One of the things that I hadn’t thought to discuss with my GP is, obviously when I started to go through my menopause quite early, I spoke to my mother because I wanted to know what her experiences were, maybe she could give me a clue as to what I was likely to expect, if it was genetic hereditary and I didn’t realise but when we started discussing it, she didn’t really have a menopause I lost a brother when he was 17, my mother was 44. Overnight her periods ceased, she never had another one, but she never had any side effects either. She never had any hot flushes, difficult to know with things like mood swings because clearly she was going through a grieving process and a bereavement process. But for her, she would say I never had a menopause. One day I was having regular period. She’d always had regular periods like me, they’d never been a problem to her and suddenly they ceased and that made me wonder, my own menopause started as I said when I was 43, 44 I was perimenopausal, that coincided with my father being diagnosed terminally ill and I was a main carer for his last three months along with my mother. And again, the irregular periods and things seemed to start when he died. And so I wondered if significant life changes like that can actually affect when women go through the change.

What advice would you give to partners of women going through menopause?

To try and be patient, to talk about it with your wife. The most important thing is with any life changing event, to talk to each other. That was difficult for me, I don’t find it that easy to talk to people in general, I think I’ve got much better at that and I think the experiences I’ve gone through in the last six years have taught me that it’s much healthier to talk through issues, but that wasn’t how I was six, seven years ago. My advice to partners is to listen to your partner, to talk through how they’re feeling, to go and do your own research. My husband actually went off onto the internet and did his own research so that a) he was able to help inform me when I was at my lowest and didn’t feel that I was actually capable of doing my own research, but also it helped him to understand how I was feeling. And also some of the physical effects, the fact that I did lose my libido and it’s still not back now a hundred per cent. At least he could understand why that it wasn’t suddenly that I’d gone off him, that actually it is a very genuine side effect of the menopause.

That’s very difficult to be perfectly honest because I think if your symptoms are fairly minor they do help. And I will assess that in that I ran out of sage about two weeks ago and within a week I noticed that the hot flushes had increased. And I’m just waiting for the next lot to come through. So there’s no doubt that sage does help. In the same way when I ran out of evening primrose, it’s only about a week that I notice that suddenly my nails start to go brittle again and my skin starts to dry. So I know that those two help me personally. The ginseng biloba I take for focusing and concentration I don’t know. I can’t honestly say that I’ve noticed any difference when I run out of that so I don’t know whether that helps at all. I continue to take it in the hope that it does. But certainly the sage has helped and again the isoflavones I don’t know if it’s five years worth of those that has enabled me to give up on the HRT because they are having some longer term impact now or whether I would have just got to this stage because five years on I’m coming through the other side. And maybe I would have got to this stage anyway. And because it’s only a long term benefit I’ve never stopped taking those, I make sure I’ve always got a healthy supply.

I think in my own mind I’ve come to the conclusion that if your symptoms aren’t too severe I preferred to use the natural supplements and I’m quite convinced that they’ve helped me. When my symptoms got much worse and more severe they didn’t. So I think I’ve come to the conclusion in my mind they may help women who are going through a menopause that isn’t too severe and I think they helped me to begin with and I think they help me maintain a healthy system now. I don’t think they’re the answer if you get such severe symptoms that I got for a period of three to four years.

At that particular time in my life it was all around the fact that I was no longer going to be able to have children, now it’s more along the lines of Gosh the wrinkles and things are coming along much faster now than they ever di. I’ve always been a little bit vain I suppose in that I’ve always been told that I don’t necessarily look my age and I don’t think that I did whereas I think in the last couple of years going through the menopause suddenly I’m starting to find a) I look my age but b) I actually feel my age now too, which I didn’t use to. And that’s all quite difficult to come to terms with.

Oh yes, I’ve spent many many pounds over the years. I have to say I think they’re brilliant for keeping your skin nice and soft brilliant for that feel good factor. The reality is once the lines and wrinkles start to come in, I’ve tried all sorts of creams at all sorts of prices and none of them have banished any lines or wrinkles that I’ve accumulated. What they do do is they soften them and they make me feel better, I’ve learnt to buy the ones that I particularly like that smell nice, that make me feel good when I put them on. But none of them are going to get rid of the lines and wrinkles. I have to look at those as, That’s what I’ve acquired through my life, each one tells its own story, quite a few stories have been told in the last five year and I put it down to life experience. But yes I still follow a good skincare routine. I do think it’s important. I do cleanse, tone and moisturise twice a day. I don’t go to bed with my makeup on. And I think that’s had again a benefit for my skin over the years.

I think the message to people is Do your research, have a look on the internet, find out everything you can and don’t be afraid to experiment and find what suits you.

don’t do what I did which in retrospect was just walk, I read some women’s magazines, saw what they were recommending, went and bought things without looking into the impact that they might have on my body. If you’re going to take natural supplements read up more if you can and I’m sure now with the internet being so much more widely available, there’s a lot more information out there. If you’re going to take something, read up on the pros and the cons. Understand the implications that it might have for you and the same with HRT, if you’re going to go onto a prescription, find out as much as you can about the implications it will have for you as an individual.

And if you can’t get enough information from your GP go on the internet and try and do some more research yourself because I didn’t and the problem is when you are feeling unwell and you’re having headaches and you’re feeling low you just want to go to somebody that’s going to give you all the answers. So my advice is even before you get to the menopause and you start to feel like that, start doing your research earlier. When you are feeling fit and well and when you’re in the right frame of mind to make some informed decisions. Because by the time you hit the menopause it may be too late. You may already be going through depression and the headaches and the feelings of anger, you may not be in the right state of mind to make those informed decisions. You may like me expect to go to a GP and be given all the answers and be put right. And that’s not necessarily going to happen. So do your research, do it early, before you go through the menopause. Write it all down, keep it somewhere safe so that you’ve got it to go back to at the relevant time.

I was getting very irritable, very irrational, the hormones were obviously kicking in, and the slightest thing at home, at times I would just blow it all up out of proportion. So I think it was them realising how I was and encouraging me to go back and seek help for that rather than my own realisation that that’s how I was. Because I think that the depression, the feelings of anxiety, the not coping, the feelings of anger that you can go through, because they creep up on you, you don’t necessarily realise how much they’re impacting on yourself and the way that you deal with other people.

it’s very difficult when you’re feeling anxious and you’re feeling angry about things to admit it and go and seek help, it’s much easier to deny it, and say it’s not me it’s you. But

Was there a particular trigger you remember, the straw that broke the camels back, and you thought I’ve just got to go and see about this?

Yes, I can’t remember, we’d had a discussion about something, I can’t even remember what it was, it was something quite innocuous, but I can remember going up into the bedroom and just sitting down on the chair in the bedroom and crying my eyes out. Just sobbing my heart out because I felt very alone. I felt that I’d tried all the HRT things that I could and was still feeling so many of the symptoms, the tiredness, the lack of concentration and everything else and I can just remember sobbing my heart out one day thinking I don’t know what else do t. And again, I went back to the doctor and that’s when we tried the natural things. And I think actually they did put me on fluoxetine* for about three months.

[* Note that antidepressants such as fluoxetine and citalopram are sometimes prescribed in the treatment of severe premenstrual syndrome, although they are not licensed for this purpose.]

But what I now do is control the symptoms using evening primrose and isoflavones. I’ve actually been on isoflavones for about five years because interestingly I’ve read that the Japanese women have little or no problems with the menopause, allegedly because of the high fish diet but again read that you have to have a lifetime of that sort of diet really for that to be effective. So I have been on the isoflavones about five years and whether they help or not I don’t know, but they certainly, the hot flushes at the moment which are my biggest problem are much reduced to what they were and they’re bearable. The evening primrose I find just keeps my hair and nails and skin reasonably nice. I suffer, my nails went extremely brittle, my hair started going very thin, my skin was going very dry, taking evening primrose, quite a high dosage, I find has helped with that. I take sage, which again is for the hot flushes and ginseng biloba which is to help with memory and concentration.

And again the tiredness I’ve learnt that I have to go to bed by 10 oclock at night. I used to stay up till eleven, eleven thirty, twelve oclock. I used to be back up at six in the morning. Now I have to make sure I’m in bed by ten at night and I don’t get up until about quarter to seven in the morning. I have to make sure, even if I’m not getting eight hours sleep, because I don’t even now, I probably function on about six hours sleep, but I’m getting the rest. it’s listening to what my body needs and responding in the right way.

So your sleep has improved on what it was at its worst?

Yes, the fact that I get far fewer hot flushes now I’ll perhaps just get one or two a night and they’re less severe. Sometimes I can even sleep through them. I now get about five to six hours sleep a night which is fine for me I can function on that. It was when it went down to about two, three, four hours a night that I couldn’t function.

And I actually, the reality is the more red wine I drink the more hot flushes I get, the worse my sleep pattern is. I try now and have at least three if not four nights a week where I have no alcohol and it pains me to say it but I sleep better and the hot flushes are reduced.

And I know when I started to have the symptoms of the menopause I went to see my GP, when I could no longer manage it myself, and I took their advice and I think that goes back to my working class background in that I’ve been brought up to accept what other people tell me and to deal with it. But actually in hindsight, I shouldn’t have done that, I should have taken more responsibility for my own wellbeing and done that research earlier and asked for that second opinion earlier, asked for that expert advice earlier. But I think going back to my working class roots GPs were Gods and you didn’t think to ever challenge or question their advice to you. And we need to be doing that more because as I get older and I get more educated and I learn more, I realise they’re not Gods, they’re like everybody else they’re doing the best job that they can with the limited amount of information and limited amount of time that they’ve got.

What sources of information did you use to find out about the menopause? Did you use the internet or books?

Books, magazines. I did look at the internet but I found that the information on there was quite fragmented. I’m the sort of person, I’m very lazy, I like to be able to go to one place and find out everything I need to know. And it didn’t happen on the internet, not when I was looking, I don’t know it might be better now. When I was looking six or seven years ago when it first started, there wasn’t that much information available and I kept having to go from site to site to try and find out information. And it wasn’t that good and to be honest I wasn’t so much an internet user those many years ago anyway. I was tending to rely on books and magazine articles. And the newspaper which in hindsight was probably not a good thing to do but it’s there, it’s in your face.

Why not a good thing to do?

Because I’ve learnt through listening to other people and doing other research that actually they only tell you the information that is exciting, that is sexy, that is going to sell them a newspaper. They don’t necessarily represent all of the facts in the right order and in the right way, and that certainly, when I became aware of that through more research, is quite worrying because I did rely totally on what they were telling me. I did think it was harmful to take HRT, that I’d probably end up with breast cancer within a few months and that affected the whole way that I looked upon taking HRT. But actually when you dig behind those facts, you realise they’re just telling you what they want you to know and not necessarily what is true.

The first time I went I saw a female GP and I think that was quite useful, she put it into perspective for me. I was very afraid that if I went onto HRT I’d be on it for the rest of my life or I’d be on it for 15, 20 years and it’s still to a certain extent an unknown quality and quantity. She said, You have to deal with the here and now, you have to deal with the 50 mile journey, the busy job, the two children going through their own problems, the husband with M.E she said, Look upon it as a safety plaster to get you through the next two to three year. She said, don’t think upon it that you’ve got to be on it the rest of your life, think upon it as a short term solution to get you through this period in your lif. And I think putting it into perspective like that I was more able then to consider it and give it a go and that’s what I did. And again, after five years, I just thought Right let’s come off it, let’s see if I can manag and I have and I am.

Did you have any concerns about the HRT, about going on it in terms of risk?

Yes I did because obviously it was big in the press at the time, the long term effects of it. I was quite concerned particularly six years ago, the year before I started going through the menopause, I had a lump on my breast removed which turned out to be benign. But having had that removed I was very conscious going onto HRT was I encouraging more lumps to come, would the next one be malignant. It was a big big decision for me to make and I was very anti the HRT for that reason. I think I was really concerned that I might get breast cancer from it. I think that was my biggest concern having had this lump removed. But I just got to the point well it was, I couldn’t have functioned without it and it was, well do I risk breast cancer or do I risk losing my job, my home, my family and everything else. So I felt at the end of the day I didn’t really have a choice to be perfectly honest.