A woman endured four years of "debilitating" symptoms before a gynaecologist told her she had been experiencing "Perimenopause".
Perimenopause refers to the symptoms which begin before a person's period stops, as opposed to the menopause which describes those after that point. According to the NHS it can last months or even years and can persist for some time afterwards.
Katie Taylor, 52, found out from her gynaecologist that the symptoms she was experiencing was "Perimenopause".
Doctors originally misdiagnosed Katie with depression - meaning she had to endure the "debilitating" symptoms for four years before she received the help she needed.
Katie is the CEO and founder of the Latte Lounge, an online platform which provides evidence-based information, resources and support to midlife women, reports My London.
"There's almost 10 years before the menopause, where your hormone levels start to fluctuate or plummet," says Katie, who lives in north west London. "We need to be focusing on peri[menopause]".
Katie's own experience of the perimenopause began at 43. She had four children, and had just got a new job - a senior position on the marketing team of a children's charity - when she began to experience a host of seemingly unrelated problems.
"First of all, I started to feel very low in mood. I had no joy in life, even though I had a happy life. Then I started feeling exhausted all the time, and suffering with insomnia. I had this brain fog: a cloudy brain where I was forgetting words and felt like I was walking in a daze most of the time. I couldn't concentrate at work," says Katie, who was also experiencing anxiety, heart palpitations, aching joints and itchy skin.
Feeling low, she decided to visit her GP. "I remember being very teary and saying: 'I just don't feel like myself'," she says. The doctor asked what was going on in her life - was she having relationship difficulties? Money problems? - before diagnosing Katie with mild depression. She was offered counselling, and the doctor suggested cutting back on work and losing weight. If she wasn't feeling better in six weeks, they'd prescribe her anti-depressants.
Over the next four years, Katie went to see four different specialists: a heart specialist, a dermatologist, an orthopaedic surgeon, a psychiatrist. The response was the same: depression. They recommended anti-depressants.
"I lost faith in myself...I started to think I was a hypochondriac," says Katie. "I was embarrassed that I wasn't coping, I was embarrassed that the doctors thought: 'Here's a nutter who keeps coming back to see me'."
It was impacting her life, too. Katie's husband was worried about her, and she felt she wasn't being a "fun mum" to her children, spending most of the days on the sofa. Struggling to work, Katie also left her job without explaining why. "I just became a shell of a woman...This wasn't me," she says.
Eventually, at the suggestion of Katie's father, a retired breast cancer professor, she visited a gynaecologist, who told her that her symptoms were part of the perimenopause and prescribed her hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
"It was a lightbulb moment for me," says Katie. "I just couldn't believe that there was a reason for all these symptoms, and I wasn't going mad." With the help of HRT, she quickly began to feel herself again. "Within a matter of weeks, I was like a new woman," she adds.
This was the first time that Katie had heard of perimenopause, and her experience forced her to consider why that was. "I was very angry that none of my doctors had put two and two together; that I had never known about it; I'd never learned about it. I thought menopause was old grey-haired women in rocking chairs having hot flushes - I felt a million miles away from that image," she says.
In an attempt to find other people talking about the menopause, Katie set up a Facebook group for women to connect, support each other and share advice. That night, she says she received over a thousand member requests.
Now, six years on, Katie's Facebook group has more than 21,000 members and provides, she says, a "lifeline" to women. It has evolved into a business, the Latte Lounge, which Katie runs full-time. Putting together a medical advisory team and website, the initiative provides evidence-based information, resources and support to women in mid-life.
Katie is also an active campaigner for better education and support around the menopause, having collaborated with Diane Danzebrink, founder of not-for-profit organisation Menopause Support and the #MakeMenopauseMatter campaign.
The campaign has three main aims: for menopause training to become a mandatory part of medical school (it is currently on the curriculum, although not mandatory to teach), for it to be taught on the secondary school curriculum (it was successfully added in September 2020) and to improve workplace policies, support and guidelines around the menopause.
Katie's work is part of a wider movement to reform attitudes and education around the menopause. Last year, Menopause Support found that 41 per cent of the UK's medical schools did not have a mandatory menopause education programme for their students, meaning it is possible for doctors to leave university without any training in the menopause.
With the menopause being added to the secondary school curriculum in 2020, Katie is optimistic that progress is being made. "There's a massive movement now, and we've given evidence to the government, the Women's Health Strategy - menopause is now going to be part of the template of that. Things are definitely changing," she says.
There are at least 34 symptoms of the menopause, which, according to the NHS, will affect 80 per cent of women at some point during the process. Katie encourages women to familiarise themselves with the symptoms and make an appointment to speak to their doctor, should they start affecting their lives. "Just be as educated as you can - we've got a whole menopause resources area on our website."
"In theory, I could have been helped in one day and then just got on with my life," says Katie, reflecting on her own experience. "My intention is that no one suffers like I did."
To find out more about the menopause, visit the NHS website.
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