A Fresh Take On Perimenopause

What are the first signs of menopause? Unlike the much easier signal, years earlier, that showed you were having your first period, there's no specific sign or marker to show that your hormones are now fluctuating in the leadup to menopause. Because the process starts many years before actual 'menopause' (which is, officially, one year after your last period), it usually happens in our early to mid 40s, a time when many of us feel way too young to be contemplating menopause.

Bubbly TV personality Shelly Horton (pictured) says her perimenopause began when she began crying for no reason, while sitting at her computer. “At least once a day, I'd cry,” she remembers. “Tears would just run down my face.” And her mood took an even darker turn. “I had days I couldn't get out of bed.” This was during COVID lockdowns, so Shelly passed it off as the anxiety everyone was feeling. Then, several months later, she started having what she describes as ‘Armageddon periods’. “I had a period that lasted 32 days, and then another period that lasted 60 days.”

On the surface, the crying and the long periods hardly seemed connected. So it took Shelly visiting numerous doctors before the words ‘perimenopause’ came up. Shelly was horrified. “I'm like, hang on a minute. I'm 46. I'm hot! What the hell? Menopause is for old ladies with grey hair, clutching their pearls. And they have hot flushes and then their periods stop. That's all that happens. Right? Like, I had no idea!”

Since then, Shelly’s conversations with girlfriends, and with her mum, have revealed a whole raft of surprising menopause symptoms that women experienced in silence. “Mum had never discussed it with me, ever. Now we've had some very really eye-opening discussions.”  Find out more in this very intimate episode of our podcast Thriving in Menopause. Click here to listen.