‘GH’ Star Laura Wright Talks Menopause, Misdiagnosis and Becoming Her Own Advocate (EXCLUSIVE)
How the soap opera vet put a stop to hot flash panic attacks, brain fog and weight gain
General Hospital star Laura Wright is known for being a powerhouse, but only a year ago, the Daytime Emmy-winner and soap opera beauty who plays Carly was suffering through hot flashes and panic attacks, forgetting her lines, and packing on extra pounds. Here, Wright gets candid with Woman’s World about her challenging personal journey with perimenopause and menopause and shares the final straw that pushed her to become her own advocate.
Last month, Wright, 54, opened up about growing up alongside Carly on General Hospital and we must confess, we left this part out of the story—but only so we could give the M-word the attention it deserves.
Laura Wright reveals her menopause symptoms were ‘truly debilitating’
Society has gotten more open about discussing perimenopause and menopause, but Laura Wright admits that when she felt like she was falling apart, physically and emotionally; she had no idea what was happening to her.
“I remember doing a scene with Maura West (who plays Ava on General Hospital) about a year and a half ago and I kept going up—and I don’t go up,” says the actress, using an insider term that means she forgot her line. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, so it takes a lot for me to mess up and not remember a line 10 times in a row!”
Wright has been bringing the drama to daytime since joining Loving in 1991. The leading lady also stirred things up on The City and Guiding Light before joining General Hospital in 2005 and winning her Daytime Emmy in 2011—but she suddenly found herself completely off her game.
“It was truly debilitating,” Wright says. “I did not just have hot flashes. There was no sleep, being woken up every hour, on the hour with a hot flash that came with a severe anxiety attack attached. At work, I’d have to keep walking offset, thinking I was going to start crying. I had panic attacks and if you asked me what I was afraid of, it was not in my mind. It was all physical.”
Laura Wright on menopausal weight gain and what finally ‘changed my life’
Beyond how Wright felt, emotionally, the active soap star started gaining weight and saw her cholesterol levels go up.
“I’m someone that plays pickleball four days a week,” Wright says. “I’m in the gym and I weight train. I walk my dog at least 3 miles a day. And no one has a cleaner diet than me. When my kids come to visit me, they’re like, ‘Where’s the junk food?’ I’m a veggie and egg whites girl, all day long. I love a protein shake with berries! So it was like, ‘Where is this coming from?’”
The situation finally came to a head last January when Wright had a week off from work.
“I was getting up to make my bed and go to the gym, and had such an anxiety attack hit me that I didn’t leave room for two days,” she shares. “That’s when I got myself to a menopause specialist, and it changed my life. It took almost a full year, and I’m finally balanced.”
Laura Wright’s undiagnosed perimenopause led to two unnecessary surgeries
As Wright began to learn more about what was going on in her body, she was horrified to be informed she’d been misdiagnosed and mistreated.
“I’d had severe hemorrhaging and problems,” Wright explains, “and because my gynecologist wasn’t specialized in menopause and mid-life care, I was given the exact same surgery two years in a row, in 2020 and 2021, when it was actually a hormonal problem. I was in perimenopause!”
Even more surprising, her history revealed she’d been suffering from undiagnosed perimenopause symptoms since giving birth—and for perspective, her youngest, John, is 24.
“We need way more testing, schooling and education around this,” she says. “Your OB-GYN has had maybe a month of menopause training, because they specialized in being able to bring a baby in the world. They’re incredible, quite frankly, but no one’s bypassing the menopause stage, so to not honor it and treat it as something that is a huge deal is a disservice to all women.”
Laura Wrights talks the silent danger of perimenopause and menopause
While some women start seeing perimenopause symptoms as early as 30, others somehow escape the hot flashes, weight gain and other outward signs of the body’s change.
“It’s such a crazy thing, because every woman will go through it, but we all go through it differently,” Wright marvels. “One out of 20 women in perimenopause will lose a tooth, because it changes your bone structure in your mouth. It changes our brains. Cholesterol goes up, like mine did.
“With the studies coming out now, doctors and scientists should be ashamed, quite frankly, that they never took this seriously,” she grumbles. “100 years ago, women weren’t living that long—but today, we’re thriving! The entire med school curriculum on women’s reproductive health needs to be rewritten.”
Laura Wright just wanted to escape from her menopause symptoms
As anyone who’s had similar symptoms can imagine, Wright’s journey hasn’t been easy.
“When it first started for me,” she admits, “I looked at (boyfriend and former General Hospital costar) Wes Ramsey and was like, ‘I can see why women in the ‘50s and ‘60s and earlier generations became alcoholics at this point, because you just want to drink and escape from how horrible you feel!’
“But if you are suffering, you have to be your own advocate to keep going,” Wright adds. “And quite frankly, if your doctor doesn’t get it, find a new doctor that listens to you, believes you, and doesn’t just want to stick you on an antidepressant. Those are a great tool for some women with menopause, but there’s tons of different options out there—from hormone replacement therapy and drugs that help with menopause, hot flashes and weight gain that don’t go down the hormone path to diet, exercise, meditation techniques and breathing.”
Laura Wright gets candid about hormone replacement therapy (HRT)
While Wright is unable to take estrogen directly due to being estrogen-dominant, she’s found relief via hormone replacement therapy.
“You give some women an estrogen patch and a bit of progesterone, and it changes their life, but mine was a different dance,” she says. “I take testosterone and progesterone. Testosterone converts to estrogen in the body, and it gives me enough estrogen to calm my hot flashes. I’m actually sleeping! It’s also a mood enhancer. It makes you happy, gives you energy. For women who are going through menopause and lose their libido, it also helps. You’re not going to be flying around like a 20-year-old, but it’s enough to have energy and brain function.”
The actress is not suggesting that all women should go on testosterone, or that she has all the answers.
As a lifelong learner, however, Wright urges women to not only find a mid-life medical specialist, but to also follow Tamsen Fadal. This one-time New York City news anchor put her investigative skills to work when menopause stopped her in her tracks. Fadal co-produced the PBS documentary The M Factor: Shedding the Silence on Menopause and her book How to Menopause is set to hit stand in March, with preorders available.
Laura Wright is embracing life after ‘the change’
While Wright has had a challenging journey and wishes the medical system was better equipped to help women get through perimenopause and menopause, the General Hospital vet has embraced her body and the changes she’s survived.
“How you live your life before menopause is not how you can live it after or during if you want to thrive,” Wright says. “It’s a huge shift in lifestyle. I even told my daughter, who’s a young woman (26), ‘Get your menopause plan in place—because it’s so severe of a smack in the face, you’re going to want someone to talk to.’”
Last year, when a hot flash sent her into a panic at General Hospital, Carly’s portrayer would run off set to hide. Today, Wright, who has always been an open book, is done hiding what she’s going through.
“Now, everyone on set knows, because I’m like, ‘Hot flash coming! Take this coat off me right now!’” Wrights shares. “We were taught to make fun of menopause, laugh at it, be afraid of it, shame it. No one has taught us to embrace it, but I find my life is far greater now, deep into what I’ve learned about myself in these years.”
This interview was done before the wildfires started raging through Southern California. Woman’s World continues to send out its best to everyone affected.
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