‘I didn't think I could cope without HRT '

After early menopause, Denise relied on medication. But when she could no longer take it, she tried a more natural solution

- HAYLEY MINN

Scanning the supermarket shelves, I felt my heart beat faster and my hands turn clammy. It was the summer of 1999 and I was doing the weekly shop with my kids, Jack, then 14, Gemma, 12, Harry, eight, and Rose, four.

I did the same trip every week, there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of fear and panic that seemed to sweep over me in waves.

‘I need to get out of here,’ I told the kids, suddenly pushing the troll back to the front of the store.

‘We haven’t got the food yet,’ Jack frowned. But I didn’t care. Wiping the sweat from my face with a tissue, all I knew was that I had to get out of there and get home as soon as I could.

‘It’s time I went back to the doctor,’ I sighed to my husband, Jack, then 38, later that night.

I knew exactly what it was – I was going through the menopause.

Prescribed tablets

Five years before, at just 32, I’d had a hysterectomy because of growths on my ovaries. Ever since, I’d slowly, but surely, been suffering menopause symptoms. Waking in the night sweating, struggling with anxiety and feeling overwhelmed.

‘We can put you on hormone replacement therapy,’ my doctor advised days later.

She prescribed me the synthetic version of the hormones I was lacking as a result of the operation and told me to take them in tablet form every day.

It wasn’t an overnight fix, but as the weeks went on I started to feel more positive and confident. I was waking in the night less with hot flushes and sweating too, so I was able to get a good night’s sleep for the first time in ages.