A Shoutout to Celebrities Who Aren’t Ignoring “The Change”
Thank you, Naomi Watts, Oprah Winfrey, and Michelle Obama. Kudos, Gweneth Paltrow and Cynthia Nixon. In the last few years—and escalating more in the last few months—I’ve noticed more celebrities talking about their own menopausal journeys and normalizing them for the rest of us.
I don’t know about you, but until I started having hot flashes, menopause was only discussed as a joke among my friends. “Somebody get me a fan!” “I haven’t slept in a month, ha ha.” Yeah, really funny. But once I started going through “the change” myself, I realized how impactful the symptoms of menopause could be. Sleepless nights are not a laughing matter. It helps to now have celebrities posting on social media, writing in magazines, and discussing menopause on podcasts in order to open REAL conversations and to encourage solutions to the variety of symptoms that come with perimenopause and menopause.
When Oprah Winfrey was having heart palpitations, doctors mistook her symptoms for heart disease. She wore a heart monitor and was taking medications, with no relief. It wasn’t until she picked up a book by Dr. Christine Northrup called The Wisdom of Menopause that she realized that her restlessness at night and racing heartbeat were perimenopausal symptoms. “Until that point in my adult life, I don’t recall one serious conversation with another woman about what to expect,” she wrote in her magazine.
Gwenyth Paltrow, actress and Goop founder, took to her podcast to open up about perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause. “These are phases of a woman’s life that we don’t really talk about – we’re embarrassed about it, and, as I’ve always said, I really do think that menopause needs a good re-branding.”
Salma Hayek also brought menopause into the open on Red Table Talk, describing a conversation she had with her doctor about the symptoms. “The questions were terrifying. They were asking me things like, 'Are your ears growing and there's hair growing out of them? Are you growing a mustache and a beard? Are you easily irritable? Are you crying for no reason? Are you gaining a lot of weight really fast that doesn't go away no matter what you do? Are you shrinking?' And then they ask you, 'Is your vagina dry?'”
Hearing these powerful women talk about menopause gives me a springboard to discuss it with my own friends and family, as well as with my doctor. I have a new rule in my house… nobody can roll their eyes when I say, “Hang on, I’m having a hot flash”. I’m setting an example for my children when I talk openly about what I’m experiencing. Trust me, I’m not complaining to them… I just want to make it as normal and matter-of-fact as any other life stage. According to a survey by Biotite, even though 25% of women ages 50 to 65 years old have never been told by their doctor that they were in perimenopause or menopause, 92% of the respondents had symptoms associated with menopause, including hot flashes, night sweats, lack of sleep, joint stiffness, anxiety, forgetfulness, and fatigue.
That’s a huge number of women who are looking for answers to their symptoms in places other than the doctor's office. So here’s one way social media is doing a good thing by giving a voice to these celebrities. I’m thankful to the women with a public platform who are discussing menopause openly to give the rest of us a voice with our own friends, family members, and doctors.
Of course, I’m also thankful to Lure products for helping me through some of my biggest menopausal symptoms, like dry vagina (just keeping it real), anxiety, painful joins, and sleepless nights. Lure products have become part of my daily routine and I’m just hoping to share this solution with more people so we’re not all suffering silently in our corners. My friends are all getting the Lure Premium Tincture for their birthdays this year—let me know if you have Oprah’s contact information so I can send her some Lure products, too!
