CLAIRE Dunwell thought she was going crazy when, after turning 40, she began to suffer heart palpitations, migraines and crippling anxiety.
After going back and forth to her GP, she was given medication for anxiety, beta-blockers for her heart and even sent for an ECG heart check.
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Claire, 42, now knows she is going through the perimenopause, a phase before menopause when hormone levels can fluctuate. She is now undergoing hormone replacement therapy to ease the effects. But it should all have been diagnosed sooner.
A Mumsnet poll found one in four women with menopausal symptoms sees a GP three times before getting the right help. One in four is told she is too young to be perimenopausal.
Here, Claire, a writer who lives in Wakefield, West Yorks, with husband Ian, 55, a chip shop owner, and sons Sam, 13, and Louie, ten shares her story.
SOAKING up the rays, I should have been living my best life.
It was last August, blazing hot, and we were halfway through a two-week family holiday in Crete.
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While my husband Ian had his head buried in a book, planning his next trip to the all-inclusive bar, I was frantically searching Google on my phone, hoping for answers to explain the way I was feeling.
Since hitting 40 the previous February, I had been plunged into a dark, unfamiliar world.
I had become anxious, irritable and zapped of energy.
When my head wasnt thick with brain fog it throbbed with migraines, and trying to concentrate on anything for longer than half an hour had become a battle.
I felt like someone I didnt recognise not the fun, happy-go-lucky person I was in my carefree twenties and thirties.
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Id always been fit, healthy and a cup half full kind of girl.
I exercised three times a week, ate healthily and was incredibly lucky to have a loving husband, two healthy children, great friends and a successful career.
From the outside looking in, I had it all.
But on the inside, I had suddenly lost control.
Even the most mundane jobs such as unloading the washing machine and trying to pair up socks overwhelmed me.
FACT:
1 in 4 women with symptoms have to see GP 3 times to get right help
Headaches, fatigue, anxiety and palpitations made matters worse.
It was three months after I turned 40 when the repeat trips to my GP surgery began.
I beat myself up for wasting precious NHS time.
I felt like a fledgling hypochondriac.At each visit, doctors tried hard to treat my list of ailments but nothing worked for long.
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For the migraines, which Id never suffered before and became so unbearable I struggled to hold conversation and just wanted to sleep, a doctor prescribed Sumatriptan.
I took it when the migraines hit and although they helped with the head pain, they made me feel sick and groggy.
At another appointment, this time with a nurse, it was suggested I try a high dose of aspirin as soon as I felt a migraine coming.
If that didnt work, she would refer me to a local migraine support group.
Next came the unexplained anxiety and heart palpitations, which were at their worst during the two weeks before my period.
FACT:
A quarter are told they are too young to be premenopausal
Some days, I felt as though I was going crazy.
I could be enjoying coffee with a friend one minute and gripped by an irrational panic the next.
My heart raced, worrying something terrible was about to happen.
My husband took the brunt of my bad moods.
I felt exhausted all the time because nodding off on the sofa by 9pm most nights meant I struggled to get a good nights sleep.
I was less tolerant with the kids too.
All of this was completely out of character.
Despite the odd night every few weeks when I woke up in the night drenched in sweat, it never dawned on me that it could be down to my hormones.
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Sobbing to my GP at yet another appointment, I was prescribed Citalopram, an anti-anxiety medication which I hoped could be a magic pill.
I was desperate to try anything.
They even gave me an ECG for the palpitations, but it showed my heart was perfectly normal.
Its only now, looking back, that I realise it was around this time my periods changed.
Some months they were lighter than normal and others they were shorter in length.
Neither me, nor my GP, made the link that I could be heading towards The Change.
It was during that family holiday to Crete last year that I finally reached the end of my tether.
I was six months into the Citalopram but because it wasnt making any difference, I stopped it.
FACT:
The average woman hits menopause at age 51
I made another appointment with my GP and was handed a prescription for beta blockers which slow the heart rate and can help with anxiety.
Instead, they left me feeling spaced out and sluggish, so I could only take them at night.
It was during my son Louies routine asthma check-up last September when everything began to fall into place.
Tearful, I begged a friendly nurse for five minutes of her time.
Youre not going crazy, she reassured me, as I blurted everything out.
Youre perimenopausal.
The nurse said how all my symptoms were likely to be down to a drop in my hormone levels.
At first, the idea seemed ridiculous.
I was 41, and the average age women reach menopause when regular periods stop is 51.
But the more I pieced together my sudden onset of symptoms, the more it made sense.
When I asked if there was a blood test I could have to check my hormone levels, I was told it would be difficult to get a reliable result because hormones fluctuate daily.
The nurse prescribed the mini Pill hoping the top-up of progesterone would help. She suggested trying oestrogen later.
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I went away feeling both relieved and confident that I was finally on the right path.But while the mini Pill helped with the migraines and eased the anxiety, it caused frequent heavy bleeding.
I was determined to find another solution, so I tracked down Dr Louise Newson, a GP specialising in menopause, and author of the Haynes Menopause Manual.
At her clinic in Stratford-upon-Avon she talked through my symptoms and I was given a blood test which found I had low levels of both oestrogen and testosterone.
While Louise said my results suggested I was perimenopausal, she stressed it is better to go on a patients symptoms than blood tests alone.
Hormone levels change all the time, she told me.
We could do three tests on three consecutive days and get completely different results, so the most important part of the diagnosis is the history from the patient.
When Louise went on to explain how it is not unusual for some women to experience menopausal symptoms up to a decade before The Change, I felt a huge weight lift.
Louise explained: Without hormones, its like trying to drive a car without oil.
The menopause occurs because our ovaries run out of eggs and stop producing hormones.
Many women find that their hormone levels start reducing several years before this.
Louise said that the perimenopause could be just as mentally and physically draining as the real thing.
Your age is key to diagnosis
THE average woman experiences the menopause when regular periods stop aged 51. But hormone levels can fluctuate several years earlier and in some people this can have side-effects.
This is known as the perimenopause.
Dr Louise Newson, pictured, says: Most women get some symptoms linked to changing hormone levels during perimenopause.
Some have symptoms for a decade before the menopause. Guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) says that if a woman is over 45, we dont need to test for perimenopause or menopause.
If theyre 40 to 45 tests can be useful, and if theyre under 40 its important to get a diagnosis. In these situations a woman experiencing menopausal symptoms should seek help and advice from a doctor who specialises in the menopause.
Cells in our hearts, brains, bones, muscles, bladders and blood vessels respond to oestrogen so when levels reduce, all kinds of symptoms can ensue.
My hot flushes, night sweats, low mood, anxiety, joint pains, headaches and even my reduced libido could all be attributed to this fluctuation.
Low testosterone levels can also lead to brain fog, low energy, reduced stamina and reduced libido.
In my case, Louise prescribed an oestrogen gel as well as progesterone tablets, a type of Hormone Replacement Therapy.
She told me: The only way to find out if a drop in hormones is causing the symptoms is by replacing them and then seeing what happens.
The guidelines are very clear that for the majority of women who take HRT, the benefits outweigh the risks.
The menopause needs to be seen as a long-term female hormone deficiency rather than just a natural process that causes symptoms.
By replacing these hormones, we can really improve our future health as well as our symptoms.
I never imagined Id be taking HRT at the age of 42, but I could not contemplate going on for several more years feeling like I had been.
Four weeks into the treatment, Ive found it has already made a huge difference.
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To say that it has changed my life is an understatement. The migraines are gone, the anxiety has stopped, and I feel like myself for the first time in two years.
