To think GP's don't give a shit about menopause

[GentrifiedLDN]

I never realised how hard menopause would hit. For those who haven't been hit this time of their life yet, it fucking sucks ladies - No one and i mean NO ONE tells you how fucking awful this is and how no one gives a shit

I have visited the GP four times now to try and get help, and all they want to do is medicate each individual symptom without addressing the hormone imbalance.

GP seem more concerned about the potential (imo small) risks of HRT than the fact there is a suicidal woman sat in front of them and will fuck you off out the door with a pamphlet about local talking services that take three years to get an appointment at

Anxiety is absolutely awful, it is so bad I have even considered ending it all, as I can NOT live like this much longer

It took my sister four years to get given HRT and feel better.

I am going to have to go private. I can't take this anymore.

oh rant away you sound like a Daily Mail reader so it’s all noise.

I wasn’t responding to the OP if you read it but to a past poster taking cr*p about how all GPs are useless and overpaid and only care about money and the golf course

You need to see a different doctor and the guidelines now are to offer HRT for anyone with those symptoms over the age of 45. Print off the guidelines, ask to see another doctor and to be honest I’d also make a complaint. We shouldn’t have to fight for HRT.

We have a menopause specialist at our doctors. You should ask to see if you have one. She was willing to give me HRT if I wanted despite a breast cancer history.
So all practices are different but do try again.

I'm 41 & almost certainly in peri. I have all the symptoms & been on 150mg (mcg?) of sertraline for a few years for PTSD/depression/GAD
Dr has had me do blood tests & referred for an abdominal ultrasound which I had yesterday.
So far, nothing unusual has turned up.
I feel that because I'm under 45, they dismiss peri straight away!
If scan comes back clear, GP wants to put me on hormonal contraception. Which gives me migraines & affects my mental health negatively.
It does seem that womens health isn't taken seriously or that we might know what is going on with our own bodies.

@Slippersandacuppatea Ah sorry, then I apologise, and I do actually agree with your basic premise.

@Slippersandacuppatea wow, really going low there. ‘Daily mail reader’ 😂 If you were really a consultant you’d have the brains to do better than that.

Interestingly I've had a split experience recently.

I'm 43 so considered quite young for HRT. My GP was supportive and helpful, but openly admitted she didn't know enough about the things that I was specifically talking about (progesterone Vs progestins, plant base body identical estrogen and testosterone) but she was happy to refer me to the menopause clinic after some blood tests.

After the blood tests I spoke to a different female GP who didn't know me or my history at all and who insisted that I wasn't in peri menopause as I was too young, refused to refer me to the clinic and was very dismissive.

It turned out there was a 33 week wait for the clinic so I opted to go private and get seen the next week. I recognise that iam very fortunate to be able to afford the £180 to do that though. The book that really helped me advocate for what I wanted and have an informed conversation was Kate Muir's Everything you want to know about the menopause but were too afraid to ask.

Hot flushes
Night sweats
Some increased anxiety and depression (already on antidepressants)
Aches in joints
Massive mood swings
But the brain fog is what is killing me.

If the GP won’t prescribe HRT whenever I finally manage to get an appointment, they will regret it. I am not in a mood to be messed with…

For a bit of balance I would just like to put my hand up and say i'm in the middle of menopause i'm doing ok. The occasional hot flush some nights but throwing the covers off stops it. It's not been hellish for me at all.

BUT - The discussion you've started here is important OP and i'm not saying you shouldn't have started it. You absolutely should!

People, women, (half the population!) shouldn't be having to go to multiple GPs to get the right help for a basic, not out of the ordinary medical problem.

Menopause should not still be this big bloody mystery with treatment being a matter of the GPs opinion!

HI,
Yes I have tried, four separate times in fact

This however feels part of the issue, in terms of they seem to want to medicate each symptom rather than the actual hormonal imbalance

Heres a tablet for your night sweats
heres a tablet for your palpitations
another for your anxiety
oh and here is another one for your moodswings
and so on and so forth

Instead of 'Lets talk about HRT, and get to the bottom of it'

I’m saying YABU because in my experience not all GPs. The first I spoke to was lovely and sympathetic but wanted me to try antidepressants and counselling despite being 48 and having a list of typical peri symptoms.

Luckily after having a meltdown at work I tried again and spoke to a very sensible GP who prescribed HRT without any fight. Another GP added topical cream as well for urogynae symptoms.

No doubt at all that some GPs don’t follow NICE guidelines but some are really good. I’d say don’t give up, go armed with a symptom list and the NICE guidelines.

My friend went to the GP for help with menopause and all the things you describe OP, but just got told to lose weight and was offered weight loss jabs. No care or concern whatsoever as apparently losing weight helps everything.

I’m a fool that thought the menopause just meant hot flushes (which I didn’t really have; just felt warm now and then). Then the anxiety kicked in a few years down the line. The inability to rationalise things. The crying over nothing. Next was the constant weeing with stinging and burning. A few urine infections. Cut to the chase: the gp put me on citalopram to calm me down but missed the vaginal atrophy which was causing the other problem. I researched Ovestin cream and asked for that. It’s sorted out the bladder problems. In fact it’s been miraculous.

Nice job proving OPs point.

It’s well documented that women’s health is often not taken seriously in the medical profession, don’t tell me your ignorant of that fact? Also don’t patronise women by suggesting we can’t talk about negative experiences because it scares other women 🙄

I’m sorry you and so many of us have to go through this.

Firstly take a look at the Newson Clinics plus the balance App produced by Dr Louise Newson https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=DChcSEwivrLu0iKWBAxVE8e0KHRaWACoYABABGgJkZw&ae=2&gclid=Cj0KCQjwmICoBhDxARIsABXkXlJN5ZmgH-LF8xz7xPzqN63YRCX36j2NTlWT0_wK1zrtTozpmZizYIQaAvJLEALw_wcB&sig=AOD64_1n3hNrfyioJLsXHsuJg3QY9oFSiw&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwjG_a-0iKWBAxUUQUEAHWTgBFsQ0Qx6BAgHEAE you can see them privately and I hear brilliant things about them.
…..all the advise is really useful and CURRENT - which is where a lot of GPs fall down in their advice through lack of training.

About 8 years ago I was peri menopausal and desperate to get help with headaches - sent away with anti depressants and no advice ( I didn’t know I was peri and if someone had even told me that I may have understood more) I didn’t take the anti depressants because in my mind I hadn’t been listened to at all.

So fast forward to now - 3 years post periods - menopause with all the symptoms listed above - I needed to get help but was afraid to go.

I read up on everything - all Newson health stuff NICE guidelines and all the books and podcasts the lot - really armed myself with all the facts - went along and advocated for what I wanted- had a great discussion with my practice AHCP and was prescribed the HRT.

it should be easy OP but sadly we are still being let down by the system. Good look and don’t lose hope!

You can just refuse the contraception and ask to try HRT instead. If they've ruled out other causes then that's the next step.

I disagree - but YANBU if your GP is crap on Menopause.

• there is loads of chit chat on how crap some GPs are
• my GPs have been fantastic

It depends on your surgery and your GP.

I found that the best way to get what you want from a doctor is to say you definitely don't want x .....they will then be determined that you will accept a prescription for it.

Some give a shit and some don't. Beyond that, some of them are up to date on HRT and some are stuck in a 2001 timewarp.

For those who haven't been hit this time of their life yet, it fucking sucks ladies

Not for everyone it doesn’t. I’m very sorry it’s so hard for you @GentrifiedLDN but you’re doing nobody any favours by scaring women who have no need to be frightened. I genuinely had a few years of getting a bit hot. Which was just as well my breast and ovarian cancer risk was too high for HRT to be an option. I’d suggest changing GPs and perhaps finding a woman who might be more sympathetic.

I've had a menopause and had no symptoms whatsoever. Having said that, I have never taken the pill or any other hormonal medications in my life which I think is a contributing factor towards menopausal symptoms. I run, eat wholefood vegan mainly and drink loads of water.

I had a long list of peri symptoms & my GP. (Females 40's) told me it wasn't to do with peri meno. I was 53 😬

Now I'm 55 and I really need to go back to gp but getting an appointment is virtually impossible.

You need to change Doctors, OP.

I am 52. I started with peri-menopausal symptoms about five years ago, but did nothing about it for the first couple of years, as at the start, things weren't that bad. I was still having periods, although they were sometimes months apart, I went eight months without one. But then, almost in a matter of weeks, the symptoms shifted from manageable to absolutely unbearable. The only thing I didn't suffer from was hot flushes during the day, but I had everything else with bells and whistles on. Waking up in the night so soaked with sweat I had to change the bed sheets at 3am, brain fog so bad that I would forget what I was saying mid-sentence and mood swings that at times put me in such a rage I felt capable of actually killing my poor, long-suffering husband, if all he did was not empty the dishwasher. I couldn't go on any longer.

I am lucky. My GP is a lady and extremely sympathetic to the menopause. She immediately started me on HRT, Elleste Duet, but it did take about nine months to get the dosage right. Starting on any form of HRT is not an instant fix - you don't just wake up one day and feel amazing, but you do see that gradually, as the weeks go by, the black fog that you have been living under starts to lift and some positivity and lust for life comes back.

Yes, there are some risks, but I decided to take them because I genuinely could not carry on feeling the way that I did.

If you are not getting any help from your GP, then you need to find one who is more sympathetic to what your are going through.

Can you afford to go privately?

Women reading this, although a lot of these stores are awful, please remember this is not every woman's experience. I never mentioned my menopause to doctors as didn't find it that bad.