Felicia Sale, owner of Restore Hyper Wellness in Westport, remembers being at birthday dinner recently when someone brought up starting the estrogen patch. The whole table joined in on the topic—and it wasn’t the first time she’d had a similar experience while catching up with friends. “It’s the conversation now,” she says. Discussions about all of the physical and mental changes of midlife are finally coming out of the shadows. “It’s what we all talk about.”
Just a few years ago, though, perimenopause was barely a buzzword, let alone discussed at birthday dinners. “Social media has changed everything,” says Daniel Lax, M.D., the founder of Westport’s VAVI Aesthetics and Gynecology and a double-board-certified physician specializing in gynecology and cosmetic surgery. “It’s a platform for people to talk about the things they’re experiencing with their health.” Julia Dzafic, the local content creator behind @lemonstripes, has seen a huge appetite for perimenopause content from her audience of nearly 125,000 followers. “Last year, I posted on my Substack about how I had started hormone replacement therapy, and people went nuts for it,” she tells Westport Lifestyle. “I realized, ‘OK, there’s something to this.’ I think millennials hitting perimenopause, and being the first generation to be so online, has made people want to talk more about it.”
And these conversations aren’t just happening online: around town, more and more programming is dedicated to giving perimenopausal and menopausal women a voice. At the Westport Weston Family YMCA, trainer Beth Dalen leads MenoStrong classes, a weekly session for perimenopausal and menopausal women. “About a year ago, we wondered ‘is there anything we can do for this demographic to be more supportive?’’ says Patrick Freeman CSCS, CPT the senior director of Operations and Wellness at the Y. “It was our way of giving back to our regulars.” The Friday classes are not only an opportunity to strength train (which fights off some of perimenopause and menopause’s more unpleasant symptoms, like slowing metabolism and bone density loss), but talk about the issues that participants may be facing with others who are going through it. “I try to create an environment where we can exchange information in a safe space,” says Beth. “And if I feel like people are a little bit shy about what they’re going through, I’ll share something about my experiences. I believe we need to speak and discuss perimenopause and menopause more openly, and make it less of a taboo subject.”
Inspired by that very mindset, Felicia teamed up with women’s wellness advocate Karen Fechter for an event on the evening of May 13 at the Westport Country Playhouse, Hot Takes. Karen and Felicia connected last year after Karen organized a screening of the documentary The M Factor—which also spoke to the stigma around discussing perimenopause and menopause. Felicia asked Karen to partner with her on a follow up event after the two women realized they were aligned in wanting to get solid, scientifically-backed knowledge into the hands of perimenopausal and menopausal women in the area. “There’s so much information out there that we’re all inundated with,” says Felicia. “I hope we clear up any confusion.” At the event, panelists like Shieva Ghofrany, M.D., a leading ob/gyn, Rachele Pojednic, PhD, EdM, FACSM, the chief science officer at Restore Hyper Wellness, and Katie Takayasu, M.D., an integrative medicine physician, will discuss all aspects of perimenopause and menopause, from physical symptoms to mental health to the most up-to-date science on hormones. “Our tagline is ‘truth over trends in wellness,’” says Karen. “This is going to be a professional, thoughtful event with a focus on science-backed and clinical recommendations to help clear the confusion being spread by social media and others looking to profit off of our vulnerability. We will be covering body composition changes, anxiety and depression, sleep disturbances, brain fog, thyroid issues, and on and on. But it’s also going to be entertaining!” she says. “It’s very important to be able to laugh through this.” As an added bonus, says Karen, nearly everyone featured will be a local expert accepting new patients, so participants can continue the conversation one-on-one with doctors who are up-to-date on the latest research.
After so long in the shadows of the wellness world, it’s gratifying to see perimenopause discussed more frequently and openly, especially for women who haven’t yet reached the throes of menopause and will be better able to prepare themselves. “If I could go back, there’s so much I would do differently,” says Karen. “But now, the information is there. So I’m hoping we get women who are younger to hear it.” The twin benefits of this golden age for perimenopause, it seems, are education and camaraderie. “I just love being in a room full of women. It opens the door to incredible discussion,” says Karen. “I love the idea of being able to help women navigate this season of life.”
Day passes are available to the Westport Weston Family YMCA to try MenoStrong. For tickets and more information about Hot Takes, visit @hottakesonmidlife on Instagram.