How Is Menopause Diagnosed?

Before understanding the ways health professionals try to diagnose menopause,
we first have to consider exactly what is happening, biologically, during this disturbing time in a woman’s life.

Whether natural or induced, her body’s biological time clock says the reproductive cycle is over. Remember, menopause itself is defined merely as the cessation of the menstrual cycle for a complete year. Thus, a diagnosis of menopause is simple – if a woman has not had a period for a year, and no other medical conditions exist to cause this, then she hit and passed menopause a year ago! That’s a long time to wait for a diagnosis, but it certainly is simple. Unlike the simple diagnosis, the symptoms are more complex. That where natural remedies such as black cohosh or the isoflavones in soy products can come into play.

Because a woman’s hormones begin the shift toward menopause during perimenopause, a diagnosis of that is also much more complex. The reason is that hormones like estrogen and progesterone can shift daily, hourly, and even minute to minute within a woman’s body. Thus, testing for different levels doesn’t always make clear whether she is in a perimenopausal condition or not. There are additional laboratory tests that sometimes can help clarify this: FHS (follicle stimulating hormone) and LH (luteinizing hormone) are just two. But none of them are definitive because they are all based on hormones that fluctuate constantly.

Thus, the primary way to determine whether a woman is actually perimenopausal is to rule out all other possibilities and then consider the symptoms in evidence. Although the symptoms can vary from woman to woman, they are still fairly standard. Some of the most common are hot flashes, night sweats, mood shifts, sleep disorders, weight gain, and changes in the sex drive. So when nothing else fits, and a woman is in her 40s and she has some of these symptoms, it’s likely that she has entered perimenopause.

Just as there are no real diagnostic tests that “prove” a woman is experiencing perimenopause, there are no sure fire cure-alls, either. But thank goodness for the wide variety of possible treatments, including the safe and natural ones like black cohosh and soy isoflavones. These many treatments can often help women cope with the annoying symptoms that often go hand in hand with menopause.

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