If you follow me on Instagram you won’t have failed to notice that I’m hosting an online event all about peri-menopause - The Very Peri Summit UK.
The lack of information and communication around the topic is something very close to my heart indeed, thanks to the experiences in my mid 40s for which there was seemingly no road map.
In the Summit, being hosted online on the evenings of 4th and 5th October, I’ll be telling the really quite unpleasant story about the time I thought I was bleeding to death in the queue to board a plane to Milan. I jumped out of the queue, sprinted to a pharmacy in the terminal. As I joined the unbearably long line to pay for two boxes of tampons, I could feel the violent tsunami happening in my knickers and, panicking, wondered how long before it would apparent to absolutely everyone around me.
Now, I know this is too much information, but I’m going there. Because when this happened to me, there was nowhere near enough information.
After a very uncomfortable and mortifying few hours, in which I got through most of one box of tampons, my body calmed down again. I reassured myself that this was one of those things: a freak occurrence - stress, maybe? I had been travelling a lot, maybe my body clock was just having a moment. I comfort-ate some room service spaghetti bolognaise and promptly forgot about it.
Months later, I was in Paris for work. (Because this stuff apparently never happens when you’re just two steps away from your own bathroom.) I waved some colleagues goodbye after a meeting and as I walked towards a taxi, oh my god I felt it again. This time I was wearing very light grey trousers. Borrowed from a designer as well, does this get any worse?
Yes. Yes it does.
I was on my way to a lunch meeting in an upscale brasserie. I still hadn’t quite grasped the true horror of the situation. I figured I’d just run to the bathroom and sort it out there.
Everyone: it took me exactly ten seconds to make that bathroom cubicle resemble a crime scene. Seriously, I can never show my face in that restaurant again. And they have the best steak and mash potato in the world, so try to understand my pain here.
I tied my black blazer around my waist. Chic it was not. I legged it to another taxi, almost in tears.
OK so now I thought, something is seriously, fatally wrong with me.
As soon as I got back to London I went to the doctor. She barely looked up from her computer screen as I rattled off these experiences. I’d never heard of ‘flooding’ or that it was something that was ‘very common at your age, during the peri-menopausal stage’.
Sorry, the Peri-what-now? Menopause I’d heard of. Sure. But that was something that would happen when I was a granny, right?
I felt so stupid but also exasperated because, I’d have thought that as a 20-year veteran of women’s magazines, I’d have come across the term somewhere. But I genuinely hadn’t.
If you’re a woman in your late 30s or early 40s reading this, I want something a lot better for you. The panic. The fear. The embarrassment. All of it is so unnecessary. Of course, then a lot of other stuff started to make sense. The onset of anxiety I’d never had before - maybe it wasn’t all down to my busy job. The waking up drenched at 4am, feeling like a hot plate had been turned on in my body.
This is why this newsletter is something of an ad (sorry) for The Very Peri Summit UK. Because we’ve worked hard to bring you a two-day festival of experts so that you have a better chance than I did of having a fanny that won’t disgrace itself and embarrass you in public. I want you to be the boss of your body, not the other way around.
We’ve got experts including Dr Naomi Potter, Dr Shahzadhi Harper, Dr Nighat Arif, Emma Bardwell, Lavina Mehta, Diane Danzebrink and many more, providing the ultimate toolkit to help you feel great through peri menopause and menopause. As my friend Davina McCall says, ‘You hear women say, ‘“I’ll wait until it gets really bad.” Why are you doing that? Don’t wait until it gets really bad. You deserve to feel good!’
In fact it was a pep talk from her that finally convinced me to go and see a doctor about HRT. And I know that’s not going to be the right answer for everyone. The Very Peri Summit UK will be bursting with all sorts of advice, about HRT but beyond HRT too. Get involved.
Tickets are just £29 . Click here for more info on how to get yours https://bit.ly/3PtlNOe
Same, had this happen on a flight back from a work trip and wearing a white dress. As I stood up my boss asked if I was ok as did several other men as I embarked the aircraft and dashed to the nearest loo - mortified. I assumed fibroids but now realise it was peri-menopause.
It pains me how much I relate to this. I will never forget the time I ended up on the train home from work with the head of marketing and had to make polite conversation with him while sitting on one butt cheek to stop getting blood on the seat, then I ran into the station toilet, created a crime scene, ran to H&M to buy new leggings and pants, had to change again 15 minutes later in McDonalds, and was so freaked out I actually went to A&E because I thought I was haemorrhaging 😱