October was Menopause Awareness Month. Its aim is to break taboo in order to improve women’s health and wellbeing by speaking about the subject and raising awareness. One woman who has really led the way in the menopause narrative is presenter Lorraine Keane who was one of the first to open this conversation nearly 10 years ago. RSVP had the pleasure of hearing Lorraine’s story in the October issue of RSVP Magazine, where she talks about sleepless nights, rage and struggles conceiving but how she dealt with it all and is back to her vibrant, vivacious, happy self.
Lorraine, you have been chatting about menopause before we were ‘allowed’ to chat about menopause!
I know. I was chatting about menopause and perimenopause before they were even speaking about it in the UK! Davina McCall was about five years later. It was a really difficult thing to speak about at the time as there was such a stigma attached to it. My friends and colleagues in the business were saying to me, “Are you crazy?” The business I work in is very ageist, particularly towards women, and now I was about to come out speaking about a thing that makes you seem old and decrepit or past it. The hormonal change after 40 is just another natural life cycle in our journey as women. It is tough enough as women so we need to help and support each other. There was a ‘shut up and put up’ mentality with the generations before us. So there were going to be more generations of women suffering in silence just like I did, so I decided to take a chance and come out and share my story.
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READ MORE: Lorraine Keane on her perimenopause symptoms that nearly drove her mad
Were you nervous about the reaction?
I was really nervous about it, it was the scariest thing I have done in my career. I spoke to Peter, my husband, but I felt so strongly about it, and now it is one of the proudest things I have done as I really do feel from then until now it is no longer a taboo subject.
Were you supported by other women when you spoke about it back then?
There was support but very quietly on the hush-hush. I remember a neighbour saying to me in the village, “Thank you so much for coming out and speaking about this. I have been suffering for so long, I am so embarrassed about it and I have been taking the supplement you recommend — Cleanmarine Menomin — but I don’t want my husband to know I am going through menopause so I have been taking the tablets out of the sachets and putting them in a jar and pretending they are something else”. They were the reactions I was getting in the beginning. This is how ashamed women were. But very quickly that has changed and women feel comfortable talking about it now, in front of partners and men and not caring who is listening or judging.
You toured the country soon after talking about it with a host of experts…
We did a nationwide tour and spoke to women from all over and we covered every area, angle and option available. Some people wanted to go down the medical route of HRT so we had endocrinologist Dr Mary Ryan on the panel to chat about that and I love that she always advises to try the natural route first. We know from statistics there is a very large percentage of women that don’t need to go on HRT. And thankfully for me, I don’t have to go on it. Then we had experts in lifestyle and nutrition and well-being, so all the free stuff you can do to make a change. If you don’t get them right, whether you go down the medical route of HRT or the natural route when it comes to supplements, neither will work to their best ability unless you get the lifestyle stuff balanced. That is important to know. The tour was called Let’s Talk Hormone Health and from the start it was packed.
When did you realise you were in perimenopause?
I was in perimenopause before I turned 40, I was one of the 3%.
Age 45 used to be the norm for perimenopause, but having spoken to so many women over the years, I think it is close to 50/50 that women will now go into peri at 40 because we are all overdoing it and over stressing that pituitary gland — the hormone control centre. We are taking on so much, way more than the previous generations. Once the pituitary gland is off balance, it sends the hormones out in all the wrong directions, to the wrong places, at the wrong times and you get more symptoms and I think that is why our generation is going into it earlier.
What were your symptoms?
I had trouble sleeping, my head would be racing with work and lists and I would wake up shattered with very low energy, a low mood, I would be irritable and just not in good form. Then I would feel guilty as I know I am so lucky and so blessed, it was a constant ‘wreck the head’. I was impatient — now, I am impatient anyhow, but I was worse, snappy, and there were times I would have a rage for something small as it was all just too much. I really didn’t like myself. I felt difficult to live with, to be honest I felt like I was going mad. Then I had joint pain, itchy skin, but I never had a night sweat or a hot flush so I didn’t think it was anything to do with menopause and I hadn’t a clue what perimenopause was. If I was to ever stumble across it in magazines, which was rare 10 years ago, I would skip past as it wasn’t related to me. My hair was falling out like it did after I had the girls and was breastfeeding, I had adult acne and I was full-time on TV during all this.
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How did you cope?
I felt totally overwhelmed. I was also going through IVF and that didn’t help. I was 37. That was another reason why I shared my story as I had no idea that our imbalanced hormones affected our fertility. If I had known what I know now I wouldn’t have put myself through three rounds of IVF. When you think of the stress that causes mentally, physically, emotionally, financially, on my body and on my relationship. I always suffered with my hormones. I have two daughters, one of them thankfully seems to be sailing through, with the odd few days of PMS. Whereas my other daughter is up and down like I would have been my whole life and that is just the luck of the draw unfortunately. But getting the information, making the lifestyle changes and taking the supplements — it was life changing. When I started taking Cleanmarine Menomin, I felt a difference within a few weeks, now it can take a few months. Maybe it was a placebo effect for me at the start but I felt a difference after two weeks — life changing and I wasn’t working with them then. I felt like myself again.
But nutrition and exercise is equally as important, what does your day look like in order to stay healthy?
Nutrition is number one, the quality of food you eat. I know I am sorted if I start my day with a clinically-proven, scientifically-proven supplement — it has all the exact amount of ingredients we need in our diet. After that I try to stay on top of my greens, leafy veg, pulses and chickpeas, then protein is important — chicken, red meat, veg, tofu, seeds and nuts. There is a brilliant handbook on the Cleanmarine website that you can download for free or you will find it in health stores. It is like a little bible, it is called The Essential Guide To Female Hormones. A few years ago there was very little information, now it is a minefield, so you need to be careful.
We are waiting for you to tell us to go easy with exercising!
Over stressing the body with exercise is also not beneficial. We are over exercising over 40. Pounding the roads to lose weight because you don’t feel great is not good. We need to do less aerobic and more weight-bearing exercise. It is more about muscle mass and bone density as they decrease by 30% after 40 and another 10% after 50 so we have to be very careful about keeping our bodies strong. Don’t get me wrong, run for your head, I throw myself into the Irish Sea, not for exercise but for my mental health. If you are wrecked, you need to listen to your body. That way, you are actually doing more for your hormonal system than if you were to go out and run yourself ragged. Go for a slow walk even and listen to nature and just breathe. I read a great book recently, The Blissful Breath , the author is Breathe With Niall on Instagram.
Well, you are looking and sounding great
I think I have managed to prove to women that you can still be happy, vivacious, sexy even and feel young after 40. I think we know now we need to stop feeling embarrassed about menopause. It is a life cycle no more than periods, which is another thing we used to hide but the shame is nearly gone now. My husband Peter was out on a lads night recently and towards the end of the evening a couple of the lads were asking Peter what he knew about menopause — they were concerned about what might be going on in their own house. I thought that was brilliant. Also, I was doing an event for Mustard Seed, a gorgeous charity and after it, two young men in their late 30s/early 40s came up to me and said they had promised their wives they would say hello and thank me for chatting about perimenopause so openly and they also thanked me. I was stunned.
How is Peter?
Peter is all good, we are 25 years together would you believe? The Devlins have a new album out, they got a record deal last year and the second single is being released. They did a few dates around Ireland this year. They did the All Together Now festival which was amazing as both the girls got to go to it. They loved it as they are at a great age and they love festivals so it was super for them. The bar of cool dad has gone up, they are slagging him less now.
And how are Emelia and Romy?
Emelia was on Erasmus in Chicago for six months so she was away until the end of June. She is going into third year of drama in TU Dublin and Romy is going into sixth year. I have an 18th and 21st in the next few weeks. Romy loves music and is great at drama and because her parents are a presenter and a musician we are happy to encourage the creative in both of them. Saying that, Romy is hoping to go to college to do law or forensic science so she has something to fall back on. That could also be because her parents are creatives so she has seen the highs and lows.
You were on The Today Show on RTE quite a bit last year. Would you like to do more presenting?
I love it and they are such a great team. I would like to go back to presenting full time now as I have the time. I love presenting live on The Today Show , whether I am a contributor or a sub-presenter covering for Maura or Sinead, I got my buzz back and I really enjoy it. It is where I feel most comfortable. I’ve had the most amazing opportunities since taking that time out of presenting to be with the girls. I got to write a book, star in a musical, work with the wonderful brands, set up Fashion Relief, and also go out with my tour Let’s Talk Hormone Health. To be honest, the proudest stuff I have done would be the menopause and Fashion Relief.
Fashion Relief has been a phenomenal success…
We changed the benefactor to Breast Cancer Ireland a year ago and in that time we have raised over quarter of a million euro for Breast Cancer Ireland. It is phenomenal. That is because of the support from the women who donate. I need women to donate in order to have pieces to sell. Also, the designers that give samples and the boutiques and wholesalers all over the country. The pieces we can’t sell, we send them to a recycling company, they get weighed and the money we make from that goes to the LauraLynn Children’s Hospice. So nothing is wasted. Every cent we take in goes to Irish charities. The shop is in the Frascati Centre in Blackrock.
Finally, we are loving your tan — Decadence by Lorraine
It is doing so well. It smells divine and is so easy to apply and, more importantly, take off. I am so happy with it.
Interview by Jane Lundon
Photographer: Kieran Harnett
Location: Lorraine’s home in Monkstown
Hair: Sarah Nugent, Peter Mark
Make-up: Jade Mullett @jademullettmua
Tan: Lorraine is wearing her gradual tan, Decadence by Lorraine Keane, available on BeautyEdit.com
All looks from Lorraine’s Fashion Relief shop in aid of Breast Cancer Ireland at the Frascati Centre, Blackrock.
This interview first appeared in the October 2024 issue of RSVP Magazine.
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