Hi, It's Patrini Jones.
You know, I've lost count the number of times I've been live on our radio show and I'll be chatting away and just completely lose my train of thought. It's like a rug ripped out from under my feet. I've come to learn that it's a common symptom of perimenopause and menopause. You know, the so called brain fog that leaves you feeling totally abandoned, But it can be downright embarrassing at times, leaving you with fears that you'll be
seen as incompetent in the workplace. In fact, a recent HCF survey found more than one third of ossie women over forty five are concerned about menopause in the workplace having a negative impact on the perception of their productivity,
which leads to my next guest. Imagen Crump is an editor of the University of Melbourne's Research News website and presenter on ABC TV, and really should be applauded for her authenticity when she admitted live on National TV that she was having a hot flush and really couldn't push on with her report. Imagen, did I feel what so many women should feel safe to do? Enjoy and take inspiration from episode three, The Hag, which is.
I really want to talk about this. Let's move on to The Australian.
It has the latest on the Prime Ministers visit the China. Yes and not a pardon Michael, big chill, but the PM doesn't pander yet. So the bilateral meeting between Australia and China. Anthony Alberteasi and Chinese. I'm so sorry I could keep stumbling through this, but I am having such a perimonal perimedopausal.
Right now live on air. It's so Softogen.
The point about this is that we need to make it normal of these kinds of conversations. And I love you for even saying it, because we interview people, we talk to people about this, and this is the reality.
I don't think respect national television.
It's the furthest of the sun.
That audio there thanks to ABC TV, and I do have in the studio in the flesh, Imagen Crumb, I'm so sorry to make you sit through that again.
It's weird to listen through. It is weird to hear it.
And it sort of flashed back to that moment when it was happening and trying to decide what to do.
And sort of catching yourself on the run, isn't it.
Imagen is the editor of the University of Melbourne's research news website Pursuit, and is a regular paper reviewer on the ABC, which we heard on her there.
Can I say, I.
Think what you're Can we call it a happy faux pas? It really was a milestone moment I think in changing the narrative of perimenopause and menopause. I applaud you as a presenter in media. No, really, because I have had so many brain fog moments I've been on the radio and you don't want to admit that you're having a moment or that you're struggling for fear of being seen as weak in the workplace. What was going through your mind? Like, what was happening for you at that time?
Well, you know, I was thinking in bullet points, so and it hot flushes like that happened so quickly, and I hadn't had one for a while, so I wasn't expecting it to happen, And you just feel this the best way to describe it is it's like molten lava that just rolls up your body and it's got little needle pricks as well, and it is so distracting and all absorbing that it's very hard to think about what else.
Is you know, body, it's zero to one hundred, zero point three of a second and it's just like spontaneous combustion. I can't describe it any And it's like peeling clothes off if you're at home and just hair goes up. Everyone just stopped talking, TV goes off.
Like everything is too much. It really is everything. It's like a sensory overlap, absolutely, and like that's the that's the physical stuff. But then your brain is so focused
on the physical stuff you can't think about anything else. So, you know, I was talking about quite a serious story, these bilateral meetings between China and Australia, massive important thing, and I I just couldn't explain it, and I was kind of it's that I guess it must feel like stage fright, which I'm lucky enough not to have had. But well, you just can't think of the next words. And so in that moment, in that bullet point, I
was like, I just have to explain. I just have to explain what's happening, and exactly what you said, I don't want to look inept at my job. I'm good at my job, so I need to provide an explanation. And I've had a lot of women say since, well, why didn't you just say you're feeling sick or why not? Not in a critical way, but just in a did it not occur to you way?
And I was like, I agree, I agree.
And I think in that that moment, I was like, I'm just going to explain.
I'm just going to say and.
I will also say, you know, kudos to Lisa and Michael, particularly Lisa, and I think that was part of it. I've been doing the paper reviews for quite a while and I guess I kind of felt safe enough absolutely to say it totally forgetting about that.
You got that trust on it and it's so important, and for me as a presenter, I thought it was actually quite a beautiful thing.
It was a beautiful thing.
And how they both rallied behind it rally and this is what we need to do. HCF The Health Fund has done a really interesting recent survey on perimenopause and the impacts on the workplace. More than one in three Aussie women over the age of forty five say The main areas are concern are that they feel it could have a negative impact on the perception of women's productivity
or performance in the workplace. Three and ten thirty percent are concerned that their colleagues or managers may think that they can't do their job properly if they let them know they were struggling because of the symptoms.
That's real.
So when we're pregnant and we have horrific morning sickness, we're not afraid to say, hey, can't come in today, put my head down the toilet. I think we need to change the narrative, and doing what you did on the ABC is helping to do that. We need to talk about it, we need to normalize it totally.
And you know, it is kind of flumming saying why it's so taboo. I mean, I guess with pregnancy, you know, it's so physically obvious that that you are with child and all those associated symptoms, and I think with perimenopause
it's more subtle and it's more sneaky. And you know, people, a lot of these these women, most women who are going through it, are kind of at the peak of their careers, right, so they've reached a point where they're competent and they're confident, and they're potentially in really quite powerful positions all these decades to get to the play and so to then be undermine, yes, by their hormones.
And it's not by their hormones, it's by other people's judgment of their hormones that that they might think they're inept or bad at their jobs because of a you know, two to twenty five second hot flush.
Is just seems so weird, right.
The stigma is, I don't know why. Why is there a stigma? It's a natural bodily process, as is menstruating and pregnancy, childbirth.
Yep, I don't I don't get it.
I don't know. There must be there must be a historical reason or a societal reason that you know, I've had a whole lot of women getting in touch with me, which has been amazing, referring to us as the hag witches, which I quite like. I don't mind being a hag witch. But I guess there must be something cultural societally where menopause is seen as something bad and it's you know, it's probably tied up in women's aging.
Yes, yeah, sh shove you into the top paddic and you're top part.
You're not good to us anymore, you can't procreate. Off you go and live out your days in the top paddic.
Yeah, more than three and five more HCF stats, more than three and five sixty two percent of those workings. So they would have concerns about it being discussed more if conversations were normalized, with those working full time much more likely than those working part time to cite their colleagues managers potentially thinking that they can't do their job.
Oh that's so yeah, so frustrating. And you know these are these are judgments where as women are making about ourselves as well, Like we're taught to keep storm on this and I don't know, it's so subtle how we're influenced not to talk about it, and I genuinely don't know why.
It's.
Yes, it's crap for a lot of women to experience, and it is discombobulating and disconcerting and bouncy and it can be distressing, but we've kind of imposed some silence on ourselves. And you know, I think there's obviously societal pressures and all sorts of things, and I'm sure someone out there is yelling the patriarchy, but it's also something we're doing to ourselves by keeping quiet on and there has to be a change in that conversation.
And I feel like that change is happening.
Yeah, I think the ship is turning, but it's going to take a while.
Let's not be the.
Titanic and hit the eyes. It's funny to say that.
I was at a lunch recently and I was telling a group of women over their fifties about the podcast. Of them were really passionate. You know, it was like bees to honey. When I heard what I was talking about, that's all relief.
Yeah.
They all had a story, and I said to a couple of them, I would love to have you on my podcast. One of them said, and quite a well known person said, oh no, I couldn't do that. And I respected that obviously because it's personal. But why can't Did you have a reason?
Did I think it was.
She wouldn't be seen as being what she marketed herself as abbs. But that's why I want to do it, because I really pride myself on being real and being authentic, and if I'm going to do it, I need to share as well and hopefully by me sharing if.
It just hits a note, well, I think it's brilliant one.
Other woman and saying hey, it's okay's absolutely about this. Let's open the conversation, sort of create this community of support, a network of support.
Then I will have achieved.
What I said.
Absolutely, and I think you're gonna genuinely not just help a lot of women, but a lot of men. You know, I think one of the things I've found after this is the reaction I had has been genuinely amazing. Yes, the support has been amazing, and that's not just from women. That's from blokes as well, saying, oh, you know, I shared this with my wife to let her know she's not alone, or this started a conversation with my teenage daughters who didn't even know that perrymanopause was a thing.
I mean I didn't when I was a teenager.
You've just given me.
Goose bumps, because if anything of what happened on the ABC, that is the best measure.
Yeah, absolutely, what you've done.
I hope you realize the enormity of what you've done to the argument. No you have, don't shake your head. You really have talking about the younger generation. I have a daughter, you have a daughter in your teens. I also hope to achieve with this and talking about it in making hopefully their path down the track that little bit easier. Agreed, it's a huge legacy. I think that we can that we can leave. Have you had the conversation with your daughter, she's like fifteen sixteen now.
She does not care.
About anything other than her friends, than her phone.
Well, she's a normal teenager.
She's totally a normal teenager. I mean, I guess, And you know, I've had cause to think about it a lot since that moment or the ABC, and I don't know whether it came from my mum. So I lost my mum very early. Sorry no no, it was years ago. But she didn't make it to perimenopause or menopause, and so when my symptoms started, I was genuinely terrified. Well
I had no idea what was going on. And when I first went to the doctor and the doctor said the word perry menopause to me, I was like, I'm awfully sorry, but I think you.
Have me confused with someone else. Yes, I'm forty two this and what is the pery thing? Because I've heard of menopause.
CAD was the pery thing, and so that's kind of when it all started. And from there, I've been very upfront about it with my family.
Like literally coming home and going, have you guys heard of peri menopause? I've got that.
And then, as you know, it's a massive collection of symptoms and it varies from.
Woman to woman. It can be totally different.
Oh crazy, what's the craziest symptom you've got?
Do you think.
Sore gums?
Wow?
Really well, actually I take that back, because the first thing I went to the doctor about I'm going to have to try and not to laugh. The first thing I went to the doctor about when I was forty two was because I've lived my life with dead straight hair and at the age of forty two, my hair started going curly. That's insane, right, And so I said to my hairdresser, what are you doing different? Let's not layer so much at this, but I was saying, is
that do you know why it's going curly? And he was like, oh, I might be hormones, and I was like, for real, anyway, Obviously talking to pregnant mates.
About how their hair changed.
And in puberty, one of my cousins went from having straight hair to curly hair in puberty. So I went to the doctor going, what is getting curly hair? A symptom of wow, So that was my first symptom. It was kind of going, this is a weird change. But just getting back to your other question and sort of being open and how I talked to my teenager about it. So I was kind of really open about it with
my husband and my kids and my extended family. And then that in turn has made my fifteen year old really quite so much more upfront than I ever was about puberty. Like she asks stuff, and you know, so now she's getting to know what happens at the other end. I mean, it's slightly unfortunate for my husband that he's got a puberty ridden teenager and a penny perimenopause or sweaty woman.
Yeah, isn't it.
It's kind of ironic, is like our daughters kind of started and I'm sort of finishing, and Chris is kind of like caught in the middle of the cyclone.
It's but I love that you. I think we do have a role.
As women in passing on the bat and I think anything we can do to discuss and normalize. It is great. One of my weird symptoms.
I was going to ask you yours.
It's so bizarre. I thought I had like an ear infection. I've got dermatitis in my ears, which just inside your ear, inside my ears, and it's dry.
Well it's it's the ear going to so it's like not so much.
A lot of women get itchy's skin of mine seems to be around both my ears and it's so odd. I went to my GP and he said, I think you need gromets.
I remember grommet and I.
Said no, sorry, I'm not a toddler.
And I said no, sorry, I don't think I'll be getting romets.
And he so we ears are actually quite bad, and I say, yeah, I know. I'm living with it, so I'm really trying to persist with it.
What are you doing for it? Not much? Okay?
You know what is good is swimming in the sea.
Oh yeah, seawater. Saltwater fixes everything.
I I feel that too, and I get like winds like that makes a slightly more hag witchy that we want to chuck ourselves in the seaweed all over. So yeah, there is so many weird ones and like the research going on is actually adding to those symptoms of that list of symptoms all the time, because they are vast and they are varied, and you're not gonna, I don't want to terrify anyone.
You're not going to get all of them, No, hopefully not no.
But you know there are some really unexpected ones with skin changes, like you're talking about eyesight changes, hearing changes, yes, even taste changes. So there's all sorts of things that we're still finding out. I mean, perimenopause and menopause hasn't really been something that has had a whole lot of investment over the humanity's research history, but it is getting more now and as they research it more and more and more, they are finding out so many things that
are associated with perimenopause and menopause that hadn't been linked before. So, you know, I think there is a sea change, and I do also think I have a theory it's like your saltwater theory. I think it's also our age group aging up. I think we're sorry boomers, but we're less prudish and we're more likely to be open about things. And so I think a whole lot of gen X
women are God, dare I say it? Millennials are now hitting you know, perimenopause menopause age, and they're being more vocal about it.
They're not hiding away.
No, we don't need to that's for sure. Oh that's what I was going to ask you. Are you taking anything for your minopause? Like how if you are? At what point did you say no, I need something.
I am taking HRT now and I have been on it for gosh. It started in one of the many lockdowns, was where it just got too much for me, and so I went a lot and had a consultation. And my big worry about HRT was the link reported link to breast cancer. Now, that link comes from a two thousand and two study, So think about how old that is for a second. It's it's it's real old. It's now,
and that link was originally. I don't want to defame anyone, but following research has found that that link was overstated. So yes, HRT does come with this minimal risk of increased risk of breast cancer, but not the original risk they said. So A, I think a lot of women are scared of HRT because it's got this reputation that isn't deserved, and HRT has come on a really long way since two thousand and too.
So I went.
And had this consultation, and you know, it is worth saying not all women can take our HRT.
They're not able to. Yeah, exactly, it's individual.
So it's trial and error. You work out what dosage works, anything like anything exactly. And then so I was good for about eighteen months or so when I found my perfect equilibrium of estrogen patches and a marina which also releases progesterone.
Yes, and then supply chain shortages hit this.
Yes. So there is a massive supply chain issue with HRT, particularly the patches. So what has happened is there's manufacturing issues. There's I don't want to call them ingredients, what would you call it? Whatever they are ingredients, what goes into it? Yeah, stuff that goes into so shortage is there. But then there's also supply chain issues so getting things from day Yeah, So I went the day I found out, I went to eight pharmacists going do you have HIT, do you
have AHLT? None of them had my milligram, and so I called my lovely GP and I was like, well what do I do? And he said, look, you can go on to the estrogen gel, but it's not like for like you're going to have to go back through the trial and error. So I'd been doing that for probably six weeks before that moment on the ABC, and I had not got it right. So I was getting stuff again. I was getting more brain fog. I was getting the hot night sweats.
Yeah, insomnia, insomnia. I wake up in the morning if I've had a bad night. It's not every night, but I obviously get up early for the show three o'clock. And when you haven't slept, and it's just an exhaustion all day. And it's not like you can say to your family, I'm just going to clock out. Of course you can, but you there's stuff that needs to be done. When your mum and employee, and you know you've got
elderly parents who are rowing on you as well. It's not like you can just tap out all the time. I know, sadly, it's just debilitating some day.
There's no nap pod for you. No, there's not a pod that you can shut yourself up in. No, And I think you know that's the It's such a juggle, it's such a juggle, and you know, I'm the same as you.
I've got kids, I've got a job, I've got older.
Dad, and there's a lot of sort of push me pull us that happen. And when you chuck hormone on top of that, it can be so genuinely distressing. And I think, what you know, we've talked about here the physical effects of perimenopause and menopause, but then there are the mental effects and they're.
Really real as well.
So a lot of women struggle with anxiety or depression or terrible mood swings. My favorite furious, red rage anger moment that I can now look at objectively, but at the time I couldn't was sitting on a train and to my mind, the doors were closing too loud, right, And the narrative I had, yeah, the narrative I had in my head, and I won't swear. My narrative was very sweary, was how can we put.
A man on the moon fifty.
Years ago, sixty years ago, and we still can't make train doors close? Quite?
Like?
I was furious, so true, be curious, yes, And then I hopped off the train, and you know, maybe a couple of days went by and I looked back on it and I was like, what what was that about.
Yeah, it's like a check, a self check. Yeah, you can't help it, you can't, you can't help it.
No, I've had periods of like that as well with my family, where I've just snapped and you feel so awful.
Then there's guilt.
There's so much guilt, and you think, I've got to do better than this.
But it's just I know, softly as she goes.
Yeah, and also you know the guilt stuff.
You know, we do need to treat ourselves a bit more kindly, like we really I don't know about you, actually, I can probably guess. We do expect to be able to do everything every single fee time. And when you know, in a way, perimenopause and menopause gives you a bit of a wake up call that you you kind of can't and you've got to take care of yourself a bit better than you did in your twenties and your thirties, and potentially you're.
Just second forget anymore. And then it's like, oh, my.
Knees, my knee asleep.
Going on with that. So what have you found that's helped you? Obviously, the patches.
They really helped me. The other thing I've found brilliantly helpful is a sympathetic doctor. Yes, is just being able to go in and say feel heard.
Yeah, this sucks, you know.
I know we've done everything we can with HRT, and you know, all that common sensical stuff like exercise and diet and whatever, and not drinking too much although we were a lot of class, but just having an amone as well antir mates.
Yeah, I think that's really important. Supporting your girlfriends and being open to being real and supporting one another. I find that's the greatest support. I agree, well, I agree to my girlfriends.
And I think I do remember, you know, I've got a lovely mixed bunch of really old mates, men and women who have known for a really long time. And I do remember being a dead dinner party after my hair went curly and one of my male mates said, have you got a per and I was like, no, it's Perry menopause, And there was a lot of eyebrows up.
There was a lot of oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoah.
But it's interesting, I would say, over the last five years, So how do I now forty nine? So I've had it for seven years, so maybe over the last five years.
They're much more open about it too, and they have questions.
That's great.
Yeah, and all of them too. Our men got in touch after the ABC moment, going this is great.
Yeah.
Oh, and I'm so glad you did it. Yeah. Not that I had a choice, you know, really at the moment you.
Did, because a lot of women would have just soldiers.
Sorry.
Yeah, So no, you did have a choice, and bless you.
The choice you made, which was to be honest and real. And like I say, you've helped so much in changing the narrative. And you know what, it's also given me a flag to you know what, I need to be more honest. It's a check for my self as someone in the media of.
You know, I can go further in being honest.
Yeah, I'm having brain fog, which is really quite often someday me too.
So thank you so much, and thank you for your time.
Loved being here, Thank you for having me.
That was imag And Crump, journalist and editor of the University of Melbourne's research news website Pursuit. Touching on menopause in the workplace, We explore that further in this series now, Episode four needs very little introduction as I welcome into the studio Ozzie author Kaz Cook.
We're all familiar with her bestseller Up the Duve.
Now she's lent her laugh out loud signature style to.
It's the Menopause.
Get the lowdown in this next installment of Rage Against the Menopause. I'm Patrini Jons and thanks for listening.