Unmuting PERIMENOPAUSE

Menopause is finally getting attention, but perimenopause is still something of a grey area, as it can be hard to tell when it actually starts. Here's what you need to know about 'the least understood phase of the menopause journey'.

- MAGDEL LOUW

Danya Potgieter and her husband, Shandor, were trying for their second child when she got some shocking news. At just 34, she discovered she was in perimenopause: her chances of falling pregnant had plummeted to a mere 0.001%.

‘I was broken,’ she says. ‘I’d never even heard of perimenopause. I thought menopause was something that happened to older women. Looking back, however, I did have a lot of the symptoms.’

Danya had ascribed her irregular periods to the Mirena, a hormone-releasing intra-uterine device, which she’d had for five years. The Mirena is known for causing light periods or sometimes even stopping menstruation altogether.

She went to her gynaecologist for a check-up because she wasn’t getting pregnant as easily as she had expected, and was told something didn’t look right: her ovaries had shrunk. Blood tests confirmed that her oestrogen levels were low and her follicle-stimulating hormone levels were very high. She was in perimenopause.

‘It was a real shock, especially because two of my close friends got pregnant on the first try at around the same time. I regretted that we’d waited so long to try for a second child. I felt like it was my fault, like my body couldn’t do what it was supposed to do. I struggled with lots of guilt because our son Noah was so eager for a sibling.’

Before her diagnosis, she recalls having had huge mood swings. ‘I had so much rage. But I thought it was just my personality, that I was just a really mean person. I would snap at the smallest thing and simply couldn’t control myself. I would tell myself in my head, “Be better,” and then snap again 2 seconds later.’

She also suffered from anxiety, night sweats, fiery hot flushes during the day, low libido and insomnia.