Myriam was 39 and Suzie was 44 when they first noticed changes to their energy levels, quality of sleep, weight gain and mood.
Neither knew what was happening: the menopause was not something they had ever discussed or been taught about, and the word ‘perimenopause’ wasn’t really in their vocabulary.
‘I didn’t think about the menopause at all until it happened,’ says Myriam, 50, a makeup artist from South-East London. ‘It simply wasn’t on my radar. It seemed to be a taboo subject. I was aware that some women in midlife suffered with hot flushes, but that was all.’
Suzie, 50, a tech PR firm owner also from South-East London, says: ‘Being Gen Xers, no one spoke to us about the menopause when we were younger. It was just assumed by most girls that you got a year of hot flushes when you hit 50 and then normality resumed.’
Myriam recalls how when she was 42, she …