Are we too young to be experiencing this??

[TheNaturalBronde]

Me & some of my friends around the 36/37 years mark have noticed our cycles changing, sometimes only 2/3 weeks between periods…feeling more moody than normal, when it was just me I was aware of I thought it may be stress but as we shared this between us it made me wonder if it’s more likely the beginnings of our cycle changing.

AIBU are we too young to be experiencing these changes?

any experience welcome TIA x

Sorry I actually voted wrong by accident.
I hit YABU but I meant YANBU.
This happened to me at exactly that age. It continued to get progressively worse and for me it was the beginning of perimenopause.

Oh and I thought something was wrong at first. Went to gp, referred to gynae. Both confirmed it was the start of peri, that I was not too young for it and it was perfectly normal.

Not too young at all. Peri-menopause can last a decade or more.

Snap started around then for me too, not that it's affected fertility as I'm onto having my 2nd born after the age of 40.

No not too young, changes can start from early-mid thirties which is why fertility can (not always) start to decline from around then.

No the same thing happened to me at that age, I think it’s your body making your cycles shorter to fire more eggs out in a last attempt to reproduce. By the time I was 40 my cycles were all over the place, I might have one 18 day cycle then one 56 day cycle, things weren’t even remotely predictable. Now I’m 44 and during my 40s I’ve had two 10 month gaps with no periods at all and I’ve thought maybe that’s it…but no then another one comes along, and then it’s back to having them semi regularly again. It’s horrible, you don’t appreciate the benefits of having a predictable monthly cycle until you don’t, hormones and moods are all over the place.

My periods have always been around every 3.5 weeks, but over the last few years there have been about three times when it's been about a week late, and once I came on unexpectedly and heavily. I got a couple of blood tests done which showed my FSH is high and the doctor told me it's likely perimenopause, although she did acknowledge I was a bit young (almost 39 at the time) and had no other symptoms, so I'm to keep an eye on things.

I was a 5/6 week cycle that ended up at 21 days in my mid 30s 🙄

Peri menopause seems to be very ' in' at the moment. Feeling irritable? Warm? Didn't sleep very well last night?. Must be Peri menopause. It's the new anxiety.

Yep started at 39 still in it 8 years later

Or maybe it's finally becoming more recognised and understood.

If men suffered from peri, there would have been a cure years ago.

And the irregular cycles ? Are they figments of the imagination or unrelated to hormones too? 🙄

@99pwithaflakeIts definitely more recognised now. I work with mostly other women and seriously it's like anyone over the age of 30 thinks they're in Peri. Irregular cycles happen for many reasons. It just seems like Peri is a catch all.

Eh? What …..

ive been like clockwork since I was a teen and I’ve now changed, I’m not looking to start a trend.

I might get myself checked out

Yep, and one of those reasons is peri, which is very normal in your late thirties and early forties.

It's not something brand new, it's just something that's more recognised nowadays, which is absolutely a good thing, IMO. No need for anyone to struggle through it unnecessarily.

What’s the cure?

I didn't say one existed, I said if men suffered with peri (or periods, come to that) then science would have found a way to "solve" them by now (ie. make them bearable).

The same is happening to me. I’m 38.

Me 36, sister 38, both having changes and symptoms. For her its drastically shorter periods, no BC. For me its brain fog, face flushing, extreme tiredness, hair loss, and my hirsutism getting worse with faster growing. I have the implant so no period.

I think you are lucky to maybe get it over with sooner rather than later. I didn't even start to have irregular periods until I was 48 and that went on until I was 55! I was so lucky I had no other symptoms - no hot flushes, etc.but I had the worst flooding which was treated with tranexamic acid. It's fab when it's all over!

It’s not “in” but all women go through it, in one way or another. If you sail through with no symptoms? Great. Some women do.
For those of us who had previously bang on regular periods, which suddenly become totally erratic, and now include the horror of “flooding”, who have never been a crier, but who start crying at at sodding toilet roll advert and who’s previously very healthy libido packs up and fucks off, leaving you a dried out itchy mess? Yes, it’s a real thing. And yes, meds absolutely help.

I was born in 1965. Most of my friends didn't start their periods until they were 11 or 12. I was 12 before mine started ( weighed 7 stone during those years). I went into active menopause in my very late 40s. I'm 60 now and it's all been done with for 9 years as far as periods are concerned . I was a Primary teacher and , when I started teaching in 1988, it was still very unusual for a girl in year 6 to start her periods and to have them on a monthly basis. By the time I finished teaching, 20 years later, it was entirely usual for years 5 and 6 to have started and to have periods regularly . We've all got bigger and I guess if you start your periods at 8ish you'll go into peri much earlier.

Peri lasts for a decade? 😨

I'm 41 and mine started shortening around age 39. It's gone from 6-7 weeks to 4 and I'm having awful low moods and period pain I never got before! I quite enjoyed having a long cycle.