Tea at Four - Ep 57: I went through the menopause at 15: We talk to Sheree, the founder of Life of POI

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

On this weeks episode of Tea at Four, we spoke to the brilliant Sheree Hargreaves who told us all about how she dealt with her early onset menopause at the age of 15. We touch on the need for more research in women's health and why we need to redefine the generalisations people make about menopause. Sheree explains how she's ultimately been a 'guinea pig' for a young woman receiving hormone replacement therapy, and how she approaches the topic of primary ovarian insufficiency, infertility and treatment in conversations with friends, strangers, and in her dating life.

First words that they did say to me were, well, we're sorry to inform you, but you're infertile and you can't have your own children. I walked out of the GP surgery with a green slip in my prescription and a leaflet with two white, old, wrinkled, grey-haired ladies on the front saying, what is menopause? I can't see myself in that. We need to learn way more about women's health because everyone who goes through something like this

feel feels alone at some point hi guys welcome back to tf4 i'm christy and i'm lauren and this is the podcast where we talk all things i should have said in the group chat. Speaking of the group chat, this week I was telling Christy about an incredible women's health summit that I went to, hosted by The Lowdown. And at this summit there was a talk on menopause. And I just want to preface this by saying I don't think I've ever had a conversation with anyone, whether that be in school yeah not even my mum what about menopause and amongst this panel was a girl a 23 year old girl called sheree and firstly this was amongst a couple of older women which i was thinking what's the story here and sheree was basically talking about how she has gone through menopause at the age of 15

early menopause and i thought this was an incredible story to share and luckily we've got her on the podcast today yay so sheree thank you so much for coming on would you mind introducing yourself up introducing yourself up um so i'm sheree i am 23 now i was diagnosed with something called premature ovarian insufficiency at the age of 15 which basically means that your ovaries are declining um and dying which sounds very depressing um but yeah that is basically what it is before the age of 40 um i educate women um men young people in schools universities workplaces um about my story and using it to facilitate conversation and basically help people know what it is and know what menopause is incredible yeah so can I ask the initial question how how did you know you had POI

so we have to like wind all the way back to like early teens yeah so I was about 12 13 when my peers started to have their periods and buying their first bras and talking about puberty and all of those like really fun things when you're young um and I never felt like I could really get involved in those conversations because I didn't experience anything like that. But I thought that I'm still quite young. I'm not going to flag this up yet. And when I was about 14, I went to my mum and I was like, Mum, I haven't had my period yet. A bit worried because everyone else literally felt like

they'd all had their periods and I was like right something's really wrong here and I was a really poorly child or that I'd described myself as so I'd have like I'd get really sweaty randomly and like have night sweats that I know now but I just felt like I was like always having the colds and always a bit under the weather I had really bad back pain and joint pain and they never I went to the doctors about all of this no I never really drew the dots and then finally at 15 I went to the doctors and I was like I'm not having my periods all of these things are happening like is there anything that could be wrong with me and they did well they sent me away first um and said you know you're too young um like your periods will come yeah you'll be fine like very dismissed and i was like oh maybe

i'm making something up here like yeah i definitely felt like i was kind of gaslit a lot um but thank god i've got an absolute powerhouse of a mum because she was like we're going back we're not leaving until we find some answers um and that's basically how I found out was I just was very persistent with the GP um simple blood tests and an ultrasound scan to confirm um and yeah they told me like a few months after after that wow like I just want to know like what was when you was diagnosed what was the thought process because for me if when I hear something I'm quick to like you know we run onto the internet and you google so I can just imagine 15 year old you hearing that what are you thinking because of course you've never heard of what it is before so no could you just like describe if you don't mind that kind of that

moment for you honestly I was completely confused yeah like I was just completely and utterly like what the hell are you even talking about nothing was really explained to me not very not very well anyway um and I basically kind of went a bit like I couldn't hear anything that they were saying because the first words that they did say to me were so Cherie you've come in today to see what's going on with you with your body and with your health and I was like yeah and they said well we're sorry to inform you but you're you're infertile and you you know can't have your own children that was the initial that was the like first thing that came out of their mouth yeah so I was like whoa what the hell I was like this is a bit scary yeah um and then they carried on and basically said you've got something called premature ovarian failure as it was called at the

time and after that I just completely went like failure infertility like am I a woman what is going on um and yeah it was really surreal like mentally going on from that day were you like did you have to your own research in terms of how to be treated for this because like personally when I think of POI and things like menopause it's like for older people like is the treatment for that completely different when you're younger or the treatment for menopause in general is completely different for everyone okay everyone has different body types everyone absorbs different HRTs hormone replacement therapy differently um so for me as a younger woman as well that is going to be a factor because when you are younger you do have more estrogen so i will need more estrogen more like more progesterone and testosterone which a lot of people think that it's a male hormone but I have testosterone um we all have testosterone I just have to replace mine

um but from the day that I was diagnosed I was prescribed estrogen and the hormones but also antidepressants and I never explained that I had like bad mental health it was just assumed that I would need them that's crazy yeah wow yeah and did you have like so you had do you have your mum there like yeah so my mum was there um and she was pretty much the information sponge at the time yeah yeah because I couldn't really understand what was going on 15 I could barely take in what my GCSEs were trying to get me to learn let alone something happening like that in a doctor's I mean a vivid memory for me is like the like a few weeks after my diagnosis and I was sat in a science class because bear in mind I was 15 just about to do my GCSEs and they were like oh well you know you

want to get all the one markers the multiple choice they're really easy let's just bash out a few of these and they said like everyone write down what species is and everyone's like talking amongst themselves and then the answer was a organism that can reproduce and I was sat in that classroom not telling anyone what I'm going through yeah keeping it such a secret because I was so ashamed and so embarrassed and someone says that who I look up to as a teacher and then I'm like what the hell am I some sort of alien or something like I'm not even a woman I'm not I feel like I'm not a woman I'm not human and yeah it was a really crazy time trust me so so at that moment when you just found out that you had it were you internalizing a lot were you keeping it private or was it stuff you were sharing with your friends yeah I kept a lot of it a secret I

confided in one of my friends um but after a few years um until covid actually because I threw myself into my education I like didn't want to think about it completely was in denial and so I just distracted myself with work and with going out with friends and doing all the usual stuff because it was also marketed to me as something that I don't have to worry about right now because you're not thinking about children now so you don't need to worry so I just put it to the back of my mind um not really realizing that it literally impacts your whole body mind skin hair everything is impacted by hormones it's literally like the battery to a woman yeah with hormones with the woman's body with the decline of hormones through menopause the long-term effects of not having enough estrogen or

progesterone or all of these things can have really severe effects on a woman's body like dementia heart disease osteoporosis type 2 diabetes certain types of like eczema and things like that like you can be impacted in a lot of different ways yeah if you don't have enough hormones and I was never told any of this I was just kind of fobbed off and had to do my own research I had to go out there and really think about how is this impacting my body so in Covid I couldn't distract myself anymore with school. Like it was all, I was at uni at the time and it was all like cancelled and I couldn't throw myself into my studies. I couldn't see my friends. We were all in the same boat,

but I was using it as a distraction and then there was no distraction all of a sudden. So I kind of went through the seven stages of grief in lockdown, like the anger and the sadness and the, like, worry and then the, you know, all of the different steps, like the bargaining, being like, well, you know, there's loads of different things out there, like the science is, like, so amazing.

And then finally the acceptance. And I thought, I can't be the only one who's going through this like there must be some other women going through what I'm going through right now so I went on Instagram like everyone around our age does Instagram and TikTok and all of all of the above yeah and I couldn't see anyone posting about it and I was like I'm gonna be that person who does and I'm just gonna put it on and then leave it and see what happens so I just posted it um threw my phone across the room and I was like finally the is out. I don't have to be ashamed anymore. Let's just be confident with it and see if I can help anyone.

And the response was just phenomenal. Wow. Really? Like, everyone was so supportive. Even, like, boys who were in my classroom at school were, like, messaging me being like that's amazing like you've never have known so interesting wish I could learn more about it like being genuinely serious and I was like there's something there yeah like we need to learn way more about women's

health there needs to be more research, more education, more awareness, because everyone who goes through something like this feels alone at some point, and you're not alone. And so that's why I do what I do, because, you know, I want to help people. Yeah, that's absolutely amazing. I was going to ask, at the time that you were diagnosed, your mother was there, of course, how was it for her? Because I'm guessing at the age that you were diagnosed um you had your mother was there of course how was it for her because i'm guessing she at the age that she was at she wasn't at the how i'm trying to articulate this she wasn't at the average yeah that's it she was at the average menopausal age

so how was your relationship between you and your mother because obviously now she's got to explain something that she hasn't even gone through herself um to you so how was that mother and daughter bond during those times for you me and my mom have always been super super close yeah um and it just brought us closer learning about each other and learning about different things together i mean she was my only like person who i could really talk to because I didn't tell anyone else I didn't tell my siblings didn't tell anyone because I was so as the older sibling I was like I should be the I should be the role model and I don't think that I didn't think at the time that an infertile woman is a role model but yeah so we like bonded over it to be honest um

and then when it was time for her to go through her like HRT journey she knew exactly what to say to the doctors knew exactly how to approach to certain situations knew exactly what she was heading herself in for with HRT so it kind of prepared my mum for menopause which is so weird because obviously your daughter's not meant to go through menopause before you um but it kind of prepared her for what was coming and I think all women should just be prepared 100% yeah you spoke about the kind of initial symptoms about not i know you said about the stuff in your childhood but not starting your period until 15 if i actually think about i think i was late on coming on my period and i wouldn't have associated it with something like early menopause or poi like was there anything else around that time that was like symptom wise a bit of a flag because

one the awareness isn't there at the moment the education isn't there the conversation isn't where isn't there but ultimately like what are we supposed to be looking out for periods is is the number one indicator to be honest irregular periods really heavy periods and then like absent periods so it's it sounds like oh my god that's pretty much everything everything yeah but you should be on like kind of on top of your own health because no one else is gonna quite frankly we live in a society where women's health just isn't isn't isn't seen as a thing um like with endometriosis pcos there's no studies with hardly any of this stuff and so you kind of have to know your own body and i just knew something wasn't right i was i was like really poorly as a kid and I just knew that like the certain things weren't

weren't me weren't weren't meant to be like I just didn't feel right and I mean in hindsight now looking back there were so many symptoms I had like vaginal atrophy, which is the drying and the thinning of the vagina. But it stopped me from like sitting down for long periods of time. So like the, you know, when you was at school and you had the three hour English exams, I would be so uncomfortable in those exams. I couldn't wear like tight jeans at some points. And this is a massively common symptom and I didn't even go to the doctors about that until I was in my 20s because I thought it was not even connected I mean I'm all fine now thankfully you can get vaginal oestrogens and you

can get it all sorted um but yeah so there was like that and then I had hot flushes I was always the person who in the friendship group who would go out without a jacket because I knew that I'd get hot right um like at sleepovers and stuff like I'd want to stay in my own space because I knew that I'd get hot at night certain things like that I mean I'd forget where my classrooms were and I've had the same classrooms a whole year round and I'd put my hand up in class and forget why it's even up there there's there's so many things like that's brain fog hot flushes giant atrophy joint pain ins, insomnia, hyper sleeping. Like there was just so much,

but it can also be thought as as puberty, like mood swings, like, you know, hot flushes, you know, sweaty teenager when you see one. So it's really hard to detect, but you can, you just have to kind of advocate for yourself and see if you can get any help. Yeah, and when you talk about your diagnosis, I guess you said the first thing that they brought up was about the fertility. How did you navigate that whole concept at 15?

And was there treatment? Did they suggest any possible routes you can go down for the future or yeah I mean with the fertility side of things that was like the really hard part for me I've always been quite a maternal person like with my younger siblings and like I've always thought of myself in that way. I mean, all women are kind of told in society that they should be mothers one day anyway. So hearing that, especially before you actually have the knowledge

to really think if that's what you want, or like if you don't even really think about it properly when you're a teenager yeah no you don't and then being told that you can't it's like it's like unreal like you can't imagine like the feeling um and it took a lot of therapy and a lot of talking to my mom and a lot of researching different things and honestly researching childless like childless women like women who have their whole lives and choose not to have children like i didn't realize that that was even an option there's society has got a lot to answer for when it comes to motherhood and womanhood and the ideas around gender tying it to being a mother and massive

complex I had a massive complex with my womanhood and yeah it was it was really painful it was hard um I mean at the age of I think I was 17 yeah I might have been 16 but I was um I was taken into an IVF specialist appointment and obviously I wasn't going in there to have IVF because I was 16, 17. But even that knowledge, you don't need to know about that when you're 16, 17. I was putting money away in a savings account from the age of 16. Like, I was propelled into adulthood before I even could even think about it properly.

Yeah. It was really hard. God, and it it's like and it's all the conversations like you say that are surrounding motherhood and being a mum and the future and it's so heavy and I guess you you didn't share a lot of the stuff with the people around you like how do you set those boundaries with people when not everyone's going to understand the full story and we're not at that point where we're educated yet so how did you protect your own mental health physical health everything around that time I mean I kind of removed myself from certain situations um I did come become a little bit withdrawn um when it came to like girls chats and like talking about baby names and things like that but and like sex education at school like I went to a christian like a

christian school and definitely they won't be talking about that I went I went to one so yeah yeah it was like very like pregnancy based like you will get pregnant so you know abstinence and all of this stuff but it was like very much seen as like you are going to get pregnant one day like it wasn't taught that you might not be able to have children or that you can choose otherwise that you don't need to have children at all um so it was it was really hard to build those boundaries especially when you had to be in the classrooms when you had to be in there and you didn't want to look weird you didn't want to be the odd one out leaving the classroom or you know you i just kind of had to deal with it yeah um but yeah there'll be there'll be loads of times throughout my life where I'll have that weird feeling of happiness for the people but kind of sadness for me and like when my friends have babies maybe I'll feel

some type of way about that yeah but you just have to take every day as it comes and I guess like it's all about learning how you cope as an individual and how much you can handle and definitely yeah and just even being in front of us now and having this conversation and being on a panel talking about menopause amongst older women as well is that voice that is so crucial exactly because i think you made a really good point about how when you're diagnosed and you went to the doctors and you're looking at these leaflets and they're of older ladies yeah and like what's like you've talked about obviously having a voice on social media but not having that representation there yeah i mean

it it lacks in in a lot of the minorities that are diagnosed with this sort of stuff like i walked out of the gp surgery with a green slip with my prescription and a leaflet with two white old wrinkled gray haired ladies on the front yeah saying what is menopause and i can't see myself in that yeah black women can't see themselves in that disabled women can't see themselves in that trans people can't see themselves in that and trans people go through menopause trans men go through menopause yeah it's just younger younger women you know it so... There's no representation for women going through menopause through all walks of life. And I have the privilege that I'm well-educated and I'm white

and I can stand on a platform and speak. But you still feel underrepresented, even though you do carry some privilege because of my age um and a lot of people like well you know you you don't really know what it's like like i'm old i'm losing my job i'm divorcing my husband i'm like well i didn't even have a chance to get a relationship i didn't have a chance to get on the property ladder before all of this crap has hit me in the face i'm i'm starting from afresh and you know going into the world already facing those barriers so yeah sorry that was a bit of passion no no you say it because i definitely do um understand that where you're coming from

because it's like it's you by yourself so you're trying to like show the world like i've got a listen to me you can you can even learn something from me because you know i mean it's your own perspective um with the work that you do on social media and everything that you shared have you managed to connect with people your age yeah definitely i mean i've got so many online mates now it's really good um and the daisy network is a charity that is for poi sufferers um don't like the word sufferer but anyway um warriors um but yeah so there's a charity out there that is really good um and there's like the menopause matter campaign which is also really good for us getting the education into schools on school curriculum

which is so important um and yeah i've i've found a lot of women i mean it's it's one in 10 000 women under 20 who who go through menopause early wow it doesn't sound like it does in a way like that 10 000 women yeah grand scheme of things like i mean i don't know 10 000 people absolutely not but it's quite like it's a lot more people than you think i mean that's also people who are in the research like there's people who take the pill for their whole teenage life and it's got hormones in it so it masks all the symptoms and then when they stop taking the pill they can't have babies because they've gone through the menopause but it's just masked the hot flushes mask the insomnia masks all of these things and then they're going through the menopause but they

don't really know so these are these are women who and also women who are scared to go to the doctors people don't go until they're like 13 really know what they're doing with their life and like so i think the number's way higher way way higher god so with just asking on a very basic level hrt is the hormone replacement therapy like when you're taking that at 15 is it as straightforward as them knowing exactly the things to put in you to sort things out like what was that situation like definitely felt like a bit of a lab rat yeah it was trial and error after trial and error like there's tablets and patches and there's you know um injections but i didn't i haven't tried that um there's like oral tablets

vaginal tablets there's gels like sprays there's there's so many and i've i've done it all apart from the injections um and i finally found after eight years bear in mind yeah finally found a HRT regime that works for me congratulations thank you fucking hell eight years is a long time wow um so yeah so there's been like massive ups and massive downs with the HRT journey um I mean I've been hospitalized because of the HRT that I've been given before. Like, too high a dose can also be really harmful. What are the side effects of that? I mean, again, it's so hard to say because there's just not enough research. There's no research on patches for women under 20 so i'm literally just taking this

medication and not sure that's crazy um so it's been obviously like a menopausal woman at an average age um so fingers crossed i'm fine yeah but there is just no research out there um I know that there's some like up-and-coming research coming out soon um but currently as we stand we don't really know what's like what's gonna be helpful what's not helpful um we do know however that transdermal patches um so that means through the skin um hormones through the skin are a lot better for you in like blood clot wise they like don't create blood clots or anything like that um i mean there's so many myths around HRT, like the breast cancer myth and the blood clots. And women take the pill for 40 years, 30 years, 20 years, and don't bat an eyelid because they don't want to get pregnant.

But it's kind of the same stuff, but in patch form. It's hormones. And all of a sudden you're like oh i don't want to take it it means i'm old right it doesn't mean you're old clearly yeah so in terms of sorry with everything like knowing that obviously there's not a lot not a lot of research how does that affect your day to day because it's like i'm on i'm on this course or regime you know i'm hopeful that this is going to happen but because you because there's not that much research out there and like you just said, sometimes you feel like a lab rat,

how does that affect your day-to-day? Like how does it affect your mental? I mean, the health anxiety is definitely there, especially with the like looming thing of like early mortality rates and like dementia and osteoporosis. All of these things are super super scary right so obviously when I like accidentally miss putting a patch on I'm like oh my god I'm gonna get dementia or like you know I do I know if I'm having enough estrogen yeah like am I am I on a best the best HRT regime but you've got to kind of go off your symptoms

because there's nothing really else you can go off i mean you can go off blood tests but one day you could take a blood test and you have sky high oestrogen the next day you have really really low oestrogen right it like the the receptors in your body can change um placement of where you put your patches there's so many different factors so to answer the question yeah i have a lot of health anxiety and it really does worry me but i tailored both my degrees around early menopause so i did a bachelor's and a master's and thanks give her her flowers thank you and i tailored them around like feminist gerontology so the study of aging and how how we you know how we see aging people and trying to break up down those barriers being an aging person but not looking old yeah um or just breaking down the stereotypes of age itself um so that gives me power come on education

gives me power and strength like knowing the information is out there I love that yeah yeah yeah I was gonna ask the same thing about like how it affects your day-to-day I guess how do you find yourself navigating things like relationships if you don't mind me asking and you know approaching this conversation especially with men amazing that people in your class that would write to you and be like oh my god I wish I knew more about this but I guess approaching that in your 20s it's such a big thing anyway but especially in your case how have you handled that conversation so actually with me it's kind of different and a bit intertwined with lots of different things so I'm actually a lesbian so I don't date men okay um so fertility would be really super hard for me anyway and like it's an unspoken thing amongst the LGBTQ plus community that infertility is

intertwined with all of us and that's really hard um but the added obvious can't have the eggs is really hard as well um but in my case having my diagnosis so young really delayed my coming out okay so i didn't really want to be like an infertile person and a lesbian like that's just a bit too much that's what I thought like at the time I was like you know that's just it really through complex like things with my womanhood yeah and I was just so so scared of people not perceiving me as a woman, even though I really was a woman and, like, felt like a woman. And so, like, with relationships, I mean, it's hard bringing the infertility thing up in any relationship.

Like, when do you say it? Do you say it when you're married? Do you say it on the first date? And they'll be like, oh. Or you can't say it when they're trapped in a marriage like what if they don't want what if they don't want you anymore or whatever so it is a hard thing but I think just being really open and honest like straight off the bat yeah um keeping the communication open it doesn't have to be like a on the first date really want to let you know that i'm infertile so like if you want to leave now you can right it doesn't

really need to be like that yeah it could just be something like you know it can come up in any conversation like yeah you know over over a pizza and you and you just like yeah so i basically can't have kids but you know it's something that doesn't define me or yeah like whatever but more relaxed i feel that and especially what you said about even way back when to schools and just assuming everybody is fertile and going to reproduce and has the ability to. I think the more research that's coming out is that, you know, there is a fertility crisis right now. And I think we should be having these conversations and having that awareness to not assume that everybody is going to be able to do that. And especially for conversations like those with future partners, it's's just it's just makes things less daunting yeah

exactly i mean i wish i had the conversations at school yeah and that's why i want to go into schools and say look like i was sat where you are and i was being told about pregnancy and about how it's such a wonderful thing and it is it really is a beautiful beautiful thing but it shouldn't be seen as the only option yeah like there is so many options you can choose not to have children you can choose to adopt you can choose to like go down the IVF route you can you know you there's so many options like surrogacy like that's not even talked about do you know what i think it is as well um i don't know what it is but when it comes to like education in schools it's in a way when it comes to female like the reproductive system and like sexual sexual education and stuff

not that it's scaremongering but then it kind of puts you off as a female to then learn about yourself because you're like oh my god go through excitedness i don't want to know so like if you think about it already you're programmed to be like okay this is going to happen to you this is what you expected of a woman and then you're like okay cool you've told me what i need to do i don't need to do the research yeah but actually understanding ourselves is something that we take for granted yeah and i feel like with girl literacy the conversation we've been having and having you here i'm like all the time that i know something's not right and i'm just like yeah it's whatever or i just quickly search on a google search i actually do myself an injustice because it's good to go out there learn about yourself so you're more prepared then if you do go into like a gp or doctors he's like i feel like

this i've researched this i know it could be this could you just give me that confirmation yeah you're already a bit comfortable in your situation if that makes sense yeah absolutely so it's and advocating for yourself rather than because not everyone's got an amazing parent that can be there like you say soak up that information for them in a scary situation like a doctor's surgery yeah and i feel that on a level of like when i think back to learning about periods I don't think there was a ever any bit of education about endometriosis but then I've experienced that stuff gone into a doctor's surgery they said no it's heavy periods I've gone fine yeah okay then put me on the pill so I just numb that and then it's never really taken seriously yeah exactly I mean it's I wish that we didn't have to do that like I wish that we were taken

seriously I wish that we didn't have to find the knowledge ourselves and that it was provided for us and I really wish that people would pick up on certain signs draw the dots for us like that's what should happen um but unfortunately it doesn't. And it is systematic. It's not an individual thing. It's not just the shitty doctors. It's not just the bad GP. It's a system.

They're not being taught the right things or they're not being like expanded over all female health. There's no funding there's no um research to read in the beginning so where where do they go where do they how can they help us so we have to kind of help ourselves um but also we're voters we're you know individual people we can do research we can change the system so people lots of people think that like one vote doesn't count it massively does so like we can we can change things regardless of what everyone thinks we can so we're not doomed yeah no it's true when i think about as well like even opening up the conversation to men when we look at these people in power in our parliament it's a lot of

men so without having the research being done and advocating for women's health and putting that funding in there yeah like how's it ever gonna get better better? Exactly. So we need to... I mean, that's why I did a speech at Harrow School, you know, the school for boys. Yeah. Private school, super, you know... God, yeah. Super privileged men and boys in the room. And I did that talk because not only are those men

needing to know for their mothers or their their sisters or friends or whatever but they are most likely going to be when they're older in those seats true yeah sure they are given the right funding they are you know given the confidence to be in those seats yeah why not educate these people like that's just a system that we live in so why not educate these people yeah and honestly the reception was brilliant love that they were so like interested they were putting their hands up asking questions they wanted to know more give people the information they want the information sheree is feeding the next generation of doctors i love that that's right i think about as well the kind of taboo that comes around the subject of menopause and i think about like mums and i don't

know if it's the way it's presented in media but it's like oh she's got her flashes oh she's she's in a horrible mood she's this she's that having that compassion is very necessary and I guess my question to you is as women that maybe haven't entered this stage of stage of life yet or don't know where to go to do the research how do we start um that's tricky because not everyone has access to certain information right not everyone has a phone not everyone has a computer like we have to think about the people who aren't privileged enough to go and find that information so the people in the seats the people with the voice the people who are allowed to hold the microphone are the people that can really change things yeah but as individuals who do have access to certain things there's you know the the um british

menopause society i don't even know about that i'm gonna write that down yeah getting my notes in already yeah yep there's like the make menopause matter campaign there's you know menopause support there's you know google scholar just type in in google scholar yes there's loads of medical jargon yes there's loads of words that you probably don't understand and probably you know you don't want to read but sift through them like just skim them you don't even have to know everything just be prepared for your bodies to change and really stay in tune with your bodies now like have some have some chats with yourself about your body are you happy with the way that your health is right now like are there things that you can change with diet or exercise or like you don't have to be this ideal person but see what helps you like is there certain things that you

can change with your gut health or there's there's lots of things that you can research it doesn't have to be like menopause specific yeah and you have this chance to be in a stable body for now and like obviously there's there's twists and turns like every single woman yeah but once that stability starts to change that's when you know what's going on. You know, just read the symptoms, like, look out for things. I mean, hopefully there'll be more representation out there. There's, like, different people to talk to.

There's, like, black communities who are talking about menopause in a different way, because women are impacted differently, and you just don't get told this. No. Why is that? I don't know. I think it's...

Because I do... I hear conversations with my mum and her peers, like, yeah, maybe it's the menopause, but they get hospitalized. I don't know what it is, but yeah. It is very, very rare. It's because there's no research. It's because what came first was male research.

What came second was white research with women. And what came third, unfortunately, was black research. And there's came third unfortunately was black research and there's still a long way to go with research and funding and taking people seriously yeah like people from different backgrounds they experience the same things like why don't we have the research it absolutely baffles me like what like what the hell is going on with this world it's a roller coaster but you know what i've started to appreciate more is like all these um period apps i use an app called period diary now and um i'm not gonna lie when like when they they tell you to tick the symptoms go through it and take it there's even then research on it

how you feeling stuff that you can do and it's like the information's there as well so it's just up to us to kind of like yeah take it in so i think ever since we started girl literacy and having these kind of very meaningful conversations i'm like okay cool what have i taken out of today and what can i do just to better you know feed myself fill my cup as well so that i am not blindsided and i know what's going on so it's just like just getting comfortable in understanding our bodies and doing the work for ourselves and just not waiting because if we wait and not want to be proactive,

trust and believe, we'll still be at the back burner. Yeah. So, yeah. I hope this conversation is just one step in making a more progressive future for women's health. Come on. So thank you so much for

coming on and speaking with us feed in the nations um if you guys have any questions for sheree um write them in the comments dm us on all our platforms or email us at tf4 at jungle creations but that's it for today and we will see you next week