Doctors Almost Dismissed Naomi Watts’ Menopause Symptoms as Tuberculosis: When Was She Finally Diagnosed?
Naomi Watts has become one of the most candid celebrity voices on perimenopause and menopause, and readers are searching for the early symptoms she’s described — many of which she says doctors initially missed.
What Perimenopause Symptoms Did Naomi Watts Experience First?
Watts said her earliest perimenopause symptoms included “angry, itchy, red skin,” sleep problems, night sweats and irregular periods, which began when she was 36 and trying to conceive with then-partner Liev Schreiber.
Watts told Women’s Health a doctor warned her she was “probably close to menopause” while she was trying to get pregnant, which she said “filled me with panic and shame.” She told USA TODAY that pop-culture portrayals had left her unprepared: “All I knew about menopause was what you would see on TV or in movies or in books was women go crazy and the hot flashes and mood swings. But it’s obviously much more in depth and complex like that.”
Her skin reactions caught her especially off guard. “Hiding it with makeup was just making it worse and more irritable,” she said. “Any products that were working for me before were no longer working. They were too drying, too harsh, too active.”
Why Were Naomi Watts’ Menopause Symptoms Missed by Doctors?
Watts has said doctors initially dismissed her menopause symptoms and floated other diagnoses before considering hormones. “Tuberculosis came up before menopause did,” she told Bustle.
“I mean every time I do a movie, I have to fill out a questionnaire, a medical questionnaire and it’s like a hundred questions. I was ticking night sweats for a good eight years ...There’s one moment where they think it could be TB, tuberculosis, because that’s a symptom. No one signaled it as that, and I was worried. I was like, what about my night sweat?” she said during an appearance on “Next Question With Katie Couric.”
Her symptoms intensified after the 2008 birth of her second child, Kai, and she said she struggled to find peers willing to talk openly. “I did test the waters with friends out there by cracking jokes about menopause, and they weren’t really met with open ears and empathy. It was just like, let’s move on to the next subject,” Watts said.
A turning point came on the set of the Netflix series Gypsy. “I was really having a lot of symptoms at that point in time and, luckily, I told my makeup artist that I was having problems sleeping,” she told InStyle. “She’s around the same age, and I just needed one person to understand what I was going through. She identified with what I was experiencing and totally wrapped her arms around me.”
Can Menopause Affect Your Eyes?
Yes — Watts says one of the most surprising perimenopause symptoms she experienced was changes to her vision.
“The eyes just continued to be a strain,” Watts told People, “but I certainly didn’t know that that was anything to do with, you know, estrogen levels dropping, you know, causing dryness.” She also said she resisted wearing prescribed glasses earlier in life: “It was something that I did feel self-conscious about and I probably cost myself by, you know, not wearing the glasses at the time.”
Dr. Charissa Lee, head of professional affairs, vision at J&J, advises women to watch for “Dry eyes, tired eyes, eye strain and fluctuating blurry vision. It’s also important to pay attention to presbyopia symptoms — like difficulty reading small print.”
Watts has urged women to make annual eye exams part of midlife care. “For me, creativity depends on being fully present — and eye health is a big part of that,” she wrote on Instagram. “As we age and our hormones change, our vision can shift too. The good news is that one small habit, like an annual eye exam, can make a real difference in looking out for ourselves.”
How Does Naomi Watts Manage Menopause Symptoms Now?
Watts manages menopause through community, open conversation and pushing back on stigma — an approach she credits to leaning on friends and other women willing to talk about symptoms publicly.
“We are nothing without the strength of the people around us,” she told British Vogue. “At every point in my life that I’ve felt troubled about something … I turned to my friends. What was so staggering was that no one was talking about this … it was the one topic that was off the table.” She added that “wherever stigma lies we need to create and gather conversation and somehow attack it and find ways to move through it.”
Watts said women speaking up has finally pressured the medical system to respond. “It’s taken a huge community of women who have been courageous enough to say: ‘Hey, this is a problem. I don’t like how this feels.’ And then the doctors start listening. And then things change in the medical system.”
She also wants women to know midlife doesn’t have to be bleak. “It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom if you have the education,” Watts told USA TODAY. “Knowing that there are ways to treat symptoms and then, more than that, to come together, talk about it, share and laugh about it. That is so healing.”
Watts founded Stripes Beauty, a skincare and wellness brand focused on developing thoughtful, science-informed products that address the needs of women experiencing menopause.
For more information: Perimenopause Symptoms Women Often Miss: What Are the Lesser-Known Signs to Watch For?
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
