Menopause ruins sleep and sex – here’s how to fix it | Dr. Kameelah Phillips and Prof. Sarah Berry
Menopause ruins sleep and sex – here’s how to fix it | Dr. Kameelah Phillips and Prof. Sarah Berry
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Menopause can disrupt sleep patterns, emotions and intimacy. Yet this all remains taboo. Whilst every woman will go through menopause, these highly personal questions are hard to confront. Questions like: Why does my partner’s snoring now…
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We havent had sex for 15 years. Too painful. Lack of use allows it to shrink. Use it or lose it. Its ruined my health as well. Ruined my teeth as grind them with frustration. I have not slept well for 15 years. Awful.
So how come weight drops off me when I do keto ? Been doing Zoe diet but weight back on .
If you want to properly learn about HRT you should watch Dr. Felice Gersh. Much more knowledgeable about this topic than Dr .Phillips. Actually, Dr. Phillips needs to learn a lot more about HRT. She should watch Dr. Gersh.
Super great conversation ! ⭐
Use lots and lots of Lubricant, it's everywhere now, in varietyand smells and feel, find what works for you, even in your local supermarket, plus get your hormone levels tested and if needed hormone patches, to give u back a bit of pep..
Is it a good idea to go Whole Foods Plant Exclusive diet with low oil, limit refined sugar after menopause??
I have bad insominia I need help with thisits terrible
My OB-GYN's suggestion for sleeplessness was to take diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Tylenol PM. I've read studies linking Diphenhydramine to dementia. At my age, that's definitely a concern.
I’m 59 and the main symptom I have had since menopause is horrendous insomnia. No hot flushes, but an inability to fall and stay asleep. At one point, 7 years ago, I was so sleep deprived that I was hallucinating. HRT and very low dose Mirtazapine (3.75 mg before bed) has helped my sleep, but not completely. I still have sleepless nights and I snore…
I’m very slim, physically active, I eat healthily and didn’t gain any weight after menopause, but my LDL-C shot up. I managed to lower that to pre-menopause levels through adding plant sterols to my diet. I’m staying on HRT (transdermal oestradiol and progesterone) for as long as possible!
All Zoe's contents and studies are amazing. I wish there'd be a easy way to translate your videos to spanish so I could spread the word amidst my family and friends. Thank you!
I changed my diet and lifestyle as I went into menopause. Started renovating up and down ladders all day, switched to one meal a day- mostly steak, cheese and gin.I didn’t have a kitchen for months and ate at my local pub each evening. Once finished the renovations, back to normal life and switched to mostly carnivore- plus some gin and chocolate. Lost weight, all belly fat gone- I mean like back to it was age 15. Compared to my friends- I have no hot flushes, no weight gain, no mood swings, no etc etc. bone density great. Sleep like a log-especially now I’ve started landscaping and shifting loads of pavers and dirt each day. My hair is long and glossy, sex life great, skin ok- better than it was before carnivore. I eat till I can’t move- and still wake up every day with a flat stomach and don’t put on weight,. I can work all day shifting clay and breaking concrete- as long as I don’t eat until the end of the day and stay on carnivore. I’m 56. Now a size 8. Ladies/ at least try changing your diet to carnivore for a month. It’s cheap, easy, less food prep and dishwashing. Um, my body shape is now smoking hot. Get off the god damn carbs and oatmeal. Oats are for horses. My doctor is super happy with my health. No hrt. All because of a simple diet change.
So what are the alternatives to HRT? I already eat a very healthy diet and take exercise. I am 65 and have suffered from hot flushes many times throughout the day and night for 16 years. Each time my heart jumps and wobbles. I am refused HRT because of my age. I am so fed up with this nonsense saying there are alternative when there clearly is not!
So important to talk about! Sex and sleeping take a big del of this new period in life, but in time in menopause comes even self confidence and power. You need to talk with other women, found yourself. To be older is not negative, you had lots of experience, you can feel power.Confidence.
It’s not actually true that the first symptom is a change in your cycle. Most peoples first symptom is actually a changing mood. The only reason people say it is a change in periods is because that’s when people start to become aware that something might be up.
Thank you Zoe for this conversation, lifting taboos is not easy. And absolute kudos to Jonathan for how he handles his part in this talk.
This is how it is for my sister, who is one year younger than me, and I'm really happy for her. She has no perimenopause symptoms. On the other hand, I haven't slept well for 3 years, have the most terrible brain fog and have awful anxiety and depression. My once thick hair has decreased by half its volume. I'm on Oestrogel (which was so hard to get!) and it has reduced hot flashes and night sweats to almost zero, but the sleep issue is real. I get 2-3 hours when I first settle down then can be awake for 3-4 hours before grabbing another couple of hours before I have to do the school run (I am 50 and had my children late, at 38 and 42).
I've improved diet and exercise. The lack of sleep really affects my daily life.
The title of this podcast is ridiculous. This was one of the worst talks on menopause ive heard lately . Really wishy washy and scattered, barely going into any useful detail or advice. The guest had almost nothing definitive to say and all Sarah Berry does is say how great the Zoe programme is for whatever the problem may be. Dr Rena Malik knows how to talk about sex and intimacy. Matthew Walker knows about sleep and Simon Hill has talked to some experts on female health, including menopause. Listen to them, not this.
I do not know if these even get read by anyone other than other viewers. But just incase I am going to speak out. For all that got spoken about today in this podcast, there is so much more missing from this conversation. Broken sleep post menopause in my experience is much more complicated than hot flushes waking us up. Higher levels of cortisol and reduced bladder control are also an issue for many and can have an impact on sleep. I am on HRT I have been since having radiotherapy for cancer, so many years without any other issues, I did not expect to get any other issues with being on HRT and it resolving my hot flush issues. I do not get hot flushes when on HRT, I have not had sleep problems until relatively recently. My sleep is absolutely terrible, now and is the one thing I really wish I could improve. I frequently wake up a minimum of once, but many times it is twice in the night that I wake up. Some nights I can get back to sleep and other nights I am awake for a few hours before I can get back to sleep, if at all. There has to be more to menopause than just estrogen because I have been on it, appropriately, for years but now I am at an age, when I can only assume would have been when I naturally arrived at menopause, I am getting so many more symptoms that are not resolved at all by being on estrogen, in fact increasing it, to try to reduce the extra symptoms, resulted in migraines so it was reduced back down again to my usual dose. Of course there is no absolute that menopause is causing everything that is going on with me, but whatever is going has resulted in a huge impact on my quality of life. I have reduced my working hours which has reduced my only income. I am single and do not expect to get into another relationship. I suspect I would be considered too much hard work for a bloke to be even interested in getting into a relationship with me. I am an experienced qualified nurse and even I struggle to get listened to by medical doctors, so if I struggle to get listened to and be taken seriously then I would hate to think how difficult it can be to other women who do not have the same knowledge as myself. Regards from a very hacked off , exhausted and feeling let down post menopausal woman.
My mom is 85. I think she is still in menopause.
You need to investigate why Asian women suffer less from menopause symptoms. More time should’ve been spent on diet. Perhaps our mothers and grandmothers didn’t talk about it in the 1900s because diet was so much better than it is today. Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal.
Aside from sexual health, vaginal hormones can also help prevent urinary tract infections and even help with incontinence.
And regarding weight gain, because you're losing estradiol (the anti-inflammatory estrogen your ovaries produce) and your fat cells produce estrone (the pro-inflammatory kind of estrogen), your body starts to store more fat, because it still needs estrogen and when you're ovaries stop producing the estradiol estrogen, your body will have no other option than to go with the estrone estrogen your fat cells produce and so that is also part of the reason you develop visceral fat.
As for how long you can use HRT: without a contra indication you can use HRT for life.
I’m 52 and in the last two years, my libido has tanked. I feel asexual and have zero interest in sex at all now. No hot flashes, but I have the occasional cold flash (yes, that’s a thing, though more rare). The biggest problem, for me, is the depression. I have no desire to do anything most days. I hate feeling like this. I’m already on an anti-depressant and it’s just preventing suicidal thoughts now.
Tell me about it
"Menopause ruins sleep and sex" – what, like for every woman on the planet – automatically? Please stop these headlines. Menopause is different for everyone. When I was in my 40s I was terrified at the idea as it got such bad press. I was dreading it. As it happened I sailed through it with barely any symptoms. I'm 59 now and post-menopausal and life has never been better. No more monthly periods – yippee! I do not play down the negative experiences of other women. I've had family members and friends who have really struggled, but others, like me, found it a non-event. We are all different.
All the obvious symptoms are mentioned but I discovered the drop in oestrogen affects your mouth. I didn’t realise that it affects saliva which in turn impacts your teeth. I’ve had a high percentage of dental treatments at this stage of my life and now realise a bit of teeth neglect – ie not flossing daily really makes a difference and certainly to my pocket! So ladies keep your oral routine daily!
Perimenopause for me meant the most awful depression. I’ve never, thankfully, experienced it before or since.
54 feel like I'm 90. No interest in anything, let alone sex
I am 69 yo. Hot flashes, decreased libido, and poor sleep persuaded me to go on bioidentical hormones. Was on them for 16 yrs before going off them due to concerns about increased stroke risk. My hot flashes came back with such avengeance that I made the decision to go back on them again. Even on bioidenticals, my sleep continues to be very poor, while libido is better, and hot flashes have all but gone away. I would gladly trade the light periods I had when I was younger for this disaster called menopause!