*Halle Berry recently discussed her experience with being misdiagnosed with herpes during an appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show.” The 58-year-old actress also shared insights into her current journey through perimenopause, reflecting on the challenges she faced at 54 while starting her relationship with partner Van Hunt.
“One morning I tried to go to the bathroom and I couldn’t go, it was so painful. When I tried to let a little bit out, I couldn’t go. I had to squeeze it … It took me almost 10 minutes to just empty my bladder,” Berry said, TooFab reports.
The Oscar-winning actress had previously shared that she sought medical help because of vaginal dryness and pain during sex with her partner. Berry told Barrymore that she also noticed unfamiliar substances in the area. After an examination, a doctor mistakenly diagnosed her with an extreme case of herpes.
“I feel like I have razor blades in my vagina. I run to my gynecologist and I say, ‘Oh my God, what’s happening?’ It was terrible,” Berry recalled during the 2024 “A Day of Unreasonable Conversation” summit at the Getty Center, per The Hollywood Reporter. “He said, ‘You have the worst case of herpes I’ve ever seen.’ I’m like, ‘Herpes? I don’t have herpes!’”
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Berry confronted Hunt after the diagnosis, and they both tested negative for the STD. That’s when the Hollywood icon learned she was in perimenopause after her doctor mistook her symptoms for herpes.
“That’s when I came up with dry vagina syndrome that women have when they’re in perimenopause and I had all the symptoms of what that felt like. And I realized, ‘Oh I’m 54-years-old. I learned that perimenopause can start in your late 30s even and early 40s. I thought, ‘Clearly I’m 54, but at that point nobody had really had a serious conversation,” Berry shared on the talk show.
“I realized after the fact that is a symptom of perimenopause,” the mother of two said about the vaginal pain during last year’s summit.
“First of all, my ego told me that I was going to skip [perimenopause],” Berry told the audience. “I’m in great shape. I’m healthy. I managed to get myself off of insulin and manage my diabetes since I’m 20 years old. So that makes one think, oh, I can handle menopause. I’m going to skip that whole thing. I was so uneducated about it at that time.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, Perimenopause is “the time during which your body makes the natural transition to menopause, marking the end of the reproductive years.”
“My doctor had no knowledge and didn’t prepare me, that’s when I knew, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got to use my platform, I have to use all of who I am and I have to start making a change and a difference for other women,’” said Berry during a discussion about menopause at the Getty Center event.
READ MORE FROM EURWEB.COM: Halle Berry’s Doctor Mistook Perimenopause for ‘Worst Case of Herpes’
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