Do Menopause Test Kits Work?

Many women may glad when knowing that “Here is a new way to test your menopause without any ‘big’ lab test”. Seems good, but you should think twice before test it.

First of all, though the result of the test may “agree” with the lab test, it doesn’t mean that “home test” is reliable. The Blood FSH levels are not significantly gone up with some menopause symptoms. Remember that menopause symptoms cause by various factors and remain a mystery for medical science since today. In medical face, menopause is usually diagnosed in retrospect – once it has been 12 months since your last period, you have gone through menopause or from induced-menopauses that make the ovary shutting down. To say the truth, menopause is not exactly defined by a blood test, or a urine test, or any lab test for.

“How do I know my current symptoms are menopause or not?”

Ok, let’s get more information; there are generally 3 steps of tests that your doctor may make a diagnosis of menopause.

• Symptoms Check. 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 checker to doctor to ease his diagnosis.

• 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.
• 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), Estradiol, Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH), or others if need.

Further, the FSH test is highly variable during perimenopause – the time when periods are irregular just before periods stop permanently. For example, a woman may skip 3 periods, and then have periods for a few months, and run between this again and again. During this irregular periods, the FSH level can extremely fluctuate. In another words, when the periods had already stopped, she previously knows she's menopausal – what is the use of the FSH test?

From above, FSH testing is not suited to be a routine test (like cholesterol screening, say) for every woman around the age of menopause. If women don't have menopause symptoms, they don't need to have any menopause tests.

Lastly, 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 or 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.

Even if FSH is high according to the Home Kit, it is not certain that you have stopped menstruating, Yes, that's real symptoms of menopause.