Early Menopause
Okay, to put it as simply as possible, early menopause is
menopause that comes well before the average age of normal menopause -- when you're
still in your 20s, 30s, or early 40s. But to really understand what early menopause
is, first you have to understand what menopause itself is. And it's pretty simple:
Menopause is technically the stop (pause) of your periods (menses). Your periods stop
because your ovaries have run out of eggs, have been damaged, or have been surgically
removed.
Before your periods stop, you go through a transition period called perimenopause --
this can last on average from two to six years, although some women have it for a
shorter amount of time, and others longer. And once your periods have stopped for
six months to a year, you're considered as being in menopause.
The average age for women to have completed menopause is age 51 -- which means that
most women go through this change between the ages of 47 and 53. So if you go through
menopause before this -- for whatever reason -- you've experienced premature or early
menopause.
Premature menopause is menopause that occurs before age 40; early menopause is menopause
that occurs in the early 40s. If premature menopause occurs naturally -- that is, if you
haven't had surgery, radiation treatment or chemotherapy that led to menopause -- it
is often referred to as Premature Ovarian Failure (POF). This sounds devastating. But
basically, all it means is that your ovaries aren't working as they should. They're
shutting down years, even decades, before their time.
If early menopause is a result of surgery or cancer treatments, you're facing the same
situation, just for different reasons. In other words then, early menopause, no matter
what the cause, means one simple thing: your reproductive system is no longer working
the way it used to. Your body is switching from being reproductive to
being non-reproductive.
|
|
