Exclusive
DARK HOLE
Menopause at 37 plunged me into a dark depression – I tried HRT and antidepressants but now I’ve found my ‘cure’
MENOPAUSE symptoms can cripple the lives of women.
But Stefanie Daniels, 43, learned to take menopause by the horns and even use it as a new career path.
4
4
4
Stefanie went into surgical menopause at 37 - around a decade earlier than the average woman - after needing an operation to have her ovaries removed.
A few months later she’d slipped into a dark depression and was prescribed antidepressants.
Over the next couple of years, depleted oestrogen levels zapped her energy, she put on weight that she couldn't shift and she was constantly tired - symptoms that are all too common during menopause.
Stefanie was on HRT during this time but never had follow-ups to see if the drugs worked for her.
Read more on menopause
It wasn’t until 2020 that she started to make lifestyle changes to support her menopausal symptoms.
During the spring 2020 Covid lockdown, when she was forced to reflect while at home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, she realised she had been living life “on the hamster running wheel”.
She turned things around and said: “I’m 43 now and my body has changed because of menopause.
“I’ve taken so many lifestyle changes that I can tell you now, with a hand on my heart, I feel better now than I did in my 20s.”
Most read in Health
Stefanie - who is married to Lee, 43, and mother to Johnny, ten, and Leila, eight - tells her story for the Fabulous Menopause Matters campaign, during Menopause Awareness Month.
'I took control of my menopause - you can too'
When I had my ovaries out, I was told I’d go straight into menopause, given a leaflet and sent home.
After my mum passed away from ovarian cancer in 2015, my family were tested for the BRCA gene in 2017.
I never in a million years thought it would come back positive, meaning I was at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
The next step was an easy decision for me - I took preventive steps and had a mastectomy (breast removal) and oophorectomy (ovary removal).
The oophorectomy was only a day surgery, but I was slam dunk into menopause. There was no easing into it like you get naturally with the perimenopause.
The doctors prescribed synthetic HRT patches that replaced the hormones that were lost due to menopause.
Dark hole
I remember a few months after the surgery being in my TV room and feeling like I was at the bottom of a swimming pool looking up. The world was carrying on without me and I was stuck in this dark hole.
I thought, what’s happening to me - someone who is such a positive person?
I was reading all these horror stories about menopause - was my hair going to fall out? Was I going to get fat?
I was only 37 and in menopause and feared I was just being left to age. Nobody wants to get old before their time.
I called my doctor in total despair, and she suggested I consider antidepressants. I didn’t want them but by the end of the chat she had convinced me, so I went to pick them up from the pharmacy that day.
I remember thinking, there must be something more?
I'd always been a slave to diet, but now weight loss felt even more out of my reach
Stefanie
I was always taught to get up in the morning, get myself washed, and look my best. But for a little bit, I felt out of control.
I went along life for the next couple of years and was struggling under the surface without really realising, despite the antidepressants.
The antidepressants were plastering over the cracks, and the HRT levelled me out. But it didn’t feel like I could get to the root cause.
I threw myself into my job but also had to deal with the housework and looking after the kids.
I was exhausted but didn’t even know it. I just drank coffee all the time to cope with the fatigue.
I was on the hamster running wheel of trying to lose weight. I'd always been a slave to diet, but now weight loss felt even more out of my reach.
Lockdown reflection
Then the lockdown hit and suddenly I had more time on my hands because I was no longer commuting into London.
When everything stopped and I had time, I started realising how bad my symptoms were.
It was the Covid pandemic that made me realise what was happening wasn’t normal. I should not be this tired all the time.
I started reading up about menopause, and one book led to another.
Before I knew it, I had a full-blown obsession with reading about how menopause affects women.
I started making small adjustments very gradually, and the old habits melted away and were replaced with new ones.
Before, I was eating so many low-fat foods that were full of sweeteners and probably doing me no good.
I used to roll my eyes at people who said they only ate wholefoods.
But the minute I started doing that, it had a positive effect on my sleep, and then a knock-on effect on my mood.
The more I ate wholefoods, the more my taste buds shifted. I now live by, “If your Grandma wouldn’t recognise it, don’t eat it”.
I’m very strict with my bedtime routine, I take supplements and only have a gin and tonic now and again.
I used to be a cardio bunny, but I now know that running too much could add to your stress hormones - which doesn’t help with weight loss.
So I switched to gentle walking and strength training to build muscles and keep the bones strong, which is important during menopause.
I’m now at peace with my weight and who I am as a person.
I had been on HRT for three years with no follow-up - I was fobbed off.
But after speaking with a pharmacist, I switched to bioidentical HRT which really suited me.
I felt I had conquered my symptoms, and genuinely felt good. It was like I had been working up to this point all my life.
Working in the media, I had always been in a culture that is led by partying and alcohol. Now, I realise that the negatives outweighed the good times.
One day, I said to my husband that I needed to help other women. So I quit my job, went to college and got certification to help other busy, corporate women going through menopause.
I came to life like it was my calling.
You can’t suddenly change everything and wake up a new person. You have to make small changes each week - that’s how I coach my ladies now.
Women need to be looking at their sleep, nutrition and mindset. We can’t all take a pill but still go to bed late and not look after ourselves.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
My mum never talked to me about her symptoms, and I know she suffered because she always had a fan in her face and looked uncomfortable.
Sod that - I’ll scream and shout about it so that my neighbour knows she's not alone.
4
Topics