An Unexpected Path to Perimenopause Advocacy with Tara Eglington

Transcript

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Welcome to the Dear Menopause podcast.

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I'm Sonia Lovell, your host Now.

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I've been bringing you conversations with amazing menopause experts for over two years now.

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If you have missed any of those conversations, now's the time to go back and listen, and you can always share them with anyone you think needs to hear them.

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This way, more people can find these amazing conversations, needs to hear them.

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This way, more people can find these amazing conversations.

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Welcome to Dear Menopause everybody.

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This week, I am joined by a fellow perimenopause and menopause advocate and I am introducing you to this lovely lady because I think it's really inspiring to hear other people's stories and I think it's really important and Tara and I actually just touched on this before we started recording for when we share stories, other people get the opportunity to see themselves in that story and often that leads to people feeling like they're not alone.

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Oh, my goodness.

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Other people have been experiencing this.

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I just thought it was me and also can give them ideas on how they can help themselves, go and get support and that sort of thing.

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So this is why today, I am bringing you a conversation with Tara Eglinton.

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Tara, welcome to Dear Menopause.

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Hello Sonia, I'm thrilled to be on the podcast.

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I'm a big fan and, yeah, I've loved hearing previous guests that you've had and all the little nuggets of wisdom that I've gained along the way.

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Well, that's nice.

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I'm glad you've gleaned some nuggets of wisdom along the way.

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That's, I guess, the greatest thing I think that can happen from my podcast episodes.

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Tara, you and I met for a little bit of background on Instagram the joys of social media.

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You reached out to me as someone that followed my Instagram account, was a listener to Dear Menopause, shared a little bit of your story with me, and then we met in person at the Senate inquiry hearings in Sydney when we both shared our lived experience on the same panel.

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So why don't you fill everybody in on actually who you are and what led you to this advocacy kind of path when it comes to menopause and perimenopause?

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Absolutely, sonia.

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So I'm, to start off with the basics a 40-year-old woman.

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I started experiencing perimenopause symptoms at the age of 37, so quite young actually and it was a bit of an extended journey for me because of my age to get the diagnosis and to also receive help in terms of managing my symptoms.

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I'm a writer, I write for young adults, so I'm used to kind of dealing with the other side of things, which is just the emergence of hormones and the teen years.

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So it's quite funny to be sort of on the other side, which is this wild ride of hormones going up and down.

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So, yeah, for me, I knew next to nothing about menopause.

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I have to be honest, when I started my journey I was very naive.

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I thought menopause was pretty much your period stopped one day out of the blue, you might get a bit hot and that was about it.

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And I had no idea that there was this whole concept of perimenopause, which is the stage obviously you know the transition towards the one year without the period which is menopause.

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So for me, yeah, I'm hugely passionate.

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I had a really big impact in the last couple of years on my mental health in relation to perimenopause symptoms.

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I think when we think menopause and perimenopause, you know, when we're perhaps younger or we haven't learned too much about it, we think you know ovaries, reproductive system, that kind of area, but actually perimenopause and menopause hugely related to the brain and brain symptoms, which is something that we're only kind of just finding out now, as they're starting to do more research in this area.

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So for me, yeah, that was why I made the submissions earlier last year and was really passionate about that, because I felt very alone at the time of my journey and then being able to go online and actually read the submissions, because they're all available there and they were from this huge spectrum of the Australian population, which was really fascinating yeah, like everyone, from TV presenters to female CEOs, to just women in all different ages and stages, and so forth.

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What really fascinated me was, kind of overall, this huge percentage of women who had been experiencing impacts on their mental health and sleep for many years, which had affected their lives.

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Yeah, every aspect of their lives, isn't it Every aspect?

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So, tara, let's get a little bit more specific about that.

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I'm really keen to know.

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37 is very young to start experiencing perimenopause, so what were the initial kind of changes or symptoms that you noticed that created a drive in your way to find out what was going on and why your body wasn't behaving the way that it had previously?

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And secondly, I'd be really interested to unpack your mental health struggles that you did have.

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Absolutely so.

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37, yeah, it was the last thing that I expected at that age.

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I was kind of thinking I'd had a very happy.

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I sort of felt like I'd come into a lot of my confidence and happiness in my early 30s.

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So kind of getting into this later stage, 30, yeah, it was not something I had thought would happen.

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What's really interesting, I think a lot of the time with perimenopause for people, is it often starts out quite subtle and it can present in quite a number of ways that perhaps we can put down to other causes.

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You know, at the start I just had I'd always had terrible period pain.

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I had sort of worsened period pain, heavier periods, probably a bit of increased PMS and weirdly burning feet when going to sleep.

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That was probably one of my very first symptoms and that was probably about 36.

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So that was early on.

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And then 37, sort of the latest part of the year of being 37, I suddenly noticed I was having a lot of trouble with sleep.

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I was having a lot of trouble getting to sleep.

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I was having a lot of trouble staying asleep or waking up at three in the morning, you know for an hour or so, which now, looking back, that's some of the really sort of typical symptoms.

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I also had the beginnings of heart palpitations, which was really interesting.

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So I was getting all types of arrhythmias strong, like heartbeats, fast heartbeats, skipping heartbeats, and I was also I had the very beginnings.

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I sort of had this onset of just anxiety and panic and this presented itself.

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I guess at the beginning it was kind of gradual over the first two months where I was getting the heart palpitations and the sleep problems, and then suddenly I had a very bad panic attack, just, I'd say, in my PMS stage, just before my period, and I'd never had a panic attack before and it happened out of the blue.

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It was, I think, people who experience panic attacks.

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You know, you don't, you kind of know what they're about, but if you haven't had one before you, you know, you think something's terribly wrong.

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You often feel like you're physically or mentally thinking something terrible's gonna happen, you're gonna die.

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I also had in that moment.

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It was, it was very brief, it was probably about 20-30 seconds, and at that moment I also had, in that moment it was very brief, it was probably about 20, 30 seconds, and at that moment I also had an intrusive thought.

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And so for people who don't really know what intrusive thoughts are.

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They are thoughts that they would go against your values, so we would call them, I guess, ego dystonic.

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They might be something terrifying.

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They can be quite common for, say, some women struggling with postpartum um as well, so can you give us an example, without using your lived experience, obviously, but perhaps an example of what would be considered an intrusive core um thought that goes against someone's values absolutely so.

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uh, you might be in the kitchen, you might be chopping vegetables and suddenly this feeling of fear and a funny thought pops in your head about, accidentally, say, chopping off your finger with a knife.

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That type of thing, intrusive thoughts, are actually more common than we think.

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They happen to people with anxiety and OCD, but they also happen to the wider community Most of the time.

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Because we're not in a heightened state of anxiety, most people go, oh, that was a weird thought and they go about their day and they go, oh gosh, funny one.

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But I think when somebody's suffering from anxiety or heightened sort of state of fear, those thoughts can get a bit more sticky.

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So those types of thoughts are often part of a condition called OCD, which is called obsessive compulsive disorder.

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I think some people sort of think of OCD as like the cleaning disorder.

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So they think of people, you know, scrubbing at things, making things clean from germs or organizing things, or very tidy people.

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Yeah, it makes me think of the, you know, kicking the light switches certain amounts of times, or you know turning the door handle a number of times as part of a routine.

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Yeah, okay.

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Yeah.

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So OCD is actually more what people don't realise is it's actually more the presence of, say, intrusive thoughts or obsessions you would call them.

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So you might have an intrusive thought, you might get stuck on that thought.

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You might go why am I having that thought?

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What does that thought mean about me?

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Am I going to have more of those thoughts?

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And that can kind of kick off a bit of the compulsiveness.

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So you might do things to alleviate the distress.

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You might Okay research on the internet to to go.

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Okay, you know, would I really do this thing, would I not?

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You might ponder in your mind over and over again, you might distract yourself, all sorts of things.

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So it's quite an interesting thing.

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And I I had never kind of um struggled with OCD prior to Perry, maybe a tiny bit, I would say, probably around 11, probably just before puberty, interestingly enough.

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So that time where you've had those fluctuating hormones for different reasons, but yeah, so this is something that has presented, but at 11 or 12, you're not really going to even remember, probably until you had that re-triggering that you'd even experienced, that remember, probably until you had that re-triggering, that you'd even experienced that Exactly.

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And they know from studies that there's a big connection with postpartum and OCD and intrusive thought.

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So it often happens to new mothers who are obviously, you know, their hormones are fluctuating, they're changing and they're also in a state of, I guess, not a lot of sleep, you know, worrying about their baby and so forth.

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So there's been quite a lot of research done about that time in our lives, but there's actually been very little research done about OCD in perimenopause.

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We're seeing a little bit coming out of the UK with Dr Louise Newsome.

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She's had some patients on her podcast and so forth and I actually it's very interesting, I think, since I've started talking about it more and participating in perimenopause apps and forums and things like that you actually see quite a bit of this happening in this stage in this initial kind of, as the hormones are changing, and so how did you get your?

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diagnosis.

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Yeah.

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So at the time I went this is really odd, you know I had been a very confident person.

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I loved travel, I loved going out, I was just generally pretty happy in my.

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So the stuff that was happening with you know, the sleep and the anxiety and the panic, it just felt very unlike me.

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And I went to my GP at the time and I just said, look, I explained what it felt very confronting.

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I'd never kind of been in to speak to my GP about mental health.

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I'd never having to disclose, you know, an intrusive thought.

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I was like, oh, my goodness, what's she going to think?

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Lovely lady, like I had never seen her before, and she was incredibly compassionate and understanding.

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She said to me oh look, this was during the COVID lockdown.

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She said, oh, look, you know, we've had a lot of increased anxiety during the lockdown.

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I think you know you've been under a tremendous amount of pressure at work, which I had.

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I was working for, you know, the healthcare system during COVID.

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So it was relentless.

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Yeah, okay, yeah.

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And she just said, oh look, you know, can you take some time off?

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You know, maybe it's a good idea.

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You, you know, know we can refer you to a psychologist so you can have a chat about some of these things.

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And then I started seeing a psychologist, um, and they said, oh, look, from what we can see, look, this just seems to be, you know, a GAD, generalized anxiety disorder with a bit of OCD, um, and they just said, oh, look, we can work on this with uh CB, so obviously a form of talk therapy.

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And so I went into this and I was like I'd never been into psychology sessions and obviously they're great, they're really really helpful.

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But the thing I found was I was sort of applying these things, that I was learning really really diligently and getting progress.

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But then I was finding, just at certain times of the month, this was just going out the window.

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It was this very physical based anxiety that was extremely in the body.

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So I would just be waking up and my heart would be racing, I would feel shaky, I don't know how to explain it.

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It was just this heightened sense of anxiety and fear.

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And then I'd have days where this would completely disappear and then I'd go through another patch and I was kind of noticing that it was lining up with certain it's in my cycle.

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So I went back to the GP and I said look, I don't know much about hormones, but something feels like it's off.

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Here there's a passion.

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She was very lovely.

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She ran all my hormone blood tests.

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She said everything's normal.

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Um, it's just anxiety you know that you're presenting with.

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So I kept proceeding on it and I noticed as time was going on, the following year I was um struggling really badly with sleep around my period.

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I was waking up and I didn't realize it at the time because no one had told me what a hot flash was you know, so I had covers up, covers down.

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covers up, covers down.

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I thought my body would feel boiling hot, like I'd be boiling hot to touch.

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I was getting more headaches.

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I was getting I'm trying to remember what else I was getting burning ears, so it sounds like your symptoms started to intensify, yeah, yeah, and did they become more regular, as well as, opposed to being where you were noticing them more around your cycle, did they become more regular.

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Yeah, in 2022, so this was probably about a year later.

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That's when I really noticed like I was just getting a lot more.

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Yeah, a lot of this stuff was presenting throughout the month, you know, not just around the period.

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So you know, and I started to get my first night sweat.

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So I was waking up and, you know, your pillow's drenched, oh my gosh.

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Night sweats are the worst, I think.

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I mean I know that there's some awful symptoms, and you know your pillow's drenched.

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Oh, my gosh Night sweats are the worst.

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I think I mean I know that there's some awful symptoms and you know your OCD and your anxiety and everything sounds very hard to unpack and manage.

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But for me personally, the night sweats just.

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And for me there was also this I suppose shame in some respects around having to wake my husband up to tell him that we needed to change the sheets because I had literally drenched them.

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Yes, it's weird, isn't it?

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My cousin and I are the same age, my paternal cousin and we've had nearly identical symptoms, interestingly enough.

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Yeah.

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And she says it's like waking up like you've been swimming, like you've been in a pool, you know, and you're sweating out of places you never realized you could sweat out of.

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You know, and you're sweating out of places you never realised you could sweat out of, like elbows, and oh my gosh, I don't know what it is about the elbow sweat, but it is.

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It is, yeah, it is a really hard one to manage and to cope with and yeah so sorry I took you on a segue there, but yeah, it's one that really does kind of confront you and kind of go hang on.

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Something's really not right here.

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Something's really not right, you know, and I think for me it was quite frightening because I was going into the GPs and nothing against the GPs, like I had two female GPs and one of them who had been with me through all my late 30s and very switched on and helped me with lots of issues.

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But I think, going in and saying, look, I'm having to put my pillow out on the line to dry, you know like, because it's that wet and I'm having to get completely changed, and and then they're going well, your hormones are okay, you start, really, you know, I think that adds to the anxiety.

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You're going well, do I have?

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something or something you know what is it?

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is it something?

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Know that I can't see that's happening inside my body?

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So yeah, and I think for me as well, the lack of sleep, you know, just not being able to sleep, and I think this is where I hear so many women in that sort of early to mid-stage peri, where that's one of the initial symptoms and it's such a compounding symptom as well, like it, you know.

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You then get the flow-on effect to, you know, fatigue the next day and cognitive fatigue and you don't want to exercise because you're exhausted and you're snappy and cranky and irritable, and it really does impact so many areas of your life and often if you kind of happen to find a practitioner that can really sit with you and unpack, exactly you know, and you can get back to that root cause of literally just finding a way to resolve the sleep.

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So many of the other things do resolve themselves once you've got that sleep sorted.

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Yeah, I think if somebody had helped me with the sleep early on and I'd got that tackled, like you're saying, I actually think that the anxiety and the ocd wouldn't have um progressed to the point that it did you know yeah yeah, yeah, and they know that women with um sort of worst hot flushes and worst night sweats um actually have more impact on their mental health, which is that vicious?

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Cycle of just not getting that sleep and disruption to the brain.

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So at what?

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point.

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Was somebody able to kind of join the dots for you and not rely, I'm assuming, on those perimenopausal blood tests that we now know absolutely are not an indicator of where you are at in the perimenopause journey?

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Yeah, it was a long journey.

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I think, like I was saying, because of my age and because of you know, kind of getting that pushback.

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I just I was doing my at this point, I was doing my own research and going okay, like you know night sweats, increased anxiety, heart palpitations, could this be this thing that I've just heard of called perimenopause, and I was sort of desperate at this point because my quality of life had just absolutely gone with, even with all the therapy.

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The intrusive thoughts were just this constant barrage.

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You know, I would try, and I was somebody who loved going out and it got to the point where I was struggling to go to the supermarket, like I would just feel such panic which is constant, constant sort of intrusive images popping up in my mind that were just getting worse and worse, despite therapy.

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Wow, you know, and I was also going through, I guess, starting to get a bit of the mood stuff with that, we know, shows up, you know, where you feel totally fine one day and the next morning you wake up and you just feel really low, you know, and you don't know why, and it's frightening, you just go.

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How can I, how can I have felt amazing only last night and I've woken up and I I feel like I just my chest is hurting.

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I want to cry.

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I feel despondent.

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I was somehow keeping up some form of sort of managing at work.

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I don't even know how.

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I had a very understanding boss and had some flexibility which made a huge difference.

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But I just knew I couldn't go on any longer like that.

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Like I was waking up in the morning and going how am I going to get through the day?

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I'm'm actually I can't.

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This is getting to the point where I can't leave the house like what's going to happen to me.

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Is this the rest of my life like this?

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So I'd done my own research and I'd previously seen for other female issues in at the women's health, women's health and Research Institute of Australia, wiria, which is located in Sydney, who has a whole team of sort of women's health experts everybody from endometriosis to women's nerve pain, to hormones and so forth.

00:20:36.027 --> 00:20:56.311
So I managed to get into a specialist there who for the first time this was two and a half years in actually didn't dismiss me and said that sounds like typical perimenopause symptoms and that word typical must have, just really Because you honestly you think you're losing the plot.

00:20:56.432 --> 00:20:58.386
And I mean that's what they said to me at the clinic.

00:20:58.386 --> 00:21:04.968
They said like just about every single woman who walks in here is in tears, saying that they think they're going crazy.

00:21:04.968 --> 00:21:10.577
So it made me feel just less alone in what I was going through at that stage.

00:21:10.577 --> 00:21:14.672
I remember sort of feeling like I was going to cry from relief after that.

00:21:14.751 --> 00:21:15.594
Oh, I can imagine.

00:21:16.015 --> 00:21:18.647
Yeah, and she, yeah, she listened to everything.

00:21:18.647 --> 00:21:27.411
I'd gone in very kind of prepared, expecting to get pushed back, you know, with my list of checklist of symptoms, which I'd encourage any woman to do.

00:21:27.411 --> 00:21:36.962
You know you can go online and you can download the AMS symptom score card, which is a really great tool to obviously take in to your GP or your specialist.

00:21:36.962 --> 00:21:37.945
And that was the.

00:21:37.945 --> 00:21:45.877
And then she offered me menopausal hormone therapy, um, which I never thought so, straight away at that first appointment, wow.

00:21:46.140 --> 00:21:55.909
So I'm intrigued to know, though, what was your initial reaction to that, because we hear so many people that are still so fearful of HRT.

00:21:55.909 --> 00:21:58.574
Mht same thing, hormone therapy, yes.

00:21:58.574 --> 00:22:05.252
What was your initial reaction to being told that she wanted to prescribe you menopausal hormone therapy?

00:22:05.534 --> 00:22:08.638
At that point because I'd been doing my own research.

00:22:08.638 --> 00:22:16.920
So I had stumbled upon Dr Louise Newsome a few months prior and I'd been kind of listening to information about it.

00:22:16.920 --> 00:22:22.013
Because I think you know I still encounter I talk about perimenopause and menopause to everybody.

00:22:22.013 --> 00:22:30.358
Now I'm a bit of a broken record just because I want to normal, normalize it, um, and I still get constantly oh no, but that causes cancer.

00:22:30.358 --> 00:22:38.792
I don't want to get breast cancer, I don't want to get other forms of cancer yeah, my mum took that and she got breast cancer yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:22:38.894 --> 00:23:04.346
So and a lot of people don't realize, obviously, that that study, you know, was done on a completely different form of hormone therapy and yeah, and different age group and yeah, so many flaws yeah okay cool, so you were open to to that as a therapy, but mostly because you actually already done your own research and read about that as being a potential yes form of therapy that could work for you anyway yeah, so that was great.

00:23:04.426 --> 00:23:06.009
So I was able to get started on that.

00:23:06.009 --> 00:23:12.470
At the same time, because I had been struggling so badly with the anxiety and the OCD, I started seeing a.

00:23:12.470 --> 00:23:15.154
I'd found an excellent psychiatrist.

00:23:15.154 --> 00:23:24.175
So this was a psychiatrist who specialized in obviously being able to prescribe, but also in lifestyle management and on a lot of things like that.

00:23:24.175 --> 00:23:27.320
So I wanted to get a proper diagnosis.

00:23:27.320 --> 00:23:43.212
Obviously, psychologists are excellent to speak to, but with the OCD component, I wanted to be sure that that's what I was dealing with and I started seeing her around the same time as I started taking the MHT, so we were kind of just talking through things.

00:23:43.212 --> 00:23:47.614
She agreed she made the diagnosis of, yes, gad and ocd.

00:23:47.614 --> 00:23:49.689
She said this is interesting.

00:23:49.689 --> 00:24:01.306
I would say that there probably is a hormonal component to this, given the um you know timing of the onset exactly, um, that I'd never struggled before and it was quite interesting.

00:24:01.346 --> 00:24:02.409
She's been amazing.

00:24:02.409 --> 00:24:10.013
And I think what I've really liked is being able to kind of work with her, to go okay, you know she's always very much listened to me.

00:24:10.013 --> 00:24:12.535
I've been able to say look, you know the MHT.

00:24:12.535 --> 00:24:14.321
I feel like you know this.

00:24:14.321 --> 00:24:16.491
I'm feeling good at this part of my cycle.

00:24:16.491 --> 00:24:18.752
I'm feeling terrible at this other part.

00:24:18.752 --> 00:24:20.652
I'm struggling still with this.

00:24:20.652 --> 00:24:30.050
She at that stage was sort of going oh look, um, you have OCD.

00:24:30.050 --> 00:24:32.115
I don't know about MHT potentially helping that, but we can see.

00:24:32.115 --> 00:24:40.359
And I guess for me the MHT journey and I would say to a lot of women is, when you start out, it's a very individualized thing, everybody's.

00:24:40.359 --> 00:24:45.836
It's a bit of a journey in terms of finding the right dosage and combination for you.

00:24:45.836 --> 00:24:51.560
I think a lot of people start it and sort of expect immediate results A silver bullet.

00:24:51.761 --> 00:24:52.041
yeah.

00:24:52.144 --> 00:24:54.153
Yeah, and I think some women have that.

00:24:54.153 --> 00:24:57.786
You know they go on and they've been on for three days and it's like you know they go.

00:24:57.786 --> 00:24:59.132
Oh my gosh, everything's gone.

00:24:59.132 --> 00:25:01.773
And for me it was a longer journey.

00:25:01.773 --> 00:25:06.786
I had to sort of.

00:25:06.786 --> 00:25:10.398
You know, I was on the transdermal estrogen, so I was on the patches and I was kind of just seeing how I was going with raising that.

00:25:10.398 --> 00:25:18.439
For me, the interestingly enough, the absolute kind of magic for me was going continuous with progesterone.

00:25:19.165 --> 00:25:20.672
Okay, so rather than cyclical.

00:25:21.305 --> 00:25:31.596
Yeah, for some reason, with my OCD and the anxiety and the intrusive thoughts when I got on the continuous dosage yeah very interesting I yeah.

00:25:31.596 --> 00:25:41.299
I would say I went from having acute OCD, so really really bad, probably right down to mild some days subclinical which.

00:25:41.299 --> 00:25:45.836
I can't believe myself, to be honest, after that many years.

00:25:45.836 --> 00:25:47.086
That was a shock to me.

00:25:47.086 --> 00:26:00.647
Since then I've sort of my original specialist has gone on maternity leave there at Wiria and I've been seeing Professor John Eden, who's obviously very well known reproductive endocrinologist and menopause specialist.

00:26:00.768 --> 00:26:01.809
Yeah, John's amazing.

00:26:01.809 --> 00:26:03.994
I was lucky enough to see him speak.

00:26:03.994 --> 00:26:53.936
I've met him a couple of times in person at different events, but I actually saw him speak on menopause and cancer, actually down at the International Menopause Society conference in Melbourne last year and I was actually standing next to a GP at um who's a friend of mine as well, when we were standing next to each other and because obviously she knew that I have my cancer experience and my you know, my, that's my kind of soapbox and but for one of the first times I learned so much from him about the evolution of my cancer, like not just from a diagnostic onwards perspective, but actually from a, you know, this is where, genetically, things start happening and you know, and in in utero this happens and and then it takes this long for the tumor to actually, you know, actually become visible and findable, which was what mine was.

00:26:53.936 --> 00:26:58.171
And he's amazing, he's just so.

00:26:58.171 --> 00:27:05.222
He's such a wealth of knowledge and information and he's he's so open to helping and sharing he's he's lovely he is.

00:27:05.243 --> 00:27:07.507
He's a lovely man, he is, he is lovely, you know.

00:27:07.507 --> 00:27:15.653
You walk in the door and you just feel that real empathy and that kindness there from him and, as you say, like wealth of knowledge.

00:27:15.653 --> 00:27:26.763
Every time I go in I end up like picking his brain on different, because I'm quite fascinated about perimenopause and menopause in general and every time I'm like okay, I've got like five different questions for you here, professor Eden.

00:27:26.763 --> 00:27:32.496
I'd love to know more, but that must have been really like revolutionary for you to hear.

00:27:33.306 --> 00:27:54.592
It was yeah, and it was funny because I was obviously attending the conference, you know, from a kind of work perspective, if you like, in your own advocacy perspective, but he really stripped all of that away from me and I was literally found myself just standing there as a human, as a person that had been impacted by menopause and cancer and specifically the cancer side of it.

00:27:54.592 --> 00:27:59.170
And, yeah, he just had this ability to speak just to me.

00:27:59.170 --> 00:28:14.230
I know it was in a room full of people, but I felt like he was talking just to me and I learned and it was literally, I think I actually I missed a lot of his presentation and I left another one to walk into his because we were getting WhatsApp messages from people who were in different sessions saying, oh my gosh, you're going to get into this one.

00:28:14.230 --> 00:28:14.751
It's amazing.

00:28:14.751 --> 00:28:24.000
So I really only caught like the last 15 minutes, I think, of his actual presentation, but it was the most impactful moment for me of the whole conference.

00:28:25.035 --> 00:28:26.862
They're doing incredible work at the moment.

00:28:26.862 --> 00:28:36.595
Actually, they've just opened up he's just opened up the first, I think it's menopause mood clinic over at the Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick, which is incredible.

00:28:36.595 --> 00:28:41.422
So there's a team of psychiatrists and so forth that are really tuned into.

00:28:41.422 --> 00:28:46.209
I guess that connection between you know the hormones, hormones and mood.

00:28:46.730 --> 00:29:28.154
Yeah, and mood, because obviously the hormones, you know, I think they influence three or four key neurotransmitters that are involved in, you know, your serotonin, your dopamine, really essential, um you know, regulation of how we're feeling yeah, yeah I'm I'm so keen to see what's going to happen in research in the next and we're very lucky in australia to have you know professor john eden, and then we've also got professor josh rickle carney who's doing groundbreaking work down in Melbourne from a depression perspective and that impact on mental health and specifically in the perimenopausal and menopausal year.

00:29:28.154 --> 00:29:39.969
So I think, as much as all of this research takes a lot of time and money and patience, there is going to be some really great results and therapies and conclusions that come out of it.

00:29:40.875 --> 00:29:44.864
Absolutely Kulkarni's work on the MenOD scale.

00:29:44.864 --> 00:29:57.699
I think a lot of people don't realize the specific type of depression that can happen during the year and it's very similar in some respects to what you were talking about with how you did the CBT.

00:29:57.739 --> 00:30:00.184
You saw the psychologist for your OCD.

00:30:00.184 --> 00:30:12.262
You got the diagnosis, but it wasn't until you got the hormones that you actually found a shift in the impact on you and a reduction in your symptoms.

00:30:12.763 --> 00:30:18.402
Yes, so yeah, incredible work and I think so many women are going to benefit from that.

00:30:18.423 --> 00:30:19.526
A hundred percent.

00:30:19.526 --> 00:30:20.557
Yeah, yeah, yeah, awesome.

00:30:20.557 --> 00:30:21.328
So I'm glad you've got going to benefit from that.

00:30:21.328 --> 00:30:21.622
100%, yeah, yeah, yeah, awesome.

00:30:21.622 --> 00:30:23.700
So I'm glad you've got some great help.

00:30:23.700 --> 00:30:31.305
By the sounds of things, you know the hormone therapy, great clinicians that you're seeing the work with the psychiatrist now as well.

00:30:31.305 --> 00:30:36.320
So, given, let's take you from where you were to where you are today.

00:30:36.320 --> 00:30:41.048
Like, how does Tara kind of exist in her perimenopausal era now?

00:30:42.015 --> 00:30:56.440
Yeah, definitely so I think for me, I'm feeling and I, you know, when I was at the depths of this I never thought I thought that old Tara that had existed, you know, before perimenopause she's not coming back Like that's the end it's going to be.

00:30:56.440 --> 00:31:08.008
You know, I'll come out of it different, but actually, really, in a way, I have come out different, but in a way I have, I feel I am getting back to that person that I was.

00:31:08.008 --> 00:31:15.925
It's really interesting, I think, because you know that anxiety and the OCD and all of that and the hormones and I'm getting more sleep and so forth.

00:31:15.925 --> 00:31:18.441
You know my parts of myself that I'd forgotten.

00:31:18.441 --> 00:31:23.199
You know my sense of humor, like my brightness, my joy.

00:31:23.660 --> 00:31:31.982
Yeah, the joy and, you know, the connection with other human beings and the ability to be present and all of that really amazing stuff.

00:31:31.982 --> 00:31:39.592
So I can feel that that has come back and I think, yeah, no, I can't tell you like I'm, just, I'm so grateful.

00:31:39.592 --> 00:31:58.180
I think coming out of that in the way that it's made me probably feel different is just that I don't know that appreciation every single day to just wake up and to feel, you know, like more of a human being rather than somebody just struggling every you know, to get through the day to.

00:31:58.180 --> 00:32:08.439
You know, I think for me, now that I've got that kind of baseline, what's been great, I think, in the perimenopause is you can kind of optimize the rest of your health as well.

00:32:08.439 --> 00:32:15.740
You know I had the energy to to go and do you know the weight training you know for your bones and your muscles.

00:32:16.583 --> 00:32:18.406
I've, you know I've been able to.

00:32:18.406 --> 00:32:23.076
Then, you know, look at the diet.

00:32:23.076 --> 00:32:25.201
I've had an amazing perimenopause dietician who's been helping me.

00:32:25.201 --> 00:32:38.262
I've been able to apply, you know, a lot of the CBT if I am having a rough day at work or or struggling with something in my life, you know, everything is just feeling much more possible and that's really exciting.

00:32:38.262 --> 00:32:39.346
I think it is.

00:32:39.405 --> 00:32:41.395
It's really exciting and I love you know.

00:32:41.395 --> 00:32:54.555
I'm sitting here looking at you and your face lit up, as you were, you know, talking about the changes and you know, and your voice got lighter and you know obviously it's been a journey, as you describe it, and you know we're we're now in 2025.

00:32:54.555 --> 00:33:00.084
So we're talking about, you know, five, almost five years of you going from your you know five almost five years.

00:33:00.104 --> 00:33:02.387
Yeah, you know of you going from your.

00:33:02.387 --> 00:33:04.941
You know riding out that decline.

00:33:04.941 --> 00:33:16.342
Then you know bottoming out and having to do your own research to you know and to get yourself a ladder to get out, I guess, if you like yeah, doing analogies, and then you know to where you are today.

00:33:16.342 --> 00:33:26.287
I think you know that's a huge accomplishment that you've achieved in many respects because you've persisted and you've not accepted that this just is what it is.

00:33:26.287 --> 00:33:41.496
You know you've helped your clinicians join the dots and you know and now I'm so grateful that you are speaking as often as you can to everyone that you can and sharing your story, because that is how we can make such a significant difference in the lives of others.

00:33:42.217 --> 00:33:46.707
Absolutely no, thank you, and I think that's why I made the submission.

00:33:46.707 --> 00:33:55.781
I wanted to really sit down and at the time you know, obviously write that, and then had the opportunity to speak when we both spoke at the Sydney hearing.

00:33:55.781 --> 00:33:59.368
Yeah, and that was terrifying initially to go.

00:33:59.368 --> 00:34:18.143
I'm going to be sharing something really personal about my mental health, but for me I'm like if I can just save some women that experience, you know, if they can get help sooner, um, if, if we can raise awareness and they, you know, they walk into their GP and so forth and the GP goes.

00:34:18.143 --> 00:34:20.490
Hey look, I think this is perimenopause.

00:34:20.490 --> 00:34:25.088
It takes a huge amount of the anxiety and the fear out of it, you know.

00:34:25.811 --> 00:34:30.144
You realize you're not alone and there's lost time as well, I think you know when we talk about for you.

00:34:30.144 --> 00:34:33.943
You know there is a significant period of there for you that was lost work.

00:34:33.943 --> 00:34:37.079
You know productive time at work, lost time.

00:34:37.079 --> 00:34:40.786
You know I would imagine all of this impacted relationships in many aspects.

00:34:40.786 --> 00:34:45.766
You know there's there's so much lost as a part of having to work all of this out yourself.

00:34:46.954 --> 00:34:47.976
Absolutely so.

00:34:47.976 --> 00:35:09.360
I know um just want to keep speaking up about it and it's, I think it's amazing when you do, you know, often I think obviously in the past it was an incredibly taboo subject, but I think now in the last sort of year, there's been this amazing surge of people speaking up and women are jumping online and they're they're seeing people talk about and other women they're going.

00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:10.485
Oh hey, me too.

00:35:10.485 --> 00:35:20.788
You know it's not just me thinking I'm going crazy, it's not just me, you know, not able to sleep or with an aching body or thinking I'm, you know, having heart issues and so forth.

00:35:20.788 --> 00:35:23.759
So, yeah, it's really, really powerful.

00:35:24.641 --> 00:35:26.565
It really, really is, Tara.

00:35:26.565 --> 00:35:28.668
Thank you so much for sharing your story.

00:35:28.668 --> 00:35:37.565
Is it okay with you if I share your Instagram account in the show notes so that anybody that wants to follow you and hear more of your story or connect with you can do so?

00:35:37.954 --> 00:35:39.039
Absolutely happy.

00:35:39.039 --> 00:35:40.101
I'm always like.

00:35:40.101 --> 00:35:42.057
My DMs are always open for people.

00:35:42.057 --> 00:35:46.047
I'm always having chats about anything and everything perimenopause.

00:35:46.047 --> 00:35:49.822
So please, yeah, find me on Instagram, LinkedIn.

00:35:49.822 --> 00:35:50.684
I'm always around.

00:35:50.684 --> 00:35:51.987
I'm always here to listen.

00:35:52.695 --> 00:35:53.096
Beautiful.

00:35:53.096 --> 00:35:59.298
Thank you so much, tara, and I'm so grateful to you to reaching out to me in the very first instance.

00:35:59.298 --> 00:36:15.907
I'm so grateful that we got to meet in person and had a hug and, like you know, shared our stories together, and I know that this sharing this story of yours is definitely going to help many, many people so that they don't have to experience what you experienced and can get that help and diagnoses and therapy earlier.

00:36:16.775 --> 00:36:20.646
Thank you so much, sonia, and yeah, I'll never forget being on that panel and hearing you.

00:36:26.434 --> 00:36:28.539
I think you were the first to speak and I was blown away, so it's an honor to be.

00:36:28.559 --> 00:36:29.561
It was a tough panel, it was a tough day.

00:36:29.561 --> 00:36:31.704
Yeah, it was, I think, emotionally right.

00:36:31.704 --> 00:36:34.336
It really brings it all to heart.

00:36:35.038 --> 00:36:36.541
Yeah, yeah, it sure was.

00:36:36.541 --> 00:36:42.978
But it's also created a connection between those of us that did speak on that day, and you know it's a beautiful connection to have.

00:36:43.820 --> 00:36:44.581
Very special.

00:36:45.384 --> 00:36:46.025
Thanks Tara.

00:36:46.525 --> 00:36:46.967
Thank you.

00:36:46.967 --> 00:36:47.628
Thank you, Sonia.

An Unexpected Path to Perimenopause Advocacy with Tara Eglington

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