Over the Moon Raw File 2.3.24

This is a conversation between Kimberly Steger and Dr. Chandra LaMoure about their podcast, "Over the Moon," which focuses on perimenopause. They discuss the lack of discussion and understanding around perimenopause and aim to create a safe space for discussion and insight. They explain that perimenopause is the window leading up to menopause and can cause changes in estrogen levels, resulting in irregular periods. They also talk about the various experiences and challenges of perimenopause, including physical symptoms like hot flashes and difficulties with sleep. They emphasize the importance of listening to oneself during this season of life and not relying solely on stereotypes and tropes about aging. They hope to redefine the narrative and provide support for women going through perimenopause. So, three, two, one, listener, welcome to Over the Moon. Let's see, I'm going to try that again, Chandra. Okay. Okay. All right. One through two, three, two, one, listener, we welcome you to Over the Moon. I'm Kimberly Steger, along with Dr. Chandra LaMoure, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Okay. Okay, number three, in three, two, one, listener, we welcome you to Over the Moon. I'm Kimberly Steger, along with Dr. Chandra LaMoure. This podcast is dedicated to the window of life known as perimenopause, which is sandwiched between reproductive years and menopause. Frankly, the lunar cycle and menstruation define the majority of lives on the planet. The internal questions and mental checklists go bonkers when there's a change in these cycles. It's great if you can seek guidance from those you trust or love, but so much is a wait-and-see process. At some point, you get over the moon. So I'm going to hand it off to Chandra to introduce herself. Hello, I'm Dr. Chandra LaMoure. I am so honored to be here with my friend of more than 30 years who I met at freshman orientation, and we are starting this podcast journey together. I was born and raised in, a little bit about myself. I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. I currently reside in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I have lived in several places, though, such as Oklahoma, Idaho, and Illinois. As many of us women do, I have many roles. Some of those roles include being a college professor of public health, being a published researcher, ordained minister, and a chaplain for my sorority, the Capital Sigma Chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho, Sorority Incorporated. In a former career, I also worked in several states as a licensed medical technologist, meaning... Oh, I think I lost you, Shane. a community health educator, and a grant manager for some mental health grants, but more importantly, I am a wife, sister, a niece, a granddaughter, a daughter, and a friend, and a lover of music like my friend, Kim, and as we're celebrating Black History Month, I always give honor to my parents who took the opportunity to march with Dr. Martin Luther King and always stand up for what is right, and really core to my identity, highest and foremost, is that I am a daughter of God, which means, in my perspective, my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. But let me tell you, this perimenopause situation can cause a lot of different issues in your temple. Amen? Yes, ma'am. When it comes to this question of perimenopause, I have a lot of questions, and I've been that way about everything since I was a child, which is probably why I was in school so long and have done so much work in public health. With wisdom, I'm learning that the answer is often in our journey, and so this podcast is all about having a safe and inclusive place for this journey of perimenopause and picking up some things that may help along the way with our wonderful audience and with my sister friend, Kim. Thank you, Sam. So I'm Kim Spieger. I reside in Brooklyn, New York, and serve as a public health fellow with an organization addressing health advocacy and policy. My career journey has included marketing and communications within entertainment, insurance, and healthcare. As a late-in-life mother, I transitioned into public health to utilize my marketing, communications, and operations experience to support a world with increased health risks and vulnerabilities. I received a master's in public health from the State University of New York, Downstate, specializing in environmental and occupational health. I also obtained a master's in media studies and management from the New School. My undergraduate work was at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where I met Dr. Story before she was a doctor or a story, perhaps a Mr. Story. And as Sandra mentioned, we met during freshman orientation. It has been a wonderful journey. My passions are health advocacy, health equity, environmental advocacy and literacy, parenting, healthy living, family, music, nature, and genealogy. So hopping into our theme of over the moon, I just want to start with one word, under-discussed. Unlike infancy or the senior years, perimenopause is a much less well-defined time in life that doesn't get enough light. Finding space for discussion, insight, and connection is our goal. For some of us without guides into this stage of life, tropes of aging have been our only reference point. So ACOG, which is the Academy of Obstetrics and Gynecology, says a full year without a menstrual cycle marks the beginning of menopause. However, the window leading up to a full 12 months without a period is perimenopause. So I'd like to take a slight break in our conversation, just to have like a little air. And so I'm putting this out here, Chan, as far, are you looking at the script? No, you can pause it, because now I can't find the script. Okay, let me see if I can. I don't know why I can't. I see the first. Changes in estrogen levels often begin in individuals 30s and 40s, but it can happen at any age. In the traditional path, ovaries start to run out of gas and get flaky in their consistency, sputtering out estrogen production, which can create irregularity in periods. Sometimes they no longer... I need to redo that. Okay, I'm going to pick it up in 3, 2, 1. Changes in estrogen levels often begin in individuals 30s and 40s, but it can happen at any age. In the traditional path, ovaries run out of gas and get flaky in their consistency, sputtering out estrogen production that creates irregularity in periods. Sometimes they get longer. Sometimes they're shorter. Sometimes they're heavier or lighter. You can even skip periods, and the duration of perimenopause can vary greatly. So just a little tangent that's connected. Without pregnancies or interruptions in their menstrual cycle, the average person who begins reproductive years at age 12 will have 276 periods by the time they're 35. That's basically 23 years, a cycle per month. When there is a change in frequency of a cycle, what's the first question anyone asks? Are you pregnant? How many pregnancy tests have been sold over the last 40 plus years based upon estrogen fluctuations? How many panic attacks have been set off just on false alarms? The ovulation and fertility tests that have been on sale for years, there are also new ones for perimenopause. They could be validating. If you're wondering what's going on with my body, that is if you're eligible. But what does it mean to listen to yourself in this season of life? How do we listen to ourselves? As we just mentioned a second ago, is it through test kits? Is it through an app on your phone? Is it through your mood, your behavior? Is it through your ability to rest? Is it through your ability to take breaks, how you feel? Anything you'd like to add there, Shan? Yes, that's a lot, thinking about the perimenopausal season of life, because often we don't expect a lot of different things. For example, as you mentioned, women can start going through perimenopause at really early ages. Oops. What if a woman is, and you just blinked. A type of viral situation, or is she starting to have hot flashes? And so all of those things impact our mood. When you're sitting there sweating and nobody else is sweating around you, and how do you find rest? Sometimes when we're in perimenopause, we may not get as much sleep at night. You're laying there and wondering why you're not getting enough sleep. And so all of that affects how we feel, and then our relationships, too, which goes, I think, into our next point of conversation that you were going to start about, how do we reconcile this to who we were prior to perimenopause, regardless of our age? Indeed. So much of femininity, where the majority of the population of individuals who go through this reproductive cycle, is a part of their identity. Absolutely. And so how do you define yourself, based upon your ability to reproduce, about your changing body? Are you getting validation from others? Does that affect how your mental health state is? What are you doing to preserve not only the person you are now, but the person you've been developing over your lifetime? And how does that impact who you will be? Are you relying exclusively on tropes for the possible, or what you could possibly be? So what kind of tropes would you be referring to, my friend? You know, I come from a tradition that is very American and very black. And so there's a sense of a type of woman who is in midlife that could be really full-bodied and just sitting in the house and always sitting down and never just going out and doing stuff. There is the trope of a senior woman who's behind us, poked out. What a nice word for you, living in New York and I'm here in Tennessee. I just saw one of these visuals the other day, where a woman is just bent over, and I said, it touched me because I'm going through some back trauma that is tied to this change in life. And I'm like, gosh, could she just be going through issues regarding her body's changes and that's why her back isn't going up straight as it probably did in the past? Or was it just because I'm just too old? And it's like, maybe it was just the day. Maybe it was just the hormones that day that just say, you can only straighten up this much. Right. Yeah, go ahead. And so I am really in tune to this because I see people say, oh, I don't know why you're doing all of this. You should be slowing down a little bit more. You don't need to be doing all of this. I'm like, that's exactly what you need to do. Keep your body in motion. A body in motion stays in motion. But I think that many of us adopt the mindset of, no, this is what my body is doing. And I just need to accept this change. There's so much about everyone's journey that is unique that I'm totally mindful and respectful of it. But the tropes of aging, aging as if it is one that is, I guess, where a woman is parked. She is parked. She is now. And I say this and I almost cringe. She is an old lady. And I think old lady, middle-aged lady, they're very loaded terms for me. And I have to shirk because I was not raised by old ladies. Definitely not, my friend. Definitely not. Yeah. And I've seen that black women do a lot. They keep going. But they may ignore symptoms because of a lot of cultural baggage regarding accepting what's happening to their body and listening to their body. So that's just sort of reconciling the past of who you are, where you're going, and what you want to be. And it may have been a bit convoluted, but there's a lot, a lot that's loaded because of culture, because of the reference point of being American, for me, being African-American, and being born when I was born. So I have a very determined mindset based upon the women who raised me and a very feminist perspective of the world. But I hope that didn't seem too run-on. No, I love it. I was listening. And, you know, you and I have had these kinds of conversations for a long time. And we wanted to bring in some other friends in this audience of the podcast. And so thinking about what you said, you used the word posture and talked about the behind poking out and posture being an issue. And what I thought about was a lot of this is about the posture literally and figuratively that we take toward this over-the-moon phase, this phase of perimenopause. And what are some of the regional tropes involved in that? I think it's really important for the listeners to know that one thing that we bring to this conversation is that I am now residing in the South after having lived in other places. And Kim has been in New York for quite some time. But we've both traveled and lived different places. So we're very familiar with the cultural and regional nuances in terms of how we know our own lived experiences as black women and how we may view perimenopause based on that. And so what I was thinking about was the concept of self-care and perimenopause. I'm glad that you mentioned that whole idea of some women viewing midlife as just sitting on the couch. And I want to say having been back in the South for a while now, one thing that's refreshing is I do think black women here in the South, many of us are starting to redefine what that middle-aged woman looks like. I see women who are in that whole perimenopausal phase, like you just said, defying some of those tropes, running, walking, exercising, whatever way they see fit. I'll just say having movement. And that's very refreshing to me. So I wanted to bring that in to the conversation. I appreciate that. I really do. Because I found myself, even though I have a huge, I guess, love-hate relationship with social media, I have recently thought out reference points regarding women who are in this age group who are really engaged in fitness. And when I'm seeing women who look like me who are engaged in, whether it's weightlifting or exercise, it is a sense of community. Because while I'm not hearing them speak specifically about this word that the podcast is really resting on, they are fighting that. They are saying, I want to be this woman I've always wanted to be, fit and in control and determined. And that's why I'm doing this, this weightlifting or this running. And I value that. But I am seeking that out as a community. But to have the additional voices related to tell me what else is a part of this journey. Did you feel pushed to do this working out because you felt more agitated? You had more challenges with your sleep? You were noticing that your diet wasn't curing your bloat? It kind of goes on and on. But I'd like to know more. And being able to have this opportunity to discuss this with a public health professional, a very dear friend, a very sensitive and unique individual like you, Shan. It makes a difference. My heart goes out to the majority of women, as I pointed out, globally, who do not have an individual that they can kind of like drop these, you know, saying, gosh, I don't know what's going on with this. But, you know, I will say this. I know I told you initially I was going to try not to overshare, you know, this whole perimenopause word. I was introduced to this word in my mid-20s. You know, I was told by my mom, I think you probably want to bury my mom. Oh, mama speaker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She'll make another appearance, I'm sure. And so she said she said that to me. I just was like, whatever. Whatever. And it was because of, you know, weird stuff going on with my cycles and blah, blah, blah. And I think I saw an episode of Oprah like 10 years later, somewhere in my 30s. I don't think I even saw it. I think I heard about it and I ordered a copy of the VHS and I never saw it. But, yeah, it's sitting somewhere in the house now. But it was about perimenopause. And I was like, oh, wow. I don't think that's happening to me because I have my periods enough for me to not think that's an issue. I think my periods are just weird. And that was that. So here I am some considerable time after that and things are weirder. Yeah. And I think I'm definitely wearing the perimenopause hat now for sure. But, you know, was I going through it then or was it just that weirdness of the estrogen level just kind of doing its funky thing way back then? And I think that's what happened. It was just being weird and saying, let me show you what I can do. And, you know, some women have much more abbreviated windows of their perimenopause. I was sharing with Chandra about a tech who I spoke with a few weeks ago. And she was telling me about how her menstrual cycle was really, really light, hit late in life. She was 21, super light. And by the time she was 35, it was over. And here she was in her early 40s. She was going through the issues regarding heat, just feeling hot all the time. So she's wearing her lab coat. She's got on a tank top. And she's trying to do her job to stay focused. And I just was like, wow, you know, we had a moment. She was interested in sharing with me her journey. And, you know, I shared a little bit with her. But I feel that there are so few people who have that opportunity to make that exchange. Because I wouldn't say that this discussion topic is taboo. But because it's so loaded, because of those issues of femininity and exiting the reproductive years and, dare I even say, aging. That I believe that it is so taboo that we have to force the conversation. Because we're talking about our health, our physical health, our emotional health. We're talking about our confidence levels. There's just so much here worth discussing. Yeah. And how do we ensure that we're taking care of our emotional health? And then our social health. I mean, me and you are both, you know, my Ph.D. is in community health education. And we both are public health professionals and practitioners. And all the research is telling us that loneliness is an epidemic. And so when we think about that and also think about emotional health, how in the world are some of us as women coping with such a dramatic change in life and not being in community? It's very scary to think about. And how do you escape those tropes that you mentioned and that you've been talking about without some type of community? Which can include a spiritual community, but can just include a, hey, girl, I'm really tired of these sweats or whatever I'm having. What can I do about this maybe holistically? Thinking about perimenopause as an aside, I just found out about different fabrics that may be more cooling to your skin than others. And I'm not trying to advertise, but I'm just making a point about being in community and how we can learn different things that are so essential. And how I think when we're in community, we can start to reshape that whole discussion about aging and what it looks like and start to be okay with where we are and where we've been and recognize that that shapes where we're going and that femininity can be defined by us individually. And we can embrace each other and determine what that is for ourselves, even if and when body parts are starting to go south. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Love it. Love it. So I know that we've spoken a lot about the reasons, the under-discussed value of this particular topic of perimenopause. I know I have a couple of items listed, but I don't know if that makes this overly bloated for a first episode, Shan. Let me know as far as the definition. I think that we spoke about definition of the what and the when. I think we did. I think we spoke a little bit about symptom variation, but not too much. But maybe we can save that. I think we can save that for maybe when we have a medical professional on, because, again, I am – do you still want to be recording? No, I think this could be recorded. Okay, that's cool. Because I think with this being an intro episode, I mean, we both kind of mentioned common things that people know about hot flashes or menstrual cycle, and I think more of the details on that people will listen more intently to an actual medical professional, in my opinion. Sounds great to me. So I think that we just did – and I love that this is becoming so meta – that was the highlights. So – and we've also spoken of previews. That was highlight and preview. And the last item on preview was a regular section that we foresee that has been planned in this – Oh, I want to play music for this one. This one needs theme music. Oh, man, we're going to have to get that. We're going to have to get that. Would you like to announce it, Chandra? Okay, I'll pretend I have a drum roll or something. The unique addition to this podcast that we are featuring is entitled The Aunt Tea Hour. Yay. We have spoken of community as a preview to this podcast, and as Kim and I shared over time, we talked about the value of the aunties in our lives. That could be mama. That could be aunt. That could be whatever that means in your culture as a woman who is respected and honored for her knowledge and her willingness to share that knowledge and love, more importantly, with other women in her community. And so since we're building community, we wanted to share some auntie knowledge with you specifically in reference to perimenopause. And so we are excited to have that coming up for you as we all learn and journey together. I'm super psyched. This is so cool. Thank you, Chandra. You're welcome. Thank you, listeners. We will hopefully be speaking with you within a short period of time, but thank you for listening to Over the Moon. See you soon. See you soon.