Perimenopause - funny?

[tobee]

Apropos of not very much, but has anyone noticed that people (women mostly?) are making jokes or comments about “perimenopause” but not “menopause”? I’m aware it might be because they’re different things and that one is a “thing to go through” and menopause is “the end” and also some words in comedy are funnier than others but it’s like menopause is “a step too far” to be funny. And then you really are “over the hill”.

Or am I just a paranoid post menopausal woman? 😄

The first sentence of that article:

The menopausal transition, or perimenopause, is associated with profound reproductive and hormonal changes.

So there are two different terms for this. Some women here are saying that they're more familiar with the term 'menopausal transition' (or 'going through the menopause') than 'perimenopause'. I always assumed menopause referred to the period of change with post-menopausal referring to the point at which periods totally stopped. Although @CautiousLurker has now introduced the term 'in menopause'. Is that the same as post menopause? If so, it contradicts the poster who said menopause is one day.

I think hair-splitting over semantics is a bit unhelpful, unless the aim is to make some women feel inferior due to their unfamiliarity with the correct medical terminology.

Women can get hot flushes in the Post-menopausal stage too, it's all a v individual experience much like our experiences around our periods can differ so much. My perimenopause wasn't really noticeable, skipping periods was about the only symptom plus it would have contributed to my osteoporosis but not something you are aware of without scans. Post menopause was a different story, insomnia that got worse and worse, joint pain, memory issues to the point of losing my words mid-sentence and an awful feeling of disassociation. I was numb to the world around me, life and time just slipped past me, no interest in anything, I wasn't depressed but neither was there any happiness to anything.
I've never had a hot flush and I think it's about 25% of women that don't have symptoms (whether that's the case for them in peri and post, or like me one stage is pretty much symtomless and the other full of issues I don't know)

I’ve posted this before, though not (I think) on this board. It’s a nicely written piece, as well as being interesting.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10557373/

There are extensive studies that focus on early-onset menopause, including surgical and spontaneous causes. There is also a specific definition with associated metrics. However, delayed or late-onset menopause is rarely mentioned or reviewed in literature and remains a rare possibility in certain patient groups.

The aim is to evident the word perimenopause is an appropriate word and not a marketing strategy as alluded.

By linking a peer reviewed article it helps fact checking.

The aim of my post was to assist. It isn't an individuals lacking, it is a clear example of how womens health has still significant catching up to do.

https://thebms.org.uk/ I've been having a look at this site.
I don't see many (any so far) references to perimenopause, more the refer to 'the time leading up to the menopause.
Clearly there isn't a whole medical society to manage the symptoms of just one day and I'm pretty sure they cover the care for all stages (peri and post).

The point I'm making is that reference to perimenopause is fairly recent, so misunderstanding will be wide.

I stumbled across this article which states "There is a concerning message in the media currently, that all symptoms in women aged >40 years are due to oestrogen and/or testosterone deficiency. We must question this. Primary care clinicians are well placed to know a woman’s history and to provide holistic care in the context of a patient’s background; these are the strengths of general practice."

I'm fed up of every issue I have being put down to hormones. It might be, but it also might not. This is not my GP I hasten to add, but it's common among my peers.

This shows usage of the term perimenopause. It didn't seem to exist before the late 70s and was uncommon until after 2000.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=perimenopause&yearstart=1970&yearend=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3&caseinsensitive=false

I don't think scolding women for not using the 'correct' terminology is helpful though. Especially when the article you linked also used an alternative term ('menopausal transition') which other posters might have understood better than 'perimenopause'.

Perimenopause is the years leading up to menopause, when hormone levels go up and down, causing heavy/irregular/flooding periods, hot flushes and lots of other symptoms such as anxiety, mood swings, migraine, urinary incontinence, joint pain, insomnia, etc.

Menopause is one day - the last day you have a period. But you're not post menopause until you've had 12 months without a period.

I'm now post menopause and the symptoms I had during perimenopause continue. So I'm still taking HRT to try and keep myself on an even keel.

None of this is funny. I find my symptoms completely debilitating at times, with no end in sight. But I don't mind if people want to laugh about it. It brings the topic to the forefront... makes it easier for women to talk about it. No one should struggle in silence, getting the conversation started is important so women understand what perimenopause, mesopause and post menopause is all about.

You only have to read this thread to see all the misunderstandings. So... let's keep laughing and talking and educating each other about a really important topic.

It hasn’t been invented, it’s just being recognised. Perimenopause wasn’t a “thing” when I went through it. Years of horrendous gynae and urinary problems and four separate anxiety disorders which resulted in me giving up work. None of these were ever attributed to menopause. It was only when I had my ovaries removed (in a desperate bid to cure the three weeks of heavy bleeding each month - passing clots the size of my foot), that the other conditions magically resolved overnight.

It is wonderful that women are starting to be supported through this often horrific phase of life. I wasn’t. I wish I’d known it was all hormonal and that I wasn’t just a snowflake/insane/dying of bladder cancer/etc.

'Peri' may be the medically correct term but I agree with posters saying it wasn't in everyday usage until quite recently. I never used it or heard it used when I was going through it - we just called it all 'the menopause'. But yes of course we still spent hours comparing notes and yes, laughing about our symptoms. In fact one of my friends started a menopause discussion group and I declined the invitation because I was bored talking about it.

I remember my mum and aunts talking about it too, albeit in low voices.

I think we were far less vocal about it in the workplace though. I remember being startled a couple of years ago when I overheard a younger colleague telling her line manager about her brain fog. (I'm not saying she shouldn't have done, just that I would never have dreamed of arming management with that info.) And I only knew a couple of women using HRT.

Oh now I'm confused, I thought menopause was the 24 hrs after you hit the 12 months without a period (or 24 months if under 50) and then you were considered to be post-menopausal after that.

You are right.
Perimenopause ends and you reach menopause when you have not had a period for 12 months.

Or, far more likely, just using the standard language used at that time. I never heard anyone mention perimenopause - and yes groups of women talked about it among themselves, confronted their male bosses about it, talked to family about it

Yes, medical training around women’s issues is shit. Also, language changes, and discussion works better if readers take the time to try to understand rather than immediately ganging up on Grammarnut

I didn't scold them I informed them. You obviously are imposing a tone. I would suggest you stop calling out others offering facts. Honestly the absolute ignorance and lack of manners is hilarious.

Bluntly saying "Time you got informed" to a poster who simply used an outdated term because she wasn't familiar with the new term (which seems to have only come into common usage in the last 20 years) doesn't seem very polite to me.

Perhaps you should think about how your own posts look to others before accusing other posters of a lack of manners.

I agree with @OldCrone Several posters have pointed out that, regardless of whether or not it's correct, the term 'peri menopause' was not commonly used until quite recently. It doesn't mean we didn't talk about it, or the symptoms, although I think we were probably a bit more circumspect in the workplace.

Maybe we were ignorant of the correct terminology but maybe some posters are in turn ignorant of the language used in conversations 20-odd years ago.

I think people are too inclined to think these definitions are completely objective, too.

It must be obvious that a medical definition that says a person has their menopause 12 months after last period (24 months if under 50) has a very significant arbitrary element.

That's not an objective thing, it's a way of making a reasonably well informed guess where a women might be in terms of what's going on with her hormonally and reproductively and describing that.

As for whether the pharmaceutical industry wants to try and medicalize it, yeah, of course they do. That doesn't mean people don't have real symptoms that are serious, it means that they are very keen to convince as many women as possible that their symptoms require interventions which can be alleviated through drugs. They'd like to do the same with men, for that matter.

I mean the phrase. Afaik, it just means the slow process of menstruation stopping which used to be called the menopause.

Grammarnut was. Thanks.

Yes, that's how I always spoke of it. I'd never heard the term perimenopause until recent years, it was just "going through menopause" or "menopausal". Which for some reason I can't fathom sounds to me like it has a bit more gravitas than perimenopause. Not that it matters either way, I was one of the very lucky women who had nothing worse than the odd hot flush and bit of brain fog.