Menopause in my twenties!!

I am 23 and very concerned. My periods are lighter and lighter and are darker in color. Am I loosing fertility??

Not necessarily. It would be easier to think of what it could be if you mentioned any additional symptoms-if you had any.
Menopause is reserved for women over 40 and not young girls. You might be having some hormonal problems, but light periods are not indicating that. Only if you had irregular periods, or absent periods, would you be thought of as having hormonal problems.
If you have any additional symptoms that could be related to your menstrual cycle, you could have a word with your gynecologist. Also, if you can’t put your mind at rest, you could make an appointment.
Having regular check-ups at the gynecologist is recommendable.

Ummm..thats untrue. While this could be caused by a variety of reasons I am 29 and have been in perimenopause for 4 years!

Menopause is not reserved only for women over 40. I had a hysterectomy at age 24 and I can assure you, it's possible to be in menopause before age 40. It sucks, however, that no one really offers information for how to deal with the much more intense version of menopause that patients such as myself experience.

Long post. Please read my story, and shed any enlightenment if you can.

I came across this forum when I was doing a search for very early menopause, because I have reason to believe it might apply to me. I am twenty-six years old, and have been having the worst problems with abnormal bleeding and discharge pretty much ever since I started getting periods at age twelve. Throughout the years, I’ve had normal periods with mild to moderate cramping that only last for the normal amount of about five to eight days. I’ve had times where I’ve seemed to be regulated this way for a while, then I would have the abnormal bleeding. The abnormal bleeding (which I’m still having) starts out by my having this brown discharge that sometimes turns black. I have this brown/ black for literally weeks, before it starts to turn into heavy bleeding that just won’t end. I’m going through another bout with it now. I started out having the brown discharge for the longest time earlier this month, and it turned to bleeding, and now I have been having this heavy bleeding for the past few weeks. This isn’t the first time I’ve gone through this. I get these bouts all too often. A few years back, when I was twenty-two, I bled heavily for six months straight. I wasn’t seeing a doctor then, and the bleeding eventually (as it always does) just went away on its own without treatment. Last year, at age twenty-five, I finally started seeing a doctor about this recurring problem. I had a few tests (pelvic exam, transvaginal ultrasound, pelvic CT-Scan, endometrial biopsy) which turned up that I had a “mass” in my uterus. I had my first and only D & C last September, and my doctor told me she removed two big polyps from my uterus and scraped out a lot of thick lining. I had thought that the D & C would finally be the end of my problem, but the problem actually started coming back not long after. It was only about a few months later that I started having the brown discharge again, and then the heavy bleeding that would last for about a month or two. My doctor prescribed me Medroxyprogesterone, and a few days after I started taking it, it stopped my bleeding. I don’t know if it was the medication helping or just a coincidence. But while on Medroxyprogesterone, after about a month (taking it once every day as my doctor prescribed), my problems seemed to get worse than ever before. I got what I believed to be just a “normal” period, but the cramps were far worse than I’d ever had while on the medication, and I went straight into another endless bleed. I don’t believe I was supposed to be on that medication every day like I was, even through the course of my bleeding, even though the doctor insisted that I was supposed to be. I’d never read anywhere else that women were on this form of Provera all the time, like I was. After a few months, I stopped the medication, because I could tell it was making me worse. Throughout bouts of abnormal bleeding, I was still in contact with my doctor, telling her that I still appeared to be having the problem, but I was never called in for a visit. She told me to come in for the Depo Provera shot to “stop the bleeding,” and I almost did, but now I’m glad I didn’t. I read horror stories about that shot that were enough to scare me. Besides that, I’m also aware that the shot isn’t even a guarantee that the bleeding WILL stop, so why bother? I didn’t go through with it and I refuse. That was the last contact I had with my doctor (earlier this year in February), because I just didn’t feel she really knew how to help me or quite understood my problem. Since then, I’ve been dealing with the problem off and on, in varying degrees, and I know all about estrogen dominance and how that can cause hormonal imbalance and thickening of the lining (which my doctor believed was my problem). With this in mind, I’ve been doing my own searching on how to keep my lining from getting so thick and then taking so long to shed (if this is indeed truly what is wrong). It involves somewhat of a strict diet, avoiding foods that stimulate estrogen, etc. This can be frustrating, because it seems like estrogen is in EVERYTHING, and I am quite slender enough as it is (but not underweight), and I know I can’t afford to lose any weight! (Also, back in September, before I had the D & C, I had been bleeding heavily ever since June, and during that time, I seemed to have lost a lot of weight. After the D & C, when the bleeding stopped for a time, I put the weight back on again.) I drink green tea, and am very careful about what I eat. Sometimes I seem to be as though I am trying to get regulated with my periods, but it seems most of the time I’m just all out of whack. I know when I’m having a normal period, because I get the cramping and the bleeding lasts for the normal amount of days. When I’m having this abnormal bleeding, I know it ISN’T a period, because I strangely DON’T get the cramps and the bleeding never ends. With all of this considered, my mother (who is fifty-one and going through menopause) tells me that I seem to have the symptoms of an “older” woman who is going through menopause, and that it’s possible I may be in VERY EARLY menopause at age twenty-six. Although I don’t get hot flashes or night sweats. Does this mean it could still be a form of early menopause? This is all right with me, because I know I don’t want children, and at this point I am more than willing to just have a complete hysterectomy if it is the only way this problem will ever end.

Sorry for the long post, but I just felt like sharing my story. Any enlightenment on whether or not this sounds to the rest of you as if it COULD be early menopause would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

-Elizabeth