To ask if anyone has found menopause just fine?

[ChristmasGutPunch]

Another day another article about how I can expect my brain to fall out my ear any day now. "I forgot how to do my job!" and so forth. I'm sanguine about ageing (saggy jaw aside) but I really don't want to become wrong in the head so young. Please can you reassure me it's ok for some women??

I was one of the lucky ones. I'm now 60 so obviously I must have been through the menopause,but I never really noticed anything more than a few hot flushes and periods stopping. I sometimes think having an easy menopause was my compensation for having such a god damn awful time during my fertile years - heavy painful periods to the point of being almost debilitating at times.

@CulturalNomad read the comments, lots believe they are finished with meno, they got through it lightly, all done and dusted. They have no idea that until they die, symptoms can arise at any time. Then they struggle to get help because they don't connect it to loss of estrogen. I'm in 3 groups on Facebook, there is women in their sixties and seventies just getting symptoms now. They had no idea this could happen because they believed the 'through the menopause crap'.

I think I'm in peri now. Flooding is horrible and happening more frequently. I've also had shoulder pain. The worst is the rage though. I have always had very strong emotional fluctuations in my cycle, but the rage is next level. I've started taking the combined pill (never had before) and it's really helping. I did still flood in the seven days off though 😔

No brain fog, nor hot night sweats (yet...) but OMFG the migraines!!! Can't lift my head off the pillow some mornings and need to call in sick. Latterly more than once or twice a week. So glad I have a sympathetic boss!

GP is sympathetic and trying to help with medication, one's a betabloker Propranolol but gives me a resting heart rate of 47!! And also given Sumatriptan and now Pizotifen.

Been advised that the headaches can last up to 16 weeks, at a time and I've been like this since Christmas...

Anyone with any helpful suggestions much appreciated 🥴

@ALongHardWinter you do know you can still develop symptoms at any time especially atrophy and joint problems along with all other symptoms until you die. There is no such thing as 'through' the menopause. Estrogen continues to fall.

I was fine. Barely noticed it. No hot flushes or anything.

Had hysterectomy at 41, no HRT, fairly symptomless menopause so far, am now 59. Weight definitely crept on and harder to shift, but is that age or menopause?

Me too.

Periods were fine and regular and then just stopped when I was 53 and that was it.

(A colleague in her mid-50s seems to take pleasure in issuing dire warnings to a younger colleague who's already paranoid about it 🙄 Yes it might be awful but equally it might not.)

I think it’s great that so many have minimal symptoms and just as some have awful periods and some have light and pain free ones, we are all different and need to appreciate other’s experiences. Good to be aware though that it’s not all doom and gloom.

I agree with those who have mentioned about menopause symptoms later on
I had minimal symptoms, occasional really heavy periods over a couple of years before the last one (55), a few “ warm” flushes, a bit of insomnia. I smuggly thought I’d sailed through it
But….. ten years on I started real insomnia, vaginal atrophy and bladder issues - all due to decrease in oestrogen
Like most women I assumed once periods stopped that was the end of the menopause!

Apparently soya helps and that’s why Japanese women have hardly any/ no symptoms. I haven’t tried it yet so can’t confirm from my own experience.

The HRT gives you a fake period, so whilst I think you are right, my periods used to be every 24 days and I’m led to believe that I’ll continue to have periods as long as I'm on HRT.

Yes ok here.

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast I didn't have bleeds on hrt. I had to come off it.

I'm. 53 and have had no symptoms that I know of .
Sex drive a little less than it was but still good
I have had a mirena in for 20 years (changed when needed ) so no idea if I've gone through menopause thank goodness .
On HRT from 50 but more for my arthritis
I feel more tired easily but put that down to being 53 and lifestyle .
I guess I'm lucky.

After one year without periods, you are through the menopause (as the perimenopause is called colloquially, also "the change,"and less so nowadays, "the climacteric" - and menopause itself is only the single day that signifies a full year without periods, as I understand it) and you are then, forever, post-menopause.

Some women, usually the 25% or so who had extremely difficult menopausal passages, remain highly symptomatic ongoingly. I have a friend in her late sixties who refuses to try HRT, and who has an enormous number of hot flushes every day still, I've forgotten the exact number.

It is a pity more doctors and women are unaware of skin changes to the genital region, as vaginal oestrogen (especially a cream like ovestin, which can be used on the vulva and around the clitoris and urethra, all of which have oestrogen receptors) helps with so many issues, aside from any perceived or not "dryness". I agree that this left unchecked can be very problematic, causing pain and discomfort, distress, and many UTIs, as years go on.

Gosh. Every time there is a thread for women considering not taking HRT, unable to take HRT, or curious about what life is like not on HRT, on the menopause boards, a posse races in to clack the bones of an old skeleton that they keep close by and warn us all we'll get osteoporosis, crumble and die. Every single time. I see no efforts to offer any other advice to prevent this. The only solution is HRT, on that board - which is known to perhaps help. Is that clear enough?

Well, tbf if you're on hrt you wouldn't experience problems associated with the menopause that's the whole point of hrt, so not lucky at all .

I never said you weren’t clear. It was you who asked what I meant. And yes, HRT does help (though I don’t remember employing the same hyperbole as you have).

@skyfairy , one thing that concerns me, is that a lot of the advocates of hrt , do seem to have some financial involvement in promoting it .

Have to say the 3 older women in my family we recently were talking about this all flew thru it no problems

None of your reponses indicated you understood my basic points.

When the usual claims for dementia and osteoporosis prevention (and now joint health!) came out, I said I was surprised it took this long for someone to get out the old skeleton and rattle the bones.

"It’s not an ‘old skeleton’ so much as well evidenced science."

When I posted that being a low weight is a risk factor for osteoporosis. And that, for all the concern for our sad HRT-deprived bones, you don't often see that mentioned on the menopause board.

"Perhaps because being low weight isn’t generally a symptom of menopause?"

I mean, really. I still don't think you get it.

I get it. You don’t want HRT.
I think if you read your own post there and really think about what you have quoted from me you’ll finally get what I’m saying. This post is clear evidence you don’t.

I need to really think about what I've quoted from you... The fact I've gone to the bother of typing and collating all of that would surely indicate I've had a good think about it all. Your responses are a series of non sequiturs. You somehow manage to miss the point each time. Never mind, best of luck to you with it all. But please don't assume you know what I 'want' or 'don't want'.

I had horrible periods. Painful, flooding, passing clots etc. Menopause was a blessing, I had no side affects and was rid of the horrible symptoms I had suffered from for my whole adult life.