Peri-menopause and Menopause

Well, the FSH level corresponds more to the quantity of eggs remaining in your ovaries than it does to the quality of them. As you age, you have fewer and fewer eggs remaining so your pituitary cranks out more and more FSH to get them going (ready for ovulation). A single high FSH test doesn't mean your ovary has shut down, just that your body is recognizing that there aren't as many eggs as there used to be. As to the day 3 question... here's a chart that shows FSH levels throughout the cycle. FSH peaks at about day 6, but I don't think it would jump from a 4 to 100 in three days.

Thanks JPB - when I look up fsh online all I seem to get a fertility web pages. Now I know why!

I was given 5 days of progesterone pills. This is supposed to stop the bleeding (it was already, sort of). The side affect? Bleeding. WTF? Whatever. I feel somewhat more normal now.

littlek, lemme tell ya something about those fsh/lsh tests....

My periods were regular as clock work, the last year I had them I missed maybe 2 over a 14 month period (no pun intended), and had 1 weird one the month after the 1st missed one. It was like I had a period but it wasn't really trying.

Shortly after the 2nd missed period, like 2 or 3 months after, and having normal periods during those 2 or 3 months, I mentioned this skip to my doctor, and she took bloodwork. It came back and she told me my lshes and fshes and whatnot where all well within normal range, and I was not in menopause.

I never had a single period after that bloodwork, and that was, I don't know, maybe 4 years ago.

A womans body is a mysterious thing.

This means that you're still producing estrogen, but not enough progesterone to cause a normal period. It's called a progesterone challenge and the resulting bleed allows your body to rid itself of the lining that built up in anticipation of ovulation. My gynie told me to do a progesterone challenge at least twice/year until there was no resulting bleed -- indicating I was no longer producing estrogen. That way, whatever lining gets built up is flushed out.

Yikes. The progesterone did NOT cause bleeding.

wait... back up a bit for me. Were you bleeding when you took the progesterone? If you'd just finished a period then there wasn't anything there to flush out.

That could be, for sure. We'll see shortly as I'm due for another soon. (I think)

taptaptap...

I feel like my body isn't my body anymore. I have no idea what's going on in there.

Skipped one? That's yet another symptom of the peri-menopause transition.

more than one. I seem to be having one every two months. I think one of my ovaries up and quit and the other one is just barely hanging on.

That was one of the symptoms I had that I now recognize as being a flag. I'll tell you the time line of things in case it helps you with clues to what is going on with you.

For most of the years from my early 30's to around 45, I had periods only every other month and sometimes every four months. I think it connects to a similar incident in my early 20's when I missed a period for several months and the pregnancy tests were negative. The doctor gave me an injection of something to stimulate one of my ovaries into releasing an egg. She said the ovary surface had hardened and eggs were unable to make their way out of the follicles. My periods were regular after that until my 30's.

Coincidentally, in my 50's that's the same ovary that had the huge cyst growing on it that became life-threatening due to the size of it.

What was unusual was that for about 5 years before that, I suddenly started having regular monthly periods again. One of them was very light while the other was heavy and painful. Eventually, they both became more frequent and very heavy and I had to fight anemia. In the year before my hysterectomy, my periods suddenly stopped completely and the cyst started rapidly growing.

I often wonder if those trapped eggs in the follicles are what eventually became cysts.

Interesting - I wonder how that worked too.

I had different stuff going on, but stuff. Mine has drama too, bleeding down my leg (bleeding fibroid, but I didn't know that then) on the Corso in Rome surrounded by zingari digging into my waistpack that had nothing but film and tissues and tampax, trying to find a bathroom in the morning, but I didn't know it would be a memory then, I was just embarrassed. Refused from two places including a closed restaurant and a bakery that waved me away, I got to use the bathroom at Caffe Greco, ironically, a famous place. We headed for that because I'd heard of it. The Caffe never knew about it. We had two espressos after I scraped myself up. None of this is against husband.

I figure much is still not understood. I had surgery a few months later, just about no iron stores left, very anemic.

So, I think most of us agree, watch all this.

It's interesting how we're all so different. I am, what, six? Eight? Years older than littlek and I am still getting the fun every single month, and sometimes every three weeks. It's a fire sale for my remaining eggs, but it's been going on for about two years. My mother had told me she was all done at age fifty. That's a year and eight months away. Hmmm.

Jes, I don't think your even 6 years older than me, but maybe you are. (I just did the math - about 6 years older). Have you checked with your doc about the every-3-week thing?

The gyno said that I had two options. I could have a biopsy of my uterus to look for suspicious cells which might be causing the problem. Or I could wait and watch for three things. I had her print out the info because I'd forget and now I can't find it. But, bleeding less than 4 weeks apart was definitely a reason to come back in.

Ha - I just had a doctor's appointment this week and as I am approaching this average age for menopause, she went over the symptons. For some reason this particular item - forgetting people's names (the doctor described it just like you do here) seemed to bother me.

She also said you could have some or none and to varying degrees. Something to look forward to -

At least now I have an excuse for forgetting things...