is this the menopause?

[spudFace]

have come on 12 days early - spoke to nhs direct and they hve advised to go to the gp in the next day or so. am really confused. i am wondering if this is the start of the menopause as i am 39. Have been having palpatations over the last few days too and general feeling of hyperactive. have been making stupid mistakes at work as well over the last few weeks and feel light headed today. does this sound like the menopause?

I was asking our GP about menopause symptoms yesterday. She said it is usual for your cycle to be up the swannee, but I am sure she said you're likely to miss one, then have one etc. I'd go to your own GP and talk through all your symptoms. Don't worry, there can be lots of causes. I've been worried about period-related things recently, went to GP and my mind has been put at rest (had various blood tests/internal etc. just waiting for smear results). I know it's a bit scarey, but most times it's nothing so worth doing for peace of mind. Go to GP (that's an order!) and come back and let us know how it went.

doctors booked for 9.40am tomorrow. it is scary and although i had an operation before xmas periods have been bang on time till now.

Good luck for tomorrow spudFace, will be thinking of you (having sat very nervously in our GP's waiting room for almost an hour yesterday!)

First of all, I just wanted to say good luck spudface. Please let us know how it goes.

I'm 38 and my periods have been rather erratic lately too. Infact, at the time of writing I'm about a week late, although I know I'm not pregnant.

This may seem a daft question, but is there an average age at which menopausal symptoms start appearing? What sort of things should I be looking out for?

I started getting erratic periods, hormones, bladder leakage, depression, mood swings, etc. after my dd was born. I was 39 at the time and didn't even think about menopause. I blamed on giving birth. Except that 2 years later it was worse not better, so I started seeing doctors in the uk and the usa. My mother's obgyn in the usa (she's a menopause hormone specialist) finally diagnosed me as being peri-menopausal. It's basically the 10-15 years leading up to menopause. Most women are fairly asymptomatic, but some, like me, have all sorts of unpleasant menopausal symptoms. The good news was that she said that most of the symptoms would get better if I went on the pill (low dose, monophasic). And she was absolutely right. Within a month of going on the pill, pretty much all the symptoms were gone (and in fact there were a few added bonuses...my hair went all shiny and silky and the water gain you get with the pill, looks really good on a haggard 41year old).
So, best of luck with the gp, but be prepared for not too many answers (what I got from my gp in both uk and usa). Ask for a referral to a hormone specialist. (In my case, my referral came through a few weeks after seeing my mother's obgyn and he turned out to be the uk's expert on hormones and agreed with my mother's obgyn.

Very interesting post, Sofia.

Many thanks for your input.

well, went to the doctors and she gave me some tablets to actually stop the bleeding and advised me to get a smear test done asap so have one booked for monday.

She went to say that the bleeding could be one of three things:

1 homone imbalance
2 fibroid cyst which will show up in smear
3 cervical problems

all i can do now is take the tablets and wait for results of smear.

thanks for all your posts - its a worrying old subject which scares the hell out of me. i had 2 big dermoid cysts removed before xmas and am terrified of having to go through another op as i hate hospitals.

thanks everyone.

xxx

thanks for the update. I know it's scarey, am in similar position, but having the tests is the only thing to do. Take care xx

will do lilolil. let us know how you get on too. xx

Thanks for updating us spudface.

I do hope there is nothings serious wrong, but at least it seems to have been caught early if there is.

Good luck!