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Welcome to Her Health Code, the podcast that helps women in midlife feel better in their bodies without the confusion or overwhelm. We’re two health coaches sharing real talk, personal stories, and our best coaching tips that help you reconnect with your body’s wisdom. Think of us as your health-savvy girlfriends, here to help you crack the code to feeling vibrant and strong again.
Jess & Michele (00:00)
Welcome back to Her Health Code. I'm Jess. And I'm Michelle. Thank you so much for joining us. We're so happy that you're here. We're building a community to support, empower, and inspire women to feel their best in midlife. Yes, we are. And if you're enjoying our episodes, please take a moment to subscribe or follow. We would really, really appreciate it. And if you're listening on a podcast platform, please just take a couple minutes, just a few minutes, and leave us a review. It'll really, really, really help us out. It really, really will.
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And if you're feeling like today's episode has helped you or could help someone that you know, please don't forget to share it with a friend Today, Michelle is going to tell us a little bit about her experience with
a symptom that's really common for many ladies entering into perimenopause. And I think it's just not one that would be on the top of your mind to connect it directly because didn't it kind of start happening to you
kind of like in the beginning with other things that were starting to happen like hot flashes and night sweats and tossing and turning at night. symptoms of perimenopause can differ for woman to woman and depending on your body and just how your makeup is. And so for me,
my most aggravating, most scary symptom of paramanopause was... So far. Yeah. ... was heart palpitations. And I, at the time they happened, which was about, I want to say five years ago now. So I'm 50 years old now. And so...
It happened when I was about 45 years old. And at the time, I really didn't have any other symptoms. I was occasionally feeling like a hot flash very rarely and very moody. but at the time I just thought I was, I was overwhelmed. I was stressed and I didn't associate my mood swings to perimenopause at all because at the time nobody was talking about it. Nobody. So I really didn't know I was changing at all or if that I was in any new stage. And I started
having heart palpitations. And at the beginning, it would just come on intermittently, like once during the day, and then I'd have another one a couple days later. And, and it freaked me out. But at the same time, I was like, I just immediately what I usually do is I check my diet, I check my stress and am I having to jump right in? Yeah, I always jump right in. I jump right in. Am having too much caffeine? Am I having too much sugar? Like is my stress level high? So those are the things that went through my head like
Am I doing something that is causing these heart palpitations? And so the more times it gone on, and I want to say for the first couple of months, it was really intermittent. It was like every other day or so, or every couple of days, it would be one. How long would it last? For at least like five, 10 minutes. Wow, that's really long. Yeah. It was, was, yeah. And, and that's why I always, I would just start my breath work and I would start to calm myself down.
Did you think it was just anxiety? Like, ⁓ I'm just anxious. Yeah, I did. Pretty much at the time that you had checked into your diet and your caffeine, like then what's left? Yeah, I thought, OK, well maybe I'm just becoming a nervous wreck. Maybe I'm just developing an anxiety disorder. Like maybe I, you know, maybe I need some help. And so I, continued on this journey, not really going to the doctors about it just yet because, I'm like, I can.
feel this out. I'm a very healthy person, I can figure this out. And so I was doing everything I could diet wise doing everything trying to get good sleep trying to keep my stress level down. And they kept happening more and more and more. And it was one day and I'll never I'll never ever forget this just this was so so so scary. And I had this really powerful
heart palpitation where I felt like there was a hundred pound weight on my chest. At the same time, my heart was just going crazy and I had to brace myself on the counter and I'm home driving with a child in the car or at the grocery store. yes, but I was so frightened and in this moment I really thought I was having a heart attack. I truly thought I was having a heart attack because the flashes of my kids and my gosh,
not going to be there for him. and I really had the flood of feelings and emotions that came with having a near like scary incident happening to you. And so I called my doctor immediately. And she's like, come right in. And so I raced into the hospital as soon as they kind of ebbed and flowed after a little bit. And so I got there, my heart was racing the entire time. drive yourself? I did.
Got there and I as I was waiting to be seen for the EKG I just sat there doing breath work the entire time. I was I was doing my breath work I was doing my four seven eight breathing technique and just Trying to calm myself down trying to calm my heart down and by the time I got into the room I was feeling much calmer and they weren't there. They hooked me up to an EKG and This is about an hour. This is the ER or urgent care or your doctor. Okay, you went right into your
Yes. primary care doctor. Okay. Literally right down the road from me. And so from the time I started having this really bad one to the time she put me on an EKG, it was about an hour from the start to end. And so she got me on the EKG and I could tell my body, was like, I'm feeling much not going to see anything. So she puts me on anyway, she's like, oh, it's looking fine. And I was like, well, because they can tell if you had a heart attack. They can tell. the thing. They can.
But you were fine. It was fine. She was like, you're fine. You probably just had an anxiety attack. And I was like, okay, and feeling confused. And here you are just thinking, well, that sucks. Yeah, I was like, okay, is this the new me? I'm having panic attacks. Okay. And so I went home with really no answers of how to relieve them or
to make it better but just that honestly I'm kind of surprised she didn't prescribe you some sort of drug yeah that well she did offer anti-depressant know like something like do you want to go on an anti-anxiety that might help and I was like I don't know I'm not really wanting to jump on any medication right now I'd rather if you're telling me that there's nothing wrong with my heart like you know that's not showing anything then I'm willing to see if I can monitor or help myself out with diet and exercise
So I went home lifestyle and like yeah, and I was continuing to have these intermittently not as bad But here and there and so I call my doctor again, and I said now they're even happening when I'm laying in bed at night I'm not stressed. I don't know why it's happening. I'm scared Nothing in particular in your life at that time that was caught would have caused you to be anxious or
panic about yes, not so it didn't make sense. didn't make sense. Yeah. So she's like, there could be a real problem. So I'm actually referring you to a cardiologist. And she's like, you're based on your age. And you know, you're having these symptoms. And I'm just gonna just to be safe, I'm going to refer you to a cardiologist. So here I am thinking I'm, you know, before this 45 healthy, healthy young woman and thinking, okay, now I'm going to a cardiologist. What?
And so they hooked me up to a machine, EKG. He said, okay, this looks okay, your EKG. I'm putting you on a 30 day heart monitor because it could be that when you're on the EKG, your heart's not showing anything. So we want to see 30 consistent days of what your heart is doing. So here I am now wearing a heart monitor and I'm mean, I'm laughing. It's not funny at the time, but in hindsight, this is crazy. Yeah. So-
I wore this thing for 30 days. go back to the cardiologist. He's like, I'm not seeing anything. I think you're fine. your doctor's probably right. You're probably just having anxiety attacks. probably just need to de-stress. And I'm like, am de-stressing, but this is stressing me out because I can't figure this out. And so he sends me home. And then again, I start doing my own research, Jess, and I found out
because nobody connected the dots for me. I was in perimenopause and the reason I figured out. did even figure that out? Like at that time there wasn't a lot out there wasn't. I was doing a ton of research on what causes heart palpitations in midlife for women and one of the main causes is perimenopause. Now at this time did you even know what perimenopause was? really didn't understand. Were you like peri who?
Peri- who? I don't All I knew was menopause. Yeah. Like that's the only term I had ever heard up until- no idea. The day I started asking Dr. Google. once I figured like, okay, this is perimenopause. It's a symptom of perimenopause and I unfortunately have it. Now I know to do with it because then I was like, my doctor's obviously not gonna help me out with anything. And so I did some research on what things could help.
heart palpitations in women in midlife or women in perimenopause. And I can't not, Jess, it was the simplest fix. Okay, what was it? We're all on the edges of our seats. is it? Magnesium trionate. Oh my gosh. You were just low in magnesium. was low in magnesium, which is a common symptom of women in midlife. Yes. Yes. But it was a specific form of magnesium that I was deficient in.
By taking I started taking magnesium treenate, is an over-the-counter supplement Just everybody should be taking mangy. you have a favorite one that you found that's really clean and yes It is a time is highly absorbable. Yes, and so I can actually link that one below but
Magnesium in general is something that we all need. And so I finally connect the dots and I've never had heart palpitations, knock on some wood, since then, since I figured it out and I had to share that with my doctor and her response was, oh, thank you so much.
And I was like, okay, maybe I need to change doctors. So I just, wanted to share this story. Just knows this story from long ago when I first, when this first happened, but I just want to share this story because honestly, ladies,
We all have a different path when we go through perimenopause. We all have different side effects. Unfortunately, the only ones that are talked about is hot flashes and night sweats and mood swings. And maybe like not sleeping so great at night. That's out there too a little That's really the main ones. And so when you're having other things happening, you're at a loss
And so and then you're feeling crazy because doctors are telling you specialists are telling you and then how much money are you spending and yeah? I'm on the tests and money and worry and ⁓ it's just too much. So hopefully this episode Has shed some light on something that if it is happening to you now, you know what you know what to maybe talk to your doctor about obviously we're not doctors so
Yeah, don't take our word for it. This is anecdotal experience that I wanted to share in case somebody else is going through it. And this might help somebody else. So if you want some additional one on one with either of us, Jess or myself, we're gonna leave our information below. We would love to work with you. ⁓ All things menopause or midlife because that's what we like to talk about. And we're here for you. So until next time, be well, be well.