The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 056 - ’balance’ Menopause App - Jane Oglesby & Dr Louise Newson

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

In this podcast, Dr Louise Newson is talking with Jane Oglesby, whom she first met at Manchester University when they were both medical students together. Dr Newson and Jane then reconnected a few years ago when she visited the Newson Health clinic as she had been really struggling with menopausal symptoms and was unable to receive the right help and treatment. Jane now works a trustee for The Oglesby Charitable Trust and she is passionate about tackling health inequalities, amongst other issues, and she is also a Director of both Focused Care and the Shared Health Foundation. Jane has kindly personally donated money to enable us to develop and produce a brand new menopause app called 'balance' which has just been launched. The aim of this app is to provide evidence based and non-biased information about the perimenopause and menopause to as many women as possible worldwide. Dr Newson and her team have been working hard for the past year with the most incredible team at Magnetic North in Manchester and is really excited to announce that it is now available to download.  Click here to find out more and download 'balance' today! Jane Oglesby's Three Favourite Things About 'balance': We have asked women what they want! The app has been designed with that as the main objective - it gives women what they have asked for. The app is a free resource full of information. We want it to stay accessible for all women. balance demonstrates a collaborative effort from a great group of women and I'm very proud of it!

Welcome to the Newsome Health Menopause podcast. I'm Dr Louise Newsom, a GP and menopause specialist, and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre here in Stratford-upon-Avon. So today I'm excited for many reasons to produce this podcast and get it out to you today. I've got with me Jane Oglesby, who is a friend who I have actually known for decades, dare I say it, but we've been reunited, as it were, over the last year or so. So thanks for agreeing to do this today, Jane. And my pleasure. And I'm also very excited because since we've been reunited, we've been working incredibly hard behind the scenes to develop an app called Balance,

which is just about to be launched. So when you hear this, it will be launched. So we want to talk about how we sort of got together again, if you like, and also about the app, which we're both incredibly excited about. So just so people know, we went to medical school together in Manchester, didn't we, Jane, a long time ago. A long time ago. And we didn't really know each other terribly well then, did we? No, we didn't. But in fact, it materialised that you were a junior doctor with my husband, Paul, weren't you? And I'm very impressed to hear that he did actually help you out a couple of times, which is, well, he thinks that, he now thinks that I thought he was nice just because he wasn't horrible to me. And most people when you're a junior doctor are pretty horrible to you.

So it may have been as simple as that. Yeah. So you did some of your training in Scotland and then the rest in Manchester and I was in Manchester for all my training. And then you reconnected to me. It must have been two, two and a half years ago, I think. You sent me an email, didn't you? Yes.

It was one of those wonderful loops of people that I know. So I had started to have perimenopausal symptoms. I probably didn't realize, well, how many of my symptoms were perimenopause. but I knew that my periods were getting a bit erratic and a bit heavier and that I was struggling a bit more with pre-menstrual syndrome, sort of psychological symptoms before my periods came, but because I didn't know when they were coming, it was a little bit harder to handle really. I'd also, with hindsight, was fairly disgruntled with my life and I knew there was some connection with my hormones and I started, I had a cupboard for.

of supplements and suggestions and expensive rubbish, basically. And I had this idea that I didn't want to take HRT, that it wasn't natural, that I should try and get through this on my own and with yoga and with good nutrition, that it was just a phase I needed to go through. And I was also one of the reasons I didn't want HIT one, it was this sort of idea that I should be really natural. And secondly, I did think that there was an increased risk of breast cancer. And two of my paternal aunts have had breast cancer, one of them died with it, and the other one is still alive in her 70s.

So I had this idea I didn't want HRT. And then one of my best friends who had moved down to Coventry a few years ago, she's a fairly no-nonsense individual. And she said, I don't know what you're messing about. You should go and see this brilliant doctor I found in Stratford called Louise News Newsome. And then I thought, well, I know that name. There can't be too many of those. So I googled you and there was the face I recognised. So I think I sent you an email saying something like, well, I've really struggled my menopause.

Don't want to take HRT. But I'd like to come and see you to talk about it. Yes, which is what you did. And clearly now you are taking HRT. I'm feeling a lot better. And it's very interesting. So this is for you as a doctor. I know you're not practicing as a doctor anymore, but you've had medical training

and you probably, like me, didn't have much education about the menopause, but also HRT has changed a lot since our day, if you like, when a lot of it was the older progestogens, tablet estrogen, which has got different risks to the HRT that we prescribe now. And it's been really rewarding for me as a physician, seeing how you've changed and improved and your quality of life, but also your health has really improved as well, which is fantastic. Now you're obviously not a doctor,

but you're incredibly busy doing lots of other work which we can discuss. And this is why I picked your brains probably about 18 months ago, didn't I? Because I had this idea for a while for doing an app, but I needed to work with the right team and the right people that had shared the same vision. So can you just explain a bit about what you do now and how we've worked together on the app, how it sort of started? Yeah, so I suppose one of the reasons this was able to work so well, I think, was because my husband, who's in business in Manchester,

connected me with Louise Cordwell, who is the chief exec and founder of Magnetic North, who designed the app and are involved in the build. And he said, I think you should just meet with Lou Cordwell. She's fantastic. And I did, I just met with her in office and explained to her my journey, really, and that there was this huge gap in the app world.

Well, not just the app world, actually, just available information online because I knew that I had tried a lot to find some sensible advice that I could trust and all I'd found was bits and pieces and, you know, some fairly wacky stuff and some very dull stuff and nothing that had actually ever got me to engage with it

for any length of time, just a one-session look. And Louise was, you know, she's such a sort of real person, isn't she, Louise Cordwell? Absolutely. And she just very quickly got excited about it. And I said, you know, what would be involved in building and what would we have to do? What sort of monies would be required to get it started? And she was just very open right from the front.

And I'm very fortunate that my husband's business has always been my father-in-law and mother-in-law started 30 or years ago, that we have a social responsibility. So we have a charitable trust that the business pays money into. and we use that for all sorts of projects in the Northwest. And so I suppose it's in our heads that you, you know, philanthropy is hugely important in getting things done for the right reasons and enabling people that have the right motivation, the right passion to do something that's incredibly useful to lots of people and very worthwhile.

And so my husband and I, well, I went back and spoke to him, and of course he's completely behind the whole thing, because his sort of married life, sex life and work life all improved when his wife went on HRT. I didn't need to persuade him of the value of having a menopause app so that more people could find the information that I had luckily found through you much more easily online. And as a business owner, he also understands about the productivity issues that the menopause causes. And he's very keen that women can actually. the right information that they need. So he said, yes, we would personally back designing the app. So that's kind of how it starts. Which is a huge, huge thing because for me, developing the app,

it's been two things, obviously, financially. It's a massive investment, which we're very grateful for. But it's also working with the right team. It's not just about having the money, but obviously without the money, we can't even find the team. So the two together has been the most amazing journey, even to get to this point. And for those of you that don't know about, the app. It's called Balance. And the main aim of the app that we want to do and we're trying to do is to provide evidence-based, non-biased information to women globally. So no mean feat, really, is it? And working with Lou Colwell and her team at Magnetic North has been great. The team there are very passionate and now they have really enjoyed what they've been doing. But when we first met them,

they're young, so they didn't know much about the perimenopause and menopause. And so So they've learned a huge amount, but they've also learned, as I have done, and as you have done, Jane, about the amount of women who are suffering needlessly because they can't get the right information. And obviously, there's a lot of information on my website, but we wanted to be able to reach women in different ways. And we've both openly said, if we weren't as fortunate as we were to be receiving the right advice and treatment, our lives would be very different. I know for a fact I wouldn't be with my husband anymore because I was driving him mad. And, you know, the quality of my life was poor as well.

And it wasn't enabling me to continue to exercise, to eat healthily, to just enjoy life. And we hear stories all the time. And certainly the team at Magnetic North have constantly heard stories that we've told them from different women. And it is a global problem, isn't it? It's not a UK problem. And what we want to do with the app is to try and reach out to younger women who are perimenopausal, or even before they become perimenopals, before they have any symptoms, to try and let them have as much information as possible, wouldn't you agree?

A hundred percent, because I know that I, well, I feel like I almost, well, there's no such thing as wasted years in your life. We should be grateful for more, shouldn't we? but there were three or four years of my life that I could have lived in a very different way from how I did. You know, for me, motivation and sleep were just at rock bottom. And I think the two are very, very much combined, actually, because I think one of the first things that happened when I started with Eisholm was that I slept through the night for the first time in probably about 12 or 13 years, if I'm honest.

Gosh, yeah. And so very quickly to have regularly eight hours of. of deep sleep a night, that in itself energize me. And you know what I'm like. I keep trying to reduce the dose I'm on, don't I? They're still got this sort of crazy. Not anymore, I hope. And I know that every time I try and reduce it,

the first thing that happens is I start staying awake. You know, I wake up 15 times a night. So, and I just think of all the poor women. And I, you know, through my connections with you. And I suppose, you know, what happens once you've trained to the doctor is that all your friends, friends, friends, or get in touch with you anyway, even if you're completely rusty and redundant like I was. And so I've, lots of women in the North West have come through to me by different avenues. And it's actually really easy to unpick it, isn't it? It's just not

complicated, it's not complicated medicine. And I feel confident, even as a rusty old GP, just to say to them, quiky, you know, lots of those things sound, just go on this website, go and answer the questionnaire and, you know, see how many boxes you tick. but these women are desperate. Their lives are crumbling apart. Yeah, and I've certainly found, as you know, I run a private clinic because I can't get a job in the NHS and aren't any menopause clinics running near to me. But I was really sad when I started. I still am sad. Every day I do my clinic because I hear stories about how women are giving up their jobs, their partners, their lives, sometimes they're existence. And, you know, for something that is usually reversible and usually very easy. treatable, like you say, because you're just replacing a deficient hormone and the risks are incredibly low and the benefits outweigh the risks for the majority of women. But as we know, it's not just about HRT. It's really important that lifestyle is addressed, that exercise, like you say, sleep, hygiene, nutrition. And this is something that we've really worked harder on the app,

isn't it, to tease out because we want something for everyone, don't we on the app? Yeah, for absolutely everybody, that was one of our main objectives, wasn't it? And once they found the app, we know there are some women that wouldn't be able to take HRT or still would prefer not to even if they theoretically could. So for whatever reasons, there are lots of things that I've brought into my life that I'd already done before I met you and were not just the East Gym. But the little bit of Easton actually, I think, enabled me to just jumpstart those even further to start doing my yoga practice five times a week instead of once a week reluctantly

and to eat regular meals, to not eat so many sugar things, all the nice little bits and pieces. But the other thing that we have a shared interest, a lot of the work I do with the Family Charitable Trust, is in deprivation medicine, or that's a sort of coined phrase, isn't it, for the inequalities in health that exist because of people's different levels of socio-economic standard. And we wanted to make sure the app was available to all levels of society, didn't we? And we didn't want it.

You know, we've both come from very privileged white middle class backgrounds. And we want to make sure that the app resonates with people of all levels of income, all racial backgrounds, all cultural backgrounds, or sexual backgrounds. We really want it to be inclusive. And that's one of the reasons that we're determined that it is available. as a free app to a good standard of education and information giving, isn't it? Absolutely. And I think I get, as you know, very frustrated because there's a lot of commercialisation, if you like, of the menopause. And women feel very vulnerable when they're

menopause or, as you know, one of the symptoms is reduced self-esteem and also just loss of self-worth and self-value. And people are desperate. You were. You've already said you had a cupboard full of supplements. So goodness only knows what you spent on. those and we want women to be able to make their own choices we're all different we all choose the way we live our lives but we choose it on the evidence that we have you know if we choose to buy a car we might read a review before we go and buy it or you know even some of the food we will look at the labeling and see what the packaging is somehow with the menopause it's so hard to get unbiased information and that's what's really so important so do you want to just

talk through a few of the features of the app that we've been working on. Well, we involved so many women in its bill, didn't we? Because we wanted to understand what it was people were missing in their sort of journey through their hormone changes. And, you know, and I hope I had, you know, reasonable amounts of input in that because I wanted it to reflect what I felt I had missed. And I, I, despite the fact that I've got a medical background, I've got a very supportive husband, I've got a good network of girlfriends, it still wasn't really anything that I felt totally comfortable talking to people about, you know, the fact that I, you know, I wasn't enjoying sex as much, the fact that I wasn't sleeping and I was irritable, I was losing

my patience with my children, those weren't things that I wanted necessarily the people I see all day, every day to know. But I was so relieved when I started speaking to you and you're just like, oh, yeah, God, everybody has that. Well, you know, but, you know, but. Very common. So I was absolutely sure. So we've got all sorts of things there that I wanted. We've got evidence-based information, which is the start for everybody, I think, of finding the right journey for them. We've then got suggestions as to what they might do with that information. They might go and find their own GP and ask to be prescribed the HRT that you recommend, which is available on the NHS. It doesn't have to be purchased privately. they could go to a private clinic if they can't access it and they can afford that. They can look at the dietitian that you, it's Emma's nutrition, I think, that you're going to have on board, isn't it? Who's just a wonderful, again, just a lovely, gentle person of a similar age,

understands exactly what we're all talking about. There's nobody involved in this bill at any stage that's been a sort of dictator of what's right or wrong, has there? We've wanted it to definitely be something that is open. into lots of different ideas, but with an evidence-based background. So, and then yoga for me was a huge part of it, standing on my head, kept me sane. And so we've got yoga experts that we hope we're going to link with. And then the other thing for me, that I started to use menstruation apps to try and get a

pattern to my bleeding and to work out, you know, what I might be able to recognize as premenstrual symptoms or with this chaotic bleeding. And because my memory was so shocking, I could never remember from one week to the next whether I'd bled. I mean, without writing it down, I seriously just could not remember. But the Clue app I think that I use, which is a fantastic app that lots of the teenagers girls and my daughter use all our friends use, it's wonderful for them. But for somebody with chaotic bleeding, it really didn't help me at all. I just was sort of keeping a red dot on 25 days out of 30. It was a little bit, and it didn't really help me.

So again, it sort of started to make me feel that there was no support there for what I was going through. So all the weird and wonderful symptoms that I had got. So hot flushes and night sweats were fine, a lack of sleep was very well recognised. But apart from that, it didn't want to know about perimenabortion symptoms. It wanted to know about premenstrual symptoms and menstrual symptoms. So I ended up putting in, you know, many more in the other box than there were listed in the list of complaints. So we've got that, haven't we, where people can put their symptoms in on a daily basis and they can get reminded of what their symptoms were like the month before or the six months before.

If they've put changes into their lifestyle, they can see if it correlates. Because that was the other thing that I got in such a roundabout with. I'd changed so many things in my life that I didn't know what was working and what wasn't. And I think that what I wanted was almost a calm friend at the end of a telephone to tell me what I'd said last week. And to write down things for me and say, well, you know, this is what you told me last week. And just to nudge me, you know, go and do your yoga. Have you done your yoga?

Were you not sleeping? You know, did you have a drink last night? Then, you know, maybe you should. So there's little reminders, monitors of my life. But it can be private entirely to me. So there's that. Which is really important. I mean, we've got the green chemicelchorex school,

which some of you might have known from the website. You can download if you just search questions. in air. So it's got menopausal symptoms, which are the same as perimenopausal symptoms. So people can track that and with their periods, like you say, and it's a lovely way that you can represent it with graphs as well. So you can see how your symptoms have improved or even worsened. So hopefully once you start on the right treatment, you'll see an improvement or try and change something in your diet or exercise. It's a very visually, a very easy, clear way to monitor how you are.

And I think that's really key, isn't it? Because like you say, I mean, I had symptoms for a few months. And it was at the time I was writing all the information for my website. So I was working very hard. But I was incredibly irritable, moody. I kept waking up in the night, but I felt very tired. My joints were sore and stiff. I was getting night sweats.

And I was getting urine infections. But I had no idea, even though I'm writing every day about all these menoples or symptoms. But if I had had 10 seconds to have an app to just monitor it, I would have quickly realized that I'd miss three periods. And actually, a lot of my symptoms were on this questionnaire. And so then it's obvious. And of course it's obvious. But actually it wasn't because I wasn't thinking about myself. I was thinking about my website, my work, my family, my job, what the children were going to have for supper when I next needed to go shopping, all these things.

So it's a way to reflect very quickly, isn't it? And what we have done also is that you can download this report, which I think for me as a clinician is really useful because people will be able to share that information with their healthcare provider very quickly, which will reduce their consultation. So rather than women like us who aren't piecing together the information or acknowledging or realising what's going on, rather than just going to the doctor to say, oh, I feel really tired and miserable, we can say, these are our symptoms. This is my periods. This is my lifestyle. I really feel I need help. I'm perimenopausal or menopausal. And I think, don't you,

that would make a huge difference to a lot of women and healthcare professionals as well. Yeah, I do. And that's the other important part of the app, isn't it? Is that it's going to link through to your education program because I have a lot of sympathy, you know, in general practice, even when I was working, which is sort of 13 years ago, you're so busy.

And just, you know, every eight minutes. we had eight minute consultations where I was working. Every eight minutes, somebody walks through the door with a different set of symptoms, a different problem. And you cannot be experts in all those things. It just isn't possible. But I think definitely the shift has definitely changed to people being responsible for their own health. That's something that we're trying to as a country sort of promote, isn't it?

And so I think it should be welcomed by GPs. I hope it'll be welcomed by GPs that women come in with an idea. of what they think their symptoms are due to, what they think the potential treatment is, understanding the risks and benefits and having a sort of proactive conversation about their treatment. And I think it's really important, isn't it? Certainly in the 80s when we started medical school, it was very much more paternalistic medicine that we would be taught.

And, you know, the patients are there to get the right help and understanding, not for us to just dictate what they should and shouldn't be allowed to have. and actually to be able to do the shared decision making is really important, but the important part is for patient empowerment as well. And it can be quite difficult as a patient to know how to feel empowered. And it can be quite intimidating. I feel quite scared even going to my doctor because I think I'm wasting their time. They're too busy.

They're going to run late. They've got far more ill people than me to sort out. So I end up just messing up my words and feeling really embarrassed. And that's me as a medical doctor. I mean, it's really, and I can see. so for people, but they want to be. It's their future life. And as we know, the menopause for many women, and because we're living longer, can last decades. It's a massive length of time in our lives that we need to get right. And every day can be different. And as you know, your dose of

HRT has needed to change due to various circumstances. And it's important that you can keep up with that and then reflect about your lifestyle and everything else as well. And the app will encompass that and help. So it's not just for women to make the diagnosis. It's to help us through our journey. And in fact, I'm very excited about having it on my phone and doing it. Even if I haven't got any menopals or symptoms, it will still remind me about meditation, about yoga, about nutrition. And also it will be a way that I can connect with other women as well, which I find that a lot of the work I do on social media, women are really desperate to hear another voice, like you're saying, just to hear that you're not alone is really important.

And it can be hard to know who to liaise with. And I think the community side of the app that we're trying to build will be really interesting, won't it? Yeah, for me, massively, and all the women I've spoken to that have now got themselves in a better position, menopausal symptom-wise, they all want to help. None of us want anybody to have to go through what we went through

before we found the right treatment for us. And that's the wisdom, isn't it? That's the wisdom of all communities. That's how it used to be. The elders would pass that on. That's something that's missing in a lot of pockets of society. And I want to share that with anybody. I would answer honestly, any question that anybody on the app posed to me,

I would answer them honestly because that's the sort of caring female thing, isn't it? It's sort of what we do. And like you, I would have the app on my phone in case I could help ever, anybody else that's another time in the future from going through what I went through and how much it affected my life. Totally. So, I mean, what we want to do is to really help as many women as possible in a very effective way. And we don't know how it's going to be. It's the fear, but also excitement of the unknown. But it has been the most incredible journey just watching how the app has involved, how they've even created the B for Balance. They've created that.

from the rose symbol, didn't it? The stem of my rose that I use for Menopause doctor that my daughter actually designed for me. And just the colours that they use, the pictures that they've drawn that Abbey's drawn, have just been amazing. So for me, who's very scientific, I'm very black and white,

I'm not artistic at all, has been incredible to work with such a dynamic team who have just evolved and developed such an exciting product. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm very proud of it. whatever happens with it really and that team are just fantastic and they just embraced it completely didn't they and really seemed to understand and again I think it is the sisterhood thing it's you know it's a support mechanism that women are very used to sharing and it's just magnified through the app I think I think it would be wonderful yeah so hopefully by the time you're listening

to this every single person that's listening will have downloaded it onto their phone and we're changing, you know, every week we meet and we sort of change, but we're changing because we're listening to people. It's already been tested on around 1,000 women, and we've listened to their feedback really carefully, and we want feedback to continue to come back so we can improve it for as many women as possible, and not just UK women, women all across the world as well. So watch this space, but thank you so much, Jane, for giving us insight as to how this is all developed and also being so honest and candid about your experience as well. So before we finish, I don't know if you know, but in every podcast I ask for three take-home tips, so you're not

going to be able to squirm out of that. Could you just say three good things about the app, three things that you're really proud of about the balance app that we're developing? So the thing I'm most proud of about it by far and away is that I think we have asked women what they're want and we've built it, we've designed it with that as its number one objective in a way is that it gives women what they have asked us for. Secondly, that it's, I would like to keep it free at the point of entry with plenty of information for people. I want this to be able to be accessed by all women, whatever their purse size. And the third thing is the fact that it's demonstrated the collaborativeness of the women in my life, which, you know, I'm very proud of

them all. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think, you know, when you get the right group of women together, we can certainly make a lot of noise and hopefully make quite a lot of changes. So I hope that will continue in the long term as well, because there's so much more we need to do. As you know, I spend a lot of my time frustrated, but I think we're slowly chipping away and making a difference, and I hope the app will make a huge difference to a lot of people. So thank you very much, Jane. It's been really great talking to you. Well, thank you. We were all very grateful for everything you do. So thank you very much.

Oh, thank you. For more information about the menopause, please visit our website, www. www.menopausedoctor.com.uk.