30 and ‘Menopausal’
When it’s 20 years early, but the symptoms point to menopause
After their wedding in June 2017 and honeymoon in Tanzania that October, Holly Gurr and her husband, James, looked forward to the bliss of marriage. But instead, they learned that their future together wasn’t going to be what they had imagined.
Gurr, who lives in London, missed her period while in Tanzania. Though the couple wanted a baby, they planned to start trying after their honeymoon, so when she missed her period again in November, she knew something was wrong. She headed to the doctor, who did blood work. He said everything looked fine and attributed Gurr’s missed periods to the stress from her wedding or her up-and-down weight the previous year. Still, the doctor sent Gurr to a gynecologist for further testing.
It turned out that the first doctor had overlooked Gurr’s abnormally high level of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which, her gynecologist told her, is a sign of menopause. “I’d never heard of menopause affecting someone so young,” says Gurr, who was 30 at the time. “It was such a shock.”
Gurr’s gynecologist later explained that she suffered from a condition called “primary ovarian insufficiency” (POI), a term doctors often use interchangeably — and inaccurately — with with “premature menopause.” “POI implies…
