SYMPTOMS COST ME MY JOB – I’M TERRIFIED IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN

“I’D NEVER had a migraine until my menopause started in 2014 but soon I was getting them every day. They were utterly debilitating – I couldn’t think properly, I couldn’t get out of bed and the fatigue was overwhelming.

Coupled with that I experienced crushing anxiety as well as heart palpitations and depression.

It got to the point where I could no longer carry on my job as a contractor in IT Health Care and had to resign.

I couldn’t work for 18 months and my partner Rick and I almost lost our house because we couldn’t afford the mortgage repayments. We relied on family to ensure that we had food. In 2016 I was prescribed HRT and after two years of trying different types and adjusting the dosage I finally felt back to my old self and was able to go back to work.

Then last year when I went to collect my prescription I was told my medicines were no longer available and I had to return to my GP for an alternative.

But every time I tried, the pharmacists would say they weren’t available.

It got to the point where I had to go back every two weeks as they had begun to ration my supply and when I asked when they’d be available the pharmacists would shrug at me.

Without fail, I would leave the shop in tears. It was awful.

Since then I’ve paid around £300 to see a private specialist for a prescription and tried various alternatives to my patches but the migraines have come back.

In the past two weeks I’ve been bedridden five times and the fatigue has returned due to the change in patches.

Each time I collect my prescription I feel anxious because the thought of being without HRT terrifies me.

Being like this makes me feel so impotent. The menopause almost cost me everything and I’m frightened that because of the HRT shortage it’ll happen again.”