The Food Medic - Periods, Pain, and Power: What Your Doctor Might Not Tell You | With Dr Brooke Vandermolen

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

What if everything you thought you knew about your period was wrong? In this episode of The Food Medic Podcast, Dr Hazel Wallace, a women’s health nutritionist, sits down with Dr. Brooke Vandermolen, known as "The OB GYN Mom," to discuss women's health, focusing on menstrual cycles, period myths, and contraceptive options. Dr. Brooke shares her journey into obstetrics and gynecology and her motivation for creating online content to provide evidence-based advice. The episode covers: What inspires healthcare professionals to specialise in women’s health and how can we educate women beyond the clinic? Common misconceptions about menstrual cycles and period health that need to be challenged. The effects of hormonal contraception on menstrual health, fertility, and overall well-being. Why is it so important to feel heard by your doctor? The importance of open, informed communication between women and their healthcare providers. Popular myths around women's health practices—and the science (or lack thereof) behind them. The episode emphasises the need for proactive health management and debunks myths surrounding women's health practices, aiming to empower women with accurate information. So, if your period could talk, what would it ask you to pay more attention to? — If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the podcast, simply send a voice note to [e-mail] – we'd love to hear from you! Stay up to date with the latest health advice, recipes, insights, and updates from Dr. Hazel Wallace and The Food Medic community. Dr. Hazel Wallace Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drhazelwallace/ The Food Medic Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefoodmedic/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefoodmedic/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Thefoodmedic Explore More from The Food Medic Not Just A Period – New Book A groundbreaking guide to understanding your cycle, hormones, and health.Coming 22nd May 2025. Pre-order now: https://linktr.ee/notjustaperiod The Food Medic App Learn more: https://www.thefoodmedic.co.uk/about-the-food-medic-hub Weekly Newsletter Subscribe here: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/62b5a28d76b1bf772c403012 Get in Touch For inquiries or collaborations: General: [e-mail] Partnerships: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Conditions apply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. Women it takes them a while to even realize that maybe their periods are something that they should talk about. And then by the time they get in front of a doctor, sometimes that doctor might just say yeah yeah well you know periods are painful and you know yours aren't that severe you know don't worry about it and I think there is definitely a lot of people still feeling dismissed about their periods. Dr. Brooke Vander Molen, better known as the OBGYN mum, is an

obstetrics and gynaecology doctor, a mum of three and a powerhouse when it comes to busting myths and sharing insights on all things women's health. Why do you think so many women feel in the dark about their menstrual cycles? I think there is a cultural issue in some certain cultures where periods are considered dirty or shameful or just not really spoken about. What's one hack that you've seen in loose terms on TikTok that you think is very dangerous

and we should avoid? The ultimate problem is these hacks are not really hacks. There isn't a easy hack to fix your cycles. I mean, I guess my ultimate hack is... Hello everyone and welcome back to the Food Medic podcast. I'm Dr. Hazel Wallace, a women's health nutritionist and former NHS doctor and I'm back for a special women's health series of the Food Medic podcast. In this mini series, we're diving into all things

women's health from expert insights and myth busting chats to mini ask Dr Hazel episodes where I answer questions submitted by you. Expect accessible, evidence-backed tips to help you feel empowered, not held back by your menstrual cycle and more. Today's guest is someone you've probably come across online if you've ever searched for real, relatable, and evidence-based advice on women's health. Dr. Brooke Vandermolen, better known as the OBGYN mum, is an obstetrics and gynaecology doctor, a mum of three and a powerhouse when it comes to busting myths and sharing insights

on all things women's health. She's here today to chat about all things cycle health, period myths and the kind of advice every woman deserves to hear. If you're enjoying these conversations and want to go beyond just understanding your hormones and your menstrual cycle and actually learn how to work with them, my latest book, Not Just a Period, is available to pre-order now. It's a practical science-backed roadmap that helps you align your cycle in every area of your life, from nutrition and mood to body image, skin, hair and more. If you're ready to feel more in tune with your body and supported by your hormones, rather than confused by them, I'd love for you to check it out.

You might notice a QR code floating around if you're watching the video free to scan, or if you're listening to the audio version, you can find the link at the bottom of the episode show notes. So Brooke, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so looking forward to this conversation. I would love to just start by asking you what inspired you to go into Ops and Gyne and then

from that what inspired you to start creating content online? Well, actually, what inspired me to go into obs and gyne was my medical student placement. I never went into medical school thinking this was the path I was going to take. I almost thought maybe general practice or something like that. But I had a particular experience when I was a medical student and I was on a placement where I was sitting in a clinic and a woman who had been working as a cleaner and been married for 20 years came into a urogynecology clinic.

And even before she, as she walked in the room, she just started crying her eyes out. And she didn't even want to speak about the problem that like, she didn't even want to say these words out loud. And she basically had a complete prolapse. And she, kind of the doctor saw to her and placed a pessary inside. And within, you know, five seconds her entire face and body changed because she just felt so completely different. It basically pushed her prolapse back up and she said she hadn't been able to work, she

hadn't been able to be with her husband. Like it was a life transforming moment that didn't even involve any surgery. She was too embarrassed to even speak about it out loud. And I just kind of, it was one clinical consultation that I just kind of thought, wow, this is a really powerful specialty because we don't feel comfortable to talk about some of these topics out loud that we should because we don't normalize some of these things that happen to so many people around the world. And also there are a lot of different treatments within this specialty.

There's medications, there's surgeries, there's non-surgical treatments for things as well. And so I just saw it as a potential to have a big impact on people in a number of different ways. I didn't really understand all the ways at that time, but I kind of just thought, wow, this is a really interesting specialty. And yeah, kind of snowballed my interest from there. Yeah. And I guess was falling into social media something that was like a happy accident?

Did you think about it beforehand? How did it come about? So it was not something I really thought about in detail. I think it was when I was pregnant for the first time. I was pregnant alongside quite a few of my friends, or a few of my friends were on a similar kind of journey, thinking about their fertility, thinking about their periods. And they kept asking me questions because I was, I just started training in Obst and

Gyna and they kept asking me questions that they didn't feel like they could book a GP appointment for or they were kind of maybe they would look on Google, but they weren't getting the answers that they needed. And I thought to myself, I've got kind of privileged access to some of this information and being pregnant myself, I kind of knew the sort of questions they were thinking about, but I was able to either have access to the information or ask my colleagues. And I thought there's got to be another way of getting information that people are looking for that they don't necessarily know that they're looking for.

And it was around the time, you know, Instagram was full of, it was just photos of food and people's nights out at that time. And I thought, you know, could we use something like this to share this type of information? And so, yeah, I just kind of, I didn't tell anyone. I didn't put my name, I think, on the count at the beginning. I just started posting the kind of the answers to the questions that my friends were asking me. And it kind of, yeah, just grew from there. Yeah, as it often does.

And I find if you're working in healthcare, creating content in that space, especially in women's health space, you often get a lot of women who feel dismissed by their own doctors or maybe let down by the healthcare system. Is that something that you see maybe with your messages? What are some of the common themes or topics that are coming up? Yeah, I think feeling dismissed or feeling not taken seriously is very much a universal experience I think, sadly, and as much as we might be trying to change it, I think it still happens to this day.

I think when women, it takes them a while to even realize that maybe their periods are something that they should talk about, and then by the time they get in front of a doctor, sometimes that doctor might just say, yeah, yeah, well, you know, periods are painful and you know, yours aren't that severe so don't worry about it or you know, when you get pregnant, it won't be painful anymore or when you go through the menopause, it won't be heavy as much. And I think there is definitely a lot of people still feeling dismissed about their periods. I think also, sometimes we do it to ourselves because we want to get ahead in the workplace. We want to go and not be seen as being held back by some of these things by either periods or by menopausal symptoms. And we just don't still don't feel we can

talk about it enough. And so I think, yeah, in a number of ways, women are still being dismissed. Their experiences still not being taken seriously enough. And I think that's why part of what I want to do is make it okay to have those conversations, but not with, not, you know, every single conversation needs to be about your periods, but it's just about taking those opportunities and being able to advocate for yourself and speak up about things in a way that you do get taken seriously. And similarly on the other side, we do need to be doing work to, to make sure

that, you know, medical professionals are taking the right symptoms seriously from the beginning. That we shouldn't need to be empowered to speak up, we should be taken seriously from the beginning, but both sides I think we need to work on. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's almost as if when it comes to period pain or menstrual symptoms, or even just women's health in general, but especially when it comes to pain, it's like women's pain related to their menstrual

cycle or whether that's any other part of women's health. It's as if it's not as painful as other pain, if that makes sense. Like if you came with a headache or you came with lower back pain, we would take that seriously. But period pain, it's like that's just part and parcel of being a woman. And I find that so interesting. But I guess one of the questions I'd love to ask you is, if you could change how we approach women's health within medicine, how would you like the doctors coming up after us approach women's health?

So I think exactly as you were just explaining, I think we don't treat those symptoms in the context that they're given and I think one of the ways that we can change that is as medical professionals, I think we need to think about how symptoms actually impact on someone's quality of life because actually a lot of these things can't be measured with a normal scale. Even when we think about how heavy your periods are, I'd love to give people this amount of blood is normal, but at the end of the day, what matters is how much it impacts on your life. And that's when I think if people are not feeling listened to, one of the things that I tell them to do is explain how it's impacting on their life. And so one of my parts of my

career I spent some time working with in pediatric clinics, pediatric and adolescent gynecology clinics. And especially when we have teenagers coming in and they're talking about their periods, it's really difficult to quantify or qualify how they should be affected. But what I would say is, do you miss school every time you have your periods? Or do you struggle to leave the house? Or are you canceling social engagements? Or are you waking up in the night multiple times to change your pads? And those are ways that we can say, it's not just affecting you, but it's how it's having that impact on your life.

And I think as professionals, with lots of different symptoms, if we see how it's affecting our patients in the broader picture, I think we get more of a picture. When you see 10 people in a row, it's hard to see that individualization. And so as a person sometimes,

to bring it back to you as an individual and within the life that you lead, I think helps that doctor to contextualize how it's affecting you. Why do you think so many women feel in the dark about their menstrual cycles? Lots of different reasons. And I think it depends on where you are. I think there is a cultural issue in some certain cultures where periods are considered dirty or shameful or just not really spoken about. I think probably here in the UK we are more open about speaking about them, but there is that aspect. I think a lot of education

that we have in schools is lacking, I think, about our periods. And it takes sometimes until you're at a stage of life either where you are thinking about your contraception and you're thinking about your periods and what your options are or when you're trying to actually get pregnant. A lot of people tell me, you know, it's not until they try to get pregnant that they realize all the signs of ovulation that their body might have been giving them. And it's like, why didn't I know this earlier? So I think there's an element of, we're just not taught it at school. So people are in the dark about what to expect, what is normal, what

are the parameters of a normal period. You know, we're told I get 28 days, but a lot of people don't realize we start counting from the first day of your period. And people might say, oh, I had two periods last month, but understanding that it goes from the first day of your period to the first day of the next, that's how we think of how long your cycle is. So I think understanding what the normal parameters are when we may not be taught, we just may not talk about it openly enough with each other. Yeah. And there might be, and I've definitely heard this, there might be some people thinking,

well, it's just a period. Why is it a big deal that we talk about it? Well, I think, how do you know if something is going wrong if you don't know what, I don't actually like the phrase normal but I would say typical because you know, everyone's, your periods might be normal for you and they might be really heavy but I would say, yeah, if you don't know what is typical then it's hard to pick up things, you know, when there's something wrong or something that could be treated ultimately. That's what we want to do. It's the same when we think about endometriosis, this condition that we say takes an average

of seven years to diagnose, although lots of people find it's a lot longer than that. And that's because from the first point that they actually speak to a doctor can be several years of experiencing symptoms. So you might be not knowing that 10 years of your life you were struggling with pain was abnormal. Then you know it, then you go to a doctor and they don't take you seriously. And then you have several years of being bumped around and you have to advocate for yourself. And that's why it takes so long.

So I think, yeah, it matters to know what is typical. So you can also know if what you're experiencing could benefit from some treatment. So let's talk a little bit about what is typical with a, let's say a healthy menstrual cycle, if we can call it that, and maybe some red flags that you would want someone to come speak to their doctor about. So I think of kind of three main issues that people have with their periods is, are they irregular? So how regular are they?

How painful are they? And how heavy are they? Now a lot of people might experience a combination of all three, irregular, heavy and painful periods. But each of those things can, you know, they might have a reason underlying them. So for example, if we think about how regular are your periods, again, I would recommend tracking your periods. I know you talk about this a lot as well, that how important that is to be tracking it so you can understand how often your periods are coming. So regular cycles will be anywhere from 21 to 35 days, although it's very variable for everybody. The other thing that's really important is how many days difference there is between

your longer cycle and your shorter cycle. So your period tracking app will really help you with that information. But also we think about how much it varies from month to month. So those types of things are important and by having that diary when you come to see a doctor, you can show them how often your periods are coming, how much cycles vary month to month. I also recommend logging those other symptoms like pain, like how heavy they are, which days they're particularly heavy. So we can again understand, you know, are you going to be losing too much blood because you have five days of really heavy bleeding where you're changing your pads every hour, or is it really heavy but for one or two days and maybe that's

more manageable for you. So documenting all of those things really helps to have those conversations. But there isn't a certain amount of blood that is too heavy. As I say, for me, it's more about how much is it affecting you. As doctors, we ask questions like, do you pass big clots? That's helpful to note of yourself. You probably know if you see it. And how often you have to change your pads or tampons or whatever you're using for protection on a daily basis on the heavy days of your period. We'll ask those questions and also if you flood through your bed or if you flood through

what you're, that all indicates that you're having a heavy period and that maybe we might want to treat that. Yeah, absolutely. And your cycles and your periods can change throughout your lifetime. You know, during puberty, they're a little bit different and then they settle down. And then also when you go through the peri-menopause, but another time when you've gone through a period of not having a period and then you get your periods back after giving birth, so postpartum. What can women expect during that time? Will their periods change? When should they expect their periods to come

back after having a baby? So one of the main factors that's going to determine what you can expect from your periods after you have a baby is whether or not you decide to breastfeed. And if you do decide to breastfeed, how long do you breastfeed for? Because when you breastfeed, you release a hormone called prolactin and that prevents you from ovulating and therefore prevents your menstrual cycle. That's why some people believe or feel that breastfeeding is really good contraception and it should stop you from ovulating so in theory works as

contraception is just not completely reliable. But ultimately if you're breastfeeding most people find that they don't experience their periods at least for the first six months after baby's born. They might not have any periods at all. For some people, their periods don't come back at all until they stop breastfeeding, which might be even up to two years or however long you breastfeed for. But the majority of people who find that they continue to breastfeed find that their periods can come back somewhere between six months and a year. They might just start back up on their own. The other thing is the impact on whether your periods restart is how frequently

you feed your baby, you breastfeed your baby, so if you sometimes give them a bottle or sometimes they sleep longer overnight, you're more likely to restart your periods earlier. And then the other thing that sometimes people notice from their periods after they have a baby is that their periods when they do restart can be different than before. They can be heavier and they can be more painful. For the majority of people that settles out over time. So it's not a permanent change, but it can be there for quite a few months and can be quite distressing if you never really had heavy periods and then suddenly you're like flooding through and you've got a baby to look after, it's

more to deal with. But it does tend to settle down over time. It shouldn't be a permanent change. Yeah. And I guess let's chat a little bit about getting your period back after you stopped hormonal contraception. Because I think there's a lot of fear around the pill maybe causing hormonal disturbances or infertility and things like that. So let's set the record straight there. Yeah. So I think it's definitely a really big concern for a lot of people, especially I think certainly 10, 15 years ago there was really this move to most teenagers that they had difficult periods were put onto hormonal

contraception, which I don't think is a bad thing. I think it definitely has its place, but you might have been taking the pill for 10, 12 years and then you kind of think, oh I'm gonna come out of it and your periods are really irregular and you think to yourself, did the pill cause this? So the thing that we would say is the pill or any of the hormonal forms of contraception do not cause a permanent change in your fertility. They don't permanently affect it. They don't actually change, for example, how many eggs you have.

You are born with all the eggs that you ever have in your life, and as you go through your menstrual cycles, you're losing eggs every month. So the pill doesn't change how many you have, but what it can do is it can mask something that's going on underneath. So again, it's part of how we use it and a good thing, perhaps, for example, if you have painful periods and actually you never knew it, but you had endometriosis, whilst you're taking the pill, it may make your pain much better and more manageable and allow you to lead a normal life.

But you may have had the effects of endometriosis underlying there and you don't know that until you come back off the pill and suddenly your periods are really painful again and you have severe pelvic pain, for example. So it may have been kind of masking those symptoms that you didn't know were there. Similarly with PCOS or those other issues that can affect ovulation on a monthly basis, because you don't ovulate when you're taking those hormonal medications, you don't know that you might have very irregular periods naturally. So it's not a permanent change and for most people when they stop hormonal contraception, they find that their periods or their menstrual cycles should return to normal within about six to nine months, which actually is a while.

So if you come off your contraception because you want to get pregnant, it can be surprising that three, four months in, you're still not really getting a regular cycle. But that's part of your body's kind of settling back into its rhythm from before. But it shouldn't be a permanent change. But you may not know if you had a naturally low ovarian reserve, for example, because you didn't realize because you were on the hormonal contraception. And it's only when you come off very irregular periods, maybe we do a blood test and we say, actually, you had a low ovarian reserve.

It's not caused by that medication, but it's not something that we can bring back, because you can't reverse, you know, having a low ovarian reserve. You's not caused by that medication, but it's not something that we can bring back because you can't reverse having a low ovarian reserve. You can't give someone more eggs, unfortunately. So I think it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone that's on hormonal contraception needs to come off of it. I think it's got a really great place, especially if you have difficulties with your periods or you have skin issues. But I think it's worth thinking about, is this the best choice for me?

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is made just the way you like it. Handcrafted cold foam topped with toasted cookie crumble. It's a sweet summer twist on iced coffee. Your cold brew is ready at Starbucks. Is the right time for you to come off it? Yeah, yeah. I think that's a really important message. And I do see like a lot of pill bashing online, and I'm sure you do as well. And I think it just needs to have a bit more of a nuanced conversation

because it is very individual and very personalized. And as you've said, in some situations, in some conditions, the pill can be really transformative for women. It allows them to like go back to work and it manages symptoms. And one area where the pill is often used is PCOS. I have PCOS and I work with a lot of women who have PCOS. And I think there is a lot of confusion about the role of the pill in PCOS, where some people believe that doctors just prescribe it as maybe like a band-aid solution.

So I'd love to just quickly cover off why it might be helpful in some women with PCOS. Absolutely. So there are a couple of different reasons in PCOS specifically that we might recommend it. Now, one of the issues that PCOS causes is very irregular periods. And so if you don't ovulate every month, you don't see a period every month. And the thing is, if you don't ovulate and you don't see your period and you don't ovulate every month, you don't see a period every month. And the thing is if you don't ovulate and you don't see your period and you don't shed your lining, the lining can actually just continue to thicken and thicken.

So for everyone that's having irregular periods, we recommend that you should have ideally a bleed every three or four months. That's just to keep the lining of the womb thin. And there's different ways, if you're not going to ovulate on your own, there's different ways that we can help that to happen. You can either just wait and see, and then, you know, if it's been three, four months, you go to your doctor and they prescribe you a short course of a progesterone medication,

it gives you a bleed, it makes the lining nice and thin again, and you carry on. Or another option is you take a hormonal medication to keep the lining of your womb thin the whole time. And the reason we don't want your lining of your womb to get too thick is if it gets too thick, it can become something called endometrial hyperplasia, which is an abnormal thickening of the lining of the womb. Now, it's a rare condition to happen, but we know that if we just leave this thickened lining unchecked for too long, that's the potential, and then endometrial hyperplasia can lead to endometrial cancer. So it's not to say that everyone with irregular periods gets that, but

it's just something that we're thinking about. We're saying have a bleed every few months or take hormonal medication to keep the lining of your womb thin the whole time. And that way you can protect your womb long term. The other reason that people with PCOS might be recommended the pill is because one of the issues that you can have is because of the raised androgens, those kind of hormones like testosterone, it can affect your skin and hair growth as well. So particularly getting spots or hair growth around your face, for example, or places

that you don't normally expect hair growth. Some types of the pill can contain anti-androgens and can really help those types of symptoms for people as well. So again, it's not everyone has to be on the pill that has PCS, but it does have benefits. But of course, if you have PCS and you want to get pregnant, then the pill isn't really an option for you because it acts as a contraceptive. So I think it's really worth having those conversations on a regular basis. With PCS specifically, I always go back to that person and I say, you know, what matters most for you right now? If the thing you're struggling with, because you're in your early 20s and your skin's

broken out and you're finding it really hard to control, then absolutely something like the pill might be the right choice for you at that time in your life. If later on you are having irregular periods, but you want to get pregnant, the pill is not the right choice for you at that time. So I think it's really thinking about what symptoms matter most to you and having that conversation with your doctor. Yeah. And I think, I mean, it would be great if everyone had you in their doctor's office to have that long conversation, but we don't often get that long counseling session and that is no one's fault, but rather a restriction in time. And I think another confusing statement is often when people say, oh, the pill regulates your periods, when it's not really doing that.

It's not true period. But in the case of PCOS, it does help that regular bleed to keep the womb line thin. So it's just like that clarification is really important. So you do a lot of myth busting on TikTok and I'm sure a lot of that, or I've seen a lot of that's prompted off the back of people doing posts and it's just like the world, world west on social media. But what's one genuine hack that you've seen or hack I'm using in loose terms on TikTok that maybe does help with hormonal health or menstrual cycles,

and maybe one that you think is very dangerous and we should avoid. I mean, I guess my ultimate hack is cycle tracking, because I think that is something that really gives you a wealth of information. In terms of things that we should avoid, I mean, yeah, the list is, I could go on forever about things I've seen on TikTok that I think we should avoid because there is a misinformation epidemic and everyone, I think the ultimate problem is these hacks are not really hacks. There isn't a easy hack to fix your cycles and the types of hacks I wish we could leave behind is anything that quickly says they're going to fix your menstrual cycles with this one supplement or this one

device because I think, you know, big companies have caught on to the fact you can make money out of women because we experience these things in silence. They have big impacts on our lives, but we want to get on with our lives. And it's very easy to prey on what women are looking for and sell to women, I think, is the problem. And so there isn't one supplement that's going to, you know, balance your hormones. I think anything that has balance your hormones in its subtitle, I would steer clear of because I think, yeah, anyone can put anything in a supplement and then tell

you it's going to balance your hormones. And the problem is there is no proof. There's no way you can prove that someone's hormones are in balance or out of balance because there isn't a set number that your hormones should be. And so I think it's a really easy kind of tagline marketing strategy. So yeah, I think I would steer clear of any quick hacks for fixing your periods or for regulating your cycle. Yeah, I would agree with that. I hate that I have to ask this question and I feel like it comes up a lot on this podcast.

But for anyone who's maybe struggling to advocate for themselves in the doctor's office or maybe they've been referred to a gynaecologist and they've been told what they're experiencing is normal or that there's not much anyone can do about it, what would be your best advice about maybe looking for a second opinion or, like I said, advocating for themselves in that situation? Yeah, I think, I really think that our GPs are so stretched and you know, as lovely as it would be to have long consultations where you can have long discussions with your patients about what matters to them, they get limited time and I think it's a really difficult job that I would struggle to do. And even in gynaecology clinics, we often have the stresses of a busy list, we're running

late, you're thinking about the theatre list in the afternoon. So yeah, I think it's a really difficult job to do and that's why as patients or as family members we do sometimes have to advocate for ourselves. Things I find helpful as a doctor that a patient could do is when they come with a list of questions. I think it can be a double-edged sword. I don't have the longest list of questions, but I think taking time to write down what you want to get out of a consultation actually really does help to focus those consultations. Of course, the doctor has certain things that they want to ask you and that they need to

know, but making sure you get a chance to ask the things that matter to you. So writing down your questions, bringing someone with you, and again, it shouldn't be necessary, you shouldn't have to have someone else advocate for you, but sometimes having someone else that also knows what matters to you with you can help in case you forget anything or if you're being told some bad news or some surprising news, having another person there to listen, when you come out of the consultation can help you to feel like, you know, what did they say about that? What did they say? What was the name of the test again? So I think bringing someone with you can help. I think bringing it back to how things affect you really helps. I think it helps to frame it. So I think if you want,

if you feel that you're telling them about your painful periods and they're just kind of being a bit dismissive or they're saying go and try some paracetamol ibuprofen, I think bringing with you a list of what you've tried already, explaining your journey, bring with you if you have letters from previous consultations or previous, you know, hospital admissions, bring any documentation you have with you. It's hard. You shouldn't again have to be your own secretary, but you get copied into letters, bring them with you because as much as we'd love our NHS system to connect to GP and all the different hospitals, it doesn't for one reason or another.

But if you have got copies of things, bring it with you so you've got that focus for the consultation as well. And then explain, you know, my bleeding is so heavy that I'm worried I'm becoming an emic. I've been in three times to have a blood transfusion and this is really, you know, making it difficult for me to keep my job. Framing it in those terms really helps that doctor to see that, you know, just giving you some tranexamic acid and sending you away is probably not going to cut it. And also having evidence that maybe you've tried something before can also help to say, thank you for that step. I recognize that that's a good

thing to do, but I have already tried it and it didn't work for me. What's my next option? Yeah, so much good advice. Thank you. I've got some quick fire, but before we go there, I'd love to ask you, what's one myth in women's health or hormones that you'd love to bust once and for all? I think I've mentioned it already, but that there is a perfect balance to your hormones. I think that is a myth. I see it come up over and over again, and usually from someone that's trying to sell you something.

So I think we should get rid of that idea. And it's not to say that there aren't hormonal issues. Of course there are of course PCOS is a very real condition that can be caused by where the hormones are you know are not the levels that they should be but what it means to say is there isn't a perfect balance because your hormones shift throughout the month you know estrogen goes up progesterone goes up it comes down so so our hormones continuously shift and what matters more is what effect is those hormonal changes

having on you. And if we do a test and your hormone level is abnormal, we should treat that and take that seriously. But going and getting these kind of gummies or whatever is probably not going to change that. I thought of another myth that I definitely like to bust which is that your vulva should smell a certain way or should look a certain way. This is for me something that again really bothers me and again comes back to people usually trying to sell you something and you know all these scrubs and body washes and things that suggest again that your vulva is unclean or should smell like roses when it shouldn't or look a certain way. Again, on TikTok, I

see continuously at the moment people talking about labiaplasty and these great surgeries to make your labia smaller and talking about benefits of it. And I have to think, you know, why? Why are we telling women that they need to have, that their vulva needs to look a certain way? Who does that serve? So I think, yeah, one myth I would definitely say is that your vulva does not need to smell a certain way, it doesn't need to look a certain way and you don't need those, you know, gummies, washes or surgeries in order to fit into somebody else's, you know, idea of the right way. Yeah, I think it was a Courtney Kordashian that brought out vaginal gummies. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was a Courtney Kordasian that brought out vaginal gummies. So that actually is a good segue into the quickfire I have, which is legit or leave

it. So some things that I've taken from TikTok, some trending things, and you can let us know whether you would leave it or whether they're legit. So the first is placenta smoothies. I have debunked this one so I would definitely leave it. I understand the place of why people want to kind of try and consume their placenta and I think there's a lot of concern about post-natal depression and that's what some of the claims are but unfortunately placental smoothies, there's no evidence that it works and there is evidence of harm, so leave it. Okay.

Next one, I think I know what you're going to say. Scented wipes and female hygiene washes. Leave it. Anything to add there as to why you don't think people need these? Oh gosh. Yeah. Not only do you not need it because the vagina is self-cleaning, we talk about it all the time, but that basically means that you have this micro environment made up of some lactobacilli and there's this whole

kind of microorganisms that have a good environment that's the right pH for them to keep your vulva free of infections, for example, and it also produces discharge to wash out anything that shouldn't be sitting there. So the inside of your vagina is self-cleaning, it doesn't need to be cleaned internally. And on the exterior kind of hair-bearing parts, which you can wash if you prefer, you can use anything. You don't need to use any specific products and you just don't want to use any kind of soap or anything within the vagina itself. So the vulva you can clean as you wish, you don't need any particular specialized products. Love

that. Number three, seed cycling to balance hormones, legit or leave it? Leave it again. This is one that I don't even know where these types of things come from, but yeah, definitely not. I know, because when I was researching for the book, I couldn't find a single direct study looking at seed cycling. It's all anecdotal. I hadn't heard about this

before, but vaginal steaming. Leave it again. So again, this comes back to, I'm not actually sure what this one is, whether it's about a cleaning process or also for maybe like sexual pleasure. And there's all sorts of like laser rejuvenation, vaginal steaming that are marketed again that your vagina should kind of look a certain way, feel a certain way, take this treatment. Yeah. So don't know what it's for, but steam is not a good idea near that part of the body. It's very sensitive tissue.

Again, it's got this kind of carefully controlled microenvironment. And I would imagine that something like steaming and having, you know, that hot air there could burn your skin, but also could kill off some of the good kind of bacteria that you want to be living there in order to prevent things like thrush infections, BV. So not a good idea. Okay. Using basal body temperature to predict ovulation. Can be a good thing.

I would say that a lot of people want more information about their bodies, don't they? And things like the aura ring becoming really, really popular. But even I remember, like, my mom's shown me her temperature tracking chart from when she was trying to get pregnant and tracking her temperature and things like that. So it's something that's been done, you know, for as long as time. And there are good reasons to say that tracking your temperature regularly can help you to predict and identify ovulation. Similarly, understanding your cervical mucus and tracking that and basically trying to pinpoint when you're going to ovulate.

It can give you information about your body. That's a good thing. I personally don't recommend these methods of contraception. So I don't recommend putting in, you know, yeah, there are more and more accurate ways of detecting your body temperature, putting it into an app, using AI to try to predict when is your fertile window and when are you not fertile, which is good options if you're kind of trying not to get pregnant, but you're like, well, that's okay. If I fall pregnant, I fall pregnant. But we're not perfect creatures. You know, that's the problem is that we don't all go to bed at the but you're like, well, that's okay. If I fall pregnant, I fall pregnant.

But we're not perfect creatures, you know, that's the problem is that we don't all go to bed at the same time every night, wake up at the same time. Sometimes you go out late, you might drink some alcohol, you might forget to take your temperature that morning. You might, you know, just want to be a bit more spontaneous with sex with your partner. And so trying to fit into these new categories may not always work perfectly. So it can be a really nice way of understanding more about your body and is really helpful when you do come around to try and get pregnant, to try and understand your fertile window, but it's not necessary for everyone.

And ultimately, if you don't want to do these things and you want to get pregnant, have sex every other day, every two to three days of the month, you will catch that fertile window anyway, so you don't need that information. But I think in our generation, we all want more information about our bodies, so it can be good. Okay. Taking the pill back to back, legit or leave it? Definitely legit. I wish more people knew about this one, actually.

So when it comes to, and I guess we're talking specifically about the combined contraceptive pill here. So the combined pill, there's three different ways you can take it. You can take it in the traditional way, which means that you take the pill every day for 28 days, or you take it for three weeks of the month, and you have the other week is either a placebo pill or you have a break, and then you have a bleed. So that's the traditional way you have a bleed each month. And that's because when the pill was first created, it was created so that women didn't necessarily have to tell their husbands. They just didn't want to have another pregnancy because they've

got six kids. They could take the pill and still look like they're having a period. But actually in this day and age, we don't have to have a period. You don't have to have that bleed every month in order to be healthy because if you're taking the pill, it keeps your lining thin anyway. So you can, the other two ways, one way is to tricycle the pill, which means you take three packets back to back, and then you can have a week's break during which time you have a bleed. So instead of having a bleed every month, you have every three months. Or another way is you just take it back to back continuously, and that's called the extended use. Another really good way of taking the pill. The main downside is at

some point you might have some breakthrough bleeding, in which case you take a week's break and then you start up again. So it's a great option, I think, to know that there's these different ways of taking the combined pill. If that's the contraception you're using, you can use it to control when you get a period, if you're going on holiday and you don't want to, you're getting married. You can take it back to back, for example. And yeah, it's perfectly safe and healthy to do so. Amazing. Using blood tests to diagnose perimenopause. No, we don't recommend this. So I would leave it. I think it's, again, in our generation, we want information. I think for any of us that might start to approach the menopause, might start to have some hot flushes. If you are within the expected age range for the menopause, so if you're

age kind of 45 onwards and you start to have signs of the menopause, you can have treatment, you can have HRT, you don't have to hold back from having any treatment until your menopause is confirmed. But the perimenopause, which is that time leading up to the menopause, can last for years. And I think you don't need to have a blood test that says you are in the kind of perimenopause or the menopause in order for you to access treatment. That being said, if you're under the age of 45, we wouldn't normally expect you to be going through the menopause. That's where we sometimes do blood tests.

Because actually, if you're having hot flushes, mood changes, difficulty sleeping, there are other reasons you might have those symptoms. But if it is the perimenopause and you're young, we would want to know why you're having that and confirm that it is the menopause. So we use those blood tests only in someone who's not within that expected age range. Okay. Perfect. Okay, final one, peeing after sex. They're going for a wee. Love it. Definitely recommend it. I think yeah, there is good evidence that passing urine after you have sex can help to prevent UTIs. And so yeah, it's a good

thing to do. Not just an old wives tale. Perfect. Thank you so much Brooke for coming on the podcast. I feel like we packed a lot in there and it's going to be super helpful for people. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed these questions. Thank you. Before we leave each other, I would love if you could just take a moment to rate the podcast, leave a review or share it with a friend or a loved one that you think would learn a lot from this episode. If today's conversation resonated, my book, Not Just a Period is available to pre-order now and it's packed with practical advice to help you understand your hormones, manage

tricky periods and work with your cycle for better energy, mood and overall health. You can grab a copy now through the link in the show notes or via the QR code on your screen. I hope you all have a great week and thank you so much for listening.