Kelly Cates has spoken candidly about her terrifying experiences with the menopause - and her concerns about being able to access her medication while presenting at the 2022 World Cup.
The experienced Sky Sports presenter has earned a tremendous reputation as one of football's most slick and knowledgeable hosts.
But she admits she was brought to tears by fears she was suffering early onset dementia after numerous forgetful moments, including forgetting the names of her long-standing pundit colleagues.
Kelly Cates: "There's definitely been a couple of occasions where I've frightened the life out of myself"
Menopause and perimenopause symptoms can vary from person to person but can include forgetfulness and brain fog due to hormonal changes.
Cates will take over as part of the new Match of the Day hosting team from the beginning of next season alongside Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan, and has previously covered major events including the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Speaking on Kate Thornton's White Wine Question Time podcast, Cates said: "We all went over to Qatar for the World Cup in 2022.
"There was a women's group because we weren't sure about the situation around what we were and weren't allowed to do, or how we could behave in certain places - there was a lot.
"So there were women who were working out there already. [] this lovely woman, Carrie [Brown], who was chair of the Football Writers Association at the time, said, ;right, I'm putting all these women in touch with each other, and we were all on a WhatsApp group', because obviously always room for more WhatsApp groups!
"We had this whole kind of discussion: 'how do we behave here? Can we do this? Are we allowed to do that?'
"The big topic of discussion for a while was, can we take our HRT?
"I don't want to say what is and what isn't allowed there because I'll have this wrong. But we were very much under the impression that it came under the same controls as, like the contraceptive pill.
"And so, we weren't allowed to take it. We needed to have an exemption letter from the doctor, and that was what we all needed. So, we all panicked like mad.
"Anyway, it was fine. We all took it, and we were all fine. But yeah, that was one of the big subjects was we can't go over there and work for a month without access to our HRT."
Cates was particularly concerned having had scary menopausal experiences prior to being prescribed HRT.
She explained: "Do you want me to sleep? Do you want somebody who's rested and cogent and is pleasant to work with? Do you want all those things, because you need them!
"There's definitely been a couple of occasions where I've frightened the life out of myself because I looked at somebody who I know relatively well across a desk, and I thought, I can't remember your name. I have no idea what your name is. And it was gone. Absolutely gone.
"That happened a couple of times, and I sort of just glossed over it and moved on and just kind of went, 'oh, and, you know, joining us today...' and remembered the name of the other person that I was introducing or whatever it was, and I managed to get away with it.
"But it was genuinely frightening. I definitely had it was more really in my home life where I remember sitting in tears at the table one day because I'd forgotten a birthday party, and I was sitting and I was like, 'how long will this go on for?'
"I genuinely thought this could be early onset dementia. Then, I sort of cracked on with the HRT, and it's kind of seems to have settled a little bit. I haven't mentioned it at work. I'm not sure if they're ready for that just yet."
