Melissa’s Personal Story & SisterFire Origins
What began in silence became a fire. This is the story that started SisterFire.
Last June, I reached my breaking point — daily crying spells, exhaustion, brain fog, and a short-term memory that barely lasted seconds.
My libido had vanished, sex was painful, and I was waking 10 to 20 times a night, never reaching a deep sleep. Each morning brought intense pain through my spine and hips, my muscles so tight that no amount of stretching could bring relief. I lost my motivation, drive, strength, and creativity, along with 15 pounds of muscle.
Over the course of 1.5 years plunging into pain and darkness, I saw one naturopath and four doctors. Before that, I had been gaslit by my family doctor for four years and mismanaged by a specialist for a frozen shoulder — both failing to recognize the hormonal crisis unfolding. I went from vibrant to dormant — riddled with anxiety and sinking into a deep depression I could no longer explain away as stress or aging.
I could no longer hold my life together. I was standing on the precipice of losing everything — my business, my home, and the sense of self I had always known.
None of the practitioners I saw understood how estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and thyroid medication interact, or how to properly listen to and treat the symptoms of menopause — a gap rooted in the lack of medical education. A question surfacing with my specialist now is whether I even have hypothyroidism at all.
Why wasn’t I prescribed testosterone after spending more than a year describing the pain I was in — muscles so tight it took five days to recover from a single 10-minute workout? I had been prescribed bio-identical Bi-Est 80/20 cream and told to apply it everywhere except where it should go — and in such a small amount that by July, I had completely sunk into darkness. That single error — not using it locally where absorption matters — and the absence of testosterone together stole a year and a half of my life.
When I finally met a private specialist who read the prescription label, she saw the mistake immediately and began correcting my treatment. Within five days, I began to stabilise — sleep returned, my emotions levelled, and energy slowly rebuilt.
That turning point became the foundation of SisterFire — The Menopause Research Movement.
What began in devastation transformed into a movement for medical reform and mandatory physician education, so no woman is left to endure this alone again. Through SisterFire, I’ve created carved fine-art jewellery — golden yoni pendants symbolizing hope, strength, and transformation — each one telling women’s real stories and fueling the movement demanding research, physician education, and reform in menopause and perimenopause care.
SisterFire is my way of turning pain into purpose — to replace silence with science, and to ensure every woman’s experience becomes part of the story that changes the system.
If my story resonates with you, you’re not alone.
What happened to me is happening to women everywhere — stories whispered in private, when they should be driving research, education, and reform.
SisterFire was born to change that. It’s not just my story — it’s a movement to ignite awareness, demand physician education, and rebuild a system that listens, learns, and leads with compassion and understanding.
If you believe in this change, I invite you to: Follow the project — melissacaron.com/sisterfire
Please share this story with a friend — more resources will be added as the movement grows. Together, we can turn silence into science and make sure no woman walks this road alone again.