Not the experience anyone should ever go through, Halle Berry revealed that a doctor misdiagnosed her in the worst way possible.
PEOPLE reports that while attending Propper Daley’s fourth A Day of Unreasonable Conversation, the Catwoman star spoke to First Lady Dr. Jill Biden about menopause and women’s health.
That was when she shared details about a horrifying visit with her doctor. She revealed she was perimenopause, but her physician mistook her symptoms for herpes.
“First of all, my ego told me that I was going to skip [perimenopause],” Halle Berry explained. “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.”
Berry went on to share details about meeting the “man of her dreams” when she was 54. She stated dating musician Van Hunt at that time.
As she spoke about her sex life, the 57-year-old actress said she began to experience extreme pain after intercourse one day. She decided to speak to her doctor about the pain.
“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, He said, ‘You have the worst case of herpes I’ve ever seen.’ I’m like, ‘Herpes? I don’t have herpes!’”
Although she immediately confronted Hunt about her diagnosis, they both ended up testing negative for the STD.
Halle Berry Realizes the Pain She Was Experience Was a Symptom of Perimenopause
After getting tested and getting a negative result for STDs, Halle Berry realized that what was experiencing was perimenopause.
Among the symptoms that she would experience with the condition was the symptom of dryness during the transitional period.
“My doctor had no knowledge and didn’t prepare me,” Berry continued to say about the experience. “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.”
Halle Berry went on to add that she felt her story could help other women experiencing the same symptoms. She ended the conversation by advising the audience to help change the way culture views women at the later stages of life.