Welcome to the Fallible Nation!

Supporting Your Spouse Before, During and After Menopause

Ever wondered how to support your partner through menopause? In this episode of The Fallible Man Podcast Kristin Mallon explains how the ups and downs of perimenopause and postmenopause can affect women. Lower estrogen levels can bring on a range of ...

The player is loading ...
The Fallible Man Podcast

Ever wondered how to support your partner through menopause? In this episode of The Fallible Man Podcast Kristin Mallon explains how the ups and downs of perimenopause and postmenopause can affect women. Lower estrogen levels can bring on a range of physical and emotional shifts, like trouble sleeping, mental fog, and body aches. Understanding these changes and being proactive about seeking help can really make a difference in how women handle this phase of life. It's not just about physical support, but being there emotionally and mentally too. We asked the questions you need to know.

"If your woman in your life is between the ages of 35 to 60 and she's struggling with something, it could be hormonal, and I would just really encourage you to encourage her to get it checked out." - Kristin Mallon

In this episode, you will be able to:

  • Understand the impact of menopause on women's lives.
  • Discover successful role models for navigating menopause.
  • Support your partner through the challenges of menopause.
  • Explore the hormonal changes experienced during menopause.
  • Learn ways to maintain intimacy during the menopausal phase.

My special guest is Kristin Mallon

Kristin Mallon, a certified nurse midwife and co-founder/CEO of Femgevity Health, has garnered over 25 years of experience in women's health. Specializing in feminine longevity, she is dedicated to providing comprehensive telemedicine solutions and personalized treatment plans to support women in their 30s, 40s, and beyond. With a strong focus on optimizing women's health and lifespan during menopause, Kristin's expertise is rooted in her extensive background in private practice and her commitment to women's health. As a leading figure in the field, her wealth of experience and passion for women's health make her a credible source for understanding the challenges and offering support through menopause.

The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:00 - Venturing into the Uncomfortable
00:01:08 - Introducing Kristen Mallon
00:03:22 - Defining Kristen Mallon
00:05:17 - Influential Women and Role Models
00:13:37 - Embracing Femininity
00:14:47 - Uncovering Personal Facts
00:19:39 - Diving into Menopause
00:20:34 - Kristen's Impressive Background
00:26:41 - Understanding Menopause
00:27:41 - Understanding Menopause
00:30:51 - Changes in Women's Lives
00:38:35 - Impact of Stress on Menopause
00:41:12 - Intimacy and Menopause
00:42:40 - Overlapping Issues in Postpartum and Perimenopause
00:43:34 - Impact of Hormonal Changes on Intimacy
00:46:30 - Supporting Women through Menopause
00:54:27 - Effective Communication Strategies
00:56:40 - The Role of Medical Specialists
00:56:52 - Seeking Menopause Specialists
00:59:26 - Supporting Intimacy During Menopause
01:05:52 - Mental Support for Postmenopausal Women
01:06:15 - Femgevity and Telemedicine

 

Guest Links:

https://www.femgevityhealth.com/

https://www.facebook.com/FemGevity

https://www.instagram.com/femgevity

https://www.linkedin.com/company/femgevityhealth/

https://twitter.com/FemGevity

 

Join our Exclusive Private Community – Fallible Nation

https://bit.ly/FallibleNation

 

Sponsors:

Grow YOUR Show: The Easy Button for Podcasters

Have you thought about starting a podcast to grow your business or even as a hobby? Then you need to go talk to my friend Adam Adams. I trust him and so you should you!

https://growyourshow.com/

Ghost Bed

Actually get a GOOD night’s sleep! Go see my friends at https://www.ghostbed.com/pages/fallible and use the code “fallible” for 30% off your order! It’s what I sleep on and what I count on!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Gentlemen, today, we're going to venture into the land of uncomfortable. We're going to do it because we care about the women in our lives and making sure that they live or living their best life right alongside us. So what's really going on with women in your life when they mentioned menopause. It's more than just hot flashes, mood swings, like we see on TV.

And in this episode, we're going to dive deep into the world of menopause, unlocking the keys to understanding what your partner, sister or friend is experiencing. Trust me, this isn't a woman's issue. It's an us issue. So stay tuned and learn how you can be the ultimate support system and navigate the menopause journey together.

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential, growing to the men we dream of being, while taking care of our responsibilities, working, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves? Well, that's the big question in this podcast. We'll help you [00:01:00] answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man podcast.

Welcome to the Fallible Man podcast. Your home for all things, man, husband, and father. A big shout out to Fallible Nation. A warm welcome to our first time listeners. Hey, we know there's a lot going on out there. So thanks for taking the time to check us out. Be sure and leave us a review, a comment. Let us know what you think of the show.

My name is Brent. Today, my special guest is author, board side effort, certified nurse and co founder of FemGevity Jiminy, Kristen Mallon. Kristen, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Kristen, we like to start things off on a lighter foot. So how's your trivia skills? Oh, that's my jam.

I, I like go to trivia like at least once a month. Yeah. And my daughter, my daughter regularly wins Harry Potter trivia, like sweeps, clean sweeps. So it runs in the family too. Awesome. That's our new favorite board game as a family is Harry Potter trivia pursuit. Oh, we should do a zoom sometime and play.

Cause I think [00:02:00] we would crush. Oh, you would like, my daughters are nine and 11 and every time we play, we're like, I need to go through the books again. Like, apparently I miss so much. Yeah, yeah. Well, my daughter has like an uncanny knack for remembering like really tiny details. So they'll be like, what was the girlfriend of George Weasley in the third book?

And she's like, Angelina, blah, blah, blah. You know, she, she knows. Yeah, we, we go through and it's just like, man, I've read the books. I've watched the movies a hundred times. I thought I actually knew this world pretty well and then I think they cheat because they go into like the expanded world where if you got to go to like Potter, what is this?

It's the Potter website because there's, oh yeah, the, the, the wizarding world or something. And then there's also the Hogwarts legacy, the game. So there's like all of that world now too. So I'm not going to ask you Harry Potter trivia though. I know that would have been an easy win for you. But, which of the following is the largest city?

Is it [00:03:00] Tokyo, New York, London, or Rome? Tokyo. Tokyo. Alright guys, you know the rules. Play along. Remember your answer. Don't cheat. And if you're driving, please don't try to write it down. That's just a bad idea. Kristen, in your own words, today, in this moment, who is Kristen Mallion? That is a really great question.

I actually saw this question asked on another podcast and I was like, Oh, I got to think about what the answer is for that. Not in case someone asks me, but just because that is a really good question. So I would say Kristen Mallon is an anthropologist, an explorer, an adventurer, always seeking to grow, get better, and understand.

That's really who I am, in a nutshell. I like it. Hey, at least you know in a nutshell. A lot of people get really nervous with that one and say, Hey, you're off to a great start. And there's no [00:04:00] wrong answers in the first part of the show. So you're doing well. Okay. If she could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

Oh, definitely to be able to fly. I want to, I, I have dreams of flying all the time. And I definitely think there's some like metaverse alternate reality where I'm flying like on a regular, like that's how I get around. That's my mode of transportation. I like it. I like it. If I was to sit down and have dinner with your family for the first time, what's one funny story they'd tell on you?

Oh, there's so many stories. Probably they, you know, my kids are little and it's probably the fart story. I mean, that's just definitely like fart humor just never gets old with kids. So they would definitely tell you their myriad of fart stories for sure. They might even act it out right there, right in front of you.

You know, usually, cause I have four kids. So like, usually one of them's got a fart ready to go. It's better when we acted out. So they worked that in, right? Oh [00:05:00] yeah. How old are the kids? Um, so I have a 13-year-old A, they change ages a lot, so that's why I have hard to remember. 13, 12, 10, and eight. Okay. Tell me about the three most influential people in your life and how they impacted you.

So this is really difficult 'cause I struggle a lot. Role models. So as a woman, this might be like unique to your listeners, but. As a woman, like I'm always looking for a woman who's really like a leader and has is exemplary in her field and even like leaders that we have now, like, even like the vice president of the United States or Oprah, Oprah Winfrey, or, you know, the women who have gotten to where they are not because of who they're married to or who their father was or mother was, there's not that many of them.

And then when there are some of them, they're usually, they usually don't have children. So it's been kind of a struggle to kind of find a role [00:06:00] model. One of the people that I really like a lot is Dolly Parton. She also doesn't have children either. And I think that, that I don't really have an answer to that question because I'm still constantly, every day, and one of my best friends in the whole world, we always, like, send each other women to read about because we're like, is this Is this, could this be the next role model?

But I would say Dolly Parton is really up there. I don't know if you know who Madame Claude is, also a woman who didn't have children. Madame Claude was a very famous madame in France. Some of her clients included people like John F. Kennedy and like a lot of famous people in the 60s. Um, and I'm looking.

I'm still looking. So I don't even know if I could give you three. Well, yeah, I'm a fan of Dolly Parton. The woman is amazing. So much mad respect that woman has contributed so much to music and her field in general just the amount of songs She's written on top of what she's performed is is insane. So no there there are some out there But it's it's [00:07:00] an ever changing world, right you you run into people you See people and you're like, oh that person and then you get to know a little bit out of me like Maybe not.

Yeah, exactly. It's like I'm always I'm always looking. It's funny an old business partner of mine He always used to call women Hillary Clinton's or Dolly Parton's And he, you know, and I don't know what anybody's politics is, like, I'm a very neutral person, I, I don't, I can see both sides, my, my husband's an attorney, like, I think he would have been a good judge, like, I, I get it, I get both sides, so I'm not trying to be political, but he always, I think what he meant by that was, like, Hillary Clinton women were there because of who they were married to, or who their father was, and a Dolly Parton woman is someone who, like, she created her own family, Luck her own success her own career.

She grew from nothing from like very very poor beginning and then kind of like Figured it out along the way So so I I try to I look for the Dolly Parton women in my [00:08:00] life and and in history and in modern time I know I I have two daughters. Trust me. It's I'm constantly looking for I actually canceled, I was following a woman on social media that I was really impressed with and I, she's in the fitness world and I, I known about her for a while, I've been following her long before.

And then she did like the Titan thing with, uh, the rock with Dwayne Johnson. He, they, she did his show. I was like, yes. And my daughter thought she was super cool. And I was following her on social media and she just kept putting on all these skimpy outfits for nonsense reasons. And I actually asked her about it on social media.

It's like, Hey, do you feel pressured with all you've accomplished? Do you feel pressured to post these kinds of pictures? You know, there are a lot of little girls looking up to you. And as a father, I'm curious. And like her whole like fan [00:09:00] base lit me up for that comment. Oh, you're white, nighty knit, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And she's like, well, I was making breakfast before I go paddleboarding. I said, yes, yes. Everybody gets up and does their hair and makeup. And puts on a skimpy swimsuit to make breakfast before they go paddleboarding. Right. Right. That's not it. So yeah, I'm, I'm always on the lookout for positive influences in the world of women for my daughters, because I want there to be positive influences for them.

Right. Yeah, I mean, I think it's few and far between. I think Taylor Swift is doing a pretty decent job, but also she doesn't have kids yet either, too. Um, and she's pretty polarizing, so I think people love to love her or love to hate her. But I kind of really respect her. I think that any woman who has that level of excellence is worth attention.

So I'm, I'm kind of, she's on my list, like, you know, my short list of possible contenders. [00:10:00] Oh, Swifty. I, I gotta admit, I like some of her songs, so I'd be lying if I didn't. Now, what purchase of a hundred dollars or less has had the biggest impact on your life in the last year? Oh, definitely my coffee machine.

Yeah? What'd you get? Oh, yeah. So, um, so I, I got a, well, it probably costs more than a hundred dollars, but it's a, just like a French press, but I got it like used. So it's just like a French press, um, like stainless steel French press. And it's something that, like, I use every day and brings me so much joy.

And so I write little notes to myself on the outside, so that, like, when I make coffee and I ingest coffee, and, because coffee's kind of ritualistic and there's, like, a lot of, you know, intention that can go behind making a cup of coffee, especially something that's a daily practice. And so I'm using the ritual of my coffee, uh, French press, to kind of bring some sort of intention or gratitude or, You know, manifestation [00:11:00] to my daily life and I just, I love it.

It's like one of my most favorite things. Actually, like one of the little like coils broke on it and I was like devastated. I was like, Oh my gosh. But my husband was able to figure out how to fix it for me. That's funny. My wife and I are coffee nerds. We, we love our coffee and we both actually prefer French press, but we drink so much coffee during the day.

That is not practical in our household. We have one, but making anything less than like 12 full cups, we'll hit that two or three times during the day. So, yeah, you know, I would, so I used to be like that. So I studied abroad in Spain and then like, I just became like a super coffee aficionado. And then I tried yerba mate, and so now I have, like, my morning cup of coffee, which is just so much richer and purer because I drink less coffee now.

And then I have replaced it with yerba mate throughout the day. So I would recommend, like, maybe just one cup, like, you could start switching out one cup because the flavor of [00:12:00] yerba mate is incredibly satisfying and also has a little bit of a different type of caffeine. So, like, the effects linger a little bit longer, so you don't need as much.

Coffee throughout the day. I found that it didn't need a coffee throughout the day. Coffee is not a need. It's like bourbon. It's not a need. I drink it because I like bourbon. I drink coffee because I like coffee. Yeah. I like it. I can drink a pot of coffee and go to sleep. I, I'm pretty sure all my adrenals a long time ago, actually.

Yeah. No effect on your adenosine zero. So you're good. No, I, I worked night shift for several years in the it fields and those guys live on caffeine and a whole nother level. Um, our coffee machine broke at work one night and I called my boss to let her know I was using her coffee pot, her personal coffee pot.

She's like, Oh, of course, bro. That's fine. Like, you guys will kill somebody if you don't get, have coffee through the night. Uh. Yeah. You're like, this is an [00:13:00] emergency. I had guys who were sucking down like, coffee all night with four or five energy drinks and the five hour energy shots. And it's like, you're gonna die.

You know that, right? Like, your heart's gonna explode. Yeah. Or just from dehydration alone, I mean. So, yeah, we're, I, I think I, I burned out my adrenals or something a long time ago, cause I'll, I'll drink coffee all the way up from bed and curl up and sleep like a baby. It's just your normal. I, yeah, I, I don't know.

It's years of abuse, I'm sure. Right? Me abusing me. What's an insult you've received that you're proud of? I think, I like it when people say that I play any sport like a girl, or that like I do anything like a girl, so, or that I do this because I'm a woman, so I love that, and I think that the more I can embody, um, and kind of like redefine what that means, I play a lot of beach volleyball, and I always play co ed, I don't [00:14:00] play as much women ball as I do co ed, and so there's a lot of, I think, surprise when it comes to playing with a woman, and I really love those, It's female insults, like, Oh, it's because you're emotional or hysterical.

And I'm like, Oh yeah, bring it on.

What's one random, totally off the wall, random fact that people don't know about you? I was born in Des Moines, Iowa. So I think that's like, I grew up in California. Like, so I always kind of say I'm a California girl, cause that's where I feel like my formative years were spent. I lived in California for about 25 years before I moved to the East coast and no one would pegged me for being.

An island, a native island. Okay. Fair enough. It's, it's amazing. It's that whole like Midwest section of the world. You can, that accent shakes pretty easy. Oh yeah. Identifying it? Yeah. Actually there [00:15:00] was a, a test. I don't know if you've heard about this test in the New York Times. Where you take the test and then like how you answer the questions.

It can identify, this was before AI. I mean this test is probably, I would say the test might be even 10 years old. Mm hmm. It can. Identify to the city where you're from and it like, so I'm from Newport beach, California, and it put me at Huntington beach, California, which is like 10 miles away. Like it knew it was like, you are from Huntington beach, California based on my answers.

So yeah, there's, I think there's, it's, it's like dialect, it's slang, it's role. And then I think words that are used, like some of the things were like, how, like the little bug that lights up, you know, those little bugs that lights up. Lightning bugs. Yeah. So some people call them fireflies and some people call them.

Um, I think like June bugs and so there's based on all of questions like that. It could pinpoint to where you're from. Oh yeah. No, I spent a large portion [00:16:00] of my life in Missouri and I have my accent changes. I've moved so much. My accent changes wherever I go to match whoever I'm talking to within minutes because I've lived all over the United States.

But yeah, there are words like lightning bug and stuff that come out, but it's like, Oh, okay. You're, you're, you're from that area. Got it. So that makes total sense. What's something everyone should know about you before we dig into the subject today? So, I mean, you mentioned that I'm, I'm a board certified nurse midwife and I have

25 years experience working with women's health and I have owned multiple medical practices. And. Working primarily my, my joy, like what I really enjoy, I mean, I really loved working with birth and having, helping women give birth, but birth workers do burn out pretty easily. I think the average time that a birth worker burns out is about seven years.

And you see that like [00:17:00] very commonly with doulas, which are like birth assistants, midwives. And even OBGYNs, I think OBGYNs have a little bit of a more difficult time because they're really like locked into that very specific type of career. And so after birth, like the next thing that I really enjoyed the most was hormone balancing.

And hormones are just so powerful and important. Um, women have so many different combinations of hormones going on for, uh, when they first get their period, to fertility, to perimenopause, menopause, which I think we're going to talk about today. And I just love the incredibly profound life changes that can happen when hormones are balanced properly.

Okay. We actually did an interview with Dr. Nathan Riley. He works with home births a while back. I had a great conversation with him, so. I imagine the world of home births is not quite as big as all the other parts of the medical profession from my conversation with him, so. [00:18:00] Yeah, home birth is incredibly fringe and growing smaller every year.

So, it was a very, very popular, started to peak in the 90's, I don't know if you've probably already talked to him about this, and it got pretty popular, as popular as I think it's gonna get for now, and now I think in some states it's higher, like I think it can be as high as like 4%, but it's usually less than 1 percent in most states.

Of all the births that are done. So I think a lot of people think because I'm a midwife that I do home births And yes, i've done home births and midwives attend I think 99 percent of the home births that are done in this country But the majority of certified nurse midwives are doing births in a hospital I just thought it's like oh you you might know him right is overlapping fields in there So yeah, I don't know him, but I've I definitely he's very opinionated and very um I think, I like, really honor his view on medicine and birth, and I think that [00:19:00] there are a lot of women who resonate with that view, and I think that every choice is a valid choice, and I wholly, fully believe that.

Like, I really think that validating each other's choices, even if they're different from our own, and like, honoring and respecting is really important. Because we all have the freedom, thank God, to live the way we want, um, for the most part. And so I just think that's a really, really beautiful thing. And so he's definitely part of that.

Guys, we've been getting to know Kristen just a little bit and who she is and how she thinks and functions, and just letting you see who Kristen is before we dive into today's subject and the next part of the show, we're going to dive into menopause. What is it? How does it impact women in your life?

We're going to roll our sponsor and we will be right back with more from Kristen Malian. How well do you sleep at night? Do you toss and turn and wake up more tired than when you went to bed? Sleep is commonly one of the critical elements people fall short on in their life. The quality of sleep you get directly [00:20:00] affects your ability to control your weight, your ability to add muscle, your stress levels, and your everyday job and life performance.

If you're ready to move to the next level and sleep has to be part of the plan. Check out our friends at ghostbed. com. If you're ready to get your best sleep, I love my ghost bed. I've been sleeping on one for a couple of years and has made a huge difference in how I sleep hit ghostbed. com. Use the code, the fallible man, 30 to get 30 percent off your order and start getting better night's sleep tomorrow.

Now let's go on to the show guys. Welcome back. In the first part of the show, we just spent some time getting to know who Chris Amellion is. And in this part of the show, we're going to discuss menopause, what it is and how it impacts the women in your life, what you can look for, what you need to know, and that kind of information.

Now, Kristen, before we dive into all that, you told us a little bit at the end of the last segment, like your, your accolades doing the research for the show. My goodness, you have dedicated so much of your life to your education and to your field is it's [00:21:00] incredible. Like just, just incredible. I knew I couldn't do them justice.

You, you even like have written medical textbooks, is that what I understood? Yeah. Not really on this topic, but yes. Okay. Not, not a full, not a full textbook chapters in a textbook. So. Okay. So you've, you've had quite a distinguished career. Tell us a little more about us, what we need to know going into this conversation and a little bit about your business, right?

I'm going to say this wrong. I wrote it down. Fem chivity, is that right? Yeah. Fem gevity, like feminine longevity. Okay. So tell us a little bit about that first, and then we're going to dive into menopause. Yeah. So I'm the co founder and CEO of a company called Fem gevity Health. My, um, other co founder is.

A woman called Michelle Wispelwey, she has an MBA and she has a diagnostic lab background. So she comes from like the world of like LabCorp and [00:22:00] multiple different like diagnostic and point of care solutions for women's health. My background is I'm a certified nurse midwife and I'm a clinician and I've worked with women in a private setting.

For over 25 years. And so we kind of came together and we created this company called Femgevity Health with which is really about feminine longevity. So it's really about helping women live longer, expanding their lifespan and expanding their health span. And this is like a, an area in medicine, which is like kind of, we have a lot of men who have kind of like entered this space of medicine.

So there's. Peter Atiyah, Dr. Peter Atiyah, there's Dr. David Sinclair from Harvard, um, Dr. Andrew Huberman from Stanford, but there's not a lot of women who are in this field talking about women's issues specifically. Now women go through menopause, men don't, and women have a very unique kind of set of skills, so to say, has been [00:23:00] taken, but they have a very unique set of circumstances that they can use in menopause to catapult them into a longer health span and a longer lifespan.

And so Vengevity Health is really about bringing awareness to that opportunity that menopause presents to women and then helping them optimize menopause for living healthier and longer. So what we do is we, it's a full blown telemedicine So we do telemedicine, we do office visits, we do in home lab ordering, so we have lab kits that we can mail directly to your home.

You can do all of your testing at home if you'd like. You can also go to a lab core and have your blood tested at a lab core. That lab, any imaging, any previous blood work that you've had, any other doctor's records that you have. We analyze all of that information and then we kind of give women a comprehensive treatment plan that helps them.

So we really talk about our, our, [00:24:00] the bulk of what we're doing is for women who are kind of in their 30s, 40s and plus. And, and the majority of women that we work with are really women 40 to 60. So some women in their 30s, some women in their 70s. But that's really kind of where we're really our sweet spot to help women because that's where the biggest opportunity lies.

Because that's the time closest to the menopausal transition. The average age of menopause is 51. And so that's femgevity health. As far as myself, I'm a certified nurse midwife. I started my career, actually, I thought I wanted to work in psychology. I'm actually, like, very interested. I still am in the field of psychedelics, specifically psilocybin, ketamine, DMT, and how that works with mental health and supports the mental health challenges that a lot of people go through.

I think the effects, I thought this back then, and I see the effects now are profound. It's nice that I'm starting to see that we were right at, you know, I went to UC Berkeley. So UC Berkeley was pretty aggressive at the time. That's where I got my degree in psychology. But, I also [00:25:00] really wanted to work with women and I really was very drawn to birth because I feel like there's so much that happens for women in birth.

The, the mother is born as well as the child being born for birth and it was really an opportunity to kind of have a psychological reset, I felt, for women and I was very drawn to that kind of connection of the psych and the women's health perspective. And so I went to Johns Hopkins and I got my nursing degree and then I went to NYU and I got my midwifery degree.

I did a lot of research. I actually worked in elder abuse and neglect for a while, which is, that's where I wrote a lot of the textbook chapters and a lot of the publishing that I did was during that time. I did a little bit of publishing in breast health. And then, um, I went on to private practice. And I've been in private practice ever since.

And now my private practice has kind of morphed into this Pemengevity Health.

Now seeing this, this guys is why I didn't try and sum that up because [00:26:00] there was no way. Now, I'm not going to lie, right? We told, we talked about this before we started rolling. This is an uncomfortable conversation for most men. And I trust that you're going to be gentle with us. I think it's partially because we don't really even understand what this means.

The majority of things like we see on TV, right, that's about the, the point of reference, which at best is a backwards point of reference because we're not watching educational shows on it. We're watching comedies and sitcoms and dramas. And I really doubt that that paints an accurate picture of menopause.

So what precisely is menopause? Yeah. So I just like want to commend you so much for even Bringing this up with your listeners and even talking about it and even tackling it because exactly what you said is right, like a male perspective in general, you know, we're generalizing, but it's very limited to a stand up comedy sketch, an SNL [00:27:00] sketch, something you see on a, you know, a sitcom or in a movie.

And so I really am just so grateful for this opportunity to kind of explain menopause. Menopause, meno, menstruation, so period, monthly bleeding, pause means to stop. Menopause technically is just one day. So you have perimenopause, so peri meaning really before menopause, and you have postmenopause, which is after.

There's some like kind of funny sketches on like TikTok and Instagram that I've seen about like Well, perimenopause is 10 years and postmenopause is 30 years, but menopause is one day. So menopause is really just when a woman has not had a period for 12 months and it's only diagnosed really retrospectively.

So you only know it in hindsight. You don't really know it until it's upon you and you say, okay, oh, my last menstrual period, if today was January 1st, [00:28:00] then you're like, oh, my last menstrual period was December 27th. And you're like, okay, I had menopause. You know, five days ago. So, it's kind of morphed into meaning the whole time, like, the perimenopausal time and the postmenopausal time are the time, like, the years before and the years after that one day, and that's kind of, kind of been this umbrella, but menopause is really just one day, but perimenopause is really, like, the decade before, and then postmenopause is usually, like, the decade after menopause.

Now, right off the bat, like I said, I have a lot of women in my life, so, you know, while it's a little weird and uncomfortable, at the same time, it's really important to me to understand all this. Is this scary for women? Yeah, so I think the way that the generation, so right now we have generation X is really the generation that's going through [00:29:00] menopause.

Coming up to menopause, we have millennials and, you know, I know people kind of like throw these terms around and, you know, but generally kind of know what they mean. Under millennials, you have like the Gen Zs and the Gen Alphas. The generation that's through menopause is really like the boomer generation and the generation above.

And so how that generation went through menopause was very taboo, was very hush hush. You don't talk about it. This is something that no one says anything about. And so, Gen X, I think like how they kind of feel themselves, like they were just kind of like left to fend for themselves is kind of like the general stereotype of Gen X.

They don't really have an understanding, or they don't really know what to expect. And so I think when the unknown is upon you, it can be scary. And so yeah, I think a lot of women are kind of scared, which is, you know, in women's health, and maybe you've seen this kind of through your male counterparts as well, you know, [00:30:00] Men are starting to talk about, and women are starting to talk more about things like miscarriage and infertility and those challenges.

And menopause is now starting to have its moment where that's becoming a topic that people are talking about more often. And we're starting to see it come up in like normal speak. Um, and it's not so taboo and hush hush. Okay, so the mystique is lifting some So moving forward is not necessarily as terrifying as it might've been earlier, earlier generations.

Yeah, us Djinn Xers are, you know, just left to our, the wolf pack, just find your way. But Hey, you know, I, I think that I've made us a fairly strong generation on that. So I have that appreciation for that group. So let's talk changes. Uh, what kind of changes are women experiencing in their lives now? I kind of broke this down so we can separate it to mental, emotional, and physical.

If you want [00:31:00] to walk us through it that way. Yeah, that's a really good way to do it. So I think one of the things that's helpful to understand is a little bit about the menstrual cycle. And so I think some men know more than others. And I think that relationships, and this has just been on my experience, you know, working with couples, working with women.

Men are very up to date and up to breath on a woman's menstrual cycle. They know exactly the day she's having her menstruation, how long, when she's ovulating, when to expect it again. And some men have no idea. If you asked them the last time their partner had a menstrual cycle, they would be like, no clue.

Um, and then some men that are kind of guessing because of the way she's acting or, you know, maybe they have little signs here and there of like living with this person that they can understand like about the menstrual cycle. So, the average, um amount of time. So the menstrual cycle really goes kind of like the moon.

The average menstrual cycle is 28 days and it's normal for the [00:32:00] menstrual cycle to be as short as 21 days and as long as 35 days. So that's kind of what we consider to be normal. The, so the, we count day one as the day where the period where the bleeding actually begins. And women can have their period from just a few days, like two or three days, like all the way up to seven days.

It's not common to see it more than seven days, although some women have that. And that's something that probably needs hormone balancing and needs to kind of be brought into alignment. But that's kind of where, that's kind of how we understand the menstrual cycle. Now, men really have testosterone.

They're, they're kind of dominated by testosterone, cortisol, you know, androgens. Women have a lot of hormonal changes that happen in the month. So if the, if the menstrual cycle is 28 days and that's kind of how we think of it in the medical community. Estrogen, and estrogen is really not a hormone, it's a group of hormones.

And so you have [00:33:00] estrogen that kind of comes up in the beginning of the menstrual cycle. It's also called the follicular phase. You have ovulation where a woman actually matures and releases an egg in the middle of the month. And then you have the second half of the cycle, which is called the luteal phase.

And that phase is traditionally dominated more by progesterone. So you have all these hormonal changes that are going on through the month. Estrogen goes up in the, in the beginning. You have hormones in the middle, which are luteinizing hormone. And then you have progesterone in the end of the menstrual cycle.

These hormones all do very different things. So estrogen, It's usually the hormone that makes, it's kind of considered the beauty hormone or the hormone that makes women have rosy cheeks and dilated pupils. It can make women feel energetic and it can make them have more of like a zest for life. In the middle of the cycle, this is when we see women kind of having more of a strong or like, I [00:34:00] can do anything.

I could lift a car off a baby that kind of feelings or experiences in the middle of the cycle. And then progesterone is much more of a calmer, restorative. There's a lot more kind of, um, emotional reflection happening in the latter part of the menstrual cycle. And so when women. start to go through perimenopause, perimenopause is actually starting for women around the age of about 40 by the time a woman is 40 years old.

She's lost about 80 percent of her progesterone and so if you can imagine this is when you're going to have now the second half of the cycle is the cycle that's really dominated by progesterone. So that's when women are going to start to lose that hormone, have more estrogen and lose that calming kind of peace like effect.

As they move into menopause, progesterone starts to go [00:35:00] down. Testosterone also goes down. So women actually have about three times more testosterone than estrogen. Testosterone is a very important hormone. It's a very important hormone for things like motivation. sex drive, feeling like a zest for life, having strength, muscle building, very similar to men, but it's also important for women too.

And then estrogen is the last hormone that comes down at the end. So in the perimenopausal time, this is when we tend to see more of what you were talking about, the mental changes or the emotional changes. And this is where sometimes you'll hear things like, I think this is common, you know, like on TV or in like.

Regular colloquialism like, oh, she's getting her period, so she's emotional, or don't talk to her, like, during this time, or she's, you know, having premenstrual syndrome, or she's having that time of the month, or like, there's different ways that this is kind of talked about, and this kind of be [00:36:00] can become more pronounced for women in their 40s.

And that's why sometimes just the awareness, like having the partner be aware of like, Hmm, okay, my partner is 42, my partner is 44, and I've noticed that she's more agitated, more irritable, having difficulty sleeping, she's having night sweats, she's having brain fog, she's walking into a room and she can't remember where she put things.

Like, rather than just being like, okay, this is a normal part of getting older, or a lot of times women who are in their early 40s have little kids and they're not sleeping as well, that can actually be a sign that the progesterone is going down in the 40s. And when we get to the menopausal time, which is when estrogen starts to go down, that's really when you'll see more of the physical symptoms of menopause, like the hot flashes.

This is when [00:37:00] you'll get more of like the tingling or numbness. This is where Oprah reported that she was having palpitations and she was having like heart flutters. She went to cardiologists. She couldn't get diagnosed for several years that she was actually in perimenopause to the menopause transition.

So the menopausal time is kind of considered more of the physical symptom time. This is where women have been having hormone decline for a long time, but it catches up with them in their late 40s and early 50s and becomes more physical. And then in the post menopausal time, all the hormones are pretty low, including testosterone.

And this is where you can get pretty significant symptoms that most people associate with aging. But a lot of times it's also hormonal related. So you have joint pain. There's a lot of times pain in the pelvic region. Or women will complain of vaginal pain or vaginal dryness. A lot of urinary symptoms.

So like frequent UTIs or pain with urination. We'll also have, um, a lot of, um, [00:38:00] you know, different types of muscle pain or even pain with aches and pains throughout the body. Women are sometimes diagnosed with things like fibromyalgia. or general fatigue, malaise, really big symptoms that it's hard to kind of put an identifying factor on that are happening in the post menopausal time.

So does that kind of answer your questions about the emotional and mental and physical changes that are taking place? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It also gives us a base of what's going on behind the scenes to affect that, so that's good to know. Guys like facts. We like, we like to understand the way things work.

Oh man, this cough's gonna kill me. Uh huh. Does stress play a role in dealing with menopause? Yeah, so that's a really good question. So, stress can play a role. Stress is related to cortisol levels, traditionally. So, stress is also very significantly related to sleep. [00:39:00] And so, the way that a woman kind of experiences diurnal patterns, or light patterns, looking at light, sleep patterns, will affect her cortisol levels, which can affect her sleep.

If she's constantly in a state of fight or flight or flight and producing cortisol levels on a high level, like on a high frequency, her body will act, um, kind of shunt her hormone production to producing cortisol first and foremost, because that's just evolutionarily how we're wired. Like, we need to get away from the lion.

Like, it's really important that we get safety and we seek safety. That's much more important than something like ovulating or having a menstrual cycle on the right time. So When a woman is overproducing cortisol and her adrenals are working very, very difficult, in the sex steroid hormone cascade, cholesterol makes a hormone called pregnenolone, pregnenolone makes progesterone, and then progesterone kind of branches out and [00:40:00] makes all the other sex steroid hormones, including cortisol.

So if you're overproducing cortisol, you're not going to be making estrogen as much, you're not going to be making testosterone as much, and you're not going to have as much progesterone available to support something like normal menstruation and a normal menstrual cycle. And so we can see the menstrual cycle starting to shift and change if cortisol levels are too high.

We can also find that the symptoms of perimenopause or the physical symptoms of menopause actually start to occur much earlier because you're running through So your hormones, women's hormones are naturally going down. Actually, this isn't a great fact, but it's just the truth that the, the sex steroid hormones start to decline at 31, which is why we actually start to see an increase in fertility after the age of 31.

And so you're going to speed that process up. If a woman is over stress and overproducing cortisol. Okay. Well that, that leads us actually into the next question. Cause every, every [00:41:00] man listening would kill me if I didn't actually ask this. So. Because all the men are wondering, how does this impact intimacy and the desire for intimacy with their spouse?

As far as from the internet. So this sometimes is I think what brings a lot of men to our site and what a lot of men to ask us questions and call because the intimacy portion of their relationship starts to wane. And I think women and men can get really confused as to a lot of times by the time a woman's in her 40s or late 30s and this starts to happen, there's a lot of other co factors involved.

So one is the relationship is not new anymore typically and so it doesn't have that like desire and lust, you know, I, I kind of always said and you can kind of tell me what you think about this but usually in the beginning of a relationship there's 200 Sexual encounters or sexual experiences before you kind of move from the lust part of the relationship into the love part of the [00:42:00] relationship where it shifts a little bit and the intimacy kind of has, takes a different cadence and a different rhythm.

The, so I think that there can be the length of time where Sometimes couples are confused. They're like, well, maybe it's just that we've been together so long that this is why the intimacy is changing. It can also play into the other kind of factor that can come into play is little kids because in your late 30s and your 40s, this is a common time where women have little kids and they're chalking up their exhaustion or their lack of libido or their kind of the changes that are happening in intimacy with what's going on with their little kids and, and kind of the postpartum time.

And so I think there's a lot of overlap here between postpartum and perimenopause that's totally getting missed and getting overlooked. And there's a lot of things that can be done to kind of unearth like what the true issue is when it comes to intimacy. So there's, there's both of those things. And then I think all of those things change.

So [00:43:00] many things change so fast that then you're left now with kind of like a different intimacy and a different. Type of libido situation for both partners and you're left kind of holding the bag being like well Why is it that we're tired? Is it that our relationship is 10 years old or 20 years old? Is it that we have little kids?

Is it that we don't have time? And there absolutely Usually is an underlying hormonal issue that when that's adjusted, addressed, fixed, and balanced it can bring intimacy back to or even better than It was before and so that's what I just want to be the beacon of the sounding voice for couples and men and women alike out there that it absolutely could be that a woman's hormones have just changed so drastically from being postpartum and perimenopausal that getting that balance and getting that fix can solve 80 to 90 percent of an issue.

Not always, but [00:44:00] absolutely can be a huge helping factor and sometimes can even make it better that there's an opportunity. For the intimacy and relationship aspect of a couplehood to get even better than it was before when a woman kind of looks at what's going on here. I'm not sure what the statistics are as far as like that transition from lust to love and intimacy.

We do know just from years of dealing with couples and relationships, it's like, yeah, there's definitely that decline, right? We get past that puppy love period where we're just like mauling each other every time we pass each other. Uh, but. If you're putting into your relationship, hopefully that doesn't die off too much.

Right. It just evolves. It gets actually more interesting. And then you add kids and that can definitely put a damper on things in that area for a while, but that can also evolve. Right. Cause then it becomes like game. It's like, we just put the kids down in front of a [00:45:00] SpongeBob SquarePants. Let's go do laundry real quick.

Yeah. I need to get on a conference call. Sure. That's that's the running down the hall, throwing off the clothes, those. Crazy, crazy, like it just adds another dimension, but all relationship takes work. It is interesting because we don't think about that. That's not something we think about as couples. Most of the time is right.

We're all hitting ages where things are changing in our body. And those level, the hormone levels are dropping or changing. Or I'm, I'm almost, I'm 43. I'm 44 in a couple of days. And my wife is 42. We have two kids, nine and 11. And I'm aware as a personal trainer, right? I understand the way men's hormones change just because I have to apply that when I'm planning someone's training sessions, but I don't think about it as much.

As far as both sets of [00:46:00] hormones changing and how that impacts the day to day life. Um, I think it's very interesting that it affects in a way that women are more tired. Um, and it affects their sleep patterns. That's, that's, you start messing with sleep and you're in trouble. So that's, that's insightful.

Uh, I, I never would have, that, that wouldn't have ever occurred to me. That, that could impact that. So, good to know. So you guys were learning a lot. I told you it'd be worth sticking around. I promised my guys, we've been discussing menopause, what it actually is and how it is impacting the women in your life, whether that's your partner or just people, you know, in the next part of the show, we're going to dive into how to support the women in your life during this change while they're changing, while life is changing for them.

We're going to roll our sponsor. We will be right back with more from Kristen. Now, before we go any further, I wanted to share with you guys, I don't always tell you how much [00:47:00] I love doing my podcasts. Like, I passionately love what I'm doing. And one of the things that makes my life better as a podcaster is to work with a company like Grow Your Show.

Grow Your Show is a one stop podcast do it all. Now, I use Grow Your Show for my marketing, but Grow Your Show is literally a one stop shop. You can record your episode and just drop it off with them, and they take it from there. It's amazing. If you are interested in picking up podcasting as a hobby, or maybe you're looking to expand your business and use podcasting in that aspect, talk to my friends over at Grow Your Show.

Adam will take care of you. I guarantee it. I trust him. He's my friend. He's my business. Colleague, and I wouldn't trust anybody else with my show. All right, guys, welcome back. In the last part of the show, we were discussing menopause. What is it? How does it impact the women in our lives? I mean, that's, this is something a lot of us don't understand.

And in this part of the show, we're going to discuss how to support the women in your life who are going through this transition and change in theirs. and how you [00:48:00] can support them as a partner, as a friend, as a husband. Now we're going to rip the band aid off on this one, Kristen, and say, how can we as men show up for our spouses and partner and our partners in this time to be supportive?

Yeah, I think this is like the best question. So There's so many different ways to support women because women are so different and sometimes they really want to like get into the mental aspect and dig into the nitty gritty with you. Sometimes they want to just, they want you to listen and they want to kind of emotionally process and kind of like be walked through what's going on.

Some women might be more, have more of a spiritual aspect like the more of a meditative or you know contemplative aspect and then of course there's Women who kind of like attack it from a more physical perspective so depending on and there's more than just those four simple You know types of women, but that's just kind of breaking it down more simply So understanding like what type of women you're working with is really helpful So [00:49:00] one of the things that I think you can do and not have anything like not even talk to your partner about it All is you can actually start to track her cycle yourself And so that would be like down, I know this is going to seem really strange, but downloading a period tracker app like Ovia, O V I A, or Prove, P R O V, Flow, F L O.

There's so many period tracking apps. And maybe just track her menstrual cycle along with her, and then just note things that you see. And so you can be like, oh, she mentioned difficulty sleeping today, just write it down and like, you can, you know, ping it in the app. Oh, she mentioned forgetting something today, write it down in the app.

So then you can kind of have data so that when the conversation does come up and she's open to hearing about like, hey, maybe this could be something hormonal going on, like, let's think about this, let's talk about it. You have data to show her and be like, hey, I've been kind of following along and this is what I've noticed.

I've noticed that like your period [00:50:00] is starting on these days. But as you're getting, as you're approaching your period, you're noticing, you're mentioning that you're tired more often, you're mentioning that you didn't sleep well last night, you're mentioning that you're feeling more irritated or anxious, or we had that fight on this day, like, that is super, super helpful to start to kind of pull patterns because part of the treatment of what we do, which is hormone balancing, is looking at the symptoms and looking, so then we would take those symptoms and then get laboratory data, put the laboratory data with the symptoms and come up with a comprehensive plan that includes hormone balancing.

Hormone balancing doesn't necessarily have to be HRT and hormone replacement. It doesn't have to be, you know, taking medications and pharmacologics. It can be lifestyle, diet, supplements, nutraceuticals, herbs, whatever a woman is comfortable with working with. So. I think that getting the data is super, super helpful.

Also educating yourself so that when your partner and your woman is [00:51:00] ready to have a conversation, you can set, you can be ready with, okay, Hey, I read. This book, this book, this book, this book. So, I'm gonna list some really great books that are really helpful to, and also of course femgevityhealth. com is our website.

We have a ton of educational resources, a ton of videos, like that's something you can go to and just kind of scroll through like TikTok or Instagram to kind of learn things really quickly. Um, number one is there's a great book called Estrogen Matters. That is a book by Avram Blumring. He was a hematologist oncologist.

He wrote an absolutely fascinating book if you want to kind of dig more deeply into what exactly is going on with estrogen specifically because that's kind of like the counterpart to testosterone. There's another great book called Healthy Hormones, Healthy Life. And that is by Dr. David Rosenthal, that's a great book to kind of understand like what's going on.

He writes about men too, so if you want to kind of read about yourself as well, that's a really great way to kind of get some more information [00:52:00] about understanding hormones so that you can kind of come to your partner with a little bit more education, a little bit more knowledge when she's ready to have the conversation.

And then the last thing I would say is that, then of course, any podcasts that are, that are That like any podcast that I think I've been on or any podcast that these two doctors have been on are going to be really Helpful to kind of understand hormones in general. So that's dr. Auburn Blumring and dr David Rosenthal there's and then the last thing I think would be to kind of understand that there Can not only get better but get optimal so it can get even better than where it is now and understanding that Menopause is one day, but the perimenopausal time is happening for most women in their late 30s and 40s.

So just having the awareness that your partner might be going through perimenopause at 39 or perimenopause at 45, even though [00:53:00] she's got several years, if not a decade left of menstrual cycle left ahead of her. So that The anxiety, the depression, the insomnia, the brain fog, the joint pain that she's experiencing could be not always, but could be related to hormonal changes and need hormonal balancing.

So that's kind of where I think the solve comes into play and the solve equation is really, can be really helpful. Hey guys, I love what she said right there about the app. Now, I know that may be a little uncomfortable for you. But this is like two birds with one stone, because how many times has the woman in your life said, you don't really listen to what I say or pay attention.

Right? So this is a stats. We love stats. We're good at stats. We like tracking stats. It gives us information. We're information centric. And this is also like, no, I'm really paying attention to you. Like at a deep level [00:54:00] here. Uh, so that's a huge win win. Now, Kristen, I imagine most women aren't. Much more comfortable discussing this with their partners than the men are asking about it.

So can you give us some like effective communication strategies for discussing menopause with say my spouse or my partner to make sure that I approach it Empathetically and supportively and sort of starting like a huge fight or something Yeah, so I think communication styles and communication skills are really, um, unique to each couple.

I, I love, I'm sure you probably are aware of like the five love languages. Is that, I'm sure that's kind of a common thing. So usually like starting with whatever the love language is can usually go a long way. There's also another great book called Women Want Love, Men Want Respect. And so typically when women feel loved.

and feel heard, that's when they're most open to bringing a conversation like this [00:55:00] up. And then starting with open ended conversations like, Hey, have you heard about this perimenopause thing? Like, I've never really heard about that before. What do you think about it? And that can start a, you know, Oh, I heard that it can happen to women as early as their 30s, like And then that might lead you into a conversation that's more like, yeah, like, you know, Julie, she's been experiencing something.

And that will just kind of like snowball upon itself. A lot of times, I think where men can kind of go maybe off track is by saying, you should. Like, you should do X, Y, and Z. You should read this book. You should listen to this podcast. You should go to the doctor. But kind of having it be more of a question like hey, would you what do you think about that doctor?

Like do you think we should make an appointment or do you think that's something we should look into? One of the things that I will really caution men and women about in general is I think it's really [00:56:00] common for for to look to their OBGYN to kind of solve Menopause, perimenopause, hormonal changes, or to look to their internist to solve these types of changes.

And generally, those are not the right places to go. And so sometimes that can make a woman or her partner feel like they're butting up against a brick wall. OBGYNs are so overloaded with women's health in general. definitely needs to be broken down into much more subspecialties. Like, we need to have probably a doctor just for pregnancy, probably a doctor just for gynecology, someone who does just gynecology surgery, and someone who just does menopause and hormone balancing.

We're kind of throwing all of this onto one medical specialty, and so it's not the OB GYN's fault that they're not the best place to go. And admittedly, a lot of OB GYNs will say, like, I don't work with menopause, I don't deal with menopause, or they'll kind of maybe refer a woman to an endocrinologist.

And endocrinologists tend to sub specialize as well, usually [00:57:00] in thyroid or diabetes or adrenals. Um, and so it's really important to seek out a menopause specialist or a hormone, women's hormone balancing specialist. So if you do get to the point in the conversation where you're like, Hey, maybe we should Maybe we should just like get some data, like maybe we should just get some lab testing, like I'll go get lab testing, you go get lab testing, like let's see where we are.

You really want to find someone who specializes in feminine longevity or holistic medicine or wellness medicine that they specifically mention menopause on their website, in their literature, on their socials. That is so, so important. Um, so. It's worth asking around. I think what's great still about some social media platform, WhatsApp and Facebook in general, and I think this is the only thing I really use Facebook for, is the groups, and you can post things anonymously now in Facebook groups, get [00:58:00] your answers and delete or read someone else's questions.

There's a lot of times like on local Facebook groups or local WhatsApp chats, someone asking about hormone balancing, menopause medicine, menopause management, and you can kind of see the answers or post something anonymously yourself. So that when your spouse or partner is ready to kind of have the conversation, Hey, let's go get some data.

Let's go get some lab testing done. They, you have a person to recommend them. You've already done the research ahead of time. And she doesn't feel overwhelmed and alone. Like, Oh my gosh, I have no idea where to go. Or I don't even know where to start. Also, there might be other women in your life that are not your spouse that are open to talking to you about their experience.

And so. Um, if you're comfortable with it, or there's a woman that you're close to, um, not necessarily your mom, your sister, but maybe a friend or one of your spouse's friends or a neighbor. If there are those women, there might not be, but if there are maybe ask them, ask your own mother about her experience and just be like, Hey, just kind of want to understand like, [00:59:00] what was it like for you?

What was your experience? Those can be really, really helpful things to get the conversation going, not be confrontational and educate yourself at the same time. So. Let's jump forward to like post menopause day. How do we leading up to that and after that, support our spouses right as these hormones are changing?

You said that the intimacy hormones change. How do we, because we know the intimacy support intimacy is important to a couple, to the health of relationship. So how do we help maintain a healthy and fulfilling intimate relationship during menopause as she's going through this hormonal change? So that we're supporting our spouse still in that way.

Yeah. So that's a really great question. And one that you probably can do an entire episode on, but I'll try to kind of. Hit the highlights. [01:00:00] So number one, post menopause, if a woman does not replace estrogen, she is going to have more vaginal dryness, just period. The, the loss of estrogen is also going to change.

And I know this is like maybe hard to hear, and this is where it can get a little uncomfortable, but it is going to change the size, shape, and elasticity of the vaginal canal, the vaginal opening, the vagina and the vulva. So the, a woman's choice to replace with estrogen or not is fully supported. Like I said, every choice is a valid choice.

So if that's something that's important to a woman to maintain that elasticity and that pliability, that's why I really recommend that book Estrogen Matters and men can read it too, to be kind of prepared. Now, if a woman chooses to not replace estrogen. It's really important to have regular, [01:01:00] um, intercourse or regular penetration so that the vagina can maintain the elasticity as much as possible.

And this is where if a woman goes for many weeks, months without any type of intimacy, especially without estrogen, it can really, um, be hard to reverse that trend. And I think that this is really, really important to, to know. So the other issue is that Just like a man's pleasure, a woman needs to have the release of pleasure too.

And so, when a woman has that, it releases oxytocin, and there's a theory that this will also help to improve and boost testosterone levels. So the ongoing feminine release is really, really important for the maintenance and the maintaining of a sex drive and a libido. And this is where the replacement with testosterone And very, very small amounts.

So men are replacing 25 [01:02:00] milligrams, 50 milligrams, 100 milligrams. Women are replacing half a milligram, one milligram, 10 milligrams tops. And this is where the replacement of testosterone can come into play to get women back to the level of regular. release, regular fulfillment when it comes to the intimacy and the libido time.

This is very, very important. Never more important than in the postmenopausal time because the brain is a pharmacy. The brain can make all of these neurotransmitters and can make all of these hormones. So the production of these hormones need to happen more often. If a woman is going to maintain sexual intimacy in her postmenopausal time.

Especially if there's no replacement going on. There's replacement, there's much more leeway, there's much more give in terms of timing and intimacy. And this is where some women will hibernate. So if they don't continue this part of their life, it will go into hibernation. So it's very important to have [01:03:00] that part of them be active, if that's something they want to continue in the postmenopausal time.

The other thing that I think is really important, and this is something I see a lot with women, a lot, is that once a woman stops menstruating all the way and she comes to that one day of menopause, she feels that she's lost her attractiveness, that her maiden self is now turned into the crone. And so I think that any support of whatever she feels that she needs.

It's mental support, sometimes it's physical support, it could be getting a facial, getting a manicure, getting her hair done, like all of those. I know it's outward beauty, but inward beauty too, to support her in the new beauty that she has found in the postmenopausal time because a lot of women when they lose their fertility, they associate that with worthiness.

They associate that with They're, they're, they kind of feel like their place in society has shifted or changed and that they [01:04:00] no longer have the prowess to kind of, um, you know, be a sexual being or be a beautiful being. There's a really great interview by Sharon Stone, I think she's in her 60s. And she talks about how empowering it is to be in her sixties and how sexy she feels and how emotive she is.

And I share this video with women a lot who are going through this time and kind of going through the mental kind of, it's a defeated time for some women and it doesn't have to be. And so I think that's where the partner can be the most supportive. And whether it's through gifts or verbal reassurance or physical touch like the love languages to reassure a woman that She's never been more beautiful or whatever the true experience is of the shift into that couplehood at that time specifically.

Susan Bratton would be another good reference point for you in that. I don't know if you're familiar with her work, [01:05:00] but we've had Susan on the show and she would be a great reference point there as well to encourage women in that. A woman who's thriving in her 60s. In her sex life. So she's, uh, she's a lot.

Yeah. It's the, it's really the adage, you know, before with the presence of estrogen. So if a woman is menstruating, she has estrogen, she has enough estrogen, um, to kind of move all of the other hormones through without estrogen, it becomes a use it or lose it. And I think that women and men both need to hear that, that that's when the rebirth and the reconnection is never more important than at that time in couplehood.

Christian, you've given us a lot of amazing information, a lot to think about, a lot to process. Some of this can take a little longer than others, uh, but [01:06:00] guys, I encourage you to, you know, listen to this episode again, maybe listen to it with your spouse. If this is a conversation that y'all need to start.

Looking at for where you are in this age of life, what is next for Krista Mellon? So we're growing Femgevity. Femgevity is available also for women all over the USA. So if they're looking or you're looking to kind of, we have couples that come to the telemedicine visits together. That's really common actually.

Um, if you're looking for some information, please come to Femgevity Health. The other thing I would say, too, is just a small shout out that we do an Instagram live feed on Monday nights, usually around 9 p. m. Eastern time, and that's a great time, usually ahead of time if you send us or DM us a question, we can address the question on the live and go into details, and we do have a lot of men sending us questions.

It's about women in their lives and we answer them live there. So if there's something that you wanted me to go into depth more here, I'm happy to [01:07:00] answer those questions there too. Guys, we'll have all of Christmas links down in the show notes in the description, whatever platform you're listening to this on or watching this on, including that Instagram link for Femgedity.

It's Femgedity. I will say it right one day, I promise. Now, I know everybody's stressed about this. What was the largest city out of Tokyo, New York, London, and Rome? You nailed it. It's Tokyo. I had to look that one up. I had no idea. But, I did see in your bio you like to travel, so hopefully you've gotten to see some of those places in person as well.

But Tokyo is actually the bigger of those cities, which, if you've ever been to New York, is kind of just insane. Because New York is a massive place. Kristen, if the men and women, we have some women who listen to us as well, but the men and women listening to this heard nothing else today, what do you want to leave them with?

I want to leave them with, if your woman [01:08:00] in your life is between the ages of 35 to 60 and she's struggling with something. It could be hormonal and I would just really encourage you to encourage her to get it checked out. That's really, any symptom, anything you could possibly think of, like itchy nose or pain in the toe.

Like, think that it could possibly be hormonal related because that is the Occam's razor a lot of times in the situation. Not always, but a lot of times. Alright. Guys, as always, thanks for joining us today. Thanks for taking the time. Be better tomorrow because what you do today, and we'll see you on the next one.

This has been the fallible man podcast your home to everything, man, husband, and father, be sure to subscribe. So you don't miss a show head over to www. thefallibleman. com for more content and get your own fallible man [01:09:00] gear.

Kristin MallonProfile Photo

Kristin Mallon

CEO

Kristin Mallon, CNM, MS, RNC-OB, is a board-certified nurse midwife with over 20 years of experience in women's health. She is an expert in menopause and feminine longevity and is the co-founder of Femgevity, a telemedicine company focused on providing concierge care for menopause and longevity.
Kristin's passion for women's health started when she began working as a D.O.N.A. trained doula in Maryland. She completed her Bachelor's degree in nursing at Johns Hopkins University and went on to earn her Master's degree in Science & Midwifery from New York University. During her time at NYU, Kristin was the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Elder Abuse & Neglect and conducted research at the Hatch Center for MRI Research at Columbia University.
After graduation, Kristin began practicing as a board-certified nurse midwife in private practice in Brooklyn, NY. She has also taught Bachelor's and Master's level nursing courses at NYU and Monmouth University and has written for various medical textbooks and nursing test prep courses.
Kristin's expertise lies in pregnancy, childbirth, menopause, and feminine longevity. She believes that every woman deserves a respected, gentle, supported, and personalized experience when it comes to their healthcare. Kristin's philosophy is rooted in the belief that healthcare should be individualized and that each patient should be empowered to make informed decisions about their health.
Kristin has been recognized for her contributions to the field of women's health and has bee… Read More