Menopause care and education take center stage at 'menopalooza' event

Celebrating menopause.

For many, it’s a dark and discouraging time. That’s why a group of local advocates wants to lift up and inform those who are struggling with mid-life body changes.

If Lolla is for teens and 20-somethings, the next palooza in the works is for their moms.

Pamela DeRose is the co-founder of Midlife Upgrade.

“The event is called ‘menopalooza,’” she said.

Instead of bands, the room at Ovation in Chicago’s Fulton Market neighborhood will be filled with menopause experts.

“We’re going to be covering everything from hormones to GLP-1 to hair loss and skin changes to menopause in the workplace to the evolving care of women,” DeRose said.

Also in the line-up: Perimenopause and fertility, sexuality and mood swings.

Julie Fedeli is another co-founder of Midlife Upgrade.

More information at
Menopalooza’s website
Menopause.org

“We wanted it to be a place where women can sit and absorb and say, ‘Ok, I know my next steps,’” she said.  

The women planning the event knew their next steps were to help others navigate the body changes they, too, struggled with. Fedeli had a career in finance before switching to a meditation and healing practice.

“It was very rare to sit down with my girlfriends and say, ‘So what’s happening? Are you having night sweats?’ I do not remember having those conversations,” she said.

DeRose is a long-time raw food chef and health coach.

“I gained 20 pounds out of the blue,” she said. “With all the things I know and am struggling with, all I know, if I’m struggling what is the average woman in this country doing?” she said.

It’s a great question! What is going on in the body? In menopause, estrogen escapes the body – and that makes women hot. Random sweating day and night. At the same time, they often radiate heat from the inside out. A classic hot flash. Then the fog and fatigue sets in. That leads to memory issues.

One thing they remember? Everything hurts including joints, the gut and even chest palpitations.

“I think Gen X is having none of this,” said DeRose.

What women do want, they’ve found, is information without having to visit multiple doctors to address each symptom.

Dr Catherine Johnson is a menopause and age management physician.

“We’ve learned a lot about the signaling of what is a hot flash what is a night sweat,” she said.

Johnson specializes in menopause care. She says, of the 60-plus symptoms women experience, some of the most concerning are cardiometabolic changes.

“Our risk for heart disease goes up significantly as estrogen levels decline,” she said.

Hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, is a first-line, FDA approved treatment for hot flashes and night sweats. It’s also important for the prevention of bone loss. The treatment came under fire in the early 2000s after the Women’s Health Initiative study signaled a possible uptick in heart problems and stroke risk.

“Now that it’s been decades later, we see that the women who received hormone therapy actually had all-cause mortality was lowered, fracture risk was lowered, Type 2 diabetes risk was lower, heart disease risk was lower,” Johnson said.

There are alternate therapies for those who have hormone-sensitive cancers or other contraindications. Johnson says she takes a precision medicine approach to help patients find what works for them.

“We may be more prone to yell at the kids or have some tension with our husband and not feel interested in sexual health or desire, intimacy, touch.

And it’s, really, I think very depleting,” she said.

“We want to end the suffering, we really want to end the suffering,” Fedeli said.

Menopalooza will take place on Sunday, September 28 at Ovation in Chicago’s Fulton Market neighborhood. And there are resources to help women find a physician who specializes in menopause.