Once again, I feel privileged to have been contacted by another individual following a workplace presentation, to not only provide inspirational feedback, but to also feel she could share her own and very personal story with me in order to raise further awareness and provide reassurance to others.
An amazing lady who not only wrote this wonderful blog, but created the heartfelt image with the following description:
“This image represents seeming ok on the outside, whilst inside, you have your head in your hands. I felt a lot like this before my HRT.”
I suffered with heavy, irregular and very painful periods for as long as I can remember. The monthly cramps were comparable to labour pains, and often, I would have to stop everything and breathe through them. At the age of 32, the pain had become unbearable and there was barely a week in a month when I wasn’t bleeding.
After several years of GP and gynaecologists appointments, at the age of 33, I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis. Through a laparoscopic procedure, the surgeon found that I had a cyst on my left ovary which had fused my ovary and bowel together and my left fallopian tube was severely damaged. After recovering from the surgery, I felt amazing, so much more energy and a huge reduction in monthly pain. Unfortunately tests had revealed that I had an incredibly low egg reserve and I was told that I would not be able to have children. To say I was devastated would be an understatement! I now realise that I was probably well into perimenopause.
After getting my head around what I has been told, I decided to stay positive and ignore the diagnosis. I made some healthy lifestyle changes, had regular reflexology and started trying to conceive. I was very lucky to fall pregnant naturally within 6 months and gave a birth to a beautiful baby boy. Assuming he was a complete miracle, I had somewhat accepted that he would be our only child but miraculously, 3 years later, we were blessed with a baby girl!
After having my daughter, my periods never returned, and when she was 18 months old and I was 39, I started experiencing intense hot flushes, night sweats, brain fog, insomnia, anxiety, fatigue, depression…the list goes on. My children were still very young and I was already exhausted so general functioning became a challenge.
I visited my GP countless times over a 2 year period and my FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) levels were checked every 6 months. Although the results confirmed that I was post-menopausal, the GP didn’t seem convinced because of my age so saw no urgency to alleviate my chronic symptoms. I was eventually referred to a Gynaecologist who prescribed a very low dose of HRT. This had little effect which lead to another year of GP and gynaecological visits until I hit rock bottom and referred myself privately. I was at the point where I cried every day and felt furious with my children all the time. I couldn’t sleep for the night sweats and was a nervous wreck about the non-stop hot flushes which would turn my face and neck a dark shade of crimson and send me into a fit of anxiety in hot enclosed places.
I was recommended a lovely private Gynaecologist who informed me that I was on way too low a dose of Oestrogen, and changed my HRT immediately. The first course didn’t agree with me, so he quickly changed me onto an oestrogen pill with a Mirena coil and a testosterone gel. This combination has made a huge difference to all my symptoms and has continued to work well for me to this day.
I recently started wondering of there could be a link between my endometriosis and early menopause and started doing some research. I found an article that stated that women with confirmed Endometriosis have a 50% greater risk of early menopause!
Something that endometriosis sufferers should really be made aware of!
‘The researchers found that laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis was associated with a 50% greater risk for early menopause.’
The research, published on January 21 in JAMA Network Open is the first to investigate the association between laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis and early natural menopause — clinically defined as menopause before age 45, says Madhavi Kulkarni, PhD, lead author and researcher in the department of obstetrics, gynaecology, and reproductive biology at Michigan State University in East Lansing.’
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2788287. JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Jan 4;5(1):e2144391. Doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.44391.
The undisclosed author of this blog has full credit and ownership of the accompanying image.
