<
https://thesicktimes.org/2026/07/10/stop-telling-women-their-long-covid-is-menopause/>
"“Are you sure it’s not the menopause?”
I don’t know if my friend noticed my eyes glaze over as she stared at me across
the lunch table, one eyebrow raised in a quizzical fashion. It was a question I
was bored of hearing — and one that, if landing on a difficult day of symptoms,
made it hard for me to keep my irritation in check.
I contracted COVID-19 in October 2022. I tested positive for two weeks, but my
symptoms ran the full gamut until March 2023: a constant headache, aching
joints, racing heart, cognitive dysfunction, and extreme fatigue. “Like someone
had flicked your off switch,” a colleague remarked, after seeing me go into a
leaden slumber within seconds of sitting.
Now, three years later, I still experience unbearable symptoms and exhaustion
that no amount of rest or sleep seems to cure.
Along with the pain and frustration of feeling so utterly wrung out, there’s
the added strain of trying to explain to people why I feel like this. And then
batting off their unqualified — and unwanted — take on why I feel like this,
because when you are a woman of 52, no one wants to acknowledge Long COVID.
Friends, workmates, and medical professionals alike almost always conclude that
I’m in fact in the throes of menopause, and that every symptom is “textbook
change of life.”
In some respects, I can understand it when women immediately default to the
menopause argument. In the past few years, menopause has become big business,
with women bombarded with information, products, and endless magazine articles
about it on a daily basis. Menopause is the latest wagon to which every midlife
malaise is now hitched, and is a marketer’s dream.
While women should be talking about it — and I am not denying I am of the age
for that conversation — we should recognize that there are
other things
affecting women in midlife, too. An estimated over 400 million people are
affected by Long COVID worldwide, with a 2025 RECOVER study finding women aged
40–55 were the highest-risk group compared to other ages and genders.
Yet despite these figures, skepticism and disbelief still prevails. Women with
Long COVID not only endure a lack of support from friends and family, but from
health professionals dismissing their symptoms and even denying Long COVID’s
existence, too."
Via Violet Blue’s
Threat Model - Pandemic Roundup: July 16, 2026
https://www.patreon.com/violetblue/posts/pandemic-roundup-163958948
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
