146 - Helping others feel less alone with POI with Ava Vanderstarren

The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

Dr Louise Newson

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Medicine

4.8 • 798 Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2022

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ava Vanderstarren is a performing artist, actor and public speaker. She is the co-author of Blossom Living With Premature Ovarian Insufficiency / Early Menopause Journal and is the co-founder of the charity Innocence Lost Foundation. She has over 10 years lived experience of POI & mental health maintenance. In this episode, Ava discusses her experiences of her POI diagnosis when she was 17 and how confused and isolated she felt at the time. Ava has co-authored a supportive journal for young people to help readers through diagnosis of POI or early menopause and to provide clear information and help them feel less alone. Ava’s 3 tips: Advocate for yourself, even though its frustrating and exhausting Remember self-care and your own health come first Don’t underestimate the impact of hormones on your physical and mental health For more about the Blossom Living with POI / EM Journal: https://amzn.to/3HZx4Cr Connect with Ava on social media: Instagram & TikTok: @avavanderstarren Twitter: @AVAnderstarren YouTube & Facebook: Ava Vanderstarren Ava’s professional website: http://www.avavanderstarren.com/ Ava’s charity working with child soldiers in Sierra Leone https://innocencelostfoundation.com/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Dr. Louise Newsome and welcome to my podcast. I'm a GP and menopause specialist and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre here in Stratford-Bron-Avon. I'm also the founder of the Menopause charity and the Menopause support app called Balance.
0:29.9	On the podcast, I will be joined each week by an exciting guest to help provide evidence-based
0:36.5	information and advice about both the perimenopause and the
0:40.9	menopause. So today I've got someone on the podcast who's the other side of the world,
0:50.5	well, nearly the other side of the world, she's in Vancouver. And so we've managed to
0:54.2	coordinate diaries for her to come and talk today. So it's someone called Ava, who I've not met in
0:59.5	real life, like a lot of my guests, but I've been seeing what she's doing through social media
1:04.7	and very impressed with various things that she's done that we will talk about, but also she's young.
1:10.2	And so it's always
1:11.9	interesting when there's young people talking about the menopause, because as many of you
1:17.2	know when you Google the menopause, it often comes up with middle age or older women. And
1:22.5	Ava certainly isn't. So welcome, Ava. Thanks for coming today. Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Louise
1:29.0	Newsom. Nice to meet you. Oh, and you? So just tell everyone, do you mind how old you are?
1:34.7	Yeah, so I'm currently 29. 29. Yeah, but I was diagnosed a lot earlier, which we can get into.
1:42.1	Yeah, so how old were you when you were diagnosed that?
1:45.4	So I was diagnosed with POI or premature ovarian insufficiency.
1:50.1	Officially diagnosed when I was 17, but I started having symptoms earlier.
1:55.7	So when I was around 13, I started menstruation and I got my cycle and I had it for about one year fairly
2:04.7	regularly. And then it started to get a regular. So like when I was, you know, 14, 15, I was missing
2:11.1	a lot of periods and I would have long periods of time without getting my menstruation. And then we
2:15.8	kept going to my family doctor, you know, is everything okay?
2:19.8	Checking, I was always going with my mom at the time.
	...

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