Beverly Johnson is an old school supermodel and she’s 70! I should know that she’s older based on how long she’s been around, but I thought she was about 60. Beverly has a new interview with People Magazine in which she talks about her experience after a hysterectomy in 1999. She was 47 when she had a full hysterectomy to treat uterine fibroids. Beverly went into menopause immediately and it was a hard adjustment. She said that doctors did not warn her about what to expect and were not as helpful or informative as her female friends. She also wants to normalize conversations about menopause so that less women have to go through it alone. I also want to mention Naomi Watts, who has expressed similar sentiments about a lack of public awareness of menopause. This interview is part of People’s series on menopause.
When Beverly Johnson was 47 years old, she had a hysterectomy and went into “full blown menopause.” She had the procedure in 1999 after painful uterine fibroids were causing internal bleeding. “It was a life changing moment,” she says. “I went from my swinging forties to full blown menopause and I was not prepared…”
“It was a major operation,” says Johnson. “I didn’t fully understand what the procedure entailed. The doctor didn’t explain and I thought menopause would come on gradually.”
Two months after the procedure, she woke up one night with night sweats. “My body changed,” she says. “You start gaining weight in the middle. And I was still modeling. I felt tired. I remember talking to older women and when they’d break out in a sweat, I’d say ‘What’s wrong? Are you okay?’ And the response was always ‘You’ll know about it soon enough.’ I never connected the two. Well, I was that woman now. You’re in the middle of a conversation with an attractive guy — I was single — and all of a sudden, there’s a mustache of sweat, and he’s saying ‘Are you okay?'”
Her sex life was also affected. “You don’t have the hormones that keep you nice and moist in the areas you want to be nice and moist in,” she says. “Mentally, you still have a sex drive but physically, there were changes. You’re moist in all the wrong places and that was a big shocker for me. There are all these unexpected consequences.”
Over time, she found balance with healthy foods (“low fat and low sugar,”) exercise (“Kegels to tighten the pelvic floor”) and mostly, with hormone therapy. “I was taking estrogen and testosterone. It’s a cocktail,” she says. “It took time to find the right mix.”
Still, menopause wasn’t something people talked openly about. “There was no Google,” she says with a laugh. “My mom would say ‘It’s nothing. It will be over soon.’ She downplayed it but she downplays anything that is kind of uncomfortable.”
Johnson turned to older female friends. “I got more helpful information from girlfriends than my own doctors,” she says. “As soon as you mention it to someone going through it, it’s the topic of conversation.”
I’m a candidate for a hysterectomy but my doctor says she’ll leave my ovaries so I don’t go into menopause. I’m not having heavy periods like Beverly and have delayed it. I think it will affect my hormones despite not removing my ovaries and also it’s major surgery. Even minor procedures had a more difficult recovery than I was led to expect and I don’t want to have to go through all that. Also, anecdotally from a friend and there are mixed reports in the literature on this, I’ve heard that a hysterectomy can affect your ability to orgasm. No thank you. As Beverly mentioned you’re also dealing with lack of estrogen and being drier where it counts. As she said it’s confusing because you still have desire. It wasn’t until I found my current OB/GYN that I even had a doctor who could answer questions about menopause. My last doctor, a younger woman, blew off my concerns. At that point I did learn more about it from my friends. At least now we have Google and celebrities give interviews about it.
Photos credit: Janet Mayer/Startraksphoto.com and via Instagram
People don’t go low fat!! Fat is an essential building block of your hormones so CRUCIAL when you’ve hit menopause age! Yes get rid of bad fats (trans fats) but please for the love of god keep eating whole foods including fats (yes butter is fine! and egg yolks!) unless you’ve got a very specific issue your doctor has identified.
Also, stress is a major factor in contributing to menopause systems. People tend to not think about lifestyle stuff as much as diet but it’s essential to get a hold of elements of your life you can change that contribute to stress. Post menopause your adrenal glands become a major contributor to oestrogen (vs ovaries) so helping your adrenals focus on oestrogen production vs dealing with stress is important.
Exercise, meditate, deal with outstanding bullshit in your life, be grateful every day…just as important as diet and pumping exogenous hormones in your bod.
I am SO happy that these conversations are being had more openly these days. I’m 44 and honestly I’m learning so much from the comments right here and talking to friends about menopause and perimenopause. The more we can normalise what happens with woman’s bodies the better it will be for everyone.
Beverly Johnson is outstandingly beautiful.
Years ago, my ob/gyn didn’t take me seriously when I wanted to discuss perimenopause at age 37. She said I was too young, despite it not being uncommon for people to hit it at age 35, and despite the fact that my mom was through full menopause before her mid-forties. It was extremely frustrating to be shut down like that.
I’m sorry you weren’t heard and treated dismissively Mrsbanjo. I hope you found one who listened and treated you with the respect and care we all deserve
There is a book called Menopause Manifesto written by obgyn Dr Jen Gunter
You will go into menopause even with ovaries still in. The uterus does secrete hormones also. Learned alot from a gyn surgical nurse.
Anxiety and brain fog were a major part of the process for me. More than anything else, even. Peri started in my later 30s and I was driving my husband nuts. I’d start a sentence and trail off, not remembering what I meant to say. What a complete relief to lose both the extra anxiety and the brain fog when I finally hit full menopause at 45. What a difference! And no, absolutely no one talked about it. Especially not my doctors, who were female and around my age.
Mair, thank you for your comment. It gives me hope. I’ve been struggling mightily with brain fog for years – even got neuropsychological testing and a CT scan – and was told my brain was fine. If getting my brain back to normal is the price to pay for menopause, so be it. I’m glad you’re happily on the other side.
Wishing you a safe landing Vernie. Like I said, no one talked about any of it when I was in the thick of it. It took me time to realize that brain fog and high anxiety were no longer major issues, and I pieced together when things started to get better. There are certainly problems with full menopause, but I will gladly keep my issues now in place of my eight years of peri.