Medical conditions including endometriosis or cancer are sometimes confused with perimenopause in midlife women because they can alter your menstrual cycle.
While menopause and perimenopause are both natural, biological processes, they can pose a unique risk for women: misdiagnosis.
It is important to recognize that some of the symptoms of menopause can mimic the symptoms of gynecologic cancers, which are cancers that start in the female reproductive organs. The 3 most common gynecologic cancers are uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, and cervical cancer.
In addition to menstrual cycle changes, “hot flashes, sleep disturbance including night sweats, changes to vaginal discharge, reduced libido, and mood swings are all common perimenopausal symptoms,” says Dr.
Common physical symptoms of menopause and perimenopause include: hot flushes, when you have sudden feelings of hot or cold in your face, neck and chest which can make you dizzy. difficulty sleeping, which may be a result of night sweats and make you feel tired and irritable during the day.
Hot flashes are linked to low estrogen hormone levels (menopause), but hot flashes triggered by the thyroid are associated with very high thyroid hormone levels (hyperthyroid). Low thyroid levels (hypothyroid) are associated with feeling cold, not hot.
Are hormone levels or other blood tests helpful in detecting menopause? Because hormone levels may fluctuate greatly in an individual woman, even from one day to the next, they are not a reliable indicator for diagnosing menopause. Even if levels are low one day, they may be high the next day in the same woman.
A GP should be able to make a diagnosis of early menopause based on your symptoms, your family history, and blood tests to check your hormone levels.
Some symptoms of hyperthyroidism can also mimic those of the menopause transition, including hot flashes, heat intolerance, palpitations (short episodes of rapid heartbeat), tachycardia (persistent rapid heartbeat), and insomnia.
However, you may want to talk to a perimenopause doctor if you experience any of the following symptoms: Your periods are very heavy or they include blood clots. Your periods last much longer than usual. You experience spotting either between periods or after sex.
The effects of the menopause can feel similar to MS symptoms, and hot flushes and difficulty sleeping might make MS symptoms feel worse. Finding ways to manage the effects of the menopause could help with MS symptoms too. Many women feel that their MS changes around the time of menopause.
Some of the symptoms that intensify during menopause are achiness and soreness, leading to more anxious and cranky episodes. Fibromyalgia symptoms tend to mimic perimenopausal indicators, which include pain, tenderness, lack of quality sleep, and trouble with memory. These symptoms can also lead to depression.
A Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center study involving postmenopausal, overweight, and obese women who took 2,000 IUs of vitamin D daily for a year found that those whose vitamin D blood levels increased the most had the greatest reductions in blood estrogens, which are a known risk factor for breast cancer.
It depends on your situation. Not all women need, want or are candidates for estrogen therapy. Estrogen can reduce menopausal symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness. If you have a uterus, you'll likely need to take progesterone along with the estrogen.
Blood tests – At-home estrogen blood tests are quick and easy. You just need to prick your finger and collect a small blood sample in a vial. After that, you can send your sample to a lab for testing. Urine tests – Estrogen tests that use urine take a little longer to administer.
Both hypothyroidism and perimenopause may cause low energy and fatigue. For the hypo thyroid woman it may be that she just feels tired plus needs more sleep than is reasonable for any person to get. For the perimenopausal woman, she is usually tired because she's been awake in the night, with or without night sweats .
But those with symptoms can experience a puffy face, sluggishness, weight gain, feeling cold, a slowed heart rate, constipation, depression, and thinning hair. Not everyone has the same symptoms, so make sure to talk with your health care provider if you think you have hypothyroidism.
Perimenopause can begin in some women in their 30s, but most often it starts in women ages 40 to 44. It is marked by changes in menstrual flow and in the length of the cycle.
“Women can experience an increase in anxiety and depression starting in perimenopause. That's four to five years before menopause,” said Meaghan Shanahan, MD, CHI Health obstetrician/gynecologist. “It can continue four to five years after the date of menopause, which is 12 months after your last period.”