Episode Transcript
Speaker 0
So Michelle, you just had your follow-up with Jen from Coral. How'd it go?
Speaker 1
You know what? It was really good. What did we talk about today? We talked about switching from my current vaginal estrogen to one with DHEA in it, the intra I think it's called Intrarosa.
Speaker 0
Oh, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1
So, yeah, I'm hoping it's gonna help, like, the vaginal estrogen help with the incontinence, but I'm hoping this is gonna help with some of the libido stuff. Yeah, it was good. It was really, she was really thorough.
Speaker 0
Oh, okay. Well, so tell like, what do you mean by really thorough?
Speaker 1
It's different from I didn't realize this from the IMVEXXY vaginal estrogen I'm on. And so you have to use it every night instead of just twice a week. And some women get more discharge from it. And then we talked a lot about the discharge, which you don't need to hear. Anyway, yeah. No. It was really good. She went over all the pros and cons, and it was great because then, like, there was no pressure. I got to make the informed decision, and I I'm gonna give it a try. But it was good. She's like, here's what you need to know. Try it. If it doesn't work, we'll switch you back. It was great.
Speaker 0
I love that approach, and it's so different from just being handed a prescription and told, yeah. Good, like, good luck. Yeah. Or not even being sure how to take it or what to expect. That's amazing.
Speaker 1
Yeah. This discharge thing was like, wait. What? That almost turned me off, but I'm gonna give it a try. So no. And you know what? It was great. And I think also we you know, then we started talking about, my libido. Obviously, that, you know, came back around to that, and and she talked about maybe doing health coaching, which realistically, I probably definitely could use. But, you know, when when do I have time to fit that in? I just Oh my god. Can I can I jump in here and
Speaker 0
give you some of my, unsolicited advice? Yes. Always. Always. Maybe with everything you've got going on right now, now is not the time to add in sorting out why sex isn't a priority for you. Right? Maybe maybe that's a to do for sometime in January, and I'll just say it's okay to not wanna have sex right now.
Speaker 1
Oh my god. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And you know what? That's kind of what Jean said as well. She kinda gave me permission to, like, not to do all the things.
Speaker 0
Oh my god. That's that's huge, and that's the kind of care we all need. Visit coral dot c a, and use code tip five for five percent off. That's t I p five at c o r a l dot ca. Today, we have a very special episode. Our first male guest. We sat down with John McCullough, cofounder and CTO of CORAL, to ask his perspective on perimenopause and menopause, and how to get more men participating in these conversations. Because when men get educated and can support their partners, colleagues, sisters, daughters, and mothers, everything changes. This is perimenopause. John, welcome. We're so excited to have you, and thank you for being the first male guest on the this is perimenopause podcast.
Speaker 1
Welcome. Happy to be here.
Speaker 0
Great. Big day. Big day. John, you're the chief technology officer and a cofounder at Koral. You are also the only male on that team. What, what did the men in your life or do the men in your life reach out to you to ask for by about perimenopause and menopause?
Speaker 2
Yeah. Good question. So, actually, as it happens, there are now three men working for Corals.
Speaker 0
Oh, fabulous.
Speaker 2
I'm no longer the sole
Speaker 1
man that's ever been.
Speaker 2
So that's that's kind of nice. But yeah. No. Sadly, I would love to say that, yes, you know, me working in this space would have opened the floodgates to the men in my life and my friends, but that really hasn't happened. They they certainly hear me talk about menopause a lot, but most of the time I'm talking speaking with their partners, and they're just they just happen to be there. So I think we we still have a lot of work to do, you know, before men really become part of this, I think. You know, but I do get teased a lot that, you know, it my male friends will say that, you know, you seem to know more about women's health now than, like, your own health. Maybe you should, like, put to yourself.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 0
Yeah. What about so what about the women in your life then? It sounds like perhaps they're asking you a lot of questions and knowing what you do.
Speaker 2
Yeah. That that has actually been an amazing part of this journey is, you know, first of all, and I don't know if my experience is the same for all men, but I'll I'll speak from from my point of view. You know, before I became involved with this, I was completely clueless to the existence of this. You know? I think like a lot of men, I I thought of menopause as, oh, yeah. That's the thing where they get, like, hot flashes from time to time, and that's and that's it. Like and and and to me, frankly, it sounded like how I feel when I get back from a run. You know? I'm a little bit warm. You know?
Speaker 1
Oh, it's not like that.
Speaker 2
But it's I know it's not like that now. But I think a lot of men, that's kind of the the vision that they have of it. But, anyway, to back up, yes, the the the women in in my life now have opened up to me and started telling me their stories, their perimenopause stories. And and and there's a a there's there's women that I've known for twenty years that have gone through these horrific experiences, which I had no idea ever. And and these are people I consider myself very close to. Mhmm. But they only started talking. We only started talking about it when I would, you know, I would talk about what I'm doing for a living now, and then and then the stories started, to come. So so, yeah, that that has definitely changed a lot in my life. I'm learning a lot in retrospect from, like, from all of my friends, frankly.
Speaker 1
That's amazing. Can I ask when you do if you are with a couple and you do start talking with the the female about her menopause or perimenopause experience, do the do the men in their lives, do they, like, get uncomfortable? Do they glaze over? Are they engaged? Like, are they like, what's what gen I mean, it's probably different for everyone, but, generally, what are you finding? Do they seem surprised? Or
Speaker 2
That's, yeah, that's a great question. And I I I kind of wondered about that and but I still do. Like, it's hard for me to tell if, you know, they've heard this story a hundred times or they're hearing it for the first time. I don't think that's happened necessarily, but, you know, the the way the way that women talk to me about their menopause, I'm not sure that I'm not sure all of them have had conversations that free with their partners, unfortunately. I wouldn't I wouldn't say there's any glazing over as such. It's not like, oh, this is like, let me go watch the football while you guys talk about this. That's that's not, you know, that's not what we're talking about here. But, but, yeah, there's there's definitely like, you you can feel a different level of engagement on the topic for sure.
Speaker 1
Interesting. Well, yeah, it's funny because women always once we feel comfortable, we talk a lot, and we share a lot. As you're probably finding, you're probably not used to how, like, open women can be, but welcome. Welcome into the fold.
Speaker 2
Oh, thank you. But it's great. It's great. I I, you know, I love it, and it, you know, it validates to a large extent, you know, me being on this adventure, which which frankly was a little bit scary. Like, it's kinda scary to be the only guy, you know, in a women's world. Yeah. And and and, yeah, this has made it this has made me feel much more comfortable, that that women are are by and large, you know, opening up, and and they're not, you know, they're not thinking that it's freakish that there's a man involved in this, which is great.
Speaker 1
I I am curious because we understand you were kinda done with launching another startup, and then you found out about Coral, and here you are. So what was it about the value proposition or the vision that Coral had that changed your mind?
Speaker 2
Yeah. I I think it was more that I wanted a break from from health care and health tech. So for context, you know, I've been working on a dialogue, you know, today, Canada's largest telemedicine operator, for, like, six over six years. And and I felt that, you know, we had kind of accomplished what I wanted to do in that space. I I got interested in that space, because I was I I wanted to see how technology would be able to kind of improve some of the processes and the delivery of health care. You know, it is a challenge right now. Our public health care system is is, you know, has challenges with funding and all of that. And, you know, it seemed like an interesting problem to tackle of, like, how can technology help with this? So my my initial sort of pushback with the idea of coral was, like, it it felt like it would be similar to that. But then but then things shifted. I mean, the most obvious thing was when I started learning more about just perimenopause, menopause in general and sort of the it's it's I was gonna say frustrating. It's not frustrating. It's it's infuriating, kind of the level of support, that women get and and the how big how big the problem is. You know? And it and, you know, that that, you know, part of the the combative part of me sort of got fired up with that. And I had some experiences close to home also, with a partner that was struggling for a long time. And then, you know, the when when hormonal health started, being integrated into our life, it just you know, it's like a flick of a switch. Like, incredible. You know? Obviously, to maintain that, there's work. But it just kind of floored me, like, how and I'm generalizing here. Like, how easy the solution was. It it didn't seem like this crazy, we gotta land people on the moon thing. It was just, no. You just needed to have people that knew what they were doing, and these solutions, you know, are super effective and and do work. And then sort of researching the topic a little bit, like, yeah, seeing that women just aren't getting access to these services.
Speaker 1
Mhmm.
Speaker 2
Seeing seeing women that are being, you know, they're being told by their family doctors, you know, that they just, you know, just pull up your bootstraps and come and see me when when you're done with perimenopause, like, on the other side of this
Speaker 0
Yeah. In five to ten years.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1
Like, not six months. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. And that seemed that seemed wrong. Like, because the other thing that I really believe in is is the whole idea that medicine should be more than just fixing us. I I really like the idea of preventative medicine. I think it has tremendous downstream benefits also for public systems. If people are healthier, if they will lose the system less. But but more importantly, like, we deserve to live well. We deserve to be having a blast here on Earth, and it's not enough to just fix people. You you what you wanna do is you wanna help people live well, feel great. And and that's kind of like the ethos of what we we're our vision at Coral is is we don't wanna just fix you. We really wanna, like, help you, you know, get to feeling great. And that's that's the bar that we set. So so these things were you know, there was the the the side of me that's like, yeah. This is really, you know, where medicine needs to go. And if I can contribute to that by you know, I'm mostly the technology guy, so that's my contribution. But if I can contribute to, you know, moving, you know, the the science of medicine forward in some small tiny way, that'd be great. And then the other side is like, yeah, there's this really pressing need. There's this, like, really low hanging fruit, frankly, that we can address and we can help these women that, you know, desperately need it. It seemed like a win win.
Speaker 0
That's amazing. Thank you for changing your mind. Is there something that surprised you most about women's health, women's midlife health since you've started at EPO?
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, so many things. As I said earlier, like, I was so oblivious to any of this, like, even existing. But I think I think one of the most surprising things for me is is the community that's that's rising out of these shared experiences that that women are having. I mean, we met at a national menopause show.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Right?
Speaker 0
And you said the word vulva on camera and let us put it on our Instagram account. That's like, wow.
Speaker 2
Yeah. That that was funny. All my friends I told about this show, they assumed it was a show for professionals, like a trade show. Right? And I was like, no. No. No. This is the general public. There's there's a national there's enough interest in this. It for at the general public level to have a national show, like, couple of days, like, hundreds, thousands of people go through. So that that that there's a movement now sort of forming around this. That was very surprising and delightful, obviously, but the level of engagement was very surprising to me. Like, this really isn't a niche thing is is kind of my conclusion.
Speaker 0
It's not. And the the everyone's journey through perimenopause and beyond is unique, but the the challenges and the feelings of isolation and the feelings of not being heard, understood, cared about in the context of medicine and society in general, that's universal for half of the world's population. That that is really significant context, I think, that that most people don't still quite grasp. Even women who are struggling, they think they're still the only one. Right, until they're introduced to this community that's growing, but it's still really small relative to, you know, the the world population.
Speaker 1
I think the what was great about the menopause show too, there was so much information coming at at women. Like, just anything you wanted to know about, there was information. And your booth was right outside of one of the main stages. So I think what I noticed was a lot of women going to these main stages and listening to these really, important conversations, but then being able to come to your booth and be like, oh, hey, and have a little one on one and, got to and dive deeper as it pertains to me. And, yeah, it was pretty cool to to to see what you guys are doing at the show.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It was it was an amazing experience for us, and and it surprised us in many ways. And one of the one of the ways was just, like, how grateful the women were to be able to talk about this stuff. Yeah. And that that really like, the the level of, like, emotion and and the expressions of relief, and and that's universally, I think, with, you know, women's midlife health that I I sort of very much underestimated is just just how, like, how you feel when you start talking about this. And, you know, my partner also kinda went through that of the process of now I understand what's happening to me. I no longer fear that I'm going crazy. The level of relief that you feel Mhmm. Once you you understand that, it's it's just it's palpable. We see it in our interactions with our members. We certainly saw it at the, the trade show also. And that's that was that's that's great, but surprising. Right? Yeah. It's surprising. So it's unfortunate that that's that that, you know, people are starting from that that place.
Speaker 1
Well and that's what Mikael and I are doing what we're doing as well because we had each other to kinda, you know, vent and commiserate and discuss and learn. But not everyone has that, and not everyone has access to coral right now and you know, so or the menopause show. So that's great. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 0
Did I
Speaker 1
just say we were great? I don't know.
Speaker 0
Yeah. But, you know, good for you. That's that's part of your that's part of your journey, learning to not be self deprecating and yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1
So, John, just curious. Do you have any advice for female listeners who might be struggling to talk about perimenopause with their partners or, with their colleagues at work or with their friends? Like, what what's your take on on that?
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's interesting. And, like, I would I I do not want to come across as someone who is going to tell women how they feel. Like, I this is not what I what I wanna do at all. But I can talk sort of from the the male perspective. You know? As as I was saying earlier, you know, probably their partners are just ignorant on the subject as I was before being involved with coral. Our mothers never talked about this, obviously. So, you know, we, you know, we were never exposed to this. But but I think a little sort of understanding kinda goes a long way. And I think I think most male partners, you know, are very supportive, when when, you know, when this is an becomes understood. So I I mean, my advice would be kind of just don't worry about talking about it. Just do. Yeah. I don't know. And men and men just you know, we love we love the process of finding solutions. We love fixing
Speaker 1
I was gonna say you guys wanna fix stuff all the time. So what if you can't fix this?
Speaker 2
Well, but but there's a way to there's a way to leverage that. You know? Okay. Use us to do the busy work. You know? Use us to research what solutions are out there. You know, we have we have members that have told us on our platform that, you know, they they they sit their men on us to, like, vet us. Like, are these guys quacks, or is this legit?
Speaker 1
Oh, really?
Speaker 2
Yeah. For real.
Speaker 1
Oh, fascinating.
Speaker 2
That's a good question. Men that that's actually sign up, you know, their partners. So so this this does happen. You know? And and I think I think that yeah. Like, get get your partners involved. Give them tasks to do. You know? Help them help you with the busy work part of it, and and they'll be engaged.
Speaker 1
I like that.
Speaker 0
Well, it's certainly helpful for us. Well, as soon as you come to Alberta, it'll be a lot more helpful for us. Yeah. But, interestingly, our experience when we're at a pitch competition or we're working on something at the incubator and we're we have a booth or what have you, when that's happened in the past, the number of men who wanna talk to the two of us. And they say, I think I I learned a little bit about what you're doing. I think this might apply to my partner. Can you please talk to them? Can you please can you please can you please right? So when we're able to say, well, we could, but or you could have them talk to Coral. That's that's amazing. Right? Because part of the challenge is, well, we can talk to them, but until they can find someone who can actually, right, medically help them and offer solutions, and it's it's it's really a challenge because as you well know, finding a provider who is well versed enough in perimenopause, menopause, and confident enough to offer solutions is really challenging. Mhmm.
Speaker 2
It it is. Yes. No question.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Some of so I is it I don't even know what the Mount Sinai, clinic's wait list is. Is it eighteen months, two years?
Speaker 0
Last we checked, it was two years, and that's I can't imagine it's gone down. I'm sure it's only increased. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I hear that a lot. Yeah. You know, I'm based in Quebec, and we have, we have probably more private clinics here than elsewhere in Canada. But the private hormone clinics also have similar wait lists from my understanding. Oh,
Speaker 0
yeah. Like, even if you wanna pay for it, it's
Speaker 2
Accessibility is an issue for sure. That's working working on that.
Speaker 0
Well, you are, and you're you're setting a new standard of care for women's health. So thank you. It's it's it's so needed. What would you say have been the key elements for making that a reality, and and what are you most proud of in that context?
Speaker 1
Good question.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the biggest things is, you know, integrating lifestyle medicine and and, like, life coaches into the whole medical process. That's something that we don't do, and it always felt like the right thing to do. And so we we've tried that at Corl, and it's been, like, a tremendous success. It's really, really helped drive, health outcomes. And surprisingly, there's there's been a lot of pushback to that idea. And and and not just pushback from other institutions, but but pushback from our members themselves. Oftentimes, when women come onto the platform, they they'll be, you know, they'll be from they'll be in a mindset of, well, I just need the medicine. You know?
Speaker 1
I Give him the magic. Me the magic bone. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 2
I don't need I don't need this other stuff. I I've got this. You know? And and then they they get introduced to it, and they realize that, actually, this is super helpful and impactful. And, you know, it doesn't mean that you're lacking in any sense at all. It's just it's it's a better health care experience, when you can address other things than just the medicine. You know, and and menopause is not just pop a pill and carry on. Right? We all know this now or, you know, those of us in this in this industry. And, you know, the the gains that you you get when you you rectify your hormones need to be supported with, you know, proper nutrition and all these other things, and having having a platform where you get all of that, you know, without having to seek it out yourself has led to really, really great outcomes. But, unfortunately, there's a lot of pushback. Right? There's we we we operate in an industry where we have, you know, insurance companies aren't sure they wanna reimburse that aspect of the service. You know, corporate corporate customers aren't sure that they want to buy that for their employees or their members. They want Oh my gosh. They just want the the pill part. Sometimes, they they don't necessarily see the value of of the other the other components.
Speaker 1
Give them ten minutes with Nicole or Jean, and they'll be like, oh, wait. Everyone everyone on the planet needs this.
Speaker 0
Yeah. Oh, that's That's
Speaker 1
a great idea. Interesting.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's been it's been an interesting journey and but it's I think it's normal also. Like, you you you know, changing changing things that have been that have existed in in a certain form for a long time. It takes it takes time. It takes energy, and it's not there's a lot of, you know yeah. There's a lot of, I was gonna say inertia. It's not really inertia, but it's just, you know, there's there's still a lot of people, involved in this. It's it's a it's a system that, you know, where where payers are all interconnected, and they have their own processes, and it takes a while for that stuff to to evolve.
Speaker 0
I think too, there's, there's a big misconception about the lifestyle pieces. And what what I mean by that is I don't think there's anyone on the planet who doesn't know that they should be exercising more and drinking less and eating more protein and and and. And so we have this, yeah, okay. And we either just don't worry about it too too much or we we're naive about how hard those are simple things, but they're not easy to do. And that's, I think, where the differentiator the big thing that I've seen, and especially when Michelle tells me about her amazing experiences, having that coach who can keep you on track and and coach you about those elements, I I think we've all really underestimated the power of that and the value of that. Right? Simple stuff, not easy. Not easy.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. We have some amazing stories of of women on the platform that, you know, come in thinking that the problem is this big thing, and it turns out that, you know what? You just have a severe vitamin d deficiency. Just take take these, like, take these inexpensive pills, and suddenly you're sleeping at night, and everything else kind of flows through that.
Speaker 0
And here's the problem. That doesn't mean that is what everybody else needs
Speaker 2
to do. Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 1
Right? And I
Speaker 0
think that's where people get tripped up as well. Then someone online says, hey. Just take vitamin d, and all will be solved.
Speaker 2
No. It's it's this specific person had this issue.
Speaker 0
Exactly. Exactly. And that's why you need the experts Yes. To be able to hone in on, is it vitamin d? Is it b twelve? Do you need some estrogen? Right? Maybe you need to be eating more protein in the morning. Like, the it's you need the professionals.
Speaker 1
And and the and the care that you provide at Coral is so, personalized. So so much so that when I was on a call with Jean, we were talking about low libido, and she's like, oh, well, I like, that's not something that, you know, necessarily every woman would need to have a discussion about, but she's like, let's take some of your coaching hours, and we'll put it towards that. We'll have this conversation. And then last week, Nicole mentioned that I could sync my aura ring up to your app, which is magical. Oh, like, I'm excited. I'm also terrified because now she can see that I'm not I'm not actually moving that much, and I'm and I'm drinking. And so it's it's, you know, good and bad, but it it is so personalized. Like, I feel like I'm being held when when I'm when I'm working with your team. It's it's been really such a great experience.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I'm really happy to hear that. It is exciting also what we're starting to do more and more with the technology piece. One of the things that, you know, that you you mentioned the aura integration. But we're what we're really trying to do is we're trying to pull together a lot of different, like, datasets that relate pertain to your health, and we're developing, some, artificial intelligence tools to kind of sift through that and find patterns for us.
Speaker 1
And and,
Speaker 2
really, the objective there is to, to give our practitioners kind of more ammunition. You know, AIs are really good at finding patterns over wide, you know, a wide array of data that would be very difficult for, like, one single practitioner to to notice. But in the aggregate over all of our members, and all of these different data points, you know, the the blood markers, the the wearables, like, all of this stuff that we collect, we put it to good use to try to, you know, improve these health outcomes. And so so one thing that, you know, worked for you, the AI will be able to say, well, okay. This worked for Michelle because of these reasons, and these reasons might apply to Mikael also because of this. And and so these are patterns that, you know, say you both saw different practitioners. They wouldn't about you too because, you know, we have hundreds of members. But the AI can do that. So that that's something that I'm really excited of about this this coming, you know, as we we develop this technology is really to see how what are the insights that we can get out of this? Because I don't think anyone has ever assembled such a a wide sort of array of of data on on on midlife health. And I think midlife health is is very complex. You know? It's not I have a sore throat. You know? Give me a prescription for penicillin, and we're done. Right? It's everything is kind of interconnected. So I think this is this is possibly gonna be a really great sort of future thing.
Speaker 1
I don't know that you guys do you can you connect a CGM monitor to the app yet? Because it that would be magic. Like, if
Speaker 0
Michelle loves her gadgets.
Speaker 1
If my blood, like, my blood sugar and my or, like, oh my god. If we could put that all together and you could spit something out at me that was like, hey. Because you didn't sleep last night, you may have eaten this, and now your blood did this, and now I would love that. So please.
Speaker 2
Yeah. We're we're we're testing CGMs internally.
Speaker 1
Okay.
Speaker 2
But we don't we don't have anything yet, where we're leveraging that. But it's
Speaker 1
Coming soon.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 0
And for our listeners who aren't chief technology officers or, gadget geeks like Michelle, UGM is a continuous glucose monitor, which, yeah, I think very, very cool. I I have a thought just for some of our listeners who might be a little paranoid about their data and their health data. You know, as the chief technology officer, obviously, you have things in place to protect privacy and to respect. Oh my gosh. The acronym is leaving my has left my brain, but there there are rules and regulations. Maybe you could just give us a little blurb about that because I know, I still have some friends who are pretty reluctant in the context of sharing things, you know, online kind of thing.
Speaker 2
Yeah. No. Absolutely. And it and it's it's a totally fair point. So in Canada, the the the rules for data privacy surrounding, patient health information are some of the strictest in the world, and and we abide by absolutely all of that. We we have aspirations one day of of bringing our platform beyond beyond the Canadian border. So we've really the the whole privacy framework that we've put in place is is a worldwide. So we basically took the most stringent, regulations everywhere and and then, you know, added some. It's it's frankly, the the the data that women are sharing is extremely personal. Right? The the as custodians of that, we need to just the utmost care is put on that. We make sure that everyone that works for us is accountable for that because it's not just, you know, it's not just the systems. We we secure the systems with all of the state of the art gadgets that you can imagine. But there's also you know, the the data is flowing through individuals. You know, your your coaches are looking at some of it. Your nurses are looking at some of it. And so there's the the human element, and, you know, we make sure that we have really, really solid training programs for that. We we, for real, like, talk about data privacy every Friday at our weekly meeting.
Speaker 1
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2
And it's it's some no. It's it's something that we take extremely seriously. We need you know, we're a start up. Right? We don't really have a reputation yet. We need to build that. We need to build trust.
Speaker 1
You know,
Speaker 2
we're ask we're asking so much of women. Right? We're we're asking them to bear their souls in the form of the data they're sharing with us. So so we really, really have to take good care of that, and and that's what we aspire to.
Speaker 0
Amazing.
Speaker 1
Amazing. I love it. John, question we ask all of our guests, and it's gonna be really interesting to come to hear your perspective on this. But what is the one thing that you want every man to know about perimenopause?
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, we kinda touched on this already, but, you know, it's a major transition for women. This is not like a minor thing. It affects women to varying degrees, of course, but it's still a major transition in their lives. And for the longest time, they've been told or it's been implied that they have to do this alone. And and and, you know, my what I'd like men to know is that, no. No. That is not true. Like, they need a support system, and and they're finding it, you know, in these communities like we talked about, but they also need to find it at home with their partners. And so, you know, my my advice to men is, like, don't wait for your partners to talk to you. What I would tell men is is ask them. Ask your partners. Hey. You know? Do you have you read up on perimenopause? Do you like, I've I've you know? Just open the door. Make sure that when the time is right for her to talk about it, she knows that she can come to you because it's not a taboo thing. It's not a thing that's gonna gross you out. It's a thing that you're, you know, you're curious and you're you're there. You're available. You're ready to support. I think that's that would be my number one piece of advice. Educate yourself. Make sure your partner knows that, you know, your door is open to conversations about this.
Speaker 1
Amazing. Don't say, hey. You're acting crazy. Maybe it's perimenopause. No. No. But gen gentler than that.
Speaker 2
Yes.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Fair. I love that. Thank you. That was amazing.
Speaker 2
Oh, thank you. It was great to be here.
Speaker 0
Thank you, John. Great to have you. Thanks so much for listening to the show. If you like what you hear, please subscribe and write a review
Speaker 1
so more women can find us and get a better understanding of what to expect in perimenopause.
Speaker 0
This information is not intended as medical advice. The intent of this information is to provide the listener with knowledge to support more efficient and effective communication with their medical provider.
