Pick a few things to write down every day and keep it up for several weeks, noting the first day of each period as you go. Before your appointment, boil it down to one page with your period dates, how often each symptom showed up, how you slept, and the two or three things that bother you most. “I think it has been worse lately” is hard for a clinician to work with. A record gives them something to look at.
I make Maren, a period and symptom tracker, so I’ve thought about this a lot. You don’t need an app for anything on this page, though. A paper calendar or a notes file is enough, and if you do want an app, the section near the end shows how Maren handles it. This page isn’t medical advice, and it can’t tell you if you’re in perimenopause. That’s a question for a clinician.
Perimenopause is the transition before menopause. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) describes it as a time when periods can become longer, shorter, heavier, lighter or skipped, and symptoms vary a lot from person to person. Symptoms also tend to come and go unevenly. You might have a run of bad nights, then a good fortnight, then a week of hot flashes. Memory smooths all of that out. In a short appointment, the last few days are what you’ll remember best, and they’re rarely the whole picture.
A record lets you count what happened and see what changed from one stretch of weeks to the next, instead of going on impressions. Having it all in front of you also makes it easier to say which parts matter most to you.
Start small. Three to five things you’ll actually keep up beat twenty you give up on after a week. A first list could look like this:
The NHS lists a wide range of things people report in this phase, including changed periods, hot flushes and night sweats, sleep disruption, mood changes, memory and concentration problems, palpitations, joint and muscle aches, vaginal dryness and headaches. You don’t need to track all of them, only the ones you’re having. If you’d like a prompt, the printable symptom checklist on this site groups the common ones.
It also helps to add a line whenever something in your treatment or routine changes, like a medicine, a supplement, contraception, a new exercise habit, a stressful week or travel. You don’t need to work out causes. Just keep the facts, so you and your clinician can look at them together.
On paper, a few days might look like this.
| Date | Sleep | Hot flashes | Night sweats | Mood (1 to 5) | Period | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 3 | 5.5 h, woke twice | 2 | no | 3 | no | busy week |
| Oct 4 | 7 h | 0 | no | 4 | no | |
| Oct 5 | 6 h, woke early | 1 | yes | 3 | starts, medium | day 1 |
Cycle length is the number of days from the first day of one period to the first day of the next. When cycles are irregular, the average on its own hides what’s going on, so write down the range as well. For example, “the last four cycles were 26, 34, 29 and 41 days.” Also note how long each period lasted, whether it was heavier or lighter than usual, and the date of any bleeding between periods. If a period doesn’t come, write down the date you expected it. A clinician will often ask for exactly these details.
Try to fit it on one page. Clinicians have limited time, and they’re more likely to use a short, clear summary than a notebook full of raw entries.
If you track in an app, print or export the summary. If you track on paper, tidy it into a one-page table before you go.
If something worries you, don’t spend weeks tracking before you call. The NHS lists several reasons to contact a doctor, including wanting to know what your options are, palpitations, menstrual bleeding that has got heavier instead of lighter, and any vaginal bleeding after a year with no periods. ACOG also advises talking to a doctor promptly about noticeable changes in bleeding. You can start the record while you wait for the appointment and bring whatever you have by then.
If you’d rather have an app do the counting, this is how Maren does it. It’s the same routine as above.
Maren has no account, and I don’t run a server for anyone’s health data. Your records are stored on your device and aren’t synced to iCloud. Apple Health is optional, and you choose what Maren can read from it. The summary and the export are free. Maren is on the App Store.
You don’t have to finish a tracking period first. If something concerns you, book the appointment now and start recording in the meantime. If you’re tracking to understand things for yourself, a few weeks gives you a first useful comparison. A couple of months gives you a much better one.
Period start dates and flow, hot flashes and night sweats, sleep, mood, and one or two symptoms of your own. Keep the list short enough that you’ll stick with it.
No. A paper calendar with a few columns works. An app saves you some work if you want the counts, cycle-length ranges and a printable summary done for you.
Tracking is a note of what you noticed and when. A diagnosis is a clinician’s judgment, based on your history, an examination and sometimes tests. A record can’t replace that, but it does make for a better-informed conversation.
Yes. Bring it or share it in whatever form is easiest for the clinician to read, and be ready to say which days you didn’t record.
Sources: ACOG, “The Menopause Years”; ACOG, “Perimenopausal Bleeding and Bleeding After Menopause”; NHS, “Symptoms of the menopause”. The Maren features described here are the ones in the current release.