Wearing a ‘menopause vest’ left me a sweating, befuddled wreck of a man
The first writer to try a gadget that gives men hot flushes says sorry to every woman whose symptoms he scoffed at
Sometimes editors offer jobs that sound promising: ‘Just file a review and some gossip from the first-class cabin...’ But turn out to be quite the opposite: ‘...on the titanic’s maiden voyage.’
this felt, well, similar. on the one hand, it was an exercise in empathy, the chance to experience the gruelling symptoms of menopause, something many female friends are now in the midst of. on the other, frankly it felt like an invitation into the jaws of hell.
in any case, i said yes, which is how i found myself strapping on the menoVest — the world’s first hot-flush simulator, a high- necked black bodywarmer designed to replicate the effects of oestrogen depletion for those of us who have never had the stock to deplete in the first place.
‘Just wear it for 24 hours and take the menoVest Challenge,’ my editor said cheerfully. ‘it’ll be fun.’
then the heatwave hit, and i realised i’d agreed to wear something that would warm up every two to five minutes as the pitiless sun beat down.
the menoVest is a scorcher in its own right. it has a certain heft — my kitchen scales had it at 700g, the same as two cans of Coke — and has red and black wires which emerge from a tube at the back, then feed into a grey box with one large red button, where a rechargeable lithium drone battery is housed.
Pads inside the vest are charged by this battery and programmed to heat up to the mid-40s in a rising sequence from gut to neck.
the heat comes in waves almost at random, but in effect it’s about once every five minutes. the whole thing looks as if Gucci had designed a suicide vest.
‘i would describe it more as a homicide vest,’ says Anne Henderson, consultant gynaecologist and adviser to the menopause mandate campaign set up by MP Carolyn Harris. ‘i’ve lost count of the number of times i’ve heard women in the grip of menopause symptoms say they want to kill their partner simply because of the way they breathe.’
the vest’s aims, however, are benign. Created by over the Bloody moon, a menopause support group, built by thread Design and partly funded by women’s health company theramex, it’ll be part of a corporate training programme starting in the autumn to help men understand what female colleagues are going through.
so far it’s been trialled by male MPS, including ex-Conservative party leader iain Duncan smith, who admitted: ‘if (males) had this, we might be complaining lots.’
of course, it’s not as though i don’t know what the menopause is. We talk about it a lot these days. there are menopause cafes, workshops, even sitcoms — Bridget Christie’s TV comedy the Change, about a 50-year- old menopausal working mum, airs this autumn.
there are dozens of books, including Davina MCCALL’s forthcoming primer, menopausing. Among my female friends it’s a no- shame, often high- comedy topic of conversation. they’ll joke about using brain fog as an excuse to steal a costly handbag or swap tips on sex after the Change. i am even an honorary member of their WhatsApp group on the subject, named #whydidno-onetellus?
Until now, there has been no way for men to truly understand what 70 per cent of menopausal women go through. As i pull on the vest, i feel like the first man to tread alien territory. i am an Armstrong, after all. one small step...
the full challenge aims to recreate not just the flushes but also the mental fuzziness and anxiety, so the first task is to disrupt my sleep with night-time toilet visits.
this was not a problem. At 56, i’m a martyr to my prostate. Waking up at only 3am and 5am, as instructed, isn’t a bad night for me — as my girlfriend will testify.
i have to down pints of water before bed, avoid the toilet for two hours then gorge on a sugary snack. After midnight, i strap on the vest — which will flush hot twice in the night — and hit the hay.
i have had less restful nights, but they’ve been on airport floors after flights were cancelled. the vest did boil me up a few times but honestly, between the baking heat, lack of sleep and frequent loo trips, the flushes were the least of my problems.
to fully follow the instructions, i had to change the sheets at 3am, but this went down badly with the other occupant of the bed, so i’m afraid i cheated and didn’t.
Hot flushes during the day were far more challenging. they certainly made me lose concentration. When the pads began warming, i could feel the sweat dribbling down my back. i roamed the house to find cooler spots, stacked fans on my desk and opened the fridge for the rush of cool air.
it was hard to be sure how much of my nervousness was due to the anticipation of the arrival of a hot flush, but imagine you’re on holiday in southern europe in shorts and t-shirt and you’re zipped into a puffa jacket laden with hot water bottles every five minutes. even then you can’t imagine the neck pad. i was supposed to tidy the garden, but the sun made me dizzy so i went to the shop for ice.
this was coupled with a savage starvation routine where i skipped breakfast and eschewed all fluids until 11am. even then it was water only and no coffee or tea for the whole day, which was all aimed at creating something… i can’t remember… oh yes! Brain fog.
the next step on the instructions read: ‘Choose a task that is mentally demanding, is set to a deadline, or involves you being under scrutiny.’
A task such as writing this feature. Well, if i had followed those instructions religiously you would be reading a sparse collection of hazily-connected sentences.
it felt like wading through treacle — until i jacked the whole thing in early, ate a meal, drank three cups of coffee and felt my brain clear, all the while thinking how terrible it would be not to be able to defuzz my head.
And that’s what shocked me most. As nasty as the hot flushes were, it was the problems i had with thinking that
It looks like a suicide vest designed by Gucci
Afterwards, I felt a slow flush of guilt
real really scared me. the way it mad made my brain feel not just fogg foggy, but mired in the thickest Vict Victorian pea souper. i in short, h menopause sucks. this, says Dr Anne Henderson, is a point i should already have arrived at. ‘menopause directly impacts the women who are dealing with the hormonal process, but also indirectly affects the whole of society,’ she points out.
‘these women have partners, children, siblings, parents, friends, colleagues, employers and employees — they will all feel the impact as well. it is an issue everyone needs to address.’
Back in the normal, midlife male world, where i could talk, think, write and control my sweating, i experienced a slow flush of guilt.
i thought about the times i’d dismissed my ex-wife as going ‘all weird’, about the unexpected arguments with my mum during a couple of strange years when i was younger. And i thought... oops! How unsympathetic, how lacking in understanding i’d been.
i should phone to apologise, but put it off. Unless of course, i’m threatened with the vest again — i’ll do anything to avoid another day in that instrument of torture.
■ Find free menopause support at overthebloodymoon.com/myotbmclub