My Menopause Story

  • Menopause symptoms

    Hot sweats

    Vaginal dryness and discomfort during sex

    Difficulty sleeping

    Fatigue

    Low mood or anxiety

    Depression

    Lack of focus

    Headaches

    Problems with memory or concentration

    Water retention, flatulence, bloating

  • Menopause symptoms

    Stomach pain

    Irregular periods

    Weight gain / slower metabolism

    Breast soreness

    Burning mouth syndrome

    Painful joints  / muscle tension

    Dizzy spells / pins & needles

    Thinning hair

    Increased facial hair

  • Menopause symptoms

    Gum recession

    Itchy skin

    Brittle nails

    Urinary incontinence

    Body odour

    Hay fever and allergies

    Heart palpitations

    Panic attacks

    Osteoporosis

    Irritability

    Loss of libido

The menopause pretty much affects all aspects of your life – like a total system meltdown. So it’s not surprising irritability and loss of libido feature on the list of symptoms, given all the rest . . .

The lists above include known symptoms women across the globe suffer during the peri-menopause and menopause journey. While I don’t claim to have experienced all of them, a lot of them are very familiar to me. Some I was aware of and was expecting – hot flashes, weight gain, irregular periods, loss of libido. Some, were frankly a nasty surprise (the flatulence, urinary incontinence, the emergence of a hairy jawline, the depression). The hot flashes, by the way, are like a gas water heater flaring violently into action.

Of course, the knock on effect has been a loss of self-esteem and my sense of self, who I am, all I have achieved. For me, it also coincided with a crisis of confidence in my career and my ability to hold down a senior role.

Cultural expectations

The real kick is, as you are struggling to cope with crippling hormonal headaches, sleep loss, hot flashes and the like there’s an expectation to maintain a youthful appearance and a slim figure: eat less, much less! Exercise more, much more! Just as the menopause has robbed you of energy and willpower you’re encouraged not to ‘let yourself go’.

The media bombards us with images of the perfect older women who have held it together and still look amazing for their age. Good for them, but it isn’t truly representative of the majority of menopausal women. And because the menopause is a women’s issue, it is by default a minority issue – even though women represent 50% of people on the planet.

When will women’s health be prioritised?

So beyond Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), there is nothing available to alleviate symptoms and very little research into other methods. It is simply not a priority. HRT is not an option for me and my sister due to a history of breast cancer in my immediate family.

Juggling health, family and work

The menopause hit me like a steam train as my parents started to need additional support, and in my mother’s case, there was the increasing dementia as well as physical deterioration. Years of (sometimes) painful periods, the dangers and pain of childbirth are just the start of women’s health issues we all have to learn to cope with. The onslaught gathers pace during the menopause with juggling work, teenagers, ageing parents and a whole host of nasty symptoms.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

I can’t say I am through the other side of my menopausal journey even now – the whole process can take around 10 years – 10 years! But fingers crossed, I might be close. I haven’t had a period for more than 20 months. The hot flashes that come and go for months at a time have stopped again over the last few weeks and I am sleeping a little better. I haven’t had to change my sweat-soaked pyjamas or the sheets in the middle of the night for a while now. Oh, and the frequently recurring breast cysts I used to get have stopped.

But the menopause is wholly unpredictable and you never know, some of this might come back again at any time.

For information about menopause and other aspects of aging women’s health, visit https://www.imsociety.org/

 

1 reply
  1. Sharron West
    Sharron West says:

    Yes, yes & yes!!! Thank you for your honest and forthright blog. Like you I was aware of the hot flushes and the better known symptoms and completely shocked about all the others. It is an absolute travesty that something that happens to half the population has been given so little attention by the medical profession up to now. A lady featured in the Davina documentary said that if it happened to men they would have sorted it years ago!! Hopefully that is starting to change now, MPs are talking about in parliament, employers are talking about it and it is becoming less of a taboo subject.

Comments are closed.