‘Dentists are the perimenopause detectives‘. That is Kate Muir’s pitch to the profession. A patient may still be having periods. She may not have spoken to her general practitioner. She may not even suspect perimenopause. But something in her mouth has changed.
A wobbly tooth. Dryness. Burning mouth. Changes to her gums or bone.
Could her dentist be the person who joins the dots?
‘Your mouth is a big oestrogen party, and when you know you take the fun out of the party, things start to crack up. Things start to dry up,’ Muir says.
This is where the latest episode of Dentistry Talks begins: with the mouth as an overlooked part of the menopause conversation.
Muir is a journalist, author and documentary maker who helped push menopause into public discussion through her Channel 4 films with Davina McCall. Yet she admits that she only recently began investigating the connection between hormones and oral health.
‘It’s in your teeth. It’s in your gums. And, it’s in your saliva. It helps maintain your oral microbiome,’ she says.
For dental professionals, the opportunity is not to diagnose menopause. It is to notice, ask and signpost.
‘Maybe they can make the connection between the teeth and the rest of the body in a kind of backwards way,’ Muir says, ‘and say maybe you should go see your doctor, maybe you should be paying more attention to this.’
Perimenopause and the oral health workforce
Her own perimenopause did not announce itself clearly. While working as chief film critic of The Times, Muir developed heart palpitations and memory loss. One day, while writing a shopping list, she could not remember the word ‘razor’.
‘I thought, oh my god, I’ve got Alzheimer’s because my mom had died of Alzheimer’s just before that, and I panicked and panicked,’ she recalls.
The conversation moves from that frightening moment to the battle to get her first documentary commissioned, the phone call that brought McCall on board and the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) claims Muir believes are still frightening women away from treatment.
There is also a question for practice owners. General Dental Council data shows that 103,138 registered dental professionals are women. Muir says surveys found that one in 10 women were leaving their jobs because of menopause symptoms.
How much dental experience is being lost because somebody is struggling silently?
And how much could be retained if practices knew what to ask?
This episode forms part of Dentistry’s Menopause Matters campaign.
You can now watch the full episode on YouTube and listen on Spotify.
Topics include:
- Why dentists could be ‘the perimenopause detectives’
- Menopause and its effects on oral health
- Recognising changes and beginning sensitive patient conversations
- Supporting dental professionals experiencing menopause symptoms
- Memory loss, heart palpitations and other overlooked symptoms
- Misinformation and continuing fears around hormone replacement therapy
- How Kate Muir and Davina McCall brought menopause to television
- Why menopause awareness must now lead to action.
Listen to other episodes below:
- Is your dental practice accessible enough? Neuroinclusion in dentistry
- Burnout in dentistry: the warning signs before the collapse.
- How an Olympic bobsleigh athlete learned to weather the storm.
- Burnout, balance and building a brand: lessons from the Singing Dentist
- Ageing as a dental professional: how to maintain purpose and identity
- What every dentist needs to understand about trauma and dental anxiety.
Dentistry Talks podcast is powered by Sensodyne.
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