Testing & Diagnosis
“How Do I Know Menopause has come?”
Basic Tests
In common investigation, a woman is in menopause if she is in the age of 40s up and has had no menstrual periods (menses) for 12 months But this except in case of other medical reasons that make menses to stop, such as, cancer therapy or surgery. If that, she should go to see her doctor to find the real root of the miss menses.
In same way, you should have experiences menopause symptoms, common conditions are hot flashes, night sweating and others, so you can check it yourself by Easy Menopause Checkers.
Medical Tests & Diagnoses
Menopause is usually diagnosed in retrospect – once it has been 12 months since your last period, you have gone through menopause.
In order to find out whether you have actually achieved menopause, or if there is it caused from other decease you have.
Because hormone levels may fluctuate greatly in an individual woman, even from one day to the next, hormone levels are not a reliable indicator for diagnosing menopause. Even if levels are low one day, they may be high the next day in the same woman. There is no single blood test that reliably predicts when a woman is going through menopause, or menopausal transition. Therefore there is currently no proven role for blood testing regarding menopause except for tests to exclude medical causes of erratic menstrual periods other than menopause. The only way to diagnose menopause is to observe lack of menstrual periods for 12 months in a woman in the expected age range.
Generally, there are 3 steps of tests that your doctor may make a diagnosis of menopause.
1. Menopause History. As said, if you are experiencing with symptoms of menopause, you may be diagnosed as menopausal or in perimenopause. You may take the menopause symptoms’ checkers to doctor to ease his diagnosis. 
2. Medical History. Your doctor may check from your past medical history. If you are +40 up year and don’t have a menstrual period for 12 months. More, there are no diseases or conditions that would cause you to stop having periods, such as over obesity or ovary surgery, it tends to be menopause.
3. Lab Tests. When there is a question about whether you have gone through menopause, your doctor may order lab tests to check the levels of certain hormones to confirm the diagnosis. There are several lab tests they may run:
- Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) – which rises dramatically after menopause
- Estradiol – an estrogen which decreases during and following menopause
- Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) – because thyroid disease can mimic the symptoms of menopause
“Could I test it myself?”
There are home lab kits to measure FSH in your urine. They are usually consistent with lab tests that measure FSH in the blood, but even if FSH is high according to the home kit, it is not certain that you have stopped menstruating. 
FSH levels can vary during menopause, and while it may be high on the day you measure it, it is not a guarantee that you have stopped menstruating completely.
Another reason that you should see medical specialist is to lessen you risk from other syndromes. There are a variety of conditions that sometimes ‘look like’ some of the symptoms of menopause, include with:
- Adrenal dysfunction
- Hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism
- Pituitary disorders
- Polycystic ovary disease
- Uterine cancer
Menopausal women should plan on having regular physical exams and screening tests that monitor for cancer, risk of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and osteoporosis. This includes periodic screening of blood lipids, blood pressure, blood glucose, mammography, bone densitometry, sigmoidoscopy/colonoscopy, and Pap smear. Women should continue to do screening breast exams once a month. If any of the screening tests show an unfavorable trend, then intervention is warranted for the specific abnormalities identified.
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