54 Days Since Last Incident

In this episode of the MenopauseIt podcast, Rachel Moore discusses the often-taboo subject of menopause, sharing her personal experiences and the symptoms she has faced. She emphasizes the need for open conversations about women's health, particularly as it relates to aging and menopause. Rachel highlights the lack of support and understanding for women going through this natural phase of life and advocates for better awareness and resources. The episode serves as an introduction to her journey and the topics she plans to cover in future episodes.

Rachel Moore (00:01.314)
Welcome everyone to the MenopauseIt podcast in a series that I am calling Days Since Last Incident The reason I am calling it that is because and for those of you who are not familiar with the feminine phenomenon of menopause, according to medical protocols, a woman can be considered to be in menopause officially if she has gone a full consecutive 12 months without a menstrual cycle.

Now, for those of you who are getting precious about what menstrual, period, it's bleeding out of her vagina. Okay, that is a menstrual cycle. That is evidence of a menstrual cycle. That's not all it entails, which we'll get into. A lot of you might find a lot of education for this, but we're just gonna talk about stuff very clinically as well as just straightforward on this podcast, by the way, because I don't think we need to pussy foot around this stuff anymore. Over half the population are women.

who have vaginas out of which blood comes out of them once they hit puberty and through until they get through menopause. So now that we've got that out of the way, and now hopefully you've got a little bit of an idea of what each of these episodes is going to be like. Let me introduce myself. I am Rachel Moore. My handle just about everywhere on social is Rachel has the mic as evidenced by the microphone you can see on the screen if you're watching. If you're listening, that's what I'm talking into.

I am a Gen Xer. I was born in 1974. So I am textbook Gen X. And Gen X, let me clarify. Let me clear something up. Menopause has been around since the dawn of time. And if you adhere to the beliefs of Adam and Eve, Eve certainly went through menopause because, and you can go into biblical scripture, it talks about how she was given pain during childbirth. So she was basically bestowed all those things that women go through.

by virtue of our sex that we get to replicate human beings. And so menopause has been around for centuries and since the dawn of time, since the inception of human beings. However, it's just odd, wouldn't you say, that no one really wanted to talk about menopause, that up until really recently, frankly, menopause, you don't talk about that. We don't talk about that. It's like Bruno, you don't talk about it.

Rachel Moore (02:26.382)
Nobody wants to talk about it. No one wants to know that women bleed out of their vaginas. No one wants to really, ooh, I don't want to know you have tampons or pads. I don't want to know that that happens. Though it's really interesting because so many people have a great interest in the fact that women can have this thing called a uterus that can generate, you know, grow babies, give birth to babies, but no one wants to hear about anything else coming out of the vagina. Well, that's what we're going to talk about on this podcast.

I have dubbed this particular episode 54 Days Since Last Incident because it has been 54 calendar days since I myself have blood out of my vagina. Again, just to be straightforward. I have not had a menstrual cycle for 54 days. what's, what's great. This, this is what's so fun. And I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible. What's great about that is this is not the first time I've gone several weeks.

you know, days, weeks, months, without a menstrual cycle. I, about two and a half years ago went a full, and this is the mind numbing part, went about 10 months without a menstrual cycle, and started hormone replacement therapy. I am still having that except then once I started hormone replacement therapy, guess what came back briefly? Menstrual cycle was great.

all my hormone levels still indicate that I am paramentaposal slash menopausal. I tick all the boxes there. It's just the fact that I menstruated again. So technically, technically everyone, Rachel Moore here, Rachel has the mic is perimenopausal even though I, I just, I get that medicine has to have protocols. I get it. But I point back to the fact that nobody fucking wanted to talk about.

women having menopause. And it was very much approach where they like, yep, just part of nature. Just go ahead and muscle through it, get through it. Let's talk about some of the symptoms that women get to experience. And I'm just talking about menopause. We're not talking about the rest of our lives and all the things we get to go through. And by the way, I will add a link in the description. There are some wonderful videos put out there by men.

Rachel Moore (04:45.497)
who are trying to replicate a woman's menstrual cramps and they wear a tens unit, I believe, and it zaps them and basically gives them cramps in their midsection and they don't function with it very well. So we're not gonna get into all that, though that is certainly a symptom or can be a symptom of menopause. So when we're talking about a woman being in menopause, a lot of things start to happen. And I'll share some things that happened to me and where I was like, hmm, I think I might be hitting.

that time of life. So when I was about 47 years old, I suddenly started experiencing this hair that you see. And again, it's, dye it, so it has its own issues with that, but we do a pretty good job with it. My hair almost overnight turned into straw. I have always really loved my hair. It's not thick, but I have a lot of it. It's very fine.

it's funny, if you go to my stylist, she'll always, she, when she first, every time she was like, God, your hair just looks so thick. And then I touch it and it's like really fine. It's just, have a lot of it. So it looks thick, but so I've always loved it. And, and as a result, I've always been able to do a lot of stuff with it. it's straight as a board, by the way. no, no waviness whatsoever overnight. It turned into straw and that really, I think that was the biggest thing that threw me for a loop. if you, particularly for a woman.

You know that you have certain features where you're like, OK, I can bank on that feature. Right? I might struggle with other things. I've always struggled with my weight, but I'm like, man, but I can do my hair. You know, I got this. Or someone when, not me anymore, someone when have great eyebrows. These are fake. I'm totally, these are put upon. Dude, these get so much help. Someone have great eyebrows. My daughter has fabulous eyebrows. And I keep telling her, I'm like.

but, and maybe just not other things. So you just know those features that you bank upon. That feature out the window was turned into straw. couldn't do anything with it. I'm like, okay, that's weird. And then I started noticing like different hairs, you know, growing in different places or not growing in different places anymore. I'm like, okay, that's weird. Mental fog, holy shit. I have always had a very acute mind and memory. I have a photographic memory.

Rachel Moore (07:04.614)
I take prodigious notes. have always done that, but I'm at the, I have the thing where if I write something down, I will always remember it. And so I've always taken notes that way. I've written it down and then I'll keep notes and do tasks and things like that. That was gone. I suddenly was like, my gosh, I can't recall things and it's weird. So mental fog was certainly there. and then energy levels, we're, starting to really tank. I would get super tired toward the end of the day.

Some ones that here are some other symptoms that I'm sure we've all heard of hot flashes now. I want to be clear This isn't just about a momentary. Ooh, it's hot in here. I need to go cool off This is as if somebody has just thrust you into a 40 degree warmer Environment and you immediately start sweating and when I talk sweating you are flop sweating. It's delightful too, especially if you're in a

professional environment or somewhere you don't want to sweat your armpits go under your boobs go so you just literally start I had a moment at a professional networking event where I was wearing a halter top and I had to cover my the front of me because I started having a hot flash and everything from under my boobs under was sopping wet with sweat I was you know all the sweat up here and it was halter top fortunately but yeah you're really clamping down here and that's just the top

Like you're sweating. This happens overnight. It happens. It can happen in the middle of the day and it can just happen unbidden. So it's not just an inconvenient. Ooh, I happen to be a little bit warm right now. that can be pretty traumatizing, particularly if you consider there are women who sometimes were in an environment where like not convenient for me to be sweating right now because God, you're judging me on literally every other aspect of my appearance. And now you get to judge how much I'm sweating. Ooh, she must not be able to handle it. No, no.

No, my hormones literally are saying, mm, your thermostat just increased 40 degrees Fahrenheit, if we were to count that. So hot flashes. And then the other huge, very, you know, life impacting symptom I had or had developed was libido. And it really, and again, I'm gonna be very straightforward here. My vagina had dried up like the Sahara desert. Whenever my husband and I would start to get amorous with each other,

Rachel Moore (09:29.29)
No, everything below hip was like, no, I'm not going there. This is, where are we going? Unchartered territory. And I'm like, what the hell has happened? Now, why should any woman have to be told, well, just suck that up. Go through all those symptoms. And I've only named a few. Women have drastic weight gain or weight loss.

They can have all kinds of skin changes and just everything. And granted, look, I'm not turning away the fact that we're all going to age. I'm embracing aging. am Jamie Lee Curtis. If you're out there, my hero, you lady. my God. I want to go, I want to be like that. I want to embrace everything. Every moment that of this experience I have on this planet earth. However, there are things we can do to help ourselves still enjoy life as we're getting toward that age. And there's no reason.

that a woman should be written off when she hits a certain age because oops. And the reason I say that, and if any of you are like, but that's not true. It's like, okay, well then what do we do for men when they get to a certain age? Medications all across the board. There are so many goddamn things out there that are set up to make sure that men don't feel too special as they get old, you know, and get all up in their feels about their turning, you know, turning older so that they feel appreciated and accepted and still revered to the same value that they've always been held throughout their life.

What about for women? I think we deserve that. So that's what this podcast is about. I'm here as a menopausal, GenXer woman who has a goddamn microphone. We're gonna talk about it. So that's why I wanted to be here. I don't even know what this is gonna turn into. This might be just literally event session and y'all can just come on here and relate. To be honest, was doing a kind of, was doing a me in menopause series on TikTok, which I'm not on anymore, at least for the time being.

But YouTube, I'm here and I want to talk about it. I might have guests on, might have fellow menopausal women on, I might have some younger women who are like, I don't understand what is going to happen to me when I'm older. I'd be like, girlfriend, buckle up, let's go. So that's what I'm here to talk about. Reporting in, this is Rachel has the mic, reporting in at 54 days since the last incident. I'm actually going to be making a call to the clinic that I go to for hormone replacement therapy.

Rachel Moore (11:50.605)
That'll be a whole other episode where we can talk about how the fact that most, if not all, insurance policies do not cover hormone replacement when we get to pay for that out of pocket. But oddly, they do cover Viagra. So we're make that make sense. That said, I will definitely be back. We'll be updating on different things about my menopause experience on this here channel called MenopauseIt. This is going to be just one aspect of the channel. Primarily, my channel is about me.

being a menopausal woman who likes to game. I love playing video games. I enjoy it. I am really loving finding more women, people my age, but mostly women who are also gamers. It feels a little counterintuitive. It's not. We love video games. I greatly think video games, man, you talk about that mental fog. I actually play video games over lunch and it helps me a lot with that. So yeah, so that's what I do on this channel.

Hope you enjoy it. Let me know your thoughts down below if you liked this video, if you found it remotely interesting, amusing, or relatable, or informative. Maybe I taught you something today. Like the video. If you know of anybody else that you'd like to make sure they come over and watch it, go for it and share it. I would love that. And go ahead and subscribe. Who knows what the hell you're gonna get. But then at least you'll know when a new video hits, whether that's me gaming or me talking shit about menopause. Because I'm not a fan, but here we are. All right.

Have a great day everyone. I will see you reporting. I'll report back whenever I have an update about how many more or less days it has been since the last incident. Bye.