The Hotflash inc podcast
Hotflash inc is an evidence, expert and human-experience driven podcast looking for the true truth in perimenopause, menopause and beyond.
In more than 100 episodes menopause and midlife journalist and host Ann Marie McQueen has spoken to a wide range of experts from around the globe, including practitioners, activists, researchers, doctors and industry leaders about this perplexing transition we still know too little about. She’s talked about her own frustrations and personal experiences. And she has connected with a perimenoposse of powerful women in the midst of a perplexing transition.
Hotflash inc is among the top 1.5 percent of podcasts in the world according to Listen Notes. It was named the number one podcast in women’s health in August 2023 by GOODPODS.
The Hotflash inc podcast
96: Hot Flashes & Cool Topics x Hotflash inc
“Just put it out there. No one expects you to be perfect.”
When Colleen Rosenblum talks about starting the Hot Flashes & Cool Topics podcast with her partner Bridgett Biagi Garratt in 2019, you kind of want to stand up and cheer. These Nashville-based friends – Colleen is an attorney turned pilates instructor, Brigit is a former elementary school teacher – are two of the most clear-headed voices in the North American midlife sp, all the things that happen in midlife and how we get through them.
They also just had their first IRL Hot Flashes & Cool Topics with Prime Women event this month, where they talked about menopause, midlife and a lot more.
Highlights:
- Navigating politics in the menopause space
- Doctors private public
- Doing scary new things in midlife
- How backward it was (and still is) that midlife have the purchasing power but are left out of media coverage
- Shining a light on the positives of midlife
- Growing through the grief and loss in your empty nest
- Starting over and deciding what you want to do with the rest of your life
- What they’ve learned interviewing doctors
- The most controversial topic they’ve come across – testosterone pellets – and Bridget’s own experience with them
- Why we don’t want to change doctors – even when ours knows nothing about perimenopause
- How being scared of menopause can make it harder
- Colleen and Bridget look back on their own perimenopause experiences
- Why they left their careers behind and how they feel about it now
- What it felt like when they launched their podcast – and why women need to stop underestimating the experience they have in life
NB: For an alternative view about testosterone, check out episode 58 with Nashville, Tennessee-based nurse practitioner Brooke Faught and for testosterone pellets, listen to episode 79 with Phoenix, Arizona-based integrative physician Dr Angela DeRosa.
For more on HFCT:
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Midlife is freaking hard. Let's flip the script.
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If you want to take a class, a dance class if you want to start. You know, gardening, or if you want to start a podcast, nothing should be off limits to you because all the experience that you have had in your life brings you wisdom to it. It brings that to the table.
Welcome to Hot Clashing, the number one podcast in women's health on GoodPods. I'm your host, Anne Marie McQueen, a journalist with 30 years of experience searching for the true truth. We are stepping outside of the echo chamber to figure out what is going on and what is best for us in perimenopause, menopause, midlife, and beyond.
Ann Marie:Oh, I don't care about cursing. Okay. Uh, I guess there's people I don't want to talk about, you know, we shouldn't like, if I was talking to you off the air, I'd probably ask you how you feel about certain people.
Bridget:Right. Right. We, we try to on the show, avoid politics, you know. Unless it's a topic that is really at the heart of it, then, you know, sometimes we have to bring it in.
Colleen:But if you, if you stop recording, we'll be happy to talk about whomever you want. Just kidding.
Ann Marie:Do you, are you surprised at how political it's gotten?
Bridget:Oh, Oh my goodness. Yes. Yeah. I, I don't remember a time in my life that things were so political and again, I'm 50 comfortably, uncomfortably political. And I mean, I was born during the Vietnam war, but I don't remember that, but you know, I asked my in laws, was it this bad? And they're like, no, I think it's worse now.
Ann Marie:And I, in this menopause space, it seems to be seeping in to, to it.
Colleen:There's a clear divide, I think, um, between people who are instead of just educating yourself on any everything and making a personal choice through either going holistically or the medical route. And it's like they're somehow condemning the other one, when at this age, we should just be able to make our own decision.
Yeah. Like that's, if that's what you mean, then yes, we see a definite divide in that. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Ann Marie:Yeah. That's, that's my, always my argument. That's my whole thing is like, I've always bridged that whole, it's all there for us. And when you say at this age, we're able to make a decision, but what you see over and over is like people saying, Oh, they're not able to make a decision.
They're going to be so confused. And I get that. It's confusing. I get that. It's confusing. But at this age, right.
Bridget:And also at this age, when you go, you know, depending on where you live, when you try to seek any kind of advice from a professional in the field, from a clinician, it just depends on where you're going.
It just depends because so many clinicians haven't been trained and it's almost like I don't want to fault the clinicians because of the time that they have they, you know, especially if you're at a place where it's boom, boom, boom, you have 15 minutes with that physician, and you have to get out. So that's one reason we're starting to speak to other physicians that have started their own path. Some are concierge, which is difficult because If you have insurance, yeah, but then some are working the route to really try to include insurance and it's still hard. They, you know, it's not easy for them, so. That's kind of what you run into to, you know, I read a lot about different women, especially in Great Britain, where they're running into issues where they're trying, if they want to seek hormone replacement, and they're running into issues with getting mad or just things available that are non hormonal. So, it's really hard, but it has gotten political as well, because there's the camps that, you know, go against each other with that.
Ann Marie:Yeah, I saw the other day someone in Britain, because in Britain, anything that's against sort of the narrative because the narrative is hormone therapy, right? And I have no problem with hormone therapy.
I've been trying to get it. I can't get it here. And I'm ironing some stuff out. But I actually saw so it's the Daily Mail, which everyone hates, that's doing sort of, I think, balanced journalism. Like, I felt like I was crazy a couple years ago, because I was like, is it just me? Or is the Daily Mail actually doing some of the work? Some good journalism on this space. Yes, because they're contrarian. So they're doing like they're, they just had a piece that everyone freaked out about. And I saw someone share it and say, conservative women, like it's now seen as a conservative opinion to question HRT. And I thought, what? Wow. Wow.
Colleen:It's a personal, yeah, it's a personal question, not a political question,
Bridget:but it is, it's very strange how it's invading that space. It is so strange.
Ann Marie:Yeah. Okay. We have so much to talk about. So this is an exciting hot flashes, uh, clear fluster, uh, meeting. And I like you guys use hot flashes in the way. And I do kind of like, it's just like, it's, this is the center of all of it, but it doesn't mean we're just talking about menopause.
Okay. So how. And when did you, how and when and why did you guys get started? You're already friends. So just tell me sort of how that all happened and what time.
Colleen:In September of 2019, Bridget and I were literally having lunch with a bunch of women who are also over 50, and we were chatting about all the life experiences that we had and all the things that were coming up.
And we felt like, you know, this is really a chapter of life that goes unnoticed. We don't feel seen. We don't feel heard. forget menopause, like there was nothing out there at the time for menopause. So Bridget and I know have a friend who does a podcast on a completely different topic. And we thought, okay, let's check out, maybe there's some information out there. And at the time there really wasn't. Now it's very different, obviously, but there, there really wasn't a podcast. So we started it in September, 2019. We called it hot flashes and cool topics because we didn't want to just be a menopause podcast. Of course we could talk endlessly about it, but we wanted to be that voice for women in midlife and beyond whatever they wanted to talk about. They could let us know. And we would find that person that would either answer their question or make them feel like they weren't going crazy. And Bridget and I started with very little. I mean, I graduated with a degree in communications, but that was a lot of years ago. And I was an attorney. Bridget was a teacher. We certainly didn't have a background in media, but we knew that we could learn. And we thank YouTube because it was great. We hit it right around the pandemic when people were saying yes, because they were home. And since then it has exploded. And Bridget and I always say, we just kind of put the seatbelt on and ride the ride, see where it's going.
Bridget:And just, you know, we make mistakes. So we make mistakes. We just go on you're not unsuccessful or you didn't fail, but you just try something new. So we just keep trying different things and calling to you, remember how we. When we were talking at, at that lunch about things that we felt, and since I can say it on this podcast, bullshit you know, to us and how we wanted to have a bullshit meter
But yes, we never did the bullshit meter, but we never did that, but
Colleen:we wanted to,
Bridget:yeah, because we were being fed and not just in the space of menopause, but just women this age. We just felt like we were being fed. Things that were bullshit, and um, you know, I remember that was one aspect we were talking about then, but we just did it and ran with it and learned along the way what we needed to do.
And it took us how long to do our trailer? Seven hours.
Colleen:Oh my gosh. Yeah. Seven or eight hours just to do a trailer. We were like perfectionists, you know what I mean?
Bridget:We were, we we're not anymore.
Colleen:Yeah. And then we realized, just get it out there. No one expects you to be perfect, especially. Just get it out there.
Ann Marie:First of all, what, what prompted the bullshit meter? Like what was annoying you at that time?
Colleen:It was the media. It was the lack of attention of our demographic in the media and how they felt like if you're over 50. We don't need to cater to you. We don't need to have products talk to you.
We don't need to have commercials addressed to you. And I would say that it was bullshit because my, I have two daughters in their twenties. They were using credit cards at the time to buy the products. You know, I'm the, I'm the one with the disposable income. Why are you not talking to us? And that's, I think Bridget, how we got on the whole,
Bridget:that's what it was.
Yes. Yes. I was like, I just remember that thinking. Yeah, we need that.
Ann Marie:That feels like the biggest one of the big lies. Like I think there's so many big lies that you start waking up to when you get in your 40s and 50s. I remember being a waitress and we were always told that the woman decides what wine to order.
The woman decides whether to have dessert. The woman decides whether to have appetizers. You always, like that was part of the service. jived with me when they would say, you know, we weren't included. We weren't that coveted demographic. Even when they would say, you know, you know, they always ask people, why aren't there more films for women in Hollywood? And the directors say, people won't go see them yet. When there was a film, it would be like a blockbuster and The other thing always asking, I thought about this the other day, we grew up listening to actresses being asked in interviews, how does it feel when there's no roles for women over a certain age? Like those questions can imagine you're being asked that question. I don't even know if that's actually true. But we heard
Colleen:they would never, they would never ask a man that they would never
Ann Marie:know. But we heard this for years. So we just thought, Oh my God, this is, it just all fed into like the times running out at the times we heard it in so many different ways.
And you're right. We have the money. Like, come on, this is crazy.
Colleen:And we would also ask the question of our listeners. And they would be like, Oh, what do you want to do for the next 30, 40, 50 years of your life? Because you've got that time now longevity is there healthy longevity. You have to work at, but what do you want to do?
This is not over. Your life is not done. As a matter of fact, there's a lot of positives to this stage of life. You get to be a little selfish and we have been just. ingrained in us that you put yourself last, women go last. And if you try self care or put yourself first, it's somehow selfish and it's not. And I think that stigma is lifting a little bit and women are realizing, wait a second, I have to be a priority too, or I can't help everybody else.
Ann Marie:No, I had an Indian grew in an actual spiritual yoga guru that I interviewed today.
She's in her seventies she was saying that much, the same thing. You have to take time for yourself. Like, you know, your kids are grown and I can see my friends that are, I haven't had children, but I can see my friends that. They're leaving and I can see the sense of sadness and you have you guys been through that where your kids are?
Bridget:Yeah, it was really particularly hard for me. And, you know, honestly, the lockdown and pandemic actually healed me because they both came back, and then I could see the changes and I loved having them back, but I could see the things that I was used to, I'm married that my husband and I were used to.
Yeah. And it kind of shook it up a little. And I kind of like our, you know, these years and having our own thing, you know, and, and so it cured me and I love to see my children and I do, but I don't cry as much when they leave. And, you know, actually the last time I didn't cry when I left them, I I'm so surprised. I mean, my gosh, they're 30 and 27. I should be okay. But, um,
Colleen:No shows, Bridget. No shows.
Bridget:That's right. That's right. It's personal. But yeah, it, it, it is hard. It's very hard. And I think it's just a change when you're entering this change, any kind of change that you're doing, whether you're getting ready to retire or you're making a big move somewhere.
It is this big change and it's scary, but it's It's going to be okay. So maybe learning to embrace it a little bit Yeah. Is, is important.
Colleen:And I, and I think a lot of women, uh, have been defined so long, uh, as and maybe they gave, they let their career kind of fall to the side and they have to decide, okay, what do I wanna do now?
I know what I don't wanna do. And that's what we always say when women go, I don't know where to start. Well, you have experience. In life. So what don't you want to do start there and kind of narrow the focus a little bit and it doesn't have to be starting a podcast it doesn't have to be some grandiose plan.
Colleen:If you want to take a class, a dance class if you want to start. You know, gardening, or if you want to start a podcast, nothing should be off limits to you because all the experience that you have had in your life brings you wisdom to it. It brings that to the table. You are not inexperienced because I think a lot of them, like I haven't worked in 20 years.
No, one's going to, I'm not, you know, viable. I don't, you'll get there. You can learn it. If you don't know social media, my kids taught me a lot about social media. You know, you can learn it. You just kind of have to. Realize that your experience has value and I think a lot of women forget that they are a valuable member of the community and they get quiet.
Bridget:Yes, they do. But, but the nice thing too about this age is there is something about not caring what other people think like you did when you were younger. So you're just like, I don't care, and people who make snarky comments or whatever, if they make comments on your social media, you're like, I don't care.
You know, this is my thought, my opinion, or, you know, this is what I found works for me. And I'm like, okay, think what you want. Bye. You know, it doesn't hurt you like it did when you were young.
Ann Marie:Those comments would last for, right. They would just, Oh yeah. When you were 30, 32, maybe they'd just go right in and you would just believe them almost.
Colleen:I feel really bad for The generations coming up now is social media because we didn't have that. It wasn't that immediate attack of bullies that have no face and no name, but they are so unhappy with their lives that they have to make someone else. And I feel bad for a lot of the younger generations.
I certainly wouldn't want to be there at this stage where people are just like, cause like Bridget said, we don't care move on, find someone who actually cares about what you're saying. At 20 or 30, like you said, that would have destroyed my self confidence and I feel badly for people who are just trying to be out there and exist in a social. Again, I always tell my kids, what you see on social media is not true. It's not real. It's a picture they want to create and it's hard. I wouldn't want to do it.
Ann Marie:No, and we don't, we've had it just a short enough time. We didn't have to listen to what people might say, you know, like it was only a boogeyman in her head, but now people have to actually see it.
And it's crazy. I find that space pretty, pretty nice. Actually. I wouldn't say, of course, when something negative happens, I remember that,
Bridget:You do, you do remember that you might have 500 great comments or, and then there's two people that maybe didn't agree or what you're like. Yeah. Did you see what that person said, you know, you're just like, you know, really, I don't care, you know, go,
Ann Marie:I don't and I, oh, I have to give myself like I have whatever five hours, five days, whatever, five weeks, I have to say like, five hours, you're not going to care.
I don't know. Do you answer? Do you answer people when they're,
Bridget:oh, if it's, if it's really nothing to do with anything, but if it is something to do with, with something that I feel like was met, I don't want to give medical advice because I'm not a physician, but I will relay what physicians say to us.
So if they say something that I feel like is harmful is going to be harmful. It's always. Contact the physician before you do this. Always, you know, Arthur, if they cut down someone else, which I don't know if that's happened, Colleen, so we had,
Colleen:I think the first time we had someone. hate on us on TikTok. I texted you.
I was like, we've made it. They hate us. This is great. Like, like it was completely the opposite of what their intention was. And for those people who just want to hate, we block them. There's no, but if someone wants to engage in an actual debate, I'm happy to do so in a respectful way, but if it starts going down a road where they are not listening and they're just trying to convince you of something, then I don't see the point, you know what I mean? Or if it's just hateful comments, then I know that there's something else going on with that person. And there's no point in that. It's an energy that I think another thing that comes with the wisdom of getting a little bit older is we are particular with where we put our energy. If it's for productive, healthy use, but if it's just getting drained, um, by what I call a vampire sucker, like they just suck the energy right out. Not worth it. Block them.
Ann Marie:And then there's topics that, because you spoke to the doctor, the name is escaping me who worked on the Astellas Pharma.
Colleen:Yes, Nanette Santoro.
Ann Marie:That, so I wrote a lot about that and that was surprisingly controversial to me because to me it's a no brainer, right? Like some women can't take hormone therapy and so a company is providing a drug for those people.
That's some people don't want to or can't. And so this drug is being developed that I found surprisingly controversial because the HRT people really don't like that drug. Like did you find that?
Colleen:I didn't find, I mean, we are, the responses we got from doctors were quite good, but it was always under the guidelines of, you know, the golden standard is hormone therapy.
But for us, it's all about options. Let women decide what's best for them. And, you know, but if you can go in armed with the information, sometimes, you know, more than your doctor does, you know, we've heard from a lot of women who are like, I asked them about this and they were like, I, I didn't know that. Let me look into it. I'll get back to you. Last guy.
Bridget:Yeah. I do feel like I didn't feel like I really felt Dr. Santoro was really, you know, giving us all the, the different options are telling us about everything that is available. And most doctors do say the gold standard. Is hormone replacement.
But yeah, I find that really wild that people have an issue with that. And I know there's people that don't want to take any medications and that's fine. If that, that is the way they, they want, that's great. But I was happy to hear for myself, cause I am on hormone replacement that if I don't want to continue to be on hormone replacement and if I stop it and I start getting like all these, you know, I mean, I was. I was sweating like five times an hour. I, it was horrible. It was really bad. And if I did, I would have that option to have that. And that was one of my questions is like, can I take this? If, if I quit, can people take this? Because that's another thing that doctors go back and forth on is how long should you be on hormone replacement? Some say forever, but some say you can do it forever. Some say 10 years, you know. After you began, or some say by the age of 60. So that's a big question that's all over the map that I'm like, I don't know, you know how long this can last.
Ann Marie:Well, yeah. You interview a lot of doctors I've interviewed and you know I've been doing this over a year.
There's so much disparity. In what they think that it's sort of spooky a little bit, like it's a little bit spooky to me because you have the guidelines of the guiding bodies, but you have all these doctors that have, you can spot the gaps in their knowledge, which freaks me out when I spot that a doctor, do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. How do we know this and you don't know this? Yeah. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about that. Those experiences.
Colleen:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, we've interviewed a lot of doctors and we try to go with the NAM certified doctors because we feel like they are the most experienced and experienced and the information that we give out.
We want to make sure that women know it's Based on, you know, it's experimental, excuse me, it's evidence based and they can rely on it. And again, some of the doctors haven't heard of that stuff, but we have interviewed a few where we're like, okay, we're going down a road. Yeah, not where we thought, and we've actually interviewed a few that we have not put on air. Because we just weren't comfortable with that. Um, we just felt as the conversation was going, we just felt like the information wasn't something we wanted to put out there for our listeners.
Bridget:I do remember one physician in particular, um, and I think it was a live, um, interview and other, other doctors, the use of testosterone.
That was one use for libido and, uh, most doctors say they're fine with it. It's not FDA approved for women. They usually give one tenth of what they normally prescribe to males. And one doctor was... She was, and it was live, so I couldn't really do anything about it. It was, I think it was when, uh, yeah, I was like, Oh, okay. You know, because that has been very helpful for a lot of women. You do have to be careful with it. And then the use of pellets is,
Colleen:yeah, that's what I was going to say. That is pellets has been a huge controversy. It is. Yeah. Yeah. I actually have found.
It less controversial between the doctors and more with the patients, patients who take them will, they will die on that sword. They're not giving them up. And no matter how much information the doctors may provide that it could be a dangerous treatment, they don't want to hear it. They feel, I actually had had one dose of it was not given any, I was given like little things and it was, it was like a clinic. It was not, um, a doctor. you know, it was, it was a physician's assistant that was prescribing it. And I had my first pellet and then we interviewed Dr. Lisa Larkin and boy did she, right after, oh my goodness, I said, I said, oh my gosh, she said, you're probably okay. You've only had one dose because I guess the testosterone stays in your body. You can't get that pellet out. So it was estrogen and testosterone. You still, if you took progesterone, you took that. in a different form. Okay. They, she said, Oh, I have examined women with vulvas that are like, what did she say? The size of a, did she say grapefruit? Did she say orange? Great, great, great. The vulva. I'm sorry. I'm sorry if it's a grapefruit. Bridget, you're trouble But I'm sorry, a grape. I was going, I knew, I heard the word time to Google it in there. But when she was saying that, I said, oh, oh my gosh. No one said that to me. And this, so a gynecologist has, has examined many, many women. And so I said, okay. She, this is a fact that she's telling me, so I never got any more pellets.
Ann Marie:So what was your thinking? I mean, I do find this, this, yeah, this topic is like, no, no, no, no, no. And like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And it's crazy. And then the anger, because they say these people are making money and these people, but like, you know, I can understand why it's an attractive option.
And I've interviewed women who would say it's great because I can't remember to take it. This is a big thing for me with HR. I don't like to take I'll forget. So what was your thinking? Like
Bridget:it was, I thought it was going to be easy so I, when I first got on HRT, I was going to this place.
And because my gynecologist at the time would not prescribe me hormone replacement, would not do it. Gave me a, um, gave me a fixer, right? Yes. For, and it did nothing. It didn't help. So I've said, okay, this doctor won't listen to me. I should have found another. doctor, but I saw that this place gave hormone replacement. So at first it was bioidentical. So it was a form of estrogen that was a bioidentical one in a form of progesterone and a testosterone cream. And they, they said, Oh, you could try these pellets. Then you don't have to put the cream on every day. You don't have to worry about taking. So I read the little paper and it was very, you know, the thing they gave you. It didn't really talk about a vulva being the size of a grape, but it, it did say, yeah, you could, um, have a little bit more buildup of testosterone, but it, it was enticing. Like it said, Oh, and also people have been known to lose weight on this within it's like, Oh, you know, so I did it. But then after I talked to her, I thought, I'm not doing this. This is. This is insane. I'm not doing this anymore. So yeah, it was, I've never heard a physician, uh, prescribe them. It's always been one of these clinics. in the U. S. that are where I am. I have not heard of a physician, uh, giving that as an option personally or anyone that we've interviewed.
Colleen:I think a hundred percent of the doctors said don't go down that road, right? The problem now with menopause is it's such a big industry. It's a 600 billion industry that everyone's throwing their hat in the ring with products and quick fixes. And it's a dangerous thing for women, because if you are struggling, like Bridget was saying, she was having five to seven hot flashes an hour.
She's going to try anything.
Bridget:Oh, I would move. And I would sweat. I mean, I would like get up to do something. I sweat the floor. I would sweat. It was terrible.
Colleen:And now women are just being inundated with almost too much information that they have. That's why we're always like, talk to the expert. Don't go just listening to a commercial.
Don't go listening to, you know, don't listen to us. Just take the information down and talk to your doctor about it because we're, we will bring the experts. We don't claim to be experts in anything but our own personal journeys. But we will certainly get doctors that you can rely on to, for information to them. And if your doctor doesn't know the answers, find another one. Women are so defensive of their doctors that they've been seeing for 20 years. He helped me with this. It did deliver my baby. But right now you're at a different stage of life and it's okay to interview your doctor. And if they don't have the right questions, they don't have the right answer to your questions, find another doctor.
Ann Marie:Well, some people put you in a box, right? And your health care practitioner can be the same sort of way, like they've seen you for a long time. Um, and so sometimes you just got to move on, you know, like sometimes you just, these relationships weren't meant to last forever.
Bridget:As a woman.
It's this whole thing to this emotional thing that you don't want to hurt somebody's feelings. Yes. Isn't that crazy that your health is involved, but you're so worried about hurting somebody's feelings. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the kind that slink home and call back and cancel my appointment. And then I go to another doctor.
Ann Marie:Do you know I was trying a meal plan delivery service here and I didn't like it. I didn't like it. I don't really like meal plan delivery services and the guy had asked me if I would review it for our website and I said sure, but I didn't like it. It took me three weeks to message him and say. I can't rave about this.
Like I can't write about it. Yeah. And I dithered back and forth and I was like, I'll just write it. Well, I can't do that. What am I going to say? You know? And I'm like, girl, come on. You're 52 like bone up to message him and say, I'm sure for other people, it's good. But for me, it was not, he took it well.
Bridget:That's so funny. Oh, I know.
Ann Marie:I was just thinking, well, he, you know, he's trying so hard and his business also, like I'm going to be the one that's just going to puncture his self esteem and he's going to call, call it quits because I didn't like his meals a little bit, but I wouldn't. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. Back to testosterone. I did interview a doctor. She's in Arizona and she worked on that original, this is coming up on a podcast. She worked on the original, um, testosterone patch that didn't pass the intrinsic patch. So that doctor does use pellets. That doctor is what I would call very bullish on testosterone. Very, very bullish. Very like, I, I got off the interview thinking I need some testosterone right now to stay upright. But I'm interested, like one of the, someone I interviewed early, early on was this nurse practitioner who is also in Nashville, actually Brooke fought and she uses, um, she's great. And she, but she used his testosterone. She presented at North American menopause society in 2020. I think about this. She, She puts it right on your vagina. Like you put it right on and she talks about that a lot. But then this doctor was like, no, I wouldn't do that. So, you know, you end up leaving going right. Like you end up.
Bridget:So was it the pellet that this doctor said, did she have reasoning why she wouldn't do, put it right on the perineum area or the vagina area? She just said she wouldn't. She just said, she just did. Again, like this is the thing when you interview doctors, like you just see them. No real reason, right?
Like that's just not what they do. And that's just shows you how vast. Um, you know, here's the doctor in Nashville doing this and another doctor in Arizona who's like, no, I wouldn't do that. And then there's, I don't even know sometimes that there's a reason it's just that they don't do it sort of like the things that they,
Bridget:I remember one time, I think we were getting ready to do a podcast colleague and I got a call from that clinic because the thing with the testosterone gel, you can't.
like you can't shower, um, for like an hour or two hours and you can't exercise. So the first thing I would do was go exercise and then I would get back and shower and I would put it on. Well, one time I, it was like, I don't know, 11 before I even put it on. And then I had an appointment where they did my blood work, right. It called Colleen was at my house and they're like, um, Are you growing facial hair? Um, is your voice deepening? Are you, I was like, no, they, because I just put it on my blood levels. It's like through the roof. So that's hard to measure. Um, that's another thing with blood tests.
Ann Marie:Everyone's obsessed.
Colleen:Some doctors say don't bother taking because different times of the month, your levels are going to be different. So it's just, I think, because it's becoming such a hot topic. Yeah. Unintended. It's becoming such a hot topic that there isn't a consensus right now.
Everybody's kind of going with what they know and what they're reading without really having a consensus. We really have to do our homework. We are intelligent women. And we know our bodies better than anybody else. So if something doesn't sound right to you, it probably isn't right for you.
Ann Marie:Yeah. The thing with the testing, I find. And Like it's so frustrating that women can't get the answer of what exactly is happening.
So I noticed I see women, they're very happy and I'm grossly generalizing, but it seems like people are very happy when I tested my estrogen was on the floor. I tested in my progesterone like they. Like, that's a human sort of certainty that we like to have. Right. And then I can tell people that that's what happened, but whenever I've had things tested, I think at 47 and just recently the, like the doctor said, I don't know, you seem post menopausal, but also perimenopause, like you're, you know, you're just so different than when I was 47. It's like the interminable perimenopause I'm going through, but you know, I know, I, I've, I think people are just trying to like, where am I, what's happening. Right.
Colleen:And they want answers.
Ann Marie:Perimenopause. Yeah, premenopause is just sort of like. It's a long time, maybe, and it starts,
Colleen:and it, for every woman, like you said, it starts different time and your life stages.
Like I can say that I started, I was one of the oldest women I know to go through menopause. I'm 55 and I just went through it in November, my 12 months. Okay. But I started period probably around 44, 45. And at the time my father was on hospice, my daughter was going through an eating disorder. I thought. I'm ready to murder somebody because my life is stressful. Mm-hmm. I didn't realize that the sleeplessness and the weight gain and the anxiety, if not were caused by, but were exacerbated by perimenopause and I didn't even know. I mean, Bridget will say she didn't even know perimenopause was, didn't know what it was when I was in it. I didn't know what it was. Yeah. I'd heard of menopause. Yeah. Didn't know. I think, you know, we're the sandwich generation. We're taking care of our parents. We're taking care of our kids. We're working. We're now in the boardroom. We're CEOs. We're in management. How many women are leaving the workforce because of menopause, which is just disheartening, but we don't attribute it to menopause because nobody talks about it. I mean, they do now, but. That's only in the last three years. I,
Ann Marie:and you know, so I feel like there's a certain amount of, uh, denial associated with it. And I even say that because I have a young friend who's been involved in hot flash ink since, since I did it in 2020, who's a 41 and who's just now her sleep isn't good.
And she's having period problems and she started taking progesterone, but it took a long time for her. And now she's like, and this perimenopause, I'm like, uh, I've been talking, but I went like, I went to loads of doctors between 42, 47 loads. Like I was in the ER. Cause I thought I was having a heart attack. I had. Terrible headaches and had like an MRI. I was in the hospital for that a couple of years, a couple of times for those headaches. Like no one ever said, you know, after that cardio incident, huge cardio workout, no one ever said it. No one ever said a word. Even I went to finally went to a naturopathic doctor and she said I had adrenal fatigue. She helped me. She never said anything. I was 40, you know, 42, 43, like. It seems like a no brainer, but I also feel like I was in denial.
Bridget:It's, there is something with the word, it's something with the word menopause. It's, it's you, like, you're afraid you're going to catch it. Like it's a disease or something.
And you're going to go, I always, I always say, if you're lucky enough to live long enough, you're going to go through it.
Colleen:The media, it doesn't, it doesn't do it. We were like, we were doing research one time. It was like all in the family talked about it once. Maud talked about it, uh, the Golden Girls, who are now, who were our age at the time, they, but it was never talked about.
And I mean, there are a lot of positives to menopause who wants their period anymore on my period anymore. Take it. There should be a switch done by, you know, I don't have to worry about bringing tampons or pads on vacation. I have suffered from really bad hormonal migraines like you do. I have not had one in a year. I've had headaches. I've had light migraines. I've not had one of those hormonal migraines in a year and I don't miss them at all. And my daughter has them. And I'll say to her, you know what? I don't miss those hormonal migraines. And she just gives me that dagger stare. Like I've got like 30 years with this. It's it's all the way we talk about it. Yeah, we put out into the conversations that we put out in the universe. And I think, you know, you're going to be living another, hopefully 30, 40 years without your periods. It's going to be great. It's there are positives to it.
Ann Marie:It was just always in my friend that's younger than me, I swear, I'm like, again, she's like, yeah, I haven't had my period now for six months, but it's, you know, it's been slowly going and it just seems like, that is a lot, that's very frequent.
Bridget:And that was a whole nother symptom, the heavy, heavy periods and the more frequency. When you're in Perry, I didn't know what was happening. I really thought that, okay, something's really wrong. And I have nine sisters and they didn't tell me. I do remember my older sister, my oldest one, when she went through menopause and she was.
17 when I was born. So she's quite a bit older than me. And I remember thinking, look at her turning that air on. My gosh, she's just doing this for attention for getting very aggravated with her. And now I'm like, Oh, I'm getting it worse. That's what I get for, for doing that to her. None of them. Yeah, it was. And I never, none of them ever said, Oh, my period is so heavy is, is so this and that. And I just remember like I was on a field trip with students when I was a teacher and thinking. Okay. I am going right through this bus seat. And it was horrible. And I, you know, I'm a teacher, at least I've got other teachers, mostly female with me. And, you know, what about these women that are in boardrooms and with, with a lot of different males around and maybe the understanding isn't there from their coworkers, like perhaps it was with me because. They were all ages, the teachers I had, but it does lead and I do feel like maybe that was a part of why I left teaching. Um, part of it was family, like my mother was really old and was in her last year of life, but I think maybe I would have stayed if I, you know, if I maybe wasn't going through this, that I just had it from everything. So I do hear a lot of women that leave the workforce during this time.
Ann Marie:I, I am lucky.
I'm a freelancer. I mean, I'm having a hard time right now because I'm having some health issues. So my energy is all over the place. And I'm so lucky. I think this all the time, like this morning, I thought if you, I had to be here at noon to interview someone, but I was like, if you had to be and run that department that I, that I did like five years ago, I don't really know. I do get it. And then. I don't know about the free with for you like the brain lapses that you can have that are really scary like my friends right here and she's yeah it's frightening and then you really like you feel exposed. really exposed. And so I imagine if you were in the boardroom or you were running something or you were, you know, I don't know, I can see people leaving. But I also think maybe, maybe that's what's supposed to happen. Like maybe you were supposed to do something different. Maybe, maybe like this is your catalyst out of the, like, I don't know, do you ever think that, like, do you miss the. Field. Do you, is it a mistake?
Bridget:I really don't miss, I don't miss, I'll tell Colleen.
Oh, I had a nightmare that I agreed to teach again, that I,
Colleen:and I do not miss the law at all. So that's not even,
Bridget:and I'm thinking, I think what I did miss initially was my fellow teachers. And actually I liked the students a lot. I just didn't like the other part, but I think that things were exacerbated, you know, exacerbated.
I can't even say more. Exacerbated. Exacerbated. By other pressures coming in. And I, yeah, I think it was. And then I just thought I'd had it. I didn't want to listen anymore. And I, other things like my mother being ill, my kids getting ready to leave for college. Yeah, it was too much. And I, you know, I feel I've. I talked my husband, um, he's getting ready to retire. So happy. But, um, and he's younger to retire, but I speak with him about women that maybe have high, high power jobs where he works. And, you know, sometimes he'll come home saying something. I'm like, No, no, no, no, no. I said, would you say that if that was a man doing that? And he's pretty good too. I hate to dis, I'm not trying to dis. No, he's wonderful. He's wonderful. But I do giving these reminders like, Hey, did you have to deal with this at work? Did you have to, did you ever soak through your skirt or, well, your skirt or you didn't sleep? Has Sean ever soaked through his skirt? But yeah, just things like that. Like these are just little extra things you have to deal with. So let's think about that.
Ann Marie:And if you didn't sleep and if, if you have anxiety, you know, I had terrible anxiety through my forties when I was running a newspaper department. It was absolutely awful. And there was one woman that just.
She knew, she just knew, she just like, she was like my nemesis and I would, she, I, she, I, she just one of those people who knew when you were off and I struggled and struggled with her. And I think sometimes like, what was that about now? You know, I think what was that about? But she just had a, knew that I was off kilter and that I, whoever was around me that year heard way too much about that woman because you, and I, oh my God, are we talking about this again? You know what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting time.
Colleen:We have found that since starting the podcast. 95% of the women that we work alongside with in this, in this genre are great. Oh yeah. Everybody just wants to lift each other up. True. The competition that you kind of felt in your twenties and thirties, there's always one or two that you're like, okay.
And you can kind feel'em coming. Yeah. But, um, for the most part, bridge and I just, we love working with everybody. It's'cause everyone wants to lift each other up and it's not hokey. It really is. I think that competition kind of weans in your 50s. There's a place for everybody. Everyone has a voice. It really is.
Ann Marie:When you started the podcast, like I've done a lot of new things in the last five years and I find there's a trajectory like it's terribly hard and you guys started the podcast when there wasn't like there's so much technology now to start a podcast, even a few years later, right? So it was a much more difficult thing that you did.
Like I know just to start from no podcast, even having a friend who's in it to get all the pieces. What, what do you feel like for women who want to do something like this? What, what sort of like defeated feelings do you feel or, or silly or like, you know, the hard parts of it? Do you remember?
Colleen:I think I come from a place of I have a very, very, very strong work ethic, so I can't do anything 10%.
So even though I'm like, Oh, this is my third career, I put my heart and so and Bridget does too, but like, I can't, I go zero to 100. There's nothing
Bridget:she does.
Colleen:Bridget works really well with that because I'll be like, we're doing this, we're doing this, we're doing that. She's like, okay, but you know, she's kind of the calm voice like Go take a break.
It's okay. You don't have to, but I just, I have such a passion for what we do. And so does Bridget and there's never, we thought, Oh, are we going to run out of topics to talk about? Like there's never an end when one opens another opens. And I think for women who are afraid. To start something new, you really underestimate the experience you have in life, even if you were like, like Bridget, okay, she was a teacher, she knows how to be organized. She knows how to, you know, kind of control situation like there are things you take from every job experience that you have, or life experience for that matter, into the next step so you know who cares if it doesn't work like. We don't care if it's either a life experience or it's a success, either way, you learned something.
Ann Marie:So get it out there. Right. Because if you wait for it to be, I mean, I'm journalism, my daily journalism, I just had to do it. Like I just absolutely had to let it go. But um, if you try to make it perfect, it'll never,
Bridget:you'll never do it. If you try to make it perfect.
Colleen:Presence over perfection. That's what we heard one time.
Presence over perfection to really kind of.
Bridget:And, and I think it's so much more authentic when it is when you just are putting it out there and it's not perfect or you're doing your best, but I will say Colleen has such a great work ethic. And I think that that, you know, having somebody like that as your co host and your partner and your co worker.
It just helps that much more. It gives you that confidence when she has that confidence and does the 100 percent that boosts your confidence. It just kind of works together. And that she is so, um, good at, she's like, I'm sorry, if you think I'm a control freak. And I don't, cause I'm like, I love that you come out with these ideas. I'm like, if it doesn't bother you, that you are. Coming out with these great ideas and then, you know, something will, I'm kind of like that. Oh, I like what that says. I'm kind like this M like shiny, this shiny, look at this pretty thing. Look what I read in People Magazine. And then I'll, I'll say, I found this book in People Magazine, Colleen. We're gonna, you know, contact this author or whatever. And so it just kind of, we just got lucky that we just work really well together. But it's an understanding. I think we both, um, Have this kind of just like we know which one's good at whatever it will. We work together,
Colleen:we balance each other,
Bridget:we balance and that's been really great that we found that we just happen to live near each other and move to this neighborhood at the same point in our lives where we were going through the same things.
And, you know, with just starting it, like just, just do it, don't worry about being perfect. And it, you know, you'll be passionate about it. So if you're, this is something that has bothered you, I just went through this. I don't want other women to, um, suffer and I want them to know there's options out there.
Ann Marie:You guys are very kind, like you're funny, but you're very kind. I just have that feeling like is warmth that comes through. Okay. I love how you interview celebrities. I used to interview. Like you interview these celebrities and I just love, cause you see it on, I see it on social media. I'm like, Mary Lou Henner.
What, you know, how did you, when did you start doing these brand rusher? Like, Whoa, it's so cool.
Colleen:Bridget's funny. Cause like, I think I, I just don't take no for an answer. I'm not good at that. Um, and Bridget would be like, no, seriously, I can't do this in her. Like I'm not ready for, I just wing it. And if you're confused, look over to me and I'll wing it too.
What's the worst going to happen? You edit out whatever. Doesn't work, but we were lucky. Patricia Heaton, I think was our first one. All right. Was Mindy Cohn was, I actually had gotten somebody off of Twitter. I think.
Bridget:And was that Mindy?
Colleen:It would might have been Mindy or might have been Carney Wilson.
Oh, and she's like, sure. I like, cause I'll keep asking until they say yes, or they get a restraining order one or the other. Um, and then, so once you get one or two people, they want to talk about midlife. It's not just menopause. They want to talk about their careers. They want to talk about what they're doing now. So we kind of started this catching up series where we were catching up with like. Women want, we have so much more in common than we realize. And like with Patricia Heaton, it was one of our first interviews. We want to make sure we're really careful with your time. And we were like, thank you so much for coming on. She goes, we haven't even talked about Botox yet. Like we have a lot to talk about.
Bridget:She stayed on for three hours. We just were like,
We made it to at least two episodes,
Colleen:but they're all, you know, for the most part, they're all very gracious and they really like talking about the stage of life. Like they're living their best lives and they want women to know that, I mean, look at, just look at the Academy Awards like all of the women that are nominated are like 40, 50 plus.
Bravo. We are, we are in love with Jamie Lee Curtis. Like, oh yeah, she's awesome.
Bridget:Colleen soulmate right now.
Colleen:The whole thing about her going to bed early. I was cause Colleen, I know 10 o'clock do not keep Colleen out past 10 because she's going to bed. Yeah.
Bridget:And it's just, you know, it's okay to set boundaries. At this stage of life, if you don't like them, that's okay. You don't have to.
But for me, they work. You know what I mean?
Ann Marie:So she's a dream guest. Jamie Lee Curtis. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. She knows. Do it. I, I think they're just like us, right? Like they wanna talk about it. Yeah. I have seen so many interviews, like when I started looking in this space, I would see so many interviews where the celebrity brought it up.
Like Naomi Wat. There was an article on, in Women's health a uh, a cover story on her and she mentioned hormone changes and of course the writer's probably 25 and didn't follow up. And Sharon Stone brought up her menopause to a New Yorker writer, and he never followed up. And I feel like they're like, kind of, we are, you know, and then either the people are like, because if you're 25, that's not what you wanna talk about. But I feel like they wanna talk.
Bridget:It's so funny at first I, I was like extremely nervous. Then you start talking to them and it's just like, you're just having this normal conversation about what's going on in your life. So it's great. I love the catching up series.
Colleen:Yeah, we have fun. And we always, our intent in the very beginning of the podcast was for women to feel like they were sitting at a kitchen table with us, either drinking a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and just sharing.
conversation and community. And we've been very lucky that that's kind of the response we get from everybody. Like, I wish you did this live so I could ask questions or do stuff like that. And it just, it makes you feel good when someone said, I asked my doctor about this, cause you guys brought it up and it's helping me. Like that's, there's no better feeling than feeling like you helped somebody. Yeah. When they're struggling because it's struggling unnecessarily. And if men were struggling this way, and I love men, I'm married to a man, I have a son in law love men, but they, there would have been an answer already. There would have been a solution, you know, and it's just a shame that with women's healthcare and Bridget talks a lot, a lot about this, that testing done was mostly on men up until the nineties.
Ann Marie:Yeah, crazy.
Bridget:I was floored by that. I could not believe that. It was so, it was,
Ann Marie:I think people think, yeah, I'd like to delve into this more, but you have to be gentle about it because people really believe in clinical studies and science and trials. And they're like, they really believe that that's been taken care of.
And I'm not, I'm a lot more skeptical about what's gone on, you know, like I'm a lot more like, I don't know. I'm not sure science is everything that we. You know, the bedrock that we think it is.
Bridget:It's the women's health initiative scared everybody to death. And then, you know, just things it, you can become distressful, especially, you know, not only by that, but the FDA allowing opioids, you know, you see what happened there.
And so it makes people skeptical.
Ann Marie:Yeah. But then, you know, I, you know, I can tend to be like pretty skeptical. So I'm like the FDA and I know Estella's Pharma bought this special certificate that could expedite their, um, approval of, of Fizzoline Tant. So that's why they were saying in their press releases, uh, we're expecting an answer on February 22nd because they applied on August 22nd and they paid a lot of money for this special priority review certificate.
The original design of it was for, um, rare and infectious diseases that no one really studies as I understand it. And then, so I'm like, well, it's going to be approved because they basically, you know, paid all this money for it. And then it didn't. And then the FDA said, no, we need three more months. So, you know, I don't know what I'm talking about. And if you're as jaded as you want, it's like the FDA is doing its due diligence over there.
Colleen:And either way, like it's for the women. It's not, yeah, they're going to make money and it's pharmaceuticals, you know, big pharma. But if it helps us, then let's get it under insurance and let's get it out to the women who are struggling.
Like that's really the ultimate.
Ann Marie:Yeah, exactly. We just need stuff. So you've interviewed so many people. What would be like your Your dream research or an area that you would like people to look into it when it comes to options.
Colleen:Um, I think for me it would be the mental health aspect. I struggled a lot with anxiety, but I've always had it.
And I think that women think they're going crazy. Women really believe. That they're, they're mood swings or their tempers or their, you know, I never had the rage, but a lot of women do. That it's just a part of who they are now. And it's not. And the doctors will talk to you about your half lashes, your night sweats, your weight gain, you know, the brain fog. And that's probably my second on my list. Cause I thought I was getting early onset Alzheimer's. I still can't think my daughter's like, mom, you just talked to that person. I can't remember their name. Don't remember. And so I think for me, it'd be mental health. What about you, Bridget?
Bridget:Well, you know, I think sexual health is, is a really important thing.
And I think mental health is extremely important. But another aspect is sexual health, because I think a lot of women, um, Not just to have sex, but also UTIs, things like that, that are happening. Maybe women that aren't having sex anymore are still suffering with other conditions that they are embarrassed to talk to a physician about, that they don't know the options that are out there for them. So this is this just being in this space that Colleen and I have done in the past three years, I've learned so much in that area. Like, I just thought. Well, I guess that's just a part of life, you know, your vaginas are part of life and then when we're finding out the options that are out there, things that are out there I did, I didn't know that the skin becomes brittle in that area and that could lead to UTIs, so I've learned a lot about this whole. area physically. I had, uh, you know, everything, but it is amazing. So I wish women knew that these options are out there that you don't have to have pain, whether it's with, with sex or just physically pain, that there are options out there for you.
Ann Marie:Well, if your vagina is not okay. I mean, our whole lives, it's been like this.
If you had a yeast infection, it's not okay. Nothing's okay. It's all you can think about. Like, it's not like you can just put it, like, close the door and just ignore it.
Bridget:Or put a band aid. No! Like a cut.
Ann Marie:It's impossible. Yeah. It has nothing to do with anything other than just, like, sitting here. You want your whole body to feel actually, like, semi normal.
Very, very important for our functioning. Yeah. Okay. So gosh, I could talk to you guys all day. What's um, I'll start wrapping it up. Where do you want to go? What do you like? What are your dreams for, for this? Or do you want to keep doing the podcast?
Colleen:We definitely want to keep doing the podcast. We love it. It's become a passion project for us. We just. Every week we learn so much. We are actually starting some events for women over 50 and they're going to be called hot flashes and cool topics conversations with prime women
and we're not just going to be talking about menopause. Yes. We will be talking about menopause and all of its gifts that keep on giving, but we're also going to be talking with boss ladies and prime women. We have some celebrities coming. We're going to be talking about longevity because people want to know how to live a healthy, longer life. And we're going to be talking about emotional and emotional wellness, physical wellness, and community getting together to just Enjoy women feel so isolated. A lot of women we hear from feel really isolated and they don't know how to kind of build a community. And that's what we want to do. We want to get the word out that 50 plus is an amazing time of life.
Ann Marie:I think it's really nice to because a lot of women say there have need to make new friends or they want to make friends and it's hard at this time of life to make friends, right? There's not really like a Tinder for friends over 50. And so it's, you go to these events and find like minded people.
Okay. Well, it just, I love him. I love every time I see you. It's, it's wonderful to see you on Tik TOK too.
Bridget:Well, it's great to see you. It was so nice.
Colleen:Thank you so much.
Bridget:That was a good thing about social media.
That we got to meet you and we got to hear and listen to you. And, and I think that's good for women as well. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good day. Bye.
