Menopause Test - What You Need to Know

When a woman reaches the age of 47 to 52, she will begin to have changes occurring within the body. Her ovaries will stop producing adequate levels of estrogen, which changes the hormonal structure. The result is that she is thrust into menopause, which means dealing with a number of unpleasant symptoms. For most women, they have a good idea that they are beginning the process of menopause but when a woman is younger than the average age, she may not understand what is happening to her body. In this instance, a menopause test may be required to determine if she is or is not going into early menopause.

A menopause test could be performed by a doctor or similar to a home pregnancy test, they are also sold as kits. Interestingly, in the United States it is estimated that five million women are going through menopause at any given time. Again, these women share the same symptoms whereby they will notice irregular menstrual cycles, persistent fatigue, hot flashes, night sweats, heart palpitations, mood swings, irritability, insomnia, and vaginal dryness. Although the woman probably hopes she is not going through early menopause, knowing can sometimes be better than not knowing, which is where the menopause test comes into play.

Most of the kits work the same way so you would need to read the instructions printed on the package and then following them accordingly. However, to give you an idea, you would typically buy the kit and then remove a special stick with an absorbent tip. Usually, these sticks have a cap that you will want to save for after the test. For the test to be performed, a urine stream needs to run over this stick, which is then recapped. Then, the stick is placed on a clean, even surface while the test goes to work.

Again like a pregnancy test, there would be some type of indicator whether words or a change of color telling the woman if her estrogen levels are low, thus going into early menopause. Keep in mind that these menopause tests are designed to be a precursor to an actual test done at the doctor’s office but again, having peace of mind is worth the small investment for the kit. Once it has been determined that early menopause is the situation, proper steps can be taken to reduce or even eliminate symptoms.