Halle Berry has opened up about how she was once misdiagnosed with one of the 'worst cases' of herpes medics had seen, and how this affected her relationship with boyfriend Van Hunt.
Now, we all know that research and knowledge about women's health is nowhere near as good as it should be but a doctor misdiagnosing perimenopause for an STI takes it to a whole new level.
The 58-year-old Catwoman star opened up about the traumatic experience on The Drew Barrymore Show after meeting the love of her life during her mid 50s.
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During the show, Berry - who has become an impressive menopause awareness advocate over the past few years - revealed a doctor once misdiagnosed her perimenopause for an STI, with him branding it a 'really bad case of herpes', and just how much it impacted her sex life.
The Hollywood A-lister met Hunt back in 2020 and said there were 'six or seven months' where having sex felt like 'razor blades'.
"When I was 54 years old, I had just met Van," she recalled. "I manifested this man and we were having the best time. I finally met my person and it was amazing."
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However, Berry 'tried to go to the bathroom' one morning and felt excruciating pain, explaining: "I couldn’t go. It was so painful … it took me almost 10 minutes to just empty my bladder because it was so painful.
"And substances were down there that I had never seen before and I thought, 'What is this?'"
Knowing something was up, Berry asked Hunt to drive her 'right to the doctor' because her nether region was 'so swollen'.
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"And he is doing the exam and looking up there and he said, 'Yep, uh huh I think I know what this is,' and I’m like, 'What?!' and he said, 'It’s a really bad case of herpes'," the actress continued.
Berry said she and Hunt 'spent the next 72 hours doing the blame game', both unsure of which of them somehow contracted the sexually transmitted disease.
However, in the midst of the couple's back-and-forth, her doctor called to say he had been wrong.
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Berry recalled: "He said, 'You do not have herpes'.
"And I was like, 'OK then, what is it?' And this was the defining moment for me, he said, 'I don’t know, that’s what it looked like'."
She added that the traumatic experience pushed her to do her 'own researching' into her symptoms, sharing: "And that’s when I came up with Dry Vagina Syndrome, that women have when they are in perimenopause.
"And I had all the symptoms of what that felt like."
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If you have been affected by the contents of this article, please find more information and support via Menopause Matters on their website, or email [email protected].
Topics: Halle Berry, Celebrity, Sex and Relationships, Drew Barrymore, Health
Rhiannon Ingle