rheanna

liverpool sue,

I was actually thinking about starting a thread about this. I'm glad you did it, because your post is much shorter and to the point than my ramblings would have been. Thank you!

I think the terminology is just a convenience for the doctors. We've read on these threads that taking hormonal measurements doesn't really tell us much, because our hormones fluctuate all day, every day. So there's no real test that can tell a doctor (and us) for sure that a woman has crossed that threshhold and is now officially in menopause.

Because we tend to slow down our periods and eventually stop having them, one would think that no longer having periods would be a marker that we're now in menopause. But we've been reading on these Boards that some women simply slow down and have fewer and fewer periods, some women have a few and then none for a while and then a few again. Because our hormones are changing, our periods keep changing too. We can't know if this was our last period until we haven't had any for a while. The cut-off ("officially", for doctors) used to be that if you hadn't had a period in a year, then you were over the threshhold and you were finally rid of all these problems that we love to describe on these threads. But we all know women who have another period or two or three or more after they were period-free for a year. So then the doctors said that the "official" cut-off was 18 months. But we're hearing from women who have periods after they were period-free for 18+ months.

So that means to me that the "official" cut-off date of 12 or 18 or whatever months is just a convenience for the doctor, so that he can say something official and not sound like he hasn't a clue.

Perimenopause is a term that was invented because doctors needed a term for the years when they could no longer ignore women who said that their periods were no longer regular but they weren't obviously in menopause because they were still having periods. And what do we call the phase of women who aren't menstrating any more but are still having hot flashes and other symptoms of fluctuating hormones for years after they stopped having periods?

What I've been reading on this Board is that there is no "standard" way that women respond to the changing hormones that we go through towards the end of our reproductive years. There is no test that will say for sure that you're at this stage or that stage of "The Change". There is no way of knowing whether we're really done with our periods until we haven't had any for --- how long???

Welcome to the glorious amusement park ride that is menopause, ladies! I'm glad that we have this Board to share our questions and opinions and ideas.

--Rheanna