Knowledge of our Bodies is Essential for Female Empowerment

By Nicolette Lazarus , Womanship Founder & CCO (Chief Connection Officer)

Firstly, my apologies in advance for any women that this rant will upset because I know it will.? Let me explain why.

I’m perimenopause…or maybe menopause? Who knows?

This is probably the 5th time I’ve celebrated that I must finally be in menopause, only for my period to show up again, just for a day or so, to remind me of how my body is just acting like my brain, forgetting things.

Ahh, my apology. Well, I’m taking hormones. I know that will upset some women and I’m not proud that I bought into the pharmaceutical industry hype of a quick fix, but it has meant that I’m writing this from home, rather than from prison or a mental asylum.

Womanship initially started out as menopause related project because of the insane lack of knowledge around this subject in my friendship group. So please understand that I’d done all the research, and convinced myself that I didn’t need to put anything into my body that wasn’t meant to be there.

But when I descended into where murdering almost everyone around me was a serious consideration, together with the depressing feeling of waking up and thinking ‘What’s the point?’ I made an appointment to see my doctor.

A year or so before this, I’d mentioned I was experiencing the occasional night sweat to my doctor and he not only turned me away but told me to come back when my periods had stopped for a year (which is actually postmenopause) and didn’t even mention the word perimenopause …go figure?

In my subsequent research, I’d read about how often women’s symptoms are not taken seriously so knew I had to be well prepared for the next discussion, so I did my research to get the help I felt I needed.

So, back to surgery visit number two. My new doctor was taken aback by my knowledge of the subject, and all the natural and lifestyle remedies I had tried. He prescribed hormone replacement in the form of the mini-pill, saying that this was unusual on a ‘first visit’ but I had obviously done my homework.

Well, they worked for a while but, after a year or so, I felt the dark cloud returning with a vengeance. I had no energy or brain power.

The doctor then prescribed oestrogen patches and progesterone tablets and all was right with the world again.

During this time I did my own experimentation, and stopped using anything to see whether I still needed the ‘additional help’ but for me the positives far outweighed the negatives.

So, all was right with the world again (well I say ‘all’ right, the truth is more manageable) but there was a new problem…

The patches caused huge irritation to my skin, especially when I exercised. To start with I accepted this as a necessary evil. But after a year, I decided enough was enough and that I deserved a better solution.

So new appointment, new young doctor (well I say young, that’s just how I see anyone who could be my child, but I’m guessing early 30’s). I explained my problem and proceeded to show my scars. The advice was to ask the pharmacy to change the brand of patches, as it was probably a reaction to the adhesive.

But I had another idea,

I asked whether topical oestrogen was an option:

Doctor laughs out loud

“There’s no such thing as topical oestrogen.”

Excuse me?

When I explained it was a well a documented treatment I was told, quite abruptly, that I must be mistaken.

Thank God for Google who, for all its negatives, was able to back me up.

So, I knew more about menopause and potential treatments than my doctor.

And what surprised me even more was the fact that my doctor was a woman!

Imagine the number of women who visit the doctor and are not as insanely prepared as I was.

Watch here: This is why women are struggling to find support through menopause and perimenopause!

Research tells us that the highest rate of mis-prescription of anti-depressants is women in perimenopause, because doctors (and I think they do an amazing job on the whole) often treat the symptoms, rather than understand the challenges of this, and other life stages, women experience.

Imagine the number of women who, like me on my first visit, don’t even know what perimenopause is.

If I can be ridiculed by my doctor, imagine what happens to them and how they suffer unnecessarily.

Now I’m not advocating for hormone treatments, that’s an individual decision, but ladies, we need to educate ourselves on our bodies to ensure we have the right options put in front of us. The UK Governments Health Strategy for Women, published in 2022, details its ‘ambitions and bold’ plans which include the fact that all student doctors will need have compulsory training on women’s health by 2024/25.

Doesn’t sound so bold to me.

It sounds like men are only just discovering that women may be different and have different medical needs, that need to be understood. At only 51% of the population, it’s hard to understand how we have been so overlooked in the past. (Don’t get me started on male only drug trials; the fact women experience different heart attacks symptoms than men; that crash test dummies are still male….ohhh I could go on and on!)

And what about the doctors who are already practicing with none of this ‘specialist’ training?

We need to talk more about the things we women often keep to ourselves, things that are actually about being a women -?because in a patriarchal world they are seen to be things we should be embarrassed about, or just shut up and deal with,?periods and miscarriage being two of the many examples.

Men are not going to do it for us, they wrote the script for God’s sake.

Something has got to change.