It’s no secret that women’s health has not been a priority for the medical community in the U.S. and Halle Berry is living proof that perimenopause isn’t often the first diagnosis during a gynecologist’s visit. The 57-year-old actress revealed just how far off the mark her doctor was when she came into his office with an issue after a spicy night with her boyfriend, Van Hunt.
The jaw-dropping story was told on Monday in Los Angeles at the A Day of Unreasonable Conversation event with a frank conversation between Berry and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden entitled “To Write New Stories About Women’s Health.” After a night of “great sex” with Hunt, Berry, who was 54 at the time, woke up feeling like she had “razor blades in my vagina.” She immediately went to her gynecologist, who delivered some bad news to her.
She recalled, “He looks up there, and he says, ‘Well, you have a new guy, right? I said, “Yeah, I do. I’m really excited. He said, ‘You messed up again.'” That was the last thing Berry wanted to hear because she was head-over-heels in love with her man, but that’s when her doctor delivered the wrong diagnosis.
“He said, ‘You have the worst case of herpes I’ve ever seen,'” she continued. ‘I’m going to run the test, but I’m going to tell you, I think this looks like the worst case.'” Of course, Hunt was waiting downstairs for her in the “minivan” where she confronted him about his sexual health history.
“So clearly you have herpes,” she told Hunt. “He said, ‘I don’t have herpes.’ I said, ‘No, you do have herpes.’ He goes, ‘Well, maybe I have herpes, but I don’t know I have herpes.’ I said, ‘Well, now you know you have herpes because I have herpes. You gave it to me.'” It was probably a shocking conversation for their new relationship, and even Dr. Biden had an astonished look on her face, but the truth is that Berry was sadly misdiagnosed. After doing further testing, it turned out that neither Berry nor Hunt had herpes.
“I realized, after the fact, that [the sexual pain] was a symptom of perimenopause. Because why? When we get to the stage, we have dry eyes, dry mouth, dry vagina,” Berry acknowledged. “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.” Berry’s confession is just one story about the knowledge gap when it comes to perimenopause and menopause with its wide array of symptoms — no one experiences this season of life the same way.
High-profile women are finally sharing their experiences publicly, and President Joe Biden’s recent executive order to advance women’s health research with $12 billion in funding will make a huge impact. It’s long overdue, but women shouldn’t be sent spiraling down a misdiagnosis path that not only impacts their physical health but also their mental health.