MenoPauseS2E4: Age Is Our Superpower With Dr. Kelly Teagle

The years leading up to and during menopause are a rite of passage.

The wise woman inside of us is calling to slow down,

To take stock,

To speak our truth,

To burn away all that no longer serves us ready for our next cycle of life.

The good news is with the support,

Community,

Connection and most of all sharing our stories and being truly seen and heard,

We will travel through this powerful,

Sometimes painful heroine's journey and out the other side.

Welcome to the Menopause Podcast,

Real and raw stories of midlife and mental health.

I'm your host,

Kylie Patchett,

Menopause self-care coach and storyteller,

And I am so glad you found us.

Let's get on with the show.

Hello everybody.

It's Kylie here.

Welcome to another episode of the podcast and we have the beautiful Kelly Teagle from WellFam in the house.

How are you,

Kelly?

I am very well.

Thank you so much for having me on today,

Kylie.

I'm so excited to have this conversation.

My head wants to go in 50 million directions,

But let's start from the very beginning.

So you are the founder of WellFam,

Which is a Tally Health menopause service,

And we will get to that,

But let's talk about your journey.

At the beginning of your career in medicine,

You were not specialized in women's health necessarily.

You were in the Air Force,

Didn't you?

Yeah,

I did actually.

Well,

When I was in the Air Force,

I started out as a fighter jet controller,

Would you believe?

Yeah,

Kind of like a real life video game with higher stakes,

If you get it wrong,

I guess.

And then I decided that I probably needed to get a grown up job eventually if I ever wanted to leave the Air Force.

Unfortunately,

Yes.

So I started looking around thinking what I might like to do for a living.

I actually had a background in sciences with genetics and biology and things.

I enjoyed that.

Yeah,

So I thought I'd really like to do something like occupational therapy or physio or one of the allied health sciences.

But I couldn't get into any of those courses,

Even though I had really high grades on my science degree.

The thing that I managed to get into was medicine of all things.

Mind blown.

I know,

Crazy.

So yeah,

I did medicine.

I was sponsored by the Air Force to do medicine.

So I stayed in the Air Force as a medical officer.

And then when I'd finished that time,

I was doing my GP training.

So I left and became a civilian GP.

Wow.

From those beginnings,

How did you end up wanting to start a menopause specific telehealth service?

Like that feels like a bit of a jump.

So you started as a general GP.

As a baby doctor,

You've got no idea what's going on,

Quite frankly,

And baby GPs aren't any different.

You do your GP training.

There's some formal parts to the course and exams to pass and things like that.

But at the same time,

You're doing placements in general practices all around.

You're trying to learn from mentors in those general practices.

So obviously the quality of your learnings,

The scope of your learnings is going to depend heavily on which doctors,

Which experienced doctors in the practice take the time to mentor you and teach you.

The formal course for general practice training does not have a lot of menopause in it.

Medical school does not have a lot of menopause.

You know,

There's hardly any references.

So all the women's health stuff,

You know,

Essentially is about kind of pregnancy and you know,

Periods and you know,

The cycles and things like that.

Not so much about what happens when that starts to change.

So,

You know,

As a GP,

I guess after a while I found that I naturally felt more confident and competent when I was working with women.

I sort of intuitively felt like I had a better understanding of their issues and I was not phased at all by doing intimate examinations on females.

You know,

I felt like I could really help them.

And I really enjoyed working in the sexual health and family planning area because I felt like it was super important for young women at the beginning of their sexual career,

Their sexual awakening,

Their periods are starting,

They're looking for contraception.

They've never had a pap smear before.

It was all very daunting.

And so to have a compassionate doctor at that point in their life who took the time to really explain to them why this examination was important,

Was gentle with them and sort of sensitive about it can make all the difference,

You know,

As to whether or not they're going to feel comfortable ever letting a doctor touch them,

You know,

Ever again or whether they're going to be feeling confident about going and talking to a doctor about their intimate issues.

Yes.

So,

Yeah,

I really felt drawn to do that kind of work because I felt like it was so formative,

You know,

In a woman's kind of sexual journey.

So I enjoyed doing that.

And then,

You know,

I actually as part of that,

I started working in the menopause clinic at my local sexual health facility.

And I did.

I enjoyed that as well,

But I did not know tons about it until I started doing that.

And I started going to the Australasian Menopause Society's annual congresses.

And then I went,

Wow,

There's so much more here to know about.

Yeah.

And then bang,

You know,

My own early menopause hit me at the age of 42 unexpectedly.

And I thought,

Wow,

I really don't know a lot about this.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

It's so interesting because I wondered whether because I knew you had an early menopause,

But I was like in the timeline,

Was this before or after you started to get interested in the menopause area in specifically in women's health.

So how was your own experience?

So obviously,

Like 42,

A little bit earlier than perhaps you would have expected.

Did you even know what to expect?

It was like,

Were you blindsided?

Like,

What was your experience like?

Look,

I don't think I thought too much about it,

To be honest.

You know,

My menopause clinic work,

Obviously,

I was exposed to women who were talking about their symptoms.

But,

You know,

That you kind of think before you're really experienced in that yourself,

You think in terms of,

OK,

Hot flushes,

We treat with this.

You know,

It's a very medicalised approach.

Yes,

Yes.

But,

You know,

My my context at the time was I had a one year old and my marriage was breaking down and I was feeling like really discombobulated,

As you can imagine,

You know,

Like lots of change going on in my life.

And I started to get,

You know,

Hella moody.

You know,

I was starting to get really irrationally teary and ragy and exhausted.

And,

You know,

I was just all over the place,

You know,

Red hot mess.

And I couldn't quite work out.

I mean,

I knew that young mums would have lots of sort of mood issues.

And,

You know,

I'm thinking,

Am I depressed?

Have I got,

You know,

Postnatal depression?

But then so and just to just to throw something else into the mix,

I had a Mirena.

So I had no periods.

So you had no indicator.

Yeah,

I'd had no kind of visual indication either about the fact that maybe my periods were really irregular or winding down.

It wasn't until the hot flushes started to kick in.

So I was doing surgical assisting with some obstetricians and gynecologists,

And I'd be there sort of wearing,

You know,

All of the scrub gear and the masks and,

You know,

Holding holding a camera like a laparoscopic camera and doing all this and just this wave of kind of heat came over me and sort of,

You know,

Sweat dripping down my back into my butt crack.

And I'm going,

Oh my God,

What the heck is going on?

So it kind of when I came out of theater that day,

I went,

Was that a hot flush?

And,

You know,

Because it's always going to start,

You know,

Really hitting you in really stressful situations or when there's other triggers.

And that's when I really started to think,

Oh,

What's going on here?

And I went and because of my situation where I was earlier than expected and,

You know,

Had no visual clues about what was going on.

My doctor did do a hormone test.

So we do do a hormone test sometimes to confirm the diagnosis if somebody's much earlier than expected,

Because there's lots and lots of other things that can cause sweats and some of them are quite nasty.

So you want to make sure that you're not missing something important.

But in my case,

It showed,

You know,

That I was actually in menopause.

So that was a real,

A real blind side for me,

A real,

Really unexpected event.

And of course,

That led me to think,

Well,

I really need to get to the bottom of,

You know,

What's going on here.

I was very lucky,

Of course,

Because,

You know,

I'd just come out of surgery with obstetricians and gynecologists.

So I had lots of colleagues that I could call on for their expertise.

And again,

You know,

I was going to the AMS Congresses.

So I really took a deep dive and tried a few things for myself till I hit on the right therapy.

And it was life changing for me.

It gave me the ability to be able to function normally.

It was protecting my heart and my bones because,

You know,

People who go through an early menopause are really,

Really at risk of premature heart disease and osteoporosis.

Yes.

So if anyone out there is listening and you're below the age of 45 and you're at menopause,

You really need to have estrogen replacement unless there's,

You know,

Contraindications.

Yes.

Breast cancer.

You really need to be on estrogen treatment so that you can protect your heart and your bones up to the normal menopausal age.

That's super important.

In your own experience,

And I think this is very,

It's the story that I hear a lot.

It's like,

How do I separate out these life stresses that are happening at the same time from potentially what might be perimenopause?

Because you have a one-year-old child,

So possibly not sleeping as well as what you would like to.

You've got stress of a breakdown.

You're also juggling other things.

You're feeling discombobulated anyway.

And a lot of those stress,

You know,

The ways that stress turn up are also overlapping the way that perimenopause turns up.

And that was my experience as well,

Because I kind of,

I don't know,

Fell off a mental health and mood cliff right when I turned 47.

But I also had a teenage daughter with a very bad chronic health condition that was not well managed at the time,

And a parent going through dementia and putting them into care,

And a couple of other things at work.

And so I literally was just,

I was the same.

I was like,

What on earth is happening?

As I'm just thinking about you having that hot flush in the scrub gear,

Because I'm used to being,

You know,

In my forensic days,

I was also head to toe in that.

And I'm just thinking that used to make me hot anyway.

Imagine having a hot flush underneath it.

I had this awful experience.

I hadn't had too many,

Like I'd been running hot,

But I hadn't had too many of what I would call like a hot flush,

Like the whole sort of kit and caboodle of a hot flush that I now occasionally experience.

But I was on a plane this time last year,

Still in COVID time with the mask on,

And I was in the middle of a three seater with two very big burly men.

And so it was kind of like this,

And I had a full on proper flush together with the whole palpitation and anxiety type of feeling.

And I'm like,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa.

Like I'm like,

I was almost at the stage of like,

Stop the plane.

I'm like,

You're in midair.

It is really confusing because all the reasons you just mentioned,

You know,

It's almost a universal thing that I hear from my patients because this time of life,

That is the,

It's the convergence of so much.

You know,

It's like for a lot of women,

It's the peak of their career and their responsibilities professionally and the peak of their authority and experience as well,

I might add.

There's a lot of power in that,

But also,

You know,

They've got perhaps,

You know,

Young kids or teenage kids or fur kids or whatever.

Your parents are aging,

They might be starting to have health problems or getting really unwell or needing lots more support,

You know,

And then relationships.

I mean,

This is a really classic time for relationship breakdowns.

And probably I would say that those mental health issues may contribute largely to that because,

You know,

Their partner's going,

What the,

You know,

What the F is going on.

Exactly,

Like what's happened to my partner here,

You know?

Yeah.

So it is really,

Really hard to work out.

And as to your question of how do you tease out how much of what's going on is because of the circumstances and how much of it's because of hormonal changes,

You absolutely can't.

You can't tease those things out because,

You know,

You're a whole being.

You're,

You know,

You are,

We've got to consider the time of the perimenopause and menopausal transition as,

You know,

You're a,

It's very holistic.

We've got to look at all aspects of a woman's life,

Her psychosocial context,

Her health,

You know,

Her lifestyle,

All of these things all contribute.

And of course,

You know,

Your formative things like your upbringing,

Your,

You know,

Your sense of self,

Your self-esteem,

Your,

Whether you come from a family of catastrophizers,

I mean,

All these things contribute to how you interpret your symptoms.

So two identical women might be having two identical sets of symptoms,

But one of them is just cruising along going,

Oh,

I feel a bit hot,

You know,

And taking a cardigan off and the other one's like,

Oh,

Great.

Well,

That's just all I need,

You know,

And that's,

That's just the straw that broke the camel's back.

Yeah.

So yeah,

It's very much a holistic thing and we can't tease them out.

So we have to consider all of those things when we come up with a treatment plan for women.

I,

My,

The question that I most want to ask is what would you consider the threshold of symptoms that necessitates going to your doctor?

Because I unfortunately hear so many women saying,

Well,

Actually one of two things,

They've gone to a doctor and they've been told they're too young to be in perimenopause.

And this is so many,

And I come from a rural area very much so,

And this is not to bash rural doctors at all.

I just think in general,

General practitioners need to be like,

You know,

Knowledgeable about so many different things.

We can't expect them to know every single thing.

And unfortunately,

Some of the things that people are being told are incorrect and we know that,

But if that woman is not,

You know,

Is not educated about what could be happening.

And I guess what I want to say is like,

For me,

I can advocate for myself because I'm a researcher by nature.

And I,

You know,

I listened to lots of different things.

I try and,

You know,

Listen to things like the welfare webinars that we were just talking about before we started recording so that I'm informed when I go to that doctor.

And so if a doctor told me I was too young,

I'd be like,

Oh no,

Hang on a minute.

I've got a list.

This is all the things that's been happening,

You know,

And these are all the things that I think is related to perimenopause and here's what I'd like to try,

Which is literally what I did.

What would you say is the threshold for someone if they're listening and they're like,

I think I've got some perimenopause stuff going on.

What's the threshold of going to your doctor?

Sounds like a silly question,

But I have too many questions.

There's no such thing as a silly question because being forewarned is forearmed.

And unfortunately,

There is the possibility for a lot of listeners that they're going to go along to their GP and get incorrect information or information that's a bit tainted by their GP's own misunderstanding or experiences or whatever.

We're not perfect.

As you said,

There's such a breadth of stuff in general practice to try and know.

I would like to think that an enlightened or supportive GP would at least be prepared to say,

I don't know much about this.

Let's learn together.

Let's go and look for the right information.

Unfortunately,

Some of them feel quite threatened by the idea.

If they're confronted with something they don't know,

Sometimes it's just human nature,

Isn't it?

That you want to be defensive or just not go down that path at all and just say,

Oh,

No,

You don't need that because I don't want to give you something that I don't know much about and risk harming you.

Yes.

As to the threshold of symptoms,

I think if you're wondering,

Could this be related to perimenopause,

But you're not having dreadful symptoms,

Then certainly bring it up next time you go and see your GP.

Just go,

Oh,

By the way,

While I'm here,

I noticed because everyone does that,

Don't they?

Just leave.

Yes.

Just sort of mention it to them and see what their reaction is and what they say for sure and start researching,

As you said.

But I think the threshold for whether or not you might need to go and ask for some support or ask for help about these particular symptoms depends on whether they're affecting your functioning.

We talk a lot about that in medicine,

Is like,

How is that impacting on a person's functioning?

So if you're finding that actually it's really,

Really hard to just do your activities of daily living,

To look after yourself and your family or do your job,

Absolutely,

You should be talking to somebody about those symptoms because you might be needlessly putting up with things that could really make a huge difference.

If you're sleeping better,

Then of course,

You're going to have more energy for self care,

Exercise,

Excuse me,

All of those things that actually in the long run are going to make the most difference to your health.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And particularly for me,

Sleep was one of the first impacted things.

And I know for myself,

And I've written about this in articles,

Like I imagine for me,

My kind of stool of things that can be dysregulated by the other things,

Sleep.

And as soon as my sleep is affected my mood slash mental health and my confidence,

Like I have always been like that.

It doesn't matter whether I was perimenopause or not.

If I was not sleeping well,

Mental health wise,

I started to kind of have that sort of doubt and tending towards a flat affect.

And so perimenopause just exacerbated that.

Like,

Just like,

Let's take that and blow it up by a million folds.

It's an absolutely hugely common symptom that women get is the sleep disturbances.

And it might start in peri,

It might start more as a premenstrual thing.

Like you might start to notice that your sleep premenstrually starts to get worse.

And then it might sort of gradually spread from there.

I would say the top things that women complain of in terms of symptoms would be in perimenopause the sleep,

The mood,

The libido and the weight gain.

Hot flushes don't really come into it in perimenopause so much,

At least not until you're getting much closer to menopause generally.

There might be flushes in there,

But mostly it's about those other things.

Yeah.

I'm just laughing as you're explaining,

Particularly like having these symptoms,

But not realizing that they're connected.

I've got this one friend,

She's about 10 years older than me.

And when I was talking to her about perimenopause when she was over from New Zealand just recently,

She goes,

Oh,

I only realized I'd been in perimenopause when I realized I'd just been hating on Pete,

Her husband for like the last five years.

And I was just like,

Oh my goodness.

But I know that's the other thing,

Isn't it?

Like it's bad enough that you feel like your emotions are out of control,

But then you load the guilt on top of it and go,

Why am I acting like such a bitch?

I love my husband,

I don't know why I'm treating him like this.

Yeah.

I think husbands that are the ones that stand by,

I don't know,

I read this book over Christmas last year and I kind of popped my eyeballs over the edge of it and looked at my husband and said,

Good news is there'll only be another five to seven years before I'm kind of back to myself.

And then like went back to reading and his eyes are like,

What tears in their eyes?

But I think,

You know,

Yay to all of the partners that do walk alongside us because this is such a tricky time,

Particularly,

You know,

With the,

I think for me,

The mood and mental health aspect has been the most trying so far,

Who knows what will happen down the track.

Yeah.

And you raise a good point.

What I'm actually in the process of planning for a big event,

An online event later this year.

And one component of that is going to be,

You know,

It'll be a session specifically designed that women can watch with their partners and we'll be talking about mental health and relationships and also libido and sex things as well.

So,

You know,

Hopefully it's going to be a pretty big event and I'll be able to do,

I'll make sure I let you know,

Let your listeners know when that's coming up later in the year.

Where about when,

When and where,

Do you know dates?

Haven't got dates yet,

But it'll be in the second half of the year.

All right.

We will announce it because I think the more we have these conversations,

The more educated we are and our partners are,

The better everyone is.

Absolutely.

Look,

I think,

And it can be so,

I guess,

Charged emotionally to try and sit down as a couple and have and start that discussion.

But if you're watching something together and you've got an expert there,

Who's going,

This happens and this happens and this happens,

That opens conversations like,

Oh,

Have you noticed that?

Or what do you think about that?

Or,

You know,

You start to think about it in the context of your own relationship and it opens doors.

It opens discussions.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I had an experience of that earlier this week.

I finally got around to watching the ABC special with Mif Warhurst.

Wasn't it great?

Yeah.

My husband walked back in whilst I was watching it when Ali Dadae was talking about how her mental health was very,

Very,

Very challenged.

And she even had thoughts of,

You know,

Not being there or my family would be better off if I wasn't here,

Et cetera.

Very,

Very.

And I've experienced that as well.

And I think,

Yeah,

It was good for both of us to hear those stories in relation to,

You know,

Other couples,

Other people's experience of that really,

Really,

You know,

Very,

Very dark place that I have definitely been to in the last few months where when we're having these conversations and we are normalizing that this can be part of the experience and that there's things that you can do about it,

That you don't have to live like that or try and live like that because it's an awful place to find yourself and somewhere that's very difficult to feel that you've even got the resources to figure out what to do about it as well.

That's one of the things that I'd like to ask you when someone comes to you.

You just had a really great webinar about menopause and mental health that I just watched over the last couple of days.

I want to include the links.

So for everyone listening,

If you go to the WellFirm website,

Which we haven't got to yet,

But we will,

Right down the bottom of the homepage,

There's a whole heap of webinars on different topics.

There's about to be one published on hormone therapy and the risks and all of the ins and outs of that addressing,

Unfortunately,

All of the fear that still exists around very old studies that were not well reported.

Based in misinformation,

Unfortunately,

Misperception.

Yeah,

Exactly.

And I just think about the,

Would it be millions of women that stopped taking hormone therapy?

Oh,

Why?

Undoubtedly.

Millions and millions.

There was one of the guys,

Robert Langer,

Who's one of the guys that was in the research team around the Women's Health Initiative.

He spoke at the AMS Congress a few years back and he had some very interesting data,

Which he put up.

It was looking at the deaths from heart disease of people in the US.

And he put up a slide,

This was sort of in about,

I guess,

2010.

He put up the rates of deaths from cardiovascular disease in men from 2000 to 2010,

And then for women.

And the rates of deaths from cardiovascular disease amongst women 10 years after the Women's Health Initiative had skyrocketed.

Of course they have.

Now,

You know,

What factors had changed in that time?

Now,

He didn't go so far as saying it was because of that,

Because nobody knows.

No.

But it's very suggestive because we know that there are so many protective things about hormonal treatments.

So,

You know,

It is really,

Really sad that that's happened.

And yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry,

You've just opened up a,

Wasn't something that I was thinking about discussing with you,

But it is a perfect time,

Perfect segue.

I am noticing online that we are going back to the days where,

And maybe this is still the case,

But because I don't have brand new babies,

I don't,

I'm not swimming in that ocean of information.

But when I had my babies,

The breastfeeding versus bottle feeding thing was like,

You were either one or the other and there was no one in between.

And I'm noticing online and a lot of the menopause discussion circles,

I'm noticing this new,

I think hormone therapy is a good idea.

And I absolutely think that hormone therapy is bad and you must go through menopause naturally and nothing in between.

And I'm just like,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa.

It's a very polarized kind of discussion and it is concerning because there's so much nuance in this space.

You know,

I think there is no right or wrong answer.

I think every woman's journey is unique.

We all have to get individually assessed.

We need to find the information.

You know,

I mean,

If somebody who's knowledgeable actually tells you quite clearly what the potential benefits and risks are of any given approach,

It really helps to empower you to make the right choices for yourself.

And no woman has the right to tell another woman that she should or shouldn't be doing what she's doing.

That's only her choice.

I can't tell my patients what to do.

I can only tell them what I know and support their decision and prescribe.

And that's the attitude of all of our WellFem doctors,

You know,

Because it's not black and white.

It's very nuanced.

And whatever things we try,

I always say to a patient,

Very frankly,

I don't know if this is going to help you or not.

Like,

I mean,

If she's got really raging hot flushes and she's menopausal age,

I know there's like a 99% chance that having oestrogen will make them better.

But I can't guarantee anything.

And I never,

Never,

Ever know when I see a woman in front of me,

If a particular approach is going to make her feel better or if she's going to get side effects from it.

Nobody can tell you that until you try it.

But the good news is that with these kinds of therapies,

No matter what's chosen,

Overwhelmingly these things are quite low risk.

Yes.

You know,

If you try something and you get side effects,

Well,

Stop.

That's fine.

You're not married to it.

You don't have to keep taking it.

It's like people make this big deal about,

Oh,

I'm scared about going on it.

And I'm going,

Well,

Why not just give it a try?

And if you don't like it,

Just stop.

You know,

It's not that.

Yeah.

So unless there's a really,

Really compelling risk associated reason,

Which your doctor can help you work out,

I just think,

Well,

Look,

We can try this.

If that doesn't work,

We can go on and try this.

And there's always,

So I've had breast cancer and I can't take hormonal treatments myself anymore.

So I've had to explore a whole range of other things.

And this didn't work for me.

So I went on and tried this and this didn't totally work for me.

So I'm trying this with a combination of something else.

But yeah,

There's things that are very,

Very effective that are hormonal and things that are very,

Very effective that are non-hormonal.

And there's all spectrum of things out there that are,

You know,

Quite frankly,

You know,

Rubbish and expensive rubbish at best.

But,

You know,

People have the right to choose what they're going to choose.

I would say always look at the evidence base for whatever it is that you're interested in and consider the other problematic thing is that there's a range of stuff out there that you can just pick up off the shelf at the chemist or the naturopath or the wherever.

And there's no prescriptions and you can pay a million bucks and you can have whatever you like.

But just because there's no evidence of harm,

It doesn't mean it's not potentially going to harm you.

It probably just means that nobody's done the research.

Yeah,

Exactly.

There's so much that I want to like,

This gets me so fired up.

The judgment of women,

Of other women is like,

I'm just like,

Hello,

Did anyone hear about the sisterhood?

Like we're meant to actually be raising each other up.

Support one another's choices,

You know,

Have a discussion,

You know,

Not a confrontation.

Yeah,

But it's all very well to,

It's kind of similar to the breastfeeding thing.

Like if breastfeeding is easy for you and it's accessible and your baby is thriving and you are thriving,

Beautiful.

That's not everybody's experience.

And I think that when I heard someone online the other day saying,

You know,

Um,

People,

I'm not even going to repeat it because it doesn't bear repeating,

But anyway,

This,

This,

You know,

You're right if you're not taking hormone therapy and you're wrong if you are.

And I'm just like,

It's very well and good for you who I'm assuming doesn't have life threatening or life altering or life challenging symptoms,

Because we know that every single menopausal experience is different.

Some people sail through with not much.

Other people are really challenged.

Um,

I feel like people that make those sweeping statements,

Particularly,

Particularly when they're usually connected to something that they're trying to sell.

That's the natural support.

It's like,

How dare you use your platform on social media,

Um,

To talk about something that A,

You don't have evidence about and B,

Um,

Is something that may well work for people that don't have very severe symptoms.

But for someone like me,

For instance,

Who has severe mental health symptoms associated with perimenopause and without treatment,

I would literally be in danger.

Yeah.

It can be life changing from woman to woman.

And I think if,

You know,

You mentioned social media,

I think there's this phenomenon where people,

Um,

It's a pack mentality.

So people are finding a Facebook group that's saying what they want to hear.

And then they become,

I don't know,

A lynch mob or something,

You know,

They,

They become very militant about their particular,

Um,

Viewpoint.

And so I do,

I do think,

Um,

You know,

Certainly these social media groups,

Um,

That they have their place.

They are a place where women can go and go,

Oh,

Finally,

Some people are talking about this and they can hear a range of viewpoints.

I think the danger there is that if anybody says something that,

You know,

That is against the vibe of the group or whatever,

That they can be,

Um,

Actually vilified.

Yeah.

Um,

You know,

It can be turned against.

Exactly.

So it can turn nasty really easily.

And I think the other danger there is that people will go into those groups and then they'll go,

Oh,

Well,

I want what she's having.

You know,

She,

She loves it.

I want what she's having,

Um,

Prescribed me that.

But it's not actually taking into account that individual woman's needs and medical history and all of that.

So,

Um,

Look,

By all means,

I think that they're a great source of support and,

Um,

Camaraderie and all of that kind of thing.

But just be aware that they can actually have a lot of,

Um,

Pitfalls and get a,

Get a bit of a mob mentality going.

And that any kind of medical advice you hear in those groups is not specific to you.

It's specific to the woman who's giving it.

So exactly.

And it's one slice of experience for one single individual,

Which actually brings me perfectly to,

Um,

How and why did you decide to create WellFem?

And I'm going to assume it's because of all of the misinformation,

But also a lot of the time,

You know,

We are going to GPs that don't necessarily have,

Um,

A specific interest in menopause or specific extra training.

It's wonderful if your GP is,

You know,

Going to the menopausal society,

You know,

Conferences and reading and,

But that is not the case for a lot of people.

And you can find those GPs who do on the AMS website.

They haven't,

They actually have a find a doctor section on their website.

Yeah.

So they,

So if you're out there and you're hoping to find a doctor in your local area who is knowledgeable about menopause,

There's no guarantees,

Mind you.

It just means they paid the membership fees.

There's no guarantees that they know a lot.

But there's a higher chance that they,

They are at least aware of the latest information.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

So you go,

You went through your own perimenopause symptoms and then how did you decide to create WellFem?

Where did the,

Where did the idea come from?

I don't think I ever did.

I don't think I ever did actually decide to create WellFem,

But I do remember back in the sort of,

You know,

2015,

2016 ish timeframe when I was seeing women in the menopause clinic.

Yeah.

Some of them were traveling,

So I'm based in Canberra.

Some of them were traveling quite a long way to see me.

And,

You know,

And I,

I didn't feel that there,

They were particularly complex cases,

But they just couldn't access any kind of sympathetic medical services in their local area.

So they were coming to us.

And I just,

I remember thinking,

God,

I barely ever need to touch a patient to do this work.

It's all about the conversation.

Conversation.

Yeah.

They've got their own GP who checks their blood pressure and examines them.

I don't need to do that.

Yes.

I could have done this over the phone and I'm thinking this,

You know,

This poor woman's traveled all this way and,

You know,

Why isn't somebody just offering telehealth?

Because telehealth was being done.

Yes.

It just wasn't being widely done.

And,

And I think there was a lot of suspicion around that.

Yeah.

Are you a real doctor?

Are you a real doctor?

I,

I,

I don't know.

I chewed on that for a little while and then,

You know,

Various life circumstances happened and around mid 2018,

I thought,

You know what,

I'm just going to do this.

So I started setting up,

You know,

IT systems,

Which was not as straightforward as I thought it was going to be.

But,

You know,

And,

And actually sort of putting myself out there and,

And contacting people and saying,

Hey,

I'm gonna,

You know,

If you need help,

If you need services,

I can do this for you online.

And,

And then,

You know,

I was definitely viewed with a lot of suspicion.

I think other doctors are kind of like,

What the heck are you doing?

And like you said,

Other patients are kind of like,

Is this a real doctor?

There were no Medicare rebates.

It was expensive with,

You know,

No Medicare rebates because they're long consultations.

Yes.

It's,

It was a bit of a hard sell to be honest.

And I found myself like,

I actually launched WellFem in 2019 officially.

Had a little cake and a party and everything.

Had my friends over.

And then,

You know,

About,

I think it would have been,

No,

It was probably the school holiday,

The April school holidays or the July school holidays in 2019.

I packed the kids up in the car and we did a little road trip around Western New South Wales.

And I did a speaking tour where I spoke to nine groups of women over a week.

Yeah.

Sort of saw something like 250 women,

You know,

Just doing,

Just doing a little menopause presentation and saying,

You know,

If you have any issues,

Downtrack that I can do telehealth.

And I was very,

Very lucky to get some sponsorship from a commercial company which allowed me to offer for rural and remote women,

Some reduced price consultations,

Which,

You know,

So that allowed me at least to get a foot in the door to offer these women some consultations.

And,

You know,

It's funny,

Even now I sometimes get women who walk in and go,

I remember seeing you at Cowra or I remember seeing you at,

You know,

Lots of different places.

Like,

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

The master stroke of just getting out there and talking to women,

Because I think that one of the things that we are brilliant at as a species of women is that word of mouth thing.

You know,

It's like when,

When any of the people that were in those rooms,

Then,

You know,

Hear of a friend or experience something themselves,

They'll be like,

Oh,

I know that there was a lady that came and that's right.

That's exactly right.

And,

And I relied heavily on the rural,

The rural nurses,

The women's nurses who,

Who,

You know,

Would travel out to various different regional areas and they spread the word and help,

You know,

Help give you some advice on setting up the events and things.

And some of them were really,

Really supportive at helping drum up,

You know,

Some audience for those events.

So yeah,

I did that.

And obviously COVID,

You know,

Changed everything with respect to telehealth.

Yes.

Because it became really well validated as a way of actually delivering good medical care and people got used to doing the video thing and realizing.

Normal life now,

Right?

The video thing.

Yeah.

So that really helped a lot.

And as a result of that,

We got some specific telehealth item numbers that related to reproductive and sexual health,

Which allowed us to continue to do this work.

I guess the,

The unknown factor here is,

You know,

Because at any time the government giveth,

The government taketh away again,

You know,

We don't,

We don't know for sure that those telehealth item numbers for reproductive and sexual health will be ongoing forever,

But very,

Very hopeful because it's so,

So important.

You know,

We've got people in rural and remote areas who don't feel either,

Don't feel comfortable going to visit their local doctors with their sexual health issues or can't because of locality.

And we're talking about things,

You know,

Like STIs and,

You know,

Contraception and unwanted pregnancies and,

You know,

Like all of these things,

Not just menopause.

So it all comes under that sort of reproductive and sexual health umbrella.

So for those services to continue to be able to be delivered,

You know,

As an outreach via telehealth,

We really need that stuff to continue.

Let's talk about the process with WellFam because you've grown to,

How many doctors do you have now?

Uh,

Well,

Including myself and one that's on maternity leave,

15.

15.

Wow.

Amazing.

Do you just look at that and go,

Huh,

That little cake and a little launch party and here we are.

I know,

I know.

It's,

It's turned into a bit of a gorilla now.

Oh,

It's so good though,

Because I just admire people that see a gap and want to do something about it because you could easily have seen the gap and gone,

Wow,

What can I do?

I know.

Put my hands up in the air and move on.

And do you know,

I really struggled with that.

This is a thing that,

Um,

That women do,

I think,

And this is the wonderful thing about being midlife and not giving a fuck.

Yeah.

Amen.

Because I did struggle a lot with that,

You know,

Like for a humble GP to then put themself out there as an expert doing something that nobody else does.

Yeah.

Pioneering.

That takes some cojones,

You know,

You've got to actually have,

You've got to back yourself and I actually,

I was seeing a therapist at the time because I'd had a nasty breakup and,

You know,

And I was considering,

You know,

Look,

I really want to do this.

I really want to do this,

But I worry about how it's going to be received in these quarters or those quarters or what if people don't want to do it?

What if people attack me?

You know,

It's really not a small thing to do.

And so,

You know,

I did a lot of reaching out to people in those quarters going,

I was thinking about doing this.

What do you think?

What do you think?

Yeah.

So it was actually really wonderful that almost without exception,

They were very supportive.

I think they thought I was a bit crazy.

They probably were thinking,

Oh,

Let's just give it a crack.

Right.

If I'd have been right in front of them,

They probably would have been patting my head and going,

Oh yeah,

Sure you do that.

Yeah.

But they were actually quite supportive and they go,

No,

I think that sounds like a great idea,

You know,

And,

You know,

So all of my overblown fears and concerns was in actual fact,

People going,

Oh yeah,

Sure.

If you want to do it,

That sounds like a good idea.

Go for it.

And just think about if you imagined that you could be in a room with every single woman that WellFem has then gone on to help and look at all of those women.

I think that that's the important thing when you are being that pioneering,

You know,

When you do have to pull from the centre of yourself to find that courage to start something that you don't know whether it will work or not work or how it will be received.

But to keep on thinking about all of the lives that you can profoundly impact by having access to menopause trained doctors who know how to present all of your options and weigh up the risks,

Etc.

For you so that you can make an informed decision and you're not,

You know,

Got blinkers on at a rural GP that may or may not even be open to prescribing hormone therapies because that also is an experience that I've had before.

Yeah,

Exactly.

And but I think it does require all of us to support the sisterhood in doing that because it's really you can feel so disempowered if you don't have a lot of knowledge yourself and you go to your GP and they go,

Oh,

Don't worry about it.

You're too young or no,

That's not an option for you because you've had high blood pressure or whatever.

And you go,

Oh,

Okay,

Well,

That's the end of it then.

And you just go away and you feel miserable and,

You know,

And nothing gets better.

So I think unless we actually spread that information,

If we go,

You know,

Doctors don't know everything and it's okay for you to actually ask questions and say,

Why,

Why am I too young?

They're not okay for me.

And it's actually okay for you to go and look elsewhere for information if you're not getting the answers you need.

You know,

I think there's this particularly in the country,

There's this often misplaced sense of loyalty,

Like,

You know,

I'm being disloyal if I go against what my doctors told me.

I literally just had that conversation with my 80 year old GP who gave birth to me,

You know,

Like whatever.

He tells me this,

He must,

He's God,

I have to,

You know,

Abide by God's word or whatever,

But that's not true,

Actually.

No,

I literally just had that conversation with a close friend of mine.

I wasn't born in the country and,

You know,

Having been a medical scientist for quite some time,

I do not believe that doctors are infallible and God people.

They're just human beings like the rest of us.

But this friend of mine has gone to the same family doctor.

He would be very close to 80 and he told her that she should just suck it up and get on with it because it's not that bad.

People didn't need hormone therapy back in the day,

So you don't either.

And she's struggling so badly.

How about all those poor rural women that were drowning themselves in dams and stuff because they didn't need it,

Did they?

Or drowning themselves in alcohol.

That's the other thing that happens in rural areas is,

You know,

Okay,

Well,

If no one's going to give me access to help,

I'm going to find another way of trying to cope.

Yeah.

And so I will drink all day,

Every day.

Yeah.

That's not saying everyone.

So I think it's super important for all of us to,

You know,

Just listen to what our friends are saying or ask the question,

You know,

Have you been experiencing this?

You know,

I'm noticing this.

I'm noticing this.

Are you getting anything like that?

You know,

It's kind of like the are you okay thing,

Isn't it?

If we don't actually,

Some women will not necessarily feel comfortable bringing it up,

But if somebody asks,

Maybe they'll talk about it.

Yeah.

I refuse to shut up to the point where my kids are like,

Do you have to be talking about perimenopause at the table when the boys are over?

Like both of them have got,

You know,

Partners.

And I'm like,

Yeah,

I do.

Because one day your generation of women will be going through it.

If we have more informed young women and young men,

It won't be so bloody hard when you get to this age,

Because we'll be talking about it more.

We'd be part of life.

I think my son is going to be evangelical about it.

He was,

Because he was the doorman at 10 years of age.

He was the doorman at all of those little talks I did in South Wales.

So he was the one that does ticking people off as they came in the door.

And he had to sit through every single one of those nine presentations.

And so he actually,

He's so funny because he would come to me and he would be hearing women talking about symptoms or something.

And he'd go,

Mum,

Sounds like she needs blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Oh,

That just warms the cockles of my heart.

Very,

Very enlightened.

So we have to talk to our sons and daughters about this.

So they have to know that we're going through it.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

We have to be just like the partners,

Because if they don't know,

Then they'll just think mum's turned into a raging lunatic and she doesn't love me anymore.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And I have had so many conversations with my daughters and my husband of just like,

I really am struggling.

This is how I'm feeling.

Or this is what's going on for me when I snap at you or when I want to be by myself.

It's just because I'm not coping very well and there's too much sensory demand on me.

And by the end of the day,

I just need to be by myself.

It's not because I don't want to hang out with you.

It's just because this is what my need for my own self-care and emotional bandwidth and mental fitness needs.

Like I have a very high need for solo time at the moment and quiet solo time.

And that's just the way it is.

And hopefully that will change over time,

But maybe it won't.

But I guess if we just keep on having the conversations,

At least people understand how we're feeling so that they're not making your behavior mean something about them.

That was what I was like.

I don't want you to feel like this is you.

I'm not reacting to you.

I'm reacting to this internal.

Right.

I mean,

That's wonderful that you have those conversations with your family because you have that knowledge of what's happening to you.

And that's why we need to make sure that women do have that knowledge of what's happening.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

This is the whole point of the podcast.

It's like,

Let's just be honest.

When someone wants to look into utilizing WellFem,

One of the things that I love so much on your website is you've got a menopause.

It's called an assessment tool,

Isn't it?

At the top.

That's right.

Yes.

And it's quite a detailed.

I went and did it just because I was talking to you.

I was like,

All right,

I'm going to go and just sort of see what the system feels like.

And even knowing what I've been through,

I found that experience very good because it's so,

I was going to say exhaustive.

That's not the right word.

Detailed.

That's it.

Comprehensive,

Not apprehensive.

Word finding ability.

I found that really,

Really helpful as an exercise to do.

And I think to me,

That is the major benefit of WellFem is that not only have you got menopause specific,

Menopause knowledgeable GPs,

But even the process of actually going through something like that is like,

Oh,

I hadn't even noticed that.

But now that you're asking that,

Yes,

I do find that my mood has been affected.

Or yes,

I have found that my sleep is not that great compared to what it used to be on average.

So before someone actually sees a GP in your clinic,

Can you just walk us through the process so that if someone's listening and they either don't want to go to their GP or have and they've had that,

You know,

Suck it up or you're too young or whatever,

You know,

Misinformation,

Can you tell us how it works just so that we're demystifying the booking process?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well,

Thank you for mentioning the assessment tool.

I'm very proud of that.

And it is excellent.

I was,

I remember because I was dating my fiance at the time a few years back where I was actually writing all of that on the kitchen table,

You know,

Going,

You know,

Women need to know this stuff.

And there was some really rubbish kind of menopause quizzes and stuff online.

And I just wanted to do something decent that actually had links to some decent information.

Yes.

So as you say,

It helps women to self-identify what's happening and quantify that somehow.

Yes.

So,

Yeah,

I think that's a worthwhile thing to do to start as a start point.

Definitely.

Look,

You know,

And it is super,

Super easy to get onto us because you can just book online with anyone.

But I do realize that,

You know,

It's not cheap for a lot of people,

Like,

Especially with the cost of living at the moment.

So it's if there's anyone out there who thinks,

Oh,

I'm not sure that I can afford that fee.

We do have 10 minute free chats where you can actually meet the doctor first.

So you can actually click on the book now button on the website.

And you can book a free trial chat with one of the doctors.

And then,

You know,

You can kind of then make sure you're going to feel comfortable with the telehealth format and talk to them about what they would do in a long consultation and how they might be able to help you.

Now,

I must stress,

They can't give you any medical advice in that chat because medico legally,

It needs to be a formal doctor patient relationship before they can do that.

But the actual the reason why the appointments aren't cheap is because they take more than 40 minutes to actually go through in a very detailed process.

So what happens is the patient,

The patient books online.

We do take payment up front because,

You know,

As you'd understand,

We can't have doctors sitting around for people who don't turn up.

People cancel all the time.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But then the Friday prior to their appointment,

They get automatically sent out a link to do a patient intake form.

And it's very detailed.

So,

You know,

There's,

You know,

Sort of socio demographic stuff there.

There's,

You know,

Medical history,

Gynae history,

Lifestyle history.

That's their chance to sort of put it all down for us and also a menopause symptom score.

And this is a really important thing.

Now,

The menopause symptom score part,

It's not a perfect tool by any means.

There are things missing out of it that I would would want to be in there like,

You know,

Cognitive function,

Memory,

That sort of stuff is not included.

But it is a universally recognised kind of assessment tool that doctors use the world over at the moment.

So that's why we've included it.

And what that means is,

Is we can get a bit of a snapshot of what your symptoms are.

And then as once we've made a treatment plan with you,

We can check in with you maybe in three months and see how it's going and redo the symptom score and see what's changing.

So we know what's working and what isn't.

And another important thing about our consultations is the detailed reports that you get afterwards.

And this was really important to me as a GP,

Because I'm thinking,

You know,

When I was going through that self questioning,

Should I do this?

Should I not?

You know,

What would you know,

How a GP is going to take this because they're going to feel threatened,

You know,

That we're taking their patients or something.

So do they not think,

Thank God there's someone that specialises in this and I don't like to think so.

You'd like to think so.

But,

You know,

Some of the crustier,

Older GPs certainly who do have a good complex do feel undermined that if they've said no to their patient on something or fob them off and then that patient's actually felt empowered enough to go in and seek help elsewhere.

The doctor gets affronted a little bit by that.

So unfortunately,

It still does happen.

But the vast majority of GPs,

When they see the level of detail in that report that we've gone into that we have specifically addressed to them.

Now,

Mind you,

We don't send it to the GP.

We give it to the patient and let the patient make sure that they feel comfortable taking it to the GP.

Yes,

Exactly.

But it does come with a cover letter complete with links to webinars that we've done to help educate GPs as well.

So,

You know,

What we hope in doing that is that we've explained the reasons why we think this stuff is important.

We've identified some areas that maybe the screening or whatever isn't up to date or some other things that might be useful,

Like a bone density scan or whatever else is needed.

So we make recommendations or suggestions back to the GP in that report,

Because the idea is that we want to be,

You know,

Working in collaboration with the GP,

Being supportive of that.

You know,

The GP is so integrally important to that woman's good overall health care.

You need somebody locally who's going to be the keeper of your medical records,

The coordinator of any tests or investigations or whatever you need.

And if you have a health crisis,

You need to have somebody in your local area,

A medical person that you can go to to get that deal dealt with in a hurry.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

We can only ever do advice by telehealth.

We can't be that person and we don't want to take over that person's role,

But we want to support that person.

We want to support your GP in supporting you.

Yeah,

It's so good in my mind.

And I,

You know,

Honouring,

As you said,

Cost of living,

Etc.

When I think about this service,

It is the same kind of level of investment that I would make or I have made in going to see a specialist.

It's like,

I'm going to see a subspecialist.

I don't even know whether that's a thing,

But like a GP who's a subspecialist in menopause because these symptoms are affecting me and I'd like them dealt with.

And I'd like them dealt with in the most timely,

Well-evidenced-backed way.

And then,

You know,

I go back to the centre of the spoke of my health care,

Which is my local GP.

That's kind of how I see it in my head.

Yeah.

And I mean,

So at the full price consultations at the moment are $275,

Which is actually less than the cost of a lot of specialists.

And it's an hour or more of the doctor's time.

And you get more than $113 back on the Medicare rebate as it stands.

That's decent.

Yeah.

So it's not exorbitantly expensive.

I didn't want to give you that impression.

But I know that that's a lot of money for some people.

And so what we've set up is like this pay it forward kind of system to make sure that women who are on pension and concession and health care cards can afford the service.

So one in six of our new patient appointments is actually a concession rate appointment,

Which is so they're kind of around $50 out of pocket for those appointments.

Oh,

So good.

And they're subsidised by the other five of the six.

Exactly.

And if anyone has trouble paying up front,

They can contact us and we can work out some sort of plan so that they don't have to pay too far in advance.

So good.

You have literally thought of everything,

Kelly.

Well,

The whole point is we want to make sure that every Australian woman has access to good menopause care.

And that's every woman,

Not just the ones who can afford it.

Afford it.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

What are your hopes?

This is my final question.

I know we've gone on and on and on.

I've got so many questions for you.

What are your hopes for,

You know,

We know recently that in Parliament,

In Federal Parliament,

We had a menopause roundtable.

Lots of people came together.

What would be the magic wand thing that would happen for menopause care and support for all women,

Accessibility for all women in Australia as a result of those beginning discussions?

And I know this is a hypothetical question,

But what would you love to see?

Hmm.

Well,

Our number one ask from that roundtable was for government to develop a national menopause action plan,

Which would actually be relatively low cost.

And we were super hopeful that maybe there would be something in the budget about that.

But unfortunately,

There wasn't.

Yeah.

So that's,

You know,

I think at that roundtable,

It was unprecedented with,

You know,

All of these fantastic menopause experts.

We had,

You know,

Clinicians and researchers and advocates and patients and everybody all came together.

All the experts who spoke had their specific,

You know,

Recommendations to make from their own,

You know,

Their own professional experience.

And what needs to happen now is all of that wealth of knowledge and recommendations needs to be pulled together to form a strategic road map for us to,

You know,

Like,

So that would involve things like,

You know,

Addressing the Medicare rebate issues that stop GPs from being able to have long,

Complex consultations.

You know,

$113 is not enough money to be able to do what we do.

So,

You know,

Especially if it takes more than an hour of the doctor's time.

So,

You know,

We need better Medicare rebates.

We need public health campaigns.

We need better GP education.

And there's like the list went on and on of things.

So what would bring all that together and give us,

You know,

The to-do list is the National Menopause Action Plan to tie all that together.

What a bugger that we didn't see it in the budget.

Anyway.

Yeah,

Yeah.

We're really hopeful for the next budget.

I'm still meeting with politicians regularly.

That's good.

Pushing my barrow.

Yeah.

Good,

Good,

Good,

Good.

We need you out there.

Kelly,

It has been an absolute bloody delight to get to meet you and hear the why behind what you're doing in the world.

And thank you for sharing so openly about,

You know,

How much courage it's taken you to set up Welfare.

And I think it's really important for people to understand that these things don't just drop from the sky,

Ready-made and successful business ventures.

And yeah.

Thank you.

The message obviously is that,

You know,

We have our superpower is our age.

You know,

The fact that we have life experience,

You know,

And as soon as we,

As soon as we actually can recognize and accept that it's there and shine the light on it,

You can do anything.

I didn't start Welfare until I was 50 years old.

You know,

You can absolutely teach old dogs new tricks or new dogs.

Old dogs can teach themselves new tricks,

I suppose.

But yes,

So there's so much,

So much strength and knowledge.

We can do really great things and we can mentor and we can support one another.

We can teach our children,

Our sons and daughters and friends.

So,

You know,

Get out there and do it.

Yeah.

And speak to one another,

Please.

Like,

Listen to this episode and don't just keep it to yourself.

Go and tell someone about something that you took from the episode.

We will put all the links to Welfare just so that people are understanding what I'm saying.

It's WELFME and your website is just .

Com,

I think.

Yeah,

.

Com.

Au actually.

.

Com.

Au.

Okay,

Perfect.

So we'll put all of those in the show notes,

But don't keep these conversations to yourself.

Share something that you've learned from this conversation with another sister,

Because I really love,

Let's start an initiative that's like the R U OK?

Day,

But about bloody perimenopause symptoms.

What will we call it?

I don't know.

I don't know because it ties in so much with the R U OK?

Absolutely.

Isn't it?

It's like,

But you know,

Like,

Well,

What's your experience?

What are you going through?

How is it for you?

Because everybody's so different.

So different.

And if we're not talking about it,

We're not even understanding that some of these things can be easily addressed.

And,

You know,

Even just for I think for me,

A big part of my kind of travel through this is understanding the why behind some of the things that are happening,

Make it so much easier.

Like,

I think that's what you said about the a lot of,

You know,

Feeling that feelings of anxiety is like understanding why it's happening and where it's coming from and understanding how to kind of address them from an internal perspective.

Yeah,

It's so empowering.

Like,

Let's take our power back.

Very first part of that most recent webinar we did,

Which is the one about hormonal treatments in the menopausal transition.

Dr.

Laura Wilson,

One of our new doctors,

Actually has right at the beginning,

Very succinctly talked about the hormonal changes that are happening and why it makes you a bit crazy.

And we also have on the website,

As well as the menopause assessment tool right there on the web on the on the homepage is a link to do to watch the menopause boot camp,

Which is perfect.

It's just like a kind of 45 minute,

I think it is,

Or one hour presentation,

Which sort of covers a whole bunch of stuff,

You know,

Right from,

You know,

The symptoms that are happening and why they're happening and what the various treatment options are and what lifestyle changes you need to make.

So it's all kind of very concise.

So good.

All right.

We're going to put all of those golden links in the show notes.

Kelly Teagle,

Thank you so much for your time.

I know we've chatted way longer than I intended to,

But thank you for the work you do in the world.

Thank you so much.

Wonderful.

Can't find my stop button.

Thank you so much for listening in to this episode.

I hope you enjoyed it and you took away some golden nuggets or a chiropractic adjustment of the soul around how to more gently and self-compassionately step through this sometimes tricky transition point.

If you loved this episode,

Please take the time to send it to a friend who's also in the messy magical middle or even better,

Go and rate the show with a five star review or.

.

.