We’re Not Going Quietly Into Perimenopause

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza

Jo Piazza, Influence Inc.

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, Parenting, Personal Journals, Technology

4.3 • 833 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For decades, menopause has been treated like a medical afterthought—a punchline, a whisper, or something to “just get through.” But millennial women are starting to hit perimenopause, and we’re not going quietly. The hormones are unpredictable, the rage is real, and the information gap is staggering. Psychotherapist and author Lauren Tetenbaum, who wrote Millennial Menopause: Preparing for Perimenopause, Menopause, and Life’s Next Period, joins the show to unpack how an entire generation is redefining what it means to age. The conversation moves from sleepless nights and hormonal chaos to the deeper stuff—mental health, careers, sex, friendship, and the ways the medical system continues to fail women. With humor and clarity, Lauren explains what perimenopause actually is, why most doctors aren’t trained to recognize it, and how millennial and Gen X women are demanding better care, better research, and better conversations. This isn’t the end of anything—it’s the start of women taking ownership of their bodies and rewriting the story of midlife. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey all, Joe here and you are listening to Under the Influence.
0:09.1	I've been thinking and writing a lot about perimenopause because I'm just, I'm in the thick of it.
0:14.9	And I've told you all of my super annoying symptoms.
0:18.9	The worst one for me is truly my messed up sleep because I'm a person
0:23.9	who thrives, thrives on getting really good sleep and waking up at two in the morning
0:30.2	in a pool of warm-ish, weird-smelling sweat and then not being able to go back to sleep until 4.30 in the morning
0:38.8	is pretty much just really messing with my life right now. And so I recently went back on the pill.
0:48.0	My OB-GYN prescribed it. She said I should try this before I start trying hormone replacement
0:52.6	therapy. And it's like two weeks in.
0:55.9	I have no idea what's going to happen. I will keep everyone updated. One thing that I do know,
1:01.3	that I definitely know is true in this world, is that if men went through perimenopause and
1:07.3	ultimately menopause, a word that we've been using wrong for decades and decades.
1:12.5	But if men went through this, then hormone replacement therapy would be available over
1:18.7	the counter like freaking Advil.
1:20.9	Okay?
1:21.7	They would just be putting it in Gatorade in sports drinks, okay?
1:26.9	But because we're women, we have to jump through a gazillion
1:29.7	hoops and typically pay out of pocket, too, for hormone replacement therapy. I was able to get
1:36.2	back on birth control, which I haven't been on in forever, and I'm a little nervous about how
1:42.4	I'm going to feel on it. But I was able to do that and have it covered by insurance.
1:47.1	But if I wanted to do HRT, we're looking at about a grand out of pocket every month.
1:53.1	So all of this is just bananas.
	...

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