Kim (00:01.154)
Hello, Anne-Marie. We are both in Canada right now, which is not always, but you're usually on the other side of the world. Yeah. I know it's not the most ideal thing, the ideal reason why you're back here, but I wanted an opportunity to chat while you're here in the same time zone. It's always easier to connect. So thanks so much for taking the time.
Ann Marie McQueen (00:05.221)
Ugh.
Ann Marie McQueen (00:08.962)
This is a really nice, manageable time difference. Ha ha ha.
Ann Marie McQueen (00:26.49)
Oh, thank you so much. I'm always happy to talk to you, no matter what's going on in my life.
Kim (00:34.422)
Yeah, so we had a nice long chat beforehand. We were saying maybe we should have pressed record, but we ended with you saying, this is the year at Hot Flash Inc that we're putting our vaginas first. So before we go there, because I had to drop that nugget, but what's your background? What is Hot Flash Inc? And then we'll talk about putting vaginas first.
Ann Marie McQueen (00:57.482)
Okay, so like many of us in this age group, I didn't even know what perimenopause was. I knew about menopause, but I didn't know about perimenopause. So I had sort of an epic perimenopause without knowing it. I just hit a wall in my early 40s and went, I felt like I was going crazy. You know, I had, now what I know are very typical symptoms from declining progesterone, like just.
massive anxiety and panic attacks and nightmares and waking up in the middle of the night and fear of flying and then all those other weird symptoms like tingling on my head and chest pain and neck tension and terrible headaches like on and on, right, for six years. And then I realized or I heard about it.
that what period pen and pause was. And then I started to realize, I think I skipped a period. And then I was like, OK, I'm 47. This is what this is. And then I got just really interested in it because I'm a journalist. So I made a Google alert. And all the information coming back sucked. It just wasn't good. It was still not great. But it's getting a lot better. But it was just really negative. Or you know.
promotional for something, making money for someone, very slanted. And so I just started thinking, God, there's got to be a way I could do a newsletter of the way, because I'm a journalist and I'm obsessed with content. And I became an editor over in Abu Dhabi. And during those years of arts and lifestyle section, I was just like, I feel like I could cover this in the way that I cover everything else. And so newsletters weren't crazy then. Like, I don't even know if Substack was around, but I launched it in 2020 and then pandemic.
And then it's grown. I have a podcast and all the social media. And then I just felt then, I guess it would have been 2017, that this was a conversation that was going to break open. Because we had just been through Me Too, and I just felt like this is like the following on from that. Like this age group, this generation of women just aren't.
Ann Marie McQueen (02:59.942)
We don't want to be ashamed about anything, you know? And I'm seeing young girls talk about having their periods openly, and I just felt like it was going to. And I was right. So I've met all these amazing. I didn't anticipate meeting all these amazing people around the world talking to all of you and others. But it's basically a platform to provide context, as unbiased information as possible. No, it's not a natural menopause. It's not medicalized. It's everything. We respect everything.
you know, I don't believe that menopause is a disease or a deficiency. And so that is part of the platform.
Kim (03:41.982)
Yeah. It is, I've said this to you before. It is the only of all the newsletters and email lists that I'm subscribed to and whatever. It is the only one that literally every time it lands in my inbox, I will read it from start to finish every single time. It is spectacular. And I absolutely I love your I love that you come through that your voice comes through. I love the research.
that you do. I don't know where you find all of your resources, but I love your research. I love your mind. I love your wit. I love the storytelling that happens. It's spectacular and I love it. So everybody needs to sign up for it. Yeah. So I'm putting the vagina first over here for just one more second, because you said one other thing and you said,
Ann Marie McQueen (04:23.472)
Thank you. Thank you, Kim. I appreciate it.
Kim (04:38.874)
you had a sense that this conversation was going to explode. You saw the Me Too movement and you sort of knew that this was going to happen. So what do you feel fueled that explosion of this conversation around perimenopause and menopause?
Ann Marie McQueen (04:55.702)
Well, I just, I think we're just not quiet about things. Like we're just, Gen X just isn't having it. You know what I mean? Like we're just not gonna go quietly like our parents did, like our mothers did. It's just not the way. And you know, I mean, my mother, you know, I'm just going through my father's belongings. I'm home cause my father passed away and I found the deed on the house they bought in 1967. It's my father's name on it.
My mom didn't have a credit card then. That is just one generation ago. And look what we do. I've never even been married or had kids. That's a bigger thing. But I'm just saying, we're so different. And we're the generation that's done so much and been so vocal about things. And when you talk about me, we would have silently borne sexual harassment probably. But we're watching me too going like not.
anymore, not for my daughters, not for my nieces. And so I just feel like you had celebrities, you know, you saw what it's funny because when I went into this in 2017, I was and I, and when I started it in 2020, even I was so annoyed because you'd look at the fitness magazines and they were putting celebrities in their forties and fifties on the covers of magazines, which I found really interesting. Now they're doing it all the time. And why are they doing that? Because we're huge demographic and it makes sense, but they weren't ever saying anything about perimenopause or menopause yet.
And I remember Naomi Watts, who's since launched Stripes, was on the cover of Women's Health. And she even said in it, I started a skincare store because I was having hormonal problems, and the reporter didn't even ask her. And I could just see she wanted to talk about it. And probably this was 25-year-old magazine reporter that didn't ask her about it. And I just felt like if we could get celebrities. And I think Viola Davis had already done her Jimmy Kimmel interview maybe by then. But there was just little.
signs, little signs that it was going to happen. And yeah, that's kind of, I just feel like we're really, Gen X has been through it all, right? Like we've been, we've been through it all. But we also, I think, have had very hard perimenopause situations because we had hard childhoods with adverse childhood experiences. And we've been really hard on our bodies. And we went through the work hard.
Ann Marie McQueen (07:17.642)
you know, you have to produce. Like, we've just got so much stuff in our heads that's like, I think maybe the younger generations might not have, I'm hoping. So that's a lot of word salad I just gave you. But I think there's a whole bunch of reasons.
Kim (07:36.205)
Yeah, that's, I love that. Okay, so now back to vaginas. Why is this the year that hot flash is hot flashing is putting vaginas first?
Ann Marie McQueen (07:47.102)
Okay, well, first of all, it's the year I'm putting my vagina first, so I just figure if I'm gonna be doing it and exploring what I'm doing, then I might as well be sharing it. So when the newsletter is back up, which it will be shortly, we're gonna be talking about that. And I'm so interested because one of the things about this conversation that drives me nuts is everyone is looking for the one answer. So I've been noticing for a couple of years, it's like, okay, vaginal estrogen is the answer. But...
But there's so many other things, as you know, like I just ordered a Joy, Joy Lux's V sculpt, the red light therapy machine that you've you talked about on my podcast. I'm having people coming to me with all sorts of devices. I'm interested in lasers and ultrasound therapy. There's so many things and I don't always think just one thing works. I mean, I just had a consult with a doctor and she said DHEA works really well.
in addition to vaginal estrogen. And I'm doing, for the first time in my life, saw a pelvic health physiotherapist, which you recommended to me years ago. But the main reason is that it is so easy to put this part of yourself just downstairs in a box, basically. It's already downstairs. You know what I mean? It's so easy to cut yourself off from the, yeah, it's already in a box. Sheesh, she. So I have.
Kim (09:04.878)
Yeah, and it's already in a box too.
Ann Marie McQueen (09:10.482)
and I'm noticing all my friends I'm talking to that they are talking to me about this more and more, it is the center of us. If it's, you know, and I realize as I've done so, I've interviewed probably, I think I've had a hundred episodes of the podcast. And anytime I talk to more spiritual people, it's like, this is your actual center. Like there's so many similarities in the design and look of our sexual organs and our vocal cords and our thyroid. And,
Like it is our voice, it is our center, it is us. So when we're just ignoring it, and when you're walking around feeling like you're leaking, feeling like my best friend just said she felt like her uterus was falling out, and now she's at a pelvic floor physiotherapist, and she got some device to help her, and how can you feel good when you're constantly having the back of your mind, like this psychic drag? But also, it should be first, because it's us. It's like the essence of us.
And so I want us to stop separating ourselves. And I know how easy that is. And I don't have kids to keep me distracted from that. But I have other things that I'm busy with. And so I know how hard it is. And I've decided to make it a priority. Because I think from there can flow some clarity. And you even have some people talking about financial abundance if you can get your, you just, you know what I mean. You know what I'm saying.
Kim (10:39.096)
Mm-hmm. I know what you're saying. We have a little bit of a delay here, a little bit of a drag, which we'll be able to edit out, but I know, hopefully, I don't speak over you too much. But yeah, I know absolutely what you're talking about and that distraction that people have when, you know, we put a pad on and we can manage the leagues and people can usually put up with that. But once we start, once it gets...
Ann Marie McQueen (10:44.48)
Okay, good.
Kim (11:03.698)
you know, perimenopause, menopause, and now it's a much bigger problem. Now we have vaginal dryness and burning and irritation, and now we have prolapse, and now we have painful sex, and it just, it starts to compound, and it's not something that we can ignore anymore. And the point that you made that I think is so important is it's not just one thing. It's not go home and do your Kegels, which so many of us have heard the Kegel reference for years and years, if anything. And...
Kegels are great. Like Kegels are evidence-based. They're super helpful in many ways, but it's not the only thing. And taking a multifaceted approach. And I always say sometimes when I'm talking to people, I'm like, you can try this and you can try this. And I think, gosh, I'm giving them this.
big long to do list on top of their already long to do list, but I asked them to also reframe it and say, these are all opportunities that you can try or not try, that choice is yours. And maybe one of these things will provide you some relief. Maybe it'll be a combination approach and a few of them together will, but know that you have options and you have resources and opportunities. It's not just go home and do Tegel's and if they're not working, then sorry, you're out of luck.
Ann Marie McQueen (12:15.502)
Well, yeah, because this gets, genitourine syndrome of menopause has got so many different things. And I think people think of it as like the urinary stuff is the, and the pelvic floor stuff. It is huge, but there's just so many other aspects to it. And then where I like to think I come in is that there's all these competing interests too. Like, I feel like it's very, it serves interests if people are trying to say, all you need is vaginal estrogen.
All you need is a pelvic floor physiotherapist. All you need is this, all you need is that. And then you hear someone saying, lasers are a scam, ultrasound is a scam, red light therapy is a scam. Like this is what this whole space is like. Where I believe in my life, any health problem I've had has always been a number of different things I've done. And even, you know, I had a big sort of health problem last year and, you know.
It was complicated and it was like thyroid, liver, gut. It was all everything you can imagine. It wasn't just the great doctor I found. It was the somatic work that I did. It was the breath work that I did. It was a bunch of stuff. You know what I mean? It was just like writing in my journal and going for walks. Like I couldn't really pick one thing. And so when it comes to your vagina, there's so many different things like.
And it's admitting to yourself, like, I'll just be frank and say one of the things that bothers me is that I have sort of muted orgasms or disappearing orgasms. A lot of women have this. And I didn't even know this was a thing until I was interviewing a nurse practitioner in Nashville. And she was talking about it. It like stopped me cold, like muted orgasm. Wow. That is a thing. So I'm trying to address that with red light therapy. And that's why I was talking to the doctor about DHEA. She said DHEA is actually.
quite helpful with that. And if you do the, and then the pelvic floor specialist said, if you do use estrogen and do the Kegels, that you could probably get your orgasms back the way they were. And I'm like, OK, I would love that, because I think that would make me a lot happier. But that sounds incredibly complicated, right? But it's really not. It's just the legwork. But I think when you set opportunity, I really like that, because you have to put yourself first to do that, right? Like, you have to. And.
Ann Marie McQueen (14:31.134)
We don't always do that as women. Like, we don't always think we're worth it. And I'm here going through all my father's affairs and taking so much care because I want to do it perfectly. And I'm even thinking to myself, like, you need to start taking this much care with your own financial affairs. Like, you're doing this for him. You need to do this for you. And I think that if we can do this for ourselves, it will go so far to building up like our own.
self-esteem and belief in ourselves and confidence too. Like I think it's multi-layered. It's gonna help you and it's gonna help you.
Kim (15:09.67)
And one of the questions I was gonna ask you was as it pertains to the good and bad of social media. And I think part of the good is that there's all these opportunities and options that can be presented. Part of the bad can be you have the contradictory information where there's somebody who's very anti this one option and another person who's very pro this option and you have to make the decision. I recently had somebody on the podcast who does vaginal steaming and she actually created this incredible
vaginal steaming device that has red light therapy, that's temperature controlled and trying to address all of the, the naysayer information out there. It's going to burn your vagina. It's going to do all these bad things. And, and I had always wanted to have somebody who would talk about yoni steaming or vaginal steaming. And I couldn't
I hadn't found the right person until I found her and I had her on and it was debunking a lot of these myths because there's very, I would say there's more people in the, that is the worst decision you could ever make for your vagina. But I also look at it and say, I think it's, I actually really love it. And I think the principles behind it and coming back to the spirituality and our center and honoring this part of our body, it deserves some exploration.
So what do you feel like, is that what your experience has been with regards to messages and social media? What's the good and bad that has happened in the perimenopause and postmenopause space?
Ann Marie McQueen (16:36.746)
Well, I love that you mentioned that, because I also was looking for someone. There's a documentary coming out, and the people that run that account always talk about how they get, you know, they're not amplified, and no one's getting their messages. I think vaginal steaming is such, well, I don't even know what to call it, because people freak out. But Yoni steaming, I think that is the most fascinating touch point for this. And if someone, first of all, I just want to say that Gwyneth Paltrow,
is another touch point. People go absolutely mental about her. And one of the reasons people go mental about Gwyneth Paltrow is a long time ago on their website, they mentioned Yoni Steaming. That's like, and now you'll still see reporters write, Gwyneth Paltrow, the proponent of Yoni Steaming. And what I love is I sort of modeled Hot Flash Incon Goop because she started with a newsletter. So I was reading all through her business plan and they have a little, they have a really good sense of humor over there, whatever you think of them.
And they had a little thing that said, we've never written about Yoni steaming. We only wrote about a place that offers it. In LA, that's very popular. And that's it. That's it. So that just shows you the level of ignorance, of people just willing to repeat things and repeat things. Like, you know, you're going to burn yourself? I know there's people who aren't very smart out there. But I tried it because I got some herbs at an event. And I put the bowl in the toilet. Like, I'm not going to. You know what I mean? I just think it's so.
It's so typical of humans though, because tell someone a new idea, tell someone something cool and 99% of people will tell you why it can't work, what's wrong with it before they know anything about it. And so to me, it really separates the thoughtful, curious, open people who don't just knee jerk against anything interesting. Like, you know, there's a prominent person on social media and
This has nothing to do with perimenopause really, but it was ice baths. I guess some new research came on about ice baths and they said, go figure, ice baths don't work. And I just laughed because I was like, well, they work for me. They make me feel really good. And this just, you know, this is just out there Kim, right? It's like vaginal steaming is bad. What are some of the other touch points of things that are just bad? Compounded hormones are bad, but I went and talked to the compounding alliance.
Ann Marie McQueen (18:57.914)
and some very professional people over there and learned all about how compounding, compounding hormones are very helpful for millions of people. And now I noticed that the doctors who actually I've seen say compounding hormones are a scam. I've seen them hold up their compounded testosterone. So I feel like saying, Oh, it's a scam, but it's not a scam when you want your testosterone, like there's so much nuttiness like this. And I just, to me, it's like, okay, you're a person who talks about that. Then you're a person that I.
put add a bunch of grains of salt to whatever you say. Another oh, another one is the Dutch test. Anything to do with the Dutch test that measures cortisol. I mean, I had someone I thought was really cool and she said, oh, it's just, she swore. She says, you know, bullshit, it's nothing. And I was like, okay, well, it's not, you know, it's not. And so, yeah, I mean, there's so many of them. What other ones are there? There's just so many that people go crazy. Oh, pellets.
um, compounded, uh, pellets, which are the devil, except that I talked to loads of people that use them and they help them greatly and they work for them. And you have to be careful, you know, so it's just like, what? I don't know, you must find this too.
Ann Marie McQueen (20:14.038)
Yeah, anything new.
Kim (20:15.426)
a thousand percent and I get all the lists that you've just said. Yeah. And, and, and I think it's, I, I'm, I appreciate opinions and I appreciate hearing the two sides and I'm glad that those conversations exist. I think that the challenge is that the, by saying that they're so bad.
that they're somehow, like it just makes it more confusing for the person. So now they're thinking, this could be an option for me. And now they see, oftentimes that's what's highlighted is the bad, the ugly, and it's what social media loves when it's negative, right? And so then they, now they're feeling like, oh, this is dangerous and it's, I should feel ashamed for even thinking about this in the first place. And really at the end of the day, it's what's gonna work for you. And you...
go through the information, figure out what's the best decision for your body and go forward. And so I'm a big fan of the Dutch test and Ioni steaming and compounded hormones that I've been using for many years. And I loved the episode that you did about compounding hormones, by the way, was awesome. I absolutely loved it. Yeah, so go forth, pick the good resources.
Ann Marie McQueen (21:23.082)
If you listen to it, you'll just come away. And then, yeah. Yeah, if you, I just thought that episode blew my mind. And then I, it felt like it unveiled a bunch of people on social media as being like pretty ignorant or pretty, I don't even know if it's ignorant or if you're so in the medical side, the mainstream side, the pharmaceutical side, you just can't see it. Like that's another thing I'm willing to acknowledge. Cause I think when you've grown up in that.
space, you don't see it. You don't see how it makes no sense. You don't see how bioidentical hormones used to be the devil. It used to be bioidentical hormones. And then pharmaceutical companies started making bioidentical hormones. And then all of a sudden it was fine. So this is like, you know, it's context. Like we need some, you know, it's not social media is not great for the nuance. But yeah, I'm just always and I and I'm learning so much about this. But there's,
commercial interests in this. There's a lot of, you know, I always, when I was in journalism and I was covering City Hall and I would get confused about what was going on down there and who was telling the truth. It's like, okay, well follow the power and the money and who stands to gain from this message and then go from there. Because usually the people who have more of a reason to say something and the people who are saying the thing that they're disagreeing with, that can sort of help you get to the truth, I think.
But I do think that big business interests are playing a big role here. And I get sort of, I think people think I'm anti-HRT because one of the things that's driving me crazy, and you probably know this, is like the all-HRT all the time. And I started calling some of these doctors estrogen maximalists after the crypto space. I call them e-maxis, but they're just like estrogen will save everything. Estrogen will save everything. And sort of not much attention paid.
to any other hormones other than, you know, like I've interviewed so many people in my podcast where it was clear they're just, their only really sort of knowledge of progesterone or progestogens is to oppose estrogen. And that's sort of shocking if these are people that are in this space to talk about it. And then the nuance of that is like, I just did a consult with a doctor about my own situation. And she said, you know, your adrenal fatigue, which is another, it's another phrase that will make people crazy.
Ann Marie McQueen (23:47.734)
But she's like, I don't really think the estrogen patch would be great for you because you need estriol as well as estradiol. And there is no estriol. And she's like, we'll go do some phytoestrogens before. But down the road, the reason you might want to go to compounded is that it has estradiol and estriol. Now, is she scamming me? No, I don't think she's scamming me. She's saying this is a layer that you need because you really don't have any estrogen at all. And if you were to add it in, you need both of these. So that's not what you hear.
That's not what you hear at all. That's, but that's kind of a nuance. It's really difficult to explain. So I'm just trying to walk through it myself and, um, but boy, there's a mean girls club out there, Kim.
Kim (24:31.81)
thousand percent which leads me to my next question. Where do you, you always, you always, you're very evidence informed, you present the facts. Where, what are your favorite resources and some of them may not be accessible for everybody but from a social media perspective maybe, what are your favorite resources for people to, that you have seen a balanced presentation other than your own newsletter? Where do you go?
Ann Marie McQueen (24:32.95)
Yeah, there's.
Ann Marie McQueen (24:58.486)
Yeah, Maryann Jacobson is a dietitian, midlife strong. She is awesome. I am obsessed with her newsletter. And she is very much convinced as I am that this, I almost want to change my tagline for hot flashing, because it's not all hormones. But that's so controversial right now, because the message is it is hormones. Don't let any, there's huge doctors stitching videos with other functional doctors trying to say, let's get to the root cause. And they're like, it's just menopause.
So anyway, I really like her because she talks about like such important stuff like nitric oxide and like all the stuff that we need to be talking about in our gut health and we're not even beginning to talk about gut health. My god, like that's a great, I mean, I've had my own experience with it. I have a expert panel, you're on my expert panel. Whenever I talk to someone really smart, really curious, really open-minded, and you have to be humble because
If you have an ego, like I know, I know, you're not going to learn and you're not going to be open. And this space is wide open. We don't have enough research. We're just at the beginning. We know what's happened with women's health research. You know, I keep saying there's a million studies on pregnancy and like, I think it's like under 100,000 on menopause and under 10,000 on perimenopause. So no one knows anything for sure. So I have a
a bunch of experts on there that I would go and follow on social media because they are people that I have found to be very open-minded. And there's probably some conspicuous absences on there or people who you might think would be on there, but they're not. And then I follow, I mean, I follow the guiding bodies because I think they're all we have. You know, there's no guiding body in the world that's recommending hormone therapy to prevent dementia or cardiovascular disease at this moment.
because this research isn't really definitive. And although you hear a lot of people saying that it is. And so maybe there's reasons why they're not doing that. Because any time I say that, I'll get someone in the background writing to me at DM saying, oh, you don't know, because then it would be insurance, and yada, yada. But they are looking at the research. And so I feel pretty confident in drawing them in. Those are kind of just.
Ann Marie McQueen (27:10.35)
primary resources, you know, reading studies, which is hard. It's hard for me. I'm still learning how to read clinical studies. It's hard to get access to them. And
I think that's about it. I think, I mean, there's more, I read everything, but it's just amazing to me how sort of, it's just amazing to me how many people don't cast a wide net. When I was an editor, I would say to the reporters, you have to cast a wide net. You've just gone and done like a small, narrow piece of this. This is why I'm a crazy person, because I can't just do something simply. But I just, it makes me, you know, one thing I, one thing that's making me crazy lately is that they always say only whales and humans go through menopause.
right? That's like accepted as truth. Only whales and humans go through menopause. And I've had people on Instagram say, why are you so obsessed with this? It's because it's not true. Like in the time that I have been covering this, chimpanzees, elephants, there's a dogs, and now there's a pair of researchers in Germany and they did a study and they say 80% of animals go through menopause. Well, I just read another study about
whales and a specific thing about why they go through menopause out of the UK. And the woman running that study said only whales and humans go through menopause. And I'm here in London screaming like, how can you not know about these other researchers? This is what science is like. Like this is, this is, you think this doesn't happen with the research that they're doing on our bodies? That woman doesn't even know about another person who's done this important research. Does she not have a Google alert? Like she's so focused on her research.
And that's awesome. But you see what this is my frustration. So that's why I just have to look at a lot of primary resources and sit here a lot and think, am I crazy because I think this? Because this really smart person is saying this. But I think, you know, I went viral on TikTok a couple of weeks ago. And one thing people kept saying is, who are you? What are your credentials? And I'm like, I'm a journalist. We don't really have credentials. And they're like, well, you're not a doctor or a scientist. And I'm like, no, I'm not. But I sit up here.
Kim (29:17.219)
Thanks for watching!
Ann Marie McQueen (29:19.538)
And I can look and see gaps. And I'm not saying like I'm an all-knowing person, but because I'm not immersed and because I don't have those biases that are brought by my trade, by my practice, I can see those things. That's not what you asked. I just went off on a big tangent there, Kim, I'm sorry.
Kim (29:40.686)
But I love your tangents and I love because that's what happens in your newsletter as well where you will mention one thing and you will reference.
and then you will go off on your tangent about something else and then you'll reference that and you so beautifully and eloquently pull together what is very hard to decipher and what's very hard for people to find so I You would be my number one your resource your sorry your newsletter would be my number one resource of people To go and learn about perimenopause and the research it and i'm not just saying that to blow sunshine up your butt it I truly I truly believe it is and yeah
Ann Marie McQueen (30:17.602)
Thank you. Well, there's not a lot of people doing it that way. There's, yeah.
Kim (30:18.352)
There you go. But one slogan, one tagline that you.
Kim (30:25.226)
Sorry, go ahead, the stupid, the buffer.
Ann Marie McQueen (30:27.466)
Yeah, it's delay. Well, that just shows you that there's not very many people looking at it this way, right? I named Mary Ann Jacobson. Everyone else has got sort of an angle of a slant or a way of looking at it. So I think we need more people like that, so if there's anyone out there. Get going.
Kim (30:45.962)
Yeah. One thing that you say, you have a slogan, I think you might've even made a shirt, I'm not sure, but you say, this is going somewhere good. Where did that stem from and where do you feel we're going?
Ann Marie McQueen (30:59.09)
OK, so when I realized I was impairing menopause, weirdly when I was 45, I was like, oh, I need to prepare for this menopause thing. So I read a chapter in, well, she's been canceled now, but I think her menopause stuff is great. Christiane Northrup, she's the anti-vaxxer devil woman. You can't even mention her name, but I am mentioning it because her menopause work stands. And I don't like when people are canceled. Anyway, I went back and read the chapter of her book at 45, and then I closed it. I'm like, this sounds awesome.
one of the things that's great about her is the way that she framed menopause. And she talked about the hormonal changes and what happens to your FSH and your LH and she drew diagrams and she said, basically, those great days after your period when you feel like you're on fire and you're so energetic, that's what ends up happening to your body after menopause. And I was like, well, that's amazing. And it was the first time I thought, I'm not going to have this rollercoaster of like PMS and everything I always dealt with. So I closed the book. I'm like, this is great.
not realizing that I was in the middle of a raging perimenopause and that all of these, because she didn't really talk about that in this chapter. And then when I realized that I was in
perimenopause. I ended up reading her book, The Wisdom of Menopause, and I ended up finding out a lot more. But I just remembered that moment, that one thing where she described the actual physical changes that happen after you go through. And of course, we're all in some sort of environmental mismatch right now, where things are a lot harder on us. We have all these other things going on with our health. But actually, women are a lot happier after.
And we hear this all the time. Lisa Moscone is doing the circuit for her new book about brain health. And she's just been on a podcast with Elise Lonen talking about the upside of menopause. And women are happier when they go through this. I am happier, so much happier. I'm so much more at peace. I've been at war with myself, I feel like, my whole life. And I saw that at 47, 45. And then it took a long time. But I'm here.
Ann Marie McQueen (33:01.29)
There's a couple of people out there who say like, I'm Pollyanna because I say that I've seen people even say this isn't actually going somewhere good. And it's like, well, you're I don't know what you're trying to do. But there is a lot of money to be made in making this sound like a miserable thing, right? Because when you instill fear, uncertainty and doubt in people, then I just think they're much more likely to believe you and freak out and buy something. And that's not what I'm going to do. And I'll maintain it to live.
till the end. And it's just become true. I mean, I would have said, if I was more miserable now, myself personally, I would say I was wrong. It doesn't go so far good. It's just a miserable thing. But how many? And also my friend in her 40s, she hung around this group of older women, and her husband called them the menopause. So that's where I got menopause and perimenopause. And she just said, they're just so great. They don't care. They have so much fun.
And then I started to see these women all over. And so, you know, this is the thing that gets lost. And this is the thing that people don't always like talking about if their business is tied up and making you think that this is a experience of misery and you need them to get through it, you know. There's lots of doctors talking about how you lose your estrogen and that's it and it's over. And that's, and I just feel like those, those kinds of information.
providers are so short-sighted because it is most definitely a transition and that's proven in the evidence in all sorts of realms. So yes, it's a tipping point and yes, you can have health problems and psychological problems but overall it is going somewhere good. So that's why.
Kim (34:42.382)
I love that, I love it. Before we wrap up, what has been for your perimenop, like managing, you were saying, through six years of crazy symptoms and what have you, and you were curious and you were trying things and you were open to...
whatever was being presented to you and what could possibly help. So what have you found? Like if you were to pick kind of two, three things that have helped support you through this transition the most, what would you say?
Ann Marie McQueen (35:14.55)
So definitely gut health. I had IBS since the early, since I started my career. It was very stressful. And I lived with IBS for like my whole life. It was just my, the way I lived. And you know, pumping coffee into myself. And that just, you know, your body can run on sort of backup.
pathways for 10, 15 years, but it can't. And so that's one of the reasons I think I had such a terrible perimenopause. And like I said, my health blew up. So I had thyroid problems, fatty liver. I was like, I had pre-diabetes and insulin resistance, even though I'm very healthy and workout. Um, so getting gut health, and I think we're going to see a huge connection there. Um, now hormone therapy can help with gut health. That's for sure. Um, but I think getting your body working.
So a bite of food is going in and it's providing the energy that you need at your basic microcellular level, then that is like a very important thing. And a lot of people just live with gut problems and you know don't do anything about them because they think they're going to have to change their entire lives forever. And I had a leaky gut and I didn't I had to change for a while but I'm back to you know I'm back to okay. Adverse childhood experiences you don't have to be chained to a
Like it was very hard for me to admit that I had things in my childhood because I felt disloyal to my parents. But we all did from the 70s, my gosh, like our parents were so different. And if you keep those things in the basement and then whatever else that was hard, like I had a lot of trauma at the beginning of my career, for me it was traumatic to go to murders and sit in court cases of horrible things and be with people who'd just gone through horrible traumas. I'm almost too sensitive for that. And so,
I didn't ever feel my emotions. I stuffed them. I ate over eight. I drank. I shopped. I would go get massages. I would have told you I wasn't, but I wouldn't feel an emotion. And I thought they were going to wash over me. And that's the most important work I've done, is learning to feel and process my emotions. And even now, when I'm grieving my father, it's a thousand times different than when my mom died 27 years ago. Because then I just would do anything not to be upset. And now I know. So.
Ann Marie McQueen (37:26.518)
people are just afraid to cry, right? Like they think they're gonna cry forever. And this is just so simple, but so important. And I really think I had a lot of my psychological issues that I had in really perimenopause were, you know, when that progesterone drops, I think that it might've been easier if I dealt with my gut health and adverse childhood experiences. And I really wish I'd known about progesterone then, because I think that would have really helped me with some of that just like.
really bad panic that I had and those nightmares. I think if I'd been able to do that, yeah, but those two things, physical, deal with your gut and deal with your stuff.
Kim (38:14.366)
Yeah, I can speak to the gut health piece and the thyroid. When I started going through perimenopause, I had not heard the term perimenopause and I started to have crazy, weird things happening to my body and had anxiety for the first time and I wasn't sleeping. And being a young mom who at the time then had two businesses that were startups, everything could be explained away with, you're just stressed.
have a glass of wine and I would feel like crap after a glass of wine and, and couldn't, I couldn't pinpoint it and I knew the, the one thing that I knew was kind of like, all right, this is a tipping point, not the tipping point, but that sort of the biggest clue was my
raging murder scene periods made me say there must be something wrong with my hormones. I didn't know necessarily how to investigate that, but that was the piece that I thought, okay, and then that led me down the path where learn about the thyroid, learn about the gut health. And I would say I was in the same camp as you were.
Ann Marie McQueen (39:00.836)
Mmm.
Kim (39:18.386)
Never heard the term get health, hadn't even ever given it any thought. All of a sudden I was dealing with constipation for the first time in my life. Didn't change anything. I was still exercising, still drinking the water, still doing all the things I used to eat the same that I did and had to do that same thing. And I love the way that you presented it is it's not forever. It was a kind of a three year period of I needed to make some really big changes with my diet and what I was doing with my lifestyle and.
And it went somewhere good. It went somewhere good. And I love that. I love that slogan. So I will preach that. Yeah, it is going somewhere good and be patient, but also be curious along the way because there are opportunities and options and people and resources that could plant a seed that maybe yoni steaming is going to help you. Maybe progesterone is going to help you. Maybe better sleep or adverse child experience support is going to help you and find the one that and be curious to go and give it a try.
You never know.
Ann Marie McQueen (40:25.279)
Yeah, and
Ann Marie McQueen (40:47.21)
they were. They were saying everyone's trying to get back. Everyone's trying to get back. And it's like, get back to where like where some mythical day when you were 34, where everything was perfect. We can't go back. We can never go back. We can only move forward. And we don't want to move through a hard time. But on the other side, like it is peace. If you can do some work and you don't have to do it all at once, you know, like it's just so important. And that not wanting to change is really, really hard. And I get it.
You will be glad you did.
Kim (41:25.39)
It's a great way to end off. I love that closing message. Where can people sign up for your newsletter, follow along your journey and learn more about you?
Ann Marie McQueen (41:35.134)
OK, so it's hot flashing everywhere. I'm active on social media right now, Instagram and TikTok. We're taking a little break while I'm going through this on the Substack and the podcast. But I will be back probably at the end of April with podcasts and with the Substack newsletter. And over there, I have a free weekend newsletter. And then I have a paid subscription that's going to take a deeper dive in the middle of the week. And some more stuff. Substack is a really cool platform. And they just keep innovating.
as all these platforms do. So I'm gonna be doing more to build a community over there and just go a little bit deeper than social media allows you.
Kim (42:16.47)
I appreciate you so much and appreciate you coming and joining us today and sharing all of your wisdom.
Ann Marie McQueen (42:26.734)
Thank you, Kim. I appreciate you too. You're one of my favorite people I've met. Well, not met, but met. You know what I mean? Someday. I almost met you in Toronto, remember? Oh, that was so close.
Kim (42:39.566)
lost.
Ann Marie McQueen (42:40.222)
Almost. Next time.
