Premature Ovarian Failure, Early Menopause & HRT
To tell the truth I’ve not been comfortable revealing my very personal story of being diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (POI) at the age of 36, when my youngest daughter was just a year old.
It was an incredibly hard time for me and I have been in a long process of coming to terms with it. It’s only now that I am stepping into this new phase of my life with a sense of ownership and empowerment instead of grief, embarrassment and shame.
It was opening up to the very lovely menopause health and lifestyle director Lauren Chiren … who inspired me to put my big girl pants – or granny pants more like…firmly on.
So here is my story:
“Well I don’t know what testing your hormones is going to do”
‘ Well I don’t know what testing your hormones is going to do’ said the GP when I fell to pieces in her office disclosing my extreme anxiety, panic attacks, depression, insomnia, hot sweats, my inability to cope with the smallest of tasks, my complete sense of overwhelm and lack of control of anything including my emotions. The exhaustion, memory loss and foggy head. I think she may have thought this was normal for a mum of two children aged just 1 and 3, but I knew this was not normal for me because I knew myself, I knew my body and because of the work I do I knew something was very wrong.
When I phoned my GP for the results she told me (quite shocked I think) that I had Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (POI). I was shocked, and confused as I had no idea what this really meant.
This seemed absolutely ironic considering my area of work, my area of expertise – preconception and pregnancy. Now I know all about declining egg reserve, high FSH, low AMH, I know all about drugs that put women in a menopausal-like state during the down regulation phase of IVF but nowhere in my training was menopause discussed, in fact nowhere, anywhere is menopause discussed. It’s been called the last taboo and I can understand why – It has such negative connotations for women that it doesn’t get discussed.
“You’ll have to go on HRT to protect your bones and cardiovascular health”. “No I bloody won’t” I thought but I said “ok, I’ll do some research”.
So I read what women’s health nutritionist Dr Marilyn Glenville had to say, I bought books on menopause but not many related to early menopause and those that did contained just a few paragraphs on the subject. I spoke to practitioners who were knowledgeable in the field. Joined The amazing Daisy Network a charity for women with POI. I had massage, reflexology, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, and crystal healing to try and curb my symptoms and took supplements and herbs and tried to exercise and whilst there was some improvement I was still suffering with being an exhausted mum to two very small, demanding and energestic kids…. I just needed to hide in a cabin in the woods.
I read that I should ask for a bone density scan so I went back to my GP to request one as this was not offered. and to my horror the results came back that my pelvis looked like the pelvis of a 60yr old. The decline in my hormones had affected my bones and I had osteopenia – a precursor to osteoporosis.
Frustrated that I was teaching the medical professionals about menopause and POI I needed to find someone that knew more than me so I paid privately to see the amazing menopause expert Dr Annie Evans who is now retired. She talked to me with a no nonsense approach through my condition and the pros and cons of taking HRT. Seeing her was the best thing I ever did and she has inspired me so much as a practitioner today.
Armed with the devastating results of my DEXA scan and talking through my options with a Dr Evans (a Doctor that actually knew about menopause including early menopause) I came to the realisation that I needed to at least try HRT for my bone health and also more importantly for my mental health and my children.
Whilst experiencing menopausal symptoms I felt the worst mum in the world. My extreme anxiety, overwhelm and depression meant that I found it really difficult to cope with my children. I found it difficult to cope with their incessant demands, tantrums, constant testing of boundaries, deafening screaming and shouting. In my super sensitive sensory state, combined with the fact that when I was feeling particularly awful with lack of sleep, I had nowhere to hide from them. At times I felt like my head was actually going to explode. As the heat travelled up through my body during a hot flash, as adrenaline and cortisol flooded my system, my heart pounded and panic set in. In the midst of fight or flight I could neither fight my children nor run away from them, I was like a trapped beast in a cage.
And so followed the depression, the sadness at me being such a bad mum, for shouting, for wanting to escape to a remote tropical island to live alone. For lacking patience, tolerance and self control. For not being the Zen mum I so wanted and hoped to be.
Reluctantly, because I didn’t want to be a short tempered, shouty mum and wife, with many tears I decided to try HRT oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone (testosterone was wonderful for my muscle density but made me aggressive so I stopped taking it) which in a very short space of time made me feel like a completely different person from the person I had become. They completely reduced my symptoms and for the first time in ages I slept better, the fog lifted, the panic attacks stopped.
I could enjoy being a mum again.
Yet layered on top of all this was this huge sense of grief over the end of my fertility, that I couldn’t have any more children (even though I didn’t want any more, I still found it hard). I felt old and past it which I don’t think was helped with having osteopenia. I kept telling myself I was now an old hag. I’d been a lovely young maiden, a mother for only a few years and then skipped straight to the OLD CRONE, the old witch of the village.
I felt embarrassed, unattractive, unsexy (both psychological and hormonal affects of the condition) and ashamed.
On top of this no one seemed to understand, I would hear “oh well at least you don’t get periods anymore” but I didn’t mind my periods and would have given anything to have had my cycle back.
Others would look at me strangely as if they didn’t believe me – especially older women who were going through ‘the change’ themselves and I would sense I didn’t belong in their club either. No-one really understood my levels of extreme anxiety, I stopped going out and seeing people, I would cancel last minute or avoid making arrangements all together so when it lifted no one really understood the journey I had been on.
It wasn’t until I booked onto a Maternity Reflexology course and I was driving to Hampshire that it hit me how in my dark place there was no way I could have done the course, I wouldn’t have been able to have driven all that way for at times when I was at my lowest I could not even get in the car to go to the local shops.
HRT and Complementary Therapy
I felt because I took HRT I thought I was a bit of a fraud. I thought I should have been able to manage it all naturally because I was a complementary therapist and many of my associates and colleagues would scoff at prescription drugs, hormones and medical management of what was seen as a normal, natural and spiritual transition to make.
However after speaking to Lauren I suddenly realised that I had totally missed the point:
I am a complimentary therapist and how I work with both fertility and pregnancy is I work WITH medical professionals and medical assistance – I strongly believe that a truely holistic approach is us all working together not exclusive of each other for the benefit of the client and for what is right for them. I don’t judge any of my clients for being on any medication that they may need.
I realised that how I was treating my clients and how I was treating myself were completely different and I was being too judgemental and harsh with myself.
I also realised that the disapproving looks of other complementary therapists that I shouldn’t be taking HRT were not only rude but unprofessional as they did not know my back story and should not have judged me. I made peace with me taking HRT whilst being a complementary therapist because my symptoms were so severe that it was indeed a miracle relief for me and my children, for they got their mother back.
However, I also strongly believe that the support I had through Dr Evan’s private practice, reflexology, fertility massage, womb healing, energy healing, hypnotherapy, counselling, psychotherapy EFT, nutritional and homeopathic support has also helped me deal with the emotional and spiritual ramifications of entering this transition too early.
In addition, I had not given the fact that through all of this, I was still working, still supporting clients and how lucky I was that through my own work, knowledge and practice, I was able to help myself with tools and techniques of deep breathing, EFT, meditation and exercise. By working in a calm healing space where I could be still, be quiet, be calm and relaxed helped me get my head back together and gave me the time to heal too. In fact, being a complementary therapist and working with hormones has helped me enormously with coming to terms with my own diagnosis.
Happy and confident woman
I now embrace my inner wise women and own the fact that I can now open my arms and nurture others with wisdom, greater knowledge and understanding.
Taking medication is only part of my story of how I am dealing with menopause and I have been so caught up in feeling that I shouldn’t be taking it that I had forgotten to acknowledge what and who have helped me through it.
So now, thanks to Lauren, I feel I can confidently stand up and say…..
‘I’m Victoria, I’m a complementary therapist, I take HRT and it bloody saved my sanity.’
8 years later I was diagnosed with Adult ADHD which explained why my menopausal symptoms were so severe and why the oestrogen replacement helped my brain function so much.
For more information on ADHD and the Menopause you can listen to my Podcast here:
Treatments I offer that are supportive of both the physical, emotional and psychological symptoms of perimenopause are;
Gentle Release Therapy – Energy healing, acupressure and hormonal balancing
Reflexology – Hormonal balancing and physical relief of symptoms
Women’s Wellbeing Massage – Abdominal / Sacral massage and acupressure
For more information on Premature Ovarian Insufficiency please see The Daisy Network
Recent Comments