223 - OCD, depression and the menopause

The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

Dr Louise Newson

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Medicine

4.8 • 798 Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Content advisory: this podcast contains themes of mental health and suicide. On this week’s episode of the Dr Louise Newson Podcast, Anna Geldard shares her story of how her mental health was severely affected by menopause. Anna tells Dr Louise how therapy and medication had helped her successfully manage her obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and mild depression symptoms for over a decade. But out of the blue, Anna’s symptoms returned and quickly spiralled. Anna was admitted to hospital, on six psychiatric drugs but still didn’t feel better. Thankfully, after learning about the impact of hormones on mental health and being prescribed HRT, things changed for the better. Anna’s top three tips: 1. Have more open conversations, starting from at home with the kids. This will filter through society, making menopause less of an unspoken thing and more of a just another thing about the body. 2. Make sure your resources are evidence based. There's a lot of information on social media, so just make sure that whoever you're listening to is appropriately qualified. 3. Advocate for yourself. If your symptoms are hormone related and you're being told you're too young or whatever, try again and don't just give up at that first hurdle. Anna is on Instagram @Hormones.on.her_mind. Find out more about OCD through charities OCD-UK and OCD Action. Contact the Samaritans for 24-hour, confidential support by calling 116 123 or email [email protected]

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Dr Louise Newsome. I'm a GP and menopause specialist, and I'm also the founder of the Newsome Health Menopause and wellbeing centre here in Stratford-Pon-Avon.
0:21.6	I'm also the founder of the free Balance app.
0:25.6	Each week on my podcast, join me and my special guests where we discuss all things perimenopause and menopause.
0:32.6	We talk about the latest research, bust myths on menopause symptoms and treatments,
0:38.2	and often share moving and always inspirational personal stories.
0:43.7	This podcast is brought to you by the Newsome Health Group,
0:46.9	which has clinics across the UK dedicated to providing individualised perimenopause
0:52.4	and menopause care for all women.
1:02.6	Today on the podcast I've got someone called Anna with me, who I've not met in real life,
1:07.6	but we have been corresponding, like with many people now, I seem to have a lot of people
1:12.5	that I've met through social media or online or various other ways. So I'm very grateful for Anna today,
1:20.5	who's going to share some of the stories about herself and things that she's learned about
1:24.7	hormones. So thanks for coming today, Anna.
1:28.7	Thank you for having me, Louise.
1:30.3	I'm really happy to be here.
1:34.5	Oh, so do you mind telling me a bit about you and what's been going on?
1:37.7	Yeah, so I do have a mental health history.
1:43.5	Basically, in my late 20s, I had some sort of relatively mild depressive episodes,
1:46.0	which I completely associated with work.
1:51.0	I was working as a pediatric nurse, and I just found my job quite stressful.
1:59.3	And so I was sort of on and off SSR rise, but things didn't really come to her head until I had my first baby at 29.
2:04.3	And then I just literally, I was so happy. I was so excited about this baby, really looking forward to it. And it was day three and it literally
	...

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