The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 72 – ADHD in women: the hidden role of hormones

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

Why are so many women only discovering they have ADHD during perimenopause?In this episode, Dr Louise Newson is joined by wellbeing coach, author and host of the ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Podcast, Kate Moryoussef, for an important conversation about ADHD in women and the often overlooked role hormones can play.Kate shares how she was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 40 after recognising the same struggles in her daughter during homeschooling. Together, Louise and Kate explore why ADHD can present differently in women, how symptoms are often missed for years, and why hormonal changes during puberty, postnatal years and perimenopause can make symptoms significantly worse.The conversation highlights the importance of looking beyond labels, understanding the whole person and empowering women with better information so they can advocate for the support they deserve.We hope you love the podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to follow us, leave a 5-star rating and share it with someone who might find it helpful.LET'S CONNECTSubscribe here 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@menopause_doctorWebsite 👉 https://www.drlouisenewson.co.uk/Instagram 👉   / @drlouisenewsonpodcastLinkedIn 👉     / https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlouisenewson/TikTok 👉   / https://www.tiktok.com/@drlouisenewsonSpotify 👉 https://open.spotify.com/show/7dCctfyI9bODGDaFnjfKhgLEARN MOREDownload my balance app 👉https://www.balance-menopause.com/balance-app/Get tickets for my new theatre tour, Breaking the Cycle 👉https://www.nlp-ltd.com/dr-louise-newson-breaking-the-cycle/Order my new book 👉https://bio.to/ThePowerofHormones

So Kate, thank you so much for joining me. I've been looking at your work for a while and I've got your book, which is brilliant, the ADHD Women's Well-Being Toolkit. It's not often that you get ADHD and women on the cover of a book. There's a lot of ADHD talk and it's really accelerated actually over the last few months and I don't know whether it's because I'm more aware or whether just more people are talking which is great. But I want to spend this time just talking a bit about, like, you, who you are, what you do, what ADHD, AD, I can't even say it, can I, what ADHD means. Because actually, what the letters stand for doesn't really help that much, I don't think. So if we just start, if you don't mind, Kate, just saying a bit

about your background and what it means to have ADHD and what actually is ADHD. Yeah, well, thank you for having me on the podcast. So, So I was diagnosed five years ago at the age of 40 with ADHD. And I completely agree with you. I don't like the name. I don't like the letters. It's a mouthful to say. It doesn't really give me anything about my profile of how it shows up and many other women's profile.

Yes, there's a hyperactivity, but it kind of is just not quite how it shows up for many women, which is often internalised. So I grew up with two brothers who were diagnosed with ADHD back in the very early 90s and late 80s. They were really at the very beginning of diagnoses. They were obviously boys. And I was the daughter, the sister in between who was quiet, a bit sort of head in the clouds. But I wasn't causing any distress to my parents who really did have the hands full with two very hyperactive in different ways, boys who were really struggling academically. I was getting by just about, but because I wasn't causing any problems, ADHD wasn't even contemplated. We didn't even think ADHD was maybe genetic. It was,

there just wasn't this kind of conversation. So fast forward, many, many more years, decades. My ADHD was there popping up hormonally at different moments of my life. Definitely during puberty. I then have had four children. Postnatally it showed up. And then my perimenopausal symptoms definitely began what I thought was so early, probably around the age of 39, 40, all coincided with COVID, homeschooling for children. And one of my daughters at the time, I was homeschooling, and I could really see she was struggling. And we'd been in and out of send sort of interventions at school. This is before COVID, but no one really put their finger on it. And they sort of said, oh, it could be a bit of dyslexia. It could be a little bit of this.

She might just need some extra help. ADHD was never, ever mentioned. And it was when I was sitting with her, I saw myself in her. I just had these flashbacks of how I struggled so much to sit, to process, to concentrate. But it was also the sensory overwhelm. It was so much of it. And I just started doing a deep dive. And I recognized ADHD.

And very ADHD of me and myself, I straight away tried to find someone to get an assessment and diagnosis. and I realized that I needed this as well. So within about two weeks of each other, we were both diagnosed in 2020. We then subsequently, I saw it in my other kids as well, showing up in different ways. And it was a big moment. It was a big moment in our life,

and for myself as well to get a lot of others. And then that catapulted me into launching the podcast, which is nearly four years old, the ADHD Women's Well-Being podcast, which just brought this topic that was very undergris. at the time. And I didn't find the information that I needed. I needed to know, how can I feel well alongside ADHD? Why do I feel so overwhelmed, overstimulated, anxious, hormonally imbalanced? Like, I had so many questions and I wasn't getting any answers. And so I decided that's

when I needed to start the podcast, people that was mad. People thought, what are you even going to talk about? How is this even a topic? And that is when I started bringing in experts wherever I could find them from across the world, who could give me those answers, who could piece together, connect the dots for me because it wasn't coming from my GP, it wasn't coming from therapist, psychologists, it wasn't even coming from the psychiatrists who diagnosed us. And thankfully, it's just grown, grown, grown. It's three and a half million downloads. The books come from it. And the most important thing, a community has grown. And I know that thousands of women have been helped because they need this advocacy.

and they need this information so they can then go and speak to their GPs and ask for the help and the support that they deserve. Which is so brilliant because a lot of my work is empowering people with information so they make choices that is right for them and we're all different. ADHD affects people in very different ways. I mean, it varies so much and one of the things is that people still don't understand, I think, what it is and they think that everybody is the same, you know, but I've never met to people the same who've got ADHD.

And there's a lot of people I've met who do have ADHD but don't know it. But that's fine. I'm very against labelling people unless the label comes with an explanation, reassurance, information and choices regarding treatment or not treatment. In medicine, we as clinicians, I think, are very bad at making a diagnosis, putting people in a guideline pathway and then giving them all the same treatment. And that's not appropriate. I don't think when it comes to ADA.

Yeah, 100%. And that is it. It's, you know, ADHD stands for attention, deficit, hyperactivity disorder. And those two words, the deficit and the disorder are very, very negative. And they automatically feed into the low self-esteem that we've already got. The attention, often we don't, it's not, we have it. in abundance. We have too much attention, too much hyperfocus, too much interest, but often in the things that we just really care about, that really matter to us and that

really interest us, which is why a lot of kids at school struggle because they may be fascinated by science or geography or art. But the other stuff is just not part of that, they're just not interested. In their head, which is right. Yeah. And so this is, this is that it feeds into the criticism and it feeds into them thinking that they're not good enough, they're not doing enough, that there should be better, there should be more. And that is really, really difficult. And then the hyperactivity, we often see externalised, both in women and men. Again, in the more of the female side, we can see it externalised in foot tapping, hair twirling, skin picking, cuticle biting. We can see it in needing to be busy the whole time, not being able to rest, feeling like we've

got this internalised motor that will just never stop until something physically stops us, like an injury, like an illness, like an autoimmune condition. We have this sort of adrenaline dominant profile that just keeps going, which is amazing when you want to advocate and you've got justice sensitivity and you've got a big fight. But we also need to know our bandwidth and many of us don't know about this. We haven't got the language. And so many women, unfortunately, I speak to, have gone through cycles of burnout because of this hyperactivity that's stuff that they care about, work that they're passionate about.

people that they want to look after and help and support, but it comes at a cost. And I would say that I don't think I've met one ADHD, I'm going to say woman here, who hasn't suffered in some way with burnout, some form of chronic fatigue, autoimmune, gut issue, hormonal, you know, difficulties. It really does present physically for many of us, chronic pain, migraines. It really does, the list goes on. And I call it this Venn diagram because it's not. never just, oh, I'm a bit scatty, or I'm a bit forgetful, or I struggle with planning,

or I'm a bit messy. That's just the very tip of the surface. A lot of it is this profile of very difficult mental health, physical health challenges, alongside things like family dysfunction, addiction, and it can be so, so difficult to live with undiagnosed. However, like you say, when we get this awareness, this understanding, I don't call it a label. It's just for me, it's like a door opening. It's like a chapter of going, this is not all been in your head. You've not, you know, this has not been something that you are mistaken. This is you being validated, you being understood. And let's work with this now. Now that we know what's going on, how can we help ourselves? And that is what my community is about. I really want to empower and

advocate for women who have had a really, really difficult time, like seriously difficult. They've gone through trauma from all of this and so many mental health problems that they've seen throughout their families, the generations. And I want this to be a moment in time where this generational pain can stop and women get supported, their mental health gets supported, their hormonal challenges are listened to and they can empower themselves with better understanding. And that is why I'm so passionate about it. It's so important because it has such an impact on so many people. And, you know, I'm very interested in the way our brain works and functions. I'm very interested in neurophysiology. So I'm

very interested in the role of our neurotransmitters. And obviously we, of course, we're different. Everyone has different personalities. So the brains are going to be different in people and they react to different things as well. And I'm very interested in the role of all changes and how they impact on symptoms, but also health as well. And when we look at people with ADHD, like you say, I think the Venni diagram is a really good description because there are a lot of people who also have other conditions as well, such as premenciled dysphoric disorder PMDD, or they might have some, like you say, autoimmune diseases, or they might have, some people have PCOS polycystic ovarian syndrome when they're younger or endometriosis and or they might have Erlos, this

sort of hyperlaxicity of joints. But everything is treated almost as separate circles when you go and see a doctor. But when you bring it together, one of the things that's in the middle are hormones. And people have always thought hormones are just related to our periods and whether we're fertile or infertile. But actually it's far more than that. And it's the balance of those hormones. And if we look at ADHD, often it becomes more of a parent when people are teenagers. there's lots of hormones going through their brains and bodies, but also in perimenopause and

menopause. But a lot of women, when you talk to them and get a really clear history, they say that things are more tricky before their periods because their brain is just not processing in the same way, it's not thinking in the same way, they catastrophes more, everything just becomes too much. And then maybe their period comes, they feel better for it maybe a few days, a couple of weeks, three weeks maybe, and then it happens again. But again, they're thinking about the periods and they're not sitting back and thinking. And some people, when they take contraceptives, they think they're taking hormones, but they're not, they're taking a chemical, which will can block your natural hormones. So a lot of people I've spoken to have been given something

like progestogen only pill or an implant, which people think will smooth their hormones, give them hormones back, but it can make it a lot worse, but they're not thinking about the connection. So I think the way that, you know, your book talks in lots of different ways is so important. And I'm particularly interested in it because I see and hear so many women who clearly are struggling with their hormones, but when you go under the surface, they're also struggling with symptoms related to ADHD. But once they're on that conveyor belt of an ADHD diagnosis, no one's thinking about hormones. They're just thinking about do you need an amphetamine-based drug?

Yes or no. And it's like, hang on. Even if you're not thinking about hormones, there's loads of other things we can do to help our brain function rather than just being medicalised. 100%. And I think, listen, I am for any type of medication if it works and it helps and there's no severe adverse effect.

And I'm very pro-choice with the medication. However, I'm going to speak personally here. I'll explain my story. I've always been very, very hormonally sensitive. Any type of birth control, the marina coil, any contraception, I just did not agree with me. Anything synthetic. And that's been in my whole life, anything synthetic, sort of, I'm very holistic.

And I've really, really struggled with that. And I then started HRT at the age of 40. I was very lucky to have a brilliant clinician who understood the ADHD side. And, you know, I have that privilege. being on the podcast and meeting lots of interesting doctors. However, I had severe, I would call it PTSD of thinking that the progesterone of the HRT was going to send me crazy because I'd had such an impact, the marina coil. I then had so much education around the fact that that was a progestin and this was a body identical progesterone. Long story short, I have found that it was the progestrone as part of the HRT that's helped me.

beyond words. The estrogen, yes, it's been great, but I've kept it a very minimum, two dose, two squirt, two pumps. That's never increased. But I'm on a higher dose progesterone and I take it, and you're the doctor, but I take this every day

and it has been miraculous for me because I was struggling in my sleep was sending me into just like a spiral I couldn't sleep. The most terrible debilizing, anxiety, catastrophizing, restlessness. My ADHD was fled up onto another level and it was the progesterone that has helped me so much and it's kept me normally around ovulation before HRT it would be horrendous. I'd be having

a marriage breakdown, rage, crying, emotional dysregulation. I couldn't work. I couldn't parent. It was really, really, really hard. And then I've got my progesterone, which feels balanced right now. And if I feel like a different person, my ADHD is still there. It's there that my cupboards are open, my keys are left in the door, that my desk is a mess. But I manage it. It's not, it's not taking over me. I see it. It's like an annoying friend that's always there.

But it's not this weight that would hold me down that would impact my mental health. And this is why I'm so passionate about talking about it's because the amount of women that I have spoken to. And again, I wanted to mention, I also had five. hybrids. I had lots of hysteroscopies, heavy bleeding to the point where I was very low in iron. I couldn't get out of bed. I would bleed through my clothes. And since taking the progesterone, it's been completely different. I was like, this is like a period, three days of sort of like a normal pad and a tampon. It's beyond words for me, but the mental health, the sleep side has been the most, you know, groundbreaking. So the ADHD is there, but I don't take medication.

for it. I do all well-being things, you know, but it's for me, the hormonal balance was that big thing for the ADHD. Also, sadly, I had a miscarriage. I also had what I would say is not, I would say it was probably some postnatal depression, but it was more postnatal anxiety. And I didn't have any of the words. I didn't know that perhaps there was low progesterone. And unfortunately, in my family, there's been a lot of women in my family historically who have really suffered with their mental health around menopause who have had marriage breakdown, mental health breakdowns, insomnia, they've all been on sleeping pills. And I do believe that it's down to a progesterone deficiency going on in my family. And there's been ADHD as well.

So I'm just trying to paint a picture, you know, for my own family, but I know that it's making sense to a lot of other women as well. And I want more clinicians to know about this. Yeah, it's so important because progesterone is a really forgotten, often hormone. And a lot of people think it's just for the womb, actually. And if people take HRT, they only need it. If they still have their womb, one of my patients had hysterectomy for fibroids recently, and I reviewed her in the clinic this week. And she said, oh, my gynecologist said, of course, you can stop your progesterone now.

You've had a hysterectomy. And she said, I quietly smirked to myself and thought, no, actually, I like sleeping. But progesterone is a very important hormone in our brain. It really does help reduce inflammation. It helps the synapses, the connections of the nerves to fire and work properly and effectively. And it's a very calming hormone as well. And I mean, I'm to blame as much as lots of other doctors because no one taught me. But I didn't prescribe progesterone in the same way.

And I also thought that all progesterones were the same because the mini pill used to be called the progesterone only pill and of course it's a progestergen, only pill, it's a synthetic chemicals. So a lot of people who actually react quite badly to synthetic progestergens get on really well with progesterone and often a higher dose and that's either

a higher oral dose or a vaginal or rectal pezzary of progesterone and so some people we use as a suppository and it's quite, can be quite hard to say to a patient, look I know you haven't got on very well before or they might just take a low dose or you know

standard dose of the micronized progesterone orally and we're saying no have a higher dose vaginally and they're like hang on no because I might feel worse and often they do feel a lot better and it's really important um one lady contacted me a couple of weeks ago and she's um been a patient in the clinic had seen another doctor and she was okay on her HRT she thought she was doing well but then she got some bleeding there's no underlying sort of cause for the bleeding so the doctor said just increase your progesterone so she said I went from 100 to 200 and I started to feel amazing. So I myself went up to 300 milligrams and I can't tell you the difference. My brain is calmer. I'm sleeping well. My more thought orders. This is incredible. I'd just

like to thank that doctor for doing this. And I think, gosh, isn't this interesting? And there are a lot of women how, as you say, who are progester and deficient for quite a few years. We see them as they're older in the clinic, but they've often had multiple miscarriages. They've been mislabeled as PC. They've often had irregular periods and giving them progesterone, like you say, can help periods become lighter, it can improve fertility. It's such a forgotten hormone, but when we think about women with ADHD, it can make the brain a lot calmer. So you can make sense of chaos.

And the same with testosterone, actually. Testosterone's a very good hormone in the brain. And there's not much research because sadly no one does research into this. But even with men, testosterone can be very beneficial if they've got AD. And, you know, there's no studies that I'm aware of giving progesterone to men, but progesterone is a male hormone too. But certainly testosterone in men and a lot of what I notice is testosterone in women with progesterone can really make a difference for some of the symptoms related to ADHD.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting what you say because I'm reading this book called, is actually writing front of me called adrenaline dominance by a doctor in America. I think he's retired. And he talks about progesterone and talks about your profession for men as well and how it does help reduce adrenaline. I mean, I'll give you an example.

I didn't have my prescription. I had to pick it up and I ended up not having my progesterone that night. And it was a bit of a, I guess, it was me just trying to test it out to see if it really is helping. I woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning like someone had shot an adrenaline, you know, like injection in me. My heart was racing. I couldn't stop my brain going. My palpitations. I literally must have lay there for about three hours. It was horrendous. And I started panicking. And I remember it was like a flashback of how it was just before I started my HRT. And that was every single day, every single night. I wasn't coping.

It's horrid, isn't it? And that showed. Yeah, it's horrendous. And it made me really. realize that this adrenaline dominance has been part of my life because anxiety has always been there. And before menopause came, my perimenopause symptoms came, I was managing it just about, just about, you know, the skin of my teeth through exercise, through well-being stuff, through calming things. I didn't have any more resources left. So interesting, I also do take testosterone. And I don't know if I notice any help specifically with my ADHD, but what I do notice is that my resilience has gone up. My ability to just keep moving forwards despite it being, you know,

it's been a very challenging few years for us. And I've managed to get up in the morning and try and have this positive perspective. And I do wonder if it is the testosterone that's given me that extra scaffolding that I'm not sure I would have had otherwise. Because ADHD really does, if you don't have that help and that support and the, hormones, it really can just crush you and crush you and crush you, especially for women. And I speak to so many women, my community, who are only just finding out their 50s and their 60s, and they've had marriage breakdowns. They have really suffered. And I don't want women to be

suffering like this anymore. They shouldn't. It's not, it's hard enough. Life is hard enough when we've got enough stuff going on to deal with. But the other thing, there's this balance, as you, I'm sure know with progesterone and cortisol, our stress hormone. And, you know, one of the doctors who did a lot of work in progesterone in the 50s and 60s, Katrina Dalton, wrote a lot about this. And about how if we have low progesterone, it increases our cortisol and our stress. So balancing it can make a huge difference. And it's all very well saying to women, you have to be calm, you have to sleep, you have to practice meditation. If you've got all this vital light response, it's really, really difficult. So having those tools, but having hormones definitely, and I know myself that having those hormones

really just helps me become less emotional. Like I've been dealing with all sorts of difficult things, personally, professionally, with my family, one of my daughters being very ill. And I've got this ability to just take stock, breathe it, do a bit of like breathe breath work and think all I can do is one thing at a time because I used to be catastrophizing. and then thinking, oh, God, I've got, I've got to catch a train to London, and now I've got to catch a train to London, and then I've got to do this tomorrow and that tomorrow. And it's like, then you end up doing nothing because your brain is in overdrive. And I'm sure, like, I mean, I do a lot of yoga and that helps me.

But having the hormones has just helped me to just like, hang on, Louise, you're in the present. You know, you're doing this podcast now, concentrate on that. And then you can do X, Y, Z. and it's quite subtle and it's quite difficult to explain to people. But, you know, I take hormones for future health. I'm really scared of osteoporosis, so I'm not taking them just for one thing. And I think there's this being big push. But there's misunderstanding that people only take them for a hot flush

and they forget that they have a role in the brain and the body and elsewhere. The hot flushes for me were also awful. And I'm very grateful that the estrogen definitely helps. with that. But for me, the hormones are there for that. Like you say, I do yoga and I walk my dog and I work really hard and I have a big, I really, really do want to help a lot of people. There's no way I could have done any of that without this hormonal support. Like, that has been the foundation. I'm also very aware that some women can't take hormones or don't want to take hormones and that's, you know, their personal choice. And I don't want women to think that if they

don't take hormones at ADHD, they're going to be, you know, it's everything's, you know, terrible. I do think there's other ways that we can help ourselves and, you know, I speak to amazing psychiatrists all the time who've seen incredible things with, you know, Medicaid ADHD. And I really don't want to belittle that and think that it's all about hormones. But I think if it is something that you have seen, your family and your children and all sorts, it's like if you can try it and you can get that support. I really do think because we see how ADHD shows up at these big moments in our life, like puberty, postnatally, every month cyclically, you know, with PMDD,

but also like you say, PECOS and endometriosis, it is peppered throughout our lives as women. And if we can get more support around that, our ADHD doesn't feel like it's taking over a whole life. I totally agree. And, you know, lots of people are told they can't have hormones, whereas they're thinking just about one hormone, usually estrogen, not thinking about the power of progesterone or testosterone, and or they've taken contraception and no one's blinked an eyelid. But it's not just hormones. We have to be thinking, and for a lot of us doing exercise, meditation, what we eat, you know, all those things make a difference. But we just need to have more information. And we're doing some research that I'll talk about soon once we get it.

a better shape to publish, but some of the data we're seeing is really interesting about the role of ADHD and hormones in women. And so we've got a lot to do, but the, you know, the best thing is having conversation talking. Women can work a lot out for themselves as well. But I'm very grateful for you coming on and sharing your story as well and talking about your children too. So before we end, I always ask for three take-home tips. So if someone's listening and thinking, oh, I think I've got ADHD. What are the three things that you would recommend for those people to do? I would probably find some help, some support, a community.

Really, you know, I definitely see the power in community and a like-mindedness of women asking each of the questions. You know, we're very resourceful women, I think, neurodivergent women. Once we, you know, once we figure something out, we'll go down a whole rabbit hole. So lean on other women, find people in the community, but also do that research yourself, take it to your GP, print out the research, the papers, Attitude magazine is a fantastic resource. My podcast, I've tried to interview as many people and I'd love you to come on the podcast,

really to try and pick apart the very nuances of how ADHD shows up in women. So you can then present it to your doctor who, you know, to no fault their own, probably hasn't done the same amount of research that you have or I have. And they do need a bit of help. I would definitely say, please advocate for yourself.

Please don't be dismissed. No one wants ADHD, really. You know, we're not going to make it up. It's very likely that there's going to be some form of neurodivergence there if you are relating to this kind of conversation and other conversations as well. I think the other thing is making, you know, decisions that are right for you. It's 99% sure I've got ADHD, but I don't really need to have an official diagnosis. It's not going to help me because I have the tools to manage and work through.

But it's useful for others to know there are reasons why I don't read all my emails properly or I make mistakes. It's disgusting. And it's just talking, I think, and educating others is so important. I'm trying to reduce the stigma because just having disorder is not really a disorder. I think it's a superpower. If I didn't, if my brain didn't work as it did, I couldn't do nearly as much. Yeah, it is a superpower, but it's a superpower with limitations if we don't look after ourselves and we don't. know our bandwidth and our boundaries and we don't prevent burnout and we really look after ourselves.

I see us as like very sensitive beings who can do a lot more than many of the people, but we really do have to do it, you know, pace ourselves. So say you have a day where you're just back to back in with meetings, I would suggest can you have a day of decompression after or, you know, really help manage so you can do those big, you know, spurts of energy and then pull back, rest, recharge, recalibrate and protect yourself because many of us have got big jobs that we want to do in this world, but we have to not do it at the expense of our health, our relationships, our children, all of that because I know that so much of that does matter to us as well.

So it's such great advice, and there's plenty more advice in your book, the ADHD Women's Well-Being Toolkit. So thank you so much for coming on my podcast. I've really enjoyed it.