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.

Today I'm very excited and delighted to introduce to you Dr Hannah Short, who is a GP and menopause specialist who works near Cambridge.

And I first met Hannah a few years ago on a international Menopause society meeting and we've been closely associated since that time.

So welcome, Hannah.

Thank you.

Today, obviously, I spend a lot of time talking about the menopause and a significant amount of time talking about the perimenopause, which a lot of you know is the time before the

menopause, so before periods stop when menopause or symptoms start. But actually, a lot of

women have hormone imbalances before the perimenopause that worsen during the perimenopause,

which is called a PMS or premenstrual syndrome, or some people know it it as PMT and there's also PMDD. So there's

lots of initials and lots of women actually experience it but have never heard or spoken about it or

even received any treatment. So I thought this podcast would be really useful to dig into Hannah's

brain and access her knowledge about

PMS, which is something that she knows a lot about, but there's still plenty more that we are

discovering all the time. So before we get started on that, Hannah, could you just say a little

bit about you and why, how you've come into being a menopause specialist and with a special interest of PMS?

I mean, I've always been interested in women's health and hormonal health and also mental health.

And before I trained as a GP, I was actually training in psychiatry and then switched my training

to go back to do general practice training.

I've also had personal experience of female hormonal health issues, including severe PMS,

and I also had endometriosis, and together that resulted in an early menopause,

...