To feel lied to about the menopause

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I’m struggling hideously, cry at the drop of a hat and want to scream with frustration.

Why does no one tell you this.

I remember clear as day being told at school that one day when you’re about 50 your periods will stop. Fantastic I thought one day this hell of monthly inconvenience will cease. And cease it did, brilliant. But then. The past three years have been the worse years of my life.

I tried HRT and it didn’t seem to help, it made me irritable and experience anxiety that was difficult for me to cope with. That was a year ago. I’m now in the same place. Someone please tell me it gets better.

I sure as hell felt - let's say, deliberately under-informed - when mine started in March 2005. So did every other woman going through it! It wasn't a conspiracy of silence: my mum was open about it, but there was still a massive vacuum of information & knowledge about female-specific health.

Mine, like Mum's, dragged on for 12 years from first hot flush to completion. I've been on various low-dose HRT and none, depending on who my GP was at the time. I now get Evoril Conti patches and Ovestin cream from an online pharmacy; I could do with more of the systemic hormones, tbh, but am playing it safe.

20 years ago, the very thought that you'd just be able to buy HRT patches by filling out an online form would've sounded amazing - and it is! But my GP still won't prescribe it, I have to pay retail.

OP, the menopause board on MN is really informative. Wishing you a short & easy "change".

I think it’s very easy to feel at sea with it. The symptoms are so numerous and varied. I’ve learned things on this thread I’ve not heard before yet it’s not like I haven’t tried to seek information.

Do you mean you’ve been going through it for 14 years? Is that typical? Sorry to ask … but it’s thebest way to find out.
Also does it continue to be awful once your periods stop? I’ve not not tried to find out but there seems to be so little consensus.

It's been renamed Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause (GSM) as it affects the entire region including the bladder.

I think it’s less taboo is the issue and more the hugely different experiences.

Vaginal oestrogen should help with this, in case you haven't tried it.

And these two points are the problem really.

The information IS deafening. It’s everything from atrophying vaginas to crying for no reason to receding gums and weakening bones. Oh and utis and thickening waists and breast shrinkage and yet breast growth and what sounds like semi psychotic turns. Then someone like you pops up and says “ hardly noticed it.” It’s no wonder women are confused.

Oh and joint aches and headaches…

I mean there’s hardly an ailment that isn’t cited.

I have read enough on MN for me to worry quite a bit about going through menopause. The good thing is, that the threads are full of helpful information too.

I really struggled mentally on any hormonal contraception and in pregnancy, so I always just assumed that when I go into perimenopause I will really struggle.

I think I am in the early stages of peri now (I will soon be 44). My cycle went from 28 days to 24 day for the last few months, and I am now two weeks late for my period. I am not pregnant, so assuming it's starting.

I think a lot of our mums went mental in the menopause but didn't realise that was it. I asked my mum how menopause was and she said oh it was my fine my periods just stopped.

She had an extra marital affair, became an alcoholic and was cautioned by police 😆

I think there’s an aspect of this too.

It does WHAT now? I didn’t know this! Absolutely no one has ever mentioned this. Menopause really is the gift that keeps on giving isn’t it? Is this particular symptom inevitable or preventable? Can anyone advise? (I am on buckets of HRT, as my username suggests.)

This feels like the time I found out about pelvic organ prolapse. My mum needed surgery and I was mystified because she’d had a hysterectomy 20 years previously. She had to explain to me that your bladder is also perfectly capable of falling out of your vagina. And now I have an obsession with bladder and bowel habits, so that’s nice.

Why does no one tell you this.

There is hardly a minute that goes by where some celebrity or other is not blathering on about the menopause, or publicising their book they wrote about the menopause, or talking on tv about the menopause. (Usually awfulising it.)

If one says, 'I sailed through the menopause,' or words to that effect, then someone on here races in to tell you their mother said that and as it happened she was a nightmare, etc. So we are all delusional.

Nobody seems willing to believe it can be a mild to non-event for quite a few of us. And certainly it is not allowed to be so on the menopause board.

I didn't really notice all the shit of my 4 year menopause because there was so much other shit going on at the same time, thankfully all the shit eased a bit after that phase.

Maybe some HRT would have made it all so much easier but I'm happy to have ridden out the storm without it as the menopause is a natural progression, harsh though it may be, best not to fight it and get through it like all the other painful, difficult stuff like childbirth and periods that us women go through.

Ovestin, or whatever its generic name is.

Something like 50% of women on HRT need additional local vaginal estrogen, and using a cream format means you can place it where needed. Also helps the bladder and prevents frequent UTIs.

Just a thought but men probably have some life-cycle bodily changes that also happen too, not being a man I'm not too conversant in their woes but it seems likely that there are also phases and times in their lives when 'living life' becomes difficult due to various 'life-cycle' reasons; I'm guessing surrounding involuntary pissing oneself, an inactive penis or the old chestnut called a mid-life crisis.

Maybe we should also enshrine the concept of a Men-O-Pause before we excuse ourselves for every life cycle that being born female entails.

My mum went through it with little issues ans no personality change, other women have zero issues and some women major issues, so far I am having only small issues

I would have to think somome is living under a rock if they think all women experience the same

I was perimenopause before I had my dc at 41. The following few years were a charm and then got to 50 and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I tried several HRT's but didn't do anything worth continuing. Now late 50 and feel so much better.

Where have you been if you have not heard about menopause? I would guess not on mumsnet

Sure when you were getting sex Ed, they didn't go into it much in the 80s but that's 40 years ago

The health profession is shit when it comes to women's health. But how were you sold a lie? I feel like all I've heard for my whole life is how awful the menopause is.

HahahaNO.

For a large percentage of women it really does.

I'd just feel lucky to get out of sniper’s alley, because I didn't and whatever happens with the menopause there are far worst things in this time the can happen.

I would go back to GP or find a menopause specialist. I'm a HRT devotee so if course it's entirely up to you but with the right HRT every symptom I had went away. I have taken it for seven years and will carry on taking it. On a general note you need enough sleep, enough exercise and a reasonable diet. I didn't feel lied to so much as alone in a sea of incompetence. My GP was rubbish so I had to do lots of research and fund my own treatment until I moved and moved GP.

I literally had no adverse symptoms at all, stopping periods was an unmitigated blessing. Nobody lied to you, everyone is different