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Category: feature
What can be done about menopause coming 'too early'? I'm not talking really premature (teens/20s/early 30s) but at just after 40, when lots of today's women are still wishing to complete or even start families.
Could the menopause be appearing to happen earlier than average and before the true end of egg supply, due to stress?
We are lucky in that we already have 2 children but I would have loved one or two more. Tried without success for 5 years and then my periods started to miss and now haven't come again for 9.5 months. My FSH was 60 so I was told it was menopause. At the time, I was just on my 43rd birthday. I know this is within the normal range but it's still a little earlier than average.
I have tried Melatonin, having read an Italian study in which soem post-menopausal women restarted their periods on it (still no AF) and am now considering Traditional Chinese Medicine. I know some women have had success with acupuncture but they surely weren't entering menopause???
Has any scientist been successful in slowing or halting 'the change' and restarting ovulation? Stem cell research is exciting but looks like taking a long time before it's useful. I know you can use donor eggs (or adopt) but I am also worried that the drop in oestrogen beginning before the average age will affect my long-term health - and not sure I fancy HRT. I'm taking soya and stuff like that, which have stopped the few, minor hot flushes, but it's not the same as my own hormones! I feel angry and my husband doesn't understand why I am so sad or know how to help me.
Any info or advice you can give would be welcome.
What a great question! I will do some research on this and see what I can find.
Two things that might help, off the top of my head...
bio-identical hormones - safer than HRT, and been know to bring back cycles
Vitex - an herbal remedy that also has helped bring back cycles.
Thanks for your swift response, Catherine, and I will look forward to seeing the results of your research.
I think all of us on here are aware that just because you have a period it doesn't mean you are fertile. However, I will certainly have a look at the two things you've mentioned, as they sound encouraging. Thanks for those suggestions.
Those who have had no worries about fertility just see AF as an annoyance. One older woman said to me: "But aren't you glad to be done with all that?". She's probably from the first 'Pill' generation! Also she may never have suffered pregnancy loss, as we did ten years ago.
So true - having a period does not guarantee fertility. And I don't know if bringing back your cycle can jump-start ovulation again?
From my own experience, I did continue to cycle and get pregnant (and miscarry) as long as I was using bio-identical hormones and Vitex. My ovulations did not stop until after I stopped the Vitex, and the cycles continues till I stopped the bio-iodentical hormones.
BUT... I don't know if that would have happened anyhow, or if it was due to the hormones and Vitex?
However, my mom went into menopause at 36, my sisters at 42 - so for me to not go into menopause till I was 55 was surprising. But my great-grandmother had 5 children after 40, 2 of them after 50, so I may have just taken after her.
Guess what happened after ten months? Yes! Looks like AF is here!
Now, was it the Melatonin/Soy Isoflavones/Wild Yam/Black Cohosh/DHEA or would it have happened anyway, i.e. Mother Nature letting me down gradually? I don't know, but am cautiously overjoyed, if you can be such a thing. Even if I'm not going to get many more cycles, it puts that Final Year back to square one. Maybe it was the relaxation over Christmas, or that I've lost weight and started going to the gym in October.
I had a very depressed feeling at the start of this week and a tearful day Tuesday when I had a heart-to-heart with DH - was this hormonal? The next question is, do I need to tell DH? I had just agreed to clearing all the baby stuff from the loft as part of a reorganisation of the house. This is to help us both have a more comfortable home-working environment and let the children have separate bedrooms in the near future.
He still doesn't want more children - although he knows that neither of us is actively trying to prevent them. We haven't used contraception for a couple of years now as I had managed to talk him into a 'see what happens' outlook. As nothing did, maybe I'm in-/sub-fertile anyway (and/or he is).
I wonder what my FSH is now? I bet it has dropped, as I am no longer getting warm flushes. I never had my AMH tested either and would love to know it. So many unknowns; but I can't go to the GP saying 'we' want more children in order to get the tests done as I need his co-operation.
I have to take things softly as DH has a terrible temper - is easily upset and offended... although he loves me really and doesn't like to see me suffering. Trouble is, I'm an impulsive, honest and open kind of person and he's set in his ways and pessimistic.
If I stay a mother of two it won't be that awful. But I just felt too young at 43 to be forced to stop trying!
PS: I'm really sorry if I sound like a whinger to those who have not managed to have any children. We felt some of your pain in 2002 when we lost our first pregnancy.
Wow! Congrats on AF arriving again. I can understand - even though I stopped my herbals, bio-identicals and charting - every time my AF arrived again I felt hope again and started the one year countdown again.
It is hard to let go of a dream, and if your husband is not on the same page, it makes it doubly difficult. It might help to clear everything out, making more room in your life. How many women have found themselves pregnant after getting rid of their maternity stuff, their baby stuff!?
They says letting go sometimes helps a pregnancy to come - perhaps its the stress hormones that flood your body with the anxiety of hoping, trying so hard, worrying too much.
Wanting a baby you cannot seem to have, hurts - whether it is your first... or your tenth! It is your pain, and comparing it with another's pain does no good for either of you.
I wish you all the best and hope there are miracles ahead for you!