Meera Mehat was 49 years old when her life began to fall apart. At first, she started forgetting words during presentations at work, which she attributed to stress. However, the situation escalated to the moment when, when introducing her three sons, she forgot their names, explains. “It was terrifying. I stopped going out because I couldn’t hold a conversation,” she recalls.
The fear of the early onset of dementia drove her to the doctors. She underwent a brain scan and a series of tests, but the results were fine. The doctors reassured her that these were normal signs of aging. But Meera felt worse and worse. “Eventually, I stopped working. It was too strenuous to even think. I became helpless,” she describes.
Her situation also affected her family life. Meera forgot about her son’s birthday, she didn’t prepare a party or presents. She couldn’t cook the recipes at home that she had been making for years. She even addressed her sons by the dog’s name once. “You learn to keep quiet and mask it. You ask people questions to fill the silence, just so they don’t notice you’re not okay,” she admits.
When another clean MRI result came in 2021, instead of relief, she felt horror. “That scared me even more. I was thinking. Am I having dementia? Am I hallucinating? Am I losing my mind?’ describes Meera. The uncertainty and the feeling that no one was listening to her brought her to tears.
The turning point came only after seven years of suffering, when she visited a private specialist. Ten pronounced a diagnosis that no one had mentioned before – severe menopausal symptoms. Meera she was given a special sugar and gluten free diet, hormone supplements, magnesium and a strict exercise and meditation plan.
The results came surprisingly quickly. “After three months, I felt like a completely different person,” she says. It took seven years for someone to link her cognitive decline to hormonal changes, although by then she had undergone endless tests that ignored the effects of menopause on the brain.
Today, Meera is back to normal life and is no longer afraid to meet people. She turned her experience into helping others and developed an award-winning app. “Education is improving, but it’s still unclear around menopause. But studies are confirming that brain fog is real and overwhelming,” she explains.
