At the tender age of 71- I realise now how important hormones are to the body, whether you are male or female, we all need oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone.

Hormones are chemical messengers made by glands in the body. They are important and travel through the blood to tell your organs and tissues what to do, they also support bones, brain and the heart.

It is not until they decide to desert the ship, so to speak, that the body wakes up wondering what in tarnation is going on. Changing hormone levels in a woman can lead to shifts in mood, low energy, bloating and brain fog to mention just a few. Everybody is different; every person needs something diverse from these internal couriers.

Look away now if you are a squeamish male who finds female ‘talk’ embarrassing. I now have the pleasure of vaginal atrophy, which I’m assured is more common than you think. A delightful mixture of skin ripping irritation, dessert dryness, leading to thinning tissue resulting in small fissures – yep you guessed it, all in the nether regions. Of course, my explanation for weight gain is not because I eat too much, it’s all down to those blasted critters called hormones. Although there can be other causes such as childbirth, stress and even allergy meds, which I admit to using daily. The whole process of aging is definitely an eye opener, and for those of a certain age, my advice – don’t get any older!

The late great Joan Rivers summed up this delightful process, when she exclaimed ‘my vagina is so dry camels follow me home’, my kinda woman!