Peri-Menopause or Stress?

Earlier this year I started having some odd symptoms. None of them struck me as particularly ominous or even all that dangerous; in fact, I hardly even noticed most of them.

Until I suddenly had a monthly cycle so short, I barely finished before starting again. 

That’s NOT normal for me.

I started to get a little worried. My family has a history of early menopause; was I in the early stages of peri-menopause?

It seemed a little extreme, even for my family, so I went online to look up the symptoms of peri-menopause.

Every web site I visited said there are 35 documented symptoms of peri-menopause, and my concern grew when I realized I was exhibiting many of them.

Now, I didn’t have all of these, but here is a small listing of some of the symptoms that indicate peri-menopause:

• Irregular heart beat
• Irritability
• Irregular periods; shorter, lighter periods; heavier periods, flooding; phantom periods, shorter cycles, longer cycles
• Anxiety, feeling ill at ease
• Feelings of dread, apprehension, doom
• Difficulty concentrating, disorientation, mental confusion
• Incontinence, especially upon sneezing, laughing; urge incontinence
• Itchy, crawly skin
• Aching, sore joints, muscles and tendons
• Increased tension in muscles
• Gastrointestinal distress, indigestion, flatulence, gas pain, nausea
• Sudden bouts of bloat
• Increase in allergies
• Hair loss or thinning, head, pubic, or whole body; increase in facial hair
• Tingling in the extremities

Hmm.

Fortunately, I had my annual well-woman exam in May, so I spoke with my OBGYN about the possibility of entering peri-menopause.

She said the typical method of determining whether a woman is entering menopause is to check her follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels.

She told me to arrange for bloodwork to be drawn on the third day of my next cycle for the test.

I did, and the results came back normal. No peri-menopause for me!

However, a little extra reading from The North American Menopause Society dropped a little bit of a wet towel on my “yay, I’m not in peri-menopause” happy dance.

The FSH test is not always very accurate during the early stages of peri-menopause. Apparently, a woman’s hormones can fluctuate wildly during that time, so even a test with normal results may not really tell the story.

According to the NAMS, there is no accurate test to confirm menopause. Women simply must observe the calendar, observe their symptoms, and wait.

Fun.

Honestly, I don’t know what to think. All of this weirdness started up just a couple of months before I returned to work. Returning to work is always incredibly stressful for me; concerns about Zac and Jed’s health, worry about money, worry about being away from home and staying on my TED, worry about pumping and keeping my milk supply up…well, that’s a whole lot of stress right there!

And stress can cause lots of weirdness in a body.

In fact, the list of symptoms of stress from the American Institute of Stress has many overlaps to the list of peri-menopause symptoms.

But then I read another article that suggested stress can cause early menopause, and further suggested that peri-menopause can last from 2-8 years. Even better, when women start peri-menopause very early, their symptoms are usually more mild and will typically last longer (8 years of peri-menopause as opposed to maybe 2 years for a woman beginning the process in her late ’40’s).

So am I in peri-menopause? Or just incredibly stressed out?

Is the stress actually pushing my body towards early menopause?

I have no idea. 

But I think it is clear that I need to find some ways to de-stress.

So I’m asking for your help: what’s your favorite way to de-stress? 

And does anyone have any helpful input about early-onset peri-menopause?