The Secret of a Happy Menopause

On my radio show, Phenomenal 50’s, I recently interviewed my friend and gynecologist who has been in solo practice for over 26 years, Dr. Karen Westermoe. She offered her invaluable expertise about the issues women in midlife face. I wanted to highlight some of our interview with you, and next week I’ll send you Part II of our interview, “What Happened to My Sex Drive?!” You won’t want to miss that! Here’s a snippet of Part I as Karen shared “The Secret of a Happy Menopause.”

What are some common issues women in midlife come to you about?

Women in midlife usually come in concerned about troublesome menopausal symptoms, and they are fearful of doing the right thing for their symptoms or whether they should do anything at all. Some of those symptoms may be insomnia, hot flashes, night sweats, weight gain, lethargy, fatigue, irritability, and loss of sex drive. They don’t know what to do and are hoping for a physical solution. So I try to figure out if their symptoms are due to menopause or other symptoms that could mimic menopause, such as depression or an underactive thyroid. However, rarely do women need to worry that it is a chronic disease. All of these conditions are treatable and they can feel better.

Women come to you for help. What are some options that are available to help women during this time?

It can be quite confusing for women because there is a lot of contradictory information out there. The mainstay has been hormone replacement in the form of estrogen. It works extremely well for most women. The downside of estrogen is that we are bombarded with information from the media and other sources saying that estrogen causes cancer, and I believe this does a disservice to women. My biggest pleasure is to relieve suffering and I do this with hormone replacement. For women still concerned about this, there is an FDA approved non-hormonal medication for menopausal symptoms which has only been out for a little over a year called Brisdelle.

Karen, is there any value in hormone blood testing?

There is very little value in checking hormones in any woman who is still menstruating. There’s no demonstrated benefit in any decent study of bioidentical hormones; that is, using a compounding pharmacist to supplement you with hormones to try to change your blood test to those of a 30-year-old woman. What we are striving for is simply to alleviate your suffering symptoms and get you back to feeling like your normal self, and you really don’t need to be doing all those hormone tests.

What exactly are bioidentical hormones?

This is a source of great confusion in the public. Bioidentical hormones are chemically manufactured hormones that have the same molecular configuration as the hormones produced by your ovaries and in some cases your adrenal glands. The problem is that there are no decent, well-corroborated studies that show there is any health benefit to women; rather, it drives up the cost for the tests and supplements, and your problem can very easily be solved by going to pharmaceutically approved by the FDA forms of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.

There’s so much information out there. How do you know who to trust for valid information so women make the best choices?

The best advice I can give is to think critically. Who is this person giving me this information? Does this person stand to make money by selling me something? You always want to consider the source and put the most credence in someone who is highly educated on that specific topic, as opposed to someone who is just trying to sell you a product. I think too, the media functions by whipping up anxiety. They tend to focus on negative alarmism and that dissuades thousands of women from seeking the relief they deserve. Their mission is not to educate the public. Finally, just trust your gut.

Dr. Karen Westermoe will be coming back next week to talk about sex in midlife. Stay tuned for that!

Wishing you joyful health in your 50’s,
Kim