I discovered I'd started perimenopause somewhat early when I entered into fertility treatments in my mid/late 30s.... all of my numbers and the way my body was behaving was looking that way, although officially they called it "Diminished ovarian reserve."
This is a totally inaccurate name, as it's not the reserve of ova that has diminished, (you have millions) but your body's ability to respond to hormones (particularly FSH, follicle-stimulating hormone) that trigger the ovaries to mature an ova is wearing out, so the body responds by pumping out more FSH to try and get things going, and then all kinds of stuff goes out of balance and gets weird and wonky, and it keeps being weird and wonky for a long while. (Menopause is basically when the ovaries are like, yeah, you can send out all the FSH you want but I'm done here, at which point levels stabilize and it's a new balance... I am almost there.)
In retrospect, I can see that I probably had some early indicators in my early 30s, but the excuse was always stress, my cycle has always been a little weird, blips are normal, etc. Overall, it's not a well-defined state.... it's basically, "your body is in an adjustment period between one steady-state and another, so basically everything is bizarre right now."
Weirdly grateful for fertility treatment and a doc who was good at explaining things because there is such a massive information gap about this. The female reproductive system and hormone interactions throughout is complicated and not well-understood, and very under-researched.
I discovered I'd started perimenopause somewhat early when I entered into fertility treatments in my mid/late 30s.... all of my numbers and the way my body was behaving was looking that way, although officially they called it "Diminished ovarian reserve."
This is a totally inaccurate name, as it's not the reserve of ova that has diminished, (you have millions) but your body's ability to respond to hormones (particularly FSH, follicle-stimulating hormone) that trigger the ovaries to mature an ova is wearing out, so the body responds by pumping out more FSH to try and get things going, and then all kinds of stuff goes out of balance and gets weird and wonky, and it keeps being weird and wonky for a long while. (Menopause is basically when the ovaries are like, yeah, you can send out all the FSH you want but I'm done here, at which point levels stabilize and it's a new balance... I am almost there.)
In retrospect, I can see that I probably had some early indicators in my early 30s, but the excuse was always stress, my cycle has always been a little weird, blips are normal, etc. Overall, it's not a well-defined state.... it's basically, "your body is in an adjustment period between one steady-state and another, so basically everything is bizarre right now."
Weirdly grateful for fertility treatment and a doc who was good at explaining things because there is such a massive information gap about this. The female reproductive system and hormone interactions throughout is complicated and not well-understood, and very under-researched.
In other words, yes, it's probably perimenopause.