I genuinely believed I was going to sail through menopause.
My grandmother never spoke about it.
My mum never really experienced it because she was already on HRT for rheumatoid arthritis.
So in my head, menopause was something that happened to other women.
Not me.
Certainly not while I was still playing sport, training hard, and feeling fitter at 50 than I had in years.
Looking back now, the signs were there long before I recognised them.
I just didn’t know what I was looking at.
The symptoms I didn’t even realise were menopause
40 Recognised symptoms
Did you know there are now over 40 recognised symptoms of menopause?
Some sites even claim there are closer to 80!
Dry Eyes
Before anything else, my contact lenses started drying out constantly.
I used the expensive breathable lenses for sport — and had used them successfully for years.
Used moisturising drops endlessly.
Blamed dry weather.
Blamed screens.
Blamed the air-con in the car.
Blamed literally everything except menopause.Thank-you so much, this looks great.
Another excellent resource is Women’s Health Concern, linked to the British Menopause society Women’s Health Concern | Confidential Advice, Reassurance and Education
Because I didn’t know.
It wasn’t until later I discovered dry eyes can actually be a menopause symptom.
Apparently even your eyeballs join the rebellion.
Exhaustion
Then came the exhaustion.
Not ordinary tiredness.
Bone-deep fatigue.
At one point I genuinely wondered if my ME (Myalgia Encephalitis) symptoms had returned because I was so overwhelmingly tired.
To the point my knees and thighs simply stopped obeying me.
I slid sideways off my pony, face-planted the ground, and broke my nose.
Despite the blood, snot and rapidly blackening eyes, and once I had been cleared of concussion, I still managed to track down the dog food a courier had lost before heading home to cook supper for our very own Aphrodite, aka Sarah, who was visiting from the Highlands.
The next day I was due to tour the House of Lords as a thank-you at work.
My manager took one look at my carefully concealed black eyes and announced she was taking her friend instead.
I’ve still never entirely forgiven her.
Anyway – back to the fatigue..
The kind where even getting through the day feels strangely physical.
What confused me most was that I’d been incredibly fit beforehand.
Around 50, I’d actually become more serious about exercise (well, sport) than ever.
I was playing sport regularly, training hard, and had got down to around a size 8–10.
Menopause didn’t fit the picture I had in my head.
Sleep Apnoea
The exhaustion eventually became so overwhelming that I genuinely started wondering whether something more serious was wrong.
Around that time, my mum had pneumonia and I had to collect her from hospital.
In true NHS fashion, somebody had forgotten to give us part of her medication, so I ended up sitting around waiting for a prescription to be sorted.
While I was there, I noticed a leaflet about sleep apnoea.
“Do you feel completely exhausted?”
“Is this you?”
I picked it up and honestly felt like somebody had been secretly spying on my life.
The fatigue.
The brain fog.
Waking up exhausted no matter how long I’d slept.
Feeling even more tired when I tried to wake up.
Suddenly it all started making more sense.Thank-you so much, this looks great.
Another excellent resource is Women’s Health Concern, linked to the British Menopause society Women’s Health Concern | Confidential Advice, Reassurance and Education
When I got home, I booked a GP appointment, went through the assessment questions, and eventually discovered sleep apnoea was playing a major role in just how utterly drained I’d become — despite apparently being their lowest-scoring patient ever. I’ve always been fairly hyperactive and had difficulty falling asleep anyway (hence the afore-mentioned vino).
Looking back now, the menopause, weight changes (helped along by a heroic amount of vino), exhaustion and sleep problems had all quietly tangled themselves together.
Missing the most recognisable symptom
Looking back, I suspect the Sertraline I was prescribed had masked a lot of my hot flushes.
One of its side effects meant I usually felt cold anyway, so I didn’t recognise one of the most common menopause symptoms — hot flushes.
It wasn’t until I started constantly drinking ginger and honey tea during COVID that the heat suddenly became impossible to ignore.
Everyone else would be freezing.
Meanwhile I was internally recreating the surface of the sun.
I suddenly understood my grandmother a lot better.
All those times we’d be sitting around the dining table for “family night”, freezing while she opened the windows, claimed how hot it was, and fanned herself with a tea towel.
Thankfully, I had a brilliant female GP who tested me for perimenopause.
What I didn’t understand at the time was that perimenopause can begin years before menopause itself – sometimes 5–15 years earlier.
I wish somebody had explained that sooner.
And more to the point, the symptoms that can be associated with it.
What I Wish I’d Known Earlier
- Perimenopause can start years before menopause (5-15 years, in fact).
- Menopause doesn’t only happen to “older women”.
Early onset menopause is becoming even more common now, so don’t be detered by your doctor saying “you’re too young‘…
Get tracking! - Symptoms are often subtle at first — so subtle you barely notice them.
Like the statues in Doctor Who, they suddenly creep up on you - Dry eyes, exhaustion, anxiety and sleep issues can all be linked.
- Being fit doesn’t make you immune. But it can help negate some symptoms
- Tracking symptoms properly helps enormously (see below).
- You are not “going mad”.
But you might be VERY grumpy and intolerant of fools.
And a lot of other things. - Hot flushes can make you emotionally and irrationally attached to cold office furniture – especially metal filing cabinets.
The Balance app and other tracking apps
One thing I wish I’d truly known about earlier was the Balance app.
I’m not sure it was even invented then.
Honestly, give me a time machine and my menopause would have been far simpler to navigate.
There’s a free version of Balance which lets you track symptoms, moods, sleep, hot flushes, cycles and energy levels.
You can even print reports to take to your GP, which makes conversations much easier when your brain feels foggy and your symptoms are all blurring together and stumbling over your words doesn’t matter quite so much when everything you need is already printed out.
The Whispers Before the Shouts
Menopause didn’t arrive dramatically for me.
It arrived quietly through:
Dry contact lenses.
Exhaustion.
Dramatic weight changes.
Sleepless nights from hot sweats
Brain fog. (Oh, god! The brain fog)
(Although the industrial quantities of wine I was drinking “to help me sleep” probably weren’t helping either.)
Tiny things that slowly stopped feeling tiny.
If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would simply be this:
- Pay attention to the whispers before they become shouts.
- Learn about menopause before it hits you like a train.
- Take advantage of any workplace learning seminars you might be offered (they are free and are life-savers)
- And maybe keep a cold filing cabinet nearby.
My advice?
Head over to our Resources Page, where we’ve gathered some of the most genuinely helpful videos, support tools and menopause resources we could find..
There’s a huge amount of information online these days — but let’s be honest, some of it sounds like ancient woodland witchcraft mixed with Facebook pseudoscience.
Sometimes you just need someone to help separate the useful from the nonsense.*
Oh and buy waterproof mascara to prevent black eyes during hot sweats.
Venus, 61, Surrey
*Ready to stop Googling symptoms at 2.00am?
*Head over to our Resources Page by just clicking on the image below – or summon the hamburger menu at the top of the website, just like the modern goddess you are.
Think of our Resources Page as the menopause survival shelf I wish somebody had handed me years ago.
Menopause is hard enough without having to separate useful advice from internet nonsense.
That’s exactly why we are building our Resources Page.
