Emma Aherne, 42, Cork

Mum-of-three Emma Aherne first started experiencing menopausal symptoms when she was just 37, and what followed was a two-year battle to find any answers.

“I genuinely thought I was cracking up, that it was just me going crazy,” she recalls. “I had two years of going to the doctor not feeling great, they would check my bloods and they were all coming back fine but we didn’t run a hormone panel at all.”

At the time, Emma had the Mirena coil and therefore wasn’t getting periods, so there was no change to indicate her symptoms could in fact be perimenopause. However she admits that due to her young age, the idea that she could be starting the menopause wasn’t on her radar, nor her GP’s.

Showing signs

Things came to a head when the extreme bloating Emma was experiencing, led her to panic that she had stomach cancer in the absence of any other answers.

Her GP referred her for a pelvic ultrasound, and as an emotional Emma broke down amid fears over what was wrong, the sonographer told her that while there was nothing of concern on the scan, she did advise a hormone panel test, telling Emma her ovaries did not appear as they should for a woman her age.

Around this time, Emma had also been suffering with dizzy spells, and was taking medication for vertigo, however when this didn’t resolve the issue, she returned to the clinic where she happened to see another GP, and the word menopause was mentioned for the first time.

“He said to me, ‘I actually think it could be your age, I think it’s the menopause’. I was floored, it had never even dawned on me,” Emma admits.

A simple blood test confirmed his suspicions and shortly before her 39th birthday, two years after her symptoms began, Emma was diagnosed with early ovarian failure and menopause. She was immediately put on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) due to her age to prevent long-term damage from the lack of oestrogen and to get a handle on her symptoms.

“It had gone on so long at that stage, my body was so aged,” she says. “My boobs had disappeared, my hair had thinned. But within a few weeks of me being put on the HRT patch everything started to improve.”

As her physical symptoms began to improve, Emma admits that the emotional and mental toll was more difficult to navigate in the early days.

“There was a sense of loneliness at that time,” she explains. “There was really no information, the doctor gave me the name of one website, but it was very much geared towards the natural menopause that happens later in life, not what I was experiencing.

“I felt I had no-one to talk about it to or anyone that could understand, it was something I was going through alone.”

Within a few weeks of being put on HRT, everything improved

As well as the lack of information and support, Emma also struggled with her own sense of identity. “Of course I was glad it wasn’t an illness, but I still had to process that I was 38 and menopausal. I really struggled, I felt old, I felt unattractive. I was about to turn 39, my 40s were approaching and I felt past my sell-by-date, I definitely had a sense of ‘Is this it for me’.

“I had to have counselling and therapy to help me process what was happening to me but I would have liked to have known that these feelings were natural, that there were other women going through the same and that it would pass, which thankfully it has.”

Emma believes awareness has significantly improved, citing support groups, like The Irish Menopause, but is passionate about urging women to be more aware of their own bodies and to

know how to advocate for themselves if they feel something isn’t quite right.

Looking back, the exhaustion and her mental health were huge red flags for Emma and nothing she tried, helped her fatigue. “I was so emotional, I was crying a lot, I really wasn’t myself,” she admits. “If I had trusted myself more, I might have seen I wasn’t right.”

Talking is good

According to Emma, it is vital that we normalise the conversation around women’s health, and hormones, not only for ourselves but for the next generation. She adds: “There isn’t great awareness around women’s health, and none of that was ever taught to us or our mothers so we have a responsibility now to drive home that message to our daughters.”