So, how do we all feel about the menopause?

[The Nappy Lady]

Hot on the heels of the vasectomy thread, I thought this might be an interesting discussion.

I'm only just past 40 so hopefully it's a while away yet, based on my family history. I don't have any strong views about it yet, just hoping it isn't a huge hassle when the time comes. Now I'm done with having babies I don't feel as if it will matter too much, but I wonder if, when it finally happens I might find it more upsetting than I expect.

What are peoples views on HRT?

[pebbles]

I would love someone to explain HRT to me cos i'm a bit confused.

I think i'm of the opinion that I won't be affected mentally cos as you say it's not like we want any more children however i'm worried about physically - and I really am very dense in this subject - but my mum had a hysterectomy at about 45 but she still went through the menopause and had to take HRT?

[jollybaby]

Pebbles - they must have left her ovaries when they performed the hysterectomy. If she had had her ovaries removed she would have gone into instant menopause after the surgery. The main reason to use HRT in women who have had an early menopause (whether due to surgery or for other reasons) is to reduce the risk of osteoporosis.

[Zo?]

I feel about the menopause pretty much exactly how I feel about the impending birth of our second baby & the state of our finances: fingers in ears, head in sand & deeply, deeply in denial.

x

[Fuschia]

Read this and it scared me: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/22/menopause-mother-family-oestrogen

Wouldn't be able to take hRT due to history of DVT/blood clotting disorder

[citizenED]

Zoe; made me snigger. You come from the same school of thought as I.

[Saffron]

Not all HRT is created equally, just like not all birthcontrol pills are the same. My mother had a kind of stop-and-start menopause (not uncommon) in her 50s, then a uterectomy (leaves the ovaries), then a full menopause. For a while she was taking full HRT, but she got this attitude like 'I don't need those things'. So she stopped taking the full HRT. After that she noticed that her hair started falling out! She also developed very sensitive skin and other allergy conditions. She started on HRT again, but this time at a lower dose (different hormone combination also maybe? can't rem). Everything got a lot better after that. Over about a 6 years she has tapered off the HRT at her own pace. She is now 70 and feels fine.

I believe HRT has gotten a bad reputation. For many women HRT can be hugely beneficial physically and can also give them some control over when and how their bodies change. I do believe in growing old gracefully. But I don't belive that means you have to be bald and brittle-boned at 65!

For me this is a chapter in my life that I hope not to be writing for many years to come, but you can never tell what the future holds. My friend has just beaten breast cancer only to be told the chemotherapy sent her into early menopause.

[intexasatthe moment]

Ever heard of crossing bridges when you come to them ?

[civilservant]

I read the Guardian piece that Fuschia mentions but here is another view from a woman who writes for the Financial Times under the sobriquet of Mrs Moneypenny, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f7cb4662-396e-11e0-97ca-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1G8rWK411

as someone who is fast approaching the milestone but very sceptical about the benefits of HRT, I think this is much better

for those who don't manage to get through the FT's paywalls etc, here is an extract:

"Oestrogen-free. Does that sound better than post-menopausal? I have been oestrogen-free for three years, which, at 48, is reasonably young to be so. But I am loving it and do not feel in any way deprived.

I have also managed to get through this change in my chemical make-up without resorting to HRT. This is not because I am against HRT ? I?m all for swallowing any drug that works ? but because I was terrified that I would put on even more weight. The only time I wavered was when the FT sent me to Ireland to write a piece for the Pursuits section of this magazine, and I stayed in an absolutely freezing B&B. I woke at 3am having the worst hot flush I have ever experienced. I resolved there and then to call the doctor at first light and make an appointment to get some HRT ? until I realised that I had left the electric blanket switched on. ...

(The book that she is reviewing, The Second Half of your Life by Jill Shaw Ruddock) contends that oestrogen-free women get their fertility in another form: the creation of ideas and purpose in their lives. Did my life lack ideas and purpose before? I hope not. As to whether we need a book like this, I think most of us probably do. I suspect far too many older women don?t make the most of their abilities and their time. This is the book that encourages you to get off your oestrogen-free backside and grab life with both hands. Its mantra is ?this is your time?, which might sound a bit like self-help preachifying, but the premise is a valuable one."

[jollybaby]

You're not oestrogen free though but oestrogen reduced!!

[Fuschia]

I must admit knowing I won't have the choice is a bit worrying. I had night sweats for a month after our baby was born in December and it wa sno joke, changing pyjamas and sheets 5 times a night.... really

[pebbles]

Jollybaby - thanks, just asked her and she did have menopause immediately - I think i thought if you had a hysterectomy you wouldn't have the menopause - very naive i know.

Saffron - your poor mum, how horrendous for her.

I think the other naive thing is I never realised it lasted so long/side effects for so long

[Huggers]

I had mine a few years ago, and am on the other side without HRT.

I saw it as the gateway out of my fertility in the same way as puberty had been the gateway in-.

I did take some vitamin supplements because I felt knackered, and had the odd sweat but had a pretty smooth ride.

I knew I wasnt going to go down a pharmaceutical route but was surprised that my doctor did quite a lot of scaremongering about osteoporosis if I didnt take HRT. There was no history of this in my family - my mother is 92 and has never broken a bone, despite being extremely frail.

The tiredness came from the unpredictability of menstruation. (sorry boys, switch off now)

In fact, far from periods becoming further and further apart, in the peri-menopause the periods can become very close together and extremely heavy. This went on for about two or three years and it is really annoying because you have to be always prepared.

I ate lots of oestrogen rich things like yams, soya milk and sweet potatoes - I dont know if they smoothed the hormones crashing too fast or not but I ate them anyway.

I don't know if my attitude helped- I just thought it's another stage of my personal physical life. Not an illness, just a passageway. We didnt medicate our puberty did we? and that was horendously hormonal and I remember the awful embarassment of the unpredictability of those first periods too.

Advertising suggests the menopause is catastrophic emotionally and physically for women which is rubbish and generates fear of it. Even Germaine Greers book 'menopause' which my husbands tactfully gave me one birthday, is over dramatic about it.

Your body will start to want to hang onto any extra fat at this stage so it's not a time to sit on your bum. Perhaps when innuit grandmothers got dumped on the ice to die, the ones with the most personal lard survived!

This is just my opinion and my experience but a lot of you mothers will have tried to have had as natural/normal/non-medically-interventionist pregnancies and childbirths as you were able and will have railed at the old fashioned interventionalist policies of years ago. So it should be with the menopause. It's just another phase, and resiste getting it caught up with ideas of personal or sexual self esteem.

We endure childbirth (which is much more challenging) because at the end of it there is the reward of a baby. At the end of the menopause there is the gift of the person you were before you had periods. Remember her? the one who liked writing books and riding ponies.

Expect it to go well, like you expect your pregnancies, don't anticipate disaster. Ride it out for as long as you can. But for some it will be unendurable and awful and of course that's what the NHS is for. But give your body a chance to see what it can do on it's own first.

[pebbles]

Huggers - thanks, that's a great insight

[Saffron]

@ Fuschia

HRT treatments are constantly changing and improving. By the time you reach menopause, there may be a form of HRT that would be viable for you. Don't feel like you have to block it off completely as an option until you've reviewed what's available in the future.

@ intexasatthe moment

I'm all for crossing bridges when I come to them too... but I do like to know which bridges and what river! Longsighted...my tragic character flaw.

:)

xx

[Smiler]

Am (hopefully!) way off this, but want to mention that any weird changes in bleeding / periods, e.g. much longer periods than normal, or other symptoms like bloating shouldn't necessarily be put down to menopausal symptoms and might need to be investigated.

My Mum (late 50s) had symptoms and was fobbed off by her GP for ages that it was "just menopause" before they did any tests, turned out she had early uterine cancer. She's hopefully fine now, after a radical hysterectomy, but has many of the nasty symptoms discussed above (she can't take HRT due to other health issues). Afterwards her GP (who is generally v good) did some reading up and said she thought she should be referring a lot more women for the tests than she had been.

Think there's a risk that a lot can be lumped under "menopause" that might not be.

Pah, being a women, pah pah! Am liking the vasectomy thread!

[civilservant]

huggers, thanks for that. i really liked your point about the contradiction in wanting to be as natural as possible with contraception, childbirth, breastfeeding, child-rearing etc and then rushing to embrace medication in middle age.

I've often wondered why there's so little about the menopause out there apart from the HRT propaganda. as life expectancy keeps increasing, less and less of a woman's life is bound up in her fertility and it just doesn't make sense to define oneself solely on that basis. we do need to construct a new way of dealing with 'the change' and the decades of life after it that aren't based on the presumption that something has been 'lost'

[The Nappy Lady]

Really interesting reading (I just knew it would be).

Thank you Huggers for sharing your experiences with us, it seems to be a very sensible and inspiring way to deal with the 'process' and I hope when the time comes I will approach it in an equally balanced way.

I just find the conversations on her interesting regardless....I've 'crossed' the bridge of pregnancy and childbirth for good, but I still post on those threads, so thought this might be an interesting new subject for us all to ponder upon!

[civilservant]

quite right too, Molly

for my mother and women of her generation, the menopause was not something to be discussed (neither were periods)

all I know is that they lived through it and came out the other side, but never understood at what cost.

I've found the prospect v. unsettling for myself, mainly through not knowing what to expect, so thanks for starting the thread.

[womanofdulwich]

i thought the marina coil was the way forwardon this? i heard if you have it fittedpre menopause you you sail through it. any heard the same?

[Saffron]

Oh very interesting! Would like to know more about that.

[Fuschia]

Saffron Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> @ Fuschia

> HRT treatments are constantly changing and

> improving. By the time you reach menopause, there

> may be a form of HRT that would be viable for you.

> Don't feel like you have to block it off

> completely as an option until you've reviewed

> what's available in the future.

That's true. It was my haematologist who told me that and he's not the expert in HRT itself, after all. In fact, if HRT only replaced the oestrogen that I have atm, i would be no more at risk than I am now. I had to take bloodthinners all through my pregnancies, if I fly, etc

[jollybaby]

Would be surprised if the mirena coil helps with menopausal symptoms as it releases progesterone rather than oestrogen. Also the hormone is released locally rather than into the circulation as such. It can help with the heavy and erractic bleeding around the menopause though.