The Jamie Kern Lima Show - The #1 Menopause Doctor Masterclass: How to Lose Belly Fat, Sleep Better & Stop Suffering Now! Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Episode Date: January 1, 2026

I love a truly life-changing episode and I am SO excited for this one today - we’re shedding light on everything your doctor forgot to mention to you about menopause! Right now 1.2 billion women are in perimenopause or menopause and whether or not you’re experiencing this personally in your life right now, I guarantee you someone in your life is…whether you’re a man or woman, menopause is going to affect you because it’s going to affect 50% of our society. Right now whether you or someone you love is experiencing perimenopause which can start at 30 or even younger, or menopause which can typically start in your 40s, 50s or 60s, there is so much conflicting information about this subject, experts say so few doctors are well-trained, and there’s so many things our mothers didn’t tell us or even know about it, and it’s time that you feel informed about what's going on with your body, your brain and your hormones. Today is your menopause masterclass and you’re going to leave this episode with your own menopause tool kit, equipped with the info and tools you need that I know are going to impact your life today! Whether it’s how to sleep better, understand what’s a menopause myth and what’s the truth, loose belly fat or stop suffering now! Our guest today, many call her the top menopause doctor on the planet. Dr. Mary Claire Haver is a board certified obstetrics and gynecology specialist and certified menopause practitioner from the Menopause Society. She's also a certified culinary medicine specialist from Tulane University, a bestselling author of multiple books including her incredible new book, The New Menopause. She's also the founder of the Mary Claire Wellness Clinic. She’s a mom of two, a wife, and a woman on a mission who says that while menopause is inevitable, suffering doesn’t have to be. And she’s here to help YOU and me today with all of your burning questions and the things she says your doctor likely forgot to tell you! This is your menopause masterclass! ____  Are You Ready to believe in YOU?🙌⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jamiekernlima.com ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👈 Sign up for my FREE Inspirational Newsletter and get ready for your self-worth to soar!🩷  Explore Dr. Haver’s trusted tools and programs, including her new perimenopause book, a menopause-informed providers list (including telehealth), menopause and a menopause quiz: ⁠The New Menopause⁠ ⁠Dr. Haver's Recommended Physicians⁠ ⁠Menopause Quiz Chapters: 0:00 Welcome to The Jamie Kern Lima Show 9:10 Top OBGYN: "I didn't realize what I didn't know" 11:55 Often Dismissed Signs of Perimenopause & Menopause 34:25 This Is What Triggers Menopause 38:05 Perimenopause: The Zone of Chaos 44:50 Am I In Perimenopause? 49:15 Mental Health Symptoms Of Menopause No One Talks About 54:55 THIS Is The Treatment For Recurrent UTIs in Menopause 1:00:10 "Whiny Women" - How Drs Discount Women In Menopause  And whether you're joining me today for yourself or because someone that you love shared this episode with you, I want to welcome you to the Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast family. And remember this episode is not just for you and me. Please share it with every single person that you know because it can change their life too.  It’s such an honor to share this podcast together with you. And please note: I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.  Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠to Subscribe to the YouTube Channel Follow me here:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ —  Sign up for my inspirational newsletter for YOU at:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ jamiekernlima.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  —  Looking for my books on Amazon? Here they are!  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠WORTHY⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Believe IT⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

That is a big breakthrough. That right there. I'm going to jump out of my seat, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, because the number of people listening right now that are going to be like, holy shit, wait a minute. Yeah. Maybe I need to go in and ask for these tests and understand what's really going on with my body.

I went through the end of perimenopause and menopause and was absolutely blindsided and started digging into the science and the literature. I was just kind of shocked. It was a little bit of rage, you know, of what are we doing? I'm supposed to be helping these women, and these women are suffering. Right now, 1.2 billion women are in perimenopause or menopause, and whether or not you're experiencing this personally in your life right now,

I guarantee you someone in your life is. It's not just weight. This is heart disease, dementia, diabetes, and stroke, and musculoskeletal pain or in higher quality of life. Their libido takes a hip, sense of worth. One in five women are quitting their jobs. A lot of marriages break up. We're ignoring this.

So you're a doctor. Physician? And you are realizing, wait a minute, how I was taught to treat my patients going through menopause or even to handle yourself going through premenopause or menopause. This isn't working. No. Across the menopause transition, a woman can expect to have a 40% increase risk of a new mental health disorder, either anxiety.

or depression or even ADHD symptoms. But we're just telling her, oh, you're depressed, and here's an antidepressant. You know, oh, you're not sleeping, here's a sleep aid. And no one's knowing to connect the dots. So many women are going to connect with this, whether they're in perimenopause or about to be. And how do you know if you are?

What are the three stages? What are so many of the symptoms? Oh my gosh, they go ignore, they go misdiagnosed. We think it's something else. And I'm so excited. I'm going to jump out of my chair. Hormone therapy, not only is safe, but preventative and beneficial. Why aren't we talking about, why isn't the world shop this from the rooftops?

I promise you you walk into nine out of ten doctors' offices today. Good, board-certified, well-meaning, loving, caring, incredible doctors, and they have it totally wrong on menopause and hormone therapy. Nine out of ten. I've talked to now thousands of clinicians. How much menopause training did you get in medical school? We maybe got a one-hour lecture. One hour on menopause.

This is affecting 100% of women who live long enough for the last third of their lives. That blows my mind. So if you're, you know, you're 36, you're 41, you might be having anxiety, depression, all of these other things happening. So you go in for that. Right. And you're not checking your hormones. You're not thinking in my impairment of pause or a minute. So you go in for that.

You're thinking I'm anxious. But nothing's changed in my environment. And all these different things are happening to us. And we're going into doctors who aren't, for the most part, trained in menopause. So we're not getting our hormones checked, probably not getting the correct tests. Or they think, oh, you're in your 30s, your 40s, you're too young. And you're getting treatment for a symptom. Right.

Whereas what we could be doing and why your work is having such a profound impact on so many people is in our 30s. We're going to talk about this. But understanding the underlying thing, where are all of our hormones? where is our estrogen at? Could that be causing these other things that we think, and so many women are taking it to an identity level of, oh, I have this, I have that, I'm diagnosed with this, I'm diagnosed with that, but never actually the underlying thing that could impact whether you have any of those other things or not. Right. There are so many girls and women of all generations listening to the show. When we look at the data, it's all generations. And one of the

things I, one of the things that moves me to tears is when, you know, a woman will share it with her daughter and then she'll share it with her grandma and then she shares it with her girlfriends. Whether you're a man or a woman, menopause is going to affect you because it's going to affect 50% of our society. Right now, whether you or someone you love is experiencing perimenopause, which can start at 30 or even younger, or menopause, which can typically start in your 40s, 50s or 60s. There is so much confirmed. conflicting information about the subject, so few doctors are well trained, and there's so many things our mothers didn't tell us or even know about it. And it's time that you feel informed

about what's going on with your body, your brain, and your hormones. Today is your menopause masterclass, and you're going to lead this episode with your own menopause toolkit, equipped with the info and tools you need that I know are going to impact your life today. whether it's how to sleep better, understand what's a menopause myth and what's the truth, lose belly fat, or stop suffering finally. My guest today, many call her the top menopause doctor on the planet, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, is going to take us from feeling powerless to powerful on everything your doctor forgot to mention on topics including the exact tests you need to ask your doctor,

for during your next visit, the three stages of menopause on what's actually happening in your body on your changing hormones, on hormone replacement therapy, including the risks versus the benefits. Should you do it? How and when? On belly fat and weight gain linked to menopause and what you can do about it right now, and on the surprising symptoms happening to so many women that go untreated and overlooked by the majority of doctors who just aren't as well informed as they could be. Today is a master class from the master of menopause herself. Dr. Mary Claire Haver is a board certified obstetrics and gynecology specialist and certified menopause practitioner from the menopause society. She's also a certified culinary

medicine specialist from Tulane University, a best-selling author of multiple books, including her brand new book, The New Menopause. She's also the founder of the Mary Claire Wellness Clinic. She's a mom of two, a wife, and a woman on a mission who says that while menopause is inevitable, suffering doesn't have to be. And she is here to help you and me today. I love a truly life-changing episode. I am so excited for this one today, whether you're listening for yourself or because someone that you love shared this episode with you, I want to welcome you to the Jamie Kern-Lima Show podcast family. And today, we are shedding light on everything your doctor forgot to mention to you about menopause.

And for everybody new to this episode, can you do me a favor? If you like the show and the guests that I bring you, please hit the subscribe or follow button on the app you're listening or watching on. It truly means the world to me and thank you. And I want to remind you, this episode is not just for you and me. Please share this with every single woman that you know, because what you are about to hear will change your life and hers. Welcome to the Jamie Kern Lima Show. Oprah, how have you defied the odds?

Her show is unlike any I've ever done. A revelation. When you listen, it feels like a hug. but your brain and your spirit and your heart is like, wow. Melinda French, the gates. When I look into Jamie's eyes, I feel like I am on some other cosmic level with her. I could see the light around her. She's infused with light.

Imagine overcoming self-doubt, learning to believe in yourself and trust yourself and know you are enough. Welcome to the Jamie Kern-Lima show. Jamie Kern-Lima is her name. Everybody needs Jamie Kurn-Lima in their life. Jamie Kern-Lima. Jamie, you're so inspiring. Jamie Kern-Lima. Dr. Mary Claire Haver, welcome to the Jamie Kern-Lima show.

Thank you for having me. I am so excited you're here. You are impacting millions and millions and millions of women as we speak. And it is just an honor to have you. I am so excited for this episode. We are not wasting a second. And I just want to open with asking you, you know, your mission and the work that you're doing to help so many women who are, you know, in so many ways, either feeling lost or powerless

or just suffering or trying to figure out what's going on with their bodies. Can you share for you personally? Like I know that this is really personal work for you and a passion of yours. I didn't realize what I didn't know, and I was the expert, right? I was the board-certified OBGYN. I blew the top off of my boards. I was a straight-A student. You know, I checked every box.

And when I went through the end of perimenopause and menopause and was absolutely blindsided and started digging into the science and the literature that had not been taught to me, I was just, kind of shocked. It was a little bit of rage, you know, of what are we doing? I'm supposed to be helping these women, and I don't have the tools to do it, and these women are suffering. So my mission began, you know, I started like you, with zero social media followers. We all start with nothing, right? No one inherits a social media following. And so I just kind of tentatively started talking about, I really started in the nutrition space, talking about weight gain and

menopause, nutrition and menopause, because that was kind of my biggest shock was someone who always had been privilege all of a sudden had this. I was dealing with weight gain and new places that I had never experienced before and all the tricks that had worked before stopped working and all the advice I had given to patients wasn't working for them and also wasn't working for me. So that kind of took me down all these rabbit holes. And now's the conversation around weight gain and menopause, the more I learned, the more I realized it's not just weight. This is heart disease, dementia, diabetes, and stroke, and musculoskeletal pain, and, you know, her entire quality of life. And what I realize is that the vast majority of women have this pivot

at menopause where they have this loss of resilience, this loss of them, this loss of self, this loss of, you know, their libido takes a hit, their, you know, sense of worth. They're, you know, one in five women are quitting their jobs, you know, through the menopause transition. and a lot of marriages break up through this point. And I thought, we're ignoring this. And we're treating it. It is a natural phase of life, but it is one that needs to be really understood.

And I thought, I'm stealing the quote, but if not me, who, and if not, and when, now, let's do it now. Let's just start talking about it. So you're a doctor, physician. And you are realizing, wait a minute, how I was taught to treat my patients going through menopause or even to handle yourself going through paramedopause or menopause.

This isn't working. Can you take us through that moment because I think what you're going to share so many people can relate to because it's been their experience going to the doctor. They go in and then they get a prescription for something that has nothing to do with what they're going through. And then they're still suffering. And can you kind of, this is just so insightful for you to shed light on your experience as a doctor, realizing, wait a minute, how I was trained and what I know so far isn't working

for my patients. It's not working for myself. So I was taught that menopause caused three things. Hot flashes, some genital urinary symptoms, dryness, recurrent bladder infections, et cetera. And your bones got weak. You know, you lose bone mass as you age. And that was it. And if you wanted to treat those things, you treated them almost in isolation. We didn't look at the root cause at the estrogen decline. I learned nothing about estrogen's effect on the cardiovascular system on the brain, on the musculoskeletal system, on the lungs, on the kidneys, on the gut. And when I realized it's all tied together, and really in OB-Gen, we mostly focus on just vasimotor symptoms, which are hot flashes, basically. And if you just treat just hot flash, you only can

consider hot flashes to be the pinnacle of treatment of menopause, we're really doing a disservice to women. And the more I talk about it, the more women are like, oh, my God. And so really, when I was researching for the new menopause, women would reach out to me on DM's social media or in my clinic. Could my frozen shoulder be related to menopause? Could my eczema be related to menopause? Could my recurrent UTIs be related to menopause? Could my loss of libido be related to menopause? And I would say, instead of saying, no, no, no, I'd say, let me get back with you. And really, like, as a clinician, what shocked me was the data is there and very, very clear. But no one's talking about it or sharing it on a larger platform.

And I thought, women are suffering needlessly and we're not addressing really what's happening. So for the mental health changes, for example, which 40, percent of us have across the menopause transition a woman can expect to have a 40 percent increased risk of a new mental health disorder either anxiety or depression or even ADHD symptoms you know so we have the psychological impact and the cognitive impact and but we're just telling her oh you're depressed and here's an antidepressant you know oh you're not sleeping here's a sleep aid oh you're having musculoskeletal pain take some non-steroidles oh you're and you're and and no one's knowing to connect the dots because we're not training them.

So she's walking out with six, seven prescriptions to treat each of the symptoms of her menopause. And it's a whole paradigm shift to think, let's stabilize and or replace her hormone levels and see what gets better. And then we'll address the rest after. To have this sort of epiphany as a doctor and then looking at the industry and also just your own experience. Can you share, because I know so many women are going to connect with this, whether they're in perimenopause or about to be or don't even know if they are yet. We're going to dive in, by the way, and how do you know if you are? What are the three stages?

What are so many of the symptoms that, oh my gosh, they go missed, they go, they go ignored, they go misdiagnosed. We think it's something else. And I'm so excited. I'm going to jump out of my chair. Okay. But before I get into that, can you share just a little bit of. but about, you know, your own experience of perimenopause for you personally and then also

menopause. And how was it, how was it, how was your experience with your own doctors you were going to at the time? So I was on continuous birth control pills, meaning I skipped the placebo week and just suppressed my periods. For my entire reproductive life, I've suffered from polycystic ovarian syndrome, and I had the thin kind that doesn't respond to dietary changes as well. And I did great with it. I felt great. I felt much better than I did when I was off of them. Of course, I had fertility issues. Both my kids were fertility babies. And thank God they're here. And, you know, I've had miscarriages and all the things, you know. But I have two healthy, beautiful, perfect children and thank God. So when I was about 48, I was making the

decision with my practitioner. So my nurse practitioner who I'd worked closely with was my doctor, right? And so I said, I think I'm going to get off the pill and see where I'm at. Let's get some blood work and see where I am in my menopause journey. You know, get and, you know, because I was thinking about bone density and hip fracture risks, you know, moving forward, not thinking about cardiovascular disease and mental health and all that. So at the same time, my second oldest brother, my oldest brother died when I was nine from leukemia. My second oldest brother was very ill from hepatitis and HIV. And there was a lot of back and forth for his end of, he was kind of, I didn't really think it was end of life, it was, but, you know, multiple hospitalizations

for this complication and not complication. And I get a call when I'm, so I just stopped the pill and I'm, my body's trying to figure out where it's at. And I get a call in the OR, so I'm operating and they call three, four, five times. So the scrub, whoever was circulating, picked up my phone, put it to my ear, and they said, your brother's in a coma, and you should come home. And I remember, and I just repeated what they said out loud to the OR team. And they called one of my colleagues to come down because I was, like, really struggling. You know, I had to finish the surgery.

I'm not going to let the patient die. But I was, you know, you could tell my brain was, like, distracted. And they're like, okay, we're going to call in. And so one of my colleagues came in, we got to, like, where we need the patient was going to be fine. I got through the critical part of the surgery, and he's like, I'll close, scrub out, go home. And I rush home, and home is four hours away, so to my hometown. And he had had a stroke, and he was, they were going to move him home for hospice. And that was really hard.

So I called my husband, the kids, they start coming towards Louisiana because we were in Texas. And I'm also in menopause, or very late perimenopause. I don't realize it, okay? So I'm going through this incredible grief process, this man that I just worshipped and loved, but had to love him through some poor health choices. You know, despite his choices, I still had to love him and then now deal with his death. And we had this beautiful death three days, all the family and friends at the bedside singing. of course he's in a complete coma and my sister and I are doing all the like physical care for him she's a hospice nurse

and um and then just the devastation you know when he passed and i didn't realize it but i was also having hot flashes night sweats depression you know like like my brain wasn't functioning the way it should but i was so overwhelmed with grief i couldn't realize it in myself so you know we get through the funeral we go home and a couple three months go by and i'm so struggling, struggling, struggling with weight all of a sudden. Like I'm starting to put on weight in my midsection. I'm not sleeping. I'm getting up in the middle of the night. And I'm like, okay, you're just depressed. You know, Bob died. Everything's fine. And certainly the grief was a part of it. You know, we get to about month six. I'm still really struggling with weight and really sleep

disruption and snapping at my kids and just being really short and just don't feel like myself. Okay. And I realize my grief is lifting. This is not grief anymore. You know, this is something else going on. And I was like, wait, when was my last period? It was six months ago. Like, I couldn't even diagnose myself, Jamie. You know, like, I was the expert. And rush into my, you know, to Dora, my nurse practitioner, and we get blood work. And yeah, my levels were all fully menopausal. And I was like, we need to pause for a super brief break. And while we do, take a moment to share this episode with every single woman that you know because this information can truly change your life and hers. In life, you don't soar to the level of your hopes and

dreams. You stay stuck at the level of your self-worth. When you build your self-worth, you change your entire life. And that's exactly why I wrote my new book, Worthy, how to believe you are enough and transform your life for you. If you have some self-doubt to destroy and a destiny to fulfill, worthy is for you. In worthy, you'll learn proven tools and simple steps that bring life-changing results, like how to get unstuck from the things holding you back. Build unshakable self-love.

Unlearn the lies that lead to self-doubt and embrace the truths that wake up worthiness. Overcome limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome. Achieve your hopes and dreams by believing you are worthy of them and so much more. Are you ready to unleash your greatness and step in to the person you were born to be? Imagine a life with zero self-doubt and unshakable self-worth. Get your copy of Worth, plus some amazing thank you bonus gifts for you at worthybook.com or the link in the show notes below. Imagine what you do if you fully believed in you. It's time to find out with Worthy. Who you spend time around is so important as energy is contagious and so is self-belief.

And I'd love to hang out with you even more, especially if you, you could use an extra dose of inspiration, which is exactly why I've created my free weekly newsletter that's also a love letter to you delivered straight to your inbox each and every Tuesday morning from me. If you haven't signed up to make sure that you get it each week, just go to jamie kurnlema.com to make sure you're on the list and you'll get your one-on-one with Jamie weekly newsletter and get ready to believe in you. If you're tired of here, hearing the bad news every single day and need some inspiration, some tips, tools, joy, and love hitting your inbox. I'm your girl. Subscribe at jamiekernlima.com or in the link in the

show notes. Do you struggle with negative self-talk? Living with a constant mental narrative that you're not good enough is exhausting. I know because I spent most of my life in that habit. The words you say to yourself about yourself are so powerful. And when you learn to take control over your self-talk, it's life-changing. And I wanted to give you a free resource that I created for you if this is something that could benefit your life. It's called Five Ways to Overcome Negative Self-Talk and Build Self-Love. And it's a free how-to guide to overcome that negative self-talk to build confidence and

develop unshakable self-love so that you can dream big and keep going in the pursuit of your goals. Don't let self-sabotaging thoughts hinder your progress any longer. It's time to rewrite the script of your life when filled with self-love, resilience, and unwavering belief. If you're ready to take charge of your narrative, build unwavering confidence and empower yourself to persevere on the path to your dreams, you can grab your free guide to stop overthinking and learn to trust yourself at jamiekernlema.com slash resources or click the link in the show notes below. And now more of this incredible conversation together. I couldn't even diagnose myself, Jamie, you know, like I was the expert and rush into my, you know, to Dora, my nurse practitioner,

and we get blood work. And yeah, my levels were all full. menopausal and I was like what I'm too young I'm 48 you know I'm what's happening and no I was absolutely fully menopausal I didn't even know the normal age range of menopause that's how little education I had I knew the average age was 51 and I thought I had till 51 I take care of women like this my entire career and I realized I was a terrible menopause doctor what do I not know okay and that took me down the rabbit hole. The change of my mind on, so I went on HRT extremely reluctantly because I thought it would increase my risk of breast cancer.

Hormone replacement therapy. Yeah, hormone replacement therapy. And I was terrified to do it because there's so much cancer in my family, but I was like, I can't live like this. So if it takes a couple years off my life, it's a gamble, but I'd rather have a better quality. I cannot live like this. Something's got to go. Go on hormone replacement therapy. Immediately the world calms down. I'm sleeping again. I'm, you know, the weight was another story. That's a whole other book. But like I felt like I got my resilience back, my ability to cope with what was in front of me.

Then I went to my first kind of menopause conference, and it was in New York, or actually, it was in Santa Monica. And I was going to present about nutrition and menopause. It was, you know, lots of experts there. Women I'd never met who I was starting to follow. This was the beginning of the menopausee. And I see Avram Blooming and Sharon Malone and Dr. Carol Tavarous on stage talking about the safety of hormone replacement therapy and how wrong the women's health initiative was and how many of those things have been walked back.

I was tears, my daughter was with me, she was applying to medical school, tears falling down my eyes. And she's like, Mom, are you okay? I'm like, Catherine, I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. Like, this is my job. I am the expert.

I did not know that for the vast majority of women, especially at this age, hormone therapy not only a safe but preventative and beneficial and why aren't we talking about why isn't the world shop this from the rooftops and that was really like that was the moment the light bulb where I was like this is my mission this is my mission to share this far and wide as I can because you had the aha moment that you're this incredible doctor and you're like I didn't even know these things and then you're watching three other doctors talking about their research on hormone replacement therapy, you're seeing how it impacts you, and you're like, why isn't this being talked about? Why don't people know about this? Know how safe it is. You, I promise you,

you walk into nine out of ten doctors' offices today. Good, board certified, well-meaning, loving, caring, incredible doctors, and they have it totally wrong on menopause and hormone therapy. Nine out of ten, why do you think there's so little information out there? And nine out of ten doctors you say have got it wrong. Why do you think there's just so little information? So when I look back and I've talked to now thousands of clinicians, how much menopause training did you get in medical school, right? Because in the U.S., we do a four-year medical school curriculum, then we go off and do our specialty training, which is three to ten years depending on what you do. How much did you get? We maybe got a one-hour lecture, one hour on menopause. This is affecting

100% of women who live long enough for the last third of their lives. This is not a niche boutique. This is all of us. And I got one hour of the most basic, basic, basic information in medical school. Then I go into my OBGYN residency, a four-year curriculum. And over 50% of the time is spent in obstetrics, very important, super proud of what I learned. I spent four years learning how to deliver babies safely and all the complications and how to shepherd someone through a healthy pregnancy and deliver in the postpartum and everything. And then everything else gets shoved in the gynecology box and that includes pediatric gynecology. That includes reproductive endocrinology, getting people pregnant, same people with, you know, having chromosomal disorders

and how we manage that, you know, how that all affects females. Menopause got shoved into a tiny, the smallest little sliver in a tiny box, we got six hours of lectures in four years of curriculum. We had no menopause clinics, no clinically relevant menopause training. And then in my last year, we had the Women's Health Initiative being released and basically anything clinically,

like hormone therapy was taken off the table as an option unless in the most severe cases and you really tried to do everything else before you give her hormones because we were all terrified. that we would give her breast cancer. And it was never true. Never true.

We're going to dive into hormone replacement therapy, into the myths, into the truths, into every option that exists, into what you do right now, day to day, all the applications, who's it for, who's it not for, when do you start, how long do you do it? I'm excited about this. But I want to just tap into something you just said

that blows my mind. So your four-year medical degree, one hour of menopause training, and then your four-year specialty in OB-GYN, six hours, six hours, six hours. So seven hours total in eight years. How common is that? What is the average would you say across every doctor? It's very common. If menopause, so in an OBGYN residency, if menopause is included, It's an elective. So like a menopause clinic. There are menopause. It's getting better, but we have a very long way to go.

And tell me if this perception is accurate or not. But when I think about doctors, because there are so many just rock star, amazing, good-hearted, hardworking, incredible doctors who are day in and day out treating their patient. They don't have time to go be doing a whole bunch of other. So to get, you have to step outside of the box of your training. Yeah. So I am board certified. I have remained board certified by reading 114 articles a year and taking a quiz on each one and make sure I understand.

So the American Board of OB-GYN puts out a beautiful set of articles on the latest and new updates and everything. And probably less than 3% have anything to do with menopause. And a lot of them are elective because we subspecialized in OB-Gen. So a lot of people do just surgery or just obstetrics or high-risk OBB or whatever. And so you can even opt out of the few menopause articles that are out there. So the American College of OBJN, the American Board of OBJN, I mean, I hate to call them out for this, really have not prioritized it. So the menopause society, which I did not know existed until three years ago, was kind of a rogue group of clinicians

who said, hey, no one's focusing on menopause. And they started their own society and started making their own guidelines and their own own, so the American College of OB-Gen and the menopause society are not connected. So in 2022, the menopause society updated their menopause hormone therapy guidelines away from the old, it's probably going to be dangerous, give her the smallest amount for the shortest time possible, too, probably beneficial for most women. We've got a window of opportunity for cardiovascular disease probably, you know, there's no age at which you have to stop. But ACog's guidelines have not been updated since 2014. They still say the exact same thing. So most OBGYNs don't even know about

the menopause society. They think they're doing a good job because that's what they were taught and they passed. That was me. But all of a sudden you realize, wait, you know, I maybe don't know what I'm doing. Your patients are coming in with questions or God forbid a video of me or, you know, a medical article I tell them to print out and hand to the clinician. But they are so busy. I mean, things in medicine with the corporatization and administrative burden have just gotten to the point where the burnout is terrible in multiple areas of medicine. And you cannot lay the fault. This is a systemic problem. And these are good doctors working really hard doing what they were trained to do. And they just don't have the time. They just don't have the time. We're going to

link to the menopause society and every other resource, by the way. And we're also going to dive into in this conversation, how do you prepare for your appointment? How do you know, the questions to ask, what test should you ask your doctor for? We are going there today, which I'm so excited about. But I just want to call this out because, you know, we already have a challenge in our country, and I would say every country around the world, but we have a challenge where, you know, if we are fortunate enough to have what we consider a great doctor that our insurance actually covers, there's still a very high probability. They've had little to no training on menopause.

Menopause training. For everyone listening right now, a lot of people start experiencing paramedopause symptoms in their 30s or it could be younger. It could be, you know, and then menopause. I want to break this down for everyone because, you know, again, as a woman going into a doctor, we're not learning these things. I also think sometimes there's now so much information online, so much of it's not vetted, that in a single Google, we can all read all about the wrong.

info and not know if that's right. And we go to our doctor who maybe if we're blessed is amazing, but they don't have time or they actually don't have the experience. So I want you to break this down. And I'm so grateful to have you here today doing this for each one of us. But can you break down the three stages? Sure. Peri menopause, menopause, postmenopause. What are they? How do we know if we're in them? All right. Let's start with menopause. And then we're going to work our way backwards and forward. Okay. So menopause, guess what? Is one day in your life? One day. Everything after is postmenopause till the end of your life. And then the 17-10 years-ish prior to that is perimenopause. So menopause is medically defined, and this is a problem, as one year after the final menstrual period. But it represents

something much bigger than that. It represents the end of the production of hormones from your ovaries. So what most women don't understand, and what I love to teach, is that we're very, females are different than males in multiple ways, but let's talk about endocrinology. Females are born with all of their eggs. So you were born with a set amount of egg supply, and your maximum egg supply was when your mother was pregnant with you at five months gestation. And then they start going through a process of atresia, which is an aging process, so that the healthiest eggs survive, right? And then when we start ovulating at 11, 12, 13, 14, however old,

to get that one egg to ovulate, we lose about 10,000 in the process. So Jamie was born with one to two million eggs, and by the time you were 30, you were down to 10% of that, about 120,000 on average. By the time you were 40, you were down to 3% of your original surprise.

3% of your eggs left by 40. Yes, on average. Okay. And then menopause represents no more eggs. And how do we ovulate? What is that process? Actually, ovulation begins in the brain. So our brains are, there's a gland in our brain called the hypothalamus.

And it is constantly checking the blood every day for estrogen levels. And when the estrogen levels get low as in a normal cycle, so most women have seen the normal menstrual cycle hormones, where we have a surge of estrogen mid-cycle. And then progesterone surges on the second half. And that is like a very EKG-like ebb and flow that goes month after month after month, no problem in a healthy woman. When you get to perimenopause, we reach that critical egg threshold. We're just down to enough where the signals coming from the brain saying, hey, give me the estrogen, stop working as well.

So the ovaries can't respond. They don't have enough of the eggs because around each egg or something called follicular cells and granulosis cells, and that's where the hormones are produced. So we're running out of those units. so the hormones go down from the brain saying give me give me eggs give me estrogen and the eggs are like i'll have enough sorry and then the brain goes wait i need my estrogen so it makes higher hormone levels coming from the brain and that's when we get into the chaos so what used to look like this beautiful EKG every month now becomes chaos estrogen levels surge higher than we've ever seen in your

whole life and then they crash and progesterone never gets where it used to be so what you used to look beautiful, is now spaghetti. I literally take a pile of spaghetti and throw it out the wall. And that is what your hormones are doing for seven to ten year process until you just run out of all the eggs, then everything flat lines for estrogen and progesterone. So many questions here. I know you've been mentioning, you know, heart disease, you know, all these different diabetes, all these different conditions.

And what so many people don't know is that when you don't have, you know, you know, you know, don't have your hormones balanced and when you go through menopause and you may be deficient hormones it can impact and potentially cause so many other things multiple organs multiple organ systems it accelerates the aging process so our ovaries age twice as fast as most other organs in our body and when we lose the benefits so estrogen turns out is insanely protective of our liver of our joints of our brains you know kidneys gut all of it we work better as human females, female humans, with estrogen on board. It's just the way it is. That gets taken away, goes chaotic and gets taken away. Let's go organ system by organ system. So this is starting in

perimenopause. This is starting in perimenopause. So and really for a lot of women, the symptoms are worse, especially mental health and cognition in perimenopause. Our brains hate chaos. Our brains love to know there's a system. Everything's working. This is coming. That's coming. And it's going to go over and over and over again. In peri men, is when we see the most rapid expanse of bone loss, the most rapid expanse of muscle loss, and the most rapid increase in mental health changes in the forms of anxiety and depression and where we see the worst brain fog. All of that tends to stabilize, stays, you know, we get this rapid expansion and then stabilization in postmenopause. Still not great. And then we go

back on to normal aging. And when your estrogen, your brain's saying, when you need more estrogen and it's surging that it's plummeting. So guess what? Estrogen and progesterone and as well testosterone actually directly affect our neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin, norophenephyne, you know, GABA, all these important chemical signals in our brain that keep us functioning. And so there's this fascinating study that just got released. And I'm researching for the new book right now. And it's called, I just don't feel like myself in perimenopause. And they actually quantified it. And it stopped me in my tracks. We need to pause for a super brief break, and while we do, take a moment to share this episode

with every single woman that you know, because this information can truly change your life and hers. Who you spend time around is so important as energy is contagious, and so is self-belief. And I'd love to hang out with you even more, especially if you could use an extra dose of inspiration, which is exactly why I've created my free weekly newsletter. That's also a love letter to you delivered straight to your inbox each and every Tuesday morning from me. If you haven't signed up to make sure that you get it each week, just go to jamiecernlima.com to make sure you're on the list and you'll get your one-on-one with Jamie weekly newsletter and get ready

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You will never be the same again after you read this book. Jamie's Bookworthy is a must read. It is going to inspire you, empower you, give you the hope that you need and the kick in the rear end that you deserve. Jamie's Book Worthy is incredible. The gifts are going away, but they're all free right now on worthybook.com. And now more of this incredible conversation together. So there's this fascinating study that just got released, and I'm researching for the new book right now.

And it's called, I just don't feel like myself in perimenopause. And they actually quantified it. And it stopped me in my tracks because I was like, wait, this is what my patients are telling me. And now they've done a study and this is a thing. Like, I just don't feel like myself is good enough. Because forever, I mean, besides the lack of education in menopause, the other systemic problem is that there, There is a bias that women tend to somatize a biological process. You know, so basically what's coming from, they don't recognize that is biology.

They think it's psychology. That's causing the problem. I think it's all in my head. All in her head. It's all in my head. Yeah. Oh, it's she's. Or doctors think it's all in her head.

This is the age. But no one ever stopped to say, why are all women going through this at this age? I want to call out something really big because I don't want it to be missed at all. So if the average age of menopause, you're saying it's about 51. 51 for us, for Caucasians. So actually, Asians a little bit, tiny bit older, African-American women, a year and a half younger, Southeast Asian women, 46, 48 is the average age of menopause. So if Perry, when the brain is like somewhere, right, is seven to ten years before that, it is completely reasonable for a woman in her 30s to be waving a flag going, I'm not sure what's going on, but I don't feel okay. Here's the big aha I'm having right now that may be a big aha as well for everyone listening.

So if you're 36, you're 41, you might be having anxiety, depression, all of these other things happening. So you go in for that. And you're not checking your hormones. You're not thinking in my impairment of pause. So you go in for that. You're thinking I'm anxious. But nothing's changed in my environment. And all these different things are happening to us.

and we're going into doctors who aren't, for the most part, trained in menopause. So we're not getting our hormones checked, probably not getting the correct tests, or they think, oh, you're in your 30s, your 40s, you're too young, and you're getting treatment for a symptom. Right. Whereas what we could be doing and why your work is having such a profound impact on so many people is in our 30s. We're going to talk about this, but getting, you know, understanding the underlying thing.

Where are all of our hormones at? Where is our estrogen at? Could that be causing these other things that we think, and so many women are taking it to an identity level of, oh, I have this, I have that, I'm diagnosed with this, I'm diagnosed with that, but never actually the underlying thing that could impact whether you have any of those other things or not. Right. That is a big breakthrough.

It is a huge breakthrough. That right there. I'm going to jump out of my seat, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, because the number of people listening right now that are going to be like, holy shit, wait a minute. Yeah. Maybe I need to go in and ask for these tests and understand what's really going on with my body because what they think is going on with their body might just be a symptom of something else that's not being treated or even recognized.

So in the new menopause, you know, which was really driven by my followers, people asking me questions, could this be related to my menopause? Instead of saying, nope, I was like, I don't know, let me dig. I couldn't, we have 77 symptoms in this book. and I go through the why and the pathophysiology. These things were, I didn't make this up. These are actual papers written, but they're, because menopause is in the word, they tend to be buried in obscure journals.

Let me give you some perspective here from a medical standpoint. When you go to PubMed, which is the database for peer-reviewed medical journal articles, right? So as a physician, as a clinician, as a researcher, this is where I go to find the good stuff, right? And I type in the word pregnancy. we have 1.1 million articles come up. Amazing, important. That is brain power research, NIH dollars. Like to generate that kind of research takes money, takes investment, takes time, takes commitment. Okay, let's type in the word menopause. Knowing more women will go into menopause than have children, then be pregnant, okay? It is right now about 98,000. So more than 10 to 1.

difference okay okay let's type in the word peri menopause i did this yesterday six thousand eight hundred more women will go through perry than menopause because we're going to lose some due to accidents or untimely deaths that's where women will go through perry and if you think about what that represents focus the wise the hows the wins and that is what we're fighting to change. So Dr. Mary Claire Haver's book, The New Menopause, her upcoming book, The New Perimenopause, which I am also both equally very excited about. I want to ask you, because this is a shocker. You say there's over 70 symptoms. You know, most of us we think, oh, hot flashes, and that's it. And then, right, that's what the doctor asks. That's what you were taught. Oh, and then in a few years

your bone density, we'll check bone density at 65. Oh, and then something might happen to your vagina get dry. But, you know, we got some cream. that yeah okay share with us because so many people are listening are like I feel like they're lightning bolts are going on yes yes share with us some of the symptoms that so many women share with you they have and they didn't realize oh my goodness this is a symptom of perimenopause or this is a symptom of menopause yeah it could be yeah um so I'm gonna go top to bottom so keep my head straight because you know menopause um so brain uh start so our brains we have some psychological changes, and then we have cognitive changes, right?

So in the psychological change, we have a 40% increase in mental health problems, usually anxiety and or depression, across the transition through perimenopause. And now we know some incredible data coming out of Australia that stabilizing those hormones with hormone therapy is better to treat her than giving her. her an antidepressant or the traditional treatment for anxiety and depression, that she deserves a trial, and maybe the two can work together. And, you know, so if you have a patient who's like, listen, something is wrong, nothing has changed in my, because I'm like, death and the, you know, all the stressors. You know, my, I was handling my life. I had it. And now I don't. I've lost my

resilience. I'm anxious. I'm snapping. I can't sleep. My mind is racing. I'm getting up in the middle of the night with a rolodex of every bad thing I've ever done in my life, you know, every mistake I've made, every person whose feelings I hurt. And I can't turn it off. And this is not normal for me. And what we weren't trained to do as clinicians is listen to the women saying this is not normal for me. And I was taught to think this is just what women go through. And I think it's absolute bullshit now that I've gone through it. And like, it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. Can you talk about, I know, I want to ask you about a WW in a second. Yeah, this is a big one. I'm telling you. So, but, but really quick, can you, can you share to you? Because I know frozen

shoulder. Yeah, so we'll keep going through. Yeah, yeah, keep going because this is, I want everyone to know, cognitive brain fog, word salad, forgetting, you know, I just saw a politician being made fun of for word salad. I'm like, she's in menopause. Give her a break, you know. One in five women in the UK are quitting their jobs because of untreated menopause. You know, we think one to ten or more in the U.S. Like, this is a big deal. These women are high functioning, leaning into their jobs, empty nesting. They're ready to, like, give all their knowledge and expertise and wisdom, and then suddenly

they're absolutely hamstrung by the cognitive changes associated with menopause. Good news there is that it does tend to stabilize, but it could take a few years. And so many walk away from a career because they just don't feel like they can do their jobs. I'm talking surgeons, lawyers, school teachers. you know, and how many marriages are being affected by this? How many relationships with my daughter? My daughter joked that, you know, I survived mom's perimenopause when I was a, you know, like you survived my teenage years while I survived your pari menopause.

I was like, that really wasn't fair. And, you know, like for us to both be going through that at the same time. So then as we move down, the musculoskeletal system. So my dear friend, Dr. Vonda Wright, incredible clinician. She's writing a book called Unbreakable right now. She wrote the paper, the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause. And there were two researchers from Duke University a few years ago, a couple years ago. And it was the head of the OB-Gen department and the head of the orthopedic surgery department.

And there's some lore here, but I think they were like at lunch in the cafeteria or something at the hospital. And we're talking about all the frozen shoulder and the ages. And they're like, do you think that could be related? So they just pulled charts and did a review study and found, wow, yeah, it's definitely elevated in this menopause situation. and if they're on hormone therapy, they have it less, less frequently, less often. They could not get it published in a single orthopedic journal, but they got it published in a menopause journal. And it kind of set the world on fire. Then Vonda Wright went in and wrote another paper all about detailing the pathophysiology and all the mechanical things, and everyone

went crazy because no one in the orthopedic world could recognize that frozen shoulder is absolutely related to the loss of estrogen. So besides that, arthralgia, joint pain. In my world, you know, in the menopausee, we think that probably a significant, maybe 80% of fibromyalgia is actually misdiagnosis, and it's really musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause. Wow. Yeah. So, and then if we look at the gut, so work done by Zoe out of the UK, they collected still samples on like a billion, not a billion, but several thousand women across the menopause transition and looked at the gut microbiome and saw, my God, Across the transition, she loses diversity of her gut.

She loses the healthy bacteria, and her gut now looks like a man's. You know, we enjoyed all this protection, this better health, this slower tract to cardiovascular disease and gut health and brain health. And now we blow past the men. And gut dysbiosis can impact like every part. Every part. How you metabolize drugs, how your brain functions, where the serotonin's made. I mean, it all works together.

So our genital urinary system, you know, we, Rachel Rubin did her study. They looked at a chart review and said, if we went into the nursing homes and gave every single woman vaginal estrogen prophylactically, you know, we could prevent 50% of Eurosepsis hospital admissions and save these poor women incontinence, you know, urgency, frequency, and recurrent urinary tract infections, the number one treatment for a woman. And if no one hears anything but this today, for recurrent UTIs in her perimenopause journey is not recurrent antibiotics. It is vaginal estrogen, giving your body back the hormone that kept those tissues healthy.

Treat the root cause besides the cosmetic things, the skin and the hair, and we lose 30% of our collagen the first five years of menopause. Wow. And we're going to dive into hormone replacement therapy as well. can just high level can hormone replacement therapy and getting your hormones back to where they are ideal can that in most cases resolve most of these things you just listed yes that's what it's looking like I mean we are still aging and no one denies that we're still going to have certain disease processes but all hormone therapy is going to do is put you back on the track that you we're on and just take menopause out of the equation, right?

Nothing is, I joke, nothing is better than your 25-year-old ovaries, and I can't put those back inside of you. Hormone replacement therapy is good, but it's not perfect. Not the same doses work for everyone. We have a lot of trial and error and how we prescribe it. But my goodness, in my clinic and all the women who stopped me in the bathroom in every airport in America telling me how it gave them the courage to ask or taught them how to find a clinician who's educated.

And then they were able to go and determine for them, make a decision for themselves if this was right for them and how many aspects of their life are better that they didn't realize would get better because they didn't know that whatever they were suffering from could have been related to menopause is unbelievable to me. You know, it's such new information also for so many women. I want to just highlight one thing you mentioned earlier as well about our eggs. We're all born. We're all born with the full number of eggs we're ever going to have in our ovaries. And you said by the age of 30, 90% of them are gone. Gone.

We only have 10% of our eggs. And then you said by the age of 43%, 3% of our eggs are left. I want to call this out because, you know, in my journey of, you know, my husband and I trying to get pregnant and, you know, I had many miscarriages and went through fertility. And I'll never forget sitting down and seeing the chart. I just, I had no idea that our eggs declined so, so. quickly and that we lose so many of them. And I remember making the decision in my 30s to do egg retrieval because I'm like, oh my goodness. Like I have at this point, I think at that point I had

five percent left. And I was like, wow. And then, you know, the quality also can the quality declines as well. Can you, can you just share, you know, and we're going to dive in deep into hormone replacement therapy. I want to talk about how estrogen, you guys, estrogen impacts like literally almost every part of your body. In a positive way for most of us, yeah. So I'm excited to dive into that. But there are so many girls and women of all generations listening to the show. When we look at the data, it's all generations.

And one of the things I, one of the things that moves me to tears is when, you know, a woman will share it with her daughter and then she'll share it with her grandma and then she shares it with her girlfriends. And it's just, it's overwhelming. So I'm just thinking of the number of women who need to know this right now. But your advice, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, on the optimal age, if a woman is going to do, you know, freeze her eggs or decide to do embryos, whatever she decides is best for her. And, you know, when should she do it? When can she still do it?

If she's sitting there and going, wait, I'm 40 right now, wait, I have 3% left. Should I do it now? What is your advice? The sooner the better and find someone who knows what they're doing. So a reproductive endocrinologist, because those are average numbers, right? My sister-in-law got pregnant spontaneously at 41. My best friend in high school got pregnant spontaneously at almost 42. Yeah.

Those are pretty rare. You know, and they have healthy children, thank God, and those are my nieces and, you know, I love them. But, like, that is really, really rare. So you can't cling to that story and think, oh, that'll happen to me. You know, nature does not care. And, you know, so many things are out of your control. So if you're thinking about it, if you're,

going to not decide to have children right now for whatever reason career job education if you're getting into your mid 30s you should go and get evaluated you don't want to be blindsided by the fact that you're going to struggle you want to know ahead of time because that fertility doctor can do several rounds of tests and be able to tell you okay these are your chances percentage wise if I were you know and say if you choose to retrieve now or maybe wait you've got a couple years you know if you're going to try spontaneously to get pregnant. But there, you know, Dr. Natalie Crawford does a tremendous amount of education around this topic. I can't recommend following her enough.

And she has a new book coming out too. And, you know, went through her own fertility journey. So not only is she like a medical expert, but she really, really, really gets it because she went through it. I want to talk about the tests we should ask our doctors for. And I want to dive deep into hormone replacement therapy. Sometimes we're people pleasers, or we let our doctors give us an answer because they're busy and we don't speak up, or we get the feeling like what we just shared, even though it was vulnerable, maybe wasn't taken seriously in our appointment. And can you share what WW is? Yeah.

Okay? And then what do we do about it if we feel like it's happening to us? So this actually happened to me when I was a resident. So I was an intern, which is your first year out of medical school. And you're, I was freaking out as an intern, just praying to God, you know, have all this responsibility now and please don't let me kill anyone. And you're just like kind of really anxious all the time. I was not the overconfident kind of jerk doctor. You know, I was like double, triple checking, you know, just so aware of my patients and how they felt and, and always trying to like feedback on their

energy and see, you know, are they understanding me? And so I'm so excited. It's my first, like, day in gynecology clinics. I just done a block of labor and delivery so that, you know, you do these little month-long rotations. I just left the labor unit where I was delivering babies all night. It was so great. So much fun, so much energy. And then I go into gynecology, which is like very serious. And I have my weight coat on. I pull a chart. And I see this woman, and she's in her mid-40s, and she has a laundry list of complaints. She's not sleeping. Her libido's off. She's got some make some pain. She's gaining weight. She's, you know, has some nausea, you know, her hair's thinning, just kind of a laundry list. And I'm like, wow, why is she in Guine Clinic? You know,

like we're here for the vagina, you know, and the uterus. And cycles are still regular, but she's just not feeling right. So I'm, so my upper level, who's in charge of me, right? So they don't just let us lose as interns. We have to check everything out with our, so I have a chief president come down the hall, happened to be male, happened to be from South Texas, in his cowboy boots with his long white coat, really nice guy. And I don't want to blame him because this was a systemic problem. He's got, what'd you go? I said, Ms. Smith, she's a 45-year-old, you know, with a little complaint. She's like, hmm, she had her thyroid checked. And I said, yeah, yeah, she had a couple months ago and it was normal. And he asked about a couple labs. And I was like, no, while these

are normal. And he goes, okay, I think you got a W-D-W. That Texas accent, I'll never forget this. And I said, excuse me? And he said, now, don't write this in the chart. But we called out a W-W. And I said, what's that? And he said, that's a whiny woman. And I said, okay. And he said, pat her on the knee,

get a couple more lap tests. They're probably going to be normal. But this is just what women go through and they like to complain at this age. And that stuck with me. Like, is this true? Is this a thing? Like, we never wrote it in the chart.

No faculty ever said this to me. This was a resident kind of information handout. So I kind of forgot about the story. Then when I was writing the new book, it, like, bubbled up in my memory. And I thought, oh, my God, I need to, like, I need to be honest with the world and, like, have them realize the mentality behind. And I thought, is this something specific to the cell? Someone taught him that. No one makes this stuff up.

So I asked around the country, as my, you know, platform has grown. I asked other clinicians. And they're like, oh, yeah. Madame Dolores in Miami, TBD, Total Body DeLore in New York, and whiny-guine on the West Coast. So this is kind of a thing, this lore of women who just coming in their mid-30s, mid-40s, and complain about a lot of stuff. And women just like to whine and complain because they're not happy with their lives. And it took me 20 years to realize that woman was in perimenopause.

and to this day I have to pull myself back from that training when a woman comes in with a lot of complaints I have to stop the process in my brain that says oh she no believe her your job is to believe her why would she come in here with this list you must believe her

you owe that to her because you were a terrible doctor for 20 years for those menopausal women that you didn't know how to treat. So this is your job. Believe her and get to the bottom of this. I'm just thinking about all the women that get that sense

that their doctor is thinking something like that and then they leave not believing themselves. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've seen the videos of the women crying in their cars after the doctor's appointment. And I thought, I think I've done that to someone probably more than once.

and I'm sorry, but I'm going to do better now. So, I know you've shared how part of your mission is when you think of your daughter for her to never have an appointment like that. No. No, I, well, one's in medical school, so she's calling me or, you know, I get text. Anytime menopause is mentioned she's like keeping me up today on what they're learning. And I think she knows a little bit more than a couple of her. professors just because of osmosis for being around me. But I do think it's getting better. I think

it's getting more recognized, but I do think we have a very long way to go. But we have a whole generation probably for all time of women who haven't been taken seriously, who the medical establishment has not truly understood everything that menopause can affect and how it can be, how it can affect a woman's life. And we deserve better. We are owed centuries of research, centuries. And that is my quest. You know, I wrote a Citizen's Guide to Menopause Advocacy with six policy, and with Jennifer Weispoe, who is incredible. She's a NYU lawyer who does a lot of writing for women's health policy.

So we came up with a guide, and it's on our website. For the basic woman sitting on the couch in Ohio, if you're out there listening to us, you know, you can do something about this. And policy number one is mandatory menopause education for all medical students. Any clinician who touches a woman needs to know this. and how it affects, if you're an orthopedic surgeon, how it affects your specialty. If you're a neurologist, how it affects your specialty.

Like, just going into this blindly and assuming women or little men and that our change in hormones don't affect multiple organ system is ridiculous. But the first thing we have to do is change the way we educate. I think so many people listening to us right now are going to start by sort of changing

the way they educate themselves. Yeah. I've always felt, you know, that if we are able, we really have to take charge of our own health care. Especially in this time, you know, of your life, you must be the CEO of your own health care. You must advocate for yourself. It is not enough to depend on the people in charge to do the right thing.

They can be well intended. They just might not know. They don't know. I want to dive into hormone replacement therapy and I want to talk about, you know, our menopause toolkit. How do we build one? How do we know what test to ask for? So many questions about finding the right doctor. especially if you kind of feel like yours isn't.

Remember this episode is not just for you and me. Please share it with every single woman that you know because it can change her life too. Coming up, this conversation is so incredible and y'all can't seem to get enough of Dr. Mary Claire Haver and this menopause master class. So we are continuing this conversation and diving even deeper.

I am so excited you're not going to want to miss part two of our conversation with Dr. Mary Claire where we are tackling your changing hormones and hormone replacement therapy that's coming up in the next episode of the Janie Kern-Lema Show. And if you loved today's episode, please click the follow or subscribe button for the show on your app and give it a five-star rating or review. And again, please share this episode with everyone you believe in. Share it with another person in your life who could benefit from it.

Post it and share it with others online or in your community who just might need the words and tools and lessons in this episode today. You never know his life you're meant to change today by sharing this episode. And thank you so much for joining me today. Before you go, I want to share some words with you. Couldn't be more true. You right now, exactly as you are, are enough and fully worthy. You're worthy of your greatest hopes, your wildest dreams, and all the unconditional love in the world. And it is an honor to welcome you to each and every episode of the Jamie Kernlema show. Here, I hope you'll come as you are and heal where you need, blossom what you choose,

journey toward your calling, and stay as long as you like, because you belong here. You are worthy, you are loved, you are love, and I love you. and I can't wait to join you on the next episode of the Jamie Kern-Lima Show. In life, you don't soar to the level of your hopes and dreams. You stay stuck at the level of your self-worth. When you build your self-worth, you change your entire life. And that's exactly why I wrote my new book, Worthy, how to believe you are enough and transform your life for you.

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