WEIRD SYMPTOMS THAT ARE
ACTUALLY PART OF MENOPAUSE
One of Australia's Most Popular Podcasts with Hundreds of 5 Star Reviews
Grab your FREE Ebook copy now!
Have you struggled to lose weight and keep it off?
Start your journey to boost metabolism and transform your body into a fat-burning powerhouse.
Episode 267:
Show Notes
The episode centers on Helen New, a Pilates instructor based in Melbourne, who candidly recounts her experiences with perimenopause and menopause. The conversation explores the physical, emotional, and social challenges she faced—and how these struggles ultimately transformed her into a passionate advocate for women's health.
About Helen New
A former dance studio owner with a background in Musical Theatre, Helen turned to Pilates after a spinal injury nearly ended her career—allowing her to continue performing for another 20 years. Now a specialist in scoliosis and dancer support, Helen created the Curvy Bodies workshop and proudly represents Scolio-Pilates® in Australia, presenting her work across Australia, New Zealand, and soon, Japan.
Personal Health Journey
- Onset of Symptoms: Helen began experiencing perimenopausal symptoms over a decade ago, around age 49. One of her biggest challenges was managing very heavy periods, which impacted her daily life and work as a Pilates teacher. She describes moments of having to "do a dash" during classes due to these symptoms.
- Hormonal and Emotional Changes: Helen shares how mood fluctuations affected her. While she appeared calm and composed at work, she found herself becoming unexpectedly irritable or intolerant with her family. She describes feeling like she had no control over her emotions or words.
- Comparison with Family: She contrasts her experience with that of her sister, who had children and grandchildren earlier—highlighting how different life stages can influence the menopause journey.
Advocacy and Community
- Self-Advocacy: Helen emphasises the importance of advocating for herself when navigating perimenopause. Like many women, she felt overlooked by the medical system and had to push for the care and answers she needed.
- From Experience to Passion: Helen’s personal journey has fueled her commitment to supporting other women through similar challenges. Beyond Pilates, she now champions honest conversations and shares real stories about menopause.
- Impact on Work and Home: Helen reveals how her symptoms affected her confidence and effectiveness both professionally and personally. Her honesty underscores how menopause can quietly—but profoundly—impact everyday life and relationships.
Broader Takeaways
- Raising Visibility: This episode highlights the power of sharing lived experiences to normalise menopause and dismantle stigma.
- Support Matters: Helen’s story reinforces the importance of having a strong support system—whether family, friends, community, or healthcare professionals—who truly listen and validate women’s experiences during this transition.
Connect with Helen:
- 🌐 Website: www.precisionpilateswindsor.com.au
- 📸 Instagram: @scolio_pilates_helennew
Dr Lucy will be joining a special screening of The (M) Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause — a powerful documentary about menopause and midlife transition — followed by a live panel discussion with three incredible women. This is a chance to hear real stories, expert insights, and meaningful conversation in a supportive space. Tickets are limited, so don’t wait — CLICK HERE to grab yours now!
Episode 267:
Transcript
Dr Mary Barson (0:04) Hello, my lovely friends. I am Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (0:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns. We are doctors and weight management and metabolic health experts.
Both (0:16) And this is the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast!
Dr Lucy Burns (0:21) Hello, gorgeous friends. Dr Lucy here this morning. I have a wonderful guest to interview this morning. So, Dr Mary's not on the potty, obviously. But you know that we love bringing you really, really interesting guests, and we also love bringing you real-life stories. So, this morning's guest is a wonderful woman called Helen New. She's a Pilates instructor in Melbourne, and we're talking about her menopause-slash-perimenopause journey and the way, I guess, she had to advocate for herself—and now, her passion projects that have formed from that. So, Helen, welcome to the podcast.
Helen New (00:58) Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
Dr Lucy Burns (01:00) Well, I guess I just had to get you on, lovely, because your story is phenomenal. And I think it's just a wonderful story of your ability to advocate for yourself and the things that you had to do. And part of the reason you could advocate for yourself was that you had knowledge. And, you know, I think nothing embodies the phrase knowledge is power more than your story. So, lovely, I would love for you to perhaps share your story with our guests.
Helen New (01:34) Alrighty, so we'll start right back. I went on HRT when I was 49, so a little over 10 years ago. I had been having quite heavy periods to the point that I would be teaching, and I would have to literally do a dash. I was flooding through everything, so I used to say to my husband, it's like someone's turned on a faucet, and I've just got to get to the bathroom. And night sweats, like, you know, just the usual—up and down three or four times a night and wanting to change my nightwear. And then also finding I just didn't have tolerance for my children. I had teenage children at that point. I'd get home, and my husband used to say to me, "You give all of your goodness to your clients." You know, he would see me at the studio and think I was this lovely person. I would come home, and I could hear myself being intolerant with him, intolerant with the children. And there was just sort of—yeah, I had no control, I guess, over what was coming out of my mouth. And thinking that, well, I just have to put up with this. My mum had gone through it. You know, other women in my life had gone through it. It wasn't something that was talked about. So you kind of put up, put up, put up. And eventually, I decided, no, I can't do this any longer and went to my doctor, who was wonderful. And I sat there in tears and said to her, "I just, you know, I'm short with everybody and I'm exhausted all the time." And she's like, "Helen, you know, what was your mum doing when she was going through menopause?" And I went, "Oh, she wasn't working." You know, my sister had children young, she was playing with the grandkids. And she's like, "You've got teenage children, you're running a business, you've got children who are very busy, and you're running all over Melbourne with them. Like, cut yourself some slack." And I went, "Oh yeah, I never really thought about it like that." So it was quite a—you know, nice to be heard. So we—she sent me off, obviously, to have some tests done. We had a bone density scan. I'd had some ultrasounds done because I'd had endometriosis pre-children. And so she wanted to just see what was happening. I had four fibroids, and the endometrium lining was quite sort of thickened. So she sort of wanted to know, as a baseline, where we're at. She put me on the styloceques, so on the patches. And within a week, my husband wanted to take some champagne to her to say, "Thank you so much, I have my wife back." It was an absolute game changer. So this is, you know, 10–11 years ago. And at that time, she said to me, "But you have to come off it after five years because there are linkages to breast cancer." So I accepted that. I think I was about four and a half years in, and I started to wean myself off it and came off as instructed. By then I'd moved house, and I'd changed to another doctor. And so I sort of—yeah, just went off it. Within 12 months, I started having aches and pains. And a few joint pains. But more worryingly, I started to have sort of heart palpitations that were quite scary at the time. My father has cardiomyopathy, so I ended up seeing a cardiologist. I was having those extra sort of ectopic beats. So next thing I knew, I was on beta blockers, which were terrible—made me feel awful. I did six months on that. Then they moved me on to flecainide. And I was on that until pretty much last year. So quite a few years. And if I was exercising heavily, I was taking calcium blockers as well to get my heart rate down. So then, if we fast forward probably 18 months off the HRT, the joint pains were getting increasingly worse. So I ended up seeing a rheumatologist because I was testing positive for—they were starting to talk about lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. And I was starting to have a slight freak-out. And I would test—you know, POS main inflammatory markers were obviously really high. Nobody mentioned that it was menopause at that point in time, until I got to the rheumatologist. And his comment was, "I think this is inflammatory arthritis. Go back on your hormone replacement." So I trotted back to my doc, who put me back on what I had been on previously. And I probably was on it for about three months. And I just spotted the entire time. I felt awful. I went back to him, and he just said, "Well, it's your body telling you you don't need it. Come off it." So I just stopped it. Yeah. Yeah. Now, what I know now—it makes me really angry, but that was the advice at the time. So I—yeah, so went off it again. And then the joint pains continued to increase to the point that last year I was having quite a lot of nerve impingement. I was—you know, it wasn't—initially, they were telling me it was plantar fasciitis. And I—you know, I work in rehab, and I'm like, it's not plantar fasciitis. If I stretch it, it gets worse. There's some nerve damage going on here. So again, it was a bit of a journey. I had MRIs and ultrasounds done and all sorts of testing. And then they finally decided, yes, there was some nerve swelling in one of my legs. My husband and I are keen hikers. And I'd got this diagnosis just before we were heading to Spain to walk a Camino last year. So I was determined to not miss out on doing that. So I went and had a cortisone injection into my ankle to try and sort of calm things down a little bit. And it did take the edge off, but I walked 340 Ks with a fair amount of nerve pain. I could get about 10 K every day reasonably okay. And then after that, it was just sore. But I just figured, I'm here, I'm doing this. And so during that time—like, in the process of working out what was going on, what was causing my inflammation—I started to really drill down into the menopause side of things and listening to everything I could get my hands on from both people in Australia and obviously Louise Newson and people in the States. So I started to go, I actually think this is inflammatory again, and it's due to my hormones. So I came back from the walk in Spain, and I was determined to get back on hormone replacement. I visited my doctor and explained to him what I wanted to do. And he literally sat back in his chair and said, "Well, Helen, you're going to be 60 next year. Do you think you need to lower your expectations about what your body can do?" And it was like a red rag to a bull. I was just like, seriously? Like, are we having this conversation? And I got quite angry with him. And he did start tapping on his computer and then offered to give me a script for Tibolone, which I'd never heard of, which is a combined estrogen, progesterone, testosterone pill. And he would only actually—so, backtracking—the only reason he agreed to give me that was I'd mentioned that my libido was non-existent. And the minute I said those magic words, he went, "Oh, well, yes, okay, I could give you this." So even that in itself made me angry. But what about—my inflammatory markers are up and all these other things? But it was the libido that he responded to. So he offered me this script, but I knew it was synthetic. And I went, that's not what I want to do. And I sort of said, "I really don't want to be on a synthetic hormone." And he sort of looked at me and said, "Well, what's the difference?" So I took a big breath. I said, "Okay, I'll take the script, and I'll go and find somebody else to see."
Dr Lucy Burns (08:39) So I guess I just, I just want to backtrack a little bit. Clearly, when you were 49, you had what were classic menopause symptoms — you know, the night sweats and heavy menstrual bleeding — very, very common symptoms. And interestingly, most — lots of women — don't get that sorted out either. Like, they just put up with it, hoping their period's going to end soon. And they think, oh well, another month, another month, and they put up with it forever. And they end up, you know, with iron deficiency and all sorts of things. So certainly your doctor was, you know, on the money back then — getting ultrasounds and making sure that, you know, there's not other things causing it. So I do, I love that. And I love the fact that sometimes we do have to do — people go, you don't need any tests to diagnose perimenopause. And it's like, no, you don't. But you do sometimes need tests to exclude other things that can mimic perimenopause. And I think that's really important. And then your rheumatologist — I mean, what a legend — he was on the money early, early on. But unfortunately, it just sounds like your GP at the time just wasn't up to speed with options. So interesting, the second time round — five and a half years later — it sounds like your vasomotor symptoms, so the sweating, had all settled.
Helen New (09:54) That had all settled. I wasn't having that — I was really just having the palpitations and the joint pain. But it, you know, I'm a very physical person. I, you know, I exercise regularly. I'm at the gym. I obviously own a studio and I do my own workouts. My husband and I hike. But I would get up every morning and put my feet on the ground and go, "All right, how much is it going to crack and crunch now?" And it used to feel like my tib-fib were about to just crumble. So I just felt like there was no support in those lower limbs. It was like crunchy, crunchy, crunchy.
Dr Lucy Burns (10:27) I know. And so yeah, I think the musculoskeletal symptoms are vastly underestimated for many women, and people will just put it down to getting old, which is ridiculous. Unacceptable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fine when we used to die at 60 — not so fine now that we're living to 90 — that you're just going to have this for 35 years. It's not.
Helen New (10:50) Well, that's right. You know, we're only two-thirds of our way through our life. I'm not prepared to live with achy, crunchy joints for the next 30 years.
Dr Lucy Burns (10:59)Not when the solution is reasonably simple.
Helen New (11:01) Yes, yes. And it was.
Dr Lucy Burns (11:03) Yeah, absolutely. So interesting. Tell me a little bit about the palpitations. What was going on there?
Helen New (11:10) So I ended up seeing a cardiologist, and I've been monitoring. My father has cardiomyopathy, so we were very mindful to get monitored because I didn't want to risk that happening. And as she said to me, if there is any change, we're going to pick it up early. So for the last 10 years, I've been seeing her and having twice-yearly checkups, having stress echoes every few years, and then having an echo on a yearly basis. The last stress echo I did was late last year. And I'd been back on the hormone — which I know we haven't got to — but I'd been back on that for three months. And I went back yesterday for my renewal, for my review, and she literally said to me, "You've blitzed your last one." And I haven't been on any heart meds. And she's like, "I'll see you in five years. Come back when you're 65." And I went, "Great." So I jumped forward a little bit, but it would wake me in the night, and it was a little bit scary. I'd be out walking and my heart would be — if our husbands were sitting at 140 — mine would be getting up to 160. So it was a bit scary. Yeah. And I would feel quite unwell.
Dr Lucy Burns (12:15) Oh, I can imagine. And I think this is another one of the under-recognised symptoms of the menopause transition. And yes, obviously we need to get checked out and make sure there's not other things causing it, because there’s, you know, millions of things that can cause palpitations. But the fact that yours got better with the addition of HRT, suddenly it's like, right, penny dropping. It was clearly hormonally mediated. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So you're there at the GP's, he's offering you Tibolone. And again, there's some—occasionally—people for whom that is an okay option. But honestly, when you think about, you know, Tibolone is—and again, I'm not, you know, this is not individual medical advice for anybody who's listening—but Tibolone's cardiovascular profile is not fabulous for women over 60. And there was a significant—when I say significant, I mean statistically significant. I don't mean, you know, so significant that everyone’s going to have one—but there is a statistically significant increased risk of stroke for women over 60 on Tibolone. And yet he was offering you that because you're, you know, too old for hormones.
Helen New (13:26) Yeah, yeah, it made no sense to me. And when I challenged him on it, he just said to me, I don't know the difference. He did then write me a referral to another clinic, which I opened when I got home. And it said, I'm referring Helen to you because she's asking me lots of questions I don't know the answers to. I think I probably would have respected him more had he been transparent and said that to me. Anyway, so I ended up not going to who he'd referred. Obviously, I'd been following people and whatnot. And obviously Kerry Cashel, you know, a leader in Australia in this space, and Emma Harvey, her business partner with Healthy Hormones. I jumped up, they were the first two people I went to. Kerry wasn't taking any new clients, but Emma was. So I got an appointment with Emma, and yeah, she's put me on the estrogen, progesterone, and the testosterone. And it's a game changer. I'm back sleeping through the night again. As I said, all that joint pain has gone. My husband and I went to Spain. We're a little obsessed with Spain. Went to Spain again in April this year. And we walked another Camino. We did the Camino Primitivo, which is, you know, 320 kilometres and we're climbing 1200 metres most days. And I had zero pain. In fact, I was like, I'm ready to go again. I found it so much easier than last year when I wasn't on the hormones. And then my husband was, you know, even saying to me, this is a much harder Camino. And I'm like, than what we've done last year? I'm like, oh no, it's not. It's fine. My physicality was completely different.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:58) I reckon the Camino must be filled with midlife women. Totally. I cannot tell you the number of women who are in their fifties who are doing the Camino. It's like, you know, bucket list. Let's do Camino. Yeah.
Helen New (15:10) Yeah. And I think people's eyes either glaze over, they're like, you walked how many kilometers? Whereas we've done three now, and we'll be back again next year. Like, you know, completely obsessed with it. But yeah, that's a whole other conversation.
Dr Lucy Burns (15:23) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But what I love is that, and look, you're already fit and active. You're already strong. You're in the industry of muscles—moving muscles. So you're already doing all of that. You know, I see lots of women who need to do strength training, but actually, they find it really hard because everything hurts. And so, as a lifestyle medicine doctor, I'm all about lifestyle. You need to optimise your lifestyle, but sometimes you need things to help you be able to do what you want to do. Absolutely. And that's the big difference.
Helen New (15:55) Yeah. I mean, I've always exercised, and I've come from a professional dance background. So I think pushing through pain, even when things were hurting, is kind of part of my DNA from years as a dancer. So I did continue to exercise, and I did continue to do things, but it wasn't always easy.
Dr Lucy Burns (16:14) Or fun.
Helen New (16:15) Or fun. Yeah. Or fun.
Helen New (16:16) So to be able to sort of not have that pain now and to be sleeping back through the night again… and, you know, Emma's been great. You know, after six weeks, we did a review, and we tweaked the levels a little bit more. And, you know, she did do some bloods then and saw where, you know, all my levels were sitting and sort of optimised things again. And yeah. And the other thing—so my other big issue—was bone density. So I'd had a DEXA scan done at 49, and it had me tracking to pretty much hit osteopenia maybe in my 70s, which I thought, great, I've always exercised. This is perfect. And then the first thing—I'd been asking for a bone DEXA scan for probably about five years. I had a fall in 2021. In the middle of COVID, I fell down my stairs and broke my sacrum. And yeah, sort of became a little airborne and landed flat on my back on a concrete floor. And they told me sort of six weeks and I should be fine. At six weeks, I had zero fusion or anything yet at all. So at, I think, the 12-week mark, I had about 80%. So I kept saying to my doctor then, I really think I should do a bone DEXA—like, that doesn't sound right. That's not what they told me. And we didn't. So Emma, the first thing she said: "When was your last DEXA scan?" I said, "Oh, 10 years ago." So she’s like, "Right, let's get that done." And we discovered that my hip was negative 1.1, so just into osteopenia range. But I was really annoyed. I thought, had we known that five years ago, maybe we would have caught it even earlier. So, you know, I’d certainly upped my load, and I’ve upped my hip load. And obviously between that and the estrogen, we're hoping that we can turn that around. My spine was fine, but the hip was just into that range. Even though 10 years ago, it was tracking to be totally fine. It just shows you—take out those hormones for five years and we're back, you know, backwards.
Dr Lucy Burns (18:19) Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, this is the tricky thing. The DEXA scans are subsidised by Medicare once you're over 70, but it's like—it’s too late. It’s too late.
Helen New (18:29) It's way too late.
Dr Lucy Burns (18:31) And so I think because there's no subsidy, sometimes doctors think women, you know, wouldn't want to pay for it. Or maybe they think it's really expensive, and then maybe it's not necessary—that the story around ordering a DEXA needs to change.
Helen New (18:43) Totally. It should be a choice. It should be like HRT: informed consent, informed discussion.
Dr Lucy Burns (18:50) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think the thing we've got these days too is an epidemic of women who have dieted in their 20s or, you know, earlier—even teens and 20s—when they're meant to be laying down bone, when, you know, dairy was making everyone fat (I'm using air quotes), and so people were restricting. And so, yeah, weren’t laying down bone in their teens.
Helen New (19:14) Yeah. We hit our peak bone mass at 35. So I think osteoporosis—everyone thinks it's an old people's, you know, issue—but it's actually the schools and the kids and the teenagers we need to be educating and getting them moving and getting them eating appropriately.
Dr Lucy Burns (19:30) Yeah. But yeah, I agree. I do DEXAs all the time now. It's like, right, let's do a DEXA. And it's not that expensive. And honestly, actually a lot of people qualify. This is the other thing people don't realise—if they've got celiac disease or they've got thyroid, I mean, there's an epidemic of thyroid disease—they can qualify for a Medicare rebated DEXA anyway. But I mean, it's not that expensive to have one anyway. It's not like you're having them every week.
Helen New (19:56) No, exactly. Yeah. And I think it's just valuable information. And, you know, with my own client base, I'm always saying to them when they're getting to that perimenopausal state, you know, think about going and getting one and speak to your doctor. So the whole HRT, I've been seeing it with my clients—clients who've gone on to HRT now are coming in who I've been treating for frozen shoulder. And within two weeks, they can raise their arm overhead. Like, you know, their hip pain's gone. Hip pain in particular seems to affect a lot of menopausal women.
Dr Lucy Burns (20:26) Yeah. Gluteal tendinopathies.
Helen New (20:29) Yeah. Really, really common. Common and debilitating.Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the other thing I've noticed with my own client base is the amount of perimenopausal women who are on antidepressants. And some of them might actually need it. But on some of them, I'm like, I really think there's other things we could be doing. Like, let's address why you need that. So I guess it's over the last couple of years has opened my eyes to a whole other area.
Dr Lucy Burns (20:55) Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And look, I think it's harder. You know, I was obviously a GP for a long time and I knew nothing about hormones. Right. Even in the 20s—when I say the 20s, like we're in 2025. But 2020, I knew nothing much. And it's really only been in the last, you know, four years or so that I've been educated. And half of that is because suddenly I was menopausal. And it's like, right. So everything I learned was always about me. And then you realise that it's not—it's not just you. It's everybody.
Helen New (21:29) It's everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. So, yeah, all of that's kind of put me on a bit of a mission, which is how I met you. I've been on a real mission to sort of give everybody else the confidence to, I guess, and the skills or the knowledge to be able to advocate for themselves. I think had my doctor said what he said to me, maybe to someone else, they would have curled up into a ball and gone home and had a cup of tea. Whereas I, you know, it spurred me into action. I didn't like being told that I couldn't do things. So, yeah, I've decided to host The M Factor movie, which is a movie about menopause that Thames and Fidel produced in the US last year, went to air in September in the US. And yeah, we've got a screening of that happening in September, on the 2nd of September, at the Palace Cinemas in Como. And you are going to come along and be one of our guest speakers. So we're going to have—the movie runs for an hour, and then we'll have a sort of a panel discussion with yourself and some other medicals afterwards.
Dr Lucy Burns (22:30) Yeah, yeah. And you know what, I love this. This is sort of a new concept in the way movies are being produced. And it's, it seems to be coming out of the States where people produce a movie, or often a documentary sort of series, and then they kind of sell the screening rights at a low cost. So this is rather than, you know, just coming out at Village or something or whatever. And so then people host the movie. And it's really a really affordable way to be able to get access to quality information, quality produced, I guess, information. And what I love about it is then people are pairing it with a panel discussion or an open mic or some other form of education, so that you get—what's the phrase I heard? Docu-cation or something like that. It was a combination between documentary and education. Yeah, so a docu-ed-utory or something. Anyway, whatever the word was. So this is at the Como Cinema in Melbourne. So this is for Melbourne people, unless you, you know—and if you're interstate, then there is likely to be a screening somewhere near you at some stage. You might like to host one. Or you might like to host one. Absolutely, spread the word. And just tell me the date again. So I put it in my calendar.
Helen New (23:51) It's Tuesday, the 2nd of September.
Dr Lucy Burns (23:53) Excellent.
Helen New (23:54) So yeah, I think it'll potentially be a conversation starter for some people. From a community perspective, I know a lot of my clients are all going to come along and grab a girlfriend. And yeah, just to get people talking about it. Because so often, you know, I was even horrified with what I went through in my journey last year. And I started telling some of my girlfriends, and one of them—one of my best friends—said, "Oh, yeah, I've got osteoporosis." I'm like, "What do you mean?" "Yeah," and she— "Why haven't you told me this before?" And then another one said, "Oh, yeah, I haven't been able to have intercourse with my husband. It's too sore." I'm like, "Okay." And she'd been on the pill for the last 15 years. And so it's—even with my own really close friendship group—we just hadn't discussed certain things. And so now I'm talking, talking, talking, talking, talking.
Dr Lucy Burns (24:41) I love it. I love it. And you know, and again, I guess it's that thing, isn't it? The more people talk about it, the more people, you know, will be—it'll be normalised. A couple of weeks ago, we had a podcast out on vulva health. And I reckon we said the word vulva—
Helen New (24:27) So many times. Because it's sort of like this word everyone just kind of cut it down. They call it the vajayjay and the downstairs and the down south. And it's like, "Oh, we don't want to say what it is."
Helen New (25:09) Yeah, but it needs to. Look, I guess because of the work I do, I work very closely with the pelvic floor physio. And so a lot of the women I'm seeing are having, you know, either pre- or postnatal or menopausal, so that is becoming an issue. And we definitely are talking pelvic floors a lot and the impact that that has. So my husband even said to me the other day, "You need to stop talking about vaginas in front of me when my phone’s there, because I’m getting all this space." I'm like, "Good. This is good."
Dr Lucy Burns (25:40) Absolutely. And you know what, I mean, the great news about things like, you know, even podcasting—one of our people in our community just put a little note in our Facebook group saying that because she'd listened to, I think, both the vulva one, but also the one before with Soniya Lovell, who's also talks about patient advocacy—she went to her doctor because she'd had vaginal dryness, like your friend, and hadn’t wanted to say anything and thought he might dismiss her or thought, you know, was embarrassed, all of that sort of stuff. And now she’s got vaginal oestrogen. She’s feeling fantastic again. It’s like, yeah, yeah. We just want women to feel fantastic.
Helen New (26:18) Yeah, totally. And to talk and not go, well, I'm 60, you know, I'm turning 60 this year. I'm not prepared to just sit on the couch. And, you know, we had our granddaughter on the weekend and, you know, I want to be able to run around the park. And, you know, I was hanging upside down on the monkey bars with her and all that sort of stuff. I want to continue doing that for many years to come.
Dr Lucy Burns (26:37) Sounds wonderful. Wonderful. All right. So if people want to buy a ticket to the M Factor, how do they do that?
Helen New (26:42) Yep. They can head to my website and just head to the events page. If they're looking on social media, they'll see some posts there on my social handles as well. But yeah, the website is where the tickets will be sold.
Dr Lucy Burns (26:53) Great. And what's the name of your website if they just happen to be good at memory?
Helen New (26:57) Yeah, it's Precision Pilates, Windsor.
Dr Lucy Burns (26:59) Perfect. All right. So yes, you're right. We will definitely have all the notes, all the links to your socials and to the website in the show notes. So if you're driving, people, you don't have to stop and look at your phone. It'll all be there. But if you're not driving and you feel like just, you know, going and checking it out, it's Precision Pilates, Windsor. And Helen New is this fabulous woman's name. And yeah, and I'm just so happy that you shared your real-life story with us.
Helen New (27:25) Yeah, hopefully, you know, it starts conversations. I want people to talk, and I want people to not be embarrassed, as you say, about talking about down there problems. It needs to, you know, I see it with low back pain, hip pain—sort out your pelvic floor, ladies—and half the time your hip and your back pain goes away as well.
Dr Lucy Burns (27:43) Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Well, lovely. Well, I certainly look forward to the M Factor screening. And hopefully, my lovely friends, I might see some of you there.Have the most wonderful week, friends. And we will be back next week with another episode of the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast. Bye for now.
Dr Lucy Burns (28:00) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.
