Month in Review… February

How do you like that for a lead? 😉 Before I get into the nitty gritty of my journey to menopause, let’s recap February as it was a pretty typical month with not a ton happening. I’m feeling the best I’ve felt in a while and there are a number of reasons for that.

🏃🏻‍♀️ I got into the Bridge Run for June 2025! This was the high point of the month. I knew I wanted to experience this opportunity to run across the Øresund bridge that connects Sweden to Denmark. In 2025 it will be the bridge’s 25th anniversary and they’re doing a half marathon race over it. 40,000 bibs were available and when registration opened they had over 100,000 people in the queue. I was in the waiting room for 45 minutes and then finally got in only to have technical issues! I seriously wanted to cry. After trying to submit payment FOUR times, it finally took. WOO HOO! I’ll be sharing updates on my training here as I haven’t been able to run for a year due to injuries and such, so it’s going to be a slow road back to that distance.

🥼I’ve talked about my PT and Chiropractic, but I also started seeing a medical massage therapist at the same clinic. What a game changer! I’ve had two appointments with her and I’m feeling the best I’ve felt in a year. Our appointments aren’t massages like you think of at a spa, they are more focused, involve dry needling, cupping, and massage. And let me tell you they can be painful. BUT, it’s worth it. It’s like having my own personal care team and they will be helping me stay injury free during my training!

🧖🏼‍♀️ I’ve been to the bath house regularly and am still obsessed with the whole sauna/cold plunge thing. I also think it’s what has really helped my back issues. Not to mention I feel like a badass when I go on bad weather days and ice is on the water.

👯‍♀️ I enjoyed fika AND lunch on Galentines Day with Melissa and Jen. It was an impromtu meet up and we had a great time. We started at a bakery for semla and coffee, went for a long walk, and then had a pasta lunch at Benne. It’s a new “fast food” pasta place that opened and it was really good. I love being able to spontaneously meet my girlfriends out in the middle of the day.

🇩🇰 Ramesh and I went to Copenhagen to meet Dani and Josh for restaurant week. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. The sun was shining and it was a balmy 45 degrees. We enjoyed some wine outside by the canal, made our way to get beers at another bar, then walked to our dinner at Mr. Brunello. The dinner was wonderful. I also did the wine pairing with it. Note to self: I should NOT do this 🫠. You would think I’ve learned my lesson, but no, I got caught up in the whole tasting/pairing and ended up drinking WAY more than I should. After dinner we stopped at a favorite bar of theirs and I got to try a slushy cocktail (SO GOOD!) and also their homemade honey snaps (yummy). If you’re counting the drinks I’ve had 8 at this point and it wasn’t even 9pm. LOL. We capped the night back at Dani and Josh’s with some Port, Beer (I just had water, obviously) and quality time with Walter (cutest dog ever, not including mine). We caught the train back home and I was in bed around 1am. Not too bad for this old gal.

🫔 Last weekend we had mexican night at Carolyn and Aaron’s place. Tamales, 7 layer dip, guac, salsa, enchiladas, and chips. It was pure heaven. Finding good Mexican food here is next to impossible so we’ve all made it our mission to make it at home. I’ve taken a few cooking classes here and learned how to make corn tortillas and tamales… next up is pozole!

That pretty much sums up our February.

Now let’s talk menopause! I’ve been noodling on this topic for a few months now, debating what to share, but knew I wanted to write about it. Let’s start back at the beginning, when I didn’t have a clue this was what was happening to me 🤨 (NOTE: I am not a medical professional and this is just my personal story, please see a doctor if you are having similar issues)

Back around 2017ish I started waking up in the middle of the night drenched💦. Like need to change my pjs drenched. Of course this had me VERY concerned. Nothing else felt off, so why was I sweating so much in the night? I had also noted that my body was putting on weight around my stomach, despite consistent workouts and healthy eating, but assumed that was just age. I made an appointment to see my doctor. She listened to my concerns, asked me when my last period was and it was at that point I realized I hadn’t had one in over SIX(!) months. It never even dawned on me that I was starting menopause. I was in my mid 40’s, didn’t this happen later in life? I also asked if this was contributing to the weight gain, but she dismissed that as a factor. She immediately put me on birth control to help with the night sweats and to bring my periods back. She said studies had shown that continuing your period until at least 50 helps slow down osteoporosis (and I’m all for that!). I could stay on the pill until I reach 50. After that I could chose to go off at any time and menopause would happen. The night sweats stopped almost immediately, what a relief.

Things continued as normal for a few years and then the hot flashes started - while I was still on the pill. If you haven’t experienced a hot flash, it’s literally like your body is on fire for anywhere from 3-5 minutes (sometimes longer). You get so hot you feel like you need to take off everything to cool down, but that won’t help. I would literally have sweat run down the side of my face sometimes. Just awful. But I dealt with it because I didn’t think there was anything that would help and I had known others who went through it as well and just dealt with it. If this was the worst of it, I could handle it. Little did I know, it would get worse 😳.

I turned 50 and we moved to Sweden. I still had a few months left of my pills, so once those were done I figured I would just stop them. That transition was not something I was prepared for! The hot flashes got worse, my body (mostly joints) started to ache all the time, my moods were all over the place (angry with everything, easily upset, depressed), and to top that off I was in constant state of brain fog. WTH was happening to me? I had started to see an acupuncturist for an auto-immune issue I have (also did this in the US!) and brought up that I was having hot flashes, joint pain, etc and he asked me more about it. He inquired about all symptoms (even prompted ones I didn’t associate with this) and then said he could help. Apparently this was an area he helped a lot of women with (along with fertility). So we started an intense round of acupuncture treatments. Within a month or two, most of my symptoms had subsided or lessened enough that I could deal with them. SUCCESS! Or so I thought. I felt decent for about a year. But then the symptoms slowly started to come back - body aches, moods, brain fog - at least the hot flashes were gone so I just attributed all the others to getting older.

It was around this time I started following Dr. Mary Claire Haver on TikTok (she’s since launched a whole website and movement around menopause). I started seeing that all my symptoms were related to my loss of hormones. It’s incredible what one hormone can do to the body. To top that off, not a lot of research has been done to help women. In fact, women’s health doesn’t even get a semester in medical school. It’s briefly mentioned!?!?!? WTF. Women have been dealing with this (and many other health issues related to hormones) forever and nothing has been done to help? Back in the day women were committed for being hysterical or psychotic during this time of their lives. Now we know it’s from lack of hormones and the effect on the body, but this wasn’t that long ago (we’re talking still happening in the 50’s). The changes that happen to women during this time have always been attributed to life and getting older. No connections were made between all of these symptoms and the lack of hormones. Mostly because men don’t experience this. I bet you all the money in the world if one man experienced this, research would get funded, studies would happen, and solutions would be implemented to change it! But women have been told to deal with it and are still told to deal with it by many doctors! Dr. Mary Claire equated menopause to men’s testicles shriveling up and dying. Now there’s a statement that will get men to wake up to what we’re going through! Men don’t go through anything like this in their lifetime, so how could they even begin to understand it. (i’ll get off my soapbox now 🤨)

With my joint pain becoming worse, insomnia kicking in, and my mood swings, I knew I needed to do something to change what was happening in my body. At this point I had done enough research to understand that getting hormones back into my body was the only viable option and would actually help with my long term health. I started to look into how to go about this in Sweden as the medical system is vastly different than that in the US. Since I don’t have a “regular” doctor per say, I wasn’t comfortable making a generic appointment with someone who may or may not be in support of HRT treatment. Finally, I found an online women’s health clinic based in Stockholm (womni) that dealt with these issues specifically. I made an appointment for the next week. It was the best decision I’ve made. I met with a woman doctor, she listened to everything I had to say, then we discussed options. She was very supportive and made me feel like we were going to solve this, which was the whole reason I went this route. I wanted someone I knew would listen to me, not diminish what I was going through.

I started HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) in pill form that day. HRT comes in many variations and it can take a while to get the combo for your body just right. I started a once daily pill that is estrogen and progesterone. Within one week of starting the treatment I saw my symptoms start to subside. Within a few months I’m feeling like myself again. I don’t have the joint pain anymore, I’m sleeping through the night, my moods have leveled off, and I no longer have brain fog and am able to focus and concentrate again. It’s been pretty life changing for me, not gonna lie.

Does more research need to be done around menopause? YES. We still don’t know all the long term effects of menopause and hormone replacement on the body. But, there have been more small studies popping up. More scientists are digging for answers and coming up with some interesting correlations. The correlations to menopause come only because researchers have started to explore why we see diseases impacting women vs men. When you start to remove the commonalities, you start to see that menopause is something unique to women and has dramatic effects on the body.

That’s my story. I’ve become a huge advocate for speaking up about women’s health recently because of my experience. No one should have to suffer through this. The only way to make change is to share your story and advocate for yourself and others. What’s your story? Where are you in your journey? I’d love to hear about it.