Lessons I've Learned From Doing Menopause Naturally

When I first arrived at peri-menopause, I wanted to do everything naturally. I attended a valuable talk which advised focusing on 3 areas of life: Unresolved trauma, deficiencies and toxicity. In short, the advice was that if you are struggling with any of these, then menopausal symptoms could be worse.

‘Forearmed is forewarned,’ I thought. ‘I’ve got this’, I thought. ‘I’m going to do menopause naturally and win!’ How wrong I was.

To be clear, the advice was sound; I just didn’t do as well as I could have. The reason I am sharing my experience is in the hope that it might resonate with my readers who in turn will take further steps than I did, especially if you want to menopause naturally.

Unresolved Trauma
I have experienced a fair bit of trauma throughout my life and thought I had dealt with it, but after my husband was knocked off his motorbike for the second time in 13 months, I was not in a good place. I knew a psychotherapist who offered EMDR and I booked an initial consultation.

After taking my history, I was told that there was a lot of unresolved trauma that might need to be worked on first. Oh dear! It took about 8 sessions, a lot of tears, a rollercoaster of emotions and a second diagnosis of PTSD but by the end, I understood that I had most definitely NOT dealt with unresolved trauma during peri-menopause!

The lightness I felt following the treatment was like coming home to myself, my confidence grew, I felt empowered to handle people and situations differently and there have been noticeable changes in some of my relationships.

Deficiencies
I am on the waiting list for an ADHD diagnosis. I tell you this here because menopause symptoms can be worse in women with ADHD and there can be a comorbidity with gut issues. About 12 years ago, I was diagnosed with Leaky Gut Syndrome by a friend who was a nutritional therapist. I couldn’t afford to see her for more than the diagnosis so I tried to figure it all out for myself and I went too far. I withdrew from what were considered ‘problem foods’ for too long resulting in short term gain but long term intolerances.

In the fabulous documentary on Netflix - Hack Your Health - The Secrets of Your Gut, microdosing those foods to which you are intolerant is recommended, rather than avoiding them altogether as I did, resulting in further deficiencies and imbalances.

Toxicity
Gastroenterologist Carla W Brady, proposes that postmenopausal women may be ‘uniquely’ at risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome in her article on PubMed. As oestrogen levels drop, the liver can struggle to detoxify as efficiently as it once did and so we need to be very careful about what we ingest; as boring as that may be!

After my husband’s accident, I found myself comfort eating and struggled to stop eating sugar. Sugar is an inflammatory substance, more addictive than cocaine so it is understandably difficult to reduce our intake. Stress also causes inflammation and affects all systems of the body including the gut.

Stress is one area of life menopausal women are advised to manage. But on top of all the physiological changes in one’s body, it isn’t easy. Even if you’re not coping with the near death of your partner or in many cases at midlife, the death of a parent or any other major stressor, your body is having a tough time of it.

In times of acute stress, we are unable to manage as the body is doing all it can to help us survive the threat. The mind does all it can to avoid the feelings that caused you to get into this state in the first place. It takes time and compassion to recover.

Lessons Learned
Even though you may think you lead a healthy life, that your mental health is just fine and that you are not deficient in anything, my recommendation is that you get it ALL checked out. Save up and see a nutritional therapist who specialises in menopause. There are even some who specialise in menopause and ADHD such as Karen Newby who has successfully ‘menopaused’ naturally. It’s not too late to make changes, even if like me, you are post menopausal, as symptoms can persist for years!

I wish I had spent the money on working with a nutritional therapist instead of trying to figure it all out for myself which has probably cost me more in the end.

I wish I’d had EMDR 30 years ago.

I wish I’d tried bio-identical HRT.

But hey, everything is easier with hindsight!

Yoga has been a wonderful support along the way, it has definitely helped me to stay calm and grounded in a crisis, kept me stronger and more flexible than if I hadn’t been practicing, but it turns out, it’s not the answer to everything!