MNHQ here: results of our survey about the menopause, perimenopause and experiences with GPs

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

You may remember a few months ago we, with our colleagues over on Gransnet, kicked off a a campaign focusing on the menopause and perimenopause.

We first looked at the HRT shortage and now we’re looking at GPs - here’s some of what we found:

Nearly four in ten women seeking treatment for perimenopause symptoms say their GP told them they’d just have to learn to live with it
Over a quarter of those seeking treatment for menopause were told the same thing
36% of those who sought help from their GP for perimenopause symptoms, and 26% of those who sought help for menopause symptoms, say they visited their GP three times or more before being prescribed appropriate medication or help

To find out more, take a look here. Let us know what you think. And if you’re in the mood to do some clicktivism, take a look at this petition calling for mandatory training about the menopause for GPs-in-training.

Thanks
MNHQ

I think what GPs don’t necessarily recognise is that it’s got the potential to be a change in personality, which can be destabilising. I’m a shadow of the person I was five years ago. Constantly anxious, often furious, physically different. I don’t give a shit about leaving my fertile years behind or losing something ‘as a woman’, I just want to feel like ME.

I sort of understand if a GP doesn’t want to see this as a medical issue but it is a mental health issue. And it has a solution. It has a pathway.

My husband has low testosterone. He gets tested regularly and has injections. It affects his mental and physical health otherwise. He’s never been fobbed off, given three minutes if ‘there’s no sign of anything’ then told to come back if things get worse (worse than what?). He is a man, he goes in and says ’I feel like shit and have no libido’ And he gets treated. Women only get that if they are lucky. It’s enraging and discriminatory and negligent and just fucking sad.

I'm in that 25% that are "too young" at 34 (bearing in mind my mums periods had stopped completely by 36).

The attached is plain bloody annoying to live with, and the migraines I get at least twice a month are unbearable

This was also my experience. Eventually I managed to save up enough money to go private and the difference to how I was treated on the NHS was extraordinary. I love and respect the NHS and it is great at some things but sadly women's health is not one of them.

@nibdedibble reading your story broke my heart a little bit. It's so, so unfair.

@AutumnOctober It really is. He just trots off up the surgery where it all happens for him. Women’s health at this age is only the specialist interest of a few randomly-distributed professionals and er half the nation 🙄

I'm glad to hear that @WutheringBites and I'm sorry if you feel that GPs are being moaned about on this thread. The GP who helped me was young and seemed to be completely up to date with info on menopause, he didn't bat an eyelid when I went in there with my list of symptoms, having done lots of reading and asking to be put on HRT, but many older GPs who trained years ago are not informed and apparently not interested.

So disappointed in the timing of this campaign Mumsnet.

This weekend I'm working in GP OOHs with no PPE and what I believe to be out-of-date screening questions as my only protection against coronavirus. I'd be an ideal superspreader if I got it so this has major public health implications.

Staff have been begging for 10 days + for protection but to no avail. A campaign about this would have been of major immediate benefit to the general public.

And yes I am pro HRT and attended a course last week updating myself on it. But I wouldn't really be encouraging anyone towards their GP surgery to discuss anything right now.

Receptionist alert 🙄

Everything is always more important than "women's troubles"...!

No an actual HRT-prescribing GP who is feeling vulnerable but sure crack on with the keyboard insults. Increasingly inclined towards upping my hours in A&E where we have protection - and my HRT knowledge will wither on the vine as I will be initiating precisely none! Such a waste of an opportunity Mumsnet and an own goal. The campaign is very poorly timed.