Premature
Menopause: When “The Change” Happens Earlier
than Expected
For
women in their twenties and thirties, menopause is something
in the distant future. During most of a woman’s childbearing
years, she’s not worried about night sweats and menopause
hot flashes. Those are symptoms for their mothers to
tell them about. But for some women, menopause comes too
early, even as early as the teenage years. Premature menopause
remains a mystery in many cases, a mystery that comes as
a shock for the women who are affected by it.
Premature
menopause is an overall term used to describe the total
end of a woman’s menstrual periods for 12 months before
the age of 40. Premature menopause is also called premature
ovarian failure, or POF. In addition to ovarian failure,
premature menopause can also be caused by a hysterectomy
(removal of the uterus and/or ovaries) or by cancer treatments
like chemotherapy and radiation.
Premature
menopause from POF affects about 250,000 women in the United
States. The symptoms of premature menopause are similar
to normal signs of menopause:
absence of periods, hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes,
vaginal dryness, and infertility. There are two major differences
between premature menopause and menopause: (1) a woman whose
body has completed the process of premature menopause may
still have irregular periods, and (2) about 5 to 10 percent
of women who experiences premature menopause become pregnant
without treatment. By contrast, a woman who has gone through
a “normal” menopause (in her 40s or later) will
not have any periods at all and cannot become pregnant without
medical intervention. Women in premature menopause have
similar low estrogen levels to post-menopausal women, and
this explains the similarity in symptoms.
The
medical community has not discovered yet why premature menopause,
or POF, occurs in otherwise healthy young women, but research
is ongoing for this perplexing and often disheartening condition.
The treatment of premature menopause may be different than
the standard treatment
of menopause because women who go through premature
menopause often have the desire to become pregnant.
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