"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

Glad this has not gone unnoticed. The best Fuck You to menopause is to lift heavy weights in the gym. Bonus you become strong. But that's just the cost of a gym membership and not everything else (Im not saying HRT doesn't have its place to help).

Thanks for this thread. A very important subject that is so hard to navigate.

Louise Newsom, who has undoubtedly made many milions of pounds from treating menopausal women, pushed a strapline of 'make menopause history' and seemed to suggest all women should be put on HRT for the latter half of their lives.

That's one extreme - the other is that women should just struggle through.

We need evidence and impartial advice.

I've found this website useful.

https://www.menopausematters.co.uk/symptoms.php

And a few things that have helped for me so far:

Magnesium
Drinking lots of water
More protein
Cutting out sugar, caffeine, alcohol, eating after 7pm, trying to get to bed early, exercise, daylight. Vitamins D, B, C.
Meditation, yoga, cold water immersion.

It's a lot of hard work being female.

@ArabellaScott

wow wish i had your self discipline. I am hopeless at following any regime

Respect!!!!

Well, you know, that's the theory. In practise I forget it all, and fail, more often than I succeed. 😁

I was a head gardener in a city farm when my bones were crumbling. I was walking thousands and thousands of steps. I was carrying huge bags of compost daily. I'd been doing that for years. And the agonising pain just incrementally got worse and worse until I couldn't walk up the stairs.

There is no one simple magic wand. Seriously. Stop with this 'just do this one thing' nonsense.

The practice nurse has agreed I need HRT. So relieved right now! I think I've had about a week of feeling normal so far this year.

I didn't even need to argue, which I was prepared to do rhis time! So I personally am very grateful for awareness raising, if it has helped me.

Anyway, sorry - I will take my personal woes to the Menopause board in future.

You had me up to"cold water immersion". 😬

I'm waiting for the "What we’re seeing is an incredible emergence of a for-profit industry associated with impotence" articles. Which won't appear, because medical interventions for men don't tend to get picked over and used as yet another stick to beat them with.

I’m a GP with additional skills in women’s health so I do a lot of menopause related consultations but no personal experience as yet. I have had a lot of women find HRT transformative for them but equally many who have had some improvement in some symptoms and others where it either hadn’t helped or what a woman wants it to do it can’t. I also have concerns that we risk going from being unnecessarily restrictive about HRT and dismissive of women’s menopause experiences to now telling women every symptom they have (particularly non specific ones like brain fog or fatigue) is due to the menopause and we stop looking for anything else that could be going on. GPs are seeing a huge upsurge on women talking about HRT and menopause, which is good. But there are definitely many younger women who are believing it is a panacea for how they feel even though they are only in their 30s because that’s what they’ve been told. This of course does not count those small number of women who do have premature menopause in their 30s but those who still have periods and no menopause symptoms beyond fatigue or brain fog.

There are also significant concerns about the advice and prescribing practices of a number of private clinics, one very famous one in particular who has become something of a media darling off the back of TV programmes about menopause.

Also seconding the brilliant Menopause Matters website @ArabellaScott shared above. There is also the Women’s Health Initiative which is the patient part of the British Menopause Society.

@GoodOldEmmaNess HRT is a very small part of what's covered in my experience.

Most of what I learnt via work initiative is:

• Awareness of a wider range of potential symptoms.
• Clear understanding of peri-menopause & menopause, that periods are still occurring when a lot of symptoms show.
• The long term effects of hormone changes on how a woman's body works. Changing nutrient needs for example.
• Increased understanding amongst those who won't experience it. I was the token man, in that respect 🤣 I say token with tongue firmly in cheek, i do actually think its important. The woman leading it would like all managers to have a better understanding, for example, to do their job better.

In a society that's still patriarchal, where doctors themselves get inadequate training and the medical profession has a long history being bias towards male bodies .. the more knowledge a woman has of her body, the more power she has over it. IMO the article demonstrates that, the women most vulnerable to bullshit are those that know the least

I’ve had what feels like whole system failure since the beginning of my menopause - probably underlying issues my body was semi coping with before peri started

• bladder problems
• bowel problems
• anxiety
• histamine intolerance

i took HRT for 5 years starting at Peri stage and it was good for night sweats but never really helped me with my emotional madness. I had to stop cos of unexplained bleeding but also made my histamine intolerance worse.

histamine intolerance has lots of similar symptoms to menopause (irritability, hot and cold flashes, insomnia ) so I feel like my menopause from hell is actually half histamine intolerance and good luck getting help with that on the NHS…….

I have also found out that I am really sensitive to lots of medicines and need the smallest dose possible - not some average based on a bloke somewhere

But why? It's important we hear from everyone, and TALK about these issues, without it all being a case of attack or defense. Thre's a real risk, as so often seems to happen, of the issue becoming polarised, tribalism setting in, and people ending up just antagonising. That won't help anyone.

I'm really curious to hear from women who've had useful treatments, including HRT, and also women who have used other approaches, or none.

Seems as though a life stage that affects one half of the population, with allllll the different factors that implies, will require a very varied and responsive approach that will likely differ for everyone.

Well, you know. It's nice when you stop doing it. And as someone said recently, nothing else in your day will be quite as fucking awful after you've plunged into ice cold water. 😂

This of course does not count those small number of women who do have premature menopause in their 30s but those who still have periods and no menopause symptoms beyond fatigue or brain fog

By 38 I had every symptom there could possibly be that pointed to peri menopause and was still ignored. Made to feel I was just a silly woman who was a bit tired and over emotional.

The blood tests are useless.
My periods had always been like clockwork.
Which has always been the reason every issue I've had with my reproductive system has always been dismissed.

I knew it wasn't normal. I certainly wasn't depressed. But I had no idea at the time it was peri menopause because I didn't know it might happen that young.

It's like knowing about pregnancy and how all that works but no one ever tells us about the aftermath or damage giving birth can do to your body.

All I needed was for someone to fucking listen to me. Tell me I wasn't going crazy.

It's great that menopause is being talked about, because it might not be needed by all women, and not all women need HRT, but if it helps empower those who felt like I did to ask for the help they need and refuse to be fobbed off, then that's a win to me.

I'm a therapist who see's a lot of women in perimenopause. My view is that menopause is a normal adaptive response to a different stage in our life. Typically, there is very little research into women's brains, but it does involve adaptive brain changes triggered by hormones, which also happen in adolescence and motherhood. My view is that it's transitional phase. I don't see it as an illness. A lot can be done with talking therapies to help, though if I say that on social I'm a target for all the pro HRT groups and I'm told I'm dismissing the awfulness of menopause. People are always surprised to discover how well hot flushes respond to CBT and Hypnosis/imagery.

For the record I'm neither pro or anti HRT, its a personal choice, and it does make a huge difference to many...but high quality information on menopause/HRT in the NHS is shocking and there are certain very high profile doctors advocating it and making huge sums of money. Whether taking HRT or not I see everyone should be thinking about nutrition, the type of exercise they do (supporting muscle mass), and reducing stress from mid 40's onwards (easier said than done when we're having kids later and are sandwiched between teenagers and elderly parents).

There are also deeper existential questions that can come up. I hate the pathologising of women's bodies and this article made a refreshing change from some of the recent media around this.

I cant swear to this but I think the magnesium I buy in 25kg sacks is easier absorbed. But I've looked up Epsom salts and it's a similar price.
And if course by adding Dead Sea salt to my magnesium bath I've just made Epsom salt? Dunno. I just know that it works for me. It's cheap to try. It's worth a shot if you buy either.

CBT and Hypnosis/imagery.

Oh you've got to be kidding me!,

It really is so fucking insulting.

@magicmeno , I’ve definitely been affected by existential questions. The fact I’m now past the age of fertility, has made me realise I’m aging , in a way that hasn’t hit my partner. I’m also dealing with aging parents.

I'm sorry that you feel that it's insulting and I'm also sorry for those that are having a really terrible time of it who felt the same. I didn't say don't take the HRT, or that CBT was a cure all. I can see why it can seem like someone is offering you a smartie for a terrible migraine.

There is robust evidence that shows that talking therapies can work well for a lot of women (and there are reasons for this), specifically hot flushes and anxiety. But it certainly is not the right approach on its own for those who are really suffering.

Still, HRT isn't a magic pill much as many people would like it to be and even if you are on HRT they can be a very useful part of the support you get. I get it, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but that doesn't mean to say it doesn't have a place.

Useful part of the support you get?

Support? What support?

CBT....really? How is talking about my aching joints and my sore dry vagina going to help. HRT was a gamechanger for me.

As a previous poster mentioned...if they take away my HRT, I'm out of here. Literally done with life.

I agree with you, support is very patchy and it sounds as if you don’t have any. Some GPs are great others useless, it’s a lottery. I’m not part of the NHS, I’m a general therapist and am often people’s “last resort”. It’s truly awful for those in that situation. I’m not going to patronise you with suggestions, just wanted to say I’m sorry this is your experience.

Why is commercialisation always a bad thing? It's frequently the case of a supply emerging to meet a demand. Industries that support the issues men face don't get denigrated in the same way.

It's like how they say if men could get pregnant, birth control would come in different flavours and there'd be a clinic selling the morning after pill on every corner.

Instead, as women, we're expected to put our chin up and pretend we've got no problems, certainly no priorities outside of work, and work as though we've got no dependents and a wife at home to make us supper. No thank you. And I'm not even bloody menopausal yet.