Perimenopause library

Foundations

Articles in this section

• Perimenopause basics

  A plain-language map of the menopause transition: what the word means, how researchers stage it, and what a symptom log can and cannot do.

• What perimenopause is — and what STRAW actually staged

  STRAW and STRAW+10 are the research map: early and late menopausal transition around the final menstrual period. Perimenopause is the patient-facing word for a longer stretch.

• Hormones during the transition — and why one lab result is not a diagnosis

  AMH tends to fall first, then inhibin B, then FSH rises. Estradiol can stay high or even spike before it drops. There is still no validated hormone cutpoint that diagnoses the transition for one person.

• Perimenopause and menopause are not the same stage

  STRAW treats menopause as a point in time — twelve months after the final period. Perimenopause is the longer stretch around that point. Averages are not a personal clock.