Breaking: A New At-Home Menopause Test Could Revolutionize Women's Healthcare

Today, Clearblue launches the first ever at-home product that can indicate a woman’s current stage of menopause via a Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH) test and it's called the Clearblue Menopause Stage Indicator. The test isn’t quite as simple as a pregnancy test, but it’s as close as possible given the complexity of menopause stages.

It will be available in major drugstore retailers and online for $20 (though the price may vary depending on the retailer). 

Up until now, it's been difficult for women to know what stage of menopause they're in. Figuring out whether you're in premenopause, early perimenopause, late perimenopause, or postmenopause has been a guessing game of matching your symptoms to information found online. While some doctors offer menopause tests, they aren't always available.

“The menopausal transition can be a ‘black box’ for many women, associated with vague emotional, physical and mental changes that could be overlooked during our busy lives,” explains reproductive endocrinologist on the Clearblue Advisory Board Suruchi Thakore, M.D., OB/GYN. 

While hot flashes and night sweats may be the two most common symptoms of menopause, they're only a small part of the picture. In fact, there are over 30 symptoms that stem from these hormonal shifts, including things like brain fog, libido shifts, anxiety, joint pain, bloating, insomnia, and many more—hence, why misdiagnoses happen often.

Doctors may see these experiences, especially those pertaining to mental health like anxiety and depression, as diagnoses rather than symptoms, which may lead to putting a bandaid over the concern but never truly addressing the root cause.

However, Clearblue's test aims to tell women whether their symptoms are attributable to hormonal shifts or other factors, giving them a head start on effective treatment.

Advertisement

This is similar to the eye-opening experience of learning about your typical cycle phases after starting your period—gaining reassurance that those short but strong mood swings you feel before your period are normal. Or that your boost of energy during the follicular phase line up with your hormone fluctuations.

“This product empowers women by helping them understand the potential cause of these symptoms and start the important conversation with their healthcare providers for management,” Thakore says.

This new test also encourages women to track their symptoms, helping them determine what lifestyle changes could help improve their quality of life. Just as certain foods or exercise regimens may be more helpful during one cycle phase than the next, the same is true for menopause stages.

Due to the social stigmas and lack of education around menopause, many people think this process begins when you're 50 or older—and for some women, that's true. However, perimenopause can begin as early as mid-30s.

A few common symptoms of perimenopause include:

Advertisement

Advertisement

Heads up: The results of this test aren’t just “yes or no,” like pregnancy tests. Instead, the test will tell you if you’re in premenopause, early perimenopause, late perimenopause, or postmenopause—and women can use the accompanying app to better understand their results.

Once you have your results from the at-home test, you can print out the report (or download it to your phone) to share with your healthcare provider. They can then confirm your menopause stage via further testing.

One of the reasons in-office menopause testing is so difficult is that hormones naturally fluctuate throughout the cycle, so testing one random day of the month is like looking at one piece of a puzzle. This test fills the gap by taking five different measurements to account for natural fluctuations and tracking your symptoms, which is a huge part of menopause diagnosis in the office as well.

Advertisement

It's pretty crazy to think that until the National Institute of Health (NIH) Revitalization Act of 1993, women were not required to be included in clinical trials2 for health testing. Some restrictions were motivated by protecting the potential of a fetus even if women were not pregnant; others related to the risk of complicating data with women's fluctuating hormones.

Luckily, women's health research is slowly but surely advancing. In recent years, there's been more light shown on women's top health concerns, ranging from birth control side effects, the nuances of Alzheimer's risk in women,3 effective postpartum depression treatment4 options, and so much more. Now, menopause is finally starting to gain more attention, too.

This test serves as a useful tool to help women navigate menopause—a stage of life that’s definitely not discussed as often nor as openly as it should be, causing confusion, shame, and fear around normal bodily function. 

Given that more than one million women in the U.S. experience menopause each year, it's about time we start really talking about menopause, both in medical settings and social discourse.

For those who have spent weeks, months, or years on uneven ground feeling as if they’re navigating menopause in the dark, this test may be the first step to clarity and comfort.