Menopause: The other side with Jean Kittson & Dr Ginni Mansberg

The stigma around menopause is slowly peeling away, but many of us still suffer in silence. In this episode, we take a lighter look at the often unglamorous side-effects of menopause – from hot flushes and brain fog to facial hairs and mood swings – hearing from Aussie comedian Jean Kittson, who is living her best life on the other side, and getting the medical rundown from celebrity GP and passionate women’s health advocate Dr Ginni Mansberg.

About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.

Join James Valentine as he explores the incredible stories of Aussie characters, from the adventurous to the love-struck. Across 30 inspirational episodes, Life’s Booming explores life, health, love, travel, and everything in-between

Our bodies surprise us in ways we never thought possible as we age, so in series five of the Life’s Booming podcast – Is This Normal? – we’re settling in for honest chats with famous guests and noted experts about the ways our bodies behave as they age, discussing the issues and awkward questions you may be too embarrassed to ask yourself.

Jean Kittson has been entertaining audiences for decades with her wit and humour, both of which she brings to the fore in her candid and hilarious take on menopause, You're Still Hot to Me, the book she wished she had read during the momentous time in her life.

Dr Ginni Mansberg is a well-known celebrity doctor based in Sydney, with television appearances in Embarrassing Bodies Down Under, Sunrise, The Morning Show, and Things You Can't Talk About on TV. She is also the author of The M Word: How to thrive in menopause.

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James Valentine: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming Series 5 of this most excellent and award winning podcast. I'm James Valentine and in this series we're going to ask the question, is this normal? I mean, as we age, stuff happens to us. Our bodies change, things fall off, we get crook, stuff doesn't work as well as it used to.

There's nothing we can do about it, we're getting older, we're ageing. But which bits are normal? Which bits do we have no control over? Which bits can we do something about? That's the kind of questions that we're going to be asking in this series, Is This Normal? of Life's Booming. Now, of course, if you enjoy this series, leave us a review, tell all your families and friends about it.

And we want to hear from you as well. You can contribute to this. If you've got questions about things in particular that you want to know, perhaps there's some particular wear and tear happening to you, let us know. We'd love to see if we can answer that question in the series. We're going to look at things like menopause, gut health, mental health, lots of other burning questions.

So think about those areas and if there's something in there that's specific to you that you'd like us to cover, let us know.

When it comes to women's health in older years, it turns out that the hot flushes, the brain fog, the facial hair, the mood swings can all be linked back to the one thing and that's menopause. In this episode, Menopause the Other Side, let's take a look in some detail at the common symptoms, the experiences, and life on the other side of it.

We'll get some answers about menopause, the ‘M’ word, from the queen of morning television, Dr Ginni Mansberg. But it gives me great pleasure to welcome, of course, to thispodcast as well, Jean Kittson, who wrote a fantastic book called You're Still Hot To Me, dealing with her experience and her research into menopause.

Jean Kittson, hello.

Jean Kittson: Hello, James.

James Valentine:Still so hot?

Jean Kittson: Yes, I am, actually. Every now and then.

James Valentine: Is this the 10th anniversary? Is it 10 years since you published?

Jean Kittson: Yes, it is. 2014 it came out. It's into its sixth reprint now, something like that. Women still keep going through menopause.

James Valentine: The book didn't fix it?

Jean Kittson: No, that's right.And I thought I'd finish and everyone's finished. No, they're still going. Of course they're still experiencing menopause. And just the other night I was out with some younger women and they're still struggling. Trying to work out what the best way to handle it is and what treatment to get and they're still people pushing back around different treatments like HRT.

I was really surprised. We've come on a lot more than we have 10 years ago, people are speaking about it, but there's still a lot of ignorance really, misinformation.

James Valentine: It still seems to be an area of mystery, really, and half whispered truths. Oh well I've heard you should do this, and what about the other?

Jean Kittson: Yes, I think people are still afraid it's going to impact on their work because the Australian Human Resources Institute did asurvey and they found that the majority of women would not mention menopause at work because they thought they'd be considered old, sidelined for leadership positions.With all the stigma still attached to menopausal women. So there's still a lot of, I don't want to talk about it in the workplace. And that of course translates to, I don't really want to talk about it at all.

James Valentine: Yeah, and leading into it, let's say you're 30 or 40. You're not even thinking about it.

Jean Kittson: No, well that's the thing, and yet when I was doing my book, I found that most of the women I randomly chose to interview were having their first hot flushes around 40, 42. And we're always told it's around 50, 52, 55, that area. But many, many women will start going through perimenopause, which is another part of menopause that I didn't even know existed until I went through menopause.

So there's perimenopause that can start 10 years earlier. And some women are thinking, they’ll follow the Hollywood style. Oh, I’ll have a baby. She had a baby naturally at 50. So can I. I'll just keep putting it off. What? Well, was that a hot flush? What the hell? What am I going to do? You know, so it comes as a terrible shock.

And I think there's a lot of things about women's bodies that need to be talked about more openly. Fertility, ovulation, menopause, all those sorts of things.

James Valentine:Yeah. If only it happened to men.

Jean Kittson: If only, we'd never hear the end of it.

James Valentine: That's right, we'd have championships in it.

Jean Kittson: Yeah, that's right.

James Valentine:Set world records, all that kind of stuff.

Jean Kittson:You'd have, you know, months off. Yeah. Menopause month off.

James Valentine: Do you know, he's battling with menopause but still CEO. What a guy.

Jean Kittson: That's right. Hang on, you can't talk to him for a moment.

James Valentine: That's right, just wait.

Jean Kittson:All the windows are open.

James Valentine: He's a little bit emotional but come back tomorrow, he'll be fine.

Jean Kittson: We were going to have a board meeting, it's cancelled. But don't worry about it, it’s menopause.

James Valentine: What? Oh, that's fine, no worries. I went through it myself, man. On you go. Good on ya, chaps. Is it as simple as, like, it was happening to you and you found it difficult to find relevant information, what you needed to know?

Jean Kittson: Oh yeah, that's why I wrote my book.I wrote the book I needed. I needed to find the facts out about menopause, and I found out so many other facts about my own body that had never been talked about. We're just sort of more primed, our whole body is primed to have sex when we ovulate rather than other times of the month. But we're told that women are just ready for it every day of the freaking week.

James Valentine: Yeah, and let me clarify that. That was men who decided that one?

Jean Kittson: Can't say it ain't so. Just because men don't understand women and don't like it when we get a little bit feisty, a little bit irritable, start giving our kids a burnt chop. You know, in the old days, we were diagnosed with climacteric insanity and locked up.

And if men of a certain age got a little bit feisty, a little bit irritable, they were elected to parliament.

James Valentine: That's right. That's very good. Dr Ginni Mansberg's with us. You've met!

Jean Kittson: Yes, we have, Ginni