How alternative remedies helped me beat the menopause

For years, Carol Barnes epitomised the 'cool TV blonde'. Then the former ITN presenter reached the menopause, with hot flushes, sweating, uncharacteristic moodiness and a dramatically reduced libido.

My health and energy levels had always been amazingly good - I never even took vitamins. So it came as quite a shock when one day I suddenly broke out in a horrible clammy sweat - as if I was coming down with a serious bout of something.

It was around the time of the Gulf War, in the early Nineties, and I was in the ITN studios getting ready to read the ten o'clock news. My then husband, a TV cameraman, was out in the Gulf filming. And as I watched the final pictures he'd shot, back in the studio I felt distinctly uncomfortable.

There was the usual background chaos, adrenaline levels were high, and the make-up girls were giving me the last-minute once over before I went on air.

I could feel my face flushing, and within seconds I was dripping with perspiration. I looked in the mirror and my whole face was pink and glistening. I was scared that my make-up would run.

Somehow, with about half a ton of powder, the girls managed to fix my flushed, sweaty face so that once I was in front of the cameras I appeared cool and calm.

It was the beginning of the menopause - but it came as a complete surprise. Although I was in my mid-40s, I'd never really given the menopause a second thought - I was just too busy to think about my hormones.

Source - Daily Mail