Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Women Don’t Expire: Aging, Menopause, and Cultural Myths - Part 1

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

In this episode of Unzipping Taboos, we unzip a topic too many women are expected to navigate without enough information: perimenopause and menopause.We break down what perimenopause and menopause actually mean, why symptoms can show up long before periods stop completely, and why this transition can feel confusing, unpredictable, and surprisingly isolating. From sleep disruption and mood changes to hot flashes, and body changes,  we talk honestly about what women may experience—and why no two journeys look exactly alike.We also discuss the importance of finding reliable health information, advocating for yourself in medical settings, and questioning outdated narratives around menopause care and treatment options like hormone replacement therapy (HRT).This conversation became bigger than one episode, so in Part 2 we’ll continue beyond the biology—into healthcare experiences, aging, body image, cultural messages about women and desirability, and why society still has work to do in how we talk about growing older.Because aging isn’t something to fear—and women deserve information, support, and honest conversations along the way.If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestionsIf you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're both here to explore questions you've always been curious about, but don't really feel comfortable asking out loud. Minimal to no judgment. And no shame, just open, honest conversation. So zip down and let's get candid. Today, we're going to be talking about women and age like sex health aging menopause perimenopause the change the change anyway so that's what we'll be unzipping today i know we've had um a couple of episodes on on the important topic of men's health and we realize we while we've talked about sex and aging we've not dedicated an episode yet to women and aging you're so kind mostly it's my friends being

like you didn't do enough do more you're so kind we realized we didn't do enough yeah i got yelled at like you're so on that note just thus highlighting the differences between the east coast and the west coast uh dr sue hi hi other than being yelled at by your friends about not doing enough about women's sex, health, and aging. How are you? Feeling a little battered and bruised from some of those comments. No, I'm doing well. Apparently. Yeah. Yeah. Well, would you like to give our listeners a little bit about your background before we get started? Sure. Let me think how I'm going to do this one. So I have a bachelor's or master's in health education. And I think that's really

important to point out because in the world of sexuality, you can get into this field from so many different places. Like when I was going through my PhD program, um, there was someone in there from like religious studies and like business management and nurses. And so, so I think it's really important for people to get that. I'm coming from this health education background. Um, I did do a PhD in human sexuality education and then I, I started doing and still do the professor thing uh so I write textbooks um I speak wherever people want me to speak um yeah I teach do the things including women's health class I've done those both undergraduate and graduate but and those are all important and I love that job and I love that aspect of what I do

um I also have my own consulting firm and so I've been doing educations and trainings for people who don't want an academic but still want the information um but about 20 years ago i was invited to do a presentation for an organization when i was still living in the washington dc area it was called the taboos of aging they were talking about suicide drug use and sex and they had someone to talk about suicide and they had someone to talk about drug use and they're like we can't find a single person to talk about sex and they found me and I remember like I had this very naive moment where I was like really what do I like don't they know like they've lived their whole lives don't they know all this and that's when I really got very harshly introduced to just

how bad our sex education I mean I know how bad our sex education is for youth and it didn't translate for me that like the youth of 40 years ago who I actually think got a little bit better sex ed um became these these adults who had no real understanding of their bodies or how they function and they never got education about about aging um and so i started doing a lot of work around sex and aging especially in the washington dc area where hiv is a huge problem and not just for the youth but also for the aging population so i've kind of been having my foot in that like it's that that pool that water that ocean I don't know where I'm dipping my foot in um but it's always interesting because I'll I teach primarily college-age students and then like I'll turn

around and do a presentation for folks who are aging and the basis of their questions are so similar so much of it is like is this normal um so yeah that's like the most in-depth intro I think i've done in a very long time this stuff yeah because it pisses me off that people who should be enjoying their bodies and their sex lives have either gotten no information or missing or disinformation like specifically being told wrong things but i'm not alone on this journey into putting my feet in wherever i'm putting my feet in i don't i lost that metaphor somewhere um the person who is is is helping us on this journey and and deconstructing a lot of what we've been told is Charlie. If you have not met Charlie, here's Charlie. Hi. Charlie is our curious

co-host who's always ready to have, well, some days more ready to have those conversations about so many of those topics around sex and sexuality that we as a culture usually don't have or aren't willing to have openly or like to throw in so much disinformation that it's useless. mm-hmm disinformation outdated information yeah you should tell us more about you uh i am charlie and i am here with dr sue to have these candid conversations as she said um i am someone who has always from my earliest memory uh has always been willing to challenge like what's been expected of me as a girl growing up in america in this society woman um and and then just understanding as dr sue alluded to like why why do we do these things

why do we buy into these things why don't we challenge some of these things that we've been conditioned to believe is a way to um be acceptable in society air quote acceptable um and so we when dr sue was talking about the idea of this podcast it just kind of made sense that um so she didn't feel like she was talking to herself number one okay it's hard to have a conversation there are times i'm still not convinced i'm not hallucinating all of this life thing. Um, but that we, I mean, we've been friends for many years and we've had these types of conversations around all subject matters and just found a, a normal cadence with like Dr. Sue presenting, talking about something and me just asking kind

of questions um and trying to understand where where where a lot of it comes from and and then um who benefits from us continuing to comply with these unwritten rules of humanity and society so that's me yeah yay so as we alluded to i got yelled at that's how this episode came as we alluded to no as dr sue explicitly stated her friends yelled at her well because we did an episode one when i tell people i'm doing a sex a podcast um the first thing that i'm getting from a lot of my friends and people i'm like randomly meeting like people at car dealerships if you're listening hi um who is like i need an episode on menopause i'm like okay okay like there's one coming out

like don't worry this was a year ago i think we did this one and it was kind of on aging and it was for all genders and then like some of my friends like it wasn't enough like it wasn't enough i was like okay um so so we decided to revisit it and do more and we may have to do more in a year when more information comes out but there's an edge there's can i can i feed my educator soul for a second yes because i think this talks into a lot of what we're going to be talking about today. There is a difference between misinformation and disinformation. So misinformation is like, I tell Charlie I heard something and didn't fact check it and just repeated it, but truly believe that what I'm saying is accurate. Misinformation, sorry, that's

misinformation. Disinformation is I'm going to repeat something and I know it's not true and I'm doing it for a purpose that serves somebody else or myself. So when we repeat things that we that are not true but they're being repeated for a reason whether it's propaganda or trying to manipulate people um there is a difference there's a difference between repeating something and not being like oh crap i didn't fact check that that wasn't accurate and like deliberately trying to convince people of something that's not true um and i think sometimes around the cultural messages around women and aging i think there is definitely some disinformation happening um if you've been repeating misinformation it's a human mistake like we all do it so this is your

opportunity if you hear something today you're like uh i've been saying the wrong thing just fix it if you know if you hear something today and you're like i don't like that and i'm gonna lie and repeat the same lie i've always known and that's that's problematic but there's there's a lot of going around right now well and i think that's an important distinction and also important to point out that um we as humans tend to give certain occupations the the trust not even the benefit of the doubt but the trust right and so if we have it within the context of today's episode if you're talking to a doctor an ob-gyn a medical doctor um and they say something uh there's very little chance that you're going to question it our generation I think would

I see I don't think that I think more more than previous generations sure but I don't think it's as common as you would hope yeah well no one's ever accused me of being an optimist so that's That's true. I feel like that was the one thing you were optimistic about. And here I kind of like, no, I'm going to pop that balloon. Because we have story after story. I mean, just between the two of us, we could probably come up with five different stories in the next 30 seconds of really bad experiences around sex and aging or sex and menopause or sex and perimenopause and doctors' role in that. Like, because we do hear this a lot and we hear, yeah, a lot of misinformation being repeated by medical staff. And you're right. We don't usually question them. Yeah, there's, there's.

So the takeaway from that little piece of the intro of the beginning of the show is don't be afraid to question what you're hearing. Yes. And if you don't know where to question, you're like, where do I go? Us. And if we don't know the answer, we'll get you the right one. Um, I really like a lot of what AARP puts out and I'm not a member. I'm not, I don't get paid by them. But I think a lot of what they put out is good. They do have, I have been interviewed by some of their reporters. So if you go to AARP, you may see my name and articles, but I don't get paid for that. Um, they do some really good stuff on sex and aging. yeah i i'm trying to think of a government resources i really like and i don't unfortunately none are coming to mind um an arp is a lot that's not behind a paywall

there is someone from sorry i'm like thank you if you were here you could smell the smoke if if it's questions around medical things there's a lot of good information online from respected sources. Cleveland Clinic. I mean, I love the Cleveland Clinic. Mayo Clinic's pretty good. Johns Hopkins has some good information out. So there are some trusted resources around. If you're being told one thing specifically around things like pap and pelvic exams, and you're like, wait, that doesn't sound right. There are legitimate places to get information online. If it's a more complicated question or it's just more nuanced, you can always just reach out to us yeah and and that is to that is i just also want to add there's a lot

of stuff out there on so you know content creators and products being pushed by companies engaging with creators um so if you hear something there too be skeptical and look into it just take the extra couple of minutes to look into it um there is good information out there but there's a lot of disinformation and misinformation out there um so I just I want to throw that out there as well because so so much so much of it is getting those bite-sized pieces that we're that we've all become accustomed to that many of us not all many of us have become accustomed to so again it is whether it's doctor or a bite-sized piece of information on your device don't be don't hesitate to question it and look into it a little bit further

have you ever heard of the crap test for information no sorry it's c-r-a-a-p um because part of what i teach my students who are going out to teach health is how to teach them to be media literate and and health literate um and so we we teach the crap test it's craap it's currency authority is there's relevancy there's a whole bunch of things the thing i always come to is the p which is the purpose what's the purpose of the information and if someone is spreading information and the very next words out of their mouth are i can fix that for three easy payments of sixty dollars then the purpose of that information is to try to get you to buy something um we should probably do maybe we'll do like a little mini

episode on the crap test um but it's a great way of like who's putting information out is it relevant is it current i'm missing one of them um but my big thing is what's the purpose of what you're hearing if it's menopause is this this and this and i can sell you a treatment that will stop your hair from falling out like that that should make you question the information a little bit more. So with that foundational stuff, let's get into it. So I think where we've talked about starting is, I mean, defining perimenopause? Perimenopause and menopause. Let's do that. Yeah. So perimenopause is the period before you go into menopause. That's not how you pronounce that? Menopause. The thing is, I can't tell you when it's going to start. Because for some people,

it could start in their 30s. For other people, they may not start it until they're well into their 50s. And I think that's the frustrating thing. People want to be like, okay, you know, when we talk about this test or that test or this screening, it's always like this age and this age. And we have like these hard deadlines or these hard time markers. And we don't have that with perimenopause so perimenopause is just this period of time we don't really know when it's going to start i mean some people do start in their late 30s um and it's leading up to menopause which means your body's should i repeat the thing i did in my estrogen arm that we did in the pre-show sure i was trying to explain that estrogen is just kind of all over the place and i'm just

doing a lot of like flapping arms because or maybe it's like here you know it's there's it's the estrogen is going to start to decline as you go through menopause and so your body's like okay what's happening this is happening okay cool and then your estrogen levels may go up for a little bit um so it's this it's this period where your body's getting ready to go through menopause is it it's also to you know you mentioned we we don't have a time marker um or an age marker really um i would also add to that that there's no like there's not there's no specific symptom that tells you okay yes i've entered this whereas when we were younger we got our period and that was a very definitive event we have started physiological thing that happened and and that

was the the clock starting so to speak we have our but with perimenopause the symptoms are so different and many are silent for a for a bit that there's no one physiological thing with an output so to speak there's nothing necessarily external that says okay this must be what it is right it's people start having and the thing is a lot of the symptoms you may be feeling may be actually tied to other things so you've felt them differently at different points right right like like you could have uh night sweats and you could have you could think you're shedding a fever or something like that right or that your ac is broken or that like yeah you have a new partner who's like being around as you don't want in your bed right like it could be so many

different things um vaginal dryness can be can happen after there can be some complications with vaginal dryness after pregnancy and childbirth but it could also be because you're so stressed or it could be your new medication that you're on for something else like so many of these symptoms i think it's great you brought up menarche like yeah when your period starts you're like it started and for those of you who do not get your period like you don't have a uterus that is something that women are asked to put on every single almost every single health form that they ever do like there's always a question of when was your when was your first period like a woman in their 50s is going to remember the date yeah um so yeah so menopause I mean

the only real way we know that you're starting to go through perimenopause into menopause is do a blood test we're gonna get your hormone levels um the problem is if you're on a hormonal method of contraception you have to come off the hormonal method of contraception for at least a month to test your hormones. And if you have a hormonal method of contraception that you like and is working well, I would encourage you to have that conversation with your doctor if it's worth it to know. So you go through menopause. And the thing about menopause is that you're not actually, you don't know if you're technically in menopause until it's done. So you are considered to have gone through menopause when you've gone 12 months without

your period, assuming you are still getting your period, because there are women who are using hormonal methods who have not gotten their period in years. You did not go through menopause. That is something different. But if you've gone nine months without your period and then you get your period, then you're not in menopause right now. Like you're right back to where you started in perimenopause. So it's kind of like you're in perimenopause and you're going through menopause, but it may be in menopause, but it may not be menopause quite yet. And then you go 12 months that your period and then we go you're done you're through you're through menopause yay and you'll be post-menopausal for the rest of your life um but those are those are two very

distinct things like perimenopausal and post-menopausal or are two very distinct periods of your life um i think i should stop talking for a second okay why i don't know i just feel Like there was a lot of information. Well, so I. To be candid, you know, I believe I've entered the stage. Yeah, I made it ish. We'll see. We'll see who in my life survives this part of my life.

Um, but, uh, the thing that I appreciate is that I can say that out loud without feeling, um, without immediately internalizing it as shameful or I'm old and irrelevant and, and invisible and all the, all the things that feelings that might come with it. but that's me personally you may be entering this um or or suspecting that you are perimenopausal and you may have all those feelings yeah because it is a change and there is in our society there is such high value still placed on youth and beauty and um and get and the ability to get pregnant i was that's exactly what i was about to point to is yep um and especially i would say here in america especially now there's a bit of going backwards with that given the current um

political climate and especially depending on what region of the united states you're in but all of that to say that um there is a lit there has been more of a mainstream socialization of women in perimenopause and and that's great in many ways because also what i think we're seeing is more uh more resources coming out and calls for research about the impacts of this part of aging for specifically for women. There was something that I was an interview I was watching several weeks ago, or maybe a couple months ago, talking about, you know, all my Alzheimer's, for instance, women have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's. And they're just now starting to look at some of these hormonal changes that we go through as a contributing factor.

Just starting to look at, I just want to emphasize that. But those are the great things about this becoming, I think, more of a mainstream topic of discussion to say nothing of my personal reaction when I get to say, you know, if I'm in a group of people and I'm wearing a tank top in i don't know uh in minnesota in january and people like aren't you cold and i i get to make i get to make the joke about myself saying oh no i'm a warm woman of a certain age this feels fantastic you know and a lot of times that's true but um but being able to say that but i also still i feel desirable i have desire i feel sexy and i i still feel like i look like myself or in in many ways so i think that's the great thing about about this becoming more normalized

yeah i know we were talking about in the pre-show i don't even remember ever hearing the word perimenopause nope growing up I knew menopause and was this thing to be mocked um and to be feared but I don't know I can't remember when the first time I heard the word perimenopause was I feel like it was until I was in my 30s or 40s yeah I feel like if I'm trying to go on my memory but i heard pre-menopause yes and then and then i don't know that when it changed to perimenopause but i'm i'm grateful it did yeah because i feel like that's a more accurate word because it it it's active yep or as pre to me implies that you have a trigger symptom that tells you okay you've you've started this part now yeah and again so many of the symptoms

that um are associated with perimenopause can be explained by other things as we talked about just a moment ago yeah and it's it's one of those things where they are so different and part of that may be linked to genetics like i i had a woman who went through menopause and she's like i never had a hot flash i'm like well did your mom have hot flashes she's like how would i know that i'm like yeah she's still alive if you can ask her yeah um yeah she was still alive and it wound up her mother never had hot flashes so some of what we may or may not go through may be linked to genetics it could also be linked to lots of other things so i don't want you thinking that if your mom had an easy ride that things are definitely going to be easy for you as

well um but it makes it different because you're you know if you're waiting for hot flashes which is what she did she didn't she never said anything about her other symptoms like being really tired um these are not necessarily hers i'm just giving out a few i don't know her medical history there's a limit to what people can ask sometimes yeah um so it's you may have like menopause brain which is like a little bit of brain fog which is it makes it harder to recall information which also happens during pregnancy but it can feel different you can see that your body is changing how it's holding on to weight so like you could eat the same diet that you ate 15 years ago be just as active as you were 15 years ago and now your metabolism is different and it's like

like you're not gonna be the same size and shape you may see problems sleeping that's that's a big one i hear from people that can also be an indicator of stress that can also be an indicator of like lots of other things um what else do people go through uh mood changes mood swings and i know we talked about this a little bit the one i want to bring to people's attention because the thing i remember learning about menopause way back in the day was like you go through menopause as a woman and then your risk of heart attack is just gonna you're just gonna die from a heart attack. And part of that is because of the protective effect of estrogen, specifically around your bad cholesterol, your LDLs. So if you haven't had your cholesterol checked,

you should do that. Preventive testing is really important. You should go get your cholesterol checked, and then they're going to give you a total cholesterol, then they're going to break it down. And I don't want to get into the pieces of this, because then I have to confront my own cholesterol numbers. But one of the numbers that you'll see is what we call the bad cholesterol, and that's LDL. And what happens is as your estrogen levels go down, there is a general rise in your LDL levels, which means you may be at a higher risk of a heart attack. So what I had heard wasn't inaccurate, but it made it sound like you're going to go through menopause and you're going to have a heart attack and die. But you should be checking

your cholesterol levels regardless of your age, especially if you have a family history. But like a rise in your LDLs, a rise in your cholesterol levels, having problems regulating your body temperature, which happens as we get older for everybody. It's easy to chalk those things up to other things if you've been told that the hallmark of menopause is the hot flashes. So if you're not having them, you'll be like, oh, like, I can't remember things. My cholesterol's gone. I never went through it. Yeah. I never thought to talk to my doctor. um and luckily now we're seeing more ob-gyns who have more training in some cases in menopause so some of them are asking the questions in ways that it's not just like have you had hot flashes

it's like hey have you been experiencing this and this and this because it's their job to tell you hey i'm noticing some things i we might want to have a conversation it's also your job to tell them what's happening, but it's not your job to self-diagnose. So yeah, let me talk about the OBGYN thing for a minute too. You can bill yourself as a menopause expert. I have zero training in menopause. So I would always recommend having a conversation with a new gynecologist and seeing if you like them, they're going to get really personal with you. You know, they're going to have your face right there in your vulva. So you need to make sure it's someone you're comfortable with you have the right to not use the doctor that you first choose to get the choice the one

thing i do want to make sure i point out for ob-gyns is that the ob-gyn that you swore by delivered all your kids you love them they were fantastic they may not have training specifically in menopause and it's okay to find someone else if they and and hopefully they'll look at you and be like hey this is not my area i know this great person let me give you a referral but i've seen that where people are like, oh, I love my OB. She's wonderful. I'm like, but you don't need an OB right now. You need a gynecologist. You need someone who's specific to menopause. So it's okay to leave your old one. I know it's hard to find doctors we like. It is.

But that may not be their specialty and you need someone who's going to be a specialist in what you need. Yeah. I'm so glad you pointed that out because I, and again, I don't mind being personal about this episode i recently uh went to a new ob-gyn and and brought up i think i think i'm in perimenopause because of this symptom this symptom this symptom that i've noticed over the past 18 months um i noticed some like mood changes going into some pms mood mood changes So personally, me, my, when I, when I have PMS, right before my period, I rarely ever had the, the punchline PMS where I'm just raging or whatever. But I noticed several years ago that I was starting to get that. and um and so I mentioned that to this new OBGYN my previous one I had had retired um and is likely enjoying fabulous fishing trips um but so I bring it up in this in this new

appointment and she, which kind of surprised me, she was, I just didn't get the connection with her. And I brought up, you know, maybe it's time I'd like to explore hormone replacement therapy, HRT, because there's also really old studies that link HRT to heightened breast cancer risk or something along those lines. And since those studies, that has been updated and is not necessarily as high of a risk as once published, for example. Well said. Thank you.

i kept looking at you going am i saying this right am i doing this right it's not zero but it's not it's not what we what yeah no you're right what those studies said no not at all not even close to it yeah yeah um and then to go back to like those that risk of alzheimer's and things like that they are seeing some benefits to earlier hrt interventions anyway this new ob-gyn I bring up I'd like to talk about HRT she cites a study that was at least 20 to 30 years old and I'm gonna be honest when she did that I shut down from her and just wanted to get through the rest of the appointment get get my pap smear and my pelvic exam which I know we're going to touch on. And, and I've been looking in my network for a gynecologist that had that sites, not that

they're an expert, but that they, they have a focus area in perimenopause, menopause, post menopause. So hopefully they've done some reading, some readings. And I'm gonna be honest, too. Yeah, I'm going to be honest, too. I, I'm looking for younger doctors, not because I have a prejudice against older doctors. You know, there's something to be said about that experience. But if I this woman was likely the same age, maybe a little bit older than me. And she's seemingly citing something she learned in med school or residency or something like that. And I, and I, I trust the, the tolerance for questioning that younger, that, that younger generations have right now. And that, and the challenging of, um, notions that have always been, or studies that have

always been cited so there's my my little experience to encourage uh the women or any and partners of women going through this to be like hey if that felt icky let's let's find something else let's find someone else that should be your rule and anyone on your care team yeah yeah um i also i don't know if i want to burst your bubble about the next generation coming up i mean i know i i haven't i'm talking about doctors now okay not not the students you're seeing okay cool because you have told me you're not going to burst any bubble i have but i have i have more i think i probably have more faith in in some of the changes that they can make but let me let me let me explain where this is coming

from um i have friends who teach in medical school in the south and they have decided for anatomy and physiology to make the reproductive system non-testable material. And if you're a med student who's trying to survive anatomy and physiology and you have to worry about what to study, you're going to study for the exam. And so I think we're about to see, not across the board because it's not all schools. I want to own that. Not all med schools. But I think we're going to see an increase in people who have even less understanding. But then I think we're going to have doctors who are like screw it i'm gonna go learn it myself or i'm gonna do continuing education or whatever it may be uh yeah i think we tend to think that if women have gone through

it if they're our age then they have a better understanding but some of them still more empathy yeah some of them have so much yeah so yeah if you if you have a doctor you don't like you can change if you have the ability to change because i want to own that privilege too yeah um that thing about hrt like i remember being when i was an undergrad and learning about sexuality and we had done the stuff on women's health i remember being like terrified of hormone replacement therapy because it was going to kill us it was going to cause cancer and it was going to do all those things and the fact that that study is being repeated is a little annoying it can lead to a slightly increased risk of breast cancer um

but it can also have really positive benefits on you getting through it without wanting to kill somebody because oh go ahead no just because the changes in your body i mean it is like an all body change it's your brain it's your skin it's your hair i mean hair loss is a part of this for some women um again part of that's going to be genetic but like and now you're moody and now you're bloated and now you're you know you're you're not sleeping like if we can give someone's blinking blinking loudly right so if like we can put you on maybe a low dose and that's one of the things they they may do is put you on a low dose hormone it doesn't have to be like a hormonal contraception it can be just a low dose of hormone that helps you to like feel like yourself why

wouldn't we if there's no major risk now it also depends on your family history we are not medical doctors nope unless you secretly got a degree i don't know about hell no i don't have that kind of attention especially now we are not medical doctors you should be having a conversation with your medical doctor about your family history if you have risks of things like heart attack and heart disease or cancer like those are things they should know that will help them make an educated decision with you not for you or at you yeah so but yeah so there's a lot but i i was i remember being terrified hormone replacement therapy i was taught meant death so it was like well do you want to just go through this horrible process or you want to take something that's going to make you

feel better and kill you yeah that was a fun time and and that's to highlight the importance of estrogen because i think estrogen like many things in women's health is a punchline in mainstream society but i mean that's really kind of the life-sustaining hormone right for women and so yeah in a lot of ways and quality and not just like physical life like quality of life yep so so yeah so it's important now we can't make it like our body's just going to eventually stop producing it and there's not much we can do about it but we don't have to suffer through it we can mitigate some of it um the one other thing i just want to bring up that happens during menopause because i don't think i mentioned it as bone loss you didn't let's yeah let's talk about

that so so i mean we do lose a little bit of bonus like bone mass um if you use depo pervera back when it was super popular and you used it for years that is also going they should have been doing bone scans on you um so this is one of those especially if you have a new doctor that you didn't use in your youth you want to make sure you're letting them know your family history and what medications you've used in your past they should cue you by asking you certain questions because like i don't know if i would have remembered like what drugs i was taking 30 years like medications not drugs let's let's clarify that um but bone loss is an issue and so if especially if the osteoporosis runs in your family you know they're going to end depending on

where you live what may be in the water um and what you're getting out of the food that's grown near you like these are conversations you should have with your doctor but again yeah but we should so there's like three more things i want to do all right go for it i don't know what do you want to do i don't know what you're looking at you were just in my brain didn't you not that time you didn't stay to wander and i know i didn't see the whole gallery display um i want to talk about the mood swings thing yeah because it's kind of become a joke so when i first like back when it has always been a joke it has always been a joke when i when i was doing the thing that taboos of aging and it obviously meant something to me because it was 20 years ago

and i still remember the title of the event um i you know little me getting ready to do this thing on aging and i'm like you know checking online for information and i came across this thing and you can still find it because i brought it up and showed you right you did started yeah it's called the seven dwarves of menopause um a la snow white and the seven dwarves and it was i wrote them down um bloated sleepy sweaty bitchy itchy forgetful now all those things can happen um the bitchy part i didn't really like the label of that and then the last one is psycho so we should talk about mood swings a little bit i feel like doji mood swings are gonna happen and to people who've never had mood swings because of hormones

Although I would argue that with some testosterone levels in some humans, they've had them. I was just going to say that. Yeah. See, you're back in my brain. There it is. Stay for a while. Buy a ticket. Take a look around.

Get some popcorn. So I think when men go through mood swings, we don't call them mood swings. Nope. But I think all of us have experienced, whether it's because of a stress reaction, you know, like a fight or flight and a flooding of our bodies with hormones. i want people to understand that everyone experiences these differently and if you have never had experience with it i don't know how um there is yeah but what's happening is your body's reaction is reacting to what's being in its system like this is a hormonal thing it's it's not like a cognitive i'm gonna be bitchy now well some people do sorry i don't want to

go down that path. Yeah. That's not related to hormones. Yeah. That's a choice. But for a lot of people who are having these reactions, there's this part of their brain, you were talking about this in the pre-show. Do you want to, I think you phrased it really well. I don't want to put you on the spot. No, that's okay. We were talking about it. And the thing to me is for people who don't necessarily attribute their spike in emotions to a hormonal shift in the moment or sustained. But like, there's the cognitively, or I know that I'm having a reaction that I typically don't have. So there is that rational part of my brain that is present. I just can't get ahead of the physiological swing of the drop or rise in the hormone that is impacting my mood,

my tolerance, all those things. So I know, I know, I'm aware, but there are just sometimes, especially with hormone shifts, that there's little you can do to control that and to control the reactions and the impacts because it's not just the outward presentation of of a mood swing of more irritability or rage or maybe extreme euphoria if you're lucky you know there's there's a range of hormonal impacts on emotions it's not just all this this negative air quote um it's not the just those ain't like angry rage sad emotions it could be indifference it could be any one of the things um so yeah yeah and I think I think it's that idea of like I know this is not I know that my reaction is not the reaction I would normally

have and I understand that but I can't seem to stop it it's because our brain is doing what it's supposed to do it's responding to the hormones the higher level thinking is the secondary part um yeah you know it's like and there's an impact on your body internally too yeah yeah the hormones just don't affect your brain it's their system no yeah you could have um you know butterflies or your stomach could be in knots or you could have a headache and that could be contributing to irritability or sleepiness or something along those lines like there's it's not just all oh my woman's crazy right now because blah blah blah blah blah yeah but those mood signs those mood signs those mood swings are a sign of hormonal changes or possibly

constantly being in a stress in a stress response right um the the thing about the mood swings are that they can sometimes feel overwhelming like you feel like it's not you you're like what am i doing i never cry at these like homeless dog commercials and like now i hear the sarah mclaughlin music and i'm like crying but it doesn't mean it's less real for the person who's going through it and remember it's never one symptom so you're going through the hormonal changes and it's harder for you to go to sleep and stay asleep so now you're tired and you're having hormonal changes and your pants don't fit the way they used to because your body is changing how you're how you're metabolizing things so it's it's an all-over body change um so it's not in

your head because i've heard people be like oh it's just in your head it's not in your head these are legitimate changes that are happening in your body yeah um i kind of want to start getting into the cultural thing and i kind of want to do some of the um because we'd had a question specifically about pap and pelvic exams as we age um we're gonna call this time out for a second while i have a little powwow because i know this is candid but sometimes we have to have powwows oops sorry i used that word again and i hated to do it sorry that was culturally inappropriate and i apologize we're gonna confabulate we're gonna have a time out we're gonna have a time out on the field so i know no time stopped there for you it's been hours it has

not been hours um i do apologize for the language by the way that was that was inappropriate and i do apologize um we still want to tackle a lot of stuff see this is why we couldn't do it in one episode before we want to tackle um some of the things around pap and pelvic and timing um and we want to really tackle some of the cultural implications and expectations of people as they age so i hate and perceptions and perceptions so i hate to do this but i also don't we're going to do a we're going to do a cliffhanger yeah or simply a part one and we're going to do a part two yeah cliffhanger sounds so much more dramatic it does but in in the interest of chipping away at The taboo of perimenopause and menopause being dramatic.

Oh, fine. We're going to do a part two. Fine. What I would like to leave our listeners with for this part one piece is, will you briefly delineate pap smear and pelvic exam? Yeah. So pap smear is when we deliberately go in and we take cervical cells, which, by the way, I don't know.

Now I've already wandered away. I had someone who had a hysterectomy who wanted to know why her doctor wasn't ordering pap smears and like because they took the cervix when they took your uterus so cervical cells we look at cervical cells so if you don't have a cervix we're not doing pap smears on you because there's no cervix um pap smears are we look at the cervical cells we're looking for early changes in those cells that may be indicate indicative of cervical cancer pelvic exams are like all the other things right? We're going to look at things. We're going to push on things, make sure they're in the right place. Or if you're reporting pain or discomfort, we're going to examine those. We may do some STI

testing. It's all the other things. So that's a delineation. We usually do pap smears at our pelvic exams, but they don't have to go hand in hand. All right. So I want to leave our listeners on that note. So they're prepared for part two, where we'll, we'll start with pap smears and pelvic exams and, uh, and then go, go into the, the cultural things around this part of women's aging. So everyone, I want to thank you for joining us on part one of this incredible topic, on Unzipping Taboos. We hope today's episode and the subsequent episode will spark new thoughts, curiosities, and open up conversations worth having. Remember that that curiosity is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of yourself, your partner,

relationships sex health we want to get if you i'm sorry i'm jumping all over the place if you enjoyed the show please subscribe leave a review share it with someone who you think might need to hear this or any other episode and if you've got a question or a topic you want us to unzip reach out to us via the link in the episode description we want to give a very special shout out to composer and best friend of the show ali o'brien for our incredible theme music thank you so much, Allie. And until next time, keep those conversations going. Keep unzipping those taboos and everyone take care. Tune in for part two next week.