What No One Told Me About Menopause: It's A Lot of Back and Forth

This post is meant to share what I have learned about menopause based on my personal experience. It is in no way intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new healthcare regimen.  Never disregard medical advice or delay seeking help because of something you read on this website.

Just when you think you're starting to figure out this whole perimenopause/menopause thing... WHAM! It throws new and exciting surprises into the works for you.  

For example, you may discover that you now spot for days and days before your period starts. Or for several days as it ends. Spotting around ovulation (whenever that might be) is also common.

Shorter cycles. Longer cycles. Cycles that are of no discernible pattern whatsoever. 

Recently, I had a cycle that was sixty-three days from the start of one period to the next. I'm not gonna lie - I was kind of excited to go so long without a period and hoped this meant that things were finally starting to wind down. 

Then... I spotted for ten days.  Yes, you read that right.  Ten days!  Then nothing for a couple of days.  I left for vacation thinking it was all over with.  Only to be hit on the second day of vacation with one of the heaviest flows I have ever experienced.  Because nothing says "happiest place on earth" like making an emergency run to Walgreens and having to make a bathroom stop every one to two hours.

When that finally ended, I thought "ok, at least I shouldn't have to deal with it again for a while".  

Wrong!!

Because from the start of the spotting to the start of my next period was twenty-four days.  Which if you're counting (I hope you aren't), means I had exactly seven days between the end of that period until the next one started!  

That cycle lasted a whooping nineteen days.   And that gave me a total of three periods in about a month and a half. 

This latest cycle is now on day twenty-four.  And who knows what's going to happen with it.  Will it be ending soon?  Will it go on for another month?

It's anybody's guess at this point!