We received a wide range of responses regarding how affected women are by the menopause and how they think and feel about it. \u00a0Most participants experienced weight gain (especially in bellies and breasts) and many experienced joint pain, tiredness, vaginal dryness, hot flushes, skin changes and hair loss. \u00a0Mood changes also figured centrally in the interviews.\u00a0 Brain fog was a prominent theme, along with irritability, rage and increased anxiety.\u00a0 Several participants shared a version of feeling like they were \u2018going a bit mad\u2019, or that menopause had made them feel \u2018not like themselves\u2019. \u00a0\u00a0A lot of participants also reported that these changes came as a shock, as one participant put it: \u2018for a lot of people, we crash into (the menopause).\u2019 For many there was also uncertainty over whether a given symptom was in fact due to the menopause, or to other factors such as simply being older, having more life stress, or a separate health issue, for example. The menopause can affect already existing health concerns for many women.<\/p>\n
As a rule, participants weren\u2019t particularly happy about these changes.\u00a0 As one woman shared, she had experienced herself as moving from being a pregnant body to a breastfeeding body to a perimenopausal body, to: \u2018a bit of a crappy body that doesn\u2019t work very well\u2019.\u00a0 \u00a0As another put it: \u2018I look in the mirror and I feel old\u2019.\u00a0 However, several women noted the benefits of not having periods anymore. \u00a0A couple expressed interest and even admiration in their menopausal bodies, such as the participant who told us she \u2018found it fascinating my body could do that\u2019, referring to her hot flushes.\u00a0 Some also noted an increased interest in sex and\/or in different kinds of sex than they had been having previously. \u00a0For others though, sexual intimacy caused some upsetting and challenging issues.<\/p>\n
While many participants felt the menopause was a change from which there was \u2018no going back\u2019 to earlier bodies or selves, others reported that they were hopeful of \u2018coming out of this\u2019, or took heart from post-menopausal friends who assured them things would get better, and for some it was the start of a new phase to explore, referred to by some as a time for women to take time for themselves, a time when women are meant-to-pause, and think about what they want in the years ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We received a wide range of responses regarding how affected women are by the menopause and how they think and feel about it. \u00a0Most participants experienced weight gain (especially in […]","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"parent":89,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"class_list":["post-93","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research-sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/menopause-geographies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research-sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/menopause-geographies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research-sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/menopause-geographies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research-sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/menopause-geographies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research-sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/menopause-geographies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/research-sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/menopause-geographies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94,"href":"https:\/\/research-sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/menopause-geographies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/93\/revisions\/94"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research-sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/menopause-geographies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research-sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/menopause-geographies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research-sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/menopause-geographies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}