Dr. Tabatha Barber identifies five warning signs in a physician: dismissing your concerns, ignoring newer science, overprescribing birth control for non-contraceptive issues, and prescribing antidepressants for menopause without checking hormones, thyroid, or adrenals. She warns that antidepressants can cause weight gain and low libido, and says to find a new doctor if you see these flags.
Red flags that you get when you go to the doctor. There are warning signs when you're at your doctor's office that give you that gut instinct like, this is not where I belong, this person is not going to help me actually heal and get well. And the biggest ones I see are either being outright dismissed. Like I mentioned, that's not a thing. We don't need to test for that. Stop looking at doctor, you know, stop looking at Google, that kind of stuff. That is a big one. So if your doctor's dismissing you, you need to find a new doctor. If your doctor is close minded and doesn't want to realize that there's new science out since they did residency 20, 30 years ago, and that they can't practice the same way, you need find yourself a new doctor. So I started thinking, what else are the big red flags for women? So, you know, birth control pills, that's the most obvious. If your doctor wants to use birth control pill to solve all your problems, that's a huge red flag. Birth control pills should only be used for birth control. If you're struggling with your weight and they tell you to eat less or exercise more and they don't look at your adrenals and your thyroid in detail and your blood sugar and actually evaluate your situation, you need to find a new doctor. If they offer antidepressants when you do not have depression as a medical disease, that is a red flag. You do not need antidepressants when you are tired. And you know, this is super frustrating to me because now the major societies that tell gynecologists what the standard of medicine should be, the North American Menopause Society, American colleges of OB GYNs, they now recommend antidepressants for menopausal symptoms. So here you are in a time period of your life where your hormones are declining and so you are prone to developing insulin resistance and weight gain from all of that insulin. And you're going, you're in that sandwich period where you're stressed out because you're taking care of your parents and your children and you're doing your job and all of the things, that's a driving weight. And then you go to the doctor and they first of all tell you that hormones are dangerous, which is another red flag. Or they offer you antidepressants for those symptoms, which inevitably will cause you to gain another 20 to 30 pounds, which will make you feel even worse, which will drive up your insulin resistance and blood sugar issues and you will be even more miserable. And then you might actually develop depression. So if your doctor's handing you antidepressants, think twice before you get on those. They have a lot more side effects. Another huge side effect is tanking your libido, just ruining it. So you gain weight and you have no libido left, which you barely had already at menopause. So that is one of the worst medications a menopausal woman can take. If you're doing well on it, thank goodness. And if you need it for depression, that's a whole nother story. And, you know, we can talk about ways to handle those side effects, but unfortunately, most women don't actually need it for depression.
