What inspired you to make this movie?
Over 3 years ago, I started a personal journey that took me to 5 doctors, clinics and medicine men; anything to find answers to my symptoms that I did not know was the precursor to menopause. I spent a lot of money and wasted a lot of time going from doctor to doctor, went on and off various medications. I took herbs - natural and others. My symptoms only got worse. The information I received varied from source to source; always contradicting each other. I was at the end of my rope and did not know what to do.
What I learned is that I was not alone, millions of women suffer through menopause without adequate knowledge. I was fortunate enough to ultimately find a Doctor who understood what I was going through and created a treatment plan that stopped my suffering. This doctor changed my life in 72 hours and made me feel like the women I knew I was. Five days later I returned home and my youngest son said to me, “Mom… I don’t know where you have been but I am glad your back.” ….That reduced me to tears…. This doctor changed my life and I decided change others.
So began my creation of Hot Flash Havoc, the first feature length documentary about a topic that has been taboo to most of us for far too long - menopause. Hot Flash Havoc is a women’s guide to all things menopause - what it is, how it works, what your treatment options are, how to maintain a quality of life while going through it. The film is entertaining, engaging, educational and most of all funny. We interviewed dozens of the nation’s top experts as well as everyday women. We received real-life touching examples about hot flashes, sexual dysfunction, depression, osteoporoses and heart disease. We received dozens of suggested topics women wanted us to cover from bio-identical hormones, to chemotherapy and hysterectomy links to menopause. While some women probably know the answers, it appears 95% of women do not.
What do you think is the biggest misconception women have about menopause?
One of the biggest misconceptions about menopause is that it can only happen to women in their 50’s. Four women in our movie had menopause in their 30’s, through either natural menopause, hysterectomies or through chemotherapy treatments. Perimenopause begins in your 30’s and continues for most women into their 40’s. The average age for menopause is 51, so if you bell curve that age you can go into menopause in your 30 and as late as your 60’s. Menopause does not mean you are old or useless because you can’t have babies, it means that we as women are ready to make a change in our lives and get ready for the “Second Act.” Even though F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in Life, let me tell you there are... obviously he was not paying attention to women.
What are women and men's greatest fears surrounding menopause?
I think that the biggest fear of women is actually that it means they are aging, I can’t tell you how many times women have come up to me and whispered in my ear, “ I am in menopause but don’t tell my husband.” They are afraid that the man will discard them or leave them. I have had many phone calls from men asking how they can help their wives or girl friends as they do not really understand the changes we go through during these times of our lives. It has been very interesting that about 1/3 of our audiences at the film festivals have been men and how much they actually learned by watching the movie and walked away with empathy and information that would change their relationships. We always hear about the woman that is tired, depressed and doesn’t want to have sex and the man is thinking what happened to the women I married. (sometimes they decided to go for that younger women to bring back those experiences, but guess what they get to go through it again.)
Women can fix these problems and they do not have to live with them. So men and women need to know there are answers. (There is some data out their that shows the largest percentage of divorces happen between 45 and 55.….perhaps there is more to perimenopause and we need to make adjustments and get men and women educated ahead of time to eliminate surprises….)
Secondly, we have been taught by the media, in magazines through all advertising that we need to be 35, well guess what ???? you may be able to make some of those outside changes, but aging does not stop, however, it does not mean we are not attractive, sexual or vital. The baby boomer generation still buys cosmetics, clothes and goods. We are going to be 60% of the population and they should start advertising to women in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s as that new sexy, wise and adventurous population, because we are coming into this next decade with a lot of power. This movie intends to show women how to be vertical, alert, vital and sexual into their 80’s and beyond.
Why is there such silence around discussing issues of menopause?
Over history, especially during the dark ages and into the 1700’s and 1800’s women were only represented as viable if we were having babies. So many women did not talk about menopause as it made them not as important in their households or to their husbands. We were treated much more as chattel instead of the person who held the family and household together. Many women in the 1800’s were put into institutions as having nervous breakdowns if their symptoms were abrupt and disruptive. So it was not until they discovered hormones in about 1940 that menopause was something that even the doctors talked about. By the 1960’s we begin to see the issues around menopause, but women were still not living on the average past their 60’s. As this generation will be the largest population moving into menopause and in the US alone there are 70,000,000 in menopause and 35,000,000 in perimenopause, we are about to experience the biggest global warming of all. (Estimated by 2015 1.7 billion women worldwide.) Now that women are starting to understand that perimenopause begins in your 30’s, we have more women wanting to know what is a head for them so they can be better prepared and start prevention earlier for aging problems.
Can you speak to the fact that women in different cultures experience menopause differently? What lies behind these differences? Are the cultural, physical, or both?
We actually interviewed the heads of menopausal societies from India, South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Japan. These doctors primarily concurred with two problems that faced all women in all cultures in all societies, osteoporosis and heart disease. Most of these doctors from these societies said that when the people were eating their primary diets of fruits, vegetables and fish they had less or more minor symptoms that occur around perimenopause and menopause. But as more western foods and junk foods have made their way around the world, it appears that more of the menopausal symptoms are occurring. Women in other cultures like Africa used to be given a place of honor upon menopause, as western ways come upon these areas and more people move out of their origins and into cities this concept is getting lost. In the movie we cover the history of menopause and talk about the taboos and myths that have followed women through the centuries.
What are the real health concerns for women entering menopause?
I would say the primary ones are heart disease, osteoporosis, colon cancer, breast cancer, depression, sexual dysfunction, weight gain, joint pain, dry eyes, dry skin, diabetes and dementia. However, being of the right body weight and eating healthy and local can help one over come 50% of these health concerns because this is preventive. We still need to look at a women’s body as a whole and make sure to look at over all prevention.
Hormone Replacement Therapy has been promoted as a "cure" for menopause. Do you see this attitude as problematic What are the alternatives to pathologizing a natural change in women's reproductive lives?
Menopause is not a disease, it is a natural stage of life, the only difference today is that we are going to outlive it by 30 to 40 years instead of only 15 to 20 years. Since lack of hormones can affect bones, heart, tissues and other organs, we need to look at the over all health and changes that happen when we age. Some of these health concerns we can face with exercise and diet, but some like bone loss, cholesterol changes, drying up of mucus membranes and heart disease, make us look toward prevention and if that means in some cases hormones, then that is important for women to look toward and get correct information. We do not believe that hormones are the cure for all problems that present themselves to women. However, for some women these are certainly real options.
Women need to know if they are going to take hormones what the marketing terms mean that are being thrown at them such as “Natural Hormones” or “Bio-identical Hormones”. This movie explains these terms and put the women on even footing with marketing ploys and gives them the straight truth.
Sexual Dysfunction can be vaginal dryness or lack of desire, caused by pain in intercourse etc. However, women can use non hormonal lubricants to ease painful intercourse and or vaginal estrogens to re-elastize the vaginal walls so that the vagina does not atrophy and become painful. (This does not happen to all women, but the research says that loss of desire or painful sex does happen to about 75% of women and that 100% of women will experience vaginal dryness.)
Knowing that research shows that about 75% of women may experience a form of depression and or sexual dysfunction, I think it is extremely necessary for women to know that maybe they should do a hormonal work up first before letting doctors give them anti-depressants which can cause more loss of desire or interest in sex. There are of course clinically depressed people that need anti depressants, but doctors should at least be wary of the fact that a women is going through the perimenopausal transition or menopause.
Women are being given pills for all the menopausal symptoms like anti-depressants, heart pills, cholesterol lowering drugs, bone loss drugs, diabetic drugs, dry eye drops, joint pain drugs, muscle pain drugs, we are over drugged. We need to treat the women’s body as a whole machine and look at all the hormones like estrogen, testosterone, progesterone and thyroid and see if we can balance our bodies first before just having doctors put us on 10 different drugs for menopausal symptoms. We interviewed many women and one women who was being given 9 different drugs for each symptom. Not only was she not educated about her body, but not one of the doctors were talking to each other to discuss the relationship of each symptom.
What one lesson about menopause would you want pre-menopausal women to know?
Get informed about menopause and what that really means to your health and aging. It is not about if hormones are good or hormones are bad, it is not about whether you take hormones or not, it is about being informed and becoming your own health care advocate. With information we are powerful and can make good choices and not even the media can mislead us, as we will know where to turn to get that information. The other most important lesson is to find a doctor that treats women in her 40’s and up, one that reads the research and studies about women in this transition and a doctor that specializes in perimenopause and menopause. When we have the information, anything is manageable.
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