Hot flashes. Brain fog. Weight gain. Anxiety. Exhaustion. Mood swings. Burnout.

If you've ever been told, "It's just part of mid-life," this episode may completely change the way you think about your health.

Nearly two out of three women say their healthcare provider never talked to them about what to expect during menopause. Millions of women struggle with perimenopause and menopause symptoms, yet many leave their doctor's office without answers. Research shows most women are never properly educated about menopause, hormone changes, or what to expect during midlife or before.

In this episode of Women Road Warriors, Shelley Johnson and Kathy Tuccaro welcome Dr. Sarah Secor-Jones, a board-certified physician, Navy veteran, and founder of Lesh Lifestyle, to uncover what every woman deserves to know about hormone health.

Dr. Sarah explains why estrogen influences more than 400 processes throughout the body, why hormone changes affect nearly every organ system, and why women have too often been overlooked in medical education and research.

You'll discover:

✔ Why menopause is NOT "all in your head"

✔ The real causes of brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, mood swings and burnout

✔ Why unexplained weight gain isn't simply about eating less

✔ How fluctuating hormones affect your brain, nervous system and metabolism

✔ Why hormone monitoring should begin long before menopause

✔ The difference between traditional hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and bioidentical hormone therapy

✔ Why women have historically been underserved by the medical system

✔ How to advocate for yourself and receive more comprehensive testing

✔ Why no woman should have to suffer from estrogen deficiency

✔ What panels of tests your doctor should be ordering

Dr. Sarah's message is both empowering and hopeful:

Stop blaming yourself. Start understanding your biology.

Whether you're in your twenties, navigating perimenopause, experiencing menopause, or supporting someone you love, this conversation provides practical information that every woman and every family should hear.

If you've ever wondered...

"Why don't I feel like myself anymore?"

...this episode may provide the answers you've been searching for.

Listen, Subscribe & Share

If this episode helped you better understand women's hormone health, please subscribe, leave a review on the Women Road Warriors podcast channel, and share it with the women in your life. Together, we can help end the silence surrounding menopause and empower women with evidence-based information.

Connect with Dr. Sarah Secor-Jones

🌐 Dr. Sarah International:

https://drsarahinternational.com

🌐 Lesh Lifestyle:

https://www.leshlifestyle.com

📰 Substack:

https://drsarahsecorjones.substack.com

📸 Instagram:

https://instagram.com/lesh.life.style

▶️ YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@drsarahleshlifestyle

www.womenroadwarriors.com

www.womenspowernetwork.net

#Menopause #Perimenopause #WomensHealth #HormoneHealth #HRT #DrSarahSecorJones #WomenRoadWarriors #ShelleyJohnson #KathyTuccaro

This is Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

From the corporate office to the cab of a truck, they're here to inspire and empower women in all professions.

So gear down, sit back and enjoy.

Welcome.

We're an award winning show today dedicated to empowering women in every profession through inspiring stories and expert insights.

No topics off limits.

On our show, we power women on the road to success with expert and celebrity interviews and information you need.

I'm Shelly.

And I'm Kathy.

If you're a woman, chances are you've wondered at some point, what's happening to my body?

Hormones seem to have a mind of their own.

One day you're fine, the next day you're battling stubborn weight gain, Waking up drenched in sweat, feeling like you're standing in front of a blast furnace, struggling with brain fog, mood swings, anxiety, exhaustion, or simply not feeling like yourself anymore.

You ask yourself, where did I go?

And who am I?

Too often women are told it's just part of midlife, or worse, that it's all in their heads.

Well, today we're changing that.

Our guest is Dr. Sarah Secor Jones, a board certified physician, Navy veteran, and founder of Lesh Lifestyle, an integrative and regenerative medicine practice dedicated to helping women reclaim their health.

She specializes in hormone optimization, metabolic health, longevity, and understanding what happens when hormones, stress and the nervous system collide during midlife.

Dr. Sarah's mission, simple but powerful.

To help women stop blaming themselves for symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, unexplained weight gain, mood changes, sensory overload and burnout, and instead understand what's really happening inside their bodies so they can take back their control.

We say bravo to that.

If you've ever felt like your body's betrayed you or you're trying to help someone you love who's going through these changes, they stay with us.

This conversation may answer the questions you've been asking for years.

Welcome, Dr. Sarah.

Thank you for being on the show with us.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited to be here.

Oh, my God, am I ever anxious to talk to you.

Holy smokes.

Not only for my own personal midlife.

50 Years.

You know, I'm 57 years old, but for all the women that I deal with.

So, yes, welcome to the show.

Yes.

Oh, my goodness.

Dr. Sarah, what you're doing is so needed and valid.

You know, I read that just 35% of women ages 40 to 64 say a doctor has ever talked to them about what to expect during menopause.

That means Nearly two thirds say no healthcare providers ever had that conversation with them.

So what's with the mystery and secrecy?

It's not like we're talking about UFOs or Sasquatch or something.

I mean, I think there's more information on UFOs.

Honestly, it's crazy.

Men aren't treated this way.

Why is it on the DL?

I don't get it.

Yeah, I think it's, it's, it's kind of a lot of reasons.

Number one, in traditional medical school, we're not really taught women's health.

You know, I think I probably got maybe about an hour.

Now we're taught women's health in the confines of babies and pregnancy and, you know, all of those types of things.

But as far as, you know, perimenopausal and menopausal health, it's not exactly educated in, in taught in Western medicine.

And so we see that then for a long time, you know, at least in the U.S. women weren't studied, right.

They, everybody just thinks we're small men, right, which we actually know is not true at all.

And so then all of the studies, nobody was looking at women's health care or just like, oh, they're small men.

So we just apply that to them.

Nobody's looking in that direction to see, you know, what's going on and what's happening to us.

How did that happen?

Is it because the medical community has always been tailored toward the male?

I mean, when you look at, in science class, I remember looking at bodies and it looked like this kind of an Android male figure.

I mean, I don't know, it wasn't definitely a female.

We're not the same.

Yeah, we're not at all.

It was kind of amazing looking back.

And then this, you know, Women's Health Initiative came out and you know, women bad information saying, you know, that hormones cause cancer.

You know, literally within a 24 hour period, about 60, I think the number is 68% or something of women were stopped hormone therapy.

Some women were smart and said, I'm not doing that stopped hormone therapy.

And then guess what, that put us behind another 60 years.

Because not only were women scared, women deprived, but then we raised two generations of physicians who really had no idea what was going on on, right?

And we weren't.

Not only were.

We weren't taught it, but then we were taught something very wrong about it, which is, you know, it's dangerous and it causes cancer and all of these things.

So I think that it's multifactorial and how, how we got here.

But what I'm really focused on is changing that, right?

And the way we do that is having the conversation, screaming it from every rooftop, because we are not little men and we are here to stay.

And we deserve to have the language and the empowerment of what's happening to us.

Because so often, even though these things, when I look at them, physiologically, they're completely normal, right?

When I look at why a woman who has lower estrogen has brain fog, or why she has fatigue, or why she has midsection weight gain, all of these things make sense physiologically.

But when you're the person that's going through it and you.

Your doctor isn't talking to you about it, no one has talked to you about it, they feel very chaotic.

These symptoms are like, what's going on?

And then what makes it even worse is a lot of doctors still aren't educated.

So these women are going.

Sitting in these chairs and saying things like, I don't feel like myself.

And what does that really mean?

Right?

And so the doctor's like, well, you know, your labs are normal.

And they're looking at, you know, a cbc, a CMP and like half of a thyroid.

And your labs are normal.

So I don't know what to tell you.

And then guess what happens?

We feel even worse, right?

Because we're like, well, we went to get help, we saw the doctor, they said, nothing's wrong with me.

Well, in most.

Most of the time, they're just not looking hard enough.

Oh, that's.

That's encouraging, isn't it?

Wow.

Yeah.

Because you go to the doctor, you'd like answers.

And when you're feeling like absolute crap and you can't guarantee how you're going to feel from day to day, you're being told things like, ah, you're just fine.

That's normal.

What's normal?

No, it's not normal for me.

And then the fear about standard or traditional hormone replacement therapy, HRT versus bioidentical hormone therapy, nobody really knows, you know?

Yeah.

And I still hear crazy things.

Every day, you know, with these women in my.

In my seat, I'm thankful they find their way to me.

But, I mean, I still hear things.

I actually just did a test about two months ago.

I went to my ob, and not that I need my OB to treat me, I actually just go to get my yearly stuff done that I can't do on myself.

And I did a little test, and I said to the.

To the tech, you know, I.

She's like, oh, you're here for your stuff.

I said, yeah.

And I said, I think I'm in perimenopause.

Okay.

So then he came in, and I said the same thing.

I think I'm in perimenopause.

Literally.

Crickets.

Not.

Nothing.

Not a conversation.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Not a. Oh, okay.

Like, why?

What symptoms are you having?

Literally not.

And he knows I'm a physician, so I was like, okay, well, we haven't really moved the mark at all in this perspective because we're still not even having the conversation with women about what's actually happening in their body.

Are they not covering this in medical school?

No, they definitely do not.

Wow.

And we're trying to change that, right?

We are trying to demand that GME graduate medical education has women's health and not.

Women's health is, you know, babies and reproductive years, which is very important as well.

But women's health is in, you know, the majority of their life, right?

The transition and on.

And talking about perimenopause and menopause and.

And what that looks like.

And, you know, how we transition, and I call it a brain body transition, and how we start those conversations earlier.

I always tell everyone I'm trying to create generational change.

We learn these things, we talk about these things.

We figure them out the hard way, right?

But where we do that is so that our daughters, our granddaughters, those girls that are important to us in our life, they don't have to suffer because we do make this something that is prevent.

And now we talk about, there is no woman in the world that should be.

Should ever have to suffer from estrogen deficiency or the symptoms of it.

We're a long way off from that.

But that's how I visualize this being.

We are.

We are talking about it.

We educate it.

You go into your appointment when you're, you know, 30 years old, and the screening tools are.

Are asking you, do you have any of these symptoms?

Right?

And we're actually screening for signs of perimenopause, and we put these things actually into, you know, your follow up appointments and your screening and your prevention, just like, you know, they're doing, you know, your depression screen.

We should be screening for these things.

It would make sense.

But, you know, maybe one of the answers is for men to go through some of this.

You know, how well would they really function if, I mean, really.

I think I was watching a video.

On a paramedic that had, was strapped to this machine that gave him going into labor contractions.

Oh, my God.

They like.

And he was in front of a whole paramedic assembly at a convention or something.

And he said, yeah, you know, he's big ego and you know, testosterone.

He says, yeah, I could do this.

It's nothing.

Right?

Well, the man was crying on the floor, make it stop.

Make it stop.

That's hilarious.

Well, I know my dad used to say if men had to give birth, they wouldn't survive.

I mean, really, it brings up also, you know, a good point too, if men did go through this, is that 50 years old, I'm going to be a little brash here.

But a man's penis stopped working.

He didn't want to have sex, his hair started falling out, his brain stopped working.

There would be 455 pharmaceutical drugs to fix this problem.

And that happens to us, right?

It's, this is not a subtle thing men do go through andropause, but it's very slow and steady.

This is, you know, this is a very, you know, we're basically, you know, one day you're, you're good and the next day you're not and you have no hormones and you're left in a world that's like, oh, it's just what you're supposed to do as a woman.

And, you know, we're supposed to suffer through.

And that's, you know, we also don't live in an era.

This is unfortunate.

But estrogen is not something that, you know, pharmaceutical companies can make money on.

Right.

Bioidentical estradiol is, you know, pretty cheap.

Same thing with oral micronized progesterone.

Right.

These are not things that can be marketed and made money.

Unfortunately, that's part of this piece.

It's.

And it has to be part of the conversation because if we don't talk about what the issues are, they don't get solved.

Right.

And if we don't, hey, here's the problem.

We need to, we know we need to do something about it.

You know that there's still no, currently, to this day, FDA approved female testosterone.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

And, you know, as women, obviously we have less testosterone than men do, but however, we actually have four times more testosterone than we do estrogen.

You know, I think I had heard we do have a higher testosterone level to our estrogen.

Yep.

And guess what?

Testosterone, you know, it gets its wraps for what?

Libido and muscles.

You know, everybody thinks about sex in the gym, but it's extremely important for the female body.

We need it for bone health, and most importantly, we need it for brain health.

Testosterone works on our prefrontal cortex, which is, you know, the CEO of our brain.

And that's.

It's so interesting.

But one of the things when, when women say, I don't, you know, I don't feel like myself or, though I have a lot of women that are like, I'm quitting my job.

They're big CEOs, or they're, I mean, doing amazing things, and, like, I can't do it anymore.

I just don't have the capacity.

My brain doesn't function like it used to.

And you give them back estrogen and progesterone and they get better.

Some of them, when you add back in testosterone, it is like the light bulb turned on and they are like, oh, my gosh, I'm back to myself.

Like, I feel like me again.

I'm back.

Yeah, I was just gonna say that I'm back.

Stay tuned for more of Women Road warriors coming up.

Dean Michael, the tax doctor here.

I have one question for you.

Do you want to stop worrying about the irs?

If the answer is yes, then look no further.

I've been around for years.

I've helped countless people across the country, and my success rate speaks for itself.

So now you know where to find good, honest help with your tax problems.

What are you waiting for?

Welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

If you're enjoying this informative episode of Women Road Warriors, I wanted to mention Kathy and I explore all kinds of topics that will power you on the road to success.

We feature a lot of expert interviews, plus we feature celebrities and women who've been trailblazers.

Please check out our [email protected] and click on our episodes page.

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And tell others about us.

We want to help as many women as possible.

We're having an incredibly important conversation with Dr. Sarah Secor Jones.

For generations, many women have left doctor's offices feeling unheard, frustrated, and wondering if the symptoms they're experiencing are somehow their fault.

The reality is hormone changes affect virtually every system in our bodies.

Yet menopause and hormone health have historically received far too little attention in medical education and research.

Today, we're separating myths from science and giving women the information they can actually use.

Dr. Sarah Women are so underrepresented when it comes to medical science.

They cover babies, but trash the rest of it.

I think it sounds like women need to form a unified voice and say, come on people, we need this.

I mean, there, there are more women than men in this world, aren't there?

Yeah.

And we do.

And you know, I don't know that the ladies were following, but we did do some pretty landmark thing this year, which has got the black box label taken off of estrogen, which was really tough.

The there you can actually Google it.

A lot of physicians went in front of the FDA and stated their case.

There was actually male physicians and a lot of really cool, amazing female physicians marketing for this.

But you know, a lot of times here's was another problem.

We would talk to women about hormones and explain what's going on, and we would get them on hormones.

Then you'd go to your pharmacy, you'd pick it up, you'd get home, and even though you talk to me, you know, we have this conversation, there was a nice packet in there that says this can cause cancer.

This can, you know, and then, you know, a quarter of the women never even took it because they read that and they threw it away.

Sure, yeah.

At least we made that strive this year, literally just a couple of months ago, of getting the black box warning taken off.

So that part is great.

Now we have to, you know, do a better job of educating women.

And what's really important too is that hormones aren't right for everyone.

Not everyone has to take them.

But every single woman on this planet deserves the right to understand and know if she does or doesn't want to and what happens if she does and what happens if she doesn't.

And guess what ladies, we're smart.

Right?

We can make these decisions for ourselves.

But we deserve that education, and we deserve to have that power and knowledge of understanding what's actually happening to our body and being able to work through those things and deciding what we want to do for ourselves.

So what exactly is happening in our bodies?

I mean, we're kind of a mystery, and nobody really ever tells us.

I mean, we go along, you know, we're just kind of sailing through life as children, and then we hit adolescence and it's game over.

Let the hormones begin.

We have no idea.

And we hear things like, you're a woman now, and we want to say, this sucks.

I mean, we're raging hormones at an early age with pain, mood swings, and gross things that happen every month.

Then we think we have it all settled out and everything's, you know, pretty much equilibrium.

And then we have perimenopause and menopause.

What the heck?

What's going on?

Yeah, so it does feel like a mystery, but I'm going to tell you about that mystery here for a second.

So in the US the average age of menopause is 51 and a half.

So what is menopause?

Menopause is actually really only one day.

Okay.

It's literally one day.

The day that you have not had your period for 12 consecutive months.

It's the day your ovaries say, okay, we're done for needs.

We're not making any more, and then you're postmenopausal.

What happens, though, up into, you know, seven to sometimes 15 years before that, we can be in perimenopause.

What happens in perimenopause is estrogen becomes erratic.

So it's not necessarily just that estrogen is declining, but it's the difference in what's happening all throughout the month.

So when you.

When we're a teenager and we get our period, and I also want to put this out there because we're talking about generational change.

If you are a young girl or, you know, one that has horrible periods, meaning that it's debilitating.

They can't go to school, they can't go to work.

That is not okay.

And that is not how periods are supposed to be.

That was me until I got it under control.

You have high prostaglandins.

You know, there's things we can do for that.

Like.

And guess what?

We're told that just like you said, you know, welcome to womanhood or whatever.

Yeah.

Like, no, thank you.

I'll go back to, you know, before that, because we don't want that.

But it isn't normal, but we're taught that it is.

And every month the week before your period.

So I don't know if any one of you are, you know, have this word pms, but the week before your period is actually when your estrogen is at the lowest.

And then what happens is you get your period and your estrogen goes back up, you ovulate and then progesterone goes back up.

So remember, estrogen is a queen.

She is literally responsible for 400 processes in the female body.

That's insane.

400, Wow.

And progesterone is like our rest and digest.

So I always tell everyone progesterone is kind of like our anti anxiety.

It actually works.

Progesterone gets broken down into L pregnanolone and it works on the GABA portions of our brain.

That's the same portions that like Xanax and things like that work on.

So it's, it actually helps us with anxiety piece.

So as we get into perimenopause, those become erratic and guess what?

Unfortunately for us ladies, testosterone can start to decline in our 20s, in our late 20s, so we can be entering into our 30s and start having perimenopausal symptoms.

So now we have some estrogen decline or it's becoming erratic.

A lot of times testosterone is already on its way down.

And then we see all of these, you know, type of symptoms.

I, I'm moody, I'm crying one minute, I'm bloated, I have brain fog, I, you know, I don't feel like myself.

We'll see.

A lot of women have anxiety all of a sudden or depression in perimenopause.

One in six women have a suicidal thought.

Wow, that's, that's statistic one in six at some point, right.

We'll have a, have a suicidal thought.

So it really does it, it does a number on our, in our mental health, doesn't it?

Yeah, I tell everyone it's a brain transition.

Our body also does transition.

But that prefrontal cortex we talked about earlier, that has estrogen or testosterone receptors.

It also has estrogen receptors.

It also is reliant on, on progesterone.

So it does affects our brain there.

Do you know how many women in the United States get worked up between the ages of 40 and 65 a year?

Get worked up for dementia.

A significant portion.

What?

Yes, yes.

And guess what?

It's, it's, it's estrogen.

And here's what also happens.

One of the quickest symptoms of perimenopause and maybe people can Relate.

Out there is plantar fasciitis, frozen shoulder and Achilles tendinopathies.

So we see.

I see this a lot in young 40 year olds who.

They're like, I have frozen shoulder.

They've been going to the orthopedist, you know, for months and months doing rehab and this and that and nothing's working.

We put them on estrogen and guess what happens?

It gets better because yeah, it's called muscular skeletal syndrome of menopause and barely anybody knows about it.

The orthopedists don't even know about it.

I'm gonna have to go check that out because I always attribute my, my shoulder issues to my job, which is, you know, my job really.

It.

The ergonomics were sitting in equipment and are like, I operate the grader for 12 and a half hours, say for five months straight for, you know, two, two, two weeks in a row.

14 Days straight, 12 and a half hours a day I'm sitting and the ergonomics isn't correct.

And so my, my left arm is always raised and I, I'm.

You gotta move to, to, to get these graders to turn.

Anyway, point being my.

To turn this grater.

My left arm goes ergonomically, it twists outward and you're putting pressure because the stress.

So my shoulder and I always accumulated that to just to my job.

But my next days off, I'm going to get my hormones checked because I'm all over the place.

I'm 57.

And maybe with.

Now that we're talking, I'm thinking, well, maybe I should just, you know, Kathy, quit putting it off.

Quit putting it off.

Just go get it checked.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

But yeah, it's, it's actually called muscular skeletal syndrome of menopause.

It's one of the first things we see.

And again, yes, you, you can have overuse.

We can have all of these things.

But we see because there's estrogen receptors in our synovial fluid, right.

So as estrogen declines and you will see, actually women even get more injuries.

Right.

A lot of women that are training are doing these things like, oh my gosh, I keep getting, you know, these tendinopathies or tennis elbow, these things I, you know, used to be able to bounce back and recover from quickly, you know, when I was younger.

And it's because of the lack of estrogen that they're not recovering as fast.

Stay tuned for more of women road warriors coming up.

Dean Michael, the tax doctor here.

I have one question for you.

Do you want to stop worrying about the irs?

If the answer is yes.

Then look no further.

I've been around for years.

I've helped countless people across the country, and my success rate speaks for itself.

So now you know where to find good, honest help with your tax problems.

What are you waiting for?

And get your life back.

Welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

One of the things I appreciate most about today's conversation is I hope we're changing the way women think about midlife.

Instead of blaming ourselves, we're talking about biology, hormones, and the very real changes that can take place inside the body and how much women do rely on hormones.

Like 400 different processes in the body rely on estrogen.

No wonder we feel off when it starts to drop.

Too often women are being told they're simply getting older, they're too emotional, or they just need to push through it.

Our guest says women deserve better than that.

Dr. Sarah Secor Jones has been explaining what is really happening in our bodies, what we need, and more importantly, what women can do to reclaim control.

Dr. Sarah in our previous segment, you covered just some of the things that fluctuating hormones can cause that doctors aren't telling us or sometimes don't even know about.

It really was an eye opener.

This can start as early as in our 20s and we don't even know this is happening.

So we really should have a complete hormone workup on a regular basis to kind of get an idea of what our baseline is or what our levels are.

And it sounds to me like we need to have our estrogen level monitored for our entire lives so that we are in the best of health.

Yeah, I tell, I tell everyone again, back to the generational change.

You really should know, you know, you should be.

We should be having the girls in our life that we love having their hormones checked in their 20s so we know what the baseline is.

Same thing with the DEXA scan, right?

A DEXA scan is looking at our bone density.

Most insurance companies in the United States don't cover DEXA scans until you're 55 years old.

Do you know when women lose the most bone density between 40 and 55 in that perimenopausal menopausal time.

So guess what, ladies, We've already missed the darn boat.

Right?

We're already osteoporotic you know, by the time we're looking, every girl should have a full hormone panel.

Every girl should have a DEXA scan.

So we know when you are at your prime estrogen, what is your bone density, Right?

And yeah, when we're looking at 35, when we start having symptoms, we're like, oh, my goodness.

You know, we are, you know, we are having a little bit of estrogen deficiency here.

That's where the insurance companies have to learn that they have to pay for this stuff too, you know?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I was gonna say, like, you know, some.

For some women, it's obvious that they are in full on menopause.

I mean, they are all over the map.

Like, my sister would get so red in the face, her hot lashes, like, everybody had to get out, you know, because she's freaking hot.

But for some other women, like, just like myself included, it's not that obvious.

We don't always have.

It's not a set sort of hormonal balances or imbalances that happen.

I think for every woman, it's different.

Like for myself, like, I had an ablation at the age of 52 because my period just would not stop.

And it would be.

I'd be going for like three weeks at a time.

And it was just.

Just horrible.

And the pain and the flow and like, oh, my God.

And so finally they gave me an ablation.

And after that, I mean, it was the best thing I've ever done.

I should have did it five years before.

But after that, it's almost as if that ablation managed everything else.

Because I've never had really, the hot flashes.

I haven't had the emotional turmoil.

I haven't had, you know, what most people, Women are to go through.

And the only upset I have is when I'm going from day shift to night or night shift to day shift, I get, you know, all messed up.

But that's just a physiological thing.

So I'm kind of wondering, my question to you, I guess, would be, what is the percentage of women that don't really have these menopausal outbreaks?

I guess.

Or not.

Not open.

Sure.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

10%.

10%.

Yeah.

10% Of women will fly through perimenopause and menopause with little to no s symptoms.

But one of the amazing things you also just brought up was what people think symptoms of menopause are.

So we hear a lot, you know, hot flashes, night sweats, you know, all of those types of things.

But it's so Much more than that.

It's vaginal dryness and UTIs and headaches and palpitations, heart palpitations.

That's also one of the first signs of estrogen decline is women will get heart palpitations and feel like they're, you know, having chest pain and they will go to, you know, get all these workups by a cardiologist.

And again they're negative, thank goodness.

But they're never said, hey, maybe it's your estrogen.

Right.

So they send us back out there and some women will get this, there's cool, interesting sensation, burning tongue.

Someone will get itchy skin, someone will get dry and itchy ears and things like that.

So it's not all hot flashes and night sweats.

A lot of it is to intolerance.

Right.

I, I used to be able to handle this.

Now I can't sense I'm a little bit more on edge.

I'm gaining weight, right.

I'm a little testy right now.

You might want to back off.

Right, right.

But then person's like, oh, it's your time of the month, you know, that, that kind of thing.

When it's like that, those can be our symptoms too.

You know, it doesn't have to be full fledged like night sweats and you know, and hot flashes that everyone thinks it can be a lot of it.

It's interestingly a lot of other weird, you know, weird symptoms.

Empty ear syndrome, what did you call it?

That's the strangest thing I've ever heard.

I have my ears it so bad and it's like an internal itch.

And it's actually because remember too estrogen affects our skin, right?

So estrogen is helps with fibroblast, so it builds collagen and elastin.

And your skin can get really dry when those estrogen receptors, you know, no longer have estrogen or have declining estrogen.

And, and so yeah, some women can get really, really itchy years we see things like, you know, women will break out in all these rashes, right.

And there's a histamine release that comes with low estrogen sometimes.

And yeah, it can be a lot of interesting things.

The joint piece people, women don't realize the vaginal dryness, the weight change.

Most people say, oh it's midlife, you know, weight change.

But the weight gain and where it goes around our belly, that's all because of estrogen.

As estrogen declines, you start to develop insulin resistance which then makes increases cortisol.

You have the most cortisol receptors in our abdomen.

And then guess what, that's where the fat gets deposited.

And then it's a double whammy because that is also visceral fat, which is metabolically active, which then increases our insulin resistance even more.

So, yeah, it's a whole thing.

Dang.

It's a roller coaster.

It is.

Oh, man.

And it's rather interesting that this has not been actively spoken about.

And women need to know this because they do.

You know, the frustration that women feel when they're not getting any answers.

And a lot of times they're going to male doctors who I love this.

When you go for the annual exam, you're just going to feel a little pressure.

Pressure, Heck, you know, come on.

I mean, depending on what they're doing, at least a woman understands.

But there's not the conversation.

We've made some progress.

But I mean, when you think about it, what, 50 years ago they called it the change.

They were kind of kept things quiet.

It was, I guess, this disgusting little topic nobody wanted to talk about.

And now at least people are talking about it.

But I think what you're doing, Dr. Sara, is you're educating women and you're giving them their power back, which is exactly what's needed.

Stay tuned for more of Women Road warriors coming up.

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Welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Thomas.

We're talking with Dr. Sarah Secor Jones about a subject that affects millions of women but still doesn't receive the attention it deserves.

Many doctors acknowledge that menopause and hormone health haven't traditionally been covered extensively in medical school, leaving many women searching for answers on their own.

That's beginning to change, and conversations like this are part of that progress.

Dr. Sarah believes women shouldn't have to suffer in silence or assume feeling poorly is just part of being a woman.

Hormonal health is something that needs to be monitored throughout a woman's life with the proper battery of tests Dr. Sarah, that begs yet another question.

What kind of tests should we be tested for on a regular basis?

I mean, what's a comprehensive test?

Yeah, absolutely.

This is a great question.

Um, so every woman, wherever you are right now in the world, if you don't have these labs, go get them.

Okay, so everybody should have, obviously, a cbc, which is just looking at blood clowns, making sure you're not anemic, those types of things.

CMP also, which is looking at your kidney function and your electrolytes.

And every woman should have a complete thyroid.

So that's a TSH, T4, T3, and TPO thyroid antibodies, especially if you have symptoms.

So not just a TSH and T4.

Okay, that's not the whole story.

Then.

We should also have full iron panels to include ferritin.

Ferritin is really important.

It's the.

Where we store our iron.

And we see a lot of women with low ferritin levels, which, you know, can contribute to these symptoms to include brain fog, because ferritin is a CO factor we need for serotonin and dopamine production and.

Sorry, can you just back up for a minute?

What Was that?

T. Thyroid one.

TSH.

Yep.

TSH, which is thyroid stimulus hormone.

Yep.

T3, T4, and then something called TPO, which is looking at antibodies.

So this looks.

You have an autoimmune cause.

And why this is important, again, especially in people that have symptoms, is because your TPO antibodies can be elevated, suggesting that your body is attacking the thyroid.

But your thyroid numbers can still be normal.

Yep.

And so eventually you will become hypothyroid.

Right.

In a lot of traditional western medicine won't actually do anything about TPO antibodies.

I don't.

I do.

I choose that if the body is attacking itself, then we need to do something about that.

And we can prevent people or slow down the rate that they become hypothyroid.

So we have to also look in the right places too.

Right.

We have to unturn, you know, the right rocks.

Right?

Yeah.

I'm just asking because I'm going for blood work here, like I have.

I am hypothyroid for the last 10 years, and I got to go recheck my levels and I'm checking my hormones.

So you keep on talking and I'm taking notes.

Then.

Then we should have a high sensitivity CRP and a homocysteine.

Done.

And so high sensitivity CRP is looking at overall inflammation in the body, which we actually see.

See quite a bit in midlife.

And then homocysteine is actually looking at inflammation inside of our vascular walls.

Now, after menopause, we know one in four women will die of cardiovascular disease.

This is huge, right?

So we need to know our risk.

And on that note, we need to have a full lipid panel.

And what that looks like is a complete lipid profile, which everyone's used to, plus the addition of APOB and lipoprotein little A.

So apo B is actually a measure of the dense, small, dense particles that you have in your cholesterol.

So your ldl.

Everybody knows LDL cholesterol.

The APOB tells us if that cholesterol is big, fluffy marshmallow, right.

We don't really care about that.

Or if it's high in apob, which is these small, dense particles that can penetrate arteries of the heart and of the brain.

And we care about those, right?

So we need a full lipid panel.

And then the lipoprotein little A tells us actually what our genetic risk for a high cholesterol is.

So it would have been the same if we check it at 57 or if we checked it at 6, but we need to know, because, again, it's genetics.

But we need to know how aggressive we need to be from the epigenetics world, because we need to know your risk factors.

So you need to have all of those labs.

Labs.

And then you also need to have a full hormone panel, which includes fsh, estrogen, progesterone, total and free testosterone, and something called sex hormone binding globulin.

Women need to take a spiral notebook into their doctors.

And she's what I need.

Yeah, but seriously, we need that perspective, and then we know what we're dealing with and how to treat it.

It makes absolute sense.

Months.

It's amazing.

Doctors aren't taught this in med school.

No, we're not.

It's.

It's actually.

I'm shocked.

Yeah.

It's actually kind of crazy.

And I actually teach residents now, so, you know, they're learning, of course, because, yeah, they're gonna learn all these things that I say, but that, you know, I have to be honest with you, ladies, that is why I'm on a mission to educate as many women as possible.

Because the medical system is archaic, and we always say it's 10 years behind.

Which, by the way, we are trying to change.

We really are trying to make, you know, big moves.

But the way that I feel we can make the business biggest moves is if I.

And we empower women, Give them what they need.

Right?

Help them understand, and then guess what.

Droves of women come to this broken medical system and start demanding what they deserve.

Yeah.

Is when we're going to make real change.

The women, women, we have the power to make this change.

And that's why I feel educating women, arming them with this is what I should be getting.

And that starts with understanding the body, Right?

Because when we don't understand what's going on, how the heck would be, could we expect to know how to ask for the right stuff?

Right?

So we have to understand what's going in our body and then we have to go in armed, you know, with, hey, this is what's going on.

You know, that doctor, Sarah, that doctor, you know, Mary Claire Haver, they said, I need these labs and you know, because I need a full check because blah, blah, blah, and that's what we have to do.

And then we can start making change.

Well, I'm sure we're going to get some pushback because you can get some patronizing attitudes.

Doctors don't always like to be told that.

They'll say, where did you hear that?

But yes, we need to stand up and like we did to push for the right to vote.

We need to be suffragists.

We need to be suffragists for women's health.

If your doctor says, where did you get that information?

Or whatever, it's time to find a new doctor.

Long gone are the days where doctors talk at patients.

No, your doctor should be your partner.

This is, should be relationship based.

That's how medicine should be.

Doctors, we don't just talk at patients, right?

This is we, we talk with you and to you.

And as a physician, you should be listening to your patient.

And if you're not, then, you know, maybe it's time you make an adjustment.

And it's a bold statement, but I mean it, because we deserve this.

Women deserve that.

Every patient deserves that.

And you, we need to be having these conversations.

And if your doctor's not having the conversation or you bring all of that information to them and they dismiss you, they're not the right one for you.

It's time to find someone else.

You know, it's kind of amazing how many doctors you do run into that have that attitude and they could even be younger doctors, or they give you maybe 10 minutes and they're on to the next patient.

It's like, wait a minute, it wasn't done that kind of thing.

So yeah, it's frustrating, but I think that this kind of education and enough women asking for this, that's how change is.

Made because it does seem when women are dealing with all these hormone issues, they feel like their care is a hundred years behind what it should be, not just 10, you know.

Yeah, I get that.

And you know, we mentioned, you know, the insurance system, that's also part of the problem, you know, and it's because it's not all physicians aren't all bad.

I have amazing, amazing colleagues.

We have bad apples and everything.

Right.

We all know that.

But when you, when you're an insurance based physician, in order to keep your doors afloat, you have to see 50 or 60 patients a day.

Sometimes you only have seven minutes.

And there's absolutely no way that in seven minutes you can get to the bottom of these things and you can truly listen to your patient and you can educate and, you know, talk about, are you on magnesium?

You know, what about.

But there's just absolutely no way.

So the system itself is completely broken as well.

Yeah.

And it seems like it's gotten worse.

And seven minutes, no, that's not enough time to even say, hello, how are you?

What you have for breakfast?

No, actually one of my patients, this is not even funny, but she went to, she still sees her OB to do her annual.

And she went to her the other day and I educate my patients, obviously a lot.

So I get a message in the portal and she's like, Dr. Sarah, etc, guess what?

She goes, I went to my ob, guess how long they were in the room.

And I was like, what, 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

She goes, I timed her 4 minutes and 30 seconds.

Wow.

What?

Wow, that, that's not enough time at all.

So we're also not listening.

Right.

And again, it's not just the doctor's fault.

It's not that doctors are bad and they don't want to listen.

Some are like that.

And you mentioned men.

I've also heard some crazy things that women physicians have said to women.

You know, a 51 year old when she told her she was having painful sex.

Well, that's just life.

And you have to deal with it.

Now what?

Excuse me?

You're kidding me.

What you want to say to her is, would you like to deal with it?

How about we switch places?

Yeah, well, and this lady was not young either, because I actually.

Your guys are gonna laugh.

You ladies are gonna laugh.

But I actually went to her office because I was so upset when the patient told me this.

The patient found me, thank goodness.

And by the way, the patient's having the best sex of her life now, so.

So that's great.

But I Was like, what?

And it's a, you know, a physician in my community.

So I went there and I, I was very nice and professional, but I sat down in her office and I said, hey, I had a patient that came in and they told me you said this to them.

And I said I wanted to offer you my cards because before you ever tell another 51 year old female that this is her life and she'll never have sex again, please send her to my office because I will make sure that she has the best sex of her life.

Good for you.

And just looked at me like she.

Nobody said anything.

I got up and laughed, but I thought it was so egregious that I had to go do something about it.

Good for you.

Good for you.

She hear that and maybe she won't do that anymore.

So Dr. Sarah, what can people find at your practice?

Where do people find you?

I mean you are really a breath of fresh air.

Yeah.

So I'm actually based out of Sarasota, Florida but I do have 10 licenses.

So I practice in different states from a telemed perspective and I really take an integrative approach.

So not just hormones, but I'm really truly looking at people as a whole.

So not only are your hormone.

Is something going on with your hormones, but is your liver processing right?

What are the mitochondria look like?

What are your vitamin deficiencies?

You know, I believe in the body was actually created to be perfect and then genetics and epigenetics and all of those things mess with it.

Right.

And so a lot of times in it's about looking in the right places and fine tuning those areas.

And so that's what I do at my medical practice.

And then I actually do have my Dr. Sarah International brand which is where I focus on education.

So it's where I do courses.

I have like a Perimeno Menopause 101 course.

I do a lot of free master classes.

I have a pretty great growing substack because I just want, I want to help as many women as I possibly can.

But again, I can't see the whole world in my practice, although I wish I could.

So education is really my where I want to try to make the most impact, you know where.

And I hope when we look back and you know when someone's saying my obituary that that's one of the things that they say, you know, is that I was able to make an impact and, and really on women's education.

Education and knowledge is, is powerful and what you're doing is you're educating women, you're empowering them.

This is wonderful.

And I love your philosophies here.

I mean, on your drsarainternational.com it says where normal stops being enough.

I mean, we hear the word, well, that's normal.

What the heck does that mean?

You know, you hear a bunch of statements that are not helpful to women.

You are very specific.

And I mean, I'm shocked at all the different things that estrogen deprivation can cause.

And how do people reach out to you?

You said you work with people through telemedicine.

How would they go about reaching out to you?

Yeah.

So if you go on my on on our lush lifestyle website page, that's my medical practice.

So I do what I, I really love, enjoy doing is discovery calls.

They're free.

It's 20 minutes where, you know, you get to hear my philosophy.

I listen to what's going on with you and, you know, tell you, you get a chance to tell me what's happening.

And then I talk about kind of my practice of medicine, what we do, and then we see if we jive together.

So if you live in a state where I have a license, I'm more than happy to see you, you know, in my personal practice.

And if not, then I'd love you to be part of our zeitgeist in our universe.

As far as education going and just sharing the information, if I have one ask from any woman listening to this today.

It's just that if you learned something or something was you didn't know we talked about, like, just share that with someone else.

Whether it's at dinner or when you're, you know, out or whatever it is, just keep sharing.

And the more we know and the more we talk about it is it's just so important because we really do have the power to make this change if we work together.

There's power in numbers.

Absolutely.

And it takes a village.

It really, really does.

And people don't listen unless you get louder and louder.

And if we all have a unified voice, we'll get the changes we need because women deserve the care.

Absolutely right.

What are your websites again, Dr. Sarah?

So my practice, private practice, is leshlifestyle.com so l e s h lifestyle.com and then my Dr. Sarah is d r s a r a h international dot com.

I am amazed at what we've covered today.

You are so interesting.

Thank you, Dr. Sarah, for being on our show.

I know that Kathy and I would love to have you back because I'm sure there are other topics you can talk about?

Yeah, it would be my Honor.

Thank you.

Dr. Sarah Dr. Sarah Secor Jones highly recommend everybody check her out.

We need more doctors like you.

Thank you.

If you enjoyed this interview and you found it helpful, please share it with a woman you know, the more women know about all of this, the sooner there's going to be a change.

And it takes all of us to make that change.

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