To sleep, perchance to dream
We have some long pieces this week and so we’ll keep our intro short.
Next Tuesday, November 8th is election day. Please be sure to vote.
- Maggie Ruvoldt & Stephanie Majercik
The Tasting Menu
What Annual Appointments are Still on Your To-Do List for 2022?
How Diabetes Affects Women
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream. Actually, I Just Need Some Sleep
What Annual Appointments are Still on Your To-Do List for 2022?
With only 2 months left in 2022, it’s a good time to review what wellness appointments and screenings you have yet to take care of in this calendar year. Since many doctors schedule months in advance, you may also look at what you need for the start of the year.
Here’s a handy checklist:
Primary Care and Gynecologist. Yes, both. The wellness checks they do differ from each other. Make sure to get your Pap. Maggie’s PCP suggests staggering the PCP and the Gynecologist six months apart (good idea). That way you’re getting a wellness check every six months.
Dentist every six months. Consider a periodontist if you’ve got signs of gum disease.
When was your last tetanus shot?
Have fair skin or a history of skin cancer in your family? Or regretting how much sun you got? Consider a skin check with a dermatologist.
In your 40s? Schedule your mammogram and consider an ophthalmologist, if you don’t already have one. If you are seeing the signs of perimenopause, talk to your doctor about baseline hormone levels.
In your 50s? Time for a colonoscopy Also a good time to start talking about a bone density test to head off osteoporosis. Your doctor may say you can wait until your 60s.
For any age, is now a good time to consider a therapy check-in? Mental health is as important as physical health.
How Diabetes Affects Women
Diabetes - whether type 1 or type 2 - is a common disorder affecting 15 million women in the United States. And while the disease affects about the same amount of men - the impact of diabetes in women is very different.
For women with diabetes, the risk of developing heart disease is 4 times higher than it is for men (and heart disease is already the leading cause of death in women) and are also more likely to suffer worse outcomes after a heart attack.
But, diabetes also impacts many other aspects of women’s health and can cause complications with menstruation, yeast infections and UTIs, pregnancy, and menopause.
For example, women with diabetes are more likely to develop yeast infections and UTIs because higher blood sugar can suppress your immune system and high glucose levels can promote yeast growth.
All this to say that there’s a lot more that women with diabetes need to manage and keep an eye out for - which can take a toll on your mental health.
Women are also the only gender at risk of developing gestational diabetes, which affects about 10% of pregnancies each year.
The good news is, all forms of diabetes are treatable, and at least in the case of type 2 diabetes, preventable as well. You should be getting regular diabetes screenings if you’re over the age of 45, had gestational diabetes during any of your pregnancies, or have been diagnosed with prediabetes.
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream. Actually, I Just Need Some Sleep
You know that feeling when you’ve had a good night’s sleep? Everything seems to go a little better during the day when we’ve gotten the right rest.
To understand our sleep cycles better, there are two hormones impacting your sleep that you should know about.
Cortisol is produced in the adrenal glands and has multiple functions in your body. You may have heard it referred to as “the stress hormone” due to the role it plays in our stress response.
Well, it also helps you wake up as part of our natural sleep-wake cycle. Ever wonder why it’s harder to sleep when you are stressed? Well, cortisol levels may be the culprit.
We loved this resource from Healthline on reducing cortisol levels. Okay, ironically the first one is to get better sleep. Our favorite was “have fun and laugh” - never bad advice. Check them out.
You may have heard of people taking melatonin to help with sleep. You may even take it yourself. Melatonin is produced in your pineal gland and production goes up when it’s dark to help trigger sleep.
There is still a lot that isn’t known about melatonin and even less that’s been studied about how it interacts with estrogen and progesterone. It does play a role in the start of our periods.
There is evidence that we have less melatonin as we age and that as women enter perimenopause, lower levels may contribute to the sleep disruption many of us experience.
Because melatonin is naturally occurring, deciding how to supplement it safely and for the best long-term results is important. We found this piece from Johns Hopkins on the topic helpful.
Our tip on this one is, if you are currently using a melatonin supplement or considering it and haven’t talked with your healthcare provider about it, please do. There are some more serious sleep conditions that could be hidden and have greater health effects for you.
What tips do you have for a good night’s sleep? Let us know in this week’s feedback form!
Medical Term of the Week
As we mark National Diabetes month, we wanted to look into a term we’ve heard related to measuring blood sugar. To understand your blood sugar levels over time, there is a test called A1C. It looks at the average of your blood sugar over a three-month period.
Why get it? It can give a baseline and test for diabetes or prediabetes. If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, it will let you know how well you are managing the illness.
The FDA is considering requiring women to be notified if they have dense breasts after a mammogram screening. Since detection through a mammogram is more challenging for dense breasts - wouldn’t you want to know? (from CBS News)
Beauty brands for women over 40? Sounds awesome. Some familiar names and news one among 9 profiled (from InStyle Magazine)
Honesty in relationships is important - especially with your healthcare provider. Which generation does the best at this? (from Healthline)