To mark Menopause Awareness Month, staff are sharing their experiences with menopause and how it has impacted them.
Julie speaks about how she started to experience symptoms, but it took her time to realise they were due to perimenopause, and shares her advice for others who might be going through something similar.
How did the menopause affect you?
I had noticed more common perimenopausal symptoms like hot flashes and brain fog over a period of a few months. I had also been experiencing other symptoms that I hadn’t associated with menopause, like heart palpitations and tingling hands. However, like a lot of women, I dismissed my symptoms as ‘not too bad’ and carried on. It wasn’t until my mental health went into a sudden decline and I was struggling to concentrate that I thought something else might be occurring. So, I dug out the booklet provided by work about tracking your symptoms and discovered that there were a fair few on the list I had also been experiencing, but I just hadn’t connected the dots until now.
What impact did the menopause have on your work?
Brain fog is a particular pain because I would regularly lose what I was saying mid-sentence. When in a meeting or delivering training, this could be somewhat problematic! However, as I said, I had dismissed my experience as not too bad, so it wasn’t until my mental health was really starting to suffer (which is another common symptom) that I knew I needed to act. As per the advice from the menopause awareness training, I also read the NICE guidelines and then actually made an emergency appointment with my GP. The impact on my mental health was so severe that I couldn’t wait two weeks for a routine appointment.
How were you supported by the university?
I am actually part of the university’s Menopause Working Group and have been delivering training to staff, so I was pretty clued up on what courses of action would be open to me and what sort of support I could expect at work.
As my symptoms started having a bigger effect on me at work at times, I decided that I needed to share this with my line manager. He is male and quite a bit younger than me, but we have a good relationship, and he’s also been in the menopause line manager training.
I didn’t go into details about my symptoms; I just let him know that I was perimenopausal, the impact this was having at work, and what I was doing about it. Fortunately, my symptoms are fairly mild, and I had already gotten support via my GP, so at this point, there wasn’t anything I needed from him apart from his being aware that I was going through this life phase.
It means that if I am having symptoms that are problematic, I can just have a conversation about them so that he is aware I may not be having the easiest time, and we can adjust things at work if necessary. I have also been open about the fact that I am going through this life phase with the team I work with and other colleagues I work with regularly, so they are forgiving if I forget what I was saying mid-sentence, and it helps to normalise the conversation around this topic, which is often considered taboo.
What is your advice to other staff members struggling with perimenopause or menopause?
Don’t suffer in silence; please talk about how it is impacting you to your family, friends, and your line manager. 50% of the population is going to go through this life phase at some point; it isn’t a choice, and everyone around them could be affected indirectly too, so we all need to know about it and be talking about it to break the stigma.
Also, don’t compare your experience to others; while you might be experiencing milder symptoms than someone else, that doesn’t mean that what you are going through isn’t problematic for you. If it’s affecting you at work, speak up about it and get the support you need. If you haven’t completed the awareness training yet, please sign up for it.
Track your symptoms and read the NICE guidelines (see resources available on the university’s H&S Wellbeing site). This will equip you to have an informed conversation with your GP. Perimenopause and menopause can often be misdiagnosed as other conditions, and GPs aren’t specialists, so the better informed you can be, the easier it will be to ask for what you need. If you don’t feel up to having this conversation with your GP on your own, ask someone you trust to go with you.
To find out more about menopause and the support available to staff visit our menopause Sharepoint page. If you need help or support, speak to your line manager or email [email protected]