Octavia Spencer Renames Menopause | HuffPost Entertainment

Octavia Spencer is tackling menopause, one nickname at a time.

Spencer, 55, is demystifying the hormonal shift women undergo in middle age by giving it the nickname “Menny.”

“I met Peri five years ago, she wasn’t really kind,” Spencer wrote in an Instagram caption on Wednesday, cheekily referring to perimenopause. “Meno? Well let’s just say she’s not much better, but we’ve been introduced and ‘trying’ to become friends.”

As the Academy Award winner noted, menopause hasn’t been a walk in the park. Still, she’s turning lemons into lemonade and taking back her power, sending encouragement to those who are navigating the same path.

“To all my ladies trying to make a new friend in Meno … let’s call her Menny, on this day may your knees and hips HAVE NO PAIN,” she wrote.

The motivation didn’t stop there.

“May you embrace the fact that even in your changing skin, you are beautiful, capable, and worthy!” Spencer concluded.

Menopause, Yale gynecologist Dr. Mary Jane Minkin previously told HuffPost, is defined as ”one full year without a period in the absence of something else to explain it, like pregnancy.”

According to Dr. Ella Speichinger, an OB-GYN at University of Missouri Health Care, women in the United States reach menopause at 52, and globally at 51.