Progesterone is a hormone that isn't discussed enough, and when it is, it's usually with negative connotations of intolerance.

It's essential we learn more about how hormonal shifts impact our ADHD, especially during perimenopause. This week, I’m joined by Adele Wimsett, a Women’s Hormone Health Practitioner, to explore the powerful link between ADHD and hormone fluctuations—and why understanding the role of progesterone is key to feeling more rested, calmer and less anxious.

Adele has dedicated her career to educating women and girls on harnessing the power of their cyclical nature. As a specialist in ADHD and hormonal health, she blends science and holistic approaches to help women navigate everything from menarche to menopause with more balance and ease.

We discuss a fascinating qualitative study that Adele conducted, where she tracked hormone levels and ADHD symptoms in a group of perimenopausal women. We discuss the often-overlooked role of progesterone and how its decline during perimenopause can lead to intensified ADHD symptoms including anxiety, overwhelm, poor sleep and low mood.

In this episode, Adele also shares her groundbreaking research, tracking hormone levels and ADHD symptoms in perimenopausal women, uncovering how declining progesterone, estrogen dominance, and hormonal imbalances can intensify ADHD traits.

If you’ve felt like your ADHD symptoms have worsened during perimenopause or struggled to get the proper hormonal support, this episode offers you insights, education, and empowering solutions to help you reclaim your ADHD wellbeing.

This episode is a call to action for you to advocate for your health, understand your body better, and seek out resources to help you manage your unique symptoms. The conversation also touches on the societal stigma surrounding women's health issues and the urgent need for a shift in how medical professionals approach hormonal health in women, particularly those who are neurodivergent.

What You’ll Learn:

✨ How hormonal changes in perimenopause can impact ADHD symptoms

✨ Why progesterone plays a crucial role in ADHD hormone health, mood regulation and emotional stability

✨ The connection between estrogen dominance and ADHD symptoms in women

✨ Why histamine flare-ups are common in ADHD perimenopause

✨ Why so many women struggle to get appropriate hormonal health support

✨ The urgent need for more research into the intersection of ADHD and women’s health

✨ How finding the right hormonal balance can help women regain better energy, clarity, and confidence

✨ How to support our adrenals, stress levels and hormone health

Timestamps:

🕒 02:15 - How hormonal changes in perimenopause affect ADHD

🕒 19:50 - The role of progesterone in mood & emotional regulation

🕒 29:33 - The link between oestrogen dominance & ADHD symptoms

🕒 34:45 - Why hormonal balance is key for women’s wellbeing

🕒 40:09 - How awareness can empower women with ADHD

🕒 43:16 - The importance of boundaries for neurodivergent women

If you’re tired of pushing through burnout and want to embrace your ADHD in a way that supports your wellbeing, with valuable insights and practical strategies to help you move forward with more ease, join me for a season of empowering ADHD Women's Wellbeing Workshops.

From nervous system regulation to fulfilment, hormonal health, and creating more compassionate relationships, select the sessions that resonate with you, or buy the all-access pass to join them all and attend a bonus Ask Me Anything Q&A in July! All details can be found here.

Reminders, recordings and reflections will be available!

Find Kate's popular online workshops and free resources here.

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity. 

Follow the podcast on Instagram.

Follow Kate on Instagram

Connect with Adele via her website or Instagram (@harmoniseyou)

Mentioned in this episode:

Gratitude link

Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

Today, I am really, really looking forward to getting this conversation.

If we can get our words out.

We're both perimenopausal, hormonal, we've not slept, it's a full moon.

But we are here because we have a lot of information to offer and I know this episode is going to be incredibly helpful.

So if you can bear with us through our hormones, we will.

We're going to have a really great conversation.

So today I've got my good friend, amazing, amazing advocate in this space.

It's Adele Whimsart.

And Adele, if you don't know her, is a women's health practitioner and cyclical living guide and she's co authored the book Essential Feminine Wisdom.

She's very passionate about educating women on how to harness the power of their cyclical nature and she works a huge amount in the ADHD space.

She's ADHD herself and a huge amount of her clients patients are also neurodivergent.

Adele bridges the woo and the science supporting women to balance their hormones naturally and is passionate about speaking in all things menstrual.

Education.

And Adele, specialism within the women's health arena, is offering support to ADHD women to understand how their hormones affect their traits.

So, Adele, welcome to the podcast.

I know we've done, we've worked together a lot and I value your insights and your guidance and I really see you as they're leading from the front and helping this community.

So thank you so much.

I know we wanted to discuss a study that you've just done.

It's a qualitative study and you have seen results there that I think a lot of this audience, our audience will, will really need to know and I think will be incredibly validating, can explain a little bit about the background and what happened and the results.

Yep.

So, very briefly, this was a study where I took a small cohort of ADHD perimenopausal women, where we tracked their exact estrogen and progesterone levels from their urine, which they tested at home on a device with mira.

It was done in collaboration with mira.

They very kindly provided the devices for us to be able to do this.

And the women tested their hormones every single day, which is as accurate as blood tests, but so much more informative in terms of what it tells us.

And alongside that, they tracked their traits in the evening, so their inattentive traits and their hyperactive traits.

And then after three cycles, so three months worth of data, we then gathered their experience and analyzed their hormonal fluctuations within the context of their traits and how they experienced them in this season of their life.

And what we found was really fascinating and I believe goes quite a long way to potentially explaining why so many women receive an ADHD diagnosis in perimenopause.

Okay, that sounds really fascinating.

So what I'd love to be able to do is to help validate a lot of people's experience of this time in our life where we've got hormones fluctuating perimenopause women.

We're understanding and discovering our adhd, which has kind of shown up in different manifestations through our lives.

And then it's kind of just like erupted in this time, and we're finally getting answers.

And people are connecting dots alongside autoimmune conditions, fatigue, pmdd, maybe adrenal stress, thyroid issues, and histamine.

I want to talk all about this because it's kind of like the past two or three years, it's just been this awakening, this eruption of information.

However, we don't have enough science and enough research backing up what so many of us are going through and what so many have gone through all our lives.

I mean, I've recently had a few posts that have gone viral, and that is from Dr.

Jessica Eccles, Dr.

Asad Rafi, Dr.

James Custo, and Dr.

Sandra Coy, who are all psychiatrists in different capacities, all working in this space.

And all four of them are saying what you're probably going to say.

But a lot of the medical community aren't upholding this with research, and we need more people to say, yes, what you've experienced is real.

And, you know, yes, there is these explanations, but what can we do to help?

And I think that's going to be really important.

So tell us a little bit about what you found.

Yeah, I mean, to speak to that, Kate.

That's what fueled me to want to undertake this study, because this is by no means, you know, a double placebo controls.

It needs so much more research, but it is still in my opinion, statistically relevant because of the consistencies that we found in the study.

And the thing for me is that estrogen is a hormone that gets all the spotlight and progesterone gets forgotten.

And I truly believe that progesterone is where we need to focus our attention in women.

And also looking at this multi systemic experience of adhd, it's not just in our heads, you know, and perimenopause creates this environment for what I call the perfect storm.

And that's what I've called this study because it really is for women in this season of their life.

So what I found overall was that in the first phase of perimenopause, and I'm talking from 35 years onwards, the hormone that drops off a cliff is progesterone.

And this is where we start to see many more women come forward and say, oh my gosh, this is me, it's been me my whole life and now I just can't keep a lid on it.

The strategies I used to have don't, you know, that worked really well now aren't working and I don't know what to do.

I'm completely overwhelmed.

Well, progesterone from a medical perspective only really gets a look in to protect the uterus, which is very important.

But for me it's a mood stabilizer.

Progesterone acts like Valium on the nervous system.

Our brain is covered in progesterone and estrogen receptors.

But when all we're talking about is estrogen, we completely ignore progesterone's effect on mood, nervous system regulation, sleep, it does lots of other things like protect breast health and bone health.

But for the purposes of this, my hypothesis began as being, look, what we're going to see is where estrogen is high, much more of a hyperactive, a hyper focus type type traits.

And in the second half of the cycle we would see more inattentive type traits.

This is what the small pieces of research we currently have are showing.

So that's what I was thinking I was going to see, but that's not what I saw.

There was a bit of it.

What I saw in this cohort and demographic of women was that the traits were kind of all over the place consistently throughout the month, which is really interesting because what we know is happening to women and the mirror data evidence this was that progesterone was not being produced in sufficient amounts, which is very normal.

And meant to happen in perimenopause.

We don't ovulate as frequently.

And when we do, the part of the gland that produces the progesterone gets a bit lazy, so we don't create enough to compensate for our estrogen.

So we go into a state that is very well acknowledged in the functional women's health world.

It's not acknowledged in the medical world, which I think is a problem, is we go into what's called an estrogen dominant state.

State.

Now, this doesn't mean you're producing too much estrogen.

It means there is not sufficient progesterone to keep that estrogen in check.

Okay?

And I break this all down in the paper.

So we go from 35, we go from our fertile years, usually having this really lovely, high consistent level of progesterone to keep estrogen.

I call estrogen the party girl.

And progesterone is like the mum who comes home after the party and says, calm down, time to go to sleep now.

Because they're very different energies.

Yeah, now partying is good for us.

It's good to have some fun, but all the time it'll burn us out.

That's what is.

She's like fire.

And we need the water of the progesterone.

But when we're going into this season of our life, estrogen is dominating because of this lack of progesterone.

So it makes perfect sense to me that when we know that estrogen on its own has a massive impact on mood when she's not opposed properly by progesterone, that's a factor.

Okay?

We already, you know, have more challenges around regulating our mood, for example, our cognitive function or executive function.

So when estrogen is dominating that, it's going to amplify that.

And then if we add in the lack of progesterone to help compensate for that and keep it all in check with, then that's another layer of complexity.

So then I became really curious because of my clinical knowledge, because of what I do around estrogen and the lymph link with histamine and ADHD and the link with histamine.

Towards the end of the study, I asked the participants, I sent some criteria around histamine, because we know that histamine issues become, across the general population of women, much more of an issue in perimenopause, because progesterone declines and progesterone is an antihistamine, and estrogen feeds histamine and histamine feeds estrogen.

So it becomes this vicious cycle.

So we see this flare up of allergies generally in perimenopause, largely due to this.

So I became really curious at this point.

Well, I wonder how many of these women have symptoms of histamine as well, because we know also ADHD women.

Again, the science is really lacking as we see so much in our community, but the community is talking a lot more about this link with histamine.

So it would make sense to me that as that progesterone was dropping off for these women and that estrogen was ruling the rooster, there was bound to be a flare up of histamine type issues.

Now, histamine isn't just about having hives and a runny nose.

Histamine has a massive impact on mood, massive impact on joints, energy, digestive issues.

So this was in no way a diagnostic process.

It was out of curiosity towards the end of the study, and when I interviewed every one of the participants, they all had a significant number of histamine symptoms that would be indicative of, again, flaring up.

So we're seeing this perfect storm.

Low progesterone, estrogen dominance and potential histamine issues.

So I sat back and said, well, no wonder we're seeing this massive flare up in perimenopause.

If this is a pattern that every single one of the participants, it was a small cohort, but every single one of them had this pattern to some degree.

That's not to be ignored.

And then the final piece of this puzzle, which was a bit more complex, was to look at what we call methylation.

And this is how the liver processes hormones and neurotransmitters.

And there is much more of a risk of methylation issues, whether that be genetic or lifestyle in the ADHD community.

Again, we need research on this, but it's curious to me that two of the women knew that they had an issue with this from a genetic perspective, because the testing that already had done, and I believe this is something that requires deeper work, because if there's a methylation issue, it means our estrogen hangs around too long and it turns it into estrogens on steroids.

And the same with histamine being able to process out of the body.

So again, this other potential element of what, again, have said the perfect storm, low progesterone, estrogen dominance, histamine issues and potential methylation issues, meaning the estrogen hangs around too long and that further feeds the histamine.

No wonder this becomes a really challenging time for us.

Can I ask, can you give us some examples of what oestrogen Dominance may look like.

So there are five different types and again everyone can download this for free from my website and it's all included in there.

I just want to make sure that I go through that in the way that I've detailed it in the paper so that there's consideration consistency.

So estrogen dominance has five different types of presentation but we automatically think, oh, it's too much estrogen.

That's not the case.

So you can have high estrogen but a normal average level of progesterone production.

Healthy looking progesterone production but it's just not enough to keep on top of the amount of estrogen your body produces.

So that's one type.

The other type is, the one that I saw most commonly in this study is a normal estrogen but low progesterone.

So a normal level of estrogen but again just not enough progesterone to keep her in check.

You can also have high levels of progesterone, a high level, sorry, high levels of estrogen.

This is day two kicking in.

High levels of estrogen and low progesterone and low estrogen and very low or practically non existent progesterone.

So eastern dominant just doesn't mean too much estrogen.

It usually much more commonly means there's not enough progesterone being produced in your body for your level of estrogen.

Yeah, I understand.

So it's this ratio.

Yeah.

So that's why in my head I see progesterone as like the leveler.

If you've got the amount of progesterone to help level the estrogen then things are okay.

But it's when you've got like significantly lower progesterone or you're just completely out of whack with estrogen.

The progesterone, I always see it, it's my analog because I need visual analogies is you know, like treble and a bass and an equalizer and you know, not that I've got any musical background but you've always got to be sort of working with the treble and the bass to make sure that the bass isn't too high or the treble's overtaking.

And, and that is the way I see it is that according to whatever that music is, you've got to have that balance.

So it's so interesting because we have been told with these new discovery of hormones related to ADHD is like estrogen is the dominant thing because it kind of is neurotransmitter alongside, you know, with our dopamine and that's all we're sort of thinking about.

But actually, from my experience, it was the tweaking of the progesterone that has made a massive difference.

I'm happy to share my story because I think it helps a lot of people.

And then you can give your your.

Because we've discussed it.

I started perimenopause at 40 and a lot of people were like, that's far too young.

That's far too young.

But we now know that neurodivergent women start perimenopause early.

And thankfully because of what I do, I had access to specialists and I went straight into the HRT route.

However, I had a hangover, a progesterone fear trauma hangover from when I had my Mariner coil, which really, really impacted me negatively for three months.

Now, I took it out after three months and we know that that's a synthetic progesterone and doesn't typically sort of work so well with neurodivergent women.

It really impacted my mood, impacted my cycles.

Whether I gave it long enough, I don't know.

But after three months I could not tolerate it and I took it out.

So I had then this sort of like, bit of trauma from that progesterone.

And in my head I said, right, I'm progesterone intolerant.

I can't.

I can't use progesterone.

However, it was only through all of my understanding and speaking to you is that actually it was just the wrong type of progesterone.

And I probably needed it because anxiety, for me was a massive part of my adhd.

Overthinking, worrying, anxiety, ruminating, hyper vigilance, all of that, I just never felt settled.

So fast forward a few years later, I had to go back onto the progesterone because of hrt and I was really, really struggling.

Now, over time, we've been tweaking the progesterone.

I took it vaginally and then now I'm taking it orally.

And I can happily say that on the whole, I'd say 85% of my cycle, I feel good and I'm taking 200 milligrams of utrogestin.

Is that right?

Yeah, two is 200.

Yeah.

So I'm taking 400 progesterone every day throughout my cycle, I'm just taking that.

And apart from, I would say one or two days before my period where I do get more of a headache and I probably, around ovulation, get sore breasts, but apart from that, I Feel much more level headed, calmer, sleeping better and rational.

I would say I'm not dominated by anxiety.

I feel, I would say more level headed.

I'm obviously taking my estrogel.

I would say on the whole it's pretty much sorted out a lot of my hormonal issues.

Now I just want to caveat that with external stressors.

So I was explaining just off camera before that I really noticed that if I've had a very stressful month, I see that in my cycle I bleed heavier, there's more clots, and when I've had a pretty good month, things have gone well, no external stressors.

I felt good.

My cycle is really easy, not a huge bleed and I just get through it and I don't get headachy.

So there's a lot of information there.

But I wanted to share that because I know that a lot of other women are going through this and I get loads of messages asking me about progesterone.

Obviously I'm not an expert, but maybe you could reflect on this and help people who are kind of thinking, oh, that sounds similar to me.

Okay.

There is so much I want to say to this.

You know how passionate I am about progesterone.

Progesterone is my favorite molecule ever.

Like the progesterone queen.

I'm currently in the process of writing a booklet for people because it's so misunderstood, particularly with my neurodivergent women.

You know, we so many have had your experience and I get so frustrated.

I actually get angry at this terminology that prescribers use.

But calling synthetic progestins in the marina, in the pill, in patches, progesterone, it's factually incorrect.

They're different molecules, they do similar things for the uterus, but outside of that they are not the same.

And it creates this really so much misinformation that prescribers don't even generally realize the difference.

The big pharma have done a really good job of making prescribers call them the same thing and they're absolutely not.

And once progesterone is in the right level in your body, it's a complete game changer for mood.

A woman cannot regulate her nervous system or regulate her mood properly without progesterone.

Right.

So why are we not talking about this for neurodivergent women?

I truly believe if women have been involved in the evolution of medicine and understanding mental health, we would be treating it a lot more with body identical hormones and not a lot of the medications.

But here we are.

That's a conversation in itself.

So let's be really clear.

Just as you said, synthetic progestins in the Mirena and those other contraceptives are not progesterone.

So the molecule has changed, it's been manipulated in a lab so the body identical.

Progesterone does so many things for the body when we get it in the right dose.

And unfortunately, you speak about a dose there that I don't expect you're getting through the NHS because they tend to go for 100, 200.

If you're really lucky, they might go up to 300.

Now, the international leads on progesterone, so Carol Peterson, Dr.

Phyllis Brunson, and you can download free webinars of these from my website to hear what they say on this.

They tend to start their women on three to 400 and go up to two and a half thousand.

So that would be 25 each, Justin.

And that we.

We've got this decades of experience of knowing how it can help bipolar schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, insomnia, because of what progesterone does.

So why is this not being used in this way?

Honestly, I can't get my head around it, because so many women also have the experience that they get a low, very, very low dose of progesterone, say 100 or 200, and it actually really affects their mood.

Okay.

It makes them feel horrible.

That's not usually the progesterone.

It's usually what's happening is something called estrogen kickback when it's more complex than this.

But what happens is progesterone fires up estrogen receptors.

That's one of the things that it does.

So you were talking about sore breasts at ovulation, potentially.

That could be because your estrogen has risen much higher, so there's more estrogen in the body and that.

That's why you're having that ratio imbalance at that point.

Hypothetically, it could be more progesterone required maybe at that time to counterbalance it.

But, you know, it's a very individual approach.

It's always about getting this estrogen progesterone, right?

And what we see in clinic is with the women who have this experience of going, it makes me really low suicidal ideation.

You know, it's really big impact putting in and it feels like the progesterone, but it's very, very rarely the progesterone, because the body produces progesterone all the time.

The progesterone you get in HRT is no different to the molecule your body produces.

And so if you were truly allergic almost and sensitive to the progesterone, you would have this reaction to your body's own production.

What it usually is, is you need a much higher dose and you need to make it much higher very quickly.

That would be the approach these experts take, is a, we go in high and we up it very quickly or we adapt the vehicle in which it goes into the body.

You know, some women just don't get on with taking it orally because of how it breaks down in the eye tract.

It might be, you need it as a cream, you know, and that can be really powerful.

Once it goes into your skin, it's in every cell of your body within 20 seconds and it's whole molecule and then it gets broken down.

So we've got to find what's right for you.

You know, we are complex women.

Usually we are not the type of women who can happily skip into a GP surgery, slap a patch on a bum and skip off into the sunset.

Doesn't tend to work like that for us.

We have to do this dance of getting it right for us.

But honestly, when we get progesterone right, it changes women's lives.

Yeah, I think what you said about mental health and progesterone and I think the fact that we're only again, just recognizing that is mental health a hormonal issue for women.

I mean, it's not bloody rocket science.

It's like, you know, PMDD in neurodivergent women is much, much higher.

I don't have the exact percentage.

I know.

Yeah, it's like a significant amount higher.

And so what is that telling people?

So neurodivergent women are suffering for half their lives.

Like you say, suicidal, deep, dark depression, anxiety, low mood.

What's that doing to people?

People's families, relationships, careers.

And the fact that we are so stuck in this old mentality.

Like you're saying those doctors.

Why?

Why?

I mean, I get so angry about it.

Why is this not filtering through to mainstream, you know, gps where they are taking this more individualized approach or understanding or going through this training.

I wanted to ask your opinion.

I know obviously you're not a doctor, I'm not a doctor, but for me it screams so kind of obvious.

Postnatally, we know neurodivergent women are more prone to postnatal depression.

We know there's a drop in hormones.

Why are they being prescribed antidepressant, anti anxiety medication when perhaps they may need.

HRT postnatally because of our old friend patriarchy.

You know, and also there is a lot of money to be made in women being prescribed psychiatric medication and synthetic progesterone.

There is no money to be made in body identical progesterones and hormones because you can't patent a molecule that is made in nature.

And sadly, this is what I truly believe is preventing this.

We have known for decades, since the 60s, that high doses of body identical progesterone treat PMDD very effectively.

We have known that for a very long time.

Why is that not filtering down to frontline practice?

There is something going on as to why, you know, Carol Peterson speaks about a war on progesterone.

Because if women suddenly started taking this body identical progesterone, that doesn't have the side effects in the correct doses, they slept beautifully, they managed their anxiety, panic attacks, mood regulation, there would be no need potentially for the majority of these medications.

That's a lot.

That's a billion dollar industry and that has to be taken into consideration.

That might sound really conspiracy theorist, but I cannot get my head around any other reason, and this is spoken about very openly in the women's health world, that this is a fact.

Progesterone can change women's life.

When you are dealing with someone who understands how to prescribe it and how safe it is, it's so safe.

Estrogen is not safe to keep pumping up and, oh, just take more oestrogen, take more estrogen.

No, there's risk attached.

That is not the case with progesterone.

Progesterone is very safe and yet it is not understood.

It creates fear, it clogs up the nhs.

There's so many problems that if women's hormones were properly dealt with, we wouldn't have women going to rheumatology, we wouldn't have women going to cardiology for palpitations, we wouldn't have mental health services at breaking point.

If we were trained prescribers, were properly trained in the massive impact hormones have on every system in a woman's body, we could make women have such a better service.

I mean, I know we've got to offer a tangent.

No, no, no, no, because you're.

I'm passionate about it and I truly believe this.

People might not agree with me, but this is very much my belief.

And from the rabbit holes that I have gone down for hours and hours and the privilege of the incredible people I've had the opportunity to speak to who know their stuff when it comes to progesterone.

Yeah, no, and, and likewise.

And it's infuriating at Best and absolutely.

Like, I just can't get my head around why this is not being, you know, more lives can be saved, more people can be helped, more better quality of life for something that is pretty simple to, to understand, to learn about.

You know, I'm not scientific at all, but if I can understand it, you know, people can get trained, doctors can get trained here and like you say, the impact, you know, on all parts of our system, you know, it's our adrenals, our heart health, thyroid, gut, obviously our mental health, our energy levels, our mood.

What I don't understand is birth control, because from what I know, the research I've done, there's no body identical birth control out there.

It's a synthetic progestin.

So again, it's not, they will call it progesterone, only it's not progesterone, it's progestin and it comes with side effects and risk.

Right.

I mean, we were the generation, Kate, that happily skipped into the GP surgery.

I got my pill, I'm off it to the sunset, off I go.

You know, no one was.

I don't think it's any different now.

No one's sitting down and talking the risks.

So when I'm working with a woman, you know, contraceptive is amazing.

Look how much freedom it's given us.

You know, we can't be cross about it.

I can be cross with the fact it's not body identical.

I would much rather be having body identical hormones in my body if I had to go down that route and synthetic.

But it leaves women in a really difficult situation of going, do I take this bad bit or this bad bit?

You know, there's no good option in that for a woman's body to take.

There just isn't.

But from a functional perspective, we have to go, okay, so this is necessary for me in my life right now.

What do I know about the impact it's going to have on me and how do I begin to try and negate that?

We know it's going to affect the gut microbiome.

I need to optimize my gut health.

We know it's going to have an effect on my metabolism.

I need to make sure my thyroid is okay, I need to make sure my blood sugar regulation is okay.

It's going to make me nutrient deficient.

I have to make sure I'm having a nutrient dense diet supplementing where I need to.

So we take this, that's what we have to do.

So, I mean, I would much rather body identical, but here we are you.

See, what this conversation is for is the thousands of women who listen to this podcast but have also commented on recent videos talking about things like chronic fatigue, talking about having autoimmune issues, talking about such difficult hormonal cycles throughout their lives and have literally said they just have no idea.

Like, genuinely, they've been dismissed and invalidated and sent away by doctors.

And this has been sort of just like a continual life cycle.

And the reason I want to have this conversation is so more women can feel empowered to say, I don't want this.

I want alternatives and demand alternatives.

And.

And I wonder.

So, okay, so say a woman's listened to this now and they struggled with postnatal depression in the past.

They want to have more children.

They're very.

They now know they're neurodivergent.

They're very worried about postnatal depression.

Again, can they go to their doctor and say, I would like to take progesterone after I've had this baby?

No, we should be able to.

You would just be looked at like you're crazy.

That's what will happen.

Because they are not looking at progesterone's role in mental health.

They're looking at it protecting your uterus.

When you're in your late 40s, if you're lucky, you're going to get an early 40 perimenopause.

If you can find a special, it's going to be private.

And, you know, the cost around the.

The class divide in managing women's health makes me really angry as well.

I've got a lot of anger in this.

No, I'm super angry as well.

But actually, if you can find a specialist prescriber, you may be able to look at that, but you are 100.

Not going to get that through normal route of.

Because there's just not the training and understanding that I believe if that was happening to my daughter and I knew the risks.

Around postnatal, our estrogens can drop up to a thousand times in three days after birth.

And then we look at this woman and go, oh, she's a bit depressed.

What?

No wonder I've got nothing there.

Sensitizing my dopamine and serotonin.

Life was hard enough for me as a neurodivergent woman.

Before being pregnant, we usually ride the high of that mega dose of progesterone.

Mega, mega doses.

Much higher than we will ever reach in clinical trials.

We never get to the dose of progesterone we have when we're pregnant and the fetus has so we know we cope really well in very high progesterone levels.

Interesting.

And then that drops off a cliff and we've suddenly got this baby to look after.

We haven't got any of our routines.

A neurodivergent woman needs a circle of support around her when she gives birth.

She needs people who understand ADHD and hormones supporting her.

Now what.

What you can do is get over the counter creams.

They're not as strong as what you would get through a prescription.

You can absolutely look at that.

If you can find the right prescriber, you will be able to get certainly progesterone to support during that time.

But if anyone is listening and they want and this is something that they can do, please, please, please reach out.

Because I get asked all the time, who can I speak to?

Who.

Where can I go?

I send so many people to you, Adele.

Yeah.

And I mean, that progesterone cream, that sounds really interesting.

Do you think so?

That is something we can get over the counter if people are listening in other countries.

You know, we've got.

In the States, Australia, America is amazing.

I mean, you could get anything over the counter there.

And in really good doses, like I get.

I get some progesterone cream from the States.

If you can get it, you know, it's much higher doses.

The stuff that we can get here is much lower.

So one company is Wellsprings, you know, you can get it.

And my PMD women can do really well on that cream.

And Carol Peterson, you know, this is.

And nothing here is medical advice, to be clear.

You know, I would always say you need to work with somebody who really understands this stuff.

But Carol Peterson, you know, she would.

And she talks about this in the webinar that I did with her is you can.

If you've got a good dose progesterone cream, you could.

She will literally use it every 15 minutes till your mood regulates.

You know, that's so empowering.

How empowering is that to have a cream that you can sit and do that until you're like, oh, I feel like me again.

I'm here.

That is the power of progesterone.

When women get their progesterone right, they say, I feel like me again.

I feel like I used to.

Because hormone deficiency is like a slow erosion of your soul.

You don't just wake up one morning and go from here, you know, to suddenly being in this.

This deficiency state.

It tends to be, you know, very.

You don't notice it until you're, like, in the trenches, right?

So we don't.

We get used to feeling really bad.

You know, I say women are like rivers.

We find something hard and we just meander around it.

We adapt, we find new ways.

We don't go, what's going on here?

Until it's really bad.

And I find this so sad.

Women wait until they're on their knees, usually before going, I need help now.

Because we don't.

It's like this deep entrenched belief that we're not deserving of feeling amazing.

How many women do you meet who go, I've got such great energy.

I sleep pretty well.

My mood's really regulated.

I've got.

You want to hit them, wouldn't you?

And yet look at how we still show up.

Look at the magic we create in the world, generally feeling like we do.

Imagine if we all felt amazing.

We have the right to feel amazing.

And that, in my opinion, which is my bias, comes from regulating the hormones.

And as you said, it's not just about estrogen and progesterone.

What's your thyroid doing?

What's your adrenal function doing?

What's your blood sugar regulation and insulin?

How's your liver processing hormones?

What's your gut doing about eliminating them?

We have to look at all these things to optimize how we feel.

And when we do, you suddenly go, oh, my God, I feel like myself again.

You know, and for some women, it might just be getting progesterone right.

For other women, it might be deeper work.

You know, it's very bio individual.

So you.

You said you did this study with Mirror.

Now, Mirror is available to.

I mean, I know it's quite expensive.

It's.

Am I saying it's a device that.

You can check your hormones every day at home Device.

You literally.

It sits in the palm of your hand, you pee on a stick, you stick it into the device, and 20 minutes later, it tracks on your phone your exact estrogen and progesterone levels.

And I would say of all the things that I would call.

The terminology I'll use is like the functional medicine world, Mira is the most affordable option.

It's not that different in cost to a private blood test.

It's much cheaper than a Dutch test and much more useful in terms of looking at what's going on.

Because what I look at in there is, how many days have you got a good level of progesterone?

And what is that estrogen to progesterone ratio?

You can't see that through blood work and a Dutch.

Usually it depends the Dutch, most people do it.

Can't pick it up.

So it's every day and it's easy, you know, and it's okay.

As accurate as bloods.

So if someone was interested in this, how could they use that information every day?

I mean, we talk about menstrual cycle awareness, how important that is, understanding our mood, our energy, our sleep, preparing, you know, knowing when we're going to have that good week or two weeks, hopefully, and then knowing when we're going to get that dip and kind of creating that cocoon and that and that nourishment so we can ride that store a little bit easier.

Is that what you'd use mirror for?

Yeah.

So what I do in my clinic, and anyone who had a mirror with through me, I teach them to track their traits or whatever symptoms they want to track alongside.

So it's the same methodology we used in the study.

And then you can.

You can analyze that together.

You can go, oh, my God, like, my traits were through the roof that day, but look what happened to my estrogen and progesterone.

That just in itself is so validating to go, I'm not crazy like this.

These powerful biochemicals literally turned upside down in my day, and this is a pattern throughout my cycle.

So I see this on day 21.

For me, day 21 is my psycho day.

You know, this is a day I do not want to be.

I'm not fit for public consumption.

When I saw the mirror and I saw it was happening, I'm like, no wonder.

Of course that's what's happening.

Of course I'm going to feel like that.

So there's a.

And that's healing in itself to have that validation.

But also, women want to know what is going on in their bodies.

That's why I love continuous glucose monitors.

I'm not a fan of a lot of health devices, but these two, I think, are really good.

You know, we know neurodivergent people are much more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, which I think I've got a lot of views on why that is.

But having a continuous glucose monitor to see what your insulin and blood sugar is doing, that's really powerful tool for change.

Us ADHDers need to know why, what is going on.

I want to know why.

Don't just tell me what to do.

I want to know why I'm doing it.

Yeah.

The reason for this podcast is that I needed to know why.

I needed to understand.

And then, then through all my questions, I know that a lot of other people have been finally understanding and, you know, speaking to incredible experts like you who are saying it with such kind of authenticity but also deep understanding from a personal perspective.

I think, yeah, what you were just saying before about, you know, women not knowing that they are allowed to feel, well, like, not thinking that they are worthy or deserving of feeling energized and good and happy and, you know, and I make, you know, I made a joke saying, oh, you know, that person would be really annoying.

But actually, we should.

We should feel like that.

But we are looking back, you know, generations of women.

We know that as women who are Maybe in their 40s and 50s listening to this 30s, we're probably that first generation who are getting this awareness of, oh, so it's neurodivergence that we've been dealing with.

That's why there's been hormonal mental health problems throughout the generations of the women.

And that's why I've seen addiction patterns and chaos and all sorts of things going through all different family members.

And now we just look at them and kind of think, well, that's just the way it was and that's the way I am and that's the way it should be.

And we've not had any sort of benchmark for change.

But what we are doing, you and I, you know, we've both got teenage children, is going, actually, there's an alternative here.

We can track apps, the mirror.

We've got options, we've got more information, new research, we've got podcasts coming out.

We are in this incredible situation where, yes, medical knowledge or expertise isn't quite there, but we can start demanding change and we can start helping the next generation become more aware, which is what I try and do with my kids, even though half the time they don't want to listen.

But I really hope that it's filtering through, you know, whether it's filtering through on influencers, on.

On TikTok, where they're listening, or finally, there'll be a penny drop moment where what we're saying will land with them.

How can we start creating a change for good?

You know, we're listening to this podcast now, and it's overwhelming.

We're both angry.

But how can we take this passion and start being like, you know what?

I'm going to make a change in my life, like, small steps.

How can I ask for help?

Where can I go?

You know, we've got this progesterone cream people can use.

What would you suggest?

Oh, my gosh, there's so much That I want to say to that.

I think the first step is acknowledging that as a woman, you are a cyclical being.

Okay?

We are not like men.

We're not linear.

We're cyclical.

We have this dance of hormones going on inside us and it affects everything.

And really, like that is a fact.

You know, this isn't a woo woo thing and that in itself can be really validating.

So I'm not meant to show up all the time, all the same, every day and find out what is going on in your body?

If that's an option, at least.

Track tracking is free.

You know, you can download a free tracker from my website.

It's free.

You can start seeing your dance and your pattern.

And I know this point sounds really cheesy, but what really came to me as you were saying that, Kate, is we have to be the change we want to see.

You know, people often say to me, what can we do about the medical system and change it?

Nothing really, because it's massive and it's in jade.

What we do is we stay in our lane and we say this.

This is how as a woman to feel great.

This is what you need to do and how you need to live in order to feel great.

And then we start doing that.

Because when one woman starts doing it, we are like this ripple effect.

It's why multi level marketing companies work so well with women in them.

Because when one woman does it, we ripple out, right?

We talk to people about things.

When we feel good, when we find something, we're like, do you know what I've been using?

Or do you know what I've been doing?

And I feel so much better.

That is how we become the change for our daughters.

Daughters.

You know, when you start talking about your period with another woman, you give permission to her to start talking about it.

Every single woman I know really deep down wants to talk about our hormones and periods.

And once we give that permission by one woman doing it, we have this ripple effect.

Whether I'm teaching in a boardroom full of CEO women or I'm in a year with women, you know, talking about womb wisdom, every single woman wants to talk about their hormones and periods.

I get get loads of questions all the time.

And if you can be that woman in your community to say, I've had this great podcast and I've really understood this and I've learned this.

That's how we start to make the changes.

And for some women, you know, on a personal level, it's about getting up in the morning, making sure you have a glass of water.

You know that that can be the first step because we get up and we're like we're leading a marching band.

You know, we wake up sometimes feeling like we're staple gun to the bed, drag herself up and then we're off for the rest of the day, not once checking in.

What does my body need?

How do I feel?

How do I meet that need in a really empowered way?

When was the last time we did that?

Make sure you're having 30 grams of complete protein within an hour of waking up.

You know, I would be really cautious about fasting for as a woman, it's not said there's not benefits, but be very cautious.

You better make sure your adrenals and thyroid are absolutely optimal before you even consider it.

And then you want to do it cyclically.

Taking this feminine model of health and applying that to our to make an ADHD friendly lifestyle for us as a woman in a female model, not a masculine model.

Yeah, I think that's so important.

You know, first of all, it's that self awareness.

It's the checking in every day, noticing where you are in your cycle and really asking those questions of like, when was the last time I just had some time to breathe, just to be just on my own, not serving other people, not doing things for everyone else, not saying yes, not people pleasing, like all of this.

Boundaries.

Yeah.

Like we know that again, women are much more prone to autoimmune issues because of things like the people pleasing and the doing everything for everyone and trauma and all of that and what we hold in our body.

And interestingly, I've had conversations with friends of mine who are not so much in this space who are still so hesitant to even consider HRT because they're not on their knees.

They kind of go, oh, it's.

This should really be an hrt.

If you're in a really bad place.

No.

Why would you wait to suffer?

Exactly.

Yeah.

We do not need to suffer.

We've been told this, you know, for childbirth we're meant to suffer periods.

We're meant to suffer.

You should not be suffering with your period.

It's not normal to have period pain and to have really bad pmt.

That's not normal.

But we've normalized it because it's common.

You know, we do not need to suffer.

There are really simple, effective, safe solution.

So you can be the best version of you that your family and your friends and your co workers and you deserve to be.

You know, there are all these options available to make it, you know, just regulating your blood sugar and loving on your adrenals can, in lots of cases, get rid of 70% of perimenopausal symptoms.

You might not even need HRT, but understand your body and what you need.

This is the empowerment that we understand what is going on in our bodies and that's what we use to feed the approach.

Not because it's the latest fad diet or someone on Instagram said it.

What does your body need to be nourished?

Gone are the days of brutal, harsh health regimes to be fit and healthy.

No, we want to nourish ourselves.

Compassion, kindness, understanding what our unique physiology needs.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, Del, I adore you because of what you do and what you are doing to help the neurodivergent women's community is, you know, it's just beyond.

Because I come to you always because, you know, probably the most out of anyone that I speak to and I speak to a huge amount of professionals, you know, this conversation is there to empower you.

It's there for people to.

To take what they can with whatever's, you know, resonated with them.

There'd be words that I've said, histamine, pmdd, postnatal depression.

And things will be going off in your head right now, and now is your time.

I know, you know, we're working against the tide still, but if you can speak to your GP and print out this.

What I say to people is, you have to be your own advocate.

It's exhausting.

We're already exhausted.

We've been pushing and pushing and trying to knock down doors that keep slamming in our face, but if you can print out some new research, whatever you can, and then I don't know the protocol, but I know that if your GP is not doing what you want them to do, you can ask for another gp, you can go and speak to somebody else.

Got.

I don't know if it's still.

If it's on your website as well, Kate, but we've got that letter you can download for free to take to your GP if you want to.

If you're a neurodivergent woman who wants to access hrt, it's got links to research in there, so you don't have to do the advocacy.

You can just say, please read this.

You know, because like you've said, Kate, it's exhausting.

We feel like we're constantly pushing a rock up a mountain and we just wanted to create something that could just make you go ask one Less thing to do and print that off.

And you can take that.

Yeah, I'm going to put, I'm going to put that in the show notes and put all your details in the show notes.

People can contact you.

How do you work?

So people know like, have you got a huge waiting list?

Like, what's the situation?

Yeah, I've got about a six to eight week waiting list usually.

So that, that tends to be my weight.

But you're very welcome to reach out to me.

I've got a lot of resources on my website.

I love to connect with people over Instagram.

You know, I'm usually over there ranting about something, you know, and you know, I love the women in my community.

I hopefully I'm very accessible but usually there is a few weeks wait to get into clinic.

But we see change.

We have often given up hope that, well, I think ADHD is.

We're always like, what?

Well, there has to be a solution because we don't take no to an answer.

But we can get to a point where it's like, oh, so these are my options.

You know, women often like, I've got to have a hysterectomy or go on the pill, or is that it?

No, it's not.

There's loads and loads of options and even if we can't eradicate your symptoms, you deserve to have them to the point where you are having a really good quality of life, that they're not affecting your quality of life, they're manageable.

And we can do that in most cases, you know.

Yeah, okay.

And we also did a progesterone talk, didn't we, that we've both got on our website for free that you can download.

So it's either on mine and Adele's website.

And if you are interested in learning more about progesterone, we go into more of the nitty gritty of it.

I think it's a bit more sciency and the differences and so if that is something you want to learn more about, head to both our websites and it's on there.

Yeah.

If you are listening to this, please, please share it.

Share it wherever you.

You can share it on social media, send it to friends, send it to WhatsApp, groups of women who, you know, are struggling.

We have to get this information out there and, and you know, I've written down in my notes here.

Circle of support.

We need to create a circle of support because right now, as neurodivergent women, we need to be sharing information, helping each other, passing on, you know professionals, experts who are able to help.

So create that circle of support and please do share the information.

Adele thank you so so much.

Thank you for having me.

K.

I really hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

If you did and it resonated with you, I would absolutely love it if you could share on your platforms or maybe leave a review and a rating wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And please do check out my website, adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk for lots of free resources and paid for workshops.

I'm uploading new things all the time and I would absolutely love to see you there.

Take care and see you for the next episode.