Albert Einstein put it best when he said, “Experience is knowledge. All the rest is information.” This certainly rings true for me when it comes to the menopause. At the ripe old age of 47 (closer to 48 now) I’ll be honest and say that the menopause certainly wasn’t on my radar. I was too busy with work, kids and life in general, to be giving it any thought and besides, I still feel like I’m in my 20s! But during the Spring of last year I found myself really tired…make that exhausted! I suddenly seemed to be struggling with things that I normally handled pretty easily. I began to dread the days where I worked late and it took longer to recover from them. I felt like I couldn’t think straight. My, normally, sharp and focused mind seemed blunted. I felt like I was wading through treacle in my head. Added to that, I wasn’t sleeping. I would fall into bed exhausted and totally crash out, only to find myself tossing and turning a couple of hours later and wide awake from about 4am. There were times when I could have cried as I faced into another day exhausted before the day had even begun.

Needless to say I wasn’t faring too well on a mental/emotional level either. I felt anxious a lot of the time and sometimes a bit of paranoia crept in. I worried about things that normally wouldn’t bother me at all and my life suddenly seemed overwhelming and complicated. I found myself shouting at my kids and being very easily irritated by people. What was wrong with me? It took a blip in my menstrual cycle that summer for the penny to drop. I still remember the shock as realisation dawned that the reason I had been feeling this way was because I had entered menopause! Surely, I was too young? I certainly wasn’t ready! I didn’t ‘feel’ old enough!

We tend to think of menopause as a finite thing, the time when our periods stop, and indeed that is how it is medically defined. We forget that it is a gradual process, a journey, whereby our reproductive system slows down and eventually grinds to a halt. I describe it to patients as puberty in reverse…and look how all over the place we all were during puberty! While the average age for women’s periods to stop is 51, the process has started long before that. And this is why it can catch us by surprise. Having had kids later in life many of us are finally concentrating on our career and when we are just getting into our stride this hits. And we are ‘in it’, truly ‘in it’, before it even dawns on us as to what is happening.

Some women sail through menopause but it was obvious that I wasn’t going to be one of them. So, I began practicing what I preach. I started treating myself with acupuncture, I prescribed Chinese Herbs for myself. I cleaned up my diet and began to actively take care of myself more. The difference was profound. I felt immediately better after the first one or two acupuncture sessions. I finally slept! It didn’t take long before I was back to my old self.

The journey is still going on (I missed another period last month) but now I’m a happy and willing participant. As long as I do my maintenance session of acupuncture and take the herbs all is good. I have no symptoms other than a couple of nights of running hot just before my period. What I do have though is a new understanding of the women that come to see me to be treated for menopause. Or the women that come to me complaining of some of the other 30+ symptoms that can happen during menopause but are totally unaware that that is what is going on for them! I now treat these women with a totally different approach. I share my story with them and there is often profound relief when they realise that they aren’t ‘losing it’ or it isn’t all ‘just in their head’. Menopause is a natural process, a really tough one for some, but it can be made a lot easier by some simple treatments and self care.