The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 292 - Thee Third Act: laughter, friendship and menopause

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Joining Dr Louise Newson on this week’s podcast are Jane Hajduk and Shari Dolan, the real-life friends behind Thee Third Act, a YouTube comedy series about women’s third act: menopause. Thee Third Act follows Jane and Shari’s characters, Josephine and Lauren, in their search for answers during menopause. From life coaches to hormone replacement therapy, they strive to conquer or at least ease hot flushes, sleepless nights, and astronomical mood swings. Jane and Shari discuss their own menopause experiences, their off-screen friendship, and why sisterhood, laughter and honesty are key when navigating menopause. Catch with Thee Third Act on YouTube here – the second season premieres on 27 January Click here to find out more about Newson Health

Hello, I'm Dr Louise Newsome. I'm a GP and menopause specialist and I'm also the founder of the Newsome Health Menopause and Well-Being Centre here in Stratford-Pon-Avon. I'm also the founder of the free Balance app. Each week on my podcast, join me and my special guests where we discuss all things perimenopause and menopause. We talk about the latest research, bust myths on menopause symptoms and treatments, and often share moving and always inspirational personal stories. This podcast is brought to you by the Newsome Health Group, which has clinics across the UK dedicated to providing individualised perimenopause and menopause care for all women. So today on my podcast, I'm very lucky because I have two guests,

so I have two for the price of one, as it were, and there are two ladies from America. I seem to have a little run of American guests, which is great because the menopause doesn't just affect UK women. There's 1.2 billion. menopals and women globally. They're in every single country and it's going to affect all of us. So it's really important in my mind that it's the most positive time of our lives because it lasts lot longer than many other things that happen to us. So I've got Jane and Sherry who have known

each other for many years who are going to just introduce themselves and then we'll talk about what they're doing. So welcome to the podcast. It's very exciting to have you here, even though it's remote. So go on then, Jane. You go first. Okay. Here you are and where you come from. Okay. I'm Jane Heiduk. I'm originally from Pennsylvania and now I'm in Los Angeles, California. And yeah, this is my partner. Go ahead, Sherry. Hi, I'm Sherry Durand and I'm originally from Michigan. And the quick back story of Jane and I, we actually met in college in Ohio at Wright State University. We are both working in industry out here as far as producers, writers, actors, directors, doing a little of everything,

and remain friends and are going through metapause through like the rest of the world and came up with this idea to have a show about metapause. And it's really about friendship and metapause. It's about two best friends in the throes of metapause. And they decided journal it, which is funny, we're on our phones right now, the exploits of trying to find anything as you know in the market, there's everything out there right now and misinformation and great information to try and ease their pain into what we call our third act. And that's what the show is called.

It's called The Third Act to ease, T-H-E-E. We're Shakespearean and our metapause, as I like to say. And I think... Yeah, and that's on YouTube, isn't it? Yes, so that would be on... It is on YouTube right now, and if you go to At the Third Act, you know, will it, Jane asked them, tell them,

Will it actually help them with their metapause symptoms? Absolutely not. You will laugh and hopefully it will open up conversations with your girlfriends and possibly even a male who also has to kind of go through it in a different way. All our husbands and boyfriends and whoever else we're dealing with in the male industry. So yeah, but I will tell you two, the episodes are two to five minutes. So usually, and this first season is really about the insane things or the really cool things we try to just relieve some of the symptoms we have of menopause.

So a lot of times my partner Sherry, who in the series is Joe, sorry, Lauren, she's walking out because she's had enough of it. And so we usually, because it is two to five minutes, we're usually starting right smack in the middle of a class or of a massage or a massage or a. of a whatever it is that we're going through and then we get to the end. And so yeah, it's kind of wrapped up quick. And it's great, isn't it, to have these conversations. So when I started my clinic and our Google menopause,

and nothing came up really very little. And I've been a medical writer for many years as well as a doctor. So I set out a website which was then called menopausedoctor. And I set up my Instagram account just because my daughter said, Mommy, you're telling me all these stories about these women. You're coming home and saying, you know, this woman feels like she's been hit by a bus. She feels like the shutters have come down. She doesn't know what to do.

Like, because she said, this is just awful. Like, but why don't we all know about it? Why aren't we all taught it at school? Like, why do we have to wait? So we're feeling really awful. You're telling me these people, their jobs have gone. Their partners are leaving them. They're in crisis and they're coming to see you.

And it's the menopoles which affects every woman. I don't want to wait until I'm like suffering like that. So I decided to set up this website and I literally, I didn't have any money. And I went to the web designer and I said, all I want is five pages. Like what is menopause? What is HRT? What is testosterone? And just a symptom questionnaire.

That was all I wanted on it. And then every week I'd go, Alan, could we just have this? So menopause and younger women, could we add about urinary symptoms? Could we add? And then in the end, he was like, oh, Louise, you've broken. your budget, like this is ridiculous. So we then, that's when I decided to develop balance app to get more people out there. So it was just easier. And, you know, the information is increased, but not just my information. Now if you Google menopause, the first thing that

probably come up is some menopause shampoo or some face cream or some supplement or some, like, you know, my husband found some menopause chocolate the other day in a health food shop. And it's like, oh my God, like, are we just a marketing commodity? Is it, are we just something to laugh at? And even somebody who's very high up in finance many years ago, they wouldn't get away with it now, was saying that the UK economy was menopausal, like, because it's up and down.

Like, and it's like, hang on, we've always been a bust of joke. So now we're a bust of joke, being menopause are like, oh, don't go near her. She's a bit moody. She's got a fan. Well, actually, this poor woman is suffering. She's got something going on that she doesn't want to be moody. she doesn't want to be shouting at her husband, but she has no idea what's going on.

And for too long, we've been told it's either all in your heads and it can't be the menopause because you haven't got a flush or sweat or that, oh, well, it's because of your work or it's because of something else. So actually, to allow women, the biggest thing that we find when people come to our clinic is they thank us for the time and they thank us because they've been listened to and understood. And I think what's really important, what you're doing with humour is good because when you're happy, you learn more, don't you? And so, you know, it's not making, there's a balance between making fun of something and being happy and entertained and learning through it. And I think what you're doing is the latter to have this fun.

But actually then, hopefully, women who watch the episodes will feel really empowered and that sort of kick-ass generation. Yeah, come on. Why are we feeling like this? we do about it and learn like you were saying from girlfriends who are watching it with you or your partner when you say actually I didn't realize that was a symptom of the menopause. I just thought it was you know you were annoying me but actually maybe my irritability is due to my hormones changing in my brain and what can I do about it? So it's really great. And we're going through it. If you are that of that you know person you can make the joke but if you're not and we're going

through it. So there is laughter, but there are tears. And like we said at the beginning, it will open up conversation. Right. And I think, too, another big thing that it opens up is that sometimes seeing other people having the same thing that you have going on or that you tried something really silly. And you're like, oh my gosh, I did that. I did that. I tried yams on my body. I thought it would do something. And it just gives you permission to kind of go, oh, I'm not alone. I am not alone in this. Because really, if you think about it, how many women, you just said billions, right, are already in menopause? There's a sisterhood.

There's a sisterhood out here that I think we haven't touched on. And you had said also about mothers, my mother never spoke of it. Jane, did your mom ever speak about it? Never, never. You see, I'm quite lucky because my mother's on HRT. I can't, she's forbidden me to say how old she is. But, you know, she's very strong. But actually, many years ago, when she was in her early 40s, my father died.

And she went to her GP and said, oh, I'm really struggling. She was a teacher. And she said, I just can't remember things. And the GP said, oh, I think it's your menopause. You didn't use the word menopause. He said, you're going through the change. And she was like, oh, I don't know what that is, have these tablets. And it was dix of it, which is like, it's not hormonal.

It's called clonidine. It doesn't really want. work, but he gave it to her. He went back and then saw a female doctor who said, oh, you don't want that. You just need some of this and gave her HRT. And this was in the 80s. So no one questioned the doctor then in the 80s. You didn't have Dr. Google. You just did what you were told by your doctor. So she went off, took these tablets. And she said within days, her memory was back, her mood was back. She felt great. She could carry on. So she's just carried on taking HRT. Many years ago, that was pregnant horses urine, HRT, the synthetic hormones. So she has been converted to the natural

body identical hormones, which are lovely and safe. But many times she's gone back to the GP for a pre-prescription and they've said, no, you can't have it. You can't have it. You're too old. And she's like, no, no, I'm not stopping it. I am absolutely not stopping it because I know it's keeping my brain and my body. And now she does sometimes say, do you know who my daughter, my daughter is, have you seen my surname, actually, she knows quite a lot. But it's still really hard, but she's, so I know, like, and I look at some of her friends who haven't been on hormones, and some of them have dementia, some of them, valdosteoprotic, hip fractures, they're sort of more crumbling, and I'm sure a lot of how she is, is because

she was very fortunate. She just saw the right doctor at the right time, but it could have been very different for her. But we are luckier now that we've got access to more information. but there's also more misinformation as well. And that's what really worries me. And I hear stories of women who are spending hundreds of pounds a month or hundreds of dollars on hocus pocus stuff, you know,

when you think actually you should be spending that money going out with your friends or going out with your partner or going on holiday or whatever. Work out, is it worth taking? Is it really worth putting yams all over your body? Is it going to really help? you know but so we can allow women to to be educated through these sorts of platforms is really important isn't it and it is and it's really not a one size as you know fits all like what might

work for someone doesn't work for another and and i mean it's crazy because i have had exercise in my life throughout so that you know it's not like somebody's telling me at age 57 um to go and work out. You know, I've already done that so it can be different things. But even with our show, we do ridiculous things. But then you'll see Lauren go through, our character's names are Josephine and Lauren. You'll see her in a boxing class. And she's just, it just works. It works. And then all of a sudden, because it works, because what do we do? We overdo it. And then a few episodes down, you see, she's, she's ready to kill me. And anybody who walks in front of her, She is so, so it's things like that.

It's just not a one side. You know, one pill fits all. One activity fits all. So although we'll make some crazy episodes where it's like, what are we doing, one where we're in a class talking about sex and how to, how to how to have outer course instead of intercourse. And Lauren leaves right away. I end up staying, but quickly get out of there. So it's, it is fun. But hopefully we'll also see some things.

like the boxing class where, oh my gosh, somebody wouldn't expect at all that connected with her. Which is great. And I think having these conversations is actually sometimes it's easier to listen to other people's conversations that have them themselves. And actually, as a doctor, I'm not, I can talk about dry vaginas. I can talk about sex. It doesn't embarrass me. It's very easy. But actually, the more I talk to women about sex or usually the lack of sex that they're having, the more they say, do you know what, I've never spoken to anyone about it. I didn't realize other people were not having sexual intercourse or not having any pleasure when they had sex or just going through the motions. I had no idea because I haven't spoken to anyone.

And it's one of those things that you think actually they do need to listen and hear that they're not alone, that other people are experiencing difficulties as well. because the number of relationships that break down during the menopause is huge. And it often can start with a very small thing that escalates, but not being able to listen to other stories or not being able to talk can be really isolating for women. And I think, too, Jane and I have found, as we start, every time we tell people, oh, the show's coming out, women are just beside themselves to share their story.

Every time I speak to someone, I'm like, that's an episode. You know, I have a friend that went to a, she's a therapist. She's a therapist for sex, but it's a physical therapist. I was like, how do you get that job? I'd like to know, you know, what's the qualification for that? And my friend, she goes, I didn't even know how to dress. She goes, I took a bottle of water.

Do I wear workout clothes? What do I do? And I go, oh, this is an episode. I mean, here's this woman, you know, just trying to, she's struggling. She's dying. You know, her, you know, her Vigajai is not doing well. and she needed help, and she saw a physical therapist for it, which I didn't even know there was.

I was like, really? You could. But again, giving permission, you know, and it came through humor of the stories that we hear that Jane and I heard just blow my mind. Again, starting that conversation, thank goodness. And I think women are better at that, too. I mean, I think we're a little more open to each other.

They totally are. I mean, when I started my clinic, believe it or not, I was only wanting to do one day a week as menopause work. That was all I wanted to do. And I had no idea, I had no idea the suffering. I had no idea the refusal for treatment for so many women without any evidence base. And I had no idea how sort of education for healthcare practitioners hadn't caught up with the evidence as well. But I did see somebody and he said, oh, you need a marketing plan for your clinic.

I said, no, I only want to do one day a week. I don't want to market. Anyway, I haven't got any money for a budget for a marketing plan. I'm a doctor. Like, I'm not going to market myself. And he said, oh, well, you'll never get busy. I said, that's fine. I don't want to do more than a day a week. And then I said, but you know what, actually, because he was obviously a man. And he said, look, if I do well, like, people will talk. They've all got hairdressers. They all go out for coffee. You know, they meet, they socialize. Women are quite sociable, actually. And actually, it doesn't do very well. That's because I'm not doing very well and it's not right. So I don't want to advertise something that's not

right or if there's not a need for it. And then my husband met him at a meeting a year later and he said, oh, I can see she's setting up her own clinic and she's really busy. But it's about women, and most people who come to our clinic is from recommendation from a friend or a colleague or this or that. Whereas if I was doing a men's health clinic, men would just, their pride wouldn't let them often to sort of admit that they've gone somewhere or that they've admit that they had a problem. And in men's health, it's another conversation, but it can be very difficult to allow men for them to come and see us if they've got a problem.

Whereas I think women, once they know what the cause of the problem is, they're really eager to get help and talk about it. But in my experience, listening to thousands of stories is that it's a long journey before they get help because they've often not realized what's going on. They feel very isolated. They've got all these psychological symptoms, so they're feeling low self-worth, low self-esteem, low confidence, anxiety, low mood.

They have no idea that hormones even work in their brains, so they're not aware that that could be a possibility. But then suddenly, when this light bulb moment that someone says, actually, you sound like you could have some hormonal changes, it's like, wow, actually, okay, I haven't got dementia, I haven't got clinical depression. I don't have to, you know, my whole family fall apart. There's something I can do about it.

So it's that first journey that you're really helping with. And after that, it's up to the woman to decide, do I want to take hormones, do I want to do whatever. It doesn't, for me, it doesn't matter as long as they've got the right information, but it's recognising those symptoms because women, in your country, in my country across the world, are being misdiagnosed with depression, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue. You know, these labels that were. we're giving women without excluding their hormones,

bringing a cause. And it's making women feel even worse, actually. You know what I mean? I think there is that noise that this is one of my things. When you're emotional, it's just like, oh, am I just being a woman? Because of that noise we've heard. Oh, my God, look at her. She's like getting all hyper.

And I really do question when I started to really, you know, like I would just immediately get upset and go, wait, is this just a woman thing? And so I think we do hear so much, I'll call it noise, whatever, can't call it information. But another thing that you were talking about is, yes, men don't come, but how quickly did we have that blue pill out? Oh, for sure. Don't even get me started about that. Okay, good.

I have another friend come to me and say, well, you know, when men go through their menopause, I was like, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. I mean, that blue pill was out so quick. Please, find me a pill where I just want to have sex all the time with the man I love, with the man who's done so much. But, I mean, give me that. I'll take a pink pill. I'll take a yellow.

I'll take a dirt. Well, it's so interesting, isn't it? Because the blue pill viacra that we're talking about is actually very effective. It's very safe, but it's still a medication and it does have some contraindication. and some very small risk, but you can buy it over the count. If you've got money, you can buy Viagra. Now, the natural hormones we prescribe are just natural hormones. They are very, very safe. And even if we are just talking about vaginas, because we've been talking about sex, vaginal, dryness, soreness, irritation, urinary symptoms affects the maturity of menopause or

women. Putting some hormones in your vagina, anybody can do because there's such low dose, they're very safe. Can we get them? Can we buy them? Can we buy them? with some money, no course. It's really difficult and even to get them prescribed. Whereas it just doesn't make sense, really. And also, we have a really good treatment hormone, testosterone that we know can improve libido. And 25% of women have what's called HSDD, which is a hypoactive sexual desire disorder. So we have to be diagnosed with this disorder. And you have to have symptoms for a minimum of at least three. months, say the guidelines, so it doesn't even. And you have to be severely psychologically distressed.

It has to be no other reason. And you have to have done all this. And then I can assess you and say, right, you've got HSDD, you could try testosterone. Whereas men, like, HSDD doesn't really, you know, it's like, yeah, you've just had a couple of nights where you don't feel great. Just try this. And it might help get your libido back. Your erections harder and you can go forward. For us, we have to prove that we're really distressed because we're not having sex. understand it. Well, and I think I'm kind of going on top of that. And Jane, I know you've found a wonderful doctor right away. So in my experience, you know, in our country, the insurance system, how it works, that's a whole other, that's a whole other podcast. But, you know, it's amazing

the doctors that I've gone to three or four before I found three or four, which I'm sure you hear all the time, before I found, and it ended up being a male doctor, a gynecologist. And he was about let's talk about the quality of your life. Let's talk about the things that can make that happen. That's what we need to get to. And I was like, how come my general practitioner who's a woman does not have this philosophy? And she didn't. And whatever the reason is. And it's not, she's, I love her. She's, you know, she's been my doctor for years, but it just, it wasn't there, whether the knowledge wasn't there or whatnot. So it's, it's interesting. As women, you know, we kind of have to sift through, sift, sift, sift, keep going. You know, you have to be a detective almost.

What about what do women want? That should be in my mind. The first part of my consultation is, why have you come to see me? What are you expecting to get out of the consultation? And what would you, you know, what were you thinking? Because some people say, I just want to make sure that I haven't got a brain tumor and my headaches are due to my menopause. Other people will say, the only treatment I want is X or whatever. And then we can explore that in the consultation. But we're not just a machine. We're not a tick box that we can just. or go, yes, Mrs Smith, you're going to have exactly the same as Mrs. Jones. And medicine's not like that. And actually, we can't blame the menopause on everything.

You know, my husband was frustrated me this morning because he just said he'd take my daughter to the bus and then he didn't because he was faffing around. So I'm like, don't worry, I'll just do it. It's fine. And it's like, I can't blame my menopause. It's just because, you know, he was a bit frustrating. But we need to have the right information. We need to listen to the right healthcare professional for us that's empathic and holistic

and will help us in our treatment decision because, let you say, it's like the third act. It's not just a couple of days we're men atopausal for. For most women, it's going to be at least a third of their lives. My youngest patient is 14. Now, she's hopefully going to live for many, many years. So it's not just like a little thing like, I don't know, when you're pregnant, look how much tension we get in those nine months. But that's only nine months, you know. This is decades. So it's so important the conversation starts and continues, isn't it? Yes. And I want to ask you,

what is the, because we're going to write an episode probably about it, what is, what is the funniest cure all or something that you heard from a woman, I mean, because you've had so much research of something that she's tried that you're just like, this is not really where you want to go. It's interesting. So it always thinks why it's not really funny. I think it's a shame, really. So this lady a while ago came to see me and she said, look, I want something natural. I don't want hormones. I want something really natural. So we have this whole conversation about, you know, there's lots of natural plants in my garden that I wouldn't want to eat or made into tablets. And our hormones are natural? Because we produce them. And I said, are you on any medication? She was super well,

super fit and but she was getting quite a lot of headaches but they they and she's feeling a bit sick and couldn't quite work out what was going on so I said do you taking any other medication she said I take vitamin D I said great and she said oh and I take this menopause support tablet but it's really it's from this amazing health shop in the you know wherever and it's quite expensive I said well what the ingredients oh I don't know so okay well let's Google it so we googled what it was and inside it had oh no yeah it had all sorts of things that I didn't really know but they had porcine ovarian tissue, so ovaries from pork, and then it also had bovine pituitary tissue.

So a bit of, whatever, and whether it did or not, I don't know, but I said, oh my gosh, just reading that, it's going to make me feel really sick. Do you know what you're saying you don't want natural hormones derived from yam plants that are the same biochemical structure as our own hormones, but you're taking something from pig. Oh, pig? I just don't really

And she was great Because we were just laughing Because I thought I can't laugh at her That's really rude and disrespectful But this is absolutely ridiculous To be honest Like she was so well researched But she hadn't researched what she was taking

Oh Well we've all done that So I'm not She's not alone in that I've taken things of like What was I thinking? Yeah well that's the thing But we all do

Because we're desperate to feel better And that's what really saddens me with the sort of commercialisation of the menopause. I sort of feel like I've opened this Pandora box because I, like I say, the demand is huge. People are thirsty for knowledge, thirsty for information. But if you're not getting the help that you want from your clinician or your physician, then of course you're going to go and buy something that's really beautifully branded or heavily marketed because you feel it might help. And then, you know, there's the new, I won't say the product, but there's another face cream coming out.

So the company emailed me to say, are you interested? Could you put a quote? And I said, no, but could you just send me the evidence to support your cream? And a week later, I got an email yesterday actually saying, oh, we just reached out to our research team to see what we can find. It's like, okay, right, but you're putting this cream. They're a really well-known brand. But I know what will happen.

It will be one of those stars, you know, research six out of seven women said that their skin felt glory after three days of using this cream. It's like it's actually quite disrespectful to women, actually, I think. We're going back in time. And I think that's part of our show too, is that we are just two kind of regular women that made this show. You know, we're not a star who's trying to push something or push an agenda. It's really, it was, it helped us get through menopause and hopefully it's going to help other women get through. And I have that conversation and know that there's a sisterhood.

So it's it's it's we've had a ball and I have to say Jane saved me. Yeah, our friendships. I mean, I'm not kidding. There are times I think I was going to jump off a mountain. And she was there, you know, because I had, I think I had more symptoms than Jane. Yeah. I still have belly. I still, I named her.

I named my belly once it came. I was like, and I had done more sit-ups than Jane, I think at one time, but somehow I got a belly. I was like, what's happening? I call it Betty the bitch. Betty the bitch. Yeah. But she's better now. She's better now.

Yeah. It is kind of funny because I think as we've been writing and doing this and using our own experiences, I don't, I don't. We're very different in what we've experienced. You know, yeah, we definitely. And we all are. You know, we're all individual. If you talk to enough women who've been pregnant, they're all going to tell you different stories. If you have people who have migraines, they're all going to have different experiences.

And we certainly all have different relationships and, you know, what are different jobs, different friends. But menopause is individual. And, you know, it should be made into a very positive experience if we get the right support, information and treatments as well. So what you're doing is part of that help, which is wonderful. So I'm very grateful for you to share what you're doing. So but before I end, I always ask. four, three take-home tips. So one and a half each is going to be hard. So I will allow you to have two each because I'm feeling quite kind today. So if you wouldn't mind just four reasons,

or so two each, why people should watch the YouTube and what you hope they get out of it. So do you want to go first, Jane? Yeah, I'll go first. I'm laugh. I mean, you know, without a sense of humor, it's hard to get through anything. So, Sherry, you want to take a second one? I would say friendship. Misery loves company. I'm misery. But past that, but past that, I mean, we, Jane and I have been through tragedies together.

We go through nonsense together. We've gone through, you know, raising children. And all of those things without that friend, you know, there's a sisterhood. There's billions of women. And I think that sisterhood is the bond. It is. Sherry, give me a third one. Well, I think my third for me would be a really good chocolate martini.

No, no. I agree. I agree with that. Although Dr. Newsom, I know you don't drink, but we do. Seriously, never underestimate the creative power of a woman. I mean, we give birth, we raise families, we work, we, nurture our parents, even as they're getting old and then even out of this world. And I really believe this. And I know my partner does, Sherry, we are thriving and creating even more in our

third act. And Sherry, you want to end it? Well, I think that what women should take away from us and our show, the third act, is that metapause was the catalyst that made us have this new whole chapter. It's metapause is the catalyst. Which is wonderful. So it's the third act for you as well. And I think that is the, I mean, I didn't start my menopause work until I was a peri menopause or woman. So it's not too late to do something. But having that support, that camaraderie, that friendship is just so wonderful. So I'm really excited to keep watching the episodes and keep doing the great work. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. You guys probably hopefully already saw one. But there's no.

No problem watching a couple or three at a time because, as I said, it's like two to five minutes. Yeah. Yeah. And we have lots of friends that are having watch parties where there are five of them and they have all their friends come over because they want to watch them in a row. And they just laugh and cry and have a ball. Fantastic. Thank you for your time. You can find out more about Newsome Health Group by visiting www.newsonhealth.com.

and you can download the free Balance app on the App Store or Google Play.