Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Taz2]

I wondered that too Sheila. I have an interest in this as both my mum and my brother developed dementia. This is the latest info on the Alzheimer's site https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/risk-factors-and-prevention/hormones-and-dementia#:~:text=Until%20there%20is%20better%20evidence,treat%20or%20prevent%20dementia%20though.

Taz x

[HellsBells]

I am hearing it from the research community which is way ahead of mainstream. When I was researching the cancer I had I looked at the biochemist research rather than talked to GPs. The 'official' published advice from NICE/charities etc. will be at the very end of the process.

[sheila99]

Do you have links to the research? I'd be interested to see it.

[Clovie]

Hi Clovie, I didn't see the responses until now, this place is like a maze!

I hope that gynae realises he's out of his depth with menopause and learns something more than text book theory before scaring his next patient. I just wanted to say something to help you not worry.

Male doctors can be very insensitive in my experience, like the one who said to me, seven months into my first pregnancy, "You know, it doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with your baby just because it's very small."
It hadn't even occurred to me that my neat bump meant anything bad for the baby. I was frantic for the next ten weeks, then my 8lb son was born, sod all wrong with him and he's now a doctor himself!
That particular GP actually thought he was being helpfully reassuring and he said as much at the next appointment. In hindsight I should have set him straight, but I felt so vulnerable during pregnancy I wanted everyone on my side, no conflict please.

Clovie, I have been disbelieved about my periods too. I had over a year with no periods then asked for HRT. I'd been told HRT is only licensed for post menopause, which I think is still true, so I didn't think there was any point in asking before then. I'd not had hormonal treatments/contraceptives in over ten years at that point.

My GP gave me Evorel Conti.
Within six weeks my periods were back. I was told no, it's irregular bleeding brought on by HRT, I believed it then.

I was told the progesterone in Evorel Conti was not the thing made me go loopy same way progesterone always kicks me in the teeth, but my GP had no idea what caused it instead of the progesterone that I was "incorrectly" saying was the cause.

I was given tibolone as it's for difficult cases where a woman like me believes she is reacting to progesterone when the doctors know that is not possible. (yet everyone here seems to get it)

On tibolone I continued to have a period every month, no spotting in between, PMS and sometimes even middlemonth pains which was how I predicted my irregular periods in my 20s because back then that pain came 14-15 days before every period, now it's only occassionally.

Back then, I was laughed at by a male GP when I told him I know when I ovulate because I feel it each month, he assured me that wasn't the case at all.

I was told it was impossible for me to know I was pregnant before I missed a period. They refused to test for it or put me on the hospital list until a week after my period had been due, that was reasonable of them, but the disbelief that I could know what being pregnant felt like, with two toddlers in tow, that was fairly unbelievable on it's own!

What I'm saying in my ever rambling way is that I know you know they are periods, just like I know my body and probably all women know their bodies in a way I believe most men simply don't.
This is my theory on it.
Men don't need to think about their inner workings much, they don't deal with cycles and periods and pregnancies and natural chemically induced mood swings, so I don't think there is the same need or interest there.

Besides a woman's sense of touch in her fingertips is 20 times more than a man's on average. In tests they found the most sensitive men were still only a sixth as sensitive as the least sensitive women, on fingertip sensitivity. Sense of touch is thought to be the most clear cut difference between the non reproductive abilities of men and women. Even strength has some overlap with some very athletic women being stronger or faster than some men.

I think men have trouble believing we can know our bodies as well as we do and we probably feel a lot more of what is going on in there than they do. The fact we are all different confuses them too, obviously women couldn't understand something better than men do?

THANK you, Poppy.
I totally agree with all you say!   

Interesting about your son tool, I have a son currently half way through Medical School!  I often joke to him that I hope HE goes on to have a better understanding of menopause issues later in his career for the sake of 50% of his future patients!