Ep 1: The First Pluck - Spencer's Story of Chronic Illness, Advocacy and Creative Wellness

“The First Pluck - My Story of Health and Advocacy”

Host: Spencer Moore

Welcome to the Hairy Chin Podcast. I'm Spencer Moore, your host, here to explore the good, the bad, the hairy and the fabulous of female health. Join us for eye-opening conversations, myth-busting insights, and relatable stories that celebrate the realities of womanhood. And don't miss our Pluck This! segment for tangible takeaways from each episode. Life takes a village, let's do this together.

Spencer Moore:

Hi! Welcome to the Hairy Chin Podcast. I'm so happy you're here. This is my first podcast. I've been really excited to get it up and running. It's been a labor of love. I want to create a space to celebrate females and womanhood and what we go through in our bodies. Kind of all the aspects the physical, the mental, the social and the spiritual. I think they all go together. And I just really want this to be a place where we can be open and communicate and laugh and just have fun and learn. That's a big thing for me, is learning. I believe that knowledge is so empowering when you know more, you can feel more grounded in who you are and what you believe in and really what works for you.

My experience is a female and a female body and my body has a story like all of our bodies do. There have been some things that have gone on, and I'm excited to share some experiences and also create a space for others to come and share their stories and their experiences. None of us are alone in this life, and having support and anetwork and community just makes it so much easier.

I say that life takes a village and I really, really do believe that.

Okay, let's talk about the name - The Hairy Chin Podcast. So, if you're a female and you have chin hairs, you might be able to understand that, it’s a thing! It's hard when you start having these course hairs that stick straight out of your chin, that maybe aren't supposed to be there or maybe aren't there for everybody.

I want to talk about my first experience having a chin hair. It's quite memorable. And, and I think it definitely did inspire me naming this podcast The Hairy Chin Podcast, because, you know, sometimes these things stick in your mind. So I was 17 years old. I was a senior in high school. Senior year had just started, and the seniors were special. They got to move into Senior Hall. It had sofas and chairs and carpets, and it was really kind of a privilege to spend your last year at the high school in Senior Hall. It also had its own bathroom, which none of the other classes were able to share. And all the girls were in front of the mirror, primping and and just looking their best to be seniors. I remember very clearly being one of the sardines in the can, in front of the mirror and, a classmate of mine, a very sweet girl, was standing next to me and she said, Oh, Spencer, you have a hair on your chin. And she thought I was just a stray hair, just kind of something, you know, a hair on my face. And so she went to wipe it off for me, and it didn't move! It was connected! And she said, Oh my gosh, you have a chin hair! And of course, I was 17, I was mortified! I had never experienced hair on my face in that way before. And so, you know, it was abnormal and I, I wasn't normal. And so I, I really struggled a bit with that experience. But look, a year later, I would be diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which is PCOS. This is where you have cysts on your ovaries. And one of the symptoms of this syndrome can be increased testosterone levels in females. Now increased testosterone can cause hair on your body that may not normally be there, such as more hair on your face, chin hair, hair on your stomach. This is quite common with this syndrome.

Look, body hair is body hair, and females have different body hair than males. But we have body hair for a reason. It can, help with the different scents that we have in our body. I recently saw a video of a mosquito trying to land on an arm that had a lot of body hair, and it couldn't reach the skin, which I thought was really interesting. So all of our body hair has a reason, in some way or another, You know, sometimes body hair can be an indicator of things changing in the body. My chin hairs in my adolescence were an indication that my hormones were off. And in fact, as women age and their estrogen levels change in perimenopause and menopause, they might notice more chin hairs appearing on their face.

The more in tune we can get with our bodies, the better, because we can notice these changes and realize that they may be happening for a reason. It doesn't mean that it's a grave reason, or that it's something terrible, but being in tune with our bodies is a really good skill set to foster.

I have another chin hair story that I'd love to mention here. So, I'm close to my parents. I live in Europe, they live in the United States. But, we keep in contact and I chat with my Mom quite often. And so I had told her, I'm starting this new project, and it's going to be a podcast. It's going to be called The Hairy Chin Podcast. And so she said, that's great, good luck. And about a day or two later, I received an email with a newspaper clipping. It was a picture she took, on her phone of a newspaper clipping, and it was an advice column. This is, I believe it was the newspaper in her city in North Carolina called the News & Observer, and the advice column was Dear Annie.

And so the entry in this Dear Annie column was about chin hair, and it was a woman who wrote in saying that for about a month she had noticed a rather large chin hair on her friend's chin, and that if she had noticed it, that other people for sure had noticed it as well. And she was quite mortified for her friend. She really didn't want to embarrass her, but she felt like it was very important to tell her. In fact, she said that if it was her, she would want to know, and she had even given her husband firm instructions that if she was ever in this type of situation with, you know, a chin hair, and it was just so obvious that he would have to tell her. So she was asking the advice columnist Annie, how should she tell her friend that she has this embarrassing chin hair that she hasn't noticed? So I just thought this was so serendipitous to get this entry from the newspaper, from my Mom at the time that I was, you know, really developing and working on this project. And the response in the column I thought was great. You know, she said that she thought that approaching her friend seemed reasonable, especially if it was really bothering her. The advice columnist said that it was something to perhaps approach delicately to try not to embarrass her friend, to let her know that if the roles were reversed, she would want to know the same thing. And to highlight the trust and the respect in the friendship and that this wasn't in any way meant to embarrass her friend. I did think that the advice was great, and it does depend on the person. Some people may be mortified to know that they have a chin hair that they missed, and other people might say, Oh yeah, I saw that and I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

But I do love this idea of communicating and being open and honest. And look, there are days that I know that I have not properly groomed my face because I just haven't had time. I've heard of women shaving their faces in the shower. Right now there's a big trend going on of spraying these sprays to find all the hair on your face. I'm not so much a big fan of that. But, I do think that probably everybody does the best that they can. But it is always nice to have a friend that says, Hey by the way, you missed a spot! So, that can be great. That can be really helpful. I think it's really wonderful to kind of talk about the taboo and address it with kindness and sometimes humor and and just move on, move forward.

So talking about some of the experiences that I had, I'd love to share a bit about what that looks like and some of the things that I'd love to chat about on the podcast. I was a sick child growing up. I had a lot of ear, nose and throat issues. Asthma, allergies. At six months old, I had burst my eardrums from chronic ear infections and was given myringotomy tubes, which was a quite young age to have them put in. My sinus and tonsillitis and all of these issues just got worse and worse as I got older. And I was in the hospital and in the doctor's office all the time as a child.

After years of chronic sinus infections, I was given a lot of antibiotics. Ceftin, Z Packs, Zithromax. I was given a lot of Medrol Dose Packs, which is Prednisone.. And these were during some really important years of my body growing and most importantly, my immune system strengthening. What we know now that wasn't as mainstream back in the 80s was that chronic antibiotic use can really cause an immunosuppressed body. And that's really what happened to me over time. After some pretty significant surgeries, I was able to move forward with the chronic sinusitis, but the immune issues really did a number on me. I started having a lot of issues with allergies and eczema. Quite severe eczema at around the age 12. By 16, I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder.

It's interesting now looking back, because the antibiotic use, the steroid use, it really did damage my immune system and it also probably damaged my gut. What we talk about now with this brain-gut connection and, and how that can be linked to mental health, there are a lot of studies now that are saying that issues such as depression really start in the stomach. You know, I didn't I didn't know about the brain-gut connection back then. I didn't really realize that what I was putting in my body, what I was eating, the gut biome and all of these factors, stress, everything involved was really creating a cycle of physical and mental health.

I'm a really big advocate of mental health, of finding ways to find a balance in life. I firmly believe that physical and mental health are incredibly interconnected. I know firsthand that when my physical health has been poor, my mental health has been poor. And I believe that the opposite is true. When your mental health is poor, it's very hard to prioritize your physical health. It's hard to get out and exercise and to eat well, and to really be consistent in those good habits. So finding a balance between them is really paramount in finding better health and wellness. It's a challenge, but it's baby steps and it's really trying to be as consistent as possible. There's some really great content out now, some books, such as Atomic Habits, which talks about habit stacking and all of these little hacks that you can find in life to make it a little bit easier.

So at 16, with Major Depressive Disorder, those were challenging times. Looking back now, I'm 41 and looking back at my teenage years., they were hard. I was young, I didn't have a lot of skill sets to be able to handle such intense emotions, and I just really struggled. Depression has been a constant in most of my adult life, it's been pretty present in the background. I've also dealt with some intense anxiety, panic attacks, and just some heavy feelings, lots of emotions. I really believe in finding an outlet for these and creativity has been really, really important for me in that area. I was very fortunate to start psychotherapy in my teens and, and I've continued as often as I've been able to, through my adult life. I'm a big communicator, I love talking, I love connecting, and that's one of the reasons why I'm here on a podcast, it’s because this is really natural for me. And I want to help create space for other people to join me in these avenues of connecting.

So going back to my health journey and some of the things that I'd, I'd love to share. I suffered from chronic migraines for about a decade. I was also diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis in my 30s. And last year, after my first mammogram, routine, I started at 40 years old, I was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, it was a ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). It was a very fortunate and lucky diagnosis. It came at the earliest time that I could be diagnosed and the treatment was swift. I underwent a lumpectomy, I had three weeks of radiation, and I did treatment with Tamoxifen, which is an estrogen blocker.

I find a lot of thankfulness in that diagnosis because it really did shift my path moving forward. It really pushed me into health advocacy, because I just wanted to share as much as I could with as many people as I could about what I'd learned and what I'd experienced. With the breast cancer diagnosis, I came to know a beautiful foundation called the Know Your Lemons Foundation. It educates women in a creative way about breast cancer. I became a Global Breast Health Educator, also known as a “Lemonista,” through the foundation. This has been one of the most fulfilling things that I've done in my life, is educating women to help prevent breast cancer. And it really did start me on this path of health advocacy. As I mentioned, community is so important, and sharing what we know with each other is a way to really help each other, it's a way to connect and to save lives.

So my goal for this space is to encourage independent thinking about why things are the way they are and what that means for each one of us. Because what is normal for one person may not be normal for another. There's no standardized normal as much as we think there might be, there isn’t. Look, it doesn't have to be the same for everybody. In fact, life is very colorful when things aren't the same. So I really want to encourage people to notice the changes, talk about the changes, ask about the changes. Because asking questions and being curious and wondering why is so important in our own path to better health and wellness.

So there's so much that is to come in this podcast. So many topics that I'm so excited to talk about. I will be interviewing the founder of the Know Your Lemons Foundation, which is the breast cancer awareness and prevention foundation. I'm so passionate about this. It's a great interview talking about how we can really push awareness and breast cancer prevention to save lives. I will be having episodes about skin cancer, basal cell carcinomas, and also talking to a dermatologist about skin care, how we can protect our skin from the sun. I would love to talk about autoimmune disease in women. In terms of autoimmune statistics, women are much more likely to be diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. So that's an important conversation. What are these autoimmune disorders? What's happening in in a female body? How to spot the symptoms. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, which is a type of autoimmune disorder, and I would love to talk about the thyroid and how that affects women. There are a lot of symptoms, sometimes it can be hard to connect the dots. Your thyroid is so important in overall function in your body and how you feel.

I have some wonderful interviews talking about exercising and moving your body. The statistics show that sweating and exercising weekly can really lower your risk of types of cancer. One thing I'm really excited to talk about is sleep. So I think as, as females sleep is really challenging. You may only be able to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night, at best. And, and listen sometimes we can't control the quantity of sleep hours, but there are ways to improve the quality.

So the eczema that I spoke about that I was diagnosed with at 12 years old, it has remained chronic since that diagnosis. I've had periods in my life that it has been more manageable. I've also had periods where it has completely stopped my life in its tracks.

If you know about severe skin issues, then you can understand that they can disrupt so many areas of your life and can be quite miserable. I have learned so much in the process of treating my severe eczema. And look, it's a cry out for help from my body. it's it's a signal saying that things are not working well.

And, so I've been learning about that process and, and how to support my body and give it what it needs. You know, I talk about physical health and mental health and how they are really interconnected. And, and part of that conversation is, is stress, because stress can really just stain so many things. And it's a kind of hidden trigger because you might not realize how stressed out you are when in fact your body is actually telling you, look, I'm really stressed. And I really look forward to talking about stress in this podcast, sharing stress management solutions and learning about them from other guests and people that join the conversation.

You know, I'm just really passionate about health in general. I'm really passionate about female health. There are so many other things I'm excited to scratch the surface on. Perimenopause, menopause, aging, oral hygiene, toxins and makeup, and this whole detox movement that is just so present right now. So many things for this podcast to grow and evolve.

And most importantly, I'm excited to know what you, the audience, would be interested in and knowing and learning about. That to me is so important to talk about the things that are important to you. So I look forward to the feedback.

As I've said many times, I'm very excited and I really am. I'm very passionate about this project. I'm passionate about sharing information and creating spaces to connect to other people's stories.

As much as I'm passionate about female health, I'm also really passionate about creativity. I love to advocate for better health and wellness through creative means. We all deserve to feel well in this one life that we've been given and sometimes thinking outside of the box and getting in touch with spaces inside of us that are a bit more free, are a great way to de-stress and to just let go a bit. Because life is challenging and sometimes we just need to try some new things.

So during The Hairy Chin Podcast, I end each episode with a special segment called Pluck This! And this segment is kind of your tangible takeaway from what we talked about during the episode. I really believe in the audience being able to take away tangible, actionable items from each episode. I want you to be able to leave the episode and do something with what you've learned. In a way I want you to be able to “pluck out” this information and take it with you in your life as you move forward. This Pluck This! segment will include advice, it will include tangible items. I’m a huge bookworm, so I tend to have a lot of recommended reading, perhaps even a series on Netflix or a movie that I would suggest that goes quite well with the content that we've talked about in the episode.

So with that being said, today's first Pluck This! segment is going to be my recommendation of my favorite set of tweezers. They're called Anastasia of Beverly Hills. I really do love these tweezers. I think that they're worth the investment because they really do last! I've tried other brands, I’ve tried Tweezerman. I tried tweezers that I’ve just bought at the drugstore and these have stayed, they stuck around almost a decade now, I think, and that I've had them. They are a bit of an investment, I think around 25 dollars. I wish I could offer you a coupon code or a discount count. I’m not there yet! But, if you are looking for a really solid pair of tweezers, then these are the real deal.

Okay guys, that wraps up our first episode together. It has been so fun for me to be here and start this project. I think in life a lot of times it's just getting started that can be the hardest part. So for me, this is really exciting to put this project in motion. I can't wait for what's to come. I think I'm most looking forward to learning about your stories and experiences and just growing this community. Like I said, I'm really passionate about it and I'm just really grateful you're here.

Thanks for joining us on The Hairy Chin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please head over to www.spencerita.com to join our creative community. I'm Spencer Moore reminding you that knowledge isn't just powerful, it's empowering. When you know better, you do better. So stay strong, keep going, and I'll see you next time.