"Doctors warn against over-medicalising menopause"

[flashbac]

"Writing in the British Medical Journal they said there was an urgent need for a more realistic and balanced narrative which actively challenges the idea that menopause is synonymous with an inevitable decline in women’s health and wellbeing..."

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/15/doctors-warn-against-over-medicalising-menopause-after-uk-criticism

I must admit, the raising awareness of how shit the menopause can be has created some worry about my impending menopause, so much so that I've decided against a career change in my 40s.

Are we making too much of a big deal and being overly negative? Or are these doctors just being patronising? Anyone had an easy menopause?

One of the reasons I don't live in the UK any more is the horrendous way they treat people.

It is aimed at every women who had a horrendous time. It's all our own faults for not forcing doctors to do our will and we deserve all we get.

Woah! That is the most paranoid reading of someone's dashed off little self-report. It was not about or to you, or about or to anyone. It was not in any way aimed - like a weapon! - at anyone who had a different experience.

We are all different. Kind of the point of the article, but let's not go there.

You said 'Take your anger to the correct quarters and make a formal complaint about your mistreatment by your GP. And/or accept some responsibility for your own health, and your role in it, which was not seeking further advice and testing elsewhere at the time.'

And now we are paranoid when someone tells us it is our own fault.

The thing is that they fail to answer the answers that are supplied to them eg the feel positive and you will have a better menopause issue.

Good lord. I assume you mean fail to answer the questions? This is a misreading and/or twisting of the fact, remarked upon in the article, and quite well-known, that women in Japan, for example - where women's ageing is viewed more positively - have a very different experience of menopause than Western women.

It is a cultural phenomenon, ie. It is nothing to do with 'positive thinking.'

Yes, I did say that. Personal responsibility is important in healthy ageing.

But what I said has nothing to do with what that women said, three days ago, about her own experience that you have personalised, and been blowing a cog over ever since.

Are you qualified to diagnose someone with an abnormal level of rage online or at all? What a shameful thing to say.

@milkyaqua 0.44

Sorry but you are referring to the wrong post here.

I did answer that in this thread by pointing out that the “feel positive and have a better menopause” was not what was said and posted the part of the article about differences in experience of menopause and how it is influenced by culture/society attitudes. For some reason these posters have it in their heads that “experience” = “symptoms” when it doesn’t. Experience is referring to your subjective reaction to and thoughts about the symptoms you get of menopause.

Similarly posters have it in their heads that “over medicalisation” = “over medication” and think the article is advocating to stop HRT or any menopause medications which is just a lack of comprehension of medical terms.

I wasn't referring to any post. I was referring to the article.

I was referring to posts on her about that issue.

On here

Osteoporosis isn't something that just happens overnight.

You feel a little tired. And then a bit more tired. Then achey. Then more achey. Then more achey. Then a bit more. And at one point you take a painkiller.

Then you take another. And then another. And all the while you feel more and more achey.

After about 6 months you think this isn't right as you are on quite strong levels every day. You go to the doctor who point blank refuses to give you any referrals because you are 'too young'.

The doctor who has qualifications and experience.

So you go home and keep taking the painkillers. And keep getting more achey and taking more and more painkillers.

You start to fail at work. You can't carry what you once could. You start to make adaptations to enable you to carry on at work. For me, I would go to the supplier that would put the bags of compost into my car, I'd take a trug and a knife, cut the bag open in the boot and transfer it to trug and take it in bit by bit. I'd get other team members to take stuff that I couldn't to where it needed to be. I'd use more and more trolleys and less and less wheelbarrow.

I'd keep taking more and more pills. I'd go back and get told it's just natural and to do more exercise. They convince you that you are not doing enough.

Your sleep would just get less and less each night. You would start feeling hot and shaky. But that could be down to bad sleep right? It just incrementally gets worse and worse but like the frog in the saucepan, it is so tiny you can't say exactly how much it is increasing because it is so normalised now, that you have no idea what normal is.

After several years you decide - as they tell you you should be doing 10,000 steps a day, perhaps I'm not any more as I'm so tired, achey and hot - to get a fitbit.

Turns out you are getting 3-4 hours of very patchy sleep at best, you are doing 10,000 steps by break time, and your aches and pains still just keep increasing little by little.

You decide to start taking painkillers that you can only buy from the chemist that you should only take 3-4 days and that is the only way you can sleep and get through the day. You realise after a few months that this is not good.

You go back and they say the only way to work it out is to come off the painkillers. So you come off the painkillers. And you also suffer withdrawal. So what is the pain, actual pain or withdrawal? Who knows.

You have no sleep, you are having hot sweats, you cannot now even lift a watering can and you are very very ill. You wait the time they specified and finally go back when you can no longer get up the stairs. Your bones feel like sponges.

And when a male doctor finally sees the data he gives me HRT, sends me for FSH tests and lo and behold they are through the roof. Phone call to get me in for a DEXA scan and yes, I've got osteoporosis.

How would I have even known it was osteoporosis until I knew it was osteoporosis? Truth is, many women need HRT long before they know they need it. There is no way of knowing until it is too late.

How exactly is this 'speaking out of my arse' about my NHS experience? It's one of the very reasons I've left the UK. Why should women who have left not be allowed to voice concerns about the women who are left?

Ok PMZ is exactly where I thought I would end up. To quote the article
"It would surely help if women knew it was coming rather than buying into the accepted glass-half-full view of post-menopause. Then we really could make the most of it."

But I have been advised it doesn't exist for me by a medical professional.
Is that true or do all women reach PMZ?

What percentage of women don't get PMZ?
Why do those women not get PMZ?
How long should I suffer from physical symptoms w/o HRT before it all vanishes and PMZ is attained?
Will my skin condition clear up as part of PMZ so I can drive and walk without feeling I have 3rd degree burns?
Will my Gerda clear up or get worse?
Which of my physical symptoms are caused by which hormone ?
What damage will or will not be done while I wait to see if I reach the happy PMZ place? Is that damage reversible?

I don't think these questions can be answered? Or if someone can please do.

Are my symptoms natural or normal? What is natural or normal? Is my response different due to my genetics? Is there something wrong with my body's reaction to hormones?

There seems to be an awful lot of focus on mood swings and feelings as if it can be controlled by going for a walk. There was that research that showed some women's brain receptors react differently and negatively to levels of progesterone. Why? and how is going for a walk going to help that.
I will say that I love exercise, get the buzz from it and would strongly recommend it to everybody!!! but I don't believe it is the cure all for hormone reactive depression. I don't think anybody even knows.

In many ways menopause is UNDER medicalised as you have experienced

the uk has high numbers of women with osteo, dementia and heart issues. Lots of GPs are involved in research or more generally interested in prevention. I am sure we will hear more from them in the next few years - it’s changing fast

The main problem I can foresee is a massive disparity developing in HRT. NHS GPS do not have the time nore the funding to treat menopausal women in the way the Newson clinic does. Women who sign up to their full programme are able to have regular hormone level monitoring which leads to a very bespoke treatment. NHS patients will receive a hit or miss prescription which may be tweaked from time to time but very much a one size fits all.
The celebrities who are evangelising HRT have the resources and time to get the best practice treatment not available to many women. So they are going to shout it from the treetops.
As I have said in previous posts, I found HRT relieved some of the symptoms but without the fine tuning I still had a lot of menopausal problems. I was relieved to have to come off it because I felt that I was taking it because I didn’t have any other options. I did experience some deterioration in muscle and joint pain but that has mainly settled down ( yay) however the insomnia, palpitations and the anxiety/ moods have disappeared.
I do wonder just how much of a placebo effect HRT has. I definitely fell for the hype but frankly didn’t see a massive improvement. I’m sure if I had invested a few ££ I would have felt better but having had a lifetime of endocrine problems that experienced endocrinologists struggled to sort out I didn’t hold up much hope that a specialist GP would fare any better.

Having been on HRT for menopause for several years then having a total hysterectomy and losing what little oestrogen my ovaries had been giving out then I can say that HRT was definitely not a placebo for me. It was a total relief. The aftermath of my hysterectomy was hellish.

Placebo?
Hype?

@AlisonDonut you might have noticed that it has calmed down a bit on here . I see posts have been removed by several posters for personal attacks. As the saying goes, give them enough rope..

Lovely sense of humour you have. Remind me, who was it who called us all fuckwits? You’re reading a different thread.

Shouldn't the same argument be used for the decline in men being about to get an erection 🤔

I think you're right @Angrymum22 , you only have to read the menopause boards to see how dosages etc can take months to get right and even then some struggle, nhs gps just don't have the time possibly to be supporting those who want an appointment for every new twinge and to constantly review doses. Not saying of course that it is everyone before I'm jumped on.

Are their guidelines in place that every practice should have a dedicated meno specialist be it a Dr or a nurse? If not why not.

'Lovely sense of humour you have. Remind me, who was it who called us all fuckwits? You’re reading a different thread.'

Yes it's rather ironic isn't it

There*

@JaniieJones Did you say you are a GP? Hope I got that wrong as I think your bedside manner maybe slipping.
Some of this thread reminds of me of the GP who said to his mental health patient "go away I don't have time for you today". Same sad attitudes being trotted out . Buck up and go away.

Suggesting HRT is a placebo - seriously. I am sitting here right now looking at my hands being gobsmacked at them healing for the first time in 18mths. They almost look normal. Still undiagnosed because the waiting list for a dermatologist is huge, warned by the DR that HRT might not do anything as menopause would be low down the list of causes but ..... I had a bath last night without my skin reacting as if on fire. I have only been on HRT for 2 weeks. I have had I don't know how many different treatments for this none of which worked. Anyhow lets wait and see if it goes completely before I totally crack the champagne.

It is such a shame that women aren't all joining together and yelling we need more research in this. Just like mental health really.