Speaker 1: Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout
Speaker 1: Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We
Speaker 1: pay our respect to their elders past and present and
Speaker 1: extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Speaker 1: peoples today.
Speaker 2: This episode is recorded on Gaddigal Land of the Aurora Nation.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut.
Speaker 2: I'm Brittany and I'm Laura, and I just want to
Speaker 2: say I hope that you guys are going into the
Speaker 2: week with the confidence that Rihanna goes into her fashion
Speaker 2: choices now that she's pregnant.
Speaker 1: Isn't she just killing it? She just doesn't care. She's
Speaker 1: living her best sexy life and I'm here for it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was just looking the reason why because
Speaker 2: I was I wasn't ready for that.
Speaker 1: Everyone, let's talk about Rihanna.
Speaker 2: I was literally just looking at a photo of her
Speaker 2: just then, and I think that she has completely redefined
Speaker 2: what it means, like what fashion means when you're pregnant.
Speaker 2: So many women when they're pregnant, like we've been told
Speaker 2: that like pregnancy is not sexy, Like pregnancy is this
Speaker 2: thing that like, when you're pregnant, you're like this beautiful
Speaker 2: beacon of life that's bringing life into the world. It's
Speaker 2: a body that's meant to be cherished, but it's not
Speaker 2: really a body that we look at in the way
Speaker 2: of sexuality. We kind of think like, as soon as
Speaker 2: a woman is pregnant, they're no longer this sexual being.
Speaker 2: And I just love that she has completely turned that
Speaker 2: on its head.
Speaker 1: Do you know I was just thinking about this because
Speaker 1: I was just thinking if I was in Rihanna's position too,
Speaker 1: I would have that confidence. She's she's ridiculously attractive, she's
Speaker 1: so smart. But did you know that she is the
Speaker 1: second richest female entertainer ever. She's worth one point seven
Speaker 1: billion dollars? Did you know she's a billionaire?
Speaker 2: Literally zero idea, but also like part of his not surprised.
Speaker 2: Like I said, you know this idea that you're supposed
Speaker 2: to behave a certain way or look a certain way
Speaker 2: when you're pregnant.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, I better put my belly away now
Speaker 1: that I'm growing a child, Like why yeah?
Speaker 2: And I remember when I was pregnant, there's this real
Speaker 2: feeling of oh, nothing fits me, nothing feels good on me.
Speaker 2: I don't feel attractive. And don't get me wrong, I
Speaker 2: know a lot of women think and feel really beautiful
Speaker 2: when they're pregnant and really embrace being pregnant. Like there
Speaker 2: were definitely times I was like, Wow, I feel like
Speaker 2: this and womanly being, but I guess in my body,
Speaker 2: I didn't have the same. I didn't feel like clothes
Speaker 2: fit me very well. I didn't feel like I could
Speaker 2: get out there and have a middrift on put it
Speaker 2: that way. But then I also realized, looking back, it's
Speaker 2: because I was trying to dress for the standards of
Speaker 2: what my body normally looks like. Like I was trying
Speaker 2: to dress the way that society goes, Oh, a middriff
Speaker 2: is supposed to be for people who have no bumps
Speaker 2: and curves or anything else, you know, like there's a
Speaker 2: very specific way that society tells us isn't isn't okay
Speaker 2: to dress, and I was trying to conform to that.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what you So you probably weren't dressing because
Speaker 1: you didn't feel confident you were dressing because you know,
Speaker 1: you were not looking at anyone else pregnant that was
Speaker 1: dressing in this way because before Rhianna, I don't think
Speaker 1: we've really had anyone in the public eye that we've
Speaker 1: been able to look up to that has just actually
Speaker 1: owned their pregnancy body.
Speaker 2: And I think on that as well. Like this photo
Speaker 2: I'm looking at right now, she is only I think
Speaker 2: she's only a few weeks away from having a baby,
Speaker 2: and she's wearing like thigh high boots, tiny little leather shorts,
Speaker 2: a crop top, and then she's got this sequency thing
Speaker 2: over the top.
Speaker 1: She's so odd.
Speaker 2: I see these photos and I think it's such an
Speaker 2: incredible celebration of like one her views on fashion, but
Speaker 2: to her changing body and embracing it for what it
Speaker 2: is and not changing her personality or changing the way
Speaker 2: that she views clothes, just because she's moved into this
Speaker 2: new phase of motherhood, which I think happens to so
Speaker 2: many of us.
Speaker 1: And at your next pregnancy, I want to see you
Speaker 1: in Lacey Bras thigh hivity. I want to see you
Speaker 1: out there. Let's tell you what the episode is about
Speaker 1: before we get any further. What a rogue little intro
Speaker 1: that was. When I love it when you just bring
Speaker 1: them on me too. She never tells me what she's
Speaker 1: gonna say, she just throws it at me.
Speaker 2: I really do hope that you spend this week with
Speaker 2: the confidence that she has. That's exactly what I want
Speaker 2: you to bring to this world.
Speaker 1: Every single person listening. So today's episode, we are talking
Speaker 1: about something that affects so many women, but in the
Speaker 1: same sentence, so many women don't know about it or
Speaker 1: don't know the specifics about it. And to be honest,
Speaker 1: I knew about it from the outskirts and I've seen
Speaker 1: it a lot in the medical industry, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know specific details about it until I started to speak
Speaker 1: to my friends that suffered from it. That is right.
Speaker 1: We are doing an episode for you guys on PCOS
Speaker 1: or polycystic ovarian syndrome.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we also have the very freaking awesome Angie Kent,
Speaker 2: who we wanted to attack this episode with having somebody
Speaker 2: who has a lived experience of PCOS, and also doctor
Speaker 2: Ezzy Smith who is a entrocnologist and she looks at
Speaker 2: and talks about PCs from more like the technical side
Speaker 2: in terms of treatment, in terms of diagnosis, but we
Speaker 2: wanted to really give you an episode that kind of
Speaker 2: covered both what it is to have the lived experience
Speaker 2: and what it is to actually go down the more
Speaker 2: formal treatment side. Now, the thing that I've found so
Speaker 2: interesting about this and I would hate for somebody who
Speaker 2: doesn't have PCOS to go, oh, Okay, this episode doesn't
Speaker 2: relate to.
Speaker 1: Me, it is.
Speaker 2: It's for you two, it relates to everyone. I think
Speaker 2: We've been brought up in a society that believes that
Speaker 2: periods are supposed to be painful, that like women's problems,
Speaker 2: like women are supposed to be uncomfortable once a month.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just deal with it.
Speaker 2: And so many people who have PCOS for that very
Speaker 2: reason go undiagnosed for so long. But not only do
Speaker 2: those people go undiagnosed like other women, I e. Myself
Speaker 2: don't have the understanding around what that means, and so
Speaker 2: like you, when you learn about these things as we have,
Speaker 2: and to be able to have these conversations, it means
Speaker 2: that if you have friends and family in your life
Speaker 2: who are suffering from endometriosis who've done an awesome episode
Speaker 2: on that, or who are suffering from PCOS, it gives
Speaker 2: you more understanding to be able to have that empathy,
Speaker 2: to be able to talk to them about it and
Speaker 2: to be able to relate to what it is to
Speaker 2: be a woman and have these issues.
Speaker 1: But the other thing is the reason that it could
Speaker 1: be for you even if you don't have it now
Speaker 1: is unford things like pcos it's not something that you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was born with this, this is what I have. Yes,
Speaker 1: this can happen to anyone from any age after puberty.
Speaker 1: So I know people that were diagnosed in their late twenties.
Speaker 1: It never had it late twenties, thirties, early twenties. This
Speaker 1: is why it could be for you as well, because
Speaker 1: maybe something's going on in your body right now that
Speaker 1: you don't know about, and you have this might not
Speaker 1: have even crossed your mind. So I'm hoping that this
Speaker 1: resonates with a lot of people or gets a lot
Speaker 1: of people ticking over in their brain thinking, oh, I
Speaker 1: have had a few of those symptoms. Maybe I'll go
Speaker 1: and get checked.
Speaker 2: It's actually so interesting that you said that, Britte, because
Speaker 2: I think that that is for me. That was like
Speaker 2: one of the biggest take home messages. And also just
Speaker 2: recently produced Akisha, like produce Akisha. She's in her late twenties,
Speaker 2: she's just in the last couple of weeks, which is
Speaker 2: also one of the reasons why we were so excited
Speaker 2: to do this episode.
Speaker 1: She's just been diagnosed with PCOS.
Speaker 2: Now that doesn't mean that she's going to have it
Speaker 2: for life, but she started having these symptoms, like getting
Speaker 2: acne out of nowhere, having really irregular periods.
Speaker 1: She's like, I felt like I was a bit hairy.
Speaker 1: She was like us getting laser and I was like,
Speaker 1: I was a bit hairer. But for her, she was like,
Speaker 1: this makes so much sense now totally.
Speaker 2: And I think like the so many people, because if
Speaker 2: you don't know the symptoms, if you don't know the
Speaker 2: things to look out for, then if you start to
Speaker 2: experience these like irregularities, it can kind of be trumped
Speaker 2: up to just like, oh, that's what all women go
Speaker 2: through at different points, but it really isn't. And like
Speaker 2: we need to have more and like clearer understanding about
Speaker 2: what our body does and what a period is and
Speaker 2: how our periods behave so that way, if something does change,
Speaker 2: you can advocate for your own health. You can go
Speaker 2: and find a healthcare specialist that really fucking understands women's
Speaker 2: business and can give you the correct treatment and you
Speaker 2: are misdiagnosed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in addition to that, this is heavily around PCOS.
Speaker 1: But we touched on the pill as well. Doctor Izzy
Speaker 1: Smith talks about misconceptions around the pill. So there really
Speaker 1: is something in this for everyone. Now, because we're doing
Speaker 1: this episode on PCOS, we have a sponsor, Vush. Now
Speaker 1: you might know Vush as well, the sexual we're the
Speaker 1: secure relable on a vibrator. Do I do too?
Speaker 2: Remember I had sex with the packaging by accidents.
Speaker 1: Actually, I just remember. That's probably one of my second
Speaker 1: favorite moments.
Speaker 2: I don't even know if Bush are aware of this,
Speaker 2: but they were like, hey, we want to sponsor an episode.
Speaker 2: I was like, cool, remember that time that I tried
Speaker 2: to use your packaging as a vibrator.
Speaker 1: That's a fun story. Quickly, if you guys don't know that, Laura,
Speaker 1: the Bush packaging for the vibrator is really like deliciously soft,
Speaker 1: and it also.
Speaker 2: Looks like a big, massive penis because it's a big cylinder.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought. The whole packaging was the dildo.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I got on the podcast and I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't understand how this is the vibrator because it's
Speaker 2: so big and then I found out that actually the
Speaker 2: vibrator was inside the packaging.
Speaker 1: She sent me a photo. I nearly died of laughter,
Speaker 1: Like I nearly killed over anyway. No, so Bush has
Speaker 1: actually launched into the wellness space. And we want to
Speaker 1: tell you about a specific product, which is the tens machine. Now,
Speaker 1: a tens machine Laura is actually going to talk about
Speaker 1: because she's used it. But a TENS machine is used
Speaker 1: to help relieve extreme period pain or things that might
Speaker 1: pain that might be associated with things like endometriosis. It's
Speaker 1: like a little machine that you stick on. This Bush
Speaker 1: machine is called the Aura. It doesn't have any wires
Speaker 1: or cords or anything. It's just these little sticky pads.
Speaker 1: So it's this really small, cute looking machine that just
Speaker 1: sticks on and does its thing. I used a.
Speaker 2: Tens machine when I was in labor, and what it
Speaker 2: does is it interrupts the pain signal that your brain
Speaker 2: is sending to your body. And so I was in
Speaker 2: a lot of pay ladies and gentlemen like turn that
Speaker 2: bad boy up. Yeah. So, like as you are having contractions,
Speaker 2: what you can do is there's different settings for the
Speaker 2: tens machine, the one that I was using, and you
Speaker 2: can amp it up, and then as the contractions get
Speaker 2: more and more intense, you can amp up the tens
Speaker 2: machine and it sunds almost like this like electric pulse
Speaker 2: vibration almost, which isn't painful, but it's a weird or
Speaker 2: different sensation, and that different sensation is kind of gives
Speaker 2: you something else to focus on.
Speaker 1: And I guess in the.
Speaker 2: Same way way if you are somebody who has pain
Speaker 2: from endometriosis, so you have pain from difficult periods, it
Speaker 2: works in exactly the same way. And I mean, if
Speaker 2: you really just want a fund Saturday night, you can
Speaker 2: stick it to your boyfriend and like ram it all
Speaker 2: the way off.
Speaker 1: And see how he reacts. Okay, but did it actually?
Speaker 1: I mean, that is a great idea, But did it
Speaker 1: work for you? So when you were trying to redirect
Speaker 1: these electual signals, did it take the pain away and
Speaker 1: help you get through it?
Speaker 2: I mean it didn't take the pain of child birth
Speaker 2: away and.
Speaker 1: Still have a small child of ripping your vagina. O.
Speaker 2: Yes, look, I mean, but it definitely helped. It took
Speaker 2: the edge off. And I think like, obviously we can't
Speaker 2: really compare childbirth to period pain. There they're very very
Speaker 2: different types of pain in terms of like severity, but
Speaker 2: for those like and especially for like pre labor, like
Speaker 2: the early labor stages, where the pain is very similar
Speaker 2: to period pain and is very similar to like that
Speaker 2: like low thumping, heavy pain that you get, Yeah, massively,
Speaker 2: it helps. It also just it gives you something to
Speaker 2: focus on that's outside of your own body that you
Speaker 2: have control over as well. Now that is all coming
Speaker 2: up on today's episode. We love Angie Kent. She's an
Speaker 2: absolute dream boat. So you guys, I'm sure so many
Speaker 2: of you know who she is. She's enjoying it and
Speaker 2: she has such an interesting story because she has had
Speaker 2: literally so many different types of health issues in terms
Speaker 2: of her reproductive system, in terms of her ovaries and
Speaker 2: her uterus and streets five.
Speaker 1: She has more than we actually even knew. She rated
Speaker 1: off five different things that she's got going on.
Speaker 2: And for somebody who has faced so many challenges when
Speaker 2: it comes to her own health, I think that she
Speaker 2: just has an incredibly positive outlook on it and she's
Speaker 2: a breath of fresh air to listen to. But something
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about before we get into that. Now,
Speaker 2: this is an interesting one because this is something Britain
Speaker 2: and I were talking about over the weekend and party.
Speaker 2: We were discussing whether or not we should talk about
Speaker 2: on the podcast, and we were.
Speaker 1: Discussing it just in general as friends discussing an article,
Speaker 1: and then we thought should this be something we bring
Speaker 1: to you guys.
Speaker 2: And also and we'll get into the reason why behind that,
Speaker 2: but it was because we thought, do we want to
Speaker 2: bring more light to this? But basically what has happened
Speaker 2: and the article that we're referring to. Now, you guys
Speaker 2: might be familiar with a really famous actress. She was
Speaker 2: from Pack to the Rafters. Her name is Jessica Murray.
Speaker 1: She's a brilliant actress.
Speaker 2: She is a fourteen times LOGI nominee. She's a seven
Speaker 2: times Logi winner with in Australia. Now, back in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: she walked away from her career in acting. She decided
Speaker 2: that it wasn't for her. She was also needing to
Speaker 2: focus on her own health and it was widely reported
Speaker 2: on at the time that she was focusing on her
Speaker 2: own mental health. And now recently there have been a
Speaker 2: whole spat of articles and at first it was just
Speaker 2: daily mail and that's why we were liked, you know what,
Speaker 2: We're not going to talk about it because we don't
Speaker 2: want to draw more attention to the stuff that Daily
Speaker 2: Mail report on.
Speaker 1: More than we already do, guys.
Speaker 2: But then it was also on news dot com and
Speaker 2: there have been many other huge media publications that have
Speaker 2: picked up the article. Jessica has she no longer works
Speaker 2: in acting. She has removed herself from acting and is
Speaker 2: now working at a waitress at a local cafe in
Speaker 2: the Eastern suburbs. Now, the reason why we wanted to
Speaker 2: talk about this is because when we saw the article,
Speaker 2: we were so fucking mad, both of us, and that
Speaker 2: was the conversation that we had had surrounding this, because
Speaker 2: the idea that somebody who has removed themselves from the
Speaker 2: public light, who has removed themselves from public speculation, public gaze,
Speaker 2: they're no longer choosing to be an actress, is still
Speaker 2: being put through the same public scrutiny that somebody who's
Speaker 2: in that situation is. But also the judgment, the judgment
Speaker 2: that the articles are laced with in terms of what
Speaker 2: she's now doing for a profession, is just so fucked up.
Speaker 1: There were three articles in the one week about the
Speaker 1: same thing if it was the headline as well. The
Speaker 1: Kickstarter order up logo winning actress Jessica Murray cleans tables
Speaker 1: and serves drinks while waitressing at a Sydney cafe. I
Speaker 1: don't think any of that information is a relevant b.
Speaker 1: Like you just said, Laura, the thing that really ticks
Speaker 1: me off is just because somebody once upon a time
Speaker 1: was in the public eye. And we know now right,
Speaker 1: we know that if you want to be in the
Speaker 1: pub the guy we say it, we're like, well, yes,
Speaker 1: you do open yourself up to articles too, people wanting
Speaker 1: to photograph you, to all of those things. Do you
Speaker 1: necessarily want it? No? Do you sometimes have to accept
Speaker 1: a level of that? Yes, Jess in particular, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of we're speaking about jests just because
Speaker 1: this is what the articles are about at the moment,
Speaker 1: But this goes for anybody. She is so far removed
Speaker 1: you could not remove yourself any further than Jess has.
Speaker 1: She has literally years ago. She's pulled out of everything
Speaker 1: she's done and she's like, I have decided which you
Speaker 1: are allowed to do, mind you that I don't want
Speaker 1: to live this life anymore. She's got a child, she
Speaker 1: just wants to be living a normal life. She wants
Speaker 1: to work a normal job. For her to have that's
Speaker 1: taken away from her, for her to have people come
Speaker 1: up to her work where she can't escape, sit on
Speaker 1: the street, photograph you to then put an article up
Speaker 1: saying that you're cleaning tables is such a level of
Speaker 1: invasion and disrespect because now she's not asking for this.
Speaker 1: In fact, she's every part of her has said, please
Speaker 1: let me live my life, leave me alone, and that's
Speaker 1: been taken away from her.
Speaker 2: Actually, quite a few different parts of this to unpack,
Speaker 2: and the reason why we wanted to talk about this
Speaker 2: is because it doesn't just have to do with Jessica. Actually,
Speaker 2: recently James Matheson was photographed. And James Matheson used to
Speaker 2: be a presenter on Idol. He was like inequivalent to
Speaker 2: say Osha Gunsberg back in the day in terms of
Speaker 2: his prolificness within Australian media, and he was recently photographed
Speaker 2: with his new career he works in Amazon, and he
Speaker 2: made an active choice to walk away from the spotlight
Speaker 2: because it didn't serve him and it didn't align with
Speaker 2: his core values in the same way that it doesn't
Speaker 2: align with the core values that Jess has. It's not
Speaker 2: like she was at the bottom of her career and
Speaker 2: couldn't get another job.
Speaker 1: She was at the height of her career.
Speaker 2: They were re signing another season of Packed to the
Speaker 2: Rafters when she chose to leave.
Speaker 1: She chose to leave. Actually it wasn't even just that
Speaker 1: she ended up saying no to three or four huge productions.
Speaker 1: So this is well and truly her choice.
Speaker 2: And I guess the question is here. And like you said, Britt,
Speaker 2: you know we have spoken on the podcast before about
Speaker 2: how celebrities opened themselves up to a level of criticism. However,
Speaker 2: surely when those celebrities choose to walk away from the spotlight,
Speaker 2: they're allowed and entitled to privacy. And I think the
Speaker 2: issue is as well, is that when a paparazzi, like normally,
Speaker 2: if a paparazzi is taking photos of you down at
Speaker 2: Bondi Beach, you can get in your car and you
Speaker 2: can drive away. But there is just this huge and
Speaker 2: gross invasion that happens when a paparazzi is standing across
Speaker 2: from someone at their work taking photos of them when
Speaker 2: they can't say, oh, I'm not going to go outside
Speaker 2: and serve those tables, because then that impacts their career.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go and deliver those things at Amazon.
Speaker 2: They're almost in a hostage situation where they have to
Speaker 2: walk outside. They're going to have these photos taken of them,
Speaker 2: and then those photos are going to be repurposed in
Speaker 2: countless articles that are they're written in a positive way,
Speaker 2: like if you read the actual language around it, it's
Speaker 2: written with positive overtones, but the undertones of the article
Speaker 2: are so shameful and it's saying that like look at
Speaker 2: this fall from Grace, and I just think when we
Speaker 2: see media like this, when we consume media like this,
Speaker 2: I hope that other people are as angry as what
Speaker 2: we are when we see this. And I know that
Speaker 2: so many of you listeners would be that more so,
Speaker 2: I think questioning what is the intention of that?
Speaker 1: What is the purpose of that article? What do they get.
Speaker 2: Out of celebrating essentially what they are classifying a for
Speaker 2: from Grace?
Speaker 1: And off the back of Jess's article came another article,
Speaker 1: This was just a couple of days ago, about every
Speaker 1: AUSSI star that has left acting or left the spotlight
Speaker 1: to go and have a normal job and then it
Speaker 1: goes through and it lists what everyone's done, and then
Speaker 1: it lists their personal struggles. And I just think that
Speaker 1: the word and this is what got me a lot
Speaker 1: too about Jess, the word personal struggles. Like the first
Speaker 1: word of that is personal. This is not for the world,
Speaker 1: Like these personal struggles shouldn't be listed in an article
Speaker 1: as to why somebody may or may not be doing
Speaker 1: a certain job. So that really just I'm getting a
Speaker 1: bit angry, but that really pissed me off, Like I
Speaker 1: just think that that should be no one else's business
Speaker 1: and it shouldn't have anything to do with what we're
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 2: Well, I think as well, like you've hit the nail
Speaker 2: on the head with that, because in terms of when
Speaker 2: you say that, the over tones of the article, like
Speaker 2: the what they've written, they're like, oh, she seems so happy,
Speaker 2: and like it's written in a positive way. But then
Speaker 2: when you at the bottom of an article write someone's
Speaker 2: personal struggles, what you're actually trying to do is say,
Speaker 2: look at how they failed, that's what that is.
Speaker 1: Look at how they got here.
Speaker 2: Look at how they ended up where they are. And
Speaker 2: I think that there is a bigger question that we
Speaker 2: needs to come into play here and a bigger point,
Speaker 2: and that is why do we deem some industries successful
Speaker 2: and some industries as not successful, Like no job is
Speaker 2: better than another job, No job implies success over another job,
Speaker 2: you know. I think, like, yes, sure, we might look
Speaker 2: at the acting world, or we might look at having
Speaker 2: fame as being a mark of success, But if that
Speaker 2: fame comes at the cost of your own mental health,
Speaker 2: if you're not able to thrive in that environment, then
Speaker 2: that isn't a mark of success. That is like an
Speaker 2: incredibly awful environment to put yourself into. But if you
Speaker 2: can find happiness, fulfillment, and value and purpose in doing
Speaker 2: a job that is like say, in quotations what they've
Speaker 2: described as a normal jobs, so much more power and
Speaker 2: value that comes in that. And I hate that we're
Speaker 2: looking at it or the media looks at it through
Speaker 2: a negative lens when they have the media has so
Speaker 2: much impact in swaying people's perceptions.
Speaker 1: I also think there's a big misconception around and this
Speaker 1: is not for everyone. Obviously, there are the big Hollywood
Speaker 1: stars that make them millions and millions of dollars per movie,
Speaker 1: but for a lot of actors and actresses in the industry,
Speaker 1: people think that that is directly associated with extreme wealth,
Speaker 1: but it's not a lot of actors that are in Australia,
Speaker 1: especially a lot of actors that you see on your TV.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are normal salaries. But I think
Speaker 1: we sit back as the public and we think, oh,
Speaker 1: they're loaded. When that season ends or when that movie
Speaker 1: is finished, and there might be a year before another movie.
Speaker 1: That literally means that person is not getting an income
Speaker 1: for that time. So people do need to go and
Speaker 1: find money. COVID has happened for two years that affected
Speaker 1: everybody in the world. So I don't know. I just
Speaker 1: think it's something to remember when we are looking at
Speaker 1: these people that a lot of them are normal people,
Speaker 1: maybe not in an everyday job.
Speaker 2: While we're talking about the media, we're talking about the
Speaker 2: perception around how celebrities are framed, especially when it comes
Speaker 2: to paparazzi photos. There was something that happened recently that
Speaker 2: I thought tied into this so perfectly, and so many
Speaker 2: of you, I'm sure have seen it, but for those
Speaker 2: of you who haven't, there were photos of Lisa Wilkinson
Speaker 2: that was taken. She was in Melbourne, she was sitting
Speaker 2: at a restaurant, and she was sitting near the window
Speaker 2: of the restaurant by herself on her laptop, drinking a margarita. Now, yes, woman,
Speaker 2: I have your best life, living your best and fucking life,
Speaker 2: doing a bit of work, having a Margie and having
Speaker 2: dinner on her own. Now, there was outside that window,
Speaker 2: and you've got to imagine this was dark because it
Speaker 2: was nighttime. So you know, when it's dark and you're
Speaker 2: sitting inside a well lit room, you can't necessarily see
Speaker 2: who's outside, like of a restaurant, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: it's usually darker on the street than what it is inside.
Speaker 2: Lisa said she could see that there was a photographer
Speaker 2: out there taking photos of her, and she was like,
Speaker 2: fucking paparazzis, can't get a minute's break. But the article
Speaker 2: that came out was like, Lisa Wilkinson places the napkin
Speaker 2: on her lap, then she takes a bite of her broccoli,
Speaker 2: then she tucks her hair behind her ear. It was
Speaker 2: this grossly detailed version of what she had done that night.
Speaker 2: So the photographer had been there for an extended period
Speaker 2: of time watching her. That in itself has so many issues,
Speaker 2: because I mean, you guys might not know, but like
Speaker 2: literally every single paparazzi I have ever seen is a man.
Speaker 2: Second to that, though, is that the article was framed
Speaker 2: to make Lisa Wilkinson look pathetic. Here is a woman
Speaker 2: on her own, eating dinner and having a margarita. How
Speaker 2: sad that is the article that was put out there
Speaker 2: in the world. And I think there is so much
Speaker 2: damage that can be done by the media in the
Speaker 2: way that they can frame a story and then how
Speaker 2: that impacts public perception of that person. Lisa Wilkinson put
Speaker 2: out a really great post on Instagram and if you
Speaker 2: want to see it's a pictriv Leonardo DiCaprio, and it says,
Speaker 2: once you hit a certain age, you become permanently unimpressed
Speaker 2: by a lot of shit. And this is what she
Speaker 2: has to say in her caption. Here's to women everywhere
Speaker 2: being able to happily and safely take themselves out for
Speaker 2: dinner after a long day, to do some work, to
Speaker 2: plow through a few dozen emails, to text some friends,
Speaker 2: to have a cheeky cocktail, to eat broccoli because hey greens,
Speaker 2: catch up on some reading wear clothes, tuck their hair
Speaker 2: behind their ear and place the white napkin on their
Speaker 2: lap in piece without worrying about being shamed or judged
Speaker 2: or disrespected or made to feel totally violated by some
Speaker 2: old creepy guye secretly taking pictures designed to make you
Speaker 2: look sad and lonely when actually you're having a great
Speaker 2: night doing exactly what you want to be doing with
Speaker 2: exactly the person you want to be doing it with.
Speaker 1: Well played, Lisa Wilkinson. I'm looking at the photos now,
Speaker 1: but this article and these photos were everywhere, So if
Speaker 1: you didn't see them, just do a little Google search,
Speaker 1: so you're not we're talking about and you'll just think, God,
Speaker 1: you're living your best life, Lisa. But it was the
Speaker 1: opening line for this. Lisa Wilkinson cuts a lonely figure
Speaker 1: while she dined out. Now, the one thing that I
Speaker 1: want to add to this is lonely and alone don't
Speaker 1: have to be interchangeable totally. It doesn't mean that you've
Speaker 1: got no one to hang out with. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you are super lonely and pathetic. It just means
Speaker 1: that you are comfortable with yourself. Maybe you don't feel
Speaker 1: it's like socializing with anyone else that night, But Lisa
Speaker 1: Wilkinson here, she's got her laptop out in front of us.
Speaker 1: She's literally away on a work trip. She's not like
Speaker 1: she's just at home. She's away on a work trip.
Speaker 1: She's doing work. And the fact that the whole article
Speaker 1: is made to look her look pathetic and lonely is
Speaker 1: what really grinds my gears.
Speaker 2: We need to challenge ourselves when we read articles that
Speaker 2: have been put together, especially based on paparazzi photos. The
Speaker 2: story has been completely fabricated based on that moment in time.
Speaker 2: Paparazzi photos are not indicative of what that person is
Speaker 2: going through or indicative of the space of life that
Speaker 2: they're in. And just as you said that being alone
Speaker 2: and being lonely are not interchangeable things, I think it
Speaker 2: also kind of circles back to this conversation around Jess Murray,
Speaker 2: where it's like success is not defined by the occupation
Speaker 2: that you have. If Jess was struggling with her mental
Speaker 2: health by being in the limelight, but now is in
Speaker 2: a much happier and more peaceful place that is far
Speaker 2: more successful and something that we should be celebrating rather
Speaker 2: than the career options that she's chosen for herself.
Speaker 1: What I do love to see though, is that, like
Speaker 1: you just said, Laura, the media have always skewed our
Speaker 1: opinions on things without like subconsciously we're led to believe
Speaker 1: things because we're reading them all the time. What I
Speaker 1: do love to see is on both of these articles
Speaker 1: that we're talking about, the articles talking about Jess and
Speaker 1: the celebrities that are now working the quotation normal job,
Speaker 1: and the article about Lisa Wilkinson, when you read the comments,
Speaker 1: and I love to see it because a lot of
Speaker 1: the time the comments are bad, but the comments are
Speaker 1: really in both of these articles are really supportive, and
Speaker 1: it's nice to see society is pushing back against media.
Speaker 1: People are like, one of the comments is what kind
Speaker 1: of loser things this is suitable for a news article?
Speaker 1: At Leasta, You're such an incredible woman, She's so smart.
Speaker 1: You guys are simpletons. A lot of people are pushing
Speaker 1: back now and we're not being so led down the
Speaker 1: garden trail by media.
Speaker 2: And I think that that is partly the reason why
Speaker 2: we wanted to talk about this, is because we were
Speaker 2: so angry by it, and we know that so many
Speaker 2: of you guys, if you have seen the same articles,
Speaker 2: would have had those same feelings. And if you didn't
Speaker 2: have those feelings and you just read it at face value,
Speaker 2: it's probably because you hadn't unpacked the nuance of what
Speaker 2: that means and what that situation is from the being
Speaker 2: stalked by a fucking paparazzi who's a man.
Speaker 1: I reckon, it's time for accidentally, I'm filtered.
Speaker 2: Let's get into it, all right. I have quite a
Speaker 2: quick but also very funny one this morning. I've never
Speaker 2: been more embarrassed in my entire life. I was in
Speaker 2: the middle of a home waxing when I heard someone
Speaker 2: knock at the door. It was then I realized that
Speaker 2: I had completely forgotten about the electrician that was due
Speaker 2: to come that day. So I raced to the front
Speaker 2: door in my daggy ninety and I apologized to the
Speaker 2: man and explained it totally slipped my mind. I walked
Speaker 2: him through the bathroom where he had to do the
Speaker 2: work and said, oh, I'm so sorry about the wax strips.
Speaker 2: I just finished waxing my legs in quotation marks. She
Speaker 2: was generally waxing her lady parts. I went and pretended
Speaker 2: to be busy at the back in the kitchen, and
Speaker 2: I walked him out when he was finished. It was
Speaker 2: only on my way back to the bathroom that I
Speaker 2: caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I still
Speaker 2: had a wax strip stuck to my fucking ass crack,
Speaker 2: with my nineties stuck to the strip full exposure. I
Speaker 2: was so caught up bad because I forgot that he
Speaker 2: was coming. I forgot I had a wax strip on
Speaker 2: my asshole. There is no way that he would not
Speaker 2: have seen it as he was walking directly behind me.
Speaker 1: So the ninety was stuck up in the butt. So
Speaker 1: she knew the wax strip that was in her butt crack,
Speaker 1: that was in her ass craft. You cannot write that.
Speaker 2: Also, how do you not feel a wax strip in
Speaker 2: your butt crack?
Speaker 1: Well, she probably could feel it in there, but she
Speaker 1: probably didn't know the ninety was stuck to it.
Speaker 2: She would have just.
Speaker 1: Thought that was still in there ready to pull off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you reckon. She was just like prepared for as
Speaker 2: soon as he left.
Speaker 1: But no, I was like, you don't need to pay
Speaker 1: me for today, lassie.
Speaker 2: The ninety was just sitting perfectly perched on top of
Speaker 2: the of the wax strip, which meant her entire butt
Speaker 2: crack and the wax strip were out on display.
Speaker 1: That reminds me of that time in the early day
Speaker 1: season one, when we started this podcast and we hired
Speaker 1: a studio and we used to go, like Laura and
Speaker 1: I used to go into this little studio to record.
Speaker 1: I remember the day you got out of your car
Speaker 1: and your dress was tacked up into your undies. Remember
Speaker 1: you walked down the main street Sydney with the dress up.
Speaker 2: I did suppressed this memory, guys. Not only did I
Speaker 2: walk with it tucked in, it was a skirt and
Speaker 2: it was completely tucked into my underwear from behind. And
Speaker 2: I walked the length the length of South Dowling Road,
Speaker 2: like I'm talking like three hundred meters, and I had
Speaker 2: a couple.
Speaker 1: Of beefs and one guy call out the.
Speaker 2: Window and I was like, okay, MoMA's got it. Today,
Speaker 2: I was really feeling myself. I'd only just had Marley.
Speaker 1: Everyone was treating me and I was like, I was feeling.
Speaker 2: Like I was getting back in shape. And it was
Speaker 2: only when this man walked up to me and I
Speaker 2: was like, fuck, I'm really I'm on fire today that
Speaker 2: he said, I'm so sorry to embarrass you, but your
Speaker 2: entire underwear is out at the back, and it was
Speaker 2: inside the top.
Speaker 1: Of my G string and my whole, my everything. It
Speaker 1: wasn't even like there weren't even Bridget Jones that had coverage.
Speaker 1: It was a G banger. It was a G banger,
Speaker 1: Blood God. Anyway you suppressed that?
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, give me your accdentally unfiltered Brittany.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I am just going to give you
Speaker 1: an innocent one today. I'm just really trying to wind
Speaker 1: back the mate. I'm not here for the PG shit.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I've got two that I've been trying to
Speaker 1: side between ones. Okay, Actually, Laura, maybe you'll relate to
Speaker 1: this in some capacity. I haven't been to too many
Speaker 1: mum at school dinner dates, but I decided I should
Speaker 1: really try and make an effort and meet some mother mums.
Speaker 1: There were twenty moms going out to dinner on a
Speaker 1: Wednesday night from my son's class, and I knew maybe
Speaker 1: two of them, so I was excited to meet some
Speaker 1: new people. I got there early, about ten minutes. I
Speaker 1: looked around the restaurant and I saw a really large
Speaker 1: table inside full of mums. I went and sat down,
Speaker 1: started to chat for about fifteen minutes. Everyone seemed really lovely,
Speaker 1: and so I turned around and saw the moms that
Speaker 1: I actually knew outside at a different table. I looked
Speaker 1: around and I said, are you guys at a school dinner?
Speaker 1: And they said no. I said, why if you let
Speaker 1: me talk to you for ten minutes? This woman just
Speaker 1: went and crashes. These women were just sitting there having
Speaker 1: like a catch up, and this woman came and just
Speaker 1: sat down and started to talk about her kid and stuff,
Speaker 1: and they all just left.
Speaker 2: That's actually really cute, and they just laughed.
Speaker 1: She was like, why did you let me speak for
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes? And they're like, well, you just seem friendly.
Speaker 2: I actually think that's adorable.
Speaker 1: It's so cute because you imagine how embarrassed you are,
Speaker 1: like because you get nervous. That's like a date, Like
Speaker 1: when you're going into a mom date. You don't know
Speaker 1: twenty people, You're nervous, you get there early, you want
Speaker 1: to impressed, you want to make friends. Imagine just going up.
Speaker 1: But then I tried to put myself in this position.
Speaker 1: If I was sitting down at a table and a
Speaker 1: girl camp and sat down and started talking, I would
Speaker 1: probably just talk to her too. I'd probably just like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's out.
Speaker 2: For a chat, would.
Speaker 1: Just mon't be a few marks deep.
Speaker 2: But imagine a moment where she has to get up
Speaker 2: and then walk and go and sit at the other table.
Speaker 2: She's like, oh, sorry, there's my actual friends.
Speaker 1: You guys are better. Maybe she'll come back at the
Speaker 1: end of the night.
Speaker 2: But anyway, guys, that is it for the intro chat.
Speaker 2: Let's get into talking to Angie Kent and doctor Izzy Smith.
Speaker 2: We are so excited to have someone who I know
Speaker 2: you're all going to be very familiar with. She was
Speaker 2: once upon a time our bachelorette. She has her own
Speaker 2: radio show and her own podcast. She was in the
Speaker 2: Jungle Man. This girl has done that. Literally every got.
Speaker 1: A book, Like, what have they not annoying her?
Speaker 2: How accomplished she is, Angie, Welcome to Life on Card.
Speaker 3: Thanks ladies. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1: Do you know what's crazy is? I actually don't know,
Speaker 1: and maybe you can tell me. I don't know how
Speaker 1: many times or if we've physically met or been at
Speaker 1: anything together, but I feel like I know you really well,
Speaker 1: but I don't. Actually I was just trying to think
Speaker 1: about it. I'm like, I don't actually think we've ever
Speaker 1: met in real life.
Speaker 2: This is the joys of social media. It's like everyone
Speaker 2: who moves in the Bachelor's space thinks that they know
Speaker 2: each other, but no one really knows each other.
Speaker 3: Well, that's it, because that whole experience is such like
Speaker 3: an ancestual culty situation. You almost like bond over trauma.
Speaker 3: You're like, huh, we're family, so it kind of feels
Speaker 3: like it.
Speaker 2: Speaking of trauma though, And something that we also bond
Speaker 2: over is on every episode we do an accidentally unfiltered story,
Speaker 2: which is basically just your most embarrassing story, which you
Speaker 2: tell and we all laugh about it.
Speaker 1: Which I have a feeling You've got a lot. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I have that feeling.
Speaker 3: I have so many. I seriously, my whole life is
Speaker 3: an embarrassing moment. But I messaged my manager when I
Speaker 3: got this femail asking. I was like, what's a good story,
Speaker 3: and he's like, oh, he had one in mind, and
Speaker 3: then and I was like, what about this one? And
Speaker 3: he was like, if you want to say it, you
Speaker 3: can say it, but that's cooked. But I'm going to
Speaker 3: do it anyway.
Speaker 2: No, this is what we want.
Speaker 3: This has never been I've never even like I fully
Speaker 3: blanked it, like I fully blanked this happened, And I
Speaker 3: feel like this is the perfect space to share it
Speaker 3: because you'll semi be able to relate in the sense
Speaker 3: that it is a batchet related embarrassing story, so amazing.
Speaker 3: Maybe Bachelorette alone was just embarrassing enough as is, because
Speaker 3: I'm so awkward, I'm so sweaty, So there was like
Speaker 3: probably fifty thousand, but this one I've trauma blocked as well,
Speaker 3: but I've remembered it recently.
Speaker 2: Do you know what, though, Angie, there's nothing worse than
Speaker 2: when we get guests on the podcast and they're so
Speaker 2: scared to tell a good embarrassing story that they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: this one day I fell over haha.
Speaker 1: And you're like, no, man, I need the trauma. Did
Speaker 1: you shot yourself for your fellow Otherwise we don't want
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 3: We want to know, we want to know the nitty gritty. No,
Speaker 3: this one's pretty cooked. Hey, like this one, okay, let
Speaker 3: me paint the scene. So obviously, you have your first
Speaker 3: night whatever it is, and it's full on. You're exhausted.
Speaker 3: You meet all these people and you're just like holy shit,
Speaker 3: and then you go on your first date. My first
Speaker 3: day happened to be a twenty four hour date, and
Speaker 3: I picked the person that I ended up picking at
Speaker 3: the end, Carlin. For twenty four hours, we went camping.
Speaker 3: You know, it was lovely. It's not really twenty four hours.
Speaker 3: But we got to drink a lot more than what
Speaker 3: you normally do. That I found out because you know,
Speaker 3: you're monitored, and we were drinking red wine and you know,
Speaker 3: it's fun. Got a little bit drunk, but had to
Speaker 3: get up super early, as you do. And the next
Speaker 3: day was the photo shoot, so you guys know the
Speaker 3: photo shoot.
Speaker 2: Oh, the second date. It's like the first group date.
Speaker 1: No, I wasn't invited on that. I was like four
Speaker 1: people who didn't go it with me.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, not everybody does them.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, if you're someone who follows Bacci,
Speaker 2: you would know this, but if you don't follow Bacci,
Speaker 2: the first group date is a photo shoot. It's usually
Speaker 2: done for Woman's Day or something like that, but they
Speaker 2: kind of turn it into a date.
Speaker 1: It's weird.
Speaker 2: It's a weird premise for a date.
Speaker 3: It's so weird. And mine was animal instincts because they
Speaker 3: knew how awkward I was, so they were like, let's
Speaker 3: just make this fun and awkward for her anyway. And
Speaker 3: I had a lot of red wine the night before,
Speaker 3: so you know what your stomach's like right with red wine,
Speaker 3: Like it's not good. And we were at camping, so
Speaker 3: there was this story is so so that was the
Speaker 3: only drop toilet and I knew the boys were coming,
Speaker 3: but Carlin didn't know. And I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: I was getting nervous for Carlin because he thought we
Speaker 3: were gonna have this like lovely day together. And then
Speaker 3: all the boys come in. There's like ten of them
Speaker 3: or something I can't remember, and my boys were just
Speaker 3: so full on in it stuff. They're all coming over.
Speaker 3: But prior to it, I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: I need to shit, like and there's only a drop twin.
Speaker 1: I love that you're whispering this angie, like you're whispering
Speaker 1: like all Australias.
Speaker 3: Like I said, everybody's not gonna And I go to
Speaker 3: the toilet and I've got this like Kimmy obviously starle me.
Speaker 3: We love Kimmy, we love her. I think I'm in
Speaker 3: like jeans, a little top and like this long. I
Speaker 3: think it was like a cream coat. You know how
Speaker 3: they had the ties, so you're like, you undo the tie.
Speaker 1: And I've sat down, not okay, tell me you shit
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 3: And my tie was in the toilet.
Speaker 2: In the drop toilet.
Speaker 3: Other people's sit was in the toilet. I've shot all
Speaker 3: over my white fucking coat. I'm sat up and I've gone,
Speaker 3: oh my god, and i know all the boys are coming,
Speaker 3: and I'm like Carlin's just was so pretty and so
Speaker 3: lovely what I thought he was. And I was like,
Speaker 3: oh god it was and it was stunk, and I
Speaker 3: was like, oh my god, I feel sick. I'm so sick.
Speaker 3: I wasn't close with the free because like day two,
Speaker 3: so I couldn't be like Kimmi, I've shot myself, or
Speaker 3: like Wendy, I've shot myself. So I'm in there with
Speaker 3: the sink, scrubbing the shit of other people's and my
Speaker 3: own off my coat. I've got my essential oils out
Speaker 3: of the tent and I'm like, hang on, I just
Speaker 3: got to take a panetole. And I'm like, I was
Speaker 3: so nervous. I was sitting there jam I was there
Speaker 3: because it was for Sydney Confidential. And I've just met Jama.
Speaker 3: I've had to hug all the boys with my shit coat.
Speaker 2: Wait, you still wore it. You didn't go back to
Speaker 2: styling and say, hey.
Speaker 3: I had to wear it. I washed it in the sink.
Speaker 1: She goes to Stay two. I didn't know I could
Speaker 1: tell my shit on my coat.
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell anybody. So I've washed it in the
Speaker 3: scen just the strip, not the coat, and I've washed
Speaker 3: it in the sceingk and I've walked it and I
Speaker 3: smelt it and I was like, okay, it's fine. I
Speaker 3: then had to get dressed, like into all my little
Speaker 3: outfits and stuff for the photo.
Speaker 1: Shit.
Speaker 3: But I stood there introducing the group date being like
Speaker 3: animal instincts in me shit code.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait for the socials for this episode to
Speaker 2: dig out a photo of you in that code.
Speaker 1: That's going to be the cover photo of.
Speaker 3: Okay, we need to see if it's the right Unless
Speaker 3: I took it off. Maybe I did. I think I
Speaker 3: was too scared because I didn't know people well. And
Speaker 3: by the end I was just like my boobs wow.
Speaker 3: And if I was drunk, I was like, just the
Speaker 3: boys like you.
Speaker 1: By the end, you're like, yeah, I've shipped myself again. Guys,
Speaker 1: can we change my outfit? You're just so much more
Speaker 1: open it.
Speaker 2: You just started using it as actually a tactic. If
Speaker 2: you didn't like your outfit, you're like, oh, sorry, I
Speaker 2: put it.
Speaker 1: In the toilet.
Speaker 3: I shout on it. I shout on it again.
Speaker 2: One of the actually the reason that could be it
Speaker 2: we could shut up shop.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: That's the reason why we got you on the on
Speaker 2: the show today. We just wanted to hear you talk
Speaker 2: about your shit code. But there is something else that
Speaker 2: we want to talk about, and that is you have
Speaker 2: been super open and very vulnerable sharing your endimetriosis and
Speaker 2: PCOS journey. What was that journey like in terms of
Speaker 2: finding out that you had endometriosis and finding out that
Speaker 2: you had PCOS? How did that kind of come about?
Speaker 3: So I always struggled with my period. I always there
Speaker 3: was always something odd about it. It would come, it would go,
Speaker 3: but I was always just told because I suffered really
Speaker 3: badly from disordered eating, that was kind of my own
Speaker 3: fault that I kind of, you know, messed up my
Speaker 3: own period. But I was about twenty five, I think
Speaker 3: where I just said to my and she was like,
Speaker 3: I got adult acne again, and I was like, I'm
Speaker 3: just having the worst periods. And she was like, let's
Speaker 3: pop you on the pill and we'll sort that out.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I really never wanted to be
Speaker 3: on the pill. I don't I didn't care for it.
Speaker 3: And we did that and it just nothing was working.
Speaker 3: I was bleeding through and then she was like, I reckon,
Speaker 3: you've got endometriosis. So sometimes in some cases you can
Speaker 3: do the what do you call it? I've had a
Speaker 3: brain freeze. I have them all the time, and I
Speaker 3: can't think of it.
Speaker 1: Do you mean an ultrasound or something?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they did the ultra sound ultra sound. I don't
Speaker 3: know why I always forget that weld. I have them
Speaker 3: all the time, I think because I hate them so much.
Speaker 3: I don't like to remember the word. So I had
Speaker 3: the ultrasound and I couldn't see anything, and they were like, well,
Speaker 3: usually you have to have keyhole surgery in order to
Speaker 3: a laparosopy in order to be diagnosed. So I had
Speaker 3: my first laparoscopy and I did have endemyitriosists at that point.
Speaker 3: I don't know how long I had it for, and
Speaker 3: I didn't have pcos. At that point, my first surgery
Speaker 3: was so ghastly. I went through the public system and
Speaker 3: it was just I didn't know my surgeon, I didn't
Speaker 3: know endemetriosis. I didn't really there wasn't much noise around it,
Speaker 3: even though that was what eight years ago. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it was quite a traumatic experience. I didn't feel heard
Speaker 3: and I didn't know anything about it.
Speaker 1: So how old were you when this when the discovery
Speaker 1: was made?
Speaker 3: I think I had keyholes. My first key hole slaparoscopy
Speaker 3: was twenty six, twenty six, twenty seven, and I was
Speaker 3: pretty much traumatized by that experience and I didn't want
Speaker 3: to do it again. But then simpsons kept getting worse
Speaker 3: because my surgery actually wasn't performed properly. I ended up
Speaker 3: very unwell and emergency and had an infection. Then I
Speaker 3: got onto a really good surgeon who was private but
Speaker 3: did public. He also didn't tell me I have p coos.
Speaker 3: And then by my third surgery, which was this February fourteenth,
Speaker 3: Happy Valentine's Day to me.
Speaker 1: Me and my ovaries, me and my.
Speaker 3: Cis so hot. I just have this old cis heat. Dude,
Speaker 3: just cutting me open. So you could ask me out
Speaker 3: on a date. First guy. Yeah, so he found he
Speaker 3: found heaps of stuff. But before my third surgery, it
Speaker 3: was last year before I left Sydney actually and got
Speaker 3: stuck in the Sydney lockdown. He was like, you're riddled
Speaker 3: with cyst and I was like, I didn't even know
Speaker 3: I had that, And he's like, be really careful with
Speaker 3: your stress because it's going to make it worse. Went
Speaker 3: to Sydney, did Dancing with Stars, got trapped down there,
Speaker 3: came back and I was just like, whoo, I was riddled.
Speaker 3: I was absolutely riddled with sis. Yeah, polcistic overies.
Speaker 2: And this was when you found out. So it was
Speaker 2: it was almost eight years after your first endometriosis diagnosis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, six years, six years.
Speaker 2: And were you having symptoms at that time that had
Speaker 2: differed from when you had endometriosis or was it just
Speaker 2: kind of like you had become almost it had become
Speaker 2: almost normal to have so many issues in terms of
Speaker 2: like irregular periods and pain. And yeah.
Speaker 3: See it's so hard with labeling it down to one thing.
Speaker 3: Because I have I have endometriosis. I have ad no myiosis,
Speaker 3: which is endometriosis as evil cousin they call it, which
Speaker 3: there's hardly anything on that at the moment I'm trying
Speaker 3: to learn. I've obviously just been recently smashed with all
Speaker 3: these diagnoses. So for me learning that is a process
Speaker 3: in itself and is quite overwhelming. So I get mixed
Speaker 3: up with all the symptoms because I have so many.
Speaker 3: So I've ad no PCOS, and I've recently fibroids, and
Speaker 3: I've recently been diagnosed with intercistor cystidis. So my symptoms
Speaker 3: have always been really odd. Period with PCOS, the main
Speaker 3: one was I had my last period in August for city,
Speaker 3: and only just got my first period again last month.
Speaker 3: So what's that eight months no period?
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about over achieving andji, you couldn't just
Speaker 1: have one syndrome. You have to have don't just don't
Speaker 1: just stop at one. Well, that's the thing when you've
Speaker 1: I guess it's almost impossible to when you've got two, three,
Speaker 1: four things going on in this one confined space. How
Speaker 1: are you supposed to know what symptom is causing what?
Speaker 1: So I don't imagine there is a way to differentiate that.
Speaker 3: It's quite hard. I think the biggest thing for anybody
Speaker 3: with any chests like this. What I say when I
Speaker 3: ever do any talks is that you know your body
Speaker 3: better than anyone else. And the biggest thing is period
Speaker 3: pain is not normal. We were I think we're all
Speaker 3: kind of around the same age where even still where
Speaker 3: we were brought up to be like just get over it.
Speaker 3: You know you've got your period. You didn't even learn
Speaker 3: much about it was pretty much you get your period,
Speaker 3: you could have a baby. The end period pain isn't normal. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was cooked. And that's my biggest less said and
Speaker 3: learning is in this is that so many women have
Speaker 3: reached out to me and told me these horrific stories
Speaker 3: and how they've been medically gas lit. But if you
Speaker 3: have irregular periods and you're skipping periods for months on end,
Speaker 3: if you're in pain, if you're fainting, if you're noticing,
Speaker 3: you've got like I started to get like random ass
Speaker 3: hair growing in players as I've never seen before. I
Speaker 3: gained a lot of weight. I went from I had
Speaker 3: a bit of an issue though, so and PCO was
Speaker 3: dis sorted eating more because you gain all this weight
Speaker 3: for no reason, what a hormone based thing. But you're
Speaker 3: not eating anymore your creating's changed, and you're just like,
Speaker 3: what's going on. So I went from like a ridiculous
Speaker 3: weight to gaining about maybe eight kilos, and I was
Speaker 3: kind of like, what's going on? And my acne came
Speaker 3: back and the anxiety and depression, and they're the main
Speaker 3: symptoms for PCO west. But again, everybody is so completely
Speaker 3: different in how they experience any of these chronic and
Speaker 3: visible illnesses.
Speaker 2: You mentioned something before, and I think it's kind of
Speaker 2: really interesting to circle back on this, but you said
Speaker 2: feeling like you were being medically gaslate. What was your experience,
Speaker 2: and I guess, knowing that you had been through a
Speaker 2: few different doctors and a few different surgeons, what was
Speaker 2: your experience in getting to that point of a diagnosis.
Speaker 3: I still feel that I'm not heard sometimes. I often
Speaker 3: leave feeling a little bit because a lot of men
Speaker 3: work a guyinos, which I find quite interesting. They're great
Speaker 3: with the medical side of things, obviously, but they don't
Speaker 3: know the trauma response and the anxiety and the stress
Speaker 3: that comes when with it. They just know, well, this
Speaker 3: is what happens when you have it and you need surgery,
Speaker 3: see you later. They don't look after you after it right,
Speaker 3: they don't hold your hand after you being everything taken
Speaker 3: out of you. I just felt like, for example, with
Speaker 3: the intercestual cystatus, which is a bladder condition, I was
Speaker 3: always just told I was an anxious person. That's why
Speaker 3: I peed so much. My whole bladder was completely just
Speaker 3: a red blood. Like I saw pictures recently after my surgery.
Speaker 3: It was just like this round thing of just inflammation
Speaker 3: and blood. But then growing up it was just like, oh,
Speaker 3: you're you're just got anxiety. Well, no, I probably had
Speaker 3: anxiety because I was riddled in pain, but nobody diagnosed
Speaker 3: me with anything exactly. So I just feel like it
Speaker 3: was that constant passing around. If you've just got anxiety,
Speaker 3: you've just got anxiety opened me up. My whole body
Speaker 3: had turned on me, and of course I had anxiety.
Speaker 3: I was in so much pain and I didn't know why.
Speaker 3: So it's one of those things where I feel like
Speaker 3: we're often medically gas lip because we're just told just
Speaker 3: to get just to get on with it.
Speaker 1: Has anyone specialist GP, anyone or your research. Has anyone
Speaker 1: told you if everything you have the AD no, the
Speaker 1: intersitial societists, the pcos, the ENDO, any of them, related
Speaker 1: to each other. Is there a direct connection with anything
Speaker 1: else that you've got, or are you just unlucky that
Speaker 1: you've just got all this shit going on.
Speaker 3: If anybody's gonna get anything, it's going to be me.
Speaker 3: I've always said, because I've got Celiac's disease as well, whoo,
Speaker 3: it's all inflammation based, So I've always there's no I
Speaker 3: don't think there's any medical, real you know, anything to
Speaker 3: back this up. But I think because I've got so
Speaker 3: much inflammation in my body, I feel that due to
Speaker 3: maybe having my eating disorder so terribly for so long,
Speaker 3: I caused a lot of issues in my body. I
Speaker 3: often don't like to think about that because I don't
Speaker 3: want to blame myself, and I've done a lot of
Speaker 3: work emotionally and mentally around it because I'm not endometrious
Speaker 3: or adenomyosis or pcos. I'm just experiencing it. Because it's
Speaker 3: so often that we get attached to thinking that we
Speaker 3: are what we have right, and then that just makes
Speaker 3: it worse. The pain is worse, Everything is just so
Speaker 3: much bigger. I feel that what I did to myself
Speaker 3: growing up may have a little bit of a part
Speaker 3: in the inflammation of it and it being as bad
Speaker 3: as what it was. And obviously the disordered eating can
Speaker 3: really mess with your insulin levels, which PCOS is a
Speaker 3: huge thing with. But look a lot of it. They
Speaker 3: say it's genetics. Again, my mum never thought to check,
Speaker 3: my nan never thought to check, and they both suffered
Speaker 3: with really bad periods. A lot of it is genetics.
Speaker 3: And yeah, producing extra male hormones which can be from stress,
Speaker 3: and I was very stressed growing up, so maybe, But.
Speaker 2: I think also so hugely what you just said, like
Speaker 2: your mum and your grandparents and them not getting checked.
Speaker 2: It's like they were of the generation where women just
Speaker 2: didn't and did exactly that when they were told. They
Speaker 2: had the perception that periods are supposed to be painful.
Speaker 2: And I think it's only with our wave of generation
Speaker 2: that women are saying this is not right, like this,
Speaker 2: something here is wrong. And there's almost this wave and
Speaker 2: push of talking about things like PCOS, talking about endometriosis,
Speaker 2: a conversation that wasn't on the table ten years ago.
Speaker 3: It really wasn't.
Speaker 2: In terms of what you do for your own pain,
Speaker 2: in terms of what you do for pain management, what
Speaker 2: has worked for you so far or what are the
Speaker 2: treatments or processes that you have, either you've used or
Speaker 2: whether it's been surgery, that have been beneficial to you,
Speaker 2: trialed and.
Speaker 3: Tested, child, I've done it all. I'm very big on approaches.
Speaker 3: I've got an amazing team that I've cultivated now. But
Speaker 3: it did. It wasn't always like that. I mostly focused
Speaker 3: on what my GP told me, which she's amazing, the
Speaker 3: one I was seeing in Sydney. But again she's a
Speaker 3: general practitioner, so she only generally practiced like touches on
Speaker 3: everything right. So I had a beautiful natural path that
Speaker 3: I actually lost this year. When you have all these
Speaker 3: conditions and you feel so let down and often not heard,
Speaker 3: to have somebody that is your safe person. And she
Speaker 3: put me in touch and with the right people that
Speaker 3: would listen to me, or what the best surgeons or
Speaker 3: what I was eating, and helped me through what my
Speaker 3: body needs for PCOS, certain homes I could take for
Speaker 3: inflammation because the idea of taking painkillers all the time
Speaker 3: gave me anxiety, which would then cause an end of
Speaker 3: mateiosis flare up or an into sister societies flare up
Speaker 3: because stress often causes flare up. So I say get
Speaker 3: yourself a really, really good natural path. It's like a hairdresser.
Speaker 3: I always say this, if you're going to somebody and
Speaker 3: they're not listening to you, it's exactly the same as
Speaker 3: going to a hairdresser and they keep giving you a
Speaker 3: shit cut. You're not going to keep going back to them,
Speaker 3: are you. So find somebody that will listen to you. Also,
Speaker 3: I highly recommendatural remedies. Speak to somebody that really is
Speaker 3: like a dietitian in the chronic illness, not just somebody
Speaker 3: that's like, well, this diet's going to work for anybody,
Speaker 3: you know, that's tailored to pcos or and demetriosis or
Speaker 3: whatever you have going on. And a really good pain psychologist.
Speaker 3: I've just started seeing one and that's been really good.
Speaker 1: I'll see that's interesting. So what do they coach you
Speaker 1: through how to mentally deal with the pain or how
Speaker 1: to like remove like is it like a meditative removing
Speaker 1: yourself state that you put into or like what's that about.
Speaker 3: I've only just started with that, and it's it's going
Speaker 3: to be more because I've been suffering really bad panic
Speaker 3: attacks lately because of the nerve damage and everything around there.
Speaker 3: The instant response to my head is like something really
Speaker 3: bad is going on. So it's kind of just knowing
Speaker 3: when you have that pain what to do. Yeah, like
Speaker 3: get your heat pack laid down, listen to something that's
Speaker 3: gonna bring you out of that state of fight or flight.
Speaker 3: Know that you're not dying, You're just in a lot
Speaker 3: of pain.
Speaker 1: And we know thoughts are a powerful thing. But in
Speaker 1: terms of being at home besides a heat pack, laying
Speaker 1: down and relaxing, like Laura has used a TENS machine
Speaker 1: before for when you're in labor, and we know now.
Speaker 1: I didn't actually know this, but I do now. I
Speaker 1: know that you can use it for things like pcos
Speaker 1: and Demetrios's pain. Have you ever tried that?
Speaker 3: I actually have it, and everybody's so shocked by that.
Speaker 3: I have this like little I usually carry it with
Speaker 3: me everywhere just because I have a flower. But it's
Speaker 3: this like little water bottle and you can bring it
Speaker 3: with you and you plug it in and you hitt
Speaker 3: and you go like that and it heats itself up
Speaker 3: in the plug. I've only used that, but I've never
Speaker 3: used the TENS. I've heard I should, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, Bush is actually one of our sponsors, which is
Speaker 1: very very convenient. So I will if you want to
Speaker 1: give one a world that is a poe. Yes, So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'll get your address after this and I'll
Speaker 1: send you one to have a go, especially if you
Speaker 1: haven't used it, because it may be a secret superpower.
Speaker 3: Could you imagine. I wish there was a portable one
Speaker 3: that I could wear under all my clothes all the time.
Speaker 2: I think, I think so like the one I use
Speaker 2: when I was pregnant. It's tiny and like as and
Speaker 2: I used it when I was in labor, and you
Speaker 2: can chuck the pack part in your pocket. Well that's
Speaker 2: I mean, they're all slightly different, but you just put
Speaker 2: the tabs on and you put the pack and then
Speaker 2: you can bump it up. Yeah, I mean like setting
Speaker 2: five would have blitzed your ass off like it was like,
Speaker 2: but you can kind of go on the lower settings.
Speaker 2: In terms of your PCOS and endometriosis. How costly has
Speaker 2: this been for you, the cost of the procedures, the
Speaker 2: cost of treatment, the costs of therapies. What impact financial
Speaker 2: impact do you think that has had on you?
Speaker 1: And have you had any level of assistance from Medicare
Speaker 1: or what is covered under your private health insurance for
Speaker 1: people that are scared to go down this path.
Speaker 3: Look, I've I'm a great example of learn through me
Speaker 3: because I seriously have. That's why I'm so open about
Speaker 3: sharing this. I don't do it for attention. I don't
Speaker 3: need people's sympathy or attention by any means. I do
Speaker 3: it because I want to create more awareness around it.
Speaker 3: And I would say, if you're going to be getting laparoscopies,
Speaker 3: definitely have private health because my last one I went
Speaker 3: private with my private surgeon and through private hospital, and
Speaker 3: my health insurance hadn't kicked in yet four and I
Speaker 3: only had like the basic one. And I've learned the
Speaker 3: hard way now because my surgery all up, I think,
Speaker 3: let's say probably nine thousand dollars just for the surgery.
Speaker 3: That's just for the surgery. That's not for every appointment
Speaker 3: I go. When I go see my guano, when I
Speaker 3: go see my health care specialist, when I go see
Speaker 3: my physio. I was getting treatments for my intersitial cystiatis
Speaker 3: every week I went to see him. The needle alone
Speaker 3: that the syringe they injected into my urethra was two
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy and then he was one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty every week.
Speaker 2: That's huge.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have been able to afford that when I
Speaker 3: was a twenty six when I first got diagnosed. So
Speaker 3: that's why I did go through public and I got
Speaker 3: butchered and I didn't felt feel held and supported, And
Speaker 3: I understand why that happens to women who has that
Speaker 3: money laying around. It's only fortunate enough now that I've
Speaker 3: worked quite a lot, and but I still budget, like
Speaker 3: I don't have willy nearly three hundred bucks to just
Speaker 3: be throwing around to have somebody stick a syringe in
Speaker 3: my norm care every week, Like nobody wants to do that.
Speaker 1: That's people's rent, that's people's whole, what they budget for
Speaker 1: rent and bills and stuff. And to be doing that
Speaker 1: every single week and not have any assistance.
Speaker 3: It's not fair. I think what women have to pay
Speaker 3: for them what's not covered Medicare. I'll get like thirty
Speaker 3: forty bucks back every time I see my guyin no or.
Speaker 3: I don't think I get anything back for physiotherapy, which
Speaker 3: is huge because pelvic floor we have a lot of
Speaker 3: perfect flow issues with people who have these invisible illnesses,
Speaker 3: so it's never ending, my psych I don't. I think
Speaker 3: maybe I get a Medicare. You can go through and
Speaker 3: get the healthcare plan for that kind of stuff, to
Speaker 3: make sure you do that. If you want to see
Speaker 3: a psych for your pain. But you know what, like
Speaker 3: I would say, you're going to be getting surgeries, definitely
Speaker 3: get private health. I know it's so expensive and then
Speaker 3: you get the allied appointments that do help, so learn
Speaker 3: through me. Otherwise you're out of pocket. You know, nine
Speaker 3: grand and that's that was a lot. That was a
Speaker 3: real big kick in the ovaries to think like I
Speaker 3: did not ask for any of this, and I'm having
Speaker 3: to pay for you to remove it. But then if
Speaker 3: I needed a hysterectomy, they will fight you fucking with
Speaker 3: everything to make you not get one. It's just very bizarre.
Speaker 3: The medical system isn't team women yet or people with vaginas.
Speaker 3: I should say, because I'm not all women who have periods,
Speaker 3: you know, they don't identify as women, not all people,
Speaker 3: I should say, so, yeah, we're not quite there yet.
Speaker 3: For people with vaginas, I don't think at all.
Speaker 2: And if you're having so many different like for having
Speaker 2: these different chronic illnesses. What is it for you? And
Speaker 2: how does it feel? I should say how does it feel?
Speaker 1: But what is it like?
Speaker 2: Having sex? Is that affected?
Speaker 3: So with the relationships and sex, I think right now
Speaker 3: that's kind of for me personally. Everybody's different, it's non existent.
Speaker 3: I think the fear of having to explain to somebody
Speaker 3: all of these things that I have going on. I
Speaker 3: can't even comprehend it, let alone a partner. I'm sure
Speaker 3: there is people that would hold space for it, but
Speaker 3: I'm not at the stage where I feel comfortable enough
Speaker 3: to allow somebody to leading up to it without knowing
Speaker 3: I had all these chronic invisible illnesses. Sex was so painful,
Speaker 3: so painful. You know, it gets to the point where
Speaker 3: I'm comfortable and I can enjoy it, But I got
Speaker 3: to be with somebody to feel comfortable enough to even
Speaker 3: relax for it to get in. You know, have like
Speaker 3: men find that hot too when you're really tight. Side note, dudes,
Speaker 3: a lot of the time when you're really tight, it's
Speaker 3: because you've got pelvic floor issues.
Speaker 1: It's like, Oh, I'm not even gonna go into it.
Speaker 1: Do it? Do it? Well? We'd go down a whole
Speaker 1: track of like what men don't get insects, which is
Speaker 1: this is not what the podcast is.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've had a whole conversation about men thinking
Speaker 2: not knowing how many holes there are.
Speaker 1: So I think that there's like many things we can
Speaker 1: talk about. But I have I have a really good
Speaker 1: friend that has uh she has endo and pcos, but
Speaker 1: she sex is so and I didn't know this until
Speaker 1: I became good friends with her. Sex is so painful
Speaker 1: to her that she's like I started having long distance
Speaker 1: relationships because it was easy out for me. I didn't
Speaker 1: have to have sex all the time. I could develop
Speaker 1: that relationship that was strong enough that when we did meet,
Speaker 1: I could be more explanatory about like why you need
Speaker 1: to be really gentle, why we need to take our time.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know that it was to the point
Speaker 1: that people struggle to have physical relationships in terms of
Speaker 1: not physical but the actual penetrative sex.
Speaker 2: But I think it's interesting because we have so many
Speaker 2: conversations about what it feels like as a person, like
Speaker 2: what it feels like to have something like endemetriosis, But
Speaker 2: then it's like the other ways it impacts you, impacting
Speaker 2: your ability to have relationships because your sex is affected
Speaker 2: by it like that doesn't get a lot of airtime,
Speaker 2: and it's such a part and parcel of this and
Speaker 2: of having a chronic illness.
Speaker 3: It doesn't. And another big thing that I think if
Speaker 3: I look back now in relationships where I would have
Speaker 3: sex quite often because I felt that I had to
Speaker 3: and it was so painful, but I could never really
Speaker 3: explain why I wouldn't do that to myself. Now I've
Speaker 3: come far enough to know that the right person that
Speaker 3: I'm with will hold space for me and I can't
Speaker 3: have sex. And I'm not a man hater by any means,
Speaker 3: a heapman hater at all, but I find because I
Speaker 3: am pan sexual, when I was having sex pre surgery
Speaker 3: with people that weren't sis hepman, they were way more
Speaker 3: understanding of my pain and my body because they got
Speaker 3: it as well, you know, they really got it, and
Speaker 3: they really understood, and then we could do other things
Speaker 3: that were still connecting and sexual, but they didn't have
Speaker 3: to slam dunk me.
Speaker 1: What do you want to say or what would you
Speaker 1: say to somebody now that's just about to go down
Speaker 1: this journey that's just figuring it out, or that's at
Speaker 1: home thinking, fuck, I have some of those symptoms. Maybe
Speaker 1: I need to go get checked out. What's your advice?
Speaker 1: What do you wish you knew?
Speaker 3: I would say? What would I wish I knew? I
Speaker 3: would say, if you don't feel held and supported, definitely
Speaker 3: get a second. And I know it costs a lot
Speaker 3: of money. Get us You're worth it. Get a second. Third,
Speaker 3: fourth opinion because you know your body better than anybody,
Speaker 3: better than the professionals, So you need to find people
Speaker 3: that will hold and support you. Join all the forums,
Speaker 3: but also don't read them like intently, because then you're,
Speaker 3: like I might believe it. Should I try that? Make
Speaker 3: sure you know what's best for your body, because no
Speaker 3: true bodies are the same and you're all going to
Speaker 3: experience things differently. But cultivate a team that will listen
Speaker 3: and support you because it can be quite scary, and
Speaker 3: you can always ask me. I try to anybody that
Speaker 3: asked me stuff about that. I'm not a doctor, obviously,
Speaker 3: but I can point you in two directions that have helped. Angie.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming and sharing this with us.
Speaker 1: I think you're going to help a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you? Tell everyone what you do
Speaker 1: and where they can go and track you down everywhere,
Speaker 1: not your physical address, but like you know, Mountain.
Speaker 3: No, I'm not going to say that where I live.
Speaker 3: So no, I was just on the instagrams. It's just
Speaker 3: I think it's just Angie Can with an underscore because
Speaker 3: I'm old school.
Speaker 1: I'm an underscore too. I think underscore.
Speaker 3: Angie Can, so I had to have an underscore. But yeah,
Speaker 3: just anytime, you know, slide into your DMS if you
Speaker 3: got a question. I do try to get back to
Speaker 3: everybody or do a Q and about it because I
Speaker 3: know what's really scary. But I just want people with vaginas,
Speaker 3: who are you know, living in fear or not knowing,
Speaker 3: just to know that you're you're not alone and you're
Speaker 3: you can be held in supported for sure.
Speaker 1: Oh you're definitely not alone. And that's the problem. The
Speaker 1: prevalence is far too high.
Speaker 2: Angie, thank you so much for coming on and being
Speaker 2: a part of the podcast. You are wonderful.
Speaker 3: Thanks gals.
Speaker 1: Well, we do have the experts with us today. We
Speaker 1: have doctor Izzy Smith here. Doctor Izzy, who I will
Speaker 1: refer to you as doctor is he is and is
Speaker 1: an endochronologist. So we've really brought in the big guns.
Speaker 1: Is it Welcome to life uncut.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, Britt, I'm excited to be here
Speaker 4: as a fan of the podcast.
Speaker 1: Now, before we get started, like we did, just do
Speaker 1: some bonding over your recent breakup, but that is not
Speaker 1: why you're here today. Everyone goes through their heartbreak, but you, Izzy,
Speaker 1: are an endocrinologist. Now, I think there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people out there that would have absolutely no idea,
Speaker 1: including myself, about the specifics what an endocrinologist actually does.
Speaker 1: So can we start by what do you do?
Speaker 4: Lots of paperwork? An endocrinologist is a medical specialist. That is,
Speaker 4: any hormone related problem. So I look after anything type
Speaker 4: one diabetes, type two diabetes, thyroid adrenal ovariants, or anything
Speaker 4: reproductive hormones, testosterone, polycystic ovariance syndrome that we'll be talking
Speaker 4: about today, two or two problems that essentially anything hormone related,
Speaker 4: which is lots of different things.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what would be the main reason, So just
Speaker 1: say someone goes to their GP. I'm assuming for everyone listening,
Speaker 1: you can't just go to an endocrinologist. You have to
Speaker 1: get a specialist referral. What is the main reason people
Speaker 1: would come and see you. What do you get referred
Speaker 1: the most.
Speaker 4: I do a lot of work in bone health, but
Speaker 4: I guess it depends what you kind of sub specialize,
Speaker 4: as in endocrinology, but you correct that you do need
Speaker 4: a referral. And that's for all medical specialties. Like in
Speaker 4: the States, it's different. Anyone can see specialists, but that
Speaker 4: is a barrier they put up from probably people seeing
Speaker 4: too many specialists when they might not need to. But
Speaker 4: I look after so bone health, lots of diabetes, thyroid problems,
Speaker 4: and it kind of depends on the type of person.
Speaker 4: And to a young female who's probably most of your listeners,
Speaker 4: that might be thyroid problems, fertility problems. An older person
Speaker 4: that might more be osteoporosis, things like that.
Speaker 2: The thing that we're here to talk about today, which
Speaker 2: is PCs. I know that there will be people who
Speaker 2: listening to this who have it themselves, who are very
Speaker 2: familiar with the conversation, but there's going to be so
Speaker 2: many of our listeners who actually have heard of it
Speaker 2: but don't have any idea what it actually is. Can
Speaker 2: you tell us what is PCOS?
Speaker 3: First?
Speaker 4: I'm going to do like a thirty second summary of
Speaker 4: the female reproductive right, You're.
Speaker 1: Like, I didn't go to university for twenty five years,
Speaker 1: so I couldn't say this.
Speaker 4: So essentially, so we've got our ovaries and they are
Speaker 4: controlled by our brains. We've got these two endocrine organs
Speaker 4: called the hypothalamus and the petuatory, and they monitor the
Speaker 4: rest of our body, how much stress right under, what
Speaker 4: we've eaten, our energy intake, all these different things. They
Speaker 4: sense everything and they send messages to the ovaries to
Speaker 4: make hormones and also release an egg. And that's how
Speaker 4: we ovulate and we get pregnant. So the messages come
Speaker 4: from the tree to the ovary and that's how hormones
Speaker 4: and a mental cycle occurs that our hormones are up
Speaker 4: and down in a regular month and period and all of.
Speaker 2: That sometimes regular, sometimes absolutely not regular regular, for like
Speaker 2: by the cycle of the moon. I'm like, when's that coming, baby?
Speaker 1: Checking if I'm pregnant again?
Speaker 5: Does it app for that? I was gonna say, there's
Speaker 5: some good tracking apps.
Speaker 4: So PA costs or PCOS polycystic ovarian syndrome.
Speaker 5: Now the name is pretty crap.
Speaker 4: Because you'd think it would just be about the you know,
Speaker 4: polycystic appearance on the ovaries, and they thought that it
Speaker 4: should be changed to you know, ovarian dysfunction androd and
Speaker 4: syndrome or something, because really it's about the ovaries making
Speaker 4: too much male hormones. But in p SOS, the messages
Speaker 4: from the petuitory from the brain that tell the ovaries
Speaker 4: to make hormones, they get a little bit confused, and
Speaker 4: the ratio is out. There's two hormones called LH and FSH,
Speaker 4: and there's too much LH, which means there's lots of
Speaker 4: follicles that are stimulated, and that's why it's called polycystic
Speaker 4: ovarian syndrome. We see an ultrasound and we look all
Speaker 4: there's lots of follicles, so heaps of follicles are stimulated,
Speaker 4: but one is isn't then developed to then be ovulated.
Speaker 4: So people have high hormone production, and they also have
Speaker 4: high esten and high male hormones, which are the androgens,
Speaker 4: and that's what causes the acne and them kind of
Speaker 4: male pattern hair growth. And rather than the hormones going
Speaker 4: up and down in a nice cycle, the hormone levels
Speaker 4: stay pretty much the same all the time and you
Speaker 4: don't ovulate.
Speaker 2: See, people have PCs pretty much and not having a
Speaker 2: period for some people with PCOS.
Speaker 4: And let me just explain how we define PCOS because
Speaker 4: it's a syndrome.
Speaker 5: It's not like this one diagnostic test.
Speaker 4: And I was just chatting with your producer before about
Speaker 4: her background and it's a little bit unclear and there's
Speaker 4: not a clear cut diagnosis. It's not you can do
Speaker 4: one test and this you have peacos. So there's three
Speaker 4: categories and you need to have two. One is the
Speaker 4: polycystic over appearance on ultrasound, but really important to note
Speaker 4: that's only if you're around at least ten years after
Speaker 4: your first period, so if you're eighteen, super common to
Speaker 4: normal to have polycystic overs on ultrasound. That's one criteria.
Speaker 4: The second one one is high androgens, and that can
Speaker 4: either be clinically so you've got signs of high androgen,
Speaker 4: so that's acne, body hair growth.
Speaker 1: And the androgens were the male homee.
Speaker 5: The male woman.
Speaker 4: So you test or sterone essentially and you can either
Speaker 4: have the clinical sides or on a blood test it
Speaker 4: could be elevated androgens. And then the third one is
Speaker 4: irregular periods, so that could be no periods at all.
Speaker 4: Or it could be more than forty five days between
Speaker 4: a cycle or less than eight periods in a year.
Speaker 4: So we say, if you have two of those three,
Speaker 4: you have polycystic goo varian syndrome. It's not a perfect
Speaker 4: diagnostic because someone could have acne and then they could
Speaker 4: have a missed period because they're actually not eating enough
Speaker 4: and really lean, but they would still meet those criteria.
Speaker 4: It's two of those three criteria, and it's because of
Speaker 4: those abnormal messages from the petuitatory to the ovary and
Speaker 4: we don't have that nice mental cycle.
Speaker 5: You're not ovulating.
Speaker 4: It's the most common cause of annovulatory so not ovulating
Speaker 4: infertility and a common cause of needing. You normally don't
Speaker 4: need IVF for pea costs, but you know sometimes you
Speaker 4: might need some other assistance. Yes, you're not ovulating, and
Speaker 4: that the problem is when we're not ovulating them. If
Speaker 4: anyone has lost their period and they're like, oh, this
Speaker 4: is great, I'm not going to see the doctor. I
Speaker 4: don't want to have a period once a month. If
Speaker 4: you have pea costs and you're not ovulating, you're getting
Speaker 4: excess estrogen stimulating the lining of the uterus, which is
Speaker 4: called the endometrium and normally we need progesterone to balance
Speaker 4: that out, and if you don't get that progesterone, you're
Speaker 4: actually increasing the risk of endometrial cancer.
Speaker 5: And tragically, I've.
Speaker 4: Had women, you know, my age, that have had pea
Speaker 4: costs not had to trade it and had endometrial cancer
Speaker 4: and had hysterect me when they're like thirty. So if
Speaker 4: you lose your periods, make sure you get.
Speaker 1: It checked out. Okay. So I am just consuming all
Speaker 1: of that and it's great because you need the background.
Speaker 2: We have spoken a lot about endometriosis before, and one
Speaker 2: of the things like, I don't have endometriosis, and I
Speaker 2: found the conversation really interesting because I know a lot
Speaker 2: of women who do, but I couldn't quite understand why
Speaker 2: it's so painful. But now obviously since we've done that research,
Speaker 2: I kind of get it and I understand it more.
Speaker 2: Is pcos something that people will would suffer with pain with, like,
Speaker 2: is it something that's painful or is it quite different
Speaker 2: to endometrios in that way.
Speaker 5: Completely different.
Speaker 4: So peacocks super common one intent, endometriosis one intent. People
Speaker 4: You're going to have people that have both well, No,
Speaker 4: it's not a painful condition. It's those signs that I
Speaker 4: talked about, which would be the indicators that you've got
Speaker 4: policistic covariance in it. You could have like a ruptured
Speaker 4: ovaria insist that would be really painful, and maybe that
Speaker 4: risk is slightly increased with policistic of variance indrame.
Speaker 5: But no, the condition itself isn't painful.
Speaker 1: With these women that are not having their period, they're
Speaker 1: not getting enough progesteron to balance the endometrium and then
Speaker 1: they end up with endometrial cancer. Just for everybody listening,
Speaker 1: can that also happen for the people that are getting
Speaker 1: their period? Their body is allowing it, but they're skipping
Speaker 1: the period on the pills. So the people that are
Speaker 1: just actually saying I don't want it. Now, could this
Speaker 1: endometrial cancer come from that? Or is does your body
Speaker 1: actually have to be not producing it?
Speaker 4: Yes, So I'll just quickly explain again with a bit
Speaker 4: of a hormone metrial cycle school, So we only least
Speaker 4: progesterone after we ovulate. The progesterone comes from the little
Speaker 4: part of the ovary called the corpus routine where the
Speaker 4: egg comes from. So if you're not ovulating, you can't
Speaker 4: make progesterone. And what gets tricky is some people can
Speaker 4: actually have a period even though they haven't ovulated, often
Speaker 4: quite heavy because the progesterone only thins that lining a
Speaker 4: little bit.
Speaker 5: So the pill is completely different.
Speaker 4: So the pill is synthetic estrogen and progesterone in a
Speaker 4: combined tablet. That's why it's called the combined or a
Speaker 4: contraceptive pill, and that turns off the messages from the
Speaker 4: brain to the ovary because you're getting enough hormones and
Speaker 4: you're getting the progesterone that's thinning the lining of the endometrium.
Speaker 4: So no, the pill definitely does not cause that same risk,
Speaker 4: and the pill actually decreases the risk of a varian
Speaker 4: cancer by forty percent. We often hear a lot of
Speaker 4: fear and worry about the pill, and the pill will
Speaker 4: often be prescribed in polycystic ovarian syndrome. And it's a
Speaker 4: shame because some people go to their GP and that
Speaker 4: we diagnose with.
Speaker 5: Peacos and they're like, here you go, loose.
Speaker 4: Some weight, here's the pill, and that is the appointment
Speaker 4: over and that sucks because someone doesn't have things explained.
Speaker 4: Pill is really good in polsisco varian syndrome because it's
Speaker 4: turning off those messages from the petuitary to the ovaries.
Speaker 4: The over is aren't making those elevated androgens, so it's
Speaker 4: really good for you know, the acne and the hair growth.
Speaker 4: It also increases a protein that binds some of those
Speaker 4: extra hormones. And the other thing with the pill is
Speaker 4: that you know, it protects the endometrium, so we actually
Speaker 4: use the pill in peacross to prevent that endometrial hyperplasia,
Speaker 4: which is that pre endometrial cancer.
Speaker 2: So it's like if you I guess like for a
Speaker 2: lot of people, and I think that this is one
Speaker 2: of the myths with the pill itself is that people
Speaker 2: go on it and I know for myself they were
Speaker 2: not known. I was like fifteen years old for so long,
Speaker 2: and then when I came off it, I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I have all these issues, And a lot of people
Speaker 2: have the perception that the issues have been created by
Speaker 2: the pill, whereas the pill may have actually been masking
Speaker 2: those issues.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent and often incorrectly, the pill is labeled
Speaker 4: as associated with infertility, and it's just what you said,
Speaker 4: someone goes on when they're fe and then they go off.
Speaker 4: But when they're thirty and they're like, I want to
Speaker 4: have a baby, and they haven't had those mentrual cycles
Speaker 4: to know if they were regular, you know, did they
Speaker 4: have normal space, all those things, So they haven't had
Speaker 4: that normal sign telling them that they've got a you know,
Speaker 4: normal menstrual cycle and no big warning signs about fertility.
Speaker 4: So it does mask well, it treats the symptoms of
Speaker 4: the peacos or it does mask it. It also sometimes
Speaker 4: can you know, people have severe demetriosis, some might suppress
Speaker 4: their symptoms, which is also why we use it as
Speaker 4: a treatment. But I say to people, if you know
Speaker 4: you definitely want to have a baby, you know at
Speaker 4: one point and you've been on the pill when you're fifteen,
Speaker 4: it's not a bad idea to go off it and
Speaker 4: just make sure everything's looking, you know, normal, because we
Speaker 4: can't test your hormones when you're on the pill, so
Speaker 4: I can't test you for peacross, I can't test you
Speaker 4: for other fertility problems when someone's on the pill.
Speaker 2: So instead of just waiting until you're already like Okay,
Speaker 2: now I want to have a baby, let's go for
Speaker 2: it at least having that forward planning, so you know
Speaker 2: that maybe if you're in your twenties and you know
Speaker 2: you want to have kids one day, even if it's
Speaker 2: not now, taking that agency to take a break to
Speaker 2: figure out what your reproductive organs and everything else is
Speaker 2: going on. So that way, when it comes to the
Speaker 2: day that you want to have a kid, you know
Speaker 2: that everything's in a working order and you've dealt with
Speaker 2: those issues earlier rather than leaving it to last minute.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and pecos is so common, So yeah, it's not
Speaker 4: about idea. Obviously, I'm not going to stay to people, Hey,
Speaker 4: go off your pill as you.
Speaker 1: Want to use a condom.
Speaker 5: Yeah, always condos, be really careful. But yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: And also because the pill and even as well, even
Speaker 4: people that don't have PEA cross they go off the
Speaker 4: pill and they get a bit hairer and they're like,
Speaker 4: oh my goodness, like to the PILM in general, guys.
Speaker 4: But it's because you know, normally it's the male hormones.
Speaker 4: Even without peacos, we all have a little bit of testosterone.
Speaker 4: People often notice their libido is better when they're off
Speaker 4: the pill, and that's because we've got more testosterone.
Speaker 5: It will mean you might have a bit more body
Speaker 5: hair when you go off the pill.
Speaker 1: I do you love what you said there? Correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. For the statistics that you said, the
Speaker 1: pill can actually help reduce the chance of varying cancer
Speaker 1: by forty percent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the more times we ovulate, the bigger our
Speaker 4: risk of ovarian cancer is. And I actually stayed on
Speaker 4: the pill for like seven years just because I wanted this.
Speaker 4: If we're on the pill for five consecutive years, it
Speaker 4: decreases our lifetime risk of a varying cancer by about
Speaker 4: forty percent.
Speaker 5: That is huge.
Speaker 1: I don't think a lot of people know that.
Speaker 4: We always hear about, oh, it causes breast cancer, which
Speaker 4: I'll just how about I just briefly summarize, so the
Speaker 4: breast cancer risk. It does increase your risk of breast
Speaker 4: cancer by about twenty percent. That's only whilst you're on
Speaker 4: the pill. And we need to think about what the
Speaker 4: risk of a twenty five year old is of breast cancer.
Speaker 4: It's like super super low. So let's say her risk
Speaker 4: is like one in ten thousand. That's like point zero
Speaker 4: zero one. We're making it point zero zero one two.
Speaker 4: So our risk of something is really low, you know,
Speaker 4: increasing that risk only is slightly increasing our absolute risk,
Speaker 4: and that's called relative versus absolute risk. And for people
Speaker 4: you know, without background and statistics, which is you know,
Speaker 4: most people, it's ancs really scary, like twenty percent increased
Speaker 4: risk of breast cancer, but if your risk is only
Speaker 4: point zero zero one, making point zero zero one two
Speaker 4: is not that much. Whereas ovarian cancer, that's a lifelong
Speaker 4: risk reduction. So the risk with the pill is on
Speaker 4: breast cancer is only when you're on it. That ovarian
Speaker 4: cancer is lifelong. And for me, you can't screen for
Speaker 4: a varying cancer and that really scares me. So the
Speaker 4: pill does also slightly decrease risk of bowel cancer as well,
Speaker 4: So it's probably you've got a really bad reputation and
Speaker 4: there are some you know side effects that increases risk
Speaker 4: of depression by about one percent. Some people just feel
Speaker 4: absolutely terrible on the pill, but there are some really
Speaker 4: good parts about it. And then your medications aren't good
Speaker 4: or bad. I say, it's all about the situation in
Speaker 4: a fit exceeding risk. Yeah, And like cancer medications make
Speaker 4: people feel absolutely rotten, but they can kill cancers. You
Speaker 4: wouldn't say that's bad. So I think it's all about,
Speaker 4: you know, the situation in the person.
Speaker 1: Well, I could talk to you NonStop about that, but
Speaker 1: let's get back on too, because I mean, this whole thing,
Speaker 1: the whole reproductive system, how hormones, everything is so fascinating
Speaker 1: because every woman goes through it. But is there a
Speaker 1: difference between pcos and polycystic ovaries because I thought that
Speaker 1: polycystic ovaries meant PCOS.
Speaker 4: Such a good question, and this is one really important
Speaker 4: because I think a lot of people have been incorrectly
Speaker 4: diagnosed with PCOS. So PCO policistic go over is is
Speaker 4: literally just the appearance we see on ultrasound. And you're
Speaker 4: a radiographer, weren't you, Yes, So that is the appearance
Speaker 4: on ultrasound and super normal in young women who are
Speaker 4: only like a few years, five to ten years after
Speaker 4: their first period. It's not diagnostic or politistic ovarian syndrome.
Speaker 4: You need to have those two of those three criteria
Speaker 4: we talked about, so you know, the signs, the acne
Speaker 4: or the irregular period. So those varying features themselves aren't diagnostic.
Speaker 2: If somebody leaves it. Apart from just this increase in
Speaker 2: endometrial cancer. What are the other symptoms that someone would have,
Speaker 2: Like if someone left PCOS untreated for say five to
Speaker 2: ten whatever years, and they weren't on the pill, what
Speaker 2: would be the things that they would need to look
Speaker 2: out for.
Speaker 4: This is a really good question because PCs, the management
Speaker 4: and the things we think about really depend on the
Speaker 4: patient and their kind of age group. So you know,
Speaker 4: young women not wanting to feel pregnant. It's probably more
Speaker 4: the skin, the body, hair, those type of things. And
Speaker 4: we haven't really talked about the underlying cause of PCOS,
Speaker 4: which is generally really high levels of insulin. And it's
Speaker 4: the insulin that call is the mauckup and the communication
Speaker 4: from the brain to the ovaries. High levels of insul
Speaker 4: makes it hard to lose weight, hungry, fatigue, then the skin,
Speaker 4: the head, those type of things. For women in maybe
Speaker 4: more around their thirties, it's often fertility.
Speaker 2: I feel like the only time I've ever heard of
Speaker 2: insulin spoken about is in terms of diabetes. How does
Speaker 2: it affect PCs?
Speaker 4: So insulin resistance is like pre diabetes. So if we
Speaker 4: need glucose, which is our primary source of you know, fuel,
Speaker 4: our brains need it. I love carbohydrates. They're so important
Speaker 4: for us to function.
Speaker 1: I love cubs too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm definitely.
Speaker 2: You're amongst good company.
Speaker 1: Fresh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we need insulin to get glucose inside our cells.
Speaker 4: If a combination of genetics or environmental causes, the insulin
Speaker 4: can't get inside our cells unless we've got lots more insulin.
Speaker 4: So it means our cells are less sensitive to insulin,
Speaker 4: so each of them level start to increase. We call
Speaker 4: that insulin resistance. When the blood sugar levels are still normal,
Speaker 4: and once it goes over and you just keep making
Speaker 4: the insulin, but the glucose won't go inside our cells.
Speaker 4: That's when we see type two diabetes. And it's the
Speaker 4: type two diabetes which is kind of related to the
Speaker 4: peacos and the insulin resistance.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to circle back for a second in
Speaker 2: terms of something that you mentioned earlier in regards to endometriosis,
Speaker 2: and you said that it's common to have both, or
Speaker 2: someone could have both at the same time. Are they
Speaker 2: at all linked? Is there a case where people have
Speaker 2: if you have PCOS, you're more inclined to have endometriosis
Speaker 2: or vice versa, or are they just completely separate issues
Speaker 2: and Unfortunately, some women suffer from both.
Speaker 4: Completely separate issues. So we know endometrosis also familiar related.
Speaker 4: There's still a lot of research about what is the
Speaker 4: underlying cause driving it, but policistic or variantindery completely separate.
Speaker 4: But people will potentially have both just because of how
Speaker 4: common they are.
Speaker 2: And I think it's interesting because me coming from a
Speaker 2: background where I don't have either and I don't know
Speaker 2: much about them, I had always thought I kind of
Speaker 2: always just chucked them in the same basket. I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know about endemetriosis, and I guess some people who
Speaker 2: had that also have PCOS because I do think that
Speaker 2: sometimes the conversations are had handed hair, but I didn't
Speaker 2: realize that they were very independent of each other.
Speaker 4: I think it's interesting because women's health has generally been
Speaker 4: terribly researched, maybe apart from breast cancer and their two
Speaker 4: conditions that have not been properly understood or well respected
Speaker 4: by their medical system.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that is.
Speaker 4: We could go into like a history of medicine lecture,
Speaker 4: but I think women's pain is not taken seriously. We've
Speaker 4: had studies that show women who present with chest pain
Speaker 4: are less likely to be investigated for a heart attack.
Speaker 4: Women that have abdominal pain are less likely to receive
Speaker 4: appropriate analgesia. I think that's because we think women are hysterical.
Speaker 4: Like the word hysterectomy, which is, you know, taking out
Speaker 4: the uterus, was because they thought the uterus was what
Speaker 4: made women hysterical.
Speaker 1: Yes, all sorts of levels off saying.
Speaker 4: Women probably with like quite complex mental health disorders had
Speaker 4: their uterus taken out because it must have been what
Speaker 4: was made them female, which was making them hysterical. So
Speaker 4: I think that's just a really good example of the
Speaker 4: underlying sexism and lack of respect for women's complaints in medical.
Speaker 1: Surely we could change the term hys directed me now
Speaker 1: in this day and age, now that we know where
Speaker 1: it stems from.
Speaker 2: Don't you think that also then reflects and say like
Speaker 2: the rebates and Medicare and the way that people can
Speaker 2: get subsidies for these sorts of issues, like for somebody
Speaker 2: who has PCs and has to go through treatment or
Speaker 2: have and we'll get into what treatment is in a second,
Speaker 2: but what are the benefits that someone has allowed access
Speaker 2: to or what help is there for people who have PCs.
Speaker 4: That's a great question, because so many people that I
Speaker 4: speak to say they get the diagnosis, they're told to
Speaker 4: kind of lose weight and do some exercise and here's
Speaker 4: the pill and come back and see me when you
Speaker 4: want to feel pregnant. I'm not a GP, so I
Speaker 4: don't generally see people with he COSS unless maybe they're
Speaker 4: trying to feel pregnant or there's other things associated with it.
Speaker 4: And I would just work in public. Probably in the
Speaker 4: private system there is more people just in the endochronologists
Speaker 4: for peacos. But what kind of services are available you
Speaker 4: could speak to your GP. I don't think it would
Speaker 4: meet criteria for a chronic disease management plan, which would
Speaker 4: mean you know, publicly funded referrals for an exercise physiological dietitian.
Speaker 5: It's not good.
Speaker 4: I think indometriosis has got a lot more attention, mainly
Speaker 4: due to like you know, some celebrities doing really good
Speaker 4: work and advocacy, but PECOS has a long way to go.
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, and as well, it's associo
Speaker 4: with weight gain. There's so much weight stigma that would
Speaker 4: be a podcast for a whole other episode talking about
Speaker 4: the obscene you know, weight stigma and bias in the
Speaker 4: healthcare system as well, whether that's also something related to
Speaker 4: it as well. But I often do think if there
Speaker 4: was a condition that affected one in ten men was
Speaker 4: associated with infertility, as if there would not be more.
Speaker 1: Fun they would be getting paid to go and get
Speaker 1: their treatment. It would be you are we're talking about,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it that get whatever they want?
Speaker 2: I mean, I still come back to the fact that
Speaker 2: Viagara didn't have GST on it, but tampons did.
Speaker 4: So anyway, I was like, Hiagara has caused so many
Speaker 4: people to die and it's still like a medication, but
Speaker 4: like Fagra kills.
Speaker 5: Like hundreds or maybe thousands of men per year.
Speaker 2: Really adding a new definition to making them stiff, isn't it?
Speaker 1: That is yeah, literally in the not funny. We shouldn't
Speaker 1: be joking, Oh we should have But what is the
Speaker 1: okay is it? What is the correlation between pcos and
Speaker 1: a level of infertility? Like I want people out there
Speaker 1: to not be firstly if they have it, to think,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm never having a child, but also
Speaker 1: if there is quite a high level that it is correlated,
Speaker 1: that they need to say, Okay, maybe I do need
Speaker 1: to go and speak to someone and just put some
Speaker 1: things in place.
Speaker 4: So it kind of depends on if you're quite lean
Speaker 4: with peacos or maybe your be mice bit elevated and
Speaker 4: you could lose around five to ten percent you know,
Speaker 4: body weight. But the main thing is improving that intro insensitivity.
Speaker 4: So that is, you know, dietary changes, low GI types
Speaker 4: of food. I'm not a dietitian, but we talk about decreasing.
Speaker 4: I don't want, you know, a low carb because going
Speaker 4: really low carb keto that actually worsens insuing resistance. But
Speaker 4: moderating how much carbo hydrates you're having and having really
Speaker 4: good carbohydrates, lots of veggies, lean proteins, healthy diet, exercise.
Speaker 4: You know, there's all these different studies about what's the
Speaker 4: best type of exercise. Is it more high intensity? Is
Speaker 4: it longer duration cardio? I always say whichever exercise you
Speaker 4: like is probably the best one because that's the one
Speaker 4: you're going to actually do. Probably best evidence for kind
Speaker 4: of longer duration type cardio rather than the high hit stuff.
Speaker 4: Then so after lifestyle is you know, medications and they're
Speaker 4: looking at trying to improve that insulin sensitivity. Met Foreman
Speaker 4: is usually first line. That's a medication we use in
Speaker 4: type two diabetes, so.
Speaker 2: Met Foreman is a tablet that people take basically, and
Speaker 2: is it a daily treatment or.
Speaker 4: Just a once a day tablet. Then there's also some
Speaker 4: supplements that people can use. Spearmint tea actually acts as
Speaker 4: an anti androgen, and I always love giving people some
Speaker 4: kind of more natural type treatments that they can do
Speaker 4: help people feel more empowered with the treatment options, So
Speaker 4: spearmint tea, and then there's some supplements.
Speaker 5: I can never say it properly, guys.
Speaker 4: I had dyslexia as a child, by the way, and
Speaker 4: have done so much use of speech together it in
Speaker 4: a style Inocytol, which is a supplement as well that
Speaker 4: we were looking at.
Speaker 2: This as well, and we were like, we don't know
Speaker 2: how to say that incetol.
Speaker 1: We will We're like, easy, will know, yeah, I'll be honest.
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm dyslexic.
Speaker 5: I don't know, no, not dyslexic.
Speaker 4: I had an speech therapy problem, so yeah, a little
Speaker 4: bit of deslexiah. I've done a lot of speech pathology
Speaker 4: over the year. So if you have, you know, an
Speaker 4: auditory processing problem, you can definitely become a doctor.
Speaker 1: Don't worry.
Speaker 2: You can be like genius, don't worry.
Speaker 4: You just won't be able to prescribe in a site
Speaker 4: since oh god, you're.
Speaker 1: Just having to write it down.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, I'm a very visual person.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so supplements then if people so we give
Speaker 4: met foreman, especially if someone's trying to fall pregnant, because
Speaker 4: we're not going to put them on the pail because
Speaker 4: we want to get back that you know, that cycle.
Speaker 4: And it's like what we talked about younger people, it's
Speaker 4: more the symptoms maybe around our age group, more fertility,
Speaker 4: and then after that it's looking at their risk factors
Speaker 4: associated with pecos, which is the metabolic stuff, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of a vascilar risk diabetes preventing them.
Speaker 5: So also a little bit of weight loss can be.
Speaker 4: Beneficial for people with you know, maybe a higher BMI
Speaker 4: kind of five to ten percent weight loss, so maybe
Speaker 4: you know, three four kilos that can actually improve your
Speaker 4: intertlin sensitivity. Then for actual treatments for fertility, we use
Speaker 4: this one called clomid and electrosol, and they're actually decreasing
Speaker 4: how much estrogen is there, and that's trying to lower
Speaker 4: the estrogen levels enough to stimulate the right messages from
Speaker 4: the produratory for ovulation to occur, and usually I find
Speaker 4: that's really effective, and people with peacos don't need you know,
Speaker 4: very rarely should need IVF because the eggs actually are good.
Speaker 4: You've got lots of eggs. It's just about getting one
Speaker 4: to come out.
Speaker 2: I think there is a lot of fear for when
Speaker 2: people are diagnosed with PCOS or told that they have PCOS,
Speaker 2: that they think instantly, I'm not going to be able
Speaker 2: to have kids or I'm going to be infertile. What
Speaker 2: would you say to someone who is your patient who
Speaker 2: comes in and that's their fear. What's the response to that.
Speaker 4: The first thing is like pea COS is not a
Speaker 4: lifelong diagnosis. I have patients that go into peacos and
Speaker 4: then they get really good with their regular exercise, dietary changes.
Speaker 4: You know, maybe COVID happens, the gym shirts, we're spending
Speaker 4: more time watching TV, I'm getting takeaway, and then go
Speaker 4: back into peacos.
Speaker 5: So it's not like you've got this for life.
Speaker 4: It's a condition that can people can go back and
Speaker 4: forth between and you can reverse a little bit like
Speaker 4: type two diabetes.
Speaker 1: Is there ever anyone though that could do all the
Speaker 1: right exercise have the most impair code diet and that's
Speaker 1: not going to change anything. The PCOS is there to say.
Speaker 4: And I think this is so important because especially with
Speaker 4: our focus on kind of lifestyle and natural health, which
Speaker 4: I think is really good, there's a lot of great
Speaker 4: parts about how much healthier our generation is coming. But
Speaker 4: it can become a little bit unhealthy when we fall
Speaker 4: into the trap of we are completely in control of
Speaker 4: our own health because we're not. Like so much is
Speaker 4: due to genetics and bad luck. And some people can
Speaker 4: do absolutely everything right and they should never feel shame
Speaker 4: or that they have failed because let's say they can't
Speaker 4: get their periods back naturally.
Speaker 5: And it breaks my heart.
Speaker 4: Because I do get you know, lots of messages on
Speaker 4: Instagram or patients that feel like they've done something wrong
Speaker 4: and like they're personally at fault. So, as I said,
Speaker 4: this can be really genetic. I've have Paie with pea costs.
Speaker 4: They have like a beerm I have like eighteen or
Speaker 4: even underweight, and that's probably they've got a slight genetic
Speaker 4: mutation with the insulin receptors and you know sensitivity. So
Speaker 4: people can do everything right and it might not be enough,
Speaker 4: so there are treatment options, especially in fertility is what
Speaker 4: people are you know after, and that's why you know,
Speaker 4: we do lifestyle first and then it's you know, medications,
Speaker 4: so it's not one or the other, it's putting them
Speaker 4: both together.
Speaker 1: If somebody does think that they could have PCOS, what
Speaker 1: is your advice to them? What's the first step?
Speaker 4: Go to the GP YEP, so it's really basic. Blood
Speaker 4: tests so important to have some other conditions ruled out.
Speaker 4: So there's one called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, probably only going
Speaker 4: to be excluded by an endocronologist. It's pretty rare, but
Speaker 4: we always exclude that. Low thyroid function super common, checking
Speaker 4: elevated levels of prolactint. So essentially you go, you get
Speaker 4: some blood tests, you exclude other things that could be
Speaker 4: pea costs, you get your male hormones checked. Then also
Speaker 4: looking at getting into pervic cultures sound you know, the
Speaker 4: best views are through like an inter vaginal so there
Speaker 4: is a prob and done within a second. We look
Speaker 4: at the ovaries, We have a look at the lining
Speaker 4: of the endometrium and that's really beneficial, especially if it's
Speaker 4: a bit unsure. What the diagnosis is if someone's got
Speaker 4: you know, the thicker lining of the endometrios very thin,
Speaker 4: so that's important, and you'd go from there, so you'd
Speaker 4: get the diagnosis, you know, exclude the other things, and
Speaker 4: then work on the management. So firstly, thank you so
Speaker 4: much for bringing up these topics. It's so great that
Speaker 4: so many people are going to be listening to this.
Speaker 4: I know I love and hate medicine. No, I love medicine,
Speaker 4: but I really.
Speaker 1: I hate medicine.
Speaker 5: I am I haven't seen me.
Speaker 4: I love medicine, but I hate that I can only
Speaker 4: work with my individual patients. And it's really exciting to
Speaker 4: be sharing this information. Just the final thing I was
Speaker 4: going to say, if you have a health problem, especially
Speaker 4: if it's peacos or other kind of female reproductive related problem,
Speaker 4: see a GP with an interest in it. You know, GPS,
Speaker 4: it's such a diverse thing. They need to know about
Speaker 4: absolutely everything, and they're not specialists, so they can't know
Speaker 4: in depth. And to really crap, the government doesn't you
Speaker 4: know many here rebate them properly for all of this explanent,
Speaker 4: the understanding, the education. So see your doctor with an
Speaker 4: interest in the area. Google search you know us a GP.
Speaker 4: Do you have an interest in this and it's that
Speaker 4: teamwork thing. You really got to work with them.
Speaker 2: Tottera Ezie, thank you so much for coming and being
Speaker 2: a part of the podcast. Thank you for sharing your
Speaker 2: absolute wealth of knowledge.
Speaker 1: You do, Eazy have an Instagram page that is full
Speaker 1: of so much amazing information. Do you want to just
Speaker 1: tell everyone where they can find you if they want
Speaker 1: to know more?
Speaker 4: Sure, it's d dust belt the whole word, ezy K Smith.
Speaker 1: Doctor, Izzy K. Smith. Great, I've been on the page.
Speaker 1: It's a wealth of information, lots of stuff on peacocks
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: You know that we never finished an episode without our
Speaker 2: suck and our sweet, our highlight and our low light
Speaker 2: of each and every week and pretty hockly do you
Speaker 2: want to kick it off with your sucky suck?
Speaker 1: Sucky? Yeah? Do you know what? I was just trying
Speaker 1: to think of my suck because I always lived the
Speaker 1: last minute.
Speaker 2: You know, I really want it to be we literally
Speaker 2: it's like we're about to do suck in the sweet
Speaker 2: and bridges?
Speaker 1: What was no long for the work? Because I like
Speaker 1: to keep it very current, so maybe my stuck up
Speaker 1: in ten minutes ago. I need to wait to the
Speaker 1: very last minute to think about it. I have a
Speaker 1: suck that I've been I told you about yet, Laura,
Speaker 1: it just hit me.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I was going to say it look at sometimes it
Speaker 2: just comes down to nowhere. Leave it to the last minute.
Speaker 2: You never know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: I was going to say my suck was that I
Speaker 1: didn't get to see my mom and Mother's Day, I
Speaker 1: couldn't get up to Port mcquarie. But I'll be seeing
Speaker 1: her in a few weeks. But then this one just
Speaker 1: hit me, and this is so much better. I what,
Speaker 1: I had a date this week, I had my.
Speaker 2: Friends back the mud.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I tried Laura, where it's going away? Is
Speaker 1: this Is this a date you don't know about? This?
Speaker 2: Is this a date with the person who you've gone
Speaker 2: on a couple of dates?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: So everyone just saying, no, Brittany's been on a few
Speaker 2: dates with the same person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like a minuscule amount, like very minuscule amount. Anyway,
Speaker 1: hopefully he doesn't hear that. No, well he will not
Speaker 1: hear about it now. Anyway, we had organized a date,
Speaker 1: and we had had a crazy busy week and We've
Speaker 1: done a lot of recording. Laura and I had been
Speaker 1: in a recording studio.
Speaker 2: All day, Like that's the way I still sound like
Speaker 2: I've been deep throating some sandpaper. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We had a six hour day of non stop talking,
Speaker 1: and then he had and then we had to record.
Speaker 1: This person that I have been the only person I
Speaker 1: have been on a date with, said you know what,
Speaker 1: I'll take you to dinner on Friday night. And I
Speaker 1: was like great. He's like, you've had a pretty hectic
Speaker 1: week and I was like, yes, let's do Friday. He's like,
Speaker 1: I'll take you on a great dinner. I was like great,
Speaker 1: So Friday comes. Didn't think about it. I mean no,
Speaker 1: I did think about it, but I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: text him about it. So I raced home after this
Speaker 1: because I was like, gott to get home, got to
Speaker 1: get ready. I'm sure he's just gonna message me the
Speaker 1: time and the place or pick me up or whatever,
Speaker 1: because that's how I imagine people do dates. I get home,
Speaker 1: I quickly get showered, I get ready. Nothing, seven o'clock comes. Nothing.
Speaker 1: I texted him and I'm like, hey, uh, what's you know?
Speaker 1: Where you at or what's happening. What are you up to?
Speaker 1: And he sent me a picture back, a photo of
Speaker 1: takeaway with his friends watching a movie. He's like, oh, nothing,
Speaker 1: I've just finished dinner and we're watching a movie with
Speaker 1: the boys. And I was like what. I was like,
Speaker 1: He's like, what are you doing? And I was like,
Speaker 1: waiting for you? I said, literally, I said, I'm waiting
Speaker 1: for you. He's like, huh, I'm confused. I said me too.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm waiting for the dinner that you said.
Speaker 1: He was like, oh my god, I completely forgot.
Speaker 2: He forgot.
Speaker 1: Well, he goes, I forgot, I said friday night. I
Speaker 1: just thought I said over the weekend, and I was anyway,
Speaker 1: he's still out. That was it. He was beside himself apologizing.
Speaker 1: He's like I genuinely He's like, actually, I feel so bad,
Speaker 1: but my mouth is fucking open.
Speaker 2: You got stood up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean I'm not what he says. Not intentionally.
Speaker 1: He was like, can you like, why don't we watch
Speaker 1: a movie or something now? Like, and I just said,
Speaker 1: forget it. That's what I wrote off. Yeah, of course I.
Speaker 2: Would have been the same thing. It'd been so dirty,
Speaker 2: you soft boy. Actually, okay, that's a new term. I've
Speaker 2: just learned. It's not a fuck boy. It's a soft boy.
Speaker 2: It's if they're like kind of emotionally sensitive, but then
Speaker 2: start doing fuck boy things like that.
Speaker 1: Anyway, it was pretty funny, like it was in all
Speaker 1: lot to see I'm laughing. It was like it was
Speaker 1: a genuine mistake. Yeah, but cool.
Speaker 2: It was cute, like I love getting and doing my
Speaker 2: makeup and getting ready for a date.
Speaker 1: Then sitting at home on my own on a total
Speaker 1: I just want to take away and watch a movie. Anyway,
Speaker 1: My sweet was I did you end up seeing him
Speaker 1: then over the weekend? Negative? No? I did? For coffee? Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually I did.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think if someone stands you up on a nighttime date,
Speaker 2: you've got to punish them with a daytime date where
Speaker 2: they're not getting laid. Fuck you, it's breakfast now.
Speaker 1: But I was like, yeah, you get you get a
Speaker 1: decaf coffee. You don't even get a caffeine in coffee.
Speaker 1: My suite was I had a little friend's fair. Well,
Speaker 1: so I went out on Saturday night and I hit
Speaker 1: the d floor. My knees are paint for it the
Speaker 1: next day. I'm a bit old now, but it was
Speaker 1: a really fun night. It was just nice to be
Speaker 1: out with my friends again.
Speaker 2: Cute, so wholesome. I also feel like, now that I know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of even weird to like think about or
Speaker 2: talk about that whole COVID thing that happened where we
Speaker 2: didn't go and leave our house for four and a
Speaker 2: half months.
Speaker 1: I know you now, it's a real effort. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's so easy to stay inside.
Speaker 2: No, it's just like for me because obviously having kids
Speaker 2: and they both so little still, I don't really get
Speaker 2: out very often. It's not like I can't even tell
Speaker 2: you the last time that I went out dancing, which
Speaker 2: just sounds funny now. But like the whole idea of
Speaker 2: actually leaving the house, some people are able to socialize
Speaker 2: and do stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, what I novel? Do you? Well? What's your suck? Okay?
Speaker 2: My stuck for the week is that it was Mother's
Speaker 2: Day on the weekend and that my children, both of them,
Speaker 2: woke up and they chose violence.
Speaker 1: From the minute that they woke up.
Speaker 2: They were like, today's the day for drama. I have
Speaker 2: never I shouldn't say i've never, like I have, but
Speaker 2: they were both just on their worst behavior. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: today's mom's day, so we're gonna make sure that it's
Speaker 2: fucking terrible for her.
Speaker 1: They just screamed all day.
Speaker 2: There was actually one point where Mary had a tantrum
Speaker 2: in the middle of the road.
Speaker 1: Laid down safe.
Speaker 2: She laid down on her stomach in the middle of
Speaker 2: the road.
Speaker 1: What do you even do?
Speaker 3: Rip her up?
Speaker 1: By one artist, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You're like like, well, for a minute there, I was like,
Speaker 2: if you keep this up, you can stay here.
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's very irresponsible. There's a truck coming.
Speaker 2: But it just felt like and I know the like
Speaker 2: if you're a mum, you'll understand this. There's just some
Speaker 2: days that no matter what you asked them to do,
Speaker 2: they want to do the complete opposite. Like you could
Speaker 2: say I they'll be like, do you want cereal or
Speaker 2: do you want toasts? They'll say they want cereal. Then
Speaker 2: you'll make them cereal. Then they'll scream at the cereal.
Speaker 2: Then you'll say you need to put your shoes on,
Speaker 2: and they'll say they don't want to wear shoes today.
Speaker 2: And it was literally just every single thing they fought
Speaker 2: me on.
Speaker 1: So could I ever win? Yeah? No, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: lost anyway.
Speaker 2: But the one thing I did win and my sweet
Speaker 2: for the week was also Mother's Day, and that was
Speaker 2: because Matt was such an angel. I thought he'd forgotten.
Speaker 2: I kind of made a joke the night before because
Speaker 2: I was like, I know that you haven't got me anything,
Speaker 2: but even if you don't get me anything, just get
Speaker 2: me a card.
Speaker 1: Well, he did his little radio tribute to you. If
Speaker 1: you guys haven't heard the radio show, he caught up
Speaker 1: with Marley and they left a little message he did
Speaker 1: that is on and I cried about and you didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't even cry.
Speaker 2: But if you haven't listened to the radio show, that
Speaker 2: is literally the episode before this in the podcast, so
Speaker 2: if you want to jump on there and listen to that.
Speaker 2: But I woke up in the morning. He let me
Speaker 2: sleep in. It was nine o'clock and I got up
Speaker 2: and the kids were already like up awake, out of
Speaker 2: the house. He got a beautiful bunch of flowers. They're
Speaker 2: sitting on the table, and he just wrote me the
Speaker 2: nicest letter, like a proper letter. He penned a letter
Speaker 2: to me, guys, and it would.
Speaker 1: Have been any present.
Speaker 2: It was really sweet and like guccie ye do it,
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: A letter or dear no.
Speaker 2: But it was just really nice. I mean, I guess
Speaker 2: like sometimes when you're in the fog of parenting, you
Speaker 2: don't get to like have those moments to connect always,
Speaker 2: and like it's just really nice to kind of I
Speaker 2: don't know. I think that there's such a sentimental thing
Speaker 2: that goes into writing a letter and writing how you
Speaker 2: feel about someone, and it was very special and I.
Speaker 1: Loved it the end.
Speaker 2: Anyway, guys, that is it from us. We hope that
Speaker 2: you love the episode. We hope you learn something. If
Speaker 2: you know someone who has PCOS, or you think that
Speaker 2: some of the symptoms or things that we've spoken about
Speaker 2: will resonate with someone who you love, send them this
Speaker 2: podcast episode. Recommend it to your friends. Recommend it to
Speaker 2: all your female friends who will get something out of it.
Speaker 2: Also to your male friends who don't understand the female
Speaker 2: reproductive system and maybe need a hand.
Speaker 1: How many holes are there? Who knows?
Speaker 2: I think it's three, but like the jury is still out.
Speaker 2: So if you have any questions for asking cut, you
Speaker 2: can slide on into the DMS with your questions. You
Speaker 2: could also join the Facebook discussion group that is where
Speaker 2: all of the juicy conversations go down if you have
Speaker 2: anything that you want to throw out and cast out
Speaker 2: to the LIFs of this community.
Speaker 1: We have to rush off now because we are heading
Speaker 1: over to Warner's Music. We have an amazing little interviewer
Speaker 1: doing there that will be dropping in the coming week,
Speaker 1: so that is very exciting. We'll let you ponder on
Speaker 1: that one for a little while.
Speaker 2: It's Jessica maw boy.
Speaker 1: Maye. You do not understand that, you do not understand
Speaker 1: what a teaser is still teaser.
Speaker 2: They don't have the content yet.
Speaker 1: We actually really do need to run away, going to
Speaker 1: be late to meet her. We can't be late, So guys,
Speaker 1: please tell you mum too, dog tell you don't tell
Speaker 1: your friends, and share the love because we love. They
Speaker 1: go bare back.