Menopause

So, what is this all about? Simply put, it is the cessation of your periods because your ovaries are no longer producing the hormones required for child bearing, oestrogen being the most significant of these. Once, when women were always pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen, the menopause was not an issue. Why? Because they didn't live long enough to really experience it. It's only in the past few decades that Western women have lived well into their 70's. Now you'll live 20 to 30 years after menopause.

What is the menopause?

Lets get some facts together. On average, a Western woman can expect to have her last period when she is around 51. But, usually without knowing it, you will experience a gradual change in the hormones produced by your ovaries from the age of 35 onwards. You may notice this from changes in your periods as you go through your late 30's and into your 40's.

How do you know when you have reached the menopause? The usual medical definition is no periods for a year. But, in the lead up to the menopause, your periods start to change and you become what is called perimenopausal. Your periods may become irregular, with either longer or shorter intervals between them. They may become heavier for a time and then fade to one or two days of spotting. Just when you think they have finally stopped, they then come back again with a vengeance and the whole cycle starts all over again.

More than this...

We all know that the menopause is rather more than just a change in, and finally, the absence of your periods. Now that you no longer have the protective effects of regular production of oestrogen you have to start to worry about osteoporosis or thinning of the bones. You suddenly have exactly the same risk of heart disease as your husband and his unsympathetic friends. You wake up at night drenched with sweat and you know you haven't got TB. Worse, you get a hot flush in that all important sales presentation. You sneeze and your pants are wet. And sex, well, best not to mention the subject!

On top of all these awful physical happenings, you have reached a break point in your life. You have moved from your childbearing years into menopause. You're either in, or fast approaching your 50's. Your children have left home and started to have children of their own. Your husband is now senior in his job and spends more time away on business trips, on the golf course, watching the rugby. You know the story. You're probably also well into a career and suddenly, oh no, behaving like a woman! Your moods swing from blazing rage to abject misery. You reduced your secretary to tears at lunch time, and he's never cried before! In the run up to the menopause your hormones are haywire. Remember how you felt when you were pregnant and immediately after? Well, your body is going through equally drastic changes, but with no bundle of joy to give you a reason for all this.

Quo vadis?

Menopause can have immense social and hence emotional significance in our society. Society says you can never be too rich, too thin and too young. There is no admiration here for the wise older woman. So, you have to find it for yourself.

You have reached an important point in your life. You have matured into a successful business woman, wife, mother. You choose one or, if you're really lucky, all three. You no longer have to worry about all the hassles associated with raising a family. They should be raising their own, allowing you the joys of parenting from a distance as the grandchildren come along. You have made it in your career and can now offer advice and support to the younger people coming in. You and your husband have now settled into the sort of easy companionship that is the envy of your children, who are struggling through the upheavals of marriage in the childbearing years.

There is life after menopause: a new life.