Low Libido, Women and Testosterone, and Smashing the Menopause Taboo with Nurse Practitioner Jackie Giannelli
Show Snapshot:
Forget hot flashes. Menopause can wreak havoc on desire, intimacy, and sexual wellness. We dive into libido and factors (beyond dry vagina) that can get in the way of intimacy with Jackie Giannelli, a women’s sexual health expert and medical advisor to Elektra Health – a modern health care company focused on smashing the menopause taboo. We talk testosterone therapy, managing mindset and mood, and why every woman needs a menopause support team.
In This Episode We Cover:
1. Suffering from low libido and painful sex? You have company—these are the top concerns of women in peri and menopause.
2. A trio of hormones drive desire – estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Learn to support your body as these hormones drop.
3. Come on brain! How to get your body’s biggest sex organ wired for desire.
4. HRT, testosterone therapy and lifestyle choices that can boost libido.
5. The 411 on testosterone therapy – pellets versus gels and what works, what doesn’t.
6. The #1 reason women lose interest in sex may surprise you.
7. Beyond dry vagina – physiological changes that can impact intimacy. Plus, fixes to help.
8. Erotica, fantasy, sex toys, and lubes – ideas to tune up desire and intimacy.
9. How to menopause better with the Elektra Health Meno-morphosis program (tools to navigate menopause and midlife intimacy).
Quotable:
Testosterone replacement therapy fills up the gas tank of the car. If your car is on empty and you put your foot on the gas pedal, it’s just gonna sputter and sputter. But if your gas tank is full, now you’re set up for success.
The top two concerns that women come to me with are sexual drive or libido and second, issues with sexual pain.
More Resources:
Follow Jackie:
Follow Elektra Health:
Elektra Health’s Menopause 101: The 21st Century Guide to Menopause
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty (0:04):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. We have a fantastic show today, we are diving into all things sexual health and wellness and what can get in the way of intimacy with Jackie Giannelli. Jackie is a board-certified nurse practitioner with a special focus on menopause, urogynecology, and women’s sexual health. She is also an advisor to Elektra Health, a modern healthcare company focused on smashing the menopause taboo and offering science-backed education, care, and community to women everywhere. Welcome, Jackie.
Jackie Giannelli (0:40):
Thanks for having me, Katie.
Katie (0:41):
I’m excited, I’m excited because all month long on this show we’re exploring relationships from a variety of angles. Sex and intimacy are obviously a biggie. The changes of midlife, right, perimenopause, menopause can impact intimacy and pleasure. What are some of the main concerns you hear from patients in the Elektra Health community?
Jackie (1:00):
That’s a great point. So, the intersection of menopause and women’s sexual health is exactly where I love to be. And so yeah, I hear from and take care of so many women in this phase of life. And the most common, probably the top 2 concerns that women have and that they come to me with are issues with sexual drive or libido and the second one would probably be issues with sexual pain. So, pain with intercourse or other types of pain of the vulvovaginal tissues.
Katie (1:33):
Okay, so these are two things that we need to fix. We’re in midlife, we want our sex life to see us through the long haul. Let’s start with low libido because both body changes and mindset, right, can affect libido. Maybe we’ll start with the body and hormones, to begin with and then move to mindset. What are some of the challenges? What are some of the fixes that you offer patients struggling with this?
Jackie (1:58):
Yeah so, this is a time where, especially for women in perimenopause, hormones are sort of all over the place; they are up, they are down, it is a roller coaster and women don’t feel like themselves. In particular, progesterone and estrogen are sort of, you know, trucking along during the reproductive years and then all of a sudden, perimenopause hits like a ton of bricks, and these two hormones, you know, start to really just tank, and women feel that acutely. In combination with estrogen and progesterone falling, testosterone, which is another important female hormone, although many people don’t acknowledge it as such is also not precipitously falling but has been falling and is probably at one of its lowest points, in and around the menopause transition. So, now you have three hormones that were sustaining one’s sexual life previously that are now either in flux or low. And women really feel that. They feel that in their brain, which is our biggest sex organ, we have receptors for all three hormones really in every organ of our body. So, this is not just a physical symptom, it is also an emotional symptom a cognitive symptom and as you said, it can be multifactorial as well.
So, when I look at women who are coming to me with these concerns, I really try to take a holistic approach, look at their hormonal health. Sometimes I do check testosterone levels on women who come to me complaining of a lack of desire that is also distressing. Right, that’s an important point to make. You can not have a libido and not care and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t make you need to be fixed, right. But many women are coming to me because they are looking for a solution and it is that feeling of distress, that feeling of like, “I want to want it, I used to love this, this is important to me, I don’t feel like myself, this is my relationship is suffering as a result.” So, I really try to look at not only hormones but also other factors which we can get into, of course, about why libido might be a problem.
Katie (4:15):
Yeah, I’m so excited to dive into all of this. You talk about when estrogen, progesterone, and even testosterone start to deplete in a woman’s body as you naturally stop producing it as you age. Do you recommend hormone replacement therapy? What are some of the— is it taking creams, is it taking supplements, what are some of the fixes that a woman should consider?
Jackie (4:38):
Yeah so we like to offer at Elektra Health really the full depth and breadth of options and many women aren’t ready for hormone replacement therapy or really just don’t need it and want to start with a more lifestyle-based approach or are more comfortable trying some supplements first. I never promise women that any of those things are gonna, you know, restore them to their fullest potential but certainly, they are worth trying in some women. But yeah, absolutely, I mean, I am a big fan of testosterone replacement therapy for women in which it is appropriate. And testosterone replacement therapy unfortunately is not something that the FDA recognizes at this time. I think there’s only one country in the world, I think it’s Australia, that recently you know, approved it for women who are in late perimenopause through the menopause transition. But unfortunately in this country, we’re still contending with that.
So, women are looking for providers who understand how to use testosterone replacement therapy safely. We’re not, when we give it, trying to raise levels to that which a man would have. We are actually just trying to restore them to what would be happy, healthy, physiologic, testosterone levels for women. And when we do that, we always start with the expectation that this is not going to change the person that you are, this is not going to make you feel like a different person. In fact, you might not necessarily notice anything at first. So, I always counsel women that way because I don’t want women to think that this is like a cure-all. But what it does do, testosterone replacement therapy specifically, is sort of, fill up the gas tank of the car. If your car is on empty and you put your foot on the gas pedal, it’s just gonna sputter and sputter and you’re not gonna go anywhere. But if your gas tank is full, that’s amazing, now you’re set up for success but your foot still has to go on that gas pedal and it still has to make the car go. So, in saying that, I’m really telling women that they’re a partner in this and there’s still a lot on the back end that they’re gonna have to work on emotionally, behaviorally within their relationship, within the way they view themselves. But all of that work will be so much easier because they’ll have the hormonal support they need to get the job done.
Katie (6:49):
Yeah, they have that juice that you’re talking about. This is so fascinating because when you google low libido in women you get a zillion hits and a lot of them are on testosterone therapy. For those of us that this is new to, what does that look like? Is it a pill? Is it an oral supplement? Is it something that you’re using vaginally? Walk us through what testosterone therapy is, maybe what are the pros and cons?
Jackie (7:12):
Yeah, all great questions. So, the way that we like to give testosterone replacement therapy to women, and this is the way that the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health, ISSWSH, which is a society that we adhere to their guidelines, along with NAMS, North American Menopause Society, they put out a consensus statement for providers because there’s all of this you know, just kind of these companies out there that are taking advantage of women, who want to feel better, who do need testosterone replacement therapy but are taking advantage of the fact that they don’t know where to go and are taking their cash and giving them doses that are way too high, often in the form of implantable hormonal pellets, which, you know, last three months and raise levels to way higher than what would be considered physiologic. So, the way that we do it in practice is with testosterone gel, we actually just use the same stuff, I do at least, there’s a couple of ways to do this, but a great way to do it is just to use the testosterone 1% gel that the guys use but just use a lower dosage of it, use less of it.
Katie (8:24):
And where are you using it, Jackie? [laughs]
Jackie (8:28):
It’s a gel that you just rub into your thigh.
Katie (8:32):
Oh! Okay, cool.
Jackie (8:32):
You just rub it on in, yup, once a day every day. And over time, usually about 8 to 10 weeks we start to check some blood levels and see, have they risen? Are they in the range we want them to be in? How are you feeling? You know, are you having any potential side effects? You asked about side effects. When levels are in a good happy range, women should probably not have too many side effects. Yes, maybe they’ll get an extra pimple on their chin, or maybe they can get some darkening of the hair, especially where the gel is being rubbed in, we do see that sometimes, but that’s it for the most part. However, if levels get too high, you can start to see some pretty yucky stuff like becoming really irritable or angry, or getting vocal deepening, even, at really super high levels, or changes in lipids. So, we do always monitor women who are taking testosterone replacement therapy, you know, over the course of the year, a few times a year, checking in with them, drawing some blood work, making sure that things are still good, and that they feel good.
Katie (9:34):
Right, so this makes so much sense to work with a practitioner who knows what they’re doing versus taking these pellets that are being maybe hocked to you over Instagram and the Internet. I want to come to cover low libido in terms of mindset and lifestyle factors and how they can impact both desire and libido. We’re gonna be taking a quick break but when we come back we’re gonna dive right into that.
[Ad break]
Katie (10:59):
Okay, Jackie, we’re back from our break. You shared testosterone therapy can be one solution to help with low libido, you mentioned that women’s libido and sex drive are really multifactoral and that mindset, our brain is an enormous component, and also lifestyle factors affect libido. Let’s start with mindset. How does that affect desire, orgasm? What are some of the issues women come to you with? Because I know that in midlife people become maybe less orgasmic. What do you hear from patients? What do you recommend if that’s an issue?
Jackie (11:34):
Definitely. So, this is big because women come into our offices with a lot of deep shame and guilt and discomfort around even just discussing their sexuality in any way. And women have a hard time thinking of themselves sexually without being in relation to another person or to their partner. And we really try to reframe that from the get-go.
So, sex doesn’t have to mean sex with a partner, it can absolutely mean sex with self. And oftentimes, that’s the place to start because many women don’t know what turns them on, what they like, and are not necessarily comfortable exploring that. So, we really work with them to unpack some of that and reframe some of the messaging around that.
Katie (12:22):
Is this like a pop culture thing? Or a family thing? Or a religion thing? Why do you think women are— I relate to what you’re saying. What do you think are some of the issues that cause women to, you know, feel a sense of shame or maybe be out of touch with their own desire?
Jackie (12:37):
I think all of the above. Certainly, there are some religions that do vilify women’s sexuality or want women to be— you know, we tell women to be sexy but not to be sexual. So, there’s a lot of conflicting messaging. Fortunately, I’m seeing the younger generations really, you know, buck all that and be more, own their sexuality a little bit more so that is nice to see from the younger patients I’m coming in contact with. But religion absolutely, the idea that sex is just for reproducing and nothing else does not do any justice to the fact that women have a clitoris which is the only organ in either the male or female body that is designed exclusively for pleasure and nothing else which is pretty incredible and we don’t teach women, at all, what’s down there. They don’t know their own anatomy, I see women in their fifties and sixties who don’t even know what their vulva is, what the difference is between the vulva and a vagina. We don’t use the right terms when speaking about it. We tell our little girls, you know, we make up names for their vagina that’s anything but that. So, it starts young. Many of our parents didn’t have conversations with us or didn’t really frame sexuality in a way that was positive in the home. So, it is just trickled from the time that a little girl is young, through adulthood. And so, we can’t really be that surprised that women are not really sure what to do with their own bodies, in a way.
Katie (14:09):
So, for a listener right now who is thinking, enough is enough, I want to be better, smarter about understanding my body, my biology, how it all works. Where would you direct them?
Jackie (14:21):
I mean I would direct them for sure to Elektra Health because we have a full module on women’s sexual health. I would have them look through, if they’re looking for care or just to learn more about themselves from a physical perspective, there’s a whole group of providers, that belong to this society, ISSWSH, which I’m a member of, and I encourage people to look through that list and look who is in your area code or your zip code rather and see who is committed to this area of medicine. Because I’ll tell you, gynecologists get absolutely zero training in this so the folks that have dedicated their careers to serving women’s sexual health, and I don’t just mean STDs, I mean desire, arousal, orgasm, libido, pain, all these things that are outside of the box still for GYNs, they love this stuff and they want to help women and they’re out there but I think it’s really something that a woman has to actively seek out and she should feel empowered to do so. Because these conversations that we have in the office are open, they’re honest and women leave and they breathe this sigh of relief that they could just speak so freely and talk about this with somebody when they were probably holding in these thoughts and feelings, sometimes for decades.
Katie (15:39):
It’s so fascinating. Because I think, as a woman who’s been seeing a gynecologist since I was a late teen, I have three children, it would never have occurred to me that the doctor that was helping me care for my, euphemism alert, “lady parts”, which I know, you know, my vagina, all that stuff, it would never have occurred to me that they wouldn’t be caring about this other component. And you’re right, when I think about the, I’m in a wonderful practice right now with providers that do care and I do ask questions like that, but I had three kids and nobody ever mentioned to me pelvic floor therapy afterward or nobody asked me really how my sex life was after I had kids. And it’s fascinating to me that doctors don’t just, that it’s not a 360 care for your intimate life and your, you know, your physiology.
So, what are some of the lifestyle factors that affect libido? We talked a little bit about mindset, some of the cultural messages, maybe family messages, religious messages, but there are lifestyle factors that can affect libido; stress, sleep. What do you hear from patients and what do you recommend if somebody really wants to be more thoughtful about setting themselves up for sexual desire?
Jackie (16:55):
Great question. So, yes you’re right, stress and sleep, you answered the question for me pretty much although I can dive in a little bit deeper.
Katie (17:00):
[laughs] I want to hear more from you though. [both laugh]
Jackie (17:06):
Sleep is probably the number one thing that gets in the way, aside from hormones of women’s libido. There’s science and research to show that women who are not sleeping have no interest in sex because, you know…
Katie (17:24):
You’re exhausted, you’re exhausted.
Jackie (17:26):
Yes, you’re exhausted. And you know, when you’re exhausted, you’re just not prioritizing pleasure. In order to prioritize please have to be in your parasympathetic nervous system which is the “Rest and Digest” mode. Women need, oftentimes when we’re in our home, with our families around us, we’re in go mode. We are trying to, we are the orchestrator of all things in the home. It is hard to prioritize pleasure when there are all these other things to do.
So, one strategy that we really like for women who are wanting to get back to sex but don’t really know how or maybe they and their partner have had a hard time and they’ve sort of fallen out of a routine with how sex happens or when it happens or where it happens. This is gonna sound completely unsexy [Katie laughs] but hear me out. Scheduling sex for couples who want to start to repair the sexual relationship and get back to it and have different levels of desire, right. Just because this is the overwhelming majority of what I see, typically the woman comes to me saying, “I have no desire, my partner has this high desire,” though I want to acknowledge that that’s not always the case. A great way to bridge the gap is to say, and actually, it’s a contract so both people have to agree to this, it needs to be a conversation that’s had. But to schedule sex, you choose a frequency that works for you both, so let’s just say it’s once per week. You decide that on Friday night at 5 PM you guys are gonna schedule sex; now that doesn’t have to be intercourse, it can be any sex, it can be mutual masturbation, it can be whatever you guys decide you want it to be.
But what that does, that contract is number one, gives the lower desire partner the peace of mind that she, in this case, is not going to be asked 14 times a day by the higher desire partner, all week, for sex. Because that is a turn-off to her. She doesn’t want that constant pressure of having to always have that voice over her shoulder. So, that’s one thing that she gets. The thing that the higher desire partner gets is that he, in this case, knows it’s gonna happen. He knows it’s gonna happen, he knows when it’s gonna happen, he can stop worrying and wondering. And what that allows for, is the ability to have intimacy during the time you’re not scheduled for sex, which has nothing to do with sex. You might just pass by your partner and give them a little kiss on the cheek, hold their hand somewhere, or sit and watch a movie together without this pressure. So, it can rebuild trust and it can really be, not a permanent solution, clearly, but just a nice way to start to reframe things for people.
Katie (20:15):
Yeah, that makes so much sense. My friend Gina calls this Tune-Up Tuesday by the way. So, you guys can all take that on because maybe you’re busy on Friday, out with friends, but you can use Tune-Up Tuesday and tune your relationship up. I’ve learned from other guests that have come on the show that it sort of can be a bit of a "use it or lose it". So, if you want your vaginal tissues to be healthy and to work well and to serve you later in life so you’re not getting things like urinary tract infections and other problems, you do want to keep your sexual organs intact.
So, this leads me to like— and I love the way you suggested that you communicate with your partner and you set something up. What are other tools? Communication is the first step, what are other tools to reignite libido in a long-term relationship? Do you recommend—
Jackie (21:02):
Novelty.
Katie (21:03):
Novelty. Okay, let’s get into novelty. Are we talking like sex toys? Vibrators? What are we talking?
Jackie (21:09):
Yup, vibrators, opening your mind to different possibilities. The world of erotica and fantasy and all that stuff, has come a long way from our mother’s generation. There’s a lot of great stuff out there that can feel comfortable for people. Demi Moore did this fantastic podcast, I’m completely blanking on the name right now but I can get it for you, and her voice in it is so amazing and it is about, she runs her own podcast where she listens to women tell her all their deepest darkest sexual fantasies and when she’s not doing that she has this other life that she kind of leads. So, it’s this beautiful mix between some erotica with some fantastic storytelling and who doesn’t love Demi Moore, right? So, you could listen to that on your ride home from work and you might walk in the door really ready for sex. [Katie laughs] Women need actually to get aroused before they have desire. That’s what’s called responsive desire, unlike a man who has a spontaneous desire. So, this responsive desire is what women have to be comfortable with, right. That like, they might actually have to invest a little bit upfront. So, that might be listening to some audio erotica in your car or buying some fun sex toys or trying out a new lube, or you know, just leaving the house with your partner. Maybe spend the hundred dollars you’re gonna spend on dinner, maybe go stay in a hotel for the night instead and like bring some wine and cheese with you. All of those things can be really fun and just get a woman out of that routine where she feels that pressure to do everything but sex.
Katie (22:42):
Right, I love all of these suggestions. Other women who have come on the show have talked about things like sex toys. I had Tracey Cox come on who is a sexpert, she’s written 17 books on sex, she came on to talk about her book Great Sex After 50: How to Age-Proof Your Libido and Transform Your Sex Life and she shared on the show that no woman over 50 should consider having sex without lube. So, I’m gonna say, go get yourself some, ask your girlfriends what they’re using. I can highly recommend a wonderful plant-based, organic lube that a woman who came on my show created, her name is Christine Marie Mason, she’s the founder of Rosebud Women which is an organic, plant-based, luxury product for intimate skincare. And she’s got a product called the Honor Balm, which is absolutely amazing and I recently said to a friend that the first time I used it my husband was like, “What is this magical substance?” [Jackie laughs] So, I’m putting that out into the universe, other people should consider going—this is not an ad but I love that product and I want to share that.
Jackie (23:47):
There’s so much to try, there are so many fun things on the market now that I think women should open their minds too. Coconut oil is my personal favorite and you might just have that in your pantry. Coconut oil is not as drippy as lube and doubles as a vaginal moisturizer and it also has some natural anti-yeast properties which you know, who doesn’t love that?
Katie (24:08):
So smart, so smart.
So Jackie, I want to shift gears for a minute and ask you a bit more about Elektra Health which we’ve referred to. Because I know that they offer you know, education, they offer community, but you also offer something, which I love the name of, the Meno-morphosis program. Walk us through what that is. Is it education and access to telemedicine? Tell us how this works.
Jackie (24:31):
Yeah, great. So, Elektra Health, we built kind of our programs on three pillars which are content, right, education. So, Meno-morphosis, one of the first things that a woman does when she enters this Meno-morphosis program, which is a digital health program, is she has access to what we call Meno 101 which is basically your primer on all things menopause. We make it fun, we make it bright and colorful, it is a joy to read. Even providers I know read through it and say that they’ve learned something and they love how this information was presented in a way that doesn’t feel teach-y or preachy but rather gives women the information they need in order to be prepared for this phase of life. Really a lot of this is preparation.
And then there’s the community aspect. Women in this demographic, whether it’s with sexual health or just general menopausal concerns, this is something that every woman, or person with ovaries, will experience in her lifetime, this is not a niche group of people, and yet we all feel like we’re going through it alone. And that should never, that should not be the case and it doesn’t have to be the case. So, Elektra’s community is a place to share ideas, to get information, to you know, to commiserate be it, or just to share wins. We want to rebrand menopause as just a portal to the next phase of your life and not this loss of fertility that sort of, you know, the conventional medical system has made us believe up until this point. We’re gonna just throw that notion out and really celebrate this time. So, the community feed, the activity feed, the engagement feed, is really a place to do that.
On that topic, the platform allows access to experts. So, our founding physician, Anna Barbieri, is a board-certified OB/GYN and she’s also fellowship trained in integrative medicine. So, we do, not just talk about hormones, although certainly, that’s a major topic, we give women the full scope of what is available to them to manage their menopause transition the way that they want to. And we have fun, expert lead events, we bring on experts from different fields as well to give little talks. So, it’s a really fun place to be, Meno-morphosis.
And for women who wanna go deeper and really start to work on some of their goals around menopause, so be it weight loss or sleeping better, or incorporating daily exercise, dietary changes, whatever their thing is that they want to work on, we give them access to coaches, to sort of, to guides. We like to think of them as menopause doulas in a way because they’re really helping, as a partner, to have women understand what their goals are first, how to achieve them, and to stay with them over time as these goals change as their bodies change and as, we all know, menopause is up to a ten-year transition in some women, so what is bothering you today may not be the same thing that bothers you in a year. So, we really want to be there for women throughout this whole trajectory of time.
Katie (27:43):
Right. And you touched on something. The transition itself could take a decade but then you’re post-menopausal for the rest of your life. And I think I’ve read that some things can sort of subside, like, maybe some of the hormone transitions sort of settle down and you ease back into things, but things like vaginal dryness and painful sex can be something that lasts forever unless you manage it. So, this is something that I want to ask you about. You shared on our pre-call that, you know, we talk a lot about dry vagina and I joke I say it all the time. But painful sex can be more than simply vaginal dryness. What are other causes and watch-outs that women should pay attention to?
Jackie (28:23):
Yeah. Vaginal dryness is you know, certainly the most common but we’ve kind of been ignoring, and you touched on it too, the pelvic floor. The pelvic floor is super important. Not only in and around the childbearing years, but also throughout the menopause transition. Because the pelvic floor, for those who don’t know, is a web of muscle and connective tissue and ligaments that cradle all of our pelvic organs. So, things like urinary symptoms; frequency, urgency, leakage of urine, constipation, rectal tissues are there as well. So, we have to pay attention to our pelvic floor. So, that is something that we certainly work with women on.
I mean, for women who have not had vaginal births or never had children and haven’t done their sort of, due diligence to prevent dryness, so maybe they didn’t know, maybe they didn’t use a vaginal moisturizer and now they’re 60 and they’re coming to me saying it really hurts down there and I can’t get anything in. That’s something, unfortunately, I do see a lot of. So, I will work with women not only to restore moisture levels and sometimes use topical vaginal estrogen there as well, but also like, helping them get something inside. So, I work with women to help get dilators inside or dildos in some case and progressively work them back so that they can enjoy penetrative intercourse or penetration of any kind, or even just having a speculum exam with their doctor.
Katie (29:49):
Sure, right.
Jackie (29:49):
Safely and, you know, enjoy sex again.
Katie (29:54):
It’s so critically important. I did a wonderful show on the pelvic floor with a physical therapist, Patricia Ladis. I titled it, “Patricia Ladis Wants You to Pay Attention to Your Pelvic Floor.” We learned that it’s more than just vaginal births, something as simple as crossing your legs or playing a sport, or maybe playing an instrument causes different alignments in your body, you really do need to pay attention to your pelvic floor and your entire pelvic canister for all the reasons that you outlines. So, I think it’s critically important. The more we have conversations like this, the more that women educate themselves and share this information with one another. So, I want everyone to go listen to the pelvic floor episode and I want you to pass it on to 10 girlfriends because we need to help educate each other and support each other.
Jackie, our time is going to be wrapping up in a few minutes but before we go, I want to ask you some quick speed round questions so we can get to some more good content. Are you up for it?
Jackie (30:54):
Let’s do it.
Katie (30:54):
Let’s do it. Okay. So, this is like a one or two-word answer, if you feel inspired, a sentence. Okay, and I think I know the answer to this one already. Vaginal creams, yes or no?
Jackie (31:06):
A hard yes.
Katie (31:07):
Hard yes. Okay, the one product every woman needs for a pleasurable sex life: _____.
Jackie (31:14):
Coconut oil.
Katie (31:15):
Coconut oil. New to sex toys, consider this toy as a baby step: ______.
Jackie (31:24):
Let me think about this one… New to sex toys. This is not necessarily, it is a toy, but it’s not necessarily for pleasure, it’s for women who actually experience some pain with deeper penetration. Can I throw that in the mix?
Katie (31:41):
Yeah, please.
Jackie (31:42):
Okay. So, this is something that I love for women who are having pain, not on entry, but with deeper penetration, it’s called the Ohnut. And it’s these really fun, these silicone bands that actually the male partner can wear and it actually prevents the whatever is penetrating from going too deep and either bumping into their cervix or bumping into scar tissue if they’ve had some sort of surgery, hysterectomy, or surgery for endometriosis. And women are just, so in love with this and it’s so easy and it’s such a simple fix and it changes the amount of pleasure a woman can experience if she’s not having pain.
Katie (32:20):
Genius product, I love it. Recommendation on a vibrator or where to go find recommendations?
Jackie (32:29):
Yeah, so you know, long gone are the days where you had to, walk into a sleazy sex shop [laughs] and you know, look around. So I really do love the Dame vibrators and they are now available I think, in all of these retail stores, even in like Sephora now. I love that, you know, the consumer market is embracing women’s sexual health products on a more, on global scale, it’s great, great news.
Katie (32:58):
Yeah, finally, finally. A food aphrodisiac that really works?
Jackie (33:03):
Dark chocolate.
Katie (33:05):
[laughs] Yay! Okay, a menopause-friendly food to add to your grocery cart?
Jackie (33:13):
Definitely flax seeds. But you have to grind them in order to sort of release the compounds, the phytoestrogens in them that can help with hot flashes and night sweats and things like that. And then keep them in your fridge so that they don’t go bad.
Katie (33:31):
Awesome. Okay, make this exercise part of your menopause care routine: _____.
Jackie (33:38):
Make this exercise part of your menopause care routine… I would say Kegels, but make sure you’re doing them correctly because it is very easy to do a Kegel wrong. If you have questions about how to do a Kegel properly, it’s definitely worth a consultation with a pelvic floor physical therapist before you do them wrong.
Katie (33:59):
Smart advice. Last question, as I age, I feel _____.
Jackie (34:05):
I actually feel more confident as I age because the more years that go by, the more I realize that I don’t have to care as much about what other people think [Katie laughs] which is really nice at this point.
Katie (34:17):
Aging is definitely liberating, it’s so freeing. Thank you, Jackie, this has been an incredible conversation. You shared so many great products and resources and ideas. All of those are gonna go into the show notes. And for listeners who are thinking, what’s a show note? The show note is where I link out to products or recommendations that get made on this show. I have a complete transcript and I have a recap of the episode. All of that can be found over on acertainagepod.com. all right Jackie, before we say goodbye, how can our listeners find you and learn more about Elektra Health and your Meno-morphosis program?
Jackie (34:54):
Yeah, so we would love it for your listeners just to even just start on our website. So, elektrahealth.com. And on there, there’s a ton of free content, guides. The 21st-century guide to menopause is there for anyone to use and to read. It’s just great place to place to start to peak interest and get some fundamental knowledge about what menopause and perimenopause are and what you can do about it. And if someone has specific questions, they should absolutely, we encourage them to reach out to us at hello@electrahealth.com.
Katie (35:29):
And I’m gonna jump in and say that Elektra Health also has a fabulous free weekly newsletter that I think that you should add to your inbox because it comes with great menopause tips and wonderful resources. So, I’m gonna throw that in there as well.
Thank you so much, Jackie.
Jackie (35:45):
Thank you, Katie, this has been fun.
Katie (35:46):
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. Join me next Monday when TV news anchor and author, Tamsen Fadal joins me to share ideas for thriving when a relationship ends.
And before we say goodbye, I want to ask a favor. Please take a minute to rate or review the show over on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. This is so easy to do. Find A Certain Age on your podcast app, scroll down to the bottom. Tap on the stars to rate, I think this episode deserves a 5-star review, or leave a written review. Both matter. Reviews and ratings help the show grow. Thank you so much, your support means the world.
Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then: age boldly, beauties.