“When I was in my early forties I had a well-established, busy, rather stressful job involving working at a computer screen all day. Like many other women of my age I was also a mum to young children and was generally juggling many balls.

One day at work the words on the screen became blurred and wavy, as though there was water pulsing across the display. After about 5 minutes it passed and a mild headache took over. I carried on my day’s work and made an appointment to see my optician. My eyesight was fine. I forgot all about it.

Until a month or two later when the same thing happened again. This time one of my arms didn’t work properly at the same time as the visual disturbance. I called my GP and was admitted to hospital and had lots of scans to make sure nothing serious was going on. The scans were all normal. This was reassuring but didn’t explain what the problem was. It happened a few more times

I decided to be my own detective and kept a diary. These episodes were happening approximately once each month. I had a Mirena coil for contraception and didn’t have any periods. It dawned on me that this could relate to my hormones. I recalled that when i was a teenager and my periods were just become established I had had some headaches intermittently. But I had been fine all through my 20s and 30s.

My GP admitted they didn’t know much about womens health and hormone issues (how could this be possible!??) so I researched myself and completed a Menopause Symptom Questionnaire that I found on-line. It focussed my mind on other symptoms I was having that I hadn’t yet acknowleged – feeling more anxious and a bit flat, not sleeping so well, recurring running injuries, vaginal dryness and getting cystitis after sexual intercourse. And just like that the dots joined and I realised that I was perimenopausal and having migraine episodes related to the apruptly fluctuating hormone levels.

At first my GP was wary of prescribing me a trial of HRT but I had done my research and knew that using estrogen through the skin was safe in terms of my migraine. He was happy to listen and learn from me. I started an estrogen patch. My mirena coil provided the progestogen part of my HRT. I have never had another migraine. And my overall health and quality of life improved immensely as the other symptoms all improved too. I wasn’t just a stressed and overcommitted midlife woman; I was going through a natural transition but without any prior knowledge of what to expect. I feel grateful I didn’t suffer for too long before being able to get help.”