On October 18, 2026, Pharmacy Business reported on the International Menopause Society’s (IMS) campaign placing chronic pain at midlife at the centre of World Menopause Day 2026. Its account of the society’s White Paper highlighted the need for recognition and individualized assessment that considers how pain affects everyday life.
Beyond isolated symptoms
The existing assessment framework already allows for more than a hormonal explanation. The European Menopause and Andropause Society (EMAS), summarizing the 2025 review Pain during menopause in Maturitas, described an approach that includes clinical history and physical examination. Laboratory tests and imaging can also contribute to assessment.
The IMS campaign updates the emphasis within that framework. It challenges a narrow reading of pain based on an isolated symptom or test result and calls for attention to patterns and daily function. According to the International Urogynecological Association’s campaign notice, the resources address healthcare professionals and women alongside the wider community.
This is a broader place for pain within menopause care rather than a reason to abandon investigation. The question is not simply whether pain belongs on a menopause symptom list. It is how a clinician can understand the whole presentation and decide what assessment or support fits the person experiencing it.
The evidence behind it
The campaign brings together estimates of pain burden with a more practical message about assessment. Its significance lies in connecting recognition with clinical attention rather than treating awareness as an answer in itself.
The scale of pain
- Persistent pain is a substantial midlife concern. Pharmacy Business, summarizing the IMS White Paper, reports that about half of women in midlife experience persistent pain. The same account puts musculoskeletal pain at roughly 71% during the menopausal transition. These are reported estimates rather than precise personal forecasts. The figures describe different categories of pain and should not be treated as interchangeable descriptions of every woman’s experience.
- Recognition should lead to assessment rather than assumption. The practical value of those estimates is to give pain a visible place in the conversation. They support asking about its effects rather than treating it as too ordinary to discuss. A high reported frequency is not a reason to dismiss an individual woman’s difficulties as an unavoidable part of this stage of life.
A longer view
- Pain and menopause symptom burden were linked in cohort research. An October 16 report from Loughborough University described research involving the university and UCL. Chronic pain affected 41% of participants and chronic widespread pain affected 12%. Women reporting chronic pain at age 44 were more likely to be in higher menopause-symptom-burden groups at age 50. Those percentages describe the study’s participants rather than population-wide rates.
- The relationship extended beyond a single symptom. EMAS’s summary of the 2025 British birth-cohort study reported an association between chronic pain and the clustering of menopause symptoms. This was observational evidence: it did not establish that pain caused later symptoms or determine an individual woman’s future menopause experience. Its contribution is a reason to examine pain within a broader symptom history rather than placing it in a separate clinical compartment.
- The useful clinical question concerns the whole picture. Read alongside the IMS campaign, the cohort findings support attention to symptoms that occur together and to how those experiences develop over time. This does not require turning a consultation into a prediction exercise. It gives clinicians a reason to ask about pain when discussing the wider transition and to avoid losing it among other concerns.
Function matters
- The campaign gives everyday effects a clear role. The IMS guidance reported by Pharmacy Business encourages clinicians to assess symptom patterns and consider mobility and work alongside everyday function. That shifts the conversation beyond naming the painful area. What pain prevents or makes difficult becomes part of the information used when discussing treatment or referral. Functional effects are part of the clinical picture rather than an optional addition after test results have been reviewed.
- A pattern can be described without creating a tracking programme. The research supports noting when pain occurs and what else is changing. For a clinical conversation, relevant details may include whether pain is persistent or worsening and whether it affects movement or ordinary activities. There is no prescribed diary format in these sources. The aim is a useful account of the experience rather than another demanding health task for the woman managing it.
- Sleep and other daily concerns belong in that account. If pain affects sleep, that effect is relevant to the assessment described in the research. Refemina’s coverage of sleep during the hormonal transition offers related context for this part of the conversation. A consultation can hold several concerns together without requiring the woman to decide in advance which one explains all the others. This is where pattern recognition becomes more useful than a symptom checklist alone.
Beyond the scan
- Pain severity may not closely match visible disease burden. That is a central point in Pharmacy Business’s account of the IMS White Paper. The paper also describes nociceptive, neuropathic and nociplastic mechanisms that may overlap in one person. The implication is that an image may contribute information without accounting for the full pain experience. A test result and a woman’s description of pain are not competing versions of the same story.
- An inconclusive scan is not a diagnosis. It should not be treated as proof that pain is imaginary. It also does not establish that menopause caused the pain. EMAS’s review summary provides the necessary counterweight: midlife pain has varied possible causes and imaging remains one part of assessment. Keeping those points together avoids replacing one oversimplification with another. Menopause can remain relevant without becoming the automatic explanation for everything a scan does not show.
- The next conversation is about interpretation. A useful question for qualified care is how the history and examination fit with any available test results and the reported effects on daily life. The research supports that combined approach rather than choosing between investigation and listening. It also gives context to having persistent concerns taken seriously in a midlife consultation. Recognition and investigation can belong in the same assessment.
Individual care
- The call for respectful care is explicit. IMS President Professor Rossella Nappi, as reported by Pharmacy Business, said persistent midlife pain should be taken seriously. She advocated gender-sensitive and individualized care with multidisciplinary support where appropriate. Her position challenges the dismissal of women’s pain as emotional rather than properly assessed. It is a call for better attention to the person and her circumstances, not a claim that every clinician responds to pain in the same way.
- Multidisciplinary support is a direction rather than a universal requirement. The campaign asks clinicians to use symptom patterns and functional effects when deciding on treatment or referral. It does not mean every woman needs several specialists. The relevant discussion is which kind of support fits the assessment and the difficulties being experienced. That preserves the purpose of individualized care: matching the response to the person rather than attaching a fixed package to the word menopause.
- The evidence does not point to a single treatment for everyone. According to EMAS, the 2025 review examined hormonal effects and factors contributing to pain alongside pharmacological and non-pharmacological management strategies. These sources do not establish a universal hormone regimen or supplement approach for persistent midlife pain. Personal treatment decisions therefore belong with a qualified clinician. The practical priority is an assessment that keeps other possible causes in view and uses the woman’s daily functioning to inform the care discussion.
What comes next
The campaign points future menopause care toward fuller pain assessment, with symptom patterns and daily function helping guide individualized decisions rather than menopause becoming a diagnosis by default.
How Refemina helps
Beyond assessment of persistent pain, making sense of a changing body is a next step that Refemina supports through evidence-led explanations of midlife. For women whose physical changes have unsettled their confidence or sense of identity, its editorial focus connects hormonal transition with strength and personal wellbeing rather than pressure to look younger or buy a single answer.
Explore Resources
Sources
- World Menopause Day Highlights Midlife Chronic Pain
- World Menopause Day: Chronic pain linked to greater menopause symptom burden
- Pain during menopause
- Chronic pain and the clustering of menopausal symptoms
- www.iuga.org · news · newsOctober is Menopause Awareness Month! - iuga.org
