Menstrual concern? Perimenopause?

[LynnS6]

My latest period showed up over the weekend, and I'm a bit weirded out for a couple of reasons:

-It's a week or two early. I think it's on time for when I O'd, because I remember noticing the mucous, thinking "it's too early for this, I just had my period last week". But I had a 3 week cycle. I never have a 3 week cycle. I used to have a 5 week cycle. I shifted to a 4 week cycle when I lost 60 lbs. But 3 weeks?

-It's heavy. Much heavier than normal.

-Because it's so heavy, I'm getting clots. I've had some of those over the last couple of months, but never noticed any before that.

So, I googled "perimenopause" and some of these fit the symptoms. But one of the sites said to contact your doctor if your cycle is short or if you have clots. Really?

I'm 43, going on 44, so perimenopause isn't out of the question. Does this sound like that's it? Something else?

If it is perimenopause, can someone recommend reading?

Thanks,

[Addy's Mom]

I'm close in age to you and this was happening to me as well (along with a host of other odd things). Turns out I've got hypothyroidism. So that might be a possibility.

that's not the only possible cause, of course, just throwing it out there.

[Ravenlunatic]

Sounds like it could be perimenapause. I just did some reading on the subject as I am mid 40's and I along with several friends are experiencing differences in our bodies. The book I read was by Dr. Christine Northrope. She has written other books that I like and so I read her Menapause book.

It seems that 'perimenapause' is the ten year or so period of time prior to the very last period (which is the actual menapause). Anyway, during this 10 years you can have a plethora of symptoms including what you mentioned. My one friend has been bleeding on and off for weeks and has all kinds of testing to no avail... hmmm, screams PM to me. The whole 3 week cycle is very familiar to me and to my friends.

Personally if I had no other symptoms I would not go to a Dr. But I'm a very anti-doc person in general.

Oh, I had 3 hotflashes 2 months ago and that is it, just 3 and then they went away (thank goodness)

[davisme]

I just came to searching into MDC for threads on cod liver oil, iodine, etc for dosages because I have read the threads before how this was supposed to help with early bleeding, pms symptoms and Perimenopause.

I've skimmed the threads before and feel the needs to read them again. I usually take mega does of cod liver oil and it helps to keep my cycle around 27-28 days however this month I was lacking with my cod live oil dosages and my cycle this month started on day 23.

If anyone has those links I would greatly appreciate it.

[LynnS6]

Thanks, I'm going to chalk it up to perimenopause and keep an eye on it. If the bleeding gets more frequent (more than every 3 weeks), I'll go see my doc. I don't feel the need to go rushing in right now. I don't feel bad, I just need to quit reading Dr. Google .

[subtlycrunchy]

If it is perimenopause, can someone recommend reading?

Dr. Northrup is wonderful as a pp mentioned. Also try Women to Women, it's the clinic in Maine that Dr. Northrup helped found -- the clinic's website is my absolute favorite treasure trove of holistically based women's health info.

Here's the main W2W article on perimenopase... Perimenopause Symptoms and Understanding Hormonal Change

Good luck!

[Eeyore35]

I'm only 35 and have the 3 week cycles now. When I ovulate, its often before my period is over. Oh, and my periods now last 10-14 days, but thankfully most of it is just spotting. But,I now have 3-4 quite heavy days, as opposed to 1-2 in the past.

I think it's perimenopause,my mom started having problems in her mid thirties, and didn't go thru menopause til her mid 50's.