Fearne Cotton

Louise, I'm so thrilled to have you on the podcast.

I'm very excited to be here in this lovely, lovely, I'm going to sit here all day and stroke your chairs.

They're lovely.

I wanted tactile chairs just to, I like to fiddle with, you know, textures and a pen and Miss Fidget.

So I thought, yeah, these chairs are quite nice and comforting.

I feel very calm.

We have got so much to talk about today.

It is unbelievable.

Now, of course, you are the doctor known for kickstarting the menopause.

You're

rolling your eyes the menopause revolution but my god did we need it and do we still need it and it seems like many women out there are really on board with having this conversation now and learning and being open-minded but is the medical world ready for this chat it's not and i'm really proud of being a doctor really proud no one in my family has been a medical doctor and i wanted to be a doctor since i was four so you know it's something i feel very very privileged to be a doctor

Well, I bet because, you know, we all know and we've touched on this in other episodes before to a degree that we know that women's health is not taken seriously when it comes to, you know, and we if you think women, young girls start their period could be as young as 11.

Yeah.

And then have to deal with, you know, fluctuating hormone levels and everything that comes with having a period, a menstrual cycle, pregnancy, perimenopause, menopause until we're, you know, 40s, 50s.

That's a big section of our lives that isn't really being taken seriously.

So I'm sure that plays into a large part of it.

Also, I'm imagining doctors being time poor that you get these like five minute segments with people.

It's quite a long time.

So it's really for the patient taking back control to say, I've got a feeling as to what's up rather than, oh my God, I don't know what's going on with me, but I'm really struggling.

I think...