Unmasking The 102+ Lesser-Known Symptoms Of Menopause

Andrea Donsky

I am so excited too. Yet definitely girl crushes for sure. I think you’re awesome. I loved your course and I love everything that you talk about. We are so simpatico, so I’m excited.

Sharon Stills, ND

And is very fun. So tell us, you are a nutritionist, but how did you end up with this focus on perimenopause and menopause? Is it a personal story? 

Andrea Donsky

Oh, yeah. Everything that I do, everything in my career. So I’ve been in the natural health and wellness space for 23 years. Educator for that long and then a nutritionist for 16 plus years now. When I and everything that I do always kind of mimics where I am in my life. So when I started my first company, I just got married. My second company, Naturally Savvy, also a very well known website. We talk about everything from like getting pregnant to starting a family. So that’s still around. It’s great website. Then when I went into perimenopause and menopause, I was like, okay, we’re shifting. Like, I have the same business partner I’ve had. Her name is Randy for 23 years. So we’ve kind of like just go to where we are in her life. And back in like 2017, when I got my first hot flash, it was the two months after my 47th birthday. I got my first hot flash and that’s when I was like, “Wait, what’s happening?” Because I had the experience. I’ve been experiencing so many symptoms, but I never made the connection between what I was feeling and being in menopause. I didn’t even know the word, Perimenopause. Like it amazes me because I’m like, Wait, I’m a nutritionist. I’m in the health and wellness space. Like, this is what I do for a living. But yet I knew so little about this phase of life. When I got my first hot flash, I’m like, “Oh, okay, maybe like the mood swings and the sleeplessness and the weight gain and the phantom smells and all of these things that I had been experiencing for five plus years now.” It’s actually closer to probably to eight. I’m like, “Oh, maybe it’s menopause.” I didn’t even know the word perimenopause. So that’s really what kind of led me down to it. I’m the type of person once I’m like focus on something, I’m like that’s it, it becomes my vocation. Then I’m like, it’s everything that I do. So I just really just drove deep into the research. As an N-of-1, I do a lot of N-of-1 testing on myself, on friends, and family, looking at the medical journals and listening on social media on our TikTok page. So it’s been such an eye opener for me, but yet, I was saying something to someone the other day. I’m like, this is where I meant to be. This is it. I have found my thing like this is and it’s fun because it’s where I’m at in my life. So it’s really great.

Sharon Stills, ND

I love that. I love that you kind of just take where you’re at and then you turn it into something where you can help other women. I agree, it’s nice to kind of, I started in menopause, I was in my early thirties and I started working with menopausal patients. I felt so happy when I finally went through my own menopausal transition that I was like, “Oh, now I’m a real part of the tribe.” Like, I feel much better dating because I’m actually one of you now. So it is nice to kind of teaching what you’re experiencing in your own life. I’m a clinician. So when you said you’re going to come on and talk about research, I’m like, “Yeah, let’s hear that.” So tell tell me how you get started, what your research is, what you’ve found, just tells everything.

Andrea Donsky

I actually love research. I always said if I was better in math, I would have gone into marketing research like it is literally my passion. I remember as a kid I would watch shows and my mom would be like, You ask so many questions. So now I laugh and I’m like, You see, Mom, I made a career out of asking lots of questions and she kind of laughs. But I do. I’m very inquisitive and I love to understand and I love to understand what’s happening. So when I created my talk page, what sets me apart from others? It’s great because everyone has their own way of how they do it. My whole thing is understanding the why. So okay, so I get it that we might have itchy ears and it might be a symptom, but why am I getting those itchy ears? Why is this happening? Why do I feel this way? I really like to kind of go under the hood and just understand that a little bit better. So this was several years ago, I was at a party with my husband and I had met an old friend and she was telling me and I was already in perimenopause, but I didn’t like I kind of knew and I was like, “Oh, this is all happening.” It’s after I got my first hot flash and I asked her what she was doing and she’s like, “Oh, I’m creating an app for menopause.” I was like, “Oh, that’s so cool.” She’s like, Yeah, it’s like, all these symptoms, it was like 30 to 40 symptoms, and it’s like we’re creating an app so people can understand what it is. I was like, Oh, so my brain, I’m so data driven. I’m like, Oh, and I’m so visual. I’m like, Oh, okay. So like that night I go home and I created a Google drive and I started literally the way my brain works. I started like an entire spreadsheet of the symptoms. And I’m like 30 to 40. Okay. I started after that day, I started like going at what were the 34 recognized and looking at the journals, looking at all the conversations that were happening. Then I was like including my own symptoms. I’m like, there’s way more than 30 to 40. Like there is more. Then I was like, Oh, there’s like 85 plus. Because at that point this was a few years ago. 

I’m like, there’s over 85. We attracted that time. Recently this is like since last August, because I love research so much, we created surveys at part of my company, which is Morphus and we put the research on our website, on our newsletter, but then also on my TikTok page. It was all about signs and symptoms. We have four of them right now. We have a fifth one coming out about the workplace and for the signs and symptoms surveys, we have almost 3000 women that have filled this out. So what are the signs and symptoms you’re experiencing? So this is where I’m like, okay, this is super interesting. We’re working with people who are experts in marketing, in research. One of our the people who are analyzing our results worked at the NIH for ten years. So like, we’re not messing around. Like, this is actual, like amazing. We call it observational anecdotal research and we found out that there are now not all the other 85 plus there is like 102 plus symptoms. These this came exactly from our community themselves, from the women who have filled out these surveys. So it’s really eye opening. How many symptoms there are, and there are way more than the 30 to 40 that I was originally told or even heard about.

Sharon Stills, ND

Wow. So, ladies, this is going to be one of the most important interviews that I am giving you during this summit, because let’s dive into them, because I know in my clinic most women only know about the hot flashes, the weight gain, maybe the insomnia, the mood swings, hair loss, just these general things. This is going to be so informative and give you kind of like, oh, I’m not crazy. These actually are symptoms. These are actually connected to my hormone changes. So enlighten us. What are some of these symptoms that we don’t typically think of that the women should be thinking about?

Andrea Donsky

Absolutely. So, like you said, there’s common ones. So like the hot flashes, the night sweats, the anxiety, the mood swings, the weight gain where we think about it. Then there’s the less common ones. I’ll also take you between I’ll take you through the top ten and then the top 20. All of the results are on our website. If you want to throw a link in, you can go. They can have it in graph form, they can go check it out. So the less common ones that a lot of us don’t realize are associated with it. Number one, for me, and this was, I was getting these like it’s called phantom smells. I was getting phantom spells in my thirties, my like literally my mid to late thirties. At the time I didn’t realize, I had no idea that they’re related to perimenopause and menopause. I remember sitting in my office, I had people who work for me at the time and I was like, Hey, does anyone smell smoke? They’d be like, No. This was constant. Like, if I tell you all the time and they’d be like, No, I’m like, Is anyone smoking? They’re like, No, Andrea like, hello? Maybe they look at me like I’m literally crazy, and I’d be like, Oh, okay. I ended up going for like two MRI’s. I went to the doctor. 

I’m like, What is going on? Why am I smelling things that nobody else knows? Because you hear that it could be related to, God forbid, other things. So I remember getting them checked out, clean bill of health. They’re like, No, there’s nothing going on. Now I’m in the middle of writing a book and I’m like, “Oh, right.” So I probably was going through it like, we know it can start as early as 35. I’m like, I was probably in perimenopause, like starting it at that time and I ended up having a baby at 41. So I got pregnant in perimenopause, and then after that, my symptoms never went away. So it’s kind of like it’s such an interesting story. So let me take you through the top ten. We also went into the differences between menopause and perimenopause. So we broke it down even further. So the number one symptom I’m actually going to ask you this because you probably already know the answer, but I want to see. So what do you think is the number one symptom that women in perimenopause, in menopause experience?

Sharon Stills, ND

Oh, gosh, I’m stuck here. I would say hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, mood changes. I don’t know. I’m giving you a compact, wait a minute, it’s got to be in there.

Andrea Donsky

It’s actually fatigue, exhaustion.

Sharon Stills, ND

I got it wrong.

Andrea Donsky

Number one is exhaustion. 70% of women in perimenopausal menopause are exhausted. So and if you break that down even further, 73% in perimenopause, which makes sense compared to 68% in menopause. So it makes sense that they’re more tired in peri when our bodies recalibrating. We’re going through all the changes. Our hormones are in flux, kind of up and down. So that’s the number one symptom.

Sharon Stills, ND

I go by what do I see in my office? What do women come in and complain about? That’s so interesting because I feel like so many women just push through the fatigue. They don’t even think it’s an issue or stop to get help for it. It’s just kind of like, yeah, I’m tired, I’m getting older, this is how it goes. I love that’s the number one thing that women actually report because we do, we have an epidemic of doing too much and not caring for ourselves and saying no and all of this. So, wonderful. I love that.

Andrea Donsky

Yeah. As Gen Xers, which a lot of us are in this phase. For someone like myself, I had a baby later in life. So I still have a young one at home. I have a 12 year old at home. So we’re doing so much. We have aging parents. We have many of us have young kids or so it’s working in the home, out of the home. So like, yeah, so we’re busy and we’re maxed. So it makes sense, Number two, take a guess. Can I have your guess?.

Sharon Stills, ND

Parallels?

Andrea Donsky

Number two is brain fog.

Sharon Stills, ND

Like there is a game show. This is fun..

Andrea Donsky

So number two is brain fog. All right I’ll break it down even further. So this is a little bit closer to peri and meno. So, 67% in perimenopause and 64% in menopause. So brain fog number two. Number three is sleep issues. 66%, though, in menopause. I even have another survey that we can talk a little bit about the reasons why we’re not sleeping well versus 61% in perimenopause. That surprised me a little bit, actually, because I would have thought it was the other way around. But according to 3000 people, this is what it is. Number four is memory loss at 62%. Number five is anxiety at 59%. So anxiety can either be exacerbated or onset as we go into this phase of life, as I’m sure you talk about a lot, the next one is joint pain at 58%. Then we have a lack of concentration and lack of focus. It makes sense, as many of us especially through peri.

Sharon Stills, ND

A lot of brain fog. There’s three already, and we’re only on number six.

Andrea Donsky

Five brain stuff within the top ten five, 50% has to do with cognitive health in the top. So I’ll continue reading the list and then we can. I love it because you actually were way ahead of where I was going to go anyway, so I love that. So we got hot flash, then it’s hot flashes, the 56%, that low libido or no libido. Then we go into other ones like lack of patience, night sweats and slower metabolism. So those would kind of be maybe it’s a top 11. So that’s where we’re at. But you’re right out of the top ten, it’s 50% is cognitive health.

Sharon Stills, ND

Wow. Scary.

Andrea Donsky

Right? I don’t think that’s something that many of us realize.

Sharon Stills, ND

No. I mean that’s why we have these summits and we do all this education. So you can put it together and realize this is a hormonal thing. I think a lot of women are just thinking this is what happens when I get old. I saw it happen with my mother or my auntie. This is just kind of the process. If they go into a traditional doctor’s office, they’re already told they’re often just told that. I love this research. This is fascinating.

Andrea Donsky

Thank you. I’ll go into the sleep for a second, but I’ll just tell you just a couple more. Like then we’ve got slower metabolism, like I mentioned, digestive issues, which is huge for us, and perimenopause and menopause, digestive issues and then weight gain, dry, itchy skin, hair loss, low self-esteem, which is a big one. 44% of women in perimenopause, in menopause experiencing low self-esteem. Then there’s depression, headaches, migraines, emotional, being weepy, social anxiety. Another one. I do a lot of videos around social anxiety. I remember I didn’t even want to go out or see anybody. Like, that’s a big one for many of us. Then we have pain and itchy ears and inflammation and the list goes on and on, up to 102 plus. So like I said, you can view it all on my website, but very interesting to understand it.

Sharon Stills, ND

Well, itchy ears. So tell us about some of the really because I don’t very often have a woman come in and say I go through perimenopause and my ears are itchy. So tell us about some of the more odder ones that we don’t hear about and also love when you said like you ask why, I love that, because I always say, like as a doctor, I’m like, I’m a two year old. I’m just going to be like, Why? Why? Why? Like, why is this happening? That’s why I love that. I love that we have that. But yeah, what are some of the obscure as you said ones.

Andrea Donsky

So the itchy ears what is interesting because it’s one of the ones that I think we don’t associate it with perimenopause and menopause. But when you mention it, they’re like, “Oh yeah, my ear. It’s always itchy.” So the reason is, is because as our estrogen levels are declining, we know estrogen keeps our skin moist, it keeps our skin plump. So as it’s going down, our skin becomes thinner and drier and even the mucous membranes in our ears. So that’s a big connection to that drier. So those are cheers. We can talk about some ways that we can help certain things as well as we continue on. But the other one is BO body odor. So a lot of women will complain about body or changes in body odor or that they smell like onions or they’re like, wait a second. I smell French fries. Wait, that’s me. People were like we smell different things that it’s coming from, like our body, which is really interesting. It could be from one or both armpits and it could be that you’re wearing clothing like our body chemistry is changing, obviously, but it can be that your clothing, it can be you’re sweating more. The bacterias lingering on a little bit differently, a little bit longer. Also, I find a lot of men will say, well, wait a minute, my deodorant is not working the way it used to work. When it comes to natural deodorant and I know you don’t really believe in using. I’ve listened. I took your course. You see, I.

Sharon Stills, ND

I was a good student.

Andrea Donsky

I know you don’t really believe in deodorant, but for those who want to and I know you had, I think, one brand of deodorant that you recommended, but you may want to change it up or you may want to use different ones or layer certain ones or try some natural options like lemon juice or some other things that I know you share with your audience as well. But that happens a lot where things start to change and you’re like, “Wait, what am I?” One of the quotes I say all the time, Sharon, whether it’s from like deodorant, whether it’s about deodorant or food or lifestyle, all is that what worked for us before perimenopause and menopause doesn’t necessarily work for us anymore. So we have to look at changing our mindset, our food, the way we exercise all of these things have to be taken into consideration because everything’s it’s constantly changing and it just may not work for us anymore. So we have to keep that in mind.

Sharon Stills, ND

That’s such a good reminder. I do. I really think it’s like before menopause and after. It’s such a fabulous time to really because a lot of the things we did before, like they weren’t necessarily in our best interest and they weren’t necessarily based from self-love and kindness to ourselves and the wisdom we have. That’s why I say menopause with the parentheses around the pause, because it’s this real beautiful opportunity to really pause and be like, “Okay, how am I going to love myself? How am I going to care for myself now in this sacred second act of my life?” So that is such a good, good reminder. So itchy ears makes total sense. What are some of the other body odor? 

Andrea Donsky

The phantom smells, the hunger? So when we’re in perimenopause, we’re hungrier than we are before menopause, before perimenopause and after menopause or in menopause, that’s due to ghrelin. So we have higher levels of ghrelin, which is our hunger hormone. That happened to me. I remember I had an insatiable appetite and that can play into obviously weight gain, but also just like never feeling satiated. So that’s where the eat more protein comes into it. Eat more vegetables, more fiber. So this is where we kind of look at that, changing things up a little bit. So I would say being hungrier or having that insatiable appetite, cravings. These are connected to inflammation. That’s a big one, too. So if we can go into here, I can actually go through it. Like in terms of the other ones, like waking up early or dizziness, vertigo, tinnitus, all of these are connected to perimenopause and menopause and clumsiness. Like I’m a lefty. I’m a left handed person. So I’ve always had the clumsiness. You are as well?

Sharon Stills, ND

So what do we have our girl crushes there?

Andrea Donsky

We were lefty too. So a lot of us feel like we’re clumsier, bruising. That’s another one is that we get a lot more like we’ll wake up every day. You’re like, wait, that bruise wasn’t there yesterday? Or if you hit yourself even lightly, all of a sudden you have a bruise on your arm. So all of these are connected to it. So it’s again, the full list is on my site, but it’s very interesting to experience all these things and see things change on a regular basis for so many of us. Just to a point, I know that statistics show that about 13 to 15% of people say they don’t have any symptoms at all. I always challenged that. I’m like, I’m going to challenge that statistic only because I feel that we associate those common symptoms like the hot flashes and the night sweats and the moodiness and the anxiety or whatever that is with symptoms of menopause. But you may not realize that each year can be a symptom or vertigo or tinnitus. Which I ended up having vertigo, too. So I challenge you because I’m like, well, go look at the signs and symptoms, go fill out the survey and then come back to me and say do you still have no symptoms? Most of the time they’re like, oh, no, I do. Like, I.

Andrea Donsky

Didn’t realize that it’s all connected, right?

Sharon Stills, ND

So that’s fascinating because I’m one of those people because I pre-game didn’t because I was working with menopausal women when I was such a younger doctor then. I really believe in practicing what I preach. I felt like a hypocrite because I was helping all these menopausal women feel fabulous and I was having like the worst PMS like that exists on the face of the earth. So I balanced my own hormones. When I went through menopause, I didn’t have it. I never had a hot flash, I never had any symptoms. But now I’m like, I’m going to go to your website. I got to read through. Maybe there are some things that I can change my story and say, Well, I didn’t have the typical symptoms, but I had this. I almost feel like it might be easier to ask you, well, what aren’t symptoms associated with perimenopause and menopause? Because you said 104? 102 that’s just so prolific. So, well that is really, so let’s talk about some of the ways you see solutions for this because now we’ve kind of said these are the issues. So what are some of the things you’d like to share? Because you’re got knowledge and then we’re about how to make you feel better. 

Andrea Donsky

So what I was going through my son, like I had, like I said, lots of symptoms. Like I really I suffered badly when I was in perimenopause and even into menopause. And but less so because I was figuring things out. And because I like to try things, I’m a big experimenter. With that end of one research, I tried a million different things. I tried everything from taking like a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar every day to wearing like bracelets. So, I mean, you name it, I literally tried it and I didn’t really get a lot of results or something would work for a little bit. Then it stopped working. So what I have found in my lean, so what I see all the time is I’m not a doctor. That’s I leave to the experts like yourself. I’m not a doctor, but I’m a nutritionist and I’m an educator. Health and wellness educator. So my lean is nutrition, lifestyle and supplements. So that’s where I focus and that’s where my expertize is and that’s where my knowledge is. And I say, So let’s look at our food. So really taking when it comes to managing our symptoms, we look at our toolbox and in my toolbox that I work with would be more the natural approach would be the nutrition based on supplements. So when it comes to nutrition, like we talked about making sure that we are eating protein that whether it’s 20 to 30 grams of protein a day, generally it’s one gram of protein for one gram of bodyweight just for like a loose formula. Then you want to look at good quality fats. So when we talk about that, we’re talking about getting rid of seed oils from the work of Dr. Kate Shanahan, who I absolutely adore. So seed oils like canola, soy, sunflower, safflower, cotton seed, corn, these are oils that are inflammatory. 

We’re already more prone to inflammation. So really looking at minimizing or completely eliminating them from our diet, making sure we’re focusing on oils like olive coconut, avocado, ghee grass fed butter, like we’re talking about eating like the real stuff. Then you want to eat more vegetables, lots of vegetables, eating that rainbow. I was just literally recently my husband’s in produce and I used to laugh all the time because he’s in produce and I’m like, okay he would always bring about the same things and bring home the same things. I’m going to really expand my palate. I want to try different things. So recently I’ve been really into like Jerusalem Artichoke, and I did into like Hikma, which is like it is so awesome. Hikma because you got that crunch, so all these different things that you want, those are two white vegetables, but literally like you want to have other eating the rainbow, which is great because you have all the different polyphenols and antioxidants from the different colors. Then you want to look at focusing in more less of an amount would be your nuts and seeds, your complex carbohydrate and your legumes. Like, I know some people will say don’t have any legumes, some say do. 

I always say, listen to your body because you are the captain of your own ship. Do what’s right for you. If you can’t digest starch because you’ve had genetic testing and that you can’t digest starch, then you either minimize or minimize the complex carbohydrates. Look at eating more of those vegetables. So everybody has to do what’s right for them. I will never say, you have to do this. You have to do that. It’s not my style. I would say, make sure you’re drinking enough, hydration, really important, trying to get that half your weight and ounces if you can. We want hydration for a million reasons, which, again, I’m sure you talk about a lot and then looking at managing your your lifestyle. So how do we manage our stress? Stress? Well, literally be like one of the reasons, it’ll trigger short flashes. It’ll trigger blood sugar dysregulation. So it’ll trigger a million things. Weight gain, etcetera, etcetera. So really managing stress levels, how do we do that? Walks in nature, light exercise, weight bearing, exercising, watching a funny movie at the end of the day, like I have literally, I mean, you probably tell I’m super passionate and take me personality. Like I’ve got a lot of energy and I love to work and my work. I was literally a workaholic for so many of my years. 

But when I was in perimenopause, I went from a type-A personality to an F minus. I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t work. Now that I’m in menopause, I’ve got my mojo back. But it’s literally more balanced. Like I’m not that Type A plus anymore. I’m now maybe like a B minus, maybe like I’m somewhere in there. Still really excited to start this new chapter, new company. But it’s really a matter of managing your stress better. So watching a funny movie, reading a good book, spending time with people that you love, hanging out with friends like. So all of that is really important to make sure that you’re managing your stress. Then I would say looking at supplements, I as a nutritionist, I 100% believe we need supplements to supplement our diet, not to take over and replace our diet. So, number one, it’s food. Number two is lifestyle and food go hand in hand and then supplements to help when we need that extra help.

Sharon Stills, ND

Absolutely. That’s why they’re called supplements. 

Andrea Donsky

Don’t replace our food because if you don’t have the food down, like, honestly, you could take any supplement in the world that you want. But if you’re still eating things that you’re like, that’s like processed sugar, highly ultra processed foods, like it’s just going to negate what you’re doing anyways. It’s kind of a waste of your money, to be honest.

Sharon Stills, ND

What’s the what’s the saying? You can’t supplement your way out of a bad diet or poor lifestyle choices. It’s really true. Supplements are helpful and they do supplement. But you’ve got to be doing the foundational and the seed oils. Can you just say them again one more time and slowly so people can? Because that’s such a huge piece of the inflammation and it’s really challenging when you go out to eat like we have. I live in Scottsdale, a big foodie town on a ton of restaurants. We have one restaurant that is dedicated to no sea seed oils and is organic. So a lot of times when we go out, it’s like you have to bring your own oil. Or when we’re having a conference, we have to like bring our own oil in so that you go through those again, because I think that’s so important even just I mean, there’s been so much great information so far. We’re talking and I want to bring out the props next. But I do love my problem of just like if you want like a really good nugget, take home. Like just avoiding the oils that Andrea mentioned is a huge piece.

Andrea Donsky

Yeah. So this is from the work of Dr. Kate Shanahan and I have a couple of interviews with her on my podcast, Menopause Reimagined. I love her because she’s an M.D. and she has literally put sea oils on the map and from her research, and you’d have to Google her and go look up her stuff. She’s written several books. She has found that eating these oils creates inflammation and it leads to inflammation in the body. So these oils would be and she calls them the I think it’s the something is something eight like there’s eight of them that she talks about. I think it’s Gary eight whatever it is, there’s eight. So there’s canola, corn and cottonseed. So three C’s, then there’s soy, sunflower, safflower, there’s grapeseed. Now a lot of us think like, Oh, I’m going to cook with grapeseed. Oil has never tasted so good for us. Nope, those are considered as seed oil. Then there’s rice bran oil. Then there’s one more that she has on her website. Those are generally you find them in restaurants. So to your point about restaurants and I found a restaurant near me that I’ve asked them to use avocado oil. When I order in and I order enough that they actually keep a bottle for me. So it was not me. I will say, please don’t use like your canola or your vegetable oil. Can you just use the avocado and they do it. So there are restaurants that will be amenable or perhaps like you said, an organic restaurant that is already taking them out, which is amazing. But here’s the thing about seed oils is that you really notice a difference when they’re not in your body. So if you have a lot of pain in your body, like so for me, I was already eating fairly well for my body. What I noticed when I interviewed Dr. Kate is I was still getting like these pains in the bottom of the pads of my feet. Like I kind of felt like pins and needles when I would get up in the morning. 

After I did the interview with her, I was like, I’m just going to go check my because I wrote three books on the topic of label reading. So like I am literally that’s been my job for the last how many years. It was called Unjunk Your Junk Food, which was published by

Simon and Schuster, one of them. And when I went and read the label, I was like, “Oh, it says Sunflower Oil, let me try it.” It was literally it was seaweed that I love from Costco. So I took it out of my diet and within like a week or two, the pins and needles under the pads of my feet were gone, like gone. So just imagine that now they’re ubiquitous. So they’re everywhere. By the way, it is not easy to do. If you buy hummus, you buy bruschette, anything you’re buying. these seed oils are in our food. So if you can make it yourself, which I know is not for everybody, but if you can make yourself in your house when you’re cooking, trying to avoid using any of those oils. So focusing on the olive, the coconut, and the avocado oils, and the ghee and the custard butter and all of that good stuff and avoiding it as much as you can. If you feel like you have a lot of joint pain or you have a lot of pain in your body and we just talked about it, it’s relationship to weight gain. It can really make a difference for us as we go into this phase of life just by doing that alone.

Sharon Stills, ND

So two things I want to say from what you just said. First of all, I’ve got a great new business for you, like you should create a line of seed free seed oil foods. I like someone needs to jump on that new you are so into so many amazing things so just just planting that seed that because what you say is true like you think you’re going and eating healthy and you’re going to Trader Joe’s and buying hummus. But then you look on it and it’s not a good oil in there. It’s really an issue. The other thing I just want to point out is. You said that like you waited a week, week or two, and then your pain went away. So sometimes we have to wait, like we do something. I feel like we do something and we wait 24 hours and we’re like, “Oh, no, it didn’t work. I’m going to go back to it.” So we have to be patient. Sometimes it takes a little while for the body to unwind and decrease the inflammation. So if you are going to try something like this give yourself even a month, six weeks, eight weeks. Sometimes it takes a little time, especially if you’ve been in pain a long time. But it can really, really make a huge difference.

Andrea Donsky

Huge difference. Dr. Kate says it can take a year for it to get out of your body. So it takes time. So, yes, very good point, especially if you’re going to natural like it takes time for your body to adjust and to clear and to do its thing. So it’s not an overnight thing.

Sharon Stills, ND

They taught us in Naturopathic Medical School many, many years ago. For me it’s like when someone comes in and they’re like, “How long is this going to take, Doc?” It’s like, Well, how long have you been dealing with this? So if you’ve been ill for ten years, you can’t expect me to turn it all around in two weeks. You got give me a time in your body. A little bit of time. So we have props. You have props? I’m obsessed with your props. I’m not really sure what you have. It’s kind of like a surprise, but can you show us and maybe talk a little bit about why you have these props for a menopause talk?

Andrea Donsky

I love it. You’re so funny. So, I mean, I love props. So I do a lot of TV segments, I actually have here. I’ve got like my products too that I can show you as part of the process here. I have this show, but I do a lot of TV segments, so I’m very passionate about my props. So I always refer to them. So I’ve got like these props, like this is our liver that we want to make sure our liver is clean because it can change up to 40% in volume as we get into perimenopause and menopause. So making sure you’re eating liver loving foods, you can even take a supplement like a milk thistle if you wanted. I look at something and there’s other things as well. I’m sure you talk about, this is our adrenals that sit above our kidneys. So we’ve got our adrenals above our kidneys and our adrenal glands are what release our stress hormones like cortisol. So really making sure we’re managing those stress levels like I talked about, I have an amazing product called Sleep that helps to actually reset the HPA Axis. So because our body is chronically stressed, our body is constantly secreting these hormones, our Sleepus will give you that like amazing night’s sleep because it helps to reset that Axis. It’s awesome. 

If you want deep sleep, it’s like awesome. Then we’ve got our thyroid, which is our master organ. So which is responsible for many things. I talk about the thyroid a lot because we really want to make sure there are certain tests that I really stress that women get as we go into this phase of life that changes, our body is changing, things are shifting or changing. So getting your thyroid checked and I’m sure you’ve talked about the six different tests that we want to get at. So you can even talk to that. But making sure you’re getting your thyroid checked, making sure you’re getting your fasting glucose, even though it’s a little bit late for that. But or the A1C, it’s a little bit late for that. But, making sure that you’re looking at what your blood sugar is doing. Because the A1C is a three month average, but no, doing a fasting, a glucose, doing a fasting insulin. Understand what’s happening to your body in this phase of life, your vitamin D, your B12, your ferritin, what is happening? So that’s really important too. Then we have our bladder. So we’ve got our bladder and I have so many props. Like I can literally go on and on. But like literally I have so many props because I show them in my segments and stuff, but it’s so and makes it fun. Then I have this really cute one. This isn’t so much a prop. This is our Morphus. I love this. This is our cooling bag. This I launched because the sleep that we don’t even talk about the sleep research, which I know we probably don’t have time for, but the sleep research.

Sharon Stills, ND

Tell us we’ll make time.

Andrea Donsky

Okay, I’ll tell you really quickly. So sleep is the number three, most common symptom. Why are we not sleeping? So I’m like, okay, I understand. Tell me why we’re not sleeping. So the top three reasons we’re not sleeping is number one anxiety. So remember our adrenals. They take over for our ovaries when we go into menopause. If they’re already tired coming in here, that’s going to cause issues with our sleep and as well as a whole host of other symptoms. So number one is anxiety. If you’re waking up between two and four a.m. and you’re kind of wide awake, your cortisol is rising at the wrong time. So again, we want to make sure we manage sleep, sleep routines, sleep hygiene, maybe doing some meditation before bed, maybe looking at taking a bath, some essential oils, something that’s going to relax you before you go to sleep is really important. A dark room, so our melatonin gets produced at night. A cool room, so we’re not with hot flashes. So all of that is really important, too. So the first one is anxiety. The second one is waking up to pee many times a night and the third one is night sweats. So because the night sweats are on the list, we launch this cooling bag that’s super soft that you fill with ice and water and it stays cool. So you can put it on the back of your neck, your chest. It’s awesome. So you can get it like they’re like literally use it. So if you don’t have like one of those you don’t have a bed jet or you don’t have something the chilly pad or something which are expensive, you can use like a cheaper version.

Sharon Stills, ND

It’s got your logo, the butterfly Morphus. I love the Morphus logo at the bottom..

Andrea Donsky

And it’s such a wide like what we call it, the wide mouth here. So you can literally can put an ice cubes and water and then it fills up and it’s awesome and you won’t get mold. Like if you want to change it often enough, but it’s more free and you literally can put on your body and it’s super soft. So those are kind of like my fun props. That I like to use.

Sharon Stills, ND

I love that. I will give you credit for that. I have got to buy some props. They just make me so happy. 

Andrea Donsky

They’re so cute, right. 

Sharon Stills, ND

It’s like my little inner child is like, oh, my God, I like the little adrenal with the kidney. That’s like the complete. 

Andrea Donsky

I know. It’s so cute. So I love it. It’s like then that it is just. And you hit on something important because it makes you so happy. So what can we do that makes us happy? What can we do that gives us that feeling of like, okay, like, I feel good today, like, smiling? S, so to me, anything that makes me happy, I say go for it. Do it.

Sharon Stills, ND

Sometimes it’s the little silly things. I’m very easily amused, so I’m like, okay, I’ve got my joy meter up from the day. I’m like, going to finish the interview and be telling everyone that I really did these props and I got to get some and they’re so cute. So it doesn’t have to be these big things. Sometimes big things, but we’ve got little nuggets of joy and silliness and happiness that are always surrounding us. If we just stop and take them in and pay attention and let ourselves be silly and let ourselves be laugh, be like.

Andrea Donsky

I totally agree. So for me, yeah, I agree.

Sharon Stills, ND

Well, this has been amazing. I don’t want to stop, but it’s time. So where can people find you? I want to know the website because I got to go check out my symptoms. So what is the website?

Andrea Donsky

So the website is wearemorphus. So our company name here, it can kind of show hopefully you can see right here, this is my supplement. I’ll tell you in 2 seconds what it is. But so Morphus is the name of my company, M.O.R.P.H.U.S. So it’s metamorphosis us as a community. So Morphus. We made up the word Morphus and we if you go to the website, wearemorphus.com. You can go check out. Please fill up my surveys which are amazing. You can check out our supplements. We launched an entire line of supplements for women in perimenopause and menopause specifically. These are ingredients that I’ve literally spent the last several years researching. I’m very picky. What I put in my products, as you probably can guess from all that the last however long we’ve spoken. Everything I do is and I will specifically not include ingredients that I know have any long term effects on our liver or effects on other parts of our body. So everything is vetted by me. It’s branded ingredients that we use and we use efficacious dosages. So we’re not putting fairy dust in our products and they’re literally like products that I use and I recommend to my family and friends. So they’re awesome and depending on what we look at needs to, depending on what you’re looking to help with, everything is on the website. You can figure it out. I’ve got like some really cool products that a lot of people don’t know about and ingredients that I interviewed, like people who discover them, which is super cool. So it’s all on my website that we are more focused on.

Sharon Stills, ND

Well, you are just a gift to the world and specifically to our tribe here, to the women going through perimenopause and menopause and beyond. So I’m glad you’ve got that Type-A and you do so many cool stuff and do the research. I learned a lot here today with you, so thank you for taking time and being here with us. It’s just been a pleasure.

Andrea Donsky

Thank you. Thank you for having me. But now it’s more like B, right? So we’re going to say it’s more Type-B. But probably I’m still Type-A. Thank you Sharon and I really love being and talking on your show.

Sharon Stills, ND

Beautiful B A energys. So thanks everyone for being here. So make sure you head over to Andrea’s website. Fill out her intake survey. So more data and we can get more knowledge out there. So women, you don’t feel like you’re alone. You don’t feel like you’re going crazy. What you’re going through is part of the journey, but that there is solutions so you don’t have to suffer. So great to be here. We’ll be back with you for another talks. So stay tuned.