to tell you most highly intelligent female animals have a menopause, humans, chimps, large dolphins, some elephants...

[allsfairin]

With elephants and smaller dolphins it's functional rather than physiological, but with highly intelligent animals with an infancy stages that lasts many years, and infants that need years of nurturing and education, this is provided by post menopausal females.

All these animals have females who are fertile for the first half of their adult life, and non fertile for the second half, all including traditionally humans, are available for the education and cultural conditioning of their grandchildren, while parents are hunting and providing.

As for the males, they all have shorter life spans, some live less than half the time of females

The menopause is not a problem that needs solving! It is an amazing evolutionary adaptations to protect the survival of the species, and works very well in intelligent species, and has worked in humans for at least half a million years before modern times.

Sure, if someone has a medical problem related to menopause, or at the same time as the menopause, there are treatments available, but I do feel that the current trend for seeing it as a medical problem is misguided, and quite sad

I don't know how you can compare human menopause with other mammals. Pretty much no other mammal has periods for a start so there's a huge difference already - and to suggest that menopause is something to do with intelligence levels in animals is just bizarre.

All mammals can also get cancer, it doesn't mean that just because wild animals don't do anything about it that we shouldn't either.

Your logic is well off.

Well I haven't yet seen any tips for dealing with some of the most unpleasant symptoms of it so it could be a breeze for everyone. So I'm assuming it is.

If it's a breeze for OP it's a breeze for everyone. Do keep up. Dolphins!!

I love that post menopausal women have been looking after their grandchildren for half a million years when those grandchildren didn’t even exist for somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 years of that.

Dolphins are quite rapey and chimps are cannibals so I just don’t know whether I want to take a lead from their behaviour even if it does give me an evolutionary edge.

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OP I am peri menopausal and my eldest is 15 so no grandchildren to mind here and I hope there wont be for a long time. I really hope my worth on this earth is not limited to my usefulness as a grandmother!!

I have a healthy diet as I have terrible IBS which means processed foods have to be kept to a minimum. I had awful peri symptoms including horrendous anxiety that genuinely had me questioning whether or not I could SURVIVE the next ten years. Thankfully I was informed and started taking a hormone supplement which means I now feel normal again. Burying my head in the sand probably would have ended up with me in an institution or dead.

All mammals can also get cancer, it doesn't mean that just because wild animals don't do anything about it that we shouldn't either.
It probably their unhealthy lifestyle, stupid mammals

If I ever do get to retire, I hope I'll be the kind of grandmother who sends nice postcards from faraway places.

I'm so glad you have felt better than you ever have OP. You have been very lucky - and fairly unusual. I have not been at my best for the past 6 years. I have insomnia, short term memory problems (and fuzzy thinking), occasional low self esteem, mood swings and hot flushes. My diet is fairly healthy and I am fairly fit with no other health problems (other than a low thyroid). I do take supplements that help a little. I do not want to take HRT for personal reasons, mainly due to MIL having a stroke after taking it for 10 years with no other risk factors and despite being very fit and healthy otherwise. I do not see menopause as a lovely and natural thing

Does that include the increased risk of osteoporosis, dementia, heart issues and some cancers? Are they lovely too?

Crikey! I didn't 'expect' problems, in fact they hit me like a truck.

It was three years after feeling suicidal every month for two weeks before my period that I realised it might be menopause. Then, I found out I had vaginal atrophy that had caused prolapses.

Then my iron disappeared due to the period blood flooding out of me. I became anaemic.

Oh and for what it's worth, I have an excellent diet. I am the 30 types of plants a week, beans, fibre, protein, little alcohol person etc. I am the dumbells /swimming/walking miles a day woman.

I don't consider my HRT as medical. It's just replacing what I have prematurely lost. And there's no way I see this as a wonderful process! I've never been more unhappy in my life than the years since I turned 40.

Female elephants don't tend to live with any adult males. Male calves get kicked out at puberty. When food and water is abundant the groups may join others to become a large clan for safety and to socialise, but they generally stay within their groups and only until resources start to diminish.

@Moredarkchocolateplease 💐 sorry to hear that.

Much the same for me. It was my GP who put together all the seemingly random but brutal symptoms I was experiencing. Haemorrhage, anaemia, atrophy and broken bones are not caused by fear of menopause.

I have heard that female apes have some kind of menopause which is unsurprising as they are so closely related to humans.
However, I don't think it will be too.long before the male mammals jump on the bandwagon, now the "male menopause "
has been invented 😉

I had a pretty easy menopause and didnt need anything for it (I have a fairly shit diet so not related in my case), but I don't really understand why you feel so much better than you did when you were younger, people don't typically become fitter, stronger or healthier as they age, so why is that the case for you, and how is it menopause related?

….infants that need years of nurturing and education, this is provided by post menopausal females.

All I can say to this is thank fuck I am a (peri) menopausal human and not a chimpanzee or a dolphin. Thanks be to HRT.

If elephants and chimpanzees could talk maybe they would tell us how shit menopause can be

Maybe we have menopause to stop us having babies with aging eggs.

I was completely unaware of the menopause until Davina McCall discovered it.

I thought female elephants in the wild lived in matriarchal groups and the only males around all the time were young related males? They don’t have to put up with grown male elephants who expect the female to show them to the nearest water hole again because they’ve forgotten where it is again right when the poor female elephant has finally found a minute to herself to have a good scratch on a tree.

Exactly! We should listen to her sage advice.

I'll tell you what, I'll give birthing advice shall I?

Nobody needs medication or pain relief during labour, all you need to do is relax, exercise and eat well! And you'll just pop the baby out!

Well that's what I did, so will be the same for everyone!

Mammals have been doing this for thousands of years!

Just in case this is all being said with a HUGE eye roll!!

OP I'm sure you meant your OP kindly but it's the biggest load of shite ever!!

My perimenopausal rage is telling me to go with “Fuck off” as a complete post. I’m surprised no-one else got there before me, to be honest.