Hot topic: Wollongong GP to shed light on thriving through menopause

With everyone from actress Naomi Watts releasing a tell-all book on the topic to Australian unions calling for paid reproductive leave, perimenopause and menopause have become hot topics.

Now, Ochre Medical Wollongong integrative GP Charlotte Middleton and colleague Karina Bronska are hosting an event to cater to what Dr Charlotte describes as a large population of women suffering unnecessarily.

An Integrative Approach to Perimenopause and Menopause will be held on 14 September in Wollongong and will focus on how to thrive during this period of life and overcome common symptoms such as fatigue, poor sleep, mood changes, brain fog, hot flushes, night sweats, low libido and the dreaded middle age spread.

Dr Charlotte said she was passionate about medical education for women, having done everything from creating a set of educational DVDs on common postnatal issues used throughout maternity hospitals, to being an on-camera medical expert on Foxtel’s The Little Things.

Her latest project is the creation of an educational platform called Nexus Integrative Medicine, with a focus on in-person educational events.

“I love doing these events, because I’m able to educate en masse, and help people and empower them to look after themselves and take control of their own health,” she said.

“The reason behind doing this event is to inform women, normalise the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, and to give them some validity for how they’re feeling.

“Having just turned 53 myself, I know all too well how challenging this time of our lives can be and am hoping to help as many women as I can with this workshop.

“It is a really hot topic at the moment, and women want to know how they can help themselves when it comes to this and be taken seriously.”

Dr Charlotte said participants would be given actionable tools to improve their health, from having a blood test to understand any vitamin deficiencies and their impact on symptoms, through to recommended vitamins and supplements to take.

She said there would also be a discussion on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the myths and its benefits in the right situations.

“There’s obviously been a lot of fear around HRT and I don’t think the discussions around the significant impact that perimenopause and menopause can have on women’s mental and physical health has been had,” she said.

“It just hasn’t been taken seriously enough.”

She said she’d long had an interest in integrative medicine, which was the combination of traditional medicine and the best of evidence-based complementary medicine, such as nutrition, vitamins, supplements and other therapies such as meditation, yoga or acupuncture.

That blend is reflected in the speakers for the event, which include a clinical nutritionist specialising in female ecology talking about optimising vaginal and bladder health and a psychologist on sleep and reducing stress.

Dr Charlotte said Karina, a pharmacist, diabetes educator and health coach, would discuss metabolic dysfunction and what could be done with nutrition to improve energy and reduce the “middle age spread”, and a meditation and movement practitioner would run a chair yoga and breathing exercise to end the day.

She said she would also help participants understand the symptoms of perimenopause, which often occurred after 40 as the natural transition to menopause.

“A lot of the symptoms can often be put down to, ‘I’m just busy with work and kids. It’s just life’, but some of it might actually be more related to the hormonal changes that are going on,” she said.

“Our goal is really to enrich and empower women to look after themselves, so that they feel like they can take control of their health.

“It’s also to provide a safe space for women to be able to talk about their symptoms, to feel like they’re not going mad and to learn some tools to take home to improve their symptoms and their lives.”

Dr Charlotte said she would share some of her personal lived experience going through it now herself.

“I’ll talk about the nutritional changes I’ve made, how I’ve managed to lose weight myself, and the vitamins and supplements that have definitely helped me along the way, and my own experience of HRT as well,” she said.

“I’m very happy to be open about it, and be asked, all sorts of personal questions, because I think we need to be talking about this.

“We also need to make workplaces more aware that this is a real thing.

“It’s not just women complaining – these symptoms are real and have a huge impact on work and personal relationships.”

While she admitted she loved treating all patients in all styles of medicine, her focus on women and children stemmed from roles in the labour ward, special care nursery and postnatal ward.

Book tickets for An Integrative Approach to Perimenopause and Menopause on 14 September from 9 am – 12:30 pm at Ochre Medical Centre Wollongong, Level 1, 51 Crown St, Wollongong. Seats are limited, with the possibility of a second date later in the year if demand is there.