YES: Jodie Barber, 51

Jodie Barber was 46 when she was hit out of the blue with crushing fatigue, anxiety, low mood and chronic joint and muscle pain. “I just totally lost my mojo,” she says. “I went from being a very social and outgoing person to just feeling so low, everything was an effort.” She struggled for months, before she realised her symptoms could be related to perimenopause. So she searched for information and stumbled upon a Facebook-based support group. “When I found the group the pennies started dropping,” Jodie says. While she was convinced, her doctor wasn’t, especially when he ordered blood tests and they came back showing her hormone levels were within normal range. “This can be common in perimenopause because the hormones fluctuate,” Jodie says. “Everything I had read said that in women over the age of 45 with symptoms, a hormone level blood test is not required.” Jodie had done plenty of research and spoken with other women and wanted to try HRT. Her doctor was unwilling to prescribe it. “I found another doctor,” she says. “It wasn’t an issue, and within 24 hours my mood started to improve. I regret waiting 18 to 24 months before starting HRT.” Now 51, Jodie is completely sold on the benefits of her HRT regimen, which includes an oestrogen gel and progesterone tablet, taken cyclically. She has been spared any side effects. “I would say that my symptoms are 90 per cent gone,” she says. “I feel it has brought me back to myself and I have regained my mojo.”