When Dr. Prior experienced things that were signs of high estrogen not low, she suspected that what she had learned in medical school was incorrect.
In this video, Dr. Prior talks about how she realized that what she’d learned in medical school about how hormones change in the lead up to menopause (e.g. that estrogen was falling) wasn’t correct. She learned this through her own experience and through the experience of caring for many patients. (Full transcript below)
Transcript
Dr. Prior’s Experience
Well first of all, what I noticed was that I was getting heavy flow, I was getting sore breasts. They were happening all the cycle and not just premenstrually or at midcycle as they’d been before. And that I was hungry all the time. Plus around that same time, I had this very vivid dream that I was pregnant. I mean that was a nightmare. My kids were in their teens. No way I wanted to be pregnant again. But all of those things: Weight gain, heavy flow, breast tenderness, pregnancy feelings. Those are high estrogen feelings and that is the opposite because I learned menopause was about low estrogen. And, I knew these were signs of high estrogen not low.
What Dr. Prior learned from her patients
A quick note before we move on Dr. Prior doesn’t use the word “symptoms” because she feels it takes a normal life phase and makes it sound like a disease. Instead, you will hear her use the word “experiences” in place of symptoms.
The women who came to me with very mysterious kinds of issues were believable but they didn’t fit within what I had learned. I believed what women were telling me about their experience and I believed my own experience and the only conclusion I could make was that medicine had it wrong.
Given this mismatch between what she’d learned in medical school about midlife hormonal changes and her own experience and the experiences of her patients, she set out on a path, here is what she did…
So I began an incredible, tedious task of trying to find all the papers I could find, all the research I could find, about the hormonal changes that lead up to menopause. I spent at least a year, nights, weekends, whenever I could weekdays around all the other stuff I was doing, researching this and finally wrote a major review in Endocrine Reviews. The Complex Endocrinology of Perimenopause.
The paper that Dr. Prior mentions is available at the Women Living Better website. You’ll find it and lots more on the resources page, under the Take Charge menu. CeMCOR the center founded by Dr. Prior is a wonderful resource for those interested in learning more. There are links on the resource page mentioned above or you can find it directly at cemcor.ca.
Other videos with Dr. Prior: “Then You Don’t Think You are Going Crazy“, “Perimenopause is long, it’s irregular, it’s unpredictable but it ends,” and “This is Not Me! When do I get my self back?”
Dr. Prior is the founder of The Centre for Ovulation and Menstrual Cycle Reseach.
