Wellbeing and menopause clinic opens in Cookernup to debunk hormone therapy myths and ‘empower’ women

A new women’s wellbeing and menopause clinic has officially opened in the South West, with the centre’s sole practitioner bringing a message of “empowerment” and a deeper understanding of the biological climacteric. A “one-stop shop” for women’s health, Purity Health Women’s Menopause and Wellbeing Centre in Cookernup has been fully booked since its January 7 opening. The centre’s lead practitioner, Dr Purity Carr, said she came to the region in the hope of empowering women to better understand menopause and revoke taboos around hormone replacement therapy. “A few years ago we were talking about mental health being a taboo and we have to talk about it openly for it to not be that way,” she said. “It’s about educating people to know that menopause does not mean that you are losing your mind.” Myths and misconceptions concerning menopause have not only caused a “menopausal caricature” — according to Dr Carr — but have led to reservations around HRT usage. The results of the Women’s Health Initiative in 2002 — a study that found HRT had more detrimental than beneficial effects — formulated a new guidance on HRT prescription. However a reanalysis of the study, years later, and a new trial of the WHI proved HRT to have a beneficial effect on the cardiovascular system, reducing coronary disease in younger or early postmenopausal women. Dr Carr, who moved from the United Kingdom three years ago, said the 2002 study had left a “hangover” in relation to HRT with GP health computer programs still flagging the medication as causing breast cancer or strokes which, she said, it did not. “Overnight women were told that HRT causes breast cancer and so from 2002 onwards there’s been a hangover around HRT,” she said. “Those that trained in the medical field during this time were taught that HRT causes breast cancer and we were told not to prescribe HRT and instead offer alternatives.” “There was a sudden market of natural alternatives to HRT ... bioidentical HRT is compounded in the back of some chemist somewhere and is not regulated and is marketed as a natural solution.” Menopause symptoms are mixed and can leave women facing issues such as fatigue, anxiety, loss of sleep and irritability, similar to that of depression. Dr Carr said this could lead to misdiagnoses from GPs, resulting in women becoming addicted to medications such as diazepam and other anti-depressants. “Menopausal depression is harder to notice, women will still present really well, that’s what (GPs) don’t always understand and treat it as depression so (patients) are given anti-depressants,” she said. “The score that we use for menopause symptoms is an A4 sheet, so for every one of those symptoms a woman can be on a separate tablet, so you find women rattling with pills, and they don’t have to.” According to Dr Carr women can be “cut short” at the prime of their career due to menopause, causing a larger societal ripple effect. “(Menopause) is probably the biggest economic elephant that we are dragging around at the moment,” she said. “Everyone in a family will eventually be touched by the effects of menopause and women can live around 30 years or more in a menopausal state.” “My job is to empower women and that’s really my primary drive … I believe knowledge is power, when you have the knowledge you can make a decision for and against.”