Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast - How to Make Your Doctor Listen: Cherry Healey on the Symptoms Women Ignore

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Have you ever gone to the doctor knowing something wasn’t right, only to feel dismissed? Women’s health advocate Cherry Healey joins Claire Sanderson on Just As Well to explain why women are still struggling to be heard—and how to advocate for yourself when your symptoms aren’t being taken seriously. They discuss recurrent UTIs, the perimenopause symptoms too often mistaken for depression, why heart problems can be missed in women and the signs we should never simply “put up with”. Cherry also shares her own experience of fighting for UTI treatment, the HRT prescription that changed her life and the practical steps you can take to make your voice heard in the consulting room. This episode contains a discussion of suicide. Sponsored by Femfresh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. you been to the doctors and been fobbed off? Have you been back for a second time and been fobbed off again? Have you been back for a third visit and still had a fight to be listened to? If you've answered yes, you're probably female because we struggle to make ourselves heard by the medical profession, a profession that has deep-rooted misogyny that puts women firmly down the pecking order. This episode of Just as Well, explores why women struggle to advocate for themselves

and what we should do to make ourselves heard. My guest today is Cherry Healy. She's a woman's health advocate, one of the most prominent voices in the UK, in fact, when speaking about women's health issues, UTIs, perimenopause, menopause, and the symptoms that we ignore. Do you know the cardiovascular disease is the biggest killer? of women globally.

Yet, if I was to challenge you now, what are the symptoms of a woman having a heart attack? I bet you couldn't answer me. This is a must listen to episode. Share it with your friends because they need to listen to it too. Now, you probably think I sound a bit banged up. I am, I'm afraid. I'm battling a cold.

Two kids, you know, they're germ machines. Here I am today. At work, because that's where us girls do. So please ignore my voice, but don't ignore your symptoms. I'm Claire Sanderson. This is Jess as well. Enjoy. And as always, if you like and subscribe and share with your friends, we can make this podcast even bigger and better. Thank you. Cherry, welcome to Jess as well. Claire, it's lovely to be here. If ever there's a woman that should be on this podcast, it's you, because you are a woman's health advocate, one of the most foremost speakers in the UK on all matters of women's

especially UTIs, yet it's taken us this long to get you working with the brand. Well, it's lovely to be here. It's kind of the reason I get up in the morning, if I'm honest, and has been for the last 20 years. So it's really exciting that this conversation is now mainstream and I open the papers and there's women's health on the front page, right? You know, double page spread. It's really exciting that people are starting to talk about it. But, you know, a lot of people have been banging the drum for a really long time. Do you think there is still a need for us to talk about it

and advocate for women's health issues? Or is it all out there and it's part of our common vernacular and it's being done? Let me give you an example. I went to a family lunch yesterday and I met a lovely man and his wife killed herself eight months ago because she was suffering from perimenopausal, acute perimenopausal symptoms and she tried and tried and tried to get help.

And she was given HRT way too late because they said, or you don't need it, you're too young, you don't need it, you're too young, misunderstanding the symptoms. And she unfortunately killed herself. And so my answer is no, we are so not done with this conversation. We have just got started. Politicians are finally understanding that this has to change and women have been talking about it for a long time

and now we need to see proper action. And proper investment. A rectile dysfunction gets five times. more funding for research than PMS, which affects 90% of women. There are up to, at the time of speaking, there's five or six over-the-counter solutions for erectile dysfunction, which doesn't land you in hospital, is not a life-threatening illness. There is not one proper solid cure for UTIs, endometriosis, you name it.

I mean, that list goes on and on. So, no, we need to have this conversation until. women know that they can go to the doctor with symptoms for having a heart attack and they'll get listened to in the equal seriousness that a man does. Because the deep-rooted misogyny in healthcare is a tale is our old as time.

Yeah. Why is it that we struggle to convince a healthcare professional that our pain is real, that we're not imagining it, we're not depressed, we're not being histrionic? What's the root of that? Individual healthcare staff, the GPs that you go and see, are often doing their absolute best.

So I don't want this to in any way be a case of speaking badly about people are working really, really hard. But it's historical, and that's a big ship to turn around. And it is turning around, but it's taking a really, really long time to turn that big ship. The NHS was built for men by men and a particular demographic of men. Only recently women have been included into medical trials, and we've all now now know that,

but I think, you know, I see people's jaw on the floor when you tell them that. And you think, yeah, you know, most of our health care has been done on the male bodies. So, medication that's available. And then there's a lot of ripples about women being hysterical. So, you know, women who used to complain about something would be considered hysterical. And they would get some amazingly wild treatments. So I used to give a woman a hysterectomy, which is obviously connected to the word hysterical.

It's Greek, it's boring, I won't say. But so women would get a hysterectomy, unnecessary hysterectomy. And there have been stories about women getting full lobotomies because they are talking about probably what it was, menopausal symptoms. So the treatment of women and the treatment of men has been so divided for such a long time.

And we're now trying to bring it back, really, but it takes a long time to change people's perceptions and people don't even know they've got this perception. You know, a doctor might not even know he's got this slightly patriarchal misogyny in them. For a long time, men weren't even taught, well, medical trainees weren't taught women's health unless they signed up for it specifically. So men are pausal symptoms, so gynecological health specifically. So when a woman comes in to see their health worker or their GP and talks about heavy periods, it's a bit like, one I kind of don't really know, you know,

or do you need antidepressants? You know, when I first went about my perimenopausal symptoms, I was offered antidepressants. And I had to fight to get HRT, and I got in, it was wonderful. But a lot of women just take antidepressants because that's what they're told they should take. We had a guest on this podcast, Dr. Stacey Sims, She's a world-renowned women's physiologist,

and she talked about the shocking stats where all research in healthcare is done on men. And one of the reasons for that is testing on women is too complicated because we have hormones. Yeah. That is the reason. We just mess things up there. We're just really annoying.

I mean, so in America, they've changed the rules. And there was a big, you know, obviously a big celebration. about it. But unfortunately, if you dig a little deeper, so the rules are that you have to have equal women to men being tested for medical research. But unfortunately, that's only governmental. It's not commercial. And most of the money for medical research comes from big pharmaceutical companies. And that's the same here pretty much. So the government here, you know, has said we should be testing on women. But really, most investment comes from big private pharmaceutical companies. So until we can get them on board, well, I find it clear. I find it really, I find it really,

mad because, you know, I understand that big companies want to make money. But we're literally here with money, 51% of the population are women, we're all here going, we will pay you. Someone came to me and said, I've got a solution for UTIs or period pains or menopause. Oh, it's, I know, it's a thousand pounds. God knows how, you know, I don't know of women go, fine, I'll make that work. Like we are here. We're this amazing, massive, important, economic, social force.

We're important. We're important. And yet still these companies are missing out on us. They're like, the investment that goes into men's health research is eye-wateringly high. There was a recent promise from the government that, you know, there was going to be a lot more research, you know, a lot more money put into. to women's health research. And everyone got really excited. And it was on the front page of the papers.

And there was West Streeting, shaking lots of hands. And again, you dig a little deeper. It's still more, I think it's more than 60% will go to men's health research. If anything, it should be corrected. And there should be more going into women's health research because we've been left out of the picture for so long. Well, I have a personal experience of this. Right.

Because I had my hormones tested again recently. because I was, and I'm on HRT in as much as the patch and estrogen patch and I have the coil for the progesterone. And I was just permanently exhausted, low mood, went private to get my hormones tested because part of me, I have private health care through my husband's employer. I thought I'd take the pressure off the NHS.

That's one of the reasons. Yeah, exactly. So the results came back. Estrogen was fine, but my testosterone was a fifth of the, of what it should be. But the private doctor said, I'll send this letter to your NHS, GP,

they should then prescribe for you. The rigmarole I went through to get the NHS to prescribe it for me, they did eventually, but they kept on pushing back because the symptoms in the letter, I didn't put, I have no sex drive at the top.

I, you know, it was, I'm low mood, I have no energy, it's impacting my professional life, my personal life. But the only reason, I eventually got it through the NHS, but you had to find.

And you're a confident, articulate woman. And that's what you had to do to get it. Now I imagine that you absolutely don't spend your life talking about women's health. You know, you just go to the GP and you ask for it because you say, I've got really low mood and I'm not focusing at work.

You probably won't get offered it. But even if you said, if you've done your research and you said, I want testosterone, you almost certainly wouldn't get it. It should be available to women. And it should be available because you can't focus at work. Why is that less important than not wanting to bunk your husband? And we all know the answer to that.

I mean, but again, if people, you know, if people ever say, you know, and I get that question that you started with, you know, I think that, you know, I think everything's pretty equal now. I think we can all go, you know, can we all sit down now and calm down? I'm like, absolutely not because every single, everywhere I look, there are holes. And for so many women, it's a matter of life and death. You know, the symptoms of a heart attack present differently for a woman.

So she goes into her GP and they get misdiagnosed. And she goes home and gynecological wait times to see a consultant are unbearable. So a woman who's presenting with intimate and bleeding, you know, she knows it shouldn't be there. It's not quite the right colour or there's something quite not wrong. She goes to her GP. The weight list in some part. parts of the country are two years, Claire. So the diagnosis goes from something that's treatable, something that's untreatable.

So when we say when all of the women, amazing healthcare professionals and all the other advocates of which there are many wonderful people doing money, when we're saying it's a matter of life and death, we mean it. There's a woman right now who's been given some really awful news that she didn't need to get. And that literally gets me out of bed in the morning. This episode is sponsored by Femfresh, an intimate skincare brand that specialises in products made for the vulva. Its washes and wipes are designed to slot into your daily routine and are clinically tested for compatibility with the intimate skin's natural pH range.

All the products in the range are formulated to bring specialist care to your intimate area and often overlooked part of skincare. Before we move on to the symptoms that at women we ignore or tend to push to the back of our minds or get misdemeanor. misdiagnose and we struggle to persuade doctors to take us seriously. I want to take you back to how you got into this space. Now, I remember your BBC documentaries. You were one of the first women in my memory out there speaking about these issues that were a little bit hushed. Maybe we were embarrassed to admit.

But how did you get into that space? I wanted to be a director. And I wanted to make programs about women's. lives, real honest programs about women's lives. And I wanted to find a way to navigate a career that meant I could just chat to women a lot. Because I felt like that was such a huge gaping hole in the media landscape that there were lots of programs for boys about boys. And there were lots of statistics thrown around when I was in TV production that, you know,

men will watch programs for men, but they won't watch programs for women. Whereas women will watch programs, they'll watch anything. So commissioners were commissioning programs for men because that was a guaranteed audience. And BBC 3 was absolutely trailblazing in commissioning a series of documentaries that were just about women. I mean what?

He's like, no one's going to watch it. No one's going to watch that, a woman talking to other women about women's stuff. And it was a real success because women will watch stuff about women. And actually, men will watch stuff about women. So it was really BBC 3 was trailblazing And they completely changed the landscape of TV forever You know, I was allowed to talk about

Anything we talk about We talk about money, prejudice, you know, when's the right time to have a baby, you know, Do we want to get married anymore? What's it like being single forever? You know, all of, like all the conversations that we have about going through life And it was really amazing.

So I was, I was in production at the time and then someone said, would you like to do the interviewing? You're really nosy. And I said, yeah, that would be amazing. But I didn't, I thought that I would go back to, you know, wanting to be a director and going into that because I was an assistant producer at the time. And it just carried on and it carried on.

And then I had a family and it fit really beautifully into family life. And that's, but it was amazing. And it was an amazing opportunity. And other doors have opened as a result of that. What I realised was that my absolute life's work, I wanted it to be about women and being in some way a door for their voices. And your particular passion for advocating for the woman's health conversation, was that born out of personal experience? Absolutely. So I realised very quickly talking about taboo subjects that one of the biggest taboos was women talking about their bodies.

we weren't allowed to say vagina or vulva. And a lot of women, including myself, didn't know. You got, oh, by the way, you've got three holes and the whole thing's called the vulva and the vagina's the bit that goes in and there's all sorts of other bits. I had no idea. It was only when I got pregnant with my daughter

and I'm really sorry to admit this because obviously it's wild now. But I did not know that it was called a vulva and I didn't know that the vagina was the bit that goes in. It's only when I had an actual child. And I thought, how do I know Pythagoras's theorem? and I know how to do like difficult

quadratic equations. And I know, well, not anymore. And I know how to get to the swimming pool in French. And I don't know what the vulva is. Which is the whole area. It's the term for your whole gynecological area. And the fact that women didn't want to save it. And when they did save it down, they went,

or they go downstairs or my lady garden. If a woman cannot say the word vagina or vulva, how can she go to a GP and have a sensible conversation where she says that the discharge coming out of my vagina, it doesn't look right. She's not going to go to the GP because she's going to have to say two words that are going to make her want to die inside,

which is vagina and discharge. You should be able to say those words as easily as saying, I want a cappuccino. It shouldn't be difficult. So I then started to campaign around that and I started to work with a really amazing gynecological cancer charity run by this formidable woman called Athena

and she taught me so. much and I've been working with them for 20 years and what's the name of the charity? The Eve Appeal. The Eve Appeal. And they do so much to help educate women about the five gynecological cancers, the symptoms to look out for and about knowing your body and how to make that clear and how to communicate it to people in a way that they understand and in a way that takes all the to be away. So that's what I've been doing for a long time. And now it's moved into talking about UTIs, which I have been suffering. with all my life.

And then I started to have a conversation with the internet about it. And the response that came back was tidal wave-ish. I mean, I've never known it. And all the conversations I've had about when's the right time to have a baby, clinical school cancers, whatever it is,

nothing has had the response that my conversation about UTI's had because I feel like I took the lid off something and just it was Pandora's box. So that's what I've been really focusing on. recently because I realised that there isn't anywhere for people to go at the moment to talk about it. The more research I do into it, the more I realize it's a massive gaping hole in healthcare. So UTIs are a spectrum, aren't they? Take us through a UTI from the most sort of superficial to when it can be really quite dangerous.

Absolutely. So your first UTI is termed an acute UTI. And it's a stinging feeling. I won't go through all this symptoms, but essentially that's your first kind of UTI experience. And then if that isn't fixed or they start to come back, that is deemed recurrent, those deemed recurrent UTIs. And if that progresses, it can turn into chronic UTI. And that is when they never go. You have symptoms constantly and it's horrific. And we have, we have. absolutely let those women down medically and that is something I really wants to help change. So recurrent isn't fun either. So I was in the recurrent arena and that's when you get, you're getting them frequently, but they do go. So there are currently 1.7 million women in the UK living with recurrent UTIs. They take up 1.2 million hospital beds and they cost the NHS 604 million pounds a year. Wow.

They are the leading cause of sepsis for women and sepsis is life-threatening. But how do you go from a stinger UTI where your mum tells you to drink cranberry juice to end up in a hospital bed? Well, that can happen remarkably quickly. So when I was in my mid-20s, I was made in of honour for my friend's wedding.

But I had filming beforehand. So I was in a field filming someone about Brussels sprouts and I was talking to this farmer and I was looking at him and I thought, oh, got a UTI because it can just happen like that. So I was thinking,

God, I really need to get antibiotics but where did you get antibiotics on a Friday night before you're about to go to a Cotshold wedding? You can't, you know, you can't do that. And if you call a GP and say, I've got a UTI, they need a urine test,

they won't believe you, they won't give your antibiotics, which is wild. So I went to, I didn't want to let my friend down so I started drinking lots of cranberry juice. It does nothing. Taking neurofin also does nothing

And got on with the wedding By the Saturday evening I was in agony By the Sunday morning My partner at the time said You look really, really unwell And I said, I feel like I'm dying Went to A&E

And they admitted me Six days, Borderline sepsis Scarring all over my kidneys And that's how quickly it can happen Because I didn't have the confidence because my GP had said no to be so many times about antibiotics. So you have to fight for antibiotics. So the problem is, is in this country,

we give women three days of antibiotics for a UTI, which just about gets rid of it, but doesn't fully clear it, and that's when you get recurrent. So it keeps coming back because the bacteria hasn't quite gone. Guess how many antibiotics men get when they get UTIs? Seven. Yeah.

Why? Because they're bigger. Why do you think? Because they're men, yes. Because it costs more to give women seven days. Goodness. Right. So, and there is a conversation about men's UTIs being more complicated because the are ureth is longer, which I completely understand.

The problem is, yes, it's cheaper to give women three days of antibiotics. But UTIs are the second most common reason for antibiotics to get prescribed. So I understand there's a big desire to save money. But the problem is, is that 30%? 50% of women then move on to recurrent UTIs. So you're not really saving any money. You're just saying to women, I'll see you in a few weeks. I'll see you in a month for more antibiotics.

Oh, and then when they turn to chronic, they have to get consultations with urologists, they have to get operations, they have to get their bladder removed. I mean, you're not really saving money in the long time. You're also allowing a woman to have a lifetime of pain and misery. Yeah, would it, if you took seven days, would it then get rid of it forever more or does it just reduce the risk of it coming back?

Well, because we've never done that, we don't know the answer to that. So I think it would be really interesting to see if we went through a period of giving women seven days of antibiotics, how hospital admissions would be reduced. I mean, we're spending £604 million on women who are suffering. Well, let's give women seven days worth of antibiotics

at the beginning and see how that number reduces. and let's invest more money into a correct test. The test for UTIs was invented 50 years ago by a scientist that said this test should not be used for UTIs. This test is to see it was all about pregnant women and kidney infections. It was not meant for UTIs. So because it's for kidney infections, the level of bacteria that you have to show is so high

that a lot of women get told they don't have UTIs and they're left without being given antibiotics. and that's when they end up in hospital. So you can see the patient pathway is not fit for purpose and it lets so many women down. And I've been on the phone with my GP in tears saying, I have got a UTI and I need antibiotics and I need to go and work for the next two days

and I can't move because I'm in so much pain. And the GP's saying, so I can't give you antibiotics because your test has come back negative. And then having to go and get them from somewhere else online, which I shouldn't have to do as a grown woman who pays her taxes. Also, the time frame, you get the first symptoms of UTI, which are stinging wee. You can get quite depressed, makes you anxious, really sore pelvic area. I mean, lots of women experience different symptoms, but those are mine and those, I would say, are the top ones.

And cloudy wee. The patient pathway, as it stands, is you go to the GP, you do a urine sample, and it comes back hours, if not 24 hours later. So this requires you to be in your hometown, which I'm very rarely because I'm filming all over the place. It requires you to have a day off to go and do the urine sample, which as a freelancer, lulls, or a parent running around juggling, or if you're looking after sick parents, whatever it is. And it also requires you to sit with your UTI, which is like razor blades coming out of your, and when you're not weeing, and you're just, you're utterly miserable and in so much pain. So it's not fit for purpose. And get an appointment. And then you have to get an appointment.

There is an initiative called Pharmacy First, which I was really excited about when it first came out. Because I thought, oh, it's going to make the patient pathway. You know, women are going to be able to get antibiotics. On a Friday afternoon, you know, when the GPs closed, you know, it's going to be easier to get antibiotics when you get a UTI. But unfortunately, there's so many restrictions, it's almost pointless. So I went to a pharmacy and I said, oh, here, you can get antibiotics for UTIs. I've got a UTI. And they sat down and they asked me a list of questions.

and I failed the questionnaire. And I was like, how can I... What did you think? Oh, because I had two that following year. So if you've had UTIs before, you can't get the antibiotics. Because I like, oh, you should go and see a consultant if you've had that many UTIs. I'm like, I have tried to get an appointment with a urologist. I'm 45.

I've had UTI since I was three years old and I have never been able to get an appointment. with a urologist because of my postcode. Because... Because I live in the wrong place. Because the waiting lists are too long or there isn't really an available urologist. So how many other women are like me? Well, when I posted this for the first time on Instagram,

I got 2 million views on that post. It was just me sitting on my sofa going, this is madness. This is madness. So it is a massive gaping, gaping hole of men. that we need to address. It's misery that we put up with. Yes.

In the appointment that I recently mentioned with the private menopause GP, I said to her, I feel like I live in a constant state of low-level UTIs. And she said, oh, yes, that's very common in the perimenopause. Oh, good, good, that's that then, is it? Right. That's another symptom I'm going to tick off the list there. Oh, I'll just live with that then. And I think that's what we do as women.

we, oh, it's just a UTI. Unless you're in the chronic pain that you're describing, which I don't get them to that extreme, but I do get the pressure. You know, the pressure. And when you sort of sit down and you get that, ooh, you know, and the cloudy wee and all this. But I just go, oh, I'll just drink some more water.

And that's what we do as women. We do not take our symptoms seriously because we're too busy to be ill. So I was so frustrated at getting these constant UTII. and being on antibiotics, I was really, really scared about antibiotic resistance because that is very, very dangerous. So I tried everything.

I tried everything I could get in the pharmacy, every health food store, and nothing worked. And I've tried everything, nothing worked at all. So I joined with the company and I said, look, we've got to try and see if we can create something that is going to prevent these UTIs from happening in as many women as possible. But I'll be the guinea pig.

And if it doesn't work on me, then we'll scrap the project. So this amazing company called Extracted said, okay, we're happy to invest a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of funds in developing something. And it's taken us a long time and we have made this product

which is working like a dream for me. So I haven't had antibiotics for an entire year. Wow. Or nearly a year. It is so amazing and so exciting and it's been on the market now for a little while. We've got loads of ideas to develop it.

But what I'm hoping is that that will stop women moving into the chronic phase of UTIs. And we're also developing lots of different products because there are so many women who don't have access to proper care around UTI. So it's been really, really exciting. And I take UT every single day now. So what's it called U-T? It's called U-T-E. Okay. And yeah, it's been life-changing for me.

When it comes to our skincare, we sometimes pay less attention to the products we use for our bodies than we do to facial cleansers or moisturisers, even less so products for intimate areas. Formed for use on the vulva, Fremfresh's, gynecologist-tested range of daily washes, wipes, deodorants and powders, work in harmony with your most intimate skin to keep you fresh throughout the day. So let's move on to some other healthcare issue symptoms that as women we tend to ignore or we don't understand what they're. they are and even when we present to healthcare professionals, they don't take us seriously. In your work as an advocate for the women's health space, one that you mentioned was heart attacks. Now, cardiovascular disease is the biggest killer for women globally, including menopausal women, yet there is still this sort of widely held image of the overweight man keeling over with a bacon butty in his hand type of thing. But it's not the case for women

and then explain to me how it presents in females. So you could get a healthy looking woman going to her GP saying, I've got indigestion, nausea, extreme fatigue, I've got pain radiating out from my back, I don't feel right. And that could be put down to all sorts of things. But because those symptoms are different to how a man's heart attack or cardiovascular disease presents, they wouldn't necessarily be put on the patient pathway of cardiovascular disease,

which, of course, is incredibly dangerous. So you send that woman home. And estrogen is in charge of so much, if not pretty much all of our physiological functions. So when we go into perimenopause and our estrogen starts to deplete, obviously that's going to affect everything. It's going to affect our cognitive function,

skin, hair, mood, heart, everything. So if a woman isn't taking HRT, or even if she is, we need to be really on the look out for cardiovascular disease. But the moment it just keeps getting missed. And that is just one of the things that gets missed because it's been, the research has been mainly done on men. And it also gets missed because women again tend to ignore their symptoms.

I have mentioned on this podcast before. I don't mind sharing again. I've had a few episodes recently where this pain starts in the middle of my chest and I get out of breath and I have to breathe through it and the pain radiates around my back and I feel nauseous and it goes on for about a half an hour and when I mentioned to Dr. Zoe Williams who was on this podcast she went babe that's a that's an A&E job and I was like well I didn't really have time to be ill Zoe actually I had a busy day and work the next day and she went but this is this is the problem with us as women we put everyone else first apart from ourselves and we come so far

down the pecking order but I ignored this happened three times by the way it wasn't once three times in over a space of about two weeks and I went if it happens again I'll go I think so but we are so busy women are incredible amazing beautiful wonderful we're like the glue that holds community together and we give and we give you give a woman a hundred pounds

she'll distribute it to the people around her so women are busy they are holding so many things together as amazing women do and so if their health isn't as it should be. It gets ignored, especially if they do take time to go to the GP and sacrifice things that they need to do in order to go and get, seek help. And they're just told to, you know, it's fine.

It's just your hormones. What do you mean? It's just my hormones. They are the glue that hold me together. I guarantee that if a man lost all his testosterone when he was 40, I mean, there'd be clinics specialising in that. I mean, that's one of the things that I would love to see.

There's an amazing campaigner called Dame Leslie Reagan. And she's the first women's health czar. And the things that she... I mean, basically, if she says we should do it, we should just be doing it. And we should just give her the money to do it. So she talked about a women's health hub, although I think it's called something different now,

where it's a one-stop shop for women's health. Of course, from the cradle to the grave, women go through lots of changes. that we bring new life into the world. We're literally a portal for human beings to come into the world. So we should be looked after, I mean, literally like goddesses. So there should be a special space for women to go where you can get help for everything

and you can take your daughter and your mom can go. And there isn't, I mean, it's so the opposite from that. You know, women waiting two years to see a gynaecological consultant. And the systemic economic impact of the health issues that women go through and are ignored are huge. The percentage of women who quit work during the perimenopause and menopause is shocking. Right.

We uphold the economy, you know. We are supremely able. We have a huge experience in our arsenal, but we are exiting the workforce because our symptoms are becoming intolerable. 60,000 women a year, exit the workforce because of menopausal symptoms and their embarrassment that I get hot flushes,

that I have brain fog, that I don't feel myself, that I feel anxious at decisions that shouldn't have made me anxious, which costs our country £1.5 billion a year. And I think one of the reasons that women's health is being taken seriously now is because it is now an economic issue. The sleepless nights and the anxiety that you go through in the sleepless nights when you think about work and it goes over and over in your head.

And it's always fine when you get up in the... the morning, but the dark thoughts that you can have. I'm on HRT now, Claire, because I'm generally a happy, positive person who wakes up and I have a real mission. And when I hit 3940, I couldn't sleep. I was waking up with heart palpitations, so anxious, wake up in the morning with dread for no reason, no reason at all, dread. And that lasted four years to the point where I was crying in my car, calling my friend saying, I don't know what's wrong with me. And It was only because I was making a program for Channel 5 about women's health. And I spoke to a gynecological expert.

And this is a woman who works in women's health. And he said, you've got your perimenopausal. You need to go on HRT. And I did. And it changed my life. And I wish I'd done it sooner. And a lot of people go, are you a bit young for HRT? No, I'm not.

I'm actually really not. I'm the perfect age. I don't know why. The first thing that we try, when a woman goes into a doctor's office and she says, I'm anxious and I can't function. can't sleep. I don't know why we don't just immediately say try HRT rather than here's some antidepressants, which won't, which won't solve the problem.

I'm on HRT and I have me since I was 41. So younger than you, again, through meeting a expert, Dr. Louise Newson, in fact, I met because I was part of a cross-parliamentary Women's Health Task Force, which Leslie Reagan chaired actually. Right. and one of the subjects was being discussed was the menopause and the perimenopause and everything that was being discussed suddenly became very, very familiar to what I was going through myself. Bearing I was the editor-in-chief of Woman's Health at the time and I didn't understand what was happening to me.

So, you know, we think menopause is done and everyone knows the symptoms and everyone knows what they should be looking out for, but the symptoms are endless anyway. but there's still a lot of work to be done. I had a dinner with a group of friends the other day and I said, yeah, I've started HRT, it's absolutely wonderful. They said, why, you don't need that? Why have you done that? It's like getting glasses and we don't really need glasses

because you think they look cool. And I went, no, it's changed my life. I feel so much happy. I feel so much better. And I said, I don't wake up with heart palpitations. I sleep much better. I wake up. I don't have a sense of drivet.

Look, has it gone completely no, but it's so much better. And they all went, well, we have that. We have that. And I said, well, and they just think it's life. You should probably. They said, isn't that just getting older? I said, no, you do not need to wake up with a sense of dread every morning. That's not normal.

So the conversation is so far from done. We've just started. And we're also paving the way for our younger girls until every single woman in this country understand that you don't need to live a life of misery. It's not just getting older. It is a fixable solution. And until there's equal investment into women's medical research, we're not done.

This conversation has literally just started. What would you say to a woman who is listening or watching today who struggles to advocate for themselves and it's fearful for being seen as difficult when going to the doctor? But some of the things we've said today are all too familiar with. her and she knows that she needs to take action. You can absolutely ask for a second opinion, which I know takes time. You can research the GPs in your clinic and ask for the GP that you feel might help you

the best. You can speak to a receptionist and explain your problem and say, who would you recommend me see? I wish it wasn't the case, Claire. I really wish this wasn't the case, but you slightly need to go ready to fight your corner. Not all GPs, by the way. And GPs also are working unbelievably hard. The turnaround time for patients is very, very quick. It's full on.

So it may be that the GP, it just completely innocently, misses that diagnosis. But you're allowed to go in and fight your corner. Until we get proper funding for women's health, we need to be a bit fighty. Which brings me on to my final question. If we had the health secretary in here today, what would you be saying to them needs to change as a matter

of urgency. I would absolutely love two things. I would love to see the women's health community centre, the women's health hub come into action everywhere. And I would love to see more investment, proper active investment in UTIs because the amount of women who are suffering from chronic uti's who I have spoken to who cannot live their life. A young woman in her 20s who I've spoken to in tears who cannot have children because of UTIs. Goodness. But the amount of women that I'm speaking to who just don't know where to go so we need to stop women getting chronic UTIs we need to have more investment in prevention of UTIs. From the fragrance-free sensitive wash to the

99% national origin ingredients wipes range, Femfreshes product a dermatologist tested to help confirm that they are gentle and suitable for intimate skin. Whether it's a wash using your daily shower or a wipe kept in your bag for on-the-go freshness, the focus on bringing specialist care to the vulva's skin remains the same. Cherry, thank you so much for coming into Jest as well today.

But before I let you go, I've got my quickfire questions that we ask all guests, which I'm sure you're familiar with because you've listened to other episodes, but if not, if you've not prepared your answers, I'm going to come round yours for dinner. What are you going to cook me? Lazzania, garlic bread, best salad you've ever had.

Lovely. It takes me three days to make this lasagna. Why? Because it's the best thing you've ever had. Is it like a secret recipe? Oh yeah. Yeah, it's from my mum and it's unreal. Fabulous.

You'll go into a desert island for 12 months and you can only take one thing and it can't be a child. That's cheating. What are you going to take? This is so awful, but I'm going to take my UTI supplement. Yes. I can't live without it now.

go everywhere. I mean, I check my bags, and I know that sounds really salesy, but it's actually, it's just the truth. I don't want to be anywhere. I don't want to be too far from it because it's, yeah, otherwise my life's awful. Coffee or wine for the rest of your life? Wine. Which one is it? Wine. Your white, red or rosy kind of gal? A cold French burgundy. Nice. What's the last thing that made you belly laugh? I just had to get my cat shaved because it's really hot and she's a main coon. So she's really, so I think probably that I honestly thought you meant something else. I thought we're oversharing here, but you actually mean your cat.

I really mean my cap. I had to shave my pussy because it got too hot. And what's one thing people can do to make themselves feel a bit better today? Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, get your sleep routine down. First thing you should do health-wise. Sleep is the glue that holds you together. You'll be nicer, you'll eat right, your exercise. your skin will glow, your brain will be washed at night, your sleep.

Sometimes as girls struggle to sleep with the hot flashes, etc. What are your tips there then? Put towels or tea towels in the freezer and have them on rotation. Make sure there's always one in the freezer and just put it on your feet. They last a good 15, 20 minutes, I would say, and then swap it out. Just keep doing that. It'll keep your body temperature down. It's orgasmic.

Kept me sane during the heat wave. Cherry, thank you so much for coming in to see us on Just as well today, and I will be coming around your spilazania. Thank you so much for having me, and it will be ready when you arrive. Thank you. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.cair, every style, every home.