The doctor who stops women ageing - menopause/fertility

I'm on body identical HRT, (oestrogen patches, progesterone capsules, testosterone gel) not to "defy ageing" but because I was depressed, had aching joints, absolutely no ability to concentrate, sleeplessness and exhaustion. I still had periods, never had a "hot flush" but after 3 months on it I felt like me again. Not a really young me, just a me who can function. I don't think trying to maintain fertility into your 50s and 60s is a great idea though - I had my last baby at 41 and the pregnancy was horrific compared with my other children who I had in my 20s & 30s.

I had a very early menopause at age 36...at a particularly stressful period in my life. i actually believe that i 'shut down' in order to protect myself - and this is what caused the sudden cessation of periods.
Apparently i still had eggs - I just wasn't releasing them......

Being so young neither I nor anyone else would have supposed menopause......and that tie in my life is a bit of a blur: intensehot flushes ( which i didn't know were hot flushes); what I thought were panic attacks ( but turned out to be temporal lobe seizures - which then led, just the once, into a full blown seizure. Thank goodness it wasn't me that was driving).

In retrospect - I put weight in around my middle/stomach ( Had never carried weight in the way before); after walking my ankles and knees would ache; my skin changed; and i could no longer regulate changes in temperature as well.....none of this I realised was down to menopausal symptoms.

When my GP tested me and found out I was peri-menopausal she suggested HRT - but I firmly rejected. I've never been one for medications. I'm now 54 and glad to be well & truly on the other side. I eat well & walk a lot, and am far more emotionally stable than ever I was 'before'.

Like Fermats, my mother had severe osteoporosis . I have chosen to go on HRT as I was told I might also be at risk . I started HRT when I was at the tail end of peri meno, but I was already having symptoms that were making life harder. I actually wish I was young enough to have this treatment. Not to get pregnant, I had babies naturally in my forties and that was exhausting, but to protect my bones etc without relying on medication.

With compassion, fraggling you are not hearing women.

Pretty sure Frag is being facetious.

the fact that so many have been interested suggests to me that many aren't totally thrilled with hormonal birth control

I learnt about the 'pill's 'health drawbacks, way back in the 1980s when an American girlfriend warned me.

Health dangers of the 'pill' was then a feminist issue, along with abortion rights, in America.

I came off it there and then.

If it is so wonderful, why are men not on a contraceptive pill?

And the hrt?

Diaphragms, as a non chemical barrier contraception, seem almost unavailable now. Or at least they were when I was fertile.

They don't make as much money for the pharma companies, I presume.

I am now blissfully, post menopausally barren.

It is absolutely brilliant. As is the whole post menopause thing.
Saves me £s in tax for tampons and days in pain free ness.

Oestrogen in the water is kind of a serious thing.

There has been a somewhat recent trend, not a huge one, of younger women away from hormonal birth control, with the availability of tracking aps. I don't know if it will stick, as it isn't always as easy as they think to make it work. But the fact that so many have been interested suggests to me that many aren't totally thrilled with hormonal birth control.

Bloody women and girls pissing out hormones and destroying the ecosystem angry

With compassion, fraggling you are not hearing women.

Bloody women and girls pissing out hormones and destroying the ecosystem

Is there anything they do right?

(answer. No)

It is not misogynistic to query the use of HRT. All medication has side effects (including the increasing amount of oestrogen in the water supply due to it being peed out at increasing rates). If women need HRT then fine, have it, but at least find out if you do need it first. The menopause, like women's experience of periods, varies from woman to woman and there shouldn't be an assumption that HRT will be useful or suit everyone.

I dislike this recent attempt to draw equivalence between male 'menopause' and women's.

Same is happening with men getting 'post natal deoression'.

Talk about these things and try to help by all means, but don't leverage uniquely female biological events in order to do so, get your own words.

it's all about balance, and what is going to work for the individual, same as every other individual.

Reading this thread you'd assume that women are being forced to have hrt. They aren't, it's one option amongst a few that women who have menopause symptoms that reduce their quality of life can consider.

The juxtaposition with this and the general view of Hormonal contraception, which could well have been contributing to reduced Mental health in girls and women for decades, is really interesting.

I don't like the assumption that the postmenopausal state is inherently unhealthy, extending a woman's exposure to higher levels of oestrogen can have negative as well as positive consequences.
Men's hormone levels also decline as they get older, testosterone replacement therapy may be helpful for some things but it can also increase the risks of other problems

HRT is about medicating perfectly healthy women.

I’m a perfectly healthy woman who has been happily “medicated” for 25 years with the contraceptive pill. If I can continue that indefinitely until I switch to taking HRT I will do, and I’ll continue being happy. Hormones and periods and menopause symptoms may be natural, but they’re also painful and inconvenient, and I think the “suck it up, it’s part of being a woman” brigade are fundamentally pretty misogynistic. It’s just a thinly disguised extension of the belief that we should all be barefoot and pregnant all the time. That’s up to you if that’s what works for you, but keep your nose out of everyone else’s choices.

My menopause was relatively easy; half a dozen mild hot flushes and my periods stopped. And yes, this hormonal rage that had regularly consumed me every month seemed to disappear. That was pretty nice.

Vaginal dryness is a step too far though. It may be natural but it ain’t pleasant.

Once a woman stops her periods she is considered old and non fuckable

Thank goodness! Leaves you free just to be yourself. There's nothing more attractive than a self realised person.

Many women get through the menopause without having to take HRT and HRT is no magic bullet either. I'm not saying it doesn't help some women but menopause does not have to equal misery

Absolutely! I had a sudden and intensely abrupt menopause at age 36...but HRT free and now glad to be well and truly on the 'other side'.

Menopause is presented in such negative ways, and so many women dread it; but really it could be said that you really only start living afterwards: more stable, less emotional, far more balance and perspective.

I'm generally suspicious of attempts to actually stop or reverse ageing, or the appearance of ageing, or to extend life significantly, or anything that gets into transhumanist territory.

There's a fine line at times between those things and improving quality of life which is generally a good thing. I think however it will always be true that in the end we get old and die, and it will be uncomfortable and even painful. We'd like to think we can avoid that, sometimes it seems like when we believe we can, we have an even harder time reconciling ourselves to the inevitable when it comes.

So it's a bit like naturally produced hrt?

I could understand from a skeletal and vaginal health POV.

To be fair, the human body type we currently have wasn't designed to last much beyond the menopause. Nutrition and health care have naturally extended our lives.

Extending women's fertile years, is barking up the wrong tree, if the tree needs barking up.

If there is a 'fertility' crisis.

It's them.

As in so many ways, they are the problem. Their sperm count has halved over the last 40 years. The 'western' ones.

www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/29/infertility-crisis-sperm-counts-halved

I'm not a scientist, but I would have thought that degrading the natural environment, and therefore human environment on an industrial scale can't be helping their sperms.

Perhaps they should sort that out first.

As with what is being done to little children in the name of 'gender re assignmen' and this, even Mengele would have blushed.

I learned about vaginal atrophy on here, thought, “Hmm, at 54 I’m getting a bit dry and uncomfortable down there,” (never used lube in my life) and went to the doc.

Topical oestrogen in the form of pessaries has been fantastic for me. In particular it has completely resolved the slight bladder issues I had put down to being middle aged and giving birth to four children.

I’m sure DH is happy about it, but i’m Taking it for me not him and would take it if I were celibate.

Ohholyjesus thanks for the extracts.

It's a really male view.

What do women actually want when they getting older? To carry on with periods and ability to get pregnant? I'd imagine that's fairly niche.

It's a male view of what is important. Men are obsessed with their own virility. And also they can procreate until they're old, something that is seen as impressive if you read the papers when famous old men hang babies.

I don't think many women want to be having babies at 50, 60, 70. It's a massive endeavour for us, physically. No. Most women don't want periods.

It's just misogyny really.

The treatments for young women are different but this is not his angle it seems.

We know as a fact that 60 per cent need clinical help
Fair access to education, equal pay, free childcare , the job market and housing might reduce that number a bit.

Sorry, I can't access that whole article OP but does this process prolong women's fertility?

Yes it's natural but so are lots of things that we avoid or mitigate.

What about the symptoms, is it OK to treat them, or is it natural and we should get on with it?

Or is it OK to treat the symptoms but not the cause?

Something v interesting just occurred to me. I stopped Hormonal contraception after kids, and have always felt uncomfortable with the idea that girls and women can be consuming synthetic hormones their whole lives. The implants that girls get now, they can't just stop if it doesnt suit. Well documented side effects, recent news about really serious mental health issues in teens and young women. However, nothing seems to be done, society, medicine deem it worth it, because of course it benefits girls and women, but it's also massively beneficial for men.

Then as soon as its something for us, really, to alleviate symptoms, to try to make us feel better, it's all oh no its natural nope just suck it up.

Meanwhile men get viagra and not a squeak about how it's natural for older men to have erectile issues...

Women's healthcare around our biology is never treated as just a medical thing, they'd always got to be all this division.