Woman shocked to discover early menopause diagnosis at age 25

At 31 you don’t imagine guiding your mum through something older women go through.

But that’s exactly what Lorena Beatriz can do – and her mum hasn’t even gone through menopause yet.

The Gold Coaster dishes out advice to older women she knows, having gone through the process at 25.

“It’s really interesting to be able to understand what they’ve been through because I’ve been through that years ago,” she said.

“I’ve never found anyone as young as me.”

Ms Beatriz was diagnosed as having early menopause, and began to experience perimenopause at the age of 23.

By the age of 25 she had completely gone through menopause.

“My first reaction was to cry because having kids was something that I had wanted forever and I felt such grief about it,” she said.

“I felt like I lost my balance. It’s the kind of thing at age 25 you don’t really think about.

“I remember when the doctor told me I was grateful I was with my mum because she held me and I just cried.”

RELATED: Hot flushes and night sweats boost risk of cardiovascular disease in women

RELATED: 27-year-old in ‘menopause’ shares her ‘shocking’ reality

Premature menopause means a woman’s ovaries have spontaneously stopped working before she has reached the age of 40.

Women can be affected in their teens or early 20s.

About one in 1000 women reach menopause before the age of 30.

Doctors still don’t know what brought the menopause on so early for Ms Beatriz.

“It was really bizarre,” she said.

“I went to the doctors just for a normal check up and they noticed the size of my ovaries were small.

“We hadn’t realised before because I was on contraceptive and it masks the problem.

“They said stop taking contraceptive and see what happens and as soon as I did my period stopped and I started having all the menopause symptoms.”

The graphic designer said she lost her libido, her hair got thinner and weaker and the emotional cost was also heavy.

“I never thought it could be possible,” she said.

“After doing everything from blood tests to genetic tests, the answer was no one knows basically.

“What they think it could be is because we’re born with a certain amount of eggs, I just had less than a normal person.”

You can hear more from Ms Beatriz and other women’s menopause stories tonight at 8.30pm on SBS Insight.