Kim Vopni (00:01.304)
Hi, Tanya, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me. I have been excited to chat with you about your practice and all the things that you do. I know you are on an island where there's not much access to care and you are sort of inundated and overloaded because of how many people have these needs and you're one of the only people treating them or looking after these. So I would love to start by just having you introduce yourself, who you are, what
led you down the path of becoming a doctor and working specifically in the space of perimenopause and menopause.
Tanya Beaubrun (00:34.573)
Well, thank you for having me. I practice in the beautiful island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean. And I originally trained in conventional Western medicine and practiced for several years until my...
my personal story where I had to be on the other end of a stethoscope. And I realized that the way we'd been taught to practice medicine or to deliver healthcare was not the way that was in alignment with what I really wanted to do. And it took me a while to truly admit it to myself, but being on the other end of the stethoscope and looking up at some of my colleagues and realizing that they were seeing a disease process and not seeing me.
made me realize that I had to look further to heal myself but also I was ashamed that I too had looked at patients that way. When we can't kind of you know they were ticked off all the the checklist and we're still we've got done the treatment according to the latest protocols and the patient still doesn't get better and we keep looking at what else is wrong and then finally we look at the patient like you know.
you know, but I'm still trying to treat disease without getting to the root cause. So this led me into functional and integrative medicine and it just opened up a whole world that it cracked me wide open and it's one of the best things that happened to me. And what I realized then was that I had actually burnt out.
I realized a little after that I had burnt out. knew what this was. I didn't know what this was and I had to find my way back to me.
Tanya Beaubrun (02:29.385)
Now I can look back and realize, you know, I went, I did everything according to what the society expected, you know. I always knew I wanted to be a doctor, so I did medicine the way I was taught. You know, I had got married, had kids, opened my practice, built the practice, opened the clinics. And I was just ticking off boxes because I thought that's what I should do. Until one day I looked at it and I thought...
I'm just writing prescriptions for the same people for the past 10 years. I'm just changing the drugs, but they're back with the same, virtually having the same conversations every four or five months. And I thought that for me to continue doing this, I had to find another way because I didn't feel that I was doing no harm that I had sworn to.
I kind of started to doubt myself every time I wrote more. Sometimes you write these prescriptions for five and six drugs, I'm I really doing no harm? Every time you write them, a piece of you gets lost. And I was tired of losing the piece of myself, and I had to find it back. And I think that was one of the contributing factors to my burnout. But it was, for me, the biggest blessing. Absolutely the biggest blessing.
Kim Vopni (03:30.05)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (03:47.118)
And was this burnout? I think you said it was it was in your perimenopause journey. And so what sort of what symptoms led you to as you say, be on the end of a stethoscope? What were you invest having investigated?
Tanya Beaubrun (03:58.537)
So I was a mathematic and I didn't realize that I was trust. was building my, was expanding my clinic and.
I just wouldn't get better. was wheezing and it never occurred to me that I was just super stressed. I just figured I was coping and that the wheeze was something. But I kept telling him, this is not the norm. I'm not feeling right and I'm not getting better. And then I would try to go into work and my receptionist would look at me and says, no, your eyes don't look right. You're still sick. But I don't quite feel ill. I just don't feel right. But I don't think I'm sick. And she says, no, you can't. You just your eyes just look dead.
And I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror. So I can't tell you what she was seeing. I didn't dare look in the mirror. And I would come in and I would try. And she'd say, no, not today. Go back home. Literally, she would send me home. I thought, hmm, I need to take care of myself and I need to find the answers. And.
It was, so I kind of crossed the border from burnout into perimenopause and I guess I went back and forth, not realizing that I was in perimenopause in my late 30s. I was just so busy doing that I was not in tune with my body. My periods had been regular all my life, so it came on time and you you just did it until it didn't. So the first time I had a period I was late, I was like, okay, what's going on here?
But then it took me a while. Perimenopause was not as big a topic then as it is now. So I just dealt with it. But because I had burnt out and I was in tune with my body and I was already balancing my other hormones and taking care of my adrenal glands and so I think my journey into it was not as drastic as it would have been.
Kim Vopni (05:58.115)
When you were saying earlier that you were writing sometimes multiple prescriptions and it was the same prescription it was almost like even though they were different people it was almost like the same person was coming what were the common symptoms that were presenting and what were the medications you were offering and then my follow up question and you can lead right into it if you want is now how do you approach those same people and and what's what is your quote unquote prescription.
Tanya Beaubrun (06:24.345)
So in those days, usual, the majority of my patients were, well, they were middle-aged and both men and women, but it was usually chronic disease, diabetes, hypertension, you know, a family practice, you tend to see a lot of that. If you didn't have an infection, the chronic disease was the thing. And we have very high levels in our island. So we were just treating diabetes and hypertension and many times patients had both.
And I realized then that I'm treating you, I keep thinking there's more. And I would ask him, what's really going on with your life? But I hadn't been trained properly to be a coach until I did my integrative nutrition coaching. But I kept asking, what's going on here? And I would pick up these gut feelings that I need to find out more.
And then in the family practice, you tend to see multiple members of a family. So I'd start to see a pattern. Something is wrong with the child. The mother has an issue. The father has an issue. The grandparent may have an issue. And then I'd start to realize, well, the family dynamic is a little off, so maybe I should investigate that. I started digging a little deeper, just intuitively asking those questions, because I kept thinking, there must be something I'm missing.
because they come and they say I'm coming for my prescriptions to be renewed. But.
You can see that there's something more that they're not saying and they don't quite know how to articulate it. And I just wanted to do, I wanted to truly heal them. And I didn't feel at the time that I was healing the patient as I should. So my experience with burnout that brought me to a functional medicine doctor, when I found this root cause medicine, I thought, this is it.
Tanya Beaubrun (08:18.797)
This is what I've been searching for, it didn't exist years before. I didn't know about it. So as I started to treat myself with the help of my functional medicine doctor, and I'm like, I can't not share this with my patients. And that took me on another journey where I actually left St. Lucia and I did a three-year fellowship and concurrently did a.
Kim Vopni (08:32.781)
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Beaubrun (08:45.433)
a degree in alternative medicine because I wanted to learn more about how it all came together. And in doing conventional Western medicine first and then doing alternative medicine, I think for me, it just opened up so much.
I saw where so much of what we had been taught actually stemmed from the ancient healing modalities, from Ayurvedic medicine, from Chinese medicine and naturopathy. A lot of what we were doing almost intuitively stemmed from that. So it was really for me the best decision I ever made.
Kim Vopni (09:28.258)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, given your background where you have the allopathic standard kind of medical doctor training, you then layered on and added on the integrative sort of the nutrition, all that sort of the side that was for so long considered the woo woo. Right. But that's kind of, you know, I could I can argue two things here. I could say
my ideal practitioner would be somebody who has allopathic training and functional medicine, very well rounded person, I could also argue that we shouldn't really be relying on one person to know absolutely everything. So maybe we need an allopathic doctor and a functional medicine doctor. Do you have a feeling on that? Like when you talk about burnout, do you feel like now you're managing too much, you have too much in your brain that you have to think about?
Tanya Beaubrun (10:19.097)
No, it has made it for me. It's more worthwhile for me because now I want to look at
somebody sitting in front of me, I use every tool that I've learned over the past three years. I use my allopathic training. I use my alternative medicine training. I use my functional medicine training and layer it together depending on what that particular patient needs. So I may have to write a prescription for four drugs some days. Another days it might be lifestyle and supplements. Another time it might be sitting and just talking through with a patient.
And last week I had that where she just came for a prescription.
And I said, OK, and she just sat down and she just looked depleted. And I said, what's going on? And she says, you know, my daughter is getting married and I'm not sure if I'm going. And I'm like, yes, you are. You are going to go and we're going to facilitate it and you're going to go. And she sent me a beautiful message two days later and says, you know, I needed that that talk. I needed a reality check. I booked my flight. And but we talked about everything I said. So let's you know, I started to coach her and to counsel her, which I didn't feel confident doing.
30 years ago. But now that I can, I have started tapping into my intuitive parts of me that I guess I kept hidden.
Tanya Beaubrun (11:43.403)
And using all these tools, I can kind of figure out, well, this person needs some more allopathic medicine, or this one needs some functional medicine tools, or depending on the pillars that are, you know. So I created this method called the More Joy Method because I think joy is the ultimate healing tool. And there's physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects. So whenever I see a patient, I'm starting to see what pillars do I have to draw from today?
to give them what they need. Because they can't always articulate what they need, but intuitively and together we started to have this dance where I kind of figure what do I need to pull in to give them a solution for now and for later.
Kim Vopni (12:30.029)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. And I think, as I said, I love the it's also removing a barrier in terms of having to see multiple different practitioners when you can go to one person who truly is invested in the health and the joy as you say, of, of me of that person, it removes the barrier, the wait times, the having to book multiple appointments, the conflicting viewpoints that you might get from one practitioner to another, right?
So I hope it's my sincere hope that the way forward with true health care as opposed to a sick care model, feel like allopathic is very much a sick care, which we need it when we have traumas. And when we have it, it's absolutely essential. But from health care and from preventive medicine, I think that you would agree the functional and sort of the integrative model just seems to be more logical.
and helpful, really, in reducing the need for the allopathic model.
Tanya Beaubrun (13:29.909)
It is definitely, in my opinion, having straddled both. When it comes to preventative care, I think the functional and integrated model works as far superior because we delve into the lifestyle, which is the foundation of every disease process.
So if we can't fix the lifestyle, the diet and nutrition and the exercise and the stress management and sleep, et cetera, if we can't tap into these things and fix it, we're not really going to heal anybody. So preventative care is, I feel, the way we have to go to reduce the mess that we're in with such high levels of chronic disease. I never thought that I'd be seeing diabetes in a 20 or 30-year-old.
I just didn't think I would ever see that. I didn't expect to see cancer in a 30-year-old. But it's our reality. So we have to find, in my opinion, tools that educate the patients, that we have to give them the information of how to do this and why they're doing it. Because I believe that if we don't tell the patients,
Kim Vopni (14:22.415)
more more common.
Tanya Beaubrun (14:38.327)
Why I want you to eat this way is because of the impact on your visceral fat levels, which then has an impact on your cardiovascular health and brain health. When you explain everything to them, and a light bulb goes off and they say, I want to prevent that. And you tie it into the rest of their life. Do you have young children? Are you coping?
And this is where the talk now of menopause and midlife is coming in. We have realized that many women now are straddling, this, it's almost like a four legged horse, which is all the legs go in different places. So they're babies later. So they're having babies sometimes late 30s, early 40s.
And then they're breastfeeding. So there's the child pregnancy and childbirth and then breastfeeding, which also does a number on hormones. And then they're at the stage where they also have to juggle that with work. So then they're burning out. At the same time, that four prong is that they are going through perimenopause. So we don't even know at any time which one of these, is it the fact that they've just finished breastfeeding and that sent the hormones all over the place?
Is it burnout with the HPA axis dysfunction that is sending the rest of the hormones out or are they going into perimenopause at the same time? And for many of them, it's actually these things are going together and they're little elements of each. So we have to sort of look at the person in front of me and listen to them and see what exactly are you feeling.
But so many of us, I put myself in it, we've kind of lost touch with our bodies because we're busy doing, we don't have time to be. We don't have time to look in the mirror and say, okay, this is what's truly happening. We don't have time to say, okay, what part of you? And sometimes I ask them, can you intuitively tell me what you think is wrong? And they look at me blank because they have not gone deep into that so long. So trying to get people to understand that your body has an innate ability
Kim Vopni (16:45.881)
paid attention, yeah.
Tanya Beaubrun (16:52.309)
to heal and you're going to tell me what the issue is if you listen your body will tell you.
Kim Vopni (17:00.141)
I want to talk about diabetes because this is something that a lot of people in my community deal with. It's a contributing factor for some for waking multiple times a night to pee and that, you know, it's kind of one element. And as you mentioned, there's often many things going on and it's hard to decipher. Is that the reason why, or is it that started the reason and now it's behavior or is it blood sugar related as a response? Like there's so many different intricacies in there, but in
Coming from the functional medicine lens, what recommendations do you make to women in perimenopause? So my understanding is with the hormonal shifts that are happening, especially as we approach our menopause, kind of our menopause day and move beyond, the loss of estrogen is influencing our insulin sensitivity and we're becoming less sensitive, which can then lead to...
development of diabetes if it's not already there. What's your, how do you investigate, how do you assess that, how do you help that person navigate, what sort of testing and then recommendations would you make for somebody dealing with diabetes?
Tanya Beaubrun (18:14.113)
all my patients are getting a fasting insulin test because very often the fasting blood sugar would be normal, the HbA1c which would be normal, but the fasting insulin is starting to rise and that is where we can actually shift back. And that's how I know, when you do all the tests and you look at the cortisol levels and you look at how the HbA axis is affecting every single hormone cascade because the hormones dance with each other.
at one part, so the gynecologist will look at one section, the endocrinologist will look at another, the cardiologist will look at one thing. But when you put it together and you realize that everything is dancing, but everything is just out of step, so we have to get them dancing in tune with each other, that is how we find it. So for me, it is tackling lifestyle. As soon as that fasting insulin is starting to rise, I'm like, we need to do something.
and we need to shift it and I explain to them why. And I think if you explain to the patients and say this is how your body works, this is the function of insulin, this is what makes insulin rise. And they realize that it's not in their head. So sometimes the blood sugar is up or sometimes it's too low and they are feeling hungry.
and they think they're just irritable and they can't cope. I if your blood sugar levels are dipping, then you don't have the energy. it's not that you can't, you don't want to cope, it's that you truly can't because physiologically, this is what is happening.
I also test the thyroid function because very often the insulin and thyroid will go together. And when you tell a patient, and you look at them and you say, by three o'clock in the afternoon, you're really exhausted and you want to sleep. And you see this kind of look and I said, it's not in your head. This is what, and I show them, this is what is happening. I can tell from this that by this time of day, you tanked.
Tanya Beaubrun (20:17.261)
You don't have the energy. It's not in your head. We're to fix this. And sometimes less is more. Sometimes it's not over-exercising to get rid of the belly fat. Sometimes it's taking a break.
Kim Vopni (20:24.75)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (20:30.583)
And what number, when you talk about fasting insulin starting to rise, what number do you want to see and what would start to flag you that we want to pay paying attention? Six and seven.
Tanya Beaubrun (20:39.009)
in six and seven. After that, start to look a little closer. I keep it very tight.
Kim Vopni (20:44.867)
Yep. Yep.
Tanya Beaubrun (20:46.969)
As soon as I see that level, I'm like, okay, what else is going on? Because if I wait too long and it continues to climb, then it's harder. So I try to get, as soon as I start, start to say, okay, let me look and see what else is going on. If it is very, very stressed, then let's see how we can give them some stress management tools that they can take with them, easy tools that they can use. And also how are they, people do think they're eating healthily. I have a salad for lunch. What's in your salad? There's absolutely no protein.
They were not getting any protein and they, what are you putting on the salad? Some salad dressing. Where did you get the salad dressing? I bought it. I'm like, well, that is all processed and it's full of sugar and it's having you spike your blood sugar and by two hours later, you're gonna crash. But they do think they're having a salad for lunch. Because they're eating healthy. And I say,
Kim Vopni (21:36.047)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tanya Beaubrun (21:40.202)
I admire you trying to get your veggies in, but let's add some protein to that and let's do a homemade, you know, vinaigrette with it. There's nothing processed in it. It's a simple thing.
Kim Vopni (21:49.07)
And that can also be an undernourishing thing as well where they may now have some weight gain that they're thinking they need to eat less. So they think by eating a salad and as you say, it's very, very rarely do they have, you know, protein like a chicken or beans or what have you on there. So there's the undernourishment piece. you seeing that as well?
Tanya Beaubrun (22:09.869)
Yes. What I'm seeing now is while they're going on TikTok and following all these things and taking supplements. I keep saying Dr. TikTok.
is can be good and bad. So need to know which doctor you're following on TikTok and make sure that the information that you're getting is from the right source. And quite often when I speak to them and say, why are you on this? I'm trying to lose weight quickly. And that's the GLP-1 agonist that everybody wants to go on for quick weight loss. And I have to explain to them that you may lose weight.
But if you don't do this properly and you don't nourish yourself properly, you're going to lose massive amounts of muscle. So you may reach your target weight, but what impact does it have on your health if you don't do this in a way that is intentional? Because they want to lose weight rapidly and it cuts their cravings, cuts their appetite, so they don't eat. often, some them have gone the whole day without eating. And I said, you're going to have to have something in your system.
Kim Vopni (23:12.291)
Yeah, and I of course always go to that when I think of now GLP one, but at the time it was also intermittent fasting, which I think both can absolutely play a role. And I think that there's a place for both of those strategies. However, anything that has you eating significantly less that the nutrient side of things, but also just pooping, how do you have enough in there to poop well and constipation is such a challenge already for women. And if we are now limiting the amount of food, especially the
the healthful food, the stuff that's not processed, by limiting that, then we're definitely not setting them up for good poops either. so kind of that constant, I'm always thinking about poop and hydration. Those seem to be the two first things that I'm always thinking about. And how is that going to influence the pelvic floor? Because that's obviously what a lot of people in my community are dealing with.
Tanya Beaubrun (24:03.865)
And that's something that I want to thank you for bringing to my attention that until I met you, I wasn't as aware of my pelvic floor. And now every time I go to the bathroom, I have to think, would Kim want me to go? Am I going too quickly? Do I really have to go? And that's what you you, you, by being with you, you said, do you really have to go? And I questioned myself, would Kim think it's time for me to go?
Kim Vopni (24:12.58)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (24:16.207)
Did I really have to go?
Tanya Beaubrun (24:33.525)
Alright,
Kim Vopni (24:34.799)
I have a lot of people saying like, I think about you every time I go to the bathroom and I count how long I'm peeing for it. So I feel like I'm creating a bit of a monster here, but.
Tanya Beaubrun (24:42.041)
But it's a good monster because I think, especially after childbirth and doing all the work we're doing, we don't realize the importance of our pelvic health and how that hammock, because you've explained us as a hammock, if it's not supported properly, it impacts so much. The back pains, the hip pains, the neck pain.
because everything is in balance and we just, well, you know, now I have a frozen shoulder, I must have menopause. I'm like, well, before you go straight to blame menopause for frozen shoulder, let's look at what else is happening.
Kim Vopni (25:15.417)
Yeah, yeah.
Kim Vopni (25:20.995)
Yeah, and it's kind of along the same lines as what you said earlier where you know, we've lost touch with our bodies and we sometimes we just we we don't understand why and a part of what you're doing now is explaining to people. This is why I'm checking this. is why I'm advising you to do this because also for so long it was sort of just you would you would go to the doctor you would get a diagnosis you would get a pill for your ill and you wouldn't you would just think well that there you go. I'm fine now. I'm fixed and and
by providing people information for whatever topic they then have its informed choice. They can then choose to make changes or not depending on their goals with their health. And so I guess that's kind of what I'm doing too, where I'm like, do you really have to go? You talked about the HPA axis. You've mentioned that a few times. Can you explain what that is and why it's an important marker to look at?
Tanya Beaubrun (26:07.385)
Yeah, so I do ask myself.
Tanya Beaubrun (26:16.819)
So it's the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis and it starts in the brain. There two little glands that dance and there's one I call the mother of all because it really does impact almost all hormones. But the HPA axis is really the adrenal one. Then the adrenal gland is the stress hormone.
What I have realized is that so many of us are in fight or flight. So there's fight or flight where it serves its purpose, where the sympathetic nervous system is designed to save our lives, to protect us, to save our, to protect us from harm or from death.
But we are not being, we are being exposed to those primitive tigers constantly now. So the sympathetic nervous system, which is we secrete an adrenaline and cortisol almost continuously. And these tigers are coming in the form of 24 hour television and social media and emails and blue light and just life that we now take for granted. This is what we do, but 30 years from now, 30 years ago, we did in St. Lucia.
Certainly 40 years ago or 50 years ago, we did not have 24 hour TV. So by a certain time, the TVs went off and there was nothing else to do. You had to listen to the radio, you went to bed.
And the lights, didn't have, you know, we didn't have all these lights in the environment. so this is all affecting the axis where we're in fight or flight and sympathetic overdrive. So what I'm trying to explain to people is that we need to go into the parasympathetic state, which is rest and digest as often as possible. It could be as simple as noticing that your heart is racing, tuning into that and saying, okay, I'm safe, all is well. I'm going to take a deep cleansing breath or a longer exhale twice as long as my
Tanya Beaubrun (28:11.291)
little things like that that you could do anyway. You could be in a meeting and it's getting really antsy with your co-workers and you just stop and you just take a deep cleanse and breath and it settles your system. Could be going out in nature.
just going outside on a morning and getting sunlight within the first 30 minutes of waking up so that you set your circadian rhythm, which is your daily rhythm of hormones throughout the day, so that you set yourself up. It knows that, it's morning time. My eyes have been exposed to sunlight. And it actually sends a message to the glands in the brain to tell the rest of the axis, this is where we're at.
Because right now we can exist in enclosed areas 24 hours a week. We won't even know what it's day or night, but we can survive. We're not reliant on nature to sustain us. So what I'm trying to get people to understand that we want to live as close to nature's rhythms as possible.
In the Caribbean, especially, where we rely a lot on imported foods, I'm also trying to tell people, let's eat local. Let's eat what is indigenous to us without having so many of the imported fruit and vegetables and the other foods, because we have to rely on so many other foods that's imported. So whatever we can get locally, let's eat them. And let's eat what's in season. And I think all of these things are playing a role in the regularization of the access rhythm.
do we normalize this HPA axis so that it functions to our benefit so that we can function optimally and our cells can do the same? And I think we're focusing on systems, know, the heart, the brain, the gut.
Kim Vopni (30:01.06)
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Beaubrun (30:10.669)
They all talk to each other, but guess what? They're all made of cells. So if we can get our cellular health optimized, then I think we've done a great job in preventing disease processes that affect any of our organ systems.
Kim Vopni (30:24.954)
Yeah. What do you see in the, we'll talk specifically about the perimenopause population. If you were to make some, say like your top three to five recommendations for somebody going through that perimenopause phase, so not yet in menopause, but leading up to it, what would your top recommendations be for those people?
Tanya Beaubrun (30:47.521)
surrender. We're not going to change what's happening. We need to understand that we go through hormonal, we have been going through hormonal shifts every month for most of our lives. This is an exaggerated form and it can hit us in times in our life where we don't really need this prolonged hormonal shift. So acceptance is one.
Kim Vopni (30:52.048)
love that.
Tanya Beaubrun (31:14.547)
Knowledge information is the other one where we need to educate ourselves and what's happening because your sister or your best friend's perimenopause journey may be totally different to yours. So you need to understand how your body works, track your cycle, track your food, know what foods work for you, know what exercises are better for your body type. So these things I try to tell people, information and your...
body information that your body's talking to you all the time. If you can come and tell me, well, I ate this and this is what happened, or I noticed that when I was stressed, my periods came earlier, that is invaluable information. The third thing, as I said, is lifestyle, diet. How are you nourishing those cells? What are you feeding yourself? What are you putting in? Are you eating clean, whole, unprocessed foods at least 80 % of the time? Are you balancing your plate?
We think we're doing that, but we're not getting enough protein, especially at this time as we're getting a little older, and we're losing muscle at a rapid rate after the age of 30. So how are we going to replenish that? It's how we eat. So getting adequate amounts of protein is critical, and a lot of women are not getting enough. The fourth thing is exercise. We're not exercising.
properly in the sense that we're not lifting, prioritizing lifting weights. And when we do, we're afraid to lift heavy because we think we're going to look like bodybuilders. And I keep telling women, unless you are training to become a bodybuilder, there is no way you can look like a bodybuilder.
by lifting heavy unless you are specifically training to look like that. If your normal weight training makes you look like a bodybuilder, that's very rare. But if you lift heavy, you build muscle. Muscle burns more calories. Your bones have this scaffolding that is going to keep you upright for longer. So try and lift heavy. The other thing is sleep.
Kim Vopni (33:03.108)
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Beaubrun (33:26.009)
Sleep optimization, we're neglecting our sleep. With perimenopause, we're also having sometimes night sweats and hot flashes and it's interrupting our sleep. We also have anxiety and mood swings. All of these interrupt our sleep. We need to have a sleep routine from as early as possible in our lives so that by the time these changes start to come, we already have a routine that we can fall back on.
So I always tell people, preparation for perimenopause and menopause starts in your 20s. Getting to know your body, how you nourish it, how you exercise, all these things, how you hydrate, are you drinking enough water? Just water. Are you getting enough? So many of us are walking around with these bottles and I'm one.
I fill it on the morning and I come back home at the end of the day and it's nowhere near empty. So now I've given my assistant the job that I'm not to leave the office unless that bottle is empty. The number of days I've had to sit there.
And finish that so that I can leave the office because I am not leaving without. So I'm getting it at the tail end of the day, which I'm sure you don't like, because that means I'm going to be if I wait too late, I'm going to be getting up to pee all during the night. But I'm getting my water. I'm trying to as best as possible. The other thing is connections.
We're so busy that we're losing the connections that we had with our loved ones, with our coworkers, with our families. We're not getting together and truly connecting on a deep level like we used to. There were years where the families lived close together. And in the Caribbean, we're still lucky to have a small society where you see your families often.
Tanya Beaubrun (35:13.721)
In larger countries, people have moved to different states or different countries totally, so you don't see each other as often. the connections are not as deep as they used to and not as often as well. So these connections are what really sustain us on our nervous system, our cardiovascular system, so many of our...
Health systems rely on connections and we don't pay attention to that. And I think one of the most important ones is the connection with self. We've isolated ourselves, we've dissociated, we're not in tune with the cycles of our bodies. We rely on apps to tell us when our period is coming. Years ago we didn't have apps, I could tell you when my period was going to come because I had this feeling.
Kim Vopni (35:59.632)
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Beaubrun (36:00.561)
And people just rely on it. They a patient is going to come in to it and say, but are you feeling anything? And they've never thought about it because they've relied on the app the entire time, which is great because I am happy when I ask a patient, when was your last period? And they pull up the app and they can give me the exact date. But it also means that we're relying on that and not on nature to give us the nudge.
Kim Vopni (36:06.362)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (36:14.5)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (36:22.52)
And our intuition, yeah.
Tanya Beaubrun (36:23.219)
and the importance of self-love, self-care, especially women in perimenopause. We're juggling families and work and sometimes climbing the corporate ladder and also taking care maybe of aging parents. And we're caught doing for everybody else. And the one person that gets left out is ourselves. Until we either burn out or get sick or just can't get out of bed or we have that back pain or something and we're just forced to just stop.
Kim Vopni (36:42.593)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (36:52.654)
Yeah, yeah, the body will at some point it's sending us little messages, but we, as you say, we're so disconnected, we don't even hear the little whispers until they become a big loud scream or slap in the face. Yeah. What would shift from that list? I, I, I'm going to make an assumption that that list would be exactly the same for somebody on the other side post menopause. What would you add? So I'm, kind of wanting your, your recommendations from a hormone per therapy perspective.
Tanya Beaubrun (36:54.477)
The bottle is stopped here.
Tanya Beaubrun (37:03.405)
Yes.
Tanya Beaubrun (37:22.121)
I have big belief in hormone therapy for each patient on an as needed basis. For me, it has worked wonders for the past 15 years. I tell everybody, I am not going to stop this unless I have to.
So I believe that there is definitely a place for hormone replacement therapy, but it has to be done on an individual basis. Is this right for this patient? What is this patient going through? What dose do they need? It's not a cookie cutter medicine where everybody gets the same prescription and you start everybody on two pumps of this and progesterone and maybe a little testosterone and everybody just goes with the same prescription. I test.
and I look at where they are and not just their sex hormones, I test everything so I can balance everything. Once you get to the other side and you've had your last period and it's more than a year, and I think I heard, think it's Dr. Malone, I think it's Sharon Malone who says, you're always in menopause. Once you have completed it, you're always in menopause after that.
What I would say is this for me, menopause is, I believe, a secret transition for women. It's a time where we can tap into our wisdom and share all our knowledge with our community. And I believe that we're not tapping into that collective wisdom that is out there. What we can share.
what we have learned, our experiences. If we come together, and I sometimes think of it as, you know, we have these lights within us. And if we all came together and plugged it in, can you imagine that huge, simple energy that would just take over the world and start to heal on every level? So when a woman goes through her last period, it's not the end. I think it's the beginning of the most powerful time in her life where she no longer has to worry.
Kim Vopni (39:06.607)
Hehehe.
Yeah.
Tanya Beaubrun (39:24.087)
about little children, hopefully. She doesn't have to worry about what others think, really, because she's been there, done that. Her body has shifted. Her brain has shifted. And if she's healthy and feeling good, there is such power in that that I believe we're not talking about that.
And that's what I really, I want to change the narrative. This is not our mother's menopause where they stayed silent and they didn't even tell each other that they were on HRT then in those days. Cause they didn't want to talk about it. felt that they had come to the end and that they were old now. So a 55 year old woman, 40 years ago and a 55 year old woman now, it's totally different.
Kim Vopni (40:01.7)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (40:12.974)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tanya Beaubrun (40:13.997)
We're no longer buying into the narrative that our time is done and that we can be parked on a shelf. We're like, ditch the shelf, rebuilding our own bookshelves now, and you're going to be to stand on these shelves and we're going to talk and we're going to hear and you're going to listen. Because when I speak, you want to hear what I have to say because it's probably going to change your life.
Kim Vopni (40:30.904)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kim Vopni (40:37.816)
Mm-hmm. I love that. I love that.
Tanya Beaubrun (40:39.801)
This is what we are not tapping into, the collective wisdom of post-menopausal women. It's power.
Kim Vopni (40:48.624)
Yeah, we are. The conversation is out there a lot, a lot of amazing people spreading knowledge and information about this. However, it still is often symptom based suffering. This is how all the things are going to suck in your life because you're not a of pause. And it's, as you say, shifting the narrative to say how there's going to be some things. However, if you have.
managed all of the things that you were talking about, that transition will be easier and will be better. You will be better able to tap into your intuition to then be in the position to now share and help educate others and and and take away the belief that we're supposed to just suffer through this or put up with it.
Tanya Beaubrun (41:35.693)
I'm very happy that menopause is having its moment, but I'm also concerned that it's becoming another disease process to be managed, where I do believe that the symptoms need to be addressed, but we also need to look beyond the physical. What are the emotional needs of this patient in front of me? What are the spiritual needs? What is really going on in her life? What does she need from me apart from a prescription? We're just doing the same thing. We're writing prescriptions for menopause, but we're still not addressing the root cause.
Kim Vopni (41:43.108)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (41:58.821)
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Beaubrun (42:05.707)
Yes, you're going through a menopause. is a natural transition. And yes, you're having hot flashes. We have to address that. And you know, all these things and the brain fog and whatever. But what else is contributing? Are you working too hard? Are you not sleeping properly? And it may not just be hot flashes. Maybe you have other things on your mind. Maybe you are depressed. And I tell people, if you haven't faced a lot of childhood issues, big trauma, little trauma, things that you wish you had done to regrets,
Kim Vopni (42:17.498)
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Beaubrun (42:35.547)
in your 50s, whatever you've tried to run away from catches up with you. And it's a time of reckoning and it's a time of saying, okay, I own who I am, I own my mistakes.
I own where I didn't do what I thought I could have done or I didn't do it well enough. I own that. But guess what? Everything that I've gone through has brought me to this place. And now I am in this sacred transition. And as I'm going through it, I'm going to use these lessons to move on to the next phase of my life. And we're not having these conversations enough.
where it's all about the heart flashes and the shoulder pain and the brain fog. And it's all about the negatives that come with this stage. We're not talking enough about how amazing it can be to be on the other side of that, where you don't have to worry about a period anymore. You don't have to worry about getting pregnant. You don't have to worry about all these things. Yes, you have aches and pains. And yes, it's replaced with some other things.
Kim Vopni (43:33.06)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tanya Beaubrun (43:41.699)
But we've dealt with other things before. What stops us in our 50s and 60s from dealing with the other things? It's our mindset.
Kim Vopni (43:44.848)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (43:51.066)
Something that you said before we started recording was about the involving the men, if we happen to have male partners or male influence in our life. I think that's also even in my community too from a menopausal influence of pelvic floor. Oftentimes pelvic floor symptoms have shown up usually before maybe have been something we've been dealing with for a long time. And it's one of the things that's very hard to talk to.
talk about to our partners or with our partners or with our care providers even. When you made the comment about including the male people in our lives, can you elaborate a little bit on what you were meaning with that?
Tanya Beaubrun (44:33.653)
I think that we cannot talk about women's health without talking about men's health and vice versa. It is important that we bring men's health into the conversation. When a woman is going through perimenopause or menopause in a relationship, it impacts the relationship. Now we spoke about sleeping. Is she not sleeping because her partner is snoring? And why is he snoring?
does he have, it says, he put on significant weight and he's lying on his back and he's snoring. She's not sleeping because he's snoring. And then she's, and when she finally falls asleep, she's woken up by a night's web. So her life is either spent ditching, you know, trying not to hear his snoring and running away or trying to get a dry spot on the bed. So we have to address the fact that men's health, the men in our lives, their health will impact us as well.
are we addressing andropause? We're talking about menopause, but are we addressing the hormonal shifts that will occur in men as they get older? And you have two people growing old together. We're addressing menopause in the women's health and we're giving them everything, but we're not addressing the fact that men themselves are going through the stage where they have low testosterone levels, they're not having, they have insulin resistance, they have increased belly fat, and all these issues that come with that.
Kim Vopni (45:40.911)
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Beaubrun (45:58.791)
We're not having a conversation because men don't want to come in and talk until there's something wrong. So when a woman isn't sleeping, I'm asking all these questions. Is your husband snoring? What's going on? And if he's snoring, why is he snoring? Has he put on significant amounts of weight? And she may be worried about his health. She sees him gaining weight. He might be short of breath sometimes. He may have sleep apnea. And then by asking that simple question, I start to the whole story about the man.
Kim Vopni (46:05.124)
Yeah.
Tanya Beaubrun (46:26.829)
Doc, he hasn't done this, and I've begged him to come for his labs, and he hasn't done labs in so long, and I'm trying to get him to it, and I'm so worried about him, and he sometimes has chest pain, and he goes on. And I'm like, okay, we will deal with him, we will ask him to come in, and we'll see if we can get him sorted out. But if we do not involve the men in the conversation with hormonal imbalances and aging, I think we're missing a significant opportunity.
to heal not just ourselves, but to heal a relationship and to just be in joy. So imagine if they both, their health is both male and female optimized. How much collective wisdom that they have to share with their children, grandchildren and everything would be amazing. It's important that we bring the men into the conversation.
Kim Vopni (47:00.003)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (47:04.184)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (47:09.431)
and they're talking about it with one another. Yes.
Kim Vopni (47:16.494)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (47:20.355)
Yeah, that's such an amazing, not many people talk about it. It's kind of like the heart and the gut and the brain, it's all disconnected and it's like women's health and men's health and we need to have them because they often are coexisting together and influencing one another. Well, St. Lucia is very lucky to have you and I can't wait to see you next month at the time of this recording in June, we'll be getting together for a business mastermind, so I'm looking forward to seeing you in person.
Tanya Beaubrun (47:35.725)
Yeah, very.
Kim Vopni (47:49.239)
Tell us where people can find out more about you. If they happen to be in St. Lucia, come and work with you and just follow along with you maybe on social media.
Tanya Beaubrun (47:55.395)
Yes, they can. I have opened the first functional and integrative medicine clinic in St. Lucia and I think in the Caribbean. It's called the Satya Center for Functional and Integrative Medicine. It's my baby and it's my joy. My website is tanyabobron.com and I'm on Instagram as Dr. Tanya Bobron, Tanya with a Y.
I am just so filled with gratitude right now that I get to do this work. I get to do work that I come home at the end of the day and I smile and I think, it's not.
It's not draining my soul. It's actually filling me up. And I think this has come from actually aligning with my truth, doing work that I love. And that's why I keep saying the burnout was the biggest blessing because had it not been for that, I wouldn't have found functional and integrative medicine. I wouldn't have had the courage to speak up and let people know that they deserve a model of healthcare that allows them to be held as they are healed. We're not holding our patients. We're not seeing them.
We've seen a disease and we're not seeing a person beyond a disease. And my new hashtag or mantra is that you are more than a manopause, you are more than a diagnosis, you are more than a prescription, and you deserve the joy in your life.
that is there for you to take. Just drink from that cup of joy. That's all I'm here to do, you know. I'm just here to give you two more joy so that once you're joyful, then you're healthy and you're thriving and you're confident and you're strong and you're fit and you know, that's where the true healing is taking place when you tap into that joy.
Kim Vopni (49:27.693)
Hahaha
Kim Vopni (49:42.689)
I love it. Thank you for doing the work that you're doing. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom here with me and with the listeners. until next time, I'll have everything in the show notes for people to be able to find you.
Tanya Beaubrun (49:53.977)
Thank you for having me.
Kim Vopni (49:55.13)
Thank you.
