The doctor who stops women ageing - menopause/fertility

[OhHolyJesus]

I can see the benefits but I do think there is a god complex with these doctors at ProFAM.

The doctor who stops women ageing

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/58515a70-c35f-11e9-b964-2cc1b53edc70

I don't know how to link to a share token but I'll be back once I've figured it out.

HRT is about medicating perfectly healthy women.

My concerns would be about the long-term effects of this. Have they be adequately studied? Or is this being done in a bit too much of an ego-fuelled rush for those kind of studies/safeguards.

My mum was on HRT for 12 years and died from really aggressive breast cancer. I’d be surprised if the two were not linked, especially as you’re not supposed to be on some forms HRT for over a decade. I’d be worried about similar types of consequences with this.

My mum suffered a lot of agony and anguish in the run up to her death. I’d hate to see others undertake a “safe” treatment and end up in the same place.

Seriously?

You need to check what I'm saying. I never discussed those with surgery so extreme to the vagina it would lead to fusion, which, I stress is RARE. No HRT on this planet would fix that.

My mother's fucking spine crumbled due to post menopausal osteoporosis. I don't want to go the same way - and have medical grounds for thinking I would be at very high risk. Menopause is natural - so is dying in childbirth if you have a placenta praevia and no access to a CS. Natural doesn't always mean healthy. Menopause has severe adverse health effects for a non-negligible minority of women.

There is nothing feminist about telling women they have to suck up those adverse consequences because you think medical treatment is some massive patriarchal conspiracy to keep our fanjos fresh for men. In fact, denying women healthcare on the basis that it's part of a patriarchal conspiracy is every bit as bad as the genuinely patriarchal medical tendency to dismiss all menopausal symptoms as "trivial women's complaints."

Sorry Zazie my reply was to Fermats

I do agree with what you say though.

I have never mentioned once Patriarchal Conspiracy stop fucking saying that.

I get you are upset that your spine might crumble like your mothers.

How can you possibly know that it would not have happened if she was on HRT?

You sound Fermats like a rabid anti vaxxer

Many people seem to forget that until recently it wasn’t the norm for women to live past menopause with life expectancy being so low. Likewise people seem to forget that many symptoms of ageing are deeply unpleasant and we shouldn’t shame women for trying to avoid it. However, this method is untested (baring a handful of women who have had the tissue harvested but not put back again and cancer survivors who enter premature menopause and receive a very different treatment to the one being sold). There is no proof that this will actually delay menopause let alone for the 20 years that he is promising. I looked into this when someone first told me about it a month ago. It seems like a con. You may £7-11k for what might only be a six year delay (or no delay at all).

@placemats hrt is prescribed to prevent osteoporosis

@FormerMediocreMale they propose (I say propose because it’s not been done before as far as I am aware) to implant the defrosted tissue into lymph nodes in arms pits to maximise hormonal output so wouldntnecessarily effect fertility. It’s supposed to be purely for the sake of delaying menopause without the use of HRT.

I agree, Boggles. The results of this are interesting - but it could turn out to be expensive quackery, it could turn out to be a repeat (god forbid) of the vaginal mesh scandal, or it could turn out to be a safer alternative to current forms of HRT. What we need are proper clinical trials (with proper and very ethical supervision), not a doctor with a god complex carrying out medical innovation via tabloid journalism.

Apologies for derailing the thread into treatment of menopause in general - I just get very riled by the attitude of "it's natural therefore you should embrace it", even if it's simultaneously natural and totally shit for you.

Placemats vaginal atrophy is a thing. Yes you are belittling the changes that some women experience as a result of menopause. Just use some lube indeed.

If men went through all the shit women do there would be multiple treatments. With women it's all, oh its natural, it's your lot, put up with it. Debilitating periods, all the issues with pregnancy and childbirth, bf (here's a leaflet to tell you that you must or you're letting your child down, no we're not going to give you any practical support on the post natal ward or later as it costs too much) and menopause.

A shocking percentage of women give up work as a result of menopause. The possible symptoms are wide ranging and it's good for women to know about them rather than suffering in silence (but it's better all round if we get on with it and 'don't make a fuss').

I would love for there to be more research and assistance / treatments for the female specific things that are part of our lives.

I saw a news report on this with cancer sufferers which sounded great, a way maybe for young women to not lose fertility through treatment.

I can't access the article but seems this guy is focusing on keeping older women fertile. Male focus, male measure of what is important for women.

Most women I imagine will be well pleased to stop menstruating, it's the osteoporosis, hot and cold flushes, impact on sex and mood etc we want to be able to manage.

You sound Fermats like a rabid anti vaxxer

someone explaining the benefits to some women of HRT sounds like an anti vaxxer? Really.

The menopause can be really tough for a lot of women. Vaginal atrophy isn’t discussed enough and is under diagnosed - leaving a lot of women suffering unnecessarily.

HRT is about medicating perfectly healthy women

That's my sense too.

I am though, extremely concerned for those women who do take it, who are now unable to get hold of it.

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/aug/24/hrt-shortage-uk-women

I want facts and figures about a shocking number of women give up work due to menopause. Because you know, other factors come in as well.

Stop medicating women! Most women do not need hrt.

And of course, and entirely, there are a number of women who have frightening and life changing consequences of the menopause and some of it is in sync with mental health issues as well (which is entirely ignored, as per usual). I'm not saying that they should not get the treatment they need. Of course they should.

What pisses me off is that HRT is a pill, dished out a bit like Valium in the 60s, now Diazepam.

www.cipd.co.uk/about/media/press/menopause-at-work

'The menopause transition can include a range of symptoms which, on average, last for four years. The CIPD's research surveyed 1,409 women experiencing menopause symptoms and was led by YouGov. Of those who were affected negatively at work, they reported the following issues:

Nearly two-thirds (65%) said they were less able to concentrate
More than half (58%) said they experience more stress
More than half (52%) said they felt less patient with clients and colleagues.
Nearly a third of women surveyed (30%) said they had taken sick leave because of their symptoms, but only a quarter of them felt able to tell their manager the real reason for their absence.'

The real issue, he says, is that, “There are 13 million women in the UK who are going through menopause or are menopausal. We know as a fact that 60 per cent need clinical help. Half of those are continually going back to try to improve this medication or change it.”

And
So far 9 British women between the ages of 22 and 36 have undergone the procedure. Another, 33-year-old Dixie-Louise Dexter, has done it and also had the tissue immediately transplanted back to combat premature menopause as the consequence of a hysterectomy. She has said that “being able to delay the menopause and regain my quality of life has been life-changing”.

Another part of the article (sorry I've tried and I can't figure out a share token)

Fishel is well used to such arguments. Philosophically, he says, he’s always been “fascinated” by the idea of “enhancing” human beings. Ideally he would like to see medical science improving human nature.
“I don’t look upon our species, especially in evolutionary terms, as something that is the peak of perfection,” he says.
Soon we will probably have control over DNA, he says, and the opportunities for genetic manipulation will be limitless. He speculates about being able to rewire brains so they are capable of amazing feats. If it sounds like science fiction, he admits that he’s considered writing a novel about enhanced humans.

Yes it's natural but so are lots of things that we avoid or mitigate.

What about the symptoms, is it OK to treat them, or is it natural and we should get on with it?

Or is it OK to treat the symptoms but not the cause?

Something v interesting just occurred to me. I stopped Hormonal contraception after kids, and have always felt uncomfortable with the idea that girls and women can be consuming synthetic hormones their whole lives. The implants that girls get now, they can't just stop if it doesnt suit. Well documented side effects, recent news about really serious mental health issues in teens and young women. However, nothing seems to be done, society, medicine deem it worth it, because of course it benefits girls and women, but it's also massively beneficial for men.

Then as soon as its something for us, really, to alleviate symptoms, to try to make us feel better, it's all oh no its natural nope just suck it up.

Meanwhile men get viagra and not a squeak about how it's natural for older men to have erectile issues...

Women's healthcare around our biology is never treated as just a medical thing, they'd always got to be all this division.

We know as a fact that 60 per cent need clinical help
Fair access to education, equal pay, free childcare , the job market and housing might reduce that number a bit.

Sorry, I can't access that whole article OP but does this process prolong women's fertility?

Ohholyjesus thanks for the extracts.

It's a really male view.

What do women actually want when they getting older? To carry on with periods and ability to get pregnant? I'd imagine that's fairly niche.

It's a male view of what is important. Men are obsessed with their own virility. And also they can procreate until they're old, something that is seen as impressive if you read the papers when famous old men hang babies.

I don't think many women want to be having babies at 50, 60, 70. It's a massive endeavour for us, physically. No. Most women don't want periods.

It's just misogyny really.

The treatments for young women are different but this is not his angle it seems.

Yes sorry everyone, I really should try to share the whole thing but it's long and can only cut and paste from the app. The article focuses on this as a treatment for the menopause but mentions the Italian doctor that Fishel worked with as the same doc who got a 60 yr old Woman pregnant with a donor egg. It's basically a way to mess around with women's fertility (preserving it throughout cancer treatment) and delay the menopause (but the side or after effects were not made clear).

And as women live longer, they spend an ever larger percentage of their lives in postmenopause. The solution to all this discomfort and dissatisfaction, according to Fishel and his Birmingham-based team, is to remove tissue from a woman’s ovary before the age of 40. This is done through keyhole surgery, and the tissue is then frozen, or cryopreserved, to be replanted (probably in the armpit) when the woman reaches menopause. The grafted tissue then revives falling sex hormone levels, effectively halting the menopause.

I learned about vaginal atrophy on here, thought, “Hmm, at 54 I’m getting a bit dry and uncomfortable down there,” (never used lube in my life) and went to the doc.

Topical oestrogen in the form of pessaries has been fantastic for me. In particular it has completely resolved the slight bladder issues I had put down to being middle aged and giving birth to four children.

I’m sure DH is happy about it, but i’m Taking it for me not him and would take it if I were celibate.

Extending women's fertile years, is barking up the wrong tree, if the tree needs barking up.

If there is a 'fertility' crisis.

It's them.

As in so many ways, they are the problem. Their sperm count has halved over the last 40 years. The 'western' ones.

www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/29/infertility-crisis-sperm-counts-halved

I'm not a scientist, but I would have thought that degrading the natural environment, and therefore human environment on an industrial scale can't be helping their sperms.

Perhaps they should sort that out first.

As with what is being done to little children in the name of 'gender re assignmen' and this, even Mengele would have blushed.

So it's a bit like naturally produced hrt?

I could understand from a skeletal and vaginal health POV.

To be fair, the human body type we currently have wasn't designed to last much beyond the menopause. Nutrition and health care have naturally extended our lives.

I'm generally suspicious of attempts to actually stop or reverse ageing, or the appearance of ageing, or to extend life significantly, or anything that gets into transhumanist territory.

There's a fine line at times between those things and improving quality of life which is generally a good thing. I think however it will always be true that in the end we get old and die, and it will be uncomfortable and even painful. We'd like to think we can avoid that, sometimes it seems like when we believe we can, we have an even harder time reconciling ourselves to the inevitable when it comes.

Many women get through the menopause without having to take HRT and HRT is no magic bullet either. I'm not saying it doesn't help some women but menopause does not have to equal misery

Absolutely! I had a sudden and intensely abrupt menopause at age 36...but HRT free and now glad to be well and truly on the 'other side'.

Menopause is presented in such negative ways, and so many women dread it; but really it could be said that you really only start living afterwards: more stable, less emotional, far more balance and perspective.