> Early signs and symptoms of spontaneous early menopause: Women’s experiences (transcript)
So I was 32 at the time, and, otherwise healthy, life was good. I was working and studying part time. And the course that I was studying had a lot of more mature-age women, probably around the age of 50. And they were the ones that started to put pieces of the puzzle together for me. We’d be sitting in the classroom, and then it would [ laughing], it was like the Mexican wave of women taking their jumpers off, and then putting their jumpers back on, and of course I was in amongst it.
And then there would be other times sitting around having lunch, and I would have a hot flush, like quite ferociously, and be stripping off as many layers as I could. And, struggling with memory, and ‘Oh God, am I starting to get dementia here, what’s going on.’
And they were the women who started saying “Oh, do you know what? You might be going through early menopause, because you’re having a lot of symptoms the same as us”.
And it was probably another six months of that, and then I started getting horrendous night sweats, like really, really bad, waking me up, three or four times a night, and having to change my nightie and my sheets, it was just, just dripping with sweat, and I’m not a sweaty person at all, so it’s very foreign.
> Women’s experiences of symptoms of early menopause – Part 2 (transcript)
I’ve always been a very even tempered person, and I started getting what I could really only describe as temper tantrums [laughing].
I’d be driving down the road and everything was fine, and then someone would cut me off, and I would just fly into this emotional rage and think I was going to ram the car. So I would pull over to the side of the road and take my keys out of the ignition and sit on it, in case I actually did [laughing] ram the car in front of me, which I never did. But, eventually the emotional outrage would pass and I could go “Oh, well, I don’t know what that was all about”, and start the car up and drive off again. So there were things that were clearly outside of my character that were going on that couldn’t be explained; for any reason. So that was the lead-up to it.
> Seeking help and diagnosis for spontaneous early menopause: Women’s experiences (transcript)
Trying to find support is really difficult. The information that is around menopause is aimed for women around the age of 50 or in their 50s who are empty-nesting. I can’t relate to the narratives around that. I didn’t get a chance to build the nest in the first place. I didn’t have the babies that I dreamed of, so how can I relate, and how can other women relate to me when they’re talking about their children going off to university, or, getting married and moving out of home, and I’m still grieving the children that I couldn’t have? It’s very, very difficult, and there’s a huge lack of support there.
> Experiences with GPs (transcript)
And then when I was 37, and I was seeing another GP, who was very understanding and kind, and a very good doctor, but also did not believe that I was going through menopause at all, and thought that it was just stress, that it was all in my mind. And yeah, she flippantly said to me one day, “Well, how about I write you a referral to go and see a fertility specialist and you can see about freezing your eggs?” So she referred me off to a specialist who was lovely, and did some routine tests, and she was very surprised at the results, got me to come back in, and said “We’re really sorry, you have the hormone levels of a 50 year old woman, you are going through menopause.”
And yeah, when probably about a year later my symptoms all started to drop off very, very rapidly, and I probably had, you know, six months between night sweats, and I started to think that ‘Oh well, I think I might be at the end of it, this is good,’ and waited a bit longer and then discussed with my GP whether it would then be worth having a blood test to confirm if I’m post-menopause. And again I had to have an argument about it, because she saw no benefit in it. I think she was still doubting whether I was really genuinely going through menopause. And I suppose quite fittingly when I did get the results, I phoned them, and the receptionist told me that there was nothing to report, and I was a bit confused, and thought ‘Maybe one of my ovaries has kicked back in and it’s working again, this is interesting.’ So I went down and got a copy, came home and looked at it, and it said very clearly that I was post-menopause. So I, yeah, I did have a cry, because it was a shock again, it’s been quite an emotional rollercoaster. But yeah, I suppose in a morbid kind of way it was fitting that I should get the final result in the same flippant manner that it’s been managed, you know, for 10, 12 years.
I have a lovely GP at the moment. But I don’t think that she’s ever managed anybody going through early menopause. She doesn’t really know how to manage it. She is younger than me, so she’s never been through it herself. And she agrees that I need to find somebody who can manage the menopause side of things, because it’s kind of out of her depth. But I don’t really know where to go from there.
More about Jenni: Since her first menstrual period, Jenni experienced ‘constant’ bleeding and pelvic pain, and was prescribed the oral contraceptive pill to help manage this. At 20, a doctor tested her hormone levels and, finding them low, advised Jenni she may have difficulties conceiving in future.
With this advice ‘in the back of [her] mind,’ when Jenni at 32 began experiencing hot flushes, night sweats, ‘memory problems,’ and irritability, she asked her GP if these might be symptoms of premature menopause, but was told she was ‘too young’ and was experiencing ‘just stress.’
After her symptoms worsened, Jenni’s GP referred her to a specialist clinic, where a gynaecologist diagnosed her with endometriosis, but her ‘hormone issues’ were not investigated. Over the following years, Jenni saw various doctors about her symptoms, but felt none took her concerns ‘seriously.’ Finally, at 37, a fertility specialist diagnosed her with Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (POI). She also asked Jenni if she wanted to try IVF, on the condition that she start quickly.
Jenni described simultaneously being diagnosed with early menopause and offered IVF as ‘mind-blowing.’ The diagnosis confirmed that her ‘gut was right all along,’ but years of not feeling ‘believed’ had left her ‘a lot of self-doubt.’ Having children was also ‘the only thing’ Jenni had ‘really wanted in life,’ so she decided to try IVF, though she knew the ‘odds’ were ‘pretty low.’
Jenni spent two years trying IVF, but without success, making it a ‘sad and difficult’ experience that also left her ‘financially bereft.’ After IVF, Jenni tried different types of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), however experienced migraines and could only tolerate the occasional use of vaginal oestrogen. She has osteopenia and feels ‘naïve’ about the long-term implications of early menopause.
At 40, Jenni had a hysterectomy for her endometriosis and adenomyosis (diagnosed in her late 30s). Physically it was ‘the best thing’ she had done, but its ‘finality’ led to ‘huge emotional fallout.’ Now post-menopausal, Jenni is still grappling with the profound ‘grief’ and ‘social isolation impact’ of early menopause and childlessness. Around friends and colleagues, all of whom have children, Jenni has often felt ‘excluded’ or ‘marginalised.’
Jenni has found an online support group for involuntarily childless women helpful and is close to her nieces and friends’ children, but has yet to find an avenue for face-to-face support. She believes that she might have had a chance of having a child had she been diagnosed sooner, and advises other young women experiencing menopausal symptoms to ‘trust your gut’ and keep searching until you ‘get the answers that you need.’
