For many women, menopause arrives gradually — through small shifts in sleep, mood, memory or energy. But for me, it arrived suddenly.
After years of living with the pain and disruption of endometriosis, surgery eventually became unavoidable. The disease had wrapped itself around my ovaries, and when the endometriosis was removed surgically, their function rapidly declined. Within a matter of weeks, I found myself plunged into menopause.
Driving became difficult whenever I broke into sweats – every 20 minutes!! Concentration felt unreliable. Sleep was a thing of the past and so even simple social interactions were hard work as I was constantly exhausted.
Despite having medical knowledge, I realised that, on a human-to-human level: Nobody told me this.”
In general, our mums weren’t very well-informed about menopause, so they often didn’t pass much useful information on to us and now conflicting advice confuses us when we try to find answers for ourselves. The menopausal transition is very complex. Hormones like oestrogen and progesterone influence more systems throughout the body than we expect — including the brain, metabolism, sleep regulation and cardiovascular function.
First off, my sleep changed dramatically. Night after night I found myself waking up regularly in puddles of sweat and not being able to get back to sleep. Progesterone normally has a calming effect on the nervous system, helping us fall and stay asleep. At the same time, oestrogen supports serotonin pathways that regulate sleep cycles so when my oestrogen was suddenly switched off, my brain’s sleep–wake rhythm became much less stable.
And when my sleep changed, everything else in life became harder. Energy, mood and focus soon followed. Even familiar routines — exercise, work, daily tasks — began to feel different.
Because oestrogen also plays an important role in regulating metabolism, so my body moved towards storing fat more centrally and losing lean muscle more easily, despite the fact that my diet and exercise habits remain unchanged. I’d heard my friends talking about it, but I thought that having a healthy lifestyle would shield me from it. Well, that didn’t happen either!
Then there was the unexpected mental fog. Forgetting a word mid-sentence or losing track of a thought was unsettling. I know there’s research out there about oestrogen interacting with brain chemicals such as dopamine and acetylcholine, which help regulate memory and attention, but this didn’t feel like any kind of help to me when it was happening to me. Was I reassured by the studies that show cognitive function usually stabilises once hormones settle after menopause? No, not really, because what was happening to me felt scary and made me feel insecure about my future – was I getting dementia at the age of 48???
Looking back, the turning point for me was beginning hormone replacement therapy. Slowly, things began to stabilise. Sleep improved. Concentration returned. Life became navigable again — not the same as before, but a new and workable normal.
For 5 years prior to this happening to me I had been treating women facing similar issues but experiencing it for myself made me truly understand, feel and know the uncertainty, the anxiety, the frustration, the unpredictability that they were dealing with. I was now one of the many women who reach this stage of life with little preparation for the breadth of changes they may experience.
No one should have to navigate such an important transition without clear information and support. Understanding does not remove the transition, but it changes our relationship to it.
This is one of the many, many reasons why I chose to take the long, and difficult journey of building this app: to create a place where women can understand their bodies, find trusted science-backed guidance, and feel less alone in experiences that are far more common than we are often led to believe.
If you have ever found yourself thinking “Nobody told me this,” you are not alone.
And perhaps, together, we can make sure that the women who come after us hear the story sooner.
References – if needed
- Santoro N., Epperson C.N., Mathews S.B. (2015). Menopausal Symptoms and Their Management. Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinics.
- Baker F.C., Lee K.A. (2018). Menopause and Sleep. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
- Davis S.R. et al. (2015). Understanding Weight Gain at Menopause. Climacteric.
- Weber M.T., Mapstone M. (2009). Memory Complaints and Cognitive Function in the Menopause Transition. Menopause Journal.
- Maki P.M., Jaffe H. (2021). Cognitive Changes During the Menopause Transition. Nature Reviews Endocrinology.
- Freeman E.W. (2010). Depression and Anxiety in the Menopause Transition. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
- McKinsey Health Institute (2024). Closing the Women’s Health Gap.