One of the biggest changes in a woman's life is menopause, which tends to occur between the ages of 40 and 59. The most obvious change in menstruation after menopause is the complete absence of menstrual periods, though women may notice a few years of abnormal periods before they disappear entirely. Other changes usually occur in the years leading up to menopause, caused by the sudden drop in both estrogen and progesterone. For example, physical problems often include vaginal dryness, hot flashes and night sweats. Fatigue and mood swings are also common while the body endures the process of stopping menstruation, leading some women to seek treatment for these symptoms.
Menopause is a natural stage of life for women as they age, because the ovaries stop releasing progesterone and estrogen when they run low on eggs. The levels of these hormones are not high enough for the uterine lining to build up, so menstruation after menopause disappears because the lining stays thin rather than thickening and then shedding every month. Around the same time, the pituitary gland is stimulated to make more luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which can cause the eggs to mature faster. For this reason, menopause can often be diagnosed after test results reveal high FSH levels, along with low levels of estrogen.
There are usually several signs of this life stage prior to the absence of menstruation after menopause. During the early phase, women often notice abnormal menstruation, such as skipped periods. Some women notice that their periods come more often or that the flow has changed. Many women go through from three to five years of abnormal menstruation — a stage called perimenopause — before the periods stop entirely. Despite the changes in menstruation during this time, women can become pregnant, because fertility only completely disappears once the period has been absent for at least a year.
Though the absence of menstruation after menopause is the main sign of this event, many women get other symptoms related to the drop in estrogen and progesterone. For example, hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness are all common effects of menopause. Weight gain, fatigue and mood swings are also bothersome problems for many women experiencing the end of menstruation. While nothing can be done about the absence of menstruation after menopause, there are treatments to reduce the side effects. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is one example of treatment for the symptoms, because it can replace many of the hormones that are lost during menopause, thus reducing the severity of symptoms such as vaginal dryness and hot flashes.
