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Unmuting PERIMENOPAUSE

Fairlady|May/June 2023
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
Unmuting PERIMENOPAUSE

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.

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