Kansas City, Kan- Key points from today’s guests:
Dr. Mary Claire Haver, OBGYN, author, “The New Menopause”
- Menopause is defined as one year exactly to the day after your final menstrual period. Everything before that is pre-menopause or perimenopause.
- Symptoms include hot flashes, joint pain, brain fog, and weight gain, but it really affects every organ system of our body.
- Many more emergency doctors are realizing that when women come to the ED with symptoms of a heart attack, it might be because of menopause.
- There was recently women’s health research funding for $100-$150 million that was just approved a few months ago.
- Women are less healthy than men after menopause – we are having poor outcomes overall, poor quality of life, more nursing home admissions, higher cognitive deficits, and much higher frailty risk. We need to talk about how to age healthier.
- The role of diet, particularly fiber intake, can help with menopause symptoms.
- There needs to be better education and resources, including resources tracking symptoms and those considering hormone therapy.
Dr. Carrie Wieneke, clinical services chief, Obstetrics and Gynecology, The University of Kansas Health System
- Some lesser-known symptoms include joint pain, especially in the shoulders and knees. Brain fog and sleep disruptions are other symptoms.
- We’ve learned that there are estrogen receptors almost everywhere in the body, so when that changes, everything that has an estrogen receptor is going to change as well.
- Tracking your symptoms can help with treatment because we can tell what is working, especially in response to medication.
- The Menopause Society website has a list of local resources available to women (menopause.org).
- There is optimism moving forward as this is discussed more and new research is coming out.
Dr. Madhuri Reddy, OBGYN, The University of Kansas Health System
- We don’t really know why some women suffer more from menopause than other women.
- Treatment is very individualized because no two women are the same.
- Knowing the past medical history is important to providing individualized treatment plans.
- The majority of women are safe to take hormone therapy and we have to let patients know it is an option.
- Make sure you find the right person to take care of you.
