Menopause Awareness in Bury

For Menopause Awareness Month, we had an event for women with learning disabilities.

We wanted to give people the chance to learn more about menopause and to tell us how we can make things in Bury better for women.

Bury Live Well and Bury People First helped us run the event and 30 people came.

Welcome

We started the day by asking everyone what they wanted to get out of the session.

People said they wanted to find out more about what the menopause and perimenopause are, and then we talked about listing some menopause symptoms that people know about.

Menopause Quiz

Everyone used a green and a yellow balloon to take part in a quiz. Some of the questions were:

How many stages of menopause are there?  
Three - perimenopause, menopause and post menopause.

How many years can people be perimenopausal? 
Usually 7-10 years.

What is the main symptom you think about when you think of the menopause?
People said hot flushes but we talked about lots of other symptoms too.

How many hormones are affected for a woman when you become perimenopausal?
3 - oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone .

What exercise is important during menopause?
Weight bearing exercise.

What vitamin is needed to absorb calcium to make our bone strong?
Vitamin D.

What can we do to get more vitamin D in our body? 
Take a supplement and get more sunlight on our skin.

Which foods are high in calcium to make our bones strong?
Things like yogurt and cheese.

Talking about periods

Next we talked about period changes and how important it is to track your cycle and symptoms each month. Doing this means you can understand what is happening in your body. It also means that if you do need to talk to your GP, you will have facts about what is happening so you can get the right support.

Relaxing to stay well

After a tasty lunch, we talked about wellbeing. Relaxing is important for people who are in perimenopause and menopause. We talked about gentle exercise and ways to breathe to feel calm. Jacqui, who is an aromatherapist, gave hand and shoulder massages. Massages are a good way to relax. 

Our questions

We asked everyone who came:

• How we can help women with menopause better in Bury?
• What changes would people like to see for women going through menopause in Bury?

The people who organised the event will talk about the feedback we got from the event.

We are hoping to plan more events like this next year.

The answers will be shared with health services and services who support women with learning disabilities.

Everyone who came got a goodie bag with some treats, information about the menopause and a calendar to help them start to track their cycles and symptoms.

Thank you to Bury Live Well and Bury People First.

More information:

A list of symptoms so you can track what is happening to you. Click here to print it.

An easy read called what is menopause. Click here to read it.

Information from the NHS about menopause. Click here to read it.

A 2 minute video that shows you how to do deep breathing. Click here to watch it.