My Mum's Early Menopause with no HRT treatment

My mum passed away almost 3 years ago. She had just turned 70. She had been quite poorly for a number of years prior to her passing, with multiple illnesses. In the last year of her life she had become pretty much a recluse, afraid to go out. She stopped eating and she spent most of the day laying in bed. From having hour long conversations with her every day, she cut short most of the chats we had as she was too tired to talk or a coughing fit would ensue which affected her breathing so she needed to go on her oxygen machine. She lived 200 miles away from us but I managed to visit pretty much every month and more so towards the end as she was very fragile and admitted to hospital more and more frequently. Every time I visited I witnessed her simply fading away, in size and in energy. She weighed 5 stone when she died. 

 My mum has a terribly sad early life story. Born into extreme poverty in Belfast, with many siblings, a father who abandoned them and a mother who was addicted to prescription pills. Mum found herself pregnant with me (intentionally) when she was 19 (she told me she had nothing and wanted something that belonged only to her that she could love) and spent most of her pregnancy being dreadfully abused by her stepfather.

 

When I was born, her mother and stepfather sent her out to work and they became my main carers, mum was desperate for someone to love so got herself pregnant again a few months later. That baby, my little sister (we have different fathers) died when only a few weeks old. I think nowadays it would be classed as cot death but her death certificate says bronchial failure. Mum never told me who my father was, she didn’t know as there were a number of options. Since her death I have found my birth father. Mum would have been happy with who it is I’m sure. Anyway, that’s a blog for another time. 

 I want to use this one to tell you about my mum’s illnesses and how I believe many of them relate to menopause. Mum had me at 19, then 2 more children when she was 29 and 30. She then started with a very early menopause when she was around 40. That was back in the 1980’s when there was so much negative press around HRT and the side effects it could cause, cancer being the biggest fear. (The Selling of Fear) So my mum took nothing, yes NOTHING. Nothing for the flushes, nothing for her bones, nothing for her mental wellbeing, nothing for her heart or any of the drastic changes that were happening to her body. In her 50’s (my age now) she was diagnosed with severe osteoporosis, heart disease, and depression. She was given a calcium tablet to take each day and some anti-depressants for a few months. That was it. I watched my mum's life draining out of her. She had no enthusiasm for anything, the doctors just kept giving her a concoction of pills as she got more and more ill. No medical professional actually took any time to find any causes of an aged frail body in a middle aged woman. Perhaps it was because she was a smoker. She smoked her whole life. I think the doctors used this as an excuse for her illnesses and didn’t look any further. I am in no doubt that her early menopause was the cause of her frailty, the smoking didn’t help but was in no way the cause of all of the mental illness that accompanied her diagnosis of ill health. I miss her every minute of every day.