The run-up to menopause can begin in your 30s, leaving young women confused by unexplained symptoms. Here are the tell-tale signs. Perimenopause is the stage in your life when you experience symptoms of menopause but your periods have not yet stopped.
It usually starts several years before a woman reaches her menopause, which officially begins when you haven’t had a period for 12 months. It is during perimenopause, when oestrogen and progesterone levels begin to fluctuate, that it’s common to experience difficult symptoms like mood changes, irregular periods and hot flushes. The average age for menopause in the UK is 51, but because perimenopause can start as early as our 30s, some younger women don’t realise the uncomfortable and disruptive symptoms they are experiencing are due to being perimenopausal.
“Symptoms like poor memory, anxiety and low mood often occur before you see any changes in your periods, so you may not recognise these as being related to perimenopause,” says Kathy Abernethy, a menopause specialist with the British Menopause Society..