Time to Change attitudes
I WAS about 45 when the menopause quips started.
If I suggested the air con needed cranking up, a cheeky colleague would ask: “Another hot flush?”
When I revealed I’d found my lost car keys in the fridge that was down to “my time of life”.
And a plaster on my arm was once greeted with “Is that your HRT patch, Bletch?” shouted across the office.
But I laughed too. I wasn’t going through the menopause and the prospect didn’t really worry me.
I hoped I’d sail through without any symptoms but, if not, I’d take all medical help out there. I hate it when people, of either sex, mutter euphemisms about “wimmins’ troubles” or “the Change.”
There should be nothing secret or embarrassing about a natural process half the population face. Well, sadly the menopause IS still an issue shrouded by shame.
A new survey has revealed HALF of menopausal women are too embarrassed to speak to their doctors, even when they’re struggling.
More than two in five said their symptoms had been worse than expected but a third felt they just had to “put up” with it.
About 1.9 million women, usually in their late 40s or early 50s, are experiencing the menopause in Britain right now. Some 80 per cent suffer symptoms including hot flushes, night sweats, mood swings, insomnia lasting around four years. Dr Heather Currie, from the British Menopause Society which commissioned the report, says many believe there’s no treatment and “these fears and misconceptions have persisted from generation to generation.”
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists says women are “suffering in silence” and need “to talk openly to their healthcare professionals, employers, friends and families about the menopause”.
TV presenter Mariella Frostrup agrees. She’s tried to make a documentary about it but has been blocked by male TV executives. She says the menopause “is so enveloped in secrecy it’s a miracle we know how to spell it, let alone recognise it”.
Suffering
Two years ago, aged 50, I started feeling very unwell and realised it could be the menopause. My symptoms worsened and last year I was diagnosed with adenomyosis.
It is treatable – but not in my case – and in January I had a total hysterectomy and my ovaries removed – so, hello menopause!
It was a tough time but I recovered well and am now on hormone replacement therapy. The patches go on my bum, so office wags can’t see them. But what’s to hide?
The menopause needs to be discussed openly so a million women stop suffering in silence. That’s the Change everyone should welcome.