Excerpted from an interview with Kathy Petras Sue: How can a woman differentiate between early menopause and perimenopause?
Kathy: That’s an excellent question! It can get very confusing….so here’s an attempt at making some sense of it.Perimenopause: To put it briefly, perimenopause is the time leading up to menopause, when your hormones fluctuate and you notice symptoms. And this often begins happening when a woman reaches her late 30s, as her body begins the transition to menopause, which occurs, on average, at about age 51.Premature menopause, on the other hand, is technically defined as menopause that occurs before the age of 40. You stop ovulating and your periods stop completely years before the “normal” age of menopause. When you’re going through early menopause, you’ll notice symptoms that are the same as those for women in perimenopause — hot flashes, changes in your period, night sweats, mood swings and the like. But you’ll notice these symptoms at a much younger age — in your 20s, early 30s, even late teens. Your estrogen levels drop; your FSH levels rise in an effort to jumpstart your ovaria
