How to Advocate for Yourself When the Doctor Says It's All in Your Head ft. Belinda Balscheit
"Your Bloods Look Normal" Is Not a Diagnosis: Patient Advocacy & Perimenopause ft. Belinda Balscheit
Listener Amanda was so passionate about today's guest, she sent a voice message to make sure we booked her. She was right. Belinda Balscheit is a two-time cancer survivor, women's health advocate, and patient advocacy powerhouse based in Basel — and this conversation is one of the most important we've had on the show.
If you've ever been told your symptoms are all in your head, dismissed by a doctor despite knowing something is deeply wrong, or simply felt lost in a medical system that wasn't built with women in mind — this one's for you.
About Belinda Balscheit:
Belinda works in a global pharmaceutical company in Basel and is a fierce patient advocate for women's health. Diagnosed with a rare cancer at 29 and breast cancer at 37 — with three girls under three — she navigated 11.5 years of treatment, two rounds of menopause, and a near-complete nervous system collapse before anyone connected the dots. She's writing a book called Biologically Dismissed: You Were Never the Problem, and she's currently on Instagram documenting all 142 symptoms of menopause, one by one. Follow her — it's essential viewing.
What You'll Learn:
- Why your doctor may be working off a 30-year-old study — and what that means for your care
- How Belinda went through menopause twice — and what that taught her about hormones, dismissal, and survival
- The practical advocacy toolkit: symptom tracking, building your case, and walking into appointments with evidence
- Why "your bloods look normal" and "it's probably stress" are not diagnoses — and what to say back
- The statistic that stopped everyone cold: 94% of women on HRT report a significant reduction in suicidal thoughts
- How to fire a doctor who isn't listening (yes, you can, and yes, you should)
- Why perimenopause and menopause aren't diseases — but untreated, they can cause ones
Real Talk Moments:
Belinda shares the moment she discovered she had 47 out of 49 menopause symptoms — and 40 of them were an eight out of ten in severity. She also opens up about reaching a point where she didn't want to be here anymore after three doctors in three weeks told her it was all in her head. Danna shares her own experience of arriving at a doctor with a list of 24 symptoms and being sent home with the same dismissal. The rage was mutual. The solidarity was real.
Belinda's Parting Wisdom:
"Knowledge is empowerment. Once you have it, run."
Connect with Belinda:
instagram.com/belindabalscheit
linkedin.com/in/belindabalscheit
Get in touch!
Check out the So Frickin' Healthy Website
Join the So Frickin' Healthy Community
K, love you, byeeeee
Chapters:
00:00 Menopause Care Gap
05:17 Belinda’s Cancer Journey
27:37 Advocacy Through Tracking
32:13 Medical Gaslighting Reality
35:52 System Gaps and Data
51:14 Advocacy Playbook and Wrap
Mentioned in this episode:
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00:00 - Untitled
00:01 - Menopause Care Gap
05:35 - Belinda’s Cancer Journey
28:20 - Advocacy Through Tracking
32:56 - Medical Gaslighting Reality
36:36 - System Gaps and Data
52:25 - Advocacy Playbook and Wrap
Speaker A
I just first want to say that the whole hormone topic and the whole menopause perimenopause topic is taught in the curriculum of medical school, which is say, six years at best, case for four hours.
Speaker A
Wow.
Speaker A
Worst case, zero hours.
Speaker A
So that's.
Speaker A
So we're a woman going through perimenopause.
Speaker A
We're coming into that time, we go to our doctors, and our doctors are actually not educated on the topic.
Speaker A
And this is why this dismissal is happening.
Speaker A
Women need to know that the people you're visiting are often working on a narrative that is 30 years old from a study, the WHI study, which was done on an older group of women and applied to the general population.
Speaker A
So the narrative since that time has not really changed.
Speaker A
And if you are very lucky, you will go to a doctor who's done that extra training who will be able to help and support you.
Speaker A
And if you are every other person, then you will be gaslighted or told.
Speaker A
It's on your head.
Speaker A
Let me introduce myself.
Speaker A
I guess that's a great way to start.
Speaker A
The name Belinda Balscheidt.
Speaker A
And we're having a chuckle about the surname.
Speaker A
And I'm today's guest on so Freaking Healthy.
Speaker A
And I am a huge patient advocate and an advocate for women's health, and I also work in a global pharmaceutical company here in Basel.
Speaker A
And today we're going to talk about patient advocacy.
Speaker B
Hey, Donna, how are you doing today?
Speaker C
I am good, Megan.
Speaker C
I'm.
Speaker C
I'm doing better than ever because I got to spend a whole weekend with you.
Speaker C
So I am happy clappy.
Speaker C
How are you?
Speaker B
Yes, I am also happy Clappy because I got to see you and be in your presence all weekend.
Speaker B
Every time we do that, we say we should do it more often, and we never do because life is lifing.
Speaker B
Donna, do you remember like a year and a half ago when we kept making up imaginary listeners who would call us and ask a question?
Speaker B
Because none of our listeners were giving us any questions because they're too shy to say anything to us.
Speaker C
Yes, it's called visualization.
Speaker C
Yes.
Speaker B
And we were like manifesting, please, listeners, tell us what you want to hear.
Speaker B
And we had one of our listeners, Aletta, tell us that she wanted to hear about the Gold Clay method.
Speaker B
So we had the Gold Clay lady on Esther Gold Clay.
Speaker B
And then Gina wanted to hear all about peptides, and we just dropped our peptides episode.
Speaker B
And now we have another listener, Amanda, and she was just like, megan, there is this woman I really, really need you to interview.
Speaker B
And just we're gonna play her request here now.
Speaker D
Hi, Megan, it's your friend Amanda.
Speaker D
I want to introduce you to my friend Belinda.
Speaker D
I think she'd be a fantastic guest for the so Freaking Healthy podcast.
Speaker D
She has a really interesting health story to share that I think a lot of your listeners will really enjoy listening to.
Speaker D
She basically has been dismissed by a lot of doctors across a lot of different fields around a lot of different health and medical topics.
Speaker D
And ultimately, because nobody was looking at her as a whole person.
Speaker D
As a whole person with symptoms that all connected to a bigger story, she's a great person.
Speaker D
She has this huge story that I think the world needs to hear, and so I'm hoping you guys can have a chat with her, and a lot of people will really appreciate hearing her story.
Speaker B
Okay, so as you can see, she's very passionate about our guest today, and she just assumed, rightfully so, that our listeners would also be passionate.
Speaker B
And as soon as I saw the topic and what our guest is talking about, I was like, don is going to go ballistic.
Speaker C
Yep.
Speaker B
Because we've talked about patient advocacy before and in general, and I just think this is a topic that's not talked about enough.
Speaker B
Sorry, Donna.
Speaker B
I've really hogged that intro.
Speaker B
Do you have thoughts before we get started?
Speaker C
I feel like I'm going to hog the rest of the episode, so it's totally cool.
Speaker B
Good.
Speaker B
All right, so let's.
Speaker B
Let's bring Belinda in.
Speaker B
This is Belinda Balscheidt, which we've already had a good chuckle about.
Speaker B
And if you know, you know, and we'll just leave it at that.
Speaker B
Hi, Belinda.
Speaker B
Welcome.
Speaker A
Hi, ladies.
Speaker A
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker A
I'm very excited to be here today.
Speaker C
Oh, we're excited to have you on.
Speaker B
I mean, there's a lot.
Speaker B
I feel like there is a lot to your story.
Speaker B
I mean, we haven't met yet.
Speaker B
We've only seen you on paper and heard about you, and I just feel like there could be, like, a whole book.
Speaker B
Oh, wait, yes.
Speaker B
There is being a book written.
Speaker B
You're writing a book.
Speaker B
But I.
Speaker B
That was by accident.
Speaker B
I did not stage that.
Speaker B
My brain is really that scattered at the moment.
Speaker B
But my point is, is I feel like you have a lot of story to tell, and we wanted to focus in today on advocacy for health and not just telling your story.
Speaker B
But we really want to have something actionable for our listeners, because I think that's the most important thing.
Speaker B
Listening to your story and understanding how you got there is amazing, and we want to.
Speaker B
To weave that in.
Speaker B
But I really, really want to make sure that our listeners understand how they can be their own best advocate.
Speaker B
So where is a good place to start, Belinda, with this topic?
Speaker A
Good question.
Speaker A
Maybe if I give a really quick overview just about my story, because like you said, it's a really, it's a big story and advocacy really takes place throughout the whole story.
Speaker B
Sounds good.
Speaker A
So I am a two times cancer patient.
Speaker A
I've had two different types of cancer.
Speaker A
First at age 29, it was a very rare cancer in my head and in the ear.
Speaker A
And the second time, I was diagnosed at the age of 37 with breast cancer and I just had my third child.
Speaker A
I had three girls under three and I had actually discovered a lump while I was pregnant.
Speaker C
Wow.
Speaker A
And my father, obstetrician, gynaecologist, said, quick, get to the hospital.
Speaker A
I did.
Speaker A
Within six days, I was being operated on.
Speaker A
I had skin sparing mastectomy on my right side and that was the first of many operations.
Speaker A
And because I was young, because I was a mother, they threw every sort of treatment at me.
Speaker A
So chemotherapy, hormone therapy and hormone therapy that actually stops the hormones in your body.
Speaker B
Oh, an estrogen suppressor.
Speaker A
Estrogen suppressor, absolutely.
Speaker A
So it's called tamoxifen.
Speaker A
And the treatment itself lasted for 11 and a half years with various operations in between.
Speaker A
Holy shit.
Speaker B
Wait, that's.
Speaker B
No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker B
Don't gloss over that.
Speaker B
Are you, you're saying that you were treated for this cancer for 11 and a half years?
Speaker A
11 And a half years, Yes, I was.
Speaker A
So first it was the operation, then it was rounds of chemotherapy, two different schemas, and I had allergic reaction to the second schema, which was interesting in itself.
Speaker A
And then I went on to a year of hormone therapy which was infused every 21 days.
Speaker A
So 18 times throughout the year.
Speaker A
I had to go back to the hospital.
Speaker A
And then after that it was estrogen suppressors.
Speaker A
And that was first for five years.
Speaker A
And then had a nasty surprise that when I went back to my gynecologist, she said, surprise.
Speaker A
We have new data, we have new information.
Speaker A
Now you need to go on it for another five years, you need to stay on it.
Speaker A
Which was an absolute pillar, I have to say.
Speaker C
But I mean, and for our listeners just to understand, when going on that treatment, you're basically in menopause.
Speaker A
Yeah, good question.
Speaker A
I've been through menopause twice.
Speaker A
So many cancer patients, and particularly women with breast cancer, when you have chemotherapy, you are put into instant menopause.
Speaker A
So you go from one day to the next into menopause So I just had a baby.
Speaker A
I had all my happy hormones, and then I was plunged into menopause.
Speaker A
So I literally fell off the cliff.
Speaker A
And when I finished all of my treatment, so at the end of the Tamoxifen 10 years, my body then started going through perimenopause.
Speaker A
Oh my God.
Speaker A
Which was very interesting.
Speaker A
And actually I didn't know that I was going through that at the time because of the conversation I'd had with my doctor when she had diagnosed me with cancer, given me my treatment plan.
Speaker A
And she said, you'll have this for chemotherapy, this for Herceptin therapy, this for the other therapies, and you will be pushed through menopause with chemotherapy, and you may afterwards experience something.
Speaker A
But don't worry was really a throwaway line at the end of a sentenced to a mother who has three out of three who's breastfeeding, who's, you know, losing her breast and about to go to chemotherapy, and who really doesn't know if she's going to wake up tomorrow for a long period of time.
Speaker B
When the doctor says this, I'm assuming they're thinking, what is the most important information they need to know right now?
Speaker B
And who cares about what's happening in 10 years from now?
Speaker C
And we're saving her life?
Speaker B
Is that.
Speaker A
Yeah, 100%.
Speaker A
And you've hit the nail on the head.
Speaker A
You know, the oncologist is focusing on saving me from cancer.
Speaker A
That's her primary goal.
Speaker A
The gynecologist is also doing the same.
Speaker A
And when the primary focus is on saving a woman's life from cancer, menopause becomes secondary.
Speaker A
And they kind of, you know, gloss over it because it's not happening.
Speaker A
We don't need to think about it.
Speaker A
She's not having any symptoms.
Speaker A
Let's just see what happens.
Speaker A
But actually, no, not talk about what could happen and what she could prepare for.
Speaker A
So in a way, I actively pushed it to the back of my mind because it was a throwaway comment.
Speaker A
And I thought during the whole treatment, I don't need to think about this.
Speaker A
Which was the cause of a lot of pain and sadness and many other things, as my story went on.
Speaker A
Because when you suppress hormones from a body, hormone receptors are everywhere in your body.
Speaker A
The body really starts shutting down.
Speaker A
And not just brain fog and not just hot sweats.
Speaker A
I have 140, 245 symptoms logged.
Speaker A
And I can tell you a bit about that.
Speaker A
We can jump into that if we need to.
Speaker A
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A
I mean, this is.
Speaker C
This is very, very interesting because we actually just lately interviewed a doctor about perimenopause and about all the symptoms, and she actually mentioned that there are hundreds of symptoms that are usually not talked about when it comes to perimenopause.
Speaker B
Not associated with perimenopause.
Speaker C
Well, we don't connect.
Speaker A
Yeah, 100%.
Speaker A
100%.
Speaker A
And I can give you some of those gory ones if you want to.
Speaker C
Please, go ahead.
Speaker A
Wow.
Speaker A
Okay.
Speaker A
How about electric shocks in the vaginal region?
Speaker A
What?
Speaker A
Yes.
Speaker C
Not the fun ones.
Speaker C
Like.
Speaker B
Like the labias touch and you're like.
Speaker A
Literally, like you've been stuck on an electric fence from one minute to the next.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
What causes that?
Speaker B
Do you have any idea?
Speaker A
Definitely to do with the nerves in the body.
Speaker A
Probably the myelin sheaths and the hormones that.
Speaker A
You know, like I said, hormones are everywhere in your body, and the nervous system is.
Speaker A
Is very, very important.
Speaker A
And the nervous system is actually one of the first things to start breaking down, as well as cognition and many other things.
Speaker A
What other funny one can I come up with?
Speaker A
Brittle nails and eye changes.
Speaker A
That's a good one.
Speaker A
Nobody thinks about eyes.
Speaker A
My eye prescription changed every six months, and I have progressive Len, and I like to have three or four pairs of glasses.
Speaker B
That's quite an investment.
Speaker C
Yeah.
Speaker A
And, you know, the optician is looking at me thinking, what the hell is happening?
Speaker C
What is wrong with this lady?
Speaker A
What is wrong with their eyes?
Speaker A
And, you know, at the time, I wasn't thinking menopause, so actually I didn't know either who would think of that.
Speaker A
So this was a big journey of discovery.
Speaker A
Teeth, you know, teeth can fall out.
Speaker A
Honestly, I can go through the list.
Speaker A
It's frightful.
Speaker A
It's not just brain fog and difficulty sleeping and the uterogenitone syndrome, which is when your pelvic region, so your bladder and your uterus and your vagina and labia is all affected.
Speaker A
How about having one layer of skin in the vaginal area, and every time you go for a smear and, you know, they put the speculum in and open it up, and then you sh.
Speaker A
You rip like tissue paper, and then you bleed.
Speaker C
Wow.
Speaker A
Because there's lots of hormone receptors down there.
Speaker A
And when there's no hormones coming into the body, then it's not moist, it dries out.
Speaker A
It's just an absolute nightmare.
Speaker A
Sexual function completely gone.
Speaker C
Yeah.
Speaker B
Of course.
Speaker A
These are such personal things that happen to you.
Speaker A
And I grew up in a generation where we don't talk about these things.
Speaker C
No, you don't talk about this.
Speaker A
I guess one of the biggest things Was because I didn't know.
Speaker A
Well, because I was made to or told not to think about menopause.
Speaker A
I didn't actively go looking at menopause symptoms.
Speaker B
Yeah.
Speaker A
And so from chemotherapy, over the Next sort of 11 and a half years, my body just, well, was pretty bad.
Speaker A
After chemotherapy, it got a little bit better.
Speaker A
Then it broke down and broke down and broke down and broke down.
Speaker A
And I could not figure out for the life of me what the hell was happening.
Speaker A
And I.
Speaker A
Right, that's where the advocation comes in.
Speaker C
Well, let me ask you a few questions before we get into advocation.
Speaker C
I think you mentioned that the doctor that told you, like, don't even think about it, that was a female doctor.
Speaker A
It was a female doctor.
Speaker A
And I think she said that because she wanted to focus primarily on the cancer and saving my life.
Speaker A
I was a young mother.
Speaker A
I had three babies.
Speaker C
Sure.
Speaker A
And let's not talk about the after effects.
Speaker A
Let's just say, so you're here.
Speaker C
Which I'm not gonna say it makes sense.
Speaker C
I'm sure it made sense in her head.
Speaker C
Let's just say that.
Speaker C
But you're then thrown into this space where you were told by your doctor, just, we're doing what we need to do and everything else is secondary.
Speaker C
And I'm not going to even tell you what you should be expecting.
Speaker C
Just, we're taking care of you right now.
Speaker C
We're getting rid of the cancer.
Speaker C
Right.
Speaker C
So you're feeling like you're being well taken care of, that you know, there's an expert behind you that gives you all the information that you actually need to know.
Speaker C
And now you're thrown into this space of like, great.
Speaker C
So we basically kind of assuming that, thank you, the cancer is gone, you're taking care of me.
Speaker C
We're going through this process, but my body is falling apart.
Speaker C
Now, I'm wondering, because we do know that chemo is very disruptive to the body, obviously.
Speaker C
Were you thinking that that was the body's reaction to the chemo, or were you just kind of going like, I don't understand.
Speaker C
I should be stronger than ever now.
Speaker C
What's going on?
Speaker C
And were you going to other experts trying to figure things out, or were you like, I'm too dead right now to even go to an expert.
Speaker A
Really?
Speaker A
Yeah, I mean, all of those things.
Speaker A
So first you said, you know, your doctor told you that maybe you'd go through this afterwards, or actually, she didn't.
Speaker A
The time between diagnosis and having my operation was so short, I only had time to go to the plastic Surgeon and be asked how I wanted to rebuild.
Speaker A
So the focus for me, I was so traumatized at that point in time was get the cancer out of my body.
Speaker A
And so my brain was thinking, make baby food, organize babysitters, get someone to look after the kids.
Speaker A
You know, who's going to replace me when I'm gone.
Speaker A
So that whole what happens afterwards was never even a question.
Speaker A
It was never anything that entered my mind because I was in, okay, you know, what can I organize between now and I go for my operation?
Speaker A
If I come out, I come out, and if I don't, then.
Speaker C
And you kept producing milk through all of that.
Speaker A
Good question.
Speaker A
So when I had my punch biopsy, which was about eight or nine punches to my right breast, and I was feeding, my breast became very engorged, and actually the milk was pink.
Speaker A
And I was given a pill to start breastfeeding.
Speaker A
And a pill is not going to stop you breastfeeding, and it doesn't make the milk go away overnight.
Speaker A
And because I took it two days before the operation, of course, I bled out a lot on the operation table.
Speaker A
And so, yeah, and then they removed the inside of the breast.
Speaker A
So, yeah, no more milk.
Speaker A
And that was pretty tough, actually, the detachment from the little one.
Speaker A
But back, back to your points.
Speaker A
You know, in my head, I was trying to be the strong mother, and I was trying to think, you know, with all of this chemotherapy.
Speaker A
It wasn't just chemotherapy.
Speaker A
It was also.
Speaker A
I had about 23 pills a day that I had to take.
Speaker A
And so it was.
Speaker A
Yeah, it was medication to treat the side effects of the side effects of the medication.
Speaker A
And honestly, it was incredibly overwhelming.
Speaker A
But as the time progressed, yes, it was the chemotherapy that was a very interesting experience in terms of how my body reacted.
Speaker A
But over the years that followed, I did think to myself, this is happening because of chemotherapy.
Speaker A
This is happening.
Speaker A
And I said that for 10 more years.
Speaker A
Really?
Speaker A
10, 11, 12 More years.
Speaker A
And as different pieces of my body fell off, literally, I would just, you know, adapt, adapt, change, do things differently.
Speaker A
When you stand up after going to the toilet and, you know, more urine dribbles down your leg from one day to the next, you think, oh, my goodness, this is not good.
Speaker A
Okay, I need to sit for a little bit longer.
Speaker A
And you don't necessarily think, why is this happening?
Speaker A
Why am I getting more UTI's?
Speaker A
Why?
Speaker A
Why can't I sit down?
Speaker A
Why can't I get out of bed?
Speaker A
Why can't I think?
Speaker A
And so I did think, this is me.
Speaker A
I'm not strong enough.
Speaker A
I'M not trying hard enough.
Speaker A
I'm not doing everything I can to try and fight this.
Speaker A
And I spent a lot of time in fitness, up to four times a week to really try and build my body back from chemotherapy.
Speaker C
Wow.
Speaker C
While it's depleted, basically.
Speaker A
Absolutely.
Speaker A
While it was going downhill, it was amazing for my mental health because I'm an outdoor kid and always climbing trees and things like that.
Speaker A
But physically, over time, it just declined.
Speaker A
And when you have operation after operation after operation, you're.
Speaker A
I mean, I'm always complaining to my friend.
Speaker A
She's a personal trainer.
Speaker A
I'm like, damn it.
Speaker A
I'm back to, you know, the start again.
Speaker A
Here we go.
Speaker A
We need to.
Speaker A
We need to get going.
Speaker A
We need to sort of get off ground zero again.
Speaker A
And so, yeah, I did think it was me.
Speaker A
I did think I wasn't good enough.
Speaker A
I wasn't.
Speaker A
And I was working with the doctors and I was visiting after a period of time.
Speaker A
So when I went off the tamoxifen, I went through perimenopause.
Speaker A
That's when the real symptoms hit.
Speaker A
And I thought, oh, my.
Speaker A
Jesus Christ, what the hell is happening?
Speaker A
When I couldn't make a decision, when I couldn't find words, when I couldn't remember the topic of the meeting I'd been in with executives, and we'd been in there for an hour, and we'd been talking about X, Y and Z.
Speaker A
And I had to come up with all these strategies to basically be my hard drive for my memory, which was writing everything down.
Speaker A
So the body, I mean, you learn to cope.
Speaker A
That's what you do as a, you know, as anybody in the world.
Speaker C
As a woman.
Speaker A
As a woman, but particularly in this, you know, in this situation, because I really didn't know what was happening to me.
Speaker A
And a lot of the time I couldn't put words on it either.
Speaker A
I think that's important to say because I didn't even think it was menopause.
Speaker A
I was looking for something else.
Speaker A
So I was on Dr. Google.
Speaker A
I was visiting.
Speaker A
I mean, cool.
Speaker A
The list of doctors.
Speaker A
Neurologist, psychologist, psychiatrist, cardiologist, Cardiologist, cardiologist, gynecologist, burnout clinic.
Speaker A
I did end up in a burnout clinic because my body got to the point where it could not function anymore.
Speaker A
And I was working full time at this point in time.
Speaker A
So I did have to go on sick leave.
Speaker A
And we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it could be.
Speaker A
And I had some pretty nasty conversations with doctors who immediately said to me, well, you know, we can See, maybe there's something there, but you haven't met the threshold of fainting or whatever their imaginary threshold might be.
Speaker A
And so this is all psychosomatic.
Speaker A
We think this.
Speaker C
It's all in your head.
Speaker A
It's all in my head.
Speaker A
And this was.
Speaker A
Or.
Speaker A
You look too good to be sick.
Speaker A
How many times did I hear that, you know, walk into the psychiatrist for my first appointment, you look too good to be sick.
Speaker A
Well, that's my upbringing.
Speaker A
My dad was a doctor.
Speaker A
I got told to, you know, get up and dress up and be there and look good the best you could.
Speaker A
I would have loved to have turned up in my PJs.
Speaker A
Don't get me wrong.
Speaker D
Yes.
Speaker B
Yeah.
Speaker A
In fact, I didn't even want to go, but, you know, I did.
Speaker A
There were nine specialist visits at least over the period of time when I went through that really mad perimenopause phase.
Speaker A
And it is known that in cancer patients who have gone through early menopause with chemotherapy, that if it does come back again, you do get to go through it again, then it's really much, much, much worse.
Speaker A
Yeah, but I didn't know this was happening.
Speaker A
And so this is the scary part of my journey.
Speaker A
It's been this big journey of discovery.
Speaker B
So I have some questions, or let's say first a comment and then a question.
Speaker B
You are an educated person.
Speaker B
And in my brain, while you're talking, I'm thinking, if this educated person who's living in one of the most secure countries in the world, who has the financial resources to go to these specialists, who has the support from who, obviously you had a support system, and all of this happened to you.
Speaker B
And I'm just thinking about women.
Speaker B
The less.
Speaker B
Less fortunate situation than yourself, either.
Speaker B
Not educated, no support system, no finances.
Speaker B
And I'm really.
Speaker B
I'm really very sad to even think about what those women have gone through.
Speaker B
Just hearing.
Speaker C
I don't know.
Speaker B
I'm getting choked up here because I just.
Speaker A
Yeah, it's.
Speaker B
It's very.
Speaker B
I mean, because I'm also fortunate.
Speaker B
I also have this situation where I. I know I can go to a doctor if I need care, but I also feel in the same situation where I feel like I'm well educated even in the body, in more situations than even the common person.
Speaker B
So what would you say to someone who's in.
Speaker B
Even in your same situation or less fortunate.
Speaker B
How do you even begin to conceptualize how to speak up for yourself, how to continue going?
Speaker B
Because obviously you touched on the mental stress of this.
Speaker B
You touched on.
Speaker B
I mean, can't imagine the amount of ups and downs, mentally, that you went through.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
What would you say to someone who's like, hey, I'm in the same situation you are, and I have no idea where to even start?
Speaker B
Or they don't even know that they have an option.
Speaker A
That's the thing.
Speaker A
I think that's the thing about the medical system and the current narrative about being sick.
Speaker A
When you're sick, you're sick, you have your treatment and you get better, which is the general narrative everybody spins.
Speaker A
For someone who is a cancer patient, for example, that's not the narrative at all.
Speaker A
The narrative is much more complex than that, because when you finish your cancer treatment, that's actually when, dare I say it, the shit hits the fan because you're literally dropped by all of the doctors.
Speaker A
There is no one caring for you.
Speaker A
There's no visit back to the oncologist or anybody.
Speaker A
I visit my gynecologist every six months and had an mri, and that was my touch point.
Speaker A
So there was no conversation, there was even no discussion about what could be happening to my body because she was ticking her box.
Speaker A
She's on hormone suppressants, and that's how it is.
Speaker C
Which is almost the most frustrating part for me somehow.
Speaker C
But go on.
Speaker A
Yeah, I mean, 100%.
Speaker A
I'm an educated person.
Speaker A
I'm the daughter of an obstetrician and gynecologist.
Speaker A
My mother and my sister and my aunt has had breast cancer.
Speaker A
And so it's not new territory.
Speaker A
However, the menopause topic was new territory.
Speaker A
And because I wasn't told to, you know, I was actively told just to, you know, ignore that.
Speaker A
It's not happening.
Speaker A
I didn't go there, and I didn't search to see what those symptoms were because, you know, you don't always want to be sick.
Speaker A
When you're sick, you actually want to be better.
Speaker A
That's another thing.
Speaker A
And so, you know, it doesn't matter at this point in time how much money you have.
Speaker A
My support network was not big at all.
Speaker A
I was a foreigner in the country.
Speaker A
I was in a German medical system.
Speaker A
My German was okay, but I did learn a lot of German there.
Speaker A
I had a very small group of friends who were absolutely wonderful and amazing.
Speaker A
And over the period of time, like I said before, I visited many, many specialists.
Speaker A
And many of them said, it's on your head.
Speaker A
There's nothing wrong with you.
Speaker A
We can't see anything, or we can see something, but it's not a big deal.
Speaker A
You begin to lose faith in yourself.
Speaker A
And when you grow up in an environment where your dad's a doctor and you need to really be very, very sick to be seen, you learn to stop trusting your body.
Speaker A
You learn to stop listening to your body.
Speaker A
And I had put all my faith in the medical system because that's also how I was brought up to trust the doctors.
Speaker A
To trust the doctors would give me the answer for, for what I'm turning up with when I turn up to an appointment.
Speaker A
And before I touch on that topic, I just first want to say that the whole hormone topic and the whole menopause perimenopause topic is taught in the curriculum of medical school, which is say six years at best, case for four hours.
Speaker A
Wow.
Speaker A
Worst case, zero hours.
Speaker A
So that's.
Speaker A
So we're a woman going through perimenopause.
Speaker A
So we're coming into that time.
Speaker A
Everything we read, everything we hear, all the marketing material, go to your doctor, go to your doctor.
Speaker A
Go to your doctor, go to your doctor.
Speaker A
Well, we go to our doctors and our doctors are actually not educated on the topic.
Speaker A
And this is why this dismissal is happening.
Speaker A
That really kind of point in time where I'd been to nine specialists I'd had in the space of three weeks, I think it was.
Speaker A
I had an oncological psychologist who I sat down with because clearly I was losing it.
Speaker A
He said he'd call me back and he didn't.
Speaker A
I had another doctor say to me, this is all in your head.
Speaker A
And I have another one say, I wouldn't give you hormones when I figured out it was menopause.
Speaker A
And so I guess the first point is that women need to know that the people that you're visiting are often working on a narrative that is 30 years old from a study, the WHI study, which was done on an older group of women and applied to the general population.
Speaker A
So the narrative since that time has not really changed.
Speaker A
And if you are very lucky, you will go to a doctor who's done that extra training who will be able to help and support you.
Speaker A
And if you are every other person, then you will be gaslighted or told it's on your head.
Speaker B
What can someone do to find a physician that has had that extra training?
Speaker B
Or is it like, hey, I want my physician to be just out of school because they potentially have the most up to date information on hormones.
Speaker C
I'm not sure they do.
Speaker A
Rarely they don't.
Speaker A
So last week I was visiting an endocrinologist at the Basel hospital and she actually teaches the hormone topic to the medical students, the Basel medical students and she said, we get two free hours and that is it.
Speaker A
And she said even the students come to her to say, we need to know more on this topic.
Speaker A
So it doesn't matter how young or old the doctor is.
Speaker A
I expected my gynecologist, obstetrician to know something about the topic.
Speaker A
And she is a woman herself, and she is a very similar age, and she didn't.
Speaker A
So for her, it's also a discovery journey.
Speaker A
And if she's more passionate about babies than gynecology, then.
Speaker A
And she's not going to tell you that.
Speaker A
They're not going to tell you that.
Speaker A
That's the thing.
Speaker A
And I think, you know, back to the.
Speaker A
Back to the advocacy side of things.
Speaker A
When I figured out it was menopause, this noise came out of my body like you would never believe.
Speaker A
My friend had said, you need to listen to this book by Davina McCall on menopausing.
Speaker A
And I said, oh, no, no.
Speaker A
She said, absolutely.
Speaker A
Listen to it.
Speaker A
You are in every story.
Speaker A
And so I took my dog on a dog walk, and I was up on the fields, and all of a sudden this noise came out of my.
Speaker A
Somewhere within my stomach.
Speaker A
It was this very weird, strange.
Speaker A
It was like my soul had escaped from my body.
Speaker A
And I'm not, you know, that's not me, not that kind of person.
Speaker A
But it was very unusual.
Speaker A
I thought, oh, my freaking God.
Speaker A
Yeah, it's menopause.
Speaker A
And no, we've not had this conversation.
Speaker A
So where my advocacy really started was I'm in communications.
Speaker A
I'm very visual.
Speaker A
I came home and sat down with my computer and I created a slide and I Googled.
Speaker A
Thank you, Dr. Google.
Speaker A
Sometimes you're good.
Speaker A
What are the symptoms of menopause?
Speaker A
And some of them are new.
Speaker A
You know, there's the 5 to 10 that people generally know.
Speaker A
And my slide ended up with 50 boxes.
Speaker A
And one of them was just menopause symptoms, and the other 49 were other symptoms that I'd come up with.
Speaker A
And I looked at that list and I just went, oh, my God.
Speaker A
And I went through every single one of them.
Speaker A
And I rated it on a scale of 0 to 10 in terms of my severity.
Speaker A
And I'm not an extreme person.
Speaker A
I can tolerate a lot of pain.
Speaker A
I can.
Speaker A
You know, I sit outside the boundaries, obviously, but of the 49 symptoms, I had 47.
Speaker A
And of the 47, I had 40 on a scale of 8 to 10, 40.
Speaker A
And one of those boxes was depression.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker A
And I'm not a depressive person.
Speaker A
And one of those boxes was depression.
Speaker A
And so I Then that gave me evidence, knowledge about my body that I had never seen before.
Speaker A
Because I was able to say, oh, yeah, I have that.
Speaker A
Oh, yeah, I have that.
Speaker A
Oh, yeah, I have that.
Speaker A
Because before that with chemotherapy, I wasn't able to actually voice what was happening yet.
Speaker A
The pee is dribbling down my leg when I stand up.
Speaker C
Yeah.
Speaker A
But maybe that's just a time of life thing.
Speaker C
Yeah.
Speaker A
Or that's just.
Speaker A
Maybe I have a urinary tract infection, which is also a sign of, you know, perimenopause.
Speaker A
This is, you know, your hormones are low when things like that.
Speaker A
But I didn't know that.
Speaker A
So that was really the start.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
What I'm hearing is an action that we can do as.
Speaker B
I would just say humans in general is when you experience something.
Speaker B
I have a medical journal.
Speaker B
So I use a digital journal.
Speaker B
I use day one.
Speaker B
I absolutely love this because you can have different journals for different things.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
And I have a medical journal I started a long time ago.
Speaker B
What I'm hearing is that in general, we need to get it out of our head and into a physical state.
Speaker B
Because I think that's the switch also, mindset wise, that it's not just living in my head, it's physically on something.
Speaker B
And you can see, oh, how many times has this specific symptom happened?
Speaker B
I can't ignore it anymore.
Speaker B
I can't just distract myself away from this.
Speaker B
It's.
Speaker B
I see the data in front of me.
Speaker A
Absolutely, I agree.
Speaker A
And I'm a data driven person too.
Speaker A
And what's really opened my eyes is that once I created that slide, I then went into an Excel sheet and I then listed those symptoms and I started tracking those symptoms and it was very, very obvious what was happening.
Speaker A
And once I was able to have a piece of paper that I could print out and take to the doctor, the conversation really became a very different conversation.
Speaker A
Because I think many women, first, we spend a lot of time questioning ourselves and thinking, oh, you know, we're just losing it.
Speaker A
We just need to, like I said, try harder, jump higher, you know, go further, whatever, you know, all of those things.
Speaker A
But when, you know, this is when my friend sort of said to me, no, we actually need to do something.
Speaker A
Once I had that list and I had that visual and I could print it out, then I had my evidence and I had my case.
Speaker A
And I could say, of these symptoms, I have 47, and one of them is depression.
Speaker A
And these are all the other ones.
Speaker A
What is happening to my body and why has it got to this stage?
Speaker A
And when I had that.
Speaker A
And I think if you.
Speaker A
If you.
Speaker A
You're not taught to advocate for yourself, and it's actually a skill.
Speaker A
It's a skill that you need to learn.
Speaker A
And once I have that, and I went with my friend, we made an appointment with my doctor.
Speaker A
She used to sell HRT in the old days, which was very ironic.
Speaker A
And we printed off the clinical trials and we went out for dinner with my gynecologist and said, look, this is what we have.
Speaker C
But I have a question about that, because we just discussed how they literally get zero.
Speaker C
Educate.
Speaker C
Well, 0.0.1% education on this if.
Speaker C
If at all.
Speaker C
It's very outdated.
Speaker C
There's not much new research going on.
Speaker C
Maybe now there is a little bit, but still not enough.
Speaker C
Was it helpful?
Speaker C
And I want to say this just before you answer.
Speaker C
I was listening to a podcast of a very famous gynecologist who talks about how she is embarrassed about how she used to function as a gynecologist before she went through perimenopause herself.
Speaker C
And she actually shared that during, I think, her internship or something like that.
Speaker C
They basically used the terminology like something like www.
Speaker C
Like woman.
Speaker A
I listened to the same one.
Speaker A
Yeah, I know.
Speaker C
There you go.
Speaker A
And I wanted to talk about that today.
Speaker A
Yeah, because.
Speaker C
Because if they have.
Speaker C
If they.
Speaker C
They don't learn about these things, but they're like, oh, it's just a whiny woman.
Speaker C
Like, let's just, you know, tell her it's all in her head and send her off on her way.
Speaker C
How is it actually helpful to come with more information than the doctor knows?
Speaker C
Because as we know, some doctors, not all, luckily not all, but a lot of doctors would go, I know better than you.
Speaker C
I have learned eight years plus.
Speaker C
Go yourself.
Speaker C
Like, at the end of the day, right?
Speaker C
I had a doctor tell me that that hormone therapy is like plastic surgery while I'm telling him that I'm bleeding two weeks of the month.
Speaker A
That should be called out.
Speaker A
I'm sorry, but that needs to be called out because that is absolute gaslighting.
Speaker A
And it.
Speaker A
Yeah, come on.
Speaker A
If we went to a restaurant and somebody served up a really crappy meal, then we rated the meal.
Speaker A
How was it out of five?
Speaker A
Well, maybe it was a one or maybe it was a two.
Speaker A
Where is this in the medical world?
Speaker A
And it's not that I'm wanting to bring down doctors, because this is not, you know, this is not the purpose of this.
Speaker A
Doctors do amazing jobs every day and save people's lives, and they can never know everything about everything to do with the body.
Speaker C
Of course they're human.
Speaker A
Yeah, they're human.
Speaker A
But it's when you mix arrogance with ignorance, ego, which is what you get, ego.
Speaker A
And instead of them saying, okay, you've come to me with this, I understand.
Speaker A
Actually, I'm not really sure what it could be.
Speaker A
I think it's out of my league.
Speaker A
I recommend that you go and see this kind of doctor.
Speaker C
Right.
Speaker A
So that is how doctors should be treating women.
Speaker A
What you said about www so whinging white woman essentially, or WW whinging woman situation, as someone turns up to AE and has lots of symptoms and they sit there and they look at the, you know, what's happening from a clinical perspective?
Speaker A
Well, it's.
Speaker A
Yes, a little bit heart dipping, Yes, a little bit this, but nothing is.
Speaker A
You're not having a heart attack.
Speaker C
You're not.
Speaker C
Exactly.
Speaker C
You're not.
Speaker C
You're not.
Speaker C
You don't have one foot in the grave, so you're fine.
Speaker A
You don't have outside.
Speaker A
You don't have something that's an emergency.
Speaker A
And over time in the medical field, because they didn't have the knowledge and the education about hormones and menopause was never a topic.
Speaker A
They didn't.
Speaker A
They couldn't connect the dots because they didn't have the dots to connect.
Speaker A
And when, because menopause has hundreds of symptoms, every woman turns out differently with different symptoms.
Speaker A
And when you can't measure what the issue is through a monitor, ecg, you know, whatever it might be, then.
Speaker A
Then they think you're hysterical and you're making it up and it is all in your head.
Speaker A
And so actually, I understand why they say that.
Speaker A
Sure.
Speaker A
Because they don't have the knowledge and the experience to.
Speaker A
To call it out.
Speaker A
And this is, you know, fundamentally, this is just a huge disaster for women's health, which really needs to change.
Speaker B
Well, part of this is the fact that how much energy, mental bandwidth it takes for someone, first of all, to go to a doctor, make the appointment, go do it.
Speaker B
You get there.
Speaker B
Even I go with my notebook.
Speaker B
I have my questions all laid out so I don't forget.
Speaker B
And then you're faced with this, you know, the perception.
Speaker B
I think, Donna, we've talked about this before like that.
Speaker B
And lawyers, like doctors and lawyers are like the two that professions that you think, they've gone through so much school.
Speaker B
They're professionals and they know.
Speaker B
They know best.
Speaker B
They know better than I do.
Speaker B
And.
Speaker B
Okay.
Speaker B
And then just gonna walk out and ask very little questions because I don't want to sound stupid.
Speaker B
And.
Speaker B
And then you get into a situation where if you don't feel comfortable and most people don't to challenge a doctor, then it doesn't.
Speaker B
Yeah.
Speaker B
I don't know where my conclusion is.
Speaker B
It's like it just makes it that much more difficult than going into a restaurant having a shitty meal and saying, we're never going to go there again.
Speaker B
Because there's 15 other restaurants to choose from in the medical industry.
Speaker B
Now I have to go find another gynecologist.
Speaker B
There's.
Speaker B
Everybody's on a waiting list.
Speaker B
The one that everybody recommends isn't taking new patients because they're amazing.
Speaker C
And who knows what ends how much time and how much attention that doctor is going to give you.
Speaker C
And that's the other problem, is that you can bounce like as.
Speaker C
As you did actually, Belinda.
Speaker C
You bounce between.
Speaker C
What did you.
Speaker C
Your number was like.
Speaker A
I was.
Speaker A
I was at pinball.
Speaker A
There were nine different visits to different specialists.
Speaker A
Nine.
Speaker A
And you know, it's frightening.
Speaker A
And the way the medical system is set up is it allows for them to ping pong patients.
Speaker C
Yeah.
Speaker A
Because nobody actually owns your case.
Speaker A
And if you are like me, they like to say complex cancer patient.
Speaker A
Well, sorry about every cancer patient is complex because cancer just doesn't hit the breast.
Speaker A
It hits every system in your body.
Speaker A
This is where the whole medical system is not set up to deal with this.
Speaker A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A
I mean, the, the medical field is interesting to look at the way it's set up.
Speaker A
Everybody focuses on one part of the body.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker A
So the psychiatrist is focused on the mood.
Speaker A
So I'm visiting the psychiatrist because I have depression.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker A
Really bad depression to the point of talking about mental health.
Speaker A
And you know, I don't know if I can survive this.
Speaker A
This treatment that's meant to save my life is actually killing me, killing me.
Speaker A
And then you go to the cardiologist because your heart rate keeps dropping to 32 beats a minute and they only look at your heart and they make you do tests.
Speaker A
And also I went to three, back to three.
Speaker A
One of them was the same one the second time.
Speaker A
And he was very, very angry that I had turned up in a different clinic in Reinfelden.
Speaker A
Oh, I've seen you before.
Speaker A
Here you are again.
Speaker A
I said, well, my house arts.
Speaker A
My local doctor has sent me back because I have all the stats on my apple watch and I've shown him and he can see there's an issue.
Speaker A
So can we talk about this?
Speaker A
No, there's nothing to talk about.
Speaker A
We could fit you with the pacemaker, but because you've had operations around Your wrist region.
Speaker A
We're not going to do that.
Speaker A
So come back if you faint.
Speaker A
So each doctor treats something completely separately because they're so specialized, which is wonderful that where the whole medical system is really failing women, but also menopausal women and women who have had that cancer history is that nobody's looking across.
Speaker A
Like, nobody actually asked me, what is your hormonal history?
Speaker A
And honestly, I probably wouldn't have been able to answer because I didn't really even think about hormones.
Speaker A
But that's not the point.
Speaker A
The point is that unless you are armed with the knowledge and you understand your history and what it has meant for your body, then it's really hard to have a conversation.
Speaker A
It's really hard to get attention.
Speaker A
And I did get to the point where I actually was so traumatized by visiting doctors, I started having a secondary tic.
Speaker A
So my head would tick when I was in there to the point where it would lift all the way up.
Speaker A
And I was shaking like a dog that hadn't had a nice time in life.
Speaker A
And that's not the sort of person I am.
Speaker A
And so.
Speaker C
Is there a profession or.
Speaker B
Anybody who does this?
Speaker B
Kind of almost like a patient advocate is what I'm thinking of.
Speaker B
But like a personalized patient advocate.
Speaker B
Are there people out there that somebody can call or be with that goes to doctor's visits with them?
Speaker B
I mean, are there people like that?
Speaker A
Not that I know of.
Speaker C
So they're maybe in America.
Speaker C
Yeah, Well, I mean, I actually used to go with my.
Speaker C
Well, used to go.
Speaker C
Like there were clients of mine that I would go to the doctor with for the sake of patient advocacy.
Speaker C
There are.
Speaker C
In Switzerland, it also depends, like, if you're with efal, like a special insurance because of illness, chronic illness and stuff like that, you'd be able to get either them or your case manager with your health insurance.
Speaker C
But you really have to get an angel who's willing to do that, who has the time, you know, so it's.
Speaker C
It's possible, but you have to know to ask for it.
Speaker C
And I think that's also part of the problem, is that there are some solution there.
Speaker C
There is some help and some support out there.
Speaker C
No one tells you about it unless you ask that specific question, which then goes back to advocacy on your own.
Speaker C
Because if you don't know how to ask that question or you don't know what you're searching for, no one's going to tell you.
Speaker A
Exactly.
Speaker C
So it's just this vicious circle of like, you know, and, you know, you're you keep mentioning, you know, obviously with cancer it's just so much more complicated.
Speaker C
Your life is on the line because we hear cancer, we hear life threatening.
Speaker C
Not all cancers are.
Speaker C
Not necessarily, all stages are of course, but you know, it's scary.
Speaker C
It is a scary word.
Speaker C
You know, the C word is a scary one.
Speaker C
But at the end of the day, every human is a complete machinery that is unique and you know, every person will have different symptoms and side effects.
Speaker C
I remember going to my doctor with 20, a list of 24 things and literally he just said like, look, it's all in your head.
Speaker C
And I got so frustrated in that moment because I was like, I know this is not all in my head.
Speaker C
My hair is not falling in chunks because it's all in my head.
Speaker C
Like I don't think my head can manifest that.
Speaker C
You know, there were certain things on my list where I was like, no, how is that even possible?
Speaker C
And it was just so frustrating to get that.
Speaker C
And some women or some people will go back home and as you mentioned, Belinda, they will just self sabotage.
Speaker C
Like they will just say like I'm just, I'm stupid, I'm crazy, I'm fill in the blank.
Speaker C
Instead of going like, wait a minute, I know my body.
Speaker C
I have been in this body for 30, 40, 50 plus years.
Speaker C
And this schmuck sorry is telling me that it's all in my head.
Speaker C
I disagree.
Speaker C
And to take that time in again, it all depends on your mental load, mental ability in that moment to really collect yourself and believe in yourself.
Speaker C
It's so difficult when you're dealing with 50 or 150 symptoms and you're struggling with life and you're just trying to.
Speaker A
Oh my God.
Speaker C
And you're just literally trying to survive and keep your kids alive.
Speaker A
At the end of the day you're burnt out and you're at the point where you can't make a decision.
Speaker A
You can't get out of bed, you can't.
Speaker A
You spend 20 minutes standing over your underwear drawer not being able to choose a pair of.
Speaker A
Yeah, because your limited brain can't make a decision because you've lost your executive function.
Speaker A
It's not that you need to choose a specific fade, you just need to put a pair on.
Speaker A
But you can't, you can't get dressed in the right order.
Speaker A
I was putting my shoes on before my socks.
Speaker A
And so it's not just that, the fact that I have to advocate for myself, but I'm in such deep burnout, my body is absolutely shutting down and I still have to get out of bed, make the appointments and get to the doctor and then sit there for however long and explain the situation with all of your symptoms.
Speaker A
I mean, I. I didn't really have many of those at the time because I couldn't really explain it, but, you know, only to be turned down, and it really.
Speaker A
It wears you down and you do stop listening to your body.
Speaker A
I'd just given up on my body.
Speaker A
I'd actually literally given up.
Speaker A
In fact, I didn't want to be here anymore because when I had sort of three doctors in the space of three week all tell me, this is all in your head.
Speaker A
You have two arms, you have two legs.
Speaker A
If you can stand up in the morning, you can, you know, get up and get to work.
Speaker A
It's all psychosystematics all in your head.
Speaker A
You need to think differently.
Speaker A
It just, you know, you give up.
Speaker A
I really did.
Speaker B
When you were researching your book, Biologically Dismissed, You Were Never the Problem.
Speaker B
Amazing title, by the way.
Speaker A
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker B
Did you find any information or any data collection on this topic in terms of women suffering through illnesses, chronic or acute, otherwise that they wouldn't have suffered through if they just had doctors that had done something rather than not done something?
Speaker B
Is there data on that?
Speaker A
So I think there's data everywhere today.
Speaker A
I mean, Mary Claire Haver was one of the doctors we talked about.
Speaker A
She has lots of data out there.
Speaker A
There's Kelly Caspers in the us she's always bringing data out about testosterone, all sorts of things.
Speaker A
And Louise Newson in the uk, she runs a private menopause clinic.
Speaker A
She has many, many women go.
Speaker A
And she's collecting the data of the women that go there.
Speaker A
And I think, you know, the medical system really relies on data.
Speaker A
They want clinical trials, they want stats, they want numbers, they want, okay, did it improve?
Speaker A
Did it not?
Speaker A
You know, do we approve it?
Speaker A
Do we not?
Speaker A
Well, the interesting thing about menopause is that there are so many symptoms, it's very difficult to do a clinical trial.
Speaker A
But what we do know is that we've known hormones have played a role for more than 100 years.
Speaker A
We've known there were many symptoms of menopause.
Speaker A
And I think the medical system has not updated their manuals like the dsm, the mental health manual, to consider women.
Speaker A
And it's not just to include women who have adhd, for example, but to consider women.
Speaker A
So, you know, back to the point on stats, Louise Newson had a really one that came out recently.
Speaker A
It was 94% of women who go on HRT for their menopause symptoms have had a huge reduction in suicidal thoughts.
Speaker A
Wow.
Speaker A
I mean, it's phenomenal.
Speaker A
You look at heart disease, you look at osteoporosis and it's.
Speaker A
If you look at the stats for this age group of women, for example, the suicide stats for women in this age group in the UK is the highest it's ever been in 30 years.
Speaker A
And you cannot tell me.
Speaker A
And we know that hormones, it's not psychology, it's physiology.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker A
And so if you give hormones to a body that needs hormones to function, like giving a diabetic insulin, that body will function and if you don't, that body will stop functioning.
Speaker A
And so there are many, many stats out there.
Speaker A
And I think whoever, the fda, they're looking for some big, enormous clinical trial with lots and lots of people.
Speaker A
But, you know, we have that with the WHI study and it went south.
Speaker A
But there are definitely Nordic studies that have used over nearly a million women who really come out to say that HRT is so great at preventing Alzheimer's, osteoporosis, coronary disease, heart disease, neurological issues, Alzheimer's.
Speaker A
And although it might not be directly related, because menopause is not a disease, it's a time of life.
Speaker A
It's like puberty, it's the opposite of puberty.
Speaker A
So, yeah, I get it, you just have to go through it.
Speaker A
However, the impact of 142, 150, 200 symptoms that a woman experiences on her body, everyone differently, some not at all, can cause so many diseases.
Speaker A
And one of the stats, or actually, when I put together my view and I'd actually written my book, it gave me the opportunity to reflect back on whether I was good enough, strong enough, brave enough, all of that.
Speaker A
But actually, when I looked at the stats, it told me that I had a massive increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
Speaker A
Of course, I lost 3% of my bone density cumulatively over the years.
Speaker A
So what's that?
Speaker A
Three times 14 if you want.
Speaker A
This is a huge percent.
Speaker A
And so the stats are out there, it's just the systems, I'll put it that way, are just not getting their bloody act together to get their frigging people changed.
Speaker A
And it's not.
Speaker A
Let's just educate the new doctors that are coming in.
Speaker A
Well, that might be fine for the generation of girls who are born in 20 years time.
Speaker A
We have women who are sitting in all of these chairs today who are suffering with all of these different things, who don't know what the hell's going on and they have no idea that if they don't get help for what they're going through, then it hugely impacts their health for the rest of their life.
Speaker A
And you don't want to be an 80 year old who breaks a hip and then dies.
Speaker B
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A
And so you want to know what you can do to make sure that you can have the best bone health you possibly can.
Speaker A
And maybe it's not just hormones, maybe it's also, let's get to the gym, let's do some weight training, let's be physically active.
Speaker A
So there's lots of different things you can do.
Speaker A
However, if you don't have hormones in the body, fundamentally whatever you do is a little bit of the full micro on top of the benchtop.
Speaker C
Yeah.
Speaker C
And we're talking about hormones here because we're talking about your breast cancer and the treatment that you were given.
Speaker C
But this is true for everything.
Speaker C
This is true for nutrients.
Speaker C
This is actually the reason why I got into functional medicine, because that's where they kind of look at the bigger picture.
Speaker C
And me struggling for decades, honestly, with mental health, with physical, you know, all the things.
Speaker C
That is why I was like, I need some answers and I need for someone to look at me as an individual and to look at the full body and the full picture.
Speaker C
But we're missing the plot here.
Speaker C
I mean, like, women are 50% of the population, and let's pretend that not all of them are suffering from.
Speaker C
I mean, we all have symptoms of perimenopause, but let's say not all of them feel completely broken down and miserable and maybe even suicidal and depressed.
Speaker C
Let's say it's 80%, which I'm probably downgrading this.
Speaker C
That is a huge number of the population who is now stuck with aging parents, kids who are now teenagers.
Speaker C
So they're little shits anyways.
Speaker C
And you're working, you're trying to survive, you're trying to juggle a million balls all at once, and now your body is falling apart.
Speaker C
So this is literally why we invited you over, because I think women's health is so important and advocating for yourself is so important.
Speaker C
And we don't have to suffer.
Speaker C
We've always been told your period pains, that's normal.
Speaker C
You're a woman, you know, you have whatever.
Speaker C
Oh, yeah, it's normal.
Speaker C
You know, you're a mom or you're this or you're that and you're just a www.
Speaker C
And we're not.
Speaker C
We are actually taking on a lot more.
Speaker C
And we need to understand that.
Speaker C
We also need to stand up for ourselves, for doctors Whether they're men or women, whether they are smarter than us or not, you know your body best.
Speaker C
So thank you so much, Belinda.
Speaker C
I mean, you gave me.
Speaker C
I went through a roller coaster of emotions and physical pain and like, you know, it was, it was.
Speaker C
Thank you for sharing your story.
Speaker A
Yeah, you're welcome.
Speaker C
I'm sorry.
Speaker A
I actually wrote something down and I think this is really important for when we talked about efficacy.
Speaker A
But I've got four, five points that I think is really important for women to sit down and do.
Speaker A
To be able to go and have that very brave conversation where you want to speak at an eye to eye level with your doctor, whoever that doctor is.
Speaker A
I created a spreadsheet with and sent it to all of my girlfriends with all of these different symptoms and things and, you know, gone with them to menopause clinics, things like that.
Speaker A
So I, I just want to go through those five things.
Speaker B
Yes, definitely.
Speaker A
So the first one is prepare before you go in.
Speaker A
So like we talked about, write down every symptom and if you don't know why you feel so weird, then if you're about the age group 44 to 55, it's the first thing you should think of.
Speaker A
And it's the first thing that doctors should think of too.
Speaker A
So get onto the Internet and get those symptoms and go through each and every one of them and log yourself out of ten, how am I?
Speaker A
And track that.
Speaker A
Know when it started, know when it got worse, know what triggered it to get worse.
Speaker A
Know you know, when the new ones come in.
Speaker A
The second one is name the pattern, not just the symptom.
Speaker A
Because if we go in and say, I've got brain fog, often we do that as well when we turn up the door, I've got brain fog.
Speaker A
And so maybe they give you something for brain fog, or oh, I feel depressed, or oh, I can't cope anymore.
Speaker A
We often go in with one symptom and so they don't have the whole picture of what's happening.
Speaker A
So maybe they give you something like, I got happy drops because I couldn't cope.
Speaker A
I mean, seriously, what the fuck are happy drops?
Speaker A
But anyway, did they do anything?
Speaker A
Honestly, no.
Speaker A
Because when you have no hormones, there's no happiness and the drops are not going to help you.
Speaker A
So, yeah, don't go in and just say, I'm tired, you need to go in and say, I've been experiencing fatigue, it's unresponsive to sleep.
Speaker A
It's been unresponsive for the last three years.
Speaker A
Alongside that, I'm having cognitive flowing I'm really struggling to remember things.
Speaker A
I can't put appointments in the diary on the right day at the right time.
Speaker A
I mean, everybody has a different experience and it's really important to know what that is so you can join the story together.
Speaker A
And I want to understand what's connecting these things together.
Speaker A
Because if you go in with a case, they're much more interested than, oh, I don't feel so good, you know, I've got a headache or I've had migraines or something like that.
Speaker A
If you go in with a case.
Speaker A
And that's actually what doctors are really good at if they've been trained.
Speaker A
So name the pattern, not just the symptoms.
Speaker A
The next one is to ask the questions that they haven't asked.
Speaker A
So at the end of the consultation, if they haven't asked you particular questions, you can say to them, with your new knowledge of hormones, and then, of course, have you considered that this could be hormones?
Speaker A
And if you get brushed off, then that's a telling sign that this doctor has not been trained and you're in the wrong place and you need to go and find your A team.
Speaker A
And if they don't refer you on, that's another sign.
Speaker A
And if they don't pick up on that, then it's time to leave stage left and ask your girlfriends and sign up somewhere else.
Speaker A
And that's really important to be able to take that to the next conversation.
Speaker A
Let me see what else I've got.
Speaker A
Bring evidence, like I said.
Speaker A
Print it out, print it all out.
Speaker A
And the reduction in suicidal thoughts, I mean, that's a statistic.
Speaker A
Pull out these statistics.
Speaker A
I know that this could be going south.
Speaker A
I feel like this is me.
Speaker A
I'm listening to my body.
Speaker A
The Lancet Commission also has a really great report that came out a couple of years ago on women's health.
Speaker A
And there's loads of stats in that.
Speaker A
The next one is refuse the non answer.
Speaker A
So, oh, your blood test looks normal.
Speaker A
You fit within the normal range.
Speaker A
So I had low serum ferritin since I was 18, so it was sitting at 6, and 6 is way below the low part of the blood curve.
Speaker A
You're fine, you're fine.
Speaker A
Okay, we'll give you some iron tablets.
Speaker A
But they finish and I don't get more.
Speaker A
And so my energy, my serum ferritin was so low, it was basically on the floor.
Speaker A
I mean, how in earth did I get out of bed each day?
Speaker A
And often when you have a blood test, you don't even get the results.
Speaker A
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker A
Here in Switzerland, you can, if you're with certain insurances, download an app and you can keep track of that.
Speaker A
And when I got onto that, I saw that, oh, all of these are red or all of these are orange.
Speaker A
And so when I have the data, very important, I can go in with something that they can relate to that actually shows that something's wrong, not working properly.
Speaker A
So, you know, your bloods look normal is not a diagnosis.
Speaker A
And it's probably stress is not a diagnosis.
Speaker A
Come back if it gets worse is not a plan.
Speaker A
Yeah, that's gaslighting, dismissal, all of those things.
Speaker A
So you are allowed to say that I understand that the tests have come back normal, but I still listening to my body don't feel normal.
Speaker A
And we know with the menopause clinic that I've been going to in London that they actually prescribe based on symptoms, so it's not on blood tests.
Speaker A
And so I sit, do a questionnaire before I go and I sit down and go through everything and what level it is at and it's very obvious what I need more of.
Speaker A
And so it's not rocket science when you know what you know works with what, what the levers are.
Speaker A
But when you come in as a, as a woman who really has no idea what's happening, you are not going to get any answers.
Speaker A
But if you come in as a woman who knows about the topic, has awareness, has the statistics, knows where they're going and can actually put a case together and you're not there to demand, you know, advocacy starts small, but when you can go and then have that conversation, there are much better outcomes for patients.
Speaker A
And great thing is share it with your girlfriends.
Speaker A
Yeah, I was going to say my girlfriends.
Speaker A
What's new?
Speaker A
I had a friend come over in the weekend.
Speaker A
She saw 142 symptoms and went, felt like killing my husband, you know, and, and that is also a sign, right.
Speaker A
Not that she's going to do that, but, you know, it gets to the point where you don't even know why you want to do things or not do things.
Speaker A
And then you're questioning, I think I'm going insane.
Speaker A
And insanity is, you know, a little bit part of the process.
Speaker A
But if you know why you're going insane, you can support yourself with that.
Speaker A
Right.
Speaker A
If you don't, then that's when the depression really sinks in and you start believing that you are the problem because that's what all the doctors are telling you.
Speaker A
So, yeah, figure.
Speaker B
Belinda, thank you so much for all of our listeners.
Speaker B
If you have questions for Belinda, I Think we would love to have you back.
Speaker B
If anybody has questions, please email us.
Speaker B
DM us.
Speaker B
You know how to connect with us.
Speaker B
All of the links are going to be in our show notes, but I would love to have you back with some specific questions from our listeners.
Speaker B
So I'm going to put a call out for that and then two questions for you.
Speaker B
When is your book coming out and what is the best platform for people to connect with you on?
Speaker A
So, good question.
Speaker A
So the book is just being finished.
Speaker A
Not as in physical, as in I've typed up all of the pages.
Speaker B
Yeah.
Speaker A
I don't know if anybody's ever published a book, but it's not easy.
Speaker A
You know, there are only about 15 and a half thousand books that get published each year and trying to find a publishing agent is like fishing in the dead sea.
Speaker A
I'm going through that process of trying to find someone who is really interested in looking at the story because it's not just a cancer menopause story.
Speaker A
It goes on to talk about mental health, it goes on to talk about nervous system collapse, it goes on to talk about being diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 52 and really coming out of all of this journey as a very different person.
Speaker A
And so we're just starting on the first couple of chapters.
Speaker A
So, I mean, that's going to be a process in itself.
Speaker A
Who knows when it's coming out.
Speaker A
I do want to publish it properly though.
Speaker A
I don't want to self publish.
Speaker A
Best place to contact me is I'm on Facebook.
Speaker A
Belinda Balchite.
Speaker A
I'm also on Instagram at the moment.
Speaker A
It says two times cancer system survivor.
Speaker A
I tried to change it back but Meta won't let me.
Speaker A
And maybe you can put that underneath in the notes so people can reach out.
Speaker A
I've just started talking about the 142 symptoms of menopause.
Speaker A
Today, I think is day two.
Speaker A
And I go through each and every single one of them.
Speaker A
What is it, why it happens, how it feels like, how you're losing your sanity or why you're wetting your pants, things like that.
Speaker A
And also the advocacy part.
Speaker A
This is what you need to say when you go to the doctor.
Speaker A
So that's going to be a series that comes out over the coming months, I would say because they're focused on the different parts of the body and at the moment it's the brain.
Speaker A
Amazing.
Speaker C
I feel like we could talk to you for another three hours.
Speaker C
I wish we could, but I hope we have you back again and I'm sure we'll get some questions from our listeners.
Speaker C
Thank you so much, Belinda, for your time and for, you know, prioritizing, helping other women not go through the same insanity that you had to go through.
Speaker A
I have three girls, so for me, it's personal.
Speaker A
Yes, this is important, but thank you for having me.
Speaker A
I've absolutely loved it.
Speaker A
And like you say, there's so much more to talk about, but there really is, ladies.
Speaker A
Knowledge is empowerment.
Speaker A
And once you have it run and you feel so much better when you have the knowledge.
Speaker B
Amen, sister.
Author | Patient Expert | International Speaker
Belinda Balscheit spent sixteen years being told her biology was psychology.
Diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer at 37 — while breastfeeding her third daughter — Belinda's treatment pushed her into premature menopause. After eleven and a half years of chemo, hormone and endocrine suppression therapy, coming off that treatment did it again. Twice. Both times medically caused. Neither time properly named or treated.
She saw nine specialists across cardiology, gynaecology, psychiatry, neurology, and occupational health. None of them connected her symptoms to her hormonal history. She was subsequently diagnosed with complex PTSD and late-onset ADHD.
The answer arrived not in a consulting room — but through a friend, a walk, and an audiobook. She is now writing Biologically Dismissed: You Were Never The Problem. The System Was.
