I discovered I'd started perimenopause somewhat early when I entered into fertility treatments in my mid/late 30s.... all of my numbers and the way my body was behaving was looking that way, although officially they called it "Diminished ovarian reserve."
This is a totally inaccurate name, as it's not the reserve of ova that has diminished, (you have millions) but your body's ability to respond to hormones (particularly FSH, follicle-stimulating hormone) that trigger the ovaries to mature an ova is wearing out, so the body responds by pumping out more FSH to try and get things going, and then all kinds of stuff goes out of balance and gets weird and wonky, and it keeps being weird and wonky for a long while. (Menopause is basically when the ovaries are like, yeah, you can send out all the FSH you want but I'm done here, at which point levels stabilize and it's a new balance... I am almost there.)
In retrospect, I can see that I probably had some early indicators in my early 30s, but the excuse was always stress, my cycle has always been a little weird, blips are normal, etc. Overall, it's not a well-defined state.... it's basically, "your body is in an adjustment period between one steady-state and another, so basically everything is bizarre right now."
Weirdly grateful for fertility treatment and a doc who was good at explaining things because there is such a massive information gap about this. The female reproductive system and hormone interactions throughout is complicated and not well-understood, and very under-researched.
This is so much useful information--thank you for sharing! One thing I think about is how pregnancy or the attempt to get pregnant comes with a crash course in reproductive health. So those of us who haven't had children and don't plan to, no one thinks to explain these things or checks in on them in a comprehensive way unless we take the initiative which is daunting.
Even pregnancy tells every little. Infertility teaches you a lot, if you are resourced and curious enough to investigate it, but the main takeaway is that medical science knows much less than we'd assume. It's a lot of guessing.
In any case, there's an inverse relationship between FSH and estrogen which is why high FSH leads to low estrogen, and also why taking estrogen tends to relieve symptoms of high FSH.... notably hot flashes, should you get them. Estrogen is increasing emitted by the maturing follicles (which holds the ova) and is required to thicken the lining (endometrium) and as estrogen rises, FSH falls off. That's the first half of your cycle. The second half kicks off when your estrogen is high enough to trigger ovulation through a surge in LH (luteinizing hormone.) The follicle that produced the now-mature ova becomes the corpus luteum, which produces progesterone to support the endometrium in the event of implantation. (A common cause of early miscarriage is insufficient progesterone.) If nothing implants, the corpus luteum collapses, everything is shed (menstruation) and meanwhile the FSH starts ramping up to start all over again.
This is somewhat simplified but also, this most of what I know. But you can see how one thing going out of what can set off a chain reaction of weirdness. Everything depends on the previous thing.
From my own experience in taking estrogen or progesterone for medical purposes, these things fuck with my mood in major ways. But it's something highly variable among different people. Estrogen and progesterone effect so many different things in the body. I remember trying to look it up and fucking WebMD literally said, we don't know exactly what estrogen does or how because it's too complicated to study. Too. Complicated. To. Study. WTAF.
Also my fertility doc ask me when I was getting my fellowship in reproductive endocrinology, lol.
I discovered I'd started perimenopause somewhat early when I entered into fertility treatments in my mid/late 30s.... all of my numbers and the way my body was behaving was looking that way, although officially they called it "Diminished ovarian reserve."
This is a totally inaccurate name, as it's not the reserve of ova that has diminished, (you have millions) but your body's ability to respond to hormones (particularly FSH, follicle-stimulating hormone) that trigger the ovaries to mature an ova is wearing out, so the body responds by pumping out more FSH to try and get things going, and then all kinds of stuff goes out of balance and gets weird and wonky, and it keeps being weird and wonky for a long while. (Menopause is basically when the ovaries are like, yeah, you can send out all the FSH you want but I'm done here, at which point levels stabilize and it's a new balance... I am almost there.)
In retrospect, I can see that I probably had some early indicators in my early 30s, but the excuse was always stress, my cycle has always been a little weird, blips are normal, etc. Overall, it's not a well-defined state.... it's basically, "your body is in an adjustment period between one steady-state and another, so basically everything is bizarre right now."
Weirdly grateful for fertility treatment and a doc who was good at explaining things because there is such a massive information gap about this. The female reproductive system and hormone interactions throughout is complicated and not well-understood, and very under-researched.
In other words, yes, it's probably perimenopause.
This is so much useful information--thank you for sharing! One thing I think about is how pregnancy or the attempt to get pregnant comes with a crash course in reproductive health. So those of us who haven't had children and don't plan to, no one thinks to explain these things or checks in on them in a comprehensive way unless we take the initiative which is daunting.
Even pregnancy tells every little. Infertility teaches you a lot, if you are resourced and curious enough to investigate it, but the main takeaway is that medical science knows much less than we'd assume. It's a lot of guessing.
In any case, there's an inverse relationship between FSH and estrogen which is why high FSH leads to low estrogen, and also why taking estrogen tends to relieve symptoms of high FSH.... notably hot flashes, should you get them. Estrogen is increasing emitted by the maturing follicles (which holds the ova) and is required to thicken the lining (endometrium) and as estrogen rises, FSH falls off. That's the first half of your cycle. The second half kicks off when your estrogen is high enough to trigger ovulation through a surge in LH (luteinizing hormone.) The follicle that produced the now-mature ova becomes the corpus luteum, which produces progesterone to support the endometrium in the event of implantation. (A common cause of early miscarriage is insufficient progesterone.) If nothing implants, the corpus luteum collapses, everything is shed (menstruation) and meanwhile the FSH starts ramping up to start all over again.
This is somewhat simplified but also, this most of what I know. But you can see how one thing going out of what can set off a chain reaction of weirdness. Everything depends on the previous thing.
From my own experience in taking estrogen or progesterone for medical purposes, these things fuck with my mood in major ways. But it's something highly variable among different people. Estrogen and progesterone effect so many different things in the body. I remember trying to look it up and fucking WebMD literally said, we don't know exactly what estrogen does or how because it's too complicated to study. Too. Complicated. To. Study. WTAF.
Also my fertility doc ask me when I was getting my fellowship in reproductive endocrinology, lol.