Not every symptom, feeling or reaction is caused by peri/menopause

True!!! And sometimes, it's a case of what if it is, just say what you need to say and crack on.

People who start a thread on a random topic and caveat any rumblings as being peri.

Some people are like that naturally, so telling us it's because of peri doesn't add anything to the discussion.

There was a thread on F&B with a photo. Poster apologised for round tummy as she's peri, so what? There are loads of bigger tummies around even on teenagers.

It's Just beyond.

Seeing as there are estrogen receptors all over our body and organs, it most likely is all down to menopause. So why not top up with HRT and be done with all the symptoms.

Thank God ! Not just me then

Honestly you're either not there yet or you sailed through peri-menopause because your comment is completely clueless! The peri-menopause caused me to contemplate the very really possibility of taking my own life in 2023 it is a brutal time and if you have not experienced it, I would advise you probably should not speak on it!!

Being available on the NHS doesnt mean nobody is profiting.

Completely agree. How very dare she.

She is fortunate to have not had any issues around menopause. However, you have to be incredibly insensitive or hard of thinking (or both) to think your own personal experience is universal.

DH is now very frail so we keep the temperature at home much higher than it would otherwise be. He did once suggest that the reason I was visibly ‘glowing’ in that climate would be down to the menopause. I’m 65.

HRT is available on the NHS and most of what is prescribed is generic so this is a red herring. I have absolutely no problem with people using HRT, I'm on it myself and you'd have to prize it from my cold, dead hands. That's not the issue at all for me.

The issue, as discussed at length, is when menopause/perimenopause is posited as the cause of all of women's problems in life.

YANBU. But there's a shit tonne of money to be made from selling HRT.

I had to be medicated
changing the world wouldn’t have stopped my near faints and palpitations out the blue. If you’re low on iron, you get.. iron. If I’m low on oestrogen then surely it makes sense to get oestrogen

I’m just glad my GP recognised it as I’m only 41 which I felt was too young
having near fainting episodes, palpitations, anxiety, panic attacks, air hunger… all gone with HRT

It has not been invented its always existed. You were lucky not to have any symptoms. Very lucky. In the past women suffering were often committed to asylums.

It's actually really offensive to imply what I and millions of other women have been through is an invention. Horrible.

I never knew I was going through periods menopause, it hadn’t been invented when I went through it. I never even noticed until I didn’t have a period for 6 months

How about you get that sorted and find that somebody at work is committing a serious fraud with implications for people's safety, but your whistleblowing is dismissed as the fevered ramblings of a menopausal woman, where 'everybody knows they go a bit mad, then'?

What world changes would you propose that would help women cope with vaginal atrophy or anxiety caused by a lack of estrogen?

This is veering into "tish tosh, all you need to sail through menopause is a bit of positive thinking and a massive salad!" territory. Medication for menopause saved my life. It absolutely should be suggested as first line remedy.

Yeah I understand that, but I often see women suggesting perimenopause could be the reason they have reacted strongly to behaviour. Implying that hormones are the reason they feel strongly about it (and therefore that the behaviour is fundamentally OK).

In fact as you say the withdrawal from oestrogen often enables people to see clearly that they are being treated poorly in a way they shrug off beforehand but there is still this tendency to fob it off as “hormones”. People say this about PMDD as well.

If you make the menopause the primary issue it leaves the basic problem unaddressed. So for example if a man has gone on a 24 hour bender and come back too hungover to do anything, the problem is his behaviour, not the menopause. The onset on peri sharpens the reaction to this behaviour because of the absence of fluffy, tolerant hormones so the behaviour is more keenly felt.

But the bottom line is that the guy is being a dick, not that the perimenopause is making something into an issue. If we constantly tell ourselves its “because menopause”, we are internalising a problem which is not our problem.

Are you suggesting that menopause symptoms are caused by 'the world not being designed for women'? That kind of suggests they are not real, medical symptoms. Have you experienced perimenopause or menopause yourself? Many, many women are desperate for their gp to prescribe HRT. I am reluctant to HRT due to family history, but the 'monetised' supplements I have bought have been fantastic.

There’s just such a lot of money to be made. But I’m sure I heard some high profile GPs trying to redress the balance last year by suggesting there is a lot of scaremongering out there and to try not to worry.

I have a friend whose identity is completely bound up with the menopause. She mentions is every other sentence and has been this way years, yet refuses to have HRT.

My own mother had a pretty awful menopause and I still gave it no thought at all until it was upon me because I wasn’t constantly bombarded with it in the media but I feel sorry for young women who must be constantly receiving this message that the menopause will be completely awful, when that’s just not the case at all for around 60% of women.

It's the drop in hormones which would normally enable women to smooth things over and not rock the boat that makes women realise they've been putting up with shit and being treated poorly.
So it is peri/menopause related.

That's not the point though, is it? It depends what your normal is. If she was someone who would have dealt with that and other situations more calmly 5 or 10 years ago, and she is currently perimenopausal and finding she gets significantly more angry than before, then why wouldn't she ascribe that to perimenopausal mood changes? It's a very common problem.

Totally agree, OP. It’s like the very existence of females has to be medicalised pretty much from puberty until death. Fuck that.

I agree. My sister blames menopause for everything negative in her world. At the minute she's complaining about poor sleep quality. Absolutely the menopause and not the pile of shite she eats every day and the 12 coffees.

That's monetising an alternative phrasing of 'women are useless due to their hormones' because the 35-55 age group tend to be employed outside the home these days. Profiting from misogyny, absolutely expected, but it's certainly in their interests to further the narrative so that women pay to try to escape the treatment.