Today’s For Better or For Worse was the one millionth strip about Elly having a hot flash. I believe she’s in her third year of this. Does the menopause usually last this long?
It starts gradually and can go on for three to five years.
AND - if you are on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) and discontinue usage, you can start menopause all over again!
OK; I have no cites and Am Not A Medical Professional. I’ll just let you know what I recall from doing some research & reading. “Perimenopause” is the premenopausal stage which can last up to ten years. During this time, periods can become irregular, one may experience hot flashes, alteration in mood, hair thinning, changes in complexion & other things associated with fluctuating hormone levels. I am 43 in somewhere in this happy process :(, no hot flashes though. A friend of the same age still has regular periods, but is getting hot flashes & night sweats.
Menopause occurs after the cessation of periods. Generally if you have not had a period for 12 months, you’re considered post menopausal. There is a lot of variability in the process though. Some people just stop (my mother did), some people go through years of irregularity.
Now I got concerned about handing out incorrect info…so here’s a link:
http://www.menopause.org/
Hope this helps!
Thanks for the link, Carina.
Three to five years, suziek? Jeez. I hope it won’t be bad for me, but considering how bad my early periods were, it probably will.
My mom was going through menopause at the same time that I was going through puberty. That only sounds funny to someone who didn’t experience it.
I am so glad I happened on this subject today! I’m forty seven, and I guess I’m in the ‘perimenopausal’ stage. Thanks so much for the link ** Carina42. ** I * thought * my hair seemed to be thinning, but I’d never heard that was a symptom of menopause!
In a way, my period seems to be acting as it did when I first started when I was fourteen. ‘Iffy’. I’ve gone from the ‘as regular as a clock’ back to being iffy again. BUT, my skin is clearer! Hey, that IS one good thing. 
Oh, Rilchiam, I feel for you. I had the exact same experience. The women on my mom’s side of the family hit menopause early and my mom was no exception. Those were some very ugly years.
Oh, dear, evilbeth. Did your mom take any treatments for her menopause? See, my mom refused to believe that I was having a serious enough problem with cramps to merit seeing an OBGYN, because she (sound of plate smashing) was getting through her menopause just fine (WAAAHHH) without any of those hormone scams (sound of car gunning in bottom gear) and I should grit my teeth and bear a little pain (scream) and stop setting back the women’s movement (sound of door slamming).
Some women take low dose birth control pills during perimenopause and it controls many of the symptoms - like thinning hair and hot flashes. A book I highly recommend is Perimenopause, Changes in Women’s Health After 35 by L. Darlene, M.D. Lanka, James E., M.D. Huston, Lois Jovanovic. It has a comprehensive approach, discussing what’s going on, various therapies that work for different people, etc.
What I get really tired of is people suggesting - just like with PMS - that diet and exercise are solutions. Or visualization and meditation, etc. Maybe it’s helped others, but that’s bunk, from my experience. When people talk about “lifestyle” like that, I feel like my symptoms are my fault. Kind of a “blame the victim” thing that some tyrannical health educators like to do. I eat really well and exercise excessively, and it doesn’t seem to help (though I haven’t gained weight, which I’ve seen some other women do).
My mother has never been one to take medication unless she needed it to survive. Pain? Just yell at people until it went away–tossing in a little “You just don’t understand the sacrifices I have to make for you!” just for fun.
Whenever she was in a bad mood, it was because my brother and I were horrible people–it had nothing to do with estrogen. We were told more than once that if she and our dad ended up getting a divorce because she was such a bitch all the time it would be our fault, not hers.
It was a lovely time. I sincerely feel for you.
Actually, my mother had about six months of irregular periods, then they stopped. Eventually she decided she was done with the things. She’s 66 and has never taken estrogen or anything. She runs a business & is incredibly physically active, though she did gain a little weight.
I agree with Jill, it’s an inevitable physiological event that happens to women with varying consequences, and there is only so much that diet/exercise/mindset can do.
[rant]OTOH, I find it distasteful that every naturally ocurring life stage manages to get medicalized by pharmaceutical companies & vitamin pushers. While there are certainly somatic & emotional changes that go on (don’t I know it), not every little discomfort in life needs to be treated with a pill. As a country, we have been conditioned to “take something” every time we feel the slightest inconvenience. I dislike being “victimized” by drug companies by slick advertising campaigns telling me I am defective merely because I am going through menopause![/rant]
I’m certainly not ruling out estrogen or supplements at some point in my life, of course, if warranted. YMMV.
My mother took Vit. E and B and never had a symptom. Just stopped having periods. I am at that age now and I’ll probably add some Evening Primrose to that formula
The vitamin E and B most likely had nothing to do with why your mother had no symptoms. More likely it was genetics. Those vitamins don’t affect estrogen levels. Primrose oil shouldn’t either. Just sayin’.
I have heard that primrose oil has some effect on PMS, though I haven’t seen this established by case control studies. I tried it and broke out in an all-body rash.
Jill
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by evilbeth *
**
And I for you. This isn’t the Pit, so I won’t go into details, except to say that my experience closely paralleled yours.
For Mr. Rilch’s sake, as well as everyone else I come in contact with, I will take whatever is necessary to keep me stable when the time comes.
One thing I’m doing: Soy milk, edamame beans (sp?), Thai green curry with tufu…Basically I upped my soy intake about a year & a half ago. Prior to that my periods had become verrry irregular & painful (Whereas for most of my life I was like clockwork & barely ever had any PMS symptoms.)
Then I read that the phytoestrogens in soy products may help normalize estrogen levels. I do seem to have become a bit more regular again, & not as crampy & tired & cranky as I was. I love edamame beans, Thai food & soy milk, so it’s a no brainer for me. So far, additional soy stuff is tyhe only thing I’m doing during this pesky “perimenopausal” time.
Hasn’t cleared up my complexion, which at age 43 decided to revert to what it was like when I was 16. :sigh:
Well, my period was late this month for the first time in 17 years. Nope, I know I’m not pregnant! Thinking, “Oops - menopause already?”, I too did some online research and found a site where a large group of women in a study listed their most prevalent symptoms of peri-menopause. Interesting stuff:
http://www.howdyneighbor.com/menopaus/symptoms.htm
Ai chihuahua! I have 14 of the first 16 symptoms! Is that what has been wrong with me lately! I’m 45 years old, and didn’t know squat about menopause except I thought it was supposed to take place in your mid-fifties. I also searched the board here and resurrected this old thread.
Well, I guess I’m perimenopausal. Time to stop buying Led Zep and Pink Floyd CDs and spend the money instead on calcium supplements.
At a dinner party in China I asked a guy what the women were talking about and he said: “They’re complaining about how they suffer having to endure their periods… but we have it even worse – we have to hear them complaining about their periods!” 
At any rate, menopause sounds like something I would rather not experience first hand or second hand. Maybe president Bush could consider sending a menopausal squadron to visit Saddam Hussein though. Now I’ll go hide under a rock so as to be out of harm’s way.