A short YouTube explainer by Dr. Tabatha Barber about surgical menopause. The speaker warns that abruptly induced (surgical) menopause — for example after oophorectomy around ages 40–45 — can cause severe emotional and physical symptoms (depression, irritability, loss of sexual attraction, weight gain, hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness) and stresses the need to plan with a surgeon before surgery.
You want to have a lengthy discussion with your surgeon. Unless you're already in the menopausal state, say you are 40 or 45 years old and you're going to wake up in surgical menopause. You're going to be miserable. You will be crying and depressed and very irritable, and you may well not be attracted to your partner anymore. And you may really struggle. You may start to gain weight and have hot flashes and night sweats and vaginal dryness and all of these issues. So you need to have a plan going into this surgery if those ovaries are going to be affected.
