Causes
Around age 35, your hormones will alert you that your reproductive capacity is reduced. You will most likely experience perimenopausal symptoms of varying intensity from age 42 until 51. Acute discomfort may last for 3 to 6 years if you do not take steps to control it.
Menopause occurs the day after your final period finishes, so it is diagnosed in hindsight. It is the definitive end of menstruation and fertility, when no menstrual periods have occurred for 12 consecutive months. (‘Mens’ is Greek for month and ‘pausis’ means cease.) Menopause is also called the change of life or climacteric.
Many people use the term "menopause" to also cover perimenopause, when symptoms of the change of life begin, but this is incorrect usage of the term.
When Can I Expect Perimenopause?
You will probably have at least some perimenopausal symptoms starting six years before menopause. You will likely experience menopause around the same time your mother did, providing she had a natural menopause and not a hysterectomy. The world-wide age range for menopause is from the 30's to the 60's. Most Western women enter perimenopause around age 45, but it often occurs much earlier in Third World women.
If you are Westernized and do not smoke, expect perimenopausal symptoms from age 45 until the average menopause at age 51. If you smoke, expect menopause to occur two years earlier, around age 49. Some women with late menopause experience perimenopausal symptoms at age 55 and menopause at 60.
Perimenopause can occur early if you have:
- Malfunction of the ovaries
- Hysterectomy (removal of the uterus)
- Kidney failure
- Chemotherapy for cancer, endometriosis or other diseases
- Radiation for cancer treatment or nuclear accident
If you are in the right age bracket for menopause, your doctor may decide not to investigate until you have had absolutely no menstrual flow for at least 6 months.
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