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Vo1 help with peri/menopause

 

[00:00:00] Okay. Hi guys. So I wanted to talk about perimenopause menopause, and we're gonna have to break it up into like a few videos because there's a lot to discuss. So today I'm gonna touch again on testing for perimenopause menopause. We're gonna talk about a couple of simple, nothing simple, but a couple of simple things to do to help with the flashes and sweats and sleep. 

Future meaning sometime this week I'm gonna talk about the irregular bleeding and what you can do about it in perimenopause, the fact that libido goes down and maybe what you can do about it. It's not easy, but we'll talk about some of the things. The dry vagina, my face lights up because there actually are things we can do. 

I like issues that I can find and fix and that falls into that category. Not because like it's easy to fix it, but it is fixable. So that's a great one. Um, , did we say mood today? We'll talk about mood. Okay, so let's, let's just reiterate. Perimenopause is up to 10 years [00:01:00] before menopause. And menopause is a year with no period. 

Okay, that's the definition, which means by definition, women who are very late thirties, early forties, are already potentially in that perimenopausal time. So when a patient comes to me and says, I have X, Y, Z symptoms, again, X, Y, Z being any form of irregular bleeding, any form of breast tenderness, any form of mood changes, any form of feeling her ovulation more, yes, there are things I have to do to prove that she's otherwise okay. 

Like we talked about in yesterday's video. But once I have netted out as, oh, you're just in perimenopause, then the answer is not, oh, you're in perimenopause. No big deal. Blow it off. It is, oh, you're in perimenopause. And if those things bother you, I can help you fix that. Now, can I test for perimenopause? 

You may remember I said yesterday, but I wanna repeat it cause I got a lot of dms about this. I can't test for perimenopause. There is no blood test. In other words, the two hormone tests that we tend to check for when it comes to worrying about menopause. F s h follicle [00:02:00] stimulating hormone, which tends to go up as you get farther from your hormones working and estrogen. 

But in the form of estradiol, which is the blood test, we can check which tends to go down, but it's not like it just goes down or it just goes up. It fluctuates. So our hormones will fluctuate every day. Every week and every month of our cycle. Okay. Sorry, I'm hiding here in the guest room. Cuz the kids have their online classes. 

Um, so every, so they'll fluctuate so much that it's actually really hard for us to be able to measure them appropriately. Right. They're definitely naturopaths and integrated doctors who will try to measure them through the salivary glands and measure them every day of the month and give you a better idea of what's happening. 

But the truth is, again, it can fluctuate next month. So my response to you is I'll send you if you. But it's not gonna help me. I can already tell you that if you are in the forties and you're having these symptoms and I've ruled out other stuff like thyroid dysfunction or irregular bleeding from other causes, then you are in perimenopause and I cannot prove it, nor do [00:03:00] I need to prove it. 

But you tell me which symptoms bother you and I will help you fix them. Today's symptoms we're gonna talk about are the flashes and the sweats, um, and then, and not being able to sleep because those are related. I'm not gonna talk about hormone replacement right now because that's really for post-menopausal women and I'm gonna do a whole separate video on that cuz that's long. 

Um, but I wanna talk about a couple of simple things. I'm saying simple. It's not simple, nothing simple. And even the things I'm talking about require habit changes that I personally find incredibly. . So you know that saying like it's simple but not easy. So it is simple, but it is not easy. Okay, so three kind of simple things. 

One is vitamin D three. You've heard me talk about it. I will talk to 'em. I'm blue in the face, and I think there are some purists, very evidence-based medical doctors who may say, well, the data has not proven that vitamin D three causes any improvement in health. I am not sure that that's true [00:04:00] because data can be interpreted in many different ways. 

But I will tell you this. Regardless of data. anecdotally, which means you try it and if help, if it helps you, then anecdotally it is working for you and whether or not that is placebo effect, it doesn't matter. Anecdotally, I have found in my patients and certainly in myself that when my vitamin D three level is above. 

50. I feel better. And to give you an idea, the normal range right now in the lab is 30 to 90. So many of you may have been told you're normal because your internist is correct, that according to the lab range, you're normal. If you are in 30, or let's say you were 27 and she might have thought you're close enough to normal, there's nothing dangerous, she might not have told you about it, and that's not her fault. 

That's because your doctor is really busy doing a million other things that nobody's reimbursing her. That's a whole nother topic, but many of you, I guarantee, unless you're taking a pretty robust supplement, you are below 30 or just hovering around 30, and that may be impacting your hot flashes and night sweats. 

[00:05:00] So getting your vitamin D three level above 50. Anecdotally, and some data says helped and it has definitely helped me. I have kind of blinded myself by taking it, not taking it, checking it, not checking it, and seeing when I felt better. The second thing is magnesium. So magnesium can help with sleep. 

pooping, leg cramps, anxiety, and headaches. So at night I take plain old magnesium. I really like what is easy. You guys, you've heard me use these terms like low-hanging fruit. I like things that are simple and easy. I cannot compliment, complicate things. So I know that there are. Different ways that you can get magnesium. 

There are different types of magnesium. There's actually tons. There's magnesium. Three innate magnesium sit straight. Honestly, I don't know all the types of magnesium, and I'm not an integrative doctor, so I don't actually understand all the different ways that magnesium can help. What I know is that my simple brain that cannot interpret a ton of things knows that when I go to the pharmacy and I buy the magnesium that just says magnesium. 

Just magnesium. [00:06:00] Okay. Just magnesium. And I buy one pill that has 500 milligrams in it, and I take that every night before I go to sleep with my vitamin D. It helps my sleep and my hot flashes. Okay. And my anxiety and my leg cramps. So we've got two things so far, D three. 4,000 or 5,000. I am not your doctor. 

If I am your doctor, you can take 5,000. If I'm not your doctor, please take 4,000 or ask your doctor. Um, and magnesium, 500 milligrams, just plain old magnesium. The third, again, simple but not easy, is sugar. Sugar, sugar, sugar. And I don't just mean like a teaspoon of white sugar, I mean bread, rice, pasta, sugar in any form, excluding. 

The carbohydrates that are in vegetables, we really don't count. Those are very good carbohydrates. They're very important for us. They're very healthy. So if those of us who could really adapted a whole food diet where you ate [00:07:00] lots of good quality, fat, avocados, nuts, seeds, extra virgin olive oil, grass fed butter lots. 

Protein, and this is not a vegan discussion or vegetarian discussion, so that's for another time. But if you're going to eat protein, good quality protein, grass-fed, beef free range eggs, wild fish, right, and tons of vegetables. So yes, that would be a keto diet, but a good quality keto diet, bereft of processed foods, you would feel better. 

When I was doing that, I felt so good. Why did I abandon? Because I am a food addict. , okay? Because sugar tastes good and it gives you a high, and it triggers all kinds of neurotransmitters that make you feel good, but they make you hot flash. Like, I don't know if you can tell I'm a little flashy, cuz you know what I did? 

I had me some Girl Scout cookies, and Lord, they tasted good, but they do not have a good effect on me. They actually immediately affect my mood, my flashes, and my sweats, literally immediately. They're such a temporal relation. So [00:08:00] again, for me and for many of you, Vitamin D three, magnesium and sugar. 

Getting rid of those will really improve how you feel in perimenopause menopause, I guarantee it. Is it easy? No. Is it simple? Yes. Along with sugar. Comes alcohol. And the worst kinds of alcohol for many of us are the alcohols that actually have sugar in them. So many of us can't get away with wine or margaritas unless we're wi willing to hot flash, but we can get away with dirty martini or vodka sodas. 

So those are things you should play with. I myself don't drink a ton anyway, but when I do drink, I try to have the things that don't have as much sugar. But a lot of it for me, and I think for you would be about, um, knowledge and choice. . Once I found out that I actually can modulate my hot flashes through my behavior, it made me feel psychologically better. 

It didn't mean that I can control it because I don't actually feel like I can control some of my habits because again, I really do feel like I'm addicted to sugar, so I couldn't control it [00:09:00] exactly. But knowing that it is under my own modulation psychologically helped. It wasn't as if I'm just gonna walk around flashing and sweating forever, right? 

Because after I went through surgical menopause, after my ovarian cancer, when my ovaries were removed, I thought I would hot flash forever, because that's what I've been taught to tell my patients. Unless I was gonna take hormone replacement. But I found through some research and habits that these three things, again, D three magnesium and decreasing my carbohydrates and sugar has really helped. 

Caffeine is actually another one, but for me, I can get away with caffeine as long as I am not having the sugar and the alcohol. The minute I have sugar, the caffeine also triggers it. So those mornings where I wake up and I. and I've, I've eaten things that had carbohydrates and I'm like a bagel, I hate to say it. 

Um, and then had coffee. The coffee is triggered, hot flashes. But if I'm only having coffee and I'm on my game and I'm doing my intermittent fasting with a good quality keto [00:10:00] diet, then I actually feel great. And my flashes and my sweats and my sleep are really good. And that's surprising for someone in surgical menopause. 

Okay, so those are my nuggets. I hope that helps. Stay tuned cuz we will talk. Birth control pills during perimenopause, hormone replacement after menopause, libido during perimenopause and menopause. What else do we say? Dry vagina. So there's a lot to talk about, ladies. Dang it. All right, bye.