Perimenopause library · Foundations
Perimenopause and menopause are not the same stage
Perimenopause and menopause are related words, not synonyms.
In STRAW (2001) and STRAW+10 (2012), menopause is a date you can only see afterwards: twelve months without a period after the final menstrual period. The menopausal transition is the time before that date, staged mainly on bleeding changes. Researchers usually prefer “menopausal transition.” “Perimenopause” is the patient-facing word and often includes early postmenopause as well.
That is why someone can have hot flashes for years and still be in perimenopause, and why “I am in menopause” in everyday speech often means “I am somewhere in this stretch,” not “I have passed the twelve-month mark.”
Population studies such as the Massachusetts Women’s Health Study put typical age at menopause around 51 and the transition at about four years, with a wide range. Those figures describe groups. They do not tell you your stage, your last period, or when symptoms will stop.
A symptom log can make the stretch easier to describe. It cannot convert your week into a STRAW stage. Staging uses a bleeding history a clinician can interpret.
What this article cannot tell you
- Which STRAW stage you are in.
- The date of your final menstrual period.
- How long your own transition will last.
Questions worth taking to a clinician
- Given my bleeding pattern, where would you place this on a STRAW-style map — and what would change that?
- What should I watch for that would make you want a visit sooner?
Sources
- Soules MR, Sherman S, Parrott E, Rebar R, Santoro N, Utian W. Executive summary: Stages of Reproductive Aging Workshop (STRAW). Fertility and Sterility. 2001. doi:10.1016/s0015-0282(01)02909-0
- Harlow SD, Gass M, Hall JE, Lobo R, Maki P, Rebar RW, Sherman S, Sluss PM, de Villiers TJ, STRAW 10 Collaborative Group. Executive summary of the Stages of Reproductive Aging Workshop + 10: addressing the unfinished agenda of staging reproductive aging. Menopause / Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (simultaneous). 2012. doi:10.1097/gme.0b013e31824d8f40
- McKinlay SM, Brambilla DJ, Posner JG. The normal menopause transition. Maturitas. 1992. doi:10.1016/0378-5122(92)90003-m