A dental hygienist forced into early menopause by cervical cancer treatment at just 32 felt isolated from friends and feared for her sanity, saying “no one really understood” what she was going through. Mum-of-one Sophie Davies, 33, was diagnosed with cervical cancer at her second ever smear test when she was just 29 in late 2017, after putting the appointment off for six months, due to her pregnancy.
When less drastic options proved insufficient, Sophie needed a radical hysterectomy in December 2020 – surgery to remove her uterus and both ovaries – which threw her into a surgically induced menopause, with an instant barrage of difficult symptoms, aged 32.
Sophie, who lives in Ironbridge, Shropshire, with her photographer fiancé Edward Bagnall, 39, and their daughter Evelyn, four, said: “My consultant made me aware that losing my ovaries would put me into surgical menopause. I knew the science, but I wasn’t prepared for the reality of being in my early 30s and being in menopause. I just had no concept of how much it would impact me.”
