McCall McPherson breaks down how menopause and hypothyroidism symptoms overlap and differ. Low estrogen causes hot flashes and vaginal dryness; low progesterone triggers anxiety and insomnia; low testosterone kills libido and muscle mass. Both conditions cause fatigue and brain fog, so get your thyroid checked before blaming menopause alone.
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Menopause and hypothyroidism. I've gotten so many comments on videos where I talk about symptoms of hypothyroidism, and you guys say, well, those are the symptoms of menopause. Actually, they're not. Symptoms are quite different. So I want to take you through menopause symptoms. Symptoms of hypothyroidism are the usual. Fatigue, brain fog, weight gain, weight retention, dry skin, brittle nails, brittle hair, hair shedding, low sex drive, depression, poor metabolic function. Okay, so menopause symptoms kick in. You know, it depends when you go to go through menopause. Average ages 51, but it starts before that. And it's a slow sort of process. You want to think about these symptoms in specifically in regards to each individual hormone. So if we think first about estrogen. So most common low estrogen symptoms with menopause are hot flashes, vaginal dryness. Those are the most prominent. There's other telltale signs like changes in skin and hair change that happen over time. But your two kind of red flags, vaginal dryness and hot flashes. So super different than hypothyroidism. Second is progesterone. So you guys, fixing a woman's progesterone is freaking life changing. Whether they're postmenopausal or whether they just have low progesterone, even though they have their periods. Still, symptoms of low progesterone postmenopausally are anxiety, irritability, agitation, and insomnia. So again, super different than hypothyroidism. Lastly is testosterone. So we start to lose testosterone at 26 for women, it's a slow decline. It doesn't really drop off like the other two hormones postmenopausally still worth mentioning. And this is where some of the symptoms overlap more with hypothyroidism. That is more like low libido, loss of physical stamina. Like, you're exercising, you're working out, but you're not really building up your endurance or your endurance is inappropriately low decrease in muscle mass. Or honestly, like, if you're weight training three, four, five days a week and you're not able to build muscle no matter what you do. Another symptom of low testosterone, also poor exercise recovery. So, again, like, kind of some overlap here, but really, when I see a patient very distinctly, I can pick apart menopausal symptoms for hypothyroidism. So the big reason I wanted to make this video is don't chalk up these symptoms to menopause if they are severe fatigue and brain fog. And you just can't think. You can't function. You're depressed. Your mood is flat. Look more into a thyroid issue for that. So you can tune into my profile to see what labs you need to get a full thyroid workup. But least wanted to share this with you.
