How do you respond to the claim that menopause is natural and therefore you shouldn't use HRT?

[Neulip]

I was reading though an "anti hrt" account on instagram and first let me say I am totally in support of any woman making the choice that is right for her to take or not take HRT but one of the common threads of this woman's rejection of HRT was that menopause was a natural transition and therefore we shouldn't interfere with it. Yes menopause is natural but for most women it isn't a transition to a new optimal state of being but actually a rather brutal biological and evolutionary economy that isn't carefully planned to benefit women in anyway, frankly mother nature doesn't care what happens to us when we are past the point of reproduction, she isn't even that focused on our comfort when we are fertile. If it is unnatural and therefore inherently harmful to treat menopause as a disease then what about any other medical intervention? Is anyone arguing that type one diabetics just do more yoga or give up drinking rather than rely on insulin?

I just don't get this argument against HRT at all?

If you have a headache do you take paracetamol.......???? Paracetamol hasn't been around that long, a headache is a natural consequence of something, stress, dehydration, brain tumour etc.... but you take it to prevent pain...... same argument, I use hrt to stop me being imprisoned for murder of idiots who believe I shouldn't use it......

Birth defects are ‘natural’ so should we just let nature take its course? Of course not.

Murder is natural, HRT helps prevent it.

Death is also natural and most of us do all we can to avoid it.

Modern HRT is far closer to nature than most medicines. Does the person making this argument take painkillers, vitamins, antibiotics…,

🤣

Childbirth is natural so you shouldn’t have a c-section
Headaches are natural so you shouldn’t have paracetamol
Bleeding is natural when you fall and gash your knee, so you shouldn’t clean it and put a plaster on it.
Your face is natural so you shouldn’t wear make up
Your hair is natural so you shouldn’t dye it/cut it/wear a wig/perm it
This list could go on forever.

The same type of arguments are made by certain groups to argue against any pain relief or other medical assistance in childbirth and sometimes against contraception.

It’s nearly always rooted in misogyny. Women are meant to suffer you see.

Periods are natural so presumably she doesnt use any sanitary products either and just bleeds over everything, blood is very natural.

Conception is also natural but I used contraceptives to prevent it

cancer is natural. A head ache is natural. We take medications to help with them

Headaches, heart attacks, hemorrhages - all natural too.

🤣🤣👏🏻👏🏻 get the leeches out!

Bizarre. Really no need to get in to an argument with such people tbh. Cancer is also natural.

Men’s testosterone lowers in their later years which can cause erectile disfunction, I bet the same person isn’t going around saying men shouldn’t take viagra

Death is a natural process that happens to us all sooner or later but I still look both ways before I cross the street.

Erectile dysfunction is natural but men still use viagra

Pain in childbirth is natural. Therefore it should be endured, not alleviated.

I was once actually told this by someone.

ETA I see I’m a bit late with this.

Oops just read up thread to see you’d already posted this a minute earlier - we were thinking the same 🤣

I used to be absolutely in favour of any conventional medication to help with any ailments. Unfortunately my views have been somewhat tarnished influenced by being harmed and permanently injured by an off label antipsychotic prescribed for severe insomnia and anxiety after a head injury and post concussion syndrome.

It gave me a neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia 😪💔

If you'd asked me your question in your OP before I had an adverse reaction and iatrogenic injury, I'd definitely have ni qualms of taking any medication, and using HRT to help me through menopause.

But now unfortunately, I've got to struggle on through the worst of my perimenopause symptoms, as I have been suffering from over the past 6 years, even though it's been pretty horrendous at times. I'd love to try HRT and not be worried about it exacerbating my movement disorder symptoms. I'd have no qualms about it all before I had my movement disorder, but now I'm far too cynical for my own good! 😅😳😅

Of course, it is a natural response to the body changing as we age, and if there is something to ease symptoms, this is brilliant. I wonder how women coped before HRT, and of course some poor women obviously didn't.

So, I think my answer is probaby not the most balanced view or answer you will get (sorry!)

I am conflicted here. I wanted HRT but was refused because of a breast cancer family history. On one hand we are told that HRT doesn't cause breast cancer and yet I was refused because of a history of it. So which is it?

@Applecup I was prescribed HRT and my mum had had breast cancer (which I declared), but not BRCA related.

Welcome to the menopause board!

Cancer is natural too but i’d still seek treatment for it!

I’m sorry - that sounds awful.

But all medicines have side effects. It’s always a case of weighing up the risk against the benefit. This goes double as you get older and it’s often a case of ‘choose your poison’!

It’s also worth bearing in mind that doing nothing is also not risk free. For example, HRT if started early enough is massively protective of your bones and heart. And more women die of heart disease than breast cancer.

I can appreciate this I don't think medicine is perfect and I also have people I love who have been injured as a result of medications or poor treatment so its not a zero sum game as in all of allopathic medicine is wonderful and never at fault and going without is stupid it really is a case by case thing and personal choice should be a given but for the woman on instagram to refuse and deride HRT for herself and everyone else because menopause is "natural" is just dumb.