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Menopause, and the years around it
For anyone going through perimenopause or menopause, and the people beside them. This page passes on, by name, what the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Office on Women’s Health (OWH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) say: which bleeding to have checked, what the transition is and how long it lasts, what to try for hot flashes, sleep, mood, dryness and bladder leaks, and what is known about hormone therapy, including what changed in November 2025. It builds the questions to ask at a visit and prints a card for your dates. Take only what you need today.
A word with a dotted line under it, like this, opens its official definition, quoted from a U.S. government glossary.
Have this checked
- Any vaginal bleeding or spotting after a full year without a period: OWH says to see a health care provider as soon as possible. It says bleeding after menopause is not normal and can mean a serious health problem.
- Before that year is up, NIA says to see your doctor if your periods happen very close together, you have heavy bleeding, you bleed or spot after sex or between periods, or your periods last more than a week.
- In an emergency, call 911.
- Thinking about ending your life? Call or text 988, at any hour.
More help
- Keeping track: Period diary, Symptom diary, Sleep diary and My medicines.
- Before a visit: Get ready for your appointment.
- Tonight: Can’t sleep? and Breathe and ground.
- How you feel: When the heaviness won’t lift and When the worry won’t switch off.
- No insurance, or a bill you can’t pay: When you need a doctor and can’t pay and When a medical bill is too much.
- Quitting smoking: When you want to quit smoking.
- The years ahead: Help as you get older and Blood pressure log.
- All our free tools.
Your heart, blood pressure, blood sugar, thyroid or blood, and not sure this is the right page? The pages on this site for a heart attack or stroke, blood pressure, AFib, heart failure, cholesterol, diabetes and prediabetes, the thyroid, anemia, sickle cell and menopause, on one list.
Other guides on this site that go with this page
Free to read. We chose these ourselves; no professional did. Each guide was written with AI and has not been reviewed by a professional. They are general information, not advice.
- Osteoporosis: the signs, who is at risk, the bone test, and preventing broken bones: osteoporosis: the signs, who is at risk, the bone test, and preventing broken bones.
- Migraine and headaches: migraine and headaches: the warning signs, the kinds of headache, triggers, what to do during an attack, and the medicines.
- When it’s arthritis: arthritis: the types, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and gout, how a doctor finds out which, and the treatments.
- When it’s high cholesterol: what the numbers mean, how often to be tested, statins and other medicines, food, when it runs in the family, and what to ask: high cholesterol: what the numbers on a lab report mean, how often to be tested, the kinds of medicine and what is said about statins, food, and when it runs in the family.
- Sleep apnea: when breathing stops in your sleep: sleep apnea: the signs, getting a sleep study, CPAP and the other treatments, living with the machine, and what Medicare covers.
- Insomnia: when sleep won’t come, night after night: insomnia: what it looks like, what causes it, the sleep habits, the therapy that comes first, and what to know about sleep medicines.
- Kegel exercises (pelvic floor muscle training): finding the right muscles, the method, and every day: Kegel exercises (pelvic floor muscle training): what they are and who they can help, finding the right muscles, the method, and fitting them into every day.
- Prolactinoma: high prolactin, the signs, the tests, and the treatment: prolactinoma and high prolactin (a benign tumor of the pituitary gland, milk from the breasts, periods that changed or stopped, or less interest in sex): the signs, what else raises prolactin, the tests, the medicines, surgery and radiation, and pregnancy.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor, nurse, pharmacist or menopause specialist has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 7, 2026 on three government websites: the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health (nia.nih.gov: its pages on what menopause is, hot flashes, sleep problems, and sex and menopause, in English and in Spanish); the Office on Women’s Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (womenshealth.gov: menopause basics, symptoms and relief, treatment, early or premature menopause, menopause and your health, menopause and sexuality, and its helpline page); and the Food and Drug Administration (fda.gov: its menopause page, and its news release of November 10, 2025 on hormone therapy labels). The page says whose words it is passing on, and what is marked “ours” is our own. The sources do not all agree, and they are not all current. NIA’s hot flashes page was last reviewed in 2021 (its Spanish version in 2017) and OWH’s treatment page was updated in March 2025, before the FDA’s announcement; on hormone therapy we give both, with dates, and do not settle it. Where two sources name different medicines or describe one differently, we pass on only what NIA says. What we left out or did not read: amounts of any medicine, the daily amounts of calcium and vitamins that OWH gives, how often to have each screening, the percentages the FDA release gives for benefits, medicines for low sexual desire, what anything costs or what insurance, Medicaid or Medicare pays, and the websites of the professional societies and of the My Menoplan tool that NIA names (we did not open them, so we do not link them). We called no number. It saves nothing and loads no tracking.