Early menopause post chemo advice please

[ricepolo]

Hello

i had ovarian cancer 10 years ago, treated with surgery and aggressive chemo. I lost one ovary and a tube. My fertility returned and I had more children.

I had a call this week from my gynae (we’re abroad so treatment is done by specialist, not GP) to say my progesterone levels are so low they’re unmeasurable and thus she says I’m in early menopause. She’s put me on progesterone supplements. She wants bone scans.

I am a bit confused. My periods are very regular and very normal in terms of length and heaviness. How is this compatible with no progesterone?

Also I would be grateful for any advice about what to quiz her on this week when I see her in person. Do I need more than just progesterone? Or is this enough until my periods stop…?

I’m a healthy weight, exercise pretty hard every day, eat healthily etc. My overall blood results were all excellent: nothing at all I need to improve.

Thanks

Sorry to hear about your previous issues.

Why were your progesterone levels measured anyway? Is this some osrt of on going monitoring or did you go with symptoms?

Usually, no blood tests are done on women over 45 (in the UK) and peri menopause is diagnosed on symptoms only.

If any tests are done, they are to measure estrogen / FSH levels. and need to be done on 2 cycles, between day 2- 5 of the cycle. Even then they are often inaccurate.

If she feels a bone density scan is needed, good, do that - but the treatment for low bone density in young women is HRT, not progesterone.

Thanks for replying. I went to see her since I was getting very bad PMT and wanted to see what we could do, so she did a full blood work up around day 7 of my cycle. She checked everything but only mentioned progesterone as being ‘wrong’ and so said progesterone supplements every day of my cycle. I can ask for the numbers on everything else this week.