When Shelley Horton’s usual cheerful demeanour and bubbly personality were replaced with endless tears and ugly mood swings last year she ‘blamed it on 2020’
When Shelly Horton’s usual cheerful demeanour and bubbly personality were replaced with endless tears and ugly mood swings last year she ‘blamed it on 2020’.
The then 47-year-old media personality said she went from being happy and confident to feeling constantly overwhelmed and upset.
‘I was crying every day, which isn’t like me because I am not typically a crier,’ she told FEMAIL.
‘And they weren’t even little tears, they were big, fat roll-down-the-face tears filled with sorrow – there were days I was so sad I couldn’t get out of bed.’
However what the veteran journalist was feeling had nothing to do with the chaos caused by the global pandemic.
It was entirely hormonal and ‘very normal’. Shelly was experiencing the beginnings of perimenopause, the ‘seven-year period’ of hormonal disruptions before a woman’s period ends.
‘I had never even heard of perimenopause, I thought menopause would happen in my 50s or 60s and would consist of hot flushes and the end of my period,’ she said.
The then 47-year-old media personality said she went from being happy and confident to feeling constantly overwhelmed and upset
While Shelly was 47 when she was ‘side-swiped’ by symptoms of perimenopause, it typically begins from the age of 45.
‘My chest was so tight with anxiety I couldn’t breathe at night, but I thought it was because of lockdown and I had just moved interstate so was under a lot of stress,’ she said.
It wasn’t until her IUD, a contraceptive she had relied on to pause her periods for 15 years and often joked she ‘would marry’, seemingly failed that she saw a doctor.
‘All of a sudden my period came back – but I put that down to stress too. Then it came again and I bled for 32 days straight,’ she said.
‘I was completely drained from that, I just felt miserable and fatigued so went to the doctor to get it checked out.’
Shelly was terrified that all of her symptoms pointed to cancer but after a thorough medical examination doctors revealed she was perimenopausal.
The chatty TV star found other women to be tight-lipped about their experience with menopause and said even her mother had little to say on the matter.
Shelly found people to be tight-lipped about their experience with menopause and said even her own mother had little to say on the matter
‘I felt so much shame and stigma when I found out, so I didn’t talk about it either,’ she said.
But after becoming more informed, Shelly realised if other women weren’t going to start the conversation she would have to.
‘If the women in my life had spoken to me about it I might have been more prepared, I just feel so informed now,’ she said.
‘I spoke to my mother and she was a bit like, ”chin up, soldier on, we all go through it”,’ she said.
‘I just don’t think we need to be like that anymore.’
Shelly wants women to know they should be watching out for symptoms of perimenopause in their 40s.
‘100 per cent of women go through this, we should be talking about it at school and in the workplace,’ she said.
‘The older generation need to put their hands up and say ‘”hey, let me educate you about this”.’
Shelly said men also need to be educated about perimenopause.
When the vivacious redhead was struggling with intense mood swings her husband Darren Robinson ‘just wanted to help’.
Shelly, who describes her partner as an ‘earth angel’, said following her diagnosis he was able to remind her that her mood swings were hormonal.
‘He would ask if I wanted a lie down, he was empathetic and compassionate,’ she said.
He too thought a woman’s period ‘just stopped’.
When the vivacious redhead was struggling with intense mood swings her husband Darren Robinson ‘just wanted to help’
Now Shelly tackles her symptoms head-on, using a combination of prescription medicine and practical measures including the use of a portable fan.
‘Before lockdown I was having lunch at China Doll, I was having hot flushes so asked the waiter to bring me a bucket of iced water and wrapped a cool napkin around my neck,’ she said.
‘I am not going to be ashamed.’
Shelly says the fact the perimenopause stage lasts five to seven years is ‘quite distressing in itself’.
She recommends women speak with their medical professional about their symptoms so they can transition more smoothly.
Now Shelly tackles her symptoms head-on, using a combination of prescription medicine and practical measures including the use of a portable fan
Shelly is now on hormone replacement therapy and anti-depressants to help her, while her sister-in-law has chosen to use Flordis supplements for a more natural approach.
‘You just have to do what works for you,’ she said.
Shelly has been receiving treatment for six months now.
‘I am 100 per cent back to my happy self,’ she said.
‘When I have down days I wonder if it is the peri-menopause but then I remind myself we are all allowed down days.’
Shelly is working in collaboration with the Flordis Menopause Hub to help educate women about menopause including symptoms and treatment options.