Turmeric, peri, and my dog being an adorable menace.

Anyone who has been following me for a while, knows that my biggest peri symptom is rage. Uncontrolled, out the meno-gate, hangry King-Kong levels of rage. If you’re new here, perhaps have a read of this for the backstory.

Everything I have yelled at this week.

So, how do you think it went, when I wrote out a whole very thoughtful and well-researched post on Turmeric for menopause, when my lovely puppy jumped on my keyboard and then this shit happened. And yes I know I should draft in word or docs or some crap like that, but I didn’t. I raw-dogged it and typed straight into Substack, and then, this.

Cool.

It was a good post, by my very average standards. And of course I can’t remember enough of it to rewrite. But the whole thing got me thinking about rage, and about how some parts of perimenopause aren’t hot flashes or hot takes, they’re just deeply average experiences. Or weird. Or fine, I guess.

Help me out. Are these things pretty standard for everyone, or more of a peri thing?

I’ve been wondering:

• Does everyone else tell the car radio to shut up when it plays a song you don’t like or are sick of?

• Is it standard to get so emotionally wrecked by a sick dog in a movie that you have to get up and walk it off?

• Is it normal to call your phone a not very nice name because it autocorrected to “duck” again even though it knows damn well you never mean duck?

• Is it ok to feel genuine betrayal when someone you love makes a sound while they eat?

• What about wanting to cry over a bra that no longer fits the way it used to, even though you now hate wearing bras altogether?

• Is it normal to start googling “menopause rage remedies” before smashing through the emergency chocolate, again?

  (I live in Wellington - most of us have emergency boxes of “things” we might need after an earthquake or other natural disaster, and emergency chocolate is one of those things I have in mine)

I know menopause is serious. I know it messes with our bodies, our minds, and our relationships. But it’s also kind of boring sometimes. And repetitive. And it’s wild that something so universal still feels like a secret.

But back to the turmeric post I tried to write before it got yeeted into the void by my beautiful puppy’s paw.

I was linking to this excellent post by Dr Jen Gunter, who writes about menopause through the lens of real science, because she is a scientist, and a damn good one at that.

Of Mice and Men...and Turmeric and Menopause

She also writes here about the trouble with turmeric.

Both of her extremely excellent articles point out that the studies conducted to determine whether Turmeric is beneficial for menopause have yielded disappointing results. For a start, using men for a study about women’s health is immediately questionable, but you will howl with laughter or maybe disbelief when you get to the bit about the rats in the first article.

Aside from several countries insisting on warnings for use, the upshot for me is if you enjoy turmeric in your food, cool. If you’re relying on it to fix your hormones, maybe give it a miss.

And while I was looking into the turmeric, I came across a bunch of others that set off my spidey senses. To be fair, I did not do any decent level of reading on these ones. What do you know? Actually good, or a bit crap?

Chlorella - Spotted this one on TikTok after a charming man said it was the golden cure of all the things. Basically it’s a green algae marketed as detoxifying and energising. There’s no strong evidence that I could see about it doing much for menopause. May help boost your B12 levels if you’re deficient? Otherwise, not much.

Ashwagandha - Apparently this is the adaptogen of the moment. I have this at home because someone somewhere (probably social) told me it was good for ADHD and focus and all that. It didn’t do anything personally for me, that my actual medicine took care of but I think it’s supposed to have a mild effect on meno stress for some people.

Maca root - Allegedly good for energy but I couldn’t find any studies that weren’t funded by maca sellers so I don’t know - jury is probably out.

Black cohosh - May help with hot flushes, but results are mixed and some are saying it can mess with your liver. Some countries (Canada for one) have warning labels on black cohosh products for liver damage. Perhaps worth talking to your doc before trying.

Honestly, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And for those of us who are not scientists, we probably won’t understand a good study from a low-quality one. Tread carefully out there my peri pals..

Signing off with a face of zero accountability.

Lou xx