Nic Dempsey

Happy Thursday!

For those of you squeamish about women’s health (especially if you’re my brother!) look away now.

This is a quick catch up, February has been busy. I feel this is relatively important to have this out there because a while ago, I decided that I wasn’t going to be embarrassed or quiet about what was happening to me during in menopause or in my case peri menopause. There’s so much stuff that I didn’t know was menopause related that is and I thought I was fairly well educated. Also, 100 years ago, my great grandmother died after childbirth and my grandmother died at 49 because no one took her migraines seriously and her brain tumour grew. I’m keen that women’s health (of all sorts) is taken seriously and it can only be taken seriously if we are clear and unembarrassed about what’s happening and what needs to be done to solve the problems. No one without serious issue enjoys vaginal examinations but better to be a bit embarrassed for a smear test than having chemo for cervical cancer but we have to talk about it, most of the healthcare professionals I’ve deal with in gynaecology and even when having smear tests have been professional and go to great lengths to make you feel as comfortable as possible while doing their job, which is basically to help you. Here endeth the lesson.

So I’ve been taking HRT for about three and half years, for the last three or so, I’ve been having prolonged periods and bleeding. In the summer, I talked to the GP and had a scan and went onto a type of HRT that should have stopped all bleeding. It didn’t, I was still bleeding and periods went on forever with every period came a UTI. They have increased recently but I’ve had four since last August and that is too many antibiotics for one human! So in January, the GP referred me to the Menopause/HRT Clinic from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

I know the NHS is in crisis but all of this happened very quickly. The first appointment happened the week before last, blood test happened last week, this week I had a scan and today I had a hysteroscopy (if you ever have one, take all the drugs, insist on a local anaesthetic and take all the other painkillers they say. I did all that and it was still very painful.* However, overall I was surprised by how reassuring it was to be taken seriously, to have the clinicians tell me that it was a big deal and that it needed to be sorted. I started showing signs of per-menopause at 43 and while I haven’t been told it’s all in my head, I am a person that likes to know what to expect and until this month no one has sat down and explained why things are happening and what to look out for. In 2019, I was having episodes where I felt like I was coming down with flu, no temperature but shivering and feeling hot and cold. Eventually, I went to the doctor and was told it was a peri-menopause symptom, once I knew that, if it happened I could just go to bed and sleep through it but not knowing, I was beginning to wonder if it was malaria or just all in my head.

Anyway assuming the biopsy from today comes back fine, the problem is adenomyosis and a couple of fibroids (submucosal and intramural). Oestrogen is causing my uterine lining to thicken and the progesterone is supposed to stop that but it’s not. Basically, I’m not getting enough of either, the possible solution to this is a mirena coil which will give me a localised source of progesterone (as a bonus, the doctor thinks it’ll help with my migraines). The patches will be oestrogen only and have topical oestrogen for the UTI’s.

I’m told that the next six months or so may be rocky but the bleeding should stop and it should all settle down. Fingers crossed.

Other things I’ve learnt about myself in all of this, my blood pressure is good, I’m not diabetic (which is another cause of frequent UTI’s), I have slightly elevated cholesterol but like .3 above the range (my mum and my uncle have elevated cholesterol too and a rise in HDL(bad) cholesterol with a lowering of LDL(good) cholesterol is a menopause symptom, so I’m very not surprised by that!) however, my ratio of LDL to HDL is still in the right place but worth keeping an eye on. My 10 year risk of a cardio vascular event is 5.56% so it’s good that I’ll be taking oestrogen for the next couple of years or so!

*Fortunately, it only really hurt for a short time and I’m used to bad period pain but in my limited experience it’s more painful than the information would have you think.