86: Early Menopause and POI at 15 Years Old with Sheree Hargreaves

Welcome to the Dear Menopause podcast, where we discuss the menopause transition to help make everyday life a little easier for women. Hey, this is Sonja and I am the host of Dear Menopause. I have an absolute ripper of an episode for you today. I truly believe this is one of the most inspiring conversations I have had in the history of Dear Menopause, perhaps in my life. You're going to meet Sheree Hargreaves today, Sheree is 22 and has eight years of menopause stories to tell you. Sheree, welcome to Dear Menopause. Hi, thank you for joining me today.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure to be asked from the opposite side of the world.

So you are in London and I'm in Sydney, so we're on opposite sides of the world. We were just talking about how we've got complete opposites in weather at the moment. Yeah, you're freezing, I'm like mega boiling hot. But I'm really excited to chat to you today about a topic that doesn't get talked about enough, particularly from someone your age. So why don't you give us a little bit of an intro as to who you are and why you're here to talk to us today?

So hi everyone, I am Sheree, I'm 22 and at 15 years old, I was diagnosed with something called premature ovarian insufficiency, and a lot of people don't know what that is, which is completely fine, but it's very, very similar to early menopause. All of the same symptoms of menopause, the same treatment HRT, hormone replacement therapy and, yeah, I get the hot flashes and the night sweats, but all at the age of 15, it started for me.

Wow, that is so incredibly young and must have been really difficult for you to navigate, I would imagine.

Yeah, I mean at first I was just in complete, utter shock, not knowing what the word even means. Menopause, like I didn't. I've heard. I heard about it like through the grapevine of my like grandparents and my mum talking, but like not didn't know what it meant, didn't know what came along with it and definitely didn't think it would impact someone as young as me. I was convinced that it would only impact like my grandparents. I didn't even know it impacted people at the age of my mum that my mum was. So I didn't. I had no idea what I was heading into and the information that I was given was, in my opinion, very lacking. I had there was, I mean, there's no, there's no rulebook to this, but some information probably would have helped. I feel like I was. I left the doctors with a little green slip from my prescription and had no idea what I was doing.

Wow, sri, that is crazy. That's that's crazy and almost would make me think it must border on male practice to send a 15 year old young lady out into the world with just a prescription for HRT and being told that you have this syndrome, that you didn't even know what it meant. Wow, I literally had no idea. So do you mind talking us through a little bit about, like, what actually happened for you when you were 15? So I'm going to make an assumption that you had already started getting your periods.

No. So that's what a lot of people think, the reason why I actually went to the doctors because I never actually menstruated like properly and I was, you know, going through emotions of feeling like the odd one out at school and I didn't get breast development and I was like really insecure about the fact that I hadn't had a period. And I first actually went to the doctors at just 13. And I was because I was so scared of being different. I mean, a lot of teenagers and young children are so afraid of that and really want to fit in this specific mold, especially young girls, I feel like. So at 13, I went to my mum and I said I haven't started my period yet. It feels like everyone else has and I don't know what's going on. And she was like, well, it's still a bit young, you know, you're still a little bit young to have it. I was a bit late, you might be late. So we just left it. Still nothing, no spotting, no nothing. And by the time I was 15, I was like enough's, enough. Now I'm feeling really insecure about it, I'm just gonna go and I'm just feeling really anxious about my health anyway, like I'm just thinking something's not right. I always feel like the sick teenager, like I'm always really hot and like I just I feel under the weather a lot. I'm messing up my sentences. I'm like a lot of these things were happening and I just felt like what is that? Like I just didn't recognize myself. So I went to the doctors and at first they did send me away and they said you're still really young, you don't need to do any blood tests or anything like that, you're completely fine. It happens. And then a month later I was like no, I think they're wrong. Like I just think they're wrong. Like I can't wrap my head around what's going on. Like something in my body right now is wrong or just-.

So it sounds like the doctors were really focusing on the fact that you weren't menstruating, so you weren't getting a period, but not listening to you when it came to all the other symptoms that you were describing, which we now know are symptoms of period menopause and menopause.

Yeah, definitely. I mean in hindsight. I mean there's hundreds of symptoms, but in hindsight I probably had 99 out of 100. I was going through it Like I suffered from vaginal atrophy, like I couldn't sit down for long periods of times in my exams and I couldn't wear tights to school, like I had to wear normal trousers because I couldn't. It was so uncomfortable down there and I had no idea why, and all the classics that everyone knows about, all the hot flashes and night sweats and the brain fog and all of that. It was 10 times. I felt like. So when I finally got a diagnosis, I felt a relief that I wasn't going mad for one, but also in the same breath, I had no information.

So I had to set kind of piece those things together and so was that diagnosis from your GP or was it from a more special hormone specialist? Yeah, so it was from an endocrinologist.

So it was a hormone specialist, because I had my blood stung at the GP and they were like, oh, something's not right and obviously my FSH is really low and my no, high, sorry, high, yeah, yeah, high, and my esudym is really low. So, yeah, so they got me in with a specialist, thankfully, and then they were able to diagnose me. But I've got to say they were quite insensitive when they were diagnosing me. The first thing they said when I sat down in the chair, my mum was sat next to me. They were like okay, sherry, you're infertile, you are going through something called premature failure that they called it at the time. And I was just sat there and they carried on talking and after the words infertile and failure, I was just sat there thinking, am I even a woman? Like what is going on? I was just so shocked and like white noise hitting, heard my mum crying next to me and I was just like God, what the actual hell?

Yeah, I can imagine. I mean they would be really difficult words for any woman to hear, but when you're 15, that's a pretty insensitive way to deliver that information to you.

Yeah, I mean kids, and children weren't even on my radar. I mean I was a child myself. You just wanted to have a period. Yeah, exactly, I just wanted to be normal. I just wanted to know what a tampon was. Like I didn't really care about, you know, sex and relationships, like I was just more focused on when are my boobs gonna fit like come in?

I just want to be like everyone else. Wow, that is. That's quite a story, and I'm so sorry that you had to go through all of that and your mum as well to be there with you as well. You know that must have been really hard for her to. You know, obviously your mum was probably thinking about you, know your what your life ahead of you was going to be like and the long-term impacts that was gonna have on you, whereas you're kind of more in the here and now. So what kind of happened after that? You got given a prescription for HRT.

Yeah, so I got. I got given a prescription for estrogen only at first because my estrogen was really low, and then when I they built my estrogen up in increments from a really like small micro dose all the way up to, you know, full dose, and then, after I had my first withdrawal bleed, they put me on the combine pill.

Okay.

So then I. So then they wanted me to get into a cycle and I also wanted that. You know, like all of my peers were on the pill and like that made me feel a lot more normal, that I was on like the pill and everyone else was saying, oh, have you taken your pill today? And I'm like, yeah, and that made me feel a lot more normal because, also, I never told anyone. So I never told my friends the only people in this world who knew at that moment in time was my mom and dad Like my siblings had no idea, like I didn't want to tell anyone. I was so embarrassed and like ashamed I mean, I'm the oldest sibling as well so I like wanted to be like the example and I felt like I shouldn't be sitting like setting an example of like someone who's like quote unquote failed and so, yeah, so like at the beginning it was really hard, but they put me on the combined pill and I felt like, okay, I'm feeling a lot more like other people, but something still wasn't right. Like I just was still struggling more than my peers to get my work done and like my concentration was crap and like everything was all over the show and I suffered really badly with bad eczema and my like mental health was at an all-time low and I went back to the doctor and I was like, is there anything else that I can do? And they also found that in the. So you know, you menstruate once a month on the combine pill, right, and when it's up, progesterone only in the pill cycle I was getting no estrogen, like my body produced it itself so I wasn't getting any estrogen. So 12 weeks out of the whole year I was estrogen deficient and like that could have had massive effects on my bone health and heart health and brain health. And they found that out a few years in. I was not having estrogen for a few weeks a year and yeah, so they decided to take me off the combine pill and put me on HRT.

Yeah, okay, so onto estrogen and progesterone at that point.

Yeah exactly so. I was taking progesterone tablets in a cyclical fashion, and then I was, and then I had patches on constantly.

Yeah, okay, and did that improve some of the issues that you were having?

Absolutely. I mean, I started to feel like some sort of bloody superwoman, like.

You are a superwoman, just so you know.

Thank you. But I literally was like, oh my god, I've got to wear a jacket. I can wear a jacket out and not be, you know, overheating. Yeah, like I was that friend that would wear a t-shirt when it's cold, because I knew that what, like a hot flush is going to come around the corner. Like I could finally wear a nice jacket out and not feel like, oh my god, I'm going to have sweat everywhere and look horrible. But more than that obviously I'm only joking, but you know, my skin started clearing up. I had started to have like absolute next to no eczema, my like overall, like my hair was thicker, like my breasts were like not as tender and like my brain would actually think for once. And, yeah, I just felt like I felt new, like I was more new anyway. And then, a few years after, something happened and my body either got used to it or stopped absorbing. Very well, so last November not the one just gone I went to my doctor's and I said something's gone wrong here. Like I'm starting to sweat at night and nearly we myself in the middle of the night, like there's a lot of things that are coming back. I also had vaginal eutrogen as well to help me with the vaginal atrophy and that helped like heaps. So that was great. But something went away. Basically, I didn't know what was going on and instead of increasing my dose or changing my preparation or saying maybe we should think about tablets or maybe we should think about implants or whatever, they said we'll give you an ultrasound scan. And I was like, okay, and we'll see how your womb is looking. And I was like, I mean, that's not exactly what I meant to say, I was more thinking about the symptoms. But then they said I was thinking about the symptoms, but then they said your womb is too small, we need to grow it. And I was like, okay, I was thinking more about my hot flashes, but and I'm already, as you told me, I'm very infertile, so I'm not completely bothered, or, you know, I kind of want to sort them now out, you know. And they were like we need to pump you with all of this eutrogen and then give you a big dose of progesterone after three months to grow your uterus, because one day you want to carry right. And I was like, well, now you say it like that, maybe I should think about it more. And I was like, okay, I'll do it because obviously right now I'm not thinking about that, but maybe you're also only 22. Yeah, exactly, I'm 22 and I'm like I'm not thinking about that now, but maybe in the future I'll look back on this time and think why didn't I do it? You know, yeah, yeah. And that's the way it was sold to me. Anyway. It was like now or never thing, which I've learned since that it's not, it's never too late I mean, people go through fertility treatment a lot older and they said, okay, we need to put you on X amount of eutrogen and then X amount of progesterone after three months of eutrogen. So I was like, okay, so I did it. I was experiencing the worst symptoms. My mental health was Absolutely horrific and nearing the end of the treatment plan was the big inducing of progesterone and over the years of using progesterone I have definitely gotten intolerance and the high amounts of progesterone after having such high amounts of estrogen like almost sent my body into some sort of shock. And I had to go home from London and like I needed to be hugged by my mom. Like I was like oh, and I called the doctors and I was like what have you done to me? Like I feel awful. My mental health has not been bad like this in years, like I don't know what to do. And he was like stop taking it. Like what are you doing? Stop taking it. And I was like what do you mean? Stop taking it Whenever someone says here's a treatment plan. Or here's an antibiotics. You don't stop taking antibiotics halfway through. But you finish out the plan like yeah, what? And he was like well, it's obviously, it's obviously not working, like some things not right, like stop taking it. And I was like right, okay, so I stopped taking it. And then that's when the bleeding hit and I was in A&E with morphine and gas and air and I was bleeding immensely, like I was. I was wearing nappies, like my dignity is completely out the window as I'm crawling around A&E on my hands and knees asking for more pain relief, and that just like ruined my like whole idea of wanting to do anything.

Fertility wise I can imagine, and were you with your family at this point, or were you still in London?

Yes, I was with my mum.

Good.

So that was good, that I wasn't like on my own in London, you know, and like I was really glad that I went home and yeah that. And then after that whole debacle, I had to then start my HRT relationship and build that relationship back up with the medicine and like in like, build my HRT back up. And yeah, it was a whole debacle that just should not have happened.

Ever have happened.

Yeah, so there's like a lot of different stories like that throughout my eight years of diagnosis that just have like almost ruined my relationship with the medical system. Imagine, yeah, so there's like a lot of things like that that have just yeah.

So do you feel that a lot of these times when you've come up against not being prescribed the right medication or dosage has been wrong? Or obviously, all this advice around your womb and focus on, you know, being able to carry a baby later in your life has come from a place of not enough education around POI, and particularly for somebody as young as yourself?

Yeah, I mean that I feel like I am the most educated person in the room when I go to see the doctor. Like, I mean, I've done two degrees and in both of those degrees I have done massive research around early menopause. My first dissertation was around how the stigmas of older women, how they impact younger women, and I interviewed, you know, 12 women and it was like a really fruitful dissertation. And then in my masters I did a whole auto ethnography about early menopause and so I've basically read a lot. I've read a lot about early menopause. I've, you know, listened to a lot of interviews and seen a lot of things. But so when I go into the, when I go into the doctor's surgery, I'm, um, not showing off, obviously, but more so about I correct them if I hear that something like isn't very right. Like I've corrected doctors on like blood clotting risks, about the patch and breast cancer risks and things like that. A lot of the nice guidelines in the UK are crap, not very nice. Yeah, I mean really, really, really bad and it rages, it makes me so angry. But yeah, so there's no education. Basically that's such a long winded way of saying there is absolutely no education for doctors, especially for women our age who are younger, but I would argue there's absolutely zero education for older women.

Like, yeah, we have. We have a significant knowledge gap, an education gap in practitioners when it comes to menopause, you know, on all levels. But I think that you know, I feel very strongly that there is even more minorities where the education and the support is even worse. You know, we look at the LGBTQI community. We look at, you know, cancer survivors, which you know. I'm a breast cancer survivor and it's been a, you know, struggle for me to find somebody that would prescribe me HRT, because I just kept getting blanket nose and I was like, well, no, actually, you know, if we look at the research and the evidence and if I am allowed to make my own choices which, as a growing woman, I should be allowed to, but you know. So, yeah, there's the cancer survivors, there's early menopause, you know. POI and you know our indigenous cultures exactly, experience menopause completely differently to to Caucasians, and we need to be including everyone in the conversation 100%.

I mean HRT. Hrt is so individual and like everyone's experience is slightly different. There's not like a one size fits all with medication. I mean, even if you got me and another person who was diagnosed at 15, we would have like completely different experiences, like our bodies are different anyway. And yeah, I mean it's definitely been a journey. But recently I have started testosterone, yeah, and I absolutely love it. I feel like I've got my sex drive back and like I feel like a young woman and like my concentration is so much better Fantastic.

And I love that. You know you're talking about how much you've struggled with your cognitive function and your concentration. Yet you've just got your masters. You've completed two degrees at your 22. Like you really are an incredible woman. Thank you. I know, imagine what you're going to be able to do now that you've got your testosterone sorted.

Yeah, I know I can't wait to do the PhD.

I can't wait for you to do your PhD. There are women out there that need you.

Yeah, I know I definitely need to get around to doing it, but a little break maybe, I think a little break might be deserved Absolutely. Yeah.

Are you able to share with us any stats around so early menopause or POI, particularly in this younger cohort like yourself?

Yeah, so it's one in 10,000 women under the age of 20 in the UK. That is yeah, and I feel like, even though that sounds rare, as I say, it's say one in 10,000, it sounds really rare but in actual fact it's not Like. I have met so many women and young girls since talking about my experiences online that it's actually a lot more common than you actually think. I mean, I never knew about endometriosis, never knew about PCOS or you know, like women are born without a womb and like all of these things I had no idea about. But the one thing that I definitely had no idea about is that I was feeling completely on my own, had no idea about anyone going through any women's health issues, and the amount of women that I've been flooding through my DMs who were diagnosed at 15 with POI and you know, or even a bit older, like 20 or 30, I've never knew there were that many.

Yeah, wow, and how wonderful for them that you threw your online presence and that was how I found you and how we met. So you have an incredible Instagram account is where I discovered you, called Life of POI, which looks like Life of POI. You know, they have probably also been feeling so alone and so isolated and you know, really, like you were explaining to us earlier, like so, not like your peers, like so kind of isolated from your peers as well, for them to have found you must just be such a lifeline for them.

Yeah, definitely, I mean it is for me as well. Like I feel like it's a bit of therapy, like I'm so transparent on there. I like talk about sex and relationships. I talk about like all of the symptoms very candidly and I also just talk about being a 22 year old and just navigating London life and being 22.

Yeah.

Being 22, yeah, and just you know being having normal struggles anyway, and I feel like a lot of people can relate to a lot of my content because they're going through it, but they've just never seen anyone else go through it, and I think that that is the key is that I really wanted to do it for my 15 year old self, like I would have loved to have seen on TV or heard a podcast or, you know like read a book and a character has that, you know, like there's no representation, there's no, there's just nothing in media, completely you know what they're saying, that they say is you know you can't be what you can't see, and so you know you are.

You have now created that visibility and you know, and you're right. It is so often where you were struggling with something. And if we can't see, like you say, in any aspect of our lives whether it's the media, the television, the, what we're reading, you know, whatever we're consuming, you know it is really isolating. If you don't see that reflected back to you and you do then feel like you are the only person in the world that has this struggle.

Yeah, literally, and I mean as a teenager as well like you think that the world is out to get you anywhere.

Anyway, yeah.

It's like times 10, you know, I just I just was completely in the dark for so many years and I feel sorry for my younger self, to be honest, like how ashamed I felt and how embarrassed I felt about everything. I'm not even stressed enough about how little those bullies at school would care about it in real life, like they're not going to really care about these sorts of things. Like everyone is so concerned with themselves that your issues are like smaller to people who don't you know, who don't care. So talking about it was just like the right thing for me. So four years ago I set up my Instagram and before that moment of posting my first post, I had only told my mum and dad.

Oh, wow, so that was your coming out to the world, yeah literally yeah.

So I had a post written up and it just said everything that I wanted to say in one and I posted it up and I said head over to this page if you want to know more, and threw my phone across the room and freaked out and I was like, oh my gosh, it's out there for everyone. Like, like have some sort of bloody celebrity coming out with a massive secret I mean no one, you know it's not a massive, massive big deal, but for me it was like the biggest deal ever, absolutely. And I did that and I was so scared and then my phone was just like ringing and had so many messages and people were like you would have absolutely no idea, like so sorry that you were going through all that and like we couldn't be there for you. And yeah, it was, it was. It was very nice to hear like all of the comments and support.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Well done, Well done. So what are your plans from here? I know that you do a lot of advocacy and with you know, speaking like this, raising, raising awareness and obviously in your studies you're working towards, I would imagine, being a whole lot more helpful in the future. Yeah, so what are your future plans? What do you plan to do with your PhD?

So, first of all, do my PhD, I think I think I'm going to do that at around 25. I want to have a good break, yeah, like find my feet in London, enjoy London life. And I was like I want to do more work. I want to. I want to write a book, I want to. You know, I want to go on more podcasts and raise as much awareness as possible. I want to go into schools. I want to talk about it in sex education classes. I want to talk about it in the workplace. I want to go to universities and lecture. I want to. You know, there's a lot that I want to do Just to spread more awareness, to educate other people. I want to go on to board meetings in doctor surgeries. I want to, like talk to NHS staff. Like, yeah, I want to do a lot, but it's one step at a time and like it's also quite exhausting, being like a feminist and being someone who is constantly fighting the fight and you have to recognise that sometimes it's okay to take a step back and really like, look after yourself. But yeah, I definitely want to keep shouting and, you know, make some noise at least.

Excellent. Well, you have doing that right now and I hope that you're able to continue to do that in the future, even louder, but, yes, looking after yourself and not allowing yourself to get that burnout that does come from fighting the good fight, you know, consistently. But the world does need you. It needs your voice. There are a lot of young women out there that need you as well as you know. Educating people like myself and my audience on you know what what POI is and the impacts that it can have on women. I think it's just incredible. Shari, thank you so much for your time today. I have loved getting to know you. I have a son your age, so I just sit here and find it incredible that you've been through everything you've been through, but also you've achieved so much at the same time.

Thank you, thank you and thank you so much for having me on. It's been a pleasure.

Ah, awesome, my pleasure. Now I'm going to ask you a question which I did not prep you for, but I wrap up a lot of my conversations with this question, and that is what are you reading, listening to or watching right now that is bringing you joy?

Oh gosh. So currently I'm reading a. It's quite a sad book, but I'm really enjoying it. So it's all all the young boys, all the young boys, and it's about the AIDS crisis.

Oh, okay.

It's quite heavy but it brings like such a beautiful light to something that is, you know, so tragic. But I'm literally loving that book so much so that is actually giving me happiness, even though it is quite serious and I need to find something new to watch on TV. I mean, I'm lost. I don't know what to watch. I've got no ideas.

I'm watching a show at the moment called Slow Horses, which is it's on Apple TV, so you do have to have Apple TV to watch it. It's amazing.

Really, really good. Okay, I need to get back on watching series because it's a British show too. Oh, nice. Yeah, I need to start watching more series. I feel like I got to one stage and I've completed Netflix.

It's like you've hit that level where there's just nowhere else to go, maybe you need a new streaming platform then, so you can go find some new shows. Definitely Awesome, cherie. Thank you so much, and I hope that we hear a whole lot more from you in the future.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for listening today. I am so grateful to have these conversations with incredible women and experts and I'm grateful that you chose to hit play on this episode of Dare Menopause. If you have a minute of time today, please leave a rating or a review. I would love to hear from you, because you are my biggest driver for doing this work. If this chat went way too fast for you and you want more, head over to StellaWomencomau For the show notes and, while you're there, take my midlife quiz to see why it feels like midlife is messing with your head.