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Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry shocked her fans this week with the implausible medical story of how doctors misdiagnosed her perimenopause.
Instead of correctly identifying the 57-year-old woman’s hormonal change, the doctor called her problem “the worst case of herpes he had ever seen.”
After multiple negative STI tests, it was later confirmed that her doctor had made a mistake. Berry is not alone in her experience that doctors fail to detect the body change that occurs in about 1 million Americans each year.
Studies show that almost one in three women between the ages of 45 and 54 have been misdiagnosed by a doctor as having menopause symptoms.
And the sexually transmitted herpes virus is just one of a catalog of conditions that women have been wrongly told they suffer from.
From Alzheimer’s to heart disease, these are all the serious health problems that menopause symptoms can mimic…
Halle Berry spoke to First Lady Jill Biden about her experience with menopause misdiagnoses
Sexually transmitted infections
Berry originally sought help from her doctor because dryness during sex had caused her intense vaginal pain. She was told that her symptoms were caused by herpes.
However, she discovered that these same symptoms are common in menopause.
In menopause, the vaginal tissues become thinner, drier and more easily irritable due to the loss of estrogen, in a condition known as atrophic vaginitis.
This can make intercourse painful and could cause bumps or cuts in the tissue that may look like another problem, such as an infection.
Many sexually transmitted diseases, such as herpes, gonorrhea, and chlamydia, can cause vaginal irritation and pain during sexual intercourse. according to Johns Hopkins.
heart disease
Oprah Winfrey’s Early Menopause Systems Misdiagnosed as Heart Disease
Barely 54 percent of menopausal women report experiencing heart palpitations around the time menopausal symptoms began.
Estrogen, which plummets during menopause, has several protective functions of the cardiovascular system, according to the British charity British Heart Foundation. This includes regulating cholesterol levels, reducing the buildup of fat in the arteries, and regulating blood pressure.
So when estrogen levels begin to decline, as they do around menopause, women may begin to see changes in heart function.
Talk show host and actress Oprah Winfrey shared on ‘The Checkup with Dr. David Agus’ that when she began experiencing heart palpitations in her early 40s, doctors prescribed medication and inserted a catheter into her heart.
“At one point, a doctor did, first of all, an angiogram and put me on heart medication and not once did she mention that this could be menopause or perimenopause,” she said.
She went to five different doctors, until she discovered that her symptoms were caused by hormonal changes typical of perimenopause.
Dementia
One of the most confusing symptoms many women face during menopause is brain fog.
This happens because there are estrogen receptors in the brain that play an important role in memory and speech, said Dr. Jessica Caldwell, a neuropsychologist. said prevention.
So, when estrogen production decreases, the brain becomes deficient in the hormone and has to adapt. “It’s the brain figuring out how to function without as much estrogen as before,” Caldwell said.
Women going through perimenopause may have more difficulty concentrating, multitasking, and recalling memories, according to Dementia UK.
This is similar to some of the symptoms seen in someone with dementia, which is a general term for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
“In fact, I have had patients who were misdiagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease when it was actually mental confusion related to menopause,” Dr. Gayatri Devi, professor of neurology at SUNY Medical Center, told Prevention. Downstate.
Depression
Some doctors say that prescribing hormone replacement therapy would be more effective in treating some symptoms of menopause than other interventions, such as antidepressants.
Hormonal changes caused by menopause include changes in sleep quality, anxiety, altered appetite, fatigue, and mood disturbances, which tick almost all the boxes for symptoms of depression.
Experts have previously highlighted that antidepressant use in women is highest in women of menopausal age: 44.3 percent of all women in the US taking these medications are over 40 years old.
‘We often say, “Oh, it must just be depression.” All of these symptoms can be related to anxiety and depression,” Dr. Jennifer Roelands, obstetrician and gynecologist. he said in a TikTok.
Irritable bowel syndrome
Some people going through menopause are misdiagnosed with IBS
This condition is quite common and includes cramps, constipation, diarrhea, gas, and bloating. Many women also experience these changes when menopause begins, according to to the menopause charity.
When estrogen and progesterone levels drop, studies have shown that people feel more severe bloating, stomach pain, and changes in bowel patterns.
Researchers of the University of Washington Therefore, many women beginning to go through menopause may experience some of the same IBS symptoms.
fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia syndrome is a chronic condition that can cause pain throughout the body, tiredness, difficulty sleeping, brain fog, and irritable bowel syndrome, according to the menopause charity.
Because there are no blood tests or official diagnoses for fibromyalgia, many doctors hear these symptoms, which also occur in those going through menopause, and make a hasty diagnosis, said Dr. Deborah Brunt, a general practitioner who focused on in menopause. he wrote on his website.
A user on the MenopauseMatters forum, Hill Wimp, shared that her perimenopause had been misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia for over five years.
“My symptoms started with a vengeance. I had a useless GP who, after a year of complaining about brain fog, sleeping 18 hours a day, incredible joint and muscle pain and no periods, diagnosed me with fibrosis and chronic fatigue along with stress,” said. he wrote she.