'I would feel pressure building in my head and the flush would start,' said Belinda Carlisle
Many women approaching the menopause are anxious about it — but singer Belinda Carlisle had perhaps more to worry about than most.
When she was a teenager her mother Joanne suffered such severe menopausal symptoms that at one point doctors tried to commit her to a mental hospital.
Belinda, 55, best known for her hits Heaven Is A Place On Earth and Circle In The Sand, was terrified that she might suffer as her mother had done.
‘Mum had always been pretty healthy — she drank a little bit and smoked a little bit, but there was nothing actually wrong with her until she hit the menopause,’ says Belinda.
‘She suddenly became really agitated and very, very down and she spent a lot of time sitting in her room crying.
‘She was so unbalanced that at one time they were trying to put her in a psychiatric hospital, although they didn’t in the end.
'She did improve over time and yes, the doctors weren’t as sophisticated then, but when I was approaching the menopause I was thinking, “Oh my, I hope it doesn’t hit me like that”.’
Fortunately, when Belinda did start becoming menopausal in her late 40s, she was spared the low moods her mother had suffered.
However, she was badly affected by another symptom: hot flushes.
‘I began with night sweats and agitation. I felt out of sorts — I was always a bit warm in the day, too, and I also felt as if my engine was running too high and I felt really, really tired,’ says Belinda, who is married to Morgan Mason, the film producer son of James Mason. They have a son, James, 22.
‘My sleep was affected, so I never felt rested. I could deal with all that — but then the daytime hot flushes began and that was just awful.
‘I would feel pressure building in my head and the flush would start.
'I was getting around 40 flushes a day. I would sweat so badly it would be visible on me and I had to get into the habit of taking a change of clothes with me because my blouse and jeans would be wet through.’
When she went out she would also carry a supply of tissues.
‘I would be dabbing away at my face and chest as soon as a flush came on,’ she recalls.
‘I tried not to let it get in the way of my life and tried to carry on as normal — you do the best you can,’ adds Belinda, who lives in the U.S. and in France.
‘Once I was singing at a concert in Australia and during the first song I felt a flush come on.
'On stage it’s bad enough with the stage lights as they can make you hot, but with the flush as well I had sweat pouring off me.’
Most women start to experience menopause symptoms in their 40s. These occur as the ovaries start to produce less of the hormone oestrogen.
'I was getting around 40 flushes a day. I would sweat so badly it would be visible on me,' said Belinda
At the same time, levels of the hormones progesterone and testosterone drop, too. Hot flushes are the most common symptom.
Oestrogen affects the part of the brain — the hypothalamus — that helps regulate temperature, and the sinking hormone levels cause it to think the body needs cooling down when it doesn’t.
Hot flushes are the most common reason for women to seek medical help for the menopause — they have a ‘big impact’, says Edward Morris, a gynaecologist at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Trust and chairman of the British Menopause Society.
‘If women have them at night it can interrupt sleep, and if it happens at work it can be distracting.’
Other common symptoms are irregular periods, irritability, low energy and vaginal dryness.
There are also lesser-known symptoms such as heart palpitations, itchy skin and dizzy spells, and some complain of memory problems.
Low mood, such as that suffered by Belinda’s mother, is also common.
‘Some women view the menopause in a negative way, as a signpost to older age, and that can lead to low mood,’ explains Mr Morris.
‘However, the fall in hormones can have an effect, too.
'In the same way, if a woman has her ovaries removed for medical reasons, it immediately reduces her oestrogen and she may then suffer with low mood, but we don’t fully understand the complex changes that occur in the brain as a result.’
The symptoms improve once a woman has gone through the menopause, a year after she has had her last period — typically about the age of 51.
But some women put up with the symptoms for five years or longer. A study by the University of Pennsylvania, published in 2012, found symptoms can last as long as ten years.
And they can have a major effect on a woman’s everyday life, says Dr Mourad Seif, a senior lecturer and consultant gynaecologist at Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust.
Yet he says ‘a lot of women are denied help’, partly because of an overestimation of the risks of hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
HRT contains a synthetic form of oestrogen or a combination of oestrogen and progesterone, given as a pill, patch or cream.
But in 2002, findings from the Women’s Health Initiative triggered concern that the treatment could increase the risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, stroke and blood clots.
Although the accepted view is that the risk from HRT is small if it’s only taken short term — the study was conducted on post-menopausal women aged 50-79 — the proportion of women taking HRT since then has nosedived.
‘Between 2005 and 2006 the number of prescriptions for HRT in this country fell off a cliff, but the number of GP consultations about the menopause increased, which means women do need help with these symptoms,’ says Mr Morris.
‘Yet there are cases where GPs appear to have withdrawn from the process — and choose to not prescribe HRT.
‘HRT can help cut flushes, vaginal dryness and protect bones from osteoporosis.
'Yes there are drawbacks such as a risk of breast cancer, blood clots in the legs and lungs, but they are not nearly as common as some believe.’
When more than 500 women tried this magnet, 50 to 70 per cent reported reduced irritability and improved sleep, and more than a third said they had fewer hot flushes after a month of wearing the magnet night and day
Belinda didn’t even want to try HRT.
‘I did try taking some more natural things such as evening primrose oil but it didn’t really seem to help,’ she says.
Feeling desperate four years ago, she went to see a Harley Street doctor, who suggested she tried a magnet.
The tiny, 10p-sized device had to be attached to her underwear and worn night and day.
The manufacturer, LadyCare, says that when more than 500 women tried it, 50 to 70 per cent reported reduced irritability and improved sleep, and more than a third said they had fewer hot flushes after a month of wearing the magnet night and day.
However, the device was not compared against a placebo. Nor is it clear how a magnet might even work.
Dr Nyjon Eccles, who treated Belinda, says: ‘I gave one to a man with profuse sweating and it worked; I realised the magnet wasn’t affecting the hormones, it was something else.’
Dr Eccles believes it calms down an over-reaction in the sympathetic nervous system, which has a role in anxiety and sweating. And a branch of it goes through the pelvis.
Without robust scientific evidence, most doctors and scientists would dismiss this as quackery — or at best the placebo effect. Even Belinda was ‘very sceptical’.
But she says: ‘Within 48 hours, I went from having 30 to 40 hot flushes to having none at all. I felt like the old Belinda again — in fact better than that.
‘Before I started getting the menopausal symptoms, I had suffered with really bad PMS: really bad depression and I had no energy.
'It would happen each month and I was on Prozac on and off over the years. Suddenly, I was free of all of it.’
Mr Morris comments: ‘I have heard about this magnet, but the studies done on it have only lasted three months and it is possible there was a strong placebo effect.
‘There is a seemingly low risk of adverse effects from using this, but it’s not going to protect your bones as HRT can.’
Belinda uses the magnet religiously.
She is not paid by the manufacturer, and says: ‘I don’t need to talk about this, but it worked so well for me, I think other women should know about it.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2666176/Belinda-Carlisle-says-shes-menopause-miracle-But-experts-agree.html#ixzz35bB571aw
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