Oprah opens up about her experience with menopause: 'I thought I was going to die'

TV’s favourite talk show host Oprah Winfrey has opened up about the terrifying symptoms she experienced throughout menopause, including heart palpitations so strong she “thought she was going to die”.

Speaking to friend Maria Shriver on Paramount Plus’ The Checkup With Dr David Agus, Winfrey, 68, revealed that while she didn’t have hot flushes like many other women, the heart palpitations left her fearing for her life, reports the Daily Mail.

She said she was often awake at night wondering if she would make it to the next day.

“I have journals filled with: ‘I don’t know if I’ll make it until the morning,’” she shared. “I thought I was going to die every night.

“I was perimenopausal, like in my late 40s, and having heart palpitations.

“Going to every doctor possible trying to figure out what is it, what is it, what is it,” she recalled.

The TV host went to five different doctors in search of treatment and was given heart medication and an angiogram but “nobody ever once suggested that it could be menopause”.

Winfrey added that she had never had someone in her life to talk about menopause with, including her mum.

“I couldn’t get my mother to talk about it. I was just trying to find out what are the possibilities of me having hot flashes or something,” she explained.

“My mother was a very, you know, shutdown person [and] I think she did not have symptoms that she recognized. I think if you don’t have hot flashes, which I didn’t have hot flashes, then you don’t understand the mood swings.”

Shriver then noted it was imporant to bring attention to the issue of menopause, as many don’t recognise the symptoms.

“I think women think that, ‘Oh menopause means the end of my period,’ but they don’t connect the dots of heart palpitations, anxiety, depression, listlessness, lack of concentration,” she said.

“They don’t understand that it’s actually happening first in the brain and that all of these emotions that they may be going through are physical changes they may be going through can be associated or attributed to perimenopause or menopause.”

During the chat, Winfrey pointed out the “beautiful trees” they were surrounded by in the interview setting, adding, “[They] literally get better with age. I think we all get better with age - the culture is set up to tell us, in our particular society, that it’s the wrong thing.”

Shriver added that women should reclaim menopause as “not something to fear, not something that makes you crazy”.

“There’s that whole thing out there in the zeitgeist [that] women who are in menopause are crazy, and then women are crazy in general.

“The stigma will go away if women feel empowered and feel like there’s not something wrong with them if they talk about these issues they’re going through.”

“Especially for black women,” Winfrey said.

“We have been known for bearing a lot and being the strong ones and keep moving no matter what.”

This article was first published by the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.