I keep finding it strange that you don’t know exactly when you’re in menopause. Is that from the moment you experience complaints or is there a test for it? What if you have no or few complaints, are you ‘a little’ in the menopause? And how do you know when it’s over? Roughly half of the world’s population menstruates and enters a new hormonal phase of life around the age of 50: menopause. On 1 January 2022, the Netherlands had 8,845,204 women. More than eight and a half million women eventually go through menopause. Yet, apart from a single book or a celebrity with a mission, you hear little about it. How do you know if you’re in it or – hallelujah – already through it? “I always start from the complaints with which women report to me,” says gynaecologist Dr. Ginny Chamorro of the Acibadem International Medical Center in Amsterdam upon request.
“If you are around 50 years old and you suffer from, for example, hot flushes, outbursts of anger, night sweats, depression and/or incontinence, there is a good chance that you are going through menopause. Then if I were to measure follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels—I usually don’t do that if your symptoms indicate you’re in menopause—that would be very high. This is especially the case around the period when your ovaries stop producing.” I haven’t menstruated for five years and I’m lucky, because few complaints. Sometimes I was suddenly hot, but never that I-change-my-bed-in-the-middle-of-the-night-because-everything-is-soaked, which I hear quite a lot around me. I am sometimes angry, but there have been no casualties yet. Fortunately, I was also spared depression and incontinence. Just like the – oh irony – counterpart to all that wetness in bed: vaginal dryness. The other way around is more fun. Does a lack of complaints mean that I have passed the menopause? Ginny: “If you want to be sure, I can look at your ovaries with an ultrasound. Do I not see any eggs or follicles and have you not had a drop of blood loss for years? Then you are really through the transition.
The peak of menopausal symptoms usually occurs around the last menstrual period and in the first 1 to 2 years afterwards. Some are unlucky, they experience complaints for up to 10 years. After that, a new equilibrium comes into the body, a new hormone balance. Then the complaints decrease or are gone and the transition is over.” Strange that you hear so little about it. The menopause is diagnosed as a kind of flu: “If you stop coughing, you’re better, ma’am.” Ginny: “I always try to emphasize all the positive things after the transition. You get good focus again, zest for life, you know very well what you want, you feel powerful and some women finally quit their annoying job or relationship. A positive attitude to life also helps. And humour, that is such wonderful medicine!” A small consolation for anyone who is still in the middle of it, perhaps, but at the end of the transition there is an exit. That’s where the first day of the rest of your life begins.
You read a column by Libelle. Libelle.nl is the website for everything women want to know, from personal stories to handy lifehacks. From entertainment to royal news.
2023-07-16 10:11:00
#cat #dry #bed #soaking #wet #fun
