Month: September 2023

Originally posted at: Jenna Lyons’ White Cover Up

Emerging research has observed a strong link between hearing loss, tinnitus, menopause, and hormone therapy. According to a team of doctors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, hormone therapy can increase your risk of hearing loss and tinnitus if using pills, patches containing estrogen only or combined with progesterone.

The studies also showed that women who experience menopause at an older age, 50 and beyond, are at a higher risk for hearing loss.

Are you currently experiencing symptoms of menopause and hearing loss/tinnitus? Do you want to learn more?

If you find yourself asking people to repeat themselves or you are turning up the volume more and more often, you are not alone, and while hearing loss affects millions of women every single day, menopause could be playing a part. Like, seriously, I’ve heard menopause is bad enough, now this!

New research from Harvard Health Publishing cites that hormones can be blamed for everything from depression to hot flashes to yes, hearing loss. In fact, their studies suggest that prolonged use (10+ years) of oral estrogen puts you at higher risk for hearing loss/tinnitus as well as women who experience menopause after age 50.

If you are having trouble hearing or you are experiencing tinnitus (ringing in the ears), “listen up” and read on.

Hearing Loss and Menopause

Decreases in estrogen can sometimes trigger menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, depression, frequent urinary tract infections, the dreaded mood swings, fatigue, weight gain, vaginal dryness, and itching and pain during sexual intercourse (and I’m sure I’m missing some!). Estrogen plays a significant role in the body (muscles, heart, brain, bones). Estrogen is also located in the receptors in our ear cells and auditory pathways.

After you stop menstruating, your ovaries produce less and less estrogen, and low estrogen levels can impair hearing. This is what we believe to be the alterations in blood flow to the cochlea (hollow tube in the inner ear). The yin to estrogen’s yang is progesterone which begins to decrease in the mid to late 30s.

Combined together, this is a recipe for hearing loss, tinnitus, and sometimes vertigo in your 60s and beyond.

If you are taking hormone therapy, please monitor your hearing and only take HT as long as needed.

So, What Can You Do to Protect Your Hearing?

First and foremost, be sure to have your hearing checked by a doctor of audiology to find out the exact cause of hearing loss. While it may be menopause or HT, don’t assume. There are so many causes for hearing loss and tinnitus.

Diet, exercise and maintaining a healthy weight definitely help. For some scrumptious recipes for active aging, please grab a free copy of my cookbook. In addition, be mindful of prescribed medications that are sometimes linked to hearing loss (ask your doctor) as well as over-the-counter pain relievers such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen which have also been linked to hearing loss if taken more than 2 to 3 times a week.

Be aware that other conditions can be connected to hearing loss, i.e., rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and more. These conditions disproportionately affect women.

Finally, stay away from loud or constant background noise. Do your best to prevent hearing loss as you age, and I wish you well in menopause.

For more in-depth information on hearing loss, tinnitus, and more, please feel free to visit www.excellenceinaudiology.org.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Have you been on Hormone Replacement Therapy? Has it affected your hearing? When was the last time you had your hearing checked?

Are you thinking about divorce? I get that you are frightened, stressed, and wondering how it’s all going to play out. People plan for their weddings; divorces are no different – they need planning. I’m not advocating for divorce, and as someone who was divorced after 26 years, take it from me that divorce is more difficult than you can imagine.

Do what you can to save your marriage but if your divorce is inevitable, I’ll tell you things you can do to level the playing field, so you are in a better position to get what is financially fair and equitable.

I recommend watching a video available on my website, “Planning for Divorce.” There I have detailed advice on planning for your divorce. Here are some quick tips from that video:

ONE: Meet with Divorce Professionals

Have a consultation with a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA). A professional can explore what you have done or need to do financially to prepare for divorce and the likelihood of you divorcing amicably and/or settling. It is definitely a good idea to meet with a lawyer sometime early in the process.

I do not advocate immediately signing up and putting down a retainer, but a consultation will help you understand the legal rights you have in your state with regard to spousal support and division of assets. Mediating your divorce is considerably less expensive and does not create adversarial situations like hiring an attorney may.

TWO: Take a Financial Inventory

You must have an accurate idea of your financial situation. If you left the finances to your husband, you are going to have to pull up your britches and become knowledgeable about your assets and debts. Most debts are also divisible in divorce.

The obvious place to startis to find bank statements, credit card statements, and your mortgage statement. Next, find out if you have retirement and investment accounts. Do you or your spouse have IRAs or 401(k)s or pensions with a current or former employer?

Do you have a safe deposit box or a storage unit? If so, try to get into it as soon as possible and take an inventory and photograph it. Photographing all valuables is a good idea, so you have a record if they disappear. Make sure you have a set of keys to everything, including safe deposit boxes, storage units, and cars.

Next, you need to find out your familyincome. Try to get a copy of your spouse’s pay stub. It will tell you if he is contributing to a 401(k) plan or deferring compensation. If you have no idea what your husband makes, you can get this information from past tax returns or from your CPA if you trust them. If you can’t get copies, then you can request copies from the IRS. Ask for complete copies, not just summaries.

You also need to know what you spend, both now and what you will probably be spending when you are separated. If you have never done this, you need to sit down with your bank statements and credit card statements, and create categories by using different colors of highlighters and then list every expenditure, month by month.

It’s tedious, but you HAVE to do it. For the very affluent, a “lifestyle analysis” can be performed by a CDFA to categorize and summarize your past spending so that you can prove your pre-separation lifestyle for purposes of support.

What about insurance? Do you have life or disability insurance policies? Your insurance agent may also be a good source of information about your husband’s income, if they can be trusted.

THREE: Documentation

While you are working through step two, make a copy or secure the documents you find. You don’t want your husband to find out that you want a divorce and then he moves out, taking the financial documents with him.

This is also a time to get your credit reports. Reports from all three credit bureaus are available for free once per year at AnnualCreditReport.com. You may find credit cards and bank statements or debt you didn’t know about.

While you are reviewing your bank and investment statements, pay attention to account transfers. Are they being made to accounts you know about? Can you tell if your husband’s entire paycheck is being deposited to the family bank accounts? You may need the help of a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst for this.

You should get a copy of the deeds to your house and any rental properties. These can often be found online through county property records. Are the properties in your name?

FOUR: Get Cash Before You Separate

A divorce is going to cost money, and lots of it. The basic process is affordable, but you shouldn’t count on your husband being amicable, and if you hire attorneys, even if there isn’t a lot of fighting involved, it can get expensive quick. You need to get some cash, and you need to open a bank account or store this cash outside the home in a secure place.

In summary, be smart, be willing to put in the work to gather your financial documents and learn about your financial situation and your legal rights. Your outcome will be better, and you will put yourself on more equal ground. The best defense is a good offence.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

How did your lack of planning, or conversely, your proactive planning, affect your divorce outcome? Did you find out things you didn’t know when you were preparing a financial inventory? How much money did you save for the divorce process and was it enough?