At 50 years of age, Suzanne experienced a couple of unexpected health issues that had a profound effect on her life. After lifestyle changes and treatment, she still felt physically unwell, experiencing hot flashes, insomnia, and night sweats. She also started to feel unlike herself, less confident, unseen, and invisible. Receiving no information from her doctors about perimenopause or potential treatments, she started to read what she could find online.

She became curious about Menopause Hormone Therapy (MHT), but her doctors wouldn’t prescribe it, citing her health history. Friends and family discouraged her, echoing misinformation on the treatment’s risks and benefits. Still symptomatic and feeling ignored by the health care system, Suzanne continued to explore the potential role of MHT to help manage her perimenopause symptoms.

Feeling desperate, Suzanne reached out to a private, virtual menopause clinic and, after evaluating the risks and benefits for her specific situation with her, the clinic started her on MHT. “Within a month, I felt like a different person,” she says. Had she started MHT sooner, she strongly believes it could have prevented some of her earlier health problems. Suzanne wants other women to be self-advocates and insist on the right type of care. “If doctors dismiss you, go and find someone else.”

“Treating menopause is lifesaving and decision makers need to understand that. This is your sister, child, mother, grandmother … By providing free menopausal hormone therapy for women, you could be saving their lives.”

Suzanne acknowledges that she is privileged that she can afford to pay for her treatment but realizes not everyone can. She is passionate that all women in Canada should have access to free MHT if it is right for them, as they now do in British Columbia and Manitoba. Noting the significant cost of perimenopause to both the economy and the health care system, she believes that “treating perimenopause can lower costs for the health care system while also being preventative for women’s health.”

Doctors also need to be better educated and trained on these issues, Suzanne says. “An hour of medical school training on menopause, and the importance of hormones and how they regulate women’s bodies, is ridiculous.”

Suzanne would also like to see increased public awareness about perimenopause and menopause. “Why don’t we get information sent to us by the government about perimenopausal symptoms and avenues of care, the same way we get notices about breast cancer and colon cancer symptoms and screening?” she wonders.