Ok, I'm being dramatic.

This past Monday I just got one step closer to being 50!

Which is not a bad thing at all! (and the options are not plentiful...)

But it's time I finally face the facts. I need to see someone about my hormones.

Yeah, yeah. I know. I talk to my patients "of a certain age"😝 about this all the time!

And many of my closest friends.

Over the past year I've tried to:

• Better balance my workouts.
• Better balance my work-life stuff.
• Eat less sugar and drink less beer.
• Sleep more!
• Keep to a routine.
• Watch less tv.
• Even yell at my kids less!

But after the past 9 months of feeling like things just aren't right, I'm going to make an appointment to see someone about the possibility that something else physiologically may be going on.

I hit most of those shining stars of terrible on the peri-menopause checklist of doom and all of my own interventions haven't really made an impact. It took me 3 days to remember the word "confounding"!! Good thing there are a lot of other ways to say that (although telling people "It's like confusing or messing it up but I can't think of the word I mean right now" doesn't do much for my credibility or thesaurus skills).

This is not to gain some extra BDay wishes or try to get a free pass from being cranky and spacey.

It's a real effort to see if I'm missing the root of the problem! Because all the sleep in the world won't make my brain fog better if it's a progesterone problem!

Sort of like ADHD! The physiology part, not the progesterone part.

(Not a perfect segue, I know. It's the best my brain can do right now.)

​Today's video talks about the physiological differences we can "see" in an ADHD brain vs a neurotypical one. It's only 9min, so if attention is a problem for you this will be juuuuust right!

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Here are the important bits:

• Dopamine is important for regulating attention, motivation, reward processing, and motor control
• Norepinephrine is involved in attention, arousal, and the stress response
• Dopamine and norepi also modulate entire brain circuits by altering the states (how active they are) of their target circuits and areas
• ADHD brains have less total brain volume in cortical and subcortical areas and also have reduced gray matter density so not as many neurons
• For adults, almost all of the decreased activity or hypoactivation is in the frontoparietal network and it’s NOT somatomotor
• The DMN (default mode network) and SN (salience network) may play a part here again; if the switch to do a task isn't working the DMN stays on and the daydreaming continues!
• Most likely there are lots of different reasons why people present with ADHD because there are variable deficits in a bunch of different functional areas and they're not the same for everyone!

There's also a little discussion about the difference between neurotransmission and neuromodulation because norepi and dopamine can each act as both! This is a pretty important concept that often gets glossed over and can make the discussion even more confusing!

None of this is to say that ADHD is bad, but it can cause a lot of havoc in people's lives and there are real, measurable, reasons why that may be so!

One of the coolest parts here? Psychoeducation alone is shown to improve outcomes in ADHD!

Not TREAT ADHD, but provide some improvements. And it's free and has no side effects!

Share liberally with anyone who has (or thinks they may have) ADHD! A little info can go a long way to wellness!

But back to me and MY problems (which sometimes feel like ADHD but definitely aren't since I just developed these issues in my mid-40s!)

Do you know anyone who specializes in anything perimenopause related? I'm looking for all of it: holistic, naturopathic, medical, eastern, western, energy healing, throw it all my way!

I'm ready to make a change, Reader.

Thanks for listening!

Cheers to healthy brains,

Dr. B

Jessica Beachkofsky, MD

Your friendly, online psychiatrist!

P.S. Here's that video link again! And subscribe to my channel while you're there!