Dr Craven Women’s Health

20/04/2026

It was such a pleasure in March to be invited to deliver two workshops about women’s health and menopause for staff and managers at Supalite. I was very impressed by the enthusiasm of the team and the commitment of the company to staff welfare in a relaxed atmosphere. We had some great conversations.

Chloe Wynter-Smith from Supalite who co-ordinated the day said: “We were delighted to mark International Women’s Day by providing these informative sessions for our staff. Dr Craven was so knowledgeable and approachable and the team are still buzzing from what we learnt and shared together.”

Supalite, based in Bamber Bridge, Preston, are providers of high-performance tiled roof systems for conservatories.
Supalite

26/03/2026

On 18 March I provided a lively workshop for the staff of St Catherine's Hospice on the subject of women's health and navigating menopause.
From an evaluation 100% rated the session as positive, 85% as excellent.
Comments by staff included:
"Excellent presentation from a very knowledgeable GP. Very inspiring, I learnt a lot at age 58!"
"Fantastic! Will Most Definitely recommend to others. Your passion is just amazing. Thank you so much."
"Just brilliant. So informative and nice to know I’m not alone"
"Wow! I think I will want to change to your practice! Thank you"
"As a man it was really valuable to get a small understanding of what women go through over a long period of time."
It felt good to be able to support colleagues who work with patients and their families at the very vulnerable part of life doing amazing job❤️.

24/03/2026

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/well-enough/perimenopause-symptoms-age-cherry-healey-b2941093.html?ap=1&fbclid=IwRlRTSAQv3wZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEe274hdhxGsAAkP-B7W5P1lBXyIn4V3NFSn2yH_K2BE-SFBlCh--aCJ6Lc6dk_aem_RBdvzfJgZiIerAq51xHhTA

TV presenter Cherry Healey has had an unexpected perimenopause journey. At age 40, she was hit with debilitating anxiety and heart palpitations, which led her to nearly seek antidepressants before discovering her symptoms were hormonal. In this episode of Well Enough, Cherry discusses the misdiagnos...

20/03/2026

On 4 March I ran a lively women’s health workshop focused on menopause and perimenopause for staff at Cutting Edge. Cutting Edge is a Buckshaw Village based company providing support and technical innovation for the food industry.

From the evaluation responses 100% of participants rated the session positively, 85% as Excellent.

Comments included:
- Useful knowing how early perimenopause can happen. I never realised it was mid 30s in some cases
- Very informative, very engaging information, was easy to digest! Thank you! 😊

Rowan O’Neill, HR Administrator from Cutting Edge said:
“The Wellness Team at Cutting Edge Services have been committed to raising knowledge and awareness around various wellbeing topics for a couple of years now. In March this year, to go hand in hand with International Women’s Day, we decided to focus on the topic of Menopause and were recommended Dr Craven’s workshop. Our colleagues found this extremely helpful and everyone came away feeling supported, with a greater understanding of the subject and more equipped to take control of their own health journeys.”

Contact us via the Dr Craven Women’s Health website if you would like a workshop like this for your staff.

08/03/2026

Happy International Women Day to all of us who live this life as women!
As much as it can be tricky multi-tasking path it is also extremely satisfying and full of wonder.
The problem is that when life gets busy its hard to see it.
I wish all of us a lot of self-compassion, appreciation from within and confidence in the fact that we all wonderful beings.
In keeping with the theme of we are stronger when we work together, support and learn from each other and embrace differences.
I love being involved in spreading women health education to diverse groups of women and I feel I learn so much during these sessions too!
I am truly grateful that I can walk this path ❤️

26/02/2026

Yesterday I took part in the event focusing on improving care for women affected by vaginitis invited to the roundtable expert discussion by Health Service Journal for the article they will publish soon .
It is such a common problem affecting women and girls during lifecourse yet we still dont have uniform approach to care and prevention and it greatly varies from area to area .
Vulvo -vaginal local oestrogen treatments help to maintain healthy acidity and the v***a which in turn promotes healthy vaginal microbiome and increases resilience to infections including urine infections .Despite excellent safety of these preparations and obvious benefits as well as availability of over the counter products like Gina they are still hugely underused .

30/01/2026

30/01/2026

It was a pleasure to chat all things perimenopause with Nish and Kerry this week .Spreading awareness and hopefully helping to make steps to improve health and wellbeing at this tricky time of life

Listen out now on BBC Radio Lancashire for Dr Craven and our patient Kerry talking about perimenopause. Or find later on BBC Sounds

10/01/2026

Join me at Best Practice London & Women's Health Professional Care 2026, taking place 25-26 February at Olympia London!

Find out more 👇

I've registered for this event, join me 25-26 February 2026 at Olympia London

19/12/2025

It was a pleasure to support this community project where Kay Johnson lead a course for women from different communities who came forward to complete the course for Women Health Community Champions .
The ladies who completed it gained and solidified the basic knowledge on health and welbeing ,nutrition ,exercise and how to run their own community groups so the information is spread to women who are less likely to reach out for help in the usual way and encourage them to do so .They were very creative in approach and already delivered sessions like ‘Mummy Power ‘,Journaling ,Yoga amongst the themes .
We are looking for any community /charity funding for champions to run their groups and to run more courses like this as the benefits are great ❤️

26/11/2025

It can be quite confusing to know when the first signs of hormonal changes start to occur .
Subtle hormone changes symptoms are noticeable to most women during their monthly cycle .Bloating ,joint and muscle aches ,brain fog ,libido changes ,skin changes are more prominent in the 2 weeks before period starts ,some women get more severe symptoms like mood changes ,irritability,rage ,anxiety as part of premenstrual tension,some can even suffer premenstrual dysphoria disorder which can seriously affect functioning and well being and need a discussion with in professional for advice .
Over the years these hormone changes deepen and often become less regular and more unpredictable .This can happen in late 30s or 40s but sometimes even earlier .This period is called PERIMENOPAUSE and lasts till 1 year after last period when MENOPAUSE is reached .
The hormon level blood tests are not very useful in perimenopause as they change quickly ,even within hours .
It is important however to have general health check including blood tests for diabetes and cholesterol .

If periods stopped without any medication before age of 40 it is called PREMATURE OVARIAN INSUFFICIENCY and the management of this is slightly different
and very important to be done correctly as can have significant future health consequences.

When hormonal preparations are used it can be difficult to know when perimenopause finishes and menopause starts but principles of approach are similar .

Everyone goes through it in a very different way and therefore it needs addressing individually .
Below is a useful summary about this period in life .

This factsheet is written by Dr Lucy Ward, Consultant in Pain Management, at the Royal Free Hospital in London with contributions from Dr Selina Dunn, GP, and Rowanne Eeles pain specialist physiotherapist.