Women's Digital Health

Navigating Perimenopause: Personal Stories and Digital Health Solutions

• Season 3 • Episode 22

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This season, we're talking about perimenopause and how technology intersects with this important phase of life. I’ll be sharing my personal experiences, discussing the current technological landscape, and providing insights from my new book, Hormone Harmony, along with a companion Digital Health guide. 

Many women, including myself, are navigating perimenopause without adequate preparation or information. We can discuss symptoms among friends, but there’s a lack of formal education on what to expect. It’s surprising how little we know about the changes happening in our bodies, from mood swings to sleep disturbances, and how these changes are often framed as problems rather than a natural part of life.

As we move through this season, you can expect to hear real-life stories from women experiencing perimenopause, discussions about the latest technology, and insights into the financial implications of this stage of life. 

Topics include: 

  • Defining perimenopause and its impact on women’s lives.
  • The importance of community support and sharing insights through platforms like WhatsApp.
  • My personal experiences of the physical changes that come with perimenopause.
  • Reflections on medical training and the need for better education about perimenopause.
  • Exploring the role of technology in tracking symptoms and enhancing healthcare conversations.

Join the conversation, share your stories, and explore the resources available to navigate perimenopause with confidence. Remember, this journey is happening whether we’re ready for it or not, and together, we can take control and empower ourselves.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Subscribe to the Women's Digital Health Podcast wherever you're listening right now, and discover more about the intersection of technology, mental health, and personal development. And please share the podcast with anyone from your community who will benefit.


Disclaimer
The information in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment.

The personal views expressed by guests on Women's Digital Health are their own. Their inclusion here does not constitute an endorsement from Dr. Brandi, Women's Digital Health, or associated organizations.

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Dr. Brandi Sinkfield: Welcome back to episode 22, the official start of this season on perimenopause. This episode is going to mark the beginning of the conversation about perimenopause and technology. And we're going to talk about a few things that are both impacting my personal and professional life. We're going to define what perimenopause even is. I'm going to tell you what's going on with me personally, just trying to manage it as a woman who is in this age, but also trying to manage this as a professional and really being curious about the technology and the current technology that exists for perimenopause and some of my emotions around the technology that I'm hoping that's going to show up for perimenopause. And we'll also tell you kind of what to look forward to in this season. And definitely you'll get some excerpts from my new book, Hormone Harmony, as well as the Digital Health Guide that's the companion guide to helping you navigate technology to improve your conversations with your physician. So stay tuned to this episode if you're just curious about what even is perimenopause. 

Dr. Brandi Sinkfield [introduction]: Welcome to the Women's Digital Health Podcast, a podcast dedicated to learning more about new digital technologies in women's health. We discuss convenient and accessible solutions that support women with common health conditions. Join us as we explore innovations like mobile health applications, sensors, telehealth, and artificial intelligence, plus more. Learn from a board-certified anesthesiologist the best tips to fill in some of your health experience gaps throughout life's journey. 

Dr. Brandi Sinkfield: All right, so I'm going to be 100% honest about this episode. I intended to have guests coming in to talk about this conversation, and I think in the future I will. But I think that it's probably appropriate for me to start with first where I am. understanding perimenopause before I started to introduce guests. And so I'll just paraphrase some of the conversations I've had with my friends about how we are collectively in this age group where perimenopause is getting real for us and nobody's really preparing us for it. 

We're having conversations amongst ourselves about the side effects and symptoms, but I'm not sure if Many of us even know that we've actually entered perimenopause and that, you know, we're experiencing is not unique. The biggest struggle, I think, is for many of us not really knowing where to look because, quite frankly, many physicians have not been educated about perimenopause. No one is sitting down and telling you exactly what to expect. It's not like a welcome to perimenopause. It's not like a sex ed class from the sixth grade or high school. Pretty much after those health science classes, you don't really get a lot of information about all the other changes that happen in your body. No one tells you that your hair texture might change or You may have to change your diet or you may have to switch your workouts or any of these things. And quite frankly, what I've observed in the perimenopausal space is that this stage of life is seen as a problem that needs a fix rather than celebrating all the professional accomplishments that also women are experiencing, or the growth of their family, or all of these joyous things that are also going on simultaneously with the changes in their body. And so I just, I'm very curious about what women are doing to balance these narratives outside and the media that tells them that something's wrong versus what they're telling themselves. So definitely join my WhatsApp chat. If you've got some insights on that, I would love to hear from you. 

All right, so I'm going to start with a story that I heard. A lot of you were asking me, like, why is it taking you so long to start season three? And part of that is because I did a lot of interviewing of a lot of women who were just telling me their stories. And so this story comes straight from my new e-book. Her name has changed, but the story is real. 

It's a woman named Kira. She's in her late 40s. She's got two children and she's a full time graphic designer. She explained to me that for years she's been experiencing all of these symptoms that she could not explain. First she noticed like around her mid-30s that her periods were irregular and then as she approached her mid-40s she started getting these hot flashes and now she's in her late 40s and now she's having all these challenges with sleeping. She can fall asleep for a couple hours, and then she completely wakes up. And then when she does go to work, she is just so tired. 

Like, her day just drags on. She's just exhausted. And she's gone to her doctor, asking for anything. She's tried to manage all of these things on her own, but she's just struggling. The ass of her career, her family, and her social circle is just starting to become just too much. And when she did ask her doctor for a recommendation, they put her on an anti-anxiety medicine. Does this sound familiar? 

This story, I can't tell you how many times I've heard women give me this scenario. We're all experiencing this. I was thankful to Kira for telling me her experience. But quite frankly, as a community, as a social circle, I think we're just now starting to talk about it, which is just, it's mind-blowing to me only because I'm in it and I am questioning everything about what I know about period menopause. And I'm questioning so much that I did a ton of research about this and I wrote Hormone Harmony based upon references that I got, interviewing experts about it, and just really trying to put a simple couple pages together for people to understand like what it is so that if you're trying to figure out what your signs and symptoms are, maybe you can put it on the list of it could be perimenopause, it could be something else, but these are the things that are common to perimenopause.

Here's some information that I think could help Kira, also from my book, Hormone Harmony, that I think she could enter into a better conversation or even search for experts in this space to help her understand what could be happening. This clip is gonna just define what perimenopause is. So as we age, estrogen and progesterone, they naturally decline. This is natural. All women go through this. 

It's called perimenopause. And perimenopause is this transitional phase leading up to menopause. So it's very different from menopause, but it's marked by fluctuations. Estrogen and progesterone are not just going down, but they're going up and down and up and down, and it eventually will decline. It typically begins in a woman in her 40s, but it can start earlier and it can last on average of 4 to 10 years. During this time, it's just the ovaries are gradually producing less estrogen and progesterone and it leads to these hormonal imbalances and they manifest as these mood swings, sleep challenges, exhaustion, all of these things that Kira could be experiencing. You might associate perimenopause with hot flashes and mood swings because your mom and your grandmother talked about it, if you were lucky enough for them to talk about it. But the truth is that these hormones influence far more than just your period. Okay, and so that's one excerpt from my book. 

If you're interested in learning more about perimenopause, you just want an overview of what it is, check it out. But I think as more women understand what perimenopause is, I think there's an opportunity for us to walk into our clinical visits with a little bit more information and also just have more conversations with people that we care about and people who care about us about what's actually happening to our bodies and how these changes in hormones impact the quality of our life, okay? So that's Kira's story. 

I'm sure you're curious about what my personal experience has been so far with the perimenopause journey. I am a very kind, accepting person of my own body and my own body's changes. But I'm going to be 100% honest with you, the changes happen while I feel like I'm doing everything that I can to not have them occur. The back fat, that's the thing I'm struggling with right now. The back fat is a challenge, and this ever-changing number on the scale, again, I'm kind to myself, I'm accepting, I love myself. I'm definitely focusing less on the number. My muscle mass is increasing, but the challenge, it's real. These are changes that are happening in my body. And quite frankly, I've been very intentional about changing my diet. But I think one of the things that, as I become more intentional and focused on changing my diet, is that when I go into a grocery store, even if I want to make those changes, the processed food is everywhere. It's in front of the store. It's got the flashiest, prettiest bags and cans. And it just makes trying to find these high-protein, nutrient-dense foods that I know I'm supposed to be eating, it makes it more difficult to find those things. I have to put in way more effort to find those things. And if I'm honest, that adds a layer of barrier, if I'm completely 100% honest. I wish it was easier for me to just grab the fruits and vegetables and that was much more attractive than the marketing that's done to push the process and ultra-processed food. 

Also trying to manage a family and take care of my career and doing all these things while my body is changing. Yeah, it has its own impact. Exercise has been my medicine and most people who know me personally, they know I exercise regularly. That's actually been my biggest check in keeping connected with my friends and family. Those two things I think have played the best role in trying to manage the stress of all of these changes that are happening in perimenopause. And again, if you are experiencing any of these things, just know that there are menopause and perimenopause specialists that exactly address some of these issues. I will put a link to the North American Menopause Society in my show notes if you want a directory of menopause and perimenopause experts that can guide you to more supportive help during this transitional phase of your life. 

Dr. Brandi Sinkfield [call-to-action]: Hey listeners, it's Dr. Brandi. Thanks for listening to this episode of Women's Digital Health. Subscribe to Women's Digital Health on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to know even more about how to use technology to improve your health, subscribe to our newsletter on womensdigitalhealth.com. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Enjoy the rest of this episode. 

Dr. Brandi Sinkfield: All right, so that's on the personal side, but what about the professional side of perimenopause? As I said earlier, one of the things I've been really reflecting on is what was my education like? What did I get trained on prior to this? And what information did I need to actually know more about? So in medical school, I did get some information about perimenopause and menopause. It was a couple of pages, probably in the women's health section of my training. What I did not have is the clinical training. 

In other words, I didn't have practice actually having a woman come in and disclose to me her signs and symptoms that made me recognize, hey, this might be perimenopause and I should know all of the things that I should be considering with a woman of this age? And what are the solutions, what are the things that I can offer her aside from anti-anxiety medication or just telling her to relax and have a glass of wine? And so as a practicing anesthesiologist, now I have more questions, right? 

I have questions as to how I'm going to prepare for a patient who is perimenopausal. Are there things in my toolbox of caring for a patient that I should consider if a woman is of perimenopausal age, what are the impacts of some of the medications like hormone replacement therapy and non-hormonal replacement therapy that may impact her anesthesia and her surgical care. So these are all the things I'm thinking about professionally as a digital health expert, certainly I have a lot of emotions around where we are with the technology and some of my frustration and as well as my optimism is when is the technology actually going to track important signs and symptoms of perimenopause like our sleep, fitness, insulin resistance, all of these things that we really could improve the quality of life of women if we were able to track them for women with the goal of them being able to take information from some of these technologies and help them have really meaningful conversations with their doctors about what's happening to them. 

And so I look forward to having guests on to talk about their personal stories in perimenopause and some of the technologies that they are using or maybe even developing to really help them have helpful conversations with their doctors. 

Now if you're at all curious about how to use the existing digital health apps or technologies as they are now, which are categorized based upon a sign or a symptom, let's just take sleep, be sure to check out my Digital Health Guide. You can really learn how to use some of the technologies that exist now to really have these meaningful conversations with your doctor. 

So I'm going to give you an example of something that you might find in this digital health guide. So let's take Oura. 

Oura is this ring that can track a whole bunch of things, but let's say you chose the Oura ring because it can help you track your sleep patterns better. And you want to take this information and use it towards having better conversations about your sleep, not only with your doctor, but with yourself. And so you're trying to prepare for your next clinic visit. 

So the Digital Health Guide not only gives you recommendations for different technologies you can use for different things like your mood, nutrition, and things like sleep, but it also includes questions that you can use to help navigate your next clinical visit. So you're using the Oura Ring, you've been using it for a few weeks, and you notice that the Oura Ring is tracking something like your sleep patterns. It's tracking that you're restless, okay? So one question you could ask after you've seen repeated patterns of this, one question you can ask your doctor is, could this indicate a need for targeting symptoms like anxiety, stress, or cortisol. Those are things that I heard about with perimenopause. 

Something just like that can really help you navigate a conversation with your doctor to figure out, is there any other person or specialist with expertise about sleep that I need to insert into this conversation as I'm trying to figure out why is this Oura ring tracking restlessness? And is this restlessness real? Is this a pattern that I should pay attention to to break down what is causing your fatigue? What is causing your stress? So be sure to look at that guide. 

The Hormone Harmony really gives you an overview of perimenopause. And then the Digital Health Guide says if you choose to use technology to help solve some of these issues in perimenopause or track some of these issues, How do you take that information to your doctor to have more direction in your care? So just check it out. 

If you're really interested in technology and you want to set up yourself for that next clinic visit, my number one tip would definitely be to just pick one symptom. I think reading Hormone Harmony the first time, you're like, I want to address this, this, this, and this. Just pick one symptom. If it's sleep and that's the thing that you know is bothering you the most, just stick with that one. If it's anxiety, just stick with that one. Don't try to overwhelm yourself. 

Keep in mind, perimenopause, it could be, this is four to 10 years of your life, so there's no way that one technology is gonna be able to address all of those issues, but I do think that there's an opportunity for technologists to pull all of these common signs and symptoms together to really make it helpful for women to have better ways to look and track their data and be helpful in a clinic visit. So that would be my final recommendations if you're going to use technology. The final part of this episode is what's coming on the pipeline for this season? What things can you look forward to as we focus on perimenopause? First is real life stories from women who are experiencing perimenopause. What things should you, if let's say you're not in the perimenopause age and just curious to know what's coming down the pipeline, maybe you would listen to this episode. Maybe you're a woman who is a working professional, you're just trying to figure out, okay, is this perimenopause or is this something else? 

We look forward to listening to the stories of women who are in real time with the perimenopause experience. Next, we're going to talk about, definitely going to talk about technology. We're going to be looking at some of the digital health solutions through the lens of someone who may be a perimenopausal woman to try to figure out, is this technology a technology that can actually improve the signs and symptoms of perimenopause? And finally, we're going to look at the financial cost of perimenopause. If you are someone who's in the financial space of perimenopause, we really want to know how much people are spending on treatments and supplements and all of those things, just so people have an understanding of it. It's not just the health parts that are impacting women, it's the financial cost of perimenopause. 

This conversation is not limited to this episode. We have a WhatsApp chat. Please come and join, share your stories of perimenopause. I've already put some of my adventures already in there. Make sure that you join and share your insights on what you think we should cover, what things have you currently experienced. I'll definitely put the link to the WhatsApp chat in the show notes. And with that, I'll just close by saying perimenopause is happening, whether we are ready for it or not. Our job here at Women's Digital Health is to talk about it so we can have more control and autonomy. 

Be sure to check out my book, Hormone Harmony and Digital Health Guide for Perimenopause if you're looking for tools to navigate that. In closing, as I always say, stay empowered. Remember, you are more than enough, even more than that. Bye. 

Dr. Brandi Sinkfield [outro]: Although I'm a board-certified physician, I am not your physician. All content and information on this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice and it does not establish a doctor-patient relationship by listening to this podcast. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you heard on this podcast. The personal views of our podcast guests on women's digital health are their own and do not replace medical professional advice.