"What we’re seeing is an incredible emergence of a for-profit industry associated with menopause"

[GoodOldEmmaNess]

Not sure why we need researchers to tell us this, since it should be flaming obvious to anyone how the menopause has been pushed and pushed to us all over the last few years as some sort of glitch in femaleness that makes us ALL go faulty in middle age.

It is so flaming regressive. Some women are ill as a result of menopause, and need proper medical help and support, but the menopause itself is not an illness.

Until just a few years ago, we fought against the idea that 'women of a certain age' were defined by their transition to a post-reproductive phase in their life. That was part of feminism. Now we are being sold a false narrative that seems to regard pathologising the menopause as a form of empowerment.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/05/companies-portray-menopause-as-medical-problem-and-push-women-towards-ineffective-treatments-papers-find

I haven’t read the article yet but I agree with your intro. What do you do when HRT doesn’t sort out the unhappiness, or the bloating and weight gain? A lot of people are making a lot of money out of menopause.

I disagree with much of this article. I do think there is a desperate need for non profit research but research is really needed. Anyone who says hrt is only good for hot flushes and night sweats clearly has no idea

Hard agree.

I do think that hrt is only suitable for some though and more research is needed for non pharma interventions

I was 'faulty' before 50, in fact due to getting early menopause I could hardly walk by 49.

Weird how the very time the doctors prescribe HRT when needed they come along and bring another narrative to stop women getting some relief.

This hatred of women living some sort of worthwhile lives is relentless.

I agree about the development of a massive for profit industry around menopause, although that’s just the wellness industry generally- it’s not specific to menopause. I also struggle with arguments based on “natural processes” when we kick against nature with every breath. Nature would have half of us dead before our 5th birthday and half the survivors dead in childbirth and and it certainly doesn’t care about menopausal women who have served their purpose as far as survival of the species is concerned.

Exactly!

Am 61 menopause started without me realising, heavy periods was the beginning at about 55.

Muddled through, ended up leaving my leadership role as i could not cope with the shit anymore.

Still question if it was just age related or the actual menopause.

on reflection was very up and down, emotional roller coaster, at home. Was like PMT with knobs on.

I think that women going through the menopause should have more work place support, if they want it.

I did not seek medical support or medication of any sort.

Am a go with my body/self sort of person and toughed it out.

I agree it has become an industry, noticed the selling of skin/hair lotions and potions.

Post menopause is already medicalised, look at our elder women in the public eye, plastic fantastic

i dye my hair, accept my wrinkles and deal with my facial hair strangely body hair is mostly gone.

life is a trajectory we are all on.

Medicine plastic surgery ain’t the answer.

I definitely think it’s worth discussing. It does seem strange. I had an early menopause after spinal surgery. But it was troublefree apart from hot flushes. I didn’t use HRT. 20 years later, suddenly loads of people are telling me I should start HRT, and it will sort out my arthritis and weight gain. I don’t want to . It seems weird at 64, but I am trying to see my doctor to get cream for my poor fanny. I was ignoring the soreness and thinning, but 2 friends have suddenly spoken up about their horrific experiences of vaginal atrophy, and I don’t want that. It’s hard to know what to do.

That last part is the opposite of true. Nature has us specifically living beyond menopause. It's almost unheard of for mammals to live past their reproductive viability. Yet human women live for decades beyond it. Along with a couple of species of whales. We specifically evolved to live for a long time after we can bear and raise children. It's actually why we have menopause. If nature didn't want us alive after menopause, it wouldn't exist. We'd just stop ovulating and die.

although that’s just the wellness industry generally- it’s not specific to menopause
Yes, that's true. There seems to be a much more aggressive tendency across the board for companies to observe any developments such as new treatments etc and parasitise them for profit.
Even very positive trends get corrupted. Eg the new popularity of plant-based foods, which seems to have become an opportunity for the food industry to flog ultra-processed plant-based simulacra of meat products

I hope you get to see your doctor. The estriol cream might be all you need - it’s topical and a very low key but effective intervention, also helping to avoid UTIs. It’s the only thing I really felt I needed.

I'm a doctor who takes HRT, but...

I am extremely sceptical of the current push to start all menopausal women on it, and especially of the suggestion that it is wrong for GPs to offer anti-depressants, for menopausal women with low mood.

Are menopausal symptoms sometimes incorrectly managed as depression? Absolutely yes. But there is a complex inter-relationship between mood and menopause. Offering some women treatment for depression can be hugely beneficial, either in conjunction with HRT or alone. Also, antidepressants can relieve hot flushes, so they are a good treatment for some women, if their main symptoms are flushes and low mood, especially if they have risk factors for side effects from HRT.

I doubt it is a coincidence that the common antidepressants' patents have expired, meaning that any pharma company can make them, and that the profits on them are now low.

It's wrong to push antidepressants at every menopausal woman with low mood, but it is equally wrong to pretend that HRT is a miracle cure for every symptom that a menopausal woman has.

We are not oestrogen deficient after menopause, we have post menopausal levels of oestrogen.

The transition between these two states can be challenging, especially if we have been undernourished or been using synthetic hormones but we can support our bodies to keep the calcium in our bones and out of our blood steam and other tissues by adequate intake of magnesium.

One of my friends told me her (woman) doctor said all women should be on hrt because otherwise we'd all get osteoporosis. I was quite alarmed but on reflection my Mum didn't use hrt and she hasn't got osteoporosis. She's 80+ and had a really nasty fall a year ago and didn't break a thing. My (peri) menopause has been fairly uneventful although I've very much cut down on wine as that would be the only time I'd get something resembling a hot flush. I've got friends on hrt who feel it's helped them. I suppose the thing about hrt is you can try it and if you feel better, great. If you don't then stop. I'm glad women's health is being taken more seriously but there seems to be a lot of confusion around the menopause from everyone concerned. More research would be very welcome.

In the neo-liberal universe, everything is a commodity which can make profit for someone. Treatments for the menopause are just another commodity, a way to make money out of healthcare. Until we understand that the market cannot provide everything and that it also destroys all it touches, we will not get rid of the commodification of everything. Out of this assumption that everything can be marketed comes surrogacy, prostitution, pornography and unnecessary and expensive treatments for natural processes as well as money-spinners for real diseases, such as diabetes, where sufferers can be persuaded to buy gimmicky gadgets to control their illness, whilst health care itself is privatised and commidified before our eyes. Someone wake up, please!

May I ask, what natural supplements do people find effective for night sweats/ general brain fog?
I started hrt last year but feel it's not really suiting me. My ( young female) gp has been disappointingly unhelpful.

I agree that healthcare is frequently commodified. I don't agree that medicine can be neatly divided into "real diseases" vs "natural processes". Diseases are natural processes. Toothache, appendicitis, brain tumours, and dying in labour are natural processes.

Natural processes come with some fucking horrible symptoms and it's great that medicine can relieve them.

There is nothing at all wrong with women who have menopausal symptoms wanting to relieve them and, for some women, drugs will be the right choice. But we should also be offering women other forms of therapy and, when we do prescribe drugs, it should be the drug that is right for that woman, not the one that Davina happens to be pushing.

Many women have the menopause in their mid 40s.

Which means another 20-25 years of working before they can retire.

So half of their working life.

There is a reason we turned into little old ladies, because we kept going longer than men, whilst losing height and bone structure as we aged.

Nobody seems to be hand wringing over the suitability of men getting drugs to sort their erections out. It only seems to be women that are having to keep going through this cycle of 'nah, let's just let them suffer, its natural'.

@alittleprivacy Yes! In Darwinian terms women beyond reproduction have a very important role in society, and it is to care and support our grown children, and enjoy and care for our grandchildren.

I dont feel oppressed by that i feel oppressed by the idea I should look glamorous and be sexual, neither of which appeals to me.

Sure i like to look well turned out but being sexy, erm no.

Businesses will always come along and make money out of a growing social theme.
We've had the pink pound, green washing, the plant based plastic vegan food and now we have the menopause money making schemes.

Capitalism innit.

Meh

I'm damned if I see why I should suffer just so someone can say it's not an illness.

I got fed up with that in pregnancy, which is also apparently not an illness but nonetheless fucked my body up pretty well,

You can have my HRT when you pry it out of my cold dead hands.

I think I've had a fairly easy ride menopause wise so far. The hot flushes haven't really bothered me (although I find them fascinating, do you get hot or do you just feel hot?). My joints ache a bit, but otherwise not so bad. Not on hrt.

I am concerned about stuff that might be going on; bone thinning, vaginal atrophy, that I'd be unaware of until....?

I think there are companies being set up to make money off this. I'd rather the money went to GPs, to women who are struggling so they can continue to work, get support to change jobs or take early retirement.

Lara Biden'a book on menopause is worth reading, she explains each process and offers suggestions including hormonal solutions.

Magnesium for brain fog and I used homeopathy for night sweats.. narayani climacterics

Bone thinning is concerning but the evidence for magnesium is promising.

Seabuckthorn oil for vaginal atrophy.

And yes... you still have to buy these food based supplements... HRT is covered by prescription.