Welcome to the Newsome Health Menopause podcast.

I'm Dr Louise Newsome, a GP and menopause specialist,

and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and wellbeing centre here in Stratford-upon-Avon.

So today I'm very delighted I have two guests with me who are virtually with me.

They're not here in my clinic because they're in Ireland.

So I've got Sally Ann Brady and Claire Peel who both set up the Irish Menopause group,

who I've been liaising with remotely.

So I'm really thrilled that we've managed to find some time to get together.

So hi, both of you.

Hello.

Hi.

So tell me a bit about yourselves.

You haven't known each other for very long from what you were saying.

So how did you meet and how did you come to set up the Irish menopause group?

We met in another internet support group for menopause and we were chatting and realizing that our symptoms were particularly bad.

I'm not Irish. Sally Annion's Irish, and she suggested that we set up a similar group for Ireland

because it was a little bit different.

There were no support groups just for Irish women, and obviously the health system is different,

and yet women are suffering just the health system is different, and yet women are suffering

just the same, same symptoms, same problems, probably a few years behind the UK.

But the group's gone, we've got two and a half thousand members in a year.

Not even a year.

...