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On my 11th birthday, I went with some other girls to see a film. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:10 | |
This was...you'd go to the pictures on your birthday, | 0:00:10 | 0:00:12 | |
you were very grown-up. We went to see She, | 0:00:12 | 0:00:14 | |
the Hammer film based on the H Rider Haggard book and I had read the | 0:00:14 | 0:00:18 | |
H Rider Haggard books, | 0:00:18 | 0:00:20 | |
and this is She, Aisha, looking for the elixir of life, | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
finding it, going back into the fire a second time to take the man she | 0:00:24 | 0:00:27 | |
loves with her. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:28 | |
And she starts to age and she starts to crumble and she starts to turn to | 0:00:31 | 0:00:36 | |
dust and it's absolutely terrifying, and it was probably my first real | 0:00:36 | 0:00:41 | |
connection with old age. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:43 | |
Bizarrely, in my head, ever since then, I thought, | 0:00:43 | 0:00:46 | |
this is what the menopause is all about, | 0:00:46 | 0:00:48 | |
this is getting really, really, old, this is turning to dust. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:51 | |
It's nonsense, of course, and I have always associated it with this film. | 0:00:57 | 0:01:01 | |
Every woman goes through the menopause and yet there is something about | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
the word itself that has these negative connotations | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
of ageing and atrophy which, in our youth obsessed culture, | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
can be debilitating for women and even | 0:01:27 | 0:01:29 | |
embarrassing, and yet we are all living longer and working longer and | 0:01:29 | 0:01:33 | |
menopause is a feature of midlife. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
It's the start of a new chapter. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:38 | |
So why the persistent taboo? | 0:01:38 | 0:01:40 | |
It really is time for a change. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:42 | |
I'm setting out to discover what the menopause actually is. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:49 | |
I've never talked about vaginas so much in all my life | 0:01:49 | 0:01:52 | |
since taking this on. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:54 | |
I spoke to Joan Collins once and she said menopause is a myth. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:58 | |
Find out the reality for some women. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:00 | |
Then I would get hot spells and they would disappear and I would wonder | 0:02:00 | 0:02:04 | |
what is happening to me? | 0:02:04 | 0:02:06 | |
I was 14 and it was diagnosed at 16. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:09 | |
I'd be making sandwiches with a knife in my hand and I would have to | 0:02:09 | 0:02:12 | |
put the knife down and just walk away. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:14 | |
Look at what we can do to help ourselves deal with the effects. | 0:02:15 | 0:02:19 | |
I noticed the difference in my symptoms within a week. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:22 | |
Then the hot flushes started and that was horrific. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:26 | |
It was a bit more like adolescent sex, a lot of fun, really. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:31 | |
Yeah. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:33 | |
I meet scientists at the cutting edge of controversial research which | 0:02:35 | 0:02:38 | |
could potentially reverse the menopause. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:41 | |
I will look for any evidence of follicles and eggs being formed. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:45 | |
And I'm curious to find out how older women have been portrayed over the | 0:02:46 | 0:02:50 | |
centuries and the way that has shaped our modern attitudes to age and the menopause. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:55 | |
In her award-winning book Hot Flushes, Cold Science | 0:02:58 | 0:03:01 | |
historian Louise Foxcroft examined how society has treated older women through the millennia. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:06 | |
Take us back to the Greeks, what was the menopause judged as then? | 0:03:06 | 0:03:10 | |
First of all, I would say it was not really judged at all because women | 0:03:12 | 0:03:16 | |
post menopause were just not interesting and, in fact, | 0:03:16 | 0:03:18 | |
what happened to them, they became much more masculine. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:23 | |
The female, she is pathological, she is deformed, | 0:03:23 | 0:03:27 | |
she's a sort of mutilated male, in fact, | 0:03:27 | 0:03:29 | |
and that is where the interest lies in her | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
and her pathology and her reproductive system. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:36 | |
Did the Greeks demonise then, women, post-menopause? | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
No, they did not demonise them, but they didn't do anything with them. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:43 | |
It's just not interesting. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:44 | |
It's the gateway to death. That's the end of them. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:46 | |
-They're finished. -The Victorians have the idea that there is a link | 0:03:46 | 0:03:49 | |
between the womb and the brain. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:51 | |
That is an ancient idea. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:53 | |
That goes back to the early modern period and before that where the womb | 0:03:53 | 0:03:57 | |
is sort of a disreputable and wild organ that runs around the body and | 0:03:57 | 0:04:02 | |
distributes blood. Of course blood is a bad idea. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:06 | |
They thought at one point that the blood stayed in the body after | 0:04:06 | 0:04:09 | |
menopause and then causes cancers and other degenerative illnesses. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:13 | |
We had hoped that negative attitudes towards older women and the menopause | 0:04:15 | 0:04:19 | |
might have changed over the last century, | 0:04:19 | 0:04:21 | |
however, even if we don't talk about it much, we do laugh at it | 0:04:21 | 0:04:25 | |
and the menopause has always provided fertile fodder for comedy. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:29 | |
It's like a big tide of jam coming towards us | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
but jam made out of old women. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:35 | |
I've got a bad feeling about this. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:38 | |
-I think we'd better get back in the house. -Go away. I don't want to catch the menopause. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:42 | |
'And sometimes it even requires a man to take on woman's trouble.' | 0:04:45 | 0:04:49 | |
I wouldn't tell another living soul this, of course. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
I'm approaching the change. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:57 | |
Approaching the change? | 0:05:00 | 0:05:02 | |
From which direction? | 0:05:02 | 0:05:03 | |
The menopause like most things in life has its funny side. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:10 | |
But sometimes, it just doesn't feel like a laughing matter. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:15 | |
Despite the majority of women experiencing this transition between the ages of 45 and 55, | 0:05:15 | 0:05:21 | |
we are still shockingly uninformed about what the menopause actually is | 0:05:21 | 0:05:26 | |
and, more importantly, how to deal with it. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:28 | |
We are headed towards Dumfries. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:38 | |
Actually, funnily enough, I was born in Dumfries, | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
which was instant, unlike the menopause, which we are going to talk about, | 0:05:42 | 0:05:46 | |
which is anything but instant. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:47 | |
It goes on for a very long time sometimes. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
It happens to all women so therefore why do we know so little about it | 0:05:49 | 0:05:53 | |
and why are women so reluctant to do anything to alleviate the symptoms? | 0:05:53 | 0:05:59 | |
These symptoms can be alleviated now, myself included. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:02 | |
I haven't done enough to alleviate the symptoms so I am on a quest to | 0:06:02 | 0:06:07 | |
find out more. | 0:06:07 | 0:06:08 | |
I am here to see one woman who knows more about the menopause than most. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:19 | |
Doctor Heather Currie chairs the British Menopause Society, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:23 | |
which provides healthcare professionals with information and guidance. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:27 | |
So it's normal process that our bodies go through. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:32 | |
Sadly, our ovaries are only designed to last a certain number of years. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:36 | |
We produce egg cells on average up until the late 40s, early 50s | 0:06:36 | 0:06:41 | |
and by the age of 51, on average, | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
women are stopping having periods and the reason they stop periods is | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
because we run out of egg cells, | 0:06:47 | 0:06:49 | |
but the complicated thing is we now live for many years beyond that. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:53 | |
So when our ovaries are not working, | 0:06:53 | 0:06:55 | |
the key hormone that we stop producing is oestrogen. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
Rather than it being just about periods stopping and flushing, | 0:06:59 | 0:07:02 | |
it is around the consequences of the lack of oestrogen. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:06 | |
There are lots of taboos about gynaecology in general | 0:07:06 | 0:07:09 | |
and the menopause affects every single woman. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
So we really, really need to talk about it more. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
There are many aspects of the menopause | 0:07:18 | 0:07:19 | |
that women can be embarrassed to talk about in public. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:23 | |
I thought it would be interesting to see if I could encourage them to open up on radio. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:27 | |
You're listing to Kaye Adams on BBC Radio Scotland | 0:07:29 | 0:07:32 | |
here with you until 12. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:33 | |
Coming up, we will be talking the menopause with Kirsty Wark, | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
and we would love to hear from you. How was it for you? | 0:07:36 | 0:07:39 | |
Maybe you're still going through it. Did you consult your GP, | 0:07:39 | 0:07:41 | |
your family, your friends, your work colleagues? Do give us a call. | 0:07:41 | 0:07:45 | |
We are also joined by Doctor Fiona Kennan, | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
but we would love to hear from you this morning. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:50 | |
Kirsty, can I ask how was it for you? | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
Not great, really. Absolutely. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
Not great medically induced, | 0:07:56 | 0:07:57 | |
hysterectomy at 47, everything whipped out, | 0:07:57 | 0:08:00 | |
HRT for three years and then came the big boom scare. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:03 | |
And suddenly HRT was taboo | 0:08:05 | 0:08:07 | |
and I came off HRT and actually my symptoms have not really gone away in the last ten years. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:14 | |
-What about you? -I don't seem to have been affected. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:18 | |
-I know that I annoy people. -You're not annoying me at all. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:22 | |
Virtually 100% will experience some symptoms, Kaye. | 0:08:22 | 0:08:26 | |
You're wonderful, you and my mother. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:28 | |
I do stick my leg out of the bed at night. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:31 | |
Hot, hot flushes. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:33 | |
I think that is a symptom, Kaye. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:35 | |
Even if it is only one leg. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:37 | |
-Only one leg. -The menopause would affect your urogenital system, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
so you might get dryness down below, problems passing urine, | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
discomfort during intercourse, loss of libido. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:47 | |
People don't want to talk about that stuff with their doctors. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
I want to hear from women about how detrimental that is to their lives. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:55 | |
What you want to hear from people, | 0:08:55 | 0:08:57 | |
you get what you want because we've got lots of them. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
Let's speak to Nan. Good morning, Nan. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
-'Good morning.' -How are you this morning? | 0:09:03 | 0:09:06 | |
'I'm OK. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:08 | |
'I've had a horrible, horrible night with hot flushes.' | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
-Oh. -'Yes.' -Does it affect you every night, Nan? | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
'Every single night. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:17 | |
'What I would like to ask is, I am 78, am I too old to go back on HRT?' | 0:09:17 | 0:09:24 | |
You may also want to consider other options, | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
non-hormonal options which can be helpful in some cases to control hot | 0:09:26 | 0:09:31 | |
flushes and which we sometimes use for ladies who are not so suitable for HRT. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:35 | |
Just a wee second, we talk about going through the menopause | 0:09:35 | 0:09:39 | |
as if it is a discrete period of time. | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
You have been experiencing menopausal symptoms for more than 30 years. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:49 | |
'Yes, I have.' | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
The average figures are that ladies will go through the menopause symptoms | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
in about four years, but the range, | 0:09:54 | 0:09:56 | |
we would normally quote a range of up to about 12 years. | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
Actually, we have Margaret on the line who I think is in a similar boat. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
Margaret, just for people who are not at this stage of your life, | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
when you say sweats, it doesn't always sound that dramatic. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
'It is terrible, I'd throw the covers back, get out of bed, | 0:10:08 | 0:10:12 | |
'cool myself down, onto the tiles in the bathroom, | 0:10:12 | 0:10:15 | |
'walk about there and cool down and then back to bed, and then up again.' | 0:10:15 | 0:10:19 | |
Aside from all the other symptoms, | 0:10:20 | 0:10:21 | |
the sleep disruption associated with that is huge. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:24 | |
'Sleep disruption's a big problem.' | 0:10:24 | 0:10:26 | |
Coming up to five to 12. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:28 | |
Time is against us. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
We are talking about the menopause, let's speak to Angus. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
Good morning. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:34 | |
'Good morning, Kaye. I saw my mother when she was going through all of this. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
'I did not understand it, I was about 11. She was so depressed, etc, | 0:10:38 | 0:10:41 | |
'and at one stage they were thinking of committing her | 0:10:41 | 0:10:45 | |
'into an asylum or something like that. The doctor | 0:10:45 | 0:10:49 | |
'said "Right, we will give your wife pills, if it doesn't work, | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
'we will have her committed," | 0:10:52 | 0:10:54 | |
-'and Father said, "Over my dead body." -' | 0:10:54 | 0:10:56 | |
That was really, an overwhelming response, | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
I have to say, and it was very immediate | 0:10:59 | 0:11:02 | |
which is interesting. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:04 | |
As soon as you were on, | 0:11:04 | 0:11:05 | |
somebody is saying to me, really busy on this, really busy on this, | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
and actually we quickly took a decision to dump what we had planned | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
for the last half-hour of the show. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
You kind of know that you have touched a nerve when that happens. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:19 | |
Sharing experiences honestly and bravely | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
is a very powerful thing to do. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
And it can help others to know that they are not alone. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
Especially if they feel they are having to battle to be heard, | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
even by their GP. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:40 | |
I was 46 when I started to see my periods have got less. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:45 | |
And I feel that I am going through the early stages of the menopause | 0:11:45 | 0:11:50 | |
and his words were, "You're far too young." | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
The menopause does not happen until you're 52. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
Just like that. 52, on maybe the 3rd of January. | 0:11:56 | 0:12:00 | |
-Great. -A few months down the line I noticed other things like low mood, | 0:12:00 | 0:12:06 | |
feeling very depressed at times. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:09 | |
Tearful, emotional for no reason at all. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
So I went back to him again and I sat with him and I said to him, | 0:12:13 | 0:12:17 | |
"Look, I know I'm going through something. Something is happening to me." | 0:12:17 | 0:12:22 | |
"Maybe it's just a bit of depression, you're having." | 0:12:22 | 0:12:24 | |
I said, "No, I know fine it's not a bit of depression I'm having. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:28 | |
"That's not causing hot sweats," and I said, "If you do a blood test | 0:12:28 | 0:12:33 | |
"and if it comes back, we'll take it from there." | 0:12:33 | 0:12:35 | |
He said, "I'll do the blood test but I still think that... | 0:12:35 | 0:12:38 | |
"..you're not going to be, it's not going to show anything." | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
What happened? | 0:12:43 | 0:12:44 | |
So I went back and he said, "There it is written down in black and white, | 0:12:44 | 0:12:48 | |
"likely to be perimenopausal," and I breathed a sigh of relief. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:52 | |
I think lots of people identify with Caroline's story. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:58 | |
I think lots of women will feel I have just got to manage it, | 0:12:59 | 0:13:04 | |
because their GPs have been unsympathetic. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
I think there are lots of GPs that are sympathetic, but I think for many | 0:13:07 | 0:13:10 | |
women, they don't get the answer they want first time and don't feel | 0:13:10 | 0:13:15 | |
confident about getting an answer the second time. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:18 | |
So it is a kind of suffer in silence. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:20 | |
We are all aware of the many pressures GPs and the wider NHS face these days. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:31 | |
In 2015, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, or NICE, | 0:13:31 | 0:13:36 | |
published its guidelines designed to clarify the confusion | 0:13:36 | 0:13:39 | |
about both diagnosis and management of the menopause. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:43 | |
Professor Mary Ann Lumsden is an internationally renowned expert on | 0:13:45 | 0:13:49 | |
the menopause. She chaired the specialist group which developed the guideline | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
by re-evaluating all the existing evidence. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
What we wanted to get across is that menopause can cause problems for a | 0:13:57 | 0:14:04 | |
lot of women. That help is readily available for them, | 0:14:04 | 0:14:10 | |
should they want it and that every woman needs to be treated as an | 0:14:10 | 0:14:17 | |
individual, because everybody's circumstances are different. | 0:14:17 | 0:14:20 | |
There are lesser known and surprising symptoms. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:26 | |
It is not just hot flushes and mood swings. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:28 | |
Zarina has been dealing with joint pain for more than a year. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
I didn't think it was anything to do with menopause. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
I thought it was because I was hitting 50, | 0:14:38 | 0:14:41 | |
and I'm just getting old, so I'm getting these aches and pains in my joints. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:45 | |
I need to get more fitter. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:47 | |
There were other things that were going on as well. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:50 | |
I was having really bad dizzy spells. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:52 | |
I was getting really bad headaches, very bad severe headaches. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:57 | |
What do the pains actually feel like? | 0:14:57 | 0:15:00 | |
It was like shooting pains, in my ankle or my knees, | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
either get a pain that would shoot down my leg | 0:15:03 | 0:15:05 | |
and then you would have an ache that would last for days. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
So, you've had all these different things, | 0:15:09 | 0:15:11 | |
you've had joint pains, and night sweats. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
-Yes. -And you go up to the loo in the night? | 0:15:14 | 0:15:17 | |
Yes. And then you get thirsty because you're sweating in the night and you | 0:15:17 | 0:15:22 | |
drink water and then you drink water and you need to get up to go to the | 0:15:22 | 0:15:26 | |
toilet, but most of the time now, after every two hours, I get up. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:30 | |
You've got two options, you put up with the night sweats, the dizziness, | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
the joint pain, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:35 | |
going to the loo in the middle of the night or you maybe seek some help | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
for it, and it might alleviate some of your symptoms. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:41 | |
-What are you likely to do? -What I would want to do, | 0:15:41 | 0:15:44 | |
is make my life better and have a better quality of life. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:49 | |
But, the way I am, I would probably just ignore it and just think, | 0:15:51 | 0:15:56 | |
it's going to get better and I think part of me thinks, | 0:15:56 | 0:15:58 | |
it is a passing phase that the menopause is something that will be here | 0:15:58 | 0:16:03 | |
for a little while and then you go back to normal. | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
I know that's not the case, but in my head, | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
I'm probably still in denial. | 0:16:09 | 0:16:10 | |
The most common treatment for menopausal symptoms | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
is hormone replacement therapy, HRT, | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
which helps replace the oestrogen lost | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
when our ovaries stop producing eggs. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:24 | |
It can be taken via patches or as a gel or tablets. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:28 | |
But it's been hard to work out if it's wise to take HRT. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:33 | |
This is due to the confusion ignited by the publication of the | 0:16:33 | 0:16:37 | |
women's health initiative study in America back in 2002. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:42 | |
The study cast serious doubts on the safety of HRT. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:46 | |
So, 2002, HRT study cancelled over cancer and stroke fears, The Guardian, | 0:16:47 | 0:16:53 | |
HRT risk to breast cancer in the Mail, | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
HRT does more harm than good, 2002. | 0:16:56 | 0:16:59 | |
2008, new cancer fear for women taking HRT and then HRT is safe for | 0:16:59 | 0:17:05 | |
millions of women. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:06 | |
Again the Express, two Express stories. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
New menopause guide says one million women can benefit from HRT. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:16 | |
This is why it is all so confusing. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:19 | |
I was using HRT tablets for three years after my hysterectomy | 0:17:21 | 0:17:25 | |
but stopped suddenly, like so many women, because of this scare. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:30 | |
In 2002 the result of the women's health initiative study came out and | 0:17:31 | 0:17:35 | |
those suggested that being on HRT hugely increased your risk of breast | 0:17:35 | 0:17:40 | |
cancer and at the time it seemed like being on HRT even for a short period. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:44 | |
So at that time people just stopped taking their HRT because of this | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
risk. Lots of them without any discussion with a medical professional, | 0:17:48 | 0:17:52 | |
they literally stopped, cold turkey and after that people stopped coming | 0:17:52 | 0:17:55 | |
to ask for HRT from the doctors | 0:17:55 | 0:17:57 | |
and GPs became less and less familiar with | 0:17:57 | 0:18:00 | |
prescribing it and also got caught up in the safety issues around it so | 0:18:00 | 0:18:04 | |
were probably less likely to suggest it to their patients. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:06 | |
-So it's a kind of vicious circle. -Yes. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
Subsequent research suggested that the analysis of the data was | 0:18:09 | 0:18:13 | |
flawed and that the findings were overstated. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:16 | |
But these more positive reappraisals received nothing like the same | 0:18:16 | 0:18:20 | |
publicity as the original scare. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:22 | |
More up-to-date research has attempted to offer clarification of the risks involved. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:28 | |
The current understanding is that if women take oestrogen only, | 0:18:28 | 0:18:33 | |
which is taken if a woman has had the womb removed, | 0:18:33 | 0:18:36 | |
had a hysterectomy, | 0:18:36 | 0:18:38 | |
there seems to be very little increased risk of being diagnosed | 0:18:38 | 0:18:42 | |
with breast cancer. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:43 | |
If women take HRT which is oestrogen and progestogen, | 0:18:43 | 0:18:47 | |
the other hormone, progestogen, is added in to protect the lining of the womb for more | 0:18:47 | 0:18:52 | |
than five years after the age of 50, | 0:18:52 | 0:18:54 | |
there is a possibility that there is an increased risk of being diagnosed | 0:18:54 | 0:18:58 | |
with breast cancer. The other thing we have to clearly remember, | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
which is a really important fact, | 0:19:01 | 0:19:03 | |
is that there is no evidence that HRT causes breast cells to turn into | 0:19:03 | 0:19:07 | |
cancer. It may be that it is promoting something that is already there and | 0:19:07 | 0:19:11 | |
the other really important fact is that being overweight or drinking two | 0:19:11 | 0:19:15 | |
or more units of alcohol a day are actually really important risk factors | 0:19:15 | 0:19:19 | |
for breast cancer, | 0:19:19 | 0:19:20 | |
and particularly being overweight is a far greater risk factor than taking HRT. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:26 | |
The feeling now is that for women who are having menopausal symptoms, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
for most women the benefits of HRT outweigh the risks. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:33 | |
And it is the most effective treatment that we have for controlling symptoms. | 0:19:33 | 0:19:37 | |
Janice has been taking HRT for almost ten years. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:46 | |
She began to experience menopausal symptoms when she was just 39. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:51 | |
I had this flush and I could feel it and my sister turned round and said | 0:19:53 | 0:19:57 | |
to me, "Are you OK? You've gone awfully red." | 0:19:57 | 0:20:00 | |
And I thought, thank God! | 0:20:00 | 0:20:01 | |
It is actually noticeable. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:04 | |
I didn't just imagine this. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:05 | |
So, I went back to my GP just after, | 0:20:05 | 0:20:08 | |
well, it was actually my nurse and I said to her, | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
"Could you do the test for me, just to put my mind at rest?" | 0:20:11 | 0:20:15 | |
And she put it through and she said she'd get back to me in a couple of | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
weeks' time. She phoned me two days later and said, | 0:20:18 | 0:20:21 | |
"You were absolutely right." | 0:20:21 | 0:20:23 | |
She says, "Your hormone balances are all over the place." | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
So, after that I started dealing with a female GP. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
She offered me the chance to go on HRT but then, you know, | 0:20:30 | 0:20:35 | |
talked about the risks that were involved, | 0:20:35 | 0:20:37 | |
like the breast cancer risks and suchlike. | 0:20:37 | 0:20:40 | |
But also about the risk at my age of osteoporosis. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:44 | |
And we didn't really have much of a history in our house, | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
in our family for breast cancer. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:51 | |
So for me the osteoporosis thing was more of a sort of... | 0:20:51 | 0:20:56 | |
because my mum has arthritis and I have known people with osteoporosis | 0:20:56 | 0:21:01 | |
and thought, "Oh, that's horrible." | 0:21:01 | 0:21:03 | |
So, talking about that made me more inclined to go with the HRT option | 0:21:03 | 0:21:08 | |
and they put me on patches. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:09 | |
And so I started on them and it was great. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
How quickly did things change once you got a patch on? | 0:21:12 | 0:21:15 | |
I noticed a difference in my symptoms almost within a week. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
The sweat, the night hot flushes weren't nearly as bad. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:24 | |
They still came, | 0:21:24 | 0:21:26 | |
but they were so much more bearable, sometimes you barely even noticed them. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:30 | |
Janice's concerns about osteoporosis are certainly well founded. | 0:21:32 | 0:21:37 | |
It's a condition that weakens bones, | 0:21:37 | 0:21:39 | |
making them fragile and more likely to break. | 0:21:39 | 0:21:42 | |
Reaching menopause at a younger age means your body is losing the oestrogen | 0:21:42 | 0:21:46 | |
vital for bone health even sooner than usual. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:49 | |
Many of us are a generation who've watched our mothers experience the | 0:21:50 | 0:21:57 | |
effects of osteoporosis with multiple fractures often, | 0:21:57 | 0:22:01 | |
and decreased mobility, loss of confidence. | 0:22:01 | 0:22:05 | |
It's an awful disease and it is extremely common, | 0:22:05 | 0:22:10 | |
particularly in women. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
And so some people would like to prevent osteoporosis. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:18 | |
It doesn't totally prevent fractures, | 0:22:18 | 0:22:21 | |
but it certainly can go some way in doing so. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:25 | |
HRT decreases the likelihood of a fracture. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:28 | |
It's a beautiful sunny morning and I'm on my way to have a bone density scan. A Dexa scan. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:43 | |
And the reason I'm having it is that it's definitely the case | 0:22:44 | 0:22:50 | |
that bone density is a pretty critical issue for a lot of women | 0:22:50 | 0:22:54 | |
going through the menopause, | 0:22:54 | 0:22:56 | |
and osteoporosis is a pretty horrible disease. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
I am not expecting to find problems with my bone density | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
because it's not in the family. I'm reasonably fit and healthy, but you never know! | 0:23:05 | 0:23:09 | |
Dr Adamson, nice to see you. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:22 | |
We're going to use this calculation tool just to calculate your | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
probability of a fracture and then that will help us to guide us as to | 0:23:31 | 0:23:34 | |
whether you need a Dexa scan or not. | 0:23:34 | 0:23:36 | |
You can see the first thing that we need to just pop in is your age. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
-61. -OK. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:41 | |
And then you're female. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:42 | |
No previous fractures. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:45 | |
-Parent fractured a hip? -No. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:46 | |
-You don't smoke? -No. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:47 | |
And alcohol. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:48 | |
So the question here is three or more units a day? | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
So that would be 21 units a week. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
Pretty sure most times I'm under that, | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
but there could be the odd party time where I'm over that. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:59 | |
Of course. So we calculate it both ways because I think it's quite | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
interesting to see the difference that that makes. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:05 | |
So if we do it without and then we calculate, | 0:24:05 | 0:24:08 | |
you can see that your fracture risk there is 6.7% over ten years. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:14 | |
And just to see that visually, you can see there. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:17 | |
So, I'm in green, just. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:19 | |
Just in the green. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:21 | |
And then if we change that and say, yes on the alcohol, | 0:24:21 | 0:24:25 | |
that takes us up to a risk of 8.3% over ten years, | 0:24:25 | 0:24:29 | |
and you can see that that's | 0:24:30 | 0:24:31 | |
just enough to push you into the category where | 0:24:31 | 0:24:34 | |
we would measure your bone mineral density. | 0:24:34 | 0:24:36 | |
-So, actually, lifestyle is really important. -Really, really important. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:39 | |
Yes. Alcohol intake is very important. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:41 | |
-And if you were a smoker then that would have pushed you even further into that category. -OK. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:46 | |
OK, so we'll just get you to come over and lie up on your back on the table. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:50 | |
Just shuffle down the bed an inch there. That's lovely. And just rest back. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
So, we're going to start off by taking a picture of your left hip. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
We use this as an average across the population. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
So we do the left hip on every one and the lumber spine. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
OK, so that's just ready for the first scan. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:12 | |
I'll just pop this hand just on to your tummy. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
Just nice and still there. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:16 | |
It has recently been estimated that by the age of 70, | 0:25:18 | 0:25:22 | |
half of all women will have had a fracture related to osteoporosis. | 0:25:22 | 0:25:27 | |
So, what we're going to do now is position your knees on top of this pad. | 0:25:27 | 0:25:32 | |
Just there. How is that for you? | 0:25:32 | 0:25:33 | |
-Fine. -OK. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:35 | |
No instructions for you, just to lie nice and still. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:38 | |
Not even pressing my back into the table? | 0:25:38 | 0:25:39 | |
No. Just relaxing normally. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:41 | |
Osteoporosis can be treated and bone strength increased in a variety of | 0:25:44 | 0:25:49 | |
ways. But because it can lead to such devastating consequences, | 0:25:49 | 0:25:53 | |
it should always be addressed. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:55 | |
Fantastic! That's us all finished. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:01 | |
-Hi. -Hi, Kirsty. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:04 | |
-How was that? -Straightforward. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
Good! Good! Are you a bit anxious to see the results? | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
I'm keen. I really am keen. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:11 | |
OK, so we'll start with the spine. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:12 | |
-Yes. -OK. | 0:26:12 | 0:26:15 | |
Bottom line here, total T-score is minus 0.7. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:20 | |
That's normal. A T-score down to minus 1 is normal. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:23 | |
A little bit of a different story at the hip though. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:26 | |
-OK. -Nothing to worry about desperately, | 0:26:27 | 0:26:30 | |
but just below minus one. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:33 | |
So minus 1.1. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:34 | |
So, classification of that would be osteopenia. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:38 | |
Right, so it's pre-osteoporosis. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:40 | |
-Wow! -Just a little bit thin at the hip. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:42 | |
Minus one down to 2.5 is osteopenia. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:45 | |
And below minus 2.5 is osteoporosis. | 0:26:45 | 0:26:48 | |
So, what does that mean in terms of what I have to do about it? | 0:26:48 | 0:26:55 | |
So, we would just recommend lifestyle management. | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
Lifestyle changes. | 0:26:57 | 0:26:58 | |
So the kind of things we talked about earlier, | 0:26:58 | 0:27:00 | |
keeping your alcohol intake down. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:02 | |
You don't smoke. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:03 | |
Sensible, healthy diet. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
Making sure you get a decent amount of calcium in your diet. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:08 | |
-Yeah. -Yeah. -And in terms of alcohol, it should be south of 14 units. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:14 | |
South of 14 units, where possible. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:15 | |
Yeah. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:17 | |
Good. Well, I better get a grip on that. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:20 | |
OK. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:21 | |
Well, that was a bit of a surprise. | 0:27:25 | 0:27:27 | |
I was quite shocked, actually. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:31 | |
But, you know, it could be a lot worse | 0:27:31 | 0:27:33 | |
and I can do something about it. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:35 | |
I'm now beginning to wonder if coming off HRT so suddenly all these years ago was a mistake. | 0:27:38 | 0:27:44 | |
If I had kept taking it would my bone density have been better? | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
So is it too late for me to start taking it again? | 0:27:48 | 0:27:51 | |
It's not ideal to have that gap, but we can't turn the clock back, | 0:27:52 | 0:27:56 | |
so what we have to do is look at the safest way of taking HRT and | 0:27:56 | 0:28:01 | |
certainly start with a low dose and you'd give consideration as to the | 0:28:01 | 0:28:05 | |
root, whether it was tablet or a patch. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
But, yes, I feel sorry for a lot of women who, | 0:28:07 | 0:28:11 | |
you know, this has been often described as ten years wasted, | 0:28:11 | 0:28:15 | |
but HRT is definitely still an option. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:17 | |
There's obviously been an impact on my bone health and I'm going to have | 0:28:22 | 0:28:25 | |
to be extra vigilant for the rest of my life. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:27 | |
It certainly wasn't something I was thinking about in my 30s. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:33 | |
So, let's look at this. | 0:28:33 | 0:28:34 | |
Back when she was in her 30s, | 0:28:34 | 0:28:36 | |
Jennifer Saunders was writing about the funny side of the menopause. | 0:28:36 | 0:28:40 | |
-Did you go to the hospital? -Yes. | 0:28:40 | 0:28:42 | |
And to the gynaecologist. | 0:28:42 | 0:28:44 | |
I hate gynaecologists, | 0:28:44 | 0:28:45 | |
a man who can look you in the vagina but never in the eye! | 0:28:45 | 0:28:47 | |
Used that line about four times! | 0:28:50 | 0:28:52 | |
Patsy's got osteoporosis. | 0:28:54 | 0:28:56 | |
She has the lowest bone density on record. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:01 | |
Cheers! Well done, darling! | 0:29:01 | 0:29:03 | |
She is just gristle clinging on to bone powder. | 0:29:05 | 0:29:09 | |
This is what happens when you have the menopause. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:11 | |
-No! -No! -You will learn about this and you will take control because | 0:29:11 | 0:29:17 | |
frankly, if you don't... | 0:29:17 | 0:29:20 | |
See you learn about this and take control. | 0:29:20 | 0:29:21 | |
Certainly was a precedent. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:23 | |
Oh! This is bad! | 0:29:25 | 0:29:26 | |
BONES CRACK | 0:29:30 | 0:29:31 | |
Oh! | 0:29:31 | 0:29:32 | |
-Is that my leg? -It's my leg. | 0:29:34 | 0:29:38 | |
Split! | 0:29:38 | 0:29:39 | |
Oh, God! | 0:29:44 | 0:29:46 | |
When you look at that now! | 0:29:46 | 0:29:47 | |
I know! | 0:29:47 | 0:29:48 | |
Oh, my God! Little did I know it was all going to happen. | 0:29:50 | 0:29:53 | |
When you were writing this episode, | 0:29:54 | 0:29:57 | |
this was specifically about the menopause. | 0:29:57 | 0:29:59 | |
Yes. I wonder why I did that? | 0:29:59 | 0:30:01 | |
I think I did it because I thought it would be funny if Patsy had osteoporosis. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:06 | |
We liked it when she had a breast check, | 0:30:06 | 0:30:07 | |
so I thought anything gynaecological with Patsy is really funny. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:10 | |
And we don't know how old she is, | 0:30:10 | 0:30:11 | |
so I thought she won't have any bones in it, so it's a funny thing. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:16 | |
Yours was a particular kind of menopause. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:19 | |
-What happened? -I was, I got breast cancer and so I wasn't menopausal, | 0:30:19 | 0:30:26 | |
I was still having periods, | 0:30:26 | 0:30:29 | |
but the second year of chemotherapy all your periods stop | 0:30:29 | 0:30:34 | |
and so you're sort of plunged into it, but because you're so full of | 0:30:34 | 0:30:39 | |
chemicals, you really have no idea. | 0:30:39 | 0:30:41 | |
It's like the tiniest thing. | 0:30:41 | 0:30:43 | |
Compared to everything else that's happening. | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
By the time you've got over the chemicals and you're on Tamoxifen, | 0:30:46 | 0:30:50 | |
which gets rid of all your oestrogen, you can't tell the difference. | 0:30:50 | 0:30:55 | |
You don't know what's coming out of chemo and what's menopause and it | 0:30:55 | 0:30:59 | |
wasn't until, I think about a year after, | 0:30:59 | 0:31:03 | |
that I started to feel like, oh, this doesn't feel right. | 0:31:03 | 0:31:06 | |
This feels different and it changes everything. | 0:31:06 | 0:31:08 | |
It changes your metabolism, your energy levels, your skin, your hair. | 0:31:08 | 0:31:14 | |
Everything. I mean it was quite astonishing. | 0:31:14 | 0:31:17 | |
-So, how did you deal with it? -I don't know. | 0:31:17 | 0:31:19 | |
I drank. No! | 0:31:20 | 0:31:21 | |
I had a large glass of champagne! | 0:31:22 | 0:31:24 | |
And got on with it. I think you just get on with it. | 0:31:26 | 0:31:29 | |
What are your symptoms now? | 0:31:29 | 0:31:30 | |
I mean I still have, my main symptoms are night sweats and bad sleep pattern. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:36 | |
I've always had a very good sleep, I'm very good at sleeping. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
-Lucky you! -Yes, I'm very good at sleeping, but the | 0:31:38 | 0:31:42 | |
first time I had a hot sweat it did take me by surprise. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:46 | |
I kept going, "What's that? | 0:31:46 | 0:31:48 | |
"What am I sitting on? What am I sitting on?" | 0:31:48 | 0:31:51 | |
I kept thinking... It felt like I was sitting on a radiator. | 0:31:51 | 0:31:54 | |
Sitting on a radiator. | 0:31:54 | 0:31:56 | |
I was looking around the room going, "Is everyone else? | 0:31:56 | 0:31:58 | |
"No, they are not hot like me." | 0:31:58 | 0:32:00 | |
Do you actually feel different post menopausal as to who you were before? | 0:32:00 | 0:32:04 | |
Is that tied up in the breast cancer as well? | 0:32:04 | 0:32:06 | |
No, I don't really think about the breast cancer. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:09 | |
But I think, yeah, | 0:32:11 | 0:32:13 | |
I think it happens and all the things I used to make jokes about are so true. | 0:32:13 | 0:32:19 | |
You know, just your place in the world and how you feel about yourself. | 0:32:19 | 0:32:23 | |
Your general feeling of sexiness and libido and, and, | 0:32:24 | 0:32:30 | |
it's an indefinable something that you don't have any more. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:34 | |
But for me, I feel completely able to do what I want to do. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:40 | |
Some of the physical changes of the menopause can massively affect a | 0:32:44 | 0:32:47 | |
woman's self-esteem. Like Jennifer, | 0:32:47 | 0:32:50 | |
Isabel experienced what is termed medical menopause, | 0:32:50 | 0:32:54 | |
'that is when a woman is catapulted putted into menopause unnaturally | 0:32:54 | 0:32:58 | |
'because of surgery, like a hysterectomy, | 0:32:58 | 0:33:01 | |
'or as a result of cancer treatment. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:03 | |
'Isabel experienced symptoms almost overnight after she had her ovaries removed.' | 0:33:03 | 0:33:09 | |
Because I didn't feel like me. | 0:33:09 | 0:33:11 | |
I didn't really feel like me. | 0:33:11 | 0:33:12 | |
When I was looking in the mirror I had changed so, so much. | 0:33:12 | 0:33:15 | |
My face had changed, it blew up, everything. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:19 | |
My skin was really... | 0:33:19 | 0:33:20 | |
My mum always had amazing skin, | 0:33:20 | 0:33:23 | |
she always looked younger than what she was and I prided myself in that. | 0:33:23 | 0:33:26 | |
I then developed a beard as well | 0:33:26 | 0:33:31 | |
and my husband... That became a joke as well because my husband has got a | 0:33:31 | 0:33:34 | |
goatee and these hairs stop growing on your legs but they just travel up | 0:33:34 | 0:33:40 | |
to your chin, so tweezers became my best friend. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:43 | |
Do you think there is a problem talking about the menopause? | 0:33:43 | 0:33:45 | |
Yes, I think so. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:47 | |
I think in one way it's you're facing the fact that you are no longer | 0:33:47 | 0:33:53 | |
a young woman. As we say. So you've got that to get over as well, that this is now... | 0:33:53 | 0:34:01 | |
You're not going back the way, | 0:34:01 | 0:34:04 | |
there's no change, as much as I didn't want to have any more children, | 0:34:04 | 0:34:07 | |
it's gone. All that's gone, you're into a new phase of your life but... | 0:34:07 | 0:34:11 | |
-And I think... -But the point is you're not old. | 0:34:11 | 0:34:15 | |
You're young, middle-aged. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:17 | |
But it made me feel old. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:21 | |
For some women like Isabel, | 0:34:21 | 0:34:23 | |
the menopause can really shake their confidence but it doesn't need to | 0:34:23 | 0:34:27 | |
feel like the beginning of the end. | 0:34:27 | 0:34:29 | |
No matter what we look like on the outside, | 0:34:30 | 0:34:32 | |
inside our bodies are inevitably ageing | 0:34:32 | 0:34:36 | |
but there are many ways to deal with that. | 0:34:36 | 0:34:39 | |
We know that being low on oestrogen also affects our bone health and our | 0:34:40 | 0:34:43 | |
heart health and for these reasons, so HRT is part of the option, | 0:34:43 | 0:34:49 | |
one of the options, if we need to take treatment for | 0:34:49 | 0:34:52 | |
menopausal effects but | 0:34:52 | 0:34:54 | |
also diet and lifestyle changes are really important as well. | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
So not only are the symptoms important, | 0:34:57 | 0:35:00 | |
but that should also lead to a discussion | 0:35:00 | 0:35:03 | |
around what can I do to improve my health later on? | 0:35:03 | 0:35:06 | |
Now, some people turn their noses up at herbal remedies or | 0:35:09 | 0:35:15 | |
different kind of, almost talismanic things. | 0:35:15 | 0:35:18 | |
But I'm going to meet Karen. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:22 | |
The thing about Karen is that she swears by her lady magnet and | 0:35:22 | 0:35:30 | |
what we're going to do is we're going to see how that works for her, | 0:35:30 | 0:35:33 | |
what difference it's made to her life. | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
For Karen, and women like her who have a family history of ovarian or | 0:35:38 | 0:35:42 | |
breast cancer, taking HRT does have slightly increased risks of | 0:35:42 | 0:35:47 | |
breast cancer, so Karen felt it was not a safe option | 0:35:47 | 0:35:50 | |
and she had to consider alternatives. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:53 | |
So I looked at my diet, | 0:35:55 | 0:35:57 | |
I looked at my exercise regime, | 0:35:57 | 0:35:58 | |
which was kind of non-existent at that time, | 0:35:58 | 0:36:01 | |
and I thought I've been a runner before, I can do this again. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:04 | |
That's been a big part of your, as it were, rejuvenation. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
It has been an absolute huge part of my rejuvenation. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:11 | |
And then I thought, right OK, the exercise thing is there, | 0:36:11 | 0:36:14 | |
now I need to adjust my eating. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:16 | |
My eating habits were just a bit appalling, really. | 0:36:16 | 0:36:19 | |
Then the hot flushes started. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:21 | |
I thought, what's this? I was like, what? | 0:36:21 | 0:36:24 | |
People had told me about this and you just have to whip all your | 0:36:24 | 0:36:27 | |
clothes off and then it doesn't matter where you are, | 0:36:27 | 0:36:30 | |
Marks & Spencer's or anywhere, you'd be like... | 0:36:30 | 0:36:32 | |
And people will be looking and you going, "Oh, dear." | 0:36:32 | 0:36:36 | |
Well, I was having up to about 85 hot flushes a day and night | 0:36:36 | 0:36:39 | |
in a 24-hour period. I've ignored this a wee bit. | 0:36:39 | 0:36:42 | |
No, I'll do it, it's my job. | 0:36:42 | 0:36:43 | |
And so I heard about this magnet and I thought, right, OK. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:49 | |
People wear magnets for arthritis and rheumatism, | 0:36:49 | 0:36:53 | |
and it works on the same principle as that. | 0:36:53 | 0:36:56 | |
I think it's a balancing thing. | 0:36:56 | 0:36:58 | |
So how long did it take to stop the hot flushes? | 0:36:58 | 0:36:59 | |
It took me about eight weeks. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:01 | |
-But you persevered? -For me to notice a difference and the difference | 0:37:01 | 0:37:07 | |
that it's made to my life, I probably have maybe four, | 0:37:07 | 0:37:11 | |
five hot flushes a day now. | 0:37:11 | 0:37:13 | |
I'd still say four or five is quite a lot actually, but obviously compared to 80. | 0:37:13 | 0:37:17 | |
Compared to 80 it's not. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:18 | |
And you think it's definitely the magnet and not a progression of your | 0:37:18 | 0:37:23 | |
-menopause? -It could be a progression of my menopause. | 0:37:23 | 0:37:26 | |
-It doesn't matter because it works for you. -It doesn't matter because it works for me. | 0:37:26 | 0:37:29 | |
So it could all be psychosomatic but it works for me. | 0:37:29 | 0:37:34 | |
-Can I just see the magnet? -Yes, of course. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:35 | |
That's the magnet now. How does it...? | 0:37:38 | 0:37:42 | |
It's two bits. Two pieces to it. | 0:37:42 | 0:37:44 | |
-Right. -And that it goes inside, up against... -Yes. | 0:37:46 | 0:37:49 | |
-Your pubic bone there. -And the other bit goes on the front of your knickers and keeps it firm. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:54 | |
-And that's 24 hours a day? -24 hours a day. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
Magnet therapy is just one option for dealing with the menopause. | 0:38:01 | 0:38:04 | |
Although there is no comprehensive medical research to back up the | 0:38:06 | 0:38:09 | |
effectiveness of alternative therapies, | 0:38:09 | 0:38:12 | |
the idea of a placebo which works on the mind rather than the body has been proven. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:18 | |
Placebo work brilliantly for everything. | 0:38:19 | 0:38:21 | |
And you need quite an effective treatment to be better than | 0:38:21 | 0:38:25 | |
placebos, so I never say to a woman something won't work. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:29 | |
-Never say that because you know that in a certain proportion of cases it will. -Why? | 0:38:29 | 0:38:34 | |
I suspect it's because of neuronal pathways. | 0:38:35 | 0:38:41 | |
The control of hot flushing is in the brain | 0:38:41 | 0:38:44 | |
and it's an alteration in the perception of temperature, | 0:38:44 | 0:38:48 | |
heat and cold. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:50 | |
So you react very quickly to changes in temperature postmenopausally in a | 0:38:50 | 0:38:54 | |
way you don't premenopausally, due to the absence of oestrogen, | 0:38:54 | 0:38:59 | |
and I wonder if somehow the placebo, if you like, | 0:38:59 | 0:39:05 | |
relaxes somebody. | 0:39:05 | 0:39:07 | |
They feel differently and this impacts on the way the brain is working. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:11 | |
It's quite possible. | 0:39:11 | 0:39:13 | |
This connection between mind and body can have a massive impact on our lives. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:19 | |
One of the effects of the menopause is the mood swing or indeed low | 0:39:19 | 0:39:24 | |
mood, as I've heard it described. | 0:39:24 | 0:39:26 | |
And that can be incredibly upsetting and debilitating for women | 0:39:26 | 0:39:31 | |
experiencing that, but just as upsetting and debilitating for | 0:39:31 | 0:39:34 | |
relationships, be it with your partner or indeed with your family when, | 0:39:34 | 0:39:39 | |
all of a sudden, out of nowhere | 0:39:39 | 0:39:41 | |
a rage comes on. | 0:39:41 | 0:39:42 | |
Women are, historically and traditionally, | 0:39:45 | 0:39:49 | |
have been thought of as unstable, volatile, uncontrollable. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:55 | |
What happens is that they are supposed to, post-menopause, do good deeds, | 0:39:55 | 0:40:00 | |
do charity, to become serene, to get by on just the love of their families | 0:40:00 | 0:40:07 | |
and the love of society. | 0:40:07 | 0:40:09 | |
Generally keep quiet, not rock the boat, | 0:40:09 | 0:40:12 | |
vanish. Just disappear and if you don't do that | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
then you're troublesome and | 0:40:15 | 0:40:17 | |
then you can be diagnosed with a immoral insanity or hysteria. | 0:40:17 | 0:40:20 | |
Hysteria was a very big thing, only dying out in the early 20th century. | 0:40:20 | 0:40:24 | |
The cliche of the older woman as mad, bad and dangerous to know | 0:40:25 | 0:40:29 | |
is the comedy gift that just keeps on giving. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:33 | |
-Dougal! -Hello. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:41 | |
But uncontrollable rage is no joke. | 0:40:43 | 0:40:47 | |
For Jackie, it's been horrendous. | 0:40:47 | 0:40:50 | |
She was prescribed antidepressants for six months | 0:40:50 | 0:40:53 | |
to try to help her cope | 0:40:53 | 0:40:54 | |
but she didn't feel that was the best way for her. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:57 | |
She's been trying to manage the effects of her menopause without | 0:40:57 | 0:41:01 | |
medication for more than a year. | 0:41:01 | 0:41:03 | |
It's like having an out of body experience where I'm watching and | 0:41:04 | 0:41:10 | |
listening to myself ranting like a lunatic. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:13 | |
Completely nuts and what I'm saying is irrational | 0:41:14 | 0:41:18 | |
and the logical side of my brain is saying, "Shut up, you are being stupid," and I can't. | 0:41:18 | 0:41:24 | |
So did you direct the attack at anybody in particular? | 0:41:25 | 0:41:29 | |
My husband got it every time. | 0:41:29 | 0:41:30 | |
And sometimes he'll poke fun at me a wee bit just to make me laugh | 0:41:32 | 0:41:38 | |
and he actually said to me, he says, "It's not the menopause, | 0:41:38 | 0:41:42 | |
"I've got another phrase for it," and I said, "What is it?" | 0:41:42 | 0:41:44 | |
Me - No - Pause. He says, because see when you start, | 0:41:45 | 0:41:50 | |
you don't know when to shut up. | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
Full-on. You know, | 0:41:55 | 0:41:57 | |
all those years ago women were locked up in lunatic asylums for it | 0:41:57 | 0:42:01 | |
and I'm thinking, "Yep, that would probably be me." | 0:42:01 | 0:42:05 | |
If that was a century ago, that would have probably been me. | 0:42:05 | 0:42:07 | |
What, losing the temper, losing the rag, going into a rage? | 0:42:07 | 0:42:11 | |
Absolute rage. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:12 | |
And I've been making sandwiches with a knife in my hand and I've had to | 0:42:14 | 0:42:17 | |
put the knife down and just walk away. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:19 | |
How do you calm yourself down? | 0:42:21 | 0:42:24 | |
Well, I was taught some breathing techniques. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:29 | |
So I close my eyes, imagine this light round me, | 0:42:29 | 0:42:34 | |
slow down my breathing and imagine either running water... | 0:42:34 | 0:42:38 | |
I'm either at the side of a river or on the shore | 0:42:38 | 0:42:42 | |
and then as my breathing slows down, | 0:42:42 | 0:42:45 | |
I then lie down on the bed and carry that through for the next 10-15 minutes. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:51 | |
Just concentrating on breathing slowly, | 0:42:51 | 0:42:55 | |
deeply, in and out. | 0:42:55 | 0:42:57 | |
Finding practical ways to cope with the symptoms of the menopause can be | 0:42:59 | 0:43:03 | |
an uphill struggle. | 0:43:03 | 0:43:04 | |
'Three teas? I invited some of the women I met in the course of making this film for afternoon tea. | 0:43:05 | 0:43:12 | |
'And the chance to get a bit more information and support from Ruth Devlin, | 0:43:13 | 0:43:17 | |
'who runs workshops for small groups of women. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:21 | |
'She's also the Scottish ambassador for the British Menopause Society.' | 0:43:21 | 0:43:25 | |
So do you take us through, | 0:43:25 | 0:43:27 | |
do you now take us through different treatments for what happens? | 0:43:27 | 0:43:29 | |
Yes, I will go through different treatments. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:31 | |
-Great. -You'll have heard of vaginal atrophy being bandied around. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:34 | |
Well, that just means that basically everything is thinning and wasting | 0:43:34 | 0:43:38 | |
away down below. I've never talked about vaginas so much in all my life | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
since taking this on. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:44 | |
Very easily treatable. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:46 | |
You can have the moisturising lubricants or you can have vaginal | 0:43:46 | 0:43:51 | |
oestrogen. That is the safest way to take HRT. | 0:43:51 | 0:43:55 | |
It is a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of oestrogen. | 0:43:55 | 0:43:58 | |
It's extremely safe and it's also not systemic because it's localised, | 0:43:58 | 0:44:02 | |
so it's not being processed through your liver, | 0:44:02 | 0:44:04 | |
so it's the safest way that you can have it. | 0:44:04 | 0:44:08 | |
You get something like this tiny little tablet in the end there which you | 0:44:08 | 0:44:11 | |
insert. You can start off, if you've got bad symptoms, | 0:44:11 | 0:44:14 | |
you can start off having it daily and then reduce it down | 0:44:14 | 0:44:17 | |
to twice a week and then you might find | 0:44:17 | 0:44:19 | |
that you just need it once a week. | 0:44:19 | 0:44:21 | |
If you take oestrogen like that, | 0:44:21 | 0:44:22 | |
that is a general good or is it too small a dose? | 0:44:22 | 0:44:24 | |
The vaginal oestrogen is only treating your vaginal atrophy. | 0:44:24 | 0:44:29 | |
-That isn't treating any of the other symptoms. -OK. | 0:44:29 | 0:44:31 | |
-If you want to go... -This poor woman's having a hot flush. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:34 | |
It always happens at the most inopportune times. Sorry. | 0:44:34 | 0:44:38 | |
-Would you like some water? -I've got some here, it's OK. | 0:44:38 | 0:44:41 | |
That one came from your head down. Explain to me what's happening. | 0:44:43 | 0:44:48 | |
Right, it starts here. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:50 | |
And as much as you try and put it off, | 0:44:51 | 0:44:53 | |
you can't and I was getting hotter and hotter and hotter and I thought, | 0:44:53 | 0:44:56 | |
typical. This always happens to me at the most inopportune times. | 0:44:56 | 0:45:00 | |
-Can happen anywhere, can't it? -Yes. -It doesn't matter, you just proved it. | 0:45:00 | 0:45:04 | |
CBT, cognitive behavioural therapy has definitely been proven | 0:45:04 | 0:45:09 | |
to help with all your psychological symptoms, | 0:45:09 | 0:45:11 | |
but also now you can train yourself to help manage your hot flushes | 0:45:11 | 0:45:16 | |
and your night sweats as well. | 0:45:16 | 0:45:18 | |
I don't get many hot flushes but sometimes they come on if I'm stressed | 0:45:18 | 0:45:22 | |
with something or a train journey being late or about to miss a flight | 0:45:22 | 0:45:26 | |
or something. That tends to bring them on. | 0:45:26 | 0:45:28 | |
Sometimes they'll come on in the middle of a meeting at work | 0:45:28 | 0:45:32 | |
and it's usually a meeting where you're predominantly surrounded by men. | 0:45:32 | 0:45:35 | |
You should just be able to take a little fan. | 0:45:35 | 0:45:38 | |
A rather lovely fan and fan yourself. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:40 | |
That would be wonderful. | 0:45:40 | 0:45:41 | |
It's one thing for women to talk to each other but symptoms that can | 0:45:50 | 0:45:54 | |
affect a couple's physical relationship are often really tricky to tackle. | 0:45:54 | 0:46:00 | |
Artists Minty and Nick have been together for almost 30 years. | 0:46:00 | 0:46:04 | |
We don't have children and that's through choice. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:09 | |
So for me, in a way, | 0:46:09 | 0:46:11 | |
going through menopause isn't tied up with reproduction. | 0:46:11 | 0:46:14 | |
When you were going through the menopause, what symptoms did you have? | 0:46:15 | 0:46:20 | |
The big one was vaginal dryness and soreness | 0:46:20 | 0:46:24 | |
and how that affected having vaginal sex, | 0:46:24 | 0:46:29 | |
and that was a bit of a shock. | 0:46:29 | 0:46:30 | |
Yeah, and was that gradual or did you, when you went through menopause, | 0:46:30 | 0:46:34 | |
-was that quite quick? -It was quite quick actually. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:37 | |
It was really quite quick. | 0:46:37 | 0:46:39 | |
It seemed to go from being completely fine | 0:46:39 | 0:46:42 | |
and everything in the garden was rosy, then, ooh, what's going on? | 0:46:42 | 0:46:47 | |
This is actually sore, this is not... | 0:46:47 | 0:46:49 | |
This is not comfortable. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:51 | |
So what did you do about that? | 0:46:51 | 0:46:53 | |
-Initially... -Initially, I suppose you kind of, you know, | 0:46:55 | 0:46:59 | |
take a little bit of advice and suss out things that might help. | 0:46:59 | 0:47:03 | |
-But that wasn't really... -It didn't really seem to make enough difference | 0:47:05 | 0:47:11 | |
and the kind of faffing around with tubes of lube and stuff like that. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:18 | |
Yeah, it was odd to find it not straightforward. | 0:47:18 | 0:47:21 | |
-Yes. -But, I mean, | 0:47:21 | 0:47:23 | |
it wasn't that difficult to start going, OK, | 0:47:23 | 0:47:29 | |
how do we enjoy having sex but in a different way, or whatever? | 0:47:29 | 0:47:34 | |
So without penetration, that's the key thing? | 0:47:34 | 0:47:37 | |
-Yeah, without that. -Wasn't going to work. | 0:47:37 | 0:47:40 | |
I mean, we often sort of talk about it as a bit more like adolescent sex, | 0:47:40 | 0:47:43 | |
really, which a lot of fun, really. | 0:47:43 | 0:47:45 | |
-Yeah. -Yep. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:47 | |
And it's kind of, you know, it's a funny thing. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:53 | |
Then you go, actually, | 0:47:53 | 0:47:54 | |
but we think about sex as being just about vaginal penetrative sex and | 0:47:54 | 0:48:00 | |
actually it's lots of things. | 0:48:00 | 0:48:01 | |
But clearly, | 0:48:01 | 0:48:02 | |
I mean it's wonderful because you have a relationship where you can | 0:48:02 | 0:48:05 | |
talk about this stuff and you can deal with it together. | 0:48:05 | 0:48:08 | |
Yeah, I think... There was a bit where I felt like... | 0:48:08 | 0:48:12 | |
I was letting you down, I think. | 0:48:12 | 0:48:14 | |
We don't always talk about everything immediately, it maybe took a week, | 0:48:14 | 0:48:18 | |
a month or so, before... | 0:48:18 | 0:48:19 | |
Or you said, I'm not sure which of us said, actually, you know, | 0:48:19 | 0:48:24 | |
if this is just painful, let's just stop trying to do this and it's OK. | 0:48:24 | 0:48:29 | |
I mean, there's other options. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:31 | |
Nick and Minty were just so honest and giving and reassuring about the | 0:48:35 | 0:48:39 | |
impact it's had on their relationship and how they've dealt with it. | 0:48:39 | 0:48:43 | |
And it must be like that for lots of people. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:45 | |
We tend to think of the menopause as something that usually happens to | 0:48:54 | 0:48:57 | |
women in their 50s, | 0:48:57 | 0:48:59 | |
but going through a natural menopause before the age of 45 is not uncommon | 0:48:59 | 0:49:05 | |
and a tiny proportion of women will experience it at a very young age. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:09 | |
It's a devastating diagnosis to be told. | 0:49:11 | 0:49:14 | |
We've had lots of young women who'd been told, it can't be menopause, | 0:49:14 | 0:49:17 | |
you're too young, but actually we are encouraging | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
that investigations are carried out. So there is the fertility aspect, | 0:49:19 | 0:49:24 | |
which is hugely important and, as I said, absolutely devastating, | 0:49:24 | 0:49:27 | |
but there are also then these extra number of years of potentially being | 0:49:27 | 0:49:31 | |
low on hormones. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:32 | |
'Dealing with the health implications of the menopause | 0:49:35 | 0:49:37 | |
'when you're extremely young is a lot to bear. | 0:49:37 | 0:49:41 | |
'When it happened to Heather, she was still at school.' | 0:49:41 | 0:49:44 | |
I was very young when I went through menopause. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:48 | |
It was termed as premature ovarian failure. | 0:49:49 | 0:49:52 | |
I was 14 and it was diagnosed at 16. | 0:49:52 | 0:49:55 | |
And in those two years do you remember what life was like? | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
When I was 13 I started to miss periods, so we went to the GP who had said, | 0:49:58 | 0:50:04 | |
"You're still young, they're just settling down." | 0:50:04 | 0:50:07 | |
So we just kind of forgot about it and, actually, | 0:50:07 | 0:50:09 | |
I was quite pleased that they weren't there | 0:50:09 | 0:50:10 | |
because they'd been so heavy and painful. | 0:50:10 | 0:50:13 | |
But actually at school that must have been quite interesting | 0:50:13 | 0:50:15 | |
because your friends were having periods and you weren't, | 0:50:15 | 0:50:17 | |
so you are able to say, well, actually, I don't feel so bad. | 0:50:17 | 0:50:20 | |
I don't feel so bad, exactly. | 0:50:20 | 0:50:21 | |
I was doing my GCSEs, | 0:50:21 | 0:50:23 | |
quite glad not to have periods but it was at the end of that, | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
when I was 16, that we went back to the GP and said, "Look, | 0:50:26 | 0:50:29 | |
"I think this needs to be looked into the bit further." | 0:50:29 | 0:50:31 | |
And that's when I was referred to and an endocrinologist, who said, | 0:50:31 | 0:50:35 | |
actually, you're no longer ovulating, | 0:50:35 | 0:50:38 | |
you've had premature ovarian failure. | 0:50:38 | 0:50:40 | |
But your mum was perimenopausal at that moment, no? | 0:50:40 | 0:50:42 | |
She was in her early 40s, hadn't gone through the menopause, | 0:50:42 | 0:50:46 | |
my grandmother had not long gone through the menopause, | 0:50:46 | 0:50:50 | |
so it wasn't something that I'd ever really thought about. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:54 | |
How did you and your mum talk about it? | 0:50:54 | 0:50:57 | |
I think after we left the hospital there was that initial...aah | 0:50:57 | 0:51:01 | |
..moment and I had a good cry. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:03 | |
Always knew that I wanted to be a mum, | 0:51:03 | 0:51:05 | |
and that was the only thing at first that was sort of sticking with me. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:08 | |
This is going to be quite difficult to be a mum now. | 0:51:08 | 0:51:11 | |
So when did you meet your husband? | 0:51:11 | 0:51:13 | |
When I was 22. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:15 | |
And he would have known from the beginning? | 0:51:15 | 0:51:18 | |
Yes. About six weeks in, I knew, very early on, | 0:51:18 | 0:51:22 | |
that he was the man for me, so I had to test at that point. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:26 | |
It was a big part, I wouldn't want him down the line saying this is a deal-breaker for me, | 0:51:27 | 0:51:33 | |
-so... -And the implications for you in terms of having a family were, | 0:51:33 | 0:51:36 | |
obviously, huge. But you have taken steps. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:39 | |
We have tried egg donation and IVF treatment | 0:51:39 | 0:51:42 | |
and unfortunately it wasn't successful. | 0:51:42 | 0:51:45 | |
It was quite a painful time. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:49 | |
It was five years ago and we haven't tried since. | 0:51:49 | 0:51:51 | |
And there is a part of me that doesn't want to get hurt again. | 0:51:51 | 0:51:56 | |
At the moment, I'm over the weight limit to get treated, | 0:51:57 | 0:52:00 | |
so I think a little part of me is thinking, well, | 0:52:00 | 0:52:04 | |
I can't get the treatment, I can't get hurt again. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:07 | |
So, there's a little bit that I need to work on with myself to do that. | 0:52:07 | 0:52:11 | |
But it hasn't dulled my want to have children. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:14 | |
Entering menopause at such a young age is extremely rare, | 0:52:18 | 0:52:23 | |
but it can happen in your 20s or 30s and this has a massive effect on the | 0:52:23 | 0:52:28 | |
chances of having children. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:29 | |
But in the future, this may not always mean the end of a woman's fertility. | 0:52:30 | 0:52:35 | |
In Edinburgh, Professor Evelyn Telfer and Dr Marie McLaughlin are | 0:52:39 | 0:52:43 | |
collaborating with US scientists on ground-breaking research to determine | 0:52:43 | 0:52:47 | |
the potential of our ovaries. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:49 | |
The prevailing wisdom has been that woman are born with a finite supply | 0:52:51 | 0:52:55 | |
of eggs. However, a controversial scientific paper was published | 0:52:55 | 0:53:00 | |
in 2004 which challenged this thinking. | 0:53:00 | 0:53:02 | |
The view now is that ever since the work of an American scientist at | 0:53:04 | 0:53:09 | |
Harvard, he discovered a population of cells | 0:53:09 | 0:53:12 | |
within the ovary that had the potential to form new eggs later in life | 0:53:12 | 0:53:18 | |
and that was the work of John Tilly. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:20 | |
And this really met the scientific community with surprise and... | 0:53:20 | 0:53:27 | |
-Scepticism. -Scepticism, and I was one of the sceptics. | 0:53:27 | 0:53:30 | |
I was really incredibly sceptical. | 0:53:30 | 0:53:33 | |
He came to our lab. | 0:53:33 | 0:53:34 | |
He brought the cells and we then saw what these cells were capable of, | 0:53:34 | 0:53:39 | |
and we then thought, well, you know, there is something in this. | 0:53:39 | 0:53:44 | |
The game changer was the cells that had the potential to form eggs. | 0:53:44 | 0:53:49 | |
Now, that's different from them forming eggs throughout life. | 0:53:49 | 0:53:53 | |
So, they may well be sitting there, dormant, | 0:53:53 | 0:53:57 | |
but if they're given the opportunity of the correct environment they may | 0:53:57 | 0:54:02 | |
well form new eggs. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:03 | |
So, we then decided we're going to look to see if we can isolate them. | 0:54:04 | 0:54:09 | |
These are cells that we have taken, we've taken a piece of human tissue, | 0:54:11 | 0:54:15 | |
cut into very, very tiny pieces. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:17 | |
We've dissociated using enzymes and filtered that, | 0:54:17 | 0:54:20 | |
so essentially we have a single cell suspension. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:24 | |
We've then used an anti-body to try and tease out the cells that have | 0:54:24 | 0:54:29 | |
-the important molecular markers. -Potential? -Yes, that's right. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:32 | |
The gem cells and then we've gotten these back and sorted them out and | 0:54:32 | 0:54:37 | |
then grown them to a point where we think we can see cells that look | 0:54:37 | 0:54:41 | |
as if they're developing into eggs. | 0:54:41 | 0:54:43 | |
And to them we would then inject them into small pieces of tissue and | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
watch and wait and see what happens. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:50 | |
At this stage, we see our researchers finding out more about the ovary. | 0:54:50 | 0:54:54 | |
We see it more in terms of say, alleviating infertility | 0:54:54 | 0:55:01 | |
for particularly young girls who lose their eggs | 0:55:01 | 0:55:05 | |
very early and that may well be through a genetic disorder, | 0:55:05 | 0:55:09 | |
or chemotherapy. | 0:55:09 | 0:55:10 | |
But I think we really need to get more, | 0:55:10 | 0:55:13 | |
a greater understanding of how the ovary actually works, | 0:55:13 | 0:55:18 | |
and then we can, you know, understand the process of menopause | 0:55:18 | 0:55:23 | |
and how we view the ovary as well. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:26 | |
The work that Professor Telfer and her team is doing is potentially | 0:55:28 | 0:55:33 | |
transformative for all women who are, for whatever reason, infertile. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:37 | |
But it's got something else going for it, | 0:55:37 | 0:55:39 | |
it also means that the way we view the menopause may well be different | 0:55:39 | 0:55:43 | |
because it may not be the end of a woman's child-bearing years | 0:55:43 | 0:55:46 | |
and if that is the case, what is the impact that will have | 0:55:46 | 0:55:50 | |
on the way we look at ageing? | 0:55:50 | 0:55:52 | |
In years past, women have often been written off after a certain age, | 0:55:54 | 0:55:58 | |
when work and child rearing are at an end. | 0:55:58 | 0:56:01 | |
But in the early 21st century, | 0:56:01 | 0:56:03 | |
when the average life expectancy for women is now 81, | 0:56:03 | 0:56:07 | |
how can we best approach this next stage? | 0:56:07 | 0:56:11 | |
I don't think many people have thought through that women will live | 0:56:11 | 0:56:15 | |
probably a third of their life post menopausally, | 0:56:15 | 0:56:18 | |
and so need to be absolutely at their best in terms of feeling well. | 0:56:20 | 0:56:26 | |
The key thing I think is let's talk. | 0:56:27 | 0:56:30 | |
Let's just talk menopause, so it is going to happen to all of us, so, | 0:56:30 | 0:56:34 | |
it's a normal event, but we need to tackle it and be proactive about it. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:39 | |
So, post menopause, women are still strong and vital, | 0:56:43 | 0:56:48 | |
creative and capable. | 0:56:48 | 0:56:51 | |
We are not in retreat. | 0:56:51 | 0:56:52 | |
Instead of fearing this stage of life, | 0:56:54 | 0:56:57 | |
the years after the menopause should be a positive, liberating time. | 0:56:57 | 0:57:03 | |
I don't feel any less intelligent | 0:57:04 | 0:57:06 | |
and, in fact, I think I'm probably more confident. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:10 | |
I think I set out more positively about things because I don't, | 0:57:11 | 0:57:18 | |
I don't know... I don't ever, | 0:57:18 | 0:57:20 | |
like if I go into a meeting or anything, | 0:57:20 | 0:57:22 | |
there's not that element of, oh, I wonder if I look all right? I don't have any of that any more. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:28 | |
I feel much more positive and confident about my own abilities for things. | 0:57:28 | 0:57:33 | |
In the making of this programme, I have met such lovely women, | 0:57:35 | 0:57:38 | |
willingly sharing our stories with us and some of these stories are very | 0:57:38 | 0:57:42 | |
different, all because they don't want other women to feel alone or to | 0:57:42 | 0:57:45 | |
suffer in silence. Of course, | 0:57:45 | 0:57:48 | |
some women will sail through the menopause and there'll always be women | 0:57:48 | 0:57:51 | |
who put up with whatever the menopause throws at them. | 0:57:51 | 0:57:54 | |
But we don't have to do that. | 0:57:54 | 0:57:56 | |
Things are changing. | 0:57:56 | 0:57:57 | |
I had no idea the extent and variety of symptoms, so, of course, | 0:57:57 | 0:58:02 | |
women should have individualised care. | 0:58:02 | 0:58:04 | |
And I certainly learned I need to take better care of myself, | 0:58:04 | 0:58:07 | |
to do even more exercise, watch my alcohol intake, | 0:58:07 | 0:58:10 | |
take vitamin D and now I may revisit taking HRT. | 0:58:10 | 0:58:15 | |
The menopause, the 21st century shouldn't be a curse. | 0:58:15 | 0:58:20 | |
It should be about stepping forward to embrace the next stage in our lives, | 0:58:20 | 0:58:23 | |
not letting it hold us back, and in order to do that, | 0:58:23 | 0:58:26 | |
we have to learn to be good to ourselves. | 0:58:26 | 0:58:29 |