Menopause kicked my aaaaaaasssssss- I didn’t even include a bunch of extra medical stories because there wasn’t space, like how I got not one but two spinal taps because one doctor thought my menopause symptoms were Multiple Sclerosis acting up. I had menopause so bad that I got two spinal taps. Even now that I’m getting estrogen through HRT, my body chemistry keeps recalculating itself so I have, like, menopause-relapses of day-wrecking fatigue and my “warm flushes”. Believe me, I have plenty more to say about my experience ‘Pausin’- in fact, here is a comic-in-progress I’ve been making on my Patreon with my fellow cartoonist (peri)menopauser, Karine Charlebois: Taking a (meno)Pause with Karine and Erika.
Learn More About The Pause:
- Perimenopause – The lead-up to menopause, it can start between 30-50 years old.
- Menopause – The Change, it can start between 45-55 years old.
- Postmenopause – 12 months without a period.
- Treatments for menopause – You don’t have to rawdog menopause like I did!! There’s help!!!
Here’s hoping you all have a great start to 2026! Ring in the new year by joining us for free on Patreon for our monthly newsletter and (for pay) bonus content!
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↓ Comic Transcript
Erika Moen draws in a round, cartoony style with crisp lines. Her color palette is composed of yellows, oranges, black, and white.
Page 1
The comic begins very open and airy, with lots of free space around the joyful art.
Narration: Throughout my 20s-early 30s I was a working artist, a daily bike commuter, an intermediate pole dancer, and had the sexual appetite of a hungry bear- which was fitting since I was also a professional sex toy reviewer in addition to researching and drawing comics about sex full time.
Erika cruises by carefree on her bike. She is a tattooed white cis woman in her 30s wearing a black tank top and orange booty shorts with black Doc Martens boots. A curving dotted line illustrates her bike's path, which swoops by icons of comic pages, a pole dancer on a pole, a big roaring grizzly bear that calls out for sexy-times hearts, sex toys, an open book full of hearts, and then more floating hearts.
Reclining backwards on her bike lackadaisically, she confidently asserts, "This is the good life."
Narration: But then, in my mid-to-late-30s, something changed.
Erika's bike comes to an abrupt stop, throwing her over the handlebars.
Narration: I got weaker and weaker.
After bouncing a few times on the ground, she comes to a complete stop face-down and limp.
Narration: At times I couldn't even support my weight.
The much smaller panel turns solid black, with Erika looking sickly, asleep on the couch.
Narration: I was SO tired- not like any kind of tired I'd ever experienced before. A deep-in-my-bones tired. I would sleep all day long, and if you tried to wake me up I wasn't functional.
The panel is engulfed in flames.
Narration: And the vaginal infections.
Page 2
Still solid black, the panel stretches wide with a tiny Erika on her couch small in the far right corner.
Narration: I couldn't make it through a full pole dance class. I couldn't ride my bike. My libido evaporated. I could barely work. My world got very small.
In a doctor's office, Erika sits on an exam table in a medical robe that is open in the back, revealing her butt crack. Matt stands next to her, with his arm around her shoulders.
Narration: Matt took me to a ton of doctors- three gynecologists, an endocrinologist, and even a neurologist- but I wasn't getting better.
"Maybe you're depressed?" Shrugs a doctor helplessly.
Narration: Finally, at 41, for the first time a gyno actually looked at my estrogen levels.
A different doctor gestures at a uterus diagram, pointing with a wand at an ovary. "So, uh, your FSH* is off the charts and your estrogen count is zero." She says.
*Follicle-Stimulating Hormone, produced by the ovaries. High FSH means your body is starving for estrogen.
"Congratulations," the doctor continues. "you're POSTmenopausal."
"MENOPAUSE?!" Erika exclaims in shock. "B-but I'm too young???"
"It's true, most people naturally begin menopause in their late 40s to early 50s." Admits the doctor, looking at Erika quizzically.
Page 3
Stepping outside of reality, the doctor gestures at an enormous floating uterus with anthropomorphic ovaries. The left one is round and happy, emanating Estrogen and Progesterone off of it. The one on the right, however, is shriveled up and looks sickly, with flies buzzing around it while it spits out a single egg with a "phoo."
"That's when the ovaries shrink and gradually stop producing estrogen and most of their progesterone." The doctor explains. "Periods become irregular before stopping entirely, typically around the average age of 52."
Back in her office, she leans over to nudge Erika playfully saying, "Getting yours more than a decade early, you're something like 1 in 100- You should go buy yourself a lotto ticket!"
Erika and Matt look stunned, not especially appreciating her joke.
"I remember my mom and other middle-aged women in my life going through menopause..." Erika reminisces. "The hot flashes, the mood swings, the night sweats..." She pictures icons representing each of those states: A fire ball, a smiley face turning into an angry face and then back again, and sweat drops splattering. "I haven't had anything like that!" She concludes.
"Dude, you get hot flashes!" Matt observes helpfully.
"They're, like, warm flushes, they're nothing like what I've seen others go through!" She counters, remembering her mom in the 90s frantically fanning herself and tugging at the neckline of her shirt while driving in a car, with a young-teenage Erika in the passenger seat looking startled. "I'm not pulling off my clothes and rolling down the car window in a panic on the freeway."
"Other typical symptoms include:" The doctor says, gesturing at a list with check boxes next to each title. Some of them are written in bold and have a red checkmark in their box. The list reads: Irregular periods (check!), Night sweats, Hot flashes (check!), sleep problems, Mood changes (check!), Breast tenderness, Brain fog (check!), Headache (check!), Depression (check!), Leaking pee, Fatigue (check!), Weak bones, Increased risk of UTIs (check!), Vaginal dryness.
Inspecting the list, Erika reads aloud, "Brain fog, fatigue, UTIs..."
Page 4
"My period has been irregular for a while, that's nothing new..." Erika muses, deep in thought. "But vaginal dryness?? I don't think I-"
"We HAVE been going through lube way more than we used to..." Matt cuts in, delicately.
He shrugs apologetically as Erika looks horrified at him.
Narration: And that's how I got on the estrogen patch.*
A giant soft-edge rectangular patch floats in the air, radiating estrogen from it.
Narration: *With supplemental progesterone from my Mirena IUD to keep it all balanced.
Narration: Within the first week, my symptoms already started improving.
A chart measures Erika's Quality of Life over Time, with an arrow rising dramatically upwards.
Narration: I began sleeping less during the day, had more strength for moving again, and my foggy-brained days came fewer and farther between.
"It's been about a year now and, after dialing in my dosage, I'm basically back to my pre-menopause normal." Erika announces cheerfully, once again riding on her bike.
Narration: I'm working steadily and commuting by bike again.
The background shows a pole dance pole standing alone with a giant cobweb suspended off of it and connecting to the ceiling and narration.
Narration: While I haven't picked pole dancing back up because it was hard on my delicate artist's wrists-
"- I am exercising regularly, which feels great." Erika concludes while pumping a small handheld weight. Pointing confidently at her temple, she asserts, "And my absent-mindedness is back to its normal levels!"
"Did you put my book in the fridge?" Matt demands far int he background, pulling a book out from the refrigerator.
Narration: The patch gave me my life back.
Erika looks up reverently at a small patch that floats and glows overhead.
Page 5
"...Well, it gave me most of my life back." She corrects herself, now sitting on top of a penis-shaped tombstone that reads "RIP ERIKA'S LIBIDO". She continues from her perch, "I'm not getting infections anymore (Hallelujah!), but my junk still doesn't feel great like it did in its fertile days and my desire to have sex at all feels like a bear deep in hibernation."
An alarm clock labeled "Sex O'clock" rings enthusiastically in front of a sleeping grizzly bear wearing a stalking cap who is deep in slumber.
"There's some different therapies I could try, but their effectiveness is anecdotal, so I dunno." She says, hopping off of the tombstone and walking over to her bike. "Honestly..." Erika looks a little concerned as she sweeps her leg over the seat and then pushes off, following a curving dotted line on the ground. "I'm kind of nervous."
The dotted line swings past the old Erika dead asleep on the couch, which the current Erika looks at with concern as she bikes past it.
"After suffering through so many miserable years because of my hormones, why mess with them again after I've finally gotten back on track? Is sex worth the risk?"
Waving to the reader with an expression of cautious optimism while she rides her bike towards the edge of the page, she finishes, "I'll let you know if I figure it out."
Transcribed by Erika Moen on January 4, 2026
Page 1
The comic begins very open and airy, with lots of free space around the joyful art.
Narration: Throughout my 20s-early 30s I was a working artist, a daily bike commuter, an intermediate pole dancer, and had the sexual appetite of a hungry bear- which was fitting since I was also a professional sex toy reviewer in addition to researching and drawing comics about sex full time.
Erika cruises by carefree on her bike. She is a tattooed white cis woman in her 30s wearing a black tank top and orange booty shorts with black Doc Martens boots. A curving dotted line illustrates her bike's path, which swoops by icons of comic pages, a pole dancer on a pole, a big roaring grizzly bear that calls out for sexy-times hearts, sex toys, an open book full of hearts, and then more floating hearts.
Reclining backwards on her bike lackadaisically, she confidently asserts, "This is the good life."
Narration: But then, in my mid-to-late-30s, something changed.
Erika's bike comes to an abrupt stop, throwing her over the handlebars.
Narration: I got weaker and weaker.
After bouncing a few times on the ground, she comes to a complete stop face-down and limp.
Narration: At times I couldn't even support my weight.
The much smaller panel turns solid black, with Erika looking sickly, asleep on the couch.
Narration: I was SO tired- not like any kind of tired I'd ever experienced before. A deep-in-my-bones tired. I would sleep all day long, and if you tried to wake me up I wasn't functional.
The panel is engulfed in flames.
Narration: And the vaginal infections.
Page 2
Still solid black, the panel stretches wide with a tiny Erika on her couch small in the far right corner.
Narration: I couldn't make it through a full pole dance class. I couldn't ride my bike. My libido evaporated. I could barely work. My world got very small.
In a doctor's office, Erika sits on an exam table in a medical robe that is open in the back, revealing her butt crack. Matt stands next to her, with his arm around her shoulders.
Narration: Matt took me to a ton of doctors- three gynecologists, an endocrinologist, and even a neurologist- but I wasn't getting better.
"Maybe you're depressed?" Shrugs a doctor helplessly.
Narration: Finally, at 41, for the first time a gyno actually looked at my estrogen levels.
A different doctor gestures at a uterus diagram, pointing with a wand at an ovary. "So, uh, your FSH* is off the charts and your estrogen count is zero." She says.
*Follicle-Stimulating Hormone, produced by the ovaries. High FSH means your body is starving for estrogen.
"Congratulations," the doctor continues. "you're POSTmenopausal."
"MENOPAUSE?!" Erika exclaims in shock. "B-but I'm too young???"
"It's true, most people naturally begin menopause in their late 40s to early 50s." Admits the doctor, looking at Erika quizzically.
Page 3
Stepping outside of reality, the doctor gestures at an enormous floating uterus with anthropomorphic ovaries. The left one is round and happy, emanating Estrogen and Progesterone off of it. The one on the right, however, is shriveled up and looks sickly, with flies buzzing around it while it spits out a single egg with a "phoo."
"That's when the ovaries shrink and gradually stop producing estrogen and most of their progesterone." The doctor explains. "Periods become irregular before stopping entirely, typically around the average age of 52."
Back in her office, she leans over to nudge Erika playfully saying, "Getting yours more than a decade early, you're something like 1 in 100- You should go buy yourself a lotto ticket!"
Erika and Matt look stunned, not especially appreciating her joke.
"I remember my mom and other middle-aged women in my life going through menopause..." Erika reminisces. "The hot flashes, the mood swings, the night sweats..." She pictures icons representing each of those states: A fire ball, a smiley face turning into an angry face and then back again, and sweat drops splattering. "I haven't had anything like that!" She concludes.
"Dude, you get hot flashes!" Matt observes helpfully.
"They're, like, warm flushes, they're nothing like what I've seen others go through!" She counters, remembering her mom in the 90s frantically fanning herself and tugging at the neckline of her shirt while driving in a car, with a young-teenage Erika in the passenger seat looking startled. "I'm not pulling off my clothes and rolling down the car window in a panic on the freeway."
"Other typical symptoms include:" The doctor says, gesturing at a list with check boxes next to each title. Some of them are written in bold and have a red checkmark in their box. The list reads: Irregular periods (check!), Night sweats, Hot flashes (check!), sleep problems, Mood changes (check!), Breast tenderness, Brain fog (check!), Headache (check!), Depression (check!), Leaking pee, Fatigue (check!), Weak bones, Increased risk of UTIs (check!), Vaginal dryness.
Inspecting the list, Erika reads aloud, "Brain fog, fatigue, UTIs..."
Page 4
"My period has been irregular for a while, that's nothing new..." Erika muses, deep in thought. "But vaginal dryness?? I don't think I-"
"We HAVE been going through lube way more than we used to..." Matt cuts in, delicately.
He shrugs apologetically as Erika looks horrified at him.
Narration: And that's how I got on the estrogen patch.*
A giant soft-edge rectangular patch floats in the air, radiating estrogen from it.
Narration: *With supplemental progesterone from my Mirena IUD to keep it all balanced.
Narration: Within the first week, my symptoms already started improving.
A chart measures Erika's Quality of Life over Time, with an arrow rising dramatically upwards.
Narration: I began sleeping less during the day, had more strength for moving again, and my foggy-brained days came fewer and farther between.
"It's been about a year now and, after dialing in my dosage, I'm basically back to my pre-menopause normal." Erika announces cheerfully, once again riding on her bike.
Narration: I'm working steadily and commuting by bike again.
The background shows a pole dance pole standing alone with a giant cobweb suspended off of it and connecting to the ceiling and narration.
Narration: While I haven't picked pole dancing back up because it was hard on my delicate artist's wrists-
"- I am exercising regularly, which feels great." Erika concludes while pumping a small handheld weight. Pointing confidently at her temple, she asserts, "And my absent-mindedness is back to its normal levels!"
"Did you put my book in the fridge?" Matt demands far int he background, pulling a book out from the refrigerator.
Narration: The patch gave me my life back.
Erika looks up reverently at a small patch that floats and glows overhead.
Page 5
"...Well, it gave me most of my life back." She corrects herself, now sitting on top of a penis-shaped tombstone that reads "RIP ERIKA'S LIBIDO". She continues from her perch, "I'm not getting infections anymore (Hallelujah!), but my junk still doesn't feel great like it did in its fertile days and my desire to have sex at all feels like a bear deep in hibernation."
An alarm clock labeled "Sex O'clock" rings enthusiastically in front of a sleeping grizzly bear wearing a stalking cap who is deep in slumber.
"There's some different therapies I could try, but their effectiveness is anecdotal, so I dunno." She says, hopping off of the tombstone and walking over to her bike. "Honestly..." Erika looks a little concerned as she sweeps her leg over the seat and then pushes off, following a curving dotted line on the ground. "I'm kind of nervous."
The dotted line swings past the old Erika dead asleep on the couch, which the current Erika looks at with concern as she bikes past it.
"After suffering through so many miserable years because of my hormones, why mess with them again after I've finally gotten back on track? Is sex worth the risk?"
Waving to the reader with an expression of cautious optimism while she rides her bike towards the edge of the page, she finishes, "I'll let you know if I figure it out."
Transcribed by Erika Moen on January 4, 2026