Editor-in-Chief Katy Sunnassee stays on the topic of gynaecological issues, this month pondering her erratic and often heavy periods.

Periods. Those things we’re told – well, most of us are – happen to all women that we’ll just have to deal with. Mum did a pretty good job of explaining it to me, age 11, although the thought of bleeding from between my legs once a month freaked me out! But at least she’d warned me, so when they did start, I knew what was happening and that I wasn’t gravely ill or dying.

It was summer; I was 12; I was in the library in town with my friend Alison when I started to get cramps. I assumed a bad stomach ache. Back at her house, I could feel wetness and so went to the loo only to find blood.

Oddly, we’d just been talking about periods that day as we’d both read Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret in which the main character gets her first period and has to use some unwieldy contraption with hooks and loops to hold a massive pad in place – how things have changed!

Sitting there on my friend’s loo, I didn’t know what to do. I called out to her and said ‘I got my period’. She didn’t believe me but said she would if I told her mum, so I did, as I was staying the night at their house. The next day, my mum came to pick me up and put her arm around me in a knowing way.

That school year, or perhaps the one before, we’d had the “period nurse” come to visit us – but only the girls, that is.

Cycle of life

With hindsight, and I know many women agree, I think the whole thing from menarche to menopause ought to be covered in those educational talks. It’s all very well, and necessary, to prepare girls as teens, or younger these days, but no one talks about what happens when they stop. At least they didn’t back then.

Things have changed a lot and there is now lots of information on menopause. But it’s aimed at women in their mid-40s and above. It’d be useful for women in their 20s and 30s to start thinking about what is, in a way, a “reverse menarche” with the accompanying hormonal roller coaster and a whole host of physical symptoms.

But where would that be delivered? It’s not like we’re all in school at that age…

Perimeno symptoms

The reason I’m talking about this is I’ve included menopause content in Top Santé since I became editor 10 years ago. I saw it as important, and 80 per cent of readers wanted more information.

However, it didn’t resonate personally with me as I wasn’t experiencing it. Now, a decade later, I am! My cycle has been completely unpredictable for a good few years – anything from 23 days to 52 – and it’s become a lot heavier.

At Christmas, I had an unexpectedly early bleed, in that it was only two weeks after the previous, which was virtually black! Turns out that can be old blood that has oxidised. Nice. And the cramps can be so intense.

I spoke about this, as well as my heart palpitations – low progesterone can cause those – to Pippa Campbell (see her feature on page 58) who suggested I do a Cycle Mapping DUTCH test that will measure all my sex hormones over an entire month, as just testing one day isn’t enough.

But that’s if I get another period… still waiting! I’ll be writing about it though when I do…

Read Katy’s ‘Katy Perimenopause’ column in each issue of Top Santé, or read past columns here. You can also follow Katy on Substack.