'The Office' Alum Jenna Fischer Is Getting Acupuncture for Hot Flashes: 'It's Working'
The Office alum spoke about her menopause struggles on the July 1 of her podcast Office Ladies, and shared that within two sessions of the ancient Chinese treatment, 'almost all my hot flashes were gone'
Some studies have shown that acupuncture is an effective tool for managing hot flashes and other menopause symptomsThe Office alum Jenna Fischer shared that she's getting acupuncture to help with hot flashes, explaining that even though she was 'fully skeptical' about its effectiveness, 'it's working.'
Fischer, 51, shared how she's managing the symptoms of menopause during the July 11 episode of the Office Ladies podcast, which she co-hosts with former costar and best friend Angela Kinsey, 54.
'I'm right now getting acupuncture for my hot flashes, and it's working. And I don't understand that,' Fischer said. 'I asked the doctor. I'm like, 'What is it doing exactly?' And she said, 'It's like, it's unblocking your chi.' '
Fischer said that it wasn't a case of the placebo effect, admitting, 'I did not think it was gonna work. And so, if believing in it is part of what makes it work, then I wasn't not on board, you know, when I went in. So I was fully skeptical.'
However, she says, 'within two sessions, almost all my hot flashes were gone.'
Some studies have shown that acupuncture — a traditional Chinese treatment where long, thin needles are inserted into specific body points — may indeed help with hot flashes. One Danish study published in BMJ found that six-week sessions of acupuncture 'produced a fast and clinically relevant reduction in moderate-to-severe menopausal symptoms.' And another study, published in the journal Menopause, looked at acupuncture's impact on vasomotor symptoms (aka, night sweats and hot flashes) and found 'a course of acupuncture treatments was associated with significant reduction in VMS, and several quality-of-life measures, compared with no acupuncture, and that clinical benefit persisted for at least 6 months beyond the end of treatment.'
Fischer says that it's working — but she has to continue with regular treatments. 'I have to keep up with it,' she shared. 'I have to go every week. I tried spacing it out and I can go every other, but not much longer.'
"But it's, like, amazing, amazing relief."
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Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘A national movement': More than a dozen states consider laws around menopause care and training for doctors
There's a new wave of interest in improving menopause care in the United States – it's in books, on podcasts and dominating social media hashtags – and it's even generating new legislation across more than a dozen states. From New York to California, lawmakers are weighing whether to support more menopause training for clinicians or mandate comprehensive insurance coverage for menopause treatment. Advocates of such legislation argue that these changes could improve access to care and reduce the risk that menopause symptoms will be dismissed by providers. At least two dozen bills have been introduced across 15 states this year, according to data from Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of the Birnbaum Women's Leadership Center at the New York University School of Law, and her colleagues who have been tracking menopause legislation. Most of the legislation is related to insurance coverage for menopause care, awareness and education, clinician training or menopause in the workplace. When it comes to menopause care, there continues to be a 'lack of standardized treatment protocols' and 'inadequate insurance coverage for evidence-based therapies like hormone replacement,' Dr. Mary Claire Haver, an ob/gyn at the Mary Claire Wellness Clinic in Galveston, Texas, and author of the book 'The New Menopause,' said in an email. She hopes that some of the new legislation introduced this year – and future policies – may change that. Menopause is a natural phase of aging in which a woman has gone at least 12 consecutive months without a menstrual period due to a decline in her reproductive hormones. These hormonal changes can cause uncomfortable symptoms, including hot flashes, insomnia, vaginal and urinary problems, mood changes and weight gain, and can have long-term health implications. In the United States, an estimated 1.3 million women enter menopause each year, and most have symptoms. 'For decades, menopause has been overlooked in both clinical research and health care policy, largely because it affects women in midlife — a group that has historically been underrepresented and undervalued in medicine,' said Haver, who collaborated with Weiss-Wolf on developing A Citizen's Guide to Menopause Advocacy. 'Women in midlife are speaking out, demanding better care, and using their voices on platforms where they've historically been ignored,' she said. 'We're also seeing more female physicians, researchers, and public figures normalize the conversation around menopause — which is finally translating into policy discussions and workplace changes.' As the 2025 legislative session has come to an end in most states, some more recently introduced menopause bills may be up for action next year. Most of the bills may not become laws, but that's not a loss, said Weiss-Wolf, author of the book 'Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity.' 'This only sets us up for what I hope will be a really impactful, successful state legislative session in 2026,' she said. 'So, for me as an advocate, I'm not only marking success by bills passed, but just that the conversation has gotten to the point where state legislators are willing to step out on this issue.' Two bills introduced in March relate to raising awareness around menopause, according to Weiss-Wolf and her colleagues. One Illinois bill, passed in May, declares October 12-18 to be Menopause Awareness Week in the state. The other bill, introduced in Nevada, would have designated October as Menopause Awareness Month, but it was vetoed by the governor in June. Seven bills were introduced this year related to education, aiming to enable health care providers with more education about menopause treatment or requiring health departments to distribute educational resources for the public. One, in Maine, was signed by the governor and enacted last week. When it comes to enhancing menopause training for clinicians, California and New Jersey both introduced bills related to those themes this year. In California, legislation would require an assessment of physicians' education and training on menopause diagnosis and treatment. In New Jersey, the bill would permit up to three credits of continuing medical education on menopause to be used by providers to renew their licenses. Meanwhile, five bills have been introduced related to requiring insurance coverage for menopause care. One in New Jersey passed the Assembly, and one in Oregon is awaiting the governor's signature. 'This is absolutely a national movement, and the momentum is undeniable. It's not just happening in California — Washington State, Oregon, Illinois, and Louisiana have all had bills either introduced or successfully passed in this space, with most of them looking to create similar insurance coverage mandates,' California Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan said in an email. This year, Bauer-Kahan introduced Assembly Bill 432, which would mandate coverage for menopause evaluation and treatment options, among other orders. She said the bill was born out of her own experience of having perimenopausal symptoms and being dismissed when she asked her doctors for care. 'I didn't know what was happening to me. So like many people would, I went to my internist. She said I was fine. But I knew I wasn't fine. I knew something was fundamentally wrong with my body. I went to my ob/gyn. Here I am, a woman in my mid-40s, telling my doctor that my brain isn't working properly, and once again, I was dismissed as 'fine,' ' Bauer-Kahan said in the email. 'Women are over half the population, and yet our healthcare system fails to provide us with the care we need as we age,' she wrote. 'This legislation closes the care gap, ensuring that menopause is treated as the central health need it is, not as an afterthought. We deserve comprehensive coverage and informed medical care, just like any other stage of life.' A Rhode Island bill related to menopause in the workplace was signed into law last week, making it the first state to enact workplace protections for menopausal women – and more could be coming. Legislation introduced this year in New York and New Jersey aims to address menopause in the workplace by preventing discrimination, extending workplace protections and requiring employers to allow remote work or paid leave for employees with symptoms. Then there are a few other bills, such as in Massachusetts and New York, related to a combination of menopause issues. 'What's particularly encouraging is that menopause crosses party lines,' Bauer-Kahan said. 'On the Assembly floor, my bill passed 70-1. This isn't a political issue; it's about recognizing that half our population deserves proper healthcare.' Of the menopause bills introduced this year so far, 11 are in committee, seven have passed in some capacity with four to be enacted, five either were vetoed or died in committee and one was amended. What appears to be a renewed interest in menopause policy comes after more than two decades of 'silence' around menopause, said Dr. Sharon Malone, chief medical adviser at Alloy Women's Health and author of the book 'Grown Woman Talk.' In 2002, a national Women's Health Initiative study was terminated early after it linked hormone therapy for menopause to an increased risk of breast cancer. The Women's Health Initiative is an ongoing research project conducted by the US National Institutes of Health, focused on preventing disease in older women. Although the objective of the study was never to test the use of menopausal hormone therapy to treat symptoms of menopause, and it was halted early without definitive findings, it had long-lasting impacts on menopause care in the United States. Many women stopped using hormone therapy because of the study, and some practitioners no longer recommended it for their patients. But since then, a growing body of research has found that the benefits of hormone therapy outweigh any small risks for most women with menopause symptoms, emphasizing that hormone therapy can be an effective way to treat symptoms because it helps replace the hormones that the body stops making during menopause. Next week, the US Food and Drug Administration plans to hold a public discussion about menopause and hormone replacement therapy for women. The panel will include FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Sara Brenner, the agency's principal deputy commissioner, who are expected to discuss treatments, education and comprehensive care beyond managing symptoms. Years of physician training and research around menopause care and hormone therapy was lost after 2002, Malone said. 'We are still digging ourselves out of a hole of the past 23 years, understanding that there are 23 years of physicians who have not been trained in how to treat and how to deal with conditions of women during menopause. So, if you graduated from medical school and trained any time after the year 2000, you probably were never even given a fair discussion of hormone therapy,' Malone said. 'And the biggest problem that we're facing now is that there's 23 years of research that wasn't done because everybody took the Women's Health Initiative as the definitive answer, which it was not,' she said. 'If I could wave a magic wand, what I would do is eliminate the disinformation that's out there about hormone therapy.' Dr. Monica Christmas, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago and associate medical director for The Menopause Society, finished medical school and started residency around the time the Women's Health Initiative findings were released in the early 2000s. 'At that time, there was a lot of fear and trepidation around hormone therapy in particular,' said Christmas, who also serves as director of the menopause program at UChicago Medicine. 'I was fortunate that where I did residency, here in Chicago, I was trained by gynecologists who managed menopausal patients. Looking back on it now, they were probably menopausal themselves,' she said. 'And they were still fairly comfortable with prescribing hormone therapy and really understood what later the data came back to show – that, yes, there's this window of opportunity where the benefits seem to outweigh the risks for most people. That window is under the age of 60 or within 10 years of the onset of menopause.' Increased menopause awareness and additional education for providers are important issues, Christmas said, but she views extended coverage for menopause care and the treatment of symptoms as the most pressing matter. 'Physicians can have a wealth of knowledge, which they do; however, if the person's insurance doesn't cover treatment, then it stops there,' Christmas said, adding that it's not fair to put responsibility on health care practitioners alone to change the landscape of menopause care. 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Yahoo
20 hours ago
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My Body Went Through A Massive Change In My 40s. I Didn't Know What Had Really Happened Until Much Later.
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The six-week recovery was far worse than I anticipated. I was in constant pain, I couldn't sleep, and the pain medication made me so sick I had to stop taking it. Because I kept my ovaries — my total hysterectomy included the removal of my uterus, cervix and fallopian tubes — I stopped menstruating, but I didn't go into menopause. But for weeks I experienced night sweats, mood swings and a confusing sense of grief that I was suddenly infertile. Although those issues soon faded, I knew it was a preview of what would eventually come with menopause. At the end of the six weeks, I returned to work, chauffeuring my kids around, grocery shopping and exercising as normal life resumed. The hysterectomy, the pain, the grief and the post-surgical issues were behind me, morphing into gratitude that I was rid of the fibroids that had plagued me for too long. And, yes, I thoroughly enjoyed not getting a period anymore. All of these memories came flooding back when Emily from England confided in me on that beach in Mexico that she recently underwent a major surgery. 'I had a hysterectomy,' she said, lowering her voice as if she was revealing a dirty secret. 'I'm so sorry you had to go through that,' I replied. 'I had a hysterectomy six years ago. It was brutal.' 'You did?' Emily seemed surprised by my confession. 'So are you postmenopausal too?' Unlike mine, Emily's hysterectomy included the removal of her ovaries, so menopause jump-started for her immediately following the surgery. I explained to her that, while my doctor deemed my ovaries healthy and left them where they were, I had discovered a year earlier through hormone testing that I was postmenopausal at age 47. 'I didn't even know I was approaching menopause because I stopped getting a period after the hysterectomy and couldn't use that as a sign,' I told Emily. 'So learning I was postmenopausal and could have asked for help with my symptoms way earlier shocked me.' As soon as the words escaped my mouth, I realized not only how shaken I still was that I endured menopause without knowing it — without knowing to ask for help with my symptoms — but also how isolating my experience was because I didn't have conversations like this one, even with my doctors. After my hysterectomy, I repeatedly asked my gynecologist how I would know I was in perimenopause — the transitional period before menopause when the ovaries begin making less estrogen — and she repeatedly told me I would simply start noticing hot flashes. That seemed oddly unscientific to me, and I kept hoping I'd get a different answer every time I asked. There was no mention of hormone testing. When I actually did start experiencing hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes and insomnia, I decided to conduct my own research. With information from the Internet and a list of questions in hand, I booked an appointment with my gynecologist and requested hormone testing. My results came through my patient portal a few days later, and I didn't need a Google search to interpret what my numbers meant: I wasn't perimenopausal. I was postmenopausal. This can't be right, I thought. Sure, I had a hysterectomy, but my gynecologist assured me that it wouldn't speed up my menopause timeline because my ovaries remained and that I likely had many years before I had to worry about menopause. However, the numbers sitting in my patient portal didn't lie. I had unknowingly gone through menopause and was already on the other side. I don't even know when my perimenopause started or how long I was in that stage. My online research told me that women who suspect perimenopause should get a baseline hormone test and repeat it periodically to track the results because hormone levels fluctuate. But I only had one test with no need to repeat it. Once postmenopausal, always postmenopausal. Over a million women in the United States enter menopause each year. And according to an AARP national survey, 90% of women ages 35 and over experience one or more menopause symptoms, including hot flashes, weight gain, mood swings, vaginal dryness and sleep disturbances. Not only that, but menopause puts women at an increased risk for other health issues, like heart disease, stroke and osteoporosis. Yet, a 2023 study revealed that approximately 94% of American women reported never learning about menopause in school and 49% didn't feel informed about menopause at all. Furthermore, a recent study released in February 2025 that addressed the fact that women feel both unprepared to face menopause and unsupported by their health care systems during this phase, found that 'a significant number of individuals aged 30–45 years experience perimenopause-related symptoms.' The results highlight the need for more perimenopause education, even for women in their 30s. When focusing on physicians' roles, another study found that only about 20% of doctors in American obstetrics and gynecology residency programs had formal menopause training. So even if women seek professional advice and treatment for their menopause symptoms, there's a good chance their doctors won't fully know how to properly provide it. Given my own lack of knowledge surrounding menopause, my gynecologist's lack of guidance, and my conversation with Emily, I'm not surprised by these statistics. After receiving my test results, I went on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for a year. A few short weeks after applying my first estradiol patch, the shift was life-changing. The night sweats and hot flashes stopped. My moods leveled off, and I no longer fought bubbles of rage building up at the slightest stressor. My sleep improved, and I lost some weight. I was no longer baffled by my body and my emotions, no longer wondering if all my symptoms were a figment of my imagination, no longer waiting for a doctor to offer some insights. Most importantly, I learned that it was up to me to advocate for my health — because no one else will. The more I shared with Emily during our vacation chats about my hysterectomy and menopause, the more she shared about her journey. Her surgery recovery was slow and painful. Months later, she still struggled at her job, where she worked with young children and wasn't able to sit on the floor with them like she once did. Her instant menopause led to instant weight gain, her moods were all over the map, her sleep was disruptive, and she wasn't sure her HRT was working. She was exhausted — physically and emotionally — with a sense of hopelessness that she would never feel normal again. Maybe worst of all, she'd been keeping it all inside, trying to push through, not confiding in anyone but her husband, who obviously couldn't relate. Tears shimmered in her eyes as I empathetically told her I went through everything she described. I too wondered if the HRT would work, but eventually my symptoms abated. I too struggled with weight gain, but I found that walking 10,000 steps daily, lifting weights and cutting down on sugar helped me lose those stubborn pounds. And I too felt alone, but talking with other women and doctors about menopause without shame or embarrassment can temper that loneliness. I look back and realize I wasn't proactive enough when I first suspected I was menopausal. Combine my silence with the fact that my doctor never suggested regular hormone testing after my hysterectomy or offered me a checklist of other symptoms besides hot flashes, and the result is that I likely suffered unnecessarily for months — possibly years. Emily thanked me for helping her feel less alone, a feeling I wish I'd had while enduring the worst of menopause. I never saw her again after that heart-to-heart talk, but I hope she's back in England healing, practicing patience and kindness to herself, and maybe sharing her experience with other women so they feel less alone with their menopause too. While I'm encouraged that more studies are being done and more news segments are calling attention to menopause, women's health needs to be discussed more, at every age and stage. We know our bodies. We know when something needs to be addressed by a doctor. And we need to know that it's up to us to advocate for our own health. Heather Sweeney's work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The TODAY Show, Newsweek, Business Insider, Good Housekeeping and Healthline, among others. Her memoir, 'CAMOUFLAGE: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage,' will be released in fall 2025. You can learn more about her at and follow her on Instagram, Bluesky and Threads. Do you have a compelling personal story you'd like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we're looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@ Sometime In My 50s, I Became Invisible To Men. Here's What I Didn't Expect To Feel. I Went Through Menopause At 44 And I Was Shocked By What It Did To My Body I'm 70 And I've Lived Alone My Entire Adult Life. Here's What Everyone Gets Wrong About Single People.

Associated Press
21 hours ago
- Associated Press
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