Margaret Pardoe

Therapist Coach Author Speaker
Havening Techniques & NLP Practitioner

MPowering Midlife and Menopause!

[Calley Means @calleymeans]

In a burst of energy before she died, my mom urged us to take her to where she'd be buried.

Cupping my dad's face, she talked about how magical their life was together.

It was the most profound moment of my life, and it wouldn't have happened if we listened to her doctors.

Just 13 days before, in January 2021, my mom was apparently healthy.

She felt a pain in her stomach during her morning hike and got a scan. Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

She called me and said she wouldn’t meet her future grandchildren. The family rushed to her side. My sister @DrCaseysKitchen and I learned three things over those next 13 days... Lessons that we think provide an explanation - and solutions - for the largest issue our country faces: the fact that we are getting sicker, fatter, more depressed, and more infertile at an increasing rate while bankrupting our country with healthcare costs.

The first was that the predominant incentive in medicine is to intervene after you get sick.

Right after my mom's unexpected cancer diagnosis, a medical team out of Stanford and Palo Alto Medical Foundation jumped to action, recommending a laundry list of surgeries and procedures—biopsies, blood transfusions, and a liver stent. In most cases, the patient would have agreed to these procedures, and the meeting would wrap up quickly.

These recommendations were coming from some of the most prestigious institutions in the world, after all.

But based on my sister's experience in medicine (Stanford MD and surgical residency), she started asking questions. We learned that these procedures had about a 33 percent chance of extending her life a few more months at most, a 33 percent chance of shortening her life span, and a 33 percent chance of not impacting her life span (yet keeping her away from the family). In all cases, the invasive route would mean that my mom would need to sit in a hospital room alone, because of Covid-19 protocols, and potentially longer if the surgery had complications, as they often do with immunocompromised cancer patients.

My mom made it clear to the oncologist that she was not afraid of her rapidly impending death, but she wanted to minimize unnecessary pain or nausea in her final days. Despite being clear, the system pushed the exact procedures that would yield pain and nausea and aggressively shamed our family for questioning the full-court press approach.

Thank God we had my sister - who had routinely seen doctors push unnecessary surgeries to terminally ill patients during her training - who had the wherewithal to push back.

In 99.9% of cases, my mom would have died alone in a hospital room and we would have missed the life-changing final days with her.

The second lesson was that my mom's cancer was not "random." Her oncologists said it was "bad luck." It wasn't.

In the decades leading up to my mom’s cancer diagnosis, she was informed her rising cholesterol, waistline, fasting glucose, and blood pressure levels were conditions that she could “manage” for life with a pill. But instead of isolated conditions, all of the symptoms my mom experienced leading to her death were warning signs of the same thing: dysregulation in how her cells were producing and using energy.

But through decades of symptoms, my mom—and most other adults in the modern world—are simply prescribed pills and not set on a path of curiosity about how these conditions are connected and how the root cause can be reversed.

The third lesson was that there is a better way than our current system, and it starts with understanding that the biggest lie in health care is that the root cause of why we’re getting sicker, heavier, more depressed, and more infertile is complicated.

Depression, anxiety, acne, infertility, insomnia, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s dementia, cancer, and most other conditions that torture and shorten our lives are actually rooted in the same thing.

And the ability to prevent and reverse these conditions—and feel incredible today—is under your control and simpler than you think.

After leaving traditional medicine and working with patients to understand their biomarkers and take simple root causes actions - my sister routinely saw quick reversals of formerly intractable conditions.

The siloing and medicalization of chronic disease in the past fifty years has been an abject failure. Today, we’ve siloed diseases and have a treatment for everything:
✅High cholesterol? See a cardiologist for a statin.
✅High fasting glucose? See an endocrinologist for metformin.
✅Depressed? See a psychiatrist for a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).
✅Can’t sleep? See a sleep specialist for Ambien.
✅PCOS? See an ob-gyn for clomiphene.
✅Erectile dysfunction? See a urologist for Viagra.
✅Sinus infections? See an ENT for an antibiotic or surgery.

But what nobody talks about—what I think many doctors don’t even realize—is that the rates of most of these conditions are going up at the exact time we are spending trillions of dollars to “treat them.”

In the face of these unprecedented trends happening to our brains and bodies across our life span—which all have metabolic dysfunction as a root—we are told to “trust the science.” This obviously doesn’t make sense. We have been gaslighted to not ask questions over the past fifty years at the exact time chronic disease rates have exploded.

The truth: we should consider listening to the medical system if we have an acute issue like a life-threatening infection or broken bone. But when it comes to the chronic conditions that plague our lives, we should distrust almost every institution giving the advice. The answers are much more simple and under our control.
___

In the days following my mom's death, my sister and I affirmed to devote our lives to changing these broken health incentives. And Casey expressed a passion to write a book with lessons she's learned working inside and outside the medical system. I have helped her write this book over the past several years and it will be coming out in May.

A lot of issues will be discussed as we enter 2024, but the most important is that our human capital in America (particularly kids) is being decimated by preventable and reversible metabolic conditions. Thank you @bariweiss @TheFP for publishing an excerpt.

[balance Menopause @balanceMeno]

It’s fantastic to see how much each symptom improved with the addition of #testosterone!

[Margaret Pardoe @Bitesize_Health]

#WorldOralHealthDay is a timely reminder that there may be mouth-related symptoms during menopause. #menopause

[balance Menopause @balanceMeno]

Today is #WorldOralHealthDay – did you know #menopause can cause a range of mouth-related symptoms such as burning mouth, dryness and discomfort?

Fortunately there are steps you can take to improve symptoms.

Find out more by reading the factsheet here: https://t.co/SUgWRRWjDF

[Margaret Pardoe @Bitesize_Health]

Having finally obtained HRT from a GP, you may well find yourself unable to actually get hold of any because of shortages! #menopause #HRT #HRTshortages

[Pausitivity KnowYourMenopause @Pausitivity2]

Four years of women struggling to get HRT and MPs are still asking for evidence

[Margaret Pardoe @Bitesize_Health]

I feel vindicated! Interesting facts re covid presented in UK Parliament #COVID19 #COVIDVACCINE https://t.co/yyTYCI7cpM

[Margaret Pardoe @Bitesize_Health]

https://t.co/yyTYCI7cpM

[The Female Lead @the_female_lead]

Should menopause leave be offered in the workplace?

[The Female Lead @the_female_lead]

Periods are…a luxury. 🤯 By @MissyModell #tampontax

[Margaret Pardoe @Bitesize_Health]

International Women's Day at Staffordshire University! An MPowering event! #InternationaWomensDay2023 #StaffordshireUni

[Margaret Pardoe @Bitesize_Health]

@Leila_biz @lukejerram @ChesterCath Beautiful!

[Margaret Pardoe @Bitesize_Health]

To celebrate World Book Day I'd like to gift a pdf of my book to the first 20 people to email me at [email protected]
#WorldBookDay

[Levison Wood @Levisonwood]

Suprise Suprise

[Margaret Pardoe @Bitesize_Health]

@Leila_biz Beautiful place to visit and walk!

[Margaret Pardoe @Bitesize_Health]

@Leila_biz Beautiful photos!

[Dr Aseem Malhotra @DrAseemMalhotra]

Over 20 million views now. Let’s keep going. We’re not just fighting against Big Pharma tyranny and to regain our health but this is also a battle for REAL democracy 🔥

[Dr. E @DrEenfeldt]

1987: every state has obesity rates under 15%

2021: every state has obesity rates over 25%

This drives all our top chronic diseases.

The cause? An ultra-processed food industry that misleads us for profit.

It's not about counting calories.

It's about what's in their food.

[This Morning @thismorning]

Do you struggle with anxiety? Paul McKenna explains his straightforward methods to dealing with it.
https://t.co/0OnmIhgnVi

[Dr Aseem Malhotra @DrAseemMalhotra]

Not for heart attacks and cardiac arrest unfortunately. Mechanism of harm through acceleration of coronary artery disease suggests this will continue for months/years. Therefore the best thing one can do to mitigate risk is through lifestyle changes https://t.co/ajvL50XZbU

[Margaret Pardoe @Bitesize_Health]

https://t.co/reisWLpjcX