When your periods change
Shorter, longer, closer together, then a gap that makes you count. Changing periods are often the first real sign of perimenopause — and the clearest place to know what is ordinary and what to check.
For many women the cycle is the first messenger. It arrives early, or late, or twice in a month, or vanishes for two months and then returns heavier than it has in years. This unpredictability is usually a normal part of the transition — and there are a few specific patterns that are worth a clinician’s eyes rather than a wait-and-see.
Why the pattern breaks up
In your fertile years, ovulation drives a fairly regular rhythm. In perimenopause, ovulation becomes hit and miss, and estrogen and progesterone rise and fall out of their old sync. When a cycle skips ovulation, the lining can build up for longer and then shed more heavily. That is why cycles can swing between lighter and much heavier, and why the timing wanders. The SWAN study documented this stage as a defined window rather than a sudden stop, which is a helpful frame: the irregularity itself is often the process working, not a fault in it. For where this sits in the bigger arc, see perimenopause vs menopause.
What is generally normal
- Cycles getting shorter or longer, or the gaps between them widening over time.
- Flow that is lighter some months and heavier others.
- Skipped months, especially later in the transition, before they stop for good.
What is worth getting checked
Jen Gunter’s rule of thumb in The Menopause Manifesto is a good one: irregular is expected, but certain bleeding deserves a proper look. Raise it with a clinician if you have:
- Very heavy bleeding — soaking through a pad or tampon every hour or two, or passing large clots.
- Bleeding that lasts much longer than usual, or happens between cycles or after sex.
- Any bleeding at all after twelve months with no period — that is postmenopausal bleeding, and it should always be checked, usually promptly.
None of these means something is wrong. They are simply the patterns where it is wise to rule things out rather than assume.
How Still Me helps
Still Me will not read your cycle for you or tell you what bleeding means — that is a clinical question. What it can do is help you notice the shape of things in your own words, without turning your body into a spreadsheet, and help you decide when a pattern has crossed from “expected” into “worth asking about.” When it is, the doctor-prep session turns what you have described into a clear note — since when, how heavy, how often — so you are not reconstructing months of memory on the spot. If getting taken seriously is the harder part, read talking to your doctor.
Grounded in Jen Gunter, The Menopause Manifesto; and the SWAN study (Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation).
This is general information, not medical advice, and Still Me does not diagnose or prescribe. For anything about your own body or treatment, talk to a clinician. If you feel unsafe, contact your local emergency service.