For women, going through menopause is inevitable if they live long enough. In Trinidad and Tobago, there's very little education about the topic, and women often struggle with knowing what they're going through.
According to WebMD, menopause is the end of a woman's menstrual cycle and fertility. It happens when the ovaries no longer produce the hormones oestrogen and progesterone, and the person doesn't have a period for a year.
There are three stages: perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause. Perimenopause can begin in the 40s, though some people experience it earlier. Menopause happens when the person has their final period, and post-menopause is the period 12 months after the last period.
Menopause happens naturally with age, but can also stem from surgery, treatment of a disease, or an illness. Once it occurs naturally, the first sign of perimenopause is an irregular menstrual cycle. Other symptoms can include hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, irritability, lower sex drive, sweating, racing heart, headaches, vaginal soreness and dryness, painful sex and trouble sleeping.
To combat this lack of education, a group of women decided to form an NGO, Meno-TT, to support, educate, and advocate for themselves and others.
President Gillian Smith-Trumpet, who worked in the banking sector for over 20 years, said they decided to form Meno-TT after realising many women were going through the first stage of menopause and there wasn't an existing support organisation they could join. 'I'd had a hysterectomy and I had no clue as to what I would have experienced, and I was going crazy with all these symptoms. I said to my best friend, Natasha Nunez, 'Don't you think we should create something to help other people like ourselves who are going through this but don't know what's happening, to do the research and find out what it is going on with our bodies?' We're all almost the same age and we decided, why not start a menopause group?'
Smith-Trumpet said they realised there were over 120 symptoms of menopause, and doctors often don't recognise the symptoms.
'You have to literally tell them, 'This is what I'm feeling, do not treat me individually in terms of all the symptoms I'm experiencing. You're going to treat me for depression, you're going to treat me for anxiety, you're going to treat me for this, you're going to treat me for that. I need one pill that will help me with everything.''
She said the women's combined experiences made them appreciate the need for a virtual gathering place.
'We realised there is a need to tell the women of TT, 'Hear what, y'all are not going crazy. This is perimenopause, this is menopause, these are the symptoms you're experiencing. We created a safe space whereby you can share your experiences, what you're going through and we all share our experiences, because you and I may have different experiences, and what may work for me may not work for you.''
Nunez, Meno-TT's secretary, said the group has grown to over 700 members since its inception in March 2023, with
