When Adele Johnston was a bodybuilder, she endured grueling diets and fitness regimens that left her hungry and exhausted all the time.
The two-time Scottish bodybuilding champion’s hair started falling out, she had bleeding gums, heart palpitations, itchy skin, and painfully swollen genitals.
After years of painful tests, she found out these were symptoms of early perimenopause – the phase before a woman’s menstruation stops.
On average, this starts when women are 46 years old. Adele, a mother of two, was in her early 30s.
“For years and years I was pushing my body beyond physical and mental limits. Bodybuilding is a radical sport and it’s not healthy,” she told BBC Scotland News. “You could see my ribs and my bone structure, I was weak from lack of food. The appearance of my body was not pretty and healthy, and I went against my intelligence and knowledge to submit to those exhausting diets.”
“I was always hungry and never felt satisfied.”
‘Menstrual cycle stagnation’
At 1.70 m tall, Adele weighed only 53 kg at the time. “I started to question why I entered early perimenopause and asked many doctors if it was due to my bodybuilding, and they said, ‘It’s possible, but we don’t have research,'” she said.
Heather Currie, a specialist gynecologist at NHS Dumfries and Galloway hospital, speculated that extreme bodybuilding could have caused Adele’s menstrual cycle to “stagnate”.
“Anything extreme can have other effects, and what I usually recommend is to do everything in moderation,” she said. “Any excess won’t be good.”
Currie, who advises the Scottish government on menopause and women’s health, suggested that Adele’s ovaries could “return to normal” once she stopped bodybuilding.
“Bodybuilding may have influenced this, but we’ll never know.”
Adele has now given up bodybuilding — but she has also started hormone replacement therapy with a Mirena IUD, which completely stops her period, to relieve perimenopause symptoms.
The 40-year-old Scotswoman finally feels better and is not ready to stop taking medication to check if her cycle has recovered.
“I suffered from horrible perimenopause symptoms,” she said. “I had heart palpitations and thought I was having a heart attack, I couldn’t sleep at night and was exhausted, sweating cold and feeling itchy all over.”
“I had so much pain in my vulva that I had to stand at my desk at work. I had abdominal swelling and bleeding gums and was losing hair.”
“As I have the IUD and my hormones are stable, I’m not willing to remove it to check if the bleeding continued.”
Menopause is when a woman’s menstruation ceases, which typically occurs around age 51.
The period leading up to this, when menstruation becomes irregular, is known as perimenopause and starts, on average, at age 46.
It’s when many women notice their periods becoming unpredictable or intense and have feelings or physical problems they’ve never experienced before.
When menstruation hasn’t occurred for 12 months, a woman has reached menopause.
Vicky McCann, president of the British Natural Bodybuilding Federation, said any potential link between bodybuilding and early perimenopause is a “very interesting subject”.
A 54-year-old competitor said: “I’ve been competing for 30 years and only had signs of menopause in the last three years.”
“Until then, I had no problems and dieted and trained all my life. I can think of about three other people my age who also had no problems.”
“However, the fact is that people are different from each other, and that’s an interesting subject.”
Jessica Watson, co-founder of menopause education organization Gloriah, said she has encountered many stories like Adele’s.
“There is an urgent need for greater recognition and research into the causes of early menopause – which is at the heart of what we are campaigning for.”
“I could barely function”
Adele is now a menopause coach after resigning as operational resilience manager at an investment bank.
“My debilitating symptoms eventually forced me to leave my job,” she said.
“The company I worked for couldn’t support me in my needs when I was going through perimenopause.”
“I asked for six weeks of reduced hours while I adapted to hormone replacement therapy and they refused to pay.”
“I was so bad that I could barely function. So my husband Sean told me to leave and we would sort this out.”
Adele said she was nervous about leaving her job.
“It was scary to say goodbye to my salary, pension, benefits, and career plan, but I saw it as an opportunity to retrain as a menopause coach, using what I’ve been through to help others.”
She added: “Bodybuilding is an attractive and glamorous sport, but backstage we have to be mindful of the health implications.”
