Early signs and symptoms of spontaneous early menopause

I think I had one six month gap and that was it. I had a - it must have been regular 27 days or whatever it was. It wasn’t - it was pretty normal. Regular and then six months and then nothing and the first six month gap, I wondered whether I was pregnant. I wasn’t. The first six month gap - I can’t remember what I was thinking in that time. Maybe I was just too busy to worry about it. I must have not felt ill or else I would have gone to see the doctor, so I must have just got on with life and then had a period and then figured well, maybe if you have a six month gap and it’s unusual, and maybe that period was light, that maybe it just must be menopause but I wasn’t – again. I wasn’t - I didn’t feel ill. I didn’t feel bloated. I didn’t have headaches. There was nothing for me to actually go to the doctor and say, “I don’t feel well,” so I didn’t go.

So I was 32 at the time, and, otherwise healthy, life was good. I was working and studying part time. And the course that I was studying had a lot of more mature-age women, probably around the age of 50. And they were the ones that started to put pieces of the puzzle together for me. We’d be sitting in the classroom, and then it would [ laughing], it was like the Mexican wave of women taking their jumpers off, and then putting their jumpers back on, and of course I was in amongst it.

And then there would be other times sitting around having lunch, and I would have a hot flush, like quite ferociously, and be stripping off as many layers as I could. And, struggling with memory, and ‘Oh God, am I starting to get dementia here, what’s going on.’ And they were the women who started saying “Oh, do you know what? You might be going through early menopause, because you’re having a lot of symptoms the same as us”.

And it was probably another six months of that, and then I started getting horrendous night sweats, like really, really bad, waking me up, three or four times a night, and having to change my nightie and my sheets, it was just, just dripping with sweat, and I’m not a sweaty person at all, so it’s very foreign.

So I noticed that I had something wrong when I was 23 and I went to the doctor, the gynaecologist, just to have a normal check-up. And on my exams she noticed that my ovaries were really small and she asked me to stop the anticonceptional [contraception].

The pill?

Yeah, the pill. [laughing] And after I stopped - straight away when I stopped the pill my period stopped as well and I start to feel all the things - all the symptoms of menopause.

My first period came when I was 13 but I was always really slim, [laughing] like I am now. And I was a swimmer, like, a professional swimmer so I didn't had - I didn't have much fat on my body. And the doctor said because I didn't had so much fat my periods could be not too normal like the other girls. So it was, like, once and then eight months later until I stopped to training when I was 16, 17. And in this period of my life start - the bleeding start to be really heavy, like, 28 days in a month bleeding and - and really lots of blood.

So I start to take the pill in this period to organise my periods and [that] helped me. And I believe in one hand [it] helped me but [on] the other hand [it] masquerade the problem. So I'm not sure until whether it was good or not. And I stay and, like, two years without going to the doctor because it was all good. And I went to the doctor when I was 23 just to have a check-up because I was feeling fine. And after that she said me to stop with the pill and I had the symptoms like the flush. I had a boyfriend in that time and I didn't want to have sex with him. And when it happened hurt a lot because it was really dry. What else? Yes, my moods were always changing. Yeah, like, maybe I had everything that a woman in the beginning of menopause had.

In my, probably mid 30s, around 35, 36, I started to skip periods. And I had always had extremely regular menstruation, literally 28 days sometimes almost to the hour every 28th day. I had never, ever had issues with that. And the periods started to skip I guess during a time of stress, I was working really hard, my job was extremely physical, the hours of my job were very demanding, split shifts, early starts, late finishes, that sort of thing. And I guess I didn’t sort of think terribly much of it for a couple of years. I just thought it was stress and overwork, and that sort of thing. But then the gaps between periods got longer and longer, and I started to experience night sweats. And I became concerned at that point, not because I thought that I was going through menopause, it didn’t occur to me. But probably about seven years prior, I had been sick for two or three years with chronic fatigue syndrome. And I’d been really sick for two or three years, it took a long time to recover. I’d lost a lot of weight, my body was really in almost total shutdown for a good couple of years. But I had slowly regained my health, and gone back to work, and here I was for many years already working, full time, and life had gotten back to normal, until the sort of mid 30 mark. So when I started to experience night sweats, I was concerned that it was some sort of return of an auto-immune condition.

Sometimes my body would just heat up. I guess they talk about hot flushes but again I didn't know that was it but I would just get so hot. I recall taking my daughter out of the bath when she was young, maybe three or four or something, and I just recall she'd be bouncing around and I'd just be getting - having this overwhelming sort of urge of, you know, this heat and just frustration. I'd feel so cranky and I'd get so frustrated and, probably a little bit with her but, sort of - just frustrated.

But I used to think, “Oh why are you getting so, you know, worked up?” but – or, “Why am I feeling this way?” But I didn't associate that with anything else. I just thought it's just being a mother or being tired or - so I was probably attributing a lot of it just to that. But I look back and I think, no they were really strong symptoms and I was just trying to get her out of the bath and get her - and I used to look back and feel a bit bad about that [crying] so it’s – so it's hard because I think, you know, “Was I the best mum?” [Crying] but now again it makes sense so I sort of think, I think I was and my husband assures me that I was.

But I think I just probably just at times felt on edge, frustrated, hot, cranky and it just all makes sense and at the time it - it probably didn't. That's my strongest memories are taking her to the bath. It used to often happen then because that's when she was all very excited and jumping around and that's when you'd like to enjoy that time and I felt that I wasn't. When she was sort of sitting there doing her own thing - it's easier, of course. So I think that's a memory that I - I look back and I think, “Oh goodness.”

But again now have - I can make sense of that so it's yeah much - sort of much easier. So I had those moments certainly where - then we have a bit of guilt associated with that. But I think that was a main one. Probably a bit more emotional. I felt my emotional highs and lows. I think after I had her I was on an emotional high. I was just so excited to be a new mum and I don't think things had really set in then so I was able to enjoy that time. I breastfed for well over 12 months. So I was able to enjoy all those things that came with - with motherhood but it was a little bit later I suppose when she was probably two or three that it sort of started to unfold.

Headaches. I definitely was getting headaches and I think again - I was unsure of whether it was my interrupted sleep as a new mother, so again, it's that, “Well it's because I'm tired” or that. But now again I look back and I think well I did get headaches a lot, and some days they were particularly bad and I felt like I couldn't think straight so it was that real lack of clarity - that sort of foggy head and for me that was very real.

I think, possibly just a little bit more well just cranky or little things might irritate me more than usual because I'm a fairly calm and relaxed person with most things. But I suppose things just irritated me perhaps a little bit more so. I don't recall any major changes with my husband or our relationship. But he might have been attributing it as well to being a new mum. So yeah, but I think they were the main ones so the headaches, feeling the hot flushes maybe looking back and just that general irritability, and then just tired. Just drained.

I started waking up with night sweats and of course, initially I thought I had some kind of, infection. And I think I went to the doctor and nothing was wrong. Yeah, and my periods continued to be really irregular and I kept going to the doctor and saying, “Look, something’s not right.” In the end - my GP said to me, “I think you’re depressed. You know, you should try some antidepressants and, women feel much better when they take these antidepressants,” and I didn’t feel that I was depressed.

I mean, I had two young children, I was tired [ laughing] and I knew something wasn’t quite right, but I wasn’t feeling depressed. So I did go home quite upset from that session at the GP and they wanted me to do a follow up kind of counselling session where they were planning on prescribing me antidepressants, and I decided not to go through with that.

So because I had worked in the medical industry, I guess [ laughing] - I did my own research and it was kind of in the back of my mind that perhaps I was going through early menopause, because my grandmother had gone through early menopause, but not having any of my immediate family living in Australia, I didn’t really have the opportunity to have good conversations with my mother or my sisters about anything.

So of course, did research and ended up coming up with the [health clinic] and of course they have some really great resources - I rang up and got an appointment there and saw a doctor who actually took note of my symptoms and that my grandmother had gone through early menopause and proceeded to do some tests. And they found that, it was quite possible I was going through early menopause.