How common is perimenopause in your 30s? Tracy Beaker's Dani Harmer shares 'dark depression'

Yahoo

4 days ago

Dani Harmer has revealed she was diagnosed with perimenopause at the age of 36, raising questions about how common the condition is for women in their 30s.
Harmer, best known for her role as Tracy Beaker, spoke candidly about her experience on This Morning today, sharing why she decided to go public with her diagnosis.
"I just wanted to be open about it, because obviously I am on the younger side of it, and even though I think it's rare, I don't think it's that uncommon, especially looking through my comments," she said.
"And so I just wanted to be quite open about it, because, actually, I had quite a good experience with my GP. So I just wanted to make people aware that going to the GP can really, really help, because I was just having such awful symptoms and I needed help with it."
In a previous TikTok video posted on 23 May, Harmer shared that she experienced a "dark depression" before her diagnosis and spoke candidly about the toll perimenopause has taken on her health.
"I have been diagnosed with perimenopause. More on that in a second. But what I need your help with is my hair. I am losing it, man, like it is thinning so badly, like you can see, like the bald patches coming in," Harmer said.
She continued: "Brain fog, oh my gosh. I couldn't even, like, remember the word banana. That was odd, and then the night sweat started. My sleep was all over the place … I felt like I was being possessed by someone else, like it was horrible, and I was just getting deeper and deeper into a dark depression."
To better understand how common perimenopause is in women in their 30s, Yahoo UK spoke to Dr Louise Newson, a general practitioner and menopause specialist.
According to Dr Newson, perimenopause affects approximately four in 100 women under the age of 40, and at least one in 1,000 women under 30. Even teenagers can be perimenopausal or menopausal.
"It's more common than people realise," she tells Yahoo UK. "I see a lot of women, and speak to a lot of women who are in their 20s and 30s, who have low hormones.
"A lot of them have low testosterone, so they have low moods, they have poor concentration, they have fatigue and they have reduced stamina. They might have muscle and joint pains. They might have headaches and migraines, yet they've been misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety and given antidepressants.
"The problem is, most people, including me, don't know that they're perimenopausal until they get their hormone [test results] back and think, 'Wow, I wish I'd done this years ago.'"
Perimenopause refers to the period before menopause when a woman's body naturally transitions toward the end of her reproductive years. This average age this phase occurs is 47, according to the British Menopause Society, and it's marked by changes in menstrual cycles along with a range of physical and emotional symptoms.
The menopause itself is traditionally defined as the point when a woman has not had a period for a year, which is caused by a reduction in hormone production.
"Before the menopause is perimenopause, which can last for about 10 years before periods stop," says says Dr Newson. "So, hormone levels start to decline, but they often fluctuate. So they go up, they go down, they're all a bit crazy in our bodies. And these hormones – estradiol, progesterone, testosterone – affect every cell in our body and every tissue and every organ, especially our brains."
According to Dr Newson, however, the broad term "perimenopause" doesn't accurately reflect the complexity of what's occurring hormonally and how it should be treated. For instance, many women in their late 20s and early 30s may experience a drop in testosterone well before noticeable changes in their periods.
"Testosterone is more biologically active than oestrogen. We have more levels of testosterone than oestrogen in our bodies when we're younger, and then those levels decline quicker than the other hormones," she explains. "So a lot of women are testosterone deficient. And then people, as they get older, often their progesterone starts to drop first, and then their oestrogen starts dropping. So it really varies between different women. If we don't know what the hormone is that's changing, it's difficult to get the right treatment."
During perimenopause, hormone levels are in flux, which means people may experience a wide range of symptoms, especially those affecting cognitive function and mood.
"When the levels are changing and reducing, people get all sorts of symptoms, especially symptoms affecting our brains," Dr Newson says.
According to the NHS, symptoms can include:
hot flushes and night sweats
vaginal dryness
difficulty sleeping
low mood or anxiety
reduced sex drive
problems with memory or concentration
muscle and joint aches and pains
joint stiffness and swelling
reduced muscle strength
pins and needles
Dr Newson says it's incredibly important to work with someone who understands hormones.
"What I would hate is for people to think, 'Oh, I just do a blood test and my testosterone is low, therefore my tiredness is due to low testosterone,' whereas they might have underactive thyroid, they might have anaemia, they might have some other cause," she explains.
"So you do need to do this in conjunction with a doctor who understands hormones as well. Because also, if you do tests, our hormone levels are changing all the time."
Dr Newson also recommends that people keep track of their symptoms. They can do this manually or use the free Balance app, which she created, that contains a symptom questionnaire; users can also create a health report. The Flo Health app also allows you to track perimenopausal symptoms.
"What's changing more now than ever before is that women are learning for themselves, so they can be an advocate for themselves," she continues. "In the history of medicine, women have been gaslit the whole time, and we're always told, 'Oh, it's just stress, it's trauma, it's all in our heads,' and as a doctor, that really upsets me.
"Just because the doctor they're saying doesn't know about hormones, it doesn't mean that there isn't a hormonal problem in that woman."
Read more about perimenopause:
I lived with extreme perimenopause symptoms for years without realising (Yahoo Life UK, 8-min read)
Perimenopausal women '40% more likely to suffer depression' (PA Media, 3-min read)
Perimenopause has brought chaos to my life – but also peace (The Guardian, 5-min read)