Early Menopause 

The phrase early menopause is being used quite often but a lot of people mistakenly understood its meaning. Contrary to the normal perception, it is not common and is classified as premature failure of the ovaries. On the other hand, symptoms that appears gradually between two (2) to six (6) years before the normal menopause is termed perimenopause and it is considered normal. Strictly speaking, “early menopause” means that a woman begins to experience menopause before the age of 40s. One of the common causes for menopause to come early is due to medical intervention of hysterectomy which is usually referred to as surgical menopause. Chemotherapy and radiation that damage the ovaries can also make women to enter menopause phase.

For hysterectomy cases, it depends on the extent of the procedure. If only one ovary is removed, usually a woman will go into a normal menopause cycle. If both ovaries are removed, she will immediately experience early menopause. However, if no ovaries are removed but only the uterus is removed instead, her menstrual cycle will stop and it is likely that she will have menopause symptoms but the extent is less severe as compared to having both ovaries removed.

In the case for both ovaries and/or uterus removal, the women will be ‘forced’ to enter menopause right after surgery. Since the ovaries act like a ‘control tower’ for the production of estrogen and progesterone, the surgery will make the woman to have menopause symptoms immediately. The early menopause has symptoms like night sweats, hot flashes and depression are generally more pronounced than normal as it does not hit in a gradual manner compared to women who is undergoing normal menopause. In addition, surgical menopause puts a woman at a greater risk of having serious conditions like osteoporosis or heart disease in the future. As such, it is best for you to enhance your knowledge on menopause and its symptoms if you know that you will have medical procedures that can be damaging to your ovaries. This includes both mental preparedness and knowing the treatments to relief menopause.

It is important that your doctor recommends to you what are the treatments needed to arrest the menopause symptoms before or right after you completed the surgery. You may experience the symptoms straight after you wake up and usually hormone replacement therapy is given immediately to hold back menopause until the time at which your body is ready to undergo the changes. It is advisable that you try to be less dependent on this therapy and shift to natural remedies under your doctor supervision to minimize the side effects.