Ep28. AuDHD and Exploring Hormones with Samantha

Content warning:

This episode touches on sexual assault, postpartum rage, and suicide statistics (in the context of perimenopause research). Please look after yourself. If this isn't what you have capacity for today, keep scrolling.

Show notes:

This one is a hormone deep dive and it's some knowledge I wish someone had handed me years ago. I sat down (in person, so much fun) with Samantha Johnson, AuDHD lived experience educator and the brains behind Sam Attempts Motherhood, to talk about the wild ride of AuDHD plus hormones plus motherhood.

Sam takes us right through the cycle: what oestrogen and progesterone are actually doing to your dopamine and your sensory system, why the days before your period can flatten you, and why "just take birth control" is doctors' favourite non-answer. We get into cyclic medication dosing (yes, your meds can need adjusting through the month), how postpartum rage and perimenopause snuck up on Sam at the same time, and why AuDHD folks might just be noticing these shifts earlier rather than experiencing them earlier. We also unpack the WHI scare that set women's hormone health back decades, vaginal estrogen for UTIs, and why self identification is valid, full stop.

It's dense, it's validating, and it will make you want to go start tracking your cycle immediately.

Takeaways:

• Oestrogen and progesterone aren't just "period hormones." Oestrogen affects dopamine, progesterone affects sensory processing, mood, gut motility and histamine clearance. Every cell in your body has oestrogen receptors.
• The days before ovulation and the days before your period are when a lot of AuDHD folks notice their meds feel "off." That's real, and cyclic dosing is backed by research, even if most doctors haven't caught up.
• Self identification counts. If you've done the deep dives and ticked the boxes, you don't need three hours with a psych to validate a lifetime of lived experience.
• Postpartum rage and early perimenopause can hit at the same time and get mistaken for each other, or dismissed entirely.
• AuDHD people may not start perimenopause earlier, but we might just be more sensitive to noticing the shift before our neurotypical peers do.
• The 2002 Women's Health Initiative scare tanked HRT uptake and we're still feeling the fallout, even though the original findings were misreported.
• Vaginal oestrogen can be a genuine fix for recurrent UTIs in older women, instead of endless rounds of antibiotics.

Find Sam at @samattemptsmotherhood or www.attemptingmotherhood.com for her free resources, and check out Dr Lotta Borg Skoglund and Dr Kelly Casperson for more on this stuff.