On this episode of the Take Good Care podcast, we’re joined by Stacey Greene Koenke, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of MedShare, and Dr. Karen Greene’s sister! She discusses her personal journey with menopause, some of her menopausal experiences, and more.
Transcript
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Welcome to Take Good Care Podcast. An endeavor that grew out of our love for obstetrics and gynecology. Our aim and mission is to serve as a source of vital information for women of all races, ages, and walks in life. I am Dr. Mironda Williams.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
I’m Dr. Deanna Guthrie.
Dr. Karen Greene:
I am Dr. Karen Greene. Welcome to our show.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Welcome to this episode of Take Good Care podcast. I’m Dr. Mironda Williams.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
I’m Dr. Deanna Guthrie.
Dr. Karen Greene:
I’m Dr. Karen Greene.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
For those of you who’ve followed us, you know we’ve been doing a series with special guests who are either in studio or joining us remotely. We have a very special guest today that Dr. Greene is going to introduce for us.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Thank you, Mironda. Our guest today is Stacey Greene Koenke. She is my sister and she’s-
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Your real sister. We’re your sisters.
Dr. Karen Greene:
She is life sister, and she actually is the COO of MedShare. She used to be the COO of Plano Food Bank. I wanted to introduce her and have her come today, not to speak about just her job, but actually to talk to us about menopause. Talk to us about her journey with menopause. Then we’ll ask a couple of different questions and talk about some things that she has gone through in her menopausal journey.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Stacey, tell us a little bit… Oh, I almost forgot. Hold on, Stacey. To all of our video audiences on our website and our YouTube channel, please remember that we are live. I’m sorry, I digress. Stacey, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do, what’s your life like, your day like professionally, personally. Just to let our audience get to know you a little bit.
Stacey :
Sure. Good afternoon everyone. I’m Stacey Koenke, and I am, let’s see, where do I start? I live in Alpharetta with my husband, two children, one who’s a senior in high school, what all that entails, and one who’s a freshman in high school with all that entails. I am actually the CEO of MedShare International. Was just promoted to that in April.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Congratulations.
Stacey:
Thank you. I’ve been with MedShare International for a little over two years, about two and a half years now, and to nonprofit, based here in Atlanta, Georgia. Its focus is repurposing and providing medical supplies and equipment to underserved communities, hospitals, clinics, primarily internationally. But we are expanding domestically, supporting free and safety net clinics around the US including in Georgia. That’s what I’m doing right now.
As Dr. Karen, my sister, mentioned earlier, my prior role prior to this was COO of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, and that’s when I first got into nonprofit. Before that, I have been all in operations and supply chain for about, I guess it’s been about 15, well, 20 some years really. I worked for Coca-Cola here in Atlanta and Dallas, Texas for about 18 years. I worked for Proctor Gamble and I worked for Kimberly Clark. That’s my background.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Well, with all that going on, you definitely need to have your wits about you.
Stacey:
Yeah, that’s true.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
All of which we’ve discussed. Been challenged with as we get through our menopause journey. I know we’ve had some other shows where we’ve talked in some specifics about options for treatment and things, and we’d really like to keep this guest series a little more personal. Dr. Guthrie, can you just remind the audience just really quickly, when you’re counseling your patients and talking about options for treatment when you’re having symptoms with menopause, how you give them options for what’s available?
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Sure. I always tell them that there’s not one way to approach menopause. You have several options. There are three main options. One I call the natural/herbal route. There’s several herbal products out on the market that will treat the symptoms of menopause. Whatever you take in as a natural herbal product, your body then converts it to look, for lack of a better way of saying it, like hormones, and then that’s how it helps those symptoms.
There are things that are soy-based. There are plant-based based products out there that help these symptoms. The second option would be medications that are prescription medications, but they’re not hormones. Again, they’re treating the symptoms of menopause. A lot of the symptoms of menopause actually originate in the brain. There are a certain class of antidepressants called SSRIs, selective serotonin…
Dr. Karen Greene:
Reuptake inhibitors.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Reuptake inhibitors. There you go, I’m so sorry.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
SSRIs.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
SSRIs. But a lot of the symptoms that you wouldn’t think originated in the brain, like hot flashes. It has nothing to do with the external temperature outside. It’s all internal and estrogen receptors in the brain. Of course, the moodiness, things like that, that’s definitely the brain. But a class of these antidepressants can help a lot of these symptoms. We have another class of medications called serums and they can also help with vaginal dryness.
There are prescription medications out there that can help treat the menopausal symptoms. Then there’s of course hormonal replacement, which is actually treating the cause of the problem. You are deficient in estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. A patient can replace one or all three depending on the presence of a uterus in their body or not. Then of course those will help the symptoms. That’s how I guide patients as to which route they want to take. Of course, with hormonal replacement, some health conditions and family history may dictate which one of those they can then take.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Very good. Thank you for that. Karen, I know you were talking with your sister. She has gone through this journey. Why don’t you and Stacey tell us a little bit about how she has been managing her time in this wonderful phase of life? Menopause.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Stacey, as I said, is my youngest sister, and as I am menopausal and so is she. We may not look it, but we’re both on that journey of the next phase of our life. When you started, Stacey, tell us about how it first presented for you in terms of what symptoms were you having, what options did you discuss? What conversations did you have with your physician? Because Stacey is my sister, but in terms of her coming to me saying, well, this is what I’m having or this is what I want to do, she’ll go to her physician first and then she might come and say, “Well, what do you think about? Well, what do you think about?” Tell us that journey.
Stacey:
Sure. I guess I’ll start back when I was in my late 40s. Just to give the background, I had both of my children late in life. My daughter, I had her at 40. My son, I had him at 43. In my late 40s, around 45, 46 or so, I started seeing a little bit of period changes. A little lateness here and there, nothing serious. I thought, okay, this is not going to be a big deal. A little funny story, I’ll be brief. When I was around 46, I was late for several days and I’m like, this is really weird.
This is seems more than just lateness. Could I be pregnant? Am I going to be like Janet Jackson and I’m going to have this late in life baby? I waited a couple more days. It was still late. I’m like, well, I’m go ahead and take this pregnancy test just in case. In my mind, I’m gearing myself up. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind another baby. My son was around three or so at the time. I’ll tell you if that pregnancy stick could have laughed at me.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
It said, no, girl.
Stacey:
It was like, no.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
That ain’t it.
Stacey:
No, not at all.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
That’s funny.
Stacey:
It was around 46, 47 or so, started really seeing complete delays in my cycle, skipping periods, a little heavy light, nothing. Then I would guess I would say sometime in 2019 is when I really started feeling a little bit of hot flashes. Nothing serious, or at least what I thought at the time. I’m like, okay, let me talk to my doctor. Since it didn’t seem so bad, I wasn’t really, really rushing to take hormone replacement and I thought, well, maybe I can manage it. Maybe I’ll be lucky. Maybe I’ll be one of the lucky ones. I don’t have a lot of symptoms, so I’m going to try-
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Just [inaudible 00:10:16] and just make it through without a lot.
Stacey:
Yeah, special. I tried, was Relizen, one of the herbal based. I guess herbal ones, and it seemed to do okay for a little bit. But then my symptoms just came on really strong. I could not sleep. The night sweats were horrific. Like, oh my god, I cannot live this way. This is horrible. Just horrible. I’d just be standing anywhere, sweat pouring off of my back and just feeling mad.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Why is this happening?
Stacey:
Ridiculous.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Exactly.
Stacey:
That went on for a couple of months maybe. Then I was just like, no, I’ve got to get to my gynecologist and go ahead and get a prescription for replacement hormone replacement therapy. I did, and it was great. I would say within a couple of weeks, no hot flashes, no night sweats. I felt fantastic. I’m like, this is great. I’ll just be on this until… I guess I never thought, and I don’t know when you’re supposed to stop. Once you start, when do you stop? But I figured at some point my gynecologist would tell me. I was happy as a bird with my HRT there. But unfortunately had to stop.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Right. Before you go forward, because your story is just like all of our stories and the story we hear from our patients, and it’s just so perfect the way you described it. Because that’s exactly what we hear every day. Hormone therapy does, it’s like a switch is flipped. You feel better because your body, your mind can think. You don’t feel mad and angry and all the things. You’re sleeping well. Your history was a normal person’s history. You didn’t have any risk factors for anything unusual. Just a healthy woman going about life and then Karen?
Dr. Karen Greene:
Feeling better. Stacey’s feeling good. She had told me she was taking the hormones and we talked a little bit about it. I will never forget, it was in the summertime. I was at a baseball game out of town and I get a call from my sister. She tells me she’s in the hospital. I said, “You’re what the what?” “I’m in the hospital because I have a blood clot.” I said, “What?” Stacey’s very matter of fact about this. I had to roll it back to say, “Tell me exactly what happened and why, and where are you in the hospital?” Stacey has to tell you this story. Because as most professional women, when things happen, we attribute it to other things. We say, oh, it’s not, oh, it’s not. It’s a brain tumor, it’s a muscle spasm. It’s anything but what it really is. Stacey, tell me the story you told me long distance.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Long distance.
Stacey :
I guess it was in August, mid-August, and I’m at work. We were going through a lot of stuff at work. My job is mostly at a desk, so I’m sitting at my desk and for this time I’ve been working really hard at some spreadsheets and some stuff really to get to my boss at the time. I start feeling a charley horse in my leg. I know that I’m not great at drinking enough water throughout the day. I’m thinking, oh, dang it, I really didn’t drink enough water today.
This charley horse, let me try to massage it out. I’ll drink some water. I’ll just keep going. Just later in the day. I go home. I’m drinking water on my way home. No, this charley horse is still there. This is really weird. I’ve never had a charley horse that I just couldn’t massage out or just went away. But it just kept going. I thought, no, this is odd. I did at least think this was odd, not normal. But I thought, well, is this maybe one of those odd symptoms that women may have for a cardiac event? I was lucky enough to go, it was in 2019. I was lucky enough to go… Or what was it, 2022, ’23. ’23, go to, what is it? Heart, what is the-
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Oh, women of Heart. The luncheon, yes.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
That’s right.
Stacey:
Yeah. I went to that. Actually, you all invited me to attend that luncheon. Some of the stories there are about different symptoms that women experienced that may be different from men for cardiac events. I thought, well, I don’t remember hearing about this one, but maybe that’s what it’s about. I’ll just keep monitoring it. The next day, go to bed, still charlie horse. Wake up the next day, still got that charlie horse.
It’s not debilitating. I’m like, okay, there is something wrong. I just don’t know what it is. I go to work. But I do call my physician, my primary care physician. Well, actually, I didn’t call. Love the little messaging services now. Sent a message, “Hey, Dr. So-and-so, this is what I’m experiencing. Should I make an appointment to come in the next couple of days?” Her response is, “We have an appointment at 1:30 today. Come on in.” I said, “Okay, sure.” I’m thinking, okay, it’s something. Actually, I think at the time I thought, well, aren’t I lucky she had this open? Okay, all right, come on in. They actually did, gosh, what is the—
Dr. Mironda Williams:
EKG?
Stacey:
The EKG first, didn’t find anything there. Then they did ultrasounds on my legs, both legs and groin. But it was later in the day when they got to it, when they finally did it. I guess the person who had to read it wasn’t there, couldn’t read and give the final results. She was going to call me to let me know what the results were. Then I get home, no issue. She calls or we were texting back and forth and she’s like, “Well, I put it in STAT. They didn’t respond yet.”
Then when she finally does get the response, she says, “Oh, well, they said there was no clot.” Because at that point I know they’re looking for a clot. She says, “Well, no, they said they didn’t find anything.” I’m like, “Okay.” But I still have this charley horse. I’m like, well, I’ll just keep massaging it. I get my husband, “Can you massage my calf a bit? This charley horse is not going away.” Go to bed that night. I wake up around five ish and I’m like, I am having trouble breathing.
I know once I started hearing about it could be a clot, I’m like, oh, okay, this is probably what it is. I sit up in bed, it’s five in the morning. This was a Friday. I’m like, let me just sit. I’m not going to go back to sleep. Let me sit up. Kids got to get up soon. We all have to get up soon. I’m just going to wait, make sure I don’t go back to sleep. It’s not like I can’t breathe at all. But I can feel my chest is hurting a bit. Get the kids off to school. Then I told my husband, “I need you to take me to the ER.
Dr. Karen Greene:
At this point, had you told George what was going on? Did he know what this was possibly or you just were…?
Stacey :
No, I didn’t because it was like, well, they said it wasn’t. I’m like, well, I think it’s something, but who knows? I think I might have at that point when I said, “Well, I need you to take him to ER.” I might have said, “Well, it may be a clot.” But he didn’t think it was anything major. He’s like, “Really? You need to go to the ER?” I’m like, “Yeah, no, I need to go to the ER.” He takes me to the ER. He’s sitting there. We go to triage, do blood pressure, everything else. Get ready to move me to a room.
Then they say, “Oh, wait, no, we need to move you someplace else.” I had gotten up to walk to the room and they said, “Oh, no, wait here.” I’m walking back and I had to tell them like, “It’s really hard for me to breathe. This is difficult.” I’m just walking just a few yards here. They’re like, “Okay.” I get in the room, they end up doing an ultrasound again. They also did a contrast something CT scan. I explained that I had been to my physician. They said they tested for a clot, they didn’t see anything. They do the testing back in the room and the technician comes in or the physician comes in and says, “You said they didn’t see anything?” I said, “That’s what they told me.” He said, “Well, no, you have bilateral pulmonary embolism.”
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Oh my goodness, Stacey. Stacey.
Stacey:
Yes.
Dr. Karen Greene:
This is what I’m hearing.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
I can understand, Karen. You’re like, wait, what again?
Dr. Karen Greene:
Yes.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Wow.
Stacey:
Right.
Dr. Karen Greene:
She told me just like that.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Like she’s telling us now.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Of course it was after everything had happened, but I was like, “What the what?”
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Do you realize how lucky with having bilateral pulmonary embolism?
Stacey:
Yes. Now, after [inaudible 00:20:44]. Certainly, I do.
Dr. Karen Greene:
To go back to sleep. Taking the kids to school. Yeah, George could have done that. But at least you realized, okay, I-
Dr. Mironda Williams:
No, there’s just so much here. Because I knew a little bit about it, but I didn’t know the details. Until you mentioned it, I forgot. I attended Morehouse School of Medicine, and then for 20 plus years, one of the auxiliary organizations for the medical school has held this luncheon. Like an educational community service event in February, which is Heart Health Month. They have a luncheon for women, and it’s the women with Heart luncheon.
The whole focus of the luncheon is to shine a light on women’s heart health and things that we need to do as women to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves. But every year, and in years past, we would just go. But in more recent years we’ve been saying, you know what? This is a good event. Let’s start getting friends and family. We’ve just expanded the circle. Now we’re up to two tables of people. The thing that is the most moving every year is they have women come up and give their own testimonies.
Then they have an empty chair and they have someone giving a fictional testimony of the woman who didn’t make it in return. I think this is the second or third time Deanna, we’ve had someone, a guest of ours who, because they were at the luncheon, heard those stories. Then they had a situation, and because they heard those stories, they were like, “Wait, I might need to pay attention to this.” That’s number one. Number two, the fact that you were, like Karen said, persistent enough to say, you know what? No, it’s not normal, I’m functioning, but it’s still not normal. But yes, for our audience, I don’t know, Karen, you want to give them briefly a bilateral pulmonary, one pulmonary embolism is bad, but two.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Having a blood clot in your lower extremity, sometimes those blood clots can end up in your lung. Having one on one side will usually cause your oxygenation status, make it difficult to breathe. Having one on both sides of your lung will definitely make it difficult to breathe. Worst case scenario, those clots can also end up in your brain. When Stacy told me all of this, of course I’m thinking, thank God she went to the Heart Health luncheon, but oh my god, this could have been so much worse.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
But also a pulmonary embolism is one of those things where you’ll hear stories about somebody who just stood up and died. Literally stood up, passed out, and was gone. For it to be bilateral. That’s why I was asking, “Stacy, do you realize how lucky you are?”
Dr. Mironda Williams:
You’ve got this diagnosis. You’ve told your sister in the middle of the baseball game. Now what’s going on? Tell us what is happening at this point.
Stacey :
They put me on a heparin drip. Was it heparin? Yeah, heparin. Said I had to stay overnight. My husband is like, wait. Because it was at that point that he realized it was serious too. I knew it was something. I thought I’d have to stay at least for several hours in the hospital. I didn’t know I’d have to stay overnight. I wasn’t totally surprised about that though. But when he realized that he was, because men don’t think anything. They don’t. They’re not [inaudible 00:24:28].
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
It’s not not a problem until it’s a problem, right?
Stacey :
Right, exactly. He’s all on his phone like, “Oh, can I get back home? Can I get back [inaudible 00:24:36]?” That’s when he realized how serious it was. Got on the drip, got me up to a room. The specialist came in. I didn’t have low blood pressure or anything that they said was serious enough to have any other interventions. I guess there are other interventions where they’d use a clot busting medication or any kind of filter in the vein.
They said, no, I didn’t need to do anything like that. That was good. Went up to a room, got me situated for the night. They were, of course, doing the normal checks throughout the evening so I don’t sleep very well. My kids came after they got home from school. Of course they were worried. My daughter’s a little bit of a worrywart. They were a little worried. But everything was good. I was able to be released the next day and was put on Eliquis. I was taking Eliquis for probably three to four, about four months after that.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
At what point did they tell you you could no longer take those wonderful hormones and be relieved of all those horrible symptoms?
Stacey :
Well, it was pretty much right away. Because I, of course, carry my doses in a little pill dose with me in my purse. I told them for all my other medicine I have, I said, “Well, this is when I last took my last doses.” They’re like, “Okay, yeah. That you can’t take any longer.”
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Those were your last doses.
Stacey :
That was my last dose. I was like, “All right” I was like, well, hopefully things won’t come back too badly as far as the hot flashes and night sweats. But they definitely came back pretty relatively quickly. Which of course I was annoyed with. Because I had been sleeping so good. I didn’t have to worry about what clothes I was wearing. I love a nice sweater.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Your hair wasn’t soaking dripping.
Stacey :
My hair wasn’t soaking, right. After got out of the hospital and got situated, went back to my gynecologist. She gave me some options and ended up trying Effexor, which is I guess one of the SSRIs. I tried that for a little bit. I didn’t really feel very good and it didn’t seem to do a whole lot for me.
Dr. Karen Greene:
That’s pretty significant side effect with that one.
Stacey :
Yeah, well, it felt, I don’t know, it felt, not dizzy, but just not myself really with them.
Dr. Karen Greene:
That’s the one that caused the weight gain?
Stacey :
Well, I don’t know if that caused weight gain. I guess it did. I assumed it was just me being off of the estrogen. But yes, quick gain like that. Holy crap, where did this come from? I won’t say I had not been in my ideal weight anyway, but literally within a week or two, I could immediately feel myself gaining weight. I’m like, I haven’t changed anything. What is going on with this weight gain? But even with that, I decided to switch to Veozah and had to get some preliminary liver tests done before going to that.
That’s what I’m on now. It works fine. It’s not the holy grail. I will say I probably have a good one hot flash, one to maybe two a day. Maybe one a night depending on, but not really. Not a night sweat, not night sweats. But it’s manageable. Not my favorite. But hopefully in another couple of years it’ll all be out of here. But I’m sure it’ll be a solid three to five more years that I’ve got of this.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Yeah. Thank you for sharing your experiences because we’ve talked a lot like I said about menopause, the options. We’re on hormone therapy. Talked about some of the risk and complications that can come from being on hormone therapy and when you can’t take estrogen. When Karen shared your story, I’m like, oh, this is perfect. Because this gives another viewpoint and perspective about how you managed being on hormone therapy, having a complication that could have been related to the hormone therapy. This treated.
Now we still have to deal with the hormonal issues. Veozah is one of the newer medications that we have available that as Stacey said, it’s not the holy grail, because again, the issue is the lack of estrogen. Works like that estrogen. But everyone either can’t take estrogen or doesn’t elect to take the estrogen for a number of reasons. There are other options. Veozah, while it’s a good option because of the way that it is metabolized and some of the things that go on, your position, your provider has to monitor your liver function.
That’s one of the things that we have to do with patients who are on Veozah, both before you start the medication and then while you’re on the medication, is to continue to monitor those things. Any therapy that we do has its risk, has its benefits. There’s no one shot wonder that fixes everything.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
There’s no cure.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
There’s no cure for menopause.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
There’s no cure.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
It’s the new phase of life. It’s a new journey that we’re all on at this [inaudible 00:31:05]. Unfortunately no medication is completely without some side effects. Everything has risks. That’s why having these conversations with your friends and your family, your providers, to determine what is the best option for you considering everything. We have to individualize it. Then sometimes we have to pivot. Because you may start on one thing, you’re doing great, and then you have something like, what happened with Stacey.
Okay, well we can’t do that anymore. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. I think that’s one of the things we really tried to stress with women and then having these conversations is, you do not have to suffer. You don’t have to just go it alone if you don’t choose to do that. That there are options that are safe. As long as you stay in good communication with your providers, you can figure out what works best.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
Kudos to you Stacey. A lot of women, especially busy women, because as Dr. Williams had mentioned that women at the Heart luncheon, a lot of the stories were all these professional women. There was one woman who was a runner, and she just kept doing everything that she would normally do. Just pushing it behind like, “Oh, okay, I’ll take care of it later. I’ll take care of it later.” But kudos to you that you kept saying, “No, something’s not right.” If your mind is telling you that, then act on it. Always feel free to call a physician. Don’t hesitate. You’re not bothering a physician when you call with symptoms that need to be evaluated.
Dr. Karen Greene:
I thank you as well. Because hers is a perfect example of, she said, “Okay, let me message my physician.” Because again, she’s busy. Didn’t have time to pick up her phone. Couldn’t play the telephone tag to message the physician. The physician knowing what she was on, said, “Okay, let’s evaluate this right away.”
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Right away.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Because I think that for most of us, with our busy lives, we do tend to put things off and put things side. We just want to make people aware that it is so important to talk. We think back to our own mom, I know she had hot flashes because she had a fan all the time. [inaudible 00:33:13] of the conversation.
Stacey:
That’s right.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Having talks about this, we’re having talks about the fact that, oh yeah, I’m soaking wet. What can I do? Since all of this experience, what have you done, I guess lifestyle? Have you made any lifestyle adjustments? We always talk about that. Because ask about the side effects. Because other than hot flashes, the number one reason people come in to talk to us is weight gain.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Weight gain.
Stacey :
Yeah. I guess with the weight gain, you’re right about that. Again, hadn’t been at my ideal weight, but then with the Effexor and then going up of estrogen, just weight has gone beyond what I said with my upper limit. Actually you asked, I actually have joined a gym. I just went this morning. I’m going twice a week. I’m like, all right, I’ve got to get myself under control here. Trying to eat more protein, minimize carbs. I do not give up carbs though. I’m not there.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
You don’t have to.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Flex…?
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Flexitarian.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Flexitarian.
Stacey:
There you go. That works.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
We’re getting there.
Stacey:
Also just, I have not stuck… I had tried the timed eating and-
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Intermittent fasting?
Stacey:
Yeah, intermittent fasting. I hadn’t really stuck to that. But I am sticking to not eating after a certain time at night just to make sure that whatever I do eat is not sitting around and just turning into fat. Working on that and also working on making sure that I’m improving my sleep and drinking the water that I need to, getting more basic steps in throughout the day. It’s hard to do. I’m still sitting at a desk most of the day. But do try to get up a little bit more. I will say in the last week or so, couple of weeks, I’ve started to feel a little lighter since I’ve started exercising in those last few months. That’s good. We’ll see how that goes.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
That’s great. It’s like she’s listened to all of our podcast. Because it’s not one thing, it’s everything.
Dr. Karen Greene:
Everything, yes.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
It’s lifestyle, it’s diet, it’s healthy movement, hydration, water, good sleep hygiene. We talk about all these things and we understand it’s hard to do it all. Because you’re taking care of your family, you’re taking care of work. Your work keeps you at a desk. It’s like how do you incorporate these healthy choices with your regular life? Your life is your life, so you got to fix it in there and fit it so that works for you.
That’s exactly what we try to encourage everyone to do is find what works for you for your life. You don’t have to do it like the next person does it because they don’t have your life. They don’t have the things that you have to do and the challenges. But the thing is to do something. Talk to your healthcare providers, your family. Do you feel like you were supported? It sounds like you had a good relationship with your provider. Do you feel like you were getting good guidance and information from your healthcare team and just other people around you from a medical standpoint?
Stacey:
Yeah, I do. I do think that my providers did a good job in listening to me, which I think is the first most important thing. But then also providing options when I need it. I would certainly say my gynecologist went through the list of things and options that I could choose and said we could try one thing and try something else. That was great. Certainly my primary care has been continuing to monitor me as well. I would say that this set of physicians were helpful and were supportive. I know not everyone has that.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Well, that’s awesome. Glad to hear that. Because that’s what we try to do. For women in particular, like I said, just the listening part, Stacey. It’s like, just listen to what I’m saying. I may not be able to articulate there’s an issue, but if I tell you there’s a problem, it’s a problem. Help me figure it out. [inaudible 00:37:59] my job. Thank you for sharing this story. This is very timely. Just another real world example of how we can take control of our health.
Be aware of what’s going on, reach out. If you’ve got a great relationship with your provider that’s listening to you and acting on it, great. If not, go look somewhere else. Seek help where you can so that we can be all living our healthy lives long for many, many, many years to come. Even… There are things that you can do. It’s not the end. Living through, thriving through menopause. It can be done. It can be done. Anything else ladies, before we get ready to shut it down this time?
Dr. Karen Greene:
I’m just glad my sister came to share this story.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
She’s here to share this story.
Dr. Karen Greene:
She’s here to share the story. As mature moms, we were both older moms. We want to be here 20 years after our kids.
Stacey:
Right.
Dr. Karen Greene:
That’s really the plan.
Dr. Mironda Williams:
Absolutely. That’s a beautiful plan and one we support. Thank you Stacey for being with us and sharing your story. We want to thank our audience as always for listening and taking time to go with us on this journey and learn some things that you can share with yourself, your family, and your friends. Continue to share these episodes with all of your friends and family. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. Look for us on all your social media platforms. We have our wonderful website with additional information, other episodes at rosagynecology.com. That’s rosagynecology.com. Send us an email at [email protected]. [email protected]. We look at those emails and check your questions and stories so that we can form our next episodes. Until we meet again, I’m Dr. Mironda Williams.
Dr. Deanna Guthrie:
I’m Dr. Deanna Guthrie.
Dr. Karen Greene:
I am Dr. Karen Greene. Take good care.