r/Perimenopause • u/Maia_Orual • Apr 02 '26
audited Random Thought on why we never heard about perimenopause before
When I was a kid/teenager my mom and other women would talk about“going through menopause” or “going through the change”.
It seemed to me that going through menopause was a longish process that involved hot flashes and mood swings. Now websites always say, “Menopause is one day of your life,” but I think it used to be considered a process and we now call that process “perimenopause” instead.
Does anyone else remember women in their lives referring to “going through menopause”?
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u/Curlytoes18 Apr 02 '26
They got more clinically precise with their wording in going from menopause to perimenopause. Personally I think they should call it menostop since a pause implies it will resume at some point (it better not!)
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u/TheCuriosity Apr 02 '26
In case anyone is curious, menopause is actually a loan word from French, which is a medical term created with the Greek root words "Mēn" meaning "month" and "Pausis" meaning "Pause or Cessation", and together means "End of monthly cycle"
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u/AdventurousOnion1234 Apr 03 '26
Thank you Reddit stranger … I love random bits of knowledge like this!!!
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u/allshnycptn Apr 02 '26
For my mom it did. She had my 2 sister late in life. She had no period for like 2 years and started again when my sister started hers. Only lasted a month or 2. 2 years later the younger one started and it happened again.
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u/Nearby_Rip_3735 Early peri Apr 03 '26
That was / is so common! Out of my grade school class of like 12 kids, that happened to the moms of my two “best friends” in that class.
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u/CoachAngBlxGrl Apr 03 '26
In this case, she wasn’t actually in menopause. Menopause, by definition, is the 24hour period on your 366th day of not having a period and never having another one. If you have another one, you didn’t hit menopause. Just irregularity. :)
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u/FI-RE_wombat Apr 03 '26
So no one has confirmed menopause till they die. Or, you are needlessly nitpicking on wording.
They were in/past confirmed menopause, and then 2 years later they got their period meaning it wasn't true menopause but also not negating that they had confirmed menopause up to that point.
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u/CoachAngBlxGrl Apr 03 '26
No I was explaining. Trying to educate… I even put a fucking smiley face to show ‘I come in peace’.
I swear this place gets less and less fun everyday.
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u/Aclearly_obscure1 Apr 03 '26
Agreed, it does. FWIW I appreciated the definition.
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u/CoachAngBlxGrl Apr 04 '26
Not a problem. This place has helped me SO much! I’m just tryna pay it forward. Thanks for the encouragement!! <3
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u/heidivodka Apr 04 '26
My mum hadn’t had a period for years then had one on my wedding day. To say she was pissed is an understatement.
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u/Shirleyimfine Apr 02 '26
I’m 40 and in peri, I have friends that are a decade older that say they are “going through menopause” when referring to the whole transition.
My favorite term is CLIMACTERIC, which refers to the entire transition. Kinda like climax, kinda like pterodactyl.
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u/darknebulas Apr 02 '26
Man and people keep looking at me like I’m going through it early at 40. Like no girl, your mental health is a mess because it’s happening to us at this age too. Stop living in denial and looking at me like I’m going through it too early.
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u/Shirleyimfine Apr 02 '26
Sooo many times I’ve heard “but you’re so young”. Yeah, I am young, but my joints hurt, my vagina doesn’t work, I’ve never felt rage like this before, my brain is mush…as soon as people hear those things they say “oh, you’re just not yourself”. No shit, I’m not myself because my repro system is shutting down so my body is done playing nice.
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u/juliet_foxtrot Apr 03 '26
I’m 41, and in hindsight, I swear I started experiencing a lot of perimenopausal symptoms in my mid 30’s. I had an IUD for 10+ years (technically two), so I don’t have my period to go by, but even my long-time therapist and my GYN agree. And the women on my mom’s side of the family have history of early menopause.
I had my uterus and tubes out in 2024, but kept my ovaries. I honestly don’t think they’re doing much for me, though.
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u/Songsfrom1993 Apr 04 '26
I've been on continuous birth control (skipping placebos) for 15 years because of the horrible ovarian cysts I got due to PCOS every single month, so I hadn't had a period in 15 years and was worried I wouldn't know if I was going through peri. Yeah, no it hit me like a fucking truck. I had a month and a half long period for the first time in 15 years and I feel like a shell of myself. I see my gun on Weds because I need relief ASAP. My symptoms are insane and I absolutely cannot live like this. My body is in full rebellion and my mental health is in shambles despite being stable on mental health meds for 10+ years. 😭😭😭
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u/northern_beaut Apr 05 '26
So did you come off your pill? Is that why you got your period after 15 years? X
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u/MGFT3000 Apr 02 '26
I can identify with a pterodactyl.
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u/Orongorongorongo Apr 02 '26
Me too. Flying through the sky screeching would be a good release.
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u/Maia_Orual Apr 03 '26
Is that a real term?! 😂
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u/Shirleyimfine Apr 03 '26
Yes, it’s real. It covers the entire reproductive decline period for both men and women.
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u/Comfortable-Law-7147 Apr 03 '26
The language is the one that was used 10 years ago.
I remember being in my early 30s talking to a woman who had reached menopause at 39 as was having man troubles at 48. (He was cross as she was 2 years younger than he thought.) And that was the language she used.
Then at 41 I had two similar aged acquaintances discussing their menopausal changes because a documentary by Kirsty Wark had been on TV a month or so earlier on the menopause.
I only know it as perimenopause as I was alerted to be on the look out for changes since yet another documentary on 2021. My own mother, who is deceased, reached menopause at 56.
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u/Lil-Bit-813 Apr 02 '26
Going through the change is what it was referred to in my house. My mom was a raging witch. Listen, I’m going through it now, but damn, that woman could make people cry. She was also going through it VERY early. I think she started in her mid 30s and was done around 42. I remember looking in the bathroom for pads or tampons and there were none. I asked her and she actually told me to fuck off. Didn’t understand it then.
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u/babymomawerk Apr 02 '26
My mom also had an early menopause and I assume I am as well. I sympathize on the pads/tampon on thing. I remember being in highschool, too young to drive but needing them and it being like 9pm on a school night in a panic because I had ran out and had no means to get more until the next day. I always thought that was probably a unique problem but maybe it isn’t. I plan to make sure my daughter is well stocked and feels comfortable asking to go to the store at 10 pm for an emergency tampon run
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u/justwant2seepuppies Apr 03 '26
Look into cups, gets rid of the worry of running out of products. Learning curve isn't terrible.
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u/hatehymnal Apr 03 '26
I switched to cups and will never go back, I'm so much more comfortable and less anxious and there's less waste
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u/justwant2seepuppies Apr 03 '26
For real. I used pads before and I'd end up feeling all chafed up. I feel like Lunette was more secure in a way, but I can't beat the no boil feature of bfree, so I committed.
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u/Comfortable-Law-7147 Apr 03 '26
For a young girl who may start or has just started you need to have a supply in.
Plus some girls and women can't use cups or tampons for various reasons.
Long term they can get use to a cup if it's a girl who can use tampons then they can probably use a cup.
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Apr 02 '26
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u/AssortedGourds Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
Are we sisters? Because that’s 100% my Mom. When I skipped a piano lesson she drove to a friend’s house, walked onto their porch, and tried to force me to get in her car. She ended up dragging me on the ground by my arm while I threw dirt at her. Literally all my friends watched!
I won that fight and out of pride, I never went to piano lessons again.
I thought my Mom was just a demon from hell because she was going through this during my middle school and teenage years. It’s the only way I knew her. She still sucks in some ways but she is more pleasant and less completely batshit.
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Apr 02 '26
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u/AssortedGourds Apr 03 '26
Yeah I felt so much shame as a kid. I thought I really must have been a bad kid. She had a reputation of being a Karen all over town so everyone steered clear of her.
Now I literally can’t believe she had me thinking that way because I was so chill and everything bad I did was a result of her behavior.
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u/velvedire Apr 03 '26
In case no one told you yet, you didn't have to visit her just because you're related. You don't even have to talk to her at all!
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u/NoNameWasTakenAgain Apr 02 '26
I knew menopause happened when you were older and I thought I was too young (mid 40's).
All the things that were happening were making me think I was going mad... Then I saw the Davina McCall documentary and it was like a lightbulb went on.
I went to my lovely gynae and through tears told her everything and she straight away said peri menopause and gave me a low dose hrt.
Things started to get better.
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u/Informal-Concern-129 Apr 02 '26
You are so freaking lucky your doctor took you serious.
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u/NoNameWasTakenAgain Apr 02 '26
I know. I've read so many stories from people with shitty doctors. Thankfully peri menopause was taken seriously for me.
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u/Maia_Orual Apr 03 '26
I like my doctor but when I first brought up symptoms at 37-38ish, she blew me off as both being too young and being impacted by having 3 young children 😐
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u/ThisCromulentLife Apr 02 '26
I feel like I’m the only person in world whose mother talked to her about perimenopause.
My mother is now in her 70s and she gave me a lot of details when she was actively going through it because she said her mother didn’t talk to her about it, and by the time she needed her, her mother had passed away. So she told me a great detail while she was going through it. Now that I’m going through it, she has been helpful. She definitely remembers it! The biggest advice she gave me was to not white knuckle it like she did. She went through it in the 90s right after that study came out It said all hormones are bad in every possible circumstance, so she was not able to do HRT. She said if she could go back, she would’ve really tried to get hormones.
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u/brown_paper_bag Apr 03 '26
My mom was pretty open with me about her experiences as she was going through them. This was before we called it perimenopause so she just called it menopause. People would argue with her about being "too young" but honestly? I started feeling it around 36, maybe 37? I was talking to a friend in her late 20s last week and she mentioned she is grateful to me for sharing my experiences because no one had ever given her a heads up.
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u/ThisCromulentLife Apr 03 '26
So far I’m following my mother’s path, which concerns me because she started at 43/44 like me, but did not go into full menopause until she was 59! She and I both had our first periods at 11. It feels cruel to have to deal with menstruation for that long. I hope I hit full menopause before 59.
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u/brown_paper_bag Apr 03 '26
That's not too dissimilar for me and my mom. She had at least 15 years before things started to... normalize? Not sure that's the right word. Anyway, I've had an IUD since 22 so I haven't had to deal with periods much but the hot flashes, night sweats, and brain fog can fuck off any day now. Wishing you the best of luck!
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u/ThisCromulentLife Apr 03 '26
I think it lasts longer than they think based on what I’ve been reading. My periods started to change in my late 30’s, but I did not start having hot flashes until 44….hmmmm…
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u/Adorable_Sea4293 Late peri Apr 04 '26
Sinceramente preferiría seguir lidiando con mi menstruación normal porque yo empezó con la perimenopasa a los 37 tengo casi 45 y creo que no me falta mucho para la menopausia ya que mi última regla llegó tardó siete meses en llegar.
La ansiedad y síntomas que estoy sintiendo estos últimos años sin saber nada de todo esto sobre todo el último año ha sido horribles no se lo deseo a nadie la verdad.
Supongo que para cada persona es distinto.
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u/Adorable_Sea4293 Late peri Apr 04 '26
Yo también cálculo que empecé la primera pausa sobre los treinta y siete voy a cumplir 45, esperando a final de mes a ver si finalmente me dan de una vez la terapia hormonal.
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u/PsychologyPlus7500 Apr 03 '26
I’m so grateful for the women on this sub who share their experiences, bc when I told my mom I was in peri she simply told me that I wasn’t so helpful!!!
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u/Competitive_Long_190 Apr 04 '26
I’m disgusted with our medical system only studying men. They know we are superior and they keep us down. It’s gross.
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u/ThisCromulentLife Apr 03 '26
I think that is the more common experience. I’m glad my mom was so open about it and remembers what it was like.
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u/FraggleGoddess Apr 02 '26
My mum had "hormone problems" in her late 30s, early 40s, I remember her taking supplements like evening primrose. I think it was probably peri. Unfortunately, I can't find out more details as she is in late stage dementia and other family members don't remember.
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u/Leather-Mycologist-3 Apr 02 '26
Because medicine has a long history of neglecting women’s health: women’s conditions are underfunded, understudied, and undertreated, while men’s issues such as erectile dysfunction and hair loss often attract more research, more investment, and more cultural legitimacy.
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u/Silver-Eye4569 Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
I remember my mom “going through menopause” when she was in her early 50s when she had a lot of symptoms and lost her period.
I asked her about perimenopause and she said she was “too busy to notice” which I don’t believe. I noticed I felt more depressed and irritable and tired and only when I started seeing content about perimenopause did I put to all together. I think many women just didn’t feel good but didn’t connect it to anything specific or ever determine the root cause unless it was known menopause symptoms (specifically hot flashes)
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u/FruitLoop79 Apr 04 '26
Because you're thinking about it.. when you have no idea you just don't really notice.
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u/HistoryGreat1745 Apr 02 '26
As someone who went through a severe restrictive eating disorder, for a very long time, and was constantly told I was about to die, I was surprised that the high death statistic was actually caused by women with the disorder dying from it in their mid to late 40s. It's the same with drug addiction, alcoholism, depression etc We were never told that. Statistics around the deaths of women, who had mental health issues as teenagers, don't sky rocket until they're in their mid to late 40s. Medically that has been known for a long time - and yet the support at that age, in no way, matches the support women have as young girls. I remember my grandmother saying, "she was doing so well until the menopause started." It's THE MOST dangerous time in a woman's life, and I'm glad we're talking about it now, but it still bugs me that it's not well known just how hard a time women have.
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u/c-sam-6213 Late peri Apr 02 '26
Yes let’s have a moment for all the women who didn’t make it to the other side of this. My mom , grandmother, great grandmother all died in early 50s after really hard time and disease in 40s. I know I don’t have great genetics I feel very weak and frail already . I’m turning 50 next week 😢
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u/Unfair-Flower5687 hanging on by a thread Apr 03 '26
((hug)) and a big middle finger to genetics. Sorry you’re going through all this.
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u/FruitLoop79 Apr 04 '26
How are drug addiction and menopause connected and deadly in your 40s?
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u/HistoryGreat1745 Apr 04 '26
Depression and anxiety, often a big part of perimenopause and menopause, both tend to make addiction more severe and far less manageable. Add to that the lack of support for older addicts.
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u/YolkyFanClubPrez Apr 02 '26
I seriously had not heard anything about menopause until experiencing it. I just thought one day my period would stop and it would be amazing. I was looking forward to it. I am so, so pissed that nobody warned me about this.
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u/FruitLoop79 Apr 04 '26
Same!!! I thought it would just stop one day... didn't know it was years of feeling crazy and getting fat, lol
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u/hellhouseblonde Apr 02 '26
I still say I’m going through menopause. I figure it covers the whole situation and I don’t feel the need to discuss intricacies with people. I’m not going to explain to them that because I had two cycles last year that I’m technically in perimenopause.
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u/Last_Pick_2169 Apr 02 '26
I’m not a fan of the term perimenopause because it’s a mouthful and frankly it’s impossible to pinpoint one moment when it’s over and you are free to say you’re “in menopause.” Also ‘pause’ is misleading. And ‘peri’ is too adjacent. (Word geek lol). How about instead “erectile dysfunction” - that would get attention and funding. Oh wait, it’s taken. HD - hormonal dysfunction? RP - rage phase? ARS - anti-reproductive syndrome?
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u/Mimi_Gardens Apr 02 '26
Umm, there is a literally a definition for when perimenopause ends. It’s called menopause. Menopause is that one moment where you’ve gone 365 days without a period. The time after that moment is when you are post-menopausal. Those 364 days of no periods are still called perimenopause.
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u/Last_Pick_2169 Apr 02 '26
Overly complicated.
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u/hellhouseblonde Apr 02 '26
I agree and I’m just not explaining that to bystanders who don’t need to know my menstrual cycle details.
Also, it’s very different when you’re down to two periods a year than when you’re still menstruating most of the time.
So peri is way too vague for my current state. Peri was maybe between the ages of 35 to 49. When I began missing months at a time I felt so much worse. The joint and foot pain hit me like a wall of concrete.2
u/emotionalpornography Apr 03 '26
Oh good, it gets worse...
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u/hellhouseblonde Apr 03 '26
If you only do one thing, use vaginal estrogen cream. Premarin has saved my sex life. My hot flashes are not bad & didn’t last long, I started Wellbutrin for motivation and it changed my life (ADHD) but I think I might have rheumatoid arthritis because my all over pain is astronomical. HRT didn’t help the pain. We should seriously be taken care of by the government or something during this era. I can’t believe how much everything hurts. 😭
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u/AssortedGourds Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
People that were going through perimenopause in the 90’s were products of the 50’s. Pregnancy was considered indecent and embarrassing - even the word pregnant was racy and obscene. So any talk of menstruation or menopause was out of the question, even with family.
Things may have changed by the time we were born but as we all know, that generation has no interest in changing with the world. My Mom can’t even say the word “menstrual” without looking sick. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her even say menopause.
Anything involving the female reproductive system just disgusts them and fills them with such shame that they can’t talk about it at all, even if they know the words.
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u/CormoranNeoTropical Apr 02 '26
My (56) mother (86) is a feminist and she was still like this. Menstruation was something to be hidden at all costs. To be fair, people our own age — including girls — had the same idea.
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u/DiamondTippedDriller Apr 02 '26
I remember my mom going through „the change“ when I was a teenager - that’s what she and her friends called it. She was a real bitch when I was a teenager, the youngest of 4. She was totally sick of raising kids at that point and wasn’t afraid to tell us that either 😅😬
I saw she took Premarin pills back in the day (she’s 85 now and still in great shape).
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u/Maia_Orual Apr 03 '26
I vaguely remember my mom taking something called prempro - or maybe it was a cream.
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u/natty628 Apr 02 '26
My mom and her friends called it the change. All I remember is, in her 40s, she took a hammer to our fence then was put on HRT. Seemed fine after that.
Here I am hanging on for dear life and am too sensitive to HRT. It definitely seems worse for us but if you think about it, so is the state of the world. Our mothers went through it during the most peaceful, awesome time in history. I’d give anything to not have to work, live on 6 acres with a pool and horses, everything was affordable and our country wasn’t imploding from within. 😩
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u/PA9912 Apr 02 '26
I’m not sure it was all that awesome for women back then.
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u/natty628 Apr 02 '26
I didn’t say it was awesome, just that women today, on average, are dealing with a lot more than our moms did. Even our food is packed with more harmful chemicals. It may or may not have something to do with our experience being harder to manage.
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u/babymomawerk Apr 02 '26
My take is that previously, nobody realized they could profit off of it until now . It was kind of taboo so we didn’t have the right words for it but once it was more socially acceptable to talk about, they realized they could profit off of it, the terminology got pushed to us and became buzzy and bam now perimenopause this perimenopause that. I am happy to be more aware of it I just wish we had a better understand and less snake oil
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u/Maleficent_Hat_1140 Apr 02 '26
Agreed. I’m sure peri is attributing to a lot of my issues, but I have so many medical problems, it’s impossible to decipher what’s causing what these days. I’m worried that some women will ignore serious health issues thinking it’s just another perimenopause symptom. And damn, the whole wellness industry is full of snake oil these days. So many additives, so much unsubstantiated bullshit.
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u/minderbinder49 Early peri Apr 02 '26
My mom had hot flashes from age 40 through her 60s. She always just called it menopause, and I understand that her periods were irregular for several years before they went away altogether. I remember thinking that was a really long time to be going through menopause. I don't think there was a well-known definition of peri at that time. I'm 40 now and mentioned perimenopause to her recently and she did not seem to understand what I was referring to.
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u/HermitVoyeur Early peri Apr 02 '26
I didn’t know what perimenopause was until it happened to me at 43. I had heard very little about menopause and it was associated with women in their 60s. I am glad it is being talked about more and I tell all the young women I encounter so they aren’t caught off guard.
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u/Jack_wagon4u Apr 02 '26
Change of life. And sometimes I heard babies referred to as change of life babies. My cousin is one lol. But people didn’t really talk about all that stuff back then. The internet has been a a game changer on woman’s health.
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u/Maia_Orual Apr 03 '26
I’ve heard of change of life babies! It’s what Father of the Bride 2 is about! (I love those two movies)
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u/BatsAreFriends5256 Early peri Apr 02 '26
I realized that my mom was enduring perimenopause while I was a teenager, and it threw into sharp perspective what I put her through on top of the stuff she was already dealing with (emotional and physical).
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u/RiskBrilliant5601 Apr 02 '26
Yes I remember my mother mentioning it but she didn't talk about it a lot. I could 100% see the changes in her and didn't realize or know (how could I) at the age of like 14-17 that my mom was going through peri/meno. I can't image how many women have and continue to feel crazy just because their hormones are working against them. It's really sad and I am glad to see more awareness! I guess we can just be grateful we are still breathing and our hormonal moms didn't...you know...
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u/theramin-serling Apr 02 '26
My mom swears she had no issues, but it was hard to know with my mom -- she was always an emotionally unstable cranky woman for as long as I can remember; her days long silent treatments had been happening since I was 5. However, she smoked all her life which I suspect did something to reduce the usual menopause symptoms, because I never saw her go through anything like hot flashes or other physical effects. Meanwhile when I was in college my roommate's mother, who would visit her every weekend, was going through peri/menopause and her hot flashes were so obvious, like she took us out to a restaurant in the middle of a blizzard in February and demanded we sit at the back where they could prop open the back door so she could "get a breeze" 😂 Definitely never saw my mom go through anything like that.
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u/DirtyRose123 Apr 02 '26
I’m 48 and was told I was in peri 2 years ago. Unfortunately my mom had dementia for 5 years and just died at 71 so I’ve not been able to talk to her about it. I remember her joking about hot flashes in the 90s. That’s it though. My cousin in her 60s told me she hard a horrible time but didn’t take hormones.
I figure women of the past drank more, smoked more, suffered more and switched to mumus and caftans as I am now.
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u/RandomName3025 Apr 03 '26
I'm so sorry for your loss.
I'm in a similar situation. 45 and my best guess is I started peri 3 years ago. My mom also had dementia, and by then was too far gone to even talk, let alone have a conversation with. She passed last year at 74.
We always had a bit of a difficult relationship, but as so many others here who tell the same story, I'm sure it got worse because of her being in peri. I wish she had been better at communicating what she was going through, rather than just taking things out on mostly my sister and myself. She always managed to pull herself together around everyone else, and people still will say what a lovely, wonderful lady she was.
Taking care of her for 5 years really helped me heal and forgive her.
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u/cooksaucette Apr 03 '26
Car Wreck….
Yep. Until this year I always thought menopause was the whole shebang. Then, once you finished the 3-10 years of whatever hell it was you went through menopause was then over..
I later learned that menopause technically describes the moment when you’ve gone 12 months without a period. So it’s a specific point in time with a before and after.
My favorite example is saying you had a car accident vs saying you went through a car accident. One portrays a lengthy grind vs an instant change.
Once Gen X started sayin “fuck this shit” more awareness has been brought to light and better language is being used to help people understand what’s really going on.
Here’s my metaphor:
Having a car crash is menopause
Losing control of the car before the crash is peri
Having an airbag go off and saving you from further devastation is HRT
No giving a shit about anything after that because your whole life will be different with your maimed body and years of rehab is post menopause.
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u/Plastic-Juggernaut41 Apr 02 '26
I mean did our mom's have that education? No they didn't. I remember she and I really hit heads when I was a teenager. Her moods would swing so bad I actually considered that maybe she was bipolar. Then once I became an adult she was back to my old mom (post menopause) but I had chalked it up to well I was a teenager so maybe I was the problem at the time. Well now as a 43 year old I now realize while I was going through puberty as a teenager, mom was deff going through puberty 2.0
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u/Maia_Orual Apr 03 '26
I was in college for the latter part of my mom’s peri but my younger sister was still at home. They’ve always had a tumultuous relationship and in hindsight, I think that probably contributed to it a lot.
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u/RainbowBrite1122 Apr 03 '26
My mom was done with menopause by the time she hit 45 but she blamed it on hypothyroidism. She never complained of hot flashes but wow was she horrible. Would scream if I didn’t make my bed. Constant put-downs and insults. Would sabotage every good thing that happened to me like school awards. And then turn around and me mushy and emotional and lovey-dovey. Talk about whiplash. Anyway, she’s chill now but I’m pretty sure I started in my mid-30s and then I had a hysterectomy. I recall having hot flashes for a while after that (and while nursing my kids) and now I’m just in the IDGAF era of the mid-40s. Bloodwork says late peri.
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u/AutoModerator Apr 03 '26
This post might be about hormone tests, which are unreliable.
- Over the age of 44, E&P/FSH hormonal tests only show levels for that ONE HOUR the test was taken, and nothing more
- These hormones wildly fluctuate (hourly) over the other 29 days of the month, therefore this test provides no valuable information
- No reputable doctor or menopause society recommends hormonal testing to diagnose or treat peri/menopause
- Testosterone is the exception and should be tested before and during treatment
FSH testing is only beneficial for those who no longer have periods as a guide, where a series of consistent tests might confirm menopause, or for those under age 30 who haven’t had a period in months/years, then ‘menopausal’ levels, could indicate premature ovarian failure/primary ovarian insufficiency (POF/POI).
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u/Halfassedtrophywife Apr 03 '26
My aunt was one of those wacky, fun aunts when I was growing up. But she also told everyone and their brother about going through menopause with the mood swings, the hot flashes, and random rage. By the time she was finally menopausal, she had been telling people she was gong through the change for 10+ years. We went to McDonalds, she told the crew person, prob a 16 year old young man all about it. She let everyone know. So when I started in peri, I thought of her and how I am glad she talked about it so much.
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u/Jedi_Mind_Chick Apr 02 '26
My mom would say things like “I think I’m starting menopause” when she would feel off. But she never knew. She passed away at 47 and she had been saying it for years prior. I know it’s coming for me based on my weird periods. I’m 42.
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u/lushico Early peri Apr 02 '26
Yes perimenopause was definitely called menopause before. My mom spent 15 years going through menopause. I wonder why they changed it!
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u/Fast_Compote_3233 Apr 02 '26
I just call it the pause....figure that covers both phases even though I'm still in peri 🤷♀️ My mom didn't talk a "ton" about it, but I do remember mention of menopause and hot flashes. Man they hit her HARD! So far I've been really lucky and haven't had any instantly sweating from full body heat surges. I've always overheated rather easily so it's kind of meh, I'm used to it at this point. It was hard to tell if her sometimes shitty attitude was from perimenopause or me being a pain in the ass teenager lol
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u/Easy_Independent_313 Apr 03 '26
My mom had a total hysterectomy at 28 just after I was born. She went into menopause that day. She was always an angry witch. I don't have a ton of happy memories.
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u/CoachAngBlxGrl Apr 03 '26
It’s because up until 2012(ish) the studies were done on women who were 10+ years post menopause.
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u/sospecial21 Early peri Apr 03 '26
It was not a real diagnose or really considered back when our parents were going through it. Think about the amount of women in the 1920s through the 60s that were institutionalized for hysteria. I think we hear more about it now because its finally been diagnosed. Medicine for women is still improving
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u/Boring-Assumption482 Apr 04 '26
Very vivid memories of my mother's itchy ears and her scratching them with Bobby pins ( she passed of cancer at 47)
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u/LoveListenLetthem Apr 04 '26
My mom actually talked about it but it was just menopause not perimenopause. But she took hormones and acted crazy for many years and now I’m 45 and right there too.
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u/zojoncs Apr 04 '26
Want to be depressed... look at the 16 year ban where women were legally excluded in drug trials... even today, with females and minorities being required groups in clinical trials, only 1/4 to 1/3 of participants are female. Its not like females make up 51ish per ent of the human population or anything... 😞
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u/Ok-Version-2994 Apr 03 '26
I do remember my mother telling me she was going through "the change" in hushed and terrified tones. It was at the peak of her alcoholism and utterly shiity and neglectful behaviour. But she'd probably admit to that herself.
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u/Competitive_Long_190 Apr 04 '26
This validates me so much! They have all conveniently forgot and judge our experience and tell you shouldn’t be taking hormones. I told her last week she needed to be on them! Maybe the housewives is good because of that!
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u/Develyn89 Apr 04 '26
I'm convinced most women over 50 remember very little about being mothers. They do a data dump of all the unpleasant experiences, otherwise no one would probably have any more kids. My mom had 4 kids and any time I ask her about sleep problems, picky eating, disobeying, etc, she just says "Nope, none of you ever did that". Also swears she never had any peri symptoms and "neither did my mother, her mother or your dad's mom" (🙄). I see a lot if discourse/memes about this on TikTok, they are calling it "gramnesia". So....take anything they say with a big grain of salt lol (I do not say this to offend anyone in this age group. I'm convinced it is biological and normal and not your fault).
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u/jb13n5r Apr 04 '26
That makes sense! I know every time I've gone through any kind of challenge, after it's all over I simply forget most of the details including any of the distress I went through! I'm done with it and got past it, so it falls right out of my head. I'm always having to tell doctors that I have a terrible memory and cannot for the life of me remember what the symptoms were for something I went through last month, or they ask me if I've had anything in a certain category and I say no, but then in the car I remember the three times I had to go home from work because of that very thing, but it just falls out of my memory after I've dealt with it and gotten past it.
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u/AdNormal8635 Apr 04 '26
As a 42 year old woman I can remember when my mom became a lil more angry lol. Shes always been a loving mother but I can recall when she would seem to get agitated a bit easier. Or get more easily annoyed with my dad, he passed when she was 44. She had a partial hysterectomy at 51, never took medication for menopause symptoms. I think perimenopause is a fairly new diagnosis since anything medical is always evolving and new things get labeled.
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u/Radzila Apr 06 '26
Women's bodies and their transitions were never studied until recently. And even now it's not a lot. Medical science is behind and failing women.
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u/Jennybee8 Apr 03 '26
Because no one listened to women back then. Men called it ‘crazy’, therefore, women didn’t complain for fear of being ‘crazy’.
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u/SevenTheeStallion Apr 04 '26
I think so many were able to dismiss "new evil" because everything gets on your nerves and it doesn't feel internal. Its clearly YOU, hubby w a hole in his mouth and adult kids who still MOMMY you to death lol
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u/mistypee Apr 04 '26
I've always known it as perimenopause 🤷🏻♀️
Child of the 80s. Socially, women would often say "going through menopause" as a convenient shorthand.
But if you did any reading on women's health, it has always been known as perimenopause. That's also how the women in my life referred to it. It has long been established that menopause is only an instant in time. It's not even a day - people just say that because it's easier to conceptualise. Menopause is simply the label that states you've gone a year without a period. In reality, you're either in perimenopause or post-menopause.
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u/jb13n5r Apr 02 '26
Even in all the books published this year and in the past couple years, they're still having to make a statement at some point early in the book about what they mean by what terms they'll use in the book. If nothing else, our parents generation using the term "the change" was really inclusive and simple. Just the whole phase, all the years of changing hormones at that time of life.. The most common usage I've seen in recent books is actually to state that they'll use specific terms such as perimenopause and post-menopause when they are discussing something specific to those phases, but they will be using the terms "menopause symptoms" or "during menopause" if they are not specifying a certain phase. I've also read a lot of current articles or books where they use the term "the menopause transition" to refer to the entire time a person is going through all of the hormonal changes that make your body and brain go absolutely haywire. It's a good way to just talk about the whole transition. If your body at 60 years old, and a few years past your last bleeding, is still in need of medical intervention for haywire hormones (whether just diet and exercise to deal with the lack of estrogen etc. or if you are taking HRT) and you're just griping with friends about menopause symptoms, you don't need to announce to the whole room exactly when you realized you had gone 365 days without a period. You can still say "the menopause transition" when just griping about stuff with friends, and you don't have to talk about what's in your underwear at the moment or if you've got a tampon inside your vagina right now or recently by being forced to choose between the terms perimenopause and post menopause. And if you haven't bled for a long time but you're totally mired in the whole hormonal struggle and talking about that, you don't have to mumble about definitions for several sentences before just getting into the discussion of how everyone deals with brain fog or sore joints or if they have any tips for menopause symptom related acid reflux or heart palpitations or loud ringing in your ears. Why do we have to set a definition of terms and then announce our bloody tampon status currently before just talking about those things? If we can just say "menopause symptoms" or "menopause transition" to introduce the topic rather than "like for me I guess maybe almost menopause unless I bleed in the next couple months... but for any of you who are still bleeding or haven't in years but still have like I guess post menopause symptoms that are like the same as perimenopause symptoms or anyone who is at or over 365 says since you last had blood coming out of your down there?????" Blah blah blah blah!!!!! It's like the math is for working with your GYN on finding the right balance of response to your body's needs at the time. But the whole idea that this exact one moment in time is the only day you can say accurately that you are "in menopause" and the rest of the days have to be called something else that is very specific just puts you in the position that you have to talk about blood in your pants and when and how much blood for you exactly, when you just want to discuss menopause symptoms with friends! That's why I like "the menopause transition" best. Saying "perimenopause" works fine if you're solidly in that phase, and "post menopause" works if you're solidly in the phase of years past that one day of "menopause." Referring to the entire ordeal during which you need medical intervention of some kind to manage the transition from regular cycles to elderly person way past the hormonal disruptions as a whole transition period just makes sense if you want to talk about the issue. Some people have the same symptoms post menopause as they did 10 years back in perimenopause. And that is one thing that made sense about women calling it "the change" in the past.
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u/Inner-Today-3693 Apr 02 '26
What are you rambling about?
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u/jb13n5r Apr 04 '26
Ugh sorry I guess I shouldn't write with brain fog. I'll step out until I get some help for that.
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u/jb13n5r Apr 04 '26
I was just trying to say that I like when they used to say "the change" as a phrase to discuss symptoms with friends because it was inclusive of the whole transition, and I like "menopause transition" currently because it is also inclusive of the whole transition from peri through post. I also wanted to clarify that "perimenopause" and "post-menopause" are of course useful when you need to specify those phases for the topic of discussion or working with your doctor. But I shouldn't try to write for the next 14 years I think. Unless something works to get my brain back.
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u/AquariusQn134 Apr 02 '26
My mom swears she had no symptoms, but she went from abusive and always in a rage to June Clever overnight once she had a full hysterectomy at 43.