What Your Doctor WON'T Tell You About Menopause | PART 1

What if everything you thought you knew about menopause was wrong? In Part 1 of this two-part series, EJ and Tarah sit down with Dr. Arianna Sholes-Douglas, OB-GYN, integrative medicine specialist, founder of Tula Wellness, and author of The Menopause Myth, for one of the most important conversations we have ever had on this show. Women are being dismissed, misdiagnosed with anxiety, handed antidepressants, and told they are too young. This episode covers what is actually happening in the body during perimenopause, why so many women feel caught off guard, and how hormonal shifts affect mood, identity, brain function, and emotional regulation. Tarah also shares her own personal journey as a patient at Tula Wellness. Part 2 drops next week and goes directly into how perimenopause and menopause affect relationships, intimacy, desire, and communication. Learn more about Dr. Arianna: https://tulawellnessmd.com/about/our-... and https://drarianna.com/ Relationship Renovation at Home Manual | Available on Amazon for $24.99: https://a.co/d/09nNQDGJ Join our FREE Patreon community:   / relationshiprenovationpodcast   Private Couples Coaching - Only 8 spots. Email: [email protected] for a FREE 30-minute discovery call. Timestamps: 0:00 - Teaser clips 0:40 - Welcome and introducing Dr. Arianna Sholes-Douglas 1:52 - What this two-part series covers 1:58 - Dr. Arianna's book: The Menopause Myth 2:27 - She was a gynecologist going through perimenopause with no idea 3:16 - Tarah as a patient at Tula Wellness 3:29 - Dr. Arianna's background: from severe menstrual cramps to OB-GYN 5:39 - Pregnancy loss and 20 years in high risk obstetrics 6:23 - The pivot: reinventing herself through integrative medicine 6:50 - How Tula Wellness was born 7:26 - The story she hears every day: women dismissed about their symptoms 8:10 - The classic patient: belly fat, no sleep, no libido 8:40 - It is not just physical: emotional, spiritual, and identity shifts too 10:10 - Juicy lives, juicy experiences, and juicy vaginas 10:33 - What is perimenopause? Breaking it down for women and men 11:03 - Menopause is just one day. Perimenopause can precede it by ten years. 11:34 - Think of it as reverse puberty 12:35 - Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone: what is declining and why 13:07 - The most common symptom: waking up at 2 or 3am and not going back to sleep 13:57 - You cannot know you are in perimenopause until you are out of it 15:15 - EJ: why symptoms are so easy to attribute to something else 15:52 - The estrogen veil: how declining estrogen changes brain chemistry 16:34 - If you already hate your job or relationship, this is when it comes to a head 17:46 - Women being told they are too young or given antidepressants instead 18:13 - Social media and menopause: what has been good and what has not 20:12 - Gynecologists get less than two hours of menopause education in training 20:39 - Women's health has always been modeled on men 23:00 - The myth that your gynecologist can help you with this 25:08 - Tarah's story: told she should not expect a libido 25:49 - First night of progesterone: Tarah slept nine hours for the first time in years 26:09 - EJ: years of poor sleep and what it did to both of them 27:58 - Brain fog and productivity: billions lost from women who cannot function 28:57 - Staying juicy means managing it, not suffering through it 30:05 - Tarah this morning: calm with her daughter for the first time 31:51 - Dr. Arianna forgot what to do mid C-section because of brain fog 33:12 - EJ: hearing it from a doctor helped him stop minimizing Tarah's experience 35:32 - Dr. Arianna at 40: wanted to poison her husband 36:06 - He was just chewing. Just breathing. And she had contempt for all of it. 37:14 - How to find Dr. Arianna in Tucson and virtually 38:23 - Teaser for Part 2: relationships, intimacy, desire, and communication