The Hardest Medical Appointment to Find

Eight Clinics.
Four Waitlists.
One Conversation.

After 25 years living with multiple sclerosis, I considered myself a veteran of the medical trenches. By the time I reached my forties, I expected menopause to be one of the most routine conversations I would ever have with a doctor. After all, it isn't a rare neurological disease.

I watched my mother's generation throw away their hormone therapies because of the fear that followed the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study. I assumed that, after more than two decades, both the science and the care available to women had evolved.

I was wrong

Living with multiple sclerosis had taught me to expect knowledge gaps. Rare diseases often come with limited research, evolving evidence, and the occasional runaround. I’d learned to navigate that reality. However, menopause isn't rare. Half of the world’s population has either gone through it or will be at some point.

By my forties, I had some questions about what lay ahead for me. Would menopause affect my MS? Were there things I could do to support this hormonal transition? I needed someone with the expertise to help me understand what was happening inside my brain and body during this time. I never imagined that getting someone to talk to me would become one of the hardest medical appointments I have ever had to find.

Asking questions

I started by asking the obvious person: my neurologist.
He didn't know.

Over the next few years, I asked two other neurologists.
They didn't know either.

None of them seemed particularly concerned, so I assumed I should do what they suggested and speak with my family doctor. I went to my GP. She asked, "Are you still having periods?" I answered, "Yes." She said, "Then you're not in menopause."

I refused to let the question go

I knew things were changing in my body. I couldn't believe that a major hormonal transition had no side effects for women beyond night sweats. I started looking online for answers.

My search led me to the work of Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl of UCLA, one of the world's leading neurologists in the study of menopause and multiple sclerosis. I watched interviews, lectures, and eventually joined an MS Canada webinar where she discussed the emerging evidence on estrogen, menopause, and brain health in women with MS. I filled pages with notes.

Armed with these notes and references from Dr. Voskuhl's presentations, I booked another appointment with my GP. I even printed her an extra copy. She never read it. She handed it back.

Instead, she referred me to one of two menopause clinics in my city of more than 1.5 million people. I called this clinic. It had a twelve-month waitlist. I called the other one. Another waitlist. I tried walk-in clinics. One physician wasn't comfortable prescribing menopause hormone therapy. Another wasn't accepting patients.

Each conversation seemed to end the same way: another referral, another wait, another dead end.

I was at the end of my rope

Utterly exhausted, I called the second menopause clinic again and in tears, spoke with the receptionist. After I explained my situation and everything I had gone through, the receptionist offered to place me on a cancellation list.

I was called a couple weeks later for a one-hour appointment with a doctor specializing in menopause care. This was the first time I didn’t have to defend my reason for being there. This doctor listened before she spoke. She took a look at my notes and asked for a copy.

She believed me

I didn't have to convince her that menopause mattered.

I told her how many doctors, clinics, and waitlists it had taken me to finally speak to someone knowledgeable in this area. She said, “Unfortunately, your journey is not unique”. And that “most women arrive in [her] clinic in tears and at their wits' end.”

She prescribed an estrogen patch and assured me that she'd continue to guide me through this transition.

I left relieved—not because I'd received an estrogen patch, but because someone had finally been prepared to have the conversation I'd been trying to have for years. I have spent over 25 years navigating one of the most complex neurological diseases on the planet.

I never imagined that the hardest healthcare journey would begin when I reached thesame stage of life as billions of other women.