Introduction

My name is Angela Holloway. My hope in writing this book is to give women all around the world a better understanding of their menopause experience.

The information in this book is in no way intended to take the place of professional advice from your health care practitioner. It is based solely on information that I have discovered during my own personal experience and research on menopause.

I wish I had read and researched about menopause before I became menopausal myself. I would have been able to understand the emotional and physical changes I was experiencing as menopause symptoms, instead of thinking I was going crazy.

It is not my intention to persuade you that any one way of handling your menopause symptoms is better than another. Instead, I hope to inform you of the symptoms you can expect and of the help that is available for you.

Once you have read this book and continue to do your own research, you will be better able to decide what is best for you and your menopause symptoms.

I will also be sharing some of my own personal menopause experiences with you.

Going through my menopause experience turned my life upside down. I wish I could tell you I am exaggerating, but I am not!

Looking back, my menopause symptoms started many years before I knew quite what was going on. I had changed in so many ways, and I did not know what was happening to me.

My emotions were all over the place; I thought I was going crazy! I felt so emotional, frustrated, angry and helpless most of the time; it was as if there were another person inside me controlling me. It was quite frightening at times.

It wasn’t until I started having my dreadful day and night sweats that I decided to visit my doctor. He took a blood test that confirmed I was menopausal.

At the time I was at the peri-menopause stage. I had very little knowledge about pre-menopause, peri-menopause, menopause or post-menopause. I just thought women went through menopause!

I was very surprised, because I was still having my normal monthly periods and I was only forty-eight years old at the time. I have to admit I felt quite sad when my doctor first told me I was menopausal. One of the thoughts that kept coming to me was that I was not going to be able to have any more children. Not that I was planning on having any at that time, but the choice was being taken away from me.

I had thought that women did not begin to experience menopause until they were in their mid-fifties, not women of my age. I knew some of my good friends were going through menopause and they were ten years older than me. They had never really spoken about it in depth. Many women do not like to talk about the subject or admit they are going through menopause.

I wanted a better understanding of menopause, so I decided to do research.

When I first found out I was menopausal, I called my mother to ask her when she started to experience her menopause symptoms, but she did not remember and was very vague about it. I also asked my older sister, and got the same response as I did from my mother.

It seems that most women from that era did not really talk about periods and women’s issues. But, even if they had been able to tell me more about their menopausal experience, it does not mean that I would have experienced menopause and its symptoms in the same way.

In the past, I had always seen myself as an emotionally strong, loving, and independent woman. Through my experience with menopause, though, I found myself an emotional wreck. I became very depressed, weak and lethargic most of the time. I was also experiencing anxiety, which I had never experienced before.

I also found myself eating types of foods I never used to eat before. I found myself craving sugary and fatty foods. I started to put on weight, and I did not have the energy to go to the gym as I had always done before. One of the reasons I had no energy was because I had not been sleeping through the night.

The biggest reason for not sleeping at night was because I was having severe night sweats. Some nights I had to change my nighties and bed sheets up to four times, and other nights my mind and body would be very restless. After months and months of not sleeping I was totally emotionally and physically drained and exhausted.

My family and friends could not believe how I had changed. I knew I had to get my symptoms under control. They were destroying not only me, but also my relationships.

This is why I feel it is important that not only should women better understand menopause and its symptoms, but also help their husbands, partners, family and friends understand as well. Everyone can benefit from a better understanding of what a menopausal woman is going through.

I would encourage you to educate them, as well, so they will be able to understand on a deeper level and assist you through this difficult time.