us to get people aligned with us that really can understand and have empathy for what we're doing, because you know, this shit will make you crazy, you know, and just the idea of, you know, then going to a medical professional and having you blowing me off because you think like, oh, you know you're too young, or you don't know, like I don't want any of that, right, you want somebody in there who's going to listen to you, who's going to run the test. I could tell you right now, just so you know, blood work doesn't do shit because your hormones change on the daily. You know, yes, if you're really in menopause and you get it, then that's fine, but that doesn't just because you're in menopause doesn't? It's not a finish line, right? It's not like, oh, no, more symptoms now that I'm in menopause, god bless me. It's like, no, you still have symptoms, you still have all the things and you need to continue to educate yourself about your body and make sure that you do the things that take care of your body. So, if you need to fire fricking doctors and fire your doctor, get somebody who's aligned with you and who's willing to hear you and sit with you for 45 minutes and when you're crying about the fact that you know whatever is going on and that it doesn't feel normal and you don't know why, you're losing your mind. So, anyway, that's what I wanted to tell, because again it's it is Starting to come out in social media.

Speaker 1: 17:35

I'm starting to see more things, and it may be because the algorithm, because I like it, so then I'm getting more of the stuff. But I'm also seeing, like Mary Clay, mary Claire Haver, like on, you know, the Today Show and on different shows where she gets to talk about her books. She has a new book out. It's called the Pause Life and it's you know, it's worth a read and you may be young, but have like read because it's not going to kill you to have the information before you even get there, but at least you'll be able to recognize it and then you'll learn how to advocate yourself.

Speaker 1: 18:08

Because that is my number one goal is that you, as a patient or as a human, can advocate for what you need in this world and not let people blow you off or tell you that you don't know what you're talking about. It's your body. You should be aware, you should be educated, and then you make people do the things that you need them to do, so that you aren't crazy humans that are killing your children or your husband or your wife or whatever. So, anyway, I really appreciate you all being here and listening to me and my craziness, and I will catch you next time.