Menopause symptoms: the complete list, in plain English

Why one hormone causes so many

Oestrogen receptors sit in almost every system you own: the brain, bones, skin, joints, bladder, vagina and blood vessels. When oestrogen falls, all of those systems notice.

That is why the symptoms feel unconnected, and why women so often present one at a time to a GP and never get the whole picture named.

Periods

For most women this is the first sign. Cycles come closer together or further apart, bleeding gets heavier or lighter, and the pattern you have had for thirty years stops being reliable.

Temperature

• Hot flushes. Heat rising suddenly through the face, neck and chest, sometimes with sweating and a racing heart.
• Night sweats. The same thing while asleep, often waking you soaked.
• Cold flushes. Less discussed, and real: shivering and chills, often following a flush.

Sleep

• The 3am wake-up. Waking in the small hours, alert, unable to drop back off.
• Trouble getting to sleep.
• Exhaustion that sleep does not fix.

Mind and mood

• Brain fog. Losing the thread mid-sentence, reading the same line three times.
• Word-finding difficulty.
• Memory changes. Walking into a room and forgetting why.
• New anxiety. A hum of dread that was not there before.
• Irritability and rage. A fuse you do not recognise as yours.
• Low mood and flatness.

Body

• Joint aches and stiffness, often worst in the morning.
• Muscle pain.
• Heart palpitations. A flutter or thud, usually benign, but worth mentioning to a doctor rather than googling at midnight.
• Headaches and migraine, or a change in a pattern you already had.
• Weight redistribution, particularly around the middle.
• Bloating and digestive changes.
• Dizziness.

Skin and hair

• Dry, thinner skin with less elasticity. Bone and collagen loss are fastest in the first years after menopause.
• Itchy or crawling skin, which has a name, formication.
• Thinning hair, and sometimes unwanted growth elsewhere.

Sex, vagina and bladder

These are the symptoms women mention least and which respond most reliably to treatment.

• Vaginal dryness, burning or irritation.
• Painful sex.
• Reduced desire.
• Recurrent urinary tract infections.
• Urgency or leaking.

Unlike hot flushes, these do not tend to settle by themselves. They are caused by ongoing lack of oestrogen in the tissue, so they usually continue or worsen without treatment.

Bones

Bone loss accelerates around menopause and is silent until something breaks. It is one of the reasons treatment matters beyond how you feel day to day.

How long this lasts

The NHS says symptoms usually last seven to nine years, and sometimes longer. Vaginal and urinary symptoms often persist beyond the rest.

What to do with this list

Two things are worth knowing. First, you do not have to be at your worst to justify treatment: symptoms alone are a legitimate reason under UK guidance. Second, over 45 no blood test is needed to establish the picture. What is needed is your symptoms and your cycle history, taken seriously and written down properly.

That is what our free assessment does, and it takes about five minutes.

The one exception

Bleeding after your periods have stopped for twelve months is not on this list. It needs a doctor, usually within weeks.