Menopause Support founder Diane Danzebrink joined Loose Women’s Andrea McLean and a studio audience of 70 to live-blog a “Confessions of a Menopausal Woman” event on Facebook.
The event, recorded in Mill Hill, London, was streamed to the Latte Lounge group’s 13,000 members via Facebook and at the time of writing more than 4,000 women had watched it.
Katie Taylor, Founder of The Latte Lounge, started the day confessing about her own 4 years of peri-menopausal hell where she was misdiagnosed with depression and prescribed anti-depressants, when she should’ve been given HRT and a hysterectomy. It was this experience that led her to start the Facebook group and launch the new Latte Lounge website.
Andrea McLean is a Scottish television presenter best known for her work with ITV. McLean was a weather presenter for GMTV between 1997 and 2008, and is a co-presenter on ITV’s daytime chat show Loose Women.
After Andrea told her own story, she joined The Latte Lounges own panel of experts; Dr Suzanne Saideman (Menopause GP), Di Danzebrink (Menopause counselor), Caron Barruw (Psychotherapy), Marcelle Rose(Nutrition), Natasha Harris (Mindfulness) and Maryanne Taylor (Sleep), who came to support the group for a Q&A.
What came out of this discussion was fascinating. Many commented on how GP’s are just not that well informed or aware of the NICE guidelines. Some members confessed that they had been told to just ‘get on with it’ and were treated for depression. The story was repeated over and over, both from the women in the audience and from our members commenting online.
Di, a psychotherapist with menopause nurse training, confessed:
“I too set up The Menopause Support Network (on Facebook) because there was no support group available online when I needed help. I was never counseled before or after my hysterectomy about the horrendous psychological after effects that I would experience and I don’t want anyone else to suffer the way I did.
As well as providing support and information to women, I am passionate about campaigning for change and I have identified that we need 3 things: Far better GP education, information about the menopause included in the PHSE curriculum and greater awareness and support in the workplace.”
