What Are The Symptoms Of Early Menopause?
Let’s face it, when you are in your 30s or even your early 40s and you miss a period, the one thing that comes to your mind is ‘Am I pregnant?’. What doesn’t cross your mind, however, is ‘Am I entering early menopause?’. I remember one night I was sleeping over at my aunt’s on a chilly winter night, but she was unable to sleep due to heavy sweating, while I was covered in a thousand blankets. As I didn’t know what was going on, I just stood there and watched her take her pajamas and duvet covers out. As with any situation, I thought water will help, and although I handed the glass for her to drink it, she spritzed herself with water and turned the fan up high. Now that I’m a grown woman, I get how she was struggling that night, and maybe many many other nights and days, because my aunt was going through early menopause.
In case you didn’t know, menopause happens when a woman stops ovulating and her period stops. According to the Federal Office on Women’s Health, despite the fact that many women will experience menopause between the ages of 40 and 58, there’s 1 percent of women aged between 40 and 45 who will experience early menopause. One thing that divides menopause and early menopause or premature menopause is timing.
In both of the cases, menopause and early menopause, a woman’s ovaries stop producing eggs. This could be devastating to a lot of women, considering the loss of their fertility means they won’t be able to have children anymore. A lot of women with early menopause will experience a long period of postmenopausal life. It is recommended to take hormonal treatment, which may be the combination of estrogen and progesterone to counteract the health risks of early menopause.
What are the symptoms of early menopause?
Typically, the symptoms of early menopause are the same as the symptoms of menopause and may include the following:
1. Menstrual cycle changes, meaning frequency and bleeding pattern change
Other symptoms may include:
What exactly causes early menopause?
What causes premature ovarian failure is yet unknown, however, in some women, it may be caused by the following:
1. Chromosomal abnormalities – Ovarian dysgenesis is a major cause of premature menopause. Ovarian dysgenesis is seen in 30% of the cases. Sex chromosome anomalies predominate as a cause.
2. Autoimmune disease – These include Addison’s disease (adrenal insufficiency), thyroid disease, type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, coeliac disease, or other autoimmune disorders
3. Infections such as tuberculosis, malaria, and mumps – Although rare, they still might lead to early menopause
4. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy – Radiation and chemotherapy may lead to early onset of menopause in women who have been exposed to them before achieving normal menopause.
5. Surgically removing ovaries – Also known as oophorectomy, is a surgical procedure when you remove two ovaries for various reasons, most commonly cancer or risk of cancer.
Sometimes, early or premature menopause runs in the family. This might be the case if any of your family members went through menopause at a very young age (20s or early 30s).
How is premature menopause diagnosed?
One of the early stages of menopause is called perimenopause. During this stage, you might experience irregular periods and other symptoms that come and go. To diagnose menopause, tests aren’t usually needed as most women can self-diagnose menopause based on their symptoms. However, if you’re feeling that you might be experiencing early menopause, it’s better to check with your doctor as he can run hormone tests to determine if the symptoms are due to perimenopause, or another condition. Because during every menopause the level of estrogen decreases, your doctor will first check the level of that hormone, along with follicle stimulating hormone and thyroid stimulating hormone. However, hormone checking might not always tell if you’re in early menopause or not. According to the North American Menopause Society (NAMS), hormone tests may sometimes be unhelpful because hormone levels still change and fluctuate during perimenopause. Even in this case, it is better to see your doctor for a full check-up.
Early or premature, menopause can be devastating. Some women experience a much harder emotional impact than others, feeling a sense of grief over not being able to have children anymore, fearing they will grow older ‘before their time’, fearing their partner will not be sexually attracted to them anymore, or other self-esteem problems. Many women have come to terms with their experience of early or premature menopause by joining support groups or even psychological counseling.
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