Menopause: lack of information brings risks for women – 03/11/2023 – Equilíbrio

In São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM), a municipality that is home to the largest indigenous population in Brazil, political scientist Dadá do Povo Baniwa discovered, at the age of 35, that she was going through menopause.

“I had already read about it and indigenous colleagues also told me, but I thought it was strange because of my age”, she recalls, now 42. “Thank God I don’t have symptoms”.

In Cajamar (SP), cleaning assistant Antonia Ferreira Seabra, 51, hopes to understand what she is going through. Every day “the body is on fire”, she describes.

“I feel very hot, even in the cold. Sometimes you’re in the middle of people and you start to sweat, sweat, sweat and, as I have dark skin, that sweat is dripping. It’s embarrassing. I always have to carry a towel and a bottle of water. I get irritable easily and have a headache.”

Antonia had not menstruated for about a year when she realized that her sister was experiencing similar hot flashes. Upon hearing from her and other women “she is menopause”, she understood that the moment had arrived. Wait now for your appointment by SUS (Unified Health System). “In my opinion, many women reach this stage without being aware of what is happening to their body,” she says.

Defined as the definitive stoppage of menstruation, menopause comes to women without many of them having enough information to live through the period. Most have little or no instruction about the symptoms, according to an expert. She is considered normal over 40 years old. Recent studies show the average age in Brazil as 46. But it can also be precocious.

The reasons are diverse or, in some cases, unknown. What is known is that sooner or later, all women go through this journey and that many enter it uninformed, points out Lúcia Costa Paiva, professor of gynecology at Unicamp (State University of Campinas) and coordinator of the university’s Menopause Outpatient Clinic .

A researcher in the area for over 30 years, Paiva has not seen significant differences since she started studying the subject. She says that women continue to enter the period knowing what they feel and what they are going to face.

“Today women exchange more information, but it is much less than we would like”, he points out, adding that this lack of knowledge brings, as main consequences, “going through menopause much more difficult, with less quality of life”.

Menopause occurs with the aging of the ovaries, says the teacher. They stop working, stop producing hormones and, thus, there is the end of the woman’s reproductive life. The process generates symptoms such as heat, sweating, sleep problems, irritability, depressed mood and vaginal problems, such as dryness, pain during sexual intercourse and atrophy of the mucosa in the region.

Paiva says that adequate treatment improves such manifestations and prevents cardiovascular diseases, in addition to osteoporosis.

The outpatient clinic he coordinates receives 40 to 50 cases a day, with patients arriving at the site with strong symptoms and psychological issues, referred by health centers or hospitals of the institution.

“In our research, we identified that low education and low socioeconomic status are aggravating factors for lack of knowledge about menopause issues. But even among more educated women, there is a great deal of lack of knowledge about symptoms”, he observes.

Indigenous women are among those who reach menopause with little instruction, says Dadá of the Baniwa People. For her, knowledge about the subject is cultural.

“They are not guidelines from the doctor or anyone in the health area, and this lack is a bad thing, because we also have our rights and we must have a differentiated health care”, he points out. “In the village, most of the time, older women give this diagnosis. They recommend using teas, home remedies to ease the symptoms.”

But the lack of information and the surprise in the diagnosis do not only affect these territories. Holistic therapist Patrícia Lopes was in an office in Rio de Janeiro when she heard, aged 39, that she was going through menopause. In the midst of routine gynecological examinations, she received the news – a discovery that occurred more than a year after noticing irregular menstruation, a lot of fatigue, muscle weakness and a sudden drop in libido, among other symptoms.

“I never imagined it would be like this. I thought about thyroid problems, temporary hormone dysfunction, but never menopause. I got terrible. I’m still in the process of acceptance. I always thought menopause was for people after 50”, she says. “I thought, ‘My life as a woman is over.’ And I felt like crying.”

In a culture where values ​​are focused on beauty and youth, women avoid talking about menopause out of shame, as a stamp of aging, says professor Lúcia Costa Paiva.

“There is not much talk about it. There is a taboo to talk about menopause, what it represents, so women arrive with a lack of information”, he adds, noting that doctors also need to receive more training to care for these patients. They complain that many do not listen to them.

Paiva also draws attention to the lack of hormonal treatment in the SUS, one of the therapeutic options. At the pharmacy, the cost varies from R$ 40 to R$ 120, says the teacher. The price charged is a squeeze for Antonia. “It would be difficult, because I earn little, I pay rent, I am a father and a mother, I support the house. I would have to make a sacrifice to buy. I would have to give up something else, even food”, says the cleaning assistant. .

In this menopause story, she just liked not menstruating anymore. Dadá also says he feels relief. She stresses, however, that the period for her, as an indigenous person, “is one of challenge, but also of helping other women”.