Halle Berry recalls the time she was misdiagnosed with what her doctor called the “worst case of Herpes” he had ever seen.
While having a conversation with First Lady Dr. Jill Biden for Propper Daley’s “A Day of Unreasonable Conversation” summit, Berry spoke about menopause and women’s health. During that conversation, she opened up about the time she learned that she was in perimenopause although her doctor thought it was Herpes.
“First of all, my ego told me that I was going to skip perimenopause,” Berry said. “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.”
She on to explain that after she met and started dating Grammy-winning musician Van Hunt, she began to have extreme pain during sexual intercourse and immediately went to her doctor. “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,” she said. “He said, ‘You have the worst case of herpes I’ve ever seen.’ I’m like, ‘Herpes? I don’t have herpes!’”
Berry confronted Hunt and they would later test negative for the STD. “I realized after the fact, that is a symptom of perimenopause.” She also noted that dryness was also a symptom of it. “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.”
She concluded by pushing for a change in the way that “culture views women at this stage of our life.”