Estrogen 101: What I Learned From the World’s Top Menopause Doctors
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi there, friends. I am so glad you're here with me today. If you're new to the Tamsen Show podcast, we are in a series where I'm walking you chapter by chapter through my book, How to Menopause, and breaking down everything I learned from interviewing top doctors in the space and thought leaders and getting you the information you need. We are covering a big one today. It's estrogen. I want to start by telling you the moment I finally understood what estrogen actually was because it changed everything for me.
How did Tamsen realize estrogen was behind multiple midlife symptoms?
I was sitting in a doctor's office. I was, I think I was in my like late 40s. I had been struggling for a while with brain fog so bad I could not remember words that I had used my entire career. I was waking up three o'clock in the morning, soaking through my pajamas. My joints hurt, my skin felt like paper, and every single doctor I'd seen explained one symptom at a time. Here's a cream for your flaky skin. Here's something if you want to take it to go to sleep. Here's some Lexapro for your mood swings. Have you tried meditation? Have you done yoga? Maybe you need to try to get more sleep, even though I couldn't sleep. And then I sat down with a doctor who finally understood menopause. And this is what she said to me.
Tamsen. All of this is estrogen, all of it. Yes, there are other hormones, but this is estrogen. The brain fog, the joints, the sweating, the skin, the mood, one hormone that had plummeted out of my body and was driving almost every single symptom I'd been treating as a separate problem. And I'd done that for years. I remember going through and seeing some old papers from a doctor's visit, and it was like, patient is complaining of weight gain and moodiness. And that was years ago. I'd never heard of menopause or estrogen. This is a moment I want every woman listening to have because once you understand what estrogen actually does in your body, the whole picture of perimenopause and menopause finally starts to make sense.
It's not some random 15 years of everything going wrong at once. It is one thing and there are real options for it. So this is what we're going to do today. By the end of this episode, I want you to understand exactly what estrogen is and what it does for your body, who needs it, who shouldn't take it, what your options are, how long you can be on it, and what to do about this patch shortage that has so many of you panicked. And also probably the most important thing, how to talk to your doctor about all of this and make sure you have a doctor that's listening. If you're looking for more, my book, How to Menopause covers all of this. It's on sale right now. It's linked in the show notes. I also made free downloadables for you so you don't have to pay a penny.
You can always make sure and have some free education on this because it's that important to me. I have a hormone therapy one-on-one sheet so you can track your symptoms and it includes questions to ask your doctor. So many of you have told me that you brought this sheet in with you to your appointments and your doctor finally took you seriously. Tens of thousands of you have already downloaded it. It is a resource I wish I had earlier and it is absolutely free in the show notes. Quick disclaimer, you know this, I'm not a doctor, I'm a journalist who has lived through this. So take what I share to your doctor because your body and your history are yours. And know going in, women have dramatically been understudied in medicine, especially around menopause.
So when you hear somebody saying that the research is still building and it's not out there, it's true. It is true because the system was never built for us. They never bothered to study us in the first place. We're going to be smarter than the system was. Maybe you're thinking about estrogen and the idea of starting hormones still freaks you out. I get it. Maybe you're already taking it, but no doctor ever bothered to explain things for you. And so your body feels weird. Maybe you've been trying to refill your patch now for months and your pharmacy keeps telling you that it has been back ordered.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:06–0:31
2
How did Tamsen realize estrogen was behind multiple midlife symptoms?
0:31–16:20
3
What is estrogen and which form (estradiol) matters in perimenopause?
16:20–22:00
4
How does falling estrogen affect brain, bones, and heart health?
22:00–22:05
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Tamsen Show
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