Menopause rebranded: Long Island podcast brings attention to undercovered topic 

There’s more to menopause than hot flashes.

That's one of the messages that three Long Island businesswomen are sharing with a new podcast, “Rebranding Menopause,” launched last month to bring more public discussion and attention to a stage of life often misunderstood and shrouded in secrecy.

“It’s such a taboo subject and it shouldn’t be,” said Ingrid Dodd, one of the hosts, who grew up in Garden City Park and runs her own public relations firm. She hosts the podcast with Sharon Grasso, founder of Permanent Touch Cosmetics in Woodbury, and Dana Persico, founder and CEO of the Long Island Nail & Skin Care Institute.

The trio, who are all in their 50s and mothers, also want women to embrace this time and banish fears that the onset of menopause means their best years are behind them.

“I feel like women at this age… we're incredible,” said Dodd, 57. “We've been through it all, experienced the knowledge, the confidence that comes with truly knowing who we are.”

Menopause is the physical transition that women experience when their menstrual cycles stop and they can no longer become pregnant — a process that can last for years. The National Institutes of Health estimates more than 1 million women across the nation experience menopause every year and emphasized on its website that it is “not a disease or disorder” but a normal part of the aging process.

While each woman experiences menopause differently, it usually starts when they are 45 or 55, with the average age of 52, according to the agency. Women can undergo a series of symptoms as their body’s production of the hormones estrogen and progesterone drop dramatically.

Those can range from sleeplessness and hot flashes to difficulty concentrating, pain during sex and weight gain, as well as joint and muscle discomfort, the NIH’s National Institute on Aging said.

There has been a trend in recent years to bring more openness and attention to both perimenopause, the years leading up to menopause, as well as menopause itself. Many female celebrities have publicly discussed their experiences during interviews.

Dodd, Grasso and Persico engage in frank talk about these symptoms, navigating the often-confusing medical options and the importance of finding a doctor who will listen to their concerns. They also want to advocate for women and help push for better research into menopause treatments.

In the first podcast, recorded in a Rockville Centre studio, Persico lined up medicine bottles, explaining her experiences with hormone replacement therapy and how the treatment is not covered by insurance.

"They work, you feel good and all of a sudden, a year or so later, you are like 'I feel the same again,'" Persico said. "So now you have to reformulate ... you are always changing so the prescriptions change with you."

It premiered to an “overwhelming” response, Dodd said, as all three women were flooded with messages on social media and their phones.

“The goal was to be candid and relatable in an honest way,” she said. “We’re not experts. We are sharing our experiences … [the response] is really showing us people are hungry for this conversation.”

Local doctors applauded the idea of more public discussion of menopause and urged women to engage with their clinicians, even before symptoms start.

“It’s time to be bold, be brave and start talking about it,” said  Dr. Stephanie Trentacoste McNally, directo r of OB-GYN services at Northwell Health’s Katz Institute for Women’s Health and clinical lead of its menopause and midlife medicine program.

McNally, who is not involved in the podcast, said there are menopause-certified providers in multiple disciplines of medicine.

“There are environmental, genetic and medical components that have an impact on when women have menopause, whether it's surgically induced, early or premature,” she said. “These are the levels that need to be dealt with because the ramifications for bone health, for cardiovascular health, if not discussed in an appropriate time frame, really do make an impact.”

She also pointed out that women going through the perimenopausal phase, when menstruation is less frequent but has not stopped altogether, can be more intense for some because the “roller coaster of hormones” goes through a much more precipitous drop.

Hormone replacement therapy was a relatively popular way to manage some of the more uncomfortable symptoms of menopause until a 2022 study from the Women’s Health Initiative showed a possible strong link between the treatment and an uptick in heart disease and breast cancer.

Since then, the findings have become more nuanced, with the higher risk appearing in people over 60 years of age and benefits for those who are younger, said Dr. Patricia Snyder, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Stony Brook Medicine.

“Some people can absolutely not take hormones because they have a history of breast cancer or they have a history of blood clots,” Snyder said. There are other treatment options, however. “There are lifestyle changes, new medications on the market that have been very successful in people who can't take hormones," she said.

She said there are other important steps women can take such as exercise and practicing good "sleep hygiene" — turning off the TV at night, using cooling sheets and ice packs under a pillow if needed — to promote better sleep and cut back on brain fog the next day.

Dodd said they have recorded three podcasts so far and plan to release them every other Monday. They are planning to include guests from the medical field as well as celebrities and everyday New Yorkers, and are considering going weekly.

"There are so many guests who want to come on and share their stories,” she said.

With Elisa DiStefano

By Lisa L. Colangelo

lisa.colangelo@newsday.com@lisalcolangelo

Lisa joined Newsday as a staff writer in 2019. She previously worked at amNewYork, the New York Daily News and the Asbury Park Press covering politics, government and general assignment.