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My guest today, Dr. Mary Claire Haver has written a new book that chronicles those changes within the healthcare industry and more importantly, gives real strategies for advocating for your own health, especially when it comes to navigating the many challenges of menopause. So whether you’re a woman on the precipice of menopause or a young woman, who’s scared or terrified about what menopause might mean for you, or a man who wants to know what the woman around them is having to go through, which probably means what you’re also going to go through.
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Time Stamps:
0:00 Introduction to Dr. Claire Haver
10:01 The Galveston Diet
20:01 Understanding Perimenopause
30:01 Addressing Common Symptoms
40:01 Nutrition and Supplements
50:01 Hormone Replacement Therapy
1:00:01 Empowering Women
1:10:01 Practical Tips
1:20:01 Closing Thoughts & Resources
Show Transcript:
Dr. Mary Claire Haver. Welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you on again. I really, you know, I really appreciate for, you know, you’ve become very popular in the last two years and for, you know, people can find you everywhere, but it’s for, you know, you had this long practice as I think you call it OBGYN, which I love girls from Texas.
Um, and through your own experience, you had, A lot of things kind of culminate all at once things with your family, with a brother, with your own practice, the stress of hours and hours that it actually impacted your own health as you were heading towards menopause, which actually has been a gift. To the rest of us, because it’s sort of, it pushed you into this place of, wait, I need to do a deeper dive on this.
Right.
[00:03:12] Mary Claire Haver: I, I often think if I would have had the easy menopause where very few symptoms and just, you know, kind of skirting through it and stop having periods, I don’t know if it would have led me. To this to the book and that of the ability to go outside of the system really and Seek out more information and then be able to share that you know And then social media being such a linchpin for me and all this as well
[00:03:36] Gabby: And I feel like for me as somebody who is Uh, you know, definitely, uh, I’m not in the thick of menopause, but I’m obviously right there.
I’m 54 years old. I, I, it’s so interesting when we get around things around females and, and I say this in kind of a performance. attitude for me, everything is, is sort of matter of fact, like it is what it is and how do we navigate it and how do we deal with it? And a lot of times people don’t realize studies were pretty much illegal to do on women until 96.
And you know, there’s just a lot of information that we don’t know about. So now we have a ton of information, your latest book, the new menopause, I’m going to just. Have it here. Uh, I have to say one of the things I love about it, not only is it thorough, it’s just very straightforward. And, and to the point you made this, um, just really user friendly, but it also, I think should be discussed almost the way you discuss if you’re an athlete going, Hey, I want to get faster, or I want to gain more muscle.
I think sometimes instead of it being something we feel bad or what’s wrong with me, it’s like, no, we just need a strategy. And, and, and also we have to be participate in that we’ve got to be part of that solution and let’s charge ahead because, you know, you wonder, there’s a lot of jokes around menopause and like, oh, she’s not really even supposed to survive it, um, you know, kind of all these jokes, but people don’t realize that.
you, we can make this so much easier and so much better and come out of it on the other side, who we see ourselves as. Cause that’s the other thing. A lot of times I feel like women go, wait a second. I’m what’s going on with me, my body weight, my sanity, my memory, all of these things. So let’s, let’s just dive in.
What was, you know, you have, uh, your, your book and I’m just curious, you did the Galveston diet. What is, This is so like what led you to doing this and what is the big difference?
[00:05:47] Mary Claire Haver: So Galveston diet was born from me working through my own frustrations with body composition changes and weight gain with menopause and the old tried and true stuff wasn’t working anymore.
So, you know, doing a deeper dive and learning about what’s going on with menopause and inflammation and quality of nutrition and things that were never taught to me in medical school. And I was like, huh. And I was teaching my patients this. And then. Did an online program, then wrote a book about it. So on social, my like toe in the water here was talking about nutrition and menopause and like how a woman could approach her nutrition through the menopause journey and what changes maybe she could make so things would go better for her.
But that led to bigger conversations. Like I read my DMs, I read the comments and people were like, what about this? What about that? And so instead of. Automatically dismissing them like a frozen shoulder or dizziness or vertigo. Could this be related to my menopause? I got curious and I started digging through the literature and I kept finding associations where some researcher had figured out that the decline in estrogen levels is leading to more crystals breaking off in the ear, which can lead to vertigo in some patients.
And that women on HRT tend to do that less. And so, I mean, over and over and over again in every organ system, I was finding these associations and so I’d go on social media and talk about it and the world would explode. Something would go viral. And then, you know, people are like, where’s that video you did about, you know, dry, itchy ears?
I can’t find it. And they’re like, why don’t you just write a book and put it all together? So that’s kind of how the new menopause came about. It came about because I was just teaching in all over social media and it was a way to compile all of that stuff and do a deeper dive.
[00:07:31] Gabby: I think just for simplicity sake, let’s just, if we could kind of differentiate the difference between perimetopause and metopause for people as we start to go into this conversation.
[00:07:45] Mary Claire Haver: Sure. So let’s back it way up to premenopause. So for a healthy woman who’s lucky enough to have a normal menstrual cycle every month, we have this kind of really beautiful symphony of rise and falls of hormones every month. That is very predictable. Okay. You know, on day 14, you’re going to have a spike.
You know, if you have a 28 day cycle, your estrogen is going to spike that day. Then it’s going to taper off. It’s going to have a slow rise, you know, your FSH, LH, and it’s all this communication between our brain and our ovaries. Okay. which are telling the uterus what to do. So when we hit, and this is all dependent on how many eggs you have and the quality of those eggs.
So we’re born with all of our eggs. We have a limited supply and they start deteriorating and we lose them through the ovulation process throughout our lives. So perimenopause begins when we’ve reached this critical egg threshold where that Feedback cycle of the brain telling the ovaries what to do.
You don’t have enough eggs. You know, the, the hypothalamus is like, okay, come on, we need estrogen. Let’s go. It’s time to ovulate and the eggs just can’t quite get there
[00:08:45] Gabby: because
[00:08:46] Mary Claire Haver: there’s not enough left. So then the brain is like, Hey, it becomes like, you know, super driver pumping out the stimulating hormones, much higher levels.
And finally that’s enough to get that those last few eggs to start. ovulating again, then we get these surges of estrogen. So instead of this like beautiful EKG like looking hormone cycle each month, you get chaos as it’s trending down. So overall the trend of estradiol is down and I’m using my hands to try to, you know, I know people are listening, but.
What happens is chaotic. You get this non predictable rise and fall. And this is why hormone testing in this cycle is not really that effective. You know, isn’t really that diagnostic and, and as it’s trending down until we’ve just run out of eggs and that’s your menopause.
[00:09:29] Gabby: Yeah. I think it’s so interesting that you say that because it, we have changes not only throughout the day, but then throughout different Parts of the cycle.
So to really get a snapshot, people get the blood work done. It’s like, well, that was a snapshot for that moment in time. That may not be a consistent indication. And you know, it’s interesting. It’s like, I don’t, me as a patient, I feel like I have this attitude of, I’m going to do everything I can, but also I’m not going to worry about it.
If that makes sense, because I think what happens is once you get people to lock in and go, okay, Get your blood work done and start to pay attention. They also can be Too literal in the sense that gets them in trouble Does that make sense? Because my whole thing is to try to encourage people to get on this stuff and pay attention But then also how do you not but not be hyper vigilant, right?
Because that’s not the answer either
[00:10:23] Mary Claire Haver: Right. So we do see, and that’s, that tends to be a personality thing. And so I’m always warning patients, you know, a hundred percent of us are going to go through this. This is going to happen. These organ systems may be affected, you know, in, in different severities in different levels and different people.
And it’s hard to predict, you know, you might look at your mom and maybe, you know, she had this, I might have that, but you know, if it causes hypervigilance and you’re like obsessed and like, can’t stop thinking about it. And, and, you know, then that’s, that’s another area that we need to address as well. Um, but what’s happening is that women have no idea that they could get brain fog or, you know, when they feel like they have early dementia or they’re having all this arthralgia and, and, you know, or general urinary systems, whatever, uh, symptoms, and they had no idea.
So they, They spend this time like questioning themselves. Could this be happening? Going to multiple different doctors to figure out what’s going on and you know, whereas if they had the information at their fingertips, they may have been able to connect the dots a lot sooner and you know, figure out a plan to move forward.
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So going forward, one thing I do really like that you talk about in the book is menopause hormone therapy, MHT, because we know everything as, you know, HRT. And I, I really sort of thought this was a really interesting differentiating point. Um, so let’s. Let’s start at a beginning. Someone is moving in. They go, Hey, I’m, I’m moving in.
I’m, you know, I’m in my forties. I want to be on top of this. So let’s talk about the natural approaches first to the most supportive ways for healthy hormones.
[00:16:15] Mary Claire Haver: Sure. So, you know, in order to support what’s going on behind the scenes, you know, Anti inflammatory nutrition, lots of protein, consistent resistance training, you know, plus, plus cardio, enough cardio to keep your heart strong, you know, where I was caught in the trap for years and years and years of I moved my body to be thin, I ate to be thin.
That was, that was my end game. I was never an athlete. I danced a little. I was a cheerleader. You know, I didn’t have, and most women are that way. You know, everything was about that number on the scale or to be a certain size. And we end up sacrificing our bone and muscle strength in order to achieve that.
And that bone and muscle strength is what is going to protect us as we age against diabetes. You know, when my patients are coming in clinic now, I mean, I’m, I’m 15. 56. Um, they’re not talking about rocking a bikini. I mean, that would be nice. They’re talking about prevention of diabetes, prevention of dementia, prevention of osteoporosis and fracture.
You know, these are the goals we’re setting. So absolutely lifestyle is huge here. Women who are healthier in entering their menopause tend to have less symptoms. Now, that could say that someone who has absolute perfection, nutrition, exercise, still can be debilitated by her symptoms. But the trend is, the healthier you are, the healthier habits you are, you do tend to have less of the cliche symptoms associated.
You know, with your menopause,
[00:17:40] Gabby: what was that like for you as somebody, maybe you were in your late forties or there abouts like early fifties and all of a sudden you’re adding weight training. Cause that’s, that could be like a foreign language for women. Um, you know, it’s easier if somebody has that background or they just have incorporated it early.
Um, How did you enter into the learning process of, Oh, I’m, I’m doing this new language. How do I do this?
[00:18:07] Mary Claire Haver: So I started, um, we had moved to Venezuela. Uh, my husband had gotten a job transfer and I took a sabbatical with the kids. So I was a stay at home mom for the first time ever. Um, and I started leading these little group, group fitness classes with, um, leading.
I’ve got the videos from. Beach body. And so I would just coordinate everybody meeting in the gym in my apartment and we’d all work out together. That was the first time I’d ever lifted a weight and it was just little hand weights. It was nothing serious, but that was kind of a toe in the water. And the first time I was paying attention to that, I might have muscle.
And, um, then we moved back home and I went back to work and that kind of fell by the wayside and I was just grabbing cardio when I could doing long runs with my friends cause we were doing marathons. And, um, yeah, I didn’t get serious again until my fifties. So then I go back to Beachbody and start doing P90X and, um, some of the heavier stuff.
I was doing kettlebells and I was, I was injuring myself left and right. I was, you know, pulling things and like, I was like, I can’t. And then I was laid up for weeks getting, you know, trying to get these tendons to heal. I was like, I’m not doing this right. So then I’m like, I need professional help. You know, like I need a trainer.
So I started working out with a woman in Galveston. She was great. Just our schedules were tough to mesh. Then I found a woman I could work with online in New York and she specializes in menopausal patients. So I don’t patients and clients and it’s not. easy workouts. These are hard, but she’s really about form and doing it safely so that we don’t get injured.
And so that’s kind of been my progression. So now I do cardio, I’ll put on my weighted vest and walk on the treadmill when I’m working, you know, and, um, but I’m not like running or my husband does the Peloton. I don’t do any of that anymore. Um, I’m just, when I have time, I’m picking up weights and I’m doing one of the lifting programs.
And I’m just thinking how privileged I am to be able to do this and that. I am working out for my old lady body, you know, so that I can roll around on the floor with potential grandchildren. You know, if that happens, climb mountains into my eighties, you know, I’m looking at, you know, we have a place in Colorado at the people hiking and I’m watching the older, you know, the people I want to be like and what their habits are.
And so that’s what I’m trying to model for myself. That’s
[00:20:22] Gabby: one of the things I love that you do talk about is, yes, it is for the, for the now. But you’re also talking about, Hey, we’re also moving and training for the later us as well. And, and that freedom and that independence and enjoyment, you know, as somebody who grew up, You and I have met in person.
I’m, you know, I’m a, I’m a big person. I’m 6’3, 180. Yeah. I’m a big girl. Right. And it never occurred to me. I always, I would play with, train with girls bigger, stronger. And for me, I always looked at that like muscle and, and power is something really magnificent and even beautiful. And so I’m really curious.
from the other side of the spectrum when everybody is kind of celebrating skinny and small. What’s the change in the psychology if you start to look at your arm and you think, wait a second, that might be a little bit of a muscle. Did you, is like, do you have to shift your thinking about That look, you do good to
[00:21:25] Mary Claire Haver: you do.
I had to put the scale away. I only get on the scale now to check my muscle mass, you know, and to check my visceral fat levels. That’s it. You know, I’m not, I don’t care what the number says anymore. I look great, by the way. Um, but I’m so proud because I’ve always been thin. So and like skinny thin and and like to see now biceps forming at 55 and like a second ridge coming up, you know, and I know that I worked for that and realizing that that’s going to be able to have me lift a toddler, you know, if I’m ever lucky enough or lift a bag of groceries on the shelf at 80.
So, you know, and that’s going to be critical. And the mindset is so different. I mean, I just remember like putting on clothes and think I look great because I looked thin. And now I’m like, I look strong. I mean, I weigh more now than I did when I started the Galveston diet for weight gain, weight loss. And just it’s, but every day I have to pull myself back a little bit and remind myself, you know, because it’s 40 years of conditioning to be thin.
And for my patients, it’s the same thing. They come in and they’re like, I need to lose weight. And we have a long talk about what that means. And luckily I have a body scanner in my office that shows the muscle mass. Sometimes I can tell them, look at how much muscle you have. This is amazing. You have no visceral fat, you have curves, you’re healthy.
Who cares? You know, like you’re going to live longer and healthier. And, and just that whole, you know, mindset and my daughters though. So Catherine’s 23 and she’s in med school and mad 20. They are all about strong, not skinny. So I think the next, you know, our daughters are less that way. And, um, they see the fallacy in it, but I think I was an almond mom for a while.
They take, they tease me about
[00:23:06] Gabby: it. Well, but also I think we have to be sensitive. Of our daughters generation. Yes, it’s, it’s not as unique to be strong, but they’re also now dealing with social media. So they’re hammered in a whole other way that we, we weren’t hammered growing up. So if somebody is listening to this and they go, Hey, listen, I’m, I’m pretty healthy.
When you talk about an anti inflammatory diet, specifically, um, what are the things that you give your patients? And you go, Hey, heads up on let’s, let’s try to avoid this stuff on the regular basis.
[00:23:38] Mary Claire Haver: Yeah. So we want to watch our added sugars. So added sugars are the sugars added in cooking and processing, not fruits and vegetables, the keto movement, good and bad, you know, really a lot of a huge amount of the population was shunning all sugars and effort to, in an effort to be, you know, being ketosis and whatever.
And it did lead to weight loss, but it’s not really sustainable, but, um, for most, but, you know, Added sugars added in cooking, processing and alcohol. Um, if you limit those to 25 grams or less per day, so not saying you can never have anything, but you know, you have a budget basically. And women who do that consistently in menopause have lower visceral fat levels and have lower insulin levels, you know, and do a lot better.
So that’s kind of one of the key things we talk about is paying attention to that number. you know, and really kind of building your nutrition around kind of limiting that to special occasions or, you know, trying to keep it below 25 each day. Um, another thing is, you know, we talk a lot about adding things.
So, you know, fiber, I talk about fiber all the time, diet women who have diets rich in fiber. And so the average woman in America eats eight, 10, maybe 12 grams of fiber in her diet per day. The typical Western diet. Women need a minimum of 25. The health benefits tend to max out around 32 grams per day, so they’re only getting about a third of really what they should.
So then we look at legumes, nuts, seeds, you know, foods rich in fiber, filling your diet full of that. Women are not getting enough protein. And so that is limiting their muscle mass and strength capability because they’re eating to be thin and part of that is the easy restriction of a protein intake.
Most women are getting half of what they should. So in the WHI, which kind of rocked the world for hormone therapy, it’s just a data set. And some, a lot of great information came out of that. And one of it was fragility scores, looking at women who were frail. Was they aged protein intake was key there women who had the higher protein intake, you know higher grams of protein had much lower fragility scores than those who restricted and so You know limiting processed foods added sugars if you just limit added sugars that’s going to get rid of a lot of the processed foods there and Really trying to shoot for whole foods And then when you’re pushing to get the fight foods rich in fiber You’re pushing to get the seeds the nuts the grains the legumes a really fun challenge I saw Zoe The Zoe Nutrition, they try to do, I was doing this in Europe, and so 30 plants per week, 30 different, eating 30 different plants per week is like a personal challenge, so that’s really fun.
So I have a little notes app, and I’m like, okay, I had broccoli, asparagus, peanut, you know, and so, um, people who get 30 plants or more each week tend to have lower inflammation. So it’s just, there’s just little hacks and tricks that you can do. Yeah,
[00:26:20] Gabby: and I think people, we, we always discount, uh, herbs and spices.
It’s like, that’s all part of the game. That’s all part of the game too. So just to remind people, if you can get creative. I mean, that’s one of the great things about the internet is there’s so, so many, there’s so much access to watching other types of foods and how they’re made from different cultures that use completely different spices than we do.
Um, and, and before we, We sort of move into some of the, you know, hormone therapy options. You know, when people, I have some friends, for example, where they’ll use Chinese medicine, herbs and teas and different things to kind of support their hormones. You know, you, you see, um, you see maca root, you see all kinds of things.
Do you, um, have a place? within your own life or in your conversations with your patients where, you know, it’s like open to just sort of exploring some of those things to bring buoyancy to your system.
[00:27:18] Mary Claire Haver: Yeah. I mean, a lot of those things are naturally count, you know, compounds found in nature naturally, and they, they, a lot of patients feel like it’s helping them.
There’s not great clinical evidence to show nothing’s going to cure your menopause. Your ovaries are declining, no matter what you do. We can speed that up by poor habits and smoking and stuff, but we’re kind This is always going to happen to us. So, you know, I, I don’t want to say that these things are menopause cures, but it can alleviate some of the drama around the loss of estrogen and testosterone in your body.
And so Maka has, you know, there’s things called phytoestrogens, which are plant based products that look very similar in their chemical structure to estrogen and tend to weakly bind the receptors of estrogen. So soy is one of the most commonly used, um, phytoestrogens. And so, you know, when the clinical studies have been done, they’re just kind of, you know, but I’m like, if the patient loves it and she’s happy with it and she feels like it’s helping her, it’s not harmful.
I’m like, go for it. So.
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So a lot of the indicate, Oh, before we, I was thinking about this. What do you think? If someone, a woman was going through this and I know everyone thinks we died at 40, but 300, 200 years ago, is it, she was already living more naturally. She was moving more often in, you know, a couple hundred years ago. Do you think that this wasn’t quite this, the, their world wasn’t as busy.
There, there wasn’t as much stress. It was a very different, do you think that that lifestyle component supported them through these times, uh, more because.
[00:31:04] Mary Claire Haver: I, you know, I wonder we don’t know historically what the age of menopause really was, you know, we think it’s around the same age. And so, of course, the average life expectancy is a lot longer because not because we’re eating healthier because of sanitation and vaccines and, you know, Industrialization of things.
But we traded that for giving up movement and and whole foods. So for convenience and we’re living longer. But, you know, so women live longer than men, right? Three or four years, maybe, but we’re not living healthier. So I wonder, I feel like we’ve extended our lives, but we end up. Living in long term care facilities three to one more than men, you know, we end up with frailty much more often osteoporotic fractures and dementia We have much higher rates of dementia than men and it’s more than just that we’re living longer And I wonder if those diseases would be less prominent based on the lifestyle that the women had back then But you know, of course We don’t, you know, science doesn’t really like to study the female population that much, um, which is a huge problem.
And so we don’t know.
[00:32:12] Gabby: It always makes me think about, you know, if you read a novel or it’d be like, oh, she lost her mind or she went crazy or, you know, or even, You know, I joke about everybody talks about their own mother, like, Oh, she’s nuts. And I’m like, well, maybe her hormones got off after childbirth and they never came back online or she had a decline and nobody understood how to help her.
It’s sort of like you see it a lot and you go, Oh, my mom, you know, she’s crazy. And, um, you know, you could sort of see. How that gets kind of just thrown out there and then pushed under like, well, that’s just, you know, what happened to her. And so I think we’re in a room. So there’s a great
[00:32:51] Mary Claire Haver: book Eleanor Clighorn wrote called the unwell woman.
And she historically looks at that exact premise and, you know, why were women put into asylums? What was hysteria? And then, um, Karen Tang wrote, it’s not hysteria, which is more about like endometriosis and PCOS, but does a historical breakdown of. Women’s health through the ages. And yeah, we know now that a lot of that was menopause.
Um, and you know, there’s great data coming out of Australia looking at mental health, especially depression and anxiety and not just actually believing the patients and not blowing her off and saying this is the time of her life and and using hormone therapy to support her through that hormonal chaos.
They feel like It’s not the estrogen decline as much as it, you know, the perimenopause changes or the chaos and the brain hates chaos. It likes to know what’s coming. And our serotonin, um, dopamine and norepinephrine levels are changing with the loss of hormones. And so that is really affecting our brains.
[00:33:48] Gabby: I think that we also do a different version of this to teenagers. You know that I don’t want to say it’s a lack of A lack of sensitivity and i’ve gone through it and sometimes it’s also a justification to let them off the hook I get I sort of understand the nuance of like, oh, well, you know, she’s a teenager or 14 year old girls or whatever but it’s sometimes also getting in there and really Trying to understand that hey that we are chemistry and the chemistry is going it’s all over the place um as somebody Who has thought about?
You This topic a lot in the last four and five years, I always sometimes look at things philosophically and think, I wonder what the big why is because nature doesn’t make mistakes, right? I mean, there’s a real beautiful story around nature, a rhythm in nature. And I wonder if somebody who’s probably thought about this as much as anyone from the sort of divine idea.
What do you think is the real?
[00:34:48] Mary Claire Haver: Yeah. Why are, Why are men able to create new germ cells every day until they die and women are born with their, well, that’s the whole menopause thing is that we’re born with a set. Why weren’t we born with enough to get us to 80, you know, yes,
[00:35:01] Gabby: well, what is it that we’re supposed to come out of because we’re here to contribute something else and new and different, right?
Like, I’m not here. I don’t need to like, be sexy and have everybody, you know, I’m, I sort of, I’ve done that part. I’m trying to maintain that in my relationship. But as far as like, Biological signaling and like procreating and all of that. Like if that sort of has in your philosophical mind, like you’re doing it in your own life, you’ve reinvented yourself in another way or just added to your story.
And now you have this whole new thing. If you think, I guess, because sometimes with women, I want to almost encourage them to go look to the next because there is something very powerful there for, for, for all of us.
[00:35:45] Mary Claire Haver: It’s, you know, I love this part of my life. Um, I’ve never been healthier. I’ve never been happier.
I’ve never been wealthier. I’ve never been more successful. I have better relationships. You know, I have better boundaries and I feel like menopause has given me the space, you know, to demand what I want in life and go for it instead of putting everyone else’s needs before my own. Um, so, and I want that for everyone, but had I not changed my habits and rethought, You know, my brain, I think, was rewired through menopause, and, um, and actually the, the neurologists are showing that’s true.
Um, and it’s, it’s almost like I’m now in self preservation mode and not in keep my family alive mode, you know, my children will survive without me. Now, the evolutionary biologists and anthropologists have looked at this and thought, you know, whales have menopause too, and there’s this grandmother hypothesis.
Now, there’s some argument back and forth, but it’s basically that. Our reproduction ends so that we can help take care of the next generation and, you know, expand that. Not everyone’s happy with that, you know, theory, but that does, you know, other species do do it. Um, and other mammals have done it. If there’s not a lot, but you know, menopause is, is not that unique.
[00:37:03] Gabby: Yeah. And I think when you say that, that doesn’t mean now you have to be responsible for one of your children’s Children, 24 hours a day, it also means that you’re going, here’s a lot of things I’ve learned, let me synthesize it for you and put this back into my family and support now my young adult children who are attempting maybe to have families or pursue careers or whatever.
So I think sometimes I think in general, I find that women will listen with a defensive ear. Because they, they feel like they overprotect and it’s like, no, no, no. That means whatever you want to do now,
[00:37:41] Mary Claire Haver: right now. Right, right. That you don’t have to focus on staying up till two to see if she got home, the car key, you know?
And so, you know, it’s, A lot of people feel like, you know, where I feel like I support is that I validate. You’re not crazy. Here’s some solutions so that now you can go into this next phase of your life, you know, with all the tools you need to feel healthy and happy and age. You know, we’re all aging. No one’s getting out of this alive, but that you can be as functional as possible for as long as possible.
[00:38:16] Gabby: And I think that That’s maybe one of the biggest misconceptions right there is I was going to ask you about misconceptions But it’s I feel like people will accept and doctors will have said that you know Well, that’s just how it is at this age. And uh, I think that it isn’t about fighting it But it is not about accepting that narrative
[00:38:36] Mary Claire Haver: Right the status quo right now is that We have much higher rates of dementia, much higher rates of, you know, 50 percent of women will have an osteoporotic fracture and probably 50 percent of that is preventable.
We, you know, I want to fracture as much as a man. My grant, you know, when, when you look at, and this is not all families, but in general, men are very functional until they have a very short period of disability before death, women have a much longer protracted. time of disability before death. And all I’m asking for is to even the playing field where I have as much of a chance of having, you know, my grandfather drove a truck the day he had a heart attack and died.
Now I don’t, he did not have a heart attack while he was driving. Thank God. But you know, my grandmother laid in the bed for five, six years, demented and, and incontinent and you know, really, really miserable. And I don’t, I want my grandfather’s path. You know, what do I need to do to like go that way where I’m basically living my life and And pretty functional.
And then I just died.
[00:39:36] Gabby: And I think that that narrative, I really do appreciate. And now there’s all these tools you, you even write about a tool kit in your, in your book. Let’s so I know that there’s always exceptions, right? Let’s take a more general swath of the population. And of course there’s always special on, on all the sides, but if someone is.
You know, doing all the right things in their lifestyle and they get their blood work done and they go, you know, I can, I can sort of explore some people know it as um, HRT, we’re calling it MHT, um, what is it, what, you know, slow and low, I, I mean, what does it look like for the exploration and do you like shots?
Do you like pellets? Do you like creams? Yeah. What do you, what do you, what’s your approach?
[00:40:26] Mary Claire Haver: So we have, you know, the, the three sex hormones. We have the estrogens, we have the progestogens, and then we have the androgens, which includes testosterone. And so I have a discussion with my patients around each three and what we know that they can and can’t do as far as Promoting our health and getting rid of symptoms as we age.
And then we talk about delivery systems. So, and each of those has different options to put it in your body or on your body and with different risks. So, and personal preference, whatever, but kind of my go to, which is in general, I prefer an estradiol patch. It’s inexpensive. We have generics. It’s very, very affordable and we have five different strains.
So I have a lot of wiggle room. Um, for progesterone, um, Most of the people in the menopause, we are straight up oral micronized progesterone, if you can tolerate it. There’s about 5 percent of people who will have dizziness or they just, you know, any medication some people just won’t tolerate. Then we start looking at other ways to get it in her body.
And these are all body identical. Um, And non synthetic. So then there’s the testosterone. It’s a tough one in the U. S. Because there’s no FDA approved option for women. And there’s a lot of pushback in certain states because of the gender laws of getting testosterone to a female who wants it. Um, who’s not transitioning.
So insurance won’t cover it. So like in Texas, you know, I’ve gotten a lot of pushback from certain pharmacists who are shaming women for getting their testosterone prescriptions filled when, when it’s known that it does wonders for decreased libido, which in medicine we say hypoactive sexual desire disorder.
I also use it off label for patients with, who are doing the exercise training and eating the protein who are sarcopenic or osteoporotic. So, so that they can help maintain their muscle mass. Um, and but, you know, just taking testosterone is not magic. You have to do the work, but it is gonna hopefully help.
I use it myself as well. Progesterone, you must take it if you’re using estrogen to protect the lining of the uterus. But for a woman who doesn’t absolutely necessarily need it for that indication, it also is really helpful for sleep. does great things for GABA in the brain. And a lot of my patients are choosing to go on it to also help with sleep.
Um, it’s, it does really, really great things. And then estrogen is kind of the building block. Like that’s the first conversation we have.
[00:42:47] Gabby: And what about, you, you mentioned a little bit about cost. Cause I know for a lot of people sometimes, not that it’s frustrating, but it, it, the, the cost element. Um,
[00:42:59] Mary Claire Haver: right.
And it’s, you know, this is the U. S. Healthcare system. I could send a patient to Walgreens and it’s gonna be 250 and then I can send her to get a coupon and go through cost plus and it’s 20 and it, you know, so like all medications now in the U. S. We have to do a little bit of wiggle work to figure out.
Sometimes I have patients going to three different pharmacies to get three different medications just to get the best price. Um, but in generally, the, in general, the generic estradiol patch, you probably can find for about 30 a month. Oral micronized progesterone is 10 bucks. And then the testosterone 30 to 50, kind of depending on where you’re going to get it.
And are
[00:43:33] Gabby: you doing, uh, testosterone in a shot or in a patch or
[00:43:39] Mary Claire Haver: a pill? No, it’s not convenient. So many of my patients travel. So doing injections, you’d have to come into the office for weekly or monthly injections, depending on how they, you know, it’s formulated. So I do a cream. That they rub into their skin.
It is compounded. I wish we had an FDA approved option for women that a pharmacist would readily give without pushback. So that’s kind of my work around in Texas is to do a compounded cream.
[00:44:02] Gabby: I actually was taking a little bit of testosterone because in a way I, mine was not only low, but it was like my workload, my training load.
By the end of the day, I would even very common, I would start to get a, I have my heart checked, but I was getting a fib and this actually, it’s, it actually. Testosterone was actually supported and that kind of went away. I also think cause I got COVID I think it was sort of like a like a little after kick from COVID, but I think that my load was so, so tense and dense that the testosterone actually just, helps with that immensely.
[00:44:44] Mary Claire Haver: So most, you know, women, we, we have our highest testosterone levels in our 20, you know, when we’re younger and then that level declines, um, it doesn’t bottom, doesn’t fall out like it does with estrogen, but it can get quite low. And just by giving you back up to those physiologic ranges, it’s magical. I have patients telling me now this is anecdotal that it helps them with sleep.
It’s helping them with anxiety. Like they, and of course, Desire and they just feel so much better.
[00:45:11] Gabby: I started looking at my husband’s ankles. I was like, what’s going on?
[00:45:15] Mary Claire Haver: I You know, I didn’t think I had a libido problem We never no one was complaining at my house But there’s definitely an uptick in that area and everyone is happy
[00:45:23] Gabby: and so I would miss it if it was gone now I think you know, maybe we can talk about that and and this is so when I say this personal It’s like parenting everybody has the way they do it But I do feel like even if you’re in a long relationship That a regular sex life, whatever that looks like for you is important, not only for the health of the relationship, but I think women don’t give, if they are interested and they want to that, that sex is supportive of our health.
[00:45:55] Mary Claire Haver: And. If that’s a normal part of your relationship, I actually have a few patients, not many that are in sexless relationships and they’re happy and everybody’s happy, you know? So it’s like you do you, but what the patients are coming to me for is like they miss it. It was a part, it was a normal, healthy part of their relationship and now they have no desire or much decreased desire and they want that back for the health of their relationship.
So that’s where I can intervene. And if they’re like, well, I hate him and he’s disgusting. I’m like, well, Different, you know, like that’s a different doctor. It’s a different doctor. That’s your therapist. So, um, and you have to make sure that they’re not having pain with intercourse. We need to fix that. If they’re having arousal disorders or gasping disorders.
I mean, it’s a nuanced conversation, but if it’s like, no, everything works, it’s this, I just can’t get that desire going. That’s where testosterone
[00:46:45] Gabby: can really, really do beautiful things. Yeah. You do get a little more savage for sure. Um, do you. You know, a lot of times this has been something that a lot of people will say, well, I have breast cancer in my family or I have breast cancer, but we’re really finding that there was sort of one incomplete study that, that set this whole tone around hormone replacement therapy or M or a, excuse me, MHT, uh, Any kind of hormone that it’s now dangerous, like, Oh, cells are going to multiply.
Right. Could we just lean into that a little bit and talk about how people need to get a little more informed and that maybe actually is not the case.
[00:47:23] Mary Claire Haver: So when we look at a healthy breast cell, so all cells usually start healthy and then they mutate over time due to environmental factors, lifestyle choices, genetics, whatever, into pre cancerous and then a cancerous cell.
So if, when, if during that mutation, your breast cell retains its estrogen or progesterone receptors, then they’re going to classify that cell as estrogen or progesterone positive. And there’s just this underlying thought in the general population. And honestly, amongst most uneducated doctors in this subject, that that meant that the estrogen or the progesterone caused the breast cancer.
And I’m like, no, no, no, no. You know, it just meant that you have retained your receptors. Now they can use that receptor to kill that cell with tamoxifen and the anti and the cancer drugs. Right? So. You know, estrogen is required to make any cell divide in a breast cell divide is part of the process. And when you take that estrogen away yourself, stop dividing as much.
And so the chance of you getting cancer is lower. So that’s, you know, part of it. But you, the highest levels are estrogen. The highest levels of estrogen we ever have in pregnancy. Okay. And if you’ve ever been pregnant. And. We don’t tend to get breast cancer as a pregnant person. We get breast cancer usually in postmenopausal.
And again, there’s exceptions to every rule. And I don’t want to ever make anybody who had, you know, breast cancer pre menopausal breast cancer upset by this. But I’ve had so many patients who were under, you know, let misled to think that because of the family history outside of a genome genetic defect, you know, that they were not a candidate for HRT.
The studies are clear women on estrogen. have lower rates of breast cancer. It was when that one, in that one study, it was the one particular progesterone called Provera, which is medroxyprogesterone acetate that seemed to slightly increase the risk, the estrogen only arm. They did great. They had lower instance of breast cancer.
So, you know, it’s, It’s now breast cancer survivors. It depends on the age of the stage that you know, but once you’re past your treatment, you might be a candidate. You just need to find a informed provider who will have that discussion with you.
[00:49:33] Gabby: Yeah. And I think that’s a big one because you had a whole generation of women that had to just kind of bear, grin and bear it and suffer through it and not realize that that was yeah.
[00:49:42] Mary Claire Haver: And so given we had that whole generation, you think estrogen, you know, if estrogen caused breast cancer, we would have this dramatic decrease in breast cancer. No, it’s increasing.
[00:49:52] Gabby: That’s a, that’s a really important point. Um, what about skin? You know, I think a lot of us,
I mean, are we, are there things that impact the elasticity, the, the level of collagen? Do, are we, do we know anything about that for real besides, you know, I pump it full of fillers and blow it up and who knows what’s going to happen? I mean, do we know?
[00:50:21] Mary Claire Haver: So we lose 30 percent of our collagen in the first five years of menopause.
I don’t have to tell a woman that she knows it. You know, HRT can slow that down, especially if you start young early, you know. Um, so estrogen is incredibly protective of collagen in our skin. Um, women who use topical estrogen, either estradiol or estriol, there’s a couple of studies, they did biopsies.
They looked at all this stuff and showed better elastin. You know, we’re still aging. That’s not going to change, but we rapidly accelerate the aging process in our skin. The other thing is we lose moisture and the water barrier, the trans epidermal water barrier totally decreases. So we have incredibly dry skin, incredibly itchy skin, you know, loss of collagen, just this rapid external aging.
I mean, if you’re fine with the way you look, that’s fine. But it is frustrating for me, you know, like, wait a minute, I’m looking at pictures from five years ago and I just see this huge difference. And things. So, you know, cosmetically there’s lots of things that we can do fillers, whatever. I mean, that floats your boat, whatever, you know.
Um, but as far as the appearance of your skin and the level of collagen, a hormone therapy topical as well as systemic is really helpful there as well. You’re still aging though.
[00:51:38] Gabby: Hey, listen, it is what it is. Like we’re, you know, what do they say? Nobody gets out alive. It’s not about that. I think if you can look, you know, I think all of us just trying to be our best.
It isn’t about not being who we are today or comparing ourselves to our, our 20 year old something, cause that’s, um, I don’t think that’s productive either, but. It’s just, I think when we feel like, Hey, I’m, I’m doing my best and mostly really how I feel, right. My, my levels of energy, my feeling of sanity. I think when people start forgetting things and everything stresses them out and they feel, you know, Like they’re going crazy.
I think that that has more impact than okay fine lines And you know my neck and what you know, whatever the million things are That we go through what about? migraines because sometimes with hormones Even people who are not perimetopausal, even, they’re, uh, they’re not even there yet. This is not uncommon.
Is there something that shows up that can, uh, is an indication of maybe why some women get these, get these wicked migraines?
[00:52:50] Mary Claire Haver: So we have like menstrual migraines, which a certain percentage of the population will have. So this is premenopause that at a certain time of the month, usually when their estrogen levels drop after ovulation, that estrogen withdrawal is triggering the migraines, the vasospasm in the, in the vessels around the brain.
And um, so we treat that by not letting them withdraw from estrogen. We usually give them hormones to kind of stabilize through that. Those tend to go away. Those get worse in perimenopause and then once, once you kind of. bottom out and there’s no more withdrawal. It’s just gone. Those do tend to just go away.
Then there’s triggered migraines, um, which have nothing to do with hormones. And though it’s kind of, you know, half of one half dozen or the other, when we have migraines with aura, you have a little bit of an increased risk of stroke. And so there was an older study that was done when birth control pills first came out, they were much higher dose than they were now they were 50 micrograms.
So The average birth control pill dose is 20 micrograms. So they were more than two times higher. And women who have migraine with Aura, um, already you have a compromised, um, vasculature, had an increased risk of stroke. So they kind of took that data and extrapolated it all the way through menopause hormone therapy dose which is a, percentage like me versus what those old birth control pills were.
So, you know, women were told for decades that migraine with RA, you can’t take any hormones. We’ve looked at the data again and seen women who are on the low dose, you know, menopause hormone therapy, the biggest difference between birth control pills and MHT is dose. You know, they’re both estrogens and progestogens usually plus or minus testosterone and, and so it’s much, much lower, you know, oral contraception was designed to stop ovulation.
So we don’t get pregnant. And then MHT was just designed to stop a hot flash. Um, turns out it’s no one knew at the time how protective estrogen was and what estrogen withdrawal would do to all the organ systems. And so where the work we need to do now is how much do we need to really protect our heart?
You know, what’s, what do we need to protect our bones? What do we need to decrease our risk of diabetes and hypertension? So
[00:54:59] Gabby: pretty interesting. Because the migraines, I mean, those things, they can really take you out. What is it? Is, is it, you know, that 2 a. m. I call it the mind grind. I, I, that’s when I wake up and all of a sudden I want to go into my youngest daughter’s room and tell her all the things I’m concerned.
Like it is the craziest This is what, this is what I find so fascinating when we can observe ourselves in these moments rather than go down the rabbit hole of thinking this is how we really feel. But what is it, what are we low on typically that we wake up at two in the morning with progesterone? It is.
[00:55:35] Mary Claire Haver: Yeah. That is a classic. Um, you know, I can’t promise you it’ll get a hundred percent better if you’re waking up with hot flashes, estrogen, right? But if you’re waking up with racing thoughts. And just can’t turn that, that hamster wheel off. Progesterone can do wonders for that. And sometimes you need, so we usually start with 100 micrograms a night, but I have some patients on three, sometimes 400 in order to like turn that machine off so they can just sleep through it.
[00:56:04] Gabby: Yeah, I think it’s, uh, It’s an interesting thing sometimes where you have these kind of mini episodes and you think, Oh wait, this, this may not really be me. It may not really be what’s going on with me and my kid or me and my partner. This just must be, I’m a little, I’m, I’m a little off right now. And, and, uh, do you have your patients ever keep sort of a journals?
Like Elisa Vidi used to joke about that when you were on your cycle right before, keep a journal for three months. And then she’d say, And if it was the same feeling three months in, that’s actually how you feel. But did you, do you have any sort of things that you encourage your patients, regardless of going through menopause or perimetopausal, about kind of keeping journals or, or just notes about what they have going on?
[00:56:55] Mary Claire Haver: So I, I tried to do that. I did it. Uh, when I first opened my clinic, I had a little 30 day journal for them. I had, you know, it was all pre filled. They just had to like fill in the blanks of, you know, and it was about gratitude and, and, you know, and no one, and I want it and then we’re supposed to bring it to their followup visit.
No, a few people did, but the vast majority of women just never got around to it. So now when I’m talking to patients, I’m like, okay, we’re going to talk about stress reduction and, and. Learning how to recognize patterns. And so I have the conversation. I talk about journaling. I talk about meditation. I talk about these things, but we’re also different and what’s going to work, you know, and I never would have been able to journal or meditate in my forties.
I mean, I never tried, but I was so. Hi, strong, wired work in these crazy hours and raising kids. And my husband was traveling all the time. That was one more thing to put on my plate. It felt like work. Now I have, I do it all the time, you know, I’m like, and it’s so beautiful. And it’s so self, I can self reflect, um, it’s so much easier now, you know, that I, I’ve unloaded my plate.
[00:57:58] Gabby: Yeah. I think when you have little kids, the idea of meditation is like, you’re alone in the car for five minutes or the shower in the toilet. You come in there though. Don’t think when they’re little, you’re like, you’re ignoring them. Yeah, they do. So Mary Claire, when you wrote the new menopause, I mean, you now have supporting products, supplementation, um, in the pause life, you know, What, what things people can, can go on and see the, the stuff you’re offering, but as a general rule, and again, we know that there’s always exceptions in fringe.
Are there supplements that you find supportive just for, you know, women’s health and health in general?
[00:58:38] Mary Claire Haver: Yeah. So, um, if you’re not getting adequate fiber, that is. That’s a great one to start with, especially if you’re learning, you know, we all can go through a learning process. I like to recommend a protein supplement if they’re, you know, most women are only getting 60 grams, 70 grams a day.
So while you’re teaching yourself new habits to build up to 100, 120, wherever, you know, I do it based on their body scan and their muscle mass, where we’re shooting for, you know, it’s hard to double your protein in a day. You feel like you’re walking around with a chicken breast all the time. So. You know, so through that transition, I’ll often recommend some kind of a weight, usually a whey based protein powder or vegan, if they’re vegan, whatever.
And then, um, Then like I make for my patients a fiber supplement. I hope they can get their fiber from food. That is always the best way, but it’s hard to do. So this is a helper to, you know, fill in those gaps. Most of my patients through no fault of their own are deficient in vitamin D. And so I created a vitamin D supplement that also has omega three fatty acids and vitamin K for absorption to help with that.
That’s a really hard one to do nutritionally, unless you’re just eating salmon all day. And, um, So if they’re vegetarian, that’s really, vitamin D is really hard. You have to eat a lot of flax to get your D levels up high enough. Um, we do offer turmeric. You know, so many of my patients, 80 percent of us or 60 to 80 percent will have musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause.
And so turmeric supplementation has been studied for that. And because of its anti inflammatory effects, it can be really helpful. So if they’re having those symptoms, I might recommend that. For prevention, we have a product that has varisol, which is a, helps with collagen. They’ve done randomized control study.
It also has FortiBone. So we call it skin and bone. FortiBone was studied in women with osteopenia and osteoporosis who had no other intervention for five years. And they did bone density scans each year and saw improvement in their bone density. They weren’t, and they didn’t have chronic disease. They, you know, they were just regular women and they brought them in every year and gave them this little scoop of stuff and water for five days.
So I was like, And it came out of Germany. And when I read the study, I was like, I want this, you know? So I was like, why don’t I make it? So we created that supplement as well.
[01:00:48] Gabby: I love that. Um, what about dim? I forgot to ask you about that. You’re feeling about dim
[01:00:53] Mary Claire Haver: is, is diandole methane. Um, and so it comes from cruciferous vegetables, usually like Brussels sprouts and it’s methane.
And so if you take dim, be ready, your gut’s gonna. Expel the methane in large amounts. Um, there’s a lot of claims being made about them for balancing hormones and stuff. That’s not how it works. You know, it, it kind of can changes the metabolism pathway to metabolites that are less likely to be associated with breast cancer.
So some oncologists are recommending dem or eating lots of Brussels sprouts and cruciferous vegetables, which is probably the best way because you get all the other antioxidants and anti inflammatory stuff. Um, In that pathway, but that’s kind of, you know, some people have really taken that ball and, oh, it’s going to cure this or lower your it does none of that.
And so, um, you know, I just say each leafy greens and your veggies and eat a lot of crunch rather than take this down. Did you guys the gastrointestinal? Stuff is not, it’s serious. You need to like exit the room if you have to pass.
[01:01:58] Gabby: It’s for real. I, uh, if you, cause I know you have all kinds of, you had all kinds of patients.
So whether you’re a, maybe a son of somebody or, um, you know, a partner or a husband, what are the ways? Cause I think sometimes they don’t, they can’t relate and why would they, how could they, what are, what do you think is the most productive way for those people? To be supportive of somebody who’s trying to navigate this.
[01:02:27] Mary Claire Haver: I think educate themselves, you know, the best visits I have with patients and I just do menopause now is when they bring in their partner or a loved one to, you know, be there and witness this and listen to the counseling and their reading. And, you know, they really want to be in there and support their partner because she is changing and this is not her fault.
Her mental health is changing. Her body is changing her, you know, and so, and if this is affecting your relationship, Or even not at all, you know, you know, a supportive partner when they’re choosing to educate themselves about this biologically inevitable process she’s going to go through that is going to really sometimes make her feel very, very different.
And so these are the best visits or when the partners are there and they’re just, they’re just there to educate themselves.
[01:03:13] Gabby: Yeah. I mean, I, and I, again, it’s different because. It’s sort of, you’re getting surged with all these great hormones when you’re a teenager. But I think that’s the same spirit in which we have to kind of help teenagers navigate through it.
Because, listen, you went through it, I went through it. But it is easy to be dismissive versus supportive and, you know. And also trying to, you know, figure out, okay, what do you like with my one kid right now? She’s going through it. It’s like she wants to be alone, you know, she, she needs her space and it’s like, okay, I love you.
And like with my husband, it’s our third daughter. So he’s got practice, but it’s like, Hey, now I’m a young woman. I don’t know that I want you to be like hugging me, hugging up all over me. And he takes it so personal, but it’s like, no, she’s going through all these changes. Um, and trying to understand that.
And I think. it’s the same now back into, you know, perimenopause and menopause. And it’s like, Hey, this is, these are real shifts going on. Um, and then, you know, the other, the other thing that I just want to remind people and listening to this, cause you’re talking about the protective qualities of estrogen is We, it starts to diminish, you know, we start at 40 men go through, you know, andropause at 70 or whatever it is.
I think that that dementia, when we talk about dementia and that protectiveness of our brain, we’re, we’re many years. you know, ahead, we’re 20, we’re 30 years ahead of them in this diminishing thing. So if I could encourage women, even when they’re younger to just stay on top of their hormone game, because you know, people go, Oh, well, women live longer.
Well, you don’t get Alzheimer’s in three years, right? So this is a process that happens all along. Um, so when, so I just want to bring that up because I think we think, Oh, it’s when you’re over there, it’s like, well, no, it’s starting. So just stay on top of it, right? Is there, cause sometimes doctors are scary and they’re busy.
If you’re, if you have, if you’re sending a patient in just what are the best ways for them to be advocates on what to ask for, what blood tests, what specifically that they’re looking for, um, just in, in, in sort of rounding out this conversation. Okay.
[01:05:27] Mary Claire Haver: So you can’t walk into your doctor. You have about a 10 percent chance of being able to walk into your doctor’s office and have an informed conversation about menopause.
We are doing a terrible job in the medical system across the world in educating our clinicians about menopause. And estrogen and how it affects, you know, which is why you’re being met with dismissal. This is a systemic problem. Also, some doctors are assholes, but you know, usually it’s, they’re just not trained and they didn’t know.
And I was that doctor for a long time, so I take full responsibility for that. Um, It wasn’t until I chose to go outside the system. So what can you do? You can go to menopause. org, which is the website of the menopause society and find a certified provider and look for the certified check. Um, that means they’ve studied, they’ve taken the test.
They’ve gone outside of the normal training in order to educate themselves. It’s totally elective. It’s not perfect, but that is one way. We have a list of recommended providers, recommended by my followers who wrote testimonials. Again, not perfect, another place to start on the website. Um, we have, um, you know, on our website, I have a menopause empowerment guide, you know, in our link in bio on TikTok and on Instagram, where you can download.
It’s 14 pages of questions to ask your doctor, labs to ask for, you know, it’s, it’s complicated. So it’s not something I can quickly say. Thanks. Um, I talk about, you know, nutrition recommendations. It’s just quick and dirty, quick and easy guidelines for people to at least get started. And then we talk about some of the online providers, some of the telemedicine companies that are just doing menopause care and there’s some good, some bad, and the bad ones are not on the list.
So I’m just going to say that. Um, not, I don’t want to say bad, but the ones I prefer and that have vetted and I feel like are giving good care, evidence based care are on the list and you can do a side by side comparison with the three.
[01:07:12] Gabby: I really, I really appreciate that. What were, when you wrote the new menopause, cause you’re busy and you have a lot going on, what is your, what’s your goal?
What was your big hope? What’s your big, you want people, if they read it, what is it that you want them to take away?
[01:07:29] Mary Claire Haver: That they are validated and this is real and it can affect you in so many different ways and just this outpouring on social media of confusion and dismissal. And I just wanted to give them a tool, a toolkit.
That, you know, one, explain why we are, you know, how we got here now. What do we, what can we do moving forward and how you can advocate for yourself and have the best outcome
[01:07:50] Gabby: as possible. I love that. All right. My last question. So, Dr. Haver, I’m always intrigued by medical or scientific people that go to medical school, they have a practice, uh, they learn new things, they adapt, they think, okay, well, what I know is right, but there’s more to to it than that.
And then they rededicate themselves in this new lane. Um, and in your case, and in the case of a few people I know, they start to get well known. They start to get attention. They get a lot of love and they get, you know, occasionally a barb, right? It just, cause that’s the nature of the beast. One is how do you, cause it’s one thing.
You know, for example, like the way I came up in sports, it’s like, maybe they wrote an article about you in high school and then they wrote a few more in college and then you did TV and you kind of build upon. And then if you say, I want to be a professional athlete or performer, singer, you kind of know, and you build along.
I’m always fascinated by people who were not, this was not the route. And now you’re in this game. What, how are you managing, you know, your ego, your self consciousness, feeling people criticizing you, people giving you this abundance of love, like where, where, what new skills are you doing to keep this in perspective so that you can.
You can actually ultimately just do your job.
[01:09:18] Mary Claire Haver: Um, a lot of self reflection. So when the haters come for me, I, of course it hurts at first and that’s tend to be cause I’m human. What I focus on and, but then I also look at it, I let it sit for a day or two and then I go back and say, okay, you know, what can I learn from this?
What could I change? How could I make this message better? You know, um, And so, you know, that’s one thing too, you know, my kids keep me pretty grounded and don’t really think they I’m still mom and they are just kind of think this is funny. And, um, so they are my sounding boards because they’re always going to tell me.
So, um, and also I’ve made this, this friend group really, and what we call the menopause. And it’s a group of people very similar to me still in practice, but who really are trying to change the world. And I know that sounds very grandiose, but we are so focused on how we can do better for women’s health on our female health on so many different levels, not just menopause, but, you know, endometriosis and PCOS and pain control and pregnancy.
And we’re all having the same goal of the status quo is not okay and that we can do better. And how do we do that? So they are so grounding and so honest and so real. And, and I, I read the DMS and the comments and, you know, I don’t fluff my hair when I get on social media, you know, usually I’m just like in my bed drinking coffee and it is what it is.
And so I think that kind of keeps me grounded as well.
[01:10:48] Gabby: Well, I, I really admire you putting yourself out there because I know it’s not easy. And I, and you are the great reminder that purpose, when we have a real purpose, it can trump, um, our self consciousness or whatever, all the million other things we have.
It’s like, no, I have this thing and I have to do it and I have to share it. And so, um, maybe just remind people, uh, this, Is the book an audible? For me, these are workbooks. I, I swear, but you have an audible of the new menopause. Um, but just
[01:11:18] Mary Claire Haver: yeah, audible ebook, all the things. Yeah. Hard copy, whatever. These are books
[01:11:22] Gabby: that you read, you reread and some, and you give to your friends.
Um, just remind people all the places that they can find you and interact with you.
[01:11:33] Mary Claire Haver: So mostly on social, you can find me at Dr. Mary Claire, if you just Google that, you know, I’ll pop up. Um, and then our website is the pause life. com.
[01:11:41] Gabby: Great. Great seeing you. I, uh, I look forward to running into you in person.
That was really funny. Uh, the last time, cause we had text cause we knew we were both going to be in Austin, but then I just ran into you and there you were.
[01:11:57] Mary Claire Haver: Yeah. Um, I think I’m coming to Hawaii in February for a meeting. I’ll, I’ll
[01:12:02] Gabby: text you and let you know. Thank you for your time. And, um, my timing is good because this is all the stuff I am going to be going through.
So selfishly, uh, I’m just really appreciative. I’ve always been interested obviously in hormones cause of performance. I think it’s when it happens to you, uh, And I’m a person who of course is like, Oh, I’m going to avoid all this because I’ve been eating. I don’t drink alcohol, but I can tell you there’s stuff and it’s in it and it’s real.
And the more we can know and be comfortable asking questions and getting involved, uh, the easier we can make it. So thank you. I appreciate you. Aloha. All right. Bye.
About Dr. Mary Claire Haver
Dr. Mary Claire Haver, MD, FACOG, MCP, Culinary Medicine Specialist and best-selling author of The Galveston Diet, founded The ‘Pause Life to offer an accessible and easy-to-follow approach to menopause care. Dr. Haver’s menopause toolkit focuses on lifestyle changes to help you feel your best during menopause.
