Navigating Perimenopause with Coach and Family Therapist Judith Wides

Judith Wides is a family therapist and coach with more than 30 years of global experience, supporting international families through major life transitions, alongside a growing specialism in women’s health coaching for perimenopause and menopause. 

Judith has worked across Greece, India, Italy, the UK, Nepal, Thailand, Kosovo, Albania, Singapore, China, France and Norway, with this experience of different cultures deeply shaping the way she coaches families, couples and individuals today.

We spoke with her about why the medical system so often fails women in this transition, the misconceptions she hears most often, and why she believes women deserve far better education about the transition to midlife. 

Meet Judith Wides, Women’s Health Coach for the Perimenopause Transition

I am a family therapist by training, with 30+ years of global experience. I have tremendous expertise in women’s health coaching. My primary focus is helping women thrive during the transition from perimenopause to menopause. What I have learned from working with hundreds of moms is that it is very common for them to not only put themselves second, but often third, or fourth when it comes to their own health and wellness. I am on a mission to change that.

It is not unusual for women with caretaking responsibilities to ignore their own physiological changes as they shift into perimenopause and accept feeling exhausted and overwhelmed as their normal. I often meet women who reach out because they wake up one day and they are bone-deep exhausted, and feel like they hate everyone. They don’t recognize that their own body is transforming on a cellular level, and needs intentional rebalancing.

Unfortunately most women have not been educated about the complete life upgrade that the transition to the wisdom years can bring, which often includes greater mental clarity and increased energy. I am committed to bringing that idea forward. I believe that just like we are educated as children about the onset of menstruation, we need a ritual conversation about the journey back to self in the transition from perimenopause to menopause. Ask any woman you know who no longer bleeds, and she will tell you it is worth celebrating crossing that bridge.

Women’s Health Coaching: Perimenopause and Menopause

Why Judith Brought Women’s Health Into Her Practice

I work individually with a lot of moms who are approaching the wisdom years. They may be experiencing early signs of perimenopause and not even be aware of it. They do not understand why they feel exhausted all the time and often very angry. Many women describe early perimenopause as feeling like they are constantly in a PMS rage. There are good reasons for that from a biological perspective, but often we do not make the connection intellectually because we have not been well prepared for it.

The medical community frequently fails women as they begin the transition to the wisdom years because medical doctors, including OBGYNs, often get no training in perimenopause, and will tell women that unless they are having hot flashes, they are not transitioning. That is absolutely not true.

It drives me crazy that a lot of women in their late thirties will start having some symptoms of perimenopause, and the majority of the medical world is not up to speed on how to support them. I often hear stories from moms who may be having real difficulties with sleep, focus and concentration, weight gain, mood challenges and so on, and they are not getting the relief they need. It is heartbreaking to see these women suffer, often when their children are still quite young and their relationships are already stretched thin.

Judith’s Own Story with Perimenopause

Frankly it was my own personal rage that led me to this work. I started perimenopause probably when I was about 40. I started having sleep problems, anxiety, and bladder problems. Not one doctor that I saw, and this was back in 2005, ever mentioned perimenopause. I went to my OBGYN, a urologist, a sleep specialist. I was offered all kinds of surgery, and a CPAP machine, and sleeping pills, but nobody ever said, hmm, maybe your hormone levels are dropping.

I was not having hot flashes so everyone said, oh no, it is not perimenopause. Including a female cardiologist who told me that my mitral valve problems were fairly common for women in middle age, but she did not tell me why. The truth is, mitral valve leakage in the heart happens for some women in middle age for the same reason that we get wrinkles, tissue weakening is exacerbated by diminishing hormone levels.

It was not until I started having hot flashes in 2013 that anybody offered me any explanation or relief. Fast forward ten years, yes ten more years of suffering, when my nurse practitioner, who has subsequently become a dear friend and incredible menopause educator, put me on therapeutic hormone treatment (MHT). It changed my life in a week. My sleep improved, my anxiety dimmed and my bladder problems diminished. I was shocked.

After that life-changing week, I became so enraged about the fact that nobody had offered me any education about the transition from perimenopause to menopause, and that MHT could have helped me during the ten previous years of suffering. So, I decided to become an expert and start facilitating educational workshops for women. Everything that I had experienced for those miserable long years fuelled my desire to learn everything I could, and share it with other women. I never want another woman to suffer due to lack of information.

Navigating Perimenopause Without a Familiar Healthcare System

Education, education, education, and teaching women to self-advocate fiercely for what they need. Do you know, there is actually a change in the surface of vaginal tissue that can tell a medical practitioner, if they know what to look for, if a person is in perimenopause? It is a simple magnified glance at the inner walls of the vagina. But nobody gets trained to do that in medical school because until very recently, medical school curriculum developers were not interested or invested in studying female gynaecology beyond the reproductive years.

Finally, women need education and support to understand how the transition from perimenopause to menopause impacts their bone density, emotional state, relationship dynamics and their sexuality, and it is not all bad. With guidance, it can be an incredible journey toward greater authenticity and productivity.

The Biggest Misconceptions About Perimenopause and Menopause

Myth 1: Blood Tests Can Tell You Where You Are in the Transition

Do not ever let anyone run blood tests to determine where you are in the transition. There is no way to measure baseline hormone levels unless you are drawing blood every day, and even then, it is not a scientifically sound approach. Hormone levels change in our bodies constantly throughout the minutes, hours, days, months and years of our lives. So, equipping women with the knowledge they need to be able to go to their medical providers and get what they need is my main objective regardless of where a woman lives or how old she is.

Myth 2: MHT Is Dangerous

Another fallacy is that MHT (menopause hormone therapy) is dangerous. This is a medical myth that was based on a faulty study about breast cancer and MHT. There are some women, with a very particular genetic mutation for a specific kind of breast cancer, who are not advised to take MHT. In addition, there are a small number of women with other medical conditions that cannot take MHT, but the majority of the general population can do so.

Myth 3: Osteoporosis Is Inevitable

Osteoporosis is not inevitable. You can reverse osteoporosis to what is called age-expected osteopenia. I did it, and I am happy to share what I did to get there, beyond carrying an overweighted backpack around every day, which I do, and I am not even five feet tall.

Myth 4: ADHD and Hormones Aren’t Connected

Finally, there is a lot in the news about women, ADHD and the transition from perimenopause to menopause. What we are learning about women’s brains is incredible in terms of the interplay between hormones, gut health, memory, cognitive function and so on. For women with attentional challenges, anything and everything can be exacerbated by hormone fluctuations, so it is essential that those women are well informed and work with medical providers who are able to truly attend to them as women.

The majority of early research examining ADHD was done on men. If you are on stimulant medication for ADHD, it is essential that you work with a well-informed women’s health provider who understands psychiatry, gut health and hormonal health.

What a Coaching Journey with Judith Looks Like

I find that committing to four or five sessions up front is tremendously helpful, especially in close succession. Then, we improvise. I am very flexible in the way I work with people.

Some people want to meet every week, some people prefer a monthly check-in, and some like to work in a more ad hoc fashion. I try to be as accommodating as possible within my own very busy schedule. I am firm, but loving. I give people homework to do. I want people to feel both supported and energised by working with me.

Visit judithwides.com to find out more about Judith’s coaching services, or counseling.judithwides.com if you’re seeking licensed family therapy.

About Judith Wides

Judith Wides holds an M.A. and M.Ed., is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), a BACP registered practitioner in the UK, and a Clinical Fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) in the US.

With more than 30 years of global experience, she has spent her career supporting couples, parents and professionals to improve their communication and collaboration skills. Her coaching practice spans couples communication coaching, parent coaching, adolescent mentoring, and women’s health, with a particular focus on perimenopause and menopause.

FAQ

What does Judith Wides specialise in?

Judith is a family therapist and coach specialising in supporting expat families through relocation, school transitions and neurodiversity, alongside women’s health coaching focused on perimenopause and menopause.

What is Judith’s approach to perimenopause and menopause coaching?

Her approach is rooted in education and self-advocacy, helping women understand what’s happening in their bodies and how to get appropriate support from medical providers, since she believes many women are underserved by a medical system with limited training in this area.

Why does Judith say hot flashes aren’t required for perimenopause?

Many medical doctors, including OBGYNs, receive no specific training in perimenopause, and mistakenly treat hot flashes as the defining symptom. Judith argues this leaves many women undiagnosed for years, as she experienced herself for almost a decade.

Is Judith’s coaching only for people living abroad?

No. While she has deep expertise supporting expat and internationally mobile families, her women’s health coaching and parent coaching are open to anyone, wherever they’re based.

Can Judith help with therapy as well as coaching?

Yes. Alongside her coaching practice, Judith is a licensed Family Therapist and sees clients in Washington, DC, New Jersey, and the UK and Northern Ireland through her counseling website.

How long does a typical coaching engagement with Judith last?

Judith’s model is short term and outcomes focused. She typically recommends committing to four or five sessions up front, then adapts the pace, whether weekly, monthly, or ad hoc, to suit the client.

Read more articles about wellbeing and women’s health on the MumAbroad blog.