Stories

Ruby Wax

Ruby Wax started HRT early, and says she never really had a menopause

Ruby Wax's account of the menopause is short, and mostly about not having had one. She started HRT early — as soon as she was suspicious, before symptoms really arrived — because, she says, she does things early. She is the sort of person who asked to be cut open rather than go through labour; she had one contraction and decided that was enough. The upshot, as she describes it, is that she never really went through the menopause at all. What she is less certain about is stopping. She does not know whether she ever will, and she is only half joking when she says God help her when she does. She says she was told HRT could only be taken until 55, and does not believe that is right. She credits it with her bones and her brain being in good shape — and then, immediately and unprompted, took it back. She cannot say her brain is good because of HRT, because she has no idea what her brain would have been like otherwise. That hedge is hers, not ours, and it is the most useful thing in the passage: one person's experience of a treatment is not evidence about what it does. Nothing here is medical advice, and nothing here is a recommendation for or against HRT. How long to take it, and when to review it, is a conversation for you and your GP.

• Menopause and perimenopause