122 - Myth-busting clots with Maggie Honey

The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

Dr Louise Newson

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Medicine

4.8 • 798 Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Maggie Honey was diagnosed with antiphospholipid syndrome, which can be described as having ‘sticky’ blood that is prone to clotting. When she was 46 and a busy mum of triplets, Maggie began having insomnia, recurrent UTIs and dry eyes, skin and mouth. It wasn’t until her periods had stopped for a year and she felt dreadful all the time that she realised many of her symptoms might be related to menopause. When she sought help, she was given more diagnoses related to her blood condition but no help for her symptoms. Her blood disorder consultant at the time told her, ‘whatever you do, don’t go on HRT’. This was due to the inaccurate belief that all HRT holds a risk of clot. In this episode, Dr Louise Newson talks through all the issues that Maggie’s story illustrates, including explaining why HRT is usually safe for people at risk of clot, when estrogen is given through the skin via a patch, gel or spray. They discuss how beneficial HRT can be for your quality of life, and what lifestyle factors do actually raise your risk of getting a clot. Maggie’s 3 menopause tips for people at risk of clot: Listen to your own body, keep a symptom diary like the one on balance app. Trust your own instincts and don’t be fobbed off. Find a menopause specialist as well as a sympathetic blood specialist doctor (haematologist). Encourage communication between your different doctors, including your GP. Share information with friends, family and colleagues. The more we talk about it, the more help we can give to one another. Read more about Maggie’s story here and for more information, read our booklet on Menopause and Clots. Thrombosis UK is the charity mentioned in this episode for people at risk of, or living with, thrombosis (clots) and the website is www.thrombosisuk.org

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Dr. Louise Newsome and welcome to my podcast. I'm a GP and menopause specialist and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre here in Stratford-Bron-Avon. I'm also the founder of the Menopause charity and the Menopause support app called Balance.
0:29.9	On the podcast, I will be joined each week by an exciting guest to help provide evidence-based
0:36.5	information and advice about both the perimenopause and the
0:40.9	menopause. So today on this week's podcast, I'm very excited to introduce to you, Maggie,
0:48.7	Honey, who I've known for a little while, and she's very kindly agreed to tell her story. And I think it's actually really
0:56.5	interesting to hear stories because as doctors and clinicians, we're always reading the
1:01.0	evidence. We're always looking at data. But actually, we do all this for our patients. And when
1:06.1	we hear real stories, it puts things into focus and sharpens our pencils. So Maggie, thank you so much for
1:13.0	coming today to record the podcast with me. Well, thank you for inviting me, Louise. I'm very
1:18.6	excited to have the opportunity. I'm excited to have the opportunity to get it out there,
1:25.1	that it's all right for women who've had clots to take HRT.
1:30.6	Yeah, so that's in a nutshell. We don't need to do any more on the podcast.
1:34.2	We're saying women who've had clots can take HRT. So just to set the scene, Maggie,
1:39.4	so before I met you, obviously you've been struggling, but you've got a history or you've got
1:43.7	a condition that increases your risk of clots. So do you mind just talking through your story about
1:49.1	the clots and then a bit about what happened with your menopause, if that's okay?
1:53.1	Yes, not at all. So in 2007, I was diagnosed with a condition called antiphospholipid syndrome,
2:02.4	which is a bit of a mouthful.
2:05.7	I couldn't even say it, let alone spell it.
2:11.1	So when I was told I got it, I thought, well, what does that actually mean?
2:20.2	And basically it's sticky blood, sometimes known as Hughes Syndrome, named after Professor Graham Hughes, who kind of discovered it back in 1983. And basically, it just means your blood is prone to clotting. They now know there are three
2:27.7	simple tests to diagnose it, and you have to have those several times repeated to confirm that you have the condition.
	...

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