Your periods haven’t stopped, so could it really be perimenopause? Changes can begin years before your final period and affect far more than your menstrual cycle, including your quality of life.
For some women, changes affect work, relationships, sleep or simply feeling like themselves.
You don’t need to work it all out yourself, or wait until symptoms become difficult to manage. We discuss what to look for and what your GP can actually do to help.
What This Article Covers
Could These Changes Be Affecting Your Quality of Life?
Perimenopause can affect far more than periods.
Physically, you may notice changes to: sleep, joints and muscles, bladder health, vaginal health, headaches, hot flushes and night sweats.
In everyday life, it can affect: concentration, mood, energy, relationships, sex drive, work and how comfortable you feel day to day.
This quiz is not a test for perimenopause. It looks at how, and if, changes you are experiencing may be affecting your quality of life.
Perimenopause & Menopause Symptom Impact Quiz
How much are the following affecting you? Select the option that best reflects your recent experience.
1. Changes to your periods: Have they become noticeably more or less frequent, heavier, lighter, longer or less predictable than they used to be?
2. Hot flushes or night sweats: Do you suddenly feel intensely warm or flushed without an obvious reason, or wake sweaty enough that it interrupts your sleep?
3. Trouble sleeping: Are you regularly waking during the night, struggling to fall asleep or waking much earlier than you want to?
4. Daytime tiredness: Are you feeling unusually drained despite getting a reasonable opportunity to sleep, or finding your usual day harder to get through?
5. Concentration or memory: Are you losing your train of thought, struggling to find familiar words or forgetting things noticeably more than usual?
6. Changes in mood: Have you become more irritable, anxious, low or emotionally unsettled than is normal for you?
7. Muscle or joint discomfort: Are unexplained aches, stiffness or joint pains becoming more frequent without an obvious cause such as exercise or injury?
8. Vaginal dryness or discomfort: Have you noticed new or increasing dryness, irritation, itching or discomfort?
9. Changes to sex drive: Has your interest in intimacy noticeably changed?
10. Bladder or urinary changes: Are you needing to urinate more urgently or frequently, leaking urine, or experiencing recurring urinary discomfort?
11. Work and daily routines: Are these changes making it harder to concentrate at work, exercise, socialise or manage your normal routine?
12. Relationships and enjoyment: Are symptoms affecting intimacy, patience with others, confidence or your enjoyment of things you would normally look forward to?
These changes seem to be having little impact on your everyday life right now. Keep a note in your phone or period-tracking app if anything changes, as patterns across your cycle, sleep, mood or other symptoms can be useful to look back on.
Talking to a doctor can feel a little different from chatting over coffee with a friend. Jean Hailes has a handy guide to help you prepare for the conversation and get the most from your appointment.
Perimenopause or Menopause: What’s the Difference?
Perimenopause is the transition around menopause, when ovarian hormone levels change and periods or other symptoms may begin to change. It commonly starts in the 40s and lasts several years.
Menopause is your final menstrual period and is recognised once you have gone 12 months without a period, where there is no other medical explanation.
Importantly, you do not have to wait until your periods stop to ask for help.
Want a quick visual explanation? This two-minute animation from Jean Hailes shows what happens to the body during menopause and how symptoms can be managed.
How Your GP Can Help
A menopause or perimenopause appointment offers time to explain what has changed and, importantly, what is bothering you most.
Your GP may discuss:
- MHT (Menopausal Hormone Therapy): what it does, the different options available and whether it could be helpful for you
- Other medicines: including options that can help with hot flushes, night sweats, sleep or mood when MHT isn’t wanted or recommended
- Periods and contraception: including managing changing periods and contraception during perimenopause
- Vaginal or bladder changes: treatments can help with dryness, discomfort, painful sex and some urinary symptoms
- Sleep and mood: particularly when changes are starting to affect work, relationships or how you feel during the day
- Your health longer term: including bone and heart health as hormone levels change
MHT is an effective treatment for menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes and night sweats, but it’s only one option. Your GP can talk through what you’re experiencing, answer questions and help you find an approach you’re comfortable with.
MGPC’s Women’s Health consultations cover menopause management alongside women’s health at different stages of life.
Women’s Health Week encourages women to make more time for their health.
Perimenopause is a good example: you don’t have to simply put up with poor sleep, hot flushes, discomfort or other changes when they start getting in the way of everyday life.
Do I Need a Hormone Blood Test?
Perhaps surprisingly, not always.
For women aged 45 and over with typical symptoms, hormone blood tests are not routinely required to diagnose perimenopause.
Hormone levels fluctuate during this stage, so your GP will usually consider your symptoms, age and period history, while tests may be useful in other circumstances or to investigate another cause.
Make Your Appointment Easier
You do not need to arrive with a folder of notes. Keep a note in your phone if anything changes, as patterns across your cycle, sleep, mood or other symptoms can be useful to look back on.
Simply record:
- what has changed
- roughly when it started
- what is bothering you most
You can also screenshot your quiz result and bring it with you.
Support That Fits Your Life
You don’t need to have everything figured out before seeing your GP.
At Morningside General Practice Clinic, our Women’s Health service includes support through perimenopause and menopause, with time to talk about what you’re experiencing and the options that could make everyday life more comfortable.
If there’s a lot you’d like to cover, simply book a longer appointment. Bring your questions, a few notes from your phone or your quiz result, and we can take it from there.
Other resources: The Australian Government also has a useful perimenopause and menopause information hub, while Jean Hailes Women’s Health Week provides further Australian women’s health information.
