Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be furious about inevitable menopause

263 replies

Fragmentedbrain · 14/06/2025 17:07

I don't have it yet, 43, feel on top of the flipping world professionally and emotionally (that hollow dragging anxiety of youth is all gone).

But I know that any bloody moment now the brain fog and anxiety and insomnia and prolapse will come for me and ruin it.

I'm so damn angry.

Also, does anyone know if I could just start taking the contraceptive pill now and maybe stay on it for a decade and come out the other side without any of the symptoms?

OP posts:
BanditsWife · 14/06/2025 19:13

Can someone explain the prolapse thing? In what way is this connected to menopause or ageing? Not being snide, genuinely not sure about this.

LeftieRightsHoarder · 14/06/2025 19:09

I didn’t have any bad symptoms of menopause, only a few not very hot flushes. My periods just stopped, after being regular and fairly light for many years. That was the only sign that I was in menopause. I hadn’t had any signs of perimenopause before that.

The one big difference I noticed, years later, was that any weight I put on now stays superglued to my body, no matter how carefully I eat!

Edited to add: I hadn’t used hormonal contraception since my 20s and didn’t use HRT as I had no symptoms.

DilemmaDelilah · 14/06/2025 19:05

I was very lucky and had no symptoms at all (first time round). I'm now on anastrazole as part of my cancer treatment so I'm undergoing a second menopause.... LOADS of symptoms this time round and I can't take HRT. 😭.

Hopefully you will be like me and not have any symptoms but, if not, go with HRT if you can.

BIossomtoes · 14/06/2025 19:02

CommissarySushi · 14/06/2025 18:59

That was just factual information. I was replying to someone asking why menopause could cause a prolapse.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9629641/

Show quote history

It wasn’t factual information. I’d take the Royal College over some figure from the US where gynaecologists have a vested interest in over diagnosis.

BIossomtoes · 14/06/2025 18:54

CommissarySushi · 14/06/2025 18:53

One in every ten women does not seem small to me, but I guess we all see things differently.

Show quote history

You said 50% initially, it’s very small compared with that.

CommissarySushi · 14/06/2025 18:53

BIossomtoes · 14/06/2025 18:51

It’s still a small proportion and if you’re asymptomatic it’s basically the same as not having it.

Show quote history

One in every ten women does not seem small to me, but I guess we all see things differently.

Holluschickie · 14/06/2025 18:52

I am 53 and havent seen my GP in ages. Where are you getting this ageist crap about being wedded to your GP?

Holluschickie · 14/06/2025 18:51

EmeraldRoulette · 14/06/2025 18:47

are you reading too much online? Loads of women are fine. But no one uses the internet to say "I'm fine".

you might be fine.

Show quote history

Yes. I am mostly fine. Feel the heat a bit. Sometimes wake up at 4 am.
Otherwise, pretty ok.

BIossomtoes · 14/06/2025 18:51

CommissarySushi · 14/06/2025 18:23

"affecting" is the key word. The 10% will be those who are symptomatic.

Show quote history

It’s still a small proportion and if you’re asymptomatic it’s basically the same as not having it.

EmeraldRoulette · 14/06/2025 18:47

Fragmentedbrain · 14/06/2025 18:24

I understand one tends to lead to the other if left untreated.

God the prospect of being reliant on my GP for the rest of my life is so distressing. I know people just live with it and I'll have to too.

Show quote history

are you reading too much online? Loads of women are fine. But no one uses the internet to say "I'm fine".

you might be fine.

CharlotteStreetW1 · 14/06/2025 18:44

CharlotteCChapel · 14/06/2025 18:42

The only change I had was post menopause and I've changed from a lark to a night owl.

Ooh! I've gone completely the other way!

CharlotteCChapel · 14/06/2025 18:42

The only change I had was post menopause and I've changed from a lark to a night owl.

CharlotteStreetW1 · 14/06/2025 18:41

Fragmentedbrain · 14/06/2025 17:25

I am gladdened by the "it was fine for me" tales. I know there's no point borrowing trouble really.

My mum didn't have a great time of it but I guess we are not all like our mothers (plus she had annoying me to deal with).

My mum had a miserable menopause. I sailed through.

Don't trouble trouble til trouble troubles you 🙂

Holluschickie · 14/06/2025 18:40

I am over the moon about no periods! So liberating.

WhereAreWeNow · 14/06/2025 18:40

Mirena coil is worth considering now. Light/no periods. Reliable contraception. Lots of women sail through perimenopause and menopause with a coil. I personally also use estrogen patches.
It's not necessarily as bad as you're imagining. It can be horrendous for some women but plenty of women have a fairly easy time of it.

Thaawtsom · 14/06/2025 18:40

Fragmentedbrain · 14/06/2025 17:44

It's not literal rage I hope this is apparent 🤣

Interesting re the vaginal oestrogen - is that the only form of hrt you take?

Edited
Show quote history

Yep; but actually the night sweats / hot flushes subsided on their own within a year or so. Still get them occasionally if I have more than one glass of wine, so that keeps me on the straight and narrow. I started the vaginal oestrogen when I had a couple of UTIs and probably would have benefited from starting slightly earlier (only in the last year or so).

Holluschickie · 14/06/2025 18:39

This sounds familiar. Have you posted about this before. A terrifying thread about collapsing uteruses or some such?
Anyway I am post meno and have none of those issues.

SabbatWheel · 14/06/2025 18:37

I sailed though it (done and dusted by 46 after peri symptoms started at 41). Dry vagina only, which is treated.

I’m nearly 58 and I haven’t got any grey hair either!

Not everyone has a torrid time - wait and see.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/06/2025 18:36

ExtraOnions · 14/06/2025 17:19

I’m delighted to not have periods every month anymore. I have Endometriosis, and trust me, the Menopause has been a cake-walk compared to heavy bleeding, flooding, pain so bad I thought I would pass out.. as well as the horrible effect on my bowel.

HRT … I feel fine

Snap! I'm in my 60s now. Hot flushes were really the only thing for me, and I didn't find them that much of an issue. Didn't take HRT. I do get tired more easily and have some joint achiness, but frankly that's probably age and being a bit overweight and not as fit as I should be. Fortunately never had the brain fog or anxiety. All a walk in the park compared to menstruation and all the fun and games of endometriosis, which just disappeared.

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 14/06/2025 18:34

CrystalSingerFan · 14/06/2025 18:27

Couldn't agree with this more.

I'm 66. I went through menopause. It did what it said on the tin - my periods slowed down and stopped. I didn't need contraception any more, Two good results.

Also, they hadn't invented perimenopause when this happened, so no idea what that was. I think the OP is overreacting to the medicalisation/monetisation of a perfectly ordinary physical process.

OTOH, if you're ILL (eg prolapse) I'd get that checked out.

Show quote history

Just because they (inaccurately) called the months/years leading up to the cessation of menstruation 'menopause', that doesn't mean symptoms didn't exist. The unflattering stereotype of the plump, grumpy, over-heated, dried-up middle-aged with embarrassing 'women's problems' wouldn't exist otherwise.

amylou8 · 14/06/2025 18:33

I'm 49 and on the combined pill (without a monthly break) for the oestrogen. I intend to do a straight swap for HRT at 50. So far so good with symptoms.
My mum went cold turkey off the pill and had horrendous symptoms. She was crazy lady for a few years and now has osteoporosis.

Craftysue · 14/06/2025 18:28

I've had absolutely no symptoms at all apart from my periods stopping. As someone who has regular iron infusions due to severe anemia from an auto immune disease it's actually improved my health!

CrystalSingerFan · 14/06/2025 18:27

TheIceBear · 14/06/2025 18:08

I think these articles etc are a lot to blame. I’m late 30s and my social media is full of crap about Peri menopause. I said it to my mother and she was like “what’s peri menopause. Back in my day it was just menopause and that was it”
it’s everywhere now and part of it is trying to flog products at women I think.

Show quote history

Couldn't agree with this more.

I'm 66. I went through menopause. It did what it said on the tin - my periods slowed down and stopped. I didn't need contraception any more, Two good results.

Also, they hadn't invented perimenopause when this happened, so no idea what that was. I think the OP is overreacting to the medicalisation/monetisation of a perfectly ordinary physical process.

OTOH, if you're ILL (eg prolapse) I'd get that checked out.

Original poster
Fragmentedbrain · 14/06/2025 18:24

tammienorrie · 14/06/2025 18:21

Are you mixing up prolapse with vaginal atrophy / dryness? Because they very much not the same thing.

I understand one tends to lead to the other if left untreated.

God the prospect of being reliant on my GP for the rest of my life is so distressing. I know people just live with it and I'll have to too.

OP posts: