Older women and how they remember the menopause

[TroubledRabbit]

Just been chatting to my lovely, trained as a nurse, mil whose daughter is struggling with cancer treatment. Apparently she's struggling to sleep and I said, 'it must be hard with separating side effects from the menopause'

Quick as a flash, MIL declared she, herself, had no symptoms and sailed through so it was unlikely to be that.

I've been with DH a long time, Mil was 55 when I met her and a bit broken, not much fun, understandably weighed down by the previous ten years of high need elderly parents, teens and working.

DH remembers her debilitating migraines. her lack of humour in those days.
Since retirement she's fitter, more relaxed and good company.

Any thoughts?
Is this just simply as we age we don't want to think of our chubby toddlers as middle aged, starting to sag adults?
Has mil got such a firm grasp of the Grip that carried her through that tough decade that she cant, even now, put it down?
My own menopause, not discussed with mil, has been such a nightmare that I'm intrigued that the quick answer was 'sailed through'.

I could have written your post @limitedperiodonly. I got the impression from this thread that people who are suffering don't believe those that aren't or didn't.

My migraines were the only negative side of my menopause.

@RampantIvy I have chin whiskers but I also have tweezers.

@limitedperiodonly Oh, yes to the chin whiskers and using tweezers. The whiskers are just an annoyance rather than debilitating symptoms though. Oh, and my hair is thinner.

My mother has a terrible time. I was a teen so remember it well. She ended up having a d&c after several flooding bleeds. They found cancerous cells so she ended up having a hysterectomy - so was the flooding from the menopause or the cancer? She was early 50s. I don't think she talked about it much thereafter and she died before I reached that age so never talked to her about it from my end.
I was dreading my own. Fortunately, like some pp, I had no symptoms other than my period getting irregular and lighter. A bit of joint pain in my thumbs. Then periods stopped altogether. I think my last period was at 56 and I'm 60 now. No hot flushes, no brain fog, no mood swings. And it's been the same for a couple of my friends too (one didn't even have irregular periods, she just noticed she had a stockpile of tampons as she kept on buying them but not using them!) and another couple complained about hot flushes and brain fog and both went on low dose HRT which they found helped. I only know one woman who felt so dreadful she said it overshadowed everything else, and she had early onset.
I know people who always seem to see everything through rose tinted glasses. Just the other day a friend was talking about some event and asked her daughter 'wasn't it great'? And her daughter looked at her and said 'No, it wasn't. Don't you remember we felt a bit intimidated by the crowds and felt the whole thing was a bit dodgy'? Maybe your mil wants to remember things as better than they might have been. Not very empathetic, but there it is.

I agree. I think a lot of that is due to people being more aware (rightly), that menopause can be hell, but because that is now constantly pushed in the media, anyone who says "actually mine wasn't", is disbelieved. Maybe there should be the occasional voice in the media saying " well it was ok for me".
I have a family member who has been told by her doctor that (for reasons I'm not going into here), she will be peri-menopausal by the time she is 35. She was terrified that her late 30's early 40's would be dominated by the negative aspects of that as it is all she has heard and read about. It was only me telling her that I had none of that did she accept that it might not be as bad as she imagines.
It's great that women are talking about their experiences, but we have to remember that everybody is different and sometimes there is no "absolute".

Did anyone find that they started buying more pregnancy tests? As I had infertitlity issues I hadn't bothered with contraception since my early 20s. Then at 47 I had a few scares when my periods started getting further and further apart - cue having to do a few pregnancy tests.

Me! Thank god I wasn’t pregnant but I had a friend get pregnant and have a miscarriage at 43/44 and another actually get pregnant and give birth at a similar age!

Don’t forget that if your mum was a certain age they may never have worked or only part time.

My DM was medically retired in her early 50s with rheumatoid arthritis which I wouldn’t wish on anyone but if she did get menopause symptoms well she didn’t mention them, had had her medical procedure (see PP) and I saw her every so often. With her own DM (my nana) she had a hysterectomy in her 40s and apparently was very sick after it. But women didn’t talk about periods, or hormones then.

My grandad (mum’s DF) had his mother to live with him and recalls she got awful rages when she had periods/menopause. Luckily she wasn’t placed into a mental asylum but he recalls she was very up and down.

@TimBoothseyes I understand that some women have awful experiences and I'm glad there is lots of publicity about the menopause now and would be the first to say you should demand all the help you can get. In fact now I wonder if I should have gone to my GP and made things up to get my money's worth.

It's the posters who say: "My mum said she sailed though it but she was a right old ratbag when she was 48 and I was a teenager and it couldn't have been me because I was lovely."

I don't think it's just the mums who have brain fog there. Maybe those mums had a bit more than the menopause on their plate, including all the plates forgetful sons and daughters store under the bed. And mouldy coffee cups.

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Don’t forget that if your mum was a certain age they may never have worked or only part time.

I don't understand the relevance of this comment to severity of menopause symptoms.

My gran born 1903 worked FT age 16-17, then got married to a vicar (not one with high income). Then managed home & family & did all the community work that comes with being a vicar's wife. They moved to a new ministry every 3-5 years typically, & moved 1200 miles away from all family after 10 years of marriage. She taught basketball, she raised 5 kids (in cloth nappies washed who knows how ...) who mostly turned into surly wild teenagers. She stretched the pennies. My mother used to chop heads off of older hens for the evening stew. Gran managed the kids & family almost solo(*) for 3-4 years while her husband was an overseas chaplain (WWII). She made lace tablecloths (+quilts & crochet blankets) by hand. She played organ for the church services. She helped raise her toddler grandsons, represented her region of churches at national events. Ok so she didn't "work" but she was hardly a woman of leisure. Her hands were ruined with arthritis by the time she was early 70s.

(*) adult oldest daughter did move back home to help out, especially with toddler = my mom

My other grandmother also literally filled her time with church & community events, as an ordinary parishoner. There are countless family stories of my dad & siblings getting on with (norty behaviour) things because their mom was out somewhere doing volunteering & church things. My dad said she was hardly ever home, always incredibly busy.

Maybe that's the secret to easy menopause. Keep busy with volunteering. :)

Ok, what I mean is compared to most women’s busy working lives a lot of women of a certain era were SAHM/Ws.

My own nana who died in 2013 had her own business and my step grandma worked until she retired but my other step grandma didn’t work after having her DC and my other grandma was a SAHM/W. As far as I know both latter grandmothers didn’t volunteer but took an interest in church life (the step one) and cared for her son who lived with her. The other didn’t do volunteering.

I just mean if you have family life and being at home it could be considered less stressful to the menopause than working.

But these days women take up hobbies, sports etc to help them through the menopause and sadly both the latter two I mentioned above weren’t that active. I didn’t know them that well either so…

My first step grandmother was very active, always out shopping or visiting people and knitted, baked cakes etc. My nana who had her own business retired at 70 and even then still did bookkeeping and typing for a couple of people, not for money but to keep her brain active. She also ran Police charity dances in the local town hall through her menopause I believe.

One of my grandmothers worked as a cleaner, the other was taking care of grandchildren while my Aunt worked. My DPs grandmothers were both working as well, both in different family businesses.

I had a Mirena coil fitted at 37 after having DS and never had another period. I am 62 now and have no idea when I went through the menopause.
I used to get hormonally triggered migraines twice in a 3 week cycle so had very few pain free days. My lovely GP gave me Propranolol in my early forties which I am still on and have had very few migraines since.
I still get very hot at random times but it's more a feeling than anything physical like sweating.
I had pretty trouble free periods before DS, fairly light, painless and regular, apart from short cycle and migraines. I was on contraceptive pill from age 16 til 30 then stopped after abnormal smear test and laser treatment. Used condoms until 36 then got pregnant first time we had unprotected sex mid cycle.
I don't know if trouble free periods earlier in life tends to equate to an easier menopause. My 2 sisters had really bad periods and both struggled through menopause.
I don't really tend to discuss it much because I've had such an easy time (apart from the migraines) and don't want to sound like I am being smug.

Don’t forget that if your mum was a certain age they may never have worked or only part time.

Was your mum like Margot Leadbetter by any chance? I don't know whether to laugh or cry that you think that women of a certain age had it easy.

My mum worked and so did all the mums of my friends. Some of them worked full time for the large local employer and most of them worked part time, often in more than one casual job fitted around school hours which in reality meant many of them worked more hours (for lower pay and lower or no benefits) than most women who worked full time and all men.

In their spare time (hollow laugh) all of them did the bulk of the childcare and domestic chores. I can only think of one mum who stayed at home and she and her children certainly weren't living the good life.

That was at primary age in an area that was working class but not poverty-stricken - we had cars and washing machines and tellies and went on holidays that didn't involve hop-picking. But all the mums needed to work in order to afford those and other luxuries like rent and food.

My secondary school was in a middle class area and while a few of the mums stayed at home with their feet up, most of them worked but in offices rather than in factories, shops or as cleaners.

This wasn't the dim and distant past, it was the '70s and '80s. I have heard tell that even before then most women worked and like my mum's generation unless they worked for that large local employer continued to do so beyond "retirement" age because private pensions or even full state ones weren't a thing for most women.

And they went through the menopause but they all called it The Change. They're not better than us but it's a fantasy to think we have it harder.

I'm post menopause and feel worse than before. I look like shit too. Hate everything and everybody. Got tits 3 cup sizes bigger for what reason is beyond me. Chin acne, farting constantly old spare tire grows daily, skin dry as the desert you name it I got it. It sucks and why the fuck does it even happen

1 in 4 women has no symptoms of menopause

In my case the perimenopausal was way harder than the menopause itself.

I think it also can depend how stressful our life is at the time and how many hours We have to work.

My mum was 56 when her periods stopped and I was the same age too. Some of this can be genetic.

My mum said that she 'sailed through it' but I would beg to differ! She was grumpy and difficult to be around at that time. Agree that family members may have quite different views on how it went.

Having said that of course some people don't struggle with it at all. A friend of mine recently said that she hadn't noticed a thing and her periods just kind of tapered off at about 52 and she never had any symptoms. Wow. I am firmly signed up to HRT. Not sure I would still be here without it.

This is my memory of my mother too. She also says she sailed through it. In reality I remember an angry, miserable woman lashing out all the time. My grandmother who she claims also sailed through it seemed depressed and spiteful and had lots of health issues.

My mother (now 92) used to say she missed it by accident, because she didn't think to stop taking the Pill, and when she did stop, so did her periods. (Inadvertent HRT before it was invented? Who knows? 😄)

I'm 60 and mine was very unremarkable. Annoying mostly for the irregular periods, and the occasional hot flushes.

My MIL seems to wear not mentioning any issues with menopause as a badge of honour like we are the feeble generation.

I remember her pouring with sweats and having crying and emotional moments and mood swings. And at that time mentioning menopause.

Now that I'm going through it with HRT and asked her about her thoughts she was very
"Oh it's all a load of nonsense and we just got on with it in my day"
Just because there are more options now doesn't make us feeble for wanting to use them.

Also I work full time in a busy office job whereas she was at home so perhaps she could manage the hard days better Or they impacted her more.

She is very anti modern medicine though so lerhaps that's it.

Just a strange attitude to have.

My mum had a very easy menopause - by her own account and by my recollection as it was only through her mentioning it that I knew it had happened. She is the sort of person who is always cold, wears jumpers in summer and so on, and said she welcomed the hot flushes.

I had a surgical menopause so it was acute, in that all my symptoms descended within about 12 hours, and I can't take HRT. However it was nowhere near as bad as many women describe.

My sister had a premature menoapause at 38 and her symptoms were, still are, horrendous.

It seems a bit of a lottery.

Mine was relatively very easy. The odd night sweat, nothing else.
My DM, OTOH…. She’d always been very ‘hormonal’ - very difficult when she had a period. She was eventually prescribed HRT and was on it for ages.

The only way I knew that I had gone through the menopause was that my periods stopped. No other symptoms. However I am now going through a second menopause due to drugs I need to take for breast cancer, and I'm really feeling it. Hot flushes, difficulty in sleeping, waking for hours in the night, aches all over. And I can't take HRT as the whole idea is to completely knock out all oestrogen production.

Some women definitely do just sail through, others don't. We are all different.

Good luck with the treatment @DilemmaDelilah