Remember when you were a young girl and your mother had “the talk” with you? Were you mortified, confused and thought your mother was basically crazy to think THAT was going to happen to your body? Well, it did and you survived. But decades later no one was discussing The 2nd Talk. The menopause talk.
What are the symptoms, what can we expect to happen to our bodies and how does it affect our families even?
For me personally there are four in my family all living in the same house and we were used to the normalcy of keeping the house a certain temperature. But, one day things began to change. I would secretly turn the thermostat cooler in the house and still be irritable that I was warm.
Then those looks at me started. You know the ones…
It’s happening again to mom, run!
See, I live in what I call “The Testosterone Home” – my husband and two sons in their early 20’s. Being the only female in the house all these years, I’m used to getting those looks from my family for some reason or another, but the looks were coming at me more frequently and often accompanied by smirks and wonder of what was going on with mom. Menopause was hitting, and living in a house of men, there certainly isn’t going to be sympathy and understanding.
Besides hot flashes other changes started happening, not as quickly or dramatic as a hot flash, but just as annoying, were those pesky hairs appearing where they never were before and certainly shouldn’t be! Why does the hair on the head thin, but then show up on the chin? It’s a phenomenon that can drive us crazy trying to figure it out.
There are these and so many other symptoms of menopause that we just never talked about. It’s time to start sharing our experiences with each other so that we can be better prepared for menopause and get the support we all need. I encourage you to join the 2nd talk presented by Poise. Visit the2ndtalk.com and share your stories about experiencing or anticipating menopause. Once you have, come back here and tell me what you said and you are entered in for a chance to win a “Hot Flash Prize Pack” including a $50 gift card and Poise products.
Disclosure: This is a paid post, courtesy of Poise. All views and opinions expressed here are my own.
The chin hair drives me crazy. I grumble about the time it takes to keep it in check (and $$, since I have it waxed), but then I worked an event a couple of weeks ago where a woman came up to our table, and clearly she was OK with chin hair. It was kind of scary.
LOL Amy! Chin hairs.. What is that all about?! 🙁
I think we were getting the short end the stick. Women before us just had menopause, now we get perimenopause that can last for ever and then menopause.
Really?! uuuuuugh.
Men get those fun commercials for Low T, get a shot, life is fun blah blah blah.. BARF!
We get old lady bones commercials. We get the ‘older women’ in nice little cardigan sweaters and such. Might as well just lump us all into the ‘Help I have fallen and can’t get up’ group.
Finally, we are getting some commercials that we can identify with, and doesn’t make us feel like we need to be moved to the old folks home right now.
I am not quite ready for poise pads, but lordy, I am in the middle of perimenopause. But I know it is coming.. someday.
I think whoever created this campain is brilliant! And major kudos for the marketing team!
I thanked Poise for their support and told them that my menopause started as soon as my chemotherapy started, which seemed really mean! My poor old ovaries shriveled and died and along with that I started sweating like a marathon runner! Thankfully since chemo ended my hotflashes are now limited to my 3 a.m. visits from the sweat fairy, but any alcohol definately brings out the flashes as does anxiety! My boys call our house the walk-in meat locker because I keep it so cold! I even sleep with a window open all winter long!
As far as mood swings, I have noticed NOTHING — ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY AND I MEAN IT!!! 🙂
Well my ‘chin furs’ as I like to refer to them are turning white now so at least they aren’t as obvious but I’d look like a Schnauzer if I didn’t sort them out as they are so wirey!
I am not I think are going through what is to be expected at age 45, I dont have a period anymore due to my ulterest was lased back in 2003, I hope this helps with what I am going through with the ture man in my life now.