Experiencing Menopause as a Teenager

Guest BlogPremature Ovarian Insufficiency

16 Oct

POI_Experiencing menopause as a teenager

Premature Ovarian Insufficiency - The story of a menopausal teenager

“14 years old and told I had gone through the menopause… yep that’s right 14 years old!”

Now aged 39, Hayley has only just found the confidence to open up about her own experience of going through menopause prematurely. She hopes that by sharing her story, the next generation won’t feel as isolated as she did and will feel more able to access the right support.

Hayley’s Story

“14 years old and told I had gone through the menopause… yep that’s right 14 years old!”

I will never forget that day, sitting on the bed in a hospital room waiting for the consultant to come into me and my Mum saying those words. My Mum bawling her eyes out and me comforting her asking her to not cry, telling her it was ok. The thing is, it wasn’t ok - but then I had no clue what the consultant was even talking about?

At the age of 12 I started my periods like any normal teenager. Then after a year they just stopped. I was struggling to concentrate at school and the nights were hell. Waking up dripping with sweat and just feeling weird. That’s literally how I described it to my Mum one day, ‘I don’t feel like me Mum, I feel weird’. So off we went to the doctor’s. I explained what was going on and I was referred for a blood test and an ultrasound. Then two weeks later a consultant gynaecologist confirmed that I had gone through my menopause and that I needed to start taking HRT tablets.

I was told that I had a womb but a small one and that they could only find one ovary. That was the first and the last time I was going to see my consultant. I am now 39 years old. I have literally never been contacted since. Not been given any follow up appointments, no help, no guidance to understand what had happened to me nothing. Put on Prempak C and left to just get on with it.

Even when Prempak C was discontinued a few years back I wasn’t informed by my doctor. The pharmacist told me when I went to pick up my meds. Meds, may I add that I have to pay for… which I find astonishing. I need to take these daily and I had none left. Luckily after a long phone call I managed to get in to see a GP the next day who told me there was no exact alternative so she was putting me on another brand. But that was horrendous. All my levels went crazy, my symptoms returned and my bleeds were so painful.

I was then changed onto Femoston which I still take and luckily have no problems with. Even my bleed isn’t as painful anymore. I have to have a monthly bleed to keep the lining of my womb working properly just in case I were to decide I wanted to try IVF. Something I have decided against, as I cannot go through a grieving process again if it wasn’t successful.

As a child I needed to learn what it all meant and back then there was hardly anything on the internet to read and even to this day there are limited materials for a teenager experiencing this. This needs addressing, I felt lost for years as I just didn’t understand it all.

I felt medical professionals looked at me like I was some sort of freak

If I was given a pound for the number of times a doctor or nurse has said to me “you poor girl” when I answer the dreaded question… “what medication do you take?”. I felt medical professionals looked at me like I was some sort of freak. I would have had loads of work done on myself.

Which leads me on to how I felt growing up… hating what I saw looking back at me in the mirror. The one job a woman is given to do, and I couldn’t even do that properly. I felt like a failure. A failure as a woman.

I can’t say I grew up depressed, I just learnt how to cope. I grew up not liking my appearance. I suppose I felt insecure about myself. I struggled with relationships with guys as I knew it was looming over me that one day I was going to have to tell them. Even when I did tell them, or my friends, none of them understood.

I even lost a friend over it as she said I was lying and that it was a sick thing to make up! Charming hey? The response I got from the few close friends I told was always the same… “It will happen one day mate, loads of women are told they can’t have kids and they do”.

Nobody understood what I was saying because no one was/is educated about this enough, no one knows what it really means. Even to this day people still don’t understand.

So, in my own words I say it how it is…. to produce a baby, you need an egg and a sperm, and I don’t have eggs, end of.

In October 2020 I decided I was ready to talk about my experience out loud and to try and to get this condition recognised more and to help others to speak out rather than hiding it all inside because you feel everyone will be gossiping about you.

Unfortunately, menopause happens to all females one day but there is no set age limit which I am living proof of…..