EastEnders star Jo Joyner, 48, fears menopause will affect her acting career amid her struggle with brain fog - following a secret hysterectomy
The former EastEnders star, 48, revealed on Kate Thornton's White Wine Question Time podcast that she underwent a hysterectomy in the last few years because she had too much oestrogen, which resulted her getting early menopause.
Surgical menopause occurs when both of your ovaries are removed using a surgical approach (called a bilateral oophorectomy)or when a hysterectomy removes the ovaries before you've gone through a natural menopause. This causes a sudden onset of the menopause after the surgery.
Jo, who played Tanya Branning in the BBC soap, admitted she is 'scared' if the menopause will affect her acting career amid her struggle with brain fog.
She explained: 'Part of the reason that I ended up having a full hysterectomy was because I had too much oestrogen.
'I had almost the opposite problem of most people. So I'm now a year past that, I have only just started to need to take oestrogen because my reserves are so big. Can you believe it?'
She added: 'I think your average GP would have just thrown oestrogen at me with some of my symptoms. And actually it kind of doubled the problem.
'It wasn't until I did the Dutch hormone test mapping, which showed me a little arc of all my hormones.
'And I went, 'oh, my gosh, that makes sense'. I went to my naturopath and she said, I can't treat you. This oestrogen is off the chart. You need to go and see the doctor. There's something going on. And she was right.
'There was you know, Endo adenomyosis all of this was going on. But what it means is I'm a good year and a half past that and it's [menopause] all just starting to happen now.
'Literally yesterday I spent an entire day every time I walked into a room or a cupboard stood there thinking, I don't know what I've come here for. What did I come here for?
'Well, I don't know, but it amazes me how quick it can happen.'
She added: 'Luckily it's not affecting my work. Luckily I can get my lines in. I think that must be scary when that starts happening.
'It's interesting because as I've got older, I'm in that area and I'm not 50 yet and I'm having a surgical menopause. So I'm kind of too young for this, I like to think.'
Amid her busy work schedule, Jo - who stars in the upcoming Paramount show Little Disasters - went to a retreat for a week to rest and reset.
She said she was recommended to go on the retreat by her former co-star and close friend Tamzin Outhwaite.
Jo explained: 'It's been a funny old year. I had my surgeries and then I went off to Malta, and then I came back and went to Budapest in Richmond, and then I went straight into Shakespeare and Hathaway in the September.
'There was never more than a week or so between jobs. I was sort of spat out again at the end of February this year, after finishing Shakespeare and Hathaway.
'And I thought, well, it's time to take stock of this radical surgery that I've had and this menopause I must be in and all of that and have a bit of time for me.
'And inspired by our very own Tamzin Outhwaite, who's obviously got her own project, We Free Women, wonderful project for retreat.
'For women, inspired by her because she had been on retreats and a year previous when we were in Malta, she kept saying to me, 'you need to go on a retreat. You need to go and have some time for yourself to heal and look at your new body and see what it can do, you know?'.
'Still I was a year on and I still hadn't. I was pretty much exhausted, I will say. It felt incredibly indulgent and selfish. But I went away for a week to a retreat, my first ever retreat on my own.'
WHAT IS A HYSTERECTOMY?
A hysterectomy is a surgical procedure to remove a woman's uterus.
There are three kinds:
The operation is most commonly performed on women between the ages of 40 and 49.
More than 20 million American women have had a hysterectomy, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As women approach menopause, the odds that they will develop one of several serious uterine health conditions increases. Doctors may recommend a hysterectomy as a treatment for:
fibroids
endometriosis
uterine (endometrial) cancer
chronic uterine pain or bleeding
collapsed uterus
In some cases, doctors may suggest a hysterectomy as a preventative measure if a woman has significant warning or early signs of developing one or more of these conditions.
When necessary, surgeons may also remove the ovaries and fallopian tubes, if these have also been damaged or are at serious risk of damage.
The removal of reproductive organs sends a woman's body into menopause, no matter how old she is.
This comes with unpleasant side effects like hot flashes, and many women have to start hormone therapy, taking estrogen to balance out their own hormones.
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