Photo: Fadil Berisha
Menopause. It’s something every woman faces at one time or another. And yet, many are reluctant or ashamed to talk openly about it and share their experiences. Which is why we at People Health decided it was time to start a meaningful conversation — and dispel the myths, misconceptions, and mysteries that surround menopause. Here, the frank, funny, smart and candid stories from women we’ve come to know and love.
When Beverly Johnson was 47 years old, she had a hysterectomy and went into “full blown menopause.” She had the procedure in 1999 afterpainful uterine fibroidswere causing internal bleeding. “It was a life changing moment,” she says. “I went from my swinging forties to full blown menopause and I was not prepared.”
The 70-year-old pioneering supermodel, the first Black womanto appear on the cover ofVoguein 1974, was diagnosed with fibroids when she was in her thirties. She first had a myomectomy, a procedure to remove fibroids. But the fibroids grew back, pushing on her uterus to such an extent that at one point, she menstruated every day for a year and became anemic.
That’s when her doctor recommended a hysterectomy. “It was a major operation,” says Johnson. “I didn’t fully understand what the procedure entailed. The doctor didn’t explain and I thought menopause would come on gradually.”
Two months after the procedure, she woke up one night with night sweats. “My body changed,” she says. “You start gaining weight in the middle. And I was still modeling. I felt tired. I remember talking to older women and when they’d break out in a sweat, I’d say ‘What’s wrong? Are you okay?’ And the response was always ‘You’ll know about it soon enough.’ I never connected the two. Well, I wasthatwoman now. You’re in the middle of a conversation with an attractive guy — I was single — and all of a sudden, there’s a mustache of sweat, and he’s saying ‘Areyouokay?'”
Her sex life was also affected. “You don’t have the hormones that keep you nice and moist in the areas you want to be nice and moist in,” she says. “Mentally, you still have a sex drive but physically, there were changes. You’re moist in all the wrong places and that was a big shocker for me. There are all these unexpected consequences.”
Over time, she found balance with healthy foods (“low fat and low sugar,") exercise (“Kegels to tighten the pelvic floor”) and mostly, with hormone therapy. “I was taking estrogen and testosterone. It’s a cocktail,” she says. “It took time to find the right mix.”
Still, menopause wasn’t something people talked openly about. “There was no Google,” she says with a laugh.“My mom would say ‘It’s nothing. It will be over soon.’ She downplayed it but she downplays anything that is kind of uncomfortable.”
Johnson turned to older female friends. “I got more helpful information from girlfriends than my own doctors,” she says. “As soon as you mention it to someone going through it, it’sthetopic of conversation.”
She finds it “empowering” now that more and more women are sharing their menopause stories. “Why do we have to stay in the Dark Ages when it comes to this? It’s life changing but it also causes some health changes so it’s wonderful people are talking about it and we can read about it in places like PEOPLE and not just medical journals.”
Looking back, it was a chapter that marked “a whole new beginning,” she says. “First of all, it made me value myself and my health in a new way. And that wasn’t something in the beauty and health books. Even the ones I wrote. So it’s great we are having this conversation.”
Shebecame an entrepreneur,developed a line of wigs and hair extensions, wrote three books, including her 2015 best selling memoirThe Face That Changed It All, ventured into acting and was the executive producer of her reality showBeverly’s Full Houseon theOprah WinfreyNetwork. As she says, “The retirement thing went out the window.”
She’s also used her clout to speak out about the need formore equal representationand diversity in the fashion and beauty and business worlds. And later this month, on Nov. 19, she’ll be honored witha Pioneer Awardfor Women’s Entrepreneurship Day at the United Nations in New York City.
Johnson hopes her voice will continue to help others. “We don’t know why African American women have an increased risk of fibroids and all the complications that come from that, and so for my African American sisters, it’s important to share information about our experience,” she says. “For all women, we’ve learned to advocate for ourselves. To ask your doctor. We have the power to say ‘I don’t understand.’ Something I didn’t do when I had the hysterectomy.”
Says Johnson: “Advocating for ourselves, not only in health care, but in every part of your life, that’s a beautiful thing.”
source: people.com
