Too much information...

I've been roaming around the web for a while, now, looking for information about (peri)menopause that's written by someone who's a) personally invested and b) willing to share their information for the purpose of assisting others to make sound choices with their bodies.

I've found:

Lots of folks who are selling something-or-other to "relieve symptoms" -- both pharmaceutical and herbal. While I'm sure that a lot of them mean well, I wonder if it's really, truly possible for so many different viable options to exist? I mean, every woman has a different experience, sure, but does every woman on the face of the earth need a separate and distinct product for her symptoms? I think there's been a huge glut of products flooding onto the marketplace in response to the massive market (peri)menopausal women represent. When 5,000 new customers are created each day, someone in sales-and-marketing has to sit up and take notice.

I predict that in the coming 3-5 years, a number of these products will "fizzle out" as they fail to promote themselves properly or capture the kind of market that can sustain them. Right now, we've got a whole lot of products out there, but survival of brands in this particular segment isn't necessarily going to depend on branding -- it's going to depend on effectiveness. I mean, you can wrap a "menopausal relief" product in pretty packaging, but if it fails to deliver what it promises, well, the market will not sustain it.

So, unlike some brand creations, where we see things invented and then aggressively marketed, and then surviving due to brand recognition and market share, the menopausal relief market is going to be determined by effectiveness -- whether something works or not.

The same goes for health care. It's all very well and good for a doctor to prescribe such-and-such, but when test results come back and clearly state that such-and-such increases your risk for cancer, well, how does an establishment adjust to the decrease in patient trust? How, indeed? On the one hand, you have an establishment which is very fond of telling women (and men) that they need to consult with their doctors before they take any action, and on the other hand, you have women (and men) experiencing physical symptoms which change with the wind and which demand immediate attention, doctor or no doctor in the house.

The medical trend, I believe, will move towards more collaboration between women and their healthcare providers (be they doctors, nurse practitioners, naturopaths, chiropractors... you name it). I don't see any other way -- after all, our medical care is voluntary, and if a woman doesn't much care for what her doctor tells her to do, she just won't do it. She'll throw the pills away. She'll refuse treatment of one kind or another. She'll take matters into her own hands. And doctors, though they may insist that they're the only expert in the room, will have to deal with the fact that their patients have the final say in what goes into, or is done to, their bodies.

I've also found a lot of duplicate information (online pollution, some call it) as well as conflicting reports. Some say emotional problems are inevitable with menopause, others say they have nothing to do with the Change. Some say you'll have these symptoms, other say you'll have fewer -- or more. No one can quite agree on what exactly takes place, which seems odd, since millions of women from time immemorial have gone through this process.

And no one knows for sure, what can/will/might happen? How can this be?

I think it has to do with being overly cautious... being afraid of being (mis)quoted or even sued over information passed along... hedging one's bets... or just plain not knowing, but still being determined to make your mark in the market. After all, something like 40 million women are menopausal right now, and there's money to be made.

I think it also has to do with hyper-timidity when it comes to menopause. The topic has been off limits for so long, with all those myths and misconceptions attached to it that date back to the days when menopause literally happened at or near the end of a woman's (short) life. In the olden days, if a woman was lucky enough to survive the births of all her children, and managed to make it through all those years of backbreaking work and inhumane conditions, she was an exception to the rule -- and a lot of times, she was probably half deaf/blind/insane to boot.

But we haven't had olden days like that in quite some time, and the realities of women's lengthening lives demand re-examination. We demand re-definition. Refusing to talk about menopause is rapidly becoming ridiculous. And holding to all the old myths about it -- that we'll dry up (we don't all), that we'll lose our minds (some get smarter, after their change), that we have nothing to contribute (many women have more than ever) -- is just plain silly.

My prediction for the next 3-5 years for this is (if I have anything to say about it) that women will be a lot less reluctant to talk about their Change in hushed tones, that they'll be able to face it squarely and honestly and see it as a part of their justifyably long lives, not run from it as a wretchedly dehumanizing sentence of indefinite house arrest.

Even Martha Stewart gets to take off her ankle bracelet in 5 months. Why shouldn't we women be willing to take off the constraints of an unjust and foolishly prejudiced world, as well?

What else have I noticed?

Well, that all those menopause discussion forums are going largely unused by the women they were created for. There are a number of useful sites out there which have discussion forums and boards where women can gather and talk about their experiences. But unless I'm looking in the wrong places, only a few women are actually talking about their lives.

I figure it's because:

1) it's depressing -- a lot of folks only start to reach out when things get bad
2) we're busy -- 'cause (peri)menopause has a way of setting in, when we're at our busiest -- cruel trick of fate, that
3) everyone is saying the same things -- and once you find the solution to your problem, you move on with your busy life, rather than hanging out to see what others are saying
4) everyone is saying different things -- and it's not always possible to relate or find a reliable solution to your unique situation

I'm sure there are other reasons, but these are the ones that spring to the top of my head.

Bottom line is -- I'm quite dissatisfied with what I'm finding online. Either there's too much information, or there's not enough. It's just not good enough. Or maybe I'm just being perimenopausal... ;)