Menopause ‘revolution’ starts here

Kathryn Colas spent too many Christmas and New Year holidays feeling hot, tired, moody and overweight – and it wasn’t down to one too many Bucks Fizz’ and mince pies. It took 10 years before she realised that the physical discomfort and rollercoaster emotions she’d been experiencing were all related to symptoms of the menopause. But by then it had cost her a job she loved and very nearly her marriage.

Eight million women will be putting a brave face on their feelings this festive season, just as Kathryn did.

“Boxing Day and New Year’s Day will be the worst,” she says. “That’s when you’re really feeling pretty awful about yourself, but for the most part we’ll suffer in silence, trying to hide it from friends, family and colleagues.”

Which is why she’s making a resolution to change the way we talk about the menopause in 2017, starting with a special event in January.

Making Sense of Menopause at Stanhill Court Hotel at Charlwood near Gatwick, will be led by a panel of female experts and is an opportunity for women to discuss and learn from their shared experience of the menopause. But it’s just the start.

“We need a menopause revolution,” says Kathryn, who went through ‘10 years of hell’, convinced she was suffering a mental breakdown before discovering that her ‘crazy hormones’ were to blame. “Nobody’s telling women what they need to know – we need to make it headline news, not a sideshow.”

Kathryn’s experience led her to set up a support and advice service called Simply Hormones in 2005, which has agitated for better information on menopause to be made more widely available, not just to women, but also to their partners, families and employers. This year saw it launch the first training service in the UK aimed at making managers aware of the occupational health issues facing women who are coping with menopausal symptoms.

“There are many things employers can do to help,” says Kathryn. “Simple things, like making sure there is sufficient ventilation – be it a fan on the desk or access to windows that open – to alleviate the hot flushes many women suffer; perhaps rethinking the design of uniforms that can become suffocatingly hot during the menopause; and taking a more flexible attitude to working hours and additional toilet breaks. These are all things that could help improve the lives of millions of working women.”

This month, the Royal College of Nursing became the latest organisation to issue guidance on adapting workplace policies to take account of the many thousands of women who hit the menopause while employed in health and social care. The RCN said it would like to see all employers recognising it as an equality and occupational health issue.

“We are making progress,” says Kathryn. “But there is still a long way to go and the more women understand what is happening to them, the more empowered they are to ask for help and support, be it from their employer, partner or GP. That’s what the Making Sense of Menopause event is all about. Sharing experience and making sure no one has to go through the hell I did.”

To book a place at the Making Sense of Menopause Day at Stanhill Court Hotel near Gatwick on January 21, go to simplyhormones.com

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