From Silent Struggles to Empowering Change – My Menopause Journey

In the 12-month time frame that straddled my 40th birthday, I ended my marriage of 20 years and had my upper right lung removed due to a rare fungal infection. I was also told that the periods of intense heat rising up my chest, sudden extra weight gain, and a level of exhaustion that left me in bed exhausted for 9+ hours every night, were not by-products of my stress, but were in fact, the tell-tale signs that I was in full-blown menopause. This was confirmed after a blood test and a five minute conversation with my OBGYN. She wrote a prescription for birth control. That was it- a five minute conversation and some birth control pills. 

What followed were years of discomforting symptoms. Waves of unprovoked anxiety, thinning hair, dry skin, sudden weight gain and a change in body odor, sound familiar? I started searching for answers, for help.  The doctor I had seen for decades now seemed to lack an understanding of, and compassion for, what I was going through. After a long search, I found a retired OBGYN who had a private practice that focused on menopause care. She immediately took me off of the birth control pills and put me on a bio-identical hormone that eased some of the physical symptoms.  

The physical manifestations of menopause are only part of the story; there are emotional ones as well. To say I felt alone was an understatement. Given my age, I was truly an outlier amongst my friends.  No one wanted to talk about it. I felt ashamed and I was scared. Was this the end for me? Would anyone ever want me again?

This fear and dread was also coupled with having to come to terms with the fact that I would never have a biological child of my own even though I was told that there have been cases of women who got pregnant after going into menopause. I secretly hung onto that hope like my life depended on it.

It hasn’t all been bad. I’ve learned a lot along the way. I did my own research and started experimenting on myself. I took up meditation, which really does help. And reading books and research papers on hormones and menopause helped me feel more informed and in control. I had no idea that hormones truly run everything in your body. I had no idea.  Who knows all of this? How did they learn it?

Fast forward 10 years and my friends would start reaching out. Some would simply ask what would I use for certain symptoms and others had no idea what was going on with their bodies and minds. During one friends’ vacation, we lamented the changes we were going through and why the hell there was seemingly no information out there to help. It was all “word of mouth”. It was there that the idea for ForeverBetty was born.