There are Four Stages of Menopause?
The lack of information is frustrating
The first stage of menopause is premenopause when you have regular periods. Early perimenopause begins with irregular periods and late perimenopause is when cycles are over 60 days. And finally, menopause occurs after 12 months of no periods.
I wrote about premenopause last year. In 2020, I had an ovarian cyst but at the time had regular periods. In 2021, I had regular periods until my first vaccination on April 6, 2021. After that, my periods were very frequent until suddenly after November 6, 2023, I went five months without a period.
I thought that the transition into late perimenopause would be more gradual with several cycles over 2 months before it went into 3, 4, or 5 months. But those 121 days without a period were super nice after a year of heavy periods every two or three weeks.
When I didn’t get a period in November and then December, I thought I might be transitioning into menopause. I had taken two Clearblue menopause tests and they both measured over 25 miU/mL FSH which I thought meant that I was no longer ovulating. I’m glad I didn’t discard the other three tests in the kit because I ovulated at the beginning of March and then had almost three weeks of bleeding. My third menopause test measured under 25 FSH.
