I went through the menopause at eleven



Hot flushes in the classroom. HRT before she'd had her first kiss. Knowing she’d never have a baby. But most shocking of all? Amanda’s ordeal is far from unique

Ordeal: Amanda Lewis, now 24, was the youngest person in the UK to have a menopause when it began at age 11

On a school trip to Paris, spirits were high among a coach-load of excited teenagers experiencing their first taste of freedom away from their parents.

Thirteen-year-old Amanda Lewis was one of them — enjoying the company of her classmates as they explored the city, but anxious about a medical problem that set her cruelly apart from them.

Amanda made a point of taking her daily medication in front of her school friends on the trip, in an act of bravado meant to hide the pain she felt inside.

‘I deliberately took it in full view of everyone to make light of it,’ says Amanda.

While her peers were experiencing the hormonal highs and lows of puberty, she was grappling with their absence — taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after being diagnosed with the menopause at a devastatingly young age.

Amanda’s menopausal symptoms started when she was 11. At a time in life when her peers were preoccupied with first crushes and making friends, Amanda felt her body was spiralling out of her control.

‘I went from a size 8 to a size 18 in a matter of months — from 8 st to 15 st,’ she says. ‘My body weight nearly doubled and my periods, which had started when I was ten, stopped. I also felt very emotional.’

After reading articles in teen magazines about irregular periods and mood swings in puberty, Amanda assumed that what was happening to her was quite normal.

It was only two years later, when she went home from school one day sobbing yet again about being overweight, that her mother suggested they see the doctor.

The doctor referred Amanda to a gynaecologist at the local hospital. Tests revealed she had no natural oestrogen and a scan showed her ovaries weren’t functioning.



Amanda was diagnosed as menopausal, and her consultant advised her to start HRT.



'My friends were enjoying normal teenage life, but I felt middle-aged'

‘I couldn’t take it in at the time,’ says Amanda, now 24 and a dance teacher living in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

‘I think, initially, Mum was more upset than me — about the fact that I’d never have my own baby. She realised that would influence the rest of my life.

‘My friends were enjoying normal teenage life, but I felt middle-aged.’

Amanda had been in the throes of the menopause since she was 11, making her the youngest person in the UK to have experienced it. The average age of menopause in this country is 51.

But while Amanda’s story is extreme, she is not alone. In fact, increasing numbers of young women, some still in their teens, are experiencing early menopause.

Before they’ve even had chance to fall in love or start their first job, let alone think about starting a family, some girls are having to endure the menopause and its challenges — not only the mood swings and hot flushes, but also an increased risk of osteoporosis, stroke and cardiovascular disease.

Growing pains: Amanda on her eleventh birthday, not long after she had to start taking HRT

Premature menopause — or premature ovarian failure (POF), as it’s known medically — is usually defined as menopause occurring before 40.

Known medical causes range from the side-effects of cancer treatment to chromosomal or auto-immune disorders.

However, a worrying study last year found that higher than expected numbers of women are becoming infertile before 40, for no known medical reason.

The study, conducted by Imperial College London, one of the most comprehensive in its field, revealed that around six per cent of women had an unexplained premature menopause — a figure far higher than previous estimates, which were as low as one per cent.

What’s more, women from a lower socio-economic background are three times more likely to experience menopause before the age of 40 than those from a higher socio-economic background, although researchers couldn’t explain why.



' I tried to talk to friends, but it was hard. Everyone said at least I wouldn’t have to worry about condoms - people often don’t understand the emotional implications'

Dr Marilyn Glenville, patron of the early menopause charity, The Daisy Network, says: ‘Early menopause is on the increase. Better diagnosis is a factor, but even taking that into account, it still seems to be rising.

‘In about 70 per cent of cases of premature ovarian failure there is a clear cause, such as radiotherapy treatment.

‘There are also genetic links: if your mother went through an early menopause, there is an increased chance you will, too.’

Dr Glenville adds that in some cases, however, there is simply no explanation.

‘A study last year suggested a connection with the chemicals in non-stick pans — it may be that some of the hormone-disrupting chemicals in our environment are having a toxic effect we don’t fully understand.’

Dr Heather Currie, a gynaecologist and founder of Menopause Matters, says: ‘A true diagnosis of teenage menopause is devastating.

‘The implication of infertility, and the reality that the only way to get pregnant will be to use an egg donor, not easily accessible on the NHS, can be very distressing.’

Mum at last: Despite an early menopause, Rebecca was able to have daughter Jessica through egg donation

Rebecca Swain, 28, is one of those cases where the causes remain bafflingly obscure.

Rebecca, from Stretford in Manchester, started experiencing menopausal symptoms when she was 15. ‘My periods stopped and I was having hot flushes,’ says Rebecca, who left school shortly afterwards to train as a hairdresser.

‘It was summer so, at first, I blamed my hot flushes on that,’ she says. ‘I’d be boiling hot and wet with sweat for ten minutes at a time, which was awful and made sleeping difficult.

‘My hair became very thin, and I was irritable and short-tempered, which was out of character.’

Rebecca ignored her symptoms for a couple of months, hoping they would pass. But, unfortunately, they didn’t, so she visited her GP, who referred her for tests.

‘I had my blood and hormone levels checked, then a scan which showed my ovaries had shrunk. I was diagnosed with POF, though doctors couldn’t explain the cause of it.’

Difficult time: Rebecca was just a teenager when the menopause started and struggled to understand what was happening to her body

At 17, Rebecca was going through the menopause before her mother, who was 39. At first, Rebecca was prescribed HRT. ‘But it didn’t ease the menopausal symptoms, and it made me feel out of sorts,’ she says.

‘In retrospect, I think maybe that was because I didn’t like the idea of taking HRT at such a young age.’

Rebecca started taking the contraceptive Pill instead of HRT, to provide her body with the oestrogen it had stopped producing.

Dr Heather Currie says it’s important that women who experience the menopause so young replace the hormones which decline during this chapter of a woman’s life.

‘Oestrogen is helpful for our heart, bones and brains, so it’s generally recommended that women going through early menopause take HRT at least until the average age of menopause, to protect them from the long-term impact of this oestrogen deficiency.’

Dr Currie says it remains unclear whether HRT or the Pill is the best treatment for early menopause.

‘The hormones in HRT are thought to be more like those that the body produces naturally, while those in the contraceptive Pill are considered stronger and more synthetic.



‘For many young women, however, the contraceptive Pill is a more appealing option — and that should be taken into account, since early menopause has a huge psycho- logical impact.’

Amanda, who has been in a relationship with 28-year-old photographer Chris Power for three years, started HRT at 13.



'When I realised I might never have my own family, I was devastated. It seemed so unfair to have the option taken away so young'

But, two years later, she swapped it for the Pill after developing migraines which she believed could have been caused by HRT.

‘My teenage years weren’t the best time. I was having internal examinations by doctors before I’d even been kissed,’ she says.

‘I tried to talk to friends, but it was hard. Everyone said at least I wouldn’t have to worry about condoms — people often don’t understand the emotional implications.

‘When I realised I might never have my own family, I was devastated. It seemed so unfair to have the option taken away so young. But my boyfriend knew from day one and, thankfully, it hasn’t affected our relationship.’

Amanda fears her condition is likely to become more difficult to accept, but she is not without hope for the future. ‘As more of my friends become pregnant, I realise how much I want to be a mum. It’s not going to be easy — finding an egg donor is hard and IVF is expensive — but I want to try.

‘When I was 20 I had a laparoscopy, which showed that my womb is healthy, so it may be that I’ll be able to get pregnant using egg donation.

‘At the moment, I’m concentrating on my career but, in the next few years, it’s an option I’ll explore. If that fails, I’ll look into adoption. I still see my future as being a mum — I hope I’m not disappointed.’

For women robbed early in life of the biological essence of their femininity, the process of conceiving and bearing a child can be a healing one.

After years on an NHS waiting list for an egg donor, Rebecca found a donor through her mother, Beverley, 49, a school cook, who persuaded one of her colleagues, Lindsey O’Brien, now 40, to donate.

Hope: Yvette went through the menopause at 14 and is waiting for an egg donor so she can become a mum with husband Jamie

‘It was amazing to be pregnant and feel my body doing what it was supposed to do,’ says Rebecca, whose daughter, Jessica, is now four.

Sadly, Rebecca’s relationship with Jessica’s father broke down two years ago. She says her condition had nothing to do with the break-up, but concedes: ‘I think it’s hard for a man to understand what I went through.’

Rebecca is now engaged to her new partner, Simon Sidderley, 27, an account manager, and hopes to repeat the experience of motherhood using a donor egg.

‘I’ve been honest with Simon about my situation, and I’d love to be pregnant again,’ she says.

Yvette Charman, 30, a carer at a children’s hospice, also hopes to use an egg donor to become pregnant. She only discovered she was post-menopausal when she came off the Pill to start a family after marrying Jamie, 24, an office worker, in July 2010.

Unbeknown to her, Yvette had gone through the menopause at 14.

After her periods stopped and she began experiencing night sweats, hot flushes and mood swings, a consultant told Yvette she had a ‘hormonal imbalance’ and prescribed the contraceptive Pill.

She started having regular periods again but, despite taking the Pill, Yvette continued to suffer terrible night sweats.



Who knew? Women who smoke face going through the menopause at least a year earlier than non-smokers

Years later, when Yvette was 28 and stopped taking the Pill, her periods stopped, too, and she was referred to hospital for tests which revealed that she was infertile — news delivered to her casually by a student doctor.

‘He blurted out to me that I wouldn’t be able to have children naturally. I didn’t know I’d been through the menopause. I was devastated.’

Yvette, from Hampshire, struggled with the emotional blow. ‘I kept telling Jamie he’d be better off without me, because I couldn’t bear the thought that I was potentially depriving him of his chance to have a family. I felt he should find a fertile woman who could give that to him.’

But Jamie was undeterred.

With his support, Yvette saw a more sympathetic consultant, who explained she was post-menopausal, but could consider having IVF using an egg donor, and that HRT might be a better treatment option for her than the Pill. ‘The HRT immediately had a big impact,’ she says.

‘The night sweats stopped and my mood improved. I had a bone scan to see if I’d developed osteoporosis. Luckily, I haven’t.

‘I’ll stay on HRT until we find an egg donor. I think there’s a huge stigma attached to the menopause — women are made to feel they’re past it, but I have so much to look forward to.