This is one of those topics that Chris has been reluctant to cover because he wasn’t sure how to broach it. Given his experience with some of his patients, he felt it is important to bring up this topic and make it a normal conversation that we can have in society. Menopause is something the women go through but many of them do not realize this is what is going on themselves. This will be a 2-part topic so we will start with what Menopause is and then look at when or how it occurs in woman.
Tune in to see Menopause Normalized Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
Do you really know what menopause is?
When and how does menopause occur?
How can menopause affect my life?
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-are-the-34-symptoms-of-menopause#symptoms
Male menopause: Myth or reality? – Mayo Clinic
The ‘male menopause’ – NHS (www.nhs.uk)
Why do women fear the menopause? | Menopause (medic8.com)
A historical perspective on menopause and menopausal age – PubMed (nih.gov)
Menopause – Diagnosis and treatment – Mayo Clinic
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
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Episode #239 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello. This is Through a Therapist’s Eyes on August the third, 2023. Mr. Jan, Jack Pope. Where did Jack Pope, you know where it came from? I’m watching Jack Ryan right now, man. Oh, ooh. You love Jack Ryan. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It’s been a great show. I’m, I’m, I’m well into the last season. Super sad that I’ve only got like four more episodes to go, so.
Mm-hmm. He he became Jack Ryan. If you think of
John-Nelson Pope: me as Jack Ryan, I take that compliment. It’s a compliment. Compli. Yeah. That is a major compli. That
Chris Gazdik: a compliment. No, he’s Mr. John Pope hanging out with us over there. How are you sir?
John-Nelson Pope: I am doing just fine.
Chris Gazdik: Thank you. And Ms. Pendergrass over there. Ms. Yes.
Victoria, how are you ma’am? I’m good. Alright. So this is through a therapist size where you get personal invites, insights and information from the panel of therapists here in your car or personal time at home, knowing it’s [00:01:00] not discovery, delivery of therapy services in any way. Episode two. 39 is today and we are gonna be talking about menopause.
Actually, I’m really excited about this topic. You see the title Menopause Normalized and I, I, I know I’ve got a lot of thoughts about this and, and, and I think that you’re gonna be, hopefully this is one of our more listened to shows, man, if send this to anybody that is a woman, because I think this is a, a topic that is just not talked about, needs to be talked about on a national and worldwide level because it is just so misunderstood and not, and, and very, I impactful.
Those are some, some bold statements I’ll take out to the woodshed right now with you. Five stars on Apple reviews, Spotify, all that stuff really helps us. We have contacted through a, the size.com is where you wanna contact us and interact with us. Please don’t give us any hate mail today. ’cause I know this is an edgy topic that’s got a lot of emotions wrapped up in it.
Wouldn’t you say John? Oh yeah. A lot of emotions. [00:02:00] Victoria. Of which as a woman at that’s younger, I wanna maybe pop you to see when you see and hear and think of the topic, menopause, what is your first emotion?
Victoria Pendergrass: That men are the root cause? Oh alba pain that women go through. It’s in the name you give this to me.
Men. Apa Menstrual
Chris Gazdik: cycle. Like men. Men. Dang those men. I was asking a serious question. You make goofy. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. That’s okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: But what’s my first thought? Like what your first emotion and all I guess a lot of it would be unknown. I mean, unknown. Confused. Yeah, confused. Yeah. You know, not, what the heck is that even mean?
Well informed?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Oh, worry about that in 30 years. That
Victoria Pendergrass: seriously, that’s what I write. I mean, as someone who is almost 30, like yeah. They’re like, oh, well we don’t need to talk about it. ’cause you’re not experiencing
Chris Gazdik: it anytime soon. Yeah. Wow. I’m like, okay. Wow. Right, right. This is the human emotional experience, which we do endeavor to figure out together.
[00:03:00] Questions for the show. Do you really know what menopause is? When and how does menopause occur? And how can menopause affect my life? Really is a pretty big and broad and dynamic question. I think, honestly, I feel like I’m gonna
Victoria Pendergrass: learn more today than, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Serious?
Victoria Pendergrass: Anybody? Seriously? Yeah. Yeah. As the only female in the room.
Chris Gazdik: Isn’t that something like, I don’t understand how that’s possible, Victoria. I
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t, I mean I do, but
Chris Gazdik: it’s. It’s a shame, I think is what I’m, I’m coming out with, well, this should be known to women about like what goes on with our body and sort of what to expect in how, how your body’s likely to, to progress.
And I just, I’m, I just don’t think that we’ve done a good job. Mother to daughter or doctor to, to person or just, yeah, or
Victoria Pendergrass: just woman to woman or anything. I meant to, I didn’t get a chance to do it, but I meant to reach out to like my mom and other. [00:04:00] Female people Yeah. In my life. That, and to see what their experience was like with their friend groups and whether or not they, you know, talked about it or if they kept it to themselves.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to do that, but, well, I love that.
John-Nelson Pope: That’d be a good doctoral dissertation. Oh, for you to do that? I’m always thinking about that. Really? That would do a qualitative study
Victoria Pendergrass: That is a hardcore no for me. Okay. I thank you though. I, we can give that to another doctoral candidate, but, but seriously
Chris Gazdik: that, I mean, that would be a good, go a little further with that.
John. Why do you say that? Because Victoria, what I love about what you’re saying right there sets up part of the reality of the emotional here that I find people don’t have that question. Answered or have that conversation. And the challenge that I would give to you in the audience right now about this topic of menopause is to do exactly what Victoria said that she intends to do.
And I submit with the friend groups, with the friend groups, with the mothers, with the aunts, with the [00:05:00] people that you have in your circles. Like, have this conversation, bring the topic up. That is something that’s not done leaving us isolated, alone by ourselves with the issue of menopause. That’s not cool.
Like, I wanna change that so that, you know, go a little further, John, with a doctorate dissertation. Like what? What would be cool about that?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, she could, you could. You could wait until you’re a little bit older and then you’d have the lived experience of menopause. But I, I instead, I think it would be better if you were to, to do a study where you could get groups, particularly friend groups or mm-hmm.
Have it diverse. Or you could just drill down to a group of, let’s say, similar people with similar backgrounds and be able to do a study on that. Talk about how. What their experiences are, what feeling like, what feeling information was shared, what’s what they did? Yeah. What are the [00:06:00] myths?
That sort of thing. And you could just explore, explore that, and you get some themes out of there. Mm-hmm. And, and with the themes, then you would be able to say, well, this is some knowledge that we, we have and it’s generalizable to a a larger group of people a larger group of women. And that women could say, aha, this is.
This is who I am. This is part of my experience, my lived experience.
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm. I just do not understand why this hasn’t happened a whole lot more. John, part of the genesis of this show was done, like I have been thinking about this clinically in my work and as I am in midlife, profe, you know, personally, kind of as well as a little bit of a topic, given that I was completely unawares of all of that goes on with this.
But, you know, in in, in my professional life, I have found so many manifestations of, of these realities in, in, in the lives of people that I work with. But honestly, [00:07:00] I’m gonna come clean. I’m not gonna lie about it. I, I’m not ashamed to, to say I have been straight up unfreaking comfortable, straight up likely to say, fearful about doing this topic.
Okay. Yeah. That’s the reality of it. Well, I wouldn’t
John-Nelson Pope: have done it if I had a choice. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: That’s,
Victoria Pendergrass: John can find out on the topic until he walked in this room today.
Chris Gazdik: So what? It’s what he said. Right. Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: I at least had a day heads up and isn’t,
Chris Gazdik: isn’t that a funny feeling that we have about that? I am episode 239 and I have refused to talk about this topic because of I uncomfortability in, in raising.
Mm-hmm. And now I do it individually with people through my office pretty regularly now and easily. I’m not Yeah. Ashamed at Ambassador. But this is a worldwide podcast. Right. So this was done honestly because I saw a show on the New York Times podcast. Mm-hmm. That said menopause has its moment. And it was just this last Friday, and honestly, this is the second time [00:08:00] I had seen the topic for any length of a serious mention on a show or on a podcast and whatnot.
The other one was on like, I don’t know good Morning, America Today, or something like that, right? Mm-hmm. Like that, that they spent like a good 10, 15 minute segment on this topic. And that was like an extended discussion. I was like, wow.
John-Nelson Pope: Wow. Well, you know, in our culture, which and I guess in terms of what I, I’m talking about our media culture, we’re very much social media.
You want to be young and attractive, or you think about in terms of mm-hmm. Because menopause denotes transition, a change, aging I think in terms of, of, of sometimes people that, that get a extensive plastic surgery As they get older Madonna, good experience. Sure. Absolutely. I mean, she, she’s trying to stay young, stay
Chris Gazdik: young, look young, stay viral.
Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: So I [00:09:00] think that’s, I people don’t, they feel uncomfortable about this topic. It’s
Chris Gazdik: wildly uncomfortable. Okay. I can tell you our conversation the way it’s been. We have so much to cover and I’m not one to try to rush this deal, so this is definitely gonna be a part one and part two. I mean, I, I figured that it was going.
Thank you. Yeah. There’s no way we’re gonna cover everything in, in, in one episode, right? Is that what you meant? John’s right. John is, we had these three pages, like there’s three pages all in one episode. There’s three pages. There’s
three pages, I say. Yeah. Right. And, and, and a lot of the things towards the end, I didn’t even really do prep notes.
It was just a topic point of like, let’s talk about this, let’s talk about that. You know, these are a part of what we, we need to get to. So, so let’s get into like, Okay. What is this thing? What is menopause and how does it progress? I am, I hate to put you guys on the spot, but I am just curious to really put you on the spot to kind of demonstrate what is a, a, a, I suspect a very normal lack of knowledge [00:10:00] base about what this is even close to being.
I, I, I’ll, I’ll let you completely veto. Just gimme a head. Nod or nod and I’ll go on. Well, I mean, like what we think it me, what is it? How does this progress? What’s your knowledge base about how
Victoria Pendergrass: this is, like, what I know about menopause is that it’s for a woman, it’s when you stop having your period Okay.
End that you get hot flashes. So it’s a pause
Chris Gazdik: and it’s a pause. It’s a pause. Made a pause, right. Stop. That’s why
Victoria Pendergrass: they name it that way, but like, I don’t know why it happened. I don’t know. I really don’t know the age that it’s supposed to happen. Like, I don’t know any of
Chris Gazdik: that stuff really. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. Fair enough.
John-Nelson Pope: In, interestingly, I’ve talked about with some of my clients about they’re going through menopause and there’s a, there’s a sense of loss sometimes. There’s a sense in, in one case, relief,
Chris Gazdik: Relief. Oh, a lot. Lot of relief. My period’s gone. I can’t imagine [00:11:00] as a guy how awesome that part is.
Right? Yeah. Like
John-Nelson Pope: there’s also a sense, well, I’m not gonna be able to, to carry children now. Absolutely. Part of that’s been changed a little bit. You get some of the as long as you have a womb, you, you’re able to carry a child. But from
your own self, your own genetic components, that might be, that would be impossible.
So, I mean, it’s just, there’s a sense of mourning that
Chris Gazdik: could happen. Okay. So you’re going to like the emotional components of what people are experiencing because that’s part of our seen and your client. It was absolutely part of it. Yeah. Yeah. I’m like, I’m like you Victoria, like, do we even know what the parameters are?
Like at what age? At what? What’s the process? How does this operate? So the
John-Nelson Pope: biologic, yeah. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Well, I actually had a, a client that went in early menopause, right. And she was in her early thirties. Oh gosh.
Chris Gazdik: Like what? Don’t tell me that, Ray. That’s a thing. That’s a thing. Okay. Here’s, here’s what I wanna do.
And we’re, we’re gonna mark the time if you, [00:12:00] if, if either of you think that I, I I’ve revealed too much or whatever, like I’m I’m nervous about doing this, but I want, I want to do it because it demonstrates a great example of what it is that, that creates manifestations of this. And it’s, and it’s an example of what I have come across in, in working with people.
Okay? So if you feel that I’ve exposed too much, I’m, I’m gonna do it confidentially, of course. But, but I just, I just wanna be super careful about it. And it’s been years ago, like really like seven, eight years ago that I was working with somebody, right? And it was a person that was referred mandatorily from a, from an agency because they were getting weird questions, right?
And, and, and the, the administrators were getting questions about like, well, why do people care about me? You know, why are they worried about me? I want people to leave me alone. And they’re like, you know, wait a minute. What’s going on here? I don’t understand what your, your problem is. And, and so stay centered to get it evaluated.
I’m like, okay. So I meet with this woman and I’m kind of like, okay, well, you know what’s going on? And she explains that scenario to me and doesn’t understand why people are, are watching her. And it’s [00:13:00] like, she’s being spotlighted immediately I’m thinking, what John? Like, you know, social anxiety. Right, right, right.
I’m thinking some sort of, none of that, none of that’s going on. I’m clinically ruling out things that would determine why she’s, this worked up and edgy. But as I’m doing that and I’m gaining rapport with her, she begins to share more with me to the point that she is experiencing people thinking they know what she’s having for lunch before she tells anybody.
A couple week or two progressives, and she begins sharing with me that she thinks people are tracking her, watching her cameras or whatever. She literally begins to share with me that she goes into places in the public feeling that the internet has been watching her, that they’ve tracked her as h i v positive, and that people are, are talking about her online.
I’m like, wow, this is full blown psychosis, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. This is delusional, delusional, thanking psychosis. Yeah, and [00:14:00] I’m like, okay, man, I, she’s talking to me. We’ve really got a good rapport and I don’t know what’s going on here. I, I really have no idea. And you know, I, I, I, I really don’t even remember what clued me in to thinking about this because the only clinically significant thing I could really find was an experience with anxiety.
Not the type that I originally thought, but anxiety. And this anxiety happened about a year prior. And I’m kind of like, that doesn’t make clinical sense to me in a lifecycle of a person, as you all know, right? You know, you should have anxiety kind of manifest earlier in your life or come at different points in your life, not just at this later stage in life, which was about 40 something middle aged lady.
And so what. Creates psychosis. I have no idea. Why did she get anxious a year before? I have no idea. The only other thing that was significant was being a bit of a loner. So she stayed in her own head, stayed in her own thoughts, didn’t really relate too [00:15:00] much of anybody, and that was consistent all throughout her life.
But that was significant because she started to feel stuff, she got isolated by herself and she had anxiety. That was a new experience that percolated and grew and grew and grew and got to the point of psychosis. And I’ll tell you what, man, I was shocked when I started to screen out symptoms of menopause.
And I got online and we and and I went, that one’s, yep. That, yep, that, yep, that, yep. And I’m like, oh my God, we got a lot of yeps here. And I’m like, is this a midlife menopause experience? And then I googled, John online, can you be psychotic for menopause? And the answer was yes. I was shocked. Yeah. I was like, what is this?
And then, and then I talked to her about it. She identified what was going on and she’s like, I had no idea this is what I was experiencing. But it explained so much. Two, three weeks after that, boom, no more delusions. Everything was deescalated. She was [00:16:00] feeling way better, accepting what’s going on, and was telling me, I have no idea how I started to think all of those things that I was believing crazy.
That is the, yeah, that’s, that’s, that is the way that I began to understand how massively menopause can
John-Nelson Pope: affect, so, so there’s also the, the hormonal changes that take place. Yes. So that would’ve contributed to that a hundred percent.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. She, she was having things going on in her experience probably, as I’ve learned now, go to a doctor and say, oh no, no, it’s not that.
It’s too early for that. And, and, and downplaying and poop on
John-Nelson Pope: minimized mini Yeah. That, that’s the other thing is
Chris Gazdik: unfortunately
Victoria Pendergrass: women Go ahead. Women doctors do that. Doctors of women do that a lot. Yes. And I mean, they probably do it for men too, but they do it a lot. Absolutely. They men, they men ’em a lot.
They minimize like the things that you’re experiencing and feeling.
Chris Gazdik: Let me foreshadow, are you saying women do that? No. Doctors [00:17:00] of women, doctors, females,
Victoria Pendergrass: gynecologists, females, female doctors, gynecologists. But not just gynecologist. I mean, Urologist. Yeah. I mean, all kinds. Yeah. I
Chris Gazdik: mean the, yeah. Yeah. Here’s what I have learned since, and, and, and that is that the average age of the medical moment for menopause is 52.
Mm-hmm. And that is defined by the medical moment where you cross over 12 months without a menstrual cycle. Everything after that is post menopause. Everything before that is free or perimenopause
John-Nelson Pope: per, yeah. Right. But menopause could happen at earlier.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Significantly. This is, hold on a minute, I’m sorry.
This is an average age. Mm-hmm. It’s an average age. Right. And then the reality of this is, is seven to eight years prior to the medical moment is a process that your body starts to go into. Mm-hmm. And that’s a long, long time, right, where you don’t realize what’s happening with all of these symptom [00:18:00] sets.
That’s John, where you say, yeah, you can begin to get into your thirties with some women that are earlier in that average. Yeah. Maybe say 45 or 47 is the medical moment of menopause. So that’s seven to eight years prior to that Now. As early as the early thirties, everything’s weird. Mm-hmm. Also, hysterectomy is something that triggers this.
Oh. If you have a hysterectomy and that’s forced. Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, that would make sense because you’re literally removing your uterus.
Chris Gazdik: But I submit to you that that’s not necessarily the full experience of menopause. Because even when you have a hysterectomy, you still have all the other hormone sets in your body.
The other organs are producing that are fine. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And that’s not something we talk about. We talk about estrogen. Progesterone and for men foreshadowing we will talk about how there’s a lot of parallels with men, by the way too. Which is dramatically different in pace of onset. But I’m still
John-Nelson Pope: built like I was 40 years ago.
You are,
Victoria Pendergrass: you are making me wish I [00:19:00] could stay 29 for ever. You go and
Chris Gazdik: work out a lot, buddy. You’re my hero in that regard, but I gotta, I gotta push back on that can’t be true. No, it’s not. Okay. I just laid out a lot of factual information and stuff. I mean, Victoria, how much of that is new and like seriously thinking about Well, I didn’t
Victoria Pendergrass: kno
Like I didn’t know the average age. Honestly, I thought it was a little bit later in life maybe. But yeah, I mean that was pretty surprising.
Chris Gazdik: So there’s a lot. Yeah. John, I’m curious even from your experience and whatnot, like how much of that sounds new or how much of that sounds like a review? I
John-Nelson Pope: think part I, I.
I, I did not know that 52 was the, the, the point, the average age. The average average. I thought it was a, actually a little bit earlier than that. Mm. But, but all these symptoms of menopause, I’ve[00:20:00] I’ve heard it and I’ve read it being there, but I’m, you know, I’ve not been through that
Victoria Pendergrass: experience. I mean, the psychosis is definitely kind of eye-opening.
Like Yeah. I mean, I know you can have, you know, in rare instances you can have like hallucinations from a U T I mm-hmm. And things like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. UTIs are bad and people probably don’t know that, but I definitely did not think. But yeah, a form of psychosis would be a symptom of. Menopause.
Chris Gazdik: Well, what’s funny is, and, and it’s an interesting little side effect, discrepancy, whatever, or side, there’re kind of a side effect, a progression of what happens in your psyche and your mental health with anxiety and worry and fear and shame and feeling alone.
And all that kind of wraps up. I mean, we can get into a, into a bad place with our mental health and not have any biological reason for it. I don’t know that we could say that we see menopause creates [00:21:00] mental illness to the point of psychosis, but the fear does, which is interesting to become delusively psychotic and that I Googled.
Can you become by the way, remember I said in my little story, the vignette I Googled, can you become psychotic with. With menopause. And the answer was yes. People have admitted to hospitals, given medications like Haldol and, and Vista, you know, to to, oh my goodness. Yeah. To yes, John and, and to be discharged and then like, I need to get off.
This medication’s terrible. And they ate almonds and got better. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. Like, what are we doing to women in treatment for this? When
mental health gets dramatically impacted, it’s raw. It’s like, we need to wake up, listen to the symptoms list. Right. Okay. Clear my throat. This is, I’ve been
John-Nelson Pope: everywhere, man.
Chris Gazdik: I’m sorry. That’s okay. Would you like one
Victoria Pendergrass: of us to read
Chris Gazdik: it? Go for it, Victoria. Because this is the what I began to rule in and out with [00:22:00] this lady that I was able to identify.
Victoria Pendergrass: Hit it. Okay, here we go. Hot flashes, night sweats, irregular periods. Mood swings, breast soreness, decreased libido, vaginal dryness, headaches.
Tingling extremities, burning mouth changes in taste, fatigue, bloating, other digestive changes, joint pain, muscle tension and aches. Electric shock sensations, itchiness, sleep disturbance, difficulty concentrating, memory lapse thinning hair, brittle nails, weight gain stress. Incontinence, sorry. Dizzy spells, allergies, osteoporosis, irregular heartbeat, body odor, irritability, depression, anxiety, and panic
Chris Gazdik: disorder.
Like the reality of this is like, this starts, I feel, I need to take a breath. I know this starts like seven to eight years prior to getting into the menopause moment, which by the way, we’ve got a YouTube comment that no cycles is [00:23:00] glorious. Mm-hmm. Because absolutely. I’m sure it mu it must be John. Can you even imagine how cool that must be?
No, I’ve never
John-Nelson Pope: been in that situation.
Chris Gazdik: No man. But it, I mean, women have told me like, oh, that’s, you know, this is not all bad. Mm-hmm. Is the point. Point. There.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and I think a lot of times in society, like, I mean it’s interesting, it’s funny that hot flashes is listed first because I feel like that is what is associated right with menopause is the hot flashes.
And guess
Chris Gazdik: what? That doesn’t happen well into Hear me. That tent doesn’t tend to happen. But until well into, yeah, the pre or perimenopause cycles really.
Victoria Pendergrass: But I can see also how a lot of this other, these other things listed are gonna, can be attributed to other things. And so then that way like menopause almost gets, sometimes can be overlooked pre, pre-menopause, perimenopausal.
Yeah. Because like some of the stuff you’re like, okay, well that can be [00:24:00] because of your diet, or that can be because of weight gain, or that can be because of your whatever. Yeah, whatever, whatever. And like I was thinking that too, and it doesn’t, and then I think sometimes it leads, you know, ’cause we don’t ever wanna, you know, Look up our symptoms on the internet because yeah, wanna be
Chris Gazdik: careful about that.
But Dr. Google, unfortunately, or Google might do a better job though, than going to a medical professional. And when you are younger, you know, and experiencing the conglomerate of these, these symptoms sets, remember I got clued into this because I had this lady telling me, oh yeah, there’s this and there’s that and there’s that.
And she was experiencing most of these things. Yeah. You know, thinning of the hair and itchy skin and, you know, tenderness. And she didn’t understand why she wasn’t seeing quite as as well and thinking as clearly. It was like, what is going on? And it, it, you know, it can be and needs to be identified.
Like in the show of the New York Times Menopause gets its moment. There was this lady that was describing really cool and vividly how like, [00:25:00] All moisture in her body had just basically begun to go away or evaporate. Her eyes were dry, her scalp was dry, her skin and cheeks, her nasals, her mouth all the way down for the rest of her body, like all the moisture was gone, is what she said.
Yeah. It was like, wow. And that was kind of unique. I’d never heard that before, which is part of the point to make here. You can have these things begin to start happening and feel alone and feel like there’s something wrong with me. Have that be denied and feel crazy like all of this stuff is, what’s the title, John Menopause.
Normalized. Normalized. Alright, lemme try that again. I do again. And what’s the title? Victoria Menopause. Normalized. Right. These things are normal,
John-Nelson Pope: but I was a deep, deep in
Chris Gazdik: thought. That’s okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and I think, and we might get to this [00:26:00] later, so you can tell me if so, but I think, you know, listing out all this stuff is, is helpful and important because then it gives us some insight as therapists when we’re working with individuals and they start maybe listing.
A number of these symptoms. And that adds another thing for us to think about. Like, oh, have you talked to your doctor about maybe like you’re going through perimenopause or menopause or whatever. And then, ‘
Chris Gazdik: cause it has massive mental health implications in your right. That’s a little bit of a teaser for our conversation down the road, either today or in part two.
John, what are you in deep thought about, brother? Well, I
John-Nelson Pope: was just thinking, I was going over this list and I’m thinking I, I must be going through menopause too, because,
Chris Gazdik: go ahead. No, a lot
John-Nelson Pope: of this is hot. Well, yeah. Itchiness, sleep disturbance, but as you get older, these things happen, so it, so it’s not just, [00:27:00] Yes.
It’s also
Chris Gazdik: happens to males. Yes, yes, yes. Here’s a whole segment. Bloating that I want to absolutely suggest to you is super important. You know, do men have menopause as well? And the answer is absolutely. John, what would you say?
John-Nelson Pope: Normalized. No, Andrew.
Chris Gazdik: Andrew, pause. That was awesome. That was awesome. Wrong answer, wrong time.
Okay. Come on. Follow the bouncing ball. I know he did that on purpose, y’all. ’cause he’s brilliant. But yes, in a word, yes, we absolutely difficulty do concentrate. Here’s the big difference though. Okay. This is, this is well known science reality. That for women. Whenever your body trips into the pre menopause phase, it’s like a, a, a rollercoaster that’s been tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick up to the top of the hill.[00:28:00]
And then what happens in this rollercoaster next y’all, it pauses right at the top. Top. Yeah. And then, but
Victoria Pendergrass: then goes like straight down,
Chris Gazdik: right? This is seven to eight years of process. Where for a woman, the changes are dramatic. You know what? For, wait a minute. For men, we go tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
And we get up to that top and there’s that pause. And what happens for us? Do you know? It’s a slower, do you keep going up? It’s slower. It’s a slow long ride. Okay. Right. And it easier, it’s a, it’s a lazy river down back to the bottom. Down back to the bottom. Yes. Seriously. Massively different between women and getting slammed into this thing.
Mm-hmm. And men go [00:29:00] really nice and easy. Unfortunately, women,
John-Nelson Pope: well, you know, I don’t know if, if men, because we’re missing that extra leg on the little chromosome. Chromosome. That little chromosome, if we could take menopause.
Chris Gazdik: If we could, what if we could
John-Nelson Pope: take it? Oh, hug. We’re
Chris Gazdik: not tough enough. Listen, I’m a dude, so I, I can’t claim this knowledge.
I have no idea. I know they say we can’t handle it. And you know what? Women out there, you’re probably straight up, right, Victoria? Yeah. Okay. I have no argument here.
Victoria Pendergrass: What I was gonna say earlier is I, and we don’t have to talk about this right now or ever, but I wonder if there’s a correlation between divorce rates and menopause.
Say again? I wonder if there’s a connection or correlation between divorce rates and menopause. Oh boy. Like an increase. Like an increase in divorce rates during menopause. ’cause I’m just thinking if you’re going seven or eight years of this buildup Mm, mm-hmm. Like. [00:30:00] That’s a lot to put up with. And then if you also have kids in the house or whatever, and you’ve got all your other crap going on in your life, aging parents.
Yeah. That, that would just be, I don’t know if that’s even something worth licking into or if they No, I correlation, but I don’t know. It just kind of popped into my head whenever you talk. Whereas we’re focusing on this. Yeah. Yeah. As you’re focusing on this. Seven to eight years. That is a, I mean, it’s a lot of distress.
Well, that’s a lot of times have period for an extended period to constantly remind your partner. I’m really sorry, I’m going through perimenopause. I’m really sorry. Going
Chris Gazdik: through. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: but you’re, you’re, you’re also guys are, are, are going through this with the spouse and the, and the guys are going through a middle-aged crisis.
Yeah. And I think in the, I I read articles back in the seventies that were similar to this and they talked about this, but the, they talked about midlife crisis. Mm-hmm. Not so [00:31:00] much with, with women, but there’s a sense that there was an increased amount of, of divorce. And this is usually when the children were grown and out of the house.
Mm-hmm. And there that would be in their forties. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So, I dunno. Anecdotal I for thought, I don’t know that it’s ever been studied, looked at, talked about, and really examined. Well, I think it hast that be another
Victoria Pendergrass: doctorate. It really would Dissertation.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, it really would. Yeah. You know what? I suspect you’re gonna find a big hell yes.
Mm-hmm. There’s a correlation. Yes. I don’t know. I see it manifesting food for thought. Yeah. I really see it manifesting. This is, this is a lot of times what we see in experience happening now. I, I think I had it somewhere early on, a little
bit later from now to say it, but it fits now to really very much understand this reality though.
This is a quote that I very much subscribed to, found it to be absolutely the case. [00:32:00] To your point, Victoria, this is a men caused problem. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, I mean, all fun and games, men would say, you’re crazy and it’s your fault, blah, blah, blah. Like, your menopause is causing a problem for me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
None of that. Right. Like, the reality of this is, hear me clearly, from what I’ve seen anecdotally working with many men and women in this issue is that menopause doesn’t create any issues. It, it’s not causing any problems. This is a natural, beautiful process, arguably in aging as we John age gracefully, right?
Yes. However, any issues or challenges or problems that you may have internally, Emotionally or maritally interactionally with other people. This magnifies it to a magnification of times 10. Right. [00:33:00] So it just, it doesn’t create any new problems, but it very much, you know, to an order of 10, magnifies this stuff tremendously.
So I think that’s a cool phrase. It’s not mine, but I think it’s a absolute truism. Make sense? Yeah, I think so. So that’s a big, I think it’s a big point. So back to the, the, the dude, the dude guys though, listen to this. And, and by the way, I’ve got a lot of, you know, links and, and resources here with this show.
This is one where you really will enjoy the show notes to check out this, do a little, you know, diving on things. We got the Mayo Clinic, I’ve got the, you know, the medical news today. I’ve got different links that are really supporting this stuff. The n i h, you know, from uk, that’s where this actually comes from.
The male menopause. Better explanation more than most that I have seen. You know, the symptom sets for, for this is again, men, somewhere in our forties, early forties, they say at age 40 we start losing 1% of testosterone [00:34:00] production per year. That’s what they’ve documented 1% per year. That’s how slow it is for women.
I don’t know the percentage, but it’s like 20% a year. That’s why I take Testin. Yes, it is. What is testin? I don’t
John-Nelson Pope: know. It’s one of those do you take hormones? It’s, yeah. Yeah. You dietary supplement.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We’re coming to that for sure too. Yeah. You know, and how, how we manage this. But listen, this, I don’t take it, the, the UK article specifically cited for men.
I thought this was interesting and it gets back to your point, John. So the symptoms sets for men. Mood swings, right? Yeah. This is men, y’all. This is not women. Okay. Mood swings, loss of muscle mass, reduced ability to exercise, fat redistribution, large belly. Or quote unquote, right? Everyone talks about sometimes man boobs, a lack of enthusiasm or energy, difficulty [00:35:00] sleeping, increased tiredness, poor concentration, short-term memory, and I wonder how many others per se, but that’s the long est list I’ve seen when I’ve paid attention to this for the last eight years.
Right? John? How many of the female list of pre-menopause do men experience? After a while, I could tell you my body temperatures change, man. Yeah. Right. I could tell you that my, well, my body temperature’s gone down. Has it? Yeah. Dude, I, I like run hot now. You know? I mean, Victoria, you make fun of me for the air condition.
Look
Victoria Pendergrass: at her face. He, he always has the air on. I’m freezing in here. I literally keep a sweatshirt in here. Get a freaking
Chris Gazdik: heater, yo. Yeah. Get a freaking heater.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I, I think there’s a, there’s a lot of these things that, like the brittle nails a weight gain, right? Men stress incontinence. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. I.
Right. Yeah. These are [00:36:00] real realities that nobody wants to talk about. I’ll tell you a quick little revelation. I’ll be honest about this. Irritability. Huh? Irritability. I don’t have any of that depression. Neil, you cannot laugh at me man. I just heard a grunt come from the producer. Y’all. I laugh for Neil.
John-Nelson Pope: Mood swings. So I think there’s, look at these with men
Chris Gazdik: too. So I have had an experience on my right ankle. I’m micd up here so I can’t show you. But on my right ankle there is a, a spot of skin that I found a few years ago. Again, now I’m at age 50, right? And this, this area of about three inches long ways and about two inches side to side.
There is absolutely no hair there. And I’m like, what is that? I don’t understand this. Have you ever, you don’t wanna, at my Sean, look at my legs.
Victoria Pendergrass: Did
John-Nelson Pope: not pull dune. Look at my legs. I have no hair. My legs. What the
Chris Gazdik: heck, man? Is it gonna get worse?
John-Nelson Pope: Are you telling me? And somebody said, are you a biker? [00:37:00] Right?
You know a swimmer, right?
Chris Gazdik: That’s, you’re like, no, I’m owed. I’m owed. What the heck is that? I’m like, somebody tells me, well, that’s your boot rub in. Or Uhhuh, something like that. You’re So, I’m like, you know what? Dawned on me, and I don’t even know if any medical professional was confirmed this Uhhuh, or if you can email me in and just give me a medical confirmation, I believe a hundred percent.
That’s because of my hormone changes and there’s no other reason why I would have this. And sure enough, Dr. Google, right? I Google it in some little obscure blog. Somebody responded to the question, why do I have a hairless spot on my leg? Oh, yes. Older men, as we age, get these spots from time to time on either leg and it’s normal.
Okay. I didn’t know this. It’s weird changes related to our bodies and it freaks people out. Right. I’m so relieved, John, that I’m not alone. It’s because,
Victoria Pendergrass: back to the thing, no one tells you. Nobody, nobody tells you. Like you [00:38:00] don’t. I mean, I don’t know. I’m not to that age yet, and so I’m not a hundred percent sure if this is what a gynecologist would do, but as far as I know, it’s not like I go to my gynecologist and she’s telling me, okay, these are some symptoms that are associated with perimenopause.
Here’s like, let me know if you start experiencing these. Or even like family members. No one is saying, giving you a heads up. It’s literally nobody in your
Chris Gazdik: circles, Victoria, doing that. Like, I, seriously,
Victoria Pendergrass: it’s amazing. I mean, basically the only, the only one that people talk about for me is. The, like the hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, that kind of stuff.
Yeah. Nobody talks about, oh my gosh, my nails are so Bri like brittle or I in the dryness, dizzy spells or, you know, difficulty concentrating. I mean, have a d h, adhd. I have difficulty concentrating anyways, so like Right. Have I been in perimenopause since I was like, no.
Chris Gazdik: Six? No, no, no. [00:39:00] I mean, I don’t know, it’s just perimenopause since I was six.
Victoria Pendergrass: But I mean, I’m just saying it’s, everyone talks about the big things. No one talks about changes in taste, fatigue, other digestive changes, like those are the things that no one gives you the heads up because I mean, I don’t know. They make it seem like hot flashes is something that everyone experiences.
Right. And And that Right. And or that, and that’s not true. Yeah. That’s not true. So, and that’s the thing is that some people could be experiencing these other things and then if I start experiencing them, then I’m men. Menopause may not even come to my brain. Right. When I come of eight. Like of
Chris Gazdik: eight. And when you begin to realize it, and I hope, honestly, Victoria, because of this conversation being one of the first that you’ve had, that it will Oh yeah.
I’m
Victoria Pendergrass: definitely having a conversation with my mom this
Chris Gazdik: weekend. Yeah. We’ll do part two is next week I update. Can we start out with that? Because I would love to hear how those conversations went with [00:40:00] people. We’ll do a little experiment. Yeah. Sound cool? You game you down with it? Yes, sir. Okay. Because I think that’s so important.
John-Nelson Pope: I will be your dissertation chairman.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Okay. You better approve it. She, she will, she’s gonna get a doctorate. Like how bro, like really hook a brother her up over here. Right. An
Victoria Pendergrass: hon
Chris Gazdik: doctor. About It’s too late for you. That’s too dang. Ouch. Too late for me in a lot. Andro, pause. Yeah.
There’s no hope for me. I’m over the hill. That’s what he’s saying. Oh. So sad. Okay. Where do we wanna go from here? I, I think I, I, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll definitely gonna get into our, our next segment about like, neurology and, and how much we think we really know about this. And also I think I wanna do a little bit of a history about menopause.
So that really, part one is, is, is, [00:41:00] has, has been like informational Yes. Part two, I think is going to be application in, in life because there’s so many things about like, you know, what happens with fear-based feelings about menopause, what happens with shame and embarrassment, you know, with menopause. What, what’s the history of in the possible treatments for, right?
How this, so the culture affect marriage and culture.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. John, how culture kind of compounds people’s, perhaps there may be a sense of guilt and shame. There’s
a
Chris Gazdik: lot of application here, right? That, that, that people are struggling with. So that’s what part two wanna focus on. So a little bit of history and a little bit about what we know about neurology.
What would be interesting first
Victoria Pendergrass: neuro history.
Chris Gazdik: Neurology. Okay. I was thinking history as well because it gives us a little [00:42:00] bit of a insight about, I mean, you list
Victoria Pendergrass: neurology first on our show notes.
Chris Gazdik: Right. But go to go to section six, Victoria, and, and honestly those are the history points. I’ve never heard this stuff, but go, go ahead and go through the, the, the first there and how, which one we know a little bit about history.
Oh six. Okay. A little bit
Victoria Pendergrass: about history. Earliest known references of menopause have been very scarce. Aristotle referred to age at to age at menopause being 40 years.
John-Nelson Pope: Wait, one, one I’d like to interject is, go for it. That the, it was a wandering uterus that the uterus was supposed to, to be moving around throughout the body
Chris Gazdik: and Oh, that’s what they believed.
That’s what they believed. Oh, wow. Interesting. Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Okay. A French physician coined the term menopause in 1821. Medical interest in menopause increased considerably in the mid 19th century. In [00:43:00] 1930s, people started describing it as a deficiency disease. Yeah. Consequently, various replenishment therapies were advocated.
I e testicular juice. This is true. They did this. Cru crushed ovaries of animals,
John-Nelson Pope: usually cows and goats and lambs.
Victoria Pendergrass: In 19. In the 1970s medicalization of menopause was complete menopause. Menopausal symptoms were ascribed to estrogen, defic deficiencies, and estrogen. The hormone replacement therapy was extorted ex extorted.
Extorted. Extorted, sorry, I can’t read today.
Chris Gazdik: There was extortion involved. Man. It was a crime. Get the public involved
Victoria Pendergrass: as an ultimate liberation of middle aged
Chris Gazdik: women. Right. So we really began to learn a little bit more in the seventies. But I was actually surprised, John, and you’re going along with the cows and stuff.
You, you knew that this has been an issue known kind of for that long. I was shocked by that. Yeah. [00:44:00] Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Which to me, in my brain, the seventies were really not that long
Chris Gazdik: ago. Well, Ray, absolutely. As far as medicalizing it Yeah. And studying it. Yeah. I mean,
Victoria Pendergrass: where was it before? Heck, that’s after my parents were born like.
Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, yeah. After, oh my god, John, sorry. Seventies John’s got a sigh.
Victoria Pendergrass: But I mean, considerably like in our hist, the history of medicalization and medical discovery, medical knowledge, and medical knowledge, 1970s is not that long. Like that
John-Nelson Pope: seem pretty great. Yesterday they actually did graphs, xenografts of ovaries and, and testicles from animals into to human subjects to patients.
And they did that in the, the 1920s and
Chris Gazdik: thirties. Yeah. I found some of that actually quite surprising because, you know, I, I, I was putting two and two and two together when I [00:45:00] thought about this stuff. And, you know, we were talking about retirement, Craig and I on this show early on when just he and I, and you know, he brought up some information he learned about retirement.
Mm-hmm. And the, our retirement age was arbitrarily set during the new deal time period in America at age 65. Prior to that, there wasn’t a retirement age. But interestingly, people don’t realize is that, you know, the, the, the death rate, the expected life was ending at like 47, 53. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right?
Like, it was not very. You know, very long when you ran out of your teeth in the
John-Nelson Pope: twenties, you did not have many years left. So in other words, if you lost your teeth, okay. Serious.
Chris Gazdik: Is this a whitetail or what? No,
John-Nelson Pope: m this is the physical health. Your oral health contributes to heart disease. Oh, sure. Yeah.
Yeah. So if you, that’s what happens to animals when they get [00:46:00] older. They, they eventually starve to death because they can’t get the proper nutrition. Ah. ’cause they take,
Chris Gazdik: they get their teeth fall out. Right. And humans. And that was the same for humans as well. Yeah, same for humans. Interesting. Yeah, I believe that.
I guess I could see that. I’m
John-Nelson Pope: Cliff Claven
Chris Gazdik: from Cliff Claven. Cliff Claven is,
John-Nelson Pope: he was from cheers. Cheers. He was the, the know-it-all. Postman.
Chris Gazdik: Yes. Cliff is awesome. Yes. I love Cliff. I like to be Norm though. Yeah, norm. Everybody wants to be Norm. Yeah. Actually I like would be Frasier. No. To Norm.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Normalize
Victoria Pendergrass: Norman. Yeah. Well everyone wants your, their name to be called out when they walk into a bar.
Chris Gazdik: It’s, I, you know, it’s funny. I love
Victoria Pendergrass: Victoria. Long time. No
Chris Gazdik: c I loved cece’s because when you walk into CC’S Pizza, Hey, welcome to CC anyway. Yes, we do digress. Some
Victoria Pendergrass: people might not know what that restaurant is.
I’m not sure. It’s a pizza place. I know what it, I know what it is. Well, it’s
Chris Gazdik: a pizza place. [00:47:00] The first, well, they wouldn’t know
John-Nelson Pope: that overseas.
Chris Gazdik: The first International Congress on menopause was also organized in Paris, France in 1976. Various countries have formed national societies in menopause.
Symptomology of menopause differs in different areas of the world. Example in the west, hot flush in Japan’s shoulder pain in India, low vision are the hallmarks. That’s what they’ve highlighted, right? See? Mm-hmm. We’ve highlighted hot flashes.
John-Nelson Pope: So culturally significant, right? So
Chris Gazdik: H T R use compared to the.
Rate is high in the west while is low and negligible in countries like India. That’s hormone replacement therapy. Thank you. Agent menopause is also higher in the west as compared to the range of 45 to 47 years in developing countries like India. Historically, also a lower age at menopause was ranged documented in earlier times.
This rose to the range of 50 to 51 years in the medical era. [00:48:00] Overall, women in Western countries view menopause negatively. This is contrasted with a positive outlook towards menopause. In developing countries like India, they actually look at this interesting in a positive freaking
Victoria Pendergrass: light. That’s crazy to me because I have not ever talked to anyone.
Who is positive about menopause or very menopause or post menopause or anything
John-Nelson Pope: you think, you think, you think in terms of if you’re in a developing country and you don’t have birth control, right? And you have 10, 12, 15 children spaced apart and of those half or a third may die, it’s difficult.
That’s
Victoria Pendergrass: just something. So, so you’re saying that it can also meet, be kind of comforting to know that you’ll no longer be able to bear children or,
Chris Gazdik: or lose them. Or lose them. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I, I’m glad that we’ve got these awarenesses and these, these information [00:49:00] cited differently throughout the countries because we need a lot more awareness about a cast.
I couldn’t agree with you more on YouTube. You know, she says the sixties and seventies had the pill. Women’s health is still in its early phases now. I’m emphasizing the word early phases, but she goes on to say, we can, we can send a man to the moon dot. I think, but, and I would, you know, go ahead. Yeah. I think I agree with her wholeheartedly that we need to have this conversation.
John-Nelson Pope: They have. And, and over the past 60 years when the birth control pills first came out, they had tremendous amount of, of, of hormones that were in it. And it would be one of the, the horrible side effects would be massive strokes in childbearing age women. Ooh, say that again. Massive strokes of, of childbearing age, women in [00:50:00] relationship
Chris Gazdik: to,
John-Nelson Pope: By taking birth control pills that had Oh, okay.
I
Chris Gazdik: was very hot. I misheard you. I tuned out. Sorry. Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s, it was your turn. And he’s
Victoria Pendergrass: talking about when they first came out. Not currently. Right. Okay. Yeah. When they first, although another side thing, when you see. When you get a pack of birth control, right. Pills,
Chris Gazdik: whatever. Okay. Never have, by the way.
Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, I hope not, but what comes with it is this very thick packet that unfolds about 18 times and it has every side effect listed for birth control. And of course it’s in several different languages, but my husband about passed out when he saw it for the first time. He was like, are you kidding me?
I’m like, no. Like, so, I mean, we’re, yeah. So, yes,
John-Nelson Pope: but, and birth control tends to be the, for right or wrong, the, the responsibility of the, of the female. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because, [00:51:00] you know, we men, we men, We just have what? Condoms and pretty much, yeah, that’s it. Or vasectomies, condoms or vasectomies. Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be.
That’s because I had a vasectomy.
Chris Gazdik: Here we go. I’m sorry.
John-Nelson Pope: You’re gonna have to cut that one out.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, no. Leave it in. Leave it in. Let’s stay. Let’s end with a little segment here about something else that I love to rail on. And I’ve talked about this on the show before, but honestly, when it comes to understanding these issues with hormones, how much do you think we really know and understand y’all in the world of neurology?
If
Victoria Pendergrass: we’re looking at a hundred percent, I would say 60.
Chris Gazdik: 60. What?
Victoria Pendergrass: 60%.
Chris Gazdik: Of what? A [00:52:00] hundred percent all the information there is to know about hormones. We know 60%. We, I don’t know. Maybe I Would you like to reevaluate that? Go down. Maybe 25. Go down. I think we’re with
John-Nelson Pope: a billion years of evolution. Yeah. I think we know very little.
Chris Gazdik: Oh man.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. We’re talking about 2%. Yeah. Okay. I was gonna say 0.01, but 2%. Two. Okay. 2%. We’ve
Chris Gazdik: gotten some intelligence in the last 15 years. Yeah. Really
John-Nelson Pope: We’re doing, we’re doing precise neurosurgery with a big machete basically. I, I think we
Chris Gazdik: just, just when it comes it to hormones and treatment hormones, treatment.
Yeah. Yeah. Here’s my quick little story. I’ve told this on the show before, but it’s been a long time ago. I went to a conference, it was a neurology conference. Hmm. Early on in my career and I heard blah, blah, blah. Cere cerebellum and limbic amygdala. Good stuff. Okay, this, it’s neat. Never heard you stuff about the brain.
[00:53:00] And then I went to another neurology conference, same thing. Another one, same thing. I was like, okay, early on in my career, I’m done with this because it’s all we talk about. I’m gonna wait, you know? And I literally waited about 10 years, y’all plus maybe. And, and went to, alright, let’s try out this neurology conference thing again.
Guess what I heard about? I heard about the cerobellum, I heard about the frontal cortex. I heard about the amygdala. I heard about, and I’m like, hypo. Okay man, I get it. And, and I, and I was getting really frustrated and pissed off towards the end of the beginning of the, the conference in the morning before lunch.
And so I’m, I’m usually stand up and exercise and walk around and stretch ’cause I like to tune in and stay tuned in. And so I’m standing up in the back of the room, we’re, we’re getting towards lunch and I raised my hand. Right, and I’m like, listen, I would like to understand, and maybe you’ll get to this in the afternoon, you know what the con you know, what the, what the, the connections are [00:54:00] between what you’re talking about with the cerebellum and the, the neurons and the functioning here with, with what we see in our office with mental health and behavior and sort of how can we correlate, you know, the chemical compounds to what it is that we behave and how, how we act.
And he is like, well, I’m not sure what you, what you mean there, can you know? And I said, well, you know, I hear about the cerebellum and the different pieces of the brain and what they do. And I, and I understand that, but I’m, I’m really interested in the details and what we’ve learned in the last several years about direct correlations between this compound and this chemical and what we, you know, operate like, you know, testosterone does this, or, you know, like, estrogen does that right.
And he’s like, oh, I, I’m not really sure. Maybe, maybe you need to see me at the break. And, and, and we’ll, we’ll talk. I was like, no, no, no, no. I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me try one more time. Right. You
John-Nelson Pope: were making yourself obnoxious. Well,
Chris Gazdik: no, I wasn’t being,
Victoria Pendergrass: I was let him finish.
Chris Gazdik: I wasn’t being [00:55:00] obnoxious, John, I was asking a question you couldn’t answer.
And that’s what I got to. Yeah. Because what I did is I, I said, okay, well, do we know, like, can you tell me how many hormones we have in our body? Yeah. And the guy was like, oh no, I couldn’t begin to tell you that. And the whole room groaned, they were like, oh, wow. Right. Yeah, because that’s a simple question you would think that we can answer, but he went on to describe, oh no, I couldn’t begin to tell you that because we have, and I forget numbers in my brain, so, well, it’s my own learning disability.
I think he said thousands. Maybe He said hundreds. Yeah. I don’t know. John, do you think we have thousands of hormones? I think it’s hundreds. I think. Yeah. I think it’s hundreds, but so we have hundreds of hormones that are in our body. This guy said, and then he said there’s hundreds of subsets of each hormone.
Okay. Right, right, right, right. And that was like, how do you understand subset progesterone [00:56:00] 223 mixing with subset melatonin 453 mixing with testosterone. It’s alchemy at 10. It’s What is Alchemy John Gold? Well,
John-Nelson Pope: alchemy it is just that, it’s like the, they’re, they’re trying to change lead into to gold, for example.
That’s what the old Alchemist would do back in the Renaissance or, or late middle Ages. And you get this. So it’s, it’s not quite science yet.
Chris Gazdik: No. And then you mix in the importance of zinc. Mm-hmm. And iron and, and, and the functions of neurons, gabapentin and neuro transmission, the neuro transmissions.
All this is all a massively complicated emotional system that we’re trying to intervene with. When we talk about men changing in midlife very slowly and women changing with hormones rapidly mm-hmm. [00:57:00] Through menopause. Unfortunately, we, we’ve learned a lot, but we don’t know the, the massive amount.
John-Nelson Pope: So she’s going so, Women who go through menopause are going down the five the five diamond trail, the black diamond trails and men are going down the bunny
Chris Gazdik: slope.
Okay. That’s a good metaphor. Okay. I love that. What, what, what do, what do you take from his metaphor? Victoria? Do you know what a black diamond trail trail is? Yeah. It’s
Victoria Pendergrass: a tough one or whatever.
Chris Gazdik: You sound very upset. What is that? I dunno.
Victoria Pendergrass: She, she, I’m over it. I feel like I’m having a hot lunch right now.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s ’cause the air con’s off right now.
Chris Gazdik: That’s ‘
Victoria Pendergrass: cause the
Chris Gazdik: air hates us here. It’s gotten warm in the room and she’s like fanning herself and just got irritable. What happened, Victoria? I’m concerned.
Victoria Pendergrass: I don’t know. It’s just, to me, I think there just needs to be more, it needs to just be talked about more the realities of it and the things that you can experience.[00:58:00]
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, and that’s, that’s part of what we’re doing here today and, and I think that I get frustrated with neurology when we’ve kind of highlight the amount that we don’t know about it, but there’s a lot that, that we have known about it. We’re gonna continue talking and we’re gonna get into a little bit of the, what about the fear of menopause?
What about the shame impacts of menopause? What about, you know, the treatments and a little bit more thoughts about that and, and how this does interact with marriage. I wonder, you’re right, Victoria, how, how this, you know, male and men deal with this issue socially, which probably is horrible on our mm-hmm.
On our part and, and really what are, what are the mental health complications? I alluded to this with my vignette when I went through, I mean, I think that we have a great conversation next time that sets up ending with the idea of how is this a wonderfully positive experience? Well, the west doesn’t look at it positively.
[00:59:00] They’re right. Yeah. They see this as a great transition and a, you know, to, to wisdom. And so like, I’m really curious about that and why we can’t have that attitude about, about this. Why does that have to be so tormenting and to the point where somebody is compelled to hide this from anybody else and internalize this and become delusively psychotic as, as a, as a result.
That’s not, that’s not what we, what we want two words.
Victoria Pendergrass: Hot
Chris Gazdik: flashes. Are you having them? I’m hot flashes. See on, on the YouTube you’ll see Victoria’s like fanning herself. Like, I can’t breathe. My seats were probably, I’m hot. Is it that hot in here? Yeah, I am. I don’t think it’s that hot. See, you want me to turn the air condition
Victoria Pendergrass: on?
I do now. Well that’s because it’s set to where it automatically goes to 78 degrees at a certain time at night after everybody [01:00:00] leaves. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I’m pretty sure us ch putting it down before we start this thing doesn’t do anything. ’cause I’m pretty sure, wow, we’re in this room. It bumps itself back to 78
Chris Gazdik: degrees.
All right. Closing thoughts, comments, y’all? What are you thinking? How did we, did we take some mystery out of this thing?
Victoria Pendergrass: I definitely am leaving today with more knowledge than I had. At the beginning of this
Chris Gazdik: recording. Yeah. But more questions,
Victoria Pendergrass: but also more questions. Hmm. And I’m excited to talk to my mom.
Yeah, that’s cool. And her friends. Yeah. What? And her friends. Yeah. That’s cool. I’m, I’m gonna try to tell me about the excitement. Well, I just think that we don’t really talk about it. Like honestly. I mean, I’m like, right now I’m pretty sure my mom has been through menopause. But honestly, I don’t know because we don’t talk about it.
Can I give you
Chris Gazdik: an interesting thing? I’m curious if you find this. And I don’t know how old they are. It doesn’t, doesn’t really matter. But I, okay. [01:01:00] I’m curious what you guys will say about this. I’m glad this came up. Bless you, mom. I love you to death. I talked to her about this and she looked at me and she says, oh, Christopher, that’s what she calls me.
Christopher. She says, oh, Christopher. I, I don’t I just don’t think I went through that. I just skipped it. It didn’t affect me. That’s right. That’s, yeah. I don’t know. And I’m like, I called bss. Yeah. I’m calling a big fat bss. I saw her go through moments in time and some major changes. I mean, there were rage moments.
She basically
John-Nelson Pope: had reinterpretation of past events. Right. Yeah. She reconstructed it right.
Chris Gazdik: And gave her herself good, good memories. Like she never went through it at all. Yes. And I really am fascinated about how that might yeah. Happen. That we, we kind of, John you were, you, you could talk about that in a psychological sense that we [01:02:00] do that psychologically right.
Go. ’cause I can’t do that. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: no, I think what we do is when we have past events and they’re overall negative events, we kind of as a part of our protection for our own mental health, we reinterpret it and we re reframe it. And we, we, hopefully, hopefully we will put a positive spin the negative.
Aspect of it. It is just that we kind of downplay the difficulties that that one encountered going through that,
Chris Gazdik: right. We can minimize and deny and, and be very insensitive about things. But I, it’s interesting, I think there’s a lot of this. If you were to take a poll of elderly women 65 and above, let’s go further 70 and above, and I’m willing to bit not related to mentioning memory problems, but there would
be a high percentage of women that would say, oh, this didn’t affect me [01:03:00] Right at all.
That’s what they would say. And that just isn’t biologically possible.
Victoria Pendergrass: But I almost wonder if they say that because they’re not fully aware of Oh, yeah. The symptoms that they could be experiencing too. So they may experienced all these other things, not the hot flashes or the, the main stuff, but the dryness, the whatever.
And they just thought, oh, and then it went away. So then they were like, oh, I guess it’s nothing. Right. And then they come on the other side of it and they’re like, oh, well I guess I wasn’t really hit by perimenopause. And you’re like the husband. Yeah. I’m like, maybe. Well, yeah. Maybe I should ask the husbands and
John-Nelson Pope: the
Chris Gazdik: wives.
But you, the producer, John. Interesting.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, go ahead John. Okay. Okay. The interesting evolutionary Lee speaking, I guess is that you’re menopause, you still have half your life for many women live much longer than men. And the last 40
Chris Gazdik: years, John. Yeah. But well, maybe 50, 60 years.
John-Nelson Pope: Right? [01:04:00] But there, that is the people that would be taking care of, it’s not just the, the mothers taking care of children, it’s grandmothers that are also taking care of children in in the past.
And I’m just wondering if that may be part of it is that there’s not a competition. Anyway, I’m go, I’m going off on the deep end, but I, I’m thinking that there, there’s. Survival reasons why we have a long period postmenopausal Interesting. To raise children to help with the raising of children from a grandparents’ perspective and to teach skills.
Yeah. From grandparents. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: interesting. I never
Chris Gazdik: thought about it like that. Guess I have with that, John. Is we, we, that’s not really been the case in the history of man though. Mm-hmm. In the history of man and woman that the, that the life expectancy was just not that far. So how, yeah. What, [01:05:00] well,
John-Nelson Pope: this is the people that lived to their sixties and their seventies.
There were much fewer of them. But if you were going to make it past childhood and young adulthood, you are likely to live to, to be 40 50. In, in 60. It’s when you get the 53 average life, life span span was because you were you all died when you were like five or four or three in childhood.
Hmm. Yeah. Or c childbirth.
Chris Gazdik: So you’re saying that’s because that’s the, the fills in the average of the life expectancy. Yeah. So in you question some of that data I do.
John-Nelson Pope: Interesting. I do. Yeah. I do. No shit. Think about it.
Chris Gazdik: I’ll be, I’m curious about that. Yeah. What you, you upset Victoria? I say no,
Victoria Pendergrass: I purposely didn’t say.
A bad word. Did I just
Chris Gazdik: word earlier and you just wanna said it? Oh, man. Right here at the end. Listen, in John’s word, you learned [01:06:00] a lot, Victoria. And we have a lot more questions, which is what happens with conversations. I wanna take the mystery outta menopause. I want to normalize menopause. I wanna trigger discussions and conversations and understandings so that we don’t have some of the backlash that affects women and men mm-hmm.
In our societies. Mm-hmm. That is the main goal that, that, that I have a passion for because I see the massive effects of mental health in my office regularly. Yo. And that’s really, really important, everyone. So this is a great conversation. We’re gonna have part two, we’re gonna talk about some of the applications of this knowledge that you’ve gained a little bit, because there’s a lot of life applications with all of this.
Yep. Closing thoughts, comments, guys? Nope. No, I’m,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m on this, this adventure with you guys. All
Chris Gazdik: right. It is quite the journey. We’ll, we’ll continue this journey together. The human emotional experience, which we will endeavor to figure out. Together guys, stay well. Take care and we’ll see you next week with part two.
Menopause Normalize. Bye.