Davina McCall has shared how she worked through crippling brain fog which became so bad she was scared to drive in the dark and would often forget the names of people she was interviewing on live TV. The 54-year-old mum-of-three spoke candidly about her experience with the menopause and perimenopause in an attempt to raise awareness of lesser known symptoms, and to warn other women.
The Masked Singer judge told Alex Jones and Jermaine Jenas on The One Show how when she was 43 she began suffering horrendous symptoms, at the time unaware of the cause. “The reason why I’ve done this and the reason I’ve spoken out about it so publicly is because when it happened to me I didn’t know anything about it,” McCall said, referring to her new book, Menopausing: The Positive Roadmap to Your Second Spring.
McCall said at the time she “didn’t even know the word perimenopause”, which means around menopause. “I was 43, I’d got hyperthyroidism, and if you’ve got that then you can go into the perimenopause a bit early,” she continued. You can get more celebrity news and other story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
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“I got some symptoms, they weren’t normal hot flushes, so I didn’t associate it with menopause or anything, but there were lots of little dots that I hadn’t put together. It started off with a little bit of low level anxiety, and I’m not an anxious person as you can probably guess.
“I didn’t want to drive in the dark, really ridiculous. I thought: ‘I’ll go before it gets to dusk, I’ll go to Sainsbury’s quickly.’ Do you know what I mean? It was like such a weird and alien thing for me.”
The presenter said most heartbreaking was the impact of the symptoms on her work, which she’d become very proud of. She described the point she began suffering from brain fog while presenting live television as “the really bad time”.
“I was trying to work with brain fog, presenting a live programme when you’re looking at someone. I was on this show called Stepping Out and I was looking at Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen thinking: ‘I’ve just said your name three seconds ago and I can’t remember for the life of me what it is’.
“It was literally a blank page, and then I looked at the autocue and I couldn’t read it properly. Afterwards the producer asked if I was okay. I’d like to think I’m good at my job, I love live TV, and I said: ‘Yeah, I’m fine, I’m really sorry - I don’t know what happened tonight'. Then as the door shut behind her I couldn’t stop crying. I was hysterically crying because I thought ‘I’m going mad’. I felt so lonely.”
McCall, who credits her hairstylist partner Michael Douglas with helping her through that period by making an effort to understand the issues around menopause, described other symptoms as low mood, monthly night sweats, joint pain, itchy skin, dry eyes, dry mouth, and low libido. She pleaded with women not to ignore potential signs.
“Also at that time in our lives our kids are teenagers, we are working quite hard because we’ve got quite good at our jobs, or we’re stay at home mums with a bunch of teenagers which is exhausting,” she added. “Yes you are tired, no you don’t want to get up, you might be putting on weight because you don’t want to go and exercise, and these are all symptoms.”
According to research released this week, more than one in five women say they have no-one to talk to about the menopause. The new study, conducted by Atomik Research, commissioned for QVC UK’s ‘Menopause Your Way’, highlighted a lack of discussion around the menopause, revealing that only one in 10 (9%) feel prepared for the lifechanging event.
Despite half the population experiencing menopause, the taboo and need to normalise the conversation is clear to see, with a third (37%) having never discussed it with another female relative. The study highlights how the reluctance to talk could be leading to many (40%) women not feeling prepared for the menopause at all.
McCall also advised that men make a concerted effort to learn about the menopause in order to help their relationships with important women in their lives. She added: “I’ve had men come to me in the street and say: ‘I thought I’d lost my wife, I thought she didn’t like me anymore and I thought I was doing something wrong, but now I understand it has brought us so much closer together.’”
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