She Thought She Had Menopause, But Doctors Revealed It Was Much Worse

When a woman goes through menopause, her body starts to turn against her. This age-related hormonal change can be quite stressful to deal with in your everyday life and these body changes can prove more difficult for some woman than others.

But whether it makes sense to postpone menopause with medical help is still a debatable subject. Although there is also a possibility that our diet can also have an effect on this, you can’t stop your body from ageing.

Menopause and forgetfulness

Amanda Quinn, a 49-year-old mother from Rhondda Valley (Wales), was finding it very difficult when she thought she was going through menopause. She realised that she was becoming a bit forgetful and these memory problems were making her everyday life more complicated.

When she went to her doctor because of a simple ear infection, she suddenly forgot why she was at the doctors. The doctor quickly picked up on this did an examination which included memory tests.

Then the terrible truth was revealed. This mother of four wasn’t going through menopause but was instead suffering from dementia. At the time she was diagnosed, she wasn’t even 50 years old and her world fell apart.

‘To be told you have dementia at 49 is like being given a loaded gun. I felt as if I had been just handed a death sentence and sent on my way.’

But the worst part for Amanda wasn’t that she had to quit her job and rely on her family for help, such as her eldest daughter for example who now cooks for her because she doesn’t know how to work the appliances, but that she has also lost friends.

‘I’ve lost friends over my diagnosis because they don’t know how to deal with it. I’ve tried to tell them, ‘I’m still me’ but they just don’t get it.’

Dementia in under 65s

In the UK in 2018, 4.3 people per 100 of the population aged 65 and over had a recorded diagnosis of dementia which equates to roughly 448,300 people living with this still incurable disease. Cases like Amanda Quinn’s are less common but are by no means rare. In 2018, 3.4 people per 10,000 of the population under the age of 65 had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia which equates to around 16,730 people in total.